ly be
supposed to recommend him to a woman who had appeared not altogether
insensible to these endowments. The queen immediately founded on this
offer the project of deceiving the court of France; and being intent
on that artifice, she laid herself the more open to be deceived.
Negotiations were entered into with regard to the marriage; terms of the
contract were proposed; difficulties started and removed; and the
two courts, equally insincere, though not equally culpable, seemed
to approach every day nearer to each other in their demands and
concessions. The great obstacle seemed to lie in adjusting the
difference of religion; because Elizabeth, who recommended toleration to
Charles, was determined not to grant it in her own dominions, not even
to her husband; and the duke of Anjou seemed unwilling to submit, for
the sake of interest, to the dishonor of an apostasy.[*]

* Camden, p. 433. Davila, lib. v. Digger's Complete
Ambassador p. 84, 110, 111

The artificial politics of Elizabeth never triumphed so much in any
contrivances as in those which were conjoined with her coquetry; and
as her character in this particular was generally known, the court of
France thought that they might, without danger of forming any final
conclusion, venture the further in their concessions and offers to
her. The queen also had other motives for dissimulation. Besides
the advantage of discouraging Mary's partisans by the prospect of an
alliance between France and England, her situation with Philip
demanded her utmost vigilance and attention; and the violent authority
established in the Low Countries made her desirous of fortifying herself
even with the bare appearance of a new confederacy.

The theological controversies which had long agitated Europe, had from
the beginning penetrated into the Low Countries; and as these provinces
maintained an extensive commerce, they had early received, from
every kingdom with which they corresponded, a tincture of religious
innovation. An opinion at that time prevailed, which had been zealously
propagated by priests, and implicitly received by sovereigns, that
heresy was closely connected with rebellion, and that every great or
violent alteration in the church involved a like revolution in the civil
government. The forward zeal of the reformers would seldom allow them
to wait the consent of the magistrate to their innovations: they became
less dutiful when opposed and punished; and though t