Elizabeth, with ample reason, was at the time in a panic at Philip’s action in Flanders. For many months the pretence had been kept up that the King himself was coming to the Netherlands to pacify discontent. Great forces had been raised in Italy, Spain, and Germany, and a strong fleet fitted out, to the great alarm of the English, who feared that at last the time for Philip’s vengeance had arrived, although Elizabeth had tremblingly tried to keep up the pretence to Guzman that she was delighted at “her good brother’s” coming. At last when all was ready, in the autumn of 1567, vast sums of money collected, and the troops under arms, no longer a royal escort but a strong avenging army, Philip announced that he would not go to Flanders himself but would send the terrible Duke of Alba. Then all the world knew what was meant—war to the knife until Protestantism and political liberty were crushed in the Netherlands. It was clear to Huguenots, Lutherans, and Anglicans that the time of trial and struggle was at hand, and mutual messages and promises of support crossed from one to the other, for they all knew that if the King of Spain were victorious over dissent in his own land the turn of the others would come. Elizabeth’s retort to Alba’s proceedings was, as usual, both bold and diplomatic. She once more made strenuous efforts to reopen the negotiations for her marriage with the Archduke, she cajoled Guzman again into the belief that she was not in accord with the proceedings of her Reformed bishops; and whilst all England was thrilling with sympathy for the oppressed Flemings she made the most elaborate protestations to the Spanish ambassador that she had not helped and would not help them in their resistance.[170] But at the same time Elizabeth, by a policy of alternate severity and leniency towards them, convinced the English Catholic party that their future treatment depended alone upon their gaining her goodwill.