The Men Who Would Be King (24 page)

It was some days before Elizabeth would receive the French ambassador. When he was finally shown into her presence, on September 8, he found that she and her court were in mourning, and all were silent as he approached. With regal solemnity Elizabeth accepted the official explanation of the atrocities that he brought from Charles IX; and the diplomatic bonds between England and France held, visibly frayed though they were. Within a matter of weeks, Catherine de' Medici—who was said to be looking quite ten years younger since the massacre—was again talking optimistically of the Alençon marriage, and towards the end of September the young suitor wrote a humbly affectionate letter to Elizabeth, concluding with a postscript in his own bad handwriting. Though Elizabeth expressed the gravest of doubts about the match, pointing out in tones of sad reproof that a brother of a monarch who was so clearly determined to “root out all the possessors” of the Protestant religion would scarcely be a fitting husband for her, she nevertheless could not afford to break off her dealings with France. The massacre that had so shocked and affronted Elizabeth and the Protestant English had placed Mary, Queen of Scots's relations, the ultra-Catholic Guises, in the ascendant once more; it had won the hearty approval of the pope; and Philip of Spain was said to have laughed appreciatively when he first heard of it. The marriage negotiations with France were as necessary as ever, and through the middle years of the 1570s Elizabeth was to dance high and disposedly with the Duke of Alençon, with all the skill of an experienced performer, until at the end of that decade the tune changed and the steps quickened and she almost fell headlong into her partner's arms.

The years of Elizabeth's halting political courtship with Alençon, before the affair turned into the hectic personal relationship, saw great changes in the lives of the three brothers of France. As Catherine had so ardently hoped, a foreign throne was obtained for Anjou; in the spring of 1573 he was elected King of Poland. But in the following year Elizabeth's other former suitor Charles IX died of consumption at the age of twenty-four, and Anjou returned from his Polish kingdom to become King Henry III of France. The ugly undersized Alençon was now next in line to the throne, and as well as his brother's former title of Duke of Anjou he inherited his brother's former role, that of dissident and royal troublemaker. Before the death of Charles IX, while Anjou was away in Poland, Catherine had thought it wise to keep her youngest son under virtual house arrest in the Louvre; as the hope of the Huguenots and potential claimant to the throne of France, he remained closely watched over by Catherine and Henry III, until at last, in September 1575, he succeeded in escaping from the confines of the court and fled to take command of the Huguenot rebel forces. It was ambition rather than religious zeal, however, that burned in Alençon's breast and impelled him to endeavor great deeds, and by the following spring he had come to remunerative terms with Henry III and an appearance of amity had been established between the royal brothers, though jealousies and rivalries continued to erupt between them and their followers. Worldly gain was a greater incentive to Alençon than any hope of spiritual rewards, and while such discontented ambition smouldered within him it was clearly desirable that he, in turn, should be found occupation abroad.

Hopes of finding him occupation as king-consort of England faded away in 1576. Elizabeth was forty-three now, and though she had no lack of attractive Englishmen eager to praise her beauty and virtue in adoring speeches and languishing letters, her chances of marriage seemed to be dwindling rapidly. At the close of the Parliament that met in that year, the Speaker referred to the realm's great need of an heir of Elizabeth's line, and humbly “besought Her Majesty as shortly as might be to incline herself to marriage,” but Elizabeth's response showed her to be as little inclined to marriage as ever. “If I were a milkmaid with a pail on my arm,” she told the assembly, “whereby my private person might be little set by, I would not forsake that poor and single state to match with the greatest monarch.” She went on to assure them lovingly that she was prepared to sacrifice her private inclinations for the sake of her subjects' well-being, but Parliament had been receiving such assurances from her for nearly seventeen years, and many of those who heard her words on this occasion must privately have concluded that their queen would never marry.

But the days of her political wooings were not yet ended. When, three years later, the young Duke of Alençon again took up the pursuit of the elderly queen, England was to tremble with the passions aroused by the courtship of the youngest of the three brothers of France. In her forty-seventh year, on the brink of menopause, Elizabeth was to come within kissing distance of a marriage.

8

A Frog He Would A-Wooing Go

T
he pock holes are no great disfigurement,” Elizabeth's ambassador had written from Paris, early in 1573, “because they are rather thick than deep or great. They upon the blunt end of his nose are great and deep, how much to be disliked may be as it pleaseth God to move the heart of the beholder.” There had been little in such descriptions to arouse Elizabeth's interest in Alençon, and it was not out of love for the pockmarked prince that she began to smile anew on his suit towards the end of 1578. The courtship was to become an emotional affair, but it began as a matter of expediency. Alençon had found himself occupation out of France, aiding the rebel leaders in the turbulent Netherlands, in return for a title and lands there; though it was a lone venture of Alençon's, rather than an official French undertaking, Elizabeth found it disturbing. She had no wish to see a prince of France, the heir presumptive to the French crown, gain control in the Netherlands to the exclusion of English interests there, and it accordingly seemed wise for the negotiations for her marriage with the young Valois to be revived once more. If Alençon was to fight in the Low Countries, it should be as her knight.

For Alençon himself the prospect of English aid and support was alluring, and he set about his renewed courtship of the queen with an enthusiasm such as none of her foreign suitors had ever shown before. She was his
belle Majesté,
he was her slave; he wrote that he was more devoted to her than anyone else on earth could be, and to speak—and act—on his behalf, he sent over his best-loved servant, Jean de Simier, at the end of December 1578. Simier was the ideal man for the task of making love to the queen as proxy for Alençon. He approached Elizabeth with a combination of servile passion and erotic dexterity, flattering and flirting as eagerly as if she had in reality been the “perfect beauty” that he called her, and the queen, predictably, was delighted. This was the lovemaking for which she had always longed, humble adoration spiced with sexual insinuations, proffered on behalf of one of the most illustrious young princes in the world. Simier naughtily stole her nightcap from her bedchamber to send to his master; evidently the prince set great store by such intimate trophies, for he already had one of her handkerchiefs, and a similar theft took place three years later, on the occasion of Sir Francis Drake's knighthood, when Elizabeth's ornate purple garter slipped down and was promptly claimed by the French ambassador. Far from taking exception to Simier's amorous liberties, Elizabeth was full of praises for his behavior, describing him as “sage and discreet beyond his years in his conduct of the case.” Not everyone was so impressed with his sagacity and discretion, however. There were whispers of love philters and charms having played a part in his success, and ripples of scandal began to spread. Some of the salacious talk eventually reached the ears of the captive Queen of Scots, through her guardian's wife, the hard-bitten Countess of Shrewsbury, who enjoyed passing on tidbits of malicious gossip about the vanity and immorality of Queen Elizabeth. Leicester had been the subject of such rumors for long enough to know truth from falsehood where Elizabeth was concerned, but he had no cause to smile on Simier's artful wooing, which, if successful, would surely oust Leicester at last from his position as Elizabeth's most favored and intimate companion. It was not long before the envoy had been given a nickname; in a pun on the associations of “Simier” he had become her “Monkey,” fondly referred to as
nostre singe
in her letters to his master, Alençon. The political courtship had acquired the atmosphere of a seduction, and according to the French ambassador the Queen of England had never looked more radiant.

Through the spring of 1579 the subject of the Alençon marriage was being debated, with Walsingham and Leicester opposing the match while Cecil and the Earl of Sussex supported it. As always, Burghley approached the question in a methodical and judicious manner, weighing “objections” against “benefits.” “Her Majesty's own mislike to marriage” was noted down, as well as “the difficulty in choice of such a person as in all respects might content Her Majesty's mind and satisfy her eye.” More serious still was the danger of childbirth at Elizabeth's advanced age, but as the memorandum was for the queen to read, Burghley offered lavish reassurances on this point. Referring to the Duchess of Savoy, “a woman of sallow and melancholy complexion, and in all respects far inferior to her Majesty,” who had been older than Elizabeth, yet had borne a fine baby son, he concluded encouragingly that it was likely that Elizabeth, “a person of most pure complexion, of the largest and goodliest stature of well-shaped women, with all limbs set and proportioned in the best sort, and one whom in the sight of all men nature cannot amend her shape in any part to make her more likely to conceive and bear children,” would have no great difficulty in producing an heir to the Tudor throne. A graver problem lay in “the mislike of the people to be governed by a foreign prince and especially by the blood of France.” But Burghley argued that “no marriage offered by any stranger hath been liked,” and concluded that since Elizabeth had made it plain that she would never marry one of her own subjects, those who opposed her marrying a foreigner must intend that she should never marry at all. In Leicester's case that was probably true. The Spanish ambassador reported that the King of France had “assured Leicester on his word of honour that his authority and position should not be injured in any way by the marriage, as he would be the guide and friend of his brother,” but the man who had been Elizabeth's supreme favorite for nearly twenty years could not fail to be disturbed by the threat to his position that her marriage must bring. And he had a special reason now to fear for his place in Elizabeth's favor. He was hiding a guilty secret, one which, if disclosed to the queen, might well destroy forever the royal relationship that he had so long enjoyed. In this delicate situation the arrival of a consort for Elizabeth was the last thing Leicester wanted.

But despite his opposition, and that of Walsingham and many others on the Privy Council, the French prince's suit continued to prosper. “Everybody here is full of the marriage and the coming of Alençon,” wrote the Spanish ambassador in April. “Many people who were wont to smile at it now see that appearances are all in favour of it taking place and believe it.” Appearances had ever been misleading where Elizabeth's courtships were concerned, but there was no doubt that the queen's interest in Alençon had been aroused, and for once diplomacy was deliciously mingled with romance. No foreign suitor had ever paid court to her with such passion before. In March the young Valois Prince had informed her that his only misfortune lay in the fact that he was at present unable to sacrifice his life to do her some slight service, but if he should ever be in a position to do so he would regard himself as the luckiest man on earth—a chivalrous vow that no stolid Habsburg suitor would have been prepared to make. Alençon was particularly anxious that Elizabeth should know that his love was disinterested; his feelings for her had “nothing to do with avarice or ambition,” but were inspired by her beauty, virtue, and goodness. Elizabeth might say deprecatingly to the Spanish ambassador that “it was a fine idea for an old woman like her to talk about marriage,” but she was intoxicated by her young suitor's skillful lovemaking and she was undoubtedly allowing herself to indulge in fancies of taking a husband at last, even if at heart she knew she never would. It was obviously the last chance that she would have.

In May the Spanish ambassador reported that there had been an unpleasant scene involving the Privy Council and Simier. Elizabeth had ordered the council to discuss the marriage, he wrote, and after objections had been raised on such grounds as the “great confusion” that might be raised by the “coming hither of Catholics, and above all Frenchmen, who were their ancient enemies,” Simier was eventually summoned and informed that Alençon was making exorbitant demands—“such things have never been proposed by any prince who treated for marriage with the Queen.” According to the Spaniard's information, Simier became extremely angry at the councillors' opposition, and flung himself out of the door, “which he slammed after him in a great fury.” When the queen learned of this she was full of regrets, he went on, and that night she said twice, “They need not think that it is going to end in this way; I must get married.” But however brightly she smiled on Simier, however tenderly she wrote to Alençon, she still continued to insist on her customary stipulation; she would never marry a man she had not seen. On this occasion, when the suitor in question was reputed to be so remarkably unattractive, her freedom to see and refuse was particularly important to her. Somewhat maliciously, the Spanish ambassador reported that Elizabeth was “largely influenced by the idea that it should be known that her talents and beauty are so great, that they have sufficed to cause him to come and visit her without any assurance that he will be her husband.” Whether it was for the Queen of England's talents and beauty, or for hope of political advantage, Alençon, unlike her previous royal suitors, was prepared to hazard his dignity to gain his desire, and even without a firm promise of eventual success he was ready to cross the seas to woo Elizabeth in person.