A few weeks afterwards Mendoza made another attempt to see the Queen, who was then in the country. She said that as Philip had not written any excuse about the Spanish expedition to Ireland, she did not see her way to receive the Ambassador. If he had anything to say he might tell it to two Councillors. Burghley was known to be the most favourable of them, and had expressed to Mendoza his ignorance that the audience had been refused. “He did not think it wise to refuse me; and as he is the most important of the ministers I thought best to inform him of the reply I had received, and to say I should like to see him.” Burghley was ill of gout at Theobalds at the time, but shortly afterwards he came to town and asked Mendoza to see him at Leicester House, “his gout preventing him from coming further.” Mendoza found him with Leicester together, and in reply to the stereotyped complaints of the Ambassador about Drake’s plunder, the aid to the Portuguese, and the refusal of audience, the Treasurer firmly told him that the Queen thought he had been remiss in not obtaining a letter from the King disclaiming the Irish expedition. This Mendoza haughtily refused to do, and the conference ended unsatisfactorily.[454] It is evident that at this period (August 1581) Burghley was in despair of keeping on friendly relations with Spain. The Queen and Leicester had determined to subsidise Alençon in Flanders, and to countenance Don Antonio’s attempts on Portugal. This coming after the retention of Drake’s plunder, and refusal of audience to the Ambassador, seemed to make the continuance of peace between the two countries impossible, and Burghley was once more obliged to turn to the necessary, but to him distasteful, alternative—a close union with France.