Erik now felt sure of winning the
queenly maiden's hand, and sent a second embassy to England, his brother
John going with it.

Prince John was sumptuously equipped for the journey, the expenses of the
courtship eating deeply into the king's revenues, and being added to by
Erik's lavishness, for he was now so sure of the success of his suit that
he ordered a hundred dresses of the most expensive and splendid kind to
be made for him at Antwerp.

When John reached London he was courteously received by the queen, but he
found it impossible to bring her to a definite answer. If she ever
married, of course she would be happy to win so charming a spouse as
Prince Erik, but it was hard to marry a man she had never seen, and the
idea of marriage was not to her taste. In the end Elizabeth wrote to
Gustavus begging him to seek another bride for his son, as she had
decided to live unmarried.

This should have ended the matter, but it did not. One of the lover's
agents had said that the queen of England would never consent unless Erik
in person were able to win her heart, and Prince John reported her as
saying that, "though she had no desire for marriage, she could not answer
what she might do if she saw Erik himself."

Fired by the baits held out to his eager heart, Erik determined to go
himself to England, but incognito, disguised as the servant of some
foreign lord. Thus he would see and conquer the coy maiden queen. The
warnings and expostulations of his friends failed to move him from this
romantic project, but at length it reached the king's ears, and he
strictly forbade the wild-goose project as hazardous and undignified.
Erik, however, finally got his father's permission to visit England and
make his suit to the queen in his own person. But there were many
postponements of the journey, and when finally he left Stockholm to begin
the voyage to England the shock of his departure threw the old king into
a serious illness. That afternoon Gustavus went to bed, never to rise
again, and before Erik had left the kingdom word was brought him that his
father was dead. This definitely changed the situation and thus it came
about that Erik never saw Elizabeth.

The fact of his being king, indeed, did not put an end to his desire to
possess the English queen. In 1561 he determined to visit her as a king,
and on the 1st of September set sail. But the elements were not
propitious to this love errand, a violent storm arising which fo