question with her usual dexterity. On the 20th of December all was ready for the Duke’s departure. The vessels were awaiting him, and some of his baggage and household had started; a grand farewell supper was laid for him and the Queen at Cobham House, near Gravesend, where he was to take leave of her, and he was about to embark in the barges which were to convey him from Greenwich, when a strong north-east gale sprang up and blew continuously for many days, and prevented his departure. Mendoza says that although she displayed publicly great grief at his going, in the privacy of her own chamber she danced for very joy at getting rid of him. One day during his detention he reproached her for letting him go so easily. He saw now, he said, that she did not love him much, and that she was tired of him, as she was sending him away openly discarded. She protested with an abundance of sounding oaths that she had only been induced to let him go for his own gratification and not for hers, and that she was sorry he was going so soon. She did not mean it, of course, but it was enough for Alençon, who seized the opportunity at once. “No! no! Madame,” said he, “you are mine, as I can prove by letters and words you have written to me, confirmed by the gift of the ring, of which I sent intelligence to my brother, my mother, and the princes of France, and all those who were present at our interviews are ready to bear testimony. If I cannot get you for my wife by fair means and affection I must do so by force, for I will not leave this country without you.” The Queen was much perturbed at this, and exclaimed that she had never written anything which she could not justify. She did not care, she said, what interpretation people chose to put upon her letters, as she knew her own intentions better than any one else could; and as for the ring, it was only a pledge of perpetual friendship and of a conditional contract, dependent upon his brother the King acceding to her conditions, which she was quite sure he never would do. She repeated her repugnance to entering the married state, but softened the blow by saying that there was nothing she desired more than that he should stay in England as her brother, friend, and good companion, but not as her husband.[150] Alençon was deeply grieved at all this, but it ended in a promise that after the new year’s holidays she would see what help she could give him in his enterprise, and with this he was perforce to appear content. But withal, Alençon’s fresh talk of remaining in England disturbed her, especially as Cobham in Paris sent her news that the King was anxious to prolong negotiations in order to keep him there and prevent his going to Flanders. So she instructed Cecil to inflame his ambition for the great career there open to him, and at the same time sent for Simier to contrive with him how she best might get him gone. Simier had told her that if she really wished to avoid the marriage she need only stand fast to the