The Making of the Great West, 1512-1883

QUEEN ELIZABETH.

Though Elizabeth was so well calculated to govern with ability, and even with that glory and advantage to her people which England had never witnessed under any of its preceding sovereigns;—though her administration was so vigorously and equitably exercised, and all her plans and negotiations so ably and successfully conducted;—though, in short, she was equally revered and obeyed, as a sovereign, at home, and she was feared and respected abroad;—yet was Elizabeth a very weak and silly woman in trifling concerns. She seemed a Goliath in the conduct of the mighty affairs of empires; but dwindled into a very woman, when the color, fancy, or fashion of a dress became the topic. Nor was she free from the little petty vexations, jealousies, and rivalship of beauty, so natural to her sex. Indeed, it appears that she hated and envied her cousin, the beautiful Mary of Scots, less on account of her pretensions to the crown, than for her superior charms. When Mary sent Sir James Melville to London, to endeavor to establish a good understanding with Elizabeth, he was instructed by Mary to sound her cousin on subjects that would interest her rather as a woman than a queen. "He accordingly succeeded so well," says Hume, "that he threw that artful princess entirely off her guard, and made her discover the bottom of her heart, full of those vanities, and follies, and ideas of rivalship, which possess the youngest and most frivolous of her sex. He talked to her of his travels, and forgot not to mention the different dresses of the ladies in different countries; and she took care thenceforth to meet the ambassador every day apparelled in a different habit; sometimes she was dressed in the English garb, sometimes in the French, sometimes in the Italian; and she asked him which became her most? He answered, the Italian,—a reply that he knew would be agreeable to her, because that mode showed to advantage her flowing hair, which he remarked, though more red than yellow, she fancied to be the finest in the world. She desired to know of him what was reputed to be the best color of hair; she asked whether his queen or she had the finest color of hair; she even inquired which of them he esteemed the fairest person,—a very delicate question, and which he prudently eluded, by saying that her majesty was the fairest person in England, and his mistress in Scotland. She next demanded which of them was tallest. He replied, his queen. 'Then she is too tall,' said Elizabeth, 'for I myself am of a just stature.'"