when, in January 1561, the former made a bold bid for Spanish support.
He was, he said, quite innocent of his wife's death, and he promised
Quadra that if the King of Spain would urge his (Dudley's) suit upon the
queen, England should send envoys to the Council of Trent, receive a
papal legate, and become practically Catholic. He might promise, but
such a thing was impossible, and Cecil, when he learnt of the intrigue,
promptly embroiled matters and spoilt the plan.

Elizabeth, too, saw whither she was drifting, and by pretended levity
turned it into a joke. At one time she invited the old Spanish bishop to
marry her to Dudley, and next day said she would never marry at all. But
she never ceased to flirt with Dudley, who, when his intrigue with Spain
fell through, cynically appealed to the French Protestants for support.
They were in no position to help him, and by January 1562, he was
cringing to Spain, and pretending to be Catholic. But English Catholics
hated him, and he was now no fit instrument for Philip.

In her own court it was firmly believed that Elizabeth was secretly
married to Dudley--it was high time, said the gossips; but in truth the
international importance of her marriage was now (1562-63) partially
obscured by that of the widowed Mary Queen of Scots. Before the latter
were dangled Eric of Sweden, the Archduke Charles, the Earl of Arran,
and Darnley; but the match which Mary most wished for, and the most
threatening to Elizabeth, was that with the vicious young lunatic, Don
Carlos, the heir of Philip of Spain. The match with Darnley, too, as he
was in the English succession, was distasteful to Elizabeth; but in
order to divert the Spanish match--which, really, though she knew it
not, was out of the question--she pretended to favour Darnley's suit at
first.