Walsingham’s mission to France--His alarm of the consequences of
the Queen’s fickleness--Alençon enters Flanders--Relief of
Cambrai--Alençon entreats Elizabeth’s aid--Walsingham’s
remonstrance to the Queen for her penuriousness--Alençon
again visits England--Elizabeth’s severity to the Catholics
during his stay--Leicester’s continued intrigues--The
Queen’s solemn pledge to marry Alençon--Dismay of Leicester
and his friends--The Queen’s recantation--Arrival of
Secretary Pinart--Elizabeth’s plan to evade the marriage--
Her correspondence with Simier--He arrives in England again
--Elizabeth’s efforts to get rid of Alençon--He refuses to
leave unless she marries him--Simier’s advice to the Queen.
When Walsingham landed at Boulogne he found a message from Alençon
at Chateau-Thierry asking him to meet him and his mother at La Fère
before going to see the King. This he did, where he was met by the
Duke with complaints and reproaches at the indefinite postponement of
the marriage by the Queen until a national alliance had been effected.
He told Walsingham that he could never get the King to consent to an
alliance unless the marriage took place first, as the King feared
that when they had pledged him too far for him to draw back the Queen
would slip out of it and leave France alone face to face with Spain.
The efforts of Catharine and her adviser, Turenne, were directed to
obtaining at least a money subsidy to Alençon first, which would have
pledged Elizabeth to some extent; but Walsingham was too discreet to
be drawn, and tried to get an arrangement which should embark France
in the business before England was compromised. Catharine said she was
well aware of the need for concerted action, but she was afraid, as
Elizabeth had apparently thrown over the marriage for fear of offending
her subjects, she might afterwards throw over the alliance for the same
reason.
It is easy to see that both sides were finessing with the same object,
namely, to throw upon the other the burden and onus of curbing the
power of Spain, which they both feared; and when Catharine saw she
could make nothing of Walsingham or his mistress, she played her trump
card, with which she had come to La Fère fully prepared. She promised
Alençon that if he would abandon his attempt, the Prince of Parma would
retire from Cambrai, Alençon should marry the infanta, gain the support
and friendship of Spain, obtain a larger dotation from his brother, and
receive the investure of the sovereign states of Saluzzo and Provence.
But Alençon could not trust Spain and the Guises, and refused the
tempting bait. Cecil and Elizabeth mistrusted the presence of Catharine
near her son, and fearing that he might at last cede to her influence,
had sent a considerable sum of money by Walsingham, according to
Mendoza, to help Alençon to make masked war upon Spain, without
pledging England or drawing the Queen into war through the marriage.
Alençon was angry at this suggestion, and said that he would take no
such answer, which was quite at variance with the Queen’s own words.
He threatened and stormed until Walsingham almost lost his temper, and
Sir James Crofts told Mendoza that when the Queen received the news of
this “she wept like a child, saying that she did not know what to do,
or into what trouble Leicester had drawn her.” Walsingham also reported
that the King of France was extremely offended that after so grand an
embassy had been sent to England only Walsingham should be sent in
return, “and that if he could manage to have him put out of the way he
would attempt it.” Lord Henry Howard was at once sent off with a loving
message to Alençon to mollify him, and urgent new instructions were
despatched to Walsingham in Paris to bring the marriage forward again
on any terms. But no sooner were Walsingham, Cobham, and the French
ministers in conference to settle the terms of an alliance which was
to accompany a marriage, than Alençon sent, by de Vray, peremptorily
refusing to have anything to do with an alliance. It must, he said, be
a marriage pure and simple first, and after that they could make what
leagues they pleased, but he was sure that if the endless negotiations
for an alliance had to be settled first he should never be married
at all. All things were therefore again brought to a standstill, and
Walsingham and Cobham wrote a most serious, almost vehement, memorandum
to the Queen warning her of the danger of her fickle course.[137] They
entreated her to make up her mind one way or the other. The French will
think they are being played with and will be greatly exasperated.
France, Spain, and Scotland will all be against us, and then God alone
can help us. Surely they say the only question is one of expense, and
it is “very hard that treasure should be preferred before safety. I
beseech your Majesty that without offence I may tell you that your
loathness to spend even when it concerns your safety is publicly
delivered out here.... For the love of God, madame, look into your own
estate, and think that there can grow no peril so great unto you as to
have a war break out in your own realm, considering what a number of
evil subjects you have; and you cannot redeem this peril at too high
a price.” In another letter to Cecil, Walsingham complains bitterly
of the task that is set for him. I would rather, he says, be shut up
in the Tower than be an English ambassador abroad. These constant
variations discredit us and shock the King.
Suddenly, towards the middle of August, 1581, Alençon crossed the
frontier into Spanish Flanders with a fine army of 12,000 infantry
and 5,000 Cavalry, in which were enrolled half the young nobility of
France as volunteers, notwithstanding the King’s anathemas. Parma at
once raised the siege of Cambrai and stood on the defensive, and the
whole position was changed in a moment. The King of France felt, or
at least expressed, the utmost alarm at his brother’s action, lest he
should be drawn into the quarrel. Elizabeth, on the other hand, was no
less apprehensive that the King, the Guises, and the Catholics might
be after all behind the movement. She, however, was soon tranquillised
on this score, and wrote a loving letter of congratulation.[138] No
sooner was Alençon in Cambrai than he found himself without money. If
the States will not aid me, he wrote to the Prince of Orange, I can go
no further. But the attempt had been made without the open patronage of
the Queen of England, and the Protestant States would do nothing. De
Bex was sent off post-haste by Alençon to take her the news, and to beg
for 300,000 crowns, “as he had spent all his own money in the relief,
and neither the States nor his brother would give him a penny. If she
did not provide him with money he should be obliged to return with his
army to France without going any further.”[139]
Marchaumont continued to urge his master’s need for money, and besides
the £22,000 which had been taken by Walsingham a further sum of
£20,000 in gold was secretly sent from Drake’s plunder to Alençon. But
Elizabeth herself was somewhat short of money, and still not without
suspicion, besides which she had no intention whatever of defraying
the whole expense of Alençon’s army, and would send him no more money.
Things went from bad to worse. The French troops deserted in bodies
and fell to pillage; the young noblemen slipped back over the frontier
by hundreds. By the first week in September Alençon had retired to
Chatelet, leaving a garrison in Cambrai; only 3,000 of his men remained
with him, and he sent again de Bex to the Queen to beg for more help
before they were all gone. His victory at Cambrai he attributes all to
the “belle jartière,” which he says he will never surrender whilst he
lives, nor the desire to see again “vostre belle Majesté a la quelle
pour la hate de ce porteur je me contenteré de bayzer les belles mins
et les belles greves qui ont porté la belle jartière.” But the Queen
was not to be wheedled out of her money by talk about the beautiful
garter, and Marchaumont began to hint that his master’s only course
would be to once more cross the Channel and press his own suit.
In the meanwhile Walsingham was making no progress in Paris, and the
Queen as usual was reproaching in no measured terms. Walsingham, who
knew his mistress well, gave her on this occasion at least as good as
she sent.[140] He told her bluntly that if she was sincere about the
marriage she was losing time she could ill spare; whilst, if otherwise,
it “is the worst remedy you can use.” “Sometimes when your Majesty doth
behold in what doubtful terms you stand with foreign princes, then
you do wish with great affection that opportunities offered had not
been overslipped; but when they are offered to you, accompanied with
charges, they are altogether neglected. The respect of charges hath
lost Scotland, and I would to God I had no cause to think it might
put your Highness in peril of the loss of England.” He reproaches her
almost rudely for her niggardliness, which he compares with the wise
liberality of her predecessors where expenditure was needful for the
safety of the realm. “If this sparing and provident course be held
on still, the mischiefs approaching being so apparent as they are,
there is no one that serveth in place of councillor ... who would not
wish himself rather in the farthest part of Ethiopia than enjoy the
fairest palace in England.” On his way back to England Walsingham
saw Alençon at Abbeville, in Picardy, and rather encouraged the Duke
in his desire to come to England again. It is evident that, much as
Walsingham was attached to Leicester, he was in grave alarm that the
Protestant religion, to which he was devoted, might be overborne by the
threatened union against England of the Catholic powers, and at this
time would have gladly welcomed the marriage of the Queen and Alençon,
which would have prevented France from joining the coalition and have
banished the danger. When Walsingham arrived in London at the end of
September, however, he found the Queen very strongly opposed to her
suitor’s proposed visit, not wishing to have her hands forced in this
way. She told Marchaumont that his master must not come on any account,
or a rising of the people might be feared, so angry were they at the
idea of the match. On the other hand, both Marchaumont and Castelnau,
the ambassador, took care to spread broadcast the intelligence that
the Duke would soon be here; and when no open discontent ensued they
pointed out that the Queen’s fears were groundless. Leicester, as
usual, tried to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, to retain
French bribes and yet to stand in the way of French objects. Mendoza
says that he took good care to turn the Queen against Alençon’s coming,
but as soon as he was sure that his efforts were effectual he went out
of town and hypocritically professed to the French that Hatton and
Walsingham alone were to blame for the opposition.
But by the end of October the Queen’s apprehensions seem to have been
dissipated. Walsingham must have made it clear to her that unless
the marriage were again taken up with some show of sincerity she had
no chance of getting the close understanding with France which was
necessary to her plans. She had, moreover, spent large sums of money
in Flanders, which she could never get back unless the States could
be enabled to hold their own, and she accordingly decided to make the
best of Alençon’s coming in the assurance that, if the worst came
to the worst, she could avoid a marriage by supplying funds for his
maintenance in Flanders.
Shortly before the Duke’s arrival the “monk” (Marchaumont) wrote to de
Bex saying that every one, from the Queen downwards, was expecting his
Highness’s arrival with pleasure, but he hints that he had better make
haste as the Spanish ambassador was making certain proposals to the
Queen; which we now know to be true.[141] He says that even Leicester
had now been won over, his only fear being that if the marriage took
place his bitter enemy, Simier, might come, who, he was sure, would
plot his ruin. This state of things had not been brought about without
a good deal of friction. Several sums of money had been sent by the
Queen with the hope of staving off the visit, but with no effect. The
Queen had a great row with Walsingham in consequence of mischief-making
of Sussex, who had shown Marchaumont a letter written by Walsingham
from France, containing some slighting expressions towards Alençon
which had been repeated to the Queen; “although,” says Mendoza, “some
people think that it is all put on, and that she herself ordered
Walsingham to write this so as to hinder the marriage, as she is a
woman very fond of adopting such tricks. At all events Walsingham
takes very little notice of her anger, and Alençon turns a deaf ear
to everything, and only asks for money, whilst Marchaumont keeps
the negotiation alive by pressing for a decision with regard to the
marriage.”
The Queen had lent Marchaumont a small house attached to her own palace
at Richmond, to which entrance could be gained through it by means of
a connecting gallery. Two chambers were refurnished and warmed in this
house for the Prince’s use, the Earl of Arundel (son of the attainted
and executed Duke of Norfolk) and his uncle, Lord Harry Howard, were
charged by the Queen to make all arrangements for his comfort; and her
Majesty herself superintended the installation in one of the rooms of
a crimson bed, which she told Marchaumont archly that his master would
recognise. A day or so before the Duke was expected Marchaumont wrote
to de Bex, who was with his master on his journey hither, that he
learnt by a message the Queen had sent him “that every hour seemed a
month to her so anxious was she to see her lover, for whose reception
great preparations had been made, although the Queen will pretend that
nothing special had been done.”[142]
When Walsingham had seen the Prince in France the latter had expressed
a desire to rest a day and a night in Walsingham’s house in London
before going to see the Queen at Richmond, but when the time
approached for the visit Walsingham managed to avoid the trouble of
entertaining the guest by saying that the plague was raging round the
house, and it was settled that he should be lodged for the night in
the house of Sir Edward Stafford, the son of Elizabeth’s friend and
Mistress of the Robes. “But I need not tell you,” says Marchaumont to
de Bex, “to keep strict secrecy as to the Prince’s movements, for if
Lady Stafford knows anything it will be easier to stem a torrent than
to stop the woman’s tongue.”
Alençon embarked from Calais at the end of October, 1581, having met
the Portuguese pretender, Don Antonio, before going on board, and
promised him to plead his cause with the English Queen. The heavy
weather necessitated his anchoring in the Downs instead of entering
Dover, and it was only at the cost of some risk and trouble that he
landed. Leaving the Prince Dauphin and most of his suite of gentlemen
to follow him, he pressed on in disguise with de Bex to London, where
he arrived and slept at Stafford’s house on the night of the 1st of
November. The next morning he started off to see the Queen privately
at Richmond, the first public reception being fixed for the 3rd of
November, when the Prince Dauphin and the rest of the suite were
fetched from London in the Queen’s state coaches. It was, in truth,
high time the Prince came, for the Queen was very much out of temper
with him and every one else. She complained to Castelnau that the
Prince had acted in Flanders without her permission, that the King
of France was intriguing with Spain for her ruin, that the States
were a lot of drunkards, who only thought of borrowing money and not
paying it back. She was too old, she said, to be played with, and
would let them all see it. But when her young lover came she was full
of smiles and blandishments. Fortunately he had plenty of money with
him--money, however, brought to him by St. Aldegonde, at Calais,
collected by the sorely pressed Flemings for the support of his army,
and not to be squandered in England; but he bribed the ladies and
the councillors liberally with it. At first all went as merrily as
a marriage-bell. The Queen again took to calling Alençon her little
Moor, her little Italian, her little frog, and so on; whilst she,
as before, was to him all the orbs of the firmament. Leicester was
radiant, however, which was a bad sign, and Sussex was in the sulks,
which was equally so; but the French, and Alençon himself, grew more
and more confident of success. The Queen was playing her usual game,
and Leicester understood it perfectly, but she could not help having
her fling at Walsingham when he tried clumsily to humour her. He was
praising the good parts and understanding of Alençon one day to the
Queen, and said that the only thing against him was his ugly face.
“Why, you knave,” she replied, “you were for ever speaking ill of him
before: you veer round like a weathercock.”[143] At the same time all
sorts of scandalous tittle-tattle began to arise. Every morning little
love-letters signed “your prince frog,” were sent from Alençon to the
Queen, and Lippomano, the Venetian ambassador, assures the Doge and
Senate that the Queen entered his chamber every morning before he
was out of bed, and brought him a cup of broth. He was with her, says
Mendoza, all day and every day, no one being present but Sussex and
Stafford, and even they were not allowed to hear their conversation.
In order to allay the fears of her Protestant subjects, some of whom
were grumbling because Alençon heard mass daily, unwonted severity
was used towards the Catholics during Alençon’s visit, and the Jesuit
priests Campion, Sherwin, and Briant, were executed at Tyburn under
circumstances of the most heartrending cruelty. The Spanish ambassador
at last got somewhat anxious, and by Philip’s orders began to approach
Cecil with suggestions of the falsity of Frenchmen and the advisability
of a close union between England and Spain, all injuries on each
side being forgiven and forgotten. He went to the length, indeed, of
hinting that the French were intriguing with Mary of Scotland under
cover of the marriage negotiations, although he himself at the time
was plotting with and for her. But Cecil was a match for him, and let
him understand that the friendship proposed was more necessary for
Spain than it was for England. The position at the time of Alençon’s
visit is well summarised by Mendoza in a letter to King Philip[144]
as follows: “As soon as the Queen learnt that Alençon had arrived,
she said to certain of the councillors separately that they must
consider what would have to be done with him; to which they replied
that they could hardly do that unless she made her own intentions upon
the subject clear. To this she answered that she was quite satisfied
with the person of Alençon. When he arrived here he told those who
he knew were in his favour that he would not go out in public nor
undertake any other affairs until he had settled with the Queen the
subject about which he came. If this be so, present indications prove
that he has got an affirmative answer, as he now shows himself almost
publicly, and appears to be in high spirits, all the principal people
at Court being allowed to see him at dinner and supper. Leicester
leaves nothing undone, and in the absence of the Prince Dauphin, always
hands Alençon the napkin, publicly declaring that there seems to be no
other way for the Queen to secure the tranquillity of England but for
her to marry Alençon; and Walsingham says the same. The Frenchmen who
came with him, and the ambassadors who were here before, look upon the
marriage as an accomplished fact, but the English in general scoff at
it, saying that he is only after money, and that he has already begged
the Queen to give him £100,000 and 4,000 men to aid your Majesty’s
rebels. The principal Englishmen indeed are saying that if he wanted a
regular pension they would grant him £20,000 a year, so there are more
indications of money being given him than anything else. It is certain
that the Queen will do her best to avoid offending him, and to pledge
him in the affairs of the Netherlands, in order to drive his brother
into a rupture with your Majesty, which is her great object, whilst
she keeps her hands free, and can stand by looking on at the war.” Few
men were better informed than Mendoza; part of the Privy Council was
in his pay, and the most secret information was conveyed to him at
once by his spies, who were everywhere. He was, moreover, one of the
most keen-sighted statesmen of his time, and we may accept his opinion
therefore, confirmed as it is by much other evidence, that up to this
time (November 11th) Elizabeth was once more playing her old trick, and
befooling Alençon and the French.
When Leicester thought that matters were going a little too far he
persuaded the Queen to urge her lover to start at once for Flanders,
for which purpose she would give him three ships and £30,000, in order
to receive the oath of allegiance which the States were offering him,
and then to return and marry her; but Sussex saw through the device,
and privately warned Alençon that whatever pledges might be made to
him now, he might be convinced that if once he went away without being
married the marriage would never take place. He entreated him on no
account to be driven out of England, and as Alençon well knew that
Sussex at least was honest in his desire to see the Queen married and
freed from the baleful influence of Leicester, he put his back to the
wall and plainly told the Queen that not only would he refuse to leave
England, but he would not ever vacate the rooms in her palace until she
had given him a definite answer as to whether she would marry him or
not. Crofts, the privy councillor in Philip’s pay, told Mendoza that
“when the Queen and Alençon were alone together she pledges herself to
him to his heart’s content, and as much as any woman could to a man,
but she will not have anything said publicly.”
Things were thus getting to a deadlock again. The King of France wrote
to the Queen saying that under no circumstances, whether his brother
married or not, would he help him against Spain in the Netherlands, and
the Queen-mother began pressing her son with all sorts of promises,
to return and abandon his hopeless quest before he became the
laughing-stock of the world. This of course made the Queen warmer in
her protestations, and by the third week in November she had contrived
to convince Alençon again of her sincerity. He at once wrote off to
his brother, requesting that commissioners might be sent to settle the
conditions of the treaty which had been discussed with Walsingham when
he was in France. The Queen encouraged him to do this, knowing full
well that Henry III. would refuse to take his brother’s unsupported
word as to her _bona fides_, and send another embassy, whilst his
refusal to do so would furnish her if necessary with an excuse for
proceeding no further in the matter.
On November 21, 1581, the Queen and Court moved to Whitehall, where
Alençon was lodged in the garden-house, and on the following morning
--coronation day--he and the Queen were walking in the gallery,
Walsingham and Leicester being present, when Castelnau, the French
ambassador, entered, and said that he had been commanded by his master
to learn from her own lips what her intentions were with regard to
her marrying the King’s brother. Either because she was driven into
a corner from which there was no other escape, or because once more
her passions overcame her, she unhesitatingly replied to Castelnau,
“You may write this to the King: that the Duke of Alençon shall be my
husband, and at the same moment she turned to Alençon and kissed him
on the mouth, drawing a ring from her own hand and giving it to him
as a pledge. Alençon gave her a ring of his in return, and shortly
afterwards the Queen summoned the ladies and gentlemen from the
presence-chamber to the gallery, repeating to them in a loud voice in
Alençon’s presence what she had previously said.”[145]
The French were naturally elated at this, and Alençon at once sent
off the great news to his brother, but the feeling amongst the
courtiers was very different. Leicester and Hatton were in dismay;
they had felt certain hitherto that the Queen was only play-acting,
but surely matters were getting serious, and tears, lamentations, and
reproaches, were the order of the day. But the Queen was playing her
own game, and sage old Cecil was perhaps the only one of her advisers
who really understood her move. He was ill in bed with the gout at
the time, and was chatting with a couple of gossips when the message
reached him. Instead of dismay he expressed great satisfaction, and
placed the matter at once in its true light. “Thank God,” he said,
“the Queen, for her part, has done all that she can; it is for the
country now to take the matter in hand.” This meant that the Queen,
ever evasive of responsibility, had shifted the onus upon Parliament,
which had been summoned for the 6th of December. There was not the
slightest need for Parliament to be consulted at all, but Elizabeth had
been driven into a corner by Alençon’s presence and persistence and
the immovable determination of his brother to stand aloof until the
marriage had taken place. By taking the course she did, she artfully
attained three objects which could have been compassed by no other
way short of marriage: she secured further delay without offence to
the King, she personally bound Alençon to her, come what might, and,
most important of all, she sowed the germ of discord between him and
his brother, who now appeared the principal obstacle to the marriage,
as he refused the terms demanded by the English (which Parliament
would be asked to insist upon) before the marriage could take place.
Having the most secret correspondence before our eyes now, we are able
to see clearly that this was the clever plan of the Queen herself;
but her most intimate contemporaries were puzzled and disturbed at
her apparent instability. The balance of opinion was that the Queen
had been caught at last, and had pledged herself too deeply to draw
back, although Leicester, after his first dismay was over, went about
industriously spreading a contrary view. He and Hatton, however, were
not so reassured as they would have had it appear. Hatton went to
the Queen, and with many tears and sighs boldly told her that even
if she wanted herself to marry, she ought to consider the grief she
was bringing upon the country by doing so, not to mention what might
happen to her personally if she married against the will of her people,
upon whose affection the security of her throne depended. This almost
seditious speech at another time would have aroused Elizabeth to
fury, and consigned her “sheep” Hatton, to the Tower, but the Queen
was quite confident in her game and only smiled and petted her future
Lord Chancellor. Leicester, by right of his greater intimacy with his
mistress, was blunter in his reproaches. He asked her point blank
whether she was a maid or a married woman, to which she replied that
she was a maid, as the conditions upon which she gave the marriage
pledge would never be fulfilled. He told her that she had acted very
unwisely in carrying the matter so far and so ostentatiously, and they
put their heads together there and then to devise some scheme by which
the Queen’s words might be minimised, probably solely at Leicester’s
instance, and contrary to her own better judgment, as her plans were
well laid. A message was therefore sent to Alençon, saying that the
Queen had been pondering about the ring she had given him, and she
felt sure that if she married him she would not have long to live.
He might, she said, see that for himself, as he was a witness of the
dissatisfaction of the English people at her attachment to him, which
attachment she hoped he did not wish to be fatal to her. She prayed
him therefore to let the matter rest for the present, and there was
nothing in her country she would refuse him. She would be more attached
to him as a friend, even than if he were her husband. Walsingham took
this message, and whilst he was with the Prince the latter remained
calm. All he had said and done, he protested, was solely to please
the Queen, whose death, very far from desiring, he would imperil his
own life to avert and to give her pleasure, as, indeed, he was doing
now to save her from annoyance by refraining from pressing his suit
with less ardour at her request.[146] But as soon as Walsingham was
gone the young Prince lost all control over himself. He saw now how
he had been tricked; it was too late to prevent the coming of the
commissioners whom his brother had despatched to England to finally
settle the conditions, and in his rage he cursed the inconstancy of
woman, tore the ring from his finger and cast it upon the ground.[147]
He told Elizabeth he would leave at once, hinted at revenge for his
and his country’s slighted honour, and again brought matters to a
crisis. Then Elizabeth saw that her complaisancy to Leicester had led
her into a false position, and once more resumed her original plan.
She mollified and lulled the Duke into a fool’s paradise again with:
“nouvelles démonstrations accompagnées de baisers, privautés, caresses,
et mignardises ordinaries aux amants.” She received the King’s envoy,
Secretary Pinart, with new protestations of her desire to marry,
and appointed a committee of the Council, consisting of the Lord
Chancellor, Cecil, Sussex, and Leicester to discuss the _pourparlers_
with him. She asked them first to report their opinion to her, as,
desirous as she was of the marriage, she would not entertain it if
she was not satisfied that it was for the benefit of her country; but
they knew she was playing her own game, of which most of them did not
see the drift, and were determined to avoid giving any opinion which
might offend and hamper her. In the meanwhile Leicester, through his
agents, was stirring up the Protestants to distrust and hatred of the
match, whilst the host of Catholic sympathisers in the interests of
Spain were equally working against it on the ground that Alençon had
not raised a finger to save the lives of his co-religionists who had
been martyred whilst he had been in England. Matters therefore did
not look particularly promising when the Council met Pinart early in
December, although Alençon himself had been petted into hopefulness.
The English began by advancing claims for all sorts of impossible
conditions and assurances, and after succeeding in making the marriage
appear impracticable they proposed that in lieu of marriage they should
give Alençon a regular subsidy for his Netherlands projects if the
King of France would also support his brother. This had been proposed
and refused in different forms time after time, and Pinart, who was
an old diplomatist, at once retorted that he had come to settle the
marriage and nothing else; if the marriage was not to take place all
negotiations must cease, and he must go back. Catharine was equally
disillusioned, and told Priuli, the Venetian ambassador in France,
that although Alençon had given the Queen’s ring back again, she
attached no importance to it, as the gift of a ring did not constitute
a binding engagement. “Queen Elizabeth, she said, is very artful, and
my son is very young. He has allowed himself to be drawn by her into
this adventure, in spite of all our arguments and advice; he is being
overwhelmed with entertainments, and he has just written to me that he
still has hope.”[148]
[Illustration: François de Valois, Duke of Alençon.]
The next day there was a meeting of the Council, where it was proposed
to settle matters by granting to Alençon a pension of 10,000 marks
a year, the King of France a subsidy of £100,000, and the States
£80,000 on condition of a similar amount being contributed by the
King for the purpose of making war upon Spain in the Netherlands
under the leadership of Alençon. If the King of France refused this
it was proposed to make an immediate grant of £200,000 to Alençon,
in consideration of the relief of Cambrai, and that the marriage
negotiations be dropped. This was Leicester’s plan, who undertook to
answer for Alençon’s acquiescence and the raising of the money by
privy-seal loans and exchequer bills, but when they sent the proposal
to the Queen as the result of their deliberation she was furious.
Her plans were working as she intended them to work, and she could
throw the whole blame for the failure of her marriage upon the King
of France, whilst raising enmity between him and his brother, and
pledging Alençon to her hard and fast without marriage. And yet these
dense councillors of hers, and jealous, shallow Leicester, would keep
thwarting her with their officious interference. Cecil was the only
one who refused to do so, and always had a diplomatic attack of gout
at critical times. Crofts gave an account to Mendoza of the way in
which the Queen received the proposal of her Council. “She made, he
says, a great show of anger and annoyance, saying that her councillors
only thought of their own profit, wasting the substance of the country
without reflection, and buying, under cover of her authority, that
which suited them best. As Alençon thought fit to forget her in
exchange for her money, she would neither marry him nor give him any
money, and he might do the best he could.” Then she sent for Alençon
and angrily told him the same, and a quarrel between them ensued.
When she had thus upset the results of her Council’s officiousness,
she began her own game again. Pinart had made clear to her that her
demands for the restitution of Calais, a rupture with Spain, and
the cessation of the old alliance between France and Scotland were
unreasonable, and that if the marriage were broken off in consequence
of such preposterous conditions the responsibility would be cast upon
her and not upon his master. So she harked back to somewhat more
moderate-sounding claims, which she knew would be also refused. She
said that she had given the ring and pledge to Alençon on condition
that he should make war on Spain in the Netherlands at the expense of
the King of France, whilst she sent assistance from England in form of
men. She said she had distinctly understood that this was to be the
condition of the marriage; but of course if the French King could not
fulfil it, there was the end of the matter. She was extremely sorry,
but it was not her fault if there was a misunderstanding, or the French
failed to carry out the condition, and she urged that Marchaumont, her
devoted “monk,” whose letters are only a degree less loving than those
of Simier, should be sent to Paris to urge this view upon the King and
his mother.
Marchaumont had long been tiring of his task in England, and had
not ceased to entreat his master to give him active employment, and
especially to bestow a stray abbey or two upon him instead of giving
everything to Fervaques and de Quincy. He assures Elizabeth that he has
received nothing in consequence of his attachment to her, which had
aroused the jealousy of his fellows, and he left England breathing vows
and protestations of his eternal devotion to her.[149]
Ever since Simier left England he had maintained a copious cipher
correspondence with Elizabeth, which is now at Hatfield, containing the
most minute details of Alençon’s movements and intentions, interspersed
with curious marks which presumably stand for kisses, twin hearts,
transfixed with Cupid’s darts and other lover-like devices. But amongst
his frantic, not to say impious, professions of adoration for the Queen
he continued to complain of the machinations of Fervaques, the Queen
of Navarre, and his other enemies who had brought about his disgrace
and ruin. Elizabeth, for her part, was for ever urging Alençon through
Marchaumont, and by her own letters to reinstate Simier in his good
graces. Sometimes more or less vague promises of acquiescence were
sent, sometimes the Prince told her that if she knew all she would not
be so warm in Simier’s defence, and sometimes the revenues and favours
now enjoyed by her favourite were detailed to prove that he had quite
as much as he could expect, but the net result was that Simier remained
in disgrace and Fervaques ruffled it more bravely than ever. At last
Simier appears to have got tired of obscurity and entreaty, and finding
he could get no more by serving Alençon, bethought him that he might
employ his great influence with the Queen in the service of Henry III.
The offers of such an instrument to mould events to the liking of the
King were eagerly accepted, and at first an attempt was made by Henry
and Catharine to induce Alençon to discard Fervaques and de Quincy
and take Simier back again. But, as Simier writes to the Queen, this
only made Alençon love them the more, for Queen Margaret’s influence
on her brother was too strong to be overcome. So when Fervaques,
Champvallon, Queen Margaret’s lover, and the rest of the crew, came
over with their master to England, Simier, with the King’s connivance,
followed them in order ostensibly to challenge his foe, but really to
watch Alençon’s negotiations from his point of vantage near the Queen,
and, if necessary, frustrate them in the King’s interest. With him he
took a second, another fire-eater named Baron de Viteau, and when the
challenge was sent to Fervaques, the latter, true to Gascon character,
would only accept a pitched battle with six on each side. This was
obviously impossible, as Simier had not six partisans in England, but
it gave Fervaques time to arrange with Leicester, who hated Simier
more bitterly than any one, to have the poor “ape” assassinated
in cold blood. Simier was attacked on the London 'Change by hired
cut-throats, but fortunately once more escaped. He again complained to
his protectress, whose rage knew no bounds. Calling Leicester to her,
she called him a murderous poltroon who was only fit for the gallows
and warned him and Alençon’s courtiers that if anything happened to
her “ape” in England they should suffer for it. Fervaques, rightly or
wrongly, thought that Simier had been warned of the plot by a certain
Lafin, with whom he consequently picked a quarrel in the palace itself.
Lafin fled, pursued by Fervaques with a drawn dagger, into the presence
of the Queen, who broke out into one of her uncontrollable rages at
such disrespect for her, and cried out that if Fervaques were one
of her subjects, she would soon have his head off. There were ample
materials, therefore for dissensions, and by the middle of December
Alençon had lost heart again. He earnestly pressed the Queen for an
answer, and a pledge that she would marry him if the King acceded
to her last demands. But she then advanced another claim which had
hitherto not been mentioned, namely, the suppression of the English
Jesuit seminary at Rheims. Alençon, anxious to make an end, asked her
whether if he obtained this concession she would bind herself to marry
him; but she still held back. Even in such case, she said, she would
have to consider very deeply whether it would be advisable for her to
change her state. This was mere trifling, and Alençon in despair begged
her to send an envoy to discuss these conditions with his brother, but
she replied that the King of France had better send one to her. Pinart
was still in England, although waiting and ready to depart, and he was
consequently delayed to discuss these new pretensions. In the meanwhile
news arrived of the fall of Tournai, and the States, at the end of
their wits and resources, sent a deputation to Alençon offering to
invest him at once, if he would come over, with the dukedom of Brabant,
which he had coveted from the first. This suited the Queen excellently,
as nothing was more likely to bring about a rupture between France
and Spain, but it would never do to let the future sovereign of the
Netherlands leave her in dudgeon, or the control might slip through her
fingers after all. So she at once changed her tone. Ships were made
ready with furious haste, money, munitions, and men were promised in
his aid, and every inducement was offered for him to accept the States’
invitation; whilst at the same time the Queen, with sighs and feigned
tears, entreated her lover not to leave her, but if he must go to
promise her faithfully soon to come back again. Alençon replied that he
would not return unless she now gave an unconditional promise to marry
him. But this was no part of the Queen’s programme, and she evaded the
question with her usual dexterity.
On the 20th of December all was ready for the Duke’s departure. The
vessels were awaiting him, and some of his baggage and household
had started; a grand farewell supper was laid for him and the Queen
at Cobham House, near Gravesend, where he was to take leave of her,
and he was about to embark in the barges which were to convey him
from Greenwich, when a strong north-east gale sprang up and blew
continuously for many days, and prevented his departure.
Mendoza says that although she displayed publicly great grief at his
going, in the privacy of her own chamber she danced for very joy at
getting rid of him. One day during his detention he reproached her for
letting him go so easily. He saw now, he said, that she did not love
him much, and that she was tired of him, as she was sending him away
openly discarded. She protested with an abundance of sounding oaths
that she had only been induced to let him go for his own gratification
and not for hers, and that she was sorry he was going so soon. She did
not mean it, of course, but it was enough for Alençon, who seized the
opportunity at once. “No! no! Madame,” said he, “you are mine, as I
can prove by letters and words you have written to me, confirmed by
the gift of the ring, of which I sent intelligence to my brother, my
mother, and the princes of France, and all those who were present at
our interviews are ready to bear testimony. If I cannot get you for my
wife by fair means and affection I must do so by force, for I will not
leave this country without you.” The Queen was much perturbed at this,
and exclaimed that she had never written anything which she could not
justify. She did not care, she said, what interpretation people chose
to put upon her letters, as she knew her own intentions better than any
one else could; and as for the ring, it was only a pledge of perpetual
friendship and of a conditional contract, dependent upon his brother
the King acceding to her conditions, which she was quite sure he never
would do. She repeated her repugnance to entering the married state,
but softened the blow by saying that there was nothing she desired more
than that he should stay in England as her brother, friend, and good
companion, but not as her husband.[150] Alençon was deeply grieved at
all this, but it ended in a promise that after the new year’s holidays
she would see what help she could give him in his enterprise, and with
this he was perforce to appear content. But withal, Alençon’s fresh
talk of remaining in England disturbed her, especially as Cobham in
Paris sent her news that the King was anxious to prolong negotiations
in order to keep him there and prevent his going to Flanders. So she
instructed Cecil to inflame his ambition for the great career there
open to him, and at the same time sent for Simier to contrive with
him how she best might get him gone. Simier had told her that if she
really wished to avoid the marriage she need only stand fast to the
conditions she had demanded from the King of France as a preliminary.
She repeated to him her last demands, and said she was sure the King
would not consent to break with Spain and bear the whole cost of the
war without any contribution from her, and this would furnish her with
the excuse she sought after, while she might make a show of approaching
Spain, and this would ensure Alençon’s recall and the cessation of
the marriage negotiations. Simier, after all, said he was not so sure
of this. Alençon was such an evil weed that his brother might consent
to anything to get rid of him from France. “Well,” replied the Queen,
“I do not believe the King will grant such terms, but even if he do
I shall find a way out of it.” And then she and Simier began to make
merry at the fine gallant who would so readily give up his lady-love
in consideration of a money payment. I offered him, she said, so much
a month, and it has brightened him up to such an extent that you would
not know him. But as soon as he is once across the sea I will tell him
my Council will not agree to the arrangement, on the ground that my
country cannot without unduly weakening itself provide so large a sum,
and that the people would not allow it.[151] Both Elizabeth and Cecil
were strongly of opinion that whilst she held large sums of money she
would remain mistress of the situation, and whatever promises were held
out to Alençon to induce him to embark in the enterprise, the intention
always was to dole out the subsidies to him as sparingly as possible.
[Illustration]