In October 1580, a new Catholic combination forced Elizabeth’s hands, and she promised greater help to Alencon’s project, whilst trying to draw France also into open war with Spain.  The combat of wits was keen and cynical, each party trying to pledge the other and to keep free himself.  A great French embassy came to England in April 1581, to negotiate an alliance and the queen’s marriage with Alencon, who had now re-entered Flanders and was immersed in the struggle against the Spaniards.  The discussions in England were becoming interminable, for the French ambassadors asked hard terms, when Alencon, in June 1581, losing patience, suddenly rushed over to England to plead his own cause independently of his brother’s envoys, whom he distrusted with good reason.  This suited Elizabeth, for it made Alencon more dependent upon her, and again she sent her lover back full of great promises to help him.

In August Alencon again entered Flanders, depending entirely upon Elizabeth for support, and thenceforward he looked alone to his marriage with her for his salvation.  She was sparing, and the poor prince retired to France in September.  In desperation he came to England again to press for money and marriage in November 1581; and for months the love-making was fast and furious.  Frantic prayers, sighs, and tears on his part were answered by kisses and promises on hers, but she gave as little money as would serve to get rid of him.  On February 1, 1582, Alencon sailed for Holland to Elizabeth’s professed grief and real joy; and thenceforward the prince, first in Flanders as sovereign, and afterwards in France a fugitive, supplicated and threatened his betrothed for money, and ever more money.  But Elizabeth had now taken the Netherlands revolt into her own hands, and thenceforward her French lover was useless to her there.  So, though she still kept up the pretence of her willingness to marry him on impossible conditions, and drove the poor creature to love-lorn despair, Alencon had served his matrimonial purpose before he died, in 1584, and Elizabeth’s courtships with a political object came to an end.  She and England were strong enough now to face her possible foes without fear.

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The Love Affairs of Mary Queen of Scots

Mary Queen of Scots was one of the most remarkable women who ever presided over the destinies of a nation.  She was born at Linlithgow on December 8, 1542, a few days before the death of her father, James V., thus becoming a queen before she was a week old.  Her complex personality and varied accomplishments have inspired many and various historians, but it has remained for Major Martin Hume to demonstrate the historical fatality of Mary’s love affairs.  In “The Love Affairs of Mary Queen of Scots,” published in 1903, Major Hume gives a convincing and logical reason for Mary’s political failure, inasmuch as it did not spring from her goodness or badness as a woman, but from a certain weakness of character.  This epitome has been prepared by Major Hume himself.

I.—­Betrothed in her Cradle