Mendoza passed through Paris on his way to England in February, and found the French Court in dismay. Young Alençon had escaped his brother’s vigilance, and, with a force of Huguenots and German mercenaries, was on the Flemish frontier in full negotiation with the Prince of Orange and the Protestants to assume the sovereignty as a rival to Mathias, the nominee of the Catholics. Don Juan had just won the battle of Gembloux against the united rebel States, and was known to be intriguing with the Guises against Elizabeth, though not, as was thought in England, with Philip’s connivance; and the Queen of England found herself in perplexity between two fires. The Marquis d’Havrey, the Flemish Catholic noble representing the States, was assuring her that unless she sent an army over at once, under Leicester or his brother, to help them, they must hand themselves over to Alençon and the Frenchmen, which she was determined to prevent, cost what it might;[223] whilst, on the other hand, she was told from all quarters that the Kings of Spain and France, with the Pope, Don Juan, and the Guises, were all united and determined to crush her for once and for all. Her problem was how to save Orange and the Protestants in Holland from being overwhelmed, without dragging England into a war with Philip; to prevent the French, even Huguenots, from gaining a footing in the Low Countries, and to avert a Catholic coalition against her. By what consummate diplomacy she contrived to attain her ends will be seen in the next chapter, which recounts her intercourse with Bernardino de Mendoza as Philip’s ambassador. CHAPTER VIII 1578-1584 Mendoza and Elizabeth—His haughty behaviour—The French in Flanders—Elizabeth’s approaches to Philip—The Spanish designs on Portugal—Renewed plots of Mary Stuart—Appeals to Philip to aid her in England—Philip’s attitude towards Guisan co-operation with him in Britain—The Jesuit mission—Mendoza and the Catholic plot in Scotland—Elizabeth aids the Portuguese pretender—Anger of Mendoza—His altercation with Elizabeth—Progress of the plots—Collapse of Lennox—The interference of Guise in the plans—The jealousy between English Catholic exiles and the Scots—Development of the Anglo-Spanish plans and intended exclusion of Guise—Arrest of Francis Throckmorton—Discovery of the plot—Expulsion of Mendoza—Philip faces the inevitable and slowly prepares for a war of invasion