LOUISE DE COLIGNI, PRINCESS OF ORANGE--FRANCES WALSINGHAM, COUNTESS OF
ESSEX AND OF CLANRICARDE; BEFORE, LADY SIDNEY.
_Princess of Orange_.--Our destinies, madam, had a great and surprising
conformity. I was the daughter of Admiral Coligni, you of Secretary
Walsingham, two persons who were the most consummate statesmen and ablest
supports of the Protestant religion in France, and in England. I was
married to Teligni, the finest gentleman of our party, the most admired
for his valour, his virtue, and his learning: you to Sir Philip Sidney,
who enjoyed the same pre-eminence among the English. Both these husbands
were cut off, in the flower of youth and of glory, by violent deaths, and
we both married again with still greater men; I with William Prince of
Orange, the founder of the Dutch Commonwealth; you with Devereux Earl of
Essex, the favourite of Elizabeth and of the whole English nation. But,
alas! to complete the resemblance of our fates, we both saw those second
husbands, who had raised us so high, destroyed in the full meridian of
their glory and greatness: mine by the pistol of an assassin; yours still
more unhappily, by the axe, as a traitor.
_Countess of Clanricarde_.--There was indeed in some principal events of
our lives the conformity you observe. But your destiny, though it raised
you higher than me, was more unhappy than mine. For my father lived
honourably, and died in peace: yours was assassinated in his old age.
How, madam, did you support or recover your spirits under so rainy
misfortunes?
_Princess of Orange_.--The Prince of Orange left an infant son to my
care. The educating of him to be worthy of so illustrious a father, to
be the heir of his virtue as well as of his greatness, and the affairs of
the commonwealth, in which I interested myself for his sake, so filled my
mind, that they in some measure took from me the sense of my grief, which
nothing but such a great and important scene of business, such a
necessary talk of private and public duty, could have ever relieved. But
let me inquire in my turn, how did your heart find a balm to alleviate
the anguish of the wounds it had suffered? What employed your widowed
hours after the death of your Essex?
_Countess of Clanricarde_.--Madam, I did not long continue a widow: I
married again.
_Princess of Orange_.--Married again! With what prince, what king did
you marry? The widow of Sir Philip Sidney and of my Lord Essex could not
descend from them to a subject of less illustrious fame; and where could
you find one that was comparable to either?
_Countess of Clanricarde_.--I did not seek for one, madam: the heroism of
the former, and the ambition of the latter, had made me very unhappy. I
desired a quiet life and the joys of wedded love, with an agreeable,
virtuous, well-born, unambitious, unenterprising husband. All this I
found in the Earl of Clanricarde: and believe me, madam, I enjoyed more
solid felicity in Ireland with him, than I ever had possessed with my two
former husbands, in the pride of their glory, when England and all Europe
resounded with their praise.
_Princess of Orange_.--Can it be possible that the daughter of
Walsingham, and the wife of Sidney and Essex, should have sentiments so
inferior to the minds from which she sprang, and to which she was
matched? Believe me, madam, there was no hour of the many years I lived
after the death of the Prince of Orange, in which I would have exchanged
the pride and joy I continually had in hearing his praise, and seeing the
monuments of his glory in the free commonwealth his wisdom had founded,
for any other delights the world could give. The cares that I shared
with him, while he remained upon earth, were a happiness to my mind,
because they exalted its powers. The remembrance of them was dear to me
after I had lost him. I thought his great soul, though removed to a
higher sphere, would look down upon mine with some tenderness of
affection, as its fellow-labourer in the heroic and divine work of
delivering and freeing his country. But to be divorced from that soul!
to be no longer his wife! to be the comfort of an inferior, inglorious
husband! I had much rather have died a thousand deaths, than that my
heart should one moment have conceived such a thought.
_Countess of Clanricarde_.--Your Highness must not judge of all hearts by
your own. The ruling passion of that was apparently ambition. My
inclinations were not so noble as yours, but better suited, perhaps, to
the nature of woman. I loved Sir Philip Sidney, I loved the Earl of
Essex, rather as amiable men than as heroes and statesmen. They were so
taken up with their wars and state-affairs, that my tenderness for them
was too often neglected. The Earl of Clanricarde was constantly and
wholly mine. He was brave, but had not that spirit of chivalry with
which Sir Philip Sidney was absolutely possessed. He had, in a high
degree, the esteem of Elizabeth, but did not aspire to her love; nor did
he wish to be the rival of Carr or of Villiers in the affection of James.
Such, madam, was the man on whom my last choice bestowed my hand, and
whose kindness compensated for all my misfortunes. Providence has
assigned to different tempers different comforts. To you it gave the
education of a prince, the government of a state, the pride of being
called the wife of a hero; to me a good-living husband, quiet, opulence,
nobility, and a fair reputation, though not in a degree so exalted as
yours. If our whole sex were to choose between your consolations and
mine, your Highness, I think, would find very few of your taste. But I
respect the sublimity of your ideas. Now that we have no bodies they
appear less unnatural than I should have thought them in the other world.
_Princess of Orange_.--Adieu, madam. Our souls are of a different order,
and were not made to sympathise or converse with each other.