DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

Ce ee? Princes from every reigning house were rejected in turn, though some of them were allowed to con- sider themselves betrothed to her. The Duke of Alencon, a brother of the King of France, was even officially engaged to her, and, although she jilted him eventually, she went so far as to kiss him in public in the most affectionate manner, in the middle of a religious service that was held in St. Paul’s Cathedral. When the Emperor of Russia sent an embassy with a proposal of marriage, instead of bestowing on him her own hand, she offered him that of one of the ladies of the Court, and presented him with a carriage. What became of the lady I am unable to tell you; but the carriage, a gilt and ponderous coach, is still preserved in the Museum of Moscow, where I had the pleasure of seeing it myself. That these rejected suitors found means of solace can well be surmised; one of them, King Eric of Sweden, became deeply enamoured of a beauty of humble degree, called Kate, who sold nuts in the streets of Stockholm. He married her; she was acknowledged as his queen, and in that new and high position she proved herself to be a model of conjugal tenderness, with a heart full of sympathy for the poor and unfortunate. The members of Queen Elizabeth’s court were expected by her to share her aversion to matri-