Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/481

 1578.] THE ALENCON MARRIAGE. 461 troops, which Elizabeth had undertaken to pay, were breaking into mutiny. The Prince of Orange would wait no longer, and it was announced in England, that the French treaty was on the point of conclusion, and that Alencon would immediately take the field. The Queen, as we have seen, had herself privately sanc- tioned Alencon's movement, but about this too it- seemed that she had changed her mind. She bad< Burghley direct Walsingham to go immediately to him, and require him in her name to desist. The States, she said, must indemnify him by a sum of money for his trouble and expense, but go back he must. Burghley took the message from her dictation, but did not send it. The next day she in- quired angrily why it was not gone. He answered that ' to move Monsieur to depart without some other motion than bare words was unreasonable and dis- honourable/ She persisted, and he dared her dis- pleasure by speaking out a disagreeable truth. ( I told her Majesty with some weight/ he said, ' that the whole world would condemn her if the Low Countries should be joined to France, which by helping the States she might have stayed ; and yet in the end have pleasured the King of Spain against his will with restoring his countries/ 1 Elizabeth has been credited and will continue to be credited with political sagacity, on the strength of her general success. Political sagacity implies some posi- 1 Burghley to Walsingham, August 8 : MSS. Holland.