they were alone.
Now I believe that she had no hand in Amy death, that in a way she had no real wish to marry Robert; she preferred to be unattainable as she had been while his wife lived. She wanted Robert to have a neglected wife not a dead one. Perhaps she did not want marriage because in a strange way she was afraid of it. She wanted romantic attachments; she wanted admirers pining for her love; but she wanted none of that climax which would be triumphant for them and so distasteful to her.
I wonder if that were indeed so.
Whatever the reason, she did not marry Robert. She was too wily for that.
And it was at this time that Walter Devereux came to my notice.
The First Encounter
herself [Elizabeth] helping to put on his robes, he sitting on his knees before her, and keeping a great gravity and discreet behaviour, but as for the Queen, she could not refrain from putting her hand in his neck to tickle him, smiling, the French Ambassador and I standing beside her.
The Scottish Ambassador, Sir James
Melville, on the occasion of Robert
Dudley being created Earl of
Leicester.
She [Elizabeth] said she was never minded to marry. I said, adam, ye need not tell me that. I know your stately stomach. Ye think, gin ye were married, ye would be but Queen of England, and now ye are King and Queen baithe may not suffer a commander.
Sir James Melville
God death, my lord, I have wished you well, but my favour is not so locked up in you that others shall not participate thereof. I will have here but one mistress and no master.
Elizabeth to Leicester
Fragments Regalia
I married Walter in the year 1561, when I was in my twenty-first year. My parents were pleased with the match, and the Queen readily gave it her nod of approval. Walter was the second Viscount of Hereford then, about the same age as myself, and because his family was one of standing, it was considered a good match. The Queen remarked that it was time I had a husband, which gave me some misgiving and I wondered if she had noticed that my eyes often wandered in Robert Dudley direction.
I had come to the conclusion that Robert would never marry anybody but the Queen. Walter had asked me several times to be his wife. I was quite fond of him and my parents wanted the match. He was young and, as my father pointed out, appeared to have a good future ahead of him which would keep him at Court, so I chose him from several suitors and settled for married life.
It is not easy to remember in detail how I felt about Walter, all those years ago. The Queen had hinted that I was a girl who should be marriednd she was right. I believe for a while I even thought I was in love with Walter and gave up dreaming of Robert Dudley.
After the ceremony, Walter and I went to his ancestral home, Chartley Castle, a rather impressive edifice rising from a fertile plain. From its high turrets it was possible to see some of the finest scenery in Staffordshire. It was about six miles southeast of the town of Stafford and situated halfway between Rugby and Stone.
Walter was proud of Chartley and I expressed great interest in it because it was to be my home. It had a circular keep and two round towers which were quite ancient, having been constructed as long ago as 1220. They had already stood up to more than three hundred years of wind and weather and looked ready to withstand three hundred more. The walls were twelve feet thick and the loopholes were built so that arrows could be shot horizontally, which made it a wonderful fortress.
There had been a building of some sort there in the days of the Conqueror before the castle was built and the present Chartley had been erected on that old site.
t belonged to the Earls of Derby,Walter told me, nd it was during the reign of Henry VI that it came into the Devereux family, when one of the daughters of the house married a Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex. Wee had it ever since.
I agreed that it was indeed a noble castle.
The first year of my
Now I believe that she had no hand in Amy death, that in a way she had no real wish to marry Robert; she preferred to be unattainable as she had been while his wife lived. She wanted Robert to have a neglected wife not a dead one. Perhaps she did not want marriage because in a strange way she was afraid of it. She wanted romantic attachments; she wanted admirers pining for her love; but she wanted none of that climax which would be triumphant for them and so distasteful to her.
I wonder if that were indeed so.
Whatever the reason, she did not marry Robert. She was too wily for that.
And it was at this time that Walter Devereux came to my notice.
The First Encounter
herself [Elizabeth] helping to put on his robes, he sitting on his knees before her, and keeping a great gravity and discreet behaviour, but as for the Queen, she could not refrain from putting her hand in his neck to tickle him, smiling, the French Ambassador and I standing beside her.
The Scottish Ambassador, Sir James
Melville, on the occasion of Robert
Dudley being created Earl of
Leicester.
She [Elizabeth] said she was never minded to marry. I said, adam, ye need not tell me that. I know your stately stomach. Ye think, gin ye were married, ye would be but Queen of England, and now ye are King and Queen baithe may not suffer a commander.
Sir James Melville
God death, my lord, I have wished you well, but my favour is not so locked up in you that others shall not participate thereof. I will have here but one mistress and no master.
Elizabeth to Leicester
Fragments Regalia
I married Walter in the year 1561, when I was in my twenty-first year. My parents were pleased with the match, and the Queen readily gave it her nod of approval. Walter was the second Viscount of Hereford then, about the same age as myself, and because his family was one of standing, it was considered a good match. The Queen remarked that it was time I had a husband, which gave me some misgiving and I wondered if she had noticed that my eyes often wandered in Robert Dudley direction.
I had come to the conclusion that Robert would never marry anybody but the Queen. Walter had asked me several times to be his wife. I was quite fond of him and my parents wanted the match. He was young and, as my father pointed out, appeared to have a good future ahead of him which would keep him at Court, so I chose him from several suitors and settled for married life.
It is not easy to remember in detail how I felt about Walter, all those years ago. The Queen had hinted that I was a girl who should be marriednd she was right. I believe for a while I even thought I was in love with Walter and gave up dreaming of Robert Dudley.
After the ceremony, Walter and I went to his ancestral home, Chartley Castle, a rather impressive edifice rising from a fertile plain. From its high turrets it was possible to see some of the finest scenery in Staffordshire. It was about six miles southeast of the town of Stafford and situated halfway between Rugby and Stone.
Walter was proud of Chartley and I expressed great interest in it because it was to be my home. It had a circular keep and two round towers which were quite ancient, having been constructed as long ago as 1220. They had already stood up to more than three hundred years of wind and weather and looked ready to withstand three hundred more. The walls were twelve feet thick and the loopholes were built so that arrows could be shot horizontally, which made it a wonderful fortress.
There had been a building of some sort there in the days of the Conqueror before the castle was built and the present Chartley had been erected on that old site.
t belonged to the Earls of Derby,Walter told me, nd it was during the reign of Henry VI that it came into the Devereux family, when one of the daughters of the house married a Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex. Wee had it ever since.
I agreed that it was indeed a noble castle.
The first year of my
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