Spanish ambassador told him to leave the matter to him, and adds in his letter to Philip: “I thought well to approach the matter and have the road thus prepared before the Emperor’s envoy arrived, so that if he does not tell me what he is arranging I can still find out and proceed in the business.”[43] It appeared that for once Leicester and Throgmorton had been co-operating with Cecil and others to bring the Archduke forward again, the Earl having taken up this new position no doubt as soon as he thought the French match was looking serious; but, withal, Guzman did not believe in the sincerity of the new Austrian negotiations, which he looked upon as a “mere diversion,” and, after his conversation with Leicester, wrote: “Lord Robert is more confident now and said ... he could not contemplate the Queen’s marriage with any one but himself without great repugnance.” It is probable that at this time the Queen seriously leant again towards a marriage with Leicester. The proposals for a match with the French king were never anything but a feint, with the objects which have been mentioned, and the new negotiations with the Archduke were undertaken, not only to disarm Spain at the Bayonne meetings, but also to clear the ground and deceive Cecil, Sussex, and Norfolk, by an apparently sincere attempt to bring about the marriage, which could subsequently be wrecked on some religious scruple. The general desire for the Queen’s marriage might then be pleaded, even to Leicester’s enemies, as a reason why the Queen should marry him, the only remaining possible suitor. For the first time in her reign the Queen now might do it, as she had nothing to fear from “her dear sister” Mary of Scotland. There is ample reason to believe that this was the key to the present attitude of the Queen and Leicester; and Guzman makes no secret of his opinion that it was so. In the meanwhile Cecil was proceeding in good faith with Swetkowitz; and de Foix was still pressing the Queen daily for some decision respecting Charles IX., to whom she grew colder and colder. Swetkowitz was being beguiled, as others had been, with dinners and masques at Greenwich, and was made much of by the Queen; but when, after many fruitless attempts, de Foix got to close quarters with her, she assured him that she had held out no hopes to the Archduke, and then turned the tables upon him and complained that Charles IX. was seeking a bride elsewhere before he had received her answer. But at last the comedy could be carried on no longer, and the Queen referred de Foix to her Council for his reply. The interview took place on June 12, 1565, and although the principal difficulty raised was again the King’s youth, yet de Foix saw now plainly that the affair was at an end. He and the other honest instruments had been deceived from the first. It suited Catharine and Elizabeth equally to play the game for their own ends, and when the need for it had disappeared it was dropped.