492 REIGN- OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 67. he had to propose. Fontenay's allusion to one of the Careys as a possible wife for the King of Scots, explains Hunsdon's interest in the intrigue. It seems as if, not- withstanding his vouchers for Arran, he shrunk from personal contact with him. Walsingham offered to bet that Arran would overreach him. 1 He had not liked his commission, and Elizabeth had not mended matters by swearing at him and threatening him with the stocks. 'Being with the Queen yesterday afternoon/ wrote Sir Robert Carey to his father, ' as she was at cards in the presence chamber, she called me and asked when you would be off to Berwick. I said you would begin your journey soon after Whitsuntide. She grew into a great rage, beginning with ' God's wounds,' she would set you by the feet and send another in your place if you dallied with her thus she would not thus be dallied withal.' 2 Hunsdon, who had something of his kinswoman's temper, enclosed his son's letter to Burghley, saying ' that he could not bear such language nor obey in such sort as she commanded.' The affair was hanging thus in suspense at the time that the news arrived of the murder of the Prince of Orange. The small and paltry manoeuvring was for the moment laid aside, and Walsing- ham, with Burghley now at his back, half succeeded in per- suading his mistress to leave her 'partial practising,' con- sent in earnest to the league with France, and provide 1 Mauvissiere to the King of France, July 1626 : TEULET, vol. '- Sir R. Carey to Lord Huns- don, June 8 18, 1584: ELLIS. Se- cond Series, vol. iii.
