Nevertheless, Henry was scarcely less to be pitied than his victims. The nation needed little encouragement to revolt. His treatment of the Queen and Princess, though not the whole cause of the disaffection, was a large factor in the rebellious temper of the people. But if to please them he showed Mary a little kindness, Anne left him no peace. He was, it is true, beginning to weary of his fetters, and sometimes inquired anxiously whether Anne too might not be divorced. Not, replied his otherwise complaisant advisers, unless he took back Katharine,[142] and he was not prepared for such a humiliation in the eyes of Europe. It would look, forsooth, as if he submitted after all to the Pope’s decree, and all that he had done with a high hand would have to be undone. There was no alternative but to carry out the policy he had determined upon, but his embarrassment was not lessened when Francis, through the French Admiral, demanded Mary’s hand for the Duke of Angoulême. Clearly, Henry had not succeeded in convincing the world, or even his one friend, the French King, that Katharine was not his wife, or in getting him to take Anne’s queenship seriously. The subject of Mary’s betrothal to the Duke of Orleans had been tacitly dropped since the divorce. It was no longer a part of Henry’s plan to marry his elder daughter honourably, or to allow her to leave the kingdom, and at first he pretended to regard the Admiral’s commission as a joke. The Duke of Angoulême, he said, had much better marry the true Princess, Elizabeth, and so the matter rested; but Francis would not take Henry’s line with regard to Mary. When in the autumn of 1535 he sent ambassadors to England for the purpose of drawing the King into a war with the Emperor, they were charged to interview her, and find out how she felt disposed to a marriage with the Dauphin. Mary had, in fact, not forgotten that she had been affianced to him as a baby, and would have welcomed any suitable proposal that would have freed her from the perils of her actual lot. At that time she was at Eltham with Elizabeth, into whose presence the French envoys were ushered. To their annoyance they were not even allowed to see Mary, who had orders to remain in her room while they were in the house, and to prevent any possible communication between them and her, the windows of her apartment were bolted. She had inquired of Chapuys whether she was to obey or not, and as he had advised submission, she amused herself while the ambassadors were with Elizabeth, by playing on the virginals.[143]