Almost
all the courtiers whom she trusted and favored--Leicester, Hatton, and
Walsingham--discovered an extreme aversion to the marriage; and the
ladies of her bed-chamber made no scruple of opposing her resolution
with the most zealous remonstrances.[*]
* Camden, p. 486.
Among other enemies to the match, Sir Philip, son of Sir Henry Sidney,
deputy of Ireland, and nephew to Leicester, a young man the most
accomplished of the age, declared himself: and he used the freedom
to write her a letter, in which he dissuaded her from her present
resolution, with an unusual elegance of expression, as well as force
of reasoning. He told her, that the security of her government depended
entirely on the affections of her Protestant subjects; and she could
not, by any measure, more effectually disgust them, than by espousing a
prince who was son of the perfidious Catharine, brother to the cruel and
perfidious Charles, and who had himself imbrued his hands in the blood
of the innocent and defenceless Protestants: that the Catholics were her
mortal enemies, and believed, either that she had originally usurped
the crown, or was now lawfully deposed by the pope's bull of
excommunication; and nothing had ever so much elevated their hopes as
the prospect of her marriage with the duke of Anjou: that her chief
security at present against the efforts of so numerous, rich, and united
a faction, was, that they possessed no head who could conduct their
dangerous enterprises; and she herself was rashly supplying that defect,
by giving an interest in the kingdom to a prince whose education had
zealously attached him to that communion: that though he was a stranger
to the blood royal of England, the dispositions of men were now such,
that they preferred the religious to the civil connections; and were
more influenced by sympathy in theological opinions, than by the
principles of legal and hereditary government: that the duke himself
had discovered a very restless and turbulent spirit; and having often
violated his loyalty to his elder brother and his sovereign, there
remained no hopes that he would passively submit to a woman, whom he
might, in quality of husband, think himself entitled to command: that
the French nation, so populous, so much abounding in soldiers, so full
of nobility who were devoted to arms, and for some time accustomed
to serve for plunder, would supply him with partisans, dangerous to a
people unwarlike and defenceless like the generality of her subjects:
that the plain and honorable path which she had followed, of cultivating
the affections of her people, had hitherto rendered her reign secure and
happy; and however her enemies might seem to multiply upon her, the same
invincible rampart was still able to protect and defend her: that so
long as the throne of France was filled by Henry or his posterity, it
was in vain to hope that the ties of blood would insure the amity of
that kingdom, preferably to the maxims of policy or the prejudices
of religion: and if ever the crown devolved on the duke of Anjou, the
conjunction of France and England would prove a burden, rather than a
protection, to the latter kingdom: that the example of her sister Mary
was sufficient to instruct her in the danger of such connections; and to
prove, that the affection and confidence of the English could never be
maintained, where they had such reason to apprehend that their interests
would every moment be sacrificed to those of a foreign and hostile
nation: that notwithstanding these great inconveniences, discovered by
past experience, the house of Burgundy, it must be confessed, was more
popular in the nation than the family of France; and, what was of chief
moment, Philip was of the same communion with Mary, and was connected
with her by this great band of interest and affection: and that however
the queen might remain childless, even though old age should grow upon
her, the singular felicity and glory of her reign would preserve her
from contempt; the affections of her subjects, and those of all the
Protestants in Europe, would defend her from danger; and her own
prudence, without other aid or assistance, would baffle all the efforts
of her most malignant enemies.
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