ended--did not meet with her approval, and the envoy then went to Bishop Quadra and told him he knew of a certain way of bringing about the marriage with the Archduke. His plan was that the Emperor should prevail upon the King of France to give up Calais to England. This was merely a feeler and absurd, as Francis II. had nothing to gain by the Austrian match, but the Bishop maliciously told the Queen the joke, as he called it, whereupon she was very angry that her claim for Calais should be treated so lightly. She then told him that she saw now she must marry without delay, “although with the worst will in the world,” and tried again to lead him to believe that she was anxious to marry the Archduke, “but I fear,” said he, “that it is with the hope of gaining your Majesty’s favour in her cause, as she calls it, with the French.... Religious matters make me believe that in case she determines to marry, she will rather lay hands on any of these heretics than on the Archduke. I understand now that the Earl of Arran is excluded as being poor and of small advantage, and also because he is not considered personally agreeable. They all favour the Prince of Sweden as he is both heretical and rich, and especially Secretary Cecil, who would expect to remain at the head of affairs as at present.” Shortly afterwards, in September, 1560, Cecil took the Bishop aside and complained bitterly of Dudley, who he said was trying to turn him out of his place; and then, after exacting many pledges of secrecy, said that the Queen was conducting herself in such a way that he, Cecil, thought of retiring, as he clearly foresaw the ruin of the realm through the Queen’s intimacy with Dudley, whom she meant to marry. He begged the Bishop to remonstrate with the Queen, and ended by saying that Dudley was thinking of killing his wife, “who was said to be ill although she was quite well.”[26] “The next day,” writes the Bishop, “as she was returning from hunting, the Queen told me that Robert’s wife was dead, or nearly so, and asked me not to say anything about it. Certainly this business is most shameful and scandalous; and, withal, I am not sure whether she will marry the man at once or even at all, as I do not think she has her mind sufficiently fixed. Cecil says she wishes to do as her father did.” In a postscript of the same letter the writer gives the news of poor Amy Robsart’s death. “She broke her neck-- she must have fallen down a staircase, said the Queen.” Thenceforward Dudley was free, and the marriage negotiations had another factor to be taken into account.