In 1571 it appeared that Elizabeth was set on the marriage with Henry of Anjou, nineteen years her junior, the brother who stood next in succession to the throne of Charles IX. of France--a marriage not at all approved by her council, and very little to Henry's own taste. It was at this time that the conduct of negotiations in Paris was entrusted to Francis Walsingham. The relations between the queen and the Commons were exemplified by her attempt to exclude an obnoxious member, Strickland, met by the successful assertion of their privileges on the part of the House. In this year the plot known as Ridolfi's was discovered, and it is to be noted that Elizabeth herself ordered the rack to be used to extort information. The result was condemnation of Norfolk to the block. The recalcitrance of Henry of Anjou led to his definitely withdrawing from his courtship, while the young Alençon became the new subject of matrimonial negotiation. Elizabeth played with the new proposal, as usual, relying always on her ability to back out of the negotiations, as in previous cases, by demanding of her suitor a more uncompromising acceptance of Protestantism than could be admitted. The whole affair, however, was apparently brought to a check by the massacre of St. Bartholomew, with the perpetration of which it seemed impossible for the most powerful of Protestant monarchs to associate herself. Cecil--now Lord Burleigh--would have used the occasion for the destruction of Mary Stuart; but the device for doing so irreproachably by handing her over to her own rebels, was frustrated--though Elizabeth concurred--by the refusal of the Scots lords to play the part which was assigned to them. The Alençon affair was soon in full swing again, the young prince writing love-letters to the lady whom he had not seen. _III.--The Hour of Mary's Doom_ Elizabeth's fondness for pageantry--partly out of a personal delight in it, partly from a politic appreciation of its value in making her popular--especially pageantry at some one else's expense, was illustrated in the gorgeous doings at Kenilworth, depicted (with sundry anachronisms) in Scott's novel. These gaieties were the embroidery on more serious matters, for the Netherlands had for some time been engaged in their apparently desperate struggle with the power of Spain, and now actually invited the Queen of England to assume sovereignty over them--an offer which she was too acute to accept.