had been distinguished. On the 17th May the French envoys even insisted
on taking formal farewell of the queen, and were received by her Majesty
for that purpose at a final audience. After they had left the presence--
the preparations for their homeward journey being already made--the queen
sent Sir Robert Cecil, Henry Brooke, son of Lord Cobham, and La Fontaine,
minister of a French church in England, to say to them how very much
mortified she was that the state of her affairs did not permit her to
give the king as much assistance as he desired, and to express her wish
to speak to them once more before their departure.

The result of the audience given accordingly to the envoys, two days
later, was the communication of her decision to enter into the league
proposed, but without definitely concluding the treaty until it should be
ratified by the king.

On the 26th May articles were finally agreed upon, by which the king and
queen agreed to defend each other's dominions, to unite in attacking the
common enemy, and to invite other princes and states equally interested
with themselves in resisting the ambitious projects of Spain, to join in
the league. It was arranged that an army should be put in the field as
soon as possible, at the expense of the king and queen, and of such other
powers as should associate themselves in the proposed alliance; that this
army should invade the dominions of the Spanish monarch, that the king
and queen were never, without each other's consent, to make peace or
truce with Philip; that the queen should immediately raise four thousand
infantry to serve six months of every year in Picardy and Normandy, with
the condition that they were never to be sent to a distance of more than
fifty leaguas from Boulogna; that when the troubles of Ireland should be
over the queen should be at liberty to add new troops to the four
thousand men thus promised by her to the league; that the queen was to