'565.1 THE EMBASSY OF DE SILVA. 243 you should perfectly know what love meaneth ; but you shall shortly understand it, for there is no young man, prince nor other, but he doth pass by it. It is the foolishest thing, the most impatient, most hasty, most without respect that can be/ ' With that the King blushed. ' The Queen said this is no foolish love. ' ' No, Madame/ quoth I, ' this is with respect and upon good grounds, and therefore may be done with deliberation/ ' x
- * So your Majesty is to marry the King of France
after all/ said de Silva to Elizabeth a little after this.
- She half hid her face and laughed. ' It is Lent,
she said ; ' and you are a good friend, so I will confesi my sins to you. My brother the Catholic King wished to marry me, the King of Sweden and Denmark wished to marry me, the King of France wishes to marry me. And the Archduke also/ said de Silva. ' l Sir Thomas Smith to Elizabeth, April 15 : French MSS. Rolls Home. Elizabeth had desired the am- bassador to describe the young King to her. Smith said he was a pale, thin, sickly, ungainly boy, with large knee and ankle joints. His health had been injured by over-doses of medicine. He seemed amiable, cheerful, and more intelligent than might have been expected, ' seeing he had not been brought up to learn- ing, and spoke no language but his In a letter to Cecil, the ambassa- dor said ' The Queen-mother hath a very good opinion of you. She liketh marvellous well that you had a son in your fourteenth or fifteenth year, for she hopeth therefore that her son the King shall have a son as well as you in his sixteenth year, and thinketh you may serve as an ex- ample to the Queen's Majesty not to contemn the young years of the Kinjr's.' Smith to Cecil MS Ibid.
