himself might be privy to the plot, and that a possible marriage between Alencon and the Infanta might be on the cards.  In truth, however, Philip felt himself outraged by the whole proceedings.  He resolutely refused to accept the excuses proffered by the French court, or to doubt the complicity of the Queen Dowager, who, it was well known, governed all her sons.  She had, to be sure, thought proper to read the envoys of the states-general a lecture upon the impropriety of subjects opposing the commands of their lawful Prince, but such artifices were thought too transparent to deceive.  Granvelle scouted the idea of her being ignorant of Anjou’s scheme, or opposed to its success.  As for William of Hesse, while he bewailed more than ever the luckless plunge into “confusum chaos” which Casimir had taken, he unhesitatingly expressed his conviction that the invasion of Alencon was a master-piece of Catherine.  The whole responsibility of the transaction he divided, in truth, between the Dowager and the comet, which just then hung over the world, filling the soul of the excellent Landgrave with dismal apprehension.

The Queen of England was highly incensed by the actual occurrence of the invasion which she had so long dreaded.  She was loud in her denunciations of the danger and dishonor which would be the result to the provinces of this French alliance.  She threatened not only to withdraw herself from their cause, but even to take arms against a commonwealth which had dared to accept Alencon for its master.  She had originally agreed to furnish one hundred thousand pounds by way of loan.  This assistance had been afterwards commuted into a levy of three thousand foot and-two thousand horse, to be added to the forces of John Casimir, and to be placed under his command.  It had been stipulated; also, that the Palatine should have the rank and pay of an English general-in-chief, and be considered as the Queen’s lieutenant.  The money had been furnished and the troops enrolled.  So much had been already bestowed, and could not be recalled, but it was not probable that, in her present humor, the Queen would be induced to add to her favors.

The Prince, obliged by the necessity of the case, had prescribed the terms and the title under which Alencon should be accepted.  Upon the 13th of August the Duke’s envoy concluded a convention in twenty-three articles; which were afterwards subscribed by the Duke himself, at Mons, upon the twentieth of the same month.  The substance of this arrangement was that Alencon should lend his assistance to the provinces against the intolerable tyranny of the Spaniards and the unjustifiable military invasion of Don John.  He was, moreover, to bring into the field ten thousand foot and two thousand horse for three months.  After the expiration of this term, his forces might be reduced to three thousand foot and five hundred horse.  The states were to confer upon him the title of “Defender of the Liberty of the Netherlands