1565.] THE DARNLE Y MA RRIA GE. 3*7 of marriage was odious to her, and when she tried to make up her mind it was as if her heart was being toin out of her body.' 1 Yet Leicester was fooled by the French into a brief hope of success. He tried to interest Cecil in his cause by assuring him that the Queen would marry no one but himself; and Cecil mocked him with a courteous answer, and left on record, in a second table of contrasts with the Archduke, his own intense conviction of Leicester's worthlessness. 2 A ludicrous Court calamity increased the troubles of the Queen and with them her unwillingness to declare war against the Queen of Scots. The three daughters of the Duke of Suffolk had been placed one after the other in the line of succession by Henry the Eighth. Lady Jane was dead ; Lady Catherine was dying from the effects of her long and cruel imprisonment ; the third, Lady Mary, had remained at the Court, and one evening in August when the Scotch plot was thickening got her- self married in the palace itself ' by an old fat priest in a short gown ' to Thomas Keys the sergeant porter. 3 Lady Mary was * the smallest woman in the Court/ Keys 1 She said she was resolved
- Ne departir jamais a celuy qui
seroit son mary ni de ses biens ni forces ni raoyens, ne voulant s'ayder de luy que pour laisser successeur <Telle a ses subjectz ; mais quand clle pensoit de ce faire, il luy sem- bloit que Ton luy arrachast le cccur <lu ventrc ; tnnt clle en estoit de son naturcl eslonguec.' Paul de Foix to the Queen-mother, August 22: TEULET, vol. ii. 2 ' De Matrimonio Reginse An- glia3.' Reasons against the Earl of Leicester : Burghley Papers, vol. i. 3 This marriage was before men- tioned by me as having taken place at the same time with that of Lady Jane Grey and Guilford Dudley. I was misled by Dugdale.
