Life of Elizabeth I (26 page)

To please her, he delayed his departure so that he could stay at court one more night and watch her dance. Predictably, Elizabeth asked if Mary danced as well as she. 'Not so high and disposedly,' was the flattering answer.

On 28 September, the final morning of his visit, Melville was present with other ambassadors when, at a splendid ceremony in the Presence Chamber at St James's Palace, Elizabeth at last raised Robert Dudley to the peerage. To make Queen Mary 'think the more of him', he was created Baron Denbigh and Earl of Leicester in the presence of a glittering throng of dignitaries and courtiers. It was a solemn occasion, with the new Earl, whose motto was to be
'Droit et loyal',
conducting himself with the utmost gravity and dignity, so that Melville was shocked to see Elizabeth smilingly tickle the kneeling Robert's neck as she invested him with the collar of his earldom and his ermine-lined mantle. This was an act at odds with her repeated assertions that she looked upon Dudley as merely 'a brother and best friend'.

When the ceremony was over, Elizabeth spoke with Melville, asking, 'How like you my new creation?' Melville, knowing how unpopular the Dudley marriage was in Scotland, made a polite but noncommittal response, whereupon the Queen pointed at the young Lord Darnley, who was in attendance as her sword-bearer, saying, 'And yet ye like better of yonder long lad!'

Gazing distastefully at the effeminate-looking youth, Melville replied, 'No woman of spirit would make choice of such a man, that was liker a woman than a man, for he is very lusty, beardless and lady-faced.'

Elizabeth was at pains to prove to Melville how sincere she was in her desire to marry Leicester to Mary, and invited him, in the company of Leicester and Cecil, into her bedchamber, to show him her treasures. From a little cabinet she took a miniature of the Scots Queen and kissed it affectionately. Sir James noticed another object in the cabinet, wrapped in paper which was inscribed in her own hand 'My Lord's picture', but it took all his powers of persuasion to persuade Elizabeth 
to show him the miniature of Leicester that was within the paper. When he declared that this would be the perfect gift for his Queen, Elizabeth refused to part with it on the grounds that she had no copy.

'But Your Majesty has the original,' Melville protested jocularly, although he was privately coming round to the opinion that the Queen was beginning to regret ever offering Leicester to Mary. This was not surprising, as he had noticed that Elizabeth and Leicester were 'inseparable'.

Nor would she give him another of her treasures, a ruby 'as great as a tennis ball'. If Queen Mary followed her advice, she said, 'she would in process of time get all she had'. In the meantime, Elizabeth would send her a beautiful diamond.

Conversation between Melville and the Queen was not confined entirely to pleasantries. On one occasion they discussed Mary's marriage prospects, then Elizabeth told him 'that it was her own resolution at this moment to remain till her death a virgin queen, and that nothing would compel her to change her mind except the undutiful behaviour of the Queen her sister'. A perceptive Melville replied sadly, 'Madam, you need not tell me that. I know your stately stomach. You think if you were married, you would only be a queen of England, and now ye are king and queen both. You may not endure a commander.'

Sir James managed to speak in private with Leicester, who told him that he was not worthy to wipe the shoes of the Queen of Scots. He made it plain that he felt no enthusiasm for the marriage, and blamed the whole project on Cecil, 'his secret enemy', who wanted him out of the way.

During his stay, Melville had talked to many people at court and at the Spanish embassy, where opinion of the Queen was hostile, and formed his own views of Elizabeth. When he returned home, he would increase Mary's suspicions, and do no great service to Anglo-Scots relations, by telling her that her cousin was not a plain dealer but a great dissimulator. The only positive development arising from his visit was an agreement that commissioners from England and Scotland should meet at Berwick to discuss the Dudley marriage. Elizabeth had told Melville that 'if she had ever wanted to take a husband, she would have chosen Lord Robert, but, being determined to end her life in virginity, she wished that the Queen her sister should marry him, as meetest of all others. It would best remove out of her mind all fear and suspicion to be offended by usurpation before her death, being assured that he was so loving and trusty that he would never give his consent nor suffer such thing to be attempted during her time.'

Melville had played along with this, but he had also gon- to the Spanish embassy in a vain attempt to revive the project to marry Mary 
to Don Carlos. Mary had virtually given up hope of this match, but she needed to be certain that it was moribund before looking elsewhere for a husband. It was: Don Carlos was now so mentally unstable that there was no question of his marrying anyone.

Never having seriously considered Robert Dudley as a consort, Mary had found herself pondering more and more the idea of marrying the young Lord Darnley. As the Lennoxes had pointed out, there were definite advantages to it: the union of two claims to the English throne, and the enlistment of the Catholic Lennox faction - which Mary believed to be more powerful than it actually was - on the side of the Crown. There was one problem: Darnley was still in England - he and his mother were living at court, having been refused permission to accompany Lennox to Scotland - and it was doubtful if Elizabeth would allow him, as her subject, to leave.

After confirming that there was no hope of the Spanish match, Melville, again on Mary's instructions, saw Lady Lennox to discuss the possibility of a marriage between his queen and Lord Darnley. She welcomed him warmly and showered him with presents for Mary, Moray and Maitland, 'for she was still in good hope that her son would speed better than the Earl of Leicester concerning the marriage of our Queen'.

Elizabeth, ever perceptive, had already sniffed an intrigue. She had regretted her earlier letter to Mary, asking for Lennox to be restored to his estates, and had written recently to her in an attempt to persuade her to refuse him entry, although Mary would not go back on her word.

When the English and Scots commissioners met at Berwick in November, relations became fraught. Mary's half-brother, the Earl of Moray, demanded to know precisely what Elizabeth meant to do for Mary in the event of her accepting Leicester, but failed to extract any sureties from the English lords, who would only repeat that there was no better way than this marriage to further Mary's claim to the succession. Tempers flared, and the Scots left the conference angry and insulted.

The following month, both Moray and Maitland wrote to Cecil to say that Mary would not consider marrying Leicester unless Elizabeth promised to settle the succession on her. To everyone's surprise, Elizabeth did nothing. She suspected now that Mary would never accept Leicester, and she also knew that Mary had hopes of marrying Darnley, for which she would have to be a suitor to Elizabeth, whose subject Darnley was. With the focus on Mary in the role of supplicant, Elizabeth would not lose face over her cousin's rejection of her own candidate. Anticipating this, Cecil, enthusiastically backed by a relieved Leicester, suggested that Darnley be allowed to visit his father in Scotland, in order 
to whet the Queen of Scots' appetite. According to Mary herself, Leicester even wrote to her to warn her that Elizabeth's plan for their marriage had been a mere ploy to discourage more dangerous suitors. As for Elizabeth, her enthusiasm for the project was waning, and, like Cecil, she had already begun to believe that a marriage between Mary and Darnley was less of a threat to England than one between Mary and a powerful Catholic prince because, having recently come to know him better, she took the view that Darnley was a harmless political lightweight. However, for tactical reasons she still would not allow him to go to Scotland.

Leicester, recently appointed Chancellor of the University of Oxford by the Queen, now renewed his courtship of her, having been at pains during the past months to demonstrate that his real future lay at her side, where he could serve her best. He had enlisted the aid of de Silva, the new Spanish ambassador, against her plan to marry him to Mary, and had also been active in promoting Lord Darnley as a suitor for the Scots Queen. It was now his belief that Elizabeth had devised the scheme to unite him with Mary as a test of his loyalty to herself; having, as he saw it, proved that loyalty, he saw no reason why he should not capitalise upon it.

Fears about the succession were revived in December when the Queen fell 'perilously sick' with gastroenteritis. Fortunately, her recovery was speedy, but, as Cecil informed Throckmorton, 'For the time she made us sore afraid.' There was renewed pressure on her to marry, and Cecil invoked the aid of God, praying that He would 'lead by the hand some meet person to come and lay hand on her to her contentation'. Otherwise, he told Throckmorton, 'I assure you, as now things having in desperation, I have no comfort to live.'

Bishop John Jewel of Salisbury spoke for many when he wrote, 'O how wretched are we, who cannot tell under what sovereign we are to live! God will, I trust, long preserve Elizabeth to us in life and safety!'

Chapter 9

A Matter Dangerous to the Common Amity,'

In the early months of 1565, Cecil had cause to hope that Elizabeth was seriously considering a foreign marriage. Not only was the Archduke expected to renew his suit, but there had also been a proposal, sent by Catherine de' Medici via her envoy, Paul de Foix, that the Queen marry Charles IX. The French Queen was determined to prevent at all costs an English alliance with the Habsburgs. Elizabeth was privately unenthusiastic: she was thirty-one and Charles only fourteen, and she told de Silva that she did not relish the world making fun of 'an old woman and a child' at the church door. Sir Thomas Smith, her ambassador in Paris, had informed her that the young King was likely to be tall, though with knobbly knees and ankles and badly-proportioned legs. He gabbled his words rapidly and, having a volatile nature, was liable to act impulsively. Moreover, he spoke not a word of English. Even the Queen's jester urged her not to marry him, for he was 'but a boy and a babe'.

Elizabeth told de Foix she feared she was too old to marry his master. She would rather die than be despised and abandoned by a younger husband, as her sister had been. Why, the age gap was so wide that people would say King Charles had married his mother!

Offended, de Foix intimated that the matter should end there, but Elizabeth still needed to keep the French friendly and prevent them from making a new alliance with the Scots. She also wished to show the Habsburgs that they were not the only contenders for her hand. Thus she embarked on her old game of stringing along her suitors with half- promises and hope. Her opening gambit was to fly into a temper and accuse the French King of having so little regard for her that he was prepared to drop his suit so precipitately. She had only wished to draw attention to the difficulties that might be faced, so that the French would understand why she could not give an answer at once.

She then wrote to Sir Thomas Smith in Paris, asking for his honest opinion of Charles. He reported that he thought the King would be a good husband for her, for he appeared 'tractable and wise for his years. I dare put myself in pledge to Your Highness that Your Majesty shall like him.'

Elizabeth told de Foix that she would have to consult with her nobles, many of whom were openly hostile to the match. Only Leicester seemed in favour of it, since he welcomed anything that diverted the Queen's mind from thoughts of the more feasible Habsburg marriage. Cecil said nothing, but he did not regard Elizabeth's interest in Charles as being serious. Most of her Council advised against the marriage, particularly the Earl of Sussex, who warned that Charles would follow 'French usage' and 'live with pretty girls' in France, rendering useless 'all hope of an heir'.

De Foix, ignorant of what was being said behind closed doors, sensed success and, when with the Queen went into eulogies about the precocity and unusual maturity of his sovereign. For the next five months Elizabeth enjoyed the pleasures of courtship, agreeing to exchange portraits and even discussing the prospect of King Charles paying her a secret visit. Primed by his mother, Charles announced that he was in love with the Queen of England, and played the part of an ardent suitor. Throughout this time, however, Elizabeth resisted all pressure from de Foix to give a definite answer, and privately considered whether she should instead marry the Archduke.

Throughout this time, Leicester continued warmly to support the French match, though Cecil and the Imperial envoys guessed, rightly, that this was a front to mask his own ambitions. It was obvious that he was encouraging the Queen to delay making a decision in order to prevent her from marrying anyone other than himself.

By February 1565, Thomas Randolph had worked tirelessly for a year and a half to bring to a successful conclusion the Queen's plan to marry Mary to Leicester, and was under the impression that Mary was at last coming round to the idea: she had hinted that, if the terms were favourable, she might accept the newly-created Earl, and a jubilant Randolph wrote immediately to his mistress to tell her the good news. He was therefore bitterly disappointed when Cecil informed him that the Queen had just changed her mind and, at the request of Queen Mary and Lady Lennox, allowed Lord Darnley to go to Scotland, ostensibly on the pretext of having family business to attend to. Elizabeth was no fool, and knew perfectly well why he was going; many people believed, especially later, that, knowing more about Darnley's character than her cousin, she had allowed him to go on the premise 
that, if she gave Mary enough rope, she would hang herself.