The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth / A history of the various negotiations for her marriage

Transcriber’s Note: Table of Contents added by Transcriber and placed in the Public Domain.
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)
“AND THE IMPERIAL VOTARESS PASSED ON IN MAIDEN MEDITATION FANCY FREE”
Midsummer Night’s Dream
NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & Co. LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN MDCCCXCVI

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.
To do this through the whole of the events of a long and important reign would be beyond the powers of an ordinary student, and the attempt would probably end in confusion. I have therefore considered it best to limit myself in this book to one set of negotiations, those which relate to the Queen’s proposed marriage, running through many years of her reign: and I trust that, however imperfectly my task may have been effected, the facts set forth may enable the reader to perceive more clearly than hitherto, that capricious, even frivolous, as the Queen’s methods appear to be, her main object was rarely neglected or lost sight of during the long continuance of these negotiations.