Life of Elizabeth I (13 page)

Indeed, for someone who had confided to Breuner that she was so beset by duties that she had not had time to think of love, she was doing little to dispel the impression that she was falling in love, or was already in love, with Dudley.

Later that month, Erik of Sweden sailed for England to woo his queen, only to be driven back by storms in the North Sea. Elizabeth immediately pronounced these to be a sign that God was protecting her, but Erik was undeterred. Soon afterwards, he put to sea again, only to encounter another storm which damaged his ships and obliged him to return home, battered, yet determined not to give up. To console himself, he wrote Elizabeth a series of passionate letters in Latin, in which he told her that, although 'Fortune had been harder than steel and more cruel than Mars', and prevented him coming through stormy seas to claim her, he would, at the first opportunity, hasten through armies of foes to be at her side, because her 'most loving Erik' was 'bound by an eternal love towards her'. However, as he had state commitments to meet just at present, he would shortly be sending his brother to England in the hope of having 'a favourable answer' to his proposal.

On 28 August, the Earl of Arran secretly arrived in London, and was smuggled into Cecil's house at Westminster, where he was to lodge. On the following day, he was granted a private audience with the Queen at Hampton Court, and two days later left for Scotland, escorted by Thomas Randolph. The plan was that he should lead the rebel Protestant lords there against the Queen Regent's government, and thus divert the Scots and French from turning their ambitious eyes towards England; all talk of a marriage alliance with Elizabeth had been abandoned, as she apparently was not impressed by the Earl personally. Arran's story was eventually to end in tragedy: he became insane, and 
never enjoyed the power and prestige that should have been his birthright.

It now appeared that the only foreign contender for the Queen's hand with any chance of success was the Archduke Charles.

Late in August, Elizabeth removed to Windsor Castle, where she spent her days riding and hunting in the Great Park, with Dudley never far from her side. In the evenings, they would sit together on a window seat, laughing and talking, or would play music and sing - a gittern given by Dudley to Elizabeth is now in the British Museum. They seemed not to care about the gossip that followed such open displays of affection, gossip that proclaimed them, at best, to be in love, or, at worst, to be sexual partners. It was even whispered that the Queen was pregnant by Dudley, although time, of course, gave the lie to that particular rumour. Cecil warned Elizabeth of what was being said and begged her to be more discreet, only to have her laugh in his face.

It was now clear that Arundel and Pickering could no longer be taken seriously as contenders for the Queen's hand, although both were still squabbling about matters of precedence. Robert Dudley's meteoric rise had left them totally eclipsed, and they now retired from the contest defeated, although not before Pickering had warned de Quadra that 'he knew [the Queen] meant to die a maid'. He lived on, unmarried and in declining health, until
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Elizabeth

was enjoying herself hugely with so many men dancing attendance upon her. At one point that autumn, there were a dozen foreign ambassadors at court, all hoping to win her friendship through a royal betrothal. How they would fare, commented Cecil sourly, 'God knoweth, and not I.' De Quadra was equally perplexed by the Queen's mercurial moods: one day she affected to be indifferent to the Habsburg marriage, the next she was discussing it as a serious possibility. In exasperation, the ambassador wrote to de Feria: 'Your Lordship will see what a pretty business it is to have to treat with this woman, who I think must have a hundred thousand devils in her body, notwithstanding that she is forever telling me that she yearns to be a nun and to pass her time in a cell praying. With her, all is falsehood and vanity.'

Early in September, de Quadra was visited secretly by Lady Mary Sidney, Dudley's sister and Elizabeth's most favoured Lady of the Bedchamber, who told the Bishop that now was the time to revive the Archduke's suit. He should ignore Her Majesty's apparent reluctance to discuss it, 'as it is the custom for ladies here not to give their consent in such matters until they are teased into it'. But Elizabeth might now be prevailed upon to give an answer within a few days. The Council would certainly urge her to do so - they were tired of all the delays and 
prevarication. De Quadra should rest assured that she, Lady Mary, would never say such things if they were untrue; in fact, she was acting with the Queen's consent. Elizabeth would never raise the subject of the marriage of her own accord, but there was no doubt that she very much wanted the Archduke to visit England.

De Quadra, unable to believe all this, sought corroboration from Dudley, who assured him that his sister was not lying. In fact, he himself would do anything to please King Philip, who had saved his life by securing his release from the Tower in 1554. Sir Thomas Parry, Elizabeth's Treasurer, also confirmed what Lady Mary had said, stating that the Queen 'believed the marriage had now become necessary'.

De Quadra could understand this: he was well aware of the threat posed by the French, and Lady Mary had told him of a plot by Arundel to poison Elizabeth and Dudley at Nonsuch Palace in August, expressing her fears for her mistress's safety. In fact, there had been no plot; it was an invention of the Queen's, conveyed to the Bishop as a practical joke. The Queen had also been the instigator of Mary Sidney's nocturnal visit to him, which was intended to prompt him into reopening the Habsburg marriage negotiations, a subject Elizabeth did not feel she could raise openly with him.

On 10 September, Baron Breuner, briefed by de Quadra, took a barge down to Hampton Court, whither the Queen had travelled from Windsor. Having anticipated a warm welcome, he was dismayed to find her in no mood to receive him. However, three days later, when Elizabeth had come up to Whitehall, de Quadra found her more amenable, although she was still protesting that she had no desire to marry the Archduke or any other foreign prince; she would only consider marrying someone she had seen face to face. It would be better if Charles did not come to England, because she could not commit herself, even indirectly, to marrying him.

'We are wasting words,' complained de Quadra. Her Majesty should begin with the premise that she had to marry someone, since that could not now be avoided. Then she should invite the Archduke to visit her; he assured her that she would not be committing herself in any way. The Emperor was now amenable to the idea - he, too, was eager for the marriage to take place - provided that matters could be managed in such a way as to spare Charles any humiliation should the Queen turn him down. Elizabeth wavered, then was silent for a moment.

'Shall I speak plainly and tell you the truth?' she asked. 'I think that if the Emperor so desires me for a daughter, he would not be doing too much by sending his son here without so many safeguards. I do not hold myself of so small account that the Emperor need sacrifice any dignity in doing it.'

De Quadra reported: 'By these words and her manner of saying them, I understood that she made no difficulty as to the conclusion of the business, but only in the procedure to bring it about.' One thing was certain: Elizabeth absolutely refused to invite Charles to England - it was not fitting for a queen and maiden to summon anyone to be her husband; she would rather die a thousand deaths. The Emperor must take the initiative. De Quadra assured her that there should be no difficulty in arranging that. Soon, the Queen was admitting that she would be delighted to receive the Archduke. She inquired what languages he spoke, and talked to the ambassador 'in a vastly different mood from her other conversations about her not wishing to marry'. De Quadra thought he had won the day.

However, when he asked if the Archduke's visit should be public or private, Elizabeth panicked, saying she would not be pressed further. The Archduke must do as he thought fit - she did not wish to become involved, and he must understand that she had not invited him. She kept repeating that she was not committing herself to marrying him; in fact, she had still not decided whether to marry at all. De Quadra dismissed her behaviour as 'nothing but ceremony. I do not believe that Lady Sidney and Lord Robert could be mistaken, and the latter says he never thought the Queen would go so far.'

Word of what was afoot quickly circulated around the court, and it was soon being said that Elizabeth would be the Archduke's wife by Christmas, although, as de Quadra drily observed, 'As she is a woman, and a spirited and obstinate woman too, passion has to be considered.' In his opinion, Charles should come at once: having seen him, the Queen would be unlikely to turn him down. Nor would she risk giving offence to the Emperor by doing so. On 2 October, the Bishop wrote to Ferdinand, urging him to send his son without delay.

At Whitehall that autumn, Lord Robert complained that the rooms allocated him were too damp because they were near the river. The Queen obligingly offered him a suite of apartments next to her own on the first floor, and tongues began to wag even more furiously than before. 'People are ashamed at what is going on,' shuddered de Quadra, but he, like most others, was making assumptions he could not substantiate.

The Duke of Norfolk was, according to de Quadra, 'the chief of Lord Robert's enemies, who are all the principal people in the kingdom'. Thomas Howard saw Dudley's constant presence at the Queen's side as an obstacle to the successful conclusion of any marriage negotiations, and openly criticised Elizabeth's 'lightness and bad government', warning Dudley that, if he did not abandon his 'present pretensions and 
presumptions, he would not die in his bed'.

Howard was the son of the poet Surrey, and the grandson of the third Duke, who had been the Queen's great-uncle and also the most implacable of Northumberland's opponents. His grandson was the premier peer in England, indeed, the only Duke in the peerage, and by virtue of his birth he expected to enjoy the favour and patronage of the Queen, and to be among her closest advisers. But with Dudley constantly in the way, that was never likely to be. Worse still, rumour had it that the Queen meant, one day, to marry Dudley. 'The Duke and the rest of them cannot put up with his being king,' commented de Quadra. Even though Dudley was married, the thought had crossed the Bishop's mind that he might be seeking a means whereby he might be freed from his lady so that he could marry Elizabeth - which was exactly what Norfolk and others feared.

At the beginning of October, John, Duke of Finland, the 'very courteous and princely' brother and envoy of Erik of Sweden, arrived in England, with the express purpose of concluding a marriage between his besotted master and Queen Elizabeth. That Elizabeth had made it perfectly clear that she was not interested seemed to have made no impression on Erik. Although Sweden was not a wealthy country, he was a Protestant, and he imagined that that was reason enough for Elizabeth to want to marry him.

Courtesy demanded that the Queen extend a warm welcome to the brother of a fellow monarch, and Dudley was sent to greet Duke John at Colchester, but the latter interpreted this as a sign that his mission had already been successful, and it required a great deal of tactful diplomacy on the part of the courtiers before he could be persuaded otherwise. Thereafter he showed himself impressed by the customs of England, and with its Queen, who showed him both friendship and favour, finding much to commend in this educated young man; soon there were speculations that she would marry him instead of his brother. Dudley was affability itself to the Duke - on the 19th he hosted a court banquet in his honour - but he cannot have welcomed his presence in England.

Duke John was flamboyant, and lavish with his gifts - even if they did consist of counterfeit coin - and his behaviour made Baron Breuner's hackles rise, obliging the Queen to exercise considerable ingenuity in keeping the two men apart. However, she was gaining immense satisfaction from the situation, and was proving more than adept at handling them. She would give a little, appear to be promising much, and then withdraw at the right tactical moment, leaving all concerned perplexed and frustrated. Then, just as they were ready to give up, she would show herself eager once more. It was a game that required a 
finely-tuned sense of timing, but one that she relished. And while she was dangling hopes of success before her suitors, she remained her own woman, free and uncommitted, whilst retaining the friendship of those princes who lived in hope.

'Here is a great resort of wooers and controversy amongst lovers,' wrote Cecil to Sir Nicholas Throckmorton that autumn. 'I would Her Majesty had one, and the rest honourably satisfied,' he told Sir Ralph Sadler. Apart from the Archduke Charles and Erik of Sweden, there was the King of Denmark, whose envoy was posturing about the court in a crimson velvet doublet embroidered with a heart pierced by an arrow 'to demonstrate the King's love for the Queen of England'. Nobody took him seriously, nor the continuing suits of the dukes of Saxony and Holstein. 'Her Majesty,' wrote de Quadra, 'is charmed by so many loose and flighty fancies.' However, out of the ten or twelve ambassadors competing for her favour, only those of Austria or Sweden had realistic hopes of success. Both were 'courting at a most marvellous rate'. They were also, within a short time and despite Elizabeth's efforts, trading insults and ready to do violence upon each other. Alarmed, Elizabeth forbade them to come to court at the same time, 'to avoid their slashing each other in her presence'.

De Quadra was worried in case Elizabeth accepted Erik rather than the Archduke, but the chief threat to the Habsburg alliance was nearer at hand. As John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, said, she might act as if she meant to make a foreign match, but she was really 'thinking of an alliance nearer home'.