Another reason for her reluctance to marry may have been fear of childbirth. The whole business of childbearing was dangerous in the sixteenth century, and maternal mortality rates were high: two of Elizabeth's stepmothers, Jane Seymour and Katherine Parr, as well as her grandmother, Elizabeth of York, had succumbed to puerperal fever. Queen Mary had suffered the mortifying humiliation of two phantom pregnancies. Young brides, such as the late Duchess of Norfolk, could marry, conceive, give birth and die within the space of a year. The Queen's physician, Dr Huick, once warned her that childbirth might not be easy for her, and succeeded in scaring her profoundly. Time and again Elizabeth would flirt with the idea of marriage, only to shy away from the commitment at the last minute. It is true that there were often good political reasons for doing so, but it is possible that an inherent fear of childbirth was a factor.

It has also been suggested - as it was speculated in her own time - that Elizabeth was reluctant to marry because she knew that she could never bear children. The evidence for this is contradictory. Her ability to conceive was naturally the subject of intense, discreet diplomatic speculation and inquiry, and because of her reluctance to marry rumours abounded. In 1559 de Feria reported: 'If my spies do not lie, which I believe they do not, for a certain reason which they have recently given me, I understand she will not bear children.' In 1561, his successor wrote: 'The common opinion, confirmed by certain physicians, is that this woman is unhealthy, and it is believed certain that she will not bear children.' However, he had also heard other scurrilous rumours: there was 'no lack of people who say she already has some [children], but of this I have seen no trace, and do not believe it'. The Venetian ambassador informed the Doge that Elizabeth was barren, saying he had been told certain secrets about her that he did 'not dare to write'.

Thereafter, it became de rigueur de rigueur for foreign emissaries to pursue the most delicate investigations in order to safeguard their masters' dynastic interests. Discreet inquiries were made of the royal chamberwomen, and the Spaniards regularly offered bribes to the Queen's laundress to for foreign emissaries to pursue the most delicate investigations in order to safeguard their masters' dynastic interests. Discreet inquiries were made of the royal chamberwomen, and the Spaniards regularly offered bribes to the Queen's laundress to 48.divulge whether or not Her Majesty menstruated regularly. The woman reported that Elizabeth functioned perfectly normally as a woman, and thereafter King Philip always conducted diplomatic negotiations on the assumption that she would marry and produce heirs. He is unlikely to have done so had there been any good reason for believing otherwise.

Elizabeth herself seems to have fuelled the rumours. She once told the Earl of Sussex mysteriously that 'for her part, she hated the idea of marriage every day more, for reasons which she would not divulge to a twin soul, if she had one, much less to a living creature'. In 1566, the French ambassador's nephew quizzed one of the Queen's doctors on her ability to bear children. He told the doctor that Her Majesty had stated in the past that she understood from her physicians that she was barren, and he needed to know if this was true because, if it was, he would not wish the Queen to marry a member of the French royal house. The doctor stated that his mistress had been talking nonsense, and that she sometimes said such things out of caprice. If she did marry, he himself would answer for it that she was capable of bearing ten children, adding, 'There is not a man in the kingdom who knows her constitution better than I.'

In 1579, when Elizabeth was in her mid-forties, William Cecil himself closely questioned her physicians, laundresses and ladies as to whether she might still hope to bear children, and in a private memorandum he recorded: 'Considering the proportion of her body, having no impediment of smallness in stature, of largeness in body, nor no sickness nor lack of natural functions in those things that properly belong to the procreation of children, but contrariwise by judgement of physicians that know her estate in those things, and by the opinion of women, being more acquainted with Her Majesty's body', it could only be concluded that there was an overwhelming 'probability of her aptness to have children'. This investigation was also prompted by fears that bearing children so late in life would endanger the Queen's life. The report was not intended for public - or royal - consumption, and Cecil was apparently satisfied with the results.

But as the years passed, and the Queen remained childless, a lot of people came to believe she had indeed been infertile all along. Mary, Queen of Scots, many years later, claimed that Bess of Hardwick had informed her that Elizabeth was 'not like other women', but she had an ulterior motive tor doing so, since she had quarrelled with Bess and wished to expose her to the Queen as a spiteful gossip; therefore we must not place too much weight on her allegation. A more reliable witness was Elizabeth's godson, Sir John Harington, who in the 1590s voiced the general and widespread viewpoint when he wrote: 'In mind, she hath ever had an aversion and (as many think) in body some 49.indisposition to the act of marriage.' Elizabeth may well have confided to Harington the fact that she had a mental aversion to sex - although this is by no means certain - but he was purely speculating as to the physical indisposition. In fact, in her courtships, Elizabeth usually assumed that her marriage would be fruitful.

When she was dead, the playwright Benjonson - no admirer of hers- told a Scots friend, William Drummond of Hawthornden, whilst they were drinking wine together, that the Queen had 'had a membrane on her, which made her incapable of man, though for her delight she tried many'. His source for this information is unknown, and he was probably repeating mere gossip, or inventing it under the influence of alcohol.

Modern writers have speculated that the gossip had its basis in fact, and that Elizabeth either had an abnormally thick hymen or suffered from an hysterical condition that causes sexual penetration to be excruciatingly painful. Recently, the writer Michael Bloch has suggested that the Queen, like the Duchess of Windsor, was a victim of of Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. In such cases, sufferers are born with male XY chromosomes but, owing to the body's failure to produce male sex hormones, develop outwardly as females. However, they have no ovaries, and only a deformed womb and a shallow vagina. Of course, it is impossible for them to bear children or even, in some cases, achieve sexual intercourse. Adults tend to be tall, mannish, and straight-limbed with 'strident personalities', although they can appear to be very attractive women. Elizabeth, argues Mr Bloch, may well have suffered from AIS. However, unless one takes into account Ben Jonson's highly dubious testimony, there is no proof to support this or any other of these theories. Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. In such cases, sufferers are born with male XY chromosomes but, owing to the body's failure to produce male sex hormones, develop outwardly as females. However, they have no ovaries, and only a deformed womb and a shallow vagina. Of course, it is impossible for them to bear children or even, in some cases, achieve sexual intercourse. Adults tend to be tall, mannish, and straight-limbed with 'strident personalities', although they can appear to be very attractive women. Elizabeth, argues Mr Bloch, may well have suffered from AIS. However, unless one takes into account Ben Jonson's highly dubious testimony, there is no proof to support this or any other of these theories.

At the beginning of her reign, Sir Thomas Challoner warned Elizabeth: 'A young princess cannot be too wary what countenance of familiar demonstration she maketh.' In other words, she could not be too circumspect in her behaviour. But it was not long before fantastic tales of her alleged promiscuity abounded, particularly in the courts of Catholic princes, where she was sometimes reviled - much as her mother had been - as a virtual nymphomaniac. It was said that she refrained from marriage so as to gratify her lusts with numerous lovers. Unfortunately, Elizabeth made no secret of the fact that she was interested in sex, and demonstrated a vicarious pleasure in talking about it. This, along with her known partiality for handsome, virile, intelligent men, her notorious flirtatiousness and sometimes outrageous behaviour led many to believe that rumour did not lie and that she was not the Virgin Queen she claimed to be.

There were numerous stories that she had secretly borne children, although how she could have done so without people knowing of it, 50.given the very public life she led, remained unexplained. The jealous Bess of Hardwick was fond of relaying to Mary, Queen of Scots all the nasty tales she had heard of Elizabeth, such as how she had been discovered often in bed with the Earl of Leicester, or how she had forced Sir Christopher Hatton to make love to her. Mary very rashly repeated all this in a letter to her cousin, in a deliberate attempt to get Bess into trouble. Luckily for Bess, Cecil intercepted the letter and ensured that the Queen never saw it. Bess later confessed to the Council that she had made up all the tales, and Hatton would swear to Sir John Harington, 'voluntarily and with vehement asservation, that he never had any carnal knowledge of Her Majesty's body'.

Abroad, Catholic writers such as the English Jesuits, Nicholas Sanders and Robert Parsons and Cardinal William Allen, were the source of many of the scurrilous - and untrue - stories about Elizabeth's promiscuity.

In England, as we shall see, those who were caught spreading malicious gossip about the Queen were often punished by the authorities, for fear that ignorant people would believe and spread the rumours. As late as 1598, Edward Francis of Dorset was hauled before the justices for having said, in an attempt to persuade one Elizabeth Baylie to cohabit with him, 'that the best in England had done so, and had three bastards by noblemen of the court, and was herself base-born'.

In later years, the notorious sadist, Richard Topclyffe, who tortured prisoners in the Tower of London, boasted of having touched Elizabeth's breasts and seen her bare thighs. He was probably fantasising, although, as we shall see, on one occasion in old age, the Queen appeared to enjoy exposing her breasts to a French ambassador.

Yet Elizabeth was too much mistress of herself and too great a stateswoman to succumb to the temptations of illicit sex. She was a proud and normally dignified woman who was very conscious of her exalted status and strict about observing propriety, and it is hardly likely that she would have risked her reputation, or the possible security of her throne, for physical pleasure. There was no effective contraception in those days, and a pregnancy outside wedlock would have spelled ruin for her. The very fact that she took no pains to hide her love and admiration for certain men indicates that her relations with them were above reproach. There is no proof to support the gossip. In 1561, when the rumours were at their most rampant, Nils Guilderstern, Chancellor of Sweden, came to England to press the suit of his master, King Erik. Having observed Elizabeth at court, Guilderstern reported: 'I saw no signs of an immodest life, but I did see many signs of chastity, virginity and true modesty; so that I would stake my life itself that she is most chaste.'

51.This was a view that would be shared by many other ambassadors in the years to come. Most agreed that the rumours were 'but the spawn of envy and malice'. In 1571, the French envoy, de la Mothe Fenelon, informed the Queen of France that Elizabeth was 'good and virtuous', adding that the gossip could not be believed when one had experienced the ethos of the English court, where the Queen, who was watched 'with Argus eyes', both inspired and received such a degree of respect as to preclude any possibility of her being unchaste.

Another French ambassador, Michel de Castelnau, Sieur de la Mauvissiere, having been acquainted with Elizabeth for a quarter of a century, stated: 'If attempts were made falsely to accuse her of love affairs, I can say with truth that these were sheer inventions of the malicious and of the ambassadorial staffs, to put off those who would have found an alliance with her useful.' Most Spanish ambassadors were hostile to the English Queen, but one, de Silva, admitted that he was never able to find any truth in the rumours about her virtue. Elizabeth herself had told him: 'I do not live in a corner. A thousand eyes see all I do, and calumny will not fasten on me for ever.' There was no question in the minds of most of the Queen's subjects that she was inviolably chaste. Years later, the Lord Chief Justice, the brilliant Francis Bacon, described her as 'certainly good and moral; and as such she desired to appear' and his sentiments were echoed by others who knew her well, such as William Cecil and Sir Francis Walsingham, successive Secretaries of State.

The Queen's much vaunted virginity was a matter, not of personal choice, but of state policy, and in many ways it cost her dear, condemning her to a lifetime of lonely isolation, emotional deprivation and enforced chastity. She did indeed make a virtue of what she saw to be a necessity, and the strain sometimes showed. She may have teased her lovers and allowed them certain liberties - she was undoubtedly of an amorous nature - but never more than that. It may well be that the sex act itself did frighten her in some way, that she was psychologically unable to give herself to a man. But even if this were true, it did not alter the fact that she felt more invincible in the persona of the Virgin Queen than she would have done as a married sovereign. To remain invincible, she must not only bear the name but also play the part with conviction. And that meant that illicit sexual intercourse was forever strictly out of the question, whatever her private feelings about it.

Many people believed, and some still do, that because Elizabeth loved courtship and flirtation she was sexually immoral, but in fact she lived a very circumscribed life - she was hardly ever alone, being (as she said herself) 'always surrounded by my Ladies of the Bedchamber and maids of honour', who slept in her room - and she valued herself and her 52.honour highly: it would have been unthinkable tor the Queen of England to become some man's plaything. 'My life is in the open, and I have so many witnesses,' she once said, having learned what was being said about her abroad. 'I cannot understand how so bad a judgement can have been formed of me.' She had, moreover, learned what happened to queens - and, for that matter, princesses - who were suspected of overstepping the bounds of morality, and it had been a grim lesson. Besides, while she remained unattainable, she remained in control of her relationships, and that was how she liked things to be.

Hardly anyone took Elizabeth at her word when she expressed her wish to stay single. Both Parliament and the Council would behave as if only the choice of husband was an issue, and foreign ambassadors would press the suits of their various masters with good hopes of success. Elizabeth played along with this game enthusiastically. She loved nothing better than masculine attention and flattery, and revelled in the rituals of courtship. So well did she play her part that most people were deceived into thinking that she had indeed changed her mind about remaining celibate, and that it was only a matter of time and choice before she gave herself in marriage. This view was given credence by Elizabeth's fondness for discussing her possible nuptials, or declaring that 'She was but human and not insensible to human emotions, and when it became a question of the weal of her kingdom, or it might be for other reasons, her heart and mind might change.' She became, it was said by a courtier, 'greedy of marriage proposals'. It would also prove advantageous to her to have European princes competing for her hand and England's friendship at a time when the country was weak and impoverished. While they believed they stood a chance of success, they would not think of making war or stirring up trouble.

The matter of the Queen's marriage was to dominate English political thinking and policy and provoke endless speculation for a quarter of a century, with many tortuous twists and turns along the way that would cause untold grief and anguish to Her Majesty's beleaguered advisers, most of whom were utterly perplexed by her contrary behaviour. Few, even Cecil, realised that she meant it when she said, as she did on numerous occasions, that she had no desire to marry.

A quarter of a century of queenly prevarication was initiated in February 1559, when Elizabeth received the first marriage proposal since her accesssion. De Feria at last obtained a private audience and informed the Queen of King Philip's hopes. He was disconcerted when she displayed no sense of the honour being done her, and even more so when she responded by delivering a coy speech about the virtues of remaining a virgin. Unimpressed, the ambassador retorted that, if she did not marry 53.and produce an heir to sit on England's throne, the King of France would rise against her and place Mary Stuart there instead.

This was a red rag before a bull, and prompted a furious outburst from the Queen, in which she 'began to rave' against King Henry II, the Dauphin, Mary Stuart and the French and Scottish nations in general. So vehement was her anger that, having raged and stormed for a considerable time, she collapsed with fatigue into a chair, telling de Feria that she needed time to think about King Philip's proposal.

A few days later, she was more rational, although she did point out the objections that could be made against such a marriage. The King's marriage to her sister had placed herself and Philip within the forbidden degrees of affinity; although the Pope would hardly be likely to refuse Philip a dispensation, this would be controversial in England, for had not Henry VIII been so 'scrupulous' as to question the Pope's right to issue a dispensation allowing him to marry his brother's widow? An English court had declared that marriage invalid, and it was likely that the validity of a marriage between Elizabeth and her sister's widower would be similarly disputed. The Queen quoted the Book of Leviticus to de Feria to prove her point, saying that she could never accept a papal decree which contravened the Word of God. For these reasons, she went on, she could not marry her sister's husband without dishonouring her father's memory.

However, all was not lost. She would, she promised, lay the matter before Parliament and the Council, and in the meantime the ambassador could assure King Philip that, if she married at all, she would prefer to take him before all others.

For the next month she considered the matter, while de Feria grew daily more optimistic. But the Queen's councillors, when they heard of the proposal, were aghast that their mistress could even contemplate accepting it, and in heated discussions did their best to dissuade her from doing so. She assured them that she would do nothing prejudicial to England's interests: 'I am descended by father and mother of mere English blood, and not of Spain, as my late sister was,' she told them. Nevertheless, it would not be politic to turn down King Philip with unflattering haste, because England still needed Spain's friendship, especially since a peace with France had not yet been concluded. For the time being, therefore, de Feria might continue to hope for a favourable answer.

54.

Chapter 3.

'Disputes over Trifles'

Queen Elizabeth had from adolescence been imbued with the beliefs and teachings of the Cambridge reformers who tutored her, yet although she grew up in and professed the Protestant faith, she was no reformer herself; it was the traditional ritual and ceremony of religion, the glorious anthems and motets sung by her choristers, and the intellectual satisfaction of theological literature that appealed to her. She knew that literature well, informing Parliament in 1566 that 'I studied nothing but divinity till I came to the Crown.' Furthermore, in an age in which people were burned for their beliefs, she held surprisingly enlightened views. 'There is only one Jesus Christ,' she declared to one French ambassador, Andre Hurault, Sieur de Maisse. 'The rest is a dispute over trifles.'

Unlike her sister, she was no fanatic, and hated fanaticism in others, both Catholic and Protestant, just as she had little time for bishops and despised those hard-line Protestant divines who went about calling each other 'my brother in Christ'. She was not above keeping episcopal sees vacant in order to retain their revenues for the Crown.

For her, the arguments of theologians and divines were as 'ropes of sand or sea-slime leading to the Moon'. She told Parliament in 1590, 'I see many overbold with God Almighty, making too many subtle scannings of His blessed will, as lawyers do with human testaments. If I were not certain that mine were the true way to God's will, God forbid that I should live to prescribe it to you.' Early in her reign, she confided to de Feria that she 'differed very little' from Catholics in her beliefs, 'as she believed that God was in the sacrament of the Eucharist, and only dissented from three or four things in the mass'. This, however, was said at a time when she needed Spain's support. She was quite capable of denigrating the old faith, as in 1577 when she referred to it, in a letter to German Protestants, as 'the darkness and filth of popery'.

55.When she learned that King Philip was persecuting Protestants in the Spanish Netherlands, she wrote to ask him why it mattered to him if his subjects chose to go to the Devil in their own way. She shocked one of Philip's ambassadors by flippantly expressing her hope that she would be saved as well as the Bishop of Rome, as English Protestants called the Pope. Later in the reign, she refused to allow Sir Walter Raleigh's suspected atheism to be investigated, on the grounds that she enjoyed theological arguments with him.

Because of these attitudes, some people accused her of having no religion at all. One Spanish ambassador, de Quadra, observed: 'She is not comfortable with the Protestants, nor with the doctrines of the other side either, and gives ground for the assertion that she is an atheist.' Yet she read the Bible regularly, and at the end of her life averred, 'I have ever used to set the Last Judgement before mine eyes and go to rule as I shall be judged to answer before a higher Judge.' Her views on transubstantiation were perhaps expressed in a doggerel verse traditionally ascribed to her and first printed in Richard Baker's Chronicle Chronicle in 1643: in 1643: Christ was the Word that spake it, He took the bread and brake it, And what His words did make it, That I believe and take it.

What she also believed in was the strong hand of a divine Providence, guiding and watching over her and her kingdom. When England faced the great threat from Spain in the 1580s, Elizabeth told the French ambassador, de la Mothe Fenelon, 'I think that, at the worst, God has not yet decided that England shall cease to stand where she does, or at least that God has not given the power to overthrow her to those men who would like to undertake it.'

Sermons - one of the chief features of morning services in Protestant churches - were her particular bugbear, and woe betide those clergymen who preached for more than an hour. She had even less time for those who attempted to instruct her from the pulpit as she sat in the royal closet with its lattice window, which she might have open or shut, according to her mood. 'To your text, Mr Dean! To your text!' she would shout, or she would send a message to the preacher, warning him to desist from an offending theme. In 1565, Dr Nowell, Dean of St Paul's, attacked the recent dedication of a Catholic tract to the Queen, then spoke out against the idolatrous graven images - the crucifixes -which Elizabeth had insisted upon keeping in the royal chapels.

'Do not talk about that!' snapped the Queen, but the Dean ignored her. 'Leave that!' she bawled. 'It has nothing to do with your subject, 56.and the matter is now threadbare.'

Another preacher, Bishop Aylmer, who protested about 'the vanity of decking the body too finely', was curtly told to change the subject. 'Perchance', commented the Queen's godson Harington, 'the Bishop hath never sought Her Majesty's wardrobe, or he would have chosen another text.'

In 1596, when Elizabeth attained the age of sixty-three, known in Tudor times as the grand climacteric year, which many could not hope to survive, Bishop Rudd was informed by the Archbishop of Canterbury that Her Majesty 'now is grown weary of the vanities of wit and eloquence wherewith her youth was formerly affected, and plain sermons which come home to her heart please her the best'. The Bishop thus chose for his text the prayer, 'O teach us to number our days, that we may incline our hearts unto wisdom,' and proceeded to discourse upon significant sacred numbers such as three for the Holy Trinity, seven for the Sabbath, then seven times nine for the grand climacteric year, sixty-three. By this time, the Queen was frowning. Panicking, Dr Rudd went on to refer to the Revelatory number 666, 'with which he could prove the Pope to be Antichrist'. When he had finished, Elizabeth leaned forward in her closet and tartly commented 'that he should have kept his arithmetic for himself. I see', she added, 'that the greatest clerics are not the wisest men.'

'Queen Elizabeth', remembered Godfrey Goodman, Bishop of Gloucester under James I, always insisted 'that she had rather speak to God herself, than hear another speaking of God. She seldom heard sermons, but only in Lent.' Those summoned to preach at court were instructed to cut their address to a minimum and to choose their text from a list of those approved by the bishops. Sir John Harington records that the Queen's mind was capable of wandering during sermons. She once congratulated a divine on preaching on a matter that would have offended her greatly had she been listening to him.

Yet there were more cogent reasons for Elizabeth's dislike of sermons: preaching offered a forum for men to air their opinions, which, given the religious climate of the times, could only lead to disputes and cause public unrest. Those extreme Protestants who would come to be known as Puritans were heartily disapproved of by Elizabeth, not only for their fanaticism, but also because they insisted upon a 'preaching ministry'. Most of her subjects applauded her stand against Puritanism, especially after 1585 when she quashed a Puritan Bill aimed at banning all sports and entertainments on Sundays. The Queen felt that her people had a right to spend their only day of rest enjoying themselves as they pleased, without interference from killjoys. She also refused to agree to the suggestion - again from a Puritan source - that heresy, adultery and 57.blasphemy be made criminal offences. In her opinion, those things were matters of conscience, not of law.

Perhaps her most famous triumph over Puritanism came in the field of the arts. The Puritan authorities in several cities, especially London, held the theatre in especial odium, and made strenuous efforts to suppress play-going, as it drew people away from the churches. The Queen sympathised with the theatre-goers: she, too, hated sermons. When, in 1575, she discovered that the renowned Coventry cycle of mystery plays had been banned by the Puritan authorities in that city, she ordered them to be restored. The Puritans in London then began complaining that theatre-goers in the City helped to spread the plague that was endemic each summer. In 1583, the Corporation of London closed the theatres on the Surrey shore, but Elizabeth retaliated by forming her own company of players, who became known as The Queen's Men. The civic authorities backed down, but in 1597 they eventually persuaded the Council to agree to close down the theatres on the grounds that they were hotbeds of subversive propaganda against the government. When Elizabeth heard, she was furious, and the Council hastily rescinded the order. There were no further threats to the theatre in her reign.

The Queen particularly abhorred married clergy, especially bishops and archbishops. Time and again she refused to acknowledge the existence of their wives, and on several occasions she was so rude about Archbishop Matthew Parker's wife that the shocked primate 'was in horror to hear her'. In 1561 he wrote to Cecil: 'Her Majesty contmueth very evil to the state of marriage in the clergy, and if I were not therein very stiff [i.e. in his views] would utterly and openly condemn and forbid it.' She had the septuagenarian Bishop of Ely brought before the Council to be rebuked for having taken a young woman as his second wife. His excuse was that he had married to avoid being tempted into fornication, but this cut no ice with the Queen, whose views were shared by many of her subjects.

Queen Mary had repealed Henry VIII's Act of Supremacy, and when Elizabeth succeeded to the throne England was technically a Catholic kingdom under the jurisdiction of the Pope. However, most people expected the royal supremacy to be restored by Parliament, just as some kind of Protestant religious settlement was anticipated. Since her accession, Elizabeth had given only hints as to her intentions regarding the crucial issue of religion, but those hints had led people to believe that England would once again become independent of the Catholic Church'. As far as Elizabeth was concerned, there could only be one head of the Church in England, and that was the monarch. She believed she had been called by the Deity to bring about 'the according and unity 58.of these people of the realm into a uniform order of religion, to the honour and glory of God, the establishing of the Church and the tranquillity of the realm'.

One of her chief concerns was that public worship should be conducted in the correct form, in English, and she was to insist - much to the disgust of her stricter Protestant subjects - upon retaining some forms of Catholic ritual. She kept candles as well as crucifixes in her private chapels and insisted that her clergy wore caps, copes and surplices; she nevertheless abandoned the more elaborate ceremonies and practices which smacked of papistry, such as belief in miracles, the system of indulgences, and the veneration of the Virgin Mary. Always sensitive to strong smells, she loathed the scent of incense in churches, and banned it. But the Puritans still found much to complain about in her practice of her religion.

Although the worship of saints was abhorrent to Protestants, she encouraged the popular cult of St George, who was revered as a national symbol and the patron of the Order of the Garter. She continued the Maundy ceremonies - a detailed miniature by the female artist Levina Teerlinc shows the Queen at a Maundy service at the beginning of her reign. Elizabeth also revived the custom of touching sufferers of the skin disease scrofula, 'the King's Evil', which her medieval predecessors had done for three centuries. She took her almost mystical role in this ritual very seriously, steeling herself to lay her hands on the infected places on the supplicants' bodies, in the hope of effecting a cure. She restricted her attendance at chapel to weekly visits on Sundays and during Lent, and she always wore black to church.

Although her reign saw a cruel persecution of Catholics, Elizabeth had no personal antipathy towards them. Despite the ever-harsher laws against Catholics, she welcomed some recusant noblemen at court and sometimes visited them in their houses; she employed Catholics, such as the composer William Byrd, in her household, and rejoiced when her Catholic subjects demonstrated their loyalty to her, as they often did. Once, on progress, a man ran to her litter shouting, 'Vivat Regina! Honi soit qui mal y penseY Turning to the Spanish ambassador, who was present, the Queen told him, 'This good man is a clergyman of the old religion.' On another occasion, during her visit in 1564 to the University of Cambridge, she watched a group of undergraduates perform a masque ridiculing the Catholic mass; when a character dressed as a dog appeared with the Host in its fangs, an offended Elizabeth rose and stalked out, 'using strong language'. The Puritans would later accuse her - with some justification - of being more partial to Catholics than she was to true Protestants like themselves.

The persecution for which her reign became notorious was prompted 59.by political necessity, not religious fanaticism, as will be shown in later chapters. The priests who were executed had committed crimes against the state, and were perceived as a very real threat to national security. Queen Mary had ordered the burnings of over three hundred Protestants in three years; fewer Catholics were executed under Elizabeth, and only four people, all Anabaptists, were burned in the whole of her forty-five-year-long reign. Like most of her subjects, the Queen was horrified and repelled by reports of the mass burnings of heretics by the Inquisition in Spain. As far as she was concerned, a man's conscience was his own. According to Sir Francis Bacon, she lived by the maxim, 'Consciences are not to be forced', and she 'would not have any unnecessarily sifted to know what affection they had towards the old religion'. Her Majesty, he wrote, had no 'liking to make windows into men's hearts and secret thoughts'. All she wanted from her subjects was loyalty to herself and the state and outward conformity to her laws governing religion.

Parliament now moved towards passing the first of those laws. On 9 February 1559, a bill to restore the royal supremacy over the Church of England was introduced into the Commons, but it was flawed in many respects and, after much debate, was thrown out.

In Rome, on 16 February, Pope Paul IV published a Bull proclaiming that all rulers who supported heretical doctrines might be deposed by the faithful. This rendered England liable to attack from crusading Catholic powers, and increased English fears of a French attempt to place Mary Stuart on the throne. It also tested the allegiance of Elizabeth's Catholic- subjects.

The Queen was insisting upon treading a middle road. The Protestant faith was to become the established religion of England, but her watchwords were to be caution, compromise and moderation. Care must be taken not to offend her Catholic allies in Europe, and no extreme measures were to be adopted. She herself was forced to compromise, when the Protestant bishops refused to agree to enforcing celibacy upon the clergy or allowing roods, crucifixes or candles in churches. And moderation itself was compromised when those Catholic bishops who opposed the new ideas were sent to the Tower. Meanwhile, confusion reigned throughout the land, and both Catholic and Protestant services were conducted in the churches.

The bishops and some MPs expressed doubts as to whether a woman could be Supreme Head of the Church, for St Paul had stated that no woman' was permitted to act as apostle, shepherd, doctor or preacher. Eventually the Queen agreed to be styled Supreme Governor instead. On 18 March, an amended bill restoring the royal supremacy was passed 60.by the Commoms. The following week, the Queen decreed that Holy Communion shiould from henceforth be conducted according to the Book of Comrmon Prayer that had been in force under Edward VI.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth had been considering how she should respond to King Philip's proposal of marriage. She had put off de Feria for a month, telling him that he should have 'no answer that was not a very good one', but his ini tial optimism was deflating daily now as he realised that her Protestant councillors were doing their best to dissuade the Queen from accepting his master.

There were a also rivals for her hand, although de Feria did not know that yet. On 20 February, Count von Helfenstein arrived from Austria, sent by the Holy' Roman Emperor, Ferdinand I, who was Philip's uncle. The Count's mrission was ostensibly to present his master's congratulations to Elizab eth on her accession, but also to determine whether she might make a suitable wife for one of the Emperor's two younger sons.

Elizabeth received von Helfenstein most warmly on 25 February, and he quickly fell under the spell of her charm. To his master, he wrote ecstatically of her prudence, her dignity, her great-mindedness 'and all other heroic virtues'. It was not long before he was telling the Queen and her courtiers about the two archdukes, Ferdinand and Charles. 'There was no one there who did not prick up his ears and listen with great admiration and silent reverence when I spoke about the ages, the morals, the talents of Your Imperial Majesty's sons, as on these points frank and exhaustive inquiries were made of me. For many thought that one of them two uld soon become consort of the Queen, and rule her and England.' Elizalbeth asked pointedly if von Helfenstein had anything private to say to her, but he remained noncommittal. The English courtiers might not know of Philip's proposal, which had been kept a secret, but he dtd, and his orders were not to do anything until he knew the outcome of that matter.

There was orue crucial issue on which the Emperor had instructed him to report back, and that was Elizabeth's religion. The elder archduke, Ferdinand, was a very pious Catholic, and even if his younger brother was less staunch in the faith, there was no question of his turning heretic. The Count wacched the Queen and carefully questioned her courtiers, reporting: 'I hrve hrve observed nothing that deviates from the old Catholic creed, so there is hope that if they get a Catholic king, all religious questions may easily be settled by authority of the sovereign.' Nevertheless, he was not wholly deceived by the outward religious ceremonial at court, being unable 'clearly to fathom' what Elizabeth's intentions were regarding religion. 'She seems both to protect the Catholic religion and at the same time not entirely to condemn or observed nothing that deviates from the old Catholic creed, so there is hope that if they get a Catholic king, all religious questions may easily be settled by authority of the sovereign.' Nevertheless, he was not wholly deceived by the outward religious ceremonial at court, being unable 'clearly to fathom' what Elizabeth's intentions were regarding religion. 'She seems both to protect the Catholic religion and at the same time not entirely to condemn or 61.outwardly reject the new Reformation.' He resolved therefore to wait and see what transpired.

On 14 March, when it was almost certain that the religious settlement and a peace treaty with France would soon be concluded, Elizabeth summoned de Feria to a private audience and explained that 'she could not marry Your Majesty because she is a heretic'. Besides, she had no wish to marry at all. It was her hope that the friendship between England and Spain would bring the same advantages as a marriage alliance would have done. When de Feria questioned her as to how she had reached her decision, she became 'so disturbed and excited' that he ended up assuring her that neither he nor King Philip regarded her as a heretic. He told her they could not believe that she would sanction the bills being debated by Parliament.

Elizabeth protested that she was a Protestant and could never change her views.

'My master will not change his religion for all the kingdoms in the world,' answered de Feria loftily.

'Then much less would he do it for a woman,' retorted the Queen.

De Feria had his own private theory as to the real reason for her rejection of Philip. He had been making discreet inquiries and had reached the conclusion, as he confided to his master, 'that she would have no children'. A mysterious entry in the Venetian Calendar of ambassador's dispatches states there were 'secret reasons' why Philip did not marry Elizabeth, and this may be a reference to de Feria's findings. But if so, why did Philip continue to make strenuous efforts to bring about a Habsburg match for the Queen, and talk of her having heirs, if he knew she was barren? It is perhaps unwise to place too much reliance upon the often prejudiced reports of ambassadors, some of which were based on little more than court gossip.

When Philip learned of Elizabeth's decision, he could feel only relief, but he wrote to her expressing his regret, saying that although he had desired the marriage, yet 'with good friendship we shall attain the same subject'.

But Spain, too, was moving towards a peace with France, and before the month of March had ended Philip, with most unflattering haste, had announced his impending marriage to Elisabeth of Valois, daughter of Henry II. When Elizabeth was told, she took the news amiably, giving 'little sighs, which bordered upon laughter' She imputed the failure of their marriage negotiations to Philip, fibbing that she had given no answer, and pretending to be piqued because he had not been prepared to wait for three or four months for her to do so; she declared he could not have been as deeply in love with her as de Feria would have had her believe. The ambassador received the distinct impression that she was 62.62 laughing at him. Thus she saved face, although Philip's betrothal could not have pleased her more, for it meant that she would retain his friendship. De Feria was soon assuring her that his master, who was anxious in case Elizabeth felt slighted, would 'remain as good as a brother to her as before, and as such shall take very great interest in what concerns her, and will try to forward her affairs as if they were his own', even after Spain's new alliance with France. He would also 'render her any service in the matter of her marriage'.

Thereafter, Elizabeth's relations with de Feria were fraught, if only because of her capriciousness, her tendency to tease or mislead him, and her fondness for playing diplomatic games. 'In short', he wrote despairingly to Philip, 'what can be said here to Your Majesty is only that this country, after thirty years of a government such as Your Majesty knows, has fallen into the hands of a woman who is a daughter of the Devil, and the greatest scoundrels and heretics in the land.' It was with relief that de Feria received notice in March that he was to be recalled. His replacement would be a worldly churchman, Alvaro de Quadra, Bishop of Aquila, who arrived in London on 30 March, though de Feria would continue to act as ambassador until he left England in May.

Philip remained determined that Elizabeth, and therefore England, should be brought back into the Catholic fold, and preferably by a Habsburg marriage. He was aware by now of the Emperor's hopes, and resolved to further an alliance between Elizabeth and one of the archdukes.

On April he sent a memorandum to de Feria, listing the advantages of such a match, and instructing the ambassador to press them home to the Queen as a matter of urgency. He was to say that, since neither archduke had a principality of his own to govern, either would be free to come and reside permanently in England. Both were eminently fitted to help her bear the burden of government, as well as being well- connected and backed by the full might of the Habsburg Empire. Thus allied, her prestige would be enhanced, both in the eyes of Europe and of her subjects, and few would dare rise against her. The price of all this would of course be Elizabeth's conversion to the Catholic faith and the surrender of her independence.

Early in April peace was concluded between England and France and France and Spain with the signing of the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, after which Philip married Elisabeth of Valois. Under the terms of the treaty Calais was to remain in French hands for eight years, after which, if not before, Elizabeth felt certain that she would be in a position to recover it, which was one of her dearest hopes, and the one matter about which she constantly deluded herself. She was now in a stronger position 63.politically, and felt more confident about proclaiming to the rest of Europe that England was once again to be a Protestant nation.

Over the Easter holidays, the Queen thrashed out the new settlement with her lords spiritual and temporal, and in the end managed to reach a compromise with the more puritanical reformers. Elizabeth was to have the title Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and an Act of Uniformity was to restore by law Edward VI's Book of Common Prayer of 1552. The mass was outlawed and all services were to be in English. Transubstantiation was denied; Anglican communicants were to 'feed on [Jesus Christ] in their hearts, with faith'. Church ornaments and vestments were to be subject to the Queen's own discretion. Every subject over sixteen was to be required to attend church on Sundays or be fined twelvepence for non-attendance. These fines would, of course, be paid mainly by Catholic recusants, who were not to be otherwise molested. In practice, in a few areas, some were subject to petty harrassment for attending or celebrating mass.

Elizabeth took time away from these negotiations on 23 April, when she dined with the Earl of Pembroke at his riverside mansion, Baynard's Castle, near Blackfriars, after which she took a boat and was rowed up and down on the River Thames; hundreds of boats and barges were rowing about her, and thousands of people were thronging at the waterside to look upon Her Majesty, for the trumpets blew, drums beat, flutes played, guns were discharged, and squibs hurled up into the air, as the Queen moved from place to place. And thus continued until ten of the clock at night, when the Queen departed home. By these means, showing herself so freely and condescendingly unto her people, she made herself dear and acceptable to them.

The Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity were passed on 29 April 1559, and received Elizabeth's approval on 8 May, making Protestantism the official religion of the state and establishing a form of worship that in essence still exists in England today.

Both Catholics and Calvinists would have liked the legislation to have gone further, in different directions, and bitterly criticised it, but the Queen was determined on following a middle road, which the majority of her subjects seem to have wanted. Although it offended radical and vocal minority groups, the Anglican settlement of 1559 was highly successful in that it offered a moderating stability in an age of violent religious change and debate. For the Queen, it was the house built upon the rock of true religion.

The newly established Church of England desperately needed a 64.spiritual leader: the See of Canterbury had been vacant since the previous November. Elizabeth wanted Matthew Parker as her Archbishop, but Parker was reluctant to accept. An early reformist, he had been chaplain to Anne Boleyn and it was to him that the doomed Anne had entrusted her daughter's spiritual welfare. Parker had prospered under Henry VIII and Edward VI, becoming Vice- Chancellor of Cambridge University, but Mary had ordered him to be defrocked because he had taken a wife. Cecil had a high opinion of Parker and felt that he had the qualities needed to lead the new Church. He was firm, and he was diplomatic; he also held moderate views. Because of this, Elizabeth was prepared to overlook Parker's marriage, and offered him the primacy.

Parker was horrified. 'I would rather go to prison than accept,' he declared, but the Queen and Cecil were persistent. Nevertheless, it was not until August 1559 that Parker capitulated.

De Feria knew now that Elizabeth was bound ultimately for hell, and as a means of saving her and her subjects from eternal damnation, joined forces with the Imperial ambassador, von Helfenstein, in an attempt to arrange a marriage with one of the Austrian archdukes. The Emperor had just sent a portrait of the elder, Ferdinand, to his London embassy, and de Feria threw his weight behind the project, determined that Philip should take the credit for arranging the marriage.

The ambassador saw the Queen to discuss the matter, but she was delightfully evasive and left him fuming. On 18 April, he reported: 'To say the truth, I could not tell Your Majesty what this woman means to do with herself, and those who know her best know no more than I do.'

Meanwhile, the Emperor, having heard that Elizabeth had rejected Philip II as a husband, and also having learned of her heretical sympathies, had decided not to press the suit of the pious and bigoted Archduke Ferdinand, whom Elizabeth had privately dismissed as being 'fit only for praying for his own family'. Instead, the Emperor planned to put forward his younger son, Charles, as the most suitable husband for the Queen of England. There was some risk involved, naturally, and the Emperor confided to von Helfenstein that he would never have permitted Charles to place his immortal soul in such danger were it not for weighty political reasons. Underestimating Elizabeth's commitment to the Anglican settlement, Ferdinand was confident that marriage to Charles would bring about her conversion to Catholicism.

English diplomats, on the other hand, were rather too optimistic that Charles would turn Protestant after the wedding, having read misleading reports that his faith was not too deeply rooted. 'He is not a Philip', observed one, 'but better for us than a Philip.'

65.In May, the Emperor dispatched a second ambassador, Baron Caspar Breuner, to England. He arrived on the 26th and immediately sought the help of the Spanish ambassador. De Quadra perceived that the Baron was 'not the most crafty person in the world'. Two days later de Quadra accompanied him when he had his first audience with the Queen, whom they found watching some dancing in her Presence Chamber. 'Breathing a prayer to the Almighty', Breuner laid the Archduke's proposal of marriage before her.

Elizabeth betrayed no emotion. She thanked the Emperor for deeming her worthy of one of his sons, but reminded Breuner that, although her subjects were continually exhorting her to marry, she had 'never set her heart upon, nor wished to marry anyone in the world', although she might indeed change her mind, 'for she was but human and not insensible to human emotions and impulses'. Breuner, his hopes dashed, warned the Archduke that he would have to be patient, but added that, having seen the palaces and possessions of this Queen, he had no doubt that she would be 'well worth the trouble'.

De Quadra had taken the opportunity to speak to Cecil about the Austrian marriage plan, but found the Secretary unenthusiastic. The ambassador then saw the Queen and, resorting to desperate measures, hinted that Charles might be thinking of leaving the Catholic church. Elizabeth displayed a flicker of interest, then 'went back to her nonsense and said she would rather be a nun than marry, without knowing with whom, and on the faith of portrait painters'. She told de Quadra she had heard rumours that Charles had an abnormally large head: she dared not risk accepting a deformed husband. De Quadra attempted to reassure her on this point, but after much 'wasting of words', she declared that she would never marry unless it was 'to a man of worth whom she had seen and spoken to'.

Slyly, she suggested that Charles might come to England and be inspected; did de Quadra think he would agree to this? De Quadra gave his opinion that the Archduke might well come out of love for her, but it was doubtful if the Emperor would send his son on approval. Indeed, he was to refuse to do so: it would be too public a humiliation were Elizabeth to refuse Charles. Given the constraints and etiquette that governed European royal courtships, the Queen's request was unusual, to say the least.

'I do not know whether she is jesting, which is quite possible', de Quadra told Philip, 'but I really believe she would like to arrange for this visit in disguise.' The Emperor was to veto that idea also, on the grounds that it was undignified and contrary to the usual way of conducting royal courtships. The Archduke himself proved reluctant to visit Elizabeth unless the marriage was a foregone conclusion.

66.Breuner, having completed his mission, now withdrew to await a reply. On 29 May, the Austrian proposal was laid before senior councillors, Elizabeth vowing to heed their advice, but only on condition that she would be able to 'see and know the man who was to be her husband' before accepting any offer of marriage. Nevertheless, in subsequent meetings with Breuner, she remained adamant that she would not marry at all for the present. God, with whom all things were possible, might change her mind in the future. She hoped that the Emperor would respect her honesty.

Breuner, in despair, retorted that the Emperor would most likely be offended and upset, considering the warm welcome afforded von Helfenstein, but Elizabeth made the rejoinder that the Emperor was in too much of a hurry, and that she would write to him personally, explaining the situation. In the meantime, Breuner was welcome to stay on in England. The Baron took this as an encouraging sign, and during their next two meetings contrived to persuade Elizabeth to tell him whether there was any point in pursuing 'this marriage business'. If not, he would return to Vienna. Elizabeth, with infuriating complacency, told him to act as he thought best, although her manner suggested that she wanted him to stay. Throughout the next few days, she paid him a great deal of attention, flattered him and exercised her charm to devastating effect. But she would say nothing about the Archduke's proposal, and was now declaring that she had taken a vow not to marry anyone she had not seen, 'and will not trust portrait painters'. She recalled how King Philip had cursed both painters and ambassadors when he had first beheld Queen Mary; she, Elizabeth, would not give the Archduke any cause to curse in a like manner.

Breuner's chief concern was that the Queen might accept someone else as a husband. Early in April, Prince Erik of Sweden, who had been a suitor for her hand during Mary's reign, renewed his courtship, but his envoy committed a terrible faux pas faux pas by demanding from the Queen an answer to the proposal made before her accession. Elizabeth regally insisted that Erik propose again to her as queen, whereupon he obliged, dispatching a handsome gift of tapestries and ermines. On 6 May, Breuner worriedly reported that 'The Swedes have brought a likeness of their young King by demanding from the Queen an answer to the proposal made before her accession. Elizabeth regally insisted that Erik propose again to her as queen, whereupon he obliged, dispatching a handsome gift of tapestries and ermines. On 6 May, Breuner worriedly reported that 'The Swedes have brought a likeness of their young King [sic.] [sic.] with them and shown it to the Queen, who praised the portrait highly.' Unlike the Archduke, Erik was prone to sending the Queen letters containing passionate declarations of love, which greatly entertained her. However, she made it plain that he would have to leave his country to marry her, as she would not leave hers for any consideration in the world. It was not realistic for either to abandon their kingdoms, and in May, when the Swedish envoys had begun to outstay their welcome and were becoming the butt of courtly with them and shown it to the Queen, who praised the portrait highly.' Unlike the Archduke, Erik was prone to sending the Queen letters containing passionate declarations of love, which greatly entertained her. However, she made it plain that he would have to leave his country to marry her, as she would not leave hers for any consideration in the world. It was not realistic for either to abandon their kingdoms, and in May, when the Swedish envoys had begun to outstay their welcome and were becoming the butt of courtly 67.ridicule, Elizabeth turned Erik down. She had not, however, heard the last of him.

To add to Breuner's concern, ambassadors from the Duke of Saxony and Adolphus, Duke of Holstein, arrived in England around the same time with offers of marriage; these the Queen would also turn down after spinning out negotiations for as long as she decently could.

There were additionally English suitors competing for her hand, and by May two serious candidates had emerged.

The first, who had originally displayed an interest in Elizabeth - to her great amusement - while her sister was alive, was Henry FitzAlan, 12th Earl of Arundel, aged about forty-seven, a widower with married daughters and with no good looks, trim physique or courtly manners to commend him. He was 'a flighty man of no ability, rather silly and loutish', who had too good an opinion of his chances with the Queen. What he had to offer was his wealth - he lived in Henry VIII's magnificent Nonsuch Palace in Surrey, leased to him by the Queen -and a family lineage stretching back as far as the Norman conquest, although neither were sufficient compensation for his boorish stupidity. Nor did Elizabeth take his courtship seriously; she thought him a buffoon, although she hid it well and strung him along much as she did her other suitors.

The other candidate for her hand was the debonair diplomat, Sir William Pickering, who was five years Arundel's junior and had just returned that May from ambassadorial service abroad. As far back as December court gossips had linked his name to Elizabeth's. Pickering was the son of Henry VII's Knight Marshal, had studied under John Cheke at Cambridge, and had risen to prominence under Henry VIII. He had been a loyal supporter and friend of Elizabeth during Mary's reign, although in 1554 he had been obliged to escape abroad after being implicated in the rebellion led by his friend Sir Thomas Wyatt. Mary had later taken him back into favour and used him on diplomatic missions to the courts of France and Italy. Illness had prevented him from returning to England at the time of Elizabeth's accession, and as soon as he arrived at court, on Ascension Day, and was received by the Queen at a private audience - only granted to the most privileged -which lasted for four or five hours, there was intense speculation that she might marry him, many considering that he was the only possible match for her among her subjects. The next day she spent a further five hours alone with him, and soon afterwards allocated him chambers in Greenwich Palace. This was her way of rewarding an old friend whom she was glad to see again after an absence of several years.

Pickering was 'tall of stature, handsome', muscular and gallant, and although many women had succumbed to his charms, he had never 68.married. One affair had produced a bastard daughter, Hester, whom he was to name his heiress. He had bought former ecclesiastical property, and owned a fine London house in St Andrews Underhill, where he maintained an extensive library, which was the envy of the Queen. He had no claim to noble ancestry, but he was popular at court and in the capital, and it was his hope that his personal attractions would induce the Queen to marry him. Certainly he was the most popular choice among his compatriots, who believed it likely that the Queen might indeed take him as her consort.

Without being given much encouragement by Elizabeth, who seems never to have seriously contemplated marrying Pickering, councillors and courtiers began to seek Sir William's favour, and his new-found importance went to his head. He began spending extravagantly in order to adopt the lifestyle of a future king consort: he gave himself airs and graces, spent large sums on sumptuous clothes, and entertained on a grand scale, dining apart from his guests, with music playing as his food was served -just as if he were royal. Much excitement was generated by his behaviour, with London bookmakers giving odds of 25-100 that he would soon be King, though he openly maintained that the Queen would never marry anyone. This could have been a diplomatic facade to disguise his private hopes and ambitions. De Feria, in his last dispatch from England, commented: 'If these things were not of such great importance and so lamentable, some of them would be very ridiculous.'

Not to be outdone, Arundel too began swaggering about the court, handing out lavish bribes of jewels worth 600 to the Queen's ladies, as an inducement to them to sing his praises to their mistress. But even the nervous Baron Breuner, who had Arundel constantly in his sights, realised that here was no serious threat to the Archduke's prospects. It was Arundel alone who 'entertains that hope'.

Naturally, some of the older nobility resented Pickering's pretensions, and Arundel was glad of any opportunity to belittle him. One day, as Sir William was ostentatiously making his way to the Chapel Royal through the inner sanctum of the Queen's apartments, Arundel barred his way, saying he was too lowly in rank to be there: as a mere knight he should not have ventured beyond the Presence Chamber. Pickering retorted that he knew as much, just as he knew that Arundel was 'an impudent, discourteous knave'. At that, Arundel challenged him to a duel, but Pickering declined to fight, pointing out that Arundel was the weaker man. A furious Arundel thereafter went about protesting that, if Elizabeth married Pickering, he, Arundel, would sell all his estates and live abroad.

During the spring of 1559, public attention was focused upon Arundel and Pickering. But there emerged at this time a third English suitor, who 69.was to prove a more serious contender for the Queen's hand, and who was probably the only man she ever loved. His name was Robert Dudley.

70.

Chapter 4.

'Bonny Sweet Robin'