Elizabeth temporises with Alen?on pending the King’s reply—Alen?on’s joy at the false news of his brother’s yielding—Elizabeth throws upon Henry III. the blame for the failure of the match—Fall of Oudenarde—Alen?on’s ultimatum to Elizabeth—Salcedo’s plot—Henry III. more pliable—Alen?on again hopeful—New exigencies of Elizabeth—She again declares she will marry Alen?on—Is generally disbelieved—La Mothe’s interview with her—Alen?on’s treacherous attempt to seize the garrisons—Elizabeth’s jealousy of the French in the Netherlands—Alen?on’s flight to Vilvorde and Dunkirk—His flight to Calais—-His interview with his mother—Reconciliation with Henry III.—Preparations for a new expedition—Elizabeth offers her co-operation too late—Death of Alen?on—Disappearance of the last serious suitor for Elizabeth’s hand and end of the negotiations for her marriage.
The Queen’s bold game of brag succeeded. Castelnau wrote to his King urging him to give way and not to drive Elizabeth into the arms of Spain on the one hand or of the Huguenots on the other.
On the same day, May 4, 1582, the Queen wrote, from Greenwich to Alen?on a reply full of vague professions of affection, and with not a word about his coming to marry her. God knows it is not her fault! She is ready, as she always was, to carry out the contract “according to my last promise on the317 conditions, which you alone know—very difficult ones I confess.”160 It is entirely the King’s fault. She is thoroughly ashamed of writing to him so often about it. He (Henry) only repeats that he can go no further than the conditions sent by Pinart. “Jugez sur ce, mon tres cher, que puis je plus faire? Considerez mon tres cher ... si tout l’univers ne s’ebahist comment la reine d’Angleterre ayt tant oublié l’Angleterre pour amener nouveaux voisins sur le continent prez de son pais ... et puis voyez si de ma part je n’ay rien hazardé pour vous; m’estant l’amour de ma nation plus cher que la vie,”161 and so on, but not a word to cause him to come to England. Almost at the same time as he received this letter false news came to Alen?on from his sister Margaret that the King had consented to the whole of Elizabeth’s demands. He was almost beside himself for joy; a letter, which is now at Hatfield,162 was instantly sent off to the Queen, containing the most exuberant expressions of pleasure and relief. There never was happiness equal to his, which he can conceal no longer. He has no further care now than to order the clothes and everything necessary for the nuptials. But she must more than ever fulfil her promise to him, for now that he is to be her husband she would not like to see him perish for want of assistance so solemnly promised by her. “I have been sorry hitherto,” he says, “to importune you so much, being uncertain of the King’s intentions; but now that I am sure of sleeping in the great bed and being your husband, I claim, as the fulfilment of the treaty between us, the payment of the whole sum of money you were good enough to promise me at your318 own instance.” He begs her to send her proxy over for the marriage contract, and he will authorise Castelnau to enter into the engagement in his name; and concludes, “Adieu ma femme par immagination que jespere sera bientost par effet. Celuy qui brulle de dessir Fran?oys.” But a few days afterwards he was informed that his sister’s news was untrue, and wrote in heartbroken strain to the Queen: “Quand je pense les affayres du mariage en bon aytre je suys gai, et quand je connois le contrere la mort nest plus hideuze que moy.” From the happy assurance that he would soon be her husband he has now become “froit et transi de tristesse” because of the doubt she casts on the King’s surety. “Mon Dieu, Madame,” he writes, “en quoi esse que je vous ay esté si desagreeable pour ne pouvoir tirer nulle resolution de vostre Majesté?”163 Before this letter was received by the Queen she had anticipated its contents, and wrote a very long communication to her suitor, casting great doubt upon Queen Margaret’s news. The delay, she said, was entirely owing to the King of France. She, Heaven knows! had done enough, even to the verge of impropriety. “Et pense que le Roy pour telle me reputera, que je suis la récherchante, qui sera tousjour une belle reputation pour une femme.” But she still kept tight hold of the money and did not send him the aid he so confidently requested. She was, she said, a poor hand at financial affairs and had but little love for playing the economist. She was fain, therefore, to leave money matters in the hands of those who understood them better than she did, and the answer would be given to Marchaumont. This meant that319 she would send him no money until the position of his brother was made clear, but she reminds him that she has risked much already for him, and that England has nothing to gain by the marriage and very much to lose if the French should become masters of Flanders.164 This letter was cool enough, and contrasts greatly with a short note written by Alen?on the next day—May 25th—brought by one of the English courtiers who was returning. He winds up this note by bidding her farewell: “avecque autant dafection que je me souhet vostre mari couché entre deus dras dedans vos beaus bras.”
The fear that the French might after all dominate the Netherlands or make terms with Spain, was not only tightening her purse-strings but had led her to consider an entirely new combination of the European powers, by which the North was brought in to redress the balance of the South. Eric of Sweden had a fair daughter of fourteen, whom it was proposed to marry to Alen?on: a confederacy between England, Scotland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Russia, and Poland being formed; the reversion of the elective crown of Poland being secured to Eric, and a northern fleet being placed at Alen?on’s disposal to oppose any naval attack upon him by Spain. Alen?on and his mother, it was understood, were not indisposed to listen to this arrangement, but the countries were distant, their interests not identical, and whilst the negotiations were slowly dragging, events outstripped them and rendered them nugatory.
Oudenarde fell early in July, and Alen?on immediately afterwards sent an ultimatum to Elizabeth.320 He was at the end of his resources. If she did not at once send him the money she had promised he must abandon his task, and Spain would crush Flanders for good and for all under the heel of Alexander Farnese. The time had gone by for high-strained compliments and billing and cooing, and Alen?on, in his letter to the Queen, says his mind is too full of war to talk about marriage, and he must leave Antwerp and await her answer elsewhere. Leicester and his friends feared he might go to Flushing, and thence run over to England, and were consequently anxious to send him ￡20,000 at once. Cecil was strongly opposed to this, as at the end of July there was in the Exchequer less than ￡80,000, which, with the ￡400,000 in gold in the Tower, formed the whole of the national treasury. Whilst this was being discussed there came news of the discovery of the Salcedo plot, said to have been prompted by Spain, the Pope, and the Guises, to assassinate Alen?on and the Prince of Orange. The avowals made by Salcedo on the rack satisfied even Henry III. that a vast Catholic conspiracy was in progress, from which he was excluded, and this once more drew him nearer to Elizabeth, and he instructed his ambassador to assure her that he would accede to the conditions she demanded as soon as she had decided upon the marriage. Her answer was that since the King consented to defray the cost of the war she must have it under his own hand, with an undertaking that England under no circumstances should be called upon to contribute anything in case of a war with Spain. The King’s readiness to accede to every demand of Elizabeth was of itself a source of321 suspicion to her, and was by many attributed to a deep Papist plot to throw the whole responsibility for breaking off the marriage upon her, and so turn Alen?on against her. To a certain extent it had this effect, for although Alen?on’s letters to the Queen herself were a mixture of erotics and reproaches, his communications to Sussex were in a different tone. The Queen, he said, was the cause of his ruin, and if she will not at once come to his aid or marry him he must join her enemies, and she will have no cause to complain. Lierre had just been captured by the Spaniards, and all Alen?on’s prayers for money were ineffectual. A new turn of the screw was applied to the King of France by Elizabeth nearly every day. The last demand was that he was to defend her not against Spain alone, but against all her enemies whatsoever, and that an undertaking to this effect, stamped with the great seal of France, was to be sent her—anything indeed, to drag France into open enmity with Spain before she showed her hand. Events seemed to be working for her. Henry III. was already jealous of the Guises, his mother’s fleet to aid the Portuguese pretender at Terceira against Philip had been destroyed, and Catharine was vowing vengeance, so that Henry was pliable.
Alen?on, writing to the Queen early in August, “thanks God that his brother has at last sent the despatch she asked for, and assures himself now that, having, as all well-bred ladies must, caused herself to be sought, she will really fulfil her promise and receive him as her husband; me fezant jouir du fruit et contantement du mariage a quoy je me prepare, fezant peu decquesersise (d’exercise) me nourisant322 si bien que je masure que en reserveres plus de contantement que d’autre qui soit sur la terre.” But withal he entreats her again and again for money. He is not, he says, a mercenary soldier, but his honour is at stake, and he cannot obtain a penny elsewhere. The answer to this was a remittance of ￡20,000 and a fresh body of English auxiliaries, but no fresh word about marriage, the main line of policy now inaugurated being that which was subsequently followed, namely, to nullify the presence of Frenchmen in Flanders by the sending of larger numbers of English volunteers. Catharine de Medici also began to move in order to have her revenge on Spain for her Terceira defeat, and both men and money began to flow over the French frontier to Alen?on. At the same time the formal document, signed and sealed by the King, was read by Castelnau to Elizabeth. In it Henry bound himself to relieve the Queen of all expense of the war if she married Alen?on, but would not bind himself to break openly with Spain. Castelnau had instructions in case the Queen were not satisfied with this to drop the fruitless marriage negotiations, and frankly propose an offensive and defensive alliance between the two countries. The Guises were openly discontented, and Paris swarmed with their men-at-arms. It was clear to Henry and his mother that they must cling to England and the Protestants, or the house of Valois was doomed, and France must become subservient to Spain and the bigots. So, marriage or no marriage, Elizabeth must be conciliated.
The task was not an easy one, for she knew the position as well as anybody, and was hard to please.323 She was dissatisfied with the formal undertaking, which was read to her, and demanded that the King should add a personally binding confirmation in his own handwriting; but this he refused to do. When the Queen again talked about marrying Alen?on immediately, if certain new conditions were granted, Castelnau besought her to speak frankly and state her final terms, so that, in any case, a firm national alliance might be arranged. She affected to fly into a passion at this, and said she was not such a simpleton as to trust Frenchmen if she did not marry Alen?on. She then broke into strong language, as was her wont, and called curses down upon her own head if she did not instantly marry the Prince after the King granted her demands. Calling Cecil as witness to her words, she renewed her vows, swearing like a trooper, until, as Castelnau says, it made his blood run cold, and Cecil himself whispered to Lady Stafford as he left the chamber that if the Queen did not fulfil her word this time God would surely send her to hell for such blasphemy.165
The French, however, strongly backed up by Leicester, were now all for a national alliance, having lost belief in a marriage; the Queen for her part stoutly maintaining that one thing was impossible without the other; and when Cobham, early in December, approached the King with regard to the new conditions demanded, he was made clearly to understand that there was no belief whatever in the Queen’s sincerity, and that her object was what we now know it to have been, namely, to pledge France324 to a war with Spain, whilst her own hands were free. The “monk” Marchaumont, too, was equally undeceived and sick of the whole affair; blamed by Alen?on for his ill-success, and ceaselessly begging for his recall. Indeed, by this time there was not a soul who believed any more in the marriage negotiations, and Elizabeth began to grow angry that the trusty weapon which had served her well for so many years had lost its point. So when La Mothe Fénélon, on his way to Scotland, spoke to her about the relations between France and England, she gave him a piece of her mind. She told him that, notwithstanding all his professions, the King of France was the worst enemy she had. The Dauphin and Marshal de Biron, she said, although on the frontier of Flanders with troops, had tarried long there, and had refused to go to the aid of the States; besides which France, Spain, and the Pope, were all intriguing against her in Scotland and elsewhere; and the King was making friends with the Guises again. Having thus tried to alarm La Mothe, a desperate attempt was made once more to drag up the marriage. Walsingham assured him that the Queen really was in earnest, and a suggestion was made that if the King of France would break with Spain and help Alen?on, the Queen would declare the latter heir to the English crown. As all this was obviously only to delay La Mothe, and after some days the Queen was peremptorily told that if she did not allow him to proceed at once to Scotland, he would return to France, and another ambassador would be sent by s............