One of the masques given at Bayonne is remarkable for the curious picture it presents of a “wild Scotchman.” After the Prince-dauphin of Auvergne and his train of six gentlemen, all dressed like women, had filed off, the Duke of Guise and another six followed, all dressed “à l’écossais sauvage.” Over a white satin shirt embroidered with gold lace and crimson silk, they wore a _casaquin_ of yellow velvet with short skirts closely plaited “according to the custom of the savages”--it appears to have been a kilt--trimmed with a border of crimson satin, and ornamented with gold, silver, pearls, and other jewels of various colors. Their yellow satin hose was similarly adorned, and their silk boots were trimmed with silver fringe and rosettes. On their heads they wore a cap _à l’antique_ of cloth of gold, and for crest a thunder-bolt pouring out a fragrant jet of perfumed fire--the said thunder-bolt being twined round by a serpent reposing on a pillow of green and satin. Each cavalier wore on his arm a Scotch shield or targe covered with cloth of gold and bearing a device. The horses’ trappings were of crimson satin with plumes of yellow, white, and carnation. So much for the Frenchman’s ideal of a Scotchman! The suite of the Duke of Longueville was still more extraordinary: it consisted of six winged demons whose head-dresses were all flames of fire.[364] While the younger and fairer portion of the court were indulging in these gayeties, Catherine and Alva did not entirely forget more important matters, though the queen-mother seems to have put them off as long as possible. She would probably have evaded them altogether had not Cardinal Granvelle urged his royal mistress to take the initiative. At a private interview, on the 19th June, Isabella urged her mother to make known the important business which she had declared could only be told to Philip or to herself. Catherine replied: “It would be useless to do so, for I have been informed that his Catholic majesty shows such signs of distrust toward me and my son as must inevitably lead to war ere long.” As this was shifting the ground, and Isabella could not get her mother to talk of any thing else, she ended the interview by saying: “Your majesty must excuse me. As the king my husband has not commanded me to take an active share in the negotiations, I must refer you, madam, to the embassadors.” At a second meeting, two days later, Alva was present when the closer union of the royal houses of France and Spain by the marriage of Margaret of Valois to Don Carlos was advocated by the queen-mother, as “the best means of healing the differences everywhere prevailing, and also of placing the affairs of religion on a stable foundation.” In his account of this interview, Don Francisco of Alava wrote to his royal master: “Never was princess in greater embarrassment than this queen. One person advises her majesty to act this way, another quite the contrary; and she herself