It is true that Elizabeth was a glutton for presents, and her Councillors had itching palms for Spanish gold, but there were other reasons just then besides self-interest that made them smile upon Philip’s ambassador. Not only was there a French army on Flemish soil, but from all sides there came to England alarming news of some great Catholic combination against Elizabeth; the Spaniards were known to be supporting the Desmond rebellion in Ireland;[227] and at a day’s notice, until she had got Alençon completely under her thumb by the farcical marriage negotiations with him personally, she thought fit to smile upon Mendoza, and treat the moderate English Catholics with unwonted mildness. “I never see the Queen now,” writes Mendoza in September, 1578, “without her telling me how glad she is for me to be here. She gives me audience freely, and, thank God! I have her now in an excellent humour, whilst the Englishmen in general are not bad friends with me, as they think I shall not do anything against them in case of a disturbance.” On another occasion in September, 1578, when Elizabeth was sounding Mendoza about sending an English ambassador to Spain, she said to him: “If you were a knave, you should not have stayed here so long; ... if you had been here years ago, things would not have reached such a condition as they did, by reason of Don Gerau de Spes”; and when he went to see her at Richmond on her return from an autumn progress, she became quite coquettish with him. She thought, she said, he must have run away and left her it was so long since she had seen him; and, though she was somewhat aggrieved that she was to have no part in the pending peace negotiations between Philip and the Flemings, she told him that “she liked his manner of procedure.” “I did not inspire her with suspicion; and if a favourable peace was made in the Netherlands by any means, she was quite content not to have been a mediator, being quite satisfied with my explanations.” Then, turning to him, she broached the subject really uppermost in her mind, namely, her much-talked-of marriage with the young French Prince. Did Mendoza think she ought to marry him? The courtly ambassador was sure she would act wisely in any case; but he knew, as she did, that all the French wished was to prevent her prosperity and quietude. “I hope when you see the end you will approve of it,” said Elizabeth, doubtless smiling in her sleeve; for she alone knew what she intended the end to be, though Philip himself shrewdly guessed that “it was all pastime, and she would never marry any man.”