The Frog Prince

 

Francis, Duke of Alençon, the French Prince, who came to England to woo Queen Elizabeth. 

She was fond of him and called him her 'Frog', but she eventually didn't marry him.

When he left finally left her court, Elizabeth wrote a poem entitled 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 do 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 suppressed.

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 e'er meant.

 

When Francis died in 1584, Elizabeth wrote to his mother Catherine de Medici saying:

‘Your sorrow cannot exceed mine, although you are his mother. You have several other children, but for myself I find no consolation, if it be not death, in which I hope we shall be reunited'.