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 412 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. Dudley for many years the declared favorite. He had even great influence in her councils, though as utterly unworthy of public as of her private distinction. Proud, insolent, self- ish, ambitious, deficient in generosity, honor and humanity, and atoning for none of his vices by the possession of either talent or courage, he contrived to blind and sway the queen solely by the charms of his person, address and carriage. Such was her infatuation that, during a large portion of her reign, he was in constant hope of becoming her husband ; and to obtain this great object of his selfish desires, he was supposed to have murdered a lady whom he had privately married. This is the man, odious as he was, whom Elizabeth had the craft to propose to be united to Mary, well knowing that that unfortunate sovereign would never descend to so unequal and ignoble an alliance. But with this offer was connected one amusing feature ; the excessive fear of Leices- ter lest the proposition should be accepted. He was furious against Cecil, with whom he believed it to have been origi- nated, as a wily scheme intended to have made him equally distasteful to both princesses. But the truth is, that Eliza- beth, in spite of all her partiality, valuing him somewhat dif- ferently from what he valued himself, was the real concocter of the project, well assured that it would never be realized. It is this knowledge of his perfect security which imparts such a ludicrous air to Leicester's profound consternation and ap- prehension. Elizabeth, though usually only too full of dissimulation and chicanery, never abounded more in these detestable quali- ties .than during the whole long term of her negotiation and intercourse with Mary, Artifice followed artifice; affected urgency only cloaked real opposition; when she seemed to hasten she was only laboring to retard; and the expression of a wish to be circumspect was only the masque for some incentive to precipitancy. In fact, her whole life was one continual stratagem in dealing with any whom she disliked ; and great must have been the ability of those who could have discriminated her true objects from her false representations. For years, by her treacherous and malignant maneuvers, she contrived to prevent the re-marriage of a youthful and royal widow, who possessed certainly none of her own incapacity and dislike to wedlock, and who had a greater number of real suitors than probably even Elizabeth herself had ever attracted.