Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/391

 THE SPANISH TREATY. middle and moderate party, who had no love for the Pope, hated the Guises and Spain, regarded the Eng- lish alliance as a guarantee for the quiet of France, and looked on a marriage between Alencon and the Queen as the sure means of making the alliance permanent. The position of heirs-presumptive was always un- easy, and Ale^on's, when his brother came to the throne, was no exception. ' Monsieur/ as he was now called, was detained at Court with Henry of Navarre, both of them essentially prisoners. The King was jea- lous of him, and the Guises, who aspired to supersede the house of Yalois, inflamed the- ill feeling. But for his mother, it was thought that means would have been found to rid Alencon out of the world. 1 The peace had after all given little respite to the Huguenots, the Catho- lic nobles, in their different governments, respecting the promises made to them no further than suited their own pleasure. Alen9on was suspected of intending to take up their cause, and the King concluded, after much hesitation, that it would be well, both for himself and France, if Elizabeth would take him for a husband. The princes and princesses of the sixteenth century hung suspended between a prison and a throne. The matri- 1 ' There have been many prac- tices against Monsieur by the Guises, whereby the King has been in many passions against his brother, and has been sometimes advised to use all severity against him ; and if it had not been for the help of the Qneen- mother it hath been thought it had been hard with Monsieur before this time, for the Queen-mother has always been a stay to him, both as a mother and also as a stay for herself against the Guises.' Valentine Dale to Sir T. Smith, from Paris, Sep- tember 3, 1575. : 'MS 8. France.