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 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, mainly from the documents in the National Library in
Paris, by the Count de la Ferrière,[1] and the recent publication of
the Spanish State Papers at Simancas of the reign of Elizabeth by
the Record Office,[2] puts us into possession of a vast quantity of
hitherto unused material of the highest interest, especially with
regard to the matrimonial overtures made by Philip II. and the princes
of the house of Austria; whilst the full text of the extraordinary
private letters to and from the Queen in relation to the Alençon match,
1579-82, printed by the Historical MSS. Commission from the Hatfield
Papers, affords an opportunity of the greatest value for criticising
the by-play in this curious comedy. From these sources, from the
Walsingham Papers from the French diplomatic correspondence, from the
Foreign, Domestic, and Venetian Calendars of State Papers, and from the
various contemporary and later chroniclers of the times, it is proposed
to construct a consecutive narrative of most of the important attempts
made to persuade the “Virgin Queen” to abandon her much-boasted
celibacy.
In October, 1532, exactly eleven months before the birth of Elizabeth,
Henry VIII. paid his pompous visit to the French king, accompanied
by his privately married wife, Anne Boleyn, Marchioness of Pembroke.
He had deeply offended the Spanish Emperor by his treatment of Queen
Catharine, and felt the need of drawing closer the bonds of union with
Francis I., which twelve years before had been tied on the Field of the
Cloth of Gold; and almost as soon as the little Princess Elizabeth was
born, negotiations were opened for her marriage with the child-prince,
Duke of Angoulême, third son of Francis I. Henry asked for too much,
as was his wont. He required the French king and his nobles to make a
declaration of approval of the Act of Succession which had been passed
in England defying the Pope and settling the crown on the issue of Anne
Boleyn. Francis was to press the Pope to revoke the anathemas that the
Church had hurled upon the schismatic king, and the little prince was
to be brought up in England, holding his dukedom as an independent fief
of the French crown. The last two demands might have been complied
with, as they could subsequently have been revoked, but the eldest son
of the Church could never accept the first article, which would have
brought him into definite defiance of the papacy; and the negotiation
fell through.
Elizabeth was only three years old when her mother’s fall removed her
from the line of the succession, and with the strange vicissitudes of
her early girlhood we have nothing here to do. When, however, in 1542,
the death of James V. of Scotland and the almost simultaneous birth of
his daughter Mary seemed to bring nearer to its consummation Henry’s
idea of a union of the two crowns, he proposed to marry the baby Queen
of Scots to his own infant son and at the same time offered the hand of
Elizabeth, who was then nine years old, to the Earl of Arran, head of
the house of Hamilton, the next heir to the Scottish crown. The man was
nearly an idiot and failed to see the advantages of such a connection,
the consequence being that French intrigue and French money, backed up
by the influence of the Queen Dowager of Scotland, Mary of Lorraine,
were victorious; and Henry was thwarted of his desire. The fact that he
had been checkmated by the French king in this matter rankled in his
breast and caused that foolish and profitless war, in alliance with the
Emperor, against France, which is principally remembered for the siege
and capture and subsequent loss of Boulogne. Charles V. tried very hard
to get his cousin, Mary Tudor, Henry’s elder daughter, acknowledged as
legitimate, but although this was not done in so many words, both she
and her sister Elizabeth were restored to their respective places in
the line of succession; and whilst the treaty of alliance between the
two sovereigns was under discussion a suggestion was made that Charles’
son, Philip of Spain, then a lad of seventeen, should be betrothed
to Elizabeth, who was eleven. It was probably never meant to be
anything but a compliment, and certainly would not have been seriously
entertained by the Emperor, but in any case the suggestion was quietly
dropped and Spanish and English interests rapidly drifted apart again.
In January, 1547, Henry VIII. died, leaving the succession to his two
daughters in tail after his child-son Edward VI. and his heirs. The
Queen Dowager, Catharine Parr, immediately married Sir Thomas Seymour,
brother of the Protector Somerset, and uncle of the little King. To
their care was confided Princess Elizabeth, then a girl of fourteen,
who resided principally in the Queen’s dower houses at Chelsea and
Hanworth, and it was at this critical period of her life that her
personal interest in her love affairs may be said to have commenced.
When, subsequent to the death of the Queen Dowager, a short year
afterwards, her husband’s ambitious schemes had aroused the jealousy of
his all-powerful brother, one of the charges made against him was that
he had planned to marry the Princess Elizabeth and use her as one of
his instruments for obtaining supreme power. The original confessions
and declarations of those who were supposed to be concerned with him in
the plot, which are still amongst Lord Salisbury’s papers at Hatfield,
were published in full many years ago by Haynes, and have more recently
been calendared by the Historical MSS. Commission. They have been used
by all historians of the times, and there is no intention of repeating
here fully the oft-told story divulged by these curious declarations.
It is needless to say that they disclose scandalous treatment of a
young and sensitive girl both by Seymour and Catharine Parr, even
after allowing for the free manners then prevalent. It is difficult
to understand, indeed, what can have been Seymour’s real intention
towards the Princess, unless it was the guilty satisfaction of his own
passions. His wife was young and healthy, and in the natural course
of events might have been expected to live long, so that he could
hardly have looked forward to his marriage with Elizabeth; and yet Mrs.
Ashley,[3] her governess, confessed in the Tower in February, 1549,
that Seymour was in the habit of visiting the girl’s bedroom before
she was dressed, sometimes by himself and sometimes with his wife, and
there indulged in much indelicate and suggestive romping, in which
Catharine Parr herself occasionally took part. Thomas Parry,[4] the
cofferer, repeats in his confession a story told him by Mrs. Ashley
which carries the matter somewhat further. “She said the Lord Admiral
loved the Lady Elizabeth but too well, and had done so for a good
while, and this was the cause that the Queen was jealous of him and
Lady Elizabeth. On one occasion the Queen coming suddenly upon them
had found him holding the Lady Elizabeth in his arms; upon which she
fell out with them both, and this was the cause why the Queen and Lady
Elizabeth parted.”
Whatever may have been Seymour’s intentions towards Elizabeth during
his wife’s life, he left them in no doubt as soon as she died. For a
conspirator, indeed, he was the most open-mouthed person imaginable.
By the confessions, early in 1549, of Wightman, Sharington, Dorset,
Harrington, and Parry, it would appear that he had openly expressed
his discontent with his brother’s supremacy and made no secret of his
pretensions to the guardianship of the young King and the hand of
Elizabeth. His accomplice, Sharington, master of the Bristol mint, was
coining testoons out of the national treasure, and hoarding vast sums
of coin for his use; noblemen were advised by him to retire to their
estates and raise forces to support him; and the seizure of himself
and his friends was a mere movement of self-defence on the part of the
Protector. With regard to the match with Elizabeth, Parry appears to
have been the first person approached directly. He was closely attached
to the person of the Princess, and had been sent to Seymour ostensibly
to ask for the use of Durham Place as a temporary town residence for
her. Seymour said this could not be, as the house was to be made into
a mint, but she could have his own house to stay in until she could
see the King. Parry confesses that Seymour asked him many questions
about Elizabeth’s pecuniary means; and when he got back to Hatfield
the cofferer asked the young Princess whether she would be willing to
accept Seymour for a husband if the Council were agreeable. She asked
Parry sharply who told him to put such a question to her, to which
he answered that “nobody had done so, but he thought he perceived by
Seymour’s inquiries that he was given that way.” “She said that she
could not tell her mind therein.”[5]
When the Master of the Household and Denny suddenly arrived at Hatfield
to interrogate the household as to their communications with Seymour
Parry quite lost his head, “went to his own chamber and said to his
wife, 'I would I had never been born, for I am undone,’ and wrung
his hands, cast away his chain from his neck and his rings from his
fingers.”
Elizabeth’s profound diplomacy and quick intelligence were shown even
thus early at this critical juncture. Sir Robert Tyrwhitt and his wife
were sent by the Protector to worm out of her all she knew of the plot.
Threats, cajolery, forged letters and invented confessions, were all
tried upon her in vain. She would tell nothing of importance. “She
hath,” says Tyrwhitt, “a very good wit and nothing is gotten of her
but by great policy.” She bitterly resented the imprisonment of her
governess, Mrs. Ashley, and the substitution of Lady Tyrwhitt; and said
that she had not so behaved that they need put more mistresses upon
her; wept all night and sulked all day, but withal was too much for
Tyrwhitt, who avowed that “if he had to say his fantasy he thinks it
more meet she should have two governesses than one.”
[Illustration: _Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley._]
The confessions of Parry and Ashley with regard to Elizabeth’s conduct,
and their own, are bad enough; but they probably kept back far more
than they told, for on Elizabeth’s succession, and for the rest of
their lives, they were treated with marked favour: Parry was
knighted and made Treasurer of the Household, and on Mrs. Ashley’s
death in July, 1565, the Queen visited her in person and mourned her
with great grief. It is probable that the inexperienced girl was really
in love with the handsome, showy Seymour; but how far their relations
went will most likely never now be known. She indignantly wrote to the
Protector complaining of the slanders that were current about her, to
the effect that she was with child by the Lord Admiral and demanded to
be allowed to come to Court and “show herself as she was”; but virtuous
indignation, real and assumed, was always one of her favourite weapons.
Tyrwhitt said he believed a secret compact had been entered into
between her and Ashley and Parry never to confess during their lives.
“They all sing one song and she hath set the note for them.”
After this dangerous escapade and the execution of Seymour, Elizabeth
became almost ostentatiously saintly and straitlaced, until the
accession of her sister made her the heiress presumptive to the crown
and the hope of the Protestant party, now that Northumberland’s
nominees had been disposed of. Even before this event, the reforming
party in England were anxious to further strengthen themselves by
allying her to a foreign prince of Protestant leanings, not powerful
enough to force her claims to the crown upon them, but of sufficient
weight to give them moral support, whilst removing her from the way
in England. As early as August, 1551, Northumberland (or, as he was
then, the Earl of Warwick) had put his agents upon the alert on the
Continent to find a suitable match for her, and one of them, Sir
Anthony Guidotti,[6] says that the Duke of Guise had suggested the
Duke of Ferrara’s son, “who was one of the goodliest young men of
all Italy.” The youth was a son of that Renée of France, Duchess
of Ferrara, who vied with her kinswoman, Jeanne d’Albret, in her
attachment to the reformed faith, but Northumberland would hardly
accept the recommendation of the Guises as disinterested; and the
matter went no further. The same agent suggests that the son of the
Duke of Florence (Medici) who was then only eleven years old might do,
and “if this party were liked it were an easy matter to be concluded
without any excessive dote.” This was less likely to please even
than the previous proposal, and nothing was done; but the Ferrara
family were apparently anxious for the connection, and early in 1553
Sir Richard Morysine,[7] the English envoy in Antwerp, wrote to the
Council reporting that Francesco d’Este, the brother of the Duke
of Ferrara, had approached him on the matter and had asked for a
description of the Princess. Morysine replied that “If God had made
her Grace a poor man’s daughter he did not know of a prince that might
not think himself happy to be the husband of such a lady,” and added
that d’Este was of the same opinion “at present.” A much more likely
match had been privately suggested to Cecil by Morysine shortly before
this.[8] “Hans Frederick’s (of Saxony) second son, who is the goodlier
gentleman, would, if he durst, bear a great affection towards the Lady
Elizabeth’s grace. The land in Germany is divided, and as much comes
to the second son as to the eldest, which eldest is thought to be
of no long life. Were Dukes Maurice and Frederick to die their lands
go to Hans Frederick’s sons.” But the collapse of Northumberland and
the accession of Mary entirely changed Elizabeth’s prospects, so that
her marriage had to be considered in conjunction with Mary’s own, and
the capture of the Queen by the Spanish interest made it desirable
to secure her sister if possible for the same side. In the autumn of
1553, Simon Renard had suggested to Mary a marriage between herself
and Prince Philip. She herself was in grave doubt at that time and
afterwards as to its wisdom or practicability. Young Courtney had been
designated by the public voice as the most fitting consort for her; and
although the romantic theories of many historians as to her supposed
attachment to him are unsupported by a single shred of evidence, it
is certain that for a time she seriously contemplated the wisdom of
conciliating English feeling by marrying the man who was one of her
first competitors for the possession of the throne. Gradually, however,
Renard, with his logical persuasiveness, convinced her that she would
acquire more strength by an alliance with the only son of the Emperor
than by a marriage “with one of her own vassals, without credit, power,
or assistance, who has seen and knows nothing of the world, having been
reared in servitude and never left England.”[9]
Renard presented the Emperor’s formal offer of his son’s hand to the
Queen on the 6th of October, and after some hesitation she asked him
to put upon paper his arguments in favour of the match. He did so
in a long paper dated the 11th, which will be found in the Renard
Correspondence transcripts in the Record Office. In it he tells her
that she is surrounded by dangers against which only a powerful
marriage can protect her. She has, he says, four sets of enemies:
namely, the heretics and schismatics, the rebels and friends of
Northumberland, the powers of France and Scotland, and Madam Elizabeth,
who would never cease to trouble and threaten her. Mary replied that
she knew all about the French intrigues, and was certain to be kept
well informed of approaches made by the French ambassador Noailles to
Elizabeth and Courtney. In conversation with Renard afterwards she told
him, and he faithfully transmitted the conversation to his master,[10]
that she had had a long talk with Courtney three days before at the
instance of his mother, and he had told her in all simplicity that an
English lord had suggested to him that he should marry Elizabeth, since
he could not now hope to obtain the Queen. If he took the Princess
either he or his heirs might hope to succeed to the throne as the Queen
was getting old. The idea seems to have originated with Lord Paget,
who was doubtless the lord referred to by Courtney, and who thought
to stand well with all parties in future by the device. As he was the
principal supporter in the Privy Council of the Spanish match, Renard
could not at first openly veto the suggestion. Mary consulted Renard
upon the subject, and told him that Courtney had said that his own
thought was only to “_marry a simple lady rather than Elizabeth who
was too proud a heretic and of a doubtful race on her mother’s side_.”
The imperial ambassador replied that such a marriage would have to
be very deeply weighed and discussed,[11] and so politely shelved
the question. On the other hand, the idea was zealously promoted by
Noailles, who, Courtney asserted some months afterwards, pressed him
warmly to marry Elizabeth,[12] and it was considered even by the
strongest Spanish partisans in the Council to be a happy combination
which would conjure away all dangers. How far Elizabeth herself was a
consenting party it is difficult to say, but Noailles, who was in the
heart of the intrigue, writes to his king on the 14th of December that
it depends entirely on Courtney whether she married him and joined
him in Devonshire to raise the flag of revolt. “But the trouble,” he
says, “is that Courtney is so alarmed and timid that he dares nothing.”
So Courtney disappears promptly from the scene where soon such rough
work was to be undertaken. Even before the arrival of Egmont in the
winter of 1553 to offer formally Philip’s hand to Mary, the Council
was mainly opposed to the match. Paget was first bought over with a
large sum of money, then Gardiner, Courtney’s greatest friend, was
reluctantly won with the promise of a cardinal’s hat, and others by
similar means; but the self-seeking Earl of Arundel immediately saw how
his own interests might be benefited by the Spanish match. De Noailles
says that he knew that at the Queen’s age, and with her health, every
month’s delay decreased the probability of her having issue; and he,
therefore, warmly supported the marriage with Philip, which could not
be rapidly effected, in order to marry his young son to Elizabeth,
and so, practically, get the reversion to the crown. The matter never
seems to have got beyond a suggestion; and the youth soon after dying,
Arundel, as will be told, subsequently became a suitor himself. But
whilst these nebulous speculations with regard to Elizabeth’s hand
were going on, Renard had been arranging a clever scheme by which the
Spanish party should ensure to themselves the control of England not
only during the Queen’s life but after her death. When Egmont and his
splendid embassy arrived all England was in a whirlwind of panic and
indignation at the idea of a Spanish match. Elizabeth had retired to
Woodstock, ostensibly on friendly terms with the Queen, but deeply
wounded at her contemptuous treatment, and at the equivocal position
she occupied, now that the divorce pronounced by Cranmer of Henry VIII.
and Catharine of Aragon had been quashed, and Elizabeth consequently
bastardised. Egmont was instructed to point out to the Queen that all
might be pleasantly settled by marrying her sister to the gallant young
Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, the son of the Emperor’s sister,
and consequently first cousin to Philip. His patrimonial states, all
but a mere shred of them in the valley of Aosta, had been occupied by
the French in the course of the war, and the prince was fighting like
a hero in the Emperor’s army. But his blood was the bluest of any in
Europe, and before he could marry Elizabeth she must be legitimised
and placed in the order of the succession, without which the throne
would probably pass on Mary’s death to the French candidate, Mary of
Scotland. This was gall and wormwood to Mary Tudor. They could not
both be legitimate. If the grounds for the divorce of Queen Catharine
were good she was never Henry’s lawful wife, and her daughter had no
right to the crown. If they were bad, then Elizabeth was necessarily
the bastard that the law of England inferentially had just declared
her to be. The King of France, foiled in his attempts to prevent the
Queen’s Spanish marriage, instructed de Noailles[13] to use every
possible means to hinder a match between Elizabeth and Savoy, “poor
and dispossessed as he is”; and, alert as the ambassador was, no
great effort on his part was needed. The Queen, bitterly jealous of
her sister, who she knew was more or less openly working with the
Carews, the Courtneys, the Wyatts and others to undermine her throne,
peremptorily refused to rehabilitate Elizabeth’s birth. Then came the
Wyatt rebellion and Elizabeth’s imprisonment. In after years both
Philip and Elizabeth often referred to the fact that at one juncture
he had saved her life, and it is highly probable that the Princess was
released from the Tower in May, 1554 on the recommendation of Renard,
made in the name of the coming bridegroom of the Queen. De Noailles
writes that she was to go to Richmond from the Tower, and was there to
receive two gentlemen from the Emperor who were to sound her as to a
marriage with Emmanuel of Savoy. If she refused the match she was to
be taken to Woodstock under guard, again a prisoner. De Noailles knew
that the best way of preventing such a match was to arouse the Queen’s
suspicion that Elizabeth was plotting with the French. So with devilish
ingenuity he sent a man with a present of apples to the Princess to
meet her on her arrival at Richmond. The man was seized and searched to
the skin, and no letters were found, but to de Noailles’ undisguised
glee the Princess was hurried off at once to Woodstock without seeing
the Emperor’s envoys. Again by Philip’s intercession Elizabeth was
released, and invited to be present at the Queen’s entry into London
after her marriage. Philip had been anxious that his favourite cousin
of Savoy should have come to England for the ceremony, but Emmanuel
was in the midst of war in an important command, his own oppressed
people, the prey of a ruthless invader, were imploring him, their
prince, to come and rescue them; he was desperately short of money,
and his visit to England had to be deferred. Soon after the wedding
he sent a confidential envoy named Langosco to pave the way for his
coming, and subsequently (December, 1554) the Prince himself arrived.
Elizabeth’s town house, Somerset House, was placed at his disposal, and
he was made as welcome as his cousin could make him. Philip tried his
hardest to get him into the good graces of the Queen. She was kindly
and sympathetic; gave him the Garter, and went so far to please Philip
as once more to liberate Elizabeth at his urgent request, but she
would not let the Princess and her suitor meet. Emmanuel’s thoughts,
moreover, were elsewhere. An unsuccessful attempt was being made to
patch up a peace between Spain and France, and the young Prince’s
one idea was to get his patrimonial Piedmont restored to him in the
scramble. So he had to hurry back again to Flanders with nothing done
about the marriage. The idea was not dropped, however. Renard gave
wise advice to Philip in his constant letters. He told him, amongst
other things, that now that the Queen’s hopes of progeny had proved
illusive the only way to prevent England from slipping through their
fingers was to get command of Elizabeth. “You cannot,” he said, “change
the succession as laid down in King Henry’s will without causing a
rebellion. Marry Elizabeth to the Duke of Savoy, it will please the
English and be popular, provided that her right to the succession be
not interfered with; and it might be a means towards expelling the
French from Piedmont.” Philip’s agents found plenty of opportunities
for trying to ingratiate themselves with the Princess, but she was
cool and cautious; professed that she had no desire to marry, and so
forth. She was quite aware of the reason for the Spanish desire that
she should marry Savoy, and even thus early began her great policy
of keeping people friendly by deferring their hopes. As the clouds
gathered ever darker over the miserable Mary in the last sad months of
her life, and Elizabeth’s star rose, suitors became more plentiful. At
the beginning of 1558 Philip had sent haughty Feria as his ambassador
to his wife to drive her into providing men and money to help him
in his war against France. Calais and Guisnes had just been lost to
England, and Mary, all her hopes and illusions fled, was fretting her
heart out in despair. In April an ambassador arrived from the King
of Sweden, Gustavus, with letters to the Queen proposing a treaty of
commerce between the two countries, and the marriage of his eldest
son, Eric, with Princess Elizabeth. The ambassador was in no hurry to
seek audience of the Queen--her day was already on the wane--but
posted down to Hatfield to see the Princess, to whom he delivered a
letter from Prince Eric himself. The Queen was overcome with rage at
this and with fear that Philip would blame her for refusing his request
to restore Elizabeth in blood and marry her to Emmanuel of Savoy, and
thus giving rise to this embarrassing Swedish offer. Hearing that Feria
was about to send a courier to Flanders, she summoned him, and in a
violent passion of tears reproached him with wishing to be beforehand
with her in telling the story to her husband. Feria says, “Her Majesty
has been in great anguish about it, but since hearing that Madam
Elizabeth gave answer that she had no desire to marry she has become
calmer, but is still terribly passionate in the matter. One of the
reasons why she is so grieved about the miscarriage is the fear that
your Majesty should press her about Savoy and Madam Elizabeth. Figueroa
and I think that the opportunity of the coming of this ambassador, and
the illusion about the pregnancy should be taken advantage of to do so;
but it must not be done at the same time as we press her about raising
troops here. In short, I do not think now that she will stand in the
way of her sister’s succession if providence do not bless your Majesty
with children.”[14]
The Swedish ambassador was to have been openly reproved by the Queen
before the whole Court, but the Queen thought better of it, and
received him in the presence of Gardiner and the Marquis of Winchester
only. She dismissed him curtly--almost rudely--and told him that
after committing such a breach of etiquette as to deliver a letter to
her sister before presenting his credentials, he had better go home
and never come back to England with such a message as that again.
Before Feria left England to see his master in July, 1558, he visited
Elizabeth at Hatfield, and did his best to persuade her that she had
all Philip’s sympathy, and that her safe course would be to adhere to
the Spanish connection. He was no match for her in diplomacy even then,
and got nothing but smiles and genial generalities. In November Mary
was dying, and Dassonleville, the Flemish agent, wrote to the King
begging him to send Feria back again to forward Spanish interests, “as
the common people are so full of projects for marrying Madam Elizabeth
to the Earl of Arundel or some one else.” On the 8th of November a
committee of the Council went to Hatfield to see Elizabeth and deliver
to her the dying Queen’s message, begging her “when she should be Queen
to maintain the Catholic Church and pay her (Mary’s) debts.” Elizabeth
would pledge herself to nothing. She knew now that she must succeed,
with or without Mary’s good-will, and she meant to have a free hand.
Before the Queen died even, Feria, who had arrived when she was already
almost unconscious, hastened to Hatfield to see the coming Queen. So
long as he confined himself to courteous commonplace she answered
him in the same spirit, but as soon as he began to patronise her and
hint that she owed her coming crown to the intervention and support
of Philip, she stopped him at once, and said that she would owe it
only to her people. She was equally firm and queenly when Feria thus
early hinted at her marriage with her Spanish brother-in-law before
the breath was out of Mary’s body, and showed a firm determination to
hold her own and resist all attempts to place her under the tutelage
of Philip. A week afterwards the Queen died, and then began the keen
contest of wits around the matrimonial possibilities of Elizabeth,
which ended in the making of modern England.
The first letter that Feria wrote to Philip after the new Queen’s
accession indicated how powerless had been all his blandishments to
pledge Elizabeth. “The new Queen and her people,” he says, “hold
themselves free from your Majesty, and will listen to any ambassadors
who may come to treat of marriage. Your Majesty understands better than
I how important it is that this affair should go through your hands,
which ... will be difficult except with great negotiation and money.
I wish, therefore, your Majesty to keep in view all the steps to be
taken on your behalf; one of them being that the Emperor should not
send any ambassador here to treat of this, for it would be inconvenient
enough for Ferdinand to marry here even if he took the titbit from your
Majesty’s hand, but very much worse if it were arranged in any other
way. For the present, I know for certain they will not hear the name
of the Duke of Savoy mentioned, as they fear he will want to recover
his estates with English forces, and will keep them constantly at war.
I am very pleased to see that the nobles are beginning to open their
eyes to the fact that it will not do to marry this woman in the country
itself.... The more I think over this business the more certain I am
that everything depends upon the husband this woman may take. If he be
a suitable one, religious matters will go on well, and the kingdom will
remain friendly with your Majesty, but if not it will all be spoilt. If
she decide to marry out of the country she will at once fix her eyes
on your Majesty, although some of them here are sure to pitch upon the
Archduke Ferdinand.”[15] Feria was wrong in his estimate of Elizabeth’s
character. From the first she had determined to be a popular sovereign,
and all observers remarked her almost undignified anxiety to catch the
cheers of the crowd. She knew that the most unpopular step she could
take would be one that bound her interests to Spain, and particularly
a marriage with Philip. A French marriage was impossible, for the heir
to the crown of France was married to Mary Stuart, whose legal right
to the English throne was undoubtedly stronger than that of Elizabeth
herself.
So the Englishmen began to pluck up heart and to think that the great
prize might fall to one of them. Early in December the Earl of Arundel
came over from Flanders, and Feria remarks in one of his letters that
he had seen him at the palace, “looking very smart and clean, and they
say he carries his thoughts very high.” He was a widower of mature
age, foppish and foolish, but, with the exception of his son-in-law,
the Duke of Norfolk, the only English noble whose position and descent
were such as to enable him without impropriety to aspire to mate with
royalty, and for a short time after his arrival he was certainly looked
upon by the populace as the most likely husband for the young Queen.
[Illustration]