accept the excuses proffered by the French
court, or to doubt the complicity of the Queen Dowager, who, it was well
known, governed all her sons. She had, to be sure, thought proper to read
the envoys of the states-general a lecture upon the impropriety of
subjects opposing the commands of their lawful Prince, but such artifices
were thought too transparent to deceive. Granvelle scouted the idea of
her being ignorant of Anjou's scheme, or opposed to its success. As for
William of Hesse, while he bewailed more than ever the luckless plunge
into "confusum chaos" which Casimir had taken, he unhesitatingly
expressed his conviction that the invasion of Alencon was a master-piece
of Catherine. The whole responsibility of the transaction he divided, in
truth, between the Dowager and the comet, which just then hung over the
world, filling the soul of the excellent Landgrave with dismal
apprehension.

The Queen of England was highly incensed by the actual occurrence of the
invasion which she had so long dreaded. She was loud in her denunciations
of the danger and dishonor which would be the result to the provinces of
this French alliance. She threatened not only to withdraw herself from
their cause, but even to take arms against a commonwealth which had dared
to accept Alencon for its master. She had originally agreed to furnish
one hundred thousand pounds by way of loan. This assistance had been
afterwards commuted into a levy of three thousand foot and-two thousand
horse, to be added to the forces of John Casimir, and to be placed under
his command. It had been stipulated; also, that the Palatine should have
the rank and pay of an English general-in-chief, and be considered as the
Queen's lieutenant. The money had been furnished and the troops enrolled.
So much had been already bestowed, and could not be recalled, but it was
not probable that, in her present humor, the Queen would be induced to
add to her favors.

The Prince, obliged by the necessity of the case, had prescribed the
terms and the title under which Alencon should be accepted. Upon the 13th
of August the Duke's envoy concluded a convention in twenty-three
articles; which were afterwards subscribed by the Duke himself, at Mons,
upon the twentieth of the same month. The substance of this arrangement
was that Alencon should lend his assistance to the provinces against the
intolerable tyranny of the Spaniards and the unjustifiable military
invasion of Don John. He