The English were indignant.  They also said a stout word for the provinces, although it has been made sufficiently clear that they did not love that upstart republic.  But the French ambassador replied that his, master really meant secretly to assist the States in carrying on the war until they should make an arrangement.  He should send them very powerful succours for this purpose, and he expected confidently that England would assist him in this line of conduct.  Thus Henry was secretly pledging himself, to make underhand but substantial war against Spain, with which power he was at that instant concluding peace, while at the same time he was abandoning his warlike league with the queen and the republic, in order to affect that very pacification.  Truly the morality of the governing powers of the earth was not entirely according to the apostolic standard.

The interviews between the queen and the new ambassador were, of course, on his part, more courteous in tone than those with the counsellors, but mainly to the same effect.  De Maisse stated that the Spanish king had offered to restore every place that he held in France, including Calais, Brittany, and the Marquisate of Saluces, and as he likewise manifested a willingness to come to favourable terms with her Majesty and with the States, it was obviously the duty of Henry to make these matters known to her Majesty, in whose hands was thus placed the decision between peace or continuation of the war.  The queen asked what was the authority for the supposition that England was to be included by Spain in the pacification.  De Maisse quoted President Richardot.  In that case, the queen remarked, it was time for her to prepare for a third Spanish armada.  When a former envoy from France had alluded to Richardot as expressing the same friendly sentiments on the part of his sovereign and himself, she had replied by referring to the sham negotiations of Bourbourg, by which the famous invasion of 1588 had been veiled, and she had intimated her expectation that another Spanish fleet would soon be at her throat.  And within three weeks of the utterance of her prophecy the second armada, under Santa Gadea, had issued from Spain to assail her realms.  Now then, as Richardot was again cited as a peace negotiator, it was time to look for a third invasion.  It was an impertinence for Secretary of State Villeroy to send her word about Richardot.  It was not an impertinence in King Henry, who understood war-matters better than he did affairs of state, in which kings were generally governed by their counsellors and secretaries, but it was very strange that Villeroy should be made quiet with a simple declaration of Richardot.

The queen protested that she would never consent to a peace with Spain, except with the knowledge and consent of the States.  De Maisse replied that the king was of the same mind, upon which her Majesty remarked that in that case he had better have apprised her and the States of his intentions before treating alone and secretly with the enemy.  The envoy denied that the king had been treating.  He had only been listening to what the King of Spain had to propose, and suggesting his own wishes and intentions.  The queen rejoined that this was treating if anything was, and certainly her Majesty was in the right if the term has any meaning at all.