would secure to
England the support of France against Spain was the best. But that she
sought excuses for not taking the Duke of Anjou is evident, even though
she strove to make it appear to others, as well as to herself, that the
refusal came at last from him.[864] And she had her advisers--subjects who
in secret aspired to her hand, or others--who, in an underhand way,
stimulated her aversion to Henry. It is not unlikely that the Earl of
Leicester, despite his ardent protestations of zealous support of the
match, was the most insidious of its opponents. "While 'the poor
Huguenots' were telling Walsingham in tears that an affront from England
would bring back the Guises, and end in a massacre of themselves,
Leicester was working privately upon the queen, who was but too willing to
listen to him, feeding her through the ladies of the bedchamber with
stories that Anjou was infected with a loathsome disease, and assisting
his Penelope to unravel at night the web which she had woven under Cecil's
direction in the day."[865]

[Sidenote: The praise of Alencon.]

So the negotiation of a marriage between Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of
Anjou, after being virtually dead for about a half-year, breathed its last
in January, 1572. But the full accord between the two kingdoms was too
important to the interests of both, and the opportunity of obtaining a
crown for one of her sons too precious in the eye of Catharine.
Accordingly the discussion of the terms of the treaty of amity was pressed
with still greater zeal, while the French envoy to England was instructed
to offer Alencon to Elizabeth in place of his brother. And now were the
wits of the statesmen on both sides of the channel exercised to find good
reasons why the match would be no incongruous one. Unfortunately, Alencon,
as already stated, was short even for his age; but this was no insuperable
obstacle. "Nay," said Catharine de' Medici to Sir Thomas Smith, when she
was sounding him respecting his mistress's disposition, "he is not so
little; he is so high as you, or very near." "For that matter, madam,"
replied Smith, "I for my part make small account, if the queen's majestie
can fancie him. For _Pipinus Brevis_, who married _Bertha_, the King of
Almain's daughter, was so little to her, that he is standing in
Aquisgrave, or Moguerre, a church in Almain, she taking him by the hand,
and his head not reaching to her girdle; and yet he had by her Charlemain,
the great Empero