Things went smoothly for the first few weeks, although the French, warned by past experience, were determined not to be drawn too far unless Elizabeth showed signs of sincerity. But soon the Guises and the nobles of the league took fright, and the Pope’s Nuncio personally exhorted Anjou not to be driven into such a match with a heretic woman who was too old to hope for issue by him. He told him that “England, which he was well assured was the mark he chiefly shot at, might be achieved, and that right easily too, by the sword, to his great honour, and less inconvenience than by making so unfit a match.”[57] Walsingham, on the other hand, was not very active in pushing the suit. He evidently disbelieved in the Queen’s sincerity, and he was probably right in doing so, notwithstanding her professions to him of her desire for the match. Whatever may have been in the Queen’s own mind, the Walsingham Correspondence proves beyond question that the marriage was looked upon by Cecil as necessary at the time, and it would seem as if even Leicester and Walsingham were reluctantly drawn to the same opinion. Matters were indeed in a critical condition for England. The Ridolfi plot was brewing, the English Catholic nobles in a ferment, and the Pope, Philip, the league, and the Guises, ready to turn their whole power to the destruction of Elizabeth. Scotland was in revolt against the English faction, Alba was reported to be preparing for the invasion of England, and Thomas Stukeley was planning with Philip and the Pope his descent upon Ireland. It was a desperate, forlorn hope to think that the painted puppet in the hands of the Catholic party in France would change his religion for the sake of marrying Elizabeth, but for the moment there seemed no other chance of salvation for Protestant England. The Duke himself spoke slightingly of the Queen and the match. The Guises and the Spanish ambassador, says Walsingham, “do not stick to use dishonourable arguments to dissuade him from the same. They urge rather the conquest of England.” Cecil, on the 3rd of March, told Walsingham from the Queen that if he were approached on the subject he was to say that the Queen was convinced of the necessity of marriage for the welfare of her realm, and would only marry a prince. And then in a private note Cecil adds: “If God should order this marriage or any other to take place no time shall be wasted otherwise than honour should require. I am not able to discern what is best, but surely I see no continuance of her quietness without a marriage.” Leicester, even, seems to have believed in the match taking place. He says he was so anxious for a personal description of the Duke because he finds that matter is likely to come into question, “and I do perceive her Majesty more bent upon marrying than heretofore she has been. God make her fortunate therein.” Walsingham, in a letter to Leicester (March 9th) in reply, says the opinion is that “unless Anjou marries the Queen it