time the French faction was not inactive. The
earl of Sussex, whose generally sound judgement seems to have been
warped in this instance by his habitual contrariety to Leicester, wrote
in August 1578 a long letter to the queen, in which, after stating the
arguments for and against the French match, he summed up pretty
decidedly in its favor. What was of more avail, Monsieur sent over to
plead his cause an agent named Simier, a person of great dexterity, who
well knew how to ingratiate himself by a thousand amusing arts; by a
sprightly style of conversation peculiarly suited to the taste of the
queen; and by that ingenious flattery, the talent of his nation, which
is seldom entirely thrown away even upon the sternest and most
impenetrable natures. Elizabeth could not summon resolution to dismiss
abruptly a suit which was so agreeably urged, and in February 1579 lord
Talbot sends the following information to his father: "Her majesty
continueth her very good usage of M. Simier and all his company, and he
hath conference with her three or four times a week, and she is the best
disposed and pleasantest when she talketh with him (as by her gestures
appeareth) that is possible." He adds, "The opinion of Monsieur's
coming still holdeth, and yet it is secretly bruited that he cannot take
up so much money as he would on such a sudden, and therefore will not
come so soon[83]."

[Note 83: "Illustrations," &c. vol. ii.]

The influence of Simier over the queen became on a sudden so potent,
that Leicester and his party reported, and perhaps believed, that he had
employed philters and other unlawful means to inspire her with love for
his master. Simier on his side amply retaliated these hostilities by
carrying to her majesty the first tidings of the secret marriage of her
favorite with the countess of Essex;--a fact which none of her courtiers
had found courage to communicate to her, though it must have been by
this time widely known, as sir Francis Knowles, the countess's father,
had insisted, for the sake of his daughter's reputation, that the
celebration of the nuptials should take place in presence of a
considerable number of witnesses.

The rage of the queen on this disclosure transported her beyond all the
bounds of justice, reason, and decorum. It has been already remarked
that she was habitually, or systematically, an open enemy to matrimony
in general; and the higher any persons stood in her good graces and the
more intima