144 ELIZABETH sometimes felt the weight of the royal hand ; and when Essex once turned his back on her, she appropriately dealt him a box on the ear. As a pendant to these nugce, we may add, that Elizabeth swore strongly, decided and masculine oaths. The feminine weakness a-nd egregious vanity of Elizabeth, in the midst of so many masculine qualities of temperament and intellect, have afforded abundant matter for garrulous chroniclers. Five years after she ascended the throne, she issued a proclamation against portrait painters and engravers, who had erred in expressing " that natural representation of her majesty s person, favour, or grace," that was desired by her loving subjects, and who were ordered to desist until some " special cunning painter " might be permitted to have access to the royal presence. The works of the un skilful and common painters were, as Raleigh relates, by the queen s commandment, " knocked in pieces and cast into the fire." A long account is given by the Scottish ambassador Melville of certain interviews he had with Elizabeth when in her most gracious and pleasant mood. She showed him " my lord s picture," a portrait of the unworthy favourite Dudley ; she changed her dress every day, " one day the English weed, another the French, and another the Italian, arid so forth," asking Melville which became her best; her hair, he says, was rather reddish than yellow, and curled naturally ; she inquired whether the queen of Scotland or herself was of highest stature, and Melville answering that Mary was tallest, " then," saith Bhe, " she is too high, for I myself am neither too high nor too low." Melville praised Mary s accomplishments as a musician and dancer, and Elizabeth contrived, as if by accident, that he should hear her play upon the virginals : " she inquired whether my queen or she played bast ; in that I found myself obliged to givs her the praise." In the matter of the dancing, Melville was also able to answer, that Mary did not dance " so high and disposedly " as Elizabeth. Determined to show all her accomplishments, Elizabeth addressed the wary ambassador in Italian, which she spoke " reasonably well," and in German, which, he says, was " not so good." These glimpses of the woman Elizabeth contrast strangely with the sovereign, who, at Tilbury camp, rode from rank to rank of her army, bare headed, with a general s truncheon in her hand, declaring to her soldiers that she was resolved to live and die amongst them in the midst and heat of the battle ; and that she thought it " foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince <>f Europe, should dare to invade the borders of her realms." Language and sentiments like these, reflecting the feeling of the nation, must have insured the destruction of the troops of Parma or Spain, even if the vaunted Armada had not been sunk by the English fire or scattered by tempests. At this great crisis, however, Elizabeth owed much of her popu larity and security to the wisdom of her ministers and the spirit of her people, rather than to her own patriotism and sense of duty. She had from unwise parsimony im poverished the navy, as she had previously neglected the army, and left the country comparatively defenceless. It was only after repeated applications and entreaties that Pmrghley and Walsingham obtained the royal consent to carry out the necessary preparations. Walsingham made large personal advances, which were never repaid. Irresolu tion would seem a priori to be a weakness alien to the despotic character of Elizabeth, yet it is certain that she was often, on momentous occasions, hesitating, wavering, and undecided. The sagacity and devotedness of her chief counsellors, though not incited or fed by the royal bounty, were her safety and her strength. The darkest stain on the memory of Elizabeth is her treatment of Mary Queen of Scots. To have cut off Mary from the crown, settling it on her son, would have secured the Protestant succession, and Mary liberated would most probably have repaired to France, whence her revenue was derived, or to Spain. Thus the conspiracies for her release and her own machinations would have been averted. Her execution, though clamoured for by the English nation, was an act of cruelty peculiarly revolting on the part of a female sovereign and kinswoman. And Elizabeth s affected reluctance to sign the death warrant, her prompting to secretary Davison that Sir Amias Paulet should be instigated to make away with the captive queen (which the " dainty precise fellow," as Elizabeth termed him, refused to do), and her feigned grief and indignation after the event had taken place throwing the blame on her ministers and on the unfortunate secretary who placed the warrant before her for signature all this over-acted and disgusting hypocrisy is almost as injurious to the reputa tion of Elizabeth as the deed itself. Mr Froude has said that no trace can be found of personal animosity on the part of Elizabeth towards Mary. It is evident, however, that jealousy if not hatred animated the English queen towards her rival. The youth and beauty of Mary were a source of aversion ; Elizabeth never forgave her for quartering the royal arms of England ; and there was a certain malicious letter, written by Mary to Elizabeth when the captive queen Avas under the guardian ship of the earl of Shrewsbury, that must have chafed the Tudor blood in no ordinary degree. In this epistle Mary reported some alleged speeches of the countess of Shrewsbury charging Elizabeth with licentious amours, physical defects, absurd vanity, folly, and avarice (Hume, chap. xlii.). The original letter in Mary s handwriting was seen iby Prince Labanoff (circa 1840) among the Cecil papers in Hatfield House, where, we believe, it still remains. It is such an epistle as no womaii royalty apart would ever forget or forgive, but there is a pro bability that Burghley or Walsingham may have intercepted the letter, and not ventured to deliver it to their royal mistress. To the end of her life Elizabeth affected all the airs of a coy beauty and coquette. Even her statesmen addressed her in a strain of fulsome adulation and semi-gallantry. She was the Gloriana of Spenser, the "fair vestal throned in the west " of Shakespeare, and the idol of all the lesser poets, as well as courtiers and politicians. When Raleigh was confined in the Tower, he wrote to Cecil trusting, no doubt, that his letter would be shown to Elizabeth that he was in the utmost depth of misery because he could no longer see the queen. " I, that was wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair about her pure cheeks like a nymph [Elizabeth was then in her fifty- ninth year] ; sometime singing like an angel, sometime playing like Orpheus," &c. Elizabeth continued her gorgeous finery and rigorous state ceremonial, and was waited upon by applauding crowds whenever she went abroad. We have a graphic picture of her in her sixty- fifth year by a German, Paul Hentzner, who saw the queen on a Sunday as she proceeded to chapel. She appeared stately and majestic ; her face oblong, fair but wrinkled ; her eyes small, yet black and pleasant ; her nose a little hooked, her lips narrow, her teeth black, her hands slender and her fingers long (there was a special beauty in her delicate white hands, and in her audiences sho took care not to hide them). She had pearls with rich drops in her ears, wore false red hair, had a small crown on her head, her bosom uncovered, her dress white silk, bordered with pearls of the size of beans, a collar of gold and jewels ; and thus arrayed, Elizabeth passed along smiling graciously on the spectators, who fell down on their knees as she
approached ; while a marchioness bore up her train, a bevy