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unmercifully when she was not at Court under the Queen’s protection.
    â€œYou’d be wise to keep that wish from your Lord husband,” she said. “Come here.”
    Lady Dacre approached her uneasily and knelt. To her own surprise Elizabeth pinched her cheek.
    â€œYou are a wise old matron of nineteen and I’m but an old maid of twenty-six,” she said. “If you advise against marriage, I shall take your word. You’ve given me a weapon to use against my persecutors.—Come, ladies, give me my fan and my gloves. I must go forth and defend my virgin state.” And she gave the inquisitive and suspicious Lady Warwick a look that took her breath as effectively as any blow.
    The Archduke Charles was Spain’s candidate; a second candidate, if one considered Philip’s tepid offer to marry Elizabeth himself. Though she had expected it, the proposal had filled her with repulsion and rage. The idea that she would welcome the man who had married Mary and hurried her to her grave with a broken heart, had first made Elizabeth laugh and then spit with anger at the impertinence. She must not expect him to spend much time with her, the ungallant proposer added, even if he should leave her pregnant. She had shown the letter to Robert, and he had read with his arm around her, one hand absently caressing her waist in the gesture she loved. She was gratified to see how angry it made him; it gave her the opportunity to soothe his temper and assure him that he had nothing to fear from Philip, or from anyone else.… Not for as long as she could withstand her Council and her Parliament. Now Spain was proposing the Archduke, and so alarmed were her advisers, both by her unmarried state and by her apparent liaison with Robert Dudley, that even Cecil was prepared to stomach a Consort who was a Roman Catholic.
    They had resurrected every bogy, real and imaginary, which they thought could frighten her into making a decision. The only effective one was her cousin Mary Stuart, whose husband, the French King, had died after a reign lasting only a few months. Mary had now no longer anything to keep her in France, she was waiting to return to her native Scotland, where her presence as Queen and her claim to the English throne would deprive Elizabeth and her advisers of many hours’ sleep at night. Fortunately the Protestant nobility of Scotland had chosen that moment to revolt, and large sums of English money were spirited across the Border to assist them and prevent the arrival of the Queen of Scots. Elizabeth denied all knowledge of the money, and promised severe punishment for any of her subjects who assisted the rebels. But the money and the encouragement continued. Elizabeth had at first rejected Cecil’s proposal to enter the conflict openly by sending troops when the Scottish rebels appeared to be losing, but the Secretary threatened to resign unless she agreed. The threat had its effect: an English army marched into Scotland, and by July of that year they entered Edinburgh. A treaty was signed between Queen Mary’s nobles and the rebel Lords, but the terms were dictated by England, who could at least frame a political and religious settlement in that unruly country which would hamper and dispirit the eighteen-year-old Queen of Scots when she finally arrived there.
    Spain’s anger at her intervention had been so intense at the time that Elizabeth had hurriedly encouraged the Archduke’s suit. But now that she had won her war and got her way in Scotland, there was no need to continue the pretence. The deputation, made up of the Spanish ambassador—an amiable but foolish Bishop who had replaced Feria—and members of her own Council, could safely be dismissed.
    When she told them she preferred maidenhood, she watched the anger and the disappointment on some faces, the disbelief and cynicism on others. She had made a fool of the ambassador and his candidate, and deceived her own