icester, the Lords Hunsdon,
Willoughby, Sheffield, Howard, Sir Philip Sidney, and many other
personages of high rank and reputation, landed from this fleet. He was
greeted on his arrival by the Prince of Orange, who, with the Prince of
Espinoy and a large deputation of the states-general, had been for some
days waiting to welcome him. The man whom the Netherlands had chosen for
their new master stood on the shores of Zealand. Francis Hercules, Son of
France, Duke of Alencon and Anjou, was at that time just twenty-eight
years of age; yet not even his flatterers, or his "minions," of whom he
had as regular a train as his royal brother, could claim for him the
external graces of youth or of princely dignity. He was below the middle
height, puny and ill-shaped. His hair and eyes were brown, his face was
seamed with the small-pox, his skin covered with blotches, his nose so
swollen and distorted that it seemed to be double. This prominent feature
did not escape the sarcasms of his countrymen, who, among other gibes,
were wont to observe that the man who always wore two faces, might be
expected to have two noses also. It was thought that his revolting
appearance was the principal reason for the rupture of the English
marriage, and it was in vain that his supporters maintained that if he
could forgive her age, she might, in return, excuse his ugliness. It
seemed that there was a point of hideousness beyond which even royal
princes could not descend with impunity, and the only wonder seemed that
Elizabeth, with the handsome Robert Dudley ever at her feet, could even
tolerate the addresses of Francis Valois.

His intellect was by no means contemptible. He was not without a certain
quickness of apprehension and vivacity of expression which passed
current, among his admirers for wit and wisdom. Even the experienced.
Saint Aldegonde was deceived in his character, and described him after an
hour and half's interview, as a Prince overflowing with bounty,
intelligence, and sincerity. That such men as Saint Aldegonde and the
Prince of Orange should be at fault in their judgment, is evidence not so
much of their want of discernment, as of the difference between the
general reputation of the Duke at that period, and that which has been
eventually established for him in history. Moreover, subsequent events
were to exhibit the utter baseness of his character more signally than it
had been displayed during his previous career, however vacill