But the antithesis went even deeper. Elizabeth and Mary were not only poles apart as queens; they were equally different in feminine qualities. It was with them as if Nature had set about deliberately to create two figures whose make-up was diametrically opposed, down to the smallest details.
Mary Stuart as woman was wholly woman, first and last and for always, so that the greatest decisions forced upon her during her brief span took their shape from this deepest spring-head of her being. Yet it would be far from true to say that impulse invariably governed her reason, or that she allowed herself to be driven unresistingly hither and thither by her passions. Quite otherwise. In early youth Mary proved amazingly reserved in all that appertained to the exercise of feminine charm. Year followed upon year, and the life of feeling still slumbered quietly within her. What portraits have come down to us show a friendly, gentle, rather weak and indolent face, a slightly disdainful pair of eyes, an almost childishly smiling mouth. Indeed, this countenance is that of an undifferentiated being, an immature woman. Essentially sensitive, she would blush on the slightest provocation, or she would turn pale with emotion, and tears came readily to her eyes. Thus the abysses of her nature lay undisturbed until her time was ripe; in a few words, she was a thoroughly normal and genuine woman, and it was not until a later date that she herself, Mary Stuart, was to discover her real depths, her real strength, in a passion of love that was to be the only true passion of a lifetime. But this merely serves to prove how feminine was her character, how much a thing of impulse and instinct, how firmly it was chained to her sex. For in her brief moment of ecstasy all her higher cultural attainments seemed to vanish as a dream; all the dams of courtly training, of morals and of royal dignity were broken down, and when she saw herself confronted by a choice between passion and honour, her queenship was set aside to give place to the woman who chanced to sit upon a throne. The regal mantle slipped easily from her shoulders and she stood naked and unashamed as do so many other women who yield to the ardours of love, who allow themselves to be swept off their feet and swallowed up in their desire. This is it, perhaps, which lends so much splendour to her story—for the sake of one rich moment of passionate accomplishment she was capable of risking kingdom, power and sovereign dignity.
Elizabeth, however, was quite incapable of yielding to such a complete abandonment of herself. The reason for this was a physiological one—she was “not like other women”. Nature had not only debarred her from motherhood, but had further deprived her of the possibilities for enjoying the emotions and resulting acts of a woman in love. This secret organic inferiority lay at the root of all the strange evolutions and spasmodicities of her temperament. Not voluntarily, as she pretended, but perforce, did she remain a “virgin queen”. Even though some of the statements, such as Ben Jonson’s, that have come down to us regarding her physical malformation are open to question, there can be no doubt that passionate fruition was for her rendered impossible by bodily or mental hindrances. Obviously such circumstances must profoundly affect a woman’s character. The scintillations, the vacillations, the moodiness of her nerves; her weathercock behaviour, which frequently assumed the aspect of hysteria; her lack of balance and the incalculability of her resolves; her unceasing swing from hot to cold, from Yes to No; the comedies she played, her finesse and her reserve, and (not least) that coquetry which wrought such tricks with her statesmanlike dignity—one and all, these things are hardly explicable except as the outcome of bodily defect. Wounded as she was by it to the core of her being as woman, she could neither feel, nor think, nor act unambiguously and naturally; no one could count upon her, and even less could she count upon herself. Nothing could be more wrong-headed, superficial and commonplace than the customary view (to which Schiller gives the weight of his authority) that Elizabeth played a cat-and-mouse game with the gentle and defenceless Mary. Though mutilated in spirit because abnormal in body, though her nerves were always on edge, though an unscrupulous intriguer, Elizabeth was neither cruel, inhuman, cold, nor hard. One with insight can discern in this woman, freezing on her solitary throne, hidden sources of warmth. Though her relations with her half-lovers were a torment to her, because to none of them could she give herself wholly, we can see behind her whimsies and outbursts of temper an earnest wish to be magnanimous and kind. She detested bloodshed. The signing of a death warrant was a misery to her. She took no pleasure in the murderous chances of war. One of her amiable vanities was a desire to be regarded by the world as the noblest, the most glorious, the humanest of monarchs, and to astonish her adversaries by unexpected clemency. Violence was foreign to her timid disposition. She loved the petty, pin-prick arts of diplomacy, and to act irresponsibly behind the scenes. When she had to declare war, she hesitated and shuddered. Any strenuous resolve cost her sleepless nights, and she devoted her best energies to maintaining peace for her country. If she showed enmity to Mary Stuart, it was only because she felt the latter’s existence to be a menace to her own life and authority; yet she avoided open conflict, being by nature a trickster rather than a fighter. Both the cousins, Mary Stuart from indifference, Elizabeth Tudor from timidity, would have preferred the maintenance of a spurious peace. But the stars in their courses were set against the untroubled existence of this pair side by side in the same firmament. The stronger will of history is regardless of the innermost longings of individuals, often involving persons and powers, despite themselves, in her murderous game.
For behind these personal differences of character and disposition there loured, like huge and menacing spectres casting their shadows over the destiny of the British queens, the gigantic opposing forces of the epoch. Mary Stuart was the champion of the old Catholic faith; Elizabeth Tudor constituted herself the defender of the Reformation. The two queens symbolised two antagonistic eras, two antagonistic outlooks upon the universe; Mary incorporating that which was dying out, the Middle Ages, the days of chivalry; Elizabeth being the embodiment of the new, the coming time. Thus the birth pangs of a fresh turn in history came to be suffered in the struggle that ensued between these cousins.
What imparted so much picturesqueness and romance to Mary Stuart was that she stood or fell with the past, that she was a last and dauntless paladin of a cause that lay already in the death agony. She was merely obeying the directive will of history when she rallied to the side of those who still had their gaze fixed upon the past, when she made political pacts with those powers which had already declined from the zenith of their influence, when she allied herself with Spain and the papacy. Elizabeth looked ahead; she was far-sighted, sending her envoys into distant lands, into Russia and Persia for example, encouraging her subjects to explore oceans and continents, just as if she foresaw that on a day to come the foundations of the new world that was in the making must be laid in other continents than Europe. Mary was perfectly happy to remain fixed in what had come to her by inheritance, and she could not disentangle her mind from the dynastic conception of sovereignty. God had given power and dominion to potentates that they might reign supreme at the apex of an earthly hierarchy. What could terrestrial justice do against so divine an ordinance? There was no room for criticism, for resistance; a king’s subjects and his territories were his private possessions. It is an actual fact that Mary Stuart twice tried to transfer her royal inheritance, once to France and the second time to Spain. She considered that the territory of Scotland and the Isles belonged to her as ruler, but she failed to recognise that such a relationship is mutual—that a sovereign belongs to the country over which he or she rules. During all the years of her reign, Mary was nothing but Queen of Scotland, she never acted as Queen for Scotland’s benefit. From the hundreds of letters which issued from her pen we learn only that she desired to consolidate and extend her personal rights, never that she had the folk-wishes at heart, or envisaged some betterment in commerce, in navigation, or even in the armed forces of the crown. Just as, when she wrote poetry or entered into an interesting conversation, she invariably laps
ed into a foreign idiom, the courtly French she had been taught in childhood and youth, so did her thoughts and feelings never clothe themselves in the Scottish, the national phraseology. She did not live and, ultimately, die for Scotland; all her thoughts were concentrated on remaining Queen of Scotland. Mary Stuart never gave anything creative to the land of her birth except the saga of her life.
So strong a sentiment of being above everyone and everything necessarily created a solitude around Mary. Though she far exceeded Elizabeth in courage and determination, her cousin gained daily in strength during the struggle because of wider vision and more disciplined shrewdness. The English Queen surrounded herself with quiet and clear-thinking personalities, a kind of general staff of able advisers from whom she learnt the arts of strategy and tactics, thus protecting herself from herself, where great decisions were concerned, against her own fitfulness and caprice. So splendid an organisation did she create around her that even to this day it is well-nigh impossible to disentangle her personal achievements from those of the collectivity of statesmen who served during the Elizabethan epoch; moreover the immeasurable renown which haloes her name includes the lives of her helpers. Mary Stuart was Mary Stuart, and nothing more; whereas Elizabeth was Elizabeth plus Cecil, plus Leicester, plus Walsingham, plus the superlative energies of all her subjects. It is hard to distinguish how far she was personally responsible for the rise of the English nation, and how far the nation itself worked its way to so vast a predominance, bearing the Virgin Queen aloft on its sturdy shoulders. England and Elizabeth formed one united whole. Elizabeth set an example to the monarchs of her day and of subsequent epochs, in that she never arrogated to herself the position of ruler of England, but assumed the more modest role of administrator, of carrier-out of the folk-will, of servitor to the national mission; she understood the trends of the epoch that was emerging from an autocratic regime into a constitutional regime. Honestly and voluntarily, she recognised the new forces that were at work transforming the estates of the realm, and widening the world frontiers by far-flung geographical discoveries; she knew how to encourage the guilds, the merchants, the financiers and even the privateers and filibusters of her day, to superhuman efforts on behalf of England, so that England might become Queen of the Seas. Repeatedly did she renounce her personal wishes (a thing Mary Stuart could never bring herself to do) in order to serve the general desires of the nation she was called to govern.
To save herself from spiritual shipwreck, Elizabeth had to find an outlet in creative endeavour. Because as a woman she was frustrated, she sublimated her feminine inferiority into the happiness and welfare of her people. Her egoism, her passionate desire for power, her realisation that never could she become a mother or the dearly beloved of a man, were transfigured into a national ambition, a longing to see her country great. Her lack of personal triumph could be compensated for by England’s victory. The sublimest of her vanities was to be made great in the eyes of posterity through England’s greatness, in which she would posthumously live. Whereas Mary would have gladly exchanged her throne for a better one, Elizabeth had no longing for any other crown than that of England. Mary Stuart wanted to be resplendent here and now; Elizabeth Tudor, the thrifty, the far-sighted, devoted her best powers to the future of her nation.
It was natural, therefore, that the favour of war should fall to the woman who was in advance of her time, who possessed a talent for looking ahead, while Mary Stuart, the Queen who still believed in the moribund days of chivalry and romance, was left in the lurch. In the person of Elizabeth the will of history found expression, for the will of history is always straining forward, leaving the empty shells of outlived forms behind, and seeking renewed strength in other creative activities. The whole energy of a nation was incorporated in Elizabeth’s person, for the nation behind the Queen wished to become conqueror of the globe. With Mary Stuart the past died a chivalrous, a magnificent, a heroic death. Thus both women remained victors in the field of their choice—Elizabeth, the realist, conquered in the realm of history; whereas Mary, the romanticist, has conquered in the realm of poetry and legend.
The choice of figurantes was indeed majestic both in space and time; unfortunately the manner in which the tragedy was fought to a finish was petty and mean. In spite of their superlative traits these two women remained women throughout, and were unable to overcome the weaknesses inherent in their sex. Thus, instead of dealing honestly with one another, they entered into paltry intrigues, and by their lack of frankness fostered enmities. If, instead of Mary and Elizabeth, two kings had been faced by the same circumstances, they would have come to a firmer decision, declared war, countered one dark threat by another, set courage against courage. The struggle between Mary and Elizabeth, however, never came to a stout and clear issue; it was “catty”, each lying in wait for the other with claws covered but ready for use; it was a thoroughly unloyal and dishonest game.
For a quarter of a century these two women consistently lied to one another and betrayed one another, without for a moment either of them being effectively humbugged. They had no illusions about one another. Their correspondence, in which each of the “dear sisters” bespatters the other with asseverations of inviolable affection, makes one’s gorge rise by its hypocrisy. While the two sovereigns are smiling graciously at one another and exchanging congratulations, each is secretly sharpening a knife to slit the other’s weasand. They never look one another candidly in the eyes, never engage in bold and open struggle. The story of the duel between Elizabeth Tudor and Mary Stuart contains no word about Homeric combats or glorious situations. We seem to be reading a chapter from Machiavelli, an account of clever and even dazzling manoeuvres and counter-manoeuvres, psychologically most exciting, but morally repulsive because it was always malice confronting malice and never courage confronting courage.
This mutual hanky-panky began with the negotiations for Mary’s second marriage. Royal suitors appeared upon the scene, and one was as good as another to Mary, for the woman in her was not yet awakened and she was not fastidious. Don Carlos, a lad of fifteen, would do well enough, although rumour described him as an ill-natured madcap. Nothing amiss with Charles IX of France, another minor. Young or old, attractive or repulsive, their personalities were of no moment to her provided the marriage would obviously give her a higher standing than her Tudor cousin. Being thus dispassionate, Mary was content to leave the bargainings to James Stuart, who proved a selfishly zealous go-between, for if his half-sister could be married, and then dispatched to wear a crown in Paris, Vienna or Madrid, he would be quit of her, and once more become uncrowned King of Scotland.
Elizabeth, however, being well served by her spies across the border, was promptly informed about these various suitors, and hastened to interpose a veto. She wrote in plain terms to her ambassador in Edinburgh to the effect that, should Mary accept a husband of royal blood from Austria, France or Spain, she (Elizabeth) would regard this as an unfriendly act. Yet the same courier carried the most affectionate letters to “my dear cousin”, who is to trust Elizabeth alone, “no matter what mountains of happiness and earthly splendour others may promise you.” Of course Elizabeth had not the slightest objection to a Protestant prince, to the King of Denmark or the Duke of Ferrara. In plain English, she had no objection to a suitor who would be valueless, and therefore not dangerous. The best thing would be, however, for Mary to look “at home” for a husband, to wed some member of the Scottish or English aristocracy; in that case she could rely on Elizabeth’s friendship, be certain of her help.
Elizabeth was obviously playing foul. What the unwillingly “virgin queen” wanted was to spoil her rival’s chances of a good match. Mary returned the ball no less adroitly. Of course she did not admit for an instant Elizabeth’s overlordship, Elizabeth’s right of veto in this matter of marriage. But before saying as much in plain terms, she wanted to make sure of a bridegroom of her own choice, and Don Carlos, the leading candidate, still hung in the wind. To gain time, Mary
therefore feigned heartfelt thanks for Elizabeth’s kindly interest. “Not for all the uncles in the world” would she risk losing the English Queen’s valuable friendship by precipitate and headstrong action. She was honestly desirous of following her dear cousin’s advice. Elizabeth need only tell her explicitly which suitors were to be regarded as “allowed”. This pliability was most touching, but in the midst of declarations of confidence Mary interspersed a timid enquiry as to how Elizabeth proposed to compensate her for being so docile. Well and good, she writes (substantially), I shall be guided by your wishes, and shall be careful not to marry any man of so high a rank that my position, well-beloved sister, will overshadow yours. But, in return, please be good enough to let me know how things stand with regard to my right of succession to the English crown!
Therewith the conflict had got back to the old dead point. As soon as Elizabeth was asked to say a plain word about the succession, no god was mighty enough to wring a plain word from her. She resorted to circumlocutions. “Being wholly devoted to the interests” of her dear sister, she would work on behalf of Mary as on behalf of her own daughter. The mellifluous words streamed on for page after page; but the one, the clear, the decisive utterance that was wanted was not forthcoming. Like two Levantine merchants, each waited for the other to make a move; neither wanted to be the first to open the hand. “Marry the suitor I propose to you,” said Elizabeth in effect, “and I shall appoint you my successor.” “Appoint me your successor, and I will marry whomsoever you please,” rejoined Mary. But because each of them wished to overreach the other, neither would trust the other.