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Updated: June 10, 2025
The dying crusader wrote another letter, in the same mournful strain, to another intimate friend, Don Pedro Mendoza, Spanish envoy in Genoa. It was dated upon the same day from his camp near Namur, and repeated the statement that the King of France was ready to invade the Netherlands, so soon as Alencon should prepare an opening.
Remember what he did to them of Alencon, when they hung raw hides over the wall, and cried, 'Plenty of work for the tanner!" "Let him pick out the prisoners' eyes, and chop off their hands, and shoot them into the town from mangonels, he must go far and thrive well ere I give him a chance of doing that by me." "Hereward, Hereward, my own! Boast not, but fear God.
On the other hand, the Duke of Alencon had come to La Fere, and was also raising troops, while to oppose this crowd of rival enemies, to deal with this host of impending disasters, there was but one man in the Netherlands. On the Prince of Orange alone could the distracted states rely. To his prudence and valor only could the Queen look with hopeful eyes.
If persons spoke of him to his mother, it was for her sake, not his. There was not a single soul in Alencon that sympathized with his; not a woman, not a friend came near to dry his tears; they dropped into the Sarthe. If the gorgeous Suzanne had happened that way, how many young miseries might have been born of the meeting! for the two would surely have loved each other. She did come, however.
A great French embassy came to England in April 1581, to negotiate an alliance and the queen's marriage with Alençon, who had now re-entered Flanders and was immersed in the struggle against the Spaniards.
Nothing came of the examination which followed; the prisoners were released, and an apology was sent by the states-general to the Duke of Alencon, as well for the indignity which had been offered to two of his servants, as for the suspicion which had been cast upon himself, Don John, however, was not satisfied.
But these criticisms fall before the fact that the noble catholic, apostolic, and Roman religion is still erect in Brittany and in the ancient duchy of Alencon. Faith and piety admit of no subtleties. Mademoiselle Cormon trod the path of salvation, preferring the sorrows of her virginity so cruelly prolonged to the evils of trickery and the sin of a snare.
He wrote a fervent love-letter to Elizabeth, and proposed to escape to England; whilst his agent Maisonfleur joined with Mauvissière, the official French ambassador, in wooing Elizabeth anew for Alençon and for France. Gradually the parties drew together again, for Catherine was already alarmed at the effect of St. Bartholomew.
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.
In September, Orange's patience was worn out, and the crown of the Netherlands was definitely offered to Alencon; within a few days Drake and the Pelican were home, and Mendoza was demanding restitution; and again a few days later Spanish and Italian adventurers were fortifying themselves at Smerwick.
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