To satisfy the powerful combination which was determined to press the Archduke’s cause, it was decided that the Earl of Sussex should be sent with the Garter to the Emperor, with powers to discuss the terms of marriage; but Leicester and the French managed, by casting doubts and raising difficulties, to delay his departure. Norfolk was brought up to London to exert his influence, and for several months again the Court was a hot-bed of intrigue, in which Norfolk, Sussex, and the Conservative party, aided by Guzman, and cautiously supported by Cecil and Bacon, were pitted against Leicester and the French ambassador. From day to day the fickle Queen changed. First Sussex was to be hurried off at once, then he was to go after Shrovetide; then when he had prepared for his journey Elizabeth told him he would not leave so quickly as he thought. With Leicester, too, she was equally changeable, one day turning her back upon him, and the next begging the Spanish ambassador to be friendly with him. On one occasion in February, 1567, when the Council had progressed very far in the settlement of Sussex’s instructions, Leicester’s Puritan friends again brought up the matter of the succession in order to embroil matters and embarrass the Queen; but she put her foot down firmly then, and they dropped the subject in a fright. This having failed, they renewed their agitation for an inquiry into the conduct of Sussex as Viceroy of Ireland; but out of this honest Ratcliff emerged triumphant, to the sorrow of his enemies. At last Sussex got tired of the constant quarrelling, and begged for leave to go home, which was refused, and some sort of reconciliation was patched up between him and Leicester. In view of almost hourly changes in the Queen’s matrimonial attitude, and the certainty that the Leicester party would after all try to wreck the Archduke’s suit on the religious conditions, Sussex firmly refused to undertake the embassy to the Emperor, unless he had precise orders signed by the Queen as to the terms he might accept, “as he was determined not to deceive the Emperor.” At last, after infinite trouble, Sussex was despatched at the end of June, 1567, bearing full instructions to negotiate the marriage. He was to raise no great difficulty except on two points: first the question of the Archduke’s income, and secondly that of religion. He was to say that “the Queen will take care that he wants for nothing, but she does not wish her people to think she had married a man too poor to keep himself.” The Archduke might privately hear Mass in his own chamber, but must conform outwardly to the law of England and accompany the Queen to Protestant service publicly.