L’Archant and Cavalcanti arrived in London towards the end of June, but Elizabeth had one of her diplomatic illnesses and they could not see her for a week. Their mission was only to thank her for the moderation of her proposals, and to request passports for the special ambassadors. The Queen evidently thought that matters were looking too much like business to please her. The sincerity of Cecil, and even of Walsingham, now, in their desire to bring about the match is undoubted; but it is equally certain that Elizabeth, as usual, wished to play off France against Spain, Protestant against Catholic, without burdening herself with a husband. So she once more harked back to the religious difficulty, and said it would be useless for the formal embassy to come until that point was settled. She was very amiable and gracious, coyly charmed at Anjou’s portrait, full of protestations of friendship and affection, but on the vital point of allowing her consort the exercise of his faith, even privately, she would not budge an inch. With her own hands she wrote letters by L’Archant to the King, his mother, and Anjou. She had given, as was her wont, she said, a very straightforward answer. She was most anxious to banish all suspicion, and hoped they would take her answer in good part. To Anjou she wrote one of her usual ambiguous love-letters, saying that, although her rank caused her to doubt whether her kingdom is not sought after more than herself, yet she understands that he has found other graces in her. She is sorry she cannot come up to the opinion which L’Archant tells her the Duke has formed of her; but whatever she may lack she will never fail in her fraternal amity towards him.[67] With this cold comfort L’Archant had to go back. The Spanish ambassador in England, detected in his complicity in the Ridolfi plots, was fuming impotently, almost a prisoner in his own house, and in daily fear of expulsion, but he managed to send a courier who passed L’Archant on the road, and arrived in Paris two days before him. The false news he spread, to the delight of the Guises, was that L’Archant had been treated off-handedly, and the match might now be considered at an end. Some one told this to young Charles IX., who burst out that if any one dared to oppose the match in his presence he should forthwith be hanged. L’Archant and Cavalcanti were back in Paris on the 16th of July, and by some mischance saw the Duke first, when the latter was offended at the Queen’s persistence in the matter of religion, and coldly sent the envoys to his mother. It did not suit Catharine to have the negotiations broken off, for she was now really alarmed at Philip’s open support of the Guises and the league in France, and she was determined at all risks to cripple the Catholic power for harm against her. With her full connivance Navarre and Huguenots were arming privateers by the score at Rochelle and elsewhere, to aid the revolted