catspaw, and yet he was being blamed by all parties; so he declined to interfere, on the ground that the Queen had so often expressed her natural repugnance to marriage that he was sure she would never bring herself to it, and she had better try to excuse the slights she had offered to the French royal house than commence a new series of them. Besides, he said, however fit Alençon might be personally, his present position in the Netherlands made it most dangerous for her to marry him now, as it might bring her country face to face with Spain. He should not be doing his duty, said Sussex, did he not advise her, if she decided to marry the Duke, only to do so in case he left the Netherlands and surrendered the title of Duke of Brabant. She assured Sussex in reply that if she did marry she would make the Duke abandon the Netherlands enterprise. She then went to visit Cecil, who was ill with gout, and told him she had overcome her last scruple, and had decided to marry; but he was just as cool as Sussex, and would have nothing to do with it, and warned her to take care what she was about, or ill would come of it. Marchaumont was next taken in hand, and told by the Queen that at last she had decided to marry in real earnest. She urged him to persuade his master on this assurance, to retire from the Netherlands until she had arranged with his brother to break with Spain jointly with her. Marchaumont had long been begging for money, and seized the opportunity of suggesting that he should himself go to Flanders and bring Alençon round to her views, taking with him the gold she had promised him from Drake’s plunder. The Council would not consent to Marchaumont’s going, but they sent the £15,000 with the letter the next night. This was early in March, 1582, and on the 18th of the same month Alençon was giving an entertainment to celebrate his birthday at the palace of St. Michael, in Antwerp, when a young Biscayner discharged a pistol in the face of the Prince of Orange and wounded him in a way that kept him hovering between life and death for weeks to come. At the first news of the treacherous shot at the national hero, the hatred of the stout Dutchmen for the French flared out. It ran like wildfire from town to town that this was another plot of the false brood of Valois and Medici, and for a day Alençon’s own life was in danger. But for the courage and presence of mind of Orange himself in his own apparently mortal strait every Frenchman in Flanders would probably have been massacred, and Alençon amongst them. The moment the Queen of England heard the news all the ports were closed, and one of her Gentlemen of the Chamber was instructed to hasten to Antwerp and tell Alençon to leave the States instantly. When Walsingham learnt this he solemnly warned his mistress to take care what she did. If Alençon came again she must marry him or bring all Catholic Christendom against her. She therefore, but very unwillingly,