1581.] VOYAGE OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, 175 self. The ambassadors might have refused to proceed on a reservation, the effects of which had been experi- enced already ; but they too perhaps on their side de- sired to entangle Elizabeth. No one now, not Burgh- C ley, not Walsingham, not even Hatton and Leicester, knew exactly what she meant possibly she did not know herself. Grave councillors submitted to be the playthings of her uncertainty, and once more the con- ditions on which she was to be the wife of the Duke of Alencon were elaborately argued and agreed upon, down to the form of the ceremony. The articles were form- , ally subscribed ; the treaty was to become binding when Elizabeth and Monsieur respectively pronounced themselves satisfied, and the ambassadors took their leave. She was playing evidently for time. She believed that she could wait longer than France, and that, league or no league, France would be compelled to commit it- ' self. Alen9on had accepted the charge of the Low Countries. The Duke of Parma was besieging Cambray on the frontier of Picardy, and this place from its situation it was Alengon's especial duty to relieve. The French Court had kept him inactive while they were waiting for the result of the English negotiation. Elizabeth, who knew the weak stuff of which her lover was composed, had in the pri- vate correspondence that she spoke of, continued to play upon him. She sent him money and promised him more. She persuaded him to act independently of his brother ; and she made him believe that if his brother
