and obstinately shut themselves up to avoid seeing him. Such rigorous silence did they maintain as to this visit in their correspondence that even the most recent and best-informed French historian of the events does not credit its having taken place. The correspondence of Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in London, which has passed through my hands, leaves me, however, little doubt upon the subject[132]; although Philip, writing to his ambassador, says that the news he receives from France is incompatible with Alençon’s visit to England on this occasion. On the 1st of June, 1581, Marchaumont visited Castelnau, the ambassador, who showed him a letter from a certain Cigogne, one of Alençon’s gentlemen, giving him intelligence of his master’s movements. The Duke had embarked at Dieppe at six o’clock on the morning of the 28th of May, and after knocking about in the Channel for five hours very seasick, had to return to land. He had then ridden with all his suite to Evereux whence he had sent Cigogne to inform his brother of his going to England, and had then himself started on horseback with a very small company towards Boulogne. The faithful “monk” at once hastened to the Queen with the news, which she had already heard elsewhere. She appeared overjoyed at the coming of her suitor, and she was for sending Stafford at once to greet him. But de Bex was sent to Dover instead, bearing a written message from the Queen, couched in the most loving terms,[133] and rooms were ordered secretly to be prepared for the Prince in Marchaumont’s chambers. On the afternoon of the 2nd of June the visitor came up the Thames with the tide, evading the spies whom the King’s envoys had posted everywhere, and was safely lodged in the apartments destined for him in the Queen’s garden. Immediately afterwards one of his gentlemen entered the presence-chamber as if he had just come from France (as indeed he had) bringing letters from his master to the Queen, and Marchaumont sent to Leicester the agreed token of his coming, namely, a jet ring. This strange prank of the young Prince upset all calculations. He had come without his brother’s prior knowledge or permission and without consultation with the ambassadors, the whole affair having been managed by Marchaumont over their heads. Says Mendoza, writing to Philip a day or two after his arrival: “No man, great or small, can believe that he has come to be married, nor can they imagine that she will marry him because he has come. It may be suspected that her having persuaded him to come with hopes that they two together would settle matters better than could be done by the intervention of his brother’s ministers, had been the motive which brought him.”