Murray), were directed towards preventing Mary from marrying a powerful foreign prince, particularly a Catholic, and as a means to this end the Huguenots in France were encouraged to break down the power of the Guises. Catharine de Medici, the regent, was glad of the chance, for she hated them; and now that their niece was no longer Queen of France there was no excuse for their predominance. The best way for the English to please the Huguenots was to flout Spain and the Catholics, and the Bishop soon found that frowns instead of smiles greeted him. Elizabeth had been informed that an intrigue was afoot to marry Mary to Don Carlos, the vicious young lunatic who was Philip’s only son. This would have meant the ruin of Protestant England and the strengthening of the Guises in France, to the detriment of Catharine de Medici. The plan of the latter, supported by James Stuart, was to hasten on a marriage between Mary and Darnley. Elizabeth did not relish the idea of the union of the two next legal heirs to her own crown, but pretended to approve of it,[30] and Dudley promised Lethington to support it strongly, in the hope that such a precedent might bring his own marriage nearer. The Spanish ambassador was openly slighted, his couriers stopped, his letters read, his secretary suborned, and he himself placed under semi-arrest, charged with plotting against the Queen. Among other things he was accused of writing to Philip, in a letter that had been intercepted, that the Queen had been privately married to Lord Robert in the Earl of Pembroke’s house. To this he answered that he had merely written what all London was saying, namely, that the wedding had taken place. “When he had said as much to the Queen herself she was not annoyed thereat, for she had replied that it was not only people outside who thought so, as on her return that afternoon from the Earl’s house her own ladies-in-waiting, when she entered the chamber with Lord Robert, had asked her whether they were to kiss his hand as well as her own, to which she had replied no, and that they were not to believe what people said.” The Bishop inserted a sting at the end of his justification by saying that, considering the way people were talking, he did not think he would injure the Queen by saying she was married. Elizabeth’s next step was to send powerful aid to the Huguenots in France, who were already in arms, to draw closer the connection with the Protestants in Germany and Holland, and for the first time openly to disregard Spain and the Catholic party in Europe. With a divided France and a discontented Netherlands this was possible as it never had been before. In the midst of the warlike preparations in England to occupy Havre for the Huguenots, Elizabeth fell ill of small-pox at Hampton Court, and was thought to be on her death-bed. The consternation in the palace was great, as the crisis was unexpected; but whilst the acrimonious discussions as to the succession