The opportunity is a good one, and if she writes an answer to my letter, said Alexander, we can keep the negotiation, alive, while, if she does not, 'twill be a proof that she has contracted leagues with other parties.

But, in any event, the Duke fervently implored Philip not to pause in his preparations for the great enterprise which he had conceived in his royal breast.

So urgent for the invasion was the peace-loving general.
He alluded also to the supposition that the quarrel between her Majesty and the French envoy was a mere fetch, and only one of the results of Bellievre's mission.

Whether that diplomatist had been sent to censure, or in reality to approve, in the name of his master, of the Scottish Queen's execution, Alexander would leave to be discussed by Don Bernardino de Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in Paris; but he was of opinion that the anger of the Queen with France was a fiction, and her supposed league with France and Germany against Spain a fact.

Upon this point, as it appears from Secretary Walsingham's lamentations, the astute Farnese was mistaken.
In truth he was frequently, led into error to the English policy the same serpentine movement and venomous purpose which characterized his own; and we have already seen; that Elizabeth was ready, on the contrary, to quarrel with the States, with France, with all the world, if she could only secure the good-will of Philip.
The French-matter, indissolubly connected in that monarch's schemes, with his designs upon England and Holland, was causing Alexander much anxiety.
He foresaw great difficulty in maintaining that, indispensable civil war in France, and thought that a peace might, some fine day, be declared between Henry III.