The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth

d Catharine Parr-Mrs. Ashley's and Parry's confessions-Execution of Seymour-Proposed marriage of Elizabeth with a son of the Duke of Ferrara-W

teristic instability, almost certainly at one difficult juncture or another have been drawn into a recognition of the papal power, and so would have destroyed the nice counterpoise, but for the unexampled fact that such recognition would have upset her own legitimacy and right to reign. The combination of circumstances on the Continent also seems to have been exactly that necessary to aid the result most favourable to English interests; and the special personal qualities3 both of Philip II. and Catharine de Medici were as if expressly moulded to contribute to the same end. But propitious, almost providential, as the circumstances were, the making of England and the establishment of Protestantism as a permanent power in Europe could never have been effected without the supreme and sustained statecraft of the Queen and her great minister. The nimble shifting from side to side, the encouragement or discouragement of the French and Flemish Protestants as the policy of the moment dictated, the alternate flouting and flattering of the rival powers, and the agile utilisation of the Queen's sex and feminine love of admiration to provoke competing offers for her hand, all exhibit statesmanship as keen as it was unscrupulous. The political methods adopted were perhaps those which met with general acceptance at the time, but the dexterous juggling through a long course of years with regard to Elizabeth's marriage is unexampled in the history of government. Not a point was missed. Full advantage was taken of the Queen's maiden state, of her feminine fickleness, of her solitary sovereignty, of her assumed religious uncertainty, of her accepted beauty, and of the keen competition for her hand. In very many cases neither the wooer nor the wooed was in earnest, and the courtship was merely a polite fiction to cover other objects; but at least on two occasions, if not three, the Queen was very nearly forced by circumstances or her own feelings into a position which would have made her marriage inevitable. Her caution, however, on each occasion caused her to withdraw in time without mortal offence to

oon as the little Princess Elizabeth was born, negotiations were opened for her marriage with the child-prince, Duke of Angoulême, third son of Francis I. Henry asked for too much, as was his wont. He required the French king and his nobles to make a declaration of approval of the Act of Succession which had been passed in England defying the Pope and settling the crown on the issue of Anne Boleyn. Francis was to press the Pope to revoke the ana

of Scotland, Mary of Lorraine, were victorious; and Henry was thwarted of his desire. The fact that he had been checkmated by the French king in this matter rankled in his breast and caused that foolish and profitless war, in alliance with the Emperor, against France, which is principally remembered for the siege and capture and subsequent loss of Boulogne. Charles V. tried very hard to get his cousin, Mary Tudor, Henry's elder daughter, acknowledged as legitimate, but although this was not done in so many words, both she and her sister Elizabeth were restored to their respective places in the line of succession; and whilst7 the treaty of alliance between the two sovereigns was under discussion a suggestion was made that Charles' son, Philip of Spain, then a lad of seventeen, should be betrothed to Eliz

e oft-told story divulged by these curious declarations. It is needless to say that they disclose scandalous treatment of a young and sensitive girl both by Seymour and Catharine Parr, even after allowing for the free manners then prevalent. It is difficult to understand, indeed, what can have been Seymour's real intention towards the Princess, unless it was the guilty satisfaction of his own passions. His wife was young and healthy, and in the natural course of events might have been expected to live long, so that he could hardly have looked forward to his marriage with Elizabeth; and yet Mrs. Ashley,3 her governess, confessed in the Tower in February, 1549, that Seymour was in the habit of visiting the girl

treasure, and hoarding vast sums of coin for his use; noblemen were advised by him to retire to their estates and raise forces to support him; and the seizure of himself and his friends was a mere movement of self-defence on the part of the Protector. With regard to the match with Elizabeth, Parry appears to have been the first person approached directly. He was closely attached to the person of the Princess, and had been sent to Seymour ostensibly to ask for the use of Durham Place as a temporary town residence for her. Seymour said this could not be, as the house was to be made i

unications with Seymour Parry quite lost his head, "went to his own chamber and said to his wife, 'I would I had neve

, were all tried upon her in vain. She would tell nothing of importance. "She hath," says Tyrwhitt, "a very good wit and nothing is gotten of her but by great policy." She bitterly resented the imprisonment of her governess, Mrs. Ashley, and the substitution of Lady Tyrw

n visited her in person and mourned her with great grief. It is probable that the inexperienced girl was really in love with the handsome, showy Seymour; but how far their relations went will most likely never now be known. She indignantly wrote to the Protector complaining of the slanders that were current about her, to the effect that she was with child by the L

of the Duke of Florence (Medici) who was then only eleven years old might do, and "if this party were liked it were an easy matter to be concluded without any excessive dote." This was less likely to please even than the previous proposal, and nothing was done; but the Ferrara family were apparently anxious for the connection, and early in 1553 Sir Richard Morysine,7 the English envoy in Antwerp, wrote to the Council reporting that Francesco d'Este, the brother of the Duke of Ferrara, had approached him on the matter and had asked for a description of the Princess. Morysine replied that "If God had made her Grace a poor man's daughter he did not know of a prince that might not think himself happy to be the husband of such a lady," and added that d'Este was of the same opinion "at present." A much more likely match had been privately suggested to Cecil by Morysine shortly before this.8 "Hans Frederick's (of Saxony) second son, who is the goodlier gentleman, would, if he durst, bear a great affection towards the Lady Elizabeth's grace. The land in Germany is divided, and as much comes to13 the second son as to the eldest, which eldest is thought to be of no long life. Were Dukes Maurice and Frederick to die their lands go to Hans Frederick's sons."

ng a clever scheme by which the Spanish party should ensure to themselves the control of England not only during the Queen's life but after her death. When Egmont and his splendid embassy arrived all England was in a whirlwind of panic and indignation at the idea of a Spanish match. Elizabeth had retired to Woodstock, ostensibly on friendly terms with the Queen, but deeply wounded at her contemptuous treatment, and at the equivocal position she occupied, now that the divorce pronounced by Cranmer of Henry VIII. and Catharine of Aragon had been quashed, and Elizabeth consequently bastardised. Egmont was instructed to point out to the Queen that all might be pleasantly settled by marrying her sister to the gallant young Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, the son of the Emperor's sister, and consequently first cousin to Philip. His patrimonial states, all but a mere shred of them in the valley of Aosta, had been occupied by the French in the course of the war, and the prince was fighting like a hero in the Emperor's army. But his blood was the bluest of any in Europe, and before he could marry Elizabeth she must be legitimised and placed in the order of the succession, without which the throne would probably pass on Mary's17 death to the French candidate, Mary of Scotland. This was gall and wormwood to Mary Tudor. They could not both be legitimate. If the grounds for the divorce of Queen Catharine were good she was never Henry's lawful wife, and her daughter had no right to the crown. If they were bad, then Elizabeth was necessarily the bastard that the law of England inferentially had just declared her to be. The King of France, foiled in his attempts to prevent the Queen's Spanish marriage, instructed de Noailles13 to use every possible means to hinder a match between Elizabeth and Savoy, "poor and dispossessed as he is"; and, alert as the ambassador was, no great effort on his part was needed. The Queen, bitterly jealous of her sister, who she knew was more or less openly working with the Carews, the Courtneys, the Wyatts and others to undermine her throne, peremptorily refused to rehabilitate Elizabeth's birth. Then came the Wyatt rebellion and Elizabeth's imprisonment. In after years both Philip and Elizabeth often referred to the fact that at one juncture he had saved her life, and it is highly probable that the Princess was released from the Tower in May, 1554 on the recommendation of Renard, made in the name of the coming bridegroom of the Queen. De Noailles writes that she was to go to Richmond from the Tower, and was there to receive two gentlemen from the Emperor who were to sound her as to a marriage with Emmanuel of Savoy. If she refused the match she was to be taken to Woodstock under guard, again a prisoner. De Noailles knew that the best way of preventing such a match was to arouse the Queen's18 suspicion that Elizabeth was plotting with the French. So with devilish ingenuity he sent a man with a present of apples to the Princess to meet her on her arrival at Richmond. The man was seized and searched to the skin, and no letters were found, but to de Noailles' undisguised glee the Princess was hurried off at once to Woodstock without seeing the Emperor's envoys. Again by Philip's intercession Elizabeth was released, and invited to be present at the Queen's entry into London after her marriage. Philip had been anxious that his favourite cousin of Savoy should have come to England for the ceremony, but Emmanuel was in the midst of war in an important command, his own oppressed people, the prey of a ruthless invader, were imploring him, their prince, to come and rescue them; he was desperately short of money, and his visit to England had to be deferred. Soon after the wedding he sent a confidential envoy named Langosco to pave the way fo

smiles and genial generalities. In November Mary was dying, and Dassonleville, the Flemish agent, wrote to the King begging him to send Feria back again to forward Spanish interests, "as the common people are so full of projects for marrying Madam Elizabeth to the Earl of Arundel or some one else." On the 8th of November a committee of the Council went to Hatfield to see Elizabeth and deliver to her the dying Queen's message, begging her "when she should be Queen to maintain the Catholic Church and pay her (Mary's) debts." Elizabeth would pledge herself to nothing. She knew now that she must succeed, with or without Mary's good-will, and she meant to have a free hand. Before the Queen died even, Feria, who had arrived when she was already almost unconscious, has

en if he took the titbit from your Majesty's hand, but very much worse if it were arranged in any other way. For the present, I know for certain they will not hear the name of the Duke of Savoy mentioned, as they fear he will want to recover his estates with English forces, and will keep them constantly at war. I am very pleased to see that the nobles are beginning to open their eyes to the fact that it will not do to marry this woman in the country itself.... The more I think over this business the more certain I am that everything23 depends upon the husband this woman may take. If he be a suitable one, religious matters will go on well, and the kingdom will remain friendly with your Majesty, but if not it will al

ce, "looking very smart and clean, and they say he carries his thoughts very high." He was a widower of mature age, foppish and foolish, but, with the exception of his son-in-law, the Duke of Norfolk, the only English noble whose position