The Men Who Would Be King (22 page)

The threatening situation that had made Elizabeth's marriage seem so necessary at the time of the Parliament of 1566 had taken on a different aspect by 1568, when the archduke's courtship was finally abandoned. In February of that year Lady Catherine Grey died. Her two sons had been declared illegitimate, and her only remaining sister, Mary, was a stunted little creature who had so far forgotten herself as to marry—without the queen's permission—a burly sergeant porter. She was not a prepossessing figure to put forward as a successor to the throne, and nor, in the eyes of loyal subjects, was Mary, Queen of Scots, imprisoned as she was under suspicion of the gravest of crimes. “The Queen expresses sorrow to me at Lady Catherine's death,” wrote de Silva, “but it is not believed that she feels it, as she was afraid of her, so that both on this account and on the Scotch side she is now without misgiving.” The relentless pressure on Elizabeth to name a successor lifted, and in the coming months the whole question of marriage was laid aside for a time, for the Habsburg and Valois rulers had more pressing affairs to deal with than courting the elusive Queen of England. Spain was beset by the problems of the discontented and rebellious Netherlands, while France was again rent by bloody civil war. Elizabeth too was occupied at home, with the first grave bouts of Catholic plotting, as supporters of the troublesome Scottish queen rallied to Mary's cause, and even the Duke of Norfolk turned traitor. It was a period of “manifest danger” such as Elizabeth had not faced since the darkest days of her sister's reign, and the seriousness of the threats to her life and England's peace made her appear more precious than ever in the eyes of loyal Englishmen. By 1570, when she was nearly thirty-seven, a perceptible change was taking place in their attitude to her; the members of the first two Parliaments of the new decade showed themselves to be concerned rather with protecting and cherishing her all-important existence than with harassing her to name a successor or provide heirs by marrying. In comparison with the villainies attributed to Mary, Queen of Scots—“as vile and naughty a woman as ever the earth bore”—Elizabeth's virtue gained in luster. Significantly, a member of the Parliament of 1572 chose to refer to Mary in the symbolism of chivalric legend, calling her “the monstrous and huge dragon.” It was an early hint of the powerful psychological importance that Elizabeth's virgin state was to acquire in the years to come.

Though she was well past her youth in 1570, the Queen of England remained the most eligible woman in Europe, and her advancing middle age in no way deterred her from exploiting that advantage to the utmost. As France's civil wars of religion came to an uneasy halt in the spring of that year, Elizabeth's thoughts turned again to marriage, or rather to courtship. Young Henry Cobham was sent to the imperial court as Sussex's successor, to see whether the archduke Charles could be induced to renew his suit, but the emperor's patience had been tried too far already, and Elizabeth's new overtures did not meet with a warm reception. The suspicion that the dignity of the House of Austria had been trifled with gave a chilly tone to the emperor's response; since Elizabeth had allowed three years to elapse, he explained, his brother the archduke had not taken her to be in earnest, and he was accordingly negotiating to marry another princess, the Duchess of Bavaria, “with whom,” the Emperor said pointedly, “there could be no differences on the subject of religion.” The archduke himself offered courteous professions of regret and brotherly esteem, but Elizabeth was piqued. It was said that she declared with great spirit that if she had been a man she would certainly have challenged the emperor to a duel. She could no longer turn to Charles IX as an alternative suitor, for he too was married in that year, to a daughter of the emperor. But Charles's two brothers, the Dukes of Anjou and Alençon, were still available, and just as Elizabeth had need of France's friendship now, so Catherine de' Medici had much to gain from allying one of her sons to Elizabeth. It was the turn of the Duke of Anjou to become a suitor to the Queen of England.

Dissolute, homosexual, sinisterly good-looking Anjou was Catherine's favorite son, and she rejoiced in the prospect of his wearing the crown of England. But there was more than maternal love to recommend the match. With the ending of the recent eruption of France's internal religious wars, concessions had been made to the Huguenots, and a moderate coalition government was now in power; the presence of Anjou, who was a figurehead of the extreme Catholic Guise faction, could only be a disruptive force, and it was highly desirable that he should be removed from France by the magnificent expedient of making him King of England. Though Elizabeth had no intention of thus sharing her throne, still less did she wish to see Anjou share it with Mary, Queen of Scots. The powerful Guise family were Mary's near relations, and she had been their protégée since her childhood and marriage with the dauphin, Anjou's eldest brother who had died young; by enmeshing Anjou in negotiations with herself Elizabeth might keep French intrigues on behalf of the captive Scottish queen at bay. At the same time she would be securing France as an ally against the increasing menace of Spain. Though the Spanish ambassador wrote sourly in January 1571, “Her matrimonial intentions are of no use any longer for deceiving people,” Elizabeth proved herself well able to sustain the fiction that she was seriously contemplating marriage, for quite as long as it suited her to do so.

Leicester evidently did not believe she was in earnest, however, since he at first seemed very willing to assist the negotiations. Shortly before Christmas 1570 he brought the French ambassador de La Mothe Fénelon to the queen's apartments, where they found her dressed even more splendidly than usual and evidently expecting them. The ambassador broached the subject by recalling how she had often expressed regret at not having married sooner and how she had said she would only take a husband from a royal house, which made him think she would permit him to speak to her of the Duke of Anjou. Graciously Elizabeth answered that she had understood the duke's affections to be lodged elsewhere, an allusion to rumors that he might marry a great Catholic princess, but then she unbent and went on to say, with becoming modesty, that she was already old, and if it were not for the consideration of leaving heirs she would be ashamed to talk of a husband, being one of those who were courted for their kingdoms and not for themselves. French princes, she added pensively, had the reputation of being good husbands, and greatly honoring their wives, but of loving them not at all. When, in a later conversation, the ambassador declared lyrically that he would advise any princess who sought true happiness to take a husband of the House of France, she could not resist introducing a sly reference to some of the more celebrated mistresses of recent Valois kings.

Elizabeth's half-concealed fears of being neglected and unloved were often visible during this courtship. She relished the teasing compliments on her sexual and maternal prospects that it inspired, pretending to disparage herself and pointing out the difference in age between herself and Anjou so as to elicit reassurances from her listeners; if they were not forthcoming she was instantly offended. Leicester knew how to treat her—when the queen demurred that Anjou would always be so much younger than herself, he answered with a broad smile, “So much the better for you.” Lady Cobham, less tactfully, ventured to remark that the most successful marriages were usually between people of a similar age, to which the queen said sharply, “There is only ten years difference between myself and the Duke; I trust he will find compensation in the other advantages.” That the difference was really eighteen years Elizabeth knew very well, since she constantly expressed anxiety on the subject to de La Mothe Fénelon. At a grand dinner at the end of January 1571, she told him again that she was forced to marry to oblige her subjects, but she was frightened of not being loved by her husband. With great gallantry the ambassador replied that he knew someone by whom she would be both loved and honored, and told her that at the end of nine months he hoped to see her the mother of a fine baby boy. Elizabeth was delighted with that remark, and smiled and talked of it vivaciously for a good while. Her pleasure in such speculation seemed only to increase as time passed.

The great diplomat Walsingham, negotiating the affair for Elizabeth in France, knew how much importance the queen attached to the physical appearance of her suitors, and he scrutinized Anjou carefully. To Leicester, who was keeping in close touch with the progress of the affair, he sent a description of the Valois suitor that was not overenthusiastic. Anjou was about three inches taller than himself, “his body of very good shape, his legs long and slender but reasonably well proportioned.” He added cautiously, “What helps he has to supply any defects of nature I know not. Touching the health of his person I find the opinion diverse, and I know not what to credit, but for my part I forbear to be over-curious in the search thereof, for divers respects.” Opinions of the young duke seemed to vary greatly. A Venetian diplomat wrote frankly, “He is given up to voluptuousness, it dominates him; he covers himself with scents and perfumes; he wears at his ears a double row of rings and pendants; he spends fantastic sums on his shirts and clothes; he charms and beguiles women by lavishing the most costly jewels and fripperies on them.” But a more partial sketch was delivered by a member of the French court, who wrote Walsingham a glowing account of Anjou's beauties of body and mind, declaring that neither pen nor paintbrush could do justice to the duke's eyes, to the charming line of his mouth when he spoke, or the sweetness that won the hearts of all who met him. If this courtier's lengthy praises of the duke were intended to speed his suit with Elizabeth, the latter part of the description was misconceived, for the writer went on with equal enthusiasm to affirm Anjou's unswerving devotion to the Catholic faith, swearing that he would live and die in his religion. It was ironic that he should have concluded, “If the Queen your mistress is not satisfied with so worthy a person, she will never marry; there is nothing she can do from now on but take a vow of perpetual virginity.”

Anjou had no more personal inclination to marry Elizabeth than she felt to have him. He was under strong Catholic pressure not to forward the match; the Spanish ambassador and the Guises constantly represented its evils to him, pointing out that Elizabeth was a confirmed heretic, excommunicated by the pope, and that she was not only far too old for him and unlikely to have children, but a woman of scandalous reputation. They urged a glorious armed conquest of England rather than the shameful compromise of such a marriage, and the moody, unstable duke became increasingly recalcitrant under their influence. The specter of Philip of Spain's marriage to Elizabeth's half sister was summoned up again, and it was said, with every truth, that if Anjou were to marry Elizabeth he would not be king, but only the husband of the queen. “My son has told me,” Catherine wrote despairingly to de La Mothe Fénelon, “that he wishes never to marry her, having always heard her honour ill spoken of by all the ambassadors who have been in England.” To spur de La Mothe Fénelon to do whatever he might to salvage the situation, Catherine added dramatically, “So, Monsieur de La Mothe, you are on the point of losing such a kingdom as that for my children.” But with so much at stake for both parties the affair could not end thus. Under Catherine's dominating influence Anjou was brought to a state of grudging compliance for the time being; although the two queens doubted each other's sincerity in the affair, Catherine could not afford to let the negotiations founder through the reluctance of her favorite son.

Elizabeth seemed anxious to allay suspicions that she might not be in earnest by showing a convincing degree of interest in the marriage. “I do perceive Her Majesty more bent upon marrying than heretofore she has been,” Leicester wrote. The long list of disappointed suitors to the queen, which included his own name, was evidently in his thoughts, as it was in Elizabeth's; her history of failed courtships had made prospective husbands wary. Catherine de' Medici expressed fears that her son was being mocked, as others had been, and at one point Anjou said mulishly that the Queen of England's only aim was to dally with the French for a time, which they would soon regret. To combat such talk Elizabeth adopted a pose of injured innocence, instructing Walsingham to explain to the queen mother that her rejection of Philip of Spain, early in her reign, had been from the highest of motives, but that she was now quite determined to marry. Catherine was to be offered the most earnest assurances of Elizabeth's sincerity in this courtship, anything that would spin out the negotiations for as long as possible without her having to give any specific pledge. “We pray the Queen mother not to be over-curious in requiring so precise an answer,” Elizabeth instructed, “until the matter may be further treated of and explained, and not to think it any touch to the honour of her son to be named as a suitor to us as others of as great degree have been, though the motions took no effect, rather for other impediments than for any mislike of their persons.” Elizabeth gave the flattering appearance of being far from misliking Anjou's person, and as usual was very eager that he should pay her a clandestine visit; she conceived a romantic plan by which she should await Anjou at the coast while he slipped across from France on the morning tide to meet her. Though that encounter never took place, a pretense of personal contact was established, in florid, formal compliments which passed between the prince and the queen. Elizabeth praised Anjou's beauties, mentioning the elegance of his hands, in which respect she knew he could return the praise; in conversation with de La Mothe Fénelon she whispered coyly that she found the duke very desirable. The response she hoped for was immediately forthcoming—the ambassador promptly assured her that they were both very desirable, their only fault being that they had not already made themselves possessors of each other's perfections. Elizabeth's greed for such gallantries was insatiable. She wanted to know whether de La Mothe Fénelon had told the duke about the charms of her arm, her foot, and other parts which she discreetly refrained from naming, and altogether she presented the appearance of an unmarried, middle-aged woman excited at the prospect of acquiring a fine young husband. She could afford to indulge her love of being wooed, and to encourage this courtship by seeming to be enamoured of all that she heard of Anjou, for there were “other impediments” great enough to halt the affair when it should become necessary.