Feria was in a quandary, for he knew how impossible it was, seeing Elizabeth’s temper, to deal with her in this way. After two or three inconclusive interviews with the Queen, in which the question of the religious changes was pressed and the marriage broadly hinted at, Feria came to close quarters with her. She began with her usual professions of disinclination to marry at all, and was proceeding, as he feared, to decline her brother-in-law’s proposal, when the ambassador stopped her and said he did not want an answer then. After some coquettish verbal fencing she promised him that she would give him a good answer if she gave him one at all. And then came the serious part of the business. Howard had written to her that Alba had said that they (the Spaniards) could not stand out for Calais any longer, but must make peace in any case.[141] Elizabeth worked herself up into a rage about this, and began to storm about Mary of Scotland’s claims upon England. She was not so poor that she could not get what money and soldiers she needed to hold her own, she said. Her people were all grumbling, she declared, at the waste of money upon the fleet for Philip’s service and other heavy expenditure the late Queen had incurred for him; and Feria had much ado to enforce his view that England owed a deep debt of gratitude to Philip, and the unreasonableness of expecting that he would keep at war with France for the sake of a single town like Calais. He was afraid even to speak about the religious point for fear of exacerbating their relations: “Yet, although I plainly see her going to perdition, it seems to me that if the marriage can be carried through, the rest will soon be arranged in accordance with the glory of God and the wishes of your Majesty. If the marriage do not take place, all I could say to the Queen about religion would be of little avail, as she is so badly advised by the heretics who surround her, and it might even prejudice the principal matter” (_i.e._, the marriage). Events thereafter moved apace. To the Queen’s indignation she was forced to consent to a peace with France, postponing the restitution of Calais for eight years, to be followed by a peace with Scotland. The Act of Supremacy and the Act of Uniformity were passed; and every day, notwithstanding Elizabeth’s diplomatic professions of attachment to Spain and its King, the hold of the latter over England became less powerful. Philip had to make up his mind rapidly after the religious changes in the English Parliament had been made. It was clear to him then that Elizabeth would be no fit instrument to his ends. Feria was telling him hotly that “the only way to deal with these heretics is sword in hand,” and Alba, in Flanders, was for coercing Elizabeth before she grew strong enough to resist Spain and the English Catholics combined.