On this day in Tudor history, 10th June 1584, Francis, Duke of Anjou and Alençon, died in Paris, probably of of malaria.
Anjou was, for a time, one of Elizabeth I's suitors, and Elizabeth appears to have had true affection for him. She nicknamed him her "frog" and considered marrying him.
Find out more about what happened between Elizabeth and her dear "frog" in this video:
Here is the poem Elizabeth I wrote when he left England:
“On Monsieur’s Departure”
I grieve and dare not show my discontent,
I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,
I seem stark mute but inwardly to prate.
I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned.
Since from myself another self I turned.
My care is like my shadow in the sun,
Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,
Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.
His too familiar care doth make me rue it.
No means I find to rid him from my breast,
Till by the end of things it be supprest.
Some gentler passion slide into my mind,
For I am soft and made of melting snow;
Or be more cruel, love, and so be kind.
Let me or float or sink, be high or low.
Or let me live with some more sweet content,
Or die and so forget what love ere meant.
Book recommendation: Anna Whitelock’s “Elizabeth’s Bedfellows: An Intimate History of the Queen’s Court”.
Also on this day in Tudor history, 10th June 1540, in the reign of King Henry VIII, Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex and the king's trusted advisor, was arrested.
And on this day in 1537, in the reign of King Henry VIII, two Carthusian monks died after being starved to death in prison.
What had these monks done to deserve this awful fate?
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