  1560. Successful campaign in Scotland.—Embassy of viscount Montacute to Spain—of sir T. Chaloner to the Emperor.—Account of Chaloner.—Letter of his respecting Dudley and the queen.—Dudley loses his wife.—Mysterious manner of her death.—Suspicion cast upon her husband.—Dudley and several other courtiers aspire to the hand of their sovereign.—Tournaments in her honor.—Impresses.—Sir W. Pickering.—Rivalry of Arundel and Dudley. The accession of Francis II., husband to the queen of Scots, to the French throne had renewed the dangers of Elizabeth from the hostility of France and of Scotland; and in the politic resolution of removing from her own territory to that of her enemies the seat of a war which she saw to be inevitable, she levied a strong army and sent it under the command of the duke of Norfolk and lord Grey de Wilton to the frontiers of Scotland. She also entered into a close connexion with the protestant party in that country, who were already in arms against the queen-regent and her French auxiliaries. Success attended this well-planned expedition, and at the end of a single campaign Elizabeth was able to terminate the war by the treaty of Edinburgh; a convention the terms of which were such as effectually to secure her from all fear of future molestation in this quarter. During the period of these hostilities, however, her situation was an anxious one. It was greatly to be feared that the emperor and the king of Spain, forgetting in their zeal for the catholic church the habitual enmity of the house of Austria against that of Bourbon, would make common cause with France against a sovereign who now stood forth the avowed protectress of protestantism; and such a combination of the great powers of Europe, seconded by a large catholic party at home, England was by no means in a condition to withstand. By skilful negotiation it seemed possible to avert these evils; and Elizabeth, by her selection of diplomatic agents on this important occasion, gave striking evidence of her superior judgement. To plead her cause with the king of Spain, she dispatched Anthony Browne viscount Montacute; a nobleman who, to the general recommendation of wisdom and experience in public affairs, added the peculiar one, for this service, of a zealous attachment to the Romish faith, proved by his determined opposition in the house of lords to the bill of uniformity lately carried by a great majority. The explanations and arguments of the viscount prevailed so far with Philip, that he ordered his ambassador at Rome to oppose the endeavours of the French court to prevail on the pope to fulminate his ecclesiastical censures against Elizabeth. It was found impracticable, however, to bring him to terms of cordial amity with a heretic sovereign whose principles he both detested and dreaded; and by returning, some time after, the decorations of the For ambassador to the emperor she made choice, at the recommendation probably of Cecil, of his relation and beloved friend sir Thomas Chaloner the elder, a statesman, a soldier, and a man of letters; and in these three characters, so rarely united, one of the distinguished ornaments of his age. He was born in 1515 of a good family in Wales, and, being early sent to Cambridge, became known as a very elegant Latin poet, and generally as a young man of the most promising talents. After a short residence at court, his merit caused him to be selected to attend into Germany sir Henry Knevet the English ambassador, with a view to his qualifying himself for future diplomatic employment. At the court of Charles V. he was received with extraordinary favor; and after waiting upon that monarch, in several of his journeys, he was at length induced, by admiration of his character, to accompany him as a volunteer in his rash expedition against Algiers. He was shipwrecked in the storm which almost destroyed the fleet, and only escaped drowning by catching in his mouth, as he was struggling with the waves, a cable, by which he was drawn up into a ship with the loss of several of his teeth. Returning home, he was made clerk of the council, which office he held during the remainder of Henry's reign. Early in the next he was distinguished by the protector, and, having signalized his valor in the battle of Pinkey, was knighted by him on the field. The fall Soon after his return from his embassy to the emperor Ferdinand, we find him engaged in a very perplexing and disagreeable mission to the unfriendly court of Philip II., where the mortifications which he encountered, joined to the insalubrity of the climate, so impaired his health that he found himself obliged to solicit his recall, which he did in an Ovidian elegy addressed to the queen. The petition of the poet was granted, but too late; he sunk under a lingering malady in October 1565, a few months after his return. The poignant grief of Cecil for his loss found its best alleviation in the exemplary performance of all the duties of surviving friendship. He officiated as chief mourner at his funeral, and superintended with solicitude truly paternal the education of his son, Thomas Chaloner the younger, afterwards a distinguished character. By his encouragement, the Latin poems of his friend, chiefly consisting of epitaphs and panegyrics on his most celebrated contemporaries, Sir Thomas Chaloner was the first ambassador named by Elizabeth; a distinction of which he proved himself highly deserving. Wisdom and integrity he was already known to possess; and in his negotiations with the imperial court, where it was his business to draw the bonds of amity as close as should be found practicable without pledging his mistress to the acceptance of the hand of the archduke Charles, he also manifested a degree of skill and dexterity which drew forth the warmest commendations from Elizabeth herself. His conduct, she said, had far exceeded all her expectations of his prudence and abilities. This testimony may be allowed to give additional weight to his opinion on a point of great delicacy in the personal conduct of her majesty, as well as on some more general questions of policy, expressed in a postscript to one of his official letters to secretary Cecil. The letter, it should be observed, was written near the close of the year 1559, when the favor of the queen to Dudley had first become a subject of general remark, and before all hopes were lost of her finally closing with the proposals of the archduke. "I assure you, sir, these folks are broad-mouthed where I spake of one too much in favor, as they esteem. I think ye guess whom they named; if ye do not, I "Consider how ye deal now in the emperor's matter: much dependeth on it. Here they hang in expectation as men desirous it should go forward, but yet they have small hope: In mine opinion (be it said to you only) the affinity is great and honorable: The amity necessary to stop and cool many enterprises. Ye need not fear his greatness should overrule you; he is not a Philip, but better for us than a Philip. Let the time work for Scotland as God will, for sure the French, I believe, shall never long enjoy them: and when we be stronger and more ready, we may proceed with that, that is yet unripe. The time itself will work, when our great neighbours fall out next. In the mean time settle we things begun; and let us arm and fortify our frontiers." &c.
Sufficient evidence remains that the sentiments of Cecil respecting the queen's behaviour to Dudley coincided with those of his friend, and that fears for her reputation gave additional urgency about this period to those pleadings in favor of matrimony which her council were doomed to press upon her attention so often and so much in vain. But a circumstance occurred soon after which totally changed the nature of their apprehensions respecting her future conduct, and rendered her anticipated choice of a husband no longer an object of hope and joy, but of general dissatisfaction and alarm. Just when the whispered scandal of the court had apprized him how obvious to all beholders the partiality of his sovereign had become,—just when her rejection of the proposals of so many foreign princes had confirmed the suspicion that her heart had given itself at home,—just, in short, when every thing conspired to sanction hopes which under any other circumstances would have appeared no less visionary than presumptuous,—at the very juncture most favorable to his ambition, but most perilous to his reputation, lord Robert Dudley lost his wife, and by a fate equally sudden and mysterious. This unfortunate lady had been sent by her husband, under the conduct of sir Richard Verney, one of his retainers,—but for what reason or under what pretext does not appear,—to Cumnor House in Berkshire, a solitary mansion inhabited by Anthony Foster, also a dependent of Dudley's and bound to him by particular obligations. Here she soon after met with her death; Whether the thorough investigation of this matter was evaded by the artifices of Dudley, or whether his enemies, finding it impracticable to bring the crime home to him, found it more advisable voluntarily to drop the inquiry, certain it is, that the queen was never brought in any manner to take cognisance of the affair, and that the credit of Dudley continued as high with her as ever. But in the opinion of the country Under all the circumstances of his situation, Dudley could not venture as yet openly to declare himself the suitor of his sovereign; but she doubtless knew how to interpret both the vehemence of his opposition to the pretensions of the archduke, and the equal vehemence with which those pretensions were supported by an opposite party in her council, of which the earl of Sussex was the head. Few could yet be persuaded that the avowed determination of the queen in favor of the single state would prove unalterable: most therefore who observed her averseness to a foreign connexion believed that she was secretly meditating to honor with her hand some subject of her own, who could never have a separate interest from that of his country, and whose gratitude for the splendid distinction would secure to her the possession of his lasting attachment. This idea long served to animate the assiduities of her nobles and courtiers, and two or three besides Dudley were bold enough to publish their pretensions. Secret hopes or wishes were cherished in the bosoms of others; and it thus became a fashion to accost her in language where the passionate homage of the lover mingled with the base adulation of the menial. Her personal vanity, triumphant over her good sense and her perceptions of regal dignity, forbade her to discourage a style of address equally disgraceful to those who employed and to her who permitted it; and it was this unfortunate habit of receiving, and at length requiring, a species of flattery which became every year more grossly preposterous, which depraved by degrees her taste, infected her whole disposition, and frequently lent to the wisest sovereign of Europe the disgusting affectation of a heroine of French romance. Tilts and tournaments were still the favorite amusements of all the courts of Europe; and it was in these splendid exhibitions that the rival courtiers of Elizabeth found the happiest occasions of displaying their magnificence, giving proof of their courage and agility, and at the same time insinuating, by a variety of ingenious devices, their hopes and fears, their amorous pains, and their profound devotedness to her service. In the purer ages of chivalry, no other cognisances on shields were adopted, either in war or in these games which were its image, than the armorial bearings which each warrior had derived from his ancestors, or solemnly received at the hands of the heralds before he entered on his first campaign. But as the spirit of the An impress, it seems, was an emblematical device assumed at the will of the bearer, and illustrated by a suitable motto; whereas the coat of arms had either no motto, or none appropriate. Of this nature therefore was the representation of an English archer, with the words "Cui adhÆreo prÆest" (He prevails to whom I adhere), used by Henry VIII. at his meeting with Charles and Francis. Elizabeth delighted in these whimsical inventions. Camden says that she "used upon different occasions so many heroical devices as would require a volume," but most commonly a sieve without a word. Her favorite mottos were "Video taceo" (I see and am silent), and "Semper eadem" (Always the same). Thus patronized, the use of impresses became general. Scarcely a public character of that age, whether statesman, courtier, scholar, or soldier, was unprovided with some distinction of this nature; and at tournaments in particular, the combatants all vied with each other in the invention of occasional devices, sometimes quaintly, sometimes elegantly, expressive of their situation or sentiments, and for the most part conveying some allusion at once gallant and loyal. It may be worth while to cite a few of the most remarkable of these out of a considerable number preserved by Camden. The prevalence amongst them of astronomical emblems is worthy of observation, as indicative of that general belief of the age in the delusions of judicial astrology, which rendered its terms familiar alike to the learned, the great, and the fair. A dial with the sun setting, "Occasu desines esse" (Thy being ceases with its setting). The sun shining on a bush, "Si deseris pereo" (Forsake me, and I perish). The sun reflecting his rays from the bearer, "Quousque avertes" (How long wilt thou avert thy face)? Venus in a cloud, "Salva me, Domina" (Mistress, save me). The letter I, "Omnia ex uno" (All things from one). A fallow field, "At quando messis" (When will be the harvest)? The full moon in heaven, "Quid At one tilt were borne all the following devices, which Camden particularly recommends to the notice and interpretation of the reader. Many flies about a candle, "Sic splendidiora petuntur" ("Thus brighter things are sought). Drops falling into a fire, "Tamen It would have increased our interest in these very significant impresses, if our author could have informed us who were the respective bearers. Perhaps conjecture would not err in ascribing one of the most expressive to sir William Pickering, a gentleman whose name has been handed down to posterity as an avowed pretender to the royal marriage. That a person illustrious neither by rank nor ancestry, and so little known to fame that no other mention of him occurs in the history of the age, should ever have been named amongst the suitors of his sovereign, is a circumstance which must excite more curiosity than the scanty biographical records of the time will be found capable of satisfying. A single paragraph of Camden's Annals seems to contain nearly all that can now be learned of a man once so remarkable. "Nor were lovers wanting at home, who deluded themselves with vain hopes of obtaining her in marriage. Namely sir William Pickering, a man of good family though little wealth, and who had obtained reputation by the cultivation of letters, by the elegance of his manners, and by his embassies to France and Germany." &c. Rapin speaks of him as one who was encouraged to hope by some distinguished mark of the queen's The earl of Arundel might be the bearer of another of these devices. We have already seen with what magnificence of homage this nobleman had endeavoured to bespeak the favorable sentiments of his youthful sovereign; and if illustrious ancestry, vast possessions, established consequence in the state, and long experience in public affairs, might have sufficed to recommend a subject to her choice, none could have advanced fairer pretensions than the representative of the ancient house of Fitzalan. The advanced age of the earl was indeed an objection of considerable and daily increasing weight; he persevered however in his suit, notwithstanding the queen's visible preference of Dudley and every other circumstance of discouragement, till the year 1566. Losing then all hopes of success, and becoming sensible at length of pecuniary difficulties from the vast expense which he had lavished on this splendid courtship, he solicited the permission of his royal mistress to retire for a time into Italy. While it lasted, however, the rivalry of Arundel and Dudley, or rather, in the heraldic phraseology of the In the Burleigh Papers is a confession of one Guntor, a servant or retainer of the earl of Arundel, who was punished for certain rash speeches relative to this competition, from which we learn some curious particulars. He says, that he once fell in talk with a gentleman named Cotton, who told him, that the queen, having supped one evening at lord Robert Dudley's, it was dark before she could get away; and some servants of the house were sent with torches to light her home. That by the way her highness was pleased to enter into conversation with the torch-bearers, and was reported to have said, that she would make their lord the best that ever was of his name. As the father of lord Robert was a duke, this promise was understood to imply nothing less than her design of marrying him. On this Guntor answered, that he prayed all men might take it well, and that no trouble might arise thereof; afterwards he said, that he thought if a parliament were held, some men would recommend lord Robert, and some his own master to the queen for a husband; and so it might fortune there would rise trouble among the noblemen, adding, "I trust the White Horse will be in quiet, and so shall we be out of trouble; it is well known his blood as yet was never attaint, nor was he ever man of war, wherefore it is likely that we shall sit still; but if he should So high did words run on occasion of this great contest.
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