The pursuit of Elizabeth Tudor was the greatest hunt in history. For more than half a century, kings, princes, nobles,

The pursuit of Elizabeth Tudor was the greatest hunt in history. For more than half a century, kings, princes, nobles, and knights, Frenchmen, Austrians, Spaniards, Swedes, and “mere English” joined the chase, lured by the magnificent quarry who pranced before them, leaping away, doubling back, sometimes halting and seeming to yield, but always at last disappearing over the horizon. Instinct and experience taught Elizabeth not to surrender, but political expediency, emotional cravings, and the exhilaration of the sport combined in her head and heart to keep the great hunt going. From her babyhood into her old age, in spite of her avowals of perpetual virginity, in spite of rich rumors to the contrary, the most splendid men in Europe succeeded one another in the field as suitors to the queen. Noli me tangere—do not touch me; it would have been a fitting motto for Elizabeth, but she was not born when Sir Thomas Wyatt wrote the sonnet, bitter with love for her mother, Anne Boleyn. Giddy, seductive Anne had no need of lesser lovers such as Wyatt while Henry VIII, England’s mighty Caesar, courted her with exuberant tenderness, drawing hearts and initials on his love letters like a schoolboy, disrupting the religious and social orders to make her his wife.

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