Gradually the centre of interest in English politics was changing from Mary to her sister Elizabeth. Notwithstanding the Queen’s continued assertion of hope that she yet might become a mother if Philip would return to England again, every one but the deluded lady herself had now abandoned such a hope. By the will of Henry VIII., which Mary did not dare to alter, Elizabeth was the next heir. The Princess was idolised by the people, and although she was to all appearance a devout Catholic, the Reform party and the friends of France looked towards her as their leader. Paget was more than suspected of intriguing in her favour, for he was now receiving French pay; her kinsman, Lord William Howard, treated her, to Mary’s anger, almost as a queen already; and other Councillors, uncertain of the future, were unblushingly hedging in her favour. When Philip left England he specially commended the Princess to the kindness of the Queen; and according to Noailles, his chamberlain in England, Don Diego de Geneda, with the other Spanish courtiers, paid marked attention to her, visiting her in her apartments at Greenwich during her stay there every day. Geneda appears, indeed, to have secretly offered to Elizabeth Philip’s ten-year-old son as a husband, but the Princess again took refuge behind her impenetrable reserve. She was determined, she said, neither to marry nor to leave the country.[107] The Spanish attempts to win Elizabeth were watched closely by Noailles, as were the suspected intentions of the Queen in her disfavour whilst Parliament was sitting. Mary, as we have seen, however, found the newly elected Commons so stout and outspoken that she was afraid to advance any of her dearly cherished designs to them, and hastened to dissolve them in December, clapping some of the bolder members into prison for speaking too freely. The group of English exiles still in France were continuing to demand fresh help to aid their disaffected brothers in England, and in the circumstances it is not surprising that Noailles and his master should consider the juncture a favourable one for making a clean sweep of Mary and the Spanish interest in England. Courtenay, in Italy, was secretly warned to hold himself in readiness, but this was only a matter of precaution, for poor Courtenay was in the hands of the enemy and already a dead force. The principal card by which Noailles hoped to win the game for France was Elizabeth, now living quietly and devoutly at Hatfield, surrounded by servants upon whom she could depend. Through a French agent named Bertheville Noailles approached a number of disaffected gentlemen, several of them members of the late Parliament, from Devonshire; and Sir Henry Dudley, Sir Anthony Kingston, Sir William Peckham, Ashton, Daniel, the two Tremaynes, and others, agreed to proclaim Elizabeth, expel or otherwise dispose of Mary, marry the new Queen to Courtenay, and free the country finally from the Spanish nightmare.