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 408 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. in which, among other important concessions, Mary was made to stipulate to abstain from bearing the arms of England. But Mary, as long as her husband Francis the Second lived, refused to ratify the proceeding of her ambassadors ; and though after his death, which occurred in 1560, she desisted from assuming any longer the arms, she refused to forego her claim to them. For the sake of trutK, and for the sake, too, of the deli- cacy of our readers, we will affirm our belief that Elizabeth's historical "amours" were but flirtations ; stupid, ridiculous, and most reprehensible, yet still only flirtations. Having thus, we trust, demonstrated this our persuasion, we shall now pro- ceed, with diminished diffidence, to narrate some of the many disagreeable passages in the life of our willful and unexem- plary queen. The affair of Raleigh and his cloak is universally known ; and we shall therefore prefer to relate some incidents con- nected with her partiality to Leicester, which are not so gen- erally notorious. Sir James Melville, the ambassador of Mary at the court of Elizabeth, was an observing man, well skilled in the world, and an accomplished courtier. He had been selected by his mistress for this office as a sort of spy upon the weaknesses of her rival, and also as a suitable person to ingratiate himself with her, and thus qualify himself to pro- mote a good understanding between the two queens. How competent he was for observation, the following extracts from his work will show : "The ceremony of creating Lord Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester was performed at Westminster with great solemnity, the queen herself helping to put on his robes, he sitting with his knees before her with a great gravity; but she could not refrain from putting her hand in his neck, smiling and tick- ling him ; the French ambassador and I standing by." He subsequently adds, "The queen, my mistress, had instructed me to leave matters of gravity sometimes, and cast in merry purposes, lest otherwise I should be wearied ; she being well informed of that queen's natural temper. Therefore in de- claring my observations of the customs of Dutchland, Poland, and Italy, the buskins of the women were not forgot, and what country weed I thought best becoming gentlewomen. The queen said she had clothes of every sort ; which, every