The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth

Archduke Ferdinand-Lord Robert Dudley-The Prince of Sweden-Philip's attitude towards the Austrian match-The Archduke Charles-Picker

t for his master, who was to subsidise his impecunious cousin, the Archduke, and make him the instrument of Spain. Feria confessed himself puzzled. If he was not to forward the Archduke Ferdinand, he did not know, he said, whom he could suggest. Everybody kept him at arm's length and he could only repeat current gossip. Some people thought the Earl of Arundel would be the man, others the Earl of Westmoreland; then Lord Howard's son, and then Sir William Pickering; "every day there is a new cry raised about a husband." "At present," he said, "I see no disposition to enter into the discussion of any proposal on your Majesty's own behalf, either on her part or that of the Council, and when it has to be approached it should be mentioned first to her alone." The first step, he thought, should be to arouse the jealousy of each individual councillor of the Queen's marriage with any Englishman; and at the same time to work upon the Queen's pride by

miled inwardly at the idea of the empty-headed, flighty old fop, aspiring to be her partner. "There is a great deal of talk also," writes Feria, "lately about the Queen marrying the Duke27 Adolphus, brother of the King of Denmark. One of the principal recommendations they find in him is that he is a heretic, but I am persuading them that he is a very good Catholic and not so comely as they make him out to be, as I do not think he would suit us." At last, after the usual tedious deliberation, the prayers and invocations for Divine guidance, Philip made up his mind that he, like another Metius Curtius, would save his cause by sacrificing himself. He approached the subject in a true spirit of martyrdom. Feria had been repeating constantly-almost offensively-how unpopular he was in England, ever since Mary died. He had, he was told, not a man in his favour, he was distrusted and disliked, and so on, but yet he so completely deceived himself with regard to the support to be obtained by Elizabeth from her people through her national policy and personal popularity, as to write to Feria announcing his gracious intention of sacrificing himself for the good of the Catholic Church and marrying

ut into a form which would enable her to refuse it. So she began to profess her maiden disinclination to change her state; "but," says Feria, "as I saw whither she was tending, I cut short the reply, and by the conversation which followed ... as well as the hurry she was in to give me the answer, I soon understood wha

to regard him as her possible consort. That came afterwards. Schafanoya, writing to the Mantuan ambassador in Brussels (January, 1559), says: "Some persons declare that she will take the Earl of Arundel, he being the chief peer of this realm, notwithstanding his being old in comparison with the Queen. This report is founded on the constant daily favours he receives in public and private from her Majesty. Others assert that she will take a very handsome youth, eighteen or twenty years of ag

of tall stature, handsome, and very successful with women, for he is said to have enjoyed the intimacy of many and great ones."18 Parliament had sent a deputation to the Queen to urge her to marry, and to represent the disadvantages of a foreign match, to which the Queen had given a sympathetic but cautious answer. This had raised the hopes of Pickering to a great height, and in the early spring he made his appearance. He had lingered too long, however. Lord Robert Dudley had already come to the front.31 Feria wrote to Philip on the 18th of April: "During the last few days Lord Robert has come so much into favour that he does whatsoever he pleases with affairs, and it is even said that her Majesty visits him in his chamber day and night. People talk of this so freely that they go so far as to say that his wife has a malady in one of her breasts and the Queen is only waiting for her to die to marry Lord Robert. I can assure your Majesty that matters have reached such a pass that I have been brought to consider whether it would not be well to approach Lord Robert on your Majesty's behalf, promising him your help and favour and coming to terms with him." At the same time the Swedish ambassador was again pressing the suit of Prince E

ry had already come to London from the Emperor with letters for the Queen and a portrait of Ferdinand. This had been arranged by Sir Thomas Challoner, who had recently been in Vienna; but much doubt existed as to the sincerity of Philip's professions of good-will towards the affair. Indeed, those who were most in favour of it appear to have thought, not unreasonably, that the marriage would become impossible if it were hampered with conditions dictated by Spain. The Austrian match certainly had influential support at Court. Cecil, Sussex, and all of Dudley's many enemies thought at33 the time that it offered the best way of checking his growing favour, and forwarded it accord

Catholic prince. Two days after his arrival Dudley was sent off hunting to Windsor, and Sir William was secretly introduced into the Queen's presence; and a few days afterwards went publicly to the palace and stayed

to the wily churchman that Ferdinand would never do. He says: "We were received on35 Sunday at one, and found the Queen, very fine, in the presence-chamber looking on at the dancing. She kept us there a long while, and then entered her room with us." The Bishop pressed her, in his bland way, to favourably consider the offers of the Emperor's ambassador; "but I did not name the Archduke, because I suspected she would reply excluding them both. She at once began, as I feared, to talk about not wishing to marry, and wanted to reply in that sense; but I cut short the colloquy by saying that I did not seek an answer, and only begged her to hear the ambassador." He then stood aside and chatted with Cecil, who gave him to understand that they would not accept Ferdinand, "as they have quite made up their minds that he would upset their heresy,"21 and went on to speak of the various approaches that had already been made to the Queen; politely regretting that affinity and religious questions had made the marriage with Philip impossible. In the meanwhile poor Ravenstein was making but slow progress with the Queen, who soon reduced him to dazed despair, and the Bishop again took up the running, artfully begging her to be plain and frank in this business, "as she knew how honestly and kindly the worthy Germans negotiated." And then, cleverly taking advantage of what he had just heard from Cecil, he said that he had been told that the Archduke had been represented to her as a young monster, very different from what he was; "for, although both brothers are comely, this one who was offered to her now was the younger and more likel

l, it is not surprising that the handsome and youthful Dudley rapidly passed him in the race for his mistress's favour. Dudley played his game cleverly. His idea was first to put all English aspirants out of the running by ostensibly favouring the match with the Archduke, whilst he himself was strengthening his influence over the Queen, in the certainty that, when matters of religion came to be discussed, difficulties might be raised at any moment which would break off the Austrian negotiations. In the meanwhile the Queen coquetted with dull-witted Ravenstein, and persuaded him that if the Archduke would come over and she liked him, she would marry him, although she warned the ambassador not to give his master the trouble of coming so far to see so ugly a lady as she was. Instead of paying her the compliment for which she was angling, he maladroitly asked her whether she wished him to write that to the Archduke. "Certainly not," she replied, "on my account, for I have no intention of marrying." She jeered at Ferdinand and his devotions, but displayed a discreet maidenly interest in Charles, and, it is easy to see, promptly extracted from Ravenstein all the knowledge he possessed, much to Bishop Quadra's anxiety. Feria had gone back to Philip, with the assurance that she never meant to marry, and that it was "all pastime," but Quadra thought that she would be driven into matrimony by circumstances. "The whole business of these people is to avoid any engagement that will upset their wickedness. I believe that when once they are satisfied about this they will not be averse to Charles. I am not sure about her, for I do not39 understand her. Amongst other qualities which she says her husband must possess is that he should not sit at home all day am

ainst papists and foreigners, and seize the crown, he might, thought Cecil, marry Elizabeth, unite the two countries, and defy their enemies. Trouble in Scotland was easily aroused; but the King of France, just before his own death, which raised41 Mary Stuart to the throne of France as well, learnt of the plan and ordered Arran's capture alive or dead. Killigrew managed to smuggle him out of France disguised as a merchant, and took him to Geneva and Zurich, where he sat at the feet of Peter Martyr and other reformers, and then as secretly was hurried over to England in July, 1559. The Spanish party and the Emperor's ambassador soon got wind of it, and were in dismay. The Earl was hidden first in Cecil's house, and was afterwards conveyed secretly to the Queen's chambers at Greenwich. The news soon spread, and the marriage was looked upon, all through August and part of September, as a settled thing;23 and, although Bedford and Cecil went out of their way to buoy up the hopes of a marriage with the Archduke, it was clear to the Spanish party that Arran was the favoured man, the more especi

ordship must remind him of it in due time. The question of religion is of the most vital importance, as is also the manner of the Archduke's marriage and its conditions and ceremonies. In view of these difficu

any of the idle tales they tell about her (and they tell many) he might take advantage of them to the detriment of her honour if the match were broken off, although, from this point of view, I was not sorry, as the fear may not be without advantage to us." But to the Queen he expressed himself shocked that she should think of such a thing as he had done previously when Lady Sidney had hinted at a similar doubt. For the next two months an elaborate attempt was made to keep up the appearance of cordiality towards the Archduke's match, and the Spanish party was still further beguiled by the sudden tendency of the Queen to smile on Catholicism. Candles and crucifixes were placed on the altar in the Chapel Royal, and the Queen entertained the Bishop with long religious discussions, for the purpose of inducing him to believe45 that she was a Catholic in her heart. But they could not deceive the Bishop for very long; nothing definite could be got from the Queen, from whose side Dudley never moved, and by the middle of November (1559) the Bishop satisfied himself that he was being played with. A new Swedish embassy had arrived, and was being entertained with hopes for the first time, particularly by Dudley, who thought that the Austrian suit, having now served his turn and eclipsed Arran, was becoming too hot to be safe for him. The Bishop writes: "I noticed Lord Robert was slackening in our business, and favouring the Swedish match, and he had words with his sister because she was carrying our affair further than he desired. I have heard from a certain person who is in the habit of giving me veracious news that Lord Robert had sent to poison his wife. Certainly all the Queen has done with us and with the Swede, and will do with all the rest in the matter of her marriage, is only to keep Lord Robert's enemies and the country engaged with words, until this wicked deed of killing his wife is consummated. I am told some extraordinary things about this intimacy which I would never have believed, only that now I find Lord Robert's enemies in the Council making no secret of their evil opinion of it." The Queen tried to face the Bishop with her usual blandishments, but his eyes were opened, and when he pressed the point closely, she became coolly dignified, surprised that she had been misunderstood, and threw over Lady Sidney and Dudley, who reciprocally cast the blame upon each other. The Bishop and the Emperor's ambassador were furious; and, as the best way to checkmate46 Dudley, approached the Duke of Norfolk, who had been declaiming for some time against the insolence of the rising favourite, saying that if he did not abandon his plans he should not die in his bed, and so forth. The Duke, who was the most popular as well as the most exalted of the English nobles, listened eagerly to anything that should injure Dudley, and promised all his influence and personal prestige in favour of the Archduke. He recommended that the latter should at once come openly in state to England, and he, the Duke, wagered his right arm if he did "that all the biggest and best in t

t by Catharine de Medici and her son to propose as a husband for Elizabeth a son of the Duke de Nevers. As may be supposed, such a match-or indeed any match recommended by the consort of her enemy Mary Stuart, with whom her war was hardly ended-did not meet with her approval, and the envoy then went to Bishop Quadra and told him he knew of a certain way of bringing about the marriage with the Archduke. His plan was that the Emperor should prevail upon the King of France to give up Calais to England. This was merely a feeler and absurd, as Francis II. had nothing to gain by the Austrian match, but the Bishop maliciously told the Queen the joke, as he called it, whereupon she was very angry that her claim for Calais should be treated so lightly. She then told him that she saw now she must marry without delay, "although with the worst will in the world," and tried again to lead him to believe that she was anxious to marry the Archduke, "but I fear," said he, "that it is with the hope of gaining your Majesty's favour in her cause, as she calls it, with the French.... Religious matters make me believe that in case she determines to marry, she will rather lay hands on any of these heretics than on the Archduke. I understand now that the Earl of Arran is excluded as being poor and of small advantage, and also because he is not considered personally agreeable. They all favour the Prince of Swed

uld the match have pleased the extreme reform party in England led by Cecil, Bedford, and Clinton, which was now the paramount one. It was useful to Cecil, in order to play it as a trump card whenever the negotiations with the French rendered it necessary, but, at the time, undoubtedly the Swedish match was most in favour with the Protestant party. Prince Eric was very persevering. When his brother returned to Sweden he proposed to come to England himself, but was induced to delay his visit; according to Throgmorton,27 in order that his father might abdicate, and he might get better terms. "Both father and son, however, have sent to propose very advantageous conditions to the Queen, should she consent to the marriage. They will bind themselves to send to England annually 200,000 crowns to be expended for the benefit52 of English subjects, and in time of war to keep fifty armed ships at their own cost, with other private conditions very profitable for England, whi