Events were irresistibly nearing a crisis which made it necessary for Elizabeth to take an open course on one side or the other; and Lord Burghley had again been overborne by the zealous Protestants in the Council until a breach with Spain had become unavoidable sooner or later. Walsingham had never lost touch of Mary Stuart’s proceedings,[489] or of her French cousin’s various plans for the murder of Elizabeth, and the invasion of England. Guise had submitted to Philip in 1583 a regular proposal for the Queen’s assassination, and in the autumn had sent his pensioner Charles Paget (Mopo) to England to negotiate for the rising of the English Catholics. One of the results of this was that young Francis Throgmorton, a correspondent of Mary Stuart, and one of her intermediaries with Mendoza, was arrested with others and charged with a plot to assassinate the Queen. How far this accusation was true it is at this moment difficult to say, but there is no doubt that the Throgmortons, with the Earl of Northumberland, who was imprisoned, Lord Paget, who fled, and many other Catholics, were in league with Charles Paget for a rising, in conjunction with Guise. It is to be noted that Lord Burghley took no part in the prosecution of Throgmorton, which was mainly forwarded by Leicester, who was always suspected of having poisoned Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, the uncle of the accused man. The apprehension of the conspirators and the consequent expulsion of Mendoza (January 1584) certainly served the purposes of the strong Protestant majority led by Leicester[490] and Walsingham in the Council, and aided them in forcing the hands of the Queen and Burghley. The death of Alençon in June, and the murder of Orange by an agent of the Spaniards in July, still further acted in the same direction. It was no longer possible for England to hold a non-committal position. Either Spain must be permitted to crush Protestantism in the Netherlands, or the head of the Protestant confederacy must cast aside the mask and boldly fight the Catholic powers. There were reasons why this course might now be taken with much more safety than previously. The Queen-mother of France was frantic with rage against Spain for the loss of her favourite son. The King was childless, and the Guises were already plotting to grasp the crown, or partition France on Henry’s death, rather than he should be succeeded by the Huguenot Henry of Navarre. Elizabeth had therefore the certainty, for the first time since her accession, that France nationally would not coalesce with Spain against her, and that any attempt of Guise to injure her would be counteracted by Catharine, Navarre and the Huguenots.