Page:The Queens of England.djvu/460

 416 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. other transaction of her reign, are problems in history which we are not concerned to resolve. During the progress of this negotiation, which was drawn out to an extraordinary length, Mary could expect no assistance from the French court, and seems to have held little correspondence with it ; and there was no period in her reign wherein Elizabeth enjoyed more perfect security." All these suppositions are most sensible and nrobable, and if we add to them the fact that for a time Elizabeth greatly feared that if rejected, her suitor would have married the daughter of Philip, we find at once her motives for the per- formance of this amatory farce. But farce, as well as tragedy, must have its last act, for the sake of both actors and specta- tors ; and as soon as Elizabeth found that she had thoroughly wearied both herself and others, she dropped the curtain on an exhibition which had been sustained for simply ten years, and gave the cajoled and unfortunate duke his conge. He walked down the stairs expressing, very naturally, unbounded dis-> gust ; and railing vehemently against the inconstancy of women in general, and of islanders in particular. A ring which the royal jilt had given him he cast from him in his wrath, then fled the country, repaired to the Netherlands, whence he was soon expelled ; returned to France, and there died, the dupe, if not the victim, of a ruthless intriguante and coquette. Of the public incidents of this reign we shall take no further notice. The destruction of the Spanish Armada is a tale known by heart, and the other great event, the decapitation of Mary, is almost equally notorious. We shall, therefore, mere- ly report what a pious and benevolent pope remarked upon the latter subject. Pope Sixtus, having caused the Count de Popoli to be be- headed, rejoiced Avith his favorites at having obtained the head of a count. But when he was acquainted with what had befallen in England, he began to esteem nothing in the world to be compared, either in felicity or greatness, to Queen Elizabeth ; of whom, as if he bemoaned the conquests of Alex- ander, he said, "O beata fcemina che a gustata il piacer di far salfare une testa coronata !"* We shall now resume Elizabeth's personal history. Three head !" — D'Aubigne, Histoirc Universelle,
 * "0 blessed woman, who has tasted the bliss of chopping off a crowned