So long as she remained single they represented gravely that no surety could be devised to ascertain any person of continuance of their families and posterities.' The French affair had dragged on. Elizabeth had coquetted with it as a kitten plays with a ball. The French ambassador, De Foix, on the 2nd of May made an effort to force an answer from her one way or the other. The world,' he said, 'had been made in six days, and she had already spent eighty and was still undecided.' Elizabeth had endeavoured to escape by saying that the world had been made by a greater artist than herself; that she was constitutionally irresolute, and had lost many fair opportunities by a want of promptitude in seizing them.' Four days later on the receipt of bad news from Scotland she wavered towards acceptance she wrote to Catherine de Medici to say 'that she could not decline an offer so generously made; she would call Parliament immediately, and if her subjects approved she was willing to abide by their resolution.' 1

A parliamentary discussion could not be despatched in a moment. The Queen-mother on receiving Elizabeth's letter asked how soon she might expect an answer; and when Sir T. Smith told her that perhaps four months would elapse first, she affected astonishment at the necessity of so much ceremony. If the Queen of England was herself satisfied she thought it was enough.

La response de la Reyne,' May 6: French MSS. Rolls House.

'Madam,' replied Smith, 'her people be not like your people; they must be trained by doulceur and persuasion, not by rigour and violence. There is no realm in Christendom better governed, better policied, and in more felicity of quiet and good order than is the realm of England; and in case my sovereign should go to work as ye say, God knows what would come of it: you have an opinion that her Majesty is wise; her answer is very much in a little space and containeth more substance of matter than multitude of words.'1

Catherine de Medici but half accepted the excuse, regarding it only as a pretext for delay. Yet Elizabeth was probably serious, and had the English council been in favour of the marriage, in her desperation at the attitude of Mary Stuart she might have felt herself compelled to make a sacrifice which would insure for her the alliance of France. Paul de Foix one day at the end of May found her in her room playing chess.

'Madam,' he said to her, 'you have before you the

game of life. You lose a pawn; it seems a small matter; but with the pawn you lose the game.'

'I see your meaning,' she answered. Lord Darnley is but a pawn, but unless I look to it I shall be checkmated.'

She rose from her seat, led the ambassador apart, and said bitterly she would make Lennox and his son smart for their insolence.

De Foix admitted and made the most of the danger;

'Smith to Elizabeth, May, 1565: French MSS. Rolls House.

VOL. VII.

19

'her enemies,' he allowed, all over the world were wishing to see Mary Stuart and Darnley married,' and unfortunately there were also clearsighted, able English statesmen who desired it as well, as a means of uniting the crowns. 'But your Majesty,' he added, 'has in your hands both your own safety and your rival's ruin. France has been the shield of Scotland in its English wars. Take that shield for yourself. The world is dangerous, the strongest will fare the best, and your Majesty knows that the Queen of Scots dreads no one thing so much as your marriage with the most Christian King.'

With mournful irony Elizabeth replied that she did not deserve so much happiness.' The English council in pressing her to take a husband was thinking less of a foreign alliance than of an heir to the crown; and the most Christian King was unwelcome to her advisers for the reason perhaps for which she would have preferred him to any other suitor. The full-grown, ablebodied Archduke Charles was the person on whom the hearts of the truest of her statesmen had long been fixed. The Queen referred de Foix to the council; and the council, on the 2nd of June, informed him 'that on mature consideration and with a full appreciation of the greatness of the offer, the age of the King of France, the uncertainty of the English succession, and the unlikelihood of children from that marriage, for

Paul de Foix to the Queen-mother, June 3: TEULET, vol. ii.

several years at least, obliged them to advise their mistress to decline his proposals.'1

The next day Elizabeth sent for the ambassador of the Duke of Wurtemberg who was acting in England in behalf of Maximilian. She told him that she had once resolved to live and die a maiden Queen; but she deferred to the remonstrances of her subjects, and she desired him to tell the Emperor that she had at last made up her mind to marry. She had inquired of the Spanish ambassador whether the King of Spain still wished to see her the wife of his cousin. The ambassador had assured her that the King could not be more anxious if the Archduke had been a child of his own. She said that she could not bind herself to accept a person whom she had never seen; but she expressed her earnest wish that the Archduke should come to England.

The minister of Wurtemberg in writing to Maximilian added his own entreaties to those of the Queen; he said that 'there was no fear for the Archduke's honour; the Queen's situation was so critical that if the Archduke would consent to come she could not dare to affront the Imperial family by afterwards refusing his hand.' 3

1 MIGNET'S Mary Stuart, vol. i. p. 146.

2 Se constituisse nunc nubere.'

3 Adam Schetowitz to Maximilian, June 4, 1565: Burghley Papers, vol. i.

292

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE

THE DARNLEY MARRIAGE.

two Queens were again standing in the same

relative positions which had led to the crisis of 1560. Mary Stuart was once more stretching out her hand to grasp Elizabeth's crown. From her recognition as heirpresumptive, the step to a Catholic revolution was immediate and certain; and Elizabeth's affectation of Catholic practices would avail little to save her. Again, as before, the stability of the English Government appeared to depend on the maintenance of the Protestants in Scotland; and again the Protestants were too weak to protect themselves without help from abroad. The House of Hamilton was in danger from the restitution of Lennox and the approaching elevation of Darnley; the Earl of Lennox claimed the second place in the Scotch succession in opposition to the Duke of Chatelherault; and the Queen of Scots had avowed her intention of entailing her crown in the line of the Stuarts. Thus there were the same parties and the same divisions. But the Protestants were split among themselves among the counter-influences of hereditary alliance and passion. The cession of