In November 1566, Sir Henry Sidney sent Gilbert with despatches to England, and the daring youth presented another petition to the Queen, asking for two of the Queen's ships, provided he supplied two others, and requesting the life government for himself of any countries he might conquer, and a tenth part of all their land. In this petition he proposed to reach the Indies by the north-west, and to this change of plan he remained constant. But the Company of Merchant Adventurers protested against this as an infringement of their own charter, and it was abandoned. But the Queen never lost sight of her able young officer. In March 1567 Gilbert was back in Ireland, and in June the Queen wrote to Sidney bidding him see how far the Irish rebels could be restrained by establishing a colony of honest men in Ulster. She recommended him to use the services of Humphrey Gilbert, as the colonists would come chiefly from the west of England; these Gilbert was to select, to conduct them to Lough Foyle and there to be their President. But this plan was never carried out, and Gilbert went back to his soldiering. For the next two years, as leader of a band of horse, he helped Sidney to put down rebellion. When in 1568 he was sent back to England and fell dangerously ill, the Queen inquired carefully into his condition, and wrote to Sir Henry Sidney to say that Gilbert was to have his full pay during his absence, and some better place was to be found him on his return to Ireland. So, with a Queen to back him up, Gilbert was made a colonel, and defeated M'Carthy More in September. This victory won for him the honourable duty of keeping the peace in the province of Munster, where he showed more vigour and stern discipline than sympathy. In December we find him writing to the Lord Deputy, saying he was determined to have neither parley nor peace with any rebel; for he was convinced that no conquered nation could be ruled with gentleness. Henry Sidney was not averse to the strong hand, and wrote to the Queen, praising Gilbert's "discretion, judgment, and lusty courage," and on January 1, 1570, he knighted Gilbert at Drogheda. In 1571 Sir Humphrey Gilbert married Anne, daughter of Sir Anthony Ager of Kent, not unmindful perhaps of the old proverb:-- "A Knight of Gales, and a Gentleman of Wales, and a Laird of the North Countree, A Squire of Kent with his yearly rent will weigh them down --all three." He was then returned as M.P. for Plymouth. But Elizabeth, who had been helping the Netherlands against Philip in secret, underhand ways, began in 1572 to be impressed by the Catholic League, and to fear that England, like all other Protestant countries, must look to encounter the whole forces of the Pope. She remembered the words of Walsingham, "Unless God had raised up the Prince of Orange to entertain Spain, Madam, we should have had the fire long since at our own door."