Spain
might be preserved and cultivated. Expedients were accordingly found,
without actually encouraging his hopes, for protracting the negotiation
till a peace was concluded with France and with Scotland, and finally of
declining the marriage without a breach of amity. Yet the duke de Feria,
the Spanish ambassador, had not failed to represent to the queen, that
as the addresses of his master were founded on personal acquaintance and
high admiration of her charms and merit, a negative could not be
returned without wounding equally his pride and his feelings. Philip,
however, soon consoled himself for this disappointment by taking to wife
the daughter of the king of France; and before the end of the year we
find him recommending to Elizabeth as a husband his cousin the archduke
Charles, son of the emperor Ferdinand. The overture was at this time
declined by the queen without hesitation; but some time afterwards,
circumstances arose which caused the negotiation to be resumed with
prospect of success, and the pretensions and qualifications of the
Austrian prince became, as we shall see, an object of serious
discussion.

Eric, who had now ascended the throne of Sweden, sent his brother the
duke of Finland to plead once more with the English princess in his
behalf; and the king of Denmark, unwilling that his neighbour should
bear off without a contest so glorious a prize, lost no time in sending
forth on the same high adventure his nephew the duke of Holstein. It is
more than probable that Shakespear, in his description of the wooers of
all countries who contend for the possession of the fair and wealthy
Portia[43], satirically alludes to several of these royal suitors, whose
departure would often be accounted by his sovereign "a gentle ridance,"
since she might well exclaim with the Italian heiress, "while we shut
the gate on one wooer, another knocks at the door."

[Note 43: See "The Merchant of Venice."]

The duke of Finland was received with high honors. The earl of Oxford
and lord Robert Dudley repaired to him at Colchester and conducted him
into London. At the corner of Gracechurch-street he was received by the
marquis of Northampton and lord Ambrose Dudley, attended by many
gentlemen, and, what seems remarkable, by ladies also; and thence,
followed by a great troop of gentlemen in gold chains and yeomen of the
guard, he proceeded to the bishop of Winchester's palace in Southwark,
"which was hung with rich cloth of