Elizabeth had to thank her “faithful ape” for the fix in which she found herself. She had opened her inmost heart to him, and he had understood that she would really never marry, but proposed unacceptable conditions in order that the King’s rejection of them might relieve her of the responsibility of the failure whilst binding Alençon personally to her and raising discord between him and his brother. Simier, as I have said, was now in the King’s pay and faithfully transmitted his knowledge to France. It was perfectly safe, therefore, for Henry III. to promise on paper to accept any conditions, and thus at one stroke to earn the gratitude of his brother and cast all responsibility upon the Queen of England. Elizabeth must have had some suspicion of her “ape’s” falsity, because a day or so after young Pinart arrived, Alençon, who looked upon Simier as the author of all his disappointment, entered the Queen’s chamber and implored her to send him away. She was apparently hesitating when the Prince whipped out his dagger and pressed it against his own breast, swearing by God that he would drive it home and die at her feet if she would not promise him on the spot to dismiss Simier. She replied that he had no need to go to such extremes as that, and that although it was hardly fair to send him away until he had obtained justification, she would do so to please Alençon. Simier was therefore sent off with letters to the Duke of Montpensier, who, within a given time, was to exonerate him from the charges against him in Alençon’s name. Before he left, however, he asked the Queen what she was going to do for Alençon to recompense him for his expenditure in England; to which she replied that she had already done three things for him. She had sent £30,000 in cash to help him in the Cambrai affair, she had maintained him in England for a long time, whereby he saved his usual outlay and could employ the money in Flanders, and she had been no party to his going there at all. She said she was very sorry she had carried the marriage negotiations so far, but it was all Simier’s fault, “because the first time Alençon came he, Simier, insisted upon his having another interview with her before he left.”[154] In the meanwhile the sudden complaisance of the King of France aroused all sorts of suspicion in the Queen’s mind. It might be a plan for her ruin, she thought, to induce her to entrust large English forces to Alençon who might at once turn round and make terms with the Spaniards to her detriment, and she was more loath than ever to be over-liberal with him or to allow him to obtain uncontrolled power in the Netherlands. Orange kept writing to Alençon, showing him how badly he was acting in breaking his promise to the States and lingering in England, but Elizabeth and St. Aldegonde in England were at the same time putting their heads together and planning that if he did go, Orange and his Protestants should always be the stronger power.