Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/501

 1584? THE BOND OF ASSOCIATION. 485 selves apparently deserted both by France and England, would give up in despair, and leave Philip free to settle his accounts with herself. Wade was despatched in haste to the Hague, to prevent a hasty resolution. Sir Philip Sidney was to have gone to France to condole on Alencon's death, and to carry the Garter to the Kin<>-. To the honorary mission a political instruction was attached to accept the French proposal for joint action in the Low Countries, as a thing ' which could no longer be deferred without manifest peril and danger to the whole of Christendom.' ' The French council so thoroughly distrusted Eliza- beth that, eager as they were, and ready as the King was to defy Spain and the League, to place Henry of Navarre at the head of his army, and fall with all his force on the Prince of Parma, they would not this time respond as they had done before. The Queen did not deserve their confidence, and she could not recover it. Sir Edward Stafford, to whom Walsingham wrote of Sidney's coming, was obliged to answer that it would not be welcome. The Queen-mother made excuses without being discourteous, and in a few days it appeared that deputies from the States were in Paris, and that France was treating with them separately. 2 Elizabeth sent for Mauvissiere, and after a prelude of tears for the lost Alengon, she said that if her husband was taken from her, she could still marry his country, Walsingham to Stafford, July | 2 Stafford to Walsingham, July 6 16; Instructions to Sir Philip Sidney, July 8 18: MSS. France. 1727: MSS. Ibid.
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