him the Garter for the young King.1 M. de Gonor and the Bishop of Coutances came to England; and an attempt, not very successful, was made to show them in their reception that England was better defended than they supposed. In January, when a French invasion was thought likely, Archbishop Parker had reported 'Dover, Walmer, and Deal as forsaken and unregarded for any provision;''the people feeble, unarmed, and commonly discomforted towards the feared mischief.' The Lord Warden had gone to his post 'as naked without strength of men.' The Archbishop, living at Bekesbourne with the ex-Bishop of Ely and another Catholic at free prison, felt uneasy for his charge; and not sharing Throgmorton's confidence and believing that if the French landed they would carry all before them, wrote to Cecil to warn him of the danger' which if not looked to he feared would be irreparable.'

If the enemy have an entry,' he said, 'as by great consideration of our weakness and their strength, of their vigilance and our dormitation and protraction, is like, the Queen's majesty shall never be able to leave to her successors that which she found delivered her by God's favourable hand.' 2

'The ceremony was nearly spoilt | send back in haste for one which had by an odd accident. The Garter, belonged to King Edward or King though Hunsdon said it cost her Philip. 'These things,' he said, Majesty dear, was a poor and shabby touch her Majesty's honour.'one. It had been made on the com- French MSS., May, 1564: Rolls mon pattern, as if for some burly House. English nobleman, and would not remain on the puny leg of Charles the Ninth. Hunsdon was obliged to

2 Parker to Cecil, January 20 and February 6, 1564: Lansdowne MSS.

June.

The peril had passed over; and for fear the French ambassadors might carry back too tempting a report of the defencelessness of the coast, Lord Abergavenny was directed as if to do them honour-to call under arms the gentlemen of the south-eastern counties. The result not being particularly successful, the Archbishop invited De Gonor and the Bishop of Coutances to Bekesbourne, and 'in a little vain brag, perhaps infirmity,' showed them his well-furnished armoury, hoping that his guests would infer that if a prelate had regard of such provisions others had more care thereabout.'

1

The thin disguise would have availed little had there been a real desire for the continuance of the war. In the unprotected shores, the open breezy downs, the scattered and weakly-armed population, they observed the facility of invasion, and remarked upon it plainly. But Catherine de Medici had no interest in Mary Stuart and no desire to injure Elizabeth. Mary Stuart's friends were rather at Madrid than at Paris; and the French ministers were more curious of the religious condition of England than of its military defences.

Their visit to Bekesbourne therefore gave occasion for the Archbishop and his visitors to compare ecclesiastical notes. The Bishop of Coutances expressed the unexpected pleasure which it had given him to find that there was so much reverence about the sacraments,' that music was still permitted in the quires,'

1 Parker to Cecil, June 3: Domestic MSS. Elizabeth, vol. xxxiii.

and that the lands of the suppressed abbeys had been bestowed for pious uses.' He wished that as happy a change could be worked in France; and marvelled that the deposed bishops should have been so stiff' in refusing to follow the Prince's religion;' he noted and delighted in English mediocrity; charging the Genevans and the Scots with going too far in extremities.' Archbishop told him that there were priests and bishops in England both married and unmarried;' 'he did not disallow thereof, and was contented to hear evil of the Pope.'

The

The ambassadors proceeded to London, leaving behind them an agreeable impression of themselves, and carrying with them a sunny memory of a pleasant English summer home, with its woods and gardens and cawing rooks and cheery social life; the French pages had been so well schooled in their behaviour that when they were gone the Archbishop was surprised to find 'he could not charge them with purloining the worth of one silver spoon.' On both sides of the Channel, in London and Paris, the peace once made there was the warmest endeavour to obliterate painful recollections; the moderate party was in power at the Court of Catherine, and with it the liberal anti-Spanish foreign policy; the interests of France and England were identical on the great political questions of the day; and Elizabeth was fortunate in having a treaty forced upon her which obliged Philip to look with less favour on the Queen of

1 Parker to Cecil, June 3: Domestic MSS., Elizabeth, vol. xxxiii.

Scots-which compelled the Spanish ministers to postpone their resentment against English piracies, and drove them rather to dread their own inability to retain their Low Countries than to seek opportunities for interference abroad.

The King of Spain had intended to send no more ambassadors to England till Mary Stuart was on the throne on the Peace of Troyes he changed his mind, and resumed or affected to resume his friendly relations with Elizabeth. Guzman de Silva received his commission as de Quadra's successor; and once more in the old language Luis de Paz, the Spanish agent in London, reported to Granvelle 'the affliction and discontent of the English Catholics, who had been encouraged to hope that their trials were at an end, who had rested their entire hopes on Philip, and now knew not where to turn.'i

Mary Stuart, as her hopes of the Prince of Spain grew fainter, was pausing over the answer which she should make to Elizabeth's last proposals. She had been in communication throughout the winter with the Netherlands, and was perhaps aware in some degree of the difficulties created by the Prince's character. She had decisively refused the Archduke of Austria whom Philip wished her to take in his son's stead; and although the Spanish Court, waiting probably for some

1 Los Catolicos del Reyno estan muy afligidos con gran descontento, viendo que todas las esperanças que tenian eran en su Magd., y que no

veen semblante ninguno para principio de remediar tanta desventura.' —Luis Romano to Granvelle, 1564: MS. Simancas.

favourable change in Don Carlos, had not yet determined that the marriage must be given up, the Queen of Scots knew enough to prevent her from feeling sanguine of obtaining him. It became necessary for her to consider whether she could make anything out of the English overtures.

Elizabeth's attitude towards her was in the main honourable and statesmanlike. The name of a successor, as she said herself, was like the tolling of her death-bell. In her sister's lifetime she had experienced how an heirpresumptive with an inalienable right became inevitably a rallying point of disaffection. She did not trust the Queen of Scots, and if she allowed her pretensions to be sanctioned by Act of Parliament she anticipated neglect, opposition—perhaps worse. But of assassination she could scarcely be in greater danger than she was already; and if she could induce Mary to meet her half way in some moderate policy, and if the Queen of Scots, instead of marrying a Catholic prince and allying herself with the revolutionary Ultramontanes, would accept an English nobleman of whose loyalty to herself she could feel assured, she was ready to sacrifice her personal unwillingness to what she believed to be the interest of her people. There could then be no danger that England would be sacrificed to the Papacy. Some tolerant creed could be established which Catholics might accept without offence to their consciences, and Protestants could live under without persecution; while the resolution of the two factions into neutrality, if not into friendship, the union of the crowns, and the confidence which would