XLI. CHAP. that she threatened to send him to the Tower". The quarrel went so far between Leicester and the French 1581. agent, that the former was suspected of having employed one Tudor, a bravo, to take away the life of his enemy; and the queen thought it necessary, by proclamation, to take Simier under her immediate protection. It happened, that while Elizabeth was rowed in her barge on the Thames, attended by Simier and some of her courtiers, a shot was fired which wounded one of the bargemen; but the queen finding, upon inquiry, that the piece had been discharged by accident, gave the person his liberty, without farther punishment. So far was she from entertaining any suspicion against her people, that she was often heard to say, " that she would lend credit to nothing against them, which parents would not believe of their own children." The Duke of Anjou, encouraged by the accounts sent him of the queen's prepossessions in his favour, paid her secretly a visit at Greenwich; and after some conference with her, the purport of which is not known, he departed. It appeared, that though his figure was not advantageous, he had lost no ground by being personally known to her; and, soon after, she commanded Burleigh, now treasurer, Sussex, Leicester, Bedford, Lincoln, Hatton, and secretary Walsingham, to concert with the French ambassadors the terms of the intended contract of marriage. Henry had sent over, on this occasion, a splendid embassy, consisting of Francis de Bourbon, Prince Dauphin, and many considerable noblemen; and as the queen had, in a manner, the power of prescribing what terms she pleased, the articles were soon settled with the English commissioners. It was agreed that the marriage should be celebrated within six weeks after the ratification of the articles; that the duke and his retinue should have the exercise of their religion; that after the marriage he should bear the title of king, but the administration remain solely in the queen; that their children, male or female, should succeed to the crown of England; that if there be two males, the elder, in case of Henry's death without issue, should be King of France, the P Camden, p. 471. ¶ Idem, ibid. XLI. 1581. younger of England; that if there be but one male, CHAP. and he succeed to the crown of France, he should be obliged to reside in England eight months every two years; that the laws and customs of England should be preserved inviolate; and that no foreigner should be promoted by the duke to any office in England'. These articles, providing for the security of England in case of its annexation to the crown of France, opened but a dismal prospect to the English; had not the age of Elizabeth, who was now in her forty-ninth year, contributed very much to allay their apprehensions of this nature. The queen, also, as a proof of her still remaining uncertainty, added a clause, that she was not bound to complete the marriage, till farther articles, which were not specified, should be agreed on between the parties, and till the King of France be certified of this agreement. Soon after, the queen sent over Walsingham, as ambassador to France, in order to form closer connexions with Henry, and enter into a league, offensive and defensive, against the increasing power and dangerous usurpations of Spain. The French king, who had been extremely disturbed with the unquiet spirit, the restless ambition, the enterprising yet timid and inconstant disposition of Anjou, had already sought to free the kingdom from his intrigues, by opening a scene for his activity in Flanders; and having allowed him to embrace the protection of the states, had secretly supplied him with men and money for the undertaking. The prospect of settling him in England was, for a like reason, very agreeable to that monarch; and he was desirous to cultivate, by every expedient, the favourable sentiments which Elizabeth seemed to entertain towards him. But this princess, though she had gone farther in her amorous" dalliance than could be justified or accounted for by any principles of policy, was not yet determined to carry matters to a final conclusion; and she confined Walsingham in his instructions, to negotiating conditions of a mutual alliance between France and England'. Henry with reluctance submitted to hold conferences on that subject; but no sooner had Walsingham begun to settle the terms of alliance, than he was informed that the queen, fore Camden, p. 484. s Digges, p. 387. 396. 408. 426. t Ibid. p. 352. XLI. 1581. CHAP. seeing hostility with Spain to be the result of this confederacy, had declared that she would prefer the marriage with the war, before the war without the marriage". The French court, pleased with this change of resolution, broke off the conferences concerning the league, and opened a negotiation for the marriage". But matters had not long proceeded in this train, before the queen again declared for the league, in preference to the marriage, and ordered Walsingham to renew the conferences for that purpose. Before he had leisure to bring this point to maturity, he was interrupted by a new change of resolution; and not only the court of France, but Walsingham himself, Burleigh, and all the wisest ministers of Elizabeth, were in amazement, doubtful where this contest between inclination and reason, love and ambition, would at last terminate. In the course of this affair, Elizabeth felt another variety of intentions, from a new contest between her reason and her ruling passions. The Duke of Anjou expected from her some money, by which he might be enabled to open the campaign in Flanders: and the queen herself, though her frugality made her long reluctant, was sensible that this supply was necessary; and she was at last induced, after much hesitation, to comply with his request. She sent him a present of a hundred thousand crowns, by which, joined to his own demesnes, and the assistance of his brother and the queen-dowager, he levied an army, and took the field against the Prince of Parma. He was successful in raising the siege of Cambray; and being chosen by the states governor of the Netherlands, he put his army into winter-quarters, and came over to England, in order to prosecute his suit to the queen. The reception which he met with made him. expect entire success, and gave him hopes that Elizabeth had surmounted all scruples, and was finally determined 17th Nov. to make choice of him for her husband. In the midst of the pomp which attended the anniversary of her coronation, she was seen, after long and intimate discourse with him, to take a ring from her own finger, and to put it u Digges, p. 375. 391. w Ibid. p. 392. y See note [A], at the end of the volume. x Ibid. p. 408. XLI. 1581. upon his; and all the spectators concluded, that in this CHAP. ceremony she had given him a promise of marriage, and was even desirous of signifying her intentions to all the world. St. Aldegonde, ambassador from the states, despatched immediately a letter to his masters, informing them of this great event; and the inhabitants of Antwerp, who, as well as the other Flemings, regarded the queen as a kind of tutelar divinity, testified their joy by bonfires and the discharge of their great ordnance. A puritan of Lincoln's-inn had written a passionate book, which he entitled "The Gulf in which England will be swallowed by the French Marriage." He was apprehended and prosecuted by order of the queen, and was condemned to lose his right hand as a libeller. Such was the constancy and loyalty of the man, that immediately after the sentence was executed, he took off his hat with his other hand, and, waving it over his head, cried "God save the queen." But, notwithstanding this attachment, which Elizabeth so openly discovered to the Duke of Anjou, the combat of her sentiments was not entirely over; and her ambition, as well as prudence, rousing itself by intervals, still filled her breast with doubt and hesitation. Almost all the courtiers whom she trusted and favoured, Leicester, Hatton, and Walsingham, discovered an extreme aversion to the marriage: and the ladies of her bedchamber made no scruple of opposing her resolution with the most zealous remonstrances. Among other enemies to the match, Sir Philip, son of Sir Henry Sidney, deputy of Ireland, and nephew to Leicester, a young man, the most accomplished of the age, declared himself; and he used the freedom to write her a letter, in which he dissuaded her from her present resolution, with an unusual elegance of expression, as well as force of reasoning. He told her, that the security of her government depended entirely on the affections of her Protestant subjects; and she could not, by any measure, more effectually disgust them, than by espousing a prince, who was son of the perfidious Catherine, brother to the cruel and perfidious Charles, and who had himself imbrued his hands in the blood of the innocent and defenceless Protestants: that a Camden, p. 486. Thuan. lib. 74. b Camden, p. 486. VOL. IV. 2 XLI. 1581. CHAP. the Catholics were her mortal enemies, and believed, either that she had originally usurped the crown, or was now lawfully deposed by the pope's bull of excommunication; and nothing had ever so much elevated their hopes as the prospect of her marriage with the Duke of Anjou that her chief security at present, against the efforts of so numerous, rich, and united a faction, was, that they possessed no head who could conduct their dangerous enterprises; and she herself was rashly supplying that defect, by giving an interest in the kingdom to a prince whose education had zealously attached him to that communion: that though he was a stranger to the blood royal of England, the dispositions of men were now such that they preferred the religious to the civil connexions; and were more influenced by sympathy in theological opinions, than by the principles of legal and hereditary government: that the duke himself had discovered a very restless and turbulent spirit; and having often violated his loyalty to his elder brother and his sovereign, there remained no hopes that he would passively submit to a woman, whom he might, in quality of husband, think himself entitled to command: that the French nation, so populous, so much abounding in soldiers, so full of nobility, who were devoted to arms, and for some time accustomed to serve for plunder, would supply him with partisans dangerous to a people unwarlike and defenceless, like the generality of her subjects: that the plain and honourable path which she had followed, of cultivating the affections of her people, had hitherto rendered her reign secure and happy; and however her enemies might seem to multiply upon her, the same invincible rampart was still able to protect and defend her: that so long as the throne of France was filled by Henry, or his posterity, it was in vain to hope that the ties of blood would ensure the amity of that kingdom, preferably to the maxims of policy or the prejudices of religion; and if ever the crown devolved on the Duke of Anjou, the conjunction of France and England would prove a burden rather than a protection to the latter kingdom: that the example of her sister Mary was sufficient to instruct her in the danger of such connexions; and to prove that the affection and confidence of the English could never be |