There was a good reason for this. Before even the treaty of alliance was signed, Burghley had deplored that Charles IX. and his mother were cooling in the agreement for France and England jointly to aid the Flemish rebels. The Pope and the Emperor were trying their hardest to withdraw Charles and his mother from the compromise into which he had entered with Elizabeth; and already the young King and Catharine de Medici were discovering that Coligny and the Huguenots, when they had the upper hand, could be as domineering and tyrannical as the Guises themselves. Paris was in seething discontent that the beloved Guises were in disgrace, and Charles found his throne tottering. To add to his fears from the Catholics, the Huguenot force that had entered Flanders under Genlis had been routed and destroyed by the Spaniards (19th July), and it was clear to Catharine and her son, that if they did not promptly cut themselves free from Elizabeth’s attack on Spanish interests, they would be dragged down when the Huguenots fell. The very day that the news of Genlis’ defeat arrived in Paris, a young noble named La Mole was sent flying to England, ostensibly to confer with the Queen on the Alençon match. There was no particular reason for roughly breaking off that, and so offending Elizabeth; but the sending of a mere schoolboy like La Mole with only vague instructions about the proposed joint action in Flanders would show that Charles IX. did not intend to take any further responsibility in that direction.
La Mole arrived in London on 27th July, and had a long midnight interview with Burghley at the French Embassy. He ostensibly only came from Alençon—not from the King—and when, a few days afterwards, he saw the Queen privately at Kenilworth, though he was full of fine lovelorn compliments from Alençon, he could only say from the King that the latter could not openly declare himself in the matter of Flanders. He suggested prudence, and fears of a league of Catholic powers against him. He talked about the strength of Portugal and Savoy, and generally cried off from his bargain. This was ill news for Elizabeth, for there were hundreds of Englishmen in arms in Holland, and brave Sir Humphrey Gilbert and his band were besieging Ter Goes. But the English Queen made the best of it, and sought to redress matters by pushing the Alençon match more warmly than ever, and petting and caressing La Mole, who accompanied her on her progress towards Windsor. Burghley and the experienced Smith seem to have been as firmly convinced as young La Mole himself, that the Queen was in earnest, and would really, at last, make up her mind to marry Alençon. In her conversations with La Mole and Fénélon she smoothed away all difficulties. Walsingham had made a great mistake, she said, in declaring that Alençon’s youth was an insuperable difficulty; and much more to the same effect. But it is curious that all this artless prattle, all this coy coquetry of the Queen, so spontaneous in appearance, had in substance been carefully previously drafted by Burghley, and the drafts are still at Hatfield. Whilst Charles IX. was hesitating and looking askance at the dominant Huguenots, the latter were assuring Burghley and Walsingham that all would be well directly. Henry of Navarre was to be married to the Princess Margaret, and this would give them a pretext for gathering so strong a force of their party that they could make the King do as they pleased.[357]