THE earl of Leicester, the great and powerful CHA P. favourite of Elizabeth, possessed all those exterior XXXIX. qualities which are naturally alluring to the fair sex; a handsome person, a polite address, an insinuating behaviour; and by means of these accomplishments, he had been able to blind even the penetration of Elizabeth, and conceal from her the great defects, or rather odious vices, which attended his character. He was proud, insolent, interested, ambitious; without honour, without generosity, without humanity; and atoned not for these bad qualities, by such abilities or courage, as could fit him for that high trust and confidence, with which she always honoured him. Her constant and declared attachment to him had naturally emboldened him to aspire to her bed; and in order to make way for these nuptials, he was universally believed to have murdered, in a barbarous manner, his wife, the heiress of one Robesart. The proposal of espousing Mary was by no means agreeable to him; and he always ascribed it to the contrivance of Cecil, his enemy; who, he thought, intended by that artifice to make him lose the friendship of Mary from the temerity of his pretensions, and that of Elizabeth from jealousy of his attachments to another woman. The queen herself had not any serious intention of effecting this marriage; but as she was desirous that the queen of Scots should never have any husband, she named a man, who, she believed, was not likely to be accepted of; and she hoped, by that means, to gain time, and elude the project of any other alliance. The earl of Leicester was too great a favourite to be parted with; and when Mary, allured by the prospect of being declared successor to the crown, seemed at last to hearken to Elizabeth's proposal, this prin Camden, p. 396. cess CHA P. cess receded from her offers, and withdrew the bait XXXI X. which she had thrown out to her rival. This du1563. plicity of conduct, joined to some appearance of an imperious superiority, assumed by her, had drawn a peevish letter from Mary; and the seemingly amicable correspondence between the two queens was, during some time, interrupted. In order to make up the breach, the queen of Scots dispatched sir James Melvil to London: who has given us in his memoirs a particular account of his negotiation. MELVIL was an agreeable courtier, a man of address and conversation; and it was recommended to him by his mistress, that, besides grave reasonings concerning politics and state affairs, he should introduce more entertaining topics of conversation, suitable to the sprightly character of Elizabeth; and should endeavour by that means to insinuate himself into her confidence. He succeeded so well, that he threw that artful princess entirely off her guard; and made her discover the bottom of her heart, full of all those levities and follies and ideas of rivalship which possess the youngest and most frivolous of her sex. He talked to her of his travels, and forgot not to mention the different dresses of the ladies in different countries, and the particular advantages of each, in setting off the beauties of the shape and person. The queen said, that she had dresses of all countries; and she took care thenceforth to meet the ambassador every day apparelled in a different habit: Sometimes she was dressed in the English garb, sometimes in the French, sometimes in the Italian; and she asked him, which of them became her most? He answered the Italian; a reply that, he knew, would be agreeable to her, because that mode shewed to advantage her flowing locks, which he remarked, though they 1564. were more red than yellow, she fancied to be the CHAP finest in the world. She desired to know of him XXXIX., what was reputed the best colour of hair: She asked whether his queen or she had the finest hair: She even inquired which of them he esteemed the fairest person: A very delicate question, and which he prudently eluded, by saying, that her majesty was the fairest person in England, and his mistress in Scotland. She next demanded which of them was tallest: He replied his queen: Then is she too tall, said Elizabeth; for I myself am of a just stature. Having learned from him, that his mistress sometimes recreated herself by playing on the harpsichord, an instrument on which she herself excelled, she gave orders to lord Hunsdon, that he should lead the ambassador, as it were casually, into an apartment, where he might hear her perform; and when Melvil, as if ravished with the harmony, broke into the queen's apartment, she pretended to - be displeased with his intrusion; but still took care to ask him, whether he thought Mary or her the best performer on that instrument ? From the whole of her behaviour, Melvil thought he might, on his return, assure his mistress, that she had no reason ever to expect any cordial friendship from Elizabeth, and that all her professions of amity were full of falsehood and dissimulation, AFTER two years had been spent in evasions and artifices," Mary's subjects and counsellors, and probably herself, began to think it full time that some marriage were concluded; and lord Darnley, son of the earl of Lenox, was the person in whom most men's opinions and wishes centered. He was Mary's cousin-german, by the lady Margaret Douglas, niece to Harry VIII. and daughter of the earl of Angus, by Margaret queen of Scotland. He had been born and educated in England, where the earl of Lenox XXXIX. 1564. CHA P. Lenox had constantly resided, since he had been banished by the prevailing power of the house of Hamilton: And as Darnley was now in his twentieth year, and was a very comely person, tall and delicately shaped, it was hoped that he might soon render himself agreeable to the queen of Scots. He was also by his father a branch of the same family with herself; and would, in espousing her, preserve the royal dignity in the house of Stuart: He was, after her, next heir to the crown of England; and those who pretended to exclude her on account of her being a foreigner, had endeavoured to recommend his title, and give it the preference. It seemed no inconsiderable advantage, that she could, by marrying, unite both their claims; and as he was by birth an Englishman, and could not, by his power or alliances, give any ground of suspicion to Elizabeth, it was hoped that the proposal of this marriage would not be unacceptable to that jealous princess. W ELIZABETH was well informed of these intentions; and was secretly not displeased with the projected marriage between Darnley and the queen of Scots.x She would rather have wished that Mary had continued for ever in a single life: But finding little probability of rendering this scheme effectual, she was satisfied with a choice which freed her at once from the dread of a foreign alliance, and from the necessity of parting with Leicester, her favourite. In order to pave the way to Darnley's marriage, she secretly desired Mary to invite Lenox into Scotland, to reverse his attainder, and to restore him to his honours and fortune.y And when her request was complied with, she took care, in order to preserve the friendship of the Hamiltons and her other partisans in Scotland, to blame openly this conduct of Mary." Hearing that W Keith, p. R. 46. 261. Jebb, vol. ii. z Melvil, p. 42. XXXIX. 1564. that the negociation for Darnley's marriage ad- CHAP vanced apace, she gave that nobleman permission on his first application, to follow his father into Scotland: But no sooner did she learn that the queen of Scots was taken with his figure and person, and that all measures were fixed for espousing him, than she exclaimed against the marriage; sent Throgmorton to order Darnley immediately, upon his allegiance, to return to England; threw the countess of Lenox and her second son into the 28th July Tower, where they suffered a rigorous confinement; seized all Lenox's English estate; and though it was impossible for her to assign one single reason for her displeasure, she menaced, and protested, and complained, as if she had suffered the most grievous injury in the world. a THE politics of Elizabeth, though judicious, were usually full of duplicity and artifice; but never more so than in her transactions with the queen of Scots, where there entered so many little passions and narrow jealousies, that she durst not avow to the world the reasons of her conduct, scarcely to her ministers, and scarcely even to herself. But besides a womanish rivalship and envy against the marriage of this princess, she had some motives of interest for feigning a displeasure on the present occasion. It served her as a pretence for refusing to acknowledge Mary's title to the succession of England; a point to which, for good reasons, she was determined never to consent. And it was useful to her for a purpose still more unfriendly and dangerous, for encouraging the discontents and rebellion of the Scottish nobility and ecclesiastics, b NOTHING can be more unhappy for a people than to be governed by a sovereign attached to a religion different from the established; and it is scarcely possible that mutual confidence can ever, in |