was perpetually playing at
proposals for her own marriage with one or other of the French King's
brothers, to keep the French court from a _rapprochement_ with Spain.
Suspicions of Norfolk's intentions led to his arrest, and this
precipitated the rising in favour of Mary under the Catholic northern
earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland; an insurrection promptly and
cruelly crushed. In the spring of 1570 the Pope issued a bull of
deposition; and the plots on behalf of Mary as Catholic claimant to the
throne thickened.

In 1571 it appeared that Elizabeth was set on the marriage with Henry of
Anjou, nineteen years her junior, the brother who stood next in
succession to the throne of Charles IX. of France--a marriage not at all
approved by her council, and very little to Henry's own taste. It was at
this time that the conduct of negotiations in Paris was entrusted to
Francis Walsingham.

The relations between the queen and the Commons were exemplified by her
attempt to exclude an obnoxious member, Strickland, met by the
successful assertion of their privileges on the part of the House.

In this year the plot known as Ridolfi's was discovered, and it is to be
noted that Elizabeth herself ordered the rack to be used to extort
information. The result was condemnation of Norfolk to the block. The
recalcitrance of Henry of Anjou led to his definitely withdrawing from
his courtship, while the young Alencon became the new subject of
matrimonial negotiation.

Elizabeth played with the new proposal, as usual, relying always on her
ability to back out of the negotiations, as in previous cases, by
demanding of her suitor a more uncompromising acceptance of
Protestantism than could be admitted. The whole affair, however, was
apparently brought to a check by the massacre of St. Bartholomew, with
the perpetration of which it seemed impossible for the most powerful of
Protestant monarchs to associate herself.

Cecil--now Lord Burleigh--would have used the occasion for the
destruction of Mary Stuart; but the device for doing so irreproachably
by handing her over to her own rebels, was frustrated--though Elizabeth
concurred--by the refusal of the Scots lords to play the part which was
assigned to them. The Alencon affair was soon in full swing again, the
young prince writing love-letters to the lady whom he had not seen.

_III.--The Hour of Mary's Doom_

Elizabeth's fondness for pageantry--partly out of a personal delight in