It is at this juncture that the duke of Anjou, the King’s brother, becomes a conspicuous political figure, one, indeed, of international importance. In order to confirm the confidence of the Huguenots, but especially to strengthen France against Spanish preponderance, the idea was again put forward of marrying Anjou to Queen Elizabeth.[1460] At the same time the plan was broached of marrying young Henry of Navarre to the sister of the duke of Württemberg. But again Montmorency came to the forefront and revived the plan suggested in 1569 of marrying the princess Marguerite, Charles IX’s youngest sister, to Henry of Navarre. Coligny for the Huguenots, and Walsingham and Norris for England, urged the double plan.[1461] The Ridolfi plot proved to Elizabeth that England, like France, had her greatest enemy in Spain. [Illustration: THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW From a picture by François Du Bois of Amiens († 1584 at Geneva). The original, in the Museum Urlaud at Lausanne, is 3½ × 5 feet. In the middle of the picture Coligny is being thrown out of the window, below which stand the dukes of Guise and Aumale and the bastard of Angoulême. Teligny, the admiral’s son-in-law is trying to escape over the roof. In the background is the Louvre, with Pilles being beset in the doorway. The bodies of Bricquemault and Cavagnies are hanging from the gibbet in the street. On the hill-top in the right of the picture the gibbet of Montfaucon is seen. On the left bank of the Seine some Huguenots are escaping by the Porte de Nesles—Montgomery is the man on horseback outside the gate. The windmill stands on Mont Sainte Geneviève.] The consternation of the Guises and Spain at the discovery of this double marriage project was great. The Guises sought to break the proposed marriage of Anjou and Queen Elizabeth by offering him Mary Stuart, and that of Henry of Navarre with the King’s sister by offering the cardinal d’Este as a prospective husband, since he was universally expected to succeed his brother, the duke of Ferrara who was without issue. Tuscan influence was used to this end. Spain and the papacy, for their part, dangled before the eyes of the duke of Anjou the post of command over the fleet preparing against the Turks.[1462] The gulf between France and Spain, however, was too wide to be bridged by such an offer. Disappointed at Bayonne, Catherine was dreaming of the elder daughter of the Hapsburgs as the future wife of Charles IX. Such a marriage appealed to her as a practical way of playing one house of Hapsburg against the other, although she plausibly represented it as a new tie that would bind France and the Hapsburgs in greater amity.[1463]