responsibility in that direction. La Mole arrived in London on 27th July, and had a long midnight interview with Burghley at the French Embassy. He ostensibly only came from Alençon—not from the King—and when, a few days afterwards, he saw the Queen privately at Kenilworth, though he was full of fine lovelorn compliments from Alençon, he could only say from the King that the latter could not openly declare himself in the matter of Flanders. He suggested prudence, and fears of a league of Catholic powers against him. He talked about the strength of Portugal and Savoy, and generally cried off from his bargain. This was ill news for Elizabeth, for there were hundreds of Englishmen in arms in Holland, and brave Sir Humphrey Gilbert and his band were besieging Ter Goes. But the English Queen made the best of it, and sought to redress matters by pushing the Alençon match more warmly than ever, and petting and caressing La Mole, who accompanied her on her progress towards Windsor. Burghley and the experienced Smith seem to have been as firmly convinced as young La Mole himself, that the Queen was in earnest, and would really, at last, make up her mind to marry Alençon. In her conversations with La Mole and Fénélon she smoothed away all difficulties. Walsingham had made a great mistake, she said, in declaring that Alençon’s youth was an insuperable difficulty; and much more to the same effect. But it is curious that all this artless prattle, all this coy coquetry of the Queen, so spontaneous in appearance, had in substance been carefully previously drafted by Burghley, and the drafts are still at Hatfield. Whilst Charles IX. was hesitating and looking askance at the dominant Huguenots, the latter were assuring Burghley and Walsingham that all would be well directly. Henry of Navarre was to be married to the Princess Margaret, and this would give them a pretext for gathering so strong a force of their party that they could make the King do as they pleased.[357]