When at a subsequent stage the Queen found fault with some of Walsingham’s proceedings, he wrote to her, recapitulating her private instructions to him on his mission, and we are therefore in possession of her real intentions at the time.[136] He says: “The principal cause why I was sent over was to procure a straiter degree of amity between the King and you without marriage, and yet to carry myself in the procuring thereof, as might not altogether break off the marriage.”
CHAPTER XII.
Walsingham’s mission to France—His alarm of the consequences of the Queen’s fickleness—Alençon enters Flanders—Relief of Cambrai—Alençon entreats Elizabeth’s aid—Walsingham’s remonstrance to the Queen for her penuriousness—Alençon again visits England—Elizabeth’s severity to the Catholics during his stay—Leicester’s continued intrigues—The Queen’s solemn pledge to marry Alençon—Dismay of Leicester and his friends—The Queen’s recantation—Arrival of Secretary Pinart—Elizabeth’s plan to evade the marriage—Her correspondence with Simier—He arrives in England again—Elizabeth’s efforts to get rid of Alençon—He refuses to leave unless she marries him—Simier’s advice to the Queen.
When Walsingham landed at Boulogne he found a message from Alençon at Chateau-Thierry asking him to meet him and his mother at La Fère before going to see the King. This he did, where he was met by the Duke with complaints and reproaches at the indefinite postponement of the marriage by the Queen until a national alliance had been effected. He told Walsingham that he could never get the King to consent to an alliance unless the marriage took place first, as the King feared that when they had pledged him too far for him to draw back the Queen would slip out of it and leave France alone face to face with Spain. The efforts of Catharine and her adviser, Turenne, were directed to obtaining at least a money subsidy to Alençon first, which would have pledged Elizabeth to some extent; but Walsingham was too discreet to be drawn, and tried to get an arrangement which should embark France in the business before England was compromised. Catharine said she was well aware of the need for concerted action, but she was afraid, as Elizabeth had apparently thrown over the marriage for fear of offending her subjects, she might afterwards throw over the alliance for the same reason.
It is easy to see that both sides were finessing with the same object, namely, to throw upon the other the burden and onus of curbing the power of Spain, which they both feared; and when Catharine saw she could make nothing of Walsingham or his mistress, she played her trump card, with which she had come to La Fère fully prepared. She promised Alençon that if he would abandon his attempt, the Prince of Parma would retire from Cambrai, Alençon should marry the infanta, gain the support and friendship of Spain, obtain a larger dotation from his brother, and receive the investure of the sovereign states of Saluzzo and Provence. But Alençon could not trust Spain and the Guises, and refused the tempting bait. Cecil and Elizabeth mistrusted the presence of Catharine near her son, and fearing that he might at last cede to her influence, had sent a considerable sum of money by Walsingham, according to Mendoza, to help Alençon to make masked war upon Spain, without pledging England or drawing the Queen into war through the marriage. Alençon was angry at this suggestion, and said that he would take no such answer, which was quite at variance with the Queen’s own words. He threatened and stormed until Walsingham almost lost his temper, and Sir James Crofts told Mendoza that when the Queen received the news of this “she wept like a child, saying that she did not know what to do, or into what trouble Leicester had drawn her.” Walsingham also reported that the King of France was extremely offended that after so grand an embassy had been sent to England only Walsingham should be sent in return, “and that if he could manage to have him put out of the way he would attempt it.” Lord Henry Howard was at once sent off with a loving message to Alençon to mollify him, and urgent new instructions were despatched to Walsingham in Paris to bring the marriage forward again on any terms. But no sooner were Walsingham, Cobham, and the French ministers in conference to settle the terms of an alliance which was to accompany a marriage, than Alençon sent, by de Vray, peremptorily refusing to have anything to do with an alliance. It must, he said, be a marriage pure and simple first, and after that they could make what leagues they pleased, but he was sure that if the endless negotiations for an alliance had to be settled first he should never be married at all. All things were therefore again brought to a standstill, and Walsingham and Cobham wrote a most serious, almost vehement, memorandum to the Queen warning her of the danger of her fickle course.[137] They entreated her to make up her mind one way or the other. The French will think they are being played with and will be greatly exasperated. France, Spain, and Scotland will all be against us, and then God alone can help us. Surely they say the only question is one of expense, and it is “very hard that treasure should be preferred before safety. I beseech your Majesty that without offence I may tell you that your loathness to spend even when it concerns your safety is publicly delivered out here.... For the love of God, madame, look into your own estate, and think that there can grow no peril so great unto you as to have a war break out in your own realm, considering what a number of evil subjects you have; and you cannot redeem this peril at too high a price.” In another letter to Cecil, Walsingham complains bitterly of the task that is set for him. I would rather, he says, be shut up in the Tower than be an English ambassador abroad. These constant variations discredit us and shock the King.
Suddenly, towards the middle of August, 1581, Alençon crossed the frontier into Spanish Flanders with a fine army of 12,000 infantry and 5,000 Cavalry, in which were enrolled half the young nobility of France as volunteers, notwithstanding the King’s anathemas. Parma at once raised the siege of Cambrai and stood on the defensive, and the whole position was changed in a moment. The King of France felt, or at least expressed, the utmost alarm at his brother’s action, lest he should be drawn into the quarrel. Elizabeth, on the other hand, was no less apprehensive that the King, the Guises, and the Catholics might be after all behind the movement. She, however, was soon tranquillised on this score, and wrote a loving letter of congratulation.[138] No sooner was Alençon in Cambrai than he found himself without money. If the States will not aid me, he wrote to the Prince of Orange, I can go no further. But the attempt had been made without the open patronage of the Queen of England, and the Protestant States would do nothing. De Bex was sent off post-haste by Alençon to take her the news, and to beg for 300,000 crowns, “as he had spent all his own money in the relief, and neither the States nor his brother would give him a penny. If she did not provide him with money he should be obliged to return with his army to France without going any further.”[139]