For the next week or two the Queen surpassed herself in vivacity, in pretended anticipation of the coming of her Imperial lover. She became outwardly more Catholic than ever. Candles and crucifixes were again put up on the altars of her chapels, priests wore their vestments, and the Spanish Bishop was in the best of spirits. All this was going too far for Cecil, and was forcing his hand. He wanted to ensure Philip’s countenance by arousing jealousy of the French, whilst keeping the Archduke’s marriage gently simmering. But if Dudley and the Queen carried it too far, it would either end in mortally offending Philip, or in introducing a strong Catholic influence in England, which would have been the end of Cecil as a minister. Feria, in Flanders, saw this clearly enough, and wrote to the Bishop to tell Dudley that Cecil would really be against the Archduke’s business.[118] Dudley’s intrigue to prevent the Scottish match, not only hampered Cecil, but set the whole court by the ears. The Duke of Norfolk and the thorough-going Spanish Catholic party formed a plot to kill Dudley, as they knew he was not sincere, and would prevent the marriage with the Archduke, perhaps, at the last moment; whilst Cecil’s own Protestant friends, Bedford especially, who did not understand his cautious manner of dealing with difficulties, quarrelled with him about his apparent acquiescence in fresh Popish innovations.
Dudley’s bubble soon burst of itself. The Emperor, not under the sway of Elizabeth’s charm, was cool. The Bishop, as a feeler, fostered the idea that the Archduke was already on the way, and then the Queen, Dudley, and Lady Sidney took fright and began to cry off; and the Bishop saw he had been deceived (November 1559). But Arran’s suit had still to be combated, and Dudley warmly took up the Swedish match; whilst the gossips whispered that he had decided to poison his wife, and marry the Queen himself. Matters had reached this stage, when the Bishop’s agents began plotting with the Duke of Norfolk for the open coming of the Archduke, his marriage with Catharine Grey, and the murder of Elizabeth and Dudley; but this required bolder hands than Norfolk or Philip, and nothing came of it but open quarrels between Dudley and those who he knew were planning his ruin. Gradually prudent Cecil worked the Archduke’s negotiations back again into the stage in which they had been when Dudley interfered. The Bishop was courted, an envoy was sent to Vienna, care was taken to keep alive Philip’s jealousy of the French—more than ever to be feared by the Spanish King, now that his own Netherlands were seething with disaffection; and then, at last, Cecil was able to accede to the prayer of the Scottish reformers,[119] and send an English force to their aid.