"She did not like that, I'll swear," I put in. "She wanted you to beg her to marry and give the country an heir, keeping up the illusion that she was still a young woman."

"You're right. She looked daggers at us all when we told her— and at me in particular—and said that some were ready to marry themselves but wished to deny that pleasure to others. She said we had talked for years as though the only surety for her was to marry and get an heir. She had expected us to petition her to proceed with the marriage, and she had been foolish to have asked us to deliberate on her behalf, for it was a matter too delicate for us. Now we had aroused doubts in her mind, and she would break up the meeting that she might be alone."

She had been in an evil mood that day, abusing everyone; and those whose duties brought them close to her person, I had no doubt, bore the worst of the brunt.

Burleigh called the council together and said that as she seemed so set on marriage perhaps they should agree to it, for her temper was such that whether they advised it or not, she would follow her own inclination.

Even then I could not believe she would marry the Duc. The people were against it, and she had always considered the people.

Robert said he had rarely seen her in such a mood. It seemed that the Frog had cast some spell on her. He must be a magician, for an uglier man few had ever seen. It would be ludicrous if she accepted him. The English hated the French in any case. Wasn't it the French who had supported Mary Queen of Scots and given her grandiose ideas about her claim to the throne? Elizabeth would be playing right into the hands of the French if she married. There could be a revolt in the country. It was true that Anjou was a Protestant ... at the moment. He was, everyone knew, like a weathercock. Fine today, raining tomorrow—only in his case it would be Catholic and Protestant. He turned with the wind.

We went to Penshurst to consult with the Sidneys what was best to be done.

There was a great welcome for us there. I had always been struck by the family loyalty of the Dudleys. Robert was greeted even more warmly now that he was in disgrace than he had been at the height of his popularity.

I remembered that Mary had left Court because she could no longer bear to hear her brother abused, and Philip had come to Penshurst for the same reason. He was a special favorite of the Queen. She had made him her cupbearer. But she had willingly given him leave of absence, for she had declared that he looked so sullen every time she let it be known how enraged she was at the conduct of that uncle of his that she wanted to box his ears.

Philip was beautiful rather than handsome. The Queen liked him for his looks and his learning, for his honesty and goodness; but of course the type of men who excited her were of a different kind.

Philip was deeply concerned about the marriage, for he said it would cause disaster if it took place, and it was decided that as he had the gift of words, it might be a good idea if he wrote his objections in a letter to the Queen.

So those days at Penshurst were spent in discussion. Robert and I would walk in the park with Philip and discuss the dangers of the Queen's marriage, and although I was firm in my insistence that she would never marry, they wavered in their opinions. Robert might be said to know her better than any—indeed he had been close to her—but I felt I knew the woman in her.

Philip shut himself in his study and at last produced the letter which was read by us all, commented on and, as we thought, toned down. In the end it read:

How the hearts of your people will be galled, if not aliened, when they shall see you take a husband, a Frenchman and a papist, in whom the very common people know this, that he is the son of the Jezabel of our age—that his brother made oblation of his own sister's marriage, the easier to make massacre of our brethren in religion... .

He was referring to Catherine de' Medici, who was known throughout France as Queen Jezabel, so hated was she; and to the Massacre of the St. Bartholomew, which had taken place when Paris was full of Huguenots for the marriage of Anjou's sister Marguerite to Huguenot Henri of Navarre.

As long as he is Monsieur in might, and a papist in profession, he neither can nor will greatly shield you, and if he grow to be king, his defence will be like that of Ajax's shield, which rather weighed down than defended, those that bare it.

The letter was delivered and we waited at Penshurst with trepidation.

However, another incident occurred which no doubt made Philip's letter less significant than it might have been.

John Stubbs flared into prominence.

Stubbs was a Puritan who had graduated from Cambridge and took an interest in literary pursuits. His hatred of Catholicism had led him into danger. He was so violently opposed to the French marriage that he published a pamphlet entitled: "The Discoverie of a gaping gulf whereinto England is like to be Swallowed by another French marriage, if the Lord forbid not the Banes by letting Her Majestie see the sin and punishment thereof."

There was nothing in the pamphlet disloyal to the Queen, whose humble servant Stubbs declared himself to be, but when I saw a copy of it I knew that it would infuriate her—not for its political and religious views but because John Stubbs had pointed out that the Queen's age would prevent the marriage's being fruitful.

So enraged was the Queen—as I had guessed—that she ordered the pamphlet to be suppressed and the men involved—the writer Stubbs and the publisher and printer—to be tried at Westminster. The three men were sentenced to have their right hands cut off, and although the printer was later pardoned and the cruel sentences carried out on the other two, it was Stubbs who distinguished himself by speaking to the assembled crowd and telling them that the loss of his hand would in no way change his loyalty to the Queen. Then the right hands of both men were cut off by a blow—from a butcher's knife with a mallet—struck through the wrist. As Stubbs's right hand fell off, he lifted his left and cried: "God save the Queen!" before he fell down in a faint.

That scene, when reported to her, must have shaken her; and, although at the time, I sometimes marveled with the rest at her seeming folly, when I look back I see the devious purpose of it.

While she dallied with Anjou—and she did so for a year or two —she was in fact playing a game of politics with Philip of Spain, whom she greatly feared; and it was to be seen with good reason. What she wanted most was to avoid an alliance between her two enemies, and how could France ally herself with Spain when one of her sons was about to become the consort of the Queen of England.

It was clever politics and those men about her could not see it until later; but then hindsight makes so much clear.

Moreover, during that time when she dallied with her Frog Prince and earned certain unpopularity with her people, she was sowing discord between the King of France and his brother; she was planning already—as was proved later—to send the erstwhile Protestant Prince to Holland, there to fight the battle against Spain for her.

This was for later. In the meantime she flirted and coquetted with the little Prince and neither he nor her courtiers and ministers understood her motive just then.

It was a wonderful day for Robert and me when our son was born. We called him Robert and made great plans for him.

I was contented for a while just to be with him, and I was delighted when I heard that Douglass Sheffield had married Sir Edward Stafford, who was the Queen's ambassador in Paris. It was Edward Stafford who had carried out the negotiations for the proposed marriage between Elizabeth and Anjou and his handling of these matters had won the Queen's approval.

He had for some time been in love with Douglass, but her insistence that a marriage had taken place between her and Leicester had made it impossible for them to marry. Now that my marriage with Robert was common knowledge, Douglass—acting in a manner which was typical of her—married Edward Stafford, thereby tacitly admitting that there could never have been a binding marriage between herself and Robert.

This was deeply gratifying, and as I sat with my baby in my lap I promised myself that all would be well and in due course I should even regain the Queen's favor.

. I wondered what Elizabeth would feel when she knew that Robert and I had a son, for I was sure that she longed for a son even more than she did for a husband.

I heard from friends at Court that she had received the news in silence, which had been followed by a bout of ill temper, so I guessed the effect it had had on her; but it was a shock to learn of what action she intended to take.

It was Sussex again—that harbinger of ill tidings—who brought the news to us.

"I fear there is trouble ahead," he told Robert, not without some satisfaction. "The Queen is asking questions about Douglass Sheffield. It has come to her ears that she has a son named Robert Dudley and that she declared he was the legitimate son of the Earl of Leicester."

"If that were so," I demanded, "how can she call herself the wife of Sir Edward Stafford?"

"The Queen declares it is a mystery which she is now determined to clear up. She says that Douglass is the daughter of a great house and she cannot allow it to be said that she has committed bigamy in her marriage with her ambassador."

Robert said firmly: "There was on my part no marriage with Douglass Sheffield."