amoribus dedita est venationibusque, aucupiis, choreis et rebus ludicris insumens dies noctesque,' wrote one of her own subjects in 1563; and the dispatches of the Spanish and Venetian diplomatists strike the same note.[1] Although these things had their appeal for her to the end, she was perhaps not so utterly absorbed in them, even at the beginning, as the observers thought. Yet it was assuredly the love of excitement and spectacle, no less than the desire to win the heart of London, that led her to encourage by her presence the revived folk-festivals of the citizens and the lawyers, the morris dances and May-games by land and water, and the Midsummer watch, which she hurried from Richmond to behold incognita from the Earl of Pembroke's house at Baynard's Castle. There was much talk of marriage for her in these early years. Philip of Spain himself, incredible as it now sounds, the Kings of Denmark and Sweden, the Archdukes Charles and Ferdinand of Austria, the Duke of Nemours, the Earl of Arran, and of her own subjects, the Earl of Arundel, Lord Robert Dudley, Sir William Pickering, were some of the possible consorts whose names passed from mouth to mouth. The gaiety of Whitehall was enhanced by the outward show of courtship, the embassies and their trains, the gifts and compliments, the receptions and banquets. But it soon became apparent that, from policy or from temperament, the Queen had no serious intention of trusting herself in marriage. Gradually the troops of suitors faded away. Dudley alone was left, and with Dudley the Tudor lack of reticence, which had already brought Elizabeth into trouble as a girl, permitted familiarities wherein hostile and interested critics soon found material for a scandal. Whether her heart or her senses, now or at any time, were touched cannot be said. After all, Dudley had, as time went on, to share her favours, such as they were, with Hatton and with Oxford, with Heneage and with Raleigh and with Blount. But it is to our purpose that, when the embassies were gone, and Elizabeth became more and more involved in the web of political intrigues, and began to lose her looks and her health, the court which had started so brilliantly might well have sunk into the commonplace of middle age, had it not been for the presence of a band of high-spirited youths, bound in the interests of their careers to maintain the traditions of official gallantry, and above all to incur no small expense in leading the revels for the recreation of an imperious and critical
- ↑ Francis to Sir Thomas Chaloner (Dec. 1563) in Froude, vii. 92; cf. Sp. P. i. 10, 127; V. P. vii. 80, 101.
