This maiden queen, who had rejected so many kings and princes, soon became so enamoured of this young nobleman, that their conduct became the scandal of the Court and country. The reports were believed, both in this country and abroad, of their living as man and wife, even whilst Leicester was still the husband of Amy Robsart. The Queen of Scots, in one of her letters, tells her that she hears this asserted, and that she had promised to marry him before one of the ladies of the bedchamber. Confirming this belief, Miss Strickland admits that Elizabeth had Leicester's chamber adjoining her own. Throckmorton, her ambassador, sent his secretary, Jones, to inform Elizabeth privately, and at the suggestion of Cecil and the other ministers, of the common remarks on this subject by the Spanish and Venetian ambassadors at Paris. Elizabeth, listening to Jones's recital, including the account of the murder of Amy Robsart, sometimes laughed, sometimes hid her face in her hands, but replied that she had heard it all before, and did not believe in the murder. From the evidence on this subject, it appears that Elizabeth had promised Dudley to marry him, and was this time very near being involved in the trammels of matrimony; but she escaped to have another long string of princely suitors, whose advents we have yet to relate.
Careful to avoid the bonds of matrimony herself, Elizabeth was, however, bent on securing in them the Queen of Scots. Since Mary of Scotland had become a widow, the suitors of Elizabeth had transferred their attentions to her. She was younger and much handsomer; her kingdom was much less important, but then she was by no means so haughty and immovable. She was of a warm, a generous, a poetic nature, and would soon have found a congenial husband, but either her own subjects or her rival Elizabeth had something in each case to object. Her French relatives successively proposed Don Carlos, the son of Philip, and heir of Spain; the Duke of Anjou, one of the brothers of her late husband; the Cardinal de Bourbon, who had not yet taken priest's orders; the Duke of Ferrara, and some others. But none of these would suit her Scottish subjects, for they were all Papists; and they suited Elizabeth as little, for they would create too strong a foreign coalition. Mary, with an extraordinary amiability, listened to all the objections of Elizabeth, and expressed herself quite disposed to accept such a husband as should be agreeable to her. But Mary was not without policy in this condescension. She hoped to induce Elizabeth, by thus being willing to oblige her in this particular, to acknowledge her right to succeed her, but in this she was grievously disappointed. Elizabeth declared that "the right of succession to her throne should never be made a subject of discussion, for it would cause disputes as to the validity of this or that marriage;" that is, it would assuredly bring prominently forward what Elizabeth well knew was the weak place in her own claim—the illegal marriage of her mother. Mary declared herself ready to acknowledge the right of Elizabeth and of her posterity to the English throne, if she would acknowledge that her claim stood next; but Elizabeth replied that she could not do that without conceiving a dislike to Mary, for she asked "how it was possible for her to love any one whose interest it was to see her dead?"
Whilst Elizabeth was making a progress in the summer of 1563, in which her chief visit was to the university of Cambridge, where she made her Latin speech, she was greatly disturbed by the news that her old lover, the Archduke Charles of Austria, was paying his addresses to the Queen of Scots. Stung with both womanly and political jealousy—for Charles, besides his prospect of becoming emperor, was one of the most noble and chivalric princes in Europe—Elizabeth sent off the astute Randolph to Scotland to show Mary how very unfit a person was the archduke for her husband. He had been proposed by the Cardinal of Lorraine,—a sufficient proof, Randolph was to remind her, of his being an enemy to England; and that, if she married an enemy of England, there was an end of any chance of her succession. At the same time Elizabeth ordered Cecil to write to Mundt, one of the pensionaries in Germany, that the emperor should be advised to renew the offer of his son to the Queen of England; but the emperor replied that he had had a sufficient sample of the selfish and hollow policy of Elizabeth, and would not expose himself to a second insult.
Mary behaved with as much candour in the matter as Elizabeth had with duplicity. She told Randolph that she found it difficult to meet the views of her good sister in this matter; but that, if she would advise her in the choice of a husband, she would willingly listen to her. Randolph said that it would be most agreeable to his Royal mistress if she would choose an English nobleman. Mary replied that she should be glad to know whom her Royal cousin would recommend, and was astonished to learn that the husband destined for her was no other than Lord Robert Dudley, the favourite of Elizabeth herself, and regarded by all the world as her future husband. Mary was so much piqued at what could not but appear to her a studied mystification, that she replied that "she considered it beneath her dignity to marry a subject." This was a hard hit at Elizabeth, who was supposed to be intending that very thing, and the pungent remark was not lost on her; nor the equally sarcastic remark that "she looked on the offer of a person so dear to Elizabeth as a proof of good-will rather than of good meaning."
Elizabeth observed with much spleen that Mary had treated the offer which she had made her with mockery, but Mary protested that she never had, and wondered who could so have represented her words. The circumstance became the public talk and laughter both of the two Courts and of Europe; and Dudley affected to be much offended by the nomination of him as the husband of Mary. He regarded the whole scheme, however, as a plot of Cecil to remove him from the English Court. Elizabeth, on her part, for at this time she was absolutely ridiculous in her doting on Dudley, was wonderfully flattered by his reluctance to leave her for the beautiful Queen of Scots, and she determined to lavish fresh titles and favours on him. She had already granted him the castle and manor of Kenilworth and Astel Grove, the lordships and manors of Denbigh and Chirk, with other lands, and a licence for the exportation of cloth—a monopoly, in fact: she now resolved to give him new estates and dignity.
Mary, that she might do away with the ill effect of her sarcasms, sent Sir James Melville to London to consult
