. The English nobles, in good
faith, urged the archduke's suit, and said that Dudley was plotting to
kill his wife and marry the queen; but they and the Spanish ambassador
were outwitted at every point by Elizabeth's diplomacy, and through 1559
and 1560 all the rivals were kept between hope and fear.

Then, in September 1560, the long-predicted murder of Amy Robsart set
Dudley free, and made the nobles and Cecil more anxious than ever that
the archduke should be bold, take the risk, and come to England. The
queen, to weaken the new friendship between France and Spain, herself
again pretended eagerness for the Austrian's coming; but the trick was
stale now, and neither Philip nor the emperor believed her. To checkmate
Dudley the Protestants were actively urging the suit of Eric of Sweden,
when, in January 1561, the former made a bold bid for Spanish support.
He was, he said, quite innocent of his wife's death, and he promised
Quadra that if the King of Spain would urge his (Dudley's) suit upon the
queen, England should send envoys to the Council of Trent, receive a
papal legate, and become practically Catholic. He might promise, but
such a thing was impossible, and Cecil, when he learnt of the intrigue,
promptly embroiled matters and spoilt the plan.

Elizabeth, too, saw whither she was drifting, and by pretended levity
turned it into a joke. At one time she invited the old Spanish bishop to
marry her to Dudley, and next day said she would never marry at all. But
she never ceased to flirt with Dudley, who, when his intrigue with Spain
fell through, cynically appealed to the French Protestants for support.
They were in no position to help him, and by January 1562, he was
cringing to Spain, and pretending to be Catholic. But English Catholics
hated him, and he was now no fit instrument for Philip.

In her own court it was firmly believed that Elizabeth was secretly
married to Dudley--it was high time, said the gossips; but in truth the
international importance of her marriage was now (1562-63) partially
obscured by that of the widowed Mary Queen of Scots. Before the latter
were dangled Eric of Sweden, the Archduke Charles, the Earl of Arran,
and Darnley; but the match which Mary most wished for, and the most
threatening to Elizabeth, was that with the vicious young lunatic, Don
Carlos, the heir of Philip of Spain. The match with Darnley, too, as he
was in the English succession, was distasteful to Elizabeth; but in
order