shifting from side to side, the encouragement or discouragement of the French and Flemish Protestants as the policy of the moment dictated, the alternate flouting and flattering of the rival powers, and the agile utilisation of the Queen’s sex and feminine love of admiration to provoke competing offers for her hand, all exhibit statesmanship as keen as it was unscrupulous. The political methods adopted were perhaps those which met with general acceptance at the time, but the dexterous juggling through a long course of years with regard to Elizabeth’s marriage is unexampled in the history of government. Not a point was missed. Full advantage was taken of the Queen’s maiden state, of her feminine fickleness, of her solitary sovereignty, of her assumed religious uncertainty, of her accepted beauty, and of the keen competition for her hand. In very many cases neither the wooer nor the wooed was in earnest, and the courtship was merely a polite fiction to cover other objects; but at least on two occasions, if not three, the Queen was very nearly forced by circumstances or her own feelings into a position which would have made her marriage inevitable. Her caution, however, on each occasion caused her to withdraw in time without mortal offence to the family of her suitor; and to the end of her days she was able, painted old harridan though she was, to act coquettishly the part of the peerless beauty whose fair hand might possibly reward the devoted admiration paid to her, with their tongues in their cheeks, by the bright young gallants who sought her smiles. The story of the various negotiations for the Queen’s marriage has been told in more or less detail in the histories of the times, but no comprehensive view has yet been given of the marriage negotiations alone: nor has their successive relation to other events been set forth as a connected narrative. Within the last few years much new material for such a narrative has become available both in England and on the Continent, and it is now possible to see with a certain amount of clearness the hands of the other players besides that of the English Queen. The approaches made to Elizabeth by the brothers de Valois, or rather by their intriguing mother, Catharine de Medici, have been related somewhat fully, mainly from the documents in the National Library in Paris, by the Count de la Ferrière,[1] and the recent publication of the Spanish State Papers at Simancas of the reign of Elizabeth by the Record Office,[2] puts us into possession of a vast quantity of hitherto unused material of the highest interest, especially with regard to the matrimonial overtures made by Philip II. and the princes of the house of Austria; whilst the full text of the extraordinary private letters to and from the Queen in relation to the Alençon match, 1579-82, printed by the Historical MSS. Commission from the Hatfield Papers, affords an opportunity of the greatest value for criticising the by-play in this curious comedy.