The Political Allegory in " The Faerie Queene " 29 



who confines her in a dark dungeon to force her love. All 

 through, it is Florimel's chastity which is celebrated, a character- 

 istic which Mary's most enthusiastic admirers can hardly claim 

 for her. 



If we regard Florimel as the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth, all seri- 

 ous difficulties disappear. The witch is Catherine de'Medici, 

 and her character fits the c*ommon English opinion of the French 

 Queen Mother's. The son " a lazy loord, for nothing good to 

 donne " (good-for-nothing) courted her 



" With soft sighs and lovely semblances. 

 He weened that his affectiojas entire 

 She should aread; many resemblances 

 To her he made, and many kind remembrances." 



This is a fairly accurate picture of Alencon's desperate courtship 

 which lasted about ten years.*'' When Elizabeth extricated her- 

 self from the French match, she not only incurred the enmity of 

 Catherine and the French, but calumny, the monster, was busy 

 whispering that her treatment of Alencon had not all of it been 

 inspired by maiden prudence. If we read the letters that passed 

 between them, we suspect that this whisper was not all without 

 foundation. 



The adventure with the fisherman seems the allegory of an 

 earlier love afi^air with Lord Thomas Seymour, the brother of the 

 Protector Somerset, and the man who married Catherine Parr, 

 the last wife of Henry VIII. He was Lord High Admiral of 

 England, and, among other misdeeds, for his violent courtship of 

 young Princess Elizabeth, he was executed. This affair detracts 

 greatly from the credit of Lord Thomas, for Elizabeth at that 

 time was a young girl only fourteen years of age. The treatment 

 which Florimel was subjected to by the old fisherman suggests 

 very vividly that of Elizabeth by Seymour, as it is recounted by 

 Hume in his Courtships of Queen Elisabeth. '^'^ 



But Elizabeth was too important a person to be permitted to be 

 made a toy of, even a political toy, and King Philip, husband of 



*" See Hume, Courtships of Queen Elizabeth. 

 *^ Ibid., chapter i. 



187 



