Yet we cannot pass over a highly characteristic incident. When the queen's majesty had a bad toothache, the protestations of her whole council failed to persuade her to face the extraction of the tooth, till the Bishop of London invited the surgeon to operate first on him in her presence, with satisfactory results. We must also record how the ugly little Alençon, or Anjou as he was now called, arrived unexpectedly to woo her in person, charmed her by his chivalrous audacity in doing so, and won from her the appropriate name of "Little Frog." Whether she really wished to marry her "frog" is extremely doubtful. She made all the more parade of her desire to do so, since the extreme antipathy of the council and the nation to the project would secure her a retreat to the last. The expectation of the marriage caused the Netherlanders to offer Anjou the sovereignty which she had rejected; with the idea of thus securing the united support of England and France. But when matters reached the point of negotiation for an Anglo-French league, with the marriage as one of the articles, Elizabeth, of course, could not be brought to a definite answer, and after long delay Anjou found himself obliged to return to the Netherlands, neither accepted nor rejected. His subsequent death put an end to this, her last, matrimonial comedy. At last an English force was actually sent to help the Netherlanders, under the command of Leicester. His conduct there led to his recall. Another favourite stood high in the queen's good graces--Walter Raleigh. Probably it was with a view to ousting this rival that Leicester brought his stepson Essex into the queen's notice. But now the hour of Mary's doom was approaching. A plot was set on foot for the assassination of Elizabeth, into which Anthony Babington, whose name it bears, was drawn. Walsingham, possessed of complete information from the beginning, through his spies, nursed the plot carefully; letters from Mary were systematically intercepted and copied till the moment came for striking; the conspirators were arrested, and suffered the extreme penalty of the treason laws; and Elizabeth consented to have Mary herself at last brought to trial. She was refused counsel; the commission condemned her. Parliament demanded the execution of the death sentence. Elizabeth had her own misgivings. She was afraid of the responsibility. Leicester suggested poison, but Burleigh and Walsingham stood by the law. A special embassy of remonstrance came from France; Mary wrote a dignified letter, not an appeal for her life, which moved the queen to tears; protests from the King of Scotland only aroused indignation; Elizabeth was frightened by rumours of fresh plots and of a French invasion.