was subsequent to an infection-the one which gave her dropsy, jaundice, etc. She must have had scarlet fever-or some such illness-falling on her kidneys. But when I don't know. I still think all that post-puberty bout was directly connected with the assumption of uterine function.

Yours sincerely,

A. KEITH.

CHAPTER VI

LAST WORDS ON QUEEN'S HEALTH

UCH was the health of the Princess and of the Queen Elizabeth, and it will not have to be urged that as a consequence of this discovery all present opinions upon her character, accomplishments, and career must be revised and rewritten.

The reader can but wonder how such a disastrous history could so long have remained unknown. The detailed explanation, although absorbing and almost romantic, is largely technical, and, as it has little concern with the thread of our argument, is inserted hereafter as note 4 in the Appendix ; but no matter how much we may elucidiate and conjecture, the vitality for more than three centuries of the Amazon-blondgiantess theory of Elizabeth will always remain one of the most curious literary misunderstandings of all historical writings.

There are, however, two outstanding statements in the original documents which undoubtedly have weighed heavily in favour of this Amazon theory—namely, that she hunted and danced almost to the end of her life.

Even on the occasion of her last remove but one from London, only eight months before her death, she rode on horseback all the way to Hampton Court-ten miles-and "also hunted."

As late as April 28, 1602, eleven months prior to her death, she opened a ball with the French royal duke of Nevers, dancing a galliard " with a disposition admirable for her age," as the French Ambassador puts it.* Two months later, that is about July 1, 1602, she arranges to send the pleasing news in great detail to her wearily waiting successor, James, in Edinburgh, that she is a long way from being dead. Her

* P. R. O., Baschet MSS., Bundle 33, purp. p. 260.

method was to have the Scottish Ambassador, when he called to see her on appointment, led into a room adjoining her own, and seated where, by peering around a drapery carefully turned back for the purpose, he could see Elizabeth dancing to a lively tune from a small fiddle; and of course she was much abashed, surprised, and ashamed when she caught him enjoying her indiscretion! The only remarkable thing about this story is that it does not relate to the day of her death-for it would have been exactly like her to have played this prank when at her last gasp!

She came as near to this as she dared, for this was the last time she ever danced!* It was the final effort, the last fling in the face of the craven Stuart, whose one aim and ambition for many years had been her death. It was the last gesture of challenge to Death itself. She looked the Dread Monster in the face; and with a toss of the head, a smile, and a jest, she danced the last dance of her long life in defiance of the one force which could beat down that "unconquerable soul" which was her predominant characteristic. It was no mere coincidence that she never danced again. She had her eye on posterity.

It was English. It was a sublime manifestation of that jaunty, fearless, or apparently fearless spirit, which Englishmen love to think of as theirs alone.

In this dance with Death, typical of the nation, we have the quintessence of the soul and heart of the Great Queen. Were a psychologist to be found who knew nothing of this woman except the sole circumstance of this dance, her age and her health, and all the efforts James had made to oust her from the

Miss Strickland, to be sure, ascribes the last dances to the following September, a fortnight after the Queen had begun her seventieth year, giving as authority the letter of the Earl of Worcester to the Earl of Shrewsbury under date of Sept. 19, 1602. But an examination of the letter does not support Miss Strickland's conclusion. The passage in question reads: "We are frolic here at Court: much danceing, in the privy-chamber, of Country-dances before the queen's majesty, who is exceedingly pleased therewith. Irish tunes are at this time most liked, but in winter, Lullaby, an old song of Mr. Bird's, will be more in request, as I think."-Lodge's Illust. iii. p. 147. This is the flimsiest, yet the only, foundation for Miss Strickland's observation-" This was the opinion of the earl of Worcester ... who thought that a refreshing nap, lulled by the soft sounds of Bird's exquisite melody, would better suit his royal mistress than her usual afterdinner diversions of frisking, beneath the burthen of seventy years, to some of the spirit-stirring Irish tunes newly imported to the English court." Not only does the letter not say that the Queen danced, but it explicitly states that the dancing was “before the queen's majesty."

throne so that he might occupy it, he could hardly fail to reconstruct Elizabeth so far as her predominant qualities were concerned; and the result would be a thorough woman. Yet we have always been told, and have believed, that Elizabeth was more man than woman, entirely lacking in feminine characteristics!

A more typical woman than Elizabeth never lived. She was, moreover, a woman confronted with the greatest tasks that have ever confronted a monarch; and when we reflect that she was overwhelmingly successful, and usually by methods strictly feminine, it is probably true that only a woman could have triumphed upon so desperate a field.

Elizabeth's dancing and hunting seem, at first sight, very strong, almost conclusive, evidence of an exceptional physique. But the slightest examination of the facts quickly leads to a modification of that view.

The spectacle that at once comes to the mind of the average person when he reads of a hunt by Elizabeth is that of a pack, madly dashing across country after a wild buck, followed by a bevy of scarlet-coated gentlemen and ladies, led by the Great Queen herself, at sixty-nine. That is what a hunt in England to-day means.

The term in the time of Elizabeth signified the driving of tame deer running in the park of some private estate into a net, and then driving them out of it one by one through a narrow opening, beside which the hunters stood, and shot them with crossbows as they emerged. The only common variation of this procedure was the spectacle of the doomed beasts, worn down and mauled to death by the deerhounds which sprang at them as they were let out of the opening. If the game did not at once succumb, it could continue the struggle within a larger enclosure, so arranged that the quarry was never beyond sight of the beautifully-gowned spectators, who, seated in a bower of leafy branches, hoped that the dogs would drive the panting deer near them, so that they might bring him down themselves with their crossbows.* In all

Among the many authorities establishing the view just given of Elizabeth's hunting, we cite these as typical⚫

66

.. as I was already near the said Vuynck (Probably Woodstock near Oxford.-F. C.) she (Elizabeth) sent three gentlemen to conduct me ; not to the house where she was stopping, but to an arbour which had been prepared

the life of Elizabeth, we can discover but one account of any possible variation from this fashion of hunting.

for her where she could shoot her crossbow at does imprisoned in toils; to this place she came soon after, grandly accompanied, where both before and after she had alighted from her coach, she received me vary favourably... (They argued about state affairs for a long time, and then the Ambassador continues) The hour having come for the hunt, she took her crossbow and killed six does, of which she did me the honour to give me a large proportion."-Fénélon to the King of France, Sept. 5, 1570.

"In Queen Elizabeth's day, and after, we read little of the great stag being harboured in his forest haunts, but being seen in the park herd, he was singled out by means of hounds, who teased him forth,' or even by a sportsman on horseback riding after him, and thus severing him from the herd. Coursing and shooting within parks was the most favoured sport (And of course the shooting was then without the assistance of gunpowder.F. C.) in this Queen's reign, and wild deer hunting was completely neglected, at least at Court."-British Hunting, A. W. Coaten, 1909, Lond., p. 11.

By 1588" the grand old style of hunting at force had given place to the indolent method of driving the deer to stands,' from which the Queen and her courtiers fired as the quarry fled by."-History of the Royal Buckhounds, J. P. Hore, p. 73.

The French Duc de Biron visited England with several hundred retainers in 1601. Queen Elizabeth being then at the Vine in Hampshire, Biron followed her thither and had the pleasure of seeing Her Majesty hunt, attended by more than fifty ladies, all mounted on hackneys." Idem. Stowe thus refers to this hunt: "And one day he (the Duke) attended her at Basing Park at hunting . . . and did there see her in such Royalty and so attended by the nobility, so costly furnished and mounted, as the like had seldom been seen." Now of what did the hunting consist? That is indubitably seen in the returns of the Lord Chamberlain for that time: "To Richard Conningesby for the allowance of himself (and 9 others) for makeinge readie a standinge in the P'ke at Windsor against ye huntinge there, for two daies, mense Augusti 1601, xxxixs iiid. . . For makinge readie the Lord Marques (of Winchester) his house at Basynge by the space of xiiijen dayes mense Septembris 1601, xiij xs iiijd. For makeinge ready the Lord Sandes house at the Vyne for the french Ambassadors by like tyme mense pred', xiijli etc. For makinge readie a standinge in Basynge P'ke for two dayes dco mense ∞ xxiv."-Accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber of the Household, E. L. T. R. Series 1, Box F, Bundle 3, m. 67d. MS. P. R. O.

Invited to a hunt at Windsor (by Leicester at the request of the Queen), the French Ambassador attended and writes this description of what he saw in Windsor Park" where she had great sport hunting. . . and as fro the pleasure of the said hunt, it could not possibly have been greater. For after having seen sixty to eighty great bucks confined in a net passing and repassing incessantly before a little scaffold where the Queen was, and where he saw her kill several of them with the crossbow, those which were only wounded were caught by bloodhounds; the others were worn out at intervals within a plain of some six or seven miles in the midst of the forest where, on a little hill from which the entire plain could be seen and at the exit from the net, there had been erected a well-screened butt or blind (feuillade) to which the Queen went; and, at once and for all the remainder of the day up to evening, one, two, three, and at different times several great bucks came out of the net, and passing by the blind, began two or three miles of chase with the best dogs of the nation, of which one, two, or three, brought down a great stag; at times also after running for two or three miles, one would retrace its track to regain the forest, only to be brought down near the blind; and as there were some good bucks as well as good dogs, both in great number,