Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/126

 106 REIGN OF ELIZABETH, [CH. 5?. Morgan, one of the Privateer captains, went over with 500 volunteers on the instant of the news of the revolt. A few weeks after, Sir Humfrey Gilbert fol- lowed with a second detachment,* having gone with the sanction of Cecil certainly, and almost with the sanction of the Queen almost, but not entirely. The French King nattered himself that war must follow ; but it had not come, and so long as doubt remained he continued to press the other point. Alencon was under twenty, stinted in size, pitted with the small-pox, and in all ways not beautiful. His person however was never supposed to be his recom- mendation. The Queen said reasonably, that in a mat- ter of public importance this objection was of no consequence. She could not resolve at once, but she promised to give an answer in a month. 1 As usual, the days passed on and brought no decision with them. All the council, unless Leicester was a secret exception, wished her to consent ; so much she knew, but the effect was only to make refusal difficult. One day ' she would not marry a boy with a pock- spoilt face.' The next, ' she was moved by the importunities of those who worked upon her mind.' On the 23rd of July, she told La Mothe Fenelon positively that it could not be ; on the 25th she bade Walsingham ask Alencon to come and see her, that 4 she might try if she could like him.' ' Surely/ wrote Burghley, on the 27th, 'her Majesty finds the marriage 1 La Mothe Fenelon, July I, July 3, July 5 : Ddpechcs.