Simier left London on the 24th of November, loaded with presents, and from Gravesend wrote a long letter to the Queen, warning her against those who, for their own ends, were trying to persuade her to forego the match, and who had been publicly boasting in London that as soon as his back was turned they would easily change her mind. He finishes his letter by what comes perilously near a bit of love-making on his own account, and during his two days’ stay at Dover, and from Calais, letter followed letter from him to the Queen, in all of which the hope is fervently expressed that “le singe restera tousjours vostre, et que la distance des lyeus, ni la longeur du tanps, ni les fausses invantions des mes contrères, ne me pouront aporter aucun préjudisse en vos bonnes grasses ni enpecher le souleil de mes yeulx, qui ne peuvent être contans que voyent vostre grenouille aupres de vostre Majesté et moy coume singe me voyr hordinere à vos piés,” and so on, page after page. Stafford accompanied him across, and brought back a letter with a great emerald embedded in the seal, from Alençon to the Queen, telling her of the efforts which were being made to bring him and Navarre again into good agreement with the King, to which the Queen replied, leaving for once the philandering strain, and writing a serious and statesmanlike warning against his being too pliant. There is no doubt that for a time after Simier left, the influence of Leicester, Hatton, and Walsingham somewhat cooled her towards the marriage. Stafford went first with Simier to Paris to lay the draft conditions before the King, and took the opportunity of demanding some further limitation with regard to the exercise of the Catholic religion. Henry III. would have nothing to say to this, but left it to his brother’s conscience, but he wrote to his ambassador in England pointing out that this was another of their tricks to break off the affair.