The year 1562 was not far advanced when the first Huguenot war broke out in France. Condé was soon making overtures to Elizabeth, and her Protestant counsellors, headed by Cecil, were zealous that she should lend his party active support, with the restoration of Calais to England as the price. Philip of Spain, bent on suppressing the Netherlands heretics, was strongly on the side of the Guises, and threatened Elizabeth if she should venture to intervene. The house of the Spanish Ambassador in London was the centre of much Catholic intriguing; and much of what was going on was betrayed to Cecil by a secretary. Elizabeth was angry enough, but could not afford an open rupture with Philip, who, now that Mary was no longer Queen of France, might find it in his interest to support her pretensions to the English throne. On the other hand, the French Queen-mother could not now view with complacency the succession of Mary with her Guise connexions, coupled with the possibility of her matrimonial alliance either with the Spanish Don Carlos or the Habsburg Archduke Charles. Elizabeth's own desire now was to be in amity with Mary, and to have her married to some one who would not be dangerous. For a long time she dallied with the idea of meeting Mary with a view to a settlement as to the ratification of the Edinburgh treaty and her recognition as heir presumptive; and Catholic hopes ran high. But the successes of the Guise party in France forced her hand by alarming the Protestants. She had to decline the meeting with Mary, and at least to make a show of enforcing the laws against attendance at Mass more energetically. She had, in fact, been letting herself believe that she could indulge her personal predilection for the more ceremonial worship of the old faith; but as usual when a crisis seemed, really imminent, her personal predilections were suppressed for the time. [Sidenote: 1562-63 Elizabeth and the Huguenots]