might cause a change of religion throughout Europe. Instructions at the same time were sent to La Mothe, who told Cecil that if the religious conditions were insisted upon the negotiation might be regarded as at an end. But this by no means suited the English Court. Cecil had been assured by the Huguenot partisans of the match that the French would give way on the crucial point of religion if Elizabeth stood firm; but when this appeared doubtful, Cecil himself moderated his tone, and a pretence of great cordiality and agreement between the French and English was carefully assumed in order to deceive the Spaniards. In this they were successful, and Spes writes to his king constantly that the match is practically settled and that Anjou was to turn Protestant. How necessary it was for Elizabeth to foster this belief at the time (May, 1571) is clear when we recollect that Bailly, the Bishop of Ross’ servant, had just confessed under the rack the heads of the Ridolfi plot. Step by step the clue was being followed up, and the vast conspiracy of Norfolk and the Catholic English nobles, with Mary of Scotland, Spain, the Pope, and the league, was being gradually divulged in all its ramifications. There was no room for doubt any longer. Spain and the Catholics were determined to crush Elizabeth, and henceforward it must be war to the knife between them. In such a struggle England, unaided, would have been at the mercy of the Catholic powers, and it was vital both for Elizabeth and Catharine de Medici that they should hold together for mutual support. It was necessary, therefore, that the negotiations should not be ostensibly dropped, and the Queen-mother requested that Elizabeth should submit her amended propositions. La Mothe had assured her that Elizabeth would yield on the point of religion if she only stood firm, and she, knowing the English Queen’s extremity, was evidently determined to extort conditions equally favourable with those formerly granted by Elizabeth in the case of the Archduke Charles. As a somewhat disingenuous device Leicester suggested that the article of religion should be omitted altogether from the draft treaty, and to this Catharine consented. But as a point of honour she insisted that Elizabeth should at once send her counter-propositions as promised, and Walsingham plaintively begs over and over again that she should avoid “jealousy” by sending them without delay.