Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth

by Lucy Aikin

Soon after her return from her progress, the queen determined to gratify her feelings by conferring on her beloved Dudley some signal testimonies of her royal regard; and she invested him with the dignities of baron of Denbigh and earl of Leicester, accompanying these honors with the splendid gift of Kennelworth Castle, park and manor:—for in behalf of Dudley, and afterwards of Essex, she could even forget for a time her darling virtue,—frugality. The chronicles of the time describe with extraordinary care and minuteness the whole pompous ceremonial of this creation; but a much more lively and interesting description of this scene, as well as of several others of which he was an eye-witness in the court of Elizabeth, has been handed down to us in the entertaining memoirs of sir James Melvil; a Scotch gentleman noted among the political agents, or diplomatists of second rank, whom that age of intrigue brought forth so abundantly.

A few particulars of the history of this person, curious in themselves, will also form a proper introduction to his narrative.

Melvil was born in Fifeshire in the year 1530, of a family patronized by the queen regent, Mary of Guise, who having taken into her own service his brothers Robert and Andrew, both afterwards noted in public life, determined to send James to France to be brought up as page to the queen her daughter, then dauphiness. He was accordingly placed under the care of the crafty Monluc bishop of Valence, then on his return from his Scotch embassy; and previously to his embarkation for the continent he had the advantage of accompanying this master of intrigue on a secret mission to O'Neil, then the head of the Irish rebels. The youth was apparently not much delighted with his visit to this barbarous chieftain, whose dwelling was "a great dark tower, where," says he, "we had cold cheer, such as herrings and biscuit, for it was Lent." Arriving at Paris, the bishop caused him to be carefully instructed in all the requisite accomplishments of a page,—the French tongue, dancing, fencing, and playing on the lute: and after nine years spent under his protection, Melvil passed into the service of the constable Montmorenci, by whose interest he obtained a pension from the king of France. Whilst in this situation, he was dispatched on a secret mission to Scotland, to learn the real designs of the prior of St. Andrews, and to inform himself of the state of parties in that country.

In the year 1560 he obtained permission from his own sovereign to travel, and gained admission into the service of the elector palatine. This prince employed him in an embassy of condolence on the death of Francis II. Some time after his return he received a commission from the queen of Scots to make himself personally acquainted with the archduke Charles, who was proposed to her for a husband.

This done, he made a tour in Italy, and then returned to the elector palatine at Heidelberg. He was next employed by Maximilian king of the Romans to carry to France the portrait of one of his daughters, to whom proposals of marriage had been made on the part of Charles IX. At this court Catherine dei Medici would gladly have detained him; but a summons from his own queen determined him to repair again to Scotland.

Duke Casimir, son of the elector palatine, having some time before made an offer of his hand to queen Elizabeth, to which a dubious answer had been returned, requested Melvil, in passing through England, to convey his picture to that princess. The envoy, secretly despairing of the suit, desired that he might also be furnished with portraits of the other members of the electoral family, and with some nominal commission by means of which he might gain more easy access to the queen, and produce the picture as if without design. He was accordingly instructed to press for a more explicit answer than had yet been given to the proposal of an alliance offensive and defensive between England and the protestant princes of Germany; and thus prepared he reached London early in the year 1564.

After some discourse with the queen on the ostensible object of his mission, Melvil found occasion to break forth into earnest commendations of the elector, whose service nothing, he said, but this duty to his own sovereign could have induced him to quit; and he added, that for the remembrance of so good a master, he had desired to carry home with him his portrait, as well as those of all his sons and daughters. "So soon as she heard me mention the pictures," continues he, "she enquired if I had the picture of duke Casimir, desiring to see it. And when I alleged that I had left the pictures in London, she being then at Hampton Court, and that I was ready to go forward on my journey, she said I should not part till she had seen the pictures. So the next day I delivered them all to her majesty, and she desired to keep them all night; and she called upon my lord Robert Dudley to be judge of duke Casimir's picture, and appointed me to meet her the next morning in her garden, where she caused to deliver them all unto me, giving me thanks for the sight of them. I then offered unto her majesty all the pictures, so she would permit me to retain the elector's and his lady's, but she would have none of them. I had also sure information that first and last she despised the said duke Casimir."

It was a little before this time that Elizabeth had been consulted by Mary on the proposal of the archduke, and had declared by Randolph her strong disapprobation of it.

She now told Melvil, with whom she conversed on this and other subjects very familiarly and with apparent openness, that she intended soon to mention as fit matches for his queen two noblemen, one or other of whom she hoped to see her accept. These two, according to Melvil, were Dudley and lord Darnley, eldest son of the earl of Lenox by the lady Margaret Douglas. It must however be remarked, that Melvil appears to be the only writer who asserts that the first suggestion of an union between Mary and Darnley came from the English queen, who afterwards so vehemently opposed this step. But be this as it may, it is probable that Elizabeth was more sincere in her desire to impede the Austrian match than to promote any other for the queen of Scots; and with the former view Melvil accuses her of throwing out hints by which the archduke was encouraged to renew his suit to herself. Provoked, as he asserts, by this duplicity, of which she soon received certain information, Mary returned a sharp answer to a letter from her kinswoman of seemingly friendly advice, and hence had ensued a coldness and a cessation of intercourse between them. But Mary, "fearing that if their discord continued it would cut off all correspondence between her and her friends in England," thought good, a few weeks after Melvil had returned to Scotland, to dispatch him again towards London, "to deal with the queen of England, with the Spanish ambassador, and with my lady Margaret Douglas, and with sundry friends she had in England of different opinions."

It was the interest of neither sovereign at this time to be on bad terms with the other; and their respective ministers and secretaries being also agreed among themselves to maintain harmony between the countries, the excuses and explanations of Melvil were allowed to pass current, and the demonstrations of amity were resumed between the hostile queens.