Jean de Simier, Alençon’s Master of the Wardrobe, and one of his firmest friends, was a consummate courtier steeped in the dissolute gallantry of the French Court, and, above all, a _persona grata_ of Catharine de Medici. He arrived in London on January 5, 1579, having gone through Paris on his way to England, and presumably can hardly have been at the moment in a very happy frame of mind. During his absence with Alençon his wife had been guilty of infidelity with his young brother, and on Simier’s arrival home the intrigue was divulged to him. He sent his men ahead to kill his brother at the gate of the château before his arrival, and his wife died, probably of poison, perhaps of grief, soon afterwards, and the avenged husband then went his way and came on his mission to England. He was lodged and entertained at the Queen’s cost, and brought with him twelve thousand crowns’ worth of jewels to win over the courtiers to his master’s cause. At his first interview with the Queen on the 11th of January she was not very cordial, and said that Alençon could not have been very eager, as Simier had tarried three months on his way since his coming was first announced, but she soon melted under the influence of the envoy’s dulcet words and the casket of jewels he handed her from his master. After the interview Leicester entertained him at supper, and the same night a grand ball was given by the Queen in his honour, at which we are told there was an entertainment in imitation of a tournament between six ladies and a like number of gentlemen who surrendered to them. Young La Mole had charmed Elizabeth with his language of French gallantry, but Simier was a much more experienced hand at the game, and artfully made violent love to the Queen under shelter of his master’s name. The sober ambassador, Castelnau de la Mauvissière, even could not avoid seeing the effect upon Elizabeth, and wrote to the Queen-mother: “This discourse rejuvenates the Queen; she has become more beautiful and bonny than she was fifteen years ago. Not a woman or a physician who knows her who does not hold that there is no lady in the realm more fit for bearing children than she is.”[103]