Notoriously, monarchs are at a disadvantage in the game of love. Even the least attentive schoolboy knows that the Tudor sovereigns were unlucky in their wooings.The chief requisite in a royal bride was that she should possess revenues and wide lands; but a king who wanted something more than this-beauty and wit, for instance, not to mention health and sanity-was in a difficult position. He could not, himself, trail from Court to Court in Europe looking over likely brides; nor were proud princesses prepared to visit England on approval. The young James V of Scotland showed a certain enterprise in disguising himself as a servant in order to view Marie de Bourbon, whom he had contracted to marry. She did not appeal to him, so he went on to the Court of Francis I, where he had better luck. A monarch could commission a portrait of his potential bride, but society painters were as falsely flattering then as fashionable photographers are today. Personal recommendations of ambassadors were hopelessly suspect.
There was another course, and that was to send envoys, armed with an intimate proforma, to survey the physique and bearing of the lady whose claims seemed to merit consideration. Such was the method adopted by Henry VII in an unusually cold-blooded reconnaissance of the widowed Queen of Naples. In 1505 the King's three representatives journeyed to Valencia, taking with them a questionnaire to which Henry required the answers. It began:
Item, specially to mark and note well the age and stature of the said young Queen, and the features of her body.
Gauging the lady's height presented some difficulties. She received the envoys sitting on a cushion (presumably in bed) and when she rose and walked across the room they were at a loss to know how much to allow for her slippers; however, they were able to obtain a sample slipper and judged her to be of medium height. Their next requirement was to note whether the Queen painted her face, whether it was fat or lean, sharp or round, and whether its habitual expression was cheerful and amiable, frowning or melancholy, steadfast or light or 'blushing in communication'. The envoys decided that the Queen did not paint her face, and that she was demure and 'shamefast'. Gratuitously, they reported that she was a woman of few words, no doubt considering this to be a powerful recommendation. They further testified that her skin was clear and fair, and her teeth apparently well set. Her lips were 'somewhat round and thick', but such fullness, they said, suited the proportions of her face. It was reassuring, too, to find that she had no hair on her upper lip.
The envoys worked gradually through the list:
Item, to mark well the fashion of her nose, and the height and breadth of her forehead.
Item, to note her fingers, whether they be long or short, small or great, broad or narrow before.
Anxiety to know whether the Queen's charms were 'great or small' was perhaps inevitable in a day of gross living. Another entry ran:
Item, to mark her breasts and paps, whether they be big or small.
Honesty compelled the envoys to report that 'the said Queen's breasts were somewhat great and full'. It was because they were 'trussed somewhat high, after the manner of the country that her neck appeared to be shorter than it was.
A more delicate investigation was still to come. The envoys were required 'to approach as near to her mouth as they honestly may, to the intent that they may feel the condition of her breath, whether it be sweet or not, and to mark at every time when they speak with her if they feel any savour of spices, rosewater, or music by the breath of her mouth or not'.
The envoys approached as near as was decent, and decided that 'the said Queen is like to be of a sweet savour and well aired'.
Still it went on:
Item, to inquire of the manner of her diet and whether she be a great feeder or drinker. . . .
On the evidence of the Queen's apothecary and a household servant, the investigators were able to say that the Queen ate meat twice daily, but drank little.
Not the least important part of the brief was reserved to the
end. Was the Queen's property great or small? How much would she inherit on her mother's death, and would it go to her and her heirs for ever, or only during her lifetime?
The information so industriously gathered was filed and forgotten. Other more advantageous alliances were suggested. The Spanish Ambassador, de Puebla, championed the cause of the Queen of Castile, brushing aside the trivial circumstance of her insanity. 'There is no king in the world who would make so good a husband to the Queen of Castile as the King of England, whether she be sane or insane.... The English seem little to mind her insanity, especially since he has assured them that her derangement of mind would not prevent her from bearing children.'
It turned out, however, that the Queen of Castile had taken to carrying the embalmed corpse of her late husband around with her, and it was felt that this might be too much even for the indulgent English.
Henry VIII's courtship of Anne of Cleves was a good example of what a royal lover was up against. Those who had studied her pictures reported that she was well favoured. Thomas Cromwell went so far as to arrange for Holbein to paint the Princess, and Holbein, it is to be feared, 'glamourized' the lady. When Henry saw the lumpish actuality-his 'Flanders Mare'-and knew that it was too late to turn back, he bitterly lamented the plight of princes-'far worse than that of poor men who could choose for themselves'. It was Cromwell who paid the penalty; Holbein escaped.
If a king could send envoys to reconnoitre a princess, so could a queen investigate a likely prince. At the age of forty, Queen Elizabeth allowed her fancy to dwell on the eighteen-year-old Duke of Alencon, who was eager for her hand. She had his portrait. She knew he was a youth of parts. But to her ears came a rumour that smallpox had seriously disfigured him. Though not, at this stage, 'mad about the boy', she was nevertheless sufficiently interested to send Thomas Randolph to ascertain whether the young Duke was too ugly to be considered. The smallpox, Randolph said, had not unproved him; but Elizabeth decided that, whether the youth was hideous or not, it might be gratifying to have him dancing attendance. Jehan de Simier, the Duke's emissary, arrived in England to urge his master's suit, and in the liveliest tradition of proxies made love to Elizabeth on his own account. Alencon eventually arrived in secret, and Elizabeth fussed him and called him her frog. He was a lachrymose fellow, and suicidal, but grateful for such objets d'amour as the Queen's nightcap which Simier snatched for him in a bedroom foray, and for the garter which his agent grabbed as it slipped from the Queen's leg on boarding Drake's Pelican. (The Queen put it back on her leg, saying she needed it; but she ceded the trophy later.)
On the Duke's visits to the Queen there was much of that popping in and out of bedrooms which is said to have characterized the days of chivalry. It was one thing, however, for the Queen of England to carry her pock-marked Prince his soup in bed, and another thing for the Queen of Scots to fuss at the bedside of her lover Darnley when he had the measles. Elizabeth professed herself very shocked at such conduct, and it all went down in the indictment against Mary.
Alencon was, of course, only one of Queen Elizabeth's suitors. No overtures were spurned if personal amusement or -more important-political advantage was to be gained thereby. How the Queen allowed herself to be courted for the good of the realm is a long story which need not be recapitulated here. But not all her courtships were inspired by that high purpose. To the end, it was her pleasure to have men languishing about her, professing wistful devotion, accusing her of tyranny, sighing with wanhope and praising the charms which they knew-and she knew-had long vanished.
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