si trop presontuheuzement je dis se qui est dans mon ame.” It is evident that the Queen was playing with him again, but she must have deceived many of her ministers as well, for in the Hatfield Papers there exists a whole series of documents, mostly in Burleigh’s hand, discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the match from every conceivable point of view at prodigious length, at which grave State papers doubtless her Majesty and Leicester laughed heartily in their sleeves. The Queen told the Spanish ambassador that it “was a fine idea for an old woman like her to talk about marriage,” and more than hinted to him that the negotiations had only been undertaken for the purpose of getting the French out of the Netherlands, as she did not want them there. She assured him that nothing would be arranged about the marriage unless Alençon came. All through March the negotiations for Alençon’s visit continued, whilst the Puritan pulpits rang with denunciations of the proposed popish match, and London was in a fever of apprehension of the coming of a French King consort. At last it was settled that the Prince should come over in April; and it was then considered necessary to secure Leicester’s neutrality at least. He and Hatton had very soon got jealous of the bewitching “monkey,” who rarely left the Queen’s side now, so Castelnau, the ambassador, had to be the intermediary. Some letters signed by the King of France, but really concocted by Castelnau in London, were delivered to the Queen and Leicester, saying that Alençon would come in May, and assuring Leicester on the King’s word that the marriage should in no way injure his honour or position. Leicester urged that Alençon should come whilst Parliament was sitting, even though the conditions were not agreed upon beforehand, and said he would move the House to demand the marriage. As the match was extremely unpopular in London, this was about the very worst advice that could be given, and was meant to be so. Whilst the proposed conditions were being discussed with Alençon’s special envoy, Rochetaillé, in April, and the marriage was looked upon in London as inevitable, some persons told the Queen that papers had been found in the late Chancellor Sir Nicholas Bacon’s office, proving that when the affair was under discussion before, the object of the French was only to ruin the country, kill the Queen, and place Mary of Scotland on the throne. If Elizabeth had been in earnest she would have taken fright at this; but she only smiled and passed it over. Both she and Leicester, however, were now ostentatiously in favour of the match, as also were Leicester’s enemies, with a very different end in view. Great preparations were made at Court for the Prince’s coming; new clothes as fine as money could buy them were brought from far and near. Leicester himself wrote to his “cousin,” Davison, in Flanders, to send him 4,000 crowns’ worth of crimson, black, and