The key to Burghley’s milder attitude towards the Catholics—apart from the disappearance of Mary Stuart’s party in Scotland—was the position of affairs in France. The talk of Elizabeth’s marriage with Alençon had continued uninterruptedly, drawn out with a thousand banalities as to the possibility of secret meetings between the lovers, the depth and number of pock holes on the suitor’s face, his personal qualities, his religious elasticity, and the like. His brother, Charles IX., was only twenty-four, but it was known that he could not live long; the heir, Anjou, now King of Poland, was a furious and fanatical Catholic. With the knowledge of Elizabeth and her minister, all France was enveloped in a vast conspiracy, in which the Montmorencis and the “politicians” were making common cause with the Huguenots, of which combination Alençon was the figurehead. But Catharine de Medici was fully aware of the fact, and was determined to frustrate it. With Anjou for King she might still be supreme in France; whereas the rise of Alençon, under the tutelage of the Huguenots and the Queen of England, would have meant extinction for her. Several times before Charles died, Alençon and the Princes of Navarre and Condé had tried to escape to England, but Catharine held them tight, and never left them. Montgomerie was waiting for the signal, with a strong fleet in the Channel, to swoop down upon Normandy, and all the Protestants and anti-Guisans in France were under arms. The mine was to burst in April, the Princes were to be rescued forcibly from Catharine, and St. Bartholomew was to be avenged. But the Queen-mother was on the alert. Just before the day fixed she hurried away from St. Germains to Catholic Paris, clapped Alençon and Navarre, Montmorenci, De Cossé, and all the chiefs into prison, and then crushed the Protestant armies piecemeal, for they were leaderless and far apart. When, therefore, Charles IX. died (30th May 1574), Catharine was mistress of the situation, and held France in her hand until the new King, Henry III., arrived, to take possession of the throne. With such a sovereign as this in France, led by Catharine, who had her grudge to satisfy against Elizabeth for the encouragement she had given to the Princes, it was natural that Burghley should again smile somewhat upon the Catholics, and say civil words to Spain; especially as panic-stricken rumours came—though they were untrue—that Philip was fitting out a great navy to send with a powerful force to Flanders.[382] Catholic Flanders, moreover, had mostly been brought back to Spanish allegiance by the mildness of Requesens; and Elizabeth was growing less willing to continue to provide large sums of money to uphold Orange in what now appeared to be a well-nigh desperate cause, if it had to be supported entirely from England. So when Requesens’ envoys came to see her about the regulation of trade, and the exclusion of the privateers from her