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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 of Elizabeth and her contemporaries--Main object of
      her policy--Youth of Elizabeth--The Duke of Angoulême--
      Philip of Spain--Seymour and Catharine Parr--Mrs. Ashley’s
      and Parry’s confessions--Execution of Seymour--Proposed
      marriage of Elizabeth with a son of the Duke of Ferrara--
      With a son of Hans Frederick of Saxony--Courtney--Emmanuel
      Philibert, Duke of Savoy--Prince Eric of Sweden--Death of
      Queen Mary--The Earl of Arundel.


The greatest diplomatic game ever played on the world’s chessboard
was that consummate succession of intrigues which for nearly half a
century was carried on by Queen Elizabeth and her ministers with the
object of playing off one great Continental power against another for
the benefit of England and Protestantism, with which the interests of
the Queen herself were indissolubly bound up. Those who were in the
midst of the strife were for the most part working for immediate aims,
and probably understood or cared but little about the ultimate result
of their efforts; but we, looking back as over a plain that has been
traversed, can see that, from the tangle of duplicity which obscured
the issue to the actors, there emerged a new era of civilisation and
a host of young, new, vigorous thoughts of which we still feel the
impetus. We perceive now that modern ideas of liberty and enlightenment
are the natural outcome of the victory of England in that devious
and tortuous struggle, which engaged for so long some of the keenest
intellects, masculine and feminine, which have ever existed in Europe.
It seems impossible that the result could have been attained excepting
under the very peculiar combination of circumstances and persons then
existing in England. Elizabeth triumphed as much by her weakness as by
her strength; her bad qualities were as valuable to her as her good
ones. Strong and steadfast Cecil would never have held the helm so
long if he had not constantly been contrasted with the shifty, greedy,
treacherous crew of councillors who were for ever ravening after
foreign bribes as payment for their honour and their loyalty. Without
Leicester as a permanent matrimonial possibility to fall back upon,
the endless negotiations for marriage with foreign princes would soon
have become pointless and ineffectual, and the balance would have been
lost. But for the follies of Mary Stuart, which led to her downfall
and lifelong imprisonment, the Catholic party in England could never
have been subjected so easily as it was. Elizabeth, with little fixed
religious conviction, would, with her characteristic instability,
almost certainly at one difficult juncture or another have been drawn
into a recognition of the papal power, and so would have destroyed the
nice counterpoise, but for the unexampled fact that such recognition
would have upset her own legitimacy and right to reign. The combination
of circumstances on the Continent also seems to have been exactly that
necessary to aid the result most favourable to English interests; and
the special personal qualities both of Philip II. and Catharine de
Medici were as if expressly moulded to contribute to the same end.
But propitious, almost providential, as the circumstances were, the
making of England and the establishment of Protestantism as a permanent
power in Europe could never have been effected without the supreme and
sustained statecraft of the Queen and her great minister. The nimble
shifting from side to side, the encouragement or discouragement of the
French and Flemish Protestants as the policy of the moment dictated,
the alternate flouting and flattering of the rival powers, and the
agile utilisation of the Queen’s sex and feminine love of admiration
to provoke competing offers for her hand, all exhibit statesmanship
as keen as it was unscrupulous. The political methods adopted were
perhaps those which met with general acceptance at the time, but the
dexterous juggling through a long course of years with regard to
Elizabeth’s marriage is unexampled in the history of government. Not
a point was missed. Full advantage was taken of the Queen’s maiden
state, of her feminine fickleness, of her solitary sovereignty, of her
assumed religious uncertainty, of her accepted beauty, and of the keen
competition for her hand. In very many cases neither the wooer nor the
wooed was in earnest, and the courtship was merely a polite fiction to
cover other objects; but at least on two occasions, if not three, the
Queen was very nearly forced by circumstances or her own feelings into
a position which would have made her marriage inevitable. Her caution,
however, on each occasion caused her to withdraw in time without mortal
offence to the family of her suitor; and to the end of her days she was
able, painted old harridan though she was, to act coquettishly the
part of the peerless beauty whose fair hand might possibly reward the
devoted admiration paid to her, with their tongues in their cheeks,
by the bright young gallants who sought her smiles. The story of the
various negotiations for the Queen’s marriage has been told in more or
less detail in the histories of the times, but no comprehensive view
has yet been given of the marriage negotiations alone: nor has their
successive relation to other events been set forth as a connected
narrative. Within the last few years much new material for such a
narrative has become available both in England and on the Continent,
and it is now possible to see with a certain amount of clearness the
hands of the other players besides that of the English Queen. The
approaches made to Elizabeth by the brothers de Valois, or rather
by their intriguing mother, Catharine de Medici, have been related
somewhat fully