id="pgepubid00023">II.--The Nine Years' Comedy

In September, 1559, Dudley and his sister warmly took up the archduke's cause, and assured Quadra, the Spanish ambassador, that if the suitor would flatter the queen by coming to England on chance, she would marry him. But Elizabeth and Cecil, though they hinted much, would not clearly confirm Dudley's promise, and Philip and the emperor dared not expose the archduke to the risk of being repulsed. The English nobles, in good faith, urged the archduke's suit, and said that Dudley was plotting to kill his wife and marry the queen; but they and the Spanish ambassador were outwitted at every point by Elizabeth's diplomacy, and through 1559 and 1560 all the rivals were kept between hope and fear.

Then, in September 1560, the long-predicted murder of Amy Robsart set Dudley free, and made the nobles and Cecil more anxious than ever that the archduke should be bold, take the risk, and come to England. The queen, to weaken the new friendship between France and Spain, herself again pretended eagerness for the Austrian's coming; but the trick was stale now, and neither Philip nor the emperor believed her. To checkmate Dudley the Protestants were actively urging the suit of Eric of Sweden, when, in January 1561, the former made a bold bid for Spanish support. He was, he said, quite innocent of his wife's death, and he promised Quadra that if the King of Spain would urge his (Dudley's) suit upon the queen, England should send envoys to the Council of Trent, receive a papal legate, and become practically Catholic. He might promise, but such a thing was impossible, and Cecil, when he learnt of the intrigue, promptly embroiled matters and spoilt the plan.

Elizabeth, too, saw whither she was drifting, and by pretended levity turned it into a joke. At one time she invited the old Spanish bishop to marry her to Dudley, and next day said she would never marry at all. But she never ceased to flirt with Dudley, who, when his intrigue with Spain fell through, cynically appealed to the French Protestants for support. They were in no position to help him, and by January 1562, he was cringing to Spain, and pretending to be Catholic. But English Catholics hated him, and he was now no fit instrument for Philip.

In her own court it was firmly believed that Elizabeth was secretly married to Dudley--it was high time, said the gossips; but in truth the international importance of her marriage was now (1562-63) partially obscured by that of the widowed Mary Queen of Scots. Before the latter were dangled Eric of Sweden, the Archduke Charles, the Earl of Arran, and Darnley; but the match which Mary most wished for, and the most threatening to Elizabeth, was that with the vicious young lunatic, Don Carlos, the heir of Philip of Spain. The match with Darnley, too, as he was in the English succession, was distasteful to Elizabeth; but in order to divert the Spanish match--which, really, though she knew it not, was out of the question--she pretended to favour Darnley's suit at first.

In order still more to avert the Catholic alliance, Elizabeth sent active help to the French Huguenots, and drew closer to the Protestants of Germany and Holland, where distrust of their Spanish sovereign was already brewing. In these circumstances, Elizabeth for the first time could defy Spain, and Quadra, accused of conspiring against the queen, was expelled the country. When the Darnley match for Mary Stuart looked too serious, Elizabeth diverted it for a time by proposing that Dudley--now Earl of Leicester--should marry Mary. It was, of course, but a trick, through which the Scottish queen saw, with the object of preventing the Darnley marriage and discrediting Mary in the eyes of foreign princes; but it served its turn for a time.

In July 1564, when the league of France and Spain again menaced her, Elizabeth set her cap at the boy Don Carlos, and even swore to the Spanish ambassador that she was really a Catholic.

The further to alienate the Catholic powers from each other, she simultaneously approached the emperor to revive the proposal of marriage with the Archduke Charles, and to Catherine de Medici to drop a hint that she--Elizabeth--might marry the young King of France, Charles IX., a youth barely half her age--anything to prevent a combination against her and the marriage of Don Carlos with Mary Stuart. Catherine de Medici had her own reasons at the time for smiling upon Elizabeth's suggestion. She did not wish to be bound too tightly to Spain and the Catholics, for fear of the Huguenots; and in February 1565, she wrote to Elizabeth, saying that she would be the happiest of mothers if she could see her dearly beloved sister of England married to her son, Charles IX.

Elizabeth was full of maidenly hesitation. She was too old for him; perhaps he would not think her beautiful, and so on; but she took care to say that there was no one else she could marry, as she would not wed a subject. The Huguenots actively pushed the proposal, and Leicester pretended to favour it, though Cecil was against it on many grounds. But it was never seriously meant. It brought the Huguenots to Catherine's side on the eve of her voyage to renew the Catholic league with Philip, and it brought the Archduke Charles once more forward as a suitor for Elizabeth's hand. When it had thus served its purpose, the idea of the mature English queen marrying the boy Charles IX. was dropped.

The Austrian's new advances were looked upon somewhat askance by Spain, until his attitude towards religion was assured, and, to have a second string, the Spanish ambassador, Guzman, affected to favour Leicester's suit. Cecil and the conservative nobles were sincere now in their advocacy of the archduke, and between the two parties Elizabeth steered coquettishly and diplomatically, modestly urging the archduke's coming, and yet flirting desperately with Leicester. The breach between the English nobles was profound, as all but Leicester wished the question of the queen's marriage and succession to be settled; and Leicester's chances were stronger than ever when it became clear, late in 1565, that the archduke would not come to England without a firm pledge. The French played off Leicester, too, against the archduke; sometimes even again suggesting their own king when Leicester's star waxed pale.

Later, in 1566, the Lords and Commons urged the queen to marry, even Leicester joining in the remonstrance. But Elizabeth wished to play the game in her own way, and soundly scolded them. She did not mean to marry the archduke, or perhaps anyone, but whilst she kept him dangling, she knew she need not fear the Catholic combination. Soon all danger from that quarter disappeared for a time. Philip was in death struggle with his Protestant subjects in Holland; civil war was again raging in France, and Mary Stuart was a disgraced prisoner in the hands of her enemies. In the nine years that Elizabeth had carried on the marriage comedy she had kept the balance whilst England was growing stronger. Now, in 1568, she could afford to rest from her labours until danger from abroad again loomed.

III.--Catholics and Heretics

The peace of St. Germain in 1570 ended the long religious war in France, and the Guises and Catholics there, free from the strife, planned the rescue of the imprisoned Mary Stuart by force, and her marriage with the Duke of Anjou, the heir and brother of Charles IX. This was a danger both to Elizabeth and to the Huguenots, and was at once counteracted by their bringing forward the suggestion that the Queen of England might marry Anjou. He was, it is true, a fanatical Catholic, but the Huguenots thought that with England as a bait, and the powerful mind of Elizabeth to guide him, the youth might change his views. Leicester offered his help--for he knew the match was unlikely--and soon Catherine de Medici's agents were busy by Elizabeth's side. Elizabeth, as usual, was coy and maidenly. She was too old, she said, the thought of marriage was shocking to her; but, withal, the