D. [A.D. 1576.

rished the last

the wretched
cennes in the
by his brother
izabeth. This
the Protestants
; and he had
etected a con-
brother, the
or, was deeply
urt, and began
on with young
avarre. They

but she pre-
14th of May,
ie Huguenots
in their own
obtained the
en enjoyed by
ession. From
Anjou. But
n Henry III.
ague, formed
the month of
he privileges
lew to arms.
eth and her
ffairs of the
he Prince of
succeeded in
and Zealand,
wither and
his master,
Alva had
Requesens,

of

hed many
at prince, in
ignty or the
zabeth, who

was assumed to be a representative of their ancient princes by her descent from Philippa of Hainault, the wife of Edward III. The queen hesitated, and changed her mind more than once, but at last declared that she could not in conscience accept their offer, but that she would act as mediatrix between them and their lawful Sovereign Philip. This answer was given in the month of February, 1576, but events occurred with wonderful rapidity which wholly changed the queen's plans, Requesens died, and was succeeded by John of Austria (a bastard son of the late Emperor Charles V.), a brave and popular commander; and it was rumoured that, not satisfied with the subjugation of the whole of the Netherlands, he contemplated an invasion of England and a marriage with the Queen of Scots. At the same time the Prince of Orange, in his despair, talked of offering the sovereignty of his country to Elizabeth's suitor Alençon, now Duke of Anjou. Upon this Elizabeth concluded an alliance, offensive and defensive, with the Orange party, protesting all the while to Philip that she merely intended to preserve to him the Netherlands from the grasp of the French, and to herself the kingdom of England free from invasion by his ambitious halfbrother Don John. The English negotiator on this occasion was William Davison. The queen had already furnished large sums of money, but now they were in want of more, and Davison engaged to procure it on their giving adequate security. The Dutch diplomatist produced the valuable jewels and plate which had been pledged by Mathias of Austria to the States of Holland; and, on these things being sent to England, fifty thou sand pounds were advanced for present exigencies.* In spite of the new spirit which had been infused into them by the English treaty, the Dutch were defeated in the great battle of Gemblours. They then applied, in a breath, to the Protestant princes of Germany, to Eliza

6

*Sir Harris Nicholas, Life of William Davison, Secretary of State and Privy Councillor to Queen Elizabeth,'--a very valuable contribution to the history of this reign.

beth, and to the Duke of Anjou. Cassimir, the English queen's suitors, marched into th lands with a powerful army, and Anjou soon with ten thousand men. Neither, however, much against such great commanders as Don Alexander Farnese, prince of Parma, who ha arrived with another army of Spaniards and The Duke of Anjou excused his want of s pleading his anxiety not to offend Elizabeth; & very moment he was renewing his suit with a ra He sent over Simier, a nobleman who possess mon skill in amorous matters, and who was i witty and gallant. This Simier soon gained ordinary ascendancy over the mind of the queen he constantly represented that his employer 4 almost dying of love for her. He did more closed to her that the Earl of Leicester ha married in private the widow of the late Earl According to popular rumour the favourite had Essex to make way to his bed. Leicester sto protested; but, for the first time in his life, he royal mistress implacable. He was severely rep and placed in confinement at Greenwich. In lowing summer (1580) the Duke of Anjou appeared at Greenwich, having travelled thith guise. The strong and masculine mind of Eliza weaker than that of a child in some points, and one of them. The romance of the thing quite her. After a few days of ardent courtship, a private talk, Anjou went his way. A few days departure Elizabeth assembled the lords of her and submitted to them "the great question." lords were divided in opinion-some of them rep the danger to religion from a Catholic husba sinfulness of allowing the mass to be set up, private, in the royal palace; the peril to her life, if, at her age (she was now in her forty-nin she should have issue; and the uselessness of the if she had not.* Every account of Elizabeth's Burghley Papers.-Sadler.

-, another of
the Nether
pon followed
er, could do
on John and
had recently
nd Italians.
success by
and at this
rare ardour.
ssed uncom-
irresistibly
d an extra-
en, to whom
Anjou was
re: he dis-
ad recently
-1 of Essex.
ad poisoned
tormed and
e found his

primanded,
In the fol-
suddenly
her in dis-

zabeth was
ad this was
fascinated
and much
ys after his
er council,
." These
presenting
and; the
though in
majesty's
nth year),
e marriage
s conduct

but

at this critical moment is startling and perplexing,
most of them would lead us to believe that she was now
really anxious for a marriage with this young prince.
Bughley, the scarcely less adroit Walsingham, her
relative Hunsdon, Mildmay, Sadler,-all were lost in
amazement, and doubt, and dread. It is said that she
shed passionate tears upon finding that they did not unani-
mously petition her to marry, as they had done before.
They were, however, too careful of their liberty and their
places to offer any open opposition to what seemed to be
the queen's wishes; and they actively drove on to its
conclusion a preliminary matrimonial treaty with Simier.
But in two months Elizabeth again declared that she
would die virgin queen. Again, however, in a few
months, when a splendid embassy from Catherine de'
Medici arrived in London (it was in the spring of 1581),
she agreed that the marriage should be concluded within
six weeks, but with a provision that she should be at
liberty to change her mind again if certain secret stipu-
lations were not previously fulfilled. It is difficult to
understand, even with full reference to all her political
relations at home and abroad,-it is impossible to recon-
cile to any fixed and wise principle the vacillating con-
duct of the queen. The States of the Netherlands,
where her influence was great, formally elected the Duke
of Anjou to be their sovereign; and when that prince
marched into the country at the head of sixteen thousand
ren, heedless of her old anxieties about French ambition,
she sent him a present of one hundred thousand crowns.
Chiefly by means of this seasonable aid Anjou gained
many other successes. On the approach of winter he
put his troops into winter quarters, and hurried over to
England, whither, it is said, he was now warmly invited
by Elizabeth. His arrival was welcomed with fireworks
and other rejoicings; and soon after the queen, before
her whole court, took a ring from her finger and put it
upon his.
Hereupon the news was spread abroad upon
the wings of the wind that the queen was going to marry
at last. In Paris the news was, that the match could
know no further impediment; in Antwerp and Brussels

they lit bonfires and discharged artillery, a really taken place. But, in the night, Eli talked with some of her council, and in th Anjou found his affianced bride pale and in before he left her apartment he was assure could never marry.* It was, however, some t these matters were made public; and the zealo ants continued to rail against the marriage, h kinds of abuse, not only on the Duke of Anjou, whole French nation, and much marvelling queen had not a better recollection of the f Bartholomew. The preachers had begun the a time before, by condemning the intended mate pulpit, but they had been pretty well silence staying three months in England, Anjou prepa part. pledging, however, his word to the quee would soon return. She accompanied him as fa terbury, and there took leave of him, weepin amorous girl. On his arrival in the Netherla found very different employment: Alexande was not yet conquered, and the Prince of Or sessed in reality the power which nominally be the French prince. Dissensions broke out be French and the Dutch, and, in the month of Ju following year, Anjou, having witnessed the 1 greater part of his troops, fled back to Fran after his return he fell into a lingering illness, he died in the month of June, 1584,--we nee add, "not without suspicion of being poisoned.

We have alluded to the troubles of Ireland: views in that direction of France and Spain. 1 try had never been well governed or tranquil fo year, but the difference of religion was now a source of havoc and desclation. Sometimes th pale was wasted by fire and sword; but, genera ing, the undisciplined Irish were the victim merciless war. Shane O'Neil was basely as:

Camden.-Mémoire de Nevers.-Daniel. † Letter of Lord Talbot, in Lodge, Illustrati

, as if it had
Elizabeth had
the morning
in tears; and
ured that she
me time before
alous Protest-
e, heaping all
ou, but on the
ing that the
e feast of St.
e attack some
atch from the
nced. After
epared to de-
ueen that he
s far as Can-
ping like an
rlands Anjou
nder Farnese

Orange pos-
belonged to
between the
June of the
e loss of the
ance.

Soon

ss, of which
eed scarcely
ed."

d and to the
That coun-
for a single
a perennial
the English
rally speak-
ms of that
ssassinated,

ions.

and his lands, comprising the greater part of Ulster, were vested in the English crown as early as 1568. Numerous colonists were sent over from England to occupy these lands, where they had to maintain themselves by the sword, for the dispossessed proprietors struggled hard to keep their inheritance. In 1573 Walter Devereux, earl of Essex, undertook to subdue and colonize the district of Clan-huboy. He set sail with a small army of his own raising, but he met with little success; he was wretchedly seconded by the penurious and jealous court of England; and he died at Dublin in 1576, suspecting himself that he was poisoned.* The Irish priests naturally looked to the pope and the Catholic powers for assistance. From time to time they received encouraging messages from France and Spain; but the first to send them any real assistance in the shape of troops was Pope Gregory XIII. Six hundred disciplined troops and three thousand stand of arms were embarked at Civita Veccia, the nearest port to Rome, to fall down the Mediterranean, to touch at Lisbon, there to take on board Fitz-Morris, an Irish exile, and then to proceed to the Irish coast. But Stukely, the officer to whom this expedition was intrusted, proved a traitor or a mad adventurer: on reaching Lisbon he offered his services to Sebastian, king of Portugal, and, instead of going to Ireland to fight the English, he went to Africa to fight the Moors, who slew him, and King Sebastian, and all his host, at the battle of Alcazar. Fitz-Morris, who was a brother or half-brother of the Earl of Desmond, sailed from Lisbon in the right direction, but he had with him only about eighty Spanish soldiers, a troop of Irish and English Catholic exiles, and Saunders, the Jesuit, whom the pope had named his legate. Such a force could maintain itself nowhere, and the Irish had suffered so severely that they were slow to rise. Fitz-Morris, therefore, lingered among the moors and bogs; but in the

This was the unfortunate nobleman whose widow, a daughter of Sir Francis Knollys, Leicester, as mentioned above, married for his third wife.