At length Elizabeth felt assured. Hans Casimir had entered Flanders with a strong force of mercenary Germans; Don John was chafing in Namur, frantic with despair and disappointment, his heartbroken cries for help all unheeded by cold-blooded Philip and false Perez; Alençon depended entirely upon England; the Flemings, Catholics and Protestants alike, having found the Archduke Mathias a broken reed, could only look to Elizabeth and Alençon for rescue from their troubles. So, the game being now entirely in her own hands, the Queen could once more enter with full zest into the long-neglected marriage negotiations. She was on a progress through the eastern counties, and received de Bacqueville and de Quincy at Long Melford. Extraordinary efforts were made to show them special honour, and Mendoza in one of his letters[102] gives a curious instance of this, and of Elizabeth’s treatment of even her most distinguished ministers. At a banquet given by her to Alençon’s envoys, she took it into her head that there ought to have been more plate on the sideboard to impress the Frenchmen. Angrily calling Sussex, as Lord Steward, she asked him why there was so little silver. He replied that he had accompanied the sovereigns of England on their progresses for many years past, and he had never seen so much plate carried before as she was carrying; whereupon she flew into a rage, told him to hold his tongue, called him a great rogue, and said that the more she did for people like him the worse they became. This was bad enough before the envoys and the Frenchmen; but it was not all, for Elizabeth turned to Lord North, a friend of Leicester’s of course, and asked his opinion. He, courtier-like, agreed that there was very little silver, and threw the blame on Sussex. The latter waited for him outside and called him a knave and threatened to thrash him; Leicester intervened, and the whole Court was set by the ears, whereupon the Spanish ambassador chuckles to think how easy “they may all be brought to discord.” In fact, no sooner did the marriage negotiations assume a serious aspect than Leicester and his friends secretly thwarted them. The young Earl of Oxford, for instance, was a very graceful dancer, and was twice sent for by the Queen to show off his agility before Alençon’s envoys, but he absolutely refused, of course at Leicester’s prompting, to contribute to the pleasure or amusement of Frenchmen. After all the feasting and cajolery of de Bacqueville and de Quincy they got but little solid satisfaction from the Queen. She told them that it was entirely their master’s fault that the negotiations had been dropped for two years. She herself could give no other answer than that which she had given so often before. She could not marry any prince without seeing him, and if Alençon was going to take offence in case, after seeing him, she did not accept him, he had better not come; if, on the other hand, he was