Transcriber’s Note: Table of Contents added by Transcriber and placed in the Public Domain. CONTENTS PREFACE v Chapter I 1 Chapter II 24 Chapter III 53 Chapter IV 88 Chapter V 114 Chapter VI 152 Chapter VII 172 Chapter VIII 182 Chapter IX 199 Chapter X 220 Chapter XI 237 Chapter XII 255 Chapter XIII 283 Chapter XIV 302 Chapter XV 316 INDEX 335 _THE COURTSHIPS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH_ [Illustration] [Illustration: W.L. Colls. Ph. Sc. QUEEN ELIZABETH, FROM THE ORIGINAL PORTRAIT BY ZUCCHERO, IN HAMPTON COURT PALACE. ] THE COURTSHIPS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH A HISTORY OF THE VARIOUS NEGOTIATIONS FOR HER MARRIAGE BY MARTIN A. S. HUME, F. R. HIST. S. EDITOR OF THE CALENDAR OF SPANISH STATE PAPERS OF ELIZABETH (PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE) [Illustration] “AND THE IMPERIAL VOTARESS PASSED ON IN MAIDEN MEDITATION FANCY FREE” _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & Co. LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN MDCCCXCVI [Illustration] PREFACE. It has been my pleasant duty to consider carefully in chronological order a great mass of diplomatic documents of the time of Elizabeth, in which are reflected, almost from day to day, the continually shifting aspects of political affairs, and the varying attitudes of the Queen and her ministers in dealing therewith. I have been struck with the failure of most historians of the time, who have painted their pictures with a large brush, to explain or adequately account for what is so often looked upon as the perverse fickleness of perhaps the greatest sovereign that ever occupied the English throne; and I have come to the conclusion that the best way in which a just appreciation can be formed of the fixity of purpose and consummate statecraft which underlay her apparent levity, is to follow in close detail the varying circumstances and combinations which prompted the bewildering mutability of her policy.