THE COURTSHIPS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.* WITHIN recent years much new
information has been brought to light as to the courtships of the Virgin Queen. The Count de la Ferriere has compiled from the documents in the National Library at Paris a minute account of the approaches made to Elizabeth by the brothers De Valois, or rather by their in- triguing mother, Catherine de Medici. In this country the Historical Manuscripts Commission has printed the full text of the extraordinary love-letters which passed to and from the Queen in relation to the match with the Duke of Alencon,
• The Courtship. of Quern Elisabeth : a History of the Various Negotiatiow for bar Kornai's. By Martin A. 8. Hume, F.B.Hist.8. Loudon: T. Fisher Herrin.
while the author of the present volume has edited the Calendar of Spanish State-papers in the Rolls series, which have thrown much light upon the matrimonial negotiations made by Philip II. of Spain and the Princes of the House of Austria.
Mr. Hume now offers us a detailed and learned summary and precis of this complicated series of transactions. It must be confessed that the author is not always accurate in style "During the billing and cooing personally with Simier, and in writing with his master, an occasional cloud of distrust passed over " is a sentence quite unintelligible as well as quite ungrammatical. Nor is he more happy in his attempts at metaphor or rhetoric. " 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 " is a paragraph containing five or six incongruities in itself alone. These matters, of no vital moment in themselves, become serious drawbacks to our appreciation, and indeed to our comprehension, of the extraordinarily tangled skein of the Queen's diplomacy. What is also serious is that nothing is told in its due proportions,—" Catherine sent word that she was grieved that the paper had disturbed Smith so much, and would be glad to see him. The next day she sent a coach for him and Killigrew, and they were accompanied to the Court by Castelnau de la Mauvissiere and Cavalcanti," and so on ad infinitum. These details are wearisome and confusing to the march of the narrative.
Nor is this all. At times the critical and historical judg- ment of the author seems absolutely to miss the mark. For instance, it may fairly be expected that the chronicler of the courtships of Elizabeth should pass some judgment upon the tremendous charges brought against the Queen and Leicester in connection with the death of Leicester's wife, Amy Robsart. That death was a matter, too, of the most vital importance, as it at once made the Queen's marriage with Leicester a practical question. We ourselves incline to hold both the Queen and Leicester guiltless, in spite of the Court scandals and tattle given by Mr. Hume. Yet in a book of nearly three hundred and fifty pages devoted to this very subject, all we bear is that "thenceforward Dudley was free, and the marriage negotiations had another factor to be taken into account." This is really no judgment at all. Again, as an instance of what may not unreasonably be considered a lapse of historical accuracy, there is the extraordinary statement that "it is probable that the in- experienced girl was really in love with the handsome, showy Seymour." This Seymour, it may be remembered, was uncle of the then reigning monarch, Edward VI., and this ambitious and unscrupulous person was naturally desirous of making so splendid a marriage as a union with the Princess Elizabeth, at that date fourteen years of age, and next heir after Mary to the English throne. But that Elizabeth was " really in love " with him is borne out by no scrap or shred of evidence either in Elizabeth's letters or in the original confessions and declarations of those who had knowledge of the affair, now among the papers at Hatfield, which were fully published many years ago by Haynes, and have been more recently calendared by the Historical Mann. scripts Commission. Has our author forgotten, as he has omitted to mention, Elizabeth's letter which says, in answer to Seymour's offer of his hand, that " Even when she shall have arrived at years of discretion she wishes to retain her liberty, without entering into any matrimonial engagement " P Does he forget what she said when the news was brought to her that Seymour's head had fallen on the scaffold P—" This day died a man with much wit and very little judgment." It is quite incredible that Elizabeth was "really in love" with Seymour of Sudeley.
Notwithstanding these blemishes The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth may be pronounced a serious and able work. It is worth considering what is exactly the scope and aim of its author. His object is evidently not romance, for if it had been so, he should surely have conducted his narrative, not to the death of Alencon in 1583, but to the death of the "Sweet Robin" Leicester, who passed away so suddenly after that proud hour when side by side with Elizabeth he rode down the lines of Tilbury in the year of the Armada. His purpose has rather been to portray, if the phrase may be allowed, the international flirtations of the Virgin Queen. This he has accomplished at the expense, it must be admitted, of much that is interesting and characteristic in the life of those times. These negotiations between Ambassadors and potentates are endless, and the reader is the more wearied because he knows that they are all doomed to futility. In one sense, however, they have a high political importance; it was the coyness of Elizabeth that maintained the balance of Europe. It was the hand of the daughter of Henry VIII. that disturbed or adjusted the equipoise of France and Austria, of Catherine de Medici and Philip of Spain. In this policy lay the immediate safety of England, and thus it came about that the Armada was post- poned to a year when the Queen was no longer marriageable, and to a time when, fortunately for England, we were pre- pared and armed for the inevitable conflict. The careful student of this volume will surely be brought to the conclu- sion that it was not so important whom the Queen should marry as that she should marry no one at all. The tragic story of Mary Queen of Scots is an ample and emphatic com- mentary upon the wisdom of the Virgin Queen.
The question as to whether she should or should not marry was, nevertheless, a very open one at the time. In the first place, there was her natural inclination to have issue: there was the woman's heart. This inclination drew her on one or two occasions dangerously near to marriage in the earlier days of her royal life with Leicester, and latter on with Alencon. But, as Fronde has excellently said of her, "she was a woman and a man • she was herself and Cecil." It was only in the rare hours of political ease and safety that she allowed herself the luxury of love. In the second place, the English public were decidedly in favour of her marriage. It is surprising that Mr. Hume has omitted the most characteristic reply that Elizabeth ever gave, when pressed upon the en bject by the House of Commons' deputa- tion in the first year of her reign :—" This shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a virgins having reigned such a time, died a virgin." Again, in 1563, the Commons pressed her with great emphasis "to take to yourself some honourable husband whom it shall please you to join unto in marriage." This desire was naturally prompted by the importance of providing for the succession. But the difficulty with the worthy Commons was whom to press upon the Queen, and hence probably the vagueness of their language, prompted less by delicacy than by doubt. To enumerate the leading suitors, there was Dudley, but he was a decidedly unpopular candidate, and never had the support of any large section of the public. Nor was his rank sufficient. There was Eric of Sweden, but though a Protes- tant and perhaps more favoured by English opinion than any other suitor upon that account, he was so uncouth and ma- courtly in his negotiations as to make himself ridiculous in spite of his lavish presents of furs and horses. There was Adolphus of Holstein, brother of the King of Denmark. " One of the principal recommendations they find in hini," wrote Feria, " is that he is a heretic, but I am persuading them that he is a very good Catholic." Other phantom suitors of the Pro- testant persuasion flit hastily across the scene, such as the Earl of Arran or the Dnke of Finland. But in truth, while Protestant was the only faith which the husband of the Queen could hold, it was far better politically that the suitors of the Queen, so long as they were nothing more than suitors, should be drawn from the great Catholic Houses of France, of Austria, and of Spain. For whenever France and Spain seemed likely to combine, a messenger or a kindly letter from Elizabeth could in a moment bring one of the Valois Princes, Anjou or Alencon, to his knees before her, and could attract Catherine de Medici, the ruler of France, several degrees nearer to the English alliance. Thus the great prize of marriage dangled continually before the eyes of the dis- tracted Princes of Europe.
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