Simier’s departure with the draft agreement--The Queen suddenly
cools towards the match--Her perplexity--Her efforts
to temporise--Suggestions for an alliance with France--
Simier’s letters pleading Alençon’s cause--Alençon’s plans in
Flanders--Signature of the Peace of Fleix--Queen Margaret’s
intrigues against the Alençon match--Simier’s disgrace--
Catholic intrigues to gain Alençon--Alençon’s new envoys to
England--Clausse de Marchaumont’s negotiations--His favour
with the Queen--“La belle jarretière.”
On the 9th of November, 1579, Simier came to the Queen and told her he
could delay no longer going back to his master; and if a final decision
was not at once adopted, he must return without it. He was closeted
with her for several hours, and the next day she summoned the principal
councillors to her chamber, and told them that she had made up her mind
to marry, and they need say no more about it; their duty now was simply
to devise the necessary means for carrying out her wishes. She then
sent post-haste to bring back Stafford, who was on his way to Alençon,
and for a day her councillors thought the matter was settled. But the
next day a cool gust of prudence passed over her passion, and she again
sent to the councillors ordering them to give her individually their
opinions in writing. This did not suit Simier, and he rushed off to
the Queen and told her it was now unwise and unnecessary, as she had
made up her mind. She haughtily asked who told him that, to which he
replied that it was Cecil; whereupon she flew into one of her violent
rages against councillors who could not keep their mouths shut, and
flung out of the room, leaving Simier to meditate upon the inconstancy
of woman. She then ordered the councillors to send a joint letter
begging Alençon to expedite his coming, but they refused to do so, and
urged that before the Prince himself came a person of higher rank and
more serious standing than Simier should come to settle the conditions.
When Simier heard this he booted and spurred without more ado, and went
in a huff to take leave of the Queen. She mollified him, however, with
blandishments, and during the next few days the terms of settlement
were hastily agreed upon and signed in draft, giving Alençon and his
household the right to attend the Catholic service in his own chapel.
But when the protocol was handed to Simier for conveyance to France
the Queen characteristically insisted upon his giving an undertaking
which always left her a loophole of escape. The original document in
Simier’s handwriting is at Hatfield, and agrees that the articles shall
remain in suspense for two months, “during which time her Majesty hopes
to have brought her people to consent to the marriage.” If before that
time she did not write to the King and Alençon consenting to receive
ambassadors to sign the contract, the whole present conditions were to
be absolutely null and void.
Simier left London on the 24th of November, loaded with presents, and
from Gravesend wrote a long letter to the Queen, warning her against
those who, for their own ends, were trying to persuade her to forego
the match, and who had been publicly boasting in London that as soon
as his back was turned they would easily change her mind. He finishes
his letter by what comes perilously near a bit of love-making on his
own account, and during his two days’ stay at Dover, and from Calais,
letter followed letter from him to the Queen, in all of which the
hope is fervently expressed that “le singe restera tousjours vostre,
et que la distance des lyeus, ni la longeur du tanps, ni les fausses
invantions des mes contrères, ne me pouront aporter aucun préjudisse en
vos bonnes grasses ni enpecher le souleil de mes yeulx, qui ne peuvent
être contans que voyent vostre grenouille aupres de vostre Majesté et
moy coume singe me voyr hordinere à vos piés,” and so on, page after
page. Stafford accompanied him across, and brought back a letter with a
great emerald embedded in the seal, from Alençon to the Queen, telling
her of the efforts which were being made to bring him and Navarre
again into good agreement with the King, to which the Queen replied,
leaving for once the philandering strain, and writing a serious and
statesmanlike warning against his being too pliant. There is no doubt
that for a time after Simier left, the influence of Leicester, Hatton,
and Walsingham somewhat cooled her towards the marriage. Stafford went
first with Simier to Paris to lay the draft conditions before the
King, and took the opportunity of demanding some further limitation
with regard to the exercise of the Catholic religion. Henry III. would
have nothing to say to this, but left it to his brother’s conscience,
but he wrote to his ambassador in England pointing out that this was
another of their tricks to break off the affair.
Stafford found Alençon no more yielding than his brother, and for a
time matters looked unpromising, the “monkey” continuing to write
gushing letters to the Queen, begging her not to be influenced by the
“mile faulx bruis” of Walsingham and others, who are trying to render
the affair abortive. At this juncture, doubtless, the Queen wrote the
long letter without date to the Duke,[115] pointing out to him the
unpopularity of the match and the many difficulties of carrying it
through, unless the terms taken by Simier, particularly with regard
to religion and the pension, were relaxed. If this is impossible, she
says, and the affair falls through, let us not worry any more about
it, but remain faithful friends for ever. This did not at all please
the Prince, who plainly told her (January 28, 1580, Hatfield Papers)
that some people believed that she was only making use of the religious
question as an excuse to break off the match, and that he is not at all
astonished that she has requested that the departure of commissioners
for the ratification should be stayed. He was probably right in his
conjecture, for only a few days before (January 17, 1580, Hatfield
Papers) the Queen tried to pick a quarrel about the rank of the
ambassadors to be sent. She had roundly told the King, she said, that
she did not think France was so short of princes that he must needs
send her a child or a low-born person. A person of the very highest
lineage must come or none at all: she would never have the chronicles
record that any slight was offered to her honour on so great an
occasion. The poor “monkey” might write his inflated letters to the
Queen, deploring, and denouncing the enemies who were impeding the
match, and pleading in heartbroken accents the cause of his lovelorn
“frog”; but there can be no doubt that at the end of January, 1580, in
London, the affair was looked upon as at an end. A long and instructive
State paper exists at Hatfield in the writing of Sir Thomas Cecil,
dated the 28th of January, addressed to the Queen, and setting forth
that the Alençon marriage, having fallen through, the Prince would
probably seek revenge for his disappointment, and ally himself to the
King of Spain, with the object of aiding a general Catholic assault
on England and Ireland. Sir Thomas then lays down a certain course of
action necessary to meet this danger. Alençon is to be encouraged to
push his ambitious projects in Flanders in order to keep him at issue
with Spain; the Queen’s forces by sea and land are to be put on a war
footing, and German mercenaries are to be hired; English trade, as
far as possible, is to be carried in foreign bottoms; the Irish are
to be conciliated by large concessions to their national traditions;
the Queen of Scots is to be more strictly held and her son subsidised;
and the Netherlanders and the Huguenots are to be vigorously helped.
This was a bold programme indeed, but was fully warranted by the
circumstances as we now know them. The Guises were moving heaven and
earth to prevent an understanding between Alençon and the Huguenots;
the Queen of Scots was in active negotiation with Philip, through
Beaton and Guise, for a Spanish invasion of England in her interest;
and the Spanish troops, under the Papal banner, were backing up the
insurgent Irish.[116]
The reason for Alençon’s tardy resistance to further surrender about
his religion must be sought in the fact that the Catholic Flemings were
still in active negotiations with him for his assuming the sovereignty
of the States, and any wavering on his part in religion would at once
have made him an impossible candidate for them. The fact of the Prince
of Orange and the Huguenots being in his favour was already rather
against his chances with the Walloons, and it was necessary for him
to assume a devotion to Catholicism, the sincerity of which may well
be doubted. It will thus be seen that the position was full of danger
and uncertainty to Elizabeth, as she could never allow a Frenchman
to be dominant in the Netherlands unless he was her humble servant.
This, of course, was obvious to Alençon as it was to her, and it was
necessary for him to know upon which side he would have to depend for
the promotion of his ambition, either the Queen of England and the
Huguenots, or the Catholic Flemings and his brother. On the very day,
therefore, that the two months stipulated with Simier expired, namely,
the 24th of February, 1580, Castelnau, the French ambassador, went to
the Queen and asked for a definite answer as to whether she would marry
the Prince on the terms arranged or not. She replied that it was not a
matter which could be settled in such a hurry, and she must consult her
Council and her people. After a good deal of bickering the ambassador
unmasked his batteries, and told her that if she did not carry out her
agreement to marry him, the Prince, in his own justification and to
show people that he had not come to England out of mere flightiness,
would be obliged to publish all her letters. She replied, in her usual
vein, that she was surprised that Alençon should think of treating
any lady in this way, much less a Queen, and with this she closed the
colloquy in great anger and indignation.
Mendoza tells the story,[117] and adds that after the ambassador had
left, “she being alone in her chamber with Cecil and the Archbishop
of York, whom she considers a very clever man, she said, My lord,
here am I between Scylla and Charybdis. Alençon has agreed to all the
terms I sent him, and he is asking me to tell him when I wish him to
come and marry me. If I do not marry him I know not whether he will
remain friendly with me; and if I do I shall not be able to govern my
country with the freedom and security I have hitherto enjoyed. What
shall I do?” The answer of the Archbishop was that every one would
be glad with whatever she decided upon. She then turned to Cecil and
asked him what he thought, as he had been absent from the Council for
three days past. He said that if she wished to marry she should do
so, as no harm could come to the country now that Alençon had agreed
to their terms; but, he added, if she did not mean to marry him she
ought to undeceive him at once. She sharply told him that the rest of
the councillors were not of his opinion, but that the Duke should be
kept in hand by correspondence. How could she tell, she asked, the
feeling of the King of Spain towards her, and whether it would be
safe for her to let go her hold on France? Cecil, not relishing the
snub, replied that those who tried to trick princes were themselves
generally tricked in the end. The Spanish ambassador thought, and he
was no doubt right, that Alençon’s pressure and covert threats were
for the purpose of forcing the Queen to help him in his designs in
Flanders as some solatium for the slight she had put upon him and his
family by throwing him over in the marriage negotiations; and colour is
given to this view by the fact that envoys arrived simultaneously from
La Noue, the Huguenot chief, who was now in the service of the States,
from Orange, and the Prince of Condé, to beg the Queen to send help
to establish Alençon in the Netherlands. This appeared to the Queen a
good way out of her difficulty, and she seems to have seized it with
avidity, though always with a pretence that the marriage negotiations
were still pending, in order to save appearances and disarm the French
Government. On the receipt, therefore, of a letter from Alençon by
Captain Bourg, on the 7th of March, announcing that he only awaited
her permission to send Marshal de Cossé, to settle the conditions,
the Queen took what was for her a very unusual step, namely, to pay
a ceremonious visit by water to the French ambassador, to promise
him shortly to fix a date for the coming of the commissioners. How
hollow the pretence was, however, is seen by a letter written at the
same time by Simier to the Queen, headed by a true lovers’ knot, in
which “her faithful monkey” deplores that she has broken off the match
which he ascribes to the machinations of his enemies, and says that
he would rather have given his right arm and ten years of his life
than it should have happened, or if she had decided to break it off
that she had not done so ten months before. Elizabeth continued her
great show of cordiality to the French ambassador, and when the Prince
of Condé himself came in June to complain to her of the treatment
suffered by the Protestants in France, and to beg her aid, she went
to the length of refusing to receive him excepting in the presence of
Castelnau, and by every means in her power sought to bring about an
understanding with the French Government before she pledged herself
single-handed too deeply in the troubled affairs of Flanders. But this
did not at all suit Alençon, who had his own game to play and knew
full well that if a cordial alliance were arranged between his brother
and the Queen of England there would be no need for the latter to
marry him, or for either party to risk an open rupture with Spain for
the sake of his personal aggrandisement; particularly at the present
moment, when Elizabeth was in great alarm at a powerful Spanish fleet
which had just put to sea. So the faithful “frog” and his attendant
monkey began to get ardent again. De Vray was sent to smooth down
misunderstandings and to mollify Leicester, who, after grumbling that
the French were not giving him enough presents, had gone whining to the
Spanish ambassador to offer his services to impede the understanding
with the French--for a consideration. Simier writes on the 18th of
April:[118] “As for your frog, his flame is immortal, and his love
towards you can never end either in this world or the next. By God,
Madame, lose no more time! Take counsel with yourself and those whose
faithful attachment is known to you for your own sake rather than
their advancement ... let Monseigneur soon approach your charms. This
is the daily prayer of your monkey who, with all humility, kisses the
shadow of your footsteps.” Alençon’s letters, although somewhat less
hyperbolical, are yet very loving, and press the Queen urgently to
allow commissioners to come to finally settle the marriage conditions,
and in this request he was seconded by his mother and brother. To all
these letters answers were sent after much delay, “containing many
sweet words but no decision;” and the Spanish ambassador writing an
account of matters to his master on the 21st of May,[119] says that
the French were threatening the Queen with Alençon’s resentment if she
did not marry him now the matter was so far advanced. “In this way
both parties are weaving a Penelope’s web simply to cover the designs
which I have already explained to your Majesty.” These designs were, on
Alençon’s part, to force Elizabeth into a marriage, or into supporting
him in Flanders as the price of throwing him over; on Elizabeth’s
part that if he went into Flanders at all he should do so only as her
tool and that of the Huguenots; or otherwise to bring about a close
alliance between England and France, or a rupture between the latter
and Spain: and on the part of Henry III. and his mother, to get rid
of their “enfant terrible,” by marrying him in England, and to drive
Elizabeth single-handed into a contest with Spain. The States envoys
from Ghent meanwhile were pressing upon Alençon the sovereignty of the
Netherlands, and the matter could not brook long delay for Alexander
Farnese, who was no sluggard, had just routed La Noue, and was pressing
them hard. Alençon therefore thought that affairs must be precipitated
or he would slip to the ground between his brother and the Queen of
England, between Protestant and Catholic support; and the pressure put
upon Elizabeth was now so strong, and the danger that Alençon would
enter Flanders independent of her so great, that a Council was held on
the 5th of June, and unanimously decided that a request should be sent
to France for commissioners to be despatched to England. Sir Edward
Stafford at the same time was despatched to Alençon, to negotiate with
him and obtain his co-operation with the embassy. But Stafford found
the Duke in the sulks. He knew full well that the sending of a formal
embassy by his brother to England would be more likely to lead to an
alliance than a marriage, or that if a marriage was brought about by
these means it would be on such terms as would hamper rather than help
his ambition; so he stood out, and at last only gave his concurrence
with the embassy on condition that it should solely be empowered
to negotiate a marriage and not a national alliance.[120] Shortly
after this, on the 12th of August, a formal deputation of the States
offered Alençon the sovereignty of the Netherlands, which he nominally
accepted. He was, however, powerless to move or assume his sovereignty
until peace was made between his brother and Henry of Navarre and his
Huguenots, who were now at open warfare. No French troops of either
party were available for Alençon until he had persuaded the Bearnais
to come to terms, and had raised the siege of La Fère. The Duke’s
first care, therefore, was to patch up some sort of settlement between
the two factions in France, not a very easy matter, particularly when
the King, learning of the vast Spanish plunder brought by Drake from
America, and concluded that Elizabeth’s fear of reprisals would render
her powerless to back up the Huguenots. At last, however, the peace
of Fleix was signed in November, 1580, and the horizon for Alençon
began to brighten somewhat. Amongst those in the French Court who
most strongly opposed his marriage was his sister Margaret, Queen of
Navarre, for reasons which the scandalmongers of the time had much to
say; and in the correct belief that Simier was largely instrumental in
bringing about the match, she prompted her great friend Fervaques and
his ally Balagny to pick a quarrel with the “monkey,” and if possible
kill him. Thereupon ensued a bitter feud in Alençon’s household, which
ended in the flight of Simier to his abbey of Bourgueil, whence he
wrote a series of interesting letters to Elizabeth in his usual strain,
giving her a full account of all that had happened. She, for her
part, kept up the correspondence actively, and zealously endeavoured
to induce his master to restore him to favour. Alençon seems to have
treated his servitor very badly. Simier tells the Queen that only a
few days before his disgrace he lent the Duke 90,000 crowns, and that
suddenly he had been deprived of all he possessed, “and turned out in
his shirt.” He ascribes his trouble mostly to Margaret, and his letters
--particularly that of the 18th of October[121]--are so full of
scandal that one can well understand his fervent prayers that the Queen
will burn his letters and not let a soul but herself read them. It is
almost impossible to read these letters and believe in the innocence
of the Queen’s relations with Simier, as witness the final words in
the aforesaid long letter of the 18th of October: “I pray you, madame,
that no living soul shall know of my letters. I place my life in your
hands, and only wish to preserve it to do you service. For I am your
ape, and you are my creator, my defender, my stay, and my saviour. You
are my god, my all, my life, my hope, my faith, and my consolation. I
supplicate you then, and pray you with all my power to deign in your
grace to bring my affairs to a happy issue. You will thus still further
pledge the ape who in all humility will render you complete obedience
to death, as willingly as he now humbly kisses and rekisses a hundred
million times your beautiful and loving hands.” All this is mighty
fine, but he gives the Queen in a postscript a piece of news which must
have interested her still more, and certainly influenced her attitude
towards Alençon. “Saturn” (_i.e._, the King of Spain), he says, “has
informed the King and Queen-mother that if they can dissuade Monsieur
from his plans in the Netherlands, he (the King of Spain) will grant
him the territory of Cambresis, and will put him into possession of
all the rest (_i.e._, of Catholic Flanders). The Pope and the Dukes of
Savoy, Florence, Urbino, and Ferrara will guarantee this grant; and the
Queen-mother has undertaken to make these overtures to Monsieur, who
knows nothing of the matter yet. For God’s sake burn this letter and
let no soul see it.”
The effect of this was that loving letters were at once sent to
Alençon, all difficulties were smoothed over, the commissioners should
be cordially welcomed as soon as they liked to come, and what was of
far more importance still, the Queen promised the French ambassador
that when they arrived she would give Alençon 200,000 crowns of Drake’s
plunder to help him in the Netherlands enterprise and subsidise
Duke Casimir’s mercenary army of Germans to cross the frontier and
co-operate with him.
But it was not a very easy task to settle with the King of France
the preliminaries of the embassy, the extent of its powers, and the
choice of its members. Cobham, in Paris, tried to pledge Henry III.
to break first with Spain on account of his mother’s claim to the
Portuguese crown, which Philip had usurped, but the King said he would
make no move until Elizabeth did so. Whilst these discussions were
going on in Paris, Alençon sent an embassy of his own to London (in
February, 1581) to pave the way, in his interest, for the coming of the
commissioners. The principal envoy was Clausse de Marchaumont, Count
de Beaumont, who was accompanied by Jean Bodin, the famous writer,
and others; and his principal task for many months to come was to
beg for money aid for his master’s enterprise. He was received with
apparent cordiality by the Queen, who was closeted with him for hours
every day, and especially recommended him to the French ambassador as
a great favourite of Alençon; but withal she must have watched him
closely at first, for in one of his most secret letters her “faithful
monkey” assures her that Marchaumont was entirely dependent upon the
Guises, and recommends her to have a little secretary of his named
Obterre “untrussed,” when she will find some news about Scotland. The
Duke of Guise, it seems, had dropped a hint about it in the hearing of
one of Simier’s friends. Whatever was the result of the Queen’s secret
conferences with Marchaumont, not even her own councillors knew it, and
she wrote a private letter, which no one saw, for one of the envoys, a
cousin of Marchaumont’s, M. de Mery, to take to the Duke, and with it
she sent a wedding-ring as a token. Mendoza says that “she also said
publicly that she was now so anxious for the commissioners to come that
every hour’s delay seemed like a thousand years to her, with other
tender speeches of the same sort, which make most people who hear them
believe that the marriage will take place. The three ministers (_i.e._,
Sussex, Cecil, and Crofts) for whom Marchaumont brought letters only
replied to him that they could say nothing further, but that the Queen
seemed very desirous that the wedding should be effected.” The tone
of this last remark is sufficient to prove that the Queen, at this
time, was not in earnest, and that her real design, as I have already
pointed out, was to compass her ends without burdening herself with
a husband. At a subsequent stage, as we shall see, her passion once
more, and for the last time, nearly swept away her judgment, and drove
her into a position from which it was difficult to extricate herself
without matrimony or loss of prestige. Marchaumont brought with him a
secretary of Alençon’s named de Bex, who kept up an extremely active
correspondence during the whole of his stay in England, with a large
circle of friends in France (Hatfield Papers), letters which are full
of curious sidelights on the manners of the times, but which do not
give us much fresh information on the marriage negotiations. Another
confidential agent of Alençon was also constantly about the Queen’s
person, and his letters at Hatfield prove that for many months the
most secret instructions of the French ambassador and the special
envoys were immediately conveyed to Elizabeth by this man, who is only
known to us under the pseudonym of “Le Moyne,” with which he signed
his letters to the Queen and to Alençon, with both of whom he seems to
have been equally familiar. “Le Moyne” has, I believe, never hitherto
been identified, but a careful comparison of his letters with certain
known facts of Marchaumont’s life convinces me that the mysterious
“monk” who was so deep in the confidence of the Queen was Marchaumont
himself. How highly she favoured him is proved by her behaviour to him
on the occasion of her famous visit to Drake’s ship, the _Pelican_,
at Deptford early in April, 1581. When the great sailor approached
his sovereign after the banquet to receive the honour of knighthood,
she jokingly told him she had a gilded sword wherewith to strike off
his head, but turning to Marchaumont she handed the sword to him
and authorised him to give Drake the accolade, which he did.[122]
When she was crossing the gangway to go on board the _Pelican_, one
of her purple and gold garters slipped down and trailed behind her,
whereupon Marchaumont, who followed, seized it as a lawful prize to
send to his master. The Queen besought him to return it to her, as
she had nothing else to prevent her stocking from slipping down; but
the gallant Frenchman refused to surrender it until she promised to
restore it to him as soon as she returned to Westminster. She made no
ado about putting the garter on before him, and the next day M. de
Mery was started off hastily to the lovelorn “frog,” again bearing
with him a letter of high-flown affection from the Queen and the
precious garter from Marchaumont.[123] For a long time afterwards
Alençon, in his letters to the Queen, refers to her “belle jartière”
as a talisman which is the cause of all his good fortune. Garters and
loving words were very well in their way, but Alençon was anxious
to come to business. The embassy was waiting to go over to England,
and affairs both in Flanders and France were reaching a point where
it was necessary for the Duke to know upon whom he could depend. His
answer, therefore, was most pressing. “He could have,” he said, “no
rest until the Queen gave him a certain and definite answer as to the
fulfilment of the marriage so long treated of. He earnestly beseeches
her, in recompense for his faithful affection, to put aside all doubts,
ambiguities, and irresolutions, and give expression to her final wishes
on the matter. If she shall approve of the setting out of the embassy
to conclude the marriage, as soon as her reply to the present despatch
shall have been received, they shall be sent with instructions to obey
and satisfy her rather by deeds than by words.”[124]
[Illustration]