WHOM IS QUEEN ELIZABETH TO MARRY? 137

side to take her up the river, she met a poor man on crutches, who, on seeing her, threw away his crutches for joy, and ran after her. She was so touched by this incident, which she perhaps thought akin to a miracle, that she ordered him a reward from the privy purse.

CHAPTER X.

QUEEN ELIZABETH AT HOME.

DURING the reign of Queen Elizabeth, though Hampton Court was frequently inhabited by her Majesty and the Court, it was not the scene of any events of great historic interest; for the Queen reserved it almost exclusively as a residence to which she might retire in times of festivity, or for short seasons of rest and quiet. She made her first visit here, after her accession, in the year 1559, when she had been on the throne about nine months, and the questions of her marriage and the uncertainty of the succession were beginning to cause great anxiety to her advisers. Their attention was already directed to the Earl of Arran, the Duke of Châtelherault's eldest son, who, as a Protestant and a member of the Royal House of Scotland, appeared to Cecil and other English statesmen a most suitable consort for Elizabeth. Their view was that, if a match could be got up between him and Elizabeth, that union of the English and Scottish crowns which had so long been the aim of English statesmen, could be effected at one stroke; while at the same time a severe and effective blow would be dealt at the pretensions of Mary Stuart, who by the death of Henri II. had just become Queen Consort of France.

This scheme appears to have approved itself to Elizabeth, who told Quadra, the Spanish ambassador, that "she would take a husband that would make the King of France's head ache."

Accordingly Arran, who had just escaped from France, and was hiding in Switzerland, was invited over to England;

and visited by the Queen at Cecil's house in the Strand, where he lay concealed; and at the end of August he was brought down secretly to the neighbourhood of Hampton Court, to have another interview with the Queen. He would seem to have come from some hiding-place on the Surrey side of the river, perhaps at East Molesey, and to have crossed the river, and landed on the towing-path near the old Water Gallery. Here he was met by Cecil, who admitted him into the Queen's Private Garden, where a clandestine meeting took place between him and her Majesty. The interview lasted some time; but whatever may have passed, it did not tend to confirm Elizabeth in the proposed match. Arran was a man of very narrow intellect, and, what probably weighed not less with the Queen, totally devoid of any personal beauty or accomplishments. Decidedly he was not the man for her; he might be useful as a political tool, but as a sharer of her crown she would not have him at any price. 'She would never," as she told the Spanish ambassador, "have a husband who would sit all day by the fireside. When she married, it should be a man who could ride and hunt and fight."

Another interview with him, probably also at Hampton Court, only strengthened her earlier impression; and not all the exhortations of her Council, nor the prospect of the union of the two crowns and the damage to the cause of the Guises, could bend her from her purpose.

Thus was the first aspirant to the hand of the Virgin Queen dismissed. In all these transactions the greatest secrecy was observed. Not only were all the letters and despatches to the Queen's agents in the North written in ciphers, which were continually being altered, and intrusted only to messengers on whom the greatest reliance could be placed, but the negotiations were kept a secret, even from many members of the Council.

So successful were these schemes, that Noailles, the French ambassador, whom it most concerned to know Arran's movements, was kept entirely in ignorance, not merely of the underhand part the Queen was playing in Scotland, and of her interview with the earl, but even of his passage through England, until two months after.

On the 6th of September, five days after Arran left Hamp

ELIZABETH'S SUITORS.

139

ton Court, Noailles came down from London to pick up the news at Court, and see and confer with Elizabeth. One of the first topics that he touched on was the escape of Arran from France, and he expressed a hope, on the part of the King of France, that if the earl should come to England, he might at once be arrested. Elizabeth answered, without betraying any discomposure, that she had no news of him, but that if he should fall into her power, the King might rest assured she would do what he wished. His diplomacy,

in fact, was in every way baffled by the cunning of the young Queen; and he himself admitted that he was quite disconcerted by the way in which, whenever she was in a difficulty, she turned it off with a laugh.

De Quadra, the Spanish ambassador, was not one to be so easily deceived. He had, as he boasted to his master, Philip II., his spies everywhere, even about the Queen's person, and he knew everything she did and every word she said; so much so, that he was able to announce Arran's arrival in England to the Spanish Court almost as soon as it was known to Elizabeth and Cecil.

Nevertheless, she still continued to reject all suitors for her hand, and Hans Casimir, the eldest son of the Elector Palatine, who, as a Protestant, ventured to be very sanguine of success, fared no better than several other would-be husbands of the Catholic faith.

In answer to his proposal, she sent him an evasive and scarcely encouraging answer; but the duke, determined not to miss the chance of the greatest match in Europe through any faint-heartedness, and confident in his personal charms, requested Melville, the Queen of Scots' agent, who in the spring of the year 1564 was on a visit to the Electoral Court, and about to pass through England on his way to Scotland, to convey his portrait to the Virgin Queen. Melville, however, who was convinced that Elizabeth would not entertain the match, only consented to be the bearer of the picture on condition of his being also furnished with those of his father and mother and whole family, and with a diplomatic commission of such a nature that he might be enabled to introduce the subject incidentally, and as if without design.

When the envoy arrived in England, apparently in the month of April, the Queen was at Hampton Court, whither

he went to have an audience of her. During their intercourse Melville, who was an adroit diplomatist, took an opportunity of warmly praising the German Protestant Princes, and especially of eulogizing the Elector Palatine. On which the Queen observed that he "had reason to extol that prince, for he (the Prince) had written very favourably of him (Melville), and that he fain would have retained him longer in his service." To this Melville replied, "that he was loath to quit the elector; and to have the better remembrance of him, he had requested to have his picture, with those of his wife, and all his sons and daughters, to carry home to Scotland." "So soon," says Melville, "as she heard me mention the pictures, she inquired if I had the picture of Duke Casimir, desiring to see it." But Melville, prepared with an answer calculated to disarm suspicion, told her he had left the pictures in London, and that he was going on thence at once to Scotland. On this, Elizabeth said that he should not go till she had seen them, and told him to bring them down to her at Hampton Court.

So the next day he delivered them all to her, when she said she desired to keep them all night, and appointed a meeting with him the next morning in her garden, in the meanwhile asking Lord Robert Dudley to give his opinion of the picture of Duke Casimir. His lordship's criticism of his rival was doubtless not over favourable; for when Melville met the Queen on the following morning, "she caused them," says he, to be delivered all unto me, giving me thanks for the sight of them. I offered unto her Majesty all of the pictures, so she would let me have the old elector's and his lady's (a sly way of trying to get her to retain the portrait of the duke only), but she would have none of them. I had also sure intelligence that first and last, she despised the said Duke Casimir. Therefore I did write back from London to his father and him in cipher, dissuading them to meddle any more in that marriage."

A few months after this, Melville returned to the English Court as the accredited agent of Mary Queen of Scots, who despatched him with the especial object of pacifying Elizabeth, and apologizing for the angry letter she had written when the English Queen had offered her Lord Robert Dudley as a husband. During his stay of nine days, which

ELIZABETH AND HER ADMIRERS' PORTRAITS.

141

were mostly spent at Hampton Court, Elizabeth saw him every day, and sometimes three times a day, before noon, in the afternoon, and after supper, and their colloquies frequently turned on the Queen of Scots, with regard to whom Elizabeth was very curious, and for whom she professed the greatest affection. "She expressed a great desire to see her; and because their so-much-to-be-desired meeting could not hastily be brought to pass, she appeared

with great delight to look upon her Majesty's picture. She took me," continues the envoy, "to her bedchamber, and opened a little cabinet, wherein were divers little pictures wrapped within paper, and their names written with her own hand upon the papers. Upon the first that she took up was written My Lord's picture.' I held the candle, and pressed to see that picture so named; she appeared loath to let me see it, yet my importunity prevailed for a sight thereof, and I found it to be the Earl of