The Queen could do no more than rail at Condé’s envoy, Briquemault, and call his master a lying scamp; pestilence and famine decimated the English garrison at Havre, closely beleaguered by the French; and in the autumn of 1563 the force had to be withdrawn without glory or material satisfaction. Before this happened, however, cautious Cecil was gradually working affairs into his own groove again. Dudley had continued to send amiable messages to the Spanish Ambassador, whilst promoting an agreement with the French Government, and had exercised his influence in favour of the release of Lennox from the Tower; the object being in both cases to curry favour with the Catholics, and so to diminish Cecil’s power. As usual the Secretary’s opposition was an indirect one. His spies had kept him informed of the old Spanish Bishop’s continued correspondence with Shan O’Neil; of his having received and encouraged foolish Arthur Pole in his treason, and having allowed English people, against the law, to attend the embassy mass; and he watched and waited for an opportunity to demonstrate to the Catholics the powerlessness of both the Bishop and his master. He had not to wait long. One evening at the beginning of January 1563, as the light was failing, a knot of idle hangers-on of the Bishop’s household were lounging at the great gate of Durham Place opening to the Strand. An Italian Protestant captain, in the service of the Vidame de Chartres, swaggered down the street on his way to Whitehall, and from the Bishop’s gateway a lad shot a harquebuss at him, and missed him. The captain whipped out his long rapier and pursued the would-be murderer to the outer courtyard. The Bishop’s servants closed the gates against the pursuers, and the assassin ran up shouting to the door of the chamber where the Ambassador was playing cards with the French Ambassador and a Guisan hostage, Nantouillet, Provost of Paris. A few hurried words of explanation at the door—for the Guisan had paid the boy to do the act—and the assassin was hurried down to the water gate, where a boat was in waiting, and he was allowed to escape, whilst his pursuers were thundering at the solid gates of the inner court.