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$Title{Makers Of History Queen Elizabeth
Chapter VIII. Elizabeth's Lovers.}
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$Author{Abbott, Jacob}
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$Date{1876}
$Log{See Elizabeth's Lovers*0007401.scf
}
Title:       Makers Of History Queen Elizabeth
Book:        Queen Elizabeth
Author:      Abbott, Jacob
Date:        1876

Chapter VIII. Elizabeth's Lovers.

     Elizabeth was now securely established upon her throne.  It is true that
Mary Queen of Scots had not renounced her pretensions, but there was no
immediate prospect of her making any attempt to realize them, and very little
hope for her that she would be successful, if she were to undertake it. There
were other claimants, it is true, but their claims were more remote and
doubtful than Mary's.  These conflicting pretensions were likely to make the
country some trouble after Elizabeth's death, but there was very slight
probability that they would sensibly molest Elizabeth's possession of the
throne during her lifetime, though they caused her no little anxiety.

     The reign which Elizabeth thus commenced was one of the longest, most
brilliant, and, in many respects, the most prosperous in the whole series
presented to our view in the long succession of English sovereigns. Elizabeth
continued a queen for forty-five years, during all which time she remained a
single lady; and she died, at last, a venerable maiden, seventy years of age.

     It was not for want of lovers, or, rather, of admirers and suitors, that
Elizabeth lived single all her days.  During the first twenty years of her
reign, one half of her history is a history of matrimonial schemes and
negotiations.  It seemed as if all the marriageable princes and potentates of
Europe were seized, one after another, with a desire to share her seat upon
the English throne.  They tried every possible means to win her consent. They
dispatched embassadors; they opened long negotiations; they sent her
ship-loads of the most expensive presents: some of the nobles of high rank in
her own realm expended their vast estates, and reduced themselves to poverty,
in vain attempts to please her.  Elizabeth, like any other woman, loved these
attentions.  They pleased her vanity, and gratified those instinctive impulses
of the female heart by which woman is fitted for happiness and love. Elizabeth
encouraged the hopes of those who addressed her sufficiently to keep them from
giving up in despair and abandoning her.  And in one or two cases she seemed
to come very near yielding.  But it always happened that, when the time
arrived in which a final decision must be made, ambition and desire of power
proved stronger than love, and she preferred continuing to occupy her lofty
position by herself, alone.

[See Elizabeth's Lovers: Famous favorites of Queen Elizabeth: Leicester,
Hatton, and Essex]

     Philip of Spain, the husband of her sister Mary, was the first of these
suitors.  He had seen Elizabeth a good deal in England during his residence
there, and had even taken her part in her difficulties with Mary, and had
exerted his influence to have her released from her confinement.  As soon as
Mary died and Elizabeth was proclaimed, one of her first acts was, as was very
proper, to send an embassador to Flanders to inform the bereaved husband of
his loss.  It is a curious illustration of the degree and kind of affection
that Philip had borne to his departed wife, that immediately on receiving
intelligence of her death by Elizabeth's embassador, he sent a special
dispatch to his own embassador in London to make a proposal to Elizabeth to
take him for her husband!

     Elizabeth decided very soon to decline this proposal.  She had ostensible
reasons, and real reasons for this.  The chief ostensible reason was, that
Philip was so inveterately hated by all the English people, and Elizabeth was
extremely desirous of being popular.  She relied solely on the loyalty and
faithfulness of her Protestant subjects to maintain her rights to the
succession, and she knew that if she displeased them by such an unpopular
Catholic marriage, her reliance upon them must be very much weakened.  They
might even abandon her entirely.  The reason, therefore, that she assigned
publicly was, that Philip was a Catholic, and that the connection could not,
on that account, be agreeable to the English people.

     Among the real reasons was one of a very peculiar nature.  It happened
that there was an objection to her marriage with Philip similar to the one
urged against that of Henry with Catharine of Aragon.  Catharine had been the
wife of Henry's brother.  Philip had been the husband of Elizabeth's sister.
Now Philip had offered to procure the pope's dispensation, by which means this
difficulty would be surmounted.  But then all the world would say, that if
this dispensation could legalize the latter marriage, the former must have
been legalized by it, and this would destroy the marriage of Anne Boleyn, and
with it all Elizabeth's claims to the succession.  She could not, then, marry
Philip, without, by the very act, effectually undermining all her own rights
to the throne.  She was far too subtle and wary to stumble into such a pitfall
as that.

     Elizabeth rejected this and some other offers, and one or two years
passed away.  In the mean time, the people of the country, though they had no
wish to have her marry such a stern and heartless tyrant as Philip of Spain,
were very uneasy at the idea of her not being married at all.  Her life would,
of course, in due time, come to an end, and it was of immense importance to
the peace and happiness of the realm that, after her death, there should be no
doubt about the succession.  If she were to be married and leave children,
they would succeed to the throne without question; but if she were to die
single and childless, the result would be, they feared, that the Catholics
would espouse the cause of Mary Queen of Scots, and the Protestants that of
some Protestant descendant of Henry VII., and thus the country be involved in
all the horrors of a protracted civil war.

     The House of Commons in those days was a very humble council, convened to
discuss and settle mere internal and domestic affairs, and standing at a vast
distance from the splendor and power of royalty, to which it looked up with
the profoundest reverence and awe.  The Commons, at the close of one of their
sessions, ventured, in a very timid and cautious manner, to send a petition to
the queen, urging her to consent, for the sake of the future peace of the
realm, and the welfare of her subjects, to accept of a husband. Few single
persons are offended at a recommendation of marriage, if properly offered,
from whatever quarter it may come.  The queen, in this instance, returned what
was called a very gracious reply.  She, however, very decidedly refused the
request.  She said that, as they had been very respectful in the form of their
petition, and as they had confined it to general terms, without presuming to
suggest either a person or a time, she would not take offense at their
well-intended suggestion, but that she had no design of ever being married.
At her coronation, she was married, she said, to her people, and the wedding
ring was upon her finger still.  Her people were the objects of all her
affection and regard.  She should never have any other spouse.  She said she
should be well contented to have it engraved upon her tomb-stone, "Here lies a
queen who lived and died a virgin."

     This answer silenced the Commons, but it did not settle the question in
the public mind Cases often occur of ladies saying very positively that they
shall never consent to be married, and yet afterward altering their minds; and
many ladies, knowing how frequently this takes place, sagaciously conclude
that, whatever secret resolutions they may form, they will be silent about
them, lest they get into a position from which it will be afterward awkward to
retreat.  The princes of the Continent and the nobles of England paid no
regard to Elizabeth's declaration, but continued to do all in their power to
obtain her hand.

     One or two years afterward Elizabeth was attacked with the small-pox, and
for a time was dangerously sick.  In fact, for some days her life was
despaired of, and the country was thrown into a great state of confusion and
dismay.  Parties began to form - the Catholics for Mary Queen of Scots, and
the Protestants for the family of Jane Grey.  Every thing portended a dreadful
contest.  Elizabeth, however, recovered; but the country had been so much
alarmed at their narrow escape, that Parliament ventured once more to address
the queen on the subject of her marriage.  They begged that she would either
consent to that measure, or, if she was finally determined not to do that,
that she would cause a law to be passed, or an edict to be promulgated,
deciding beforehand who was really to succeed to the throne in the event of
her decease.

     Elizabeth would not do either.  Historians have speculated a great deal
upon her motives; all that is certain is the fact, she would not do either.

     But, though Elizabeth thus resisted all the plans formed for giving her a
husband, she had, in her own court, a famous personal favorite, who has always
been considered as in some sense her lover.  His name was originally Robert
Dudley, though she made him Earl of Leicester, and he is commonly designated
in history by this latter name.  He was a son of the Duke of Northumberland,
who was the leader of the plot for placing Lady Jane Grey upon the throne in
the time of Mary.  He was a very elegant and accomplished man, and young,
though already married.  Elizabeth advanced him to high offices and honors
very early in her reign, and kept him much at court.  She made him her Master
of Horse, but she did not bestow upon him much real power.  Cecil was her
great counselor and minister of state.  He was a cool, sagacious, wary man,
entirely devoted to Elizabeth's interests, and to the glory and prosperity of
the realm.  He was at this time, as has already been stated, forty years of
age, thirteen or fourteen years older than Elizabeth. Elizabeth showed great
sagacity in selecting such a minister, and great wisdom in keeping him in
power so long.  He remained in her service all his life, and died at last,
only a few years before Elizabeth, when he was nearly eighty years of age.

     Dudley, on the other hand, was just about Elizabeth's own age.  In fact,
it is said by some of the chronicles of the times that he was born on the same
day and hour with her.  However this may be, he became a great personal
favorite, and Elizabeth evinced a degree and kind of attachment to him which
subjected her to a great deal of censure and reproach.

     She could not be thinking of him for her husband, it would seem, for he
was already married.  Just about this time, however, a mysterious circumstance
occurred, which produced a great deal of excitement, and has ever since marked
a very important era in the history of Leicester and Elizabeth's attachment.
It was the sudden and very singular death of Leicester's wife.

     Leicester had, among his other estates, a lonely mansion in Berkshire,
about fifty miles west of London.  It was called Cumnor House.  Leicester's
wife was sent there, no one knew why; she went under the charge of a gentleman
who was one of Leicester's dependents, and entirely devoted to his will.  The
house, too, was occupied by a man who had the character of being ready for any
deed which might be required of him by his master.  The name of Leicester's
wife was Amy Robesart.

     In a short time news came to London that the unhappy woman was killed by
a fall down stairs!  The instantaneous suspicion darted at once into every
one's mind that she had been murdered.  Rumors circulated all around the place
where the death had occurred that she had been murdered.  A conscientious
clergyman of the neighborhood sent an account of the case to London, to the
queen's ministers, stating the facts, and urging the queen to order an
investigation of the affair, but nothing was ever done.  It has accordingly
been the general belief of mankind since that time, that the unprincipled
courtier destroyed his wife in the vain hope of becoming afterward the husband
of the queen.

     The people of England were greatly incensed at this transaction.  They
had hated Leicester before, and they hated him now more inveterately still.
Favorites are very generally hated; royal favorites always.  He, however, grew
more and more intimate with the queen, and every body feared that he was going
to be her husband.  Their conduct was watched very closely by all the great
world, and, as is usual in such cases, a thousand circumstances and
occurrences were reported busily from tongue to tongue, which the actors in
them doubtless supposed passed unobserved or were forgotten.

     One night, for instance, Queen Elizabeth, having supped with Dudley, was
going home in her chair, lighted by torch-bearers.  At the present day, all
London is lighted brilliantly at midnight with gas, and ladies go home from
their convivial and pleasure assemblies in luxurious carriages, in which they
are rocked gently along through broad and magnificent avenues, as bright,
almost, as day.  Then, however, it was very different.  The lady was borne
slowly along through narrow, and dingy, and dangerous streets, with a train of
torches before and behind her, dispelling the darkness a moment with their
glare, and then leaving it more deep and somber than ever.  On the night of
which we are speaking, Elizabeth, feeling in good humor, began to talk with
some of the torch-bearers on the way.  They were Dudley's men, and Elizabeth
began to praise their master.  She said to one of them, among other things,
that she was going to raise him to a higher position than any of his name had
ever borne before.  Now, as Dudley's father was a duke, which title denotes
the highest rank of the English nobility, the man inferred that the queen's
meaning was that she intended to marry him, and thus make him a sort of king.
The man told the story boastingly to one of the servants of Lord Arundel, who
was also a suitor of the queen's.  The servants, each taking the part of his
master in the rivalry, quarreled.  Lord Arundel's man said that he wished that
Dudley had been hung with his father, or else that somebody would shoot him in
the street with a dag.  A dag was, in the language of those days, the name for
a pistol.

     Time moved on, and though Leicester seemed to become more and more a
favorite, the plan of his being married to Elizabeth, if any such were
entertained by either party, appeared to come no nearer to an accomplishment.
Elizabeth lived in great state and splendor, sometimes residing in her palaces
in or near London, and sometimes making royal progresses about her dominions.
Dudley, together with the other prominent members of her court, accompanied
her on these excursions, and obviously enjoyed a very high degree of personal
favor.  She encouraged, at the same time, her other suitors, so that on all
the great public occasions of state, at the tilts, and tournaments, at the
plays - which, by-the-way, in those days were performed in the churches - on
all the royal progresses and grand receptions at cities, castles, and
universities, the lady queen was surrounded always by royal or noble beaux,
who made her presents, and paid her a thousand compliments, and offered her
gallant attentions without number - all prompted by ambition in the guise of
love.  They smiled upon the queen with a perpetual sycophancy, and gnashed
their teeth secretly upon each other with a hatred which, unlike the pretended
love, was at least honest and sincere.  Leicester was the gayest, most
accomplished, and most favored of them all, and the rest accordingly combined
and agreed in hating him more than they did each other.

     Queen Elizabeth, however, never really admitted that she had any design
of making Leicester, or Dudley, as he is indiscriminately called, her husband.
In fact, at one time she recommended him to Mary Queen of Scots for a husband.
After Mary returned to Scotland, the two queens were, for a time, on good
terms, as professed friends, though they were, in fact, all the time, most
inveterate and implacable foes; but each, knowing how much injury the other
might do her, wished to avoid exciting any unnecessary hostility. Mary,
particularly, as she found she could not get possession of the English throne
during Elizabeth's life-time, concluded to try to conciliate her, in hopes to
persuade her to acknowledge, by act of Parliament, her right to the succession
after her death.  So she used to confer with Elizabeth on the subject of her
own marriage, and to ask her advice about it.  Elizabeth did not wish to have
Mary married at all, and so she always proposed somebody who she knew would be
out of the question.  She at one time proposed Leicester, and for a time
seemed quite in earnest about it, especially so long as Mary seemed averse to
it.  At length, however, when Mary, in order to test her sincerity, seemed
inclined to yield, Elizabeth retreated in her turn, and withdrew her
proposals.  Mary then gave up the hope of satisfying Elizabeth in any way and
married Lord Darnley without her consent.

     Elizabeth's regard for Dudley, however, still continued.  She made him
Earl of Leicester, and granted him the magnificent castle of Kenilworth, with
a large estate adjoining and surrounding it; the rents of the lands giving him
a princely income, and enabling him to live in almost royal state.  Queen
Elizabeth visited him frequently in this castle.  One of these visits is very
minutely described by the chroniclers of the times.  The earl made the most
expensive and extraordinary preparations for the reception and entertainment
of the queen and her retinue on this occasion.  The moat - which is a broad
canal filled with water surrounding the castle - had a floating island upon
it, with a fictitious personage whom they called the lady of the lake upon the
island, who sung a song in praise of Elizabeth as she passed the bridge. There
was also an artificial dolphin swimming upon the water, with a band of
musicians within it.  As the queen advanced across the park, men and women, in
strange disguises, came out to meet her, and to offer her salutations and
praises.  One was dressed as a sibyl, another like an American savage, and a
third, who was concealed, represented an echo.  This visit was continued for
nineteen days, and the stories of the splendid entertainments provided for the
company - the plays, the bear-baitings, the fireworks, the huntings, the mock
fights, the feastings and revelries - filled all Europe at the time, and have
been celebrated by historians and story-tellers ever since.  The Castle of
Kenilworth is now a very magnificent heap of ruins, and is explored every year
by thousands of visitors from every quarter of the globe.

     Leicester, if he ever really entertained any serious designs of being
Elizabeth's husband at last gave up his hopes, and married another woman. This
lady had been the wife of the Earl of Essex.  Her husband died very suddenly
and mysteriously just before Leicester married her.  Leicester kept the
marriage secret for some time, and when it came at last to the queen's
knowledge she was exceedingly angry.  She had him arrested and sent to prison.
However, she gradually recovered from her fit of resentment, and by degrees
restored him to her favor again.

     Twenty years of Elizabeth's reign thus passed away, and no one of all her
suitors had succeeded in obtaining her hand.  All this time her government had
been administered with much efficiency and power.  All Europe had been in
great commotion during almost the whole period, on account of the terrible
conflicts which were raging between the Catholics and the Protestants, each
party having been doing its utmost to exterminate and destroy the other
Elizabeth and her government took part, very frequently, in these contests;
sometimes by negotiations, and sometimes by fleets and armies, but always
sagaciously and cautiously, and generally with great effect.  In the mean
time, however, the queen, being now forty-five years of age, was rapidly
approaching the time when questions of marriage could no longer be
entertained.  Her lovers, or, rather, her suitors, had, one after another,
given up the pursuit, and disappeared from the field.  One only seemed at
length to remain, on the decision of whose fate the final result of the great
question of the queen's marriage seemed to be pending.

     It was the Duke of Anjou.  He was a French prince.  His brother, who had
been the Duke of Anjou before him, was now King Henry III. of France.  His own
name was Francis.  He was twenty five years younger than Elizabeth, and he was
only seventeen years of age when it was first proposed that he should marry
her.  He was then Duke of Alencon.  It was his mother's plan.  She was the
great Catharine de Medici, queen of France, and one of the most extraordinary
woman, for her talents, her management, and her power, that ever lived.
Having one son upon the throne of France, she wanted the throne of England for
the other.  The negotiation had been pending fruitlessly for many years, and
now, in 1581, it was vigorously renewed.  The duke himself, who was at this
time a young man of twenty-four or five, began to be impatient and earnest in
his suit.  There was, in fact, one good reason why he should be so.  Elizabeth
was forty-eight, and, unless the match were soon concluded, the time for
effecting it would be obviously forever gone by.

     He had never had an interview with the queen.  He had seen pictures of
her, however, and he sent an embassador over to England to urge his suit, and
to convince Elizabeth how much he was in love with her charms.  The name of
this agent was Simier.  He was a very polite and accomplished man, and soon
learned the art of winning his way to Elizabeth's favor.  Leicester was very
jealous of his success.  The two favorites soon imbibed a terrible enmity for
each other.  They filled the court with their quarrels.  The progress of the
negotiation, however, went on, the people taking sides very violently, some
for and some against the projected marriage.  The animosities became
exceedingly virulent, until at length Simier's life seemed to be in danger. He
said that Leicester had hired one of the guards to assassinate him; and it is
a fact, that one day, as he and the queen, with other attendants, were making
and excursion upon the river, a shot was fired from the shore into the barge.
The shot did no injury except to wound one of the oarsmen, and frighten all
the party pretty thoroughly.  Some thought the shot was aimed at Simier, and
others at the queen herself.  It was afterward proved, or supposed to be
proved, that this shot was the accidental discharge of a gun, without any evil
intention whatever.

     In the mean time, Elizabeth grew more and more interested in the idea of
having the young duke for her husband; and it seemed as if the maidenly
resolutions, which had stood their ground so firmly for twenty years, were to
be conquered at last.  The more, however, she seemed to approach toward a
consent to the measure, the more did all the officers of her government, and
the nation at large, oppose it.  There were, in their minds, two insuperable
objections to the match.  The candidate was a Frenchman, and he was a papist.
The council interceded.  Friends remonstrated.  The nation murmured and
threatened.  A book was published entitled "The Discovery of a gaping Gulf
wherein England is like to be swallowed up by another French marriage, unless
the Lord forbid the Bans by letting her see the Sin and Punishment thereof."
The author of it had his right hand cut off, for his punishment.

     At length, after a series of most extraordinary discussions,
negotiations, and occurrences, which kept the whole country in a state of
great excitement for a long time, the affair was at last all settled.  The
marriage articles, both political and personal, were all arranged.  The
nuptials were to be celebrated in six weeks.  The duke came over in great
state and was received with all possible pomp and parade.  Festivals and
banquets were arranged without number, and in the most magnificent style, to
do him and his attendants honor.  At one of them, the queen took off a ring
from her finger, and put it upon his, in the presence of a great assembly,
which was the first announcement to the public that the affair was finally
settled.  The news spread every where with great rapidly.  It produced in
England great consternation and distress, but on the Continent it was welcomed
with joy, and the great English alliance, now so obviously approaching, was
celebrated with ringing of bells, bonfires, and grand illuminations.

     And yet, notwithstanding all this, as soon as the obstacles were all
removed, and there was no longer opposition to stimulate the determination of
the queen, her heart failed her at last, and she finally concluded that she
would not be married, after all.  She sent for the duke one morning to come
and see her.  What takes place precisely between ladies and gentlemen when
they break off their engagements is not generally very publicly known, but the
duke came out from this interview in a fit of great vexation and anger. He
pulled off the queen's ring and threw it from him, muttering curses upon the
fickleness and faithlessness of women.

     Still Elizabeth would not admit that the match was broken off.  She
continued to treat the duke with civility and to pay him many honors.  He
decided, however, to return to the Continent.  She accompanied him a part of
the way to the coast, and took leave of him with many professions of sorrow at
the parting, and begged him to come back soon.  This he promised to do, but he
never returned.  He lived some time afterward in comparative neglect and
obscurity, and mankind considered the question of the marriage of Elizabeth as
now, at last settled forever.