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Transcriber’s Note: Table of Contents added by Transcriber and placed
in the Public Domain.




CONTENTS


    PREFACE                           v
    Chapter I                         1
    Chapter II                       24
    Chapter III                      53
    Chapter IV                       88
    Chapter V                       114
    Chapter VI                      152
    Chapter VII                     172
    Chapter VIII                    182
    Chapter IX                      199
    Chapter X                       220
    Chapter XI                      237
    Chapter XII                     255
    Chapter XIII                    283
    Chapter XIV                     302
    Chapter XV                      316
    INDEX                           335




_THE COURTSHIPS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH_

[Illustration]

[Illustration:

    W.L. Colls. Ph. Sc.

    QUEEN ELIZABETH,
    FROM THE ORIGINAL PORTRAIT BY ZUCCHERO,
    IN HAMPTON COURT PALACE.
]




    THE COURTSHIPS OF
    QUEEN ELIZABETH

    A HISTORY OF THE VARIOUS
    NEGOTIATIONS FOR HER MARRIAGE
    BY MARTIN A. S. HUME, F. R. HIST. S.
    EDITOR OF THE CALENDAR OF SPANISH STATE
    PAPERS OF ELIZABETH (PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE)

[Illustration]

    “AND THE IMPERIAL VOTARESS PASSED ON
    IN MAIDEN MEDITATION FANCY FREE”

                _Midsummer Night’s Dream_

    NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & Co.
    LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN
    MDCCCXCVI




[Illustration]

PREFACE.


It has been my pleasant duty to consider carefully in chronological
order a great mass of diplomatic documents of the time of Elizabeth, in
which are reflected, almost from day to day, the continually shifting
aspects of political affairs, and the varying attitudes of the Queen
and her ministers in dealing therewith. I have been struck with the
failure of most historians of the time, who have painted their pictures
with a large brush, to explain or adequately account for what is so
often looked upon as the perverse fickleness of perhaps the greatest
sovereign that ever occupied the English throne; and I have come to the
conclusion that the best way in which a just appreciation can be formed
of the fixity of purpose and consummate statecraft which underlay her
apparent levity, is to follow in close detail the varying circumstances
and combinations which prompted the bewildering mutability of her
policy.

To do this through the whole of the events of a long and important
reign would be beyond the powers of an ordinary student, and the
attempt would probably end in confusion. I have therefore considered
it best to limit myself in this book to one set of negotiations,
those which relate to the Queen’s proposed marriage, running through
many years of her reign: and I trust that, however imperfectly my
task may have been effected, the facts set forth may enable the
reader to perceive more clearly than hitherto, that capricious, even
frivolous, as the Queen’s methods appear to be, her main object was
rarely neglected or lost sight of during the long continuance of these
negotiations.

That a strong modern England was rendered possible mainly by the
boldness, astuteness, and activity of Elizabeth at the critical
turning-point of European history is generally admitted; but how
masterly her policy was, and how entirely personal to herself, is
even yet perhaps not fully understood. I have therefore endeavoured
in this book to follow closely from end to end one strand only of the
complicated texture, in the hope that I may succeed by this means in
exhibiting the general process by which England, under the guidance of
the great Tudor Queen, was able to emerge regenerated and triumphant
from the struggle which was to settle the fate of the world for
centuries to come.

            MARTIN A. S. HUME.

LONDON, _February, 1896_.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


    QUEEN ELIZABETH                         _Frontispiece_
                                             _Facing page_
    THOMAS, LORD SEYMOUR OF SUDELEY                     10

    ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL OF LEICESTER                    64

    HENRY DE VALOIS, DUKE OF ANJOU (HENRY III.)        128

    FRANÇOIS DE VALOIS DUKE OF ALENÇON                 272

[Illustration]




[Illustration]

CHAPTER I.

  Character