[Transcriber's note: A small number of typographical errors found in theoriginal, printed book have been corrected; neither the language nor thespelling has been modernized. There are two chapters numbered thirteen;they have been labeled XIIIa and XIIIb. ]

[Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH In the dress in which she went to StPauls, to return thanks for the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Engravedby Bond, from the extremely rare print by Crispin de Passe, after adrawing by Isaac Oliver. ]

MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF QUEEN ELIZABETH

BY LUCY AIKIN

IN TWO VOLUMES. (combined)

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1818. 

PRINTED BY RICHARD AND ARTHUR TAYLOR, SHOE-LANE. 

PREFACE. 

In the literature of our country, however copious, the eye of thecurious student may still detect important deficiencies. 

We possess, for example, many and excellent histories, embracing everyperiod of our domestic annals;--biographies, general and particular, which appear to have placed on record the name of every privateindividual justly entitled to such commemoration;--and numerous andextensive collections of original letters, state-papers and otherhistorical and antiquarian documents;--whilst our comparative penury isremarkable in royal lives, in court histories, and especially in thatclass which forms the glory of French literature, --memoir. 

To supply in some degree this want, as it affects the person and reignof one of the most illustrious of female and of European sovereigns, isthe intention of the work now offered with much diffidence to thepublic. 

Its plan comprehends a detailed view of the private life of Elizabethfrom the period of her birth; a view of the domestic history of herreign; memoirs of the principal families of the nobility andbiographical anecdotes of the celebrated characters who composed hercourt; besides notices of the manners, opinions and literature of thereign. 

Such persons as may have made it their business or their entertainmentto study very much in detail the history of the age of Elizabeth, willdoubtless be aware that in the voluminous collections of Strype, in theedited Burleigh, Sidney, and Talbot papers, in the Memoirs of Birch, invarious collections of letters, in the chronicles of the times, --sovaluable for those vivid pictures of manners which the pen of acontemporary unconsciously traces, --in the Annals of Camden, theProgresses of Nichols, and other large and laborious works which itwould be tedious here to enumerate, a vast repertory existed of curiousand interesting facts seldom recurred to for the composition of books oflighter literature, and possessing with respect to a great majority ofreaders the grace of novelty. Of these and similar works of reference, as well as of a variety of others, treating directly or indirectly onthe biography, the literature, and the manners of the period, a largecollection has been placed under the eyes of the author, partly by theliberality of her publishers, partly by the kindness of friends. 

In availing herself of their contents, she has had to encounter in fullforce the difficulties attendant on such a task; those of weighing andcomparing authorities, of reconciling discordant statements, of bringinginsulated facts to bear upon each other, and of forming out of materialsirregular in their nature and abundant almost to excess, a compact andwell-proportioned structure. 

How far her abilities and her diligence may have proved themselvesadequate to the undertaking, it remains with a candid public to decide. Respecting the selection of topics it seems necessary however to remark, that it has been the constant endeavour of the writer to preserve to herwork the genuine character of Memoirs, by avoiding as much as possibleall encroachments on the peculiar province of history;--that amusement, of a not illiberal kind, has been consulted at least equally withinstruction:--and that on subjects of graver moment, a correct sketchhas alone been attempted. 

By a still more extensive course of reading and research, an additionalstore of anecdotes and observations might unquestionably have beenamassed; but it is hoped that of those assembled in the following pages, few will be found to rest on dubious or inadequate authority; and that acopious choice of materials, relatively to the intended compass of thework, will appear to have superseded the temptation to uselessdigression, or to prolix and trivial detail. 

The orthography of all extracts from the elder writers has beenmodernized, and their punctuation rendered more distinct; in otherrespects reliance may be placed on their entire fidelity. 

MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. 

VOL. I. 

CHAPTER I. 

1533 TO 1536. 

Birth of Elizabeth. --Circumstances attending the marriage of herparents. --Public entry of Anne Boleyn into London. --Pageantsexhibited. --Baptism of Elizabeth. --Eminent persons present. --Proposal ofmarriage between Elizabeth and a French prince. --Progress of thereformation. --Henry persecutes both parties. --Death of Catherine ofArragon. --Disgrace of Anne Boleyn. --Her death. --Confesses an obstacle toher marriage. --Particulars on this subject. --Elizabeth declaredillegitimate. --Letter of lady Bryan respecting her. --The king marriesJane Seymour. 

On the 7th of September 1533, at the royal palace of Greenwich in Kent, was born, under circumstances as peculiar as her after-life provedeventful and illustrious, ELIZABETH daughter of king Henry VIII. And hisqueen Anne Boleyn. 

Delays and difficulties equally grievous to the impetuous temper of theman and the despotic habits of the prince, had for years obstructedHenry in the execution of his favourite project of repudiating, on theplea of their too near alliance, a wife who had ceased to find favor inhis sight, and substituting on her throne the youthful beauty who hadcaptivated his imagination. At length his passion and his impatience hadarrived at a pitch capable of bearing down every obstacle. With thatcontempt of decorum which he displayed so remarkably in some former, andmany later transactions of his life, he caused his private marriage withAnne Boleyn to precede the sentence of divorce which he had resolvedthat his clergy should pronounce against Catherine of Arragon; and nosooner had this judicial ceremony taken place, than the new queen wasopenly exhibited as such in the face of the court and the nation. 

An unusual ostentation of magnificence appears to have attended thecelebration of these august nuptials. The fondness of the king for pompand pageantry was at all times excessive, and on this occasion his loveand his pride would equally conspire to prompt an extraordinary display. Anne, too, a vain, ambitious, and light-minded woman, was probablygreedy of this kind of homage from her princely lover; and the veryconsciousness of the dubious, inauspicious, or disgraceful circumstancesattending their union, might secretly augment the anxiety of the royalpair to dazzle and impose by the magnificence of their publicappearance. Only once before, since the Norman conquest, had a king ofEngland stooped from his dignity to elevate a private gentlewoman and asubject to a partnership of his bed and throne; and the bitteranimosities between the queen's relations on one side, and the princesof the blood and great nobles on the other, which had agitated the reignof Edward IV. , and contributed to bring destruction on the heads of hishelpless orphans, stood as a strong warning against a repetition of theexperiment. 

The unblemished reputation and amiable character of Henry's "some-timewife, " had long procured for her the love and respect of the people; herlate misfortunes had engaged their sympathy, and it might be feared thatseveral unfavorable points of comparison would suggest themselvesbetween the high-born and high-minded Catherine and her presentrival--once her humble attendant--whose long-known favor with the king, whose open association with him at Calais, whither she had attended him, whose private marriage of uncertain date, and already advancedpregnancy, afforded so much ground for whispered censures. 

On the other hand, the personal qualities of the king gave him greatpower over popular opinion. The manly beauty of his countenance, thestrength and agility which in the chivalrous exercises of the timerendered him victorious over all competitors; the splendor with which hesurrounded himself; his bounty; the popular frankness of his manners, all conspired to render him, at this period of his life, an object ofadmiration rather than of dread to his subjects; while the respectentertained for his talents and learning, and for the conscientiousscruples respecting his first marriage which he felt or feigned, mingledso much of deference in their feelings towards him, as to check allhasty censures of his conduct. The protestant party, now considerableby zeal and numbers, foresaw too many happy results to their cause fromthe circumstances of his present union, to scrutinize with severity themotives which had produced it. The nation at large, justly dreading adisputed succession, with all its long-experienced evils, in the eventof Henry's leaving behind him no offspring but a daughter whom he hadlately set aside on the ground of illegitimacy, rejoiced in the prospectof a male heir to the crown. The populace of London, captivated, asusual, by the splendors of a coronation, were also delighted with theyouth, beauty, and affability of the new queen. 

The solemn entry therefore of Anne into the city of London was greetedby the applause of the multitude; and it was probably the genuine voiceof public feeling, which, in saluting her queen of England, wished her, how much in vain! a long and prosperous life. 

The pageants displayed in the streets of London on this joyful occasion, are described with much minuteness by our chroniclers, and afford ampleindications that the barbarism of taste which permitted an incongruousmixture of classical mythology with scriptural allusions, was at itsheight in the learned reign of our eighth Henry. Helicon and MountParnassus appeared on one side; St. Anne, and Mary the wife of Cleophaswith her children, were represented on the other. Here the three Gracespresented the queen with a golden apple by the hands of their oratorMercury; there the four cardinal Virtues promised, in set speeches, thatthey would always be aiding and comforting to her. 

On the Sunday after her public entry, a day not at this period regardedas improper for the performance of such a ceremonial, Henry caused hisqueen to be crowned at Westminster with great solemnity; an honor whichhe never thought proper to confer on any of her successors. 

In the sex of the child born to them a few months afterwards, the hopesof the royal pair must doubtless have sustained a severe disappointment:but of this sentiment nothing was suffered to appear in the treatment ofthe infant, whom her father was anxious to mark out as his onlylegitimate offspring and undoubted heir to the crown. 

She was destined to bear the auspicious name of Elizabeth, in memory ofher grandmother, that heiress of the house of York whose marriage withthe earl of Richmond, then Henry VII. , had united the roses, and givenlasting peace to a country so long rent by civil discord. Theunfortunate Mary, now in her sixteenth year, was stripped of the titleof princess of Wales, which she had borne from her childhood, that itmight adorn a younger sister; one too whose birth her interest, herreligion, and her filial affection for an injured mother, alike taughther to regard as base and infamous. 

A public and princely christening served still further to attest theimportance attached to this new member of the royal family. 

By the king's special command, Cranmer archbishop of Canterbury stoodgodfather to the princess; and Shakespeare, by a fiction equallypoetical and courtly, has represented him as breaking forth on thismemorable occasion into an animated vaticination of the glories of the"maiden reign. " Happy was it for the peace of mind of the noblepersonages there assembled, that no prophet was empowered at the sametime to declare how few of them should live to share its splendors; howawfully large a proportion of their number should fall, or behold theirnearest connexions falling, untimely victims of the jealous tyranny ofHenry himself, or of the convulsions and persecutions of the twotroubled reigns destined to intervene before those halcyon days whichthey were taught to anticipate!

For the purpose of illustrating the truth of this remark, and at thesame time of introducing to the reader the most distinguished personagesof Henry's court, several of whom will afterwards be found exertingdifferent degrees of influence on the character or fortunes of theillustrious subject of this work, it may be worth while to enumerate inregular order the performers in this august ceremonial. Thecircumstantial Holinshed, to whom we are indebted for their names andoffices, will at the same time furnish some of those minute particularswhich serve to bring the whole pompous scene before the eye of fancy. 

Early in the afternoon, the lord-mayor and corporation of London, whohad been summoned to attend, took boat for Greenwich, where they foundmany lords, knights, and gentlemen assembled. The whole way from thepalace to the friery was strown with green rushes, and the walls werehung with tapestry, as was the Friers' church in which the ceremony wasperformed. 

A silver font with a crimson canopy was placed in the middle of thechurch; and the child being brought into the hall, the long processionset forward. It began with citizens walking two-and-two, and ended withbarons, bishops, and earls. Then came, bearing the gilt basins, Henryearl of Essex, the last of the ancient name of Bourchier who bore thetitle. He was a splendid nobleman, distinguished in the martial gamesand gorgeous pageantries which then amused the court: he also boasted ofa royal lineage, being sprung from Thomas of Woodstock, youngest son ofEdward III. ; and perhaps he was apprehensive lest this distinction mighthereafter become as fatal to himself as it had lately proved to theunfortunate duke of Buckingham. But he perished a few years after by afall from his horse; and leaving no male issue, the king, to the disgustof this great family, conferred the title on the low-bred Cromwel, thenhis favorite minister. 

The salt was borne by Henry marquis of Dorset, the unfortunate father oflady Jane Grey; who, after receiving the royal pardon for his share inthe criminal plot for setting the crown on the head of his daughter, again took up arms in the rebellion of Wyat, and was brought to expiatethis treason on the scaffold. 

William Courtney marquis of Exeter followed with the taper of virginwax; a nobleman who had the misfortune to be very nearly allied to theEnglish throne; his mother being a daughter of Edward IV. He was at thistime in high favor with the king his cousin, who, after setting asidehis daughter Mary, had even declared him heir-apparent, to theprejudice of his own sisters: but three years after he fell a victim tothe jealousy of the king, on a charge of corresponding with hisproscribed kinsman cardinal Pole: his honors and estates were forfeited;and his son, though still a child, was detained in close custody. 

The chrism was borne by lady Mary Howard, the beautiful daughter of theduke of Norfolk; who lived not only to behold, but, by the evidencewhich she gave on his trial, to assist in the most unmeritedcondemnation of her brother, the gallant and accomplished earl of Surry. The king, by a trait of royal arrogance, selected this lady, descendedfrom our Saxon monarchs and allied to all the first nobility, for thewife of his base-born son created duke of Richmond; but it does notappear that the spirit of the Howards was high enough in this reign tofeel the insult as it deserved. 

The royal infant, wrapped in a mantle of purple velvet, having a longtrain furred with ermine, was carried by one of her godmothers, thedowager-duchess of Norfolk. Anne Boleyn was this lady'sstep-grand-daughter: but in this alliance with royalty she had littlecause to exult; still less in the closer one which was afterwards formedfor her by the elevation of her own grand-daughter Catherine Howard. Ondiscovery of the ill conduct of this queen, the aged duchess wasoverwhelmed with disgrace; she was even declared guilty of misprision oftreason, and committed to custody, but was released by the king afterthe blood of Catherine and her paramours had quenched his fury. 

The dowager-marchioness of Dorset was the other godmother at thefont:--of the four sons of this lady, three perished on the scaffold;her grand-daughter lady Jane Grey shared the same fate; and thesurviving son died a prisoner during the reign of Elizabeth, for theoffence of distributing a pamphlet asserting the title of the Suffolkline to the crown. 

The marchioness of Exeter was the godmother at the confirmation, who hadnot only the affliction to see her husband brought to an untimely end, and her only son wasting his youth in captivity, but, being herselfattainted of high treason some time afterwards, underwent a long andarbitrary imprisonment. 

On either hand of the duchess of Norfolk walked the dukes of Norfolk andSuffolk, the only nobles of that rank then existing in England. 

Their names occur in conjunction on every public occasion, and in almostevery important transaction, civil and military, of the reign of HenryVIII. , but the termination of their respective careers was stronglycontrasted. The duke of Suffolk had the extraordinary good fortune neverto lose that favor with his master which he had gained as CharlesBrandon, the partner of his youthful pleasures. What was a still moreextraordinary instance of felicity, his marriage with the king's sisterbrought to him neither misfortunes nor perils, and he did not live towitness those which overtook his grand-daughters. He died in peace, lamented by a sovereign who knew his worth. 

The duke of Norfolk, on the contrary, was powerful enough by birth andconnexions to impress Henry with fears for the tranquillity of his son'sreign. The memory of former services was sacrificed to present alarm. Almost with his last breath he ordered his old and faithful servant tothe scaffold; but even Henry was no longer absolute on his death-bed. For once he was disobeyed, and Norfolk survived him; but the long yearsof his succeeding captivity were poorly compensated by a brief and tardyrestoration to liberty and honors under Mary. 

One of the child's train-bearers was the countess of Kent. This wasprobably the widow of the second earl of that title and of the name ofGrey: she must therefore have been the daughter of the earl of Pembroke, a zealous Yorkist who was slain fighting in the cause of Edward IV. Henry VIII. Was doubtless aware that his best hereditary title to thecrown was derived from his mother, and during his reign the Yorkistfamilies enjoyed at least an equal share of favor with the Lancastrians, whom his father had almost exclusively countenanced. 

Thomas Boleyn earl of Wiltshire, the proud and happy grandfather of theprincely infant, supported the train on one side. It is not true that heafterwards, in his capacity of a privy councillor, pronounced sentenceof death on his own son and daughter; even Henry was not inhuman enoughto exact this of him; but he lived to witness their cruel anddisgraceful end, and died long before the prosperous days of hisillustrious grandchild. 

On the other side the train was borne by Edward Stanley third earl ofDerby. This young nobleman had been a ward of Wolsey, and was carefullyeducated by that splendid patron of learning in his house and under hisown eye. He proved himself a faithful and loyal subject to foursuccessive sovereigns; stood unshaken by the tempests of the mostturbulent times; and died full of days in the possession of greatriches, high hereditary honors, and universal esteem, in 1574. 

A splendid canopy was supported over the infant by four lords, three ofthem destined to disastrous fates. One was her uncle, the elegant, accomplished, viscount Rochford, whom the impartial suffrage ofposterity has fully acquitted of the odious crime for which he sufferedby the mandate of a jealous tyrant. 

Another was lord Hussey; whom a rash rebellion brought to the scaffold afew years afterwards. The two others were brothers of that illustriousfamily of Howard, which furnished in this age alone more subjects fortragedy than "Thebes or Pelops' line" of old. Lord William, uncle toCatherine Howard, was arbitrarily adjudged to perpetual imprisonment andforfeiture of goods for concealing her misconduct; but Henry was pleasedsoon after to remit the sentence: he lived to be eminent in the stateunder the title of lord Howard of Effingham, and died peacefully in agood old age. Lord Thomas suffered by the ambition so frequent in hishouse, of matching with the blood royal. He formed a secret marriagewith the lady Margaret Douglas, niece to the king; on discovery ofwhich, he was committed to a close imprisonment, whence he was onlyreleased by death. 

After the ceremony of baptism had been performed by Stokesly bishop ofLondon, a solemn benediction was pronounced upon the future queen byCranmer, that learned and distinguished prelate, who may indeed bereproached with some too courtly condescensions to the will of animperious master, and what is worse, with several cruel acts ofreligious persecution; but whose virtues were many, whose generalcharacter was mild and benevolent, and whose errors and weaknesses werefinally expiated by the flames of martyrdom. 

In the return from church, the gifts of the sponsors, consisting of cupsand bowls, some gilded, and others of massy gold, were carried by fourpersons of quality: Henry Somerset second earl of Worcester, whosefather, notwithstanding his illegitimacy, had been acknowledged as akinsman by Henry VII. , and advanced to the peerage; lord Thomas Howardthe younger, a son of the duke of Norfolk who was restored in bloodafter his father's attainder, and created lord Howard of Bindon; ThomasRatcliffe lord Fitzwalter, afterwards earl of Sussex; and sir JohnDudley, son of the detested associate of Empson, and afterwards thenotorious duke of Northumberland, whose crimes received at length theirdue recompense in that ignominious death to which his guilty andextravagant projects had conducted so many comparatively innocentvictims. 

We are told, that on the same day and hour which gave birth to theprincess Elizabeth, a son was born to this "bold bad man, " who receivedthe name of Robert, and was known in after-times as earl of Leicester. It was believed by the superstition of the age, that this coincidence oftheir nativities produced a secret and invincible sympathy which securedto Dudley, during life, the affections of his sovereign lady. It maywithout superstition be admitted, that this circumstance, seizing on theromantic imagination of the princess, might produce a first impression, which Leicester's personal advantages, his insinuating manners, andconsummate art of feigning, all contributed to render deep andpermanent. 

The personal history of Elizabeth may truly be said to begin with herbirth; for she had scarcely entered her second year when hermarriage--that never-accomplished project, which for half a centuryafterwards inspired so many vain hopes and was the subject of so manyfruitless negotiations, was already proposed as an article of a treatybetween France and England. 

Henry had caused an act of succession to be passed, by which his divorcewas confirmed, the authority of the pope disclaimed, and the crownsettled on his issue by Anne Boleyn. But, as if half-repenting theboldness of his measures, he opened a negotiation almost immediatelywith Francis I. , for the purpose of obtaining a declaration by that kingand his nobility in favor of his present marriage, and the intercessionof Francis for the revocation of the papal censures fulminated againsthim. And in consideration of these acts of friendship, he offered toengage the hand of Elizabeth to the duke d'Angoulême, third son of theFrench king. But Francis was unable to prevail upon the new pope toannul the acts of his predecessor; and probably not wishing to connecthimself more closely with a prince already regarded as a heretic, hesuffered the proposal of marriage to fall to the ground. 

The doctrines of Zwingle and of Luther had at this time madeconsiderable progress among Henry's subjects, and the great work ofreformation was begun in England. Several smaller monasteries had beensuppressed; the pope's supremacy was preached against by publicauthority; and the parliament, desirous of widening the breach betweenthe king and the pontiff, declared the former, head of the Englishchurch. After some hesitation, Henry accepted the office, and wrote abook in defence of his conduct. The queen was attached, possibly byprinciple, and certainly by interest, to the antipapal party, whichalone admitted the validity of the royal divorce, and consequently ofher marriage; and she had already engaged her chaplain Dr. Parker, alearned and zealous reformist, to keep a watchful eye over the childhoodof her daughter, and early to imbue her mind with the true principles ofreligious knowledge. 

But Henry, whose passions and interests alone, not his theologicalconvictions, had set him in opposition to the old church establishment, to the ceremonies and doctrines of which he was even zealously attached, began to be apprehensive that the whole fabric would be swept away bythe strong tide of popular opinion which was now turned against it, andhe hastened to interpose in its defence. He brought to the stake severalpersons who denied the real presence, as a terror to the reformers;whilst at the same time he showed his resolution to quell the adherentsof popery, by causing bishop Fisher and sir Thomas More to be attaintedof treason, for refusing such part of the oath of succession as impliedthe invalidity of the king's first marriage, and thus, in effect, disallowed the authority of the papal dispensation in virtue of which ithad been celebrated. 

Thus were opened those dismal scenes of religious persecution andpolitical cruelty from which the mind of Elizabeth was to receive itsearly and indelible impressions. 

The year 1536, which proved even more fertile than its predecessor inmelancholy incidents and tragical catastrophes, opened with the death ofCatherine of Arragon; an event equally welcome, in all probability, bothto the sufferer herself, whom tedious years of trouble and mortificationmust have rendered weary of a world which had no longer a hope toflatter her; and to the ungenerous woman who still beheld her, discardedas she was, with the sentiments of an enemy and a rival. It isimpossible to contemplate the life and character of this royal lady, without feelings of the deepest commiseration. As a wife, the bitterhumiliations which she was doomed to undergo were entirely unmerited;for not only was her modesty unquestioned, but her whole conduct towardsthe king was a perfect model of conjugal love and duty. As a queen and amother, her firmness, her dignity, and her tenderness, deserved a farother recompense than to see herself degraded, on the infamous plea ofincest, from the rank of royalty, and her daughter, so long heiress tothe English throne, branded with illegitimacy, and cast out alike fromthe inheritance and the affections of her father. But the memory of thisunhappy princess has been embalmed by the genius of Shakespeare, in thenoble drama of which he has made her the touching and majestic heroine;and let not the praise of magnanimity be denied to the daughter of AnneBoleyn, in permitting those wrongs and those sufferings which were theprice of her glory, nay of her very existence, to be thus impressivelyoffered to the compassion of her people. 

Henry was moved to tears on reading the tender and pious letteraddressed to him by the dying hand of Catherine; and he marked byseveral small but expressive acts, the respect, or rather thecompunction, with which the recollection of her could not fail toinspire him. Anne Boleyn paid to the memory of the princess-dowager ofWales--such was the title now given to Catherine--the unmeaningcompliment of putting on yellow mourning; the color assigned to queensby the fashion of France: but neither humanity nor discretion restrainedher from open demonstrations of the satisfaction afforded her by themelancholy event. 

Short was her unfeeling triumph. She brought into the world a few daysafterwards, a dead son; and this second disappointment of his hopescompleted that disgust to his queen which satiety, and perhaps also agrowing passion for another object, was already beginning to produce inthe mind of the king. 

It is traditionally related, that at Jane Seymour's first coming tocourt, the queen, espying a jewel hung round her neck, wished to look atit; and struck with the young lady's reluctance to submit it to herinspection, snatched it from her with violence, when she found it tocontain the king's picture, presented by himself to the wearer. Fromthis day she dated her own decline in the affections of her husband, andthe ascendancy of her rival. However this might be, it is certain thatthe king about this time began to regard the conduct of his onceidolized Anne Boleyn with an altered eye. That easy gaiety of mannerwhich he had once remarked with delight, as an indication of theinnocence of her heart and the artlessness of her disposition, was nowbeheld by him as a culpable levity which offended his pride and alarmedhis jealousy. His impetuous temper, with which "once to suspect was onceto be resolved, " disdained to investigate proofs or to fathom motives; apretext alone was wanting to his rising fury, and this he was not longin finding. 

On May-day, then observed at court as a high festival, solemn justs wereheld at Greenwich, before the king and queen, in which viscountRochford, the queen's brother, was chief challenger, and Henry Norrisprincipal defender. In the midst of the entertainment, the king suddenlyrose and quitted the place in anger; but on what particular provocationis not certainly known. Saunders the Jesuit, the great calumniator ofAnne Boleyn, says that it was on seeing his consort drop herhandkerchief, which Norris picked up and wiped his face with. The queenimmediately retired, and the next day was committed to custody. Herearnest entreaties to be permitted to see the king were disregarded, andshe was sent to the Tower on a charge of treason and adultery. 

Lord Rochford, Norris, one Smeton a musician, and Brereton and anothergentleman of the bed-chamber, were likewise apprehended, and brought totrial on the accusation of criminal intercourse with the queen. Theywere all convicted; but from the few particulars which have come down tous, it seems to be justly inferred, that the evidence produced againstsome at least of these unhappy gentlemen, was slight and inconclusive. Lord Rochford is universally believed to have fallen a victim to theatrocious perjuries of his wife, who was very improperly admitted as awitness against him, and whose infamous conduct was afterwards fullybrought to light. No absolute criminality appears to have been provedagainst Weston and Brereton; but Smeton confessed the fact. Norris diedmuch more generously: he protested that he would rather perish athousand times than accuse an innocent person; that he believed thequeen to be perfectly guiltless; he, at least, could accuse her ofnothing; and in this declaration he persisted to the last. Hisexpressions, if truly reported, seem to imply that he might have savedhimself by criminating the queen: but besides the extreme improbabilitythat the king would have shown or promised any mercy to such adelinquent, we know in fact that the confession of Smeton did not obtainfor him even a reprieve: it is therefore absurd to represent Norris ashaving died in vindication of the honor of the queen; and the favorafterwards shown to his son by Elizabeth, had probably little connexionwith any tenderness for the memory of her mother, a sentiment which shecertainly exhibited in no other circumstance. 

The trial and condemnation of the queen followed. The process wasconducted with that open disregard of the first principles of justiceand equity then universal in all cases of high treason: no counsel wereassigned her, no witnesses confronted with her, and it does not appearthat she was even informed of Smeton's confession: but whether, afterall, she died innocent, is a problem which there now exist no means ofsolving, and which it is somewhat foreign from the purpose of this workto discuss. 

One part of this subject, however, on account of the intimate relationwhich it bears to the history of Elizabeth, and the influence which itmay be presumed to have exercised in the formation of her character, must be treated somewhat at large. 

The common law of England, by an anomaly truly barbarous, denounced, against females only, who should be found guilty of high treason, thepunishment of burning. By menaces of putting into execution thishorrible sentence, instead of commuting it for decapitation, Anne Boleynwas induced to acknowledge some legal impediment to her marriage withthe king; and on this confession alone, Cranmer, with his usualsubserviency, gratified his royal master by pronouncing that union nulland void, and its offspring illegitimate. 

What this impediment, real or pretended, might be, we only learn from apublic declaration made immediately afterwards by the earl ofNorthumberland, stating, that whereas it had been pretended, that aprecontract had subsisted between himself and the late queen, he hasdeclared upon oath before the lords of the council, and taken thesacrament upon it, that no such contract had ever passed between them. In explanation of this protest, the noble historian of Henry VIII. [1]furnishes us with the following particulars. That the earl ofNorthumberland, when lord Percy, had made proposals of marriage to AnneBoleyn, which she had accepted, being yet a stranger to the passion ofthe king; that Henry, unable to bear the idea of losing her, but averseas yet to a declaration of his sentiments, employed Wolsey to dissuadethe father of lord Percy from giving his consent to their union, inwhich he succeeded; the earl of Northumberland probably becoming awarehow deeply the personal feelings of the king were concerned: that lordPercy, however, refused to give up the lady, alleging in the firstinstance that he had gone too far to recede with honor; but wasafterwards compelled by his father to form another matrimonialconnexion. It should appear by this statement, that some engagement hadin fact subsisted between Northumberland and Anne; but there is nonecessity for supposing it to have been a contract of that solemn naturewhich, according to the law as it then stood, would have rendered nullthe subsequent marriage of either party. The protestation of the earlwas confirmed by the most solemn sanctions; which there is no ground forsupposing him capable of violating, especially as on this occasion, sofar from gaining any advantage by it, he was likely to give high offenceto the king. If then, as appears most probable, the confession by whichAnne Boleyn disinherited and illegitimatised her daughter was false; aperjury so wicked and cowardly must brand her memory with everlastinginfamy:--even should the contrary have been the fact, the transactiondoes her little honor; in either case it affords ample justification tothat daughter in leaving, as she did, her remains without a monument andher conduct without an apology. 

[Note 1: Lord Herbert of Chirbury. ]

The precarious and equivocal condition to which the little Elizabeth wasreduced by the divorce and death of her mother, will be best illustratedby the following extracts of a letter addressed soon after the event, bylady Bryan her governess, to lord Cromwel. It may at the same time amusethe modern reader to remark the minute details on which, in that day, the first minister of state was expected to bestow his personalattention. 

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". . . My lord, when your lordship was last here, it pleased you to say, that I should not mistrust the king's grace, nor your lordship. Whichword was more comfort to me than I can write, as God knoweth. And now itboldeneth me to show you my poor mind. My lord, when my lady Mary'sgrace was born, it pleased the king's grace to [appoint] me ladymistress, and made me a baroness. And so I have been to the children hisgrace have had since. 

"Now, so it is, my lady Elizabeth is put from that degree she was afore;and what degree she is at now, I know not but by hearsay. Therefore Iknow not how to order her, nor myself, nor none of hers that I have therule of; that is, her women and her grooms. Beseeching you to be goodlord to my lady and to all hers; and that she may have some rayment. Forshe hath neither gown, nor kirtle, nor petticoat, nor no manner oflinen, nor foresmocks, nor kerchiefs, nor sleeves, nor rails, norbody-stitchets, nor mufflers, nor biggins. All these, her grace's_mostake_[2], I have driven off as long as I can, that, by my troth, Icannot drive it no lenger. Beseeching you, my lord, that you will seethat her grace may have that is needful for her, as my trust is ye willdo--that I may know from you by writing how I shall order myself; andwhat is the king's grace's pleasure and yours, that I shall do in everything. 

"My lord, Mr. Shelton saith he is the master of this house: what fashionthat shall be, I cannot tell; for I have not seen it before. --I trustyour lordship will see the house honourably ordered, howsomever it hathbeen ordered aforetime. 

"My lord, Mr. Shelton would have my lady Elizabeth to dine and supevery day at the board of estate. Alas! my lord, it is not meet for achild of her age to keep such rule yet. I promise you, my lord, I darenot take it upon me to keep her in health and she keep that rule. Forthere she shall see divers meats and fruits, and wine: which would behard for me to restrain her grace from it. Ye know, my lord, there is noplace of correction there. And she is yet too young to correct greatly. I know well, and she be there, I shall nother bring her up to the king'sgrace's honour, nor hers; nor to her health, nor my poor honesty. Wherefore I show your lordship this my desire. Beseeching you, my lord, that my lady may have a mess of meat to her own lodging, with a gooddish or two, that is meet for her grace to eat of. 

"God knoweth my lady hath great pain with her great teeth, and they comevery slowly forth: and causeth me to suffer her grace to have her will, more than I would. I trust to God and her teeth were well graft, to haveher grace after another fashion than she is yet: so as I trust theking's grace shall have great comfort in her grace. For she is as towarda child, and as gentle of conditions, as ever I knew any in my life. Jesu preserve her grace! As for a day or two at a hey time, orwhensomever it shall please the king's grace to have her set abroad, Itrust so to endeavour me, that she shall so do, as shall be to theking's honour and hers; and then after to take her ease again. 

"Good my lord, have my lady's grace, and us that be her poor servants inyour remembrance. 

"_From Hunsdon_. " (No date of time. )

[Note 2: This is a word which I am utterly unable to explain; but itis thus printed in Strype's "Memorials, " whence the letter is copied. ]

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On the day immediately following the death of the unfortunate AnneBoleyn, the king was publicly united in marriage to Jane Seymour; and anact of parliament soon after passed by which the lady Elizabeth wasdeclared incapable of succeeding to the crown, which was now settled onthe offspring of Henry by his present queen. 

CHAPTER II. 

1536 TO 1542. 

Vague notions of hereditary succession to the English throne. --Henry'sjealousy of the royal family. --Imprisonment of lord T. Howard and ladyM. Douglas. --After-fortunes of this lady. --Princess Mary reconciled withher father. --Dissolution of monasteries proceeds. --Insurrections inLincolnshire and Yorkshire. --Remarkable trait of the power of thenobles. --Rebellion of T. Fitzgerald. --Romantic adventures of GeraldFitzgerald. --Birth of prince Edward. --Death of the queen. --Rise of thetwo Seymours. --Henry's views in their advancement. --His enmity tocardinal Pole. --Causes of it. --Geffrey Pole discloses a plot. --Trial anddeath of lord Montacute, the marquis of Exeter, sir Edward Nevil, andsir N. Carew. --Particulars of these persons. --Attainder of themarchioness of Exeter and countess of Salisbury. --Application of thesecircumstances to the history of Elizabeth. --Decline of the protestantparty. --Its causes. --Cromwel proposes the king's marriage with Anne ofCleves. --Accomplishments of this lady. --Royal marriage. --Cromwel madeearl of Essex. --Anger of the Bourchier family. --Justs atWestminster. --The king determines to dissolve his marriage. --Permits thefall of Cromwel. --Is divorced. --Behaviour of the queen. --Marriage of theking to Catherine Howard. --Ascendency of the papists. --Execution of thecountess of Salisbury--of lord Leonard Grey. --Discovery of the queen'sill-conduct. --Attainders passed against her and several others. 

Nothing could be more opposite to the strict principles of hereditarysuccession than the ideas entertained, even by the first lawyers of thetime of Henry VIII. , concerning the manner in which a title to the crownwas to be established and recognised. 

When Rich, the king's solicitor, was sent by his master to argue withsir Thomas More on the lawfulness of acknowledging the royal supremacy;he inquired in the course of his argument, whether sir Thomas would notown for king any person whatever, --himself for example, --who should havebeen declared so by parliament? He answered, that he would. Rich thendemanded, why he refused to acknowledge a head of the church soappointed? "Because, " replied More, "a parliament can make a king anddepose him, and that every parliament-man may give his consentthereunto, but a subject cannot be bound so in case of supremacy[3]. "Bold as such doctrine respecting the power of parliaments would now bethought, it could not well be controverted at a time when examples werestill recent of kings of the line of York or Lancaster alternatelyelevated or degraded by a vote of the two houses, and when the father ofthe reigning sovereign had occupied the throne in virtue of such anomination more than by right of birth. 

[Note 3: See Herbert's Henry VIII. ]

But the obvious inconveniences and dangers attending the exercise ofthis power of choice, had induced the parliaments of Henry VIII. To joinwith him in various acts for the regulation of the succession. It wasprobably with the concurrence of this body, that in 1532 he had declaredhis cousin, the marquis of Exeter, heir to the crown; yet this veryact, by which the king excluded not only his daughter Mary, but his twosisters and their children, every one of whom had a prior rightaccording to the rules at present received, must have caused thesovereignty to be regarded rather as elective in the royal family thanproperly hereditary--a fatal idea, which converted every member of thatfamily possessed of wealth, talents, or popularity, into a formidablerival, if not to the sovereign on the throne, at least to his next heir, if a woman or a minor, and which may be regarded as the immediateoccasion of those cruel proscriptions which stained with kindred bloodthe closing years of the reign of Henry, and have stamped upon him toall posterity the odious character of a tyrant. 

The first sufferer by the suspicions of the king was lord Thomas Howard, half-brother to the duke of Norfolk, who was attainted of high treasonin the parliament of 1536, for having secretly entered into a contractof marriage with lady Margaret Douglas, the king's niece, through whichalliance he was accused of aiming at the crown. For this offence he wasconfined in the Tower till his death; but on what evidence of traitorousdesigns, or by what law, except the arbitrary mandate of the monarchconfirmed by a subservient parliament, it would be difficult to say. That his marriage was forbidden by no law, is evident from the passingof an act immediately afterwards, making it penal to marry any femalestanding in the first degree of relationship to the king, without hisknowledge and consent. 

The lady Margaret was daughter to Henry's eldest sister, thequeen-dowager of Scotland, by her second husband the earl of Angus. Shewas born in England, whither her mother had been compelled to fly forrefuge by the turbulent state of her son's kingdom, and the ill successof her own and her husband's struggles for the acquisition of politicalpower. In the English court the lady Margaret had likewise beeneducated, and had formed connexions of friendship; whilst her brotherJames V. Laboured under the antipathy with which the English thenregarded those northern neighbours, with whom they were involved inalmost perpetual hostilities. It might easily therefore have happened, in case of the king's death without male heirs, that in spite of thepower recently bestowed on him by parliament of disposing of the crownby will, which it is very uncertain how he would have employed, aconnexion with the potent house of Howard might have given the title oflady Margaret a preference over that of any other competitor. Henry wasstruck with this danger, however distant and contingent: he caused hisniece, as well as her spouse, to be imprisoned; and though he restoredher to liberty in a few months, and the death of Howard, not longafterwards, set her free from this ill-starred engagement, she venturednot to form another, till the king himself, at the end of several years, gave her in marriage to the earl of Lenox; by whom she became the motherof lord Darnley, and through him the progenitrix of a line of princesdestined to unite another crown to the ancient inheritance of thePlantagenets and the Tudors. 

The princess Mary, after the removal of Anne Boleyn, who had exercisedtowards her the utmost insolence and harshness, ventured upon someovertures towards a reconciliation with her father; but he would acceptthem on no other conditions than her adopting his religious creed, acknowledging his supremacy, denying the authority of the pope, andconfessing the unlawfulness of her mother's marriage. It was long beforemotives of expediency, and the persuasion of friends, could wring fromMary a reluctant assent to these cruel articles: her compliance wasrewarded by the return of her father's affection, but not immediately byher reinstatement in the order of succession. She saw the child of AnneBoleyn still a distinguished object of the king's paternal tenderness;the new queen was likely to give another heir to the crown; and whateverhopes she, with the catholic party in general, had founded on thedisgrace of his late spouse, became frustrated by succeeding events. 

The death of Catherine of Arragon seemed to have removed the principalobstacles to an agreement between the king and the pope; and the holyfather now deigned to make some advances towards a son whom he hoped tofind disposed to penitence: but they were absolutely rejected by Henry, who had ceased to dread his spiritual thunders. The parliament and theconvocation showed themselves prepared to adopt, without hesitation, thenumerous changes suggested by the king in the ancient ritual; andCromwel, with influence not apparently diminished by the fall of thelate patroness of the protestant party, presided in the latter assemblywith the title of vicegerent, and with powers unlimited. 

The suppression of monasteries was now carried on with increasing rigor, and thousands of their unfortunate inhabitants were mercilessly turnedout to beg or starve. These, dispersing themselves over the country, inwhich their former hospitalities had rendered them generally popular, worked strongly on the passions of the many, already discontented at theimposition of new taxes, which served to convince them that the king andhis courtiers would be the only gainers by the plunder of the church;and formidable insurrections were in some counties the result. InLincolnshire the commotions were speedily suppressed by theinterposition of the earl of Shrewsbury and other loyal noblemen; but itwas necessary to send into Yorkshire a considerable army under the dukeof Norfolk. Through the dexterous management of this leader, who wasjudged to favor the cause of the revolters as much as his duty to hissovereign and a regard to his own safety would permit, little blood wasshed in the field; but much flowed afterwards on the scaffold, where thelords Darcy and Hussey, sir Thomas Percy, brother to the earl ofNorthumberland, and several private gentlemen, suffered as traitors. 

The suppression of these risings strengthened, as usual, the hands ofgovernment, but at the expense of converting into an object of dread, amonarch who in the earlier and brighter period of his reign had beenregarded with sentiments of admiration and love. 

In lord Herbert's narrative of this insurrection, we meet with a passagetoo remarkable to be omitted. "But the king, who was informed fromdivers parts, but chiefly from Yorkshire, that the people began therealso to take arms, and knowing of what great consequence it might be ifthe great persons in those parts, though the rumour were false, shouldbe said to join with him, had commanded George earl of Shrewsbury, Thomas Manners earl of Rutland, and George Hastings earl of Huntingdon, to make a proclamation to the Lincolnshire-men, summoning and commandingthem on their allegiance and peril of their lives to return; which, asit much disheartened them, so many stole away, " &c. 

In this potency of the hereditary aristocracy of the country, andcomparative feebleness, on some occasions at least, of the authority ofthe most despotic sovereign whom England had yet seen on the throne, wediscern at once the excuse which Henry would make to himself for hisseverities against the nobility, and the motive of that extremepopularity of manners by which Elizabeth aimed at attaching to herselfthe affections of the middling and lower orders of her subjects. 

Soon after these events, Henry confirmed the new impressions which hissubjects had received of his character, by an act of extraordinary, butnot unprovoked, severity, which involved in destruction one of the mostancient and powerful houses among the peerage of Ireland, that ofFitzgerald earl of Kildare. The nobleman who now bore this title hadmarried for his second wife lady Elizabeth Grey, daughter of the firstmarquis of Dorset, and first-cousin to the king by his mother; he hadbeen favored at court, and was at this time lord deputy of Ireland. Butthe country being in a very disturbed state, and the deputy accused ofmany acts of violence, he had obeyed with great reluctance a summons toanswer for his conduct before the king in council, leaving his eldestson to exercise his office during his absence. On his arrival, he wascommitted to the Tower, and his son, alarmed by the false report of hishaving lost his head, broke out immediately into a furious rebellion. After a temporary success, Thomas Fitzgerald was reduced to greatdifficulties: at the same time a promise of pardon was held out to him;and confiding in it he surrendered himself to lord Leonard Grey, brotherto the countess his step-mother. His five uncles, also implicated in theguilt of rebellion, were seized by surprise, or deceived intosubmission. The whole six were then conveyed to England in the sameship; and all, in spite of the entreaties and remonstrances of lordLeonard Grey, who considered his own honor as pledged for the safety oftheir lives, were hanged at Tyburn. 

The aged earl had died in the Tower on receiving news of his son's rashenterprise; and a posthumous attainder being issued against him, hislands and goods were forfeited. The king however, in pity to the widow, and as a slight atonement for so cruel an injustice, permitted one ofher daughters to retain some poor remains of the family plate andvaluables; and another of them, coming to England, appears to havereceived her education at Hunsdon palace with the princesses Mary andElizabeth her relations. Here she was seen by Henry earl of Surry, whosechaste and elegant muse has handed her down to posterity as the lovelyGeraldine, the object of his fervent but fruitless devotion. She wasmarried first to sir Anthony Brown, and afterwards became the wife ofthe earl of Lincoln, surviving by many years her noble and unfortunateadmirer. 

The countess of Kildare, and the younger of her two sons, likewiseremained in England obscure and unmolested; but the merciless rancour ofHenry against the house of Fitzgerald still pursued its destitute andunoffending heir, who was struggling through a series of adventures themost perilous and the most romantic. 

This boy, named Gerald, then about twelve years old, had been left byhis father at a house in Kildare, under the care and tuition of Leverousa priest who was his foster-brother. The child was lying ill of thesmall-pox, when the news arrived that his brother and uncles had beensent prisoners to England: but his affectionate guardian, justlyapprehensive of greater danger to his young charge, wrapped him up ascarefully as he could, and conveyed him away with all speed to the houseof one of his sisters, where he remained till he was quite recovered. Thence his tutor removed him successively into the territories of two orthree different Irish chieftains, who sheltered him for about threequarters of a year, after which he carried him to his aunt the ladyElenor, at that time widow of a chief named Maccarty Reagh. 

This lady had long been sought in marriage by O'Donnel lord ofTyrconnel, to whose suit she had been unpropitious: but wrought upon bythe hope of being able to afford effectual protection to her unfortunatenephew, she now consented to an immediate union; and taking Gerald alongwith her to her new home in the county of Donegal, she there hospitablyentertained him for about a year. But the jealous spirit of theimplacable king seemed to know no rest while this devoted youth stillbreathed the air of liberty, and he caused a great reward to be offeredfor his apprehension, which the base-minded O'Donnel immediately soughtto appropriate by delivering him up. Fortunately the lady Elenordiscovered his intentions in time, and instantly causing her nephew todisguise his person, and storing him, like a bountiful aunt, with"sevenscore portugueses, " she put him under the charge of Leverous andan old servant of his father's, and shipped him on board a vessel boundfor St. Malo's. 

Having thus secured his escape, she loftily expostulated with herhusband on his villainy in plotting to betray her kinsman, whom she hadstipulated that he should protect to the utmost of his power; and shebid him know, that as the danger of the youth had alone induced her toform any connection with him, so the assurance of his safety shouldcause her to sequester herself for ever from the society of so base andmercenary a wretch: and hereupon, collecting all that belonged to her, she quitted O'Donnel and returned to her own country. 

Gerald, in the mean time, arrived without accident in Bretagne, and wasfavorably received by the governor of that province, when the king ofFrance, being informed of his situation, gave him a place about thedauphin. Sir John Wallop however, the English embassador, soon demandedhim, in virtue of a treaty between the two countries for the deliveringup of offenders and proscribed persons; and while the king demurred tothe requisition, Gerald consulted his safety by making a speedy retreatinto Flanders. Thither his steps were dogged by an Irish servant of theembassador's; but the governor of Valenciennes protected him byimprisoning this man, till the youth himself generously begged hisrelease; and he reached the emperor's court at Brussels, without furthermolestation. But here also the English embassador demanded him; theemperor however excused himself from giving up a fugitive whose youthsufficiently attested his innocence, and sent him privately to thebishop of Liege, with a pension of a hundred crowns a month. The bishopentertained him very honorably, placing him in a monastery, and watchingcarefully over the safety of his person, till, at the end of half ayear, his mother's kinsman, cardinal Pole, sent for him into Italy. 

Before he would admit the young Irishman to his presence, the cardinalrequired him to learn Italian; and allowing him an annuity, placed himfirst with the bishop of Verona, then with a cardinal, and afterwardswith the duke of Mantua. At the end of a year and a half he invited himto Rome, and soon becoming attached to him, took him into his house, andfor three years had him instructed under his own eye in all theaccomplishments of a finished gentleman. At the end of this time, whenGerald had nearly attained the age of nineteen, his generous patron gavehim the choice either of pursuing his studies or of travelling to seekhis adventures. The youth preferred the latter; and repairing to Naples, he fell in with some knights of Rhodes, whom he accompanied to Malta, and thence to Tripoli, a place at that time possessed by the order, whence they carried on fierce war against the "Turks and miscreants, "spoiling and sacking their villages and towns, and taking many prisonerswhom they sold to the Christians for slaves. In these proceedings, theyoung adventurer took a strenuous and valiant part, much to his profit;for in less than a year he returned to Rome laden with a rich booty. "Proud was the cardinal to hear of his prosperous exploits, " andincreased his pension to three hundred pounds a year. Shortly after, heentered into the service of Cosmo duke of Florence, and remained threeyears his master of the horse. 

The tidings of Henry's death at length put an end to his exile, and hehastened to London in the company of some foreign embassadors, and stillattended by his faithful guardian Leverous. Appearing at king Edward'scourt in a mask, or ball, he had the good fortune to make a deepimpression on the heart of a young lady, daughter to sir Anthony Brown, whom he married; and through the intercession of her friends wasrestored to a part of his inheritance by the young monarch, who alsoknighted him. In the next reign, the interest of cardinal Pole procuredhis reinstatement in all the titles and honors of his ancestors. He wasa faithful and affectionate subject to queen Elizabeth, in whose reignhe turned protestant; was by her greatly favored, and finally died inpeace in 1585. [4]

That ill-directed restlessness which formed so striking a feature in thecharacter of Henry VIII. Had already prompted him to interfere, as wehave seen, on more than one occasion, with the order of succession; andthe dangerous consequences of these capricious acts with respect to theseveral branches of the royal family have already been observed. To thepeople at large also, his instability on so momentous a point washarassing and alarming, and they became as much at a loss to conjecturewhat successor, as what religion, he would at last bequeath them. 

Under such circumstances, great indeed must have been the joy in thecourt and in the nation on the occurrence of an event calculated to endall doubts and remove all difficulties--the birth of a prince of Wales. 

This auspicious infant seemed to strangle in his cradle the serpents ofcivil discord. Every lip hastened to proffer him its homage; every heartunited, or seemed at least to unite, in the general burst ofthankfulness and congratulation. 

[Note 4: See Chron. Of Ireland in Holinshed, _pass_. Collins'sPeerage, by sir E. Brydges, article _Viscount Leinster_. ]

The zealous papists formed the party most to be suspected of insincerityin their professions of satisfaction; but the princess Mary set them anexcellent example of graceful submission to what was inevitable, bysoliciting the office of godmother. Her sister was happily too young tobe infected with court-jealousies, or to behold in a brother anunwelcome intruder, who came to snatch from her the inheritance of acrown: between Elizabeth and Edward an attachment truly fraternal sprungup with the first dawnings of reason; and notwithstanding the fatal blowgiven to her interests by the act of settlement extorted from his dyinghand, this princess never ceased to cherish his memory, and to mentionhim in terms of affectionate regret. 

The conjugal felicities of Henry were destined to be of short duration, and before he could receive the felicitations of his subjects on thebirth of his son, the mother was snatched away by death. The queen dieddeeply regretted, not only by her husband, but by the whole court, whomshe had attached by the uncommon sweetness of her disposition. To theprincess Mary her behaviour had been the reverse of that by which herpredecessor had disgraced herself; and the little Elizabeth had receivedfrom her marks of a maternal tenderness. Jane Seymour was accounted afavourer of the protestant cause; but as she was apparently free fromthe ambition of interfering in state affairs, her death had no furtherpolitical influence than what resulted from the king's marriage thusbecoming once more an object of speculation and court intrigue. It didnot even give a check to the advancement of her two brothers, destinedto act and to suffer so conspicuously in the fierce contentions of theensuing minority; for the king seemed to regard it as a point of policyto elevate those maternal relations of his son, on whose care he reliedto watch over the safety of his person in case of his own demise, to adignity and importance which the proudest nobles of the land might viewwith respect or fear. Sir Edward Seymour, who had been created lordBeauchamp the year before, was now made earl of Hertford; and highplaces at court and commands in the army attested the favor of his royalbrother-in-law. Thomas Seymour, afterwards lord high-admiral, attainedduring this reign no higher dignity than that of knighthood; butconsiderable pecuniary grants were bestowed upon him; and whilst he sawhis wealth increase, he was secretly extending his influence, andfeeding his aspiring spirit with fond anticipations of future greatness. 

All now seemed tranquil: but a discerning eye might already have beheldfresh tempests gathering in the changeful atmosphere of the Englishcourt. The jealousies of the king, become too habitual to be discarded, had in fact only received a new direction from the birth of his son: hismind was perpetually haunted with the dread of leaving him, adefenceless minor, in the hands of contending parties in religion, andof a formidable and factious nobility; and for the sake of obviating thedistant and contingent evils which he apprehended from this source, heshowed himself ready to pour forth whole rivers of the best blood ofEngland. 

The person beyond all comparison most dreaded and detested by Henry atthis juncture was his cousin Reginald Pole, for whom when a youth he hadconceived a warm affection, whose studies he had encouraged by the giftof a deanery and the hope of further church-preferment, and of whoseingratitude he always believed himself entitled to complain. It was thelong-contested point of the lawfulness of Henry's marriage with hisbrother's widow, which set the kinsmen at variance. Pole had from thefirst refused to concur with the university of Paris, in which he wasthen residing, in its condemnation of this union: afterwards, alarmedprobably at the king's importunities on the subject, he had obtained thepermission then necessary for leaving England, to which he had returned, and travelled into Italy. Here he formed friendships with the mosteminent defenders of the papal authority, now incensed to the highestdegree against Henry, on account of his having declared himself head ofthe English church; and both his convictions and his passions becomingstill more strongly engaged on the side which he had already espoused, he published a work on the unity of the church, in which the conduct ofhis sovereign and benefactor became the topic of his vehement invective. 

The offended king, probably with treacherous intentions, invited Pole tocome to England, and explain to him in person certain difficult passagesof his book: but his kinsman was too wary to trust himself in suchhands; and his refusal to obey this summons, which implied a finalrenunciation of his country and all his early prospects, wasimmediately rewarded by the pope, through the emperor's concurrence, with a cardinal's hat and the appointment of legate to Flanders. Butalarmed, as well as enraged, at seeing the man whom he regarded as hisbitterest personal enemy placed in a situation so convenient forcarrying on intrigues with the disaffected papists in England, Henryaddressed so strong a remonstrance to the governess of the Netherlands, as caused her to send the cardinal out of the country before he hadbegun to exercise the functions of his legantine office. 

From this time, to maintain any intercourse or correspondence with Polewas treated by the king as either in itself an act of treason, or atleast as conclusive evidence of traitorous intentions. He believed thatthe darkest designs were in agitation against his own government and hisson's succession; and the circumstance of the cardinal's still decliningto take any but deacon's orders, notwithstanding his high dignity in thechurch, suggested to him the suspicion that his kinsman aimed at thecrown itself, through a marriage with the princess Mary, of whoselegitimacy he had shown himself so strenuous a champion. What foundationthere might be for such an idea it is difficult to determine. 

There is an author who relates that the lady Mary was educated with thecardinal under his mother, and hints that an early attachment had thusbeen formed between them[5]: A statement manifestly inaccurate, sincePole was sixteen years older than the princess; though it is notimprobable that Mary, during some period of her youth, might be placedunder the care of the countess of Salisbury, and permitted to associatewith her son on easy and affectionate terms. It is well known that afterMary's accession, Charles V. Impeded the journey of Pole into Englandtill her marriage with his son Philip had been actually solemnized; butthis was probably rather from a persuasion of the inexpediency of thecardinal's sooner opening his legantine commission in England, than fromany fear of his supplanting in Mary's affections his younger rival, though some have ascribed to the emperor the latter motive. 

[Note 5: See Lloyd's Worthies, article _Pole_. ]

When however it is recollected, that in consequence of Henry's havingcaused a posthumous judgement of treason to be pronounced against thepapal martyr Becket, his shrine to be destroyed, his bones burned, andhis ashes scattered, the pope had at length, in 1538, fulminated againsthim the long-suspended sentence of excommunication, and made a donationof his kingdom to the king of Scots, and thus impressed the sanction ofreligion on any rebellious attempts of his Roman-catholic subjects, --itwould be too much to pronounce the apprehensions of the monarch to havebeen altogether chimerical. But his suspicion appears, as usual, to havegone beyond the truth, and his anger to have availed itself of slightpretexts to ruin where he feared and hated. 

Such was the state of his mind when the treachery or weakness of GeffreyPole furnished him with intelligence of a traitorous correspondencecarried on with his brother the cardinal by several persons ofdistinction attached to the papal interest, and in which he had himselfbeen a sharer. On his information, the marquis of Exeter, viscountMontacute, sir Edward Nevil, and sir Nicholas Carew, were apprehended, tried and found guilty of high treason. Public opinion was at this timenothing; and notwithstanding the rank, consequence and popularity of themen whose lives were sacrificed on this occasion; notwithstanding thatsecret consciousness of his own ill-will towards them, which ought tohave rendered Henry more than usually cautious in his proceedings, --noteven an attempt was made to render their guilt clear and notorious tothe nation at large; and posterity scarcely even knows of what designsthey were accused; to overt acts it is quite certain that they had notproceeded. 

Henry lord Montacute was obnoxious on more than one account: he was thebrother of cardinal Pole; and as eldest son of Margaret, sole survivingchild of the duke of Clarence and heiress to her brother the earl ofWarwick, he might be regarded as succeeding to those claims on the crownwhich under Henry VII. Had proved fatal to the last-mentionedunfortunate and ill-treated nobleman. During the early part of thisreign, however, he, in common with other members of the family of Pole, had received marks of the friendship of Henry. In 1514, his mother wasauthorized to assume the title of countess of Salisbury, and he that ofviscount Montacute, notwithstanding the attainder formerly passedagainst the great house of Nevil, from whom these honors were derived. In 1521 lord Montacute had been indicted for concealing the treasons, real or pretended, of the duke of Buckingham; but immediately on hisacquittal he was restored to the good graces of his sovereign, and, twoyears after, attended him on an expedition to France. 

It is probable that lord Montacute was popular; he was at least apartisan of the old religion, and heir to the vast possessions which hismother derived from the king-making earl of Warwick her maternalgrandfather; sufficient motives with Henry for now wishing his removal. If the plot in which he was charged by his perfidious brother withparticipating, had in view the elevation of the cardinal to amatrimonial crown by his union with the princess Mary, which seems tohave been insinuated, lord Montacute must at least stand acquitted ofall design of asserting his own title; yet it may justly be suspectedthat his character of representative of the house of Clarence, was byHenry placed foremost in the catalogue of his offences. 

A similar remark applies still more forcibly to the marquis of Exeter. Son of Catherine, youngest daughter of Edward IV. , and so latelydeclared his heir by Henry himself, it is scarcely credible that anyinducement could have drawn this nobleman into a plot for disturbing thesuccession in favour of a claim worse founded than his own; and that theblood which he inherited was the true object of Henry's apprehensionsfrom him, evidently appeared to all the world by his causing the son ofthe unhappy marquis, a child at this period, to be detained a stateprisoner in the Tower during the remainder of his reign. 

Sir Edward Nevil was brother to lord Abergavenny and to the wife of lordMontacute--a connection likely to bring him into suspicion, and perhapsto involve him in real guilt; but it must not be forgotten that he was alineal descendant of the house of Lancaster by Joan daughter of John ofGaunt. The only person not of royal extraction who suffered on thisoccasion was sir Nicholas Carew, master of the horse, and lately adistinguished favourite of the king; of whom it is traditionallyrelated, that though accused as an accomplice in the designs of theother noble delinquents, the real offence for which he died, was thehaving retorted, with more spirit than prudence, some opprobriouslanguage with which his royal master had insulted him as they wereplaying at bowls together[6]. The family of Carew was however allied inblood to that of Courtney, of which the marquis of Exeter was the head. 

[Note 6: See Fuller's Worthies in Surry. ]

But the attempt to extirpate all who under any future circumstancesmight be supposed capable of advancing claims formidable to the house ofTudor, must have appeared to Henry himself a task almost as hopeless ascruel. Sons and daughters of the Plantagenet princes had in everygeneration freely intermarried with the ancient nobles of the land; andas fast as those were cut off whose connection with the royal blood wasnearest and most recent, the pedigrees of families pointed out others, and others still, whose relationship grew into nearness by the removalof such as had stood before them, and presented to the affrighted eyesof their persecutor, a hydra with still renewed and multiplying heads. 

Not content with these inflictions, --sufficiently severe it might bethought to intimidate the papal faction, --Henry gratified still furtherhis stern disposition by the attainder of the marchioness of Exeter andthe aged countess of Salisbury. The marchioness he soon after released;but the countess was still detained prisoner under a sentence of death, which a parliament, atrocious in its subserviency, had passed upon herwithout form of trial, but which the king did not think proper atpresent to carry into execution, either because he chose to keep her asa kind of hostage for the good behaviour of her son the cardinal, orbecause, tyrant as he had become, he had not yet been able to divesthimself of all reverence or pity for the hoary head of a female, akinswoman, and the last who was born to the name of Plantagenet. 

It is melancholy, it is even disgusting, to dwell upon these acts oflegalized atrocity, but let it be allowed that it is important andinstructive. They form unhappily a leading feature of the administrationof Henry VIII. During the latter years of his reign; they exhibit in themost striking point of view the sentiments and practices of the age; andmay assist us to form a juster estimate of the character and conduct ofElizabeth, whose infant mind was formed to the contemplation of thesedomestic tragedies, and whose fame has often suffered by inconsideratecomparisons which have placed her in parallel with the enlightened andhumanized sovereigns of more modern days, rather than with the stern andarbitrary Tudors, her barbarous predecessors. 

It is remarkable that the protestant party at the court of Henry, so farfrom gaining strength and influence by the severities exercised againstthe adherents of cardinal Pole and the ancient religion, was evidentlyin a declining state. The feeble efforts of its two leaders Cromwel andCranmer, of whom the first was deficient in zeal, the last in courage, now experienced irresistible counteraction from the influence ofGardiner, whose uncommon talents for business, joined to his extremeobsequiousness, had rendered him at once necessary and acceptable to hisroyal master. The law of the Six Articles, which forbade under thehighest penalties the denial of several doctrines of the Romish churchpeculiarly obnoxious to the reformers, was probably drawn up by thisminister. It was enacted in the parliament of 1539: a vast number ofpersons were soon after imprisoned for transgressing it; and Cranmerhimself was compelled, by the clause which ordained the celibacy of theclergy, to send away his wife. 

Under these circumstances Cromwel began to look on all sides forsupport; and recollecting with regret the powerful influence exerted byAnne Boleyn in favor of the good cause, and even the gentler and moreprivate aid lent to it by the late queen, he planned a new marriage forhis sovereign, with a lady educated in the very bosom of the protestantcommunion. Political considerations favored the design; since a treatylately concluded between the emperor and the king of France rendered ithighly expedient that Henry, by way of counterpoise, should strengthenhis alliance with the Smalcaldic league. In short, Cromwel prevailed. Holbein, whom the king had appointed his painter on the recommendationof sir Thomas More, and still retained in that capacity, was sent overto take the portrait of Anne sister of the duke of Cleves; and rashlytrusting in the fidelity of the likeness, Henry soon after solicited herhand in marriage. 

"The lady Anne, " says a historian, "understood no language but Dutch, sothat all communication of speech between her and our king wasintercluded. Yet our embassador, Nicholas Wotton doctor of law, employedin the business, hath it, that she could both read and write in her ownlanguage, and sew very well; only for music, he said, it was not themanner of the country to learn it[7]. " It must be confessed that for aprincess this list of accomplishments appears somewhat scanty; andHenry, unfortunately for the lady Anne, was a great admirer of learning, wit and talents, in the female sex, and a passionate lover of music, which he well understood. What was still worse, he piqued himselfextremely on his taste in beauty, and was much more solicitousrespecting the personal charms of his consorts than is usual withsovereigns; and when, on the arrival of his destined bride in England, he hastened to Rochester to gratify his impatience by snatching aprivate view of her, he found that in this capital article he had beengrievously imposed upon. The uncourteous comparison by which heexpressed his dislike of her large and clumsy person is well known. Bitterly did he lament to Cromwel the hard fortune which had allottedhim so unlovely a partner, and he returned to London very melancholy. But the evil appeared to be now past remedy; it was contrary to allpolicy to affront the German princes by sending back their countrywomanafter matters had gone so far, and Henry magnanimously resolved tosacrifice his own feelings, once in his life, for the good of hiscountry. Accordingly, he received the princess with great magnificenceand with every outward demonstration of satisfaction, and was married toher at Greenwich in January 1540. 

[Note 7: Herbert. ]

Two or three months afterwards, the king, notwithstanding his secretdissatisfaction, rewarded Cromwel for his pains in concluding this unionby conferring on him the vacant title of earl of Essex;--a fatal gift, which exasperated to rage the mingled jealousy and disdain which thislow-born and aspiring minister had already provoked from the ancientnobility, by intruding himself into the order of the garter, and whichserved to heap upon his devoted head fresh coals of wrath against theday of retribution which was fast approaching. The act of transferringthis title to a new family, could in fact be no otherwise regarded bythe great house of Bourchier, which had long enjoyed it, than either asa marked indignity to itself, or as a fresh result of the general Tudorsystem of depressing and discountenancing the blood of the Plantagenets, from which the Bourchiers, through a daughter of Thomas of Woodstock, were descended. The late earl had left a married daughter, to whom, according to the customary courtesy of English sovereigns in similarcircumstances, the title ought to have been continued; and as this ladyhad no children, the earl of Bath, as head of the house, felt himselfalso aggrieved by the alienation of family honors which he hoped to haveseen continued to himself and his posterity. 

In honor, probably, of the recent marriage of the king, unusuallysplendid justs were opened at Westminster on May-day; in which thechallengers were headed by sir John Dudley, and the defenders by theearl of Surry. This entertainment was continued for several successivedays, during which the challengers, according to the costly fashion ofancient hospitality, kept open house at their common charge, and feastedthe king and queen, the members of both houses, and the lord-mayor andaldermen with their wives. 

But scenes of pomp and festivity had no power to divert the thoughts ofthe king from his domestic grievance, --a wife whom he regarded withdisgust: on the contrary, it is probable that this season of courtlyrevelry encreased his disquiet, by giving him opportunities of beholdingunder the most attractive circumstances the charms of a youthful beautywhom he was soon seized with the most violent desire of placing besidehim on the throne which he judged her worthy to adorn. 

No considerations of rectitude or of policy could longer restrain theimpetuous monarch from casting off the yoke of a detested marriage: andas a first step towards emancipation, he determined to permit the ruinof its original adviser, that unpopular minister, but vigorous andserviceable instrument of arbitrary power, whom he had hitherto defendedwith pertinacity against all attacks. 

No sooner was the decline of his favor perceived, and what so quicklyperceived at courts? than the ill-fated Cromwel found himself assailedon every side. His active agency in the suppression of monasteries hadbrought upon him, with the imputation of sacrilege, the hatred of allthe papists;--a certain coldness, or timidity, which he had manifestedin the cause of religious reformation in other respects, andparticularly the enactment of the Six Articles during hisadministration, had rendered him an object of suspicion or dislike tothe protestants;--in his new and undefined office of royal vicegerentfor the exercise of the supremacy, he had offended the whole body of theclergy;--and he had just filled up the measure of his offences againstthe nobility by procuring a grant of the place of lord high-steward, long hereditary in the great house of the Veres earls of Oxford. Theonly voice raised in his favor was that of Cranmer, who interceded withHenry in his behalf in a letter eloquent, touching, and even courageous, times and persons considered. Gardiner and the duke of Norfolk urged onhis accusation; the parliament, with its accustomed subserviency, proceeded against him by attainder; and having voted him guilty ofheresy and treason, left it in the choice of the king to bring himeither to the block or the stake for whichever he pleased of theseoffences; neither of which was proved by evidence, or even supported byreasonable probabilities. But against this violation in his person ofthe chartered rights of Englishmen, however flagrant, the unfortunateearl of Essex had forfeited all right to appeal, since it was himselfwho had first advised the same arbitrary mode of proceeding in the casesof the marchioness of Exeter, of the countess of Salisbury, and ofseveral persons of inferior rank connected with them; on whom capitalpunishment had already been inflicted. 

With many private virtues, Essex, like his great master Wolsey, and likethe disgraced ministers of despotic princes in general, perishedunpitied; and the king and the faction of Gardiner and of the Howardsseemed equally to rejoice in the free course opened by his removal totheir further projects. The parliament was immediately ordered to findvalid a certain frivolous pretext of a prior contract, on which itsmaster was pleased to demand a divorce from Ann of Cleves; and themarriage was unanimously declared null, without any opportunity affordedto the queen of bringing evidence in its support. 

The fortitude, or rather phlegm, with which her unmerited degradationwas supported by the lady Anne, has in it something at onceextraordinary and amusing. There is indeed a tradition that she faintedon first receiving the information that her marriage was likely to beset aside; but the shock once over, she gave to the divorce, withouthesitation or visible reluctance, that assent which was required of her. Taking in good part the pension of three thousand pounds per annum, andthe title of his _sister_ which her ex-husband was graciously pleased tooffer her, she wrote to her brother the elector to entreat him still tolive in amity with the king of England, against whom she had no groundof complaint; and she continued, till the day of her death, to make hiscountry her abode. Through the whole affair she gave no indication ofwounded pride; unless her refusal to return in the character of adiscarded and rejected damsel, to the home which she had so latelyquitted in all the pomp and triumph of a royal bride, is to be regardedas such. But even for this part of her conduct a different motive iswith great plausibility assigned by a writer, who supposes her to havebeen swayed by the prudent consideration, that the regular payment ofher pension would better be secured by her remaining under the eyes andwithin the protection of the English nation. 

A very few weeks after this apparently formidable business had been thusreadily and amicably arranged, Catherine Howard niece to the duke ofNorfolk, and first cousin to Anne Boleyn, was declared queen. This lady, beautiful, insinuating, and more fondly beloved by the king than any ofher predecessors, was a catholic, and almost all the members of thecouncil who now possessed office or influence were attached, more orless openly, to the same communion. In consequence, the penalties of theSix Articles were enforced with great cruelty against the reformers; butthis did not exempt from punishment such as, offending on the otherside, ventured to deny the royal supremacy; the only difference was, that the former class of culprits were burned as heretics, the latterhanged as traitors. 

The king soon after seized the occasion of a trifling insurrection inYorkshire, of which sir John Nevil was the leader, to complete hisvengeance against cardinal Pole, by bringing to a cruel and ignominiousend the days of his venerable and sorrow-stricken mother, who had beenunfortunate enough thus long to survive the ruin of her family. Thestrange and shocking scene exhibited on the scaffold by the desperationof this illustrious and injured lady, is detailed by all our historians:it seems almost incredible that the surrounding crowd were not urged byan unanimous impulse of horror and compassion to rush in and rescue fromthe murderous hands of the executioner the last miserable representativeof such a line of princes. But the eyes of Henry's subjects werehabituated to these scenes of blood; and they were viewed by some withindifference, and by the rest with emotions of terror which effectuallyrepressed the generous movements of a just and manly indignation. 

In public causes, to be accused and to suffer death were now the samething; and another eminent victim of the policy of the English Tiberiusdisplayed in a novel and truly portentous manner his utter despair ofthe justice of the country and the mercy of his sovereign. 

Lord Leonard Grey, late deputy of Ireland, was accused of favouring theescape of that persecuted child his nephew Gerald Fitzgerald, ofcorresponding with cardinal Pole, and of various other offences calledtreasonable. Being brought before a jury of knights, "he saved them, "says lord Herbert, "the labour of condemning him, and without more adoconfessed all. Which, whether this lord, who was of great courage, didout of desperation or guilt, some circumstances make doubtful; and therather, that the articles being so many, he neither denied norextenuated any of them, though his continual fighting with the king'senemies, where occasion was, pleaded much on his part. Howsoever, he hadhis head cut off[8]. "

[Note 8: Many years after, the earl of Kildare solemnly assured theauthor of the "Chronicles of Ireland" in Holinshed, that lord LeonardGrey had no concern whatever in his escape. ]

The queen and her party were daily gaining upon the mind of the king;and Cranmer himself, notwithstanding the high esteem entertained for himby Henry, had begun to be endangered by their machinations, when anunexpected discovery put into his hands the means of baffling all theirdesigns, and producing a total revolution in the face of the court. 

It was towards the close of the year 1541 that private information wasconveyed to the primate of such disorders in the conduct of the queenbefore her marriage as could not fail to plunge her in infamy and ruin. Cranmer, if not exceedingly grieved, was at least greatly perplexed bythe incident:--at first sight there appeared to be equal danger inconcealing or discovering circumstances of a nature so delicate, andthe archbishop was timid by nature, and cautious from the experience ofa court. At length, all things well weighed, he judiciously preferredthe hazard of making the communication at once, without reserve, anddirectly, to the person most interested; and, forming into a narrativefacts which his tongue dared not utter to the face of a prince whoseanger was deadly, he presented it to him and entreated him to peruse itin secret. 

Love and pride conspired to persuade the king that his Catherine wasincapable of having imposed upon him thus grossly, and he at oncepronounced the whole story a malicious fabrication; but the strictinquiry which he caused to be instituted for the purpose of punishingits authors, not only established the truth of the accusations alreadybrought, but served also to throw the strongest suspicions on theconjugal fidelity of the queen. 

The agonies of Henry on this occasion were such as in any other husbandwould have merited the deepest compassion: with him they were quicklysucceeded by the most violent rage; and his cry for vengeance was, asusual, echoed with alacrity by a loyal and sympathizing parliament. Party animosity profited by the occasion and gave additional impulse totheir proceedings. After convicting by attainder the queen and herparamours, who were soon after put to death, the two houses proceededalso to attaint her uncle, aunt, grandmother, and about ten otherpersons, male and female, accused of being accessary or privy to herdisorders before marriage, and of not revealing them to the king whenthey became acquainted with his intention of making her his consort; anoffence declared to be misprision of treason by an ex post facto law. But this was an excess of barbarity of which Henry himself was ashamed:the infamous lady Rochford was the only confident who sufferedcapitally; the rest were released after imprisonments of longer orshorter duration; yet a reserve of bitterness appears to have remainedstored up in the heart of the king against the whole race of Howard, which the enemies of that illustrious house well knew how to cherish andaugment against a future day. 

CHAPTER III. 

1542 TO 1547. 

Rout of Solway and death of James V. Of Scotland. --Birth of queenMary. --Henry projects to marry her to his son. --Offers the hand ofElizabeth to the earl of Arran. --Earl of Lenox marries lady M. Douglas. --Marriage of the king to Catherine Parr. --Her person andacquirements. --Influence of her conduct on Elizabeth. --Henry joins theemperor against Francis I. --His campaign in France. --Princess Maryreplaced in order of succession, and Elizabeth also. --Proposals for amarriage between Elizabeth and Philip of Spain. --The duke of Norfolk andearl of Hertford heads of the catholic and protestant parties. Circumstances which give a preponderance to the latter. --Disgrace of theduke. --Trial of the earl of Surry. --His death and character. --Sentenceagainst the duke of Norfolk. --Death of Henry. 

In the month of December 1542, shortly after the rout of Solway, inwhich the English made prisoners the flower of the Scottish nobility, the same messenger brought to Henry VIII. The tidings that the grief andshame of this defeat had broken the heart of king James V. , and that hisqueen had brought into the world a daughter, who had received the nameof Mary, and was now queen of Scotland. Without stopping to deplore themelancholy fate of a nephew whom he had himself brought to destruction, Henry instantly formed the project of uniting the whole island under onecrown, by the marriage of this infant sovereign with the prince hisson. All the Scottish prisoners of rank then in London were immediatelyoffered the liberty of returning to their own country on the condition, to which they acceded with apparent alacrity, of promoting this unionwith all their interest; and so confident was the English monarch in thesuccess of his measures, that previously to their departure, several ofthem were carried to the palace of Enfield, where young Edward thenresided, that they might tender homage to the future husband of theirqueen. 

The regency of Scotland at this critical juncture was claimed by theearl of Arran, who was generally regarded as next heir to the crown, though his legitimacy had been disputed; and to this nobleman, --butwhether for himself or his son seems doubtful, --Henry, as a furthermeans of securing the important object which he had at heart, offeredthe hand of his daughter Elizabeth. So early were the concerns andinterests blended, of two princesses whose celebrated rivalry wasdestined to endure until the life of one of them had become itssacrifice! So remarkably, too, in this first transaction was contrastedthe high preeminence from which the Scottish princess was destined tohurl herself by her own misconduct, with the abasement and comparativeinsignificance out of which her genius and her good fortune were to beemployed in elevating the future sovereign of England. 

Born in the purple of her hereditary kingdom, the monarchs of France andEngland made it an object of eager contention which of them shouldsucceed in encircling with a second diadem the baby brows of Mary;while the hand of Elizabeth was tossed as a trivial boon to a Scottishearl of equivocal birth, despicable abilities, and feeble character. Solittle too was even this person flattered by the honor, or aware of theadvantages, of such a connection, that he soon after renounced it byquitting the English for the French party. Elizabeth in consequenceremained unbetrothed, and her father soon afterwards secured to himselfa more strenuous ally in the earl of Lenox, also of the blood-royal ofScotland, by bestowing upon this nobleman the hand, not of his daughter, but of his niece the lady Margaret Douglas. 

Undeterred by his late severe disappointment Henry was bent on enteringonce more into the marriage state, and his choice now fell on CatherineParr, sprung from a knightly family possessed of large estates inWestmoreland, and widow of lord Latimer, a member of the great house ofNevil. 

A portrait of this lady still in existence, exhibits, with fine andregular features, a character of intelligence and arch simplicityextremely captivating. She was indeed a woman of uncommon talent andaddress; and her mental accomplishments, besides the honor which theyreflect on herself, inspire us with respect for the enlightenedliberality of an age in which such acquirements could be placed withinthe ambition and attainment of a private gentlewoman, born in a remotecounty, remarkable even in much later times for a primitive simplicityof manners and domestic habits. Catherine was both learned herself, and, after her elevation a zealous patroness of learning and ofprotestantism, to which she was become a convert. Nicholas Udal masterof Eton was employed by her to translate Erasmus's paraphrase of thefour gospels; and there is extant a Latin letter of hers to the princessMary, whose conversion from popery she seems to have had much at heart, in which she entreats her to permit this work to appear under herauspices. She also printed some prayers and meditations, and there wasfound among her papers, after her death, a piece entitled "Thelamentations of a sinner bewailing her blind life, " in which shedeplores the years that she had passed in popish observances, and whichwas afterwards published by secretary Cecil. 

It is a striking proof of the address of this queen, that sheconciliated the affection of all the three children of the king, lettersfrom each of whom have been preserved addressed to her after the deathof their father. 

Elizabeth in particular maintained with her a very intimate and frequentintercourse; which ended however in a manner reflecting little credit oneither party, as will be more fully explained in its proper place. 

The adroitness with which Catherine extricated herself from the snare inwhich her own religious zeal, the moroseness of the king, and the enmityof Gardiner had conspired to entangle her, has often been celebrated. May it not be conjectured, that such an example, given by one of whomshe entertained a high opinion, might exert no inconsiderable influenceon the opening mind of Elizabeth, whose conduct in the many similardilemmas to which it was her lot to be reduced, partook so much of thesame character of politic and cautious equivocation?

Henry discovered by experiment that it would prove a much more difficultmatter than he had apprehended to accomplish, either by force orpersuasion, the marriage of young Edward with the queen of Scots; andlearning that it was principally to the intrigues of Francis I. , againstwhom he had other causes also of complaint, that he was likely to owethe disappointment of this favourite scheme, he determined on revenge. With this design he turned his eyes on the emperor; and finding Charlesperfectly well disposed to forget all ancient animosities in sympathywith his newly-conceived indignation against the French king, he enteredwith him into a strict alliance. War was soon declared against France bythe new confederates; and after a campaign in which little was effected, it was agreed that Charles and Henry, uniting their efforts, shouldassail that kingdom with a force which it was judged incapable ofresisting, and without stopping at inferior objects, march straight toParis. Accordingly, in July 1544, preceded by a fine army, and attendedby the flower of his nobility splendidly equipped, Henry took hisdeparture for Calais in a ship the sails of which were made of cloth ofgold. 

He arrived in safety, and enjoyed the satisfaction of dazzling with hismagnificence the count de Buren whom the emperor sent with a body ofhorse to meet him; quarrelled soon after with that potentate, who foundit his interest to make a separate peace; took the towns of Montreuiland Boulogne, neither of them of any value to him, and returned. 

So foolish and expensive a sally of passion, however characteristic ofthe disposition of this monarch, would not merit commemoration in thisplace, but for the important influence which it unexpectedly exerted onthe fortune and expectations of Elizabeth through the following train ofcircumstances. 

The emperor, whose long enmity with Henry had taken its rise from whathe justly regarded as the injuries of Catherine of Arragon his aunt, inwhose person the whole royal family of Spain had been insulted, hadrequired of him as a preliminary to their treaty a formalacknowledgement of the legitimacy of his daughter Mary. This Henry couldnot, with any regard to consistency, grant; but desirous to accede asfar as he conveniently could to the wishes of his new ally, he consentedto stipulate, that without any explanation on this point, his eldestdaughter should by act of parliament be reinstated in the order ofsuccession. At the same time, glad to relent in behalf of his favoritechild, and unwilling perhaps to give the catholic party the triumph ofasserting that he had virtually declared his first marriage more lawfulthan his second, he caused a similar privilege to be extended toElizabeth, who was thus happily restored to her original station andprospects, before she had attained sufficient maturity of age to sufferby the cruel and mortifying degradation to which she had been forseveral years subjected. 

Henceforth, though the act which declared null the marriage of the kingwith Anne Boleyn remained for ever unrepealed, her daughter appears tohave been universally recognised on the footing of a princess ofEngland; and so completely were the old disputes concerning the divorceof Catherine consigned to oblivion, that in 1546, when France, Spain andEngland had concluded a treaty of peace, proposals passed between thecourts of London and Madrid for the marriage of Elizabeth with Philipprince of Spain; that very Philip afterwards her brother-in-law and inadversity her friend and protector, then a second time her suitor, andafterwards again to the end of his days the most formidable andimplacable of her enemies. On which side, or on what assignedobjections, this treaty of marriage was relinquished, we do not learn;but as the demonstrations of friendship between Charles and Henry aftertheir French campaign were full of insincerity, it may perhaps bedoubted whether either party was ever bent in earnest on the completionof this extraordinary union. 

The popish and protestant factions which now divided the English court, had for several years acknowledged as their respective leaders the dukeof Norfolk and the earl of Hertford. To the latter of these, the painfulimpression left on Henry's mind by the excesses of Catherine Howard, thereligious sentiments embraced by the present queen, the king'sincreasing jealousy of the ancient nobility of the country, and aboveall the visible decline of his health, which brought into immediateprospect the accession of young Edward under the tutelage of his uncle, had now conspired to give a decided preponderancy. The aged duke, sagacious, politic, and deeply versed in all the secrets and the arts ofcourts, saw in a coalition with the Seymours the only expedient foraverting the ruin of his house; and he proposed to bestow his daughterthe duchess of Richmond in marriage on sir Thomas Seymour, while heexerted all his authority with his son to prevail upon him to addressone of the daughters of the earl of Hertford. But Surry's scorn of thenew nobility of the house of Seymour, and his animosity against theperson of its chief, was not to be overcome by any plea of expedience orthreatening of danger. He could not forget that it was at the instanceof the earl of Hertford that he, with some other nobles and gentlemen, had suffered the disgrace of imprisonment for eating flesh in Lent; thatwhen a trifling defeat which he had sustained near Boulogne had causedhim to be removed from the government of that town, it was the earl ofHertford who ultimately profited by his misfortune, in succeeding to thecommand of the army. Other grounds of offence the haughty Surry had alsoconceived against him; and choosing rather to fall, than cling forsupport to an enemy at once despised and hated, he braved the utmostdispleasure of his father, by an absolute refusal to lend himself tosuch a scheme of alliance. Of this circumstance his enemies availedthemselves to instil into the mind of the king a suspicion that the earlof Surry aspired to the hand of the princess Mary; they also commentedwith industrious malice on his bearing the arms of Edward theConfessor, to which he was clearly entitled in right of his mother, adaughter of the duke of Buckingham, but which his more cautious fatherhad ceased to quarter after the attainder of that unfortunate nobleman. 

The sick mind of Henry received with eagerness all these suggestions, and the ruin of the earl was determined[9]. An indictment of hightreason was preferred against him: his proposal of disproving thecharge, according to a mode then legal, by fighting his principalaccuser in his shirt, was overruled; his spirited, strong and eloquentdefence was disregarded--a jury devoted to the crown brought in averdict of guilty; and in January 1547, at the early age ofseven-and-twenty, he underwent the fatal sentence of the law. 

[Note 9: One extraordinary, and indeed unaccountable, circumstancein the life of the earl of Surry may here be noticed:--that while hisfather urged him to connect himself in marriage with one lady, while theking was jealous of his designs upon a second, and while he himself, asmay be collected from his poem "To a lady who refused to dance withhim, " made proposals of marriage to a third, he had a wife living. Tothis lady, who was a sister of the earl of Oxford, he was united at theage of fifteen, she had borne him five children; and it is pretty plainthat they were never divorced, for we find her, several years after hisdeath, still bearing the title of countess of Surry, and the guardian ofhis orphans. Had the example of Henry instructed his courtiers to findpretexts for the dissolution of the matrimonial tie whenever interest orinclination might prompt, and did our courts of law lend themselves tothis abuse? A preacher of Edward the sixth's time brings such anaccusation against the morals of the age, but I find no particularexamples of it in the histories of noble families. ]

No one during the whole sanguinary tyranny of Henry VIII. Fell moreguiltless, or more generally deplored by all whom personal animosity orthe spirit of party had not hardened against sentiments of compassion, or blinded to the perception of merit. But much of Surry has survivedthe cruelty of his fate. His beautiful songs and sonnets, which servedas a model to the most popular poets of the age of Elizabeth, stillexcite the admiration of every student attached to the early literatureof our country. Amongst other frivolous charges brought against him onhis trial, it was mentioned that he kept an Italian jester, thought tobe a spy, and that he loved to converse with foreigners and conform hisbehaviour to them. For his personal safety, therefore, it was perhapsunfortunate that a portion of his youth had been passed in a visit toItaly, then the focus of literature and fount of inspiration; but forhis surviving fame, and for the progress of English poetry, thecircumstance was eminently propitious; since it is from the return ofthis noble traveller that we are to date not only the introduction intoour language of the Petrarchan sonnet, and with it of a tenderness andrefinement of sentiment unknown to the barbarism of our precedingversifiers; but what is much more, that of heroic blank verse; a noblemeasure, of which the earliest example exists in Surry's spirited andfaithful version of one book of the Æneid. 

The exalted rank, the splendid talents, the lofty spirit of thislamented nobleman seemed to destine him to a station second to noneamong the public characters of his time; and if, instead of being cutoff by the hand of violence in the morning of life, he had beenpermitted to attain a length of days at all approaching to thefourscore years of his father, it is probable that the votary of letterswould have been lost to us in the statesman or the soldier. Queen Mary, who sought by her favor and confidence to revive the almost extinguishedenergies of his father, and called forth into premature distinction theaspiring boyhood of his son, would have intrusted to his vigorous yearsthe highest offices and most weighty affairs of state. Perhaps even thesuspicions of her father might have been verified by the event, and herown royal hand might itself have become the reward of his virtues andattachment. 

Elizabeth, whose maternal ancestry closely connected her with the houseof Howard, might have sought and found, in her kinsman the earl ofSurry, a counsellor and friend deserving of all her confidence andesteem; and it is possible that he, with safety and effect, might haveplaced himself as a mediator between the queen and that formidablecatholic party of which his misguided son, fatally for himself, aspiredto be regarded as the leader, and was in fact only the instrument. Butthe career of ambition, ere he had well entered it, was closed upon himfor ever; and it is as an accomplished knight, a polished lover, andabove all as a poet, that the name of Surry now lives in the annals ofhis country. 

Of the five children who survived to feel the want of his paternalguidance, one daughter, married to the earl of Westmorland, washonorably distinguished by talents, erudition, and the patronage ofletters; but of the two sons, the elder was that unfortunate duke ofNorfolk who paid on the scaffold the forfeit of an inconsiderate andguilty enterprise; and the younger, created earl of Northampton by JamesI. , lived to disgrace his birth and fine talents by every kind ofbaseness, and died just in time to escape punishment as an accomplice inOverbury's murder. 

The duke of Norfolk had been declared guilty of high treason on groundsequally frivolous with his son; but the opportune death of Henry VIII. On the day that his cruel and unmerited sentence was to have beencarried into execution, saved his life, when his humble submissions andpathetic supplications for mercy had failed to touch the callous heartof the expiring despot. The jealousies however, religious and political, of the council of regency, on which the administration devolved, prompted them to refuse liberty to the illustrious prisoner after theirweakness or their clemency had granted him his life. During the wholereign of Edward VI. The duke was detained under close custody in theTower; his estates were confiscated, his blood attainted, and for thisperiod the great name of Howard disappears from the page of Englishhistory. 

CHAPTER IV. 

1547 TO 1549. 

Testamentary provisions of Henry VIII. --Exclusion of the Scottishline. --Discontent of the earl of Arundel. --His character andintrigues. --Hertford declared protector--becomes duke ofSomerset. --Other titles conferred. --Thomas Seymour madelord-admiral--marries the queen dowager. --His discontent andintrigues. --His behaviour to Elizabeth. --Death of the queen. --Seymouraspires to the hand of Elizabeth--conspires against his brother--isattainted--put to death. --Particulars of his intercourse withElizabeth. --Examinations which she underwent on this subject. --Traits ofher early character. --Verses on admiral Seymour. --The learning ofElizabeth. --Extracts from Ascham's Letters respecting her, Jane Grey, and other learned ladies. --Two of her letters to Edward VI. 

The death of Henry VIII. , which took place on January 28th 1547, openeda new and busy scene, and affected in several important points thesituation of Elizabeth. 

The testament by which the parliament had empowered the king to regulatethe government of the country during his son's minority, and even tosettle the order of succession itself, with as full authority as thedistribution of his private property, was the first object of attention;and its provisions were found strongly characteristic of the temper andmaxims of its author. He confirmed the act of parliament by which histwo daughters had been rendered capable of inheriting the crown, andappointed to each of them a pension of three thousand pounds, with amarriage-portion of ten thousand pounds, but annexed the condition oftheir marrying with the consent of such of his executors as should beliving. After them, he placed in order of succession Frances marchionessof Dorset, and Eleanor countess of Cumberland, daughters of his youngersister the queen-dowager of France by Charles Brandon duke of Suffolk;and failing the descendants of these ladies he bequeathed the crown tothe next heir. By this disposition he either totally excluded, or atleast removed from their rightful place, his eldest and still survivingsister the queen-dowager of Scotland, and all her issue;--a most absurdand dangerous indulgence of his feelings of enmity against the Scottishline, which might eventually have involved the nation in all the horrorsof a civil war, and from which in fact the whole calamitous destinies ofthe house of Suffolk, which the progress of this work will record, andin some measure also the long misfortunes of the queen of Scots herself, will be found to draw their origin. Sixteen executors named in the willwere to exercise in common the royal functions till young Edward shouldattain the age of eighteen; and to these, twelve others were added as acouncil of regency, invested however with no other privilege than thatof giving their opinions when called upon. The selection of theexecutors and counsellors was in perfect unison with the policy of theTudors. The great officers of state formed of necessity a considerableportion of the former body, and four of these, lord Wriothesley thechancellor, the earl of Hertford lord-chamberlain, lord St. John masterof the household, and lord Russel privy-seal, were decorated with thepeerage; but with the exception of sir John Dudley, who had latelyacquired by marriage the rank of viscount Lisle, these were the onlytitled men of the sixteen. Thus it appeared, that not a singleindividual amongst the hereditary nobility of the country enjoyed in asufficient degree the favor and confidence of the monarch, to beassociated in a charge which he had not hesitated to confer on personsof no higher importance than the principal gentlemen of the bed-chamber, the treasurer of Calais, and the dean of Canterbury. 

Even the council reckoned among its members only two peers: one of themthe brother of the queen-dowager, on whom, since the fall of Cromwel, the title of earl of Essex had at length been conferred in right of hiswife, the heiress of the Bourchiers: the other, the earl of Arundel, premier earl of England and last of the ancient name of Fitzalan; adistinguished nobleman, whom vast wealth, elegant tastes acquired inforeign travel, and a spirit of magnificence, combined to render one ofthe principal ornaments of the court, while his political talents andexperience of affairs qualified him to assume a leading station in thecabinet. The loyalty and prudence of the Fitzalans must have beenconspicuous for ages, since no attainder, during so long a period ofgreatness, had stained the honor of the race; and the moderation orsubserviency of the present earl had been shown by his perfectacquiescence in all the measures of Henry, notwithstanding his privatepreference of the ancient faith: to crown his merits, his blood appearsto have been unmingled with that of the Plantagenets. Notwithstandingall this, the king had thought fit to name him only a counsellor, not anexecutor. Arundel deeply felt the injury; and impatience of theinsignificance to which he was thus consigned, joined to hisdisapprobation of the measures of the regency with respect to religion, threw him into intrigues which contributed not a little to theturbulence of this disastrous period. 

It was doubtless the intention of Henry, that the religion of thecountry, at least during the minority of his son, should be leftvibrating on the same nice balance between protestantism and popery onwhich it had cost him so much pains to fix it; and with a view to thisobject he had originally composed the regency with a pretty equaldistribution of power between the adherents of the two communions. Butthe suspicion, or disgust, which afterwards caused him to erase the nameof Gardiner from the list, destroyed the equipoise, and rendered thescale of reformation decidedly preponderant. In vain did Wriothesley, aman of vigorous talents and aspiring mind, struggle with Hertford forthe highest place in the administration; in vain did Tunstal bishop ofDurham, --no bigot, but a firm papist, --check with all the authority thathe could venture to exert, the bold career of innovation on which hebeheld Cranmer full of eagerness to enter; in vain did the catholicsinvoke to their aid the active interference of Dudley; he suffered themto imagine that his heart was with them, and that he watched anopportunity to interpose with effect in their behalf, whilst, in fact, he was only waiting till the fall of one of the Seymours by the hand ofthe other should enable him to crush the survivor, and rise touncontrolled authority on the ruins of both. 

The first attempt of the protestant party in the regency showed theirintentions; its success proved their strength, and silenced for thepresent all opposition. It was proposed, and carried by a majority ofthe executors, that the earl of Hertford should be declared protector ofthe realm, and governor of the king's person; and the new dictator soonafter procured the ratification of this appointment, which overturnedsome of the most important clauses of the late king's will, by causing apatent to be drawn and sanctioned by the two houses which invested him, during the minority, with all the prerogatives ever assumed by the mostarbitrary of the English sovereigns, and many more than were everrecognised by the constitution. 

As if in compensation for any disrespect shown to the memory of thedeceased monarch by these proceedings, the executors next declared theirintention of fulfilling certain promises made by him in his lastillness, and which death alone had prevented him from carrying intoeffect. On this plea, they bestowed upon themselves and their adherentsvarious titles of honor, and a number of valuable church preferments, now first conferred upon laymen, the protector himself unblushinglyassuming the title of duke of Somerset, and taking possession ofbenefices and impropriations to a vast amount. Viscount Lisle wascreated earl of Warwick, and Wriothesley became earl of Southampton;--anempty dignity, which afforded him little consolation for seeing himselfsoon after, on pretence of some irregular proceedings in his office, stripped of the post of chancellor, deprived of his place amongst theother executors of the king, who now formed a privy council to theprotector, and consigned to obscurity and insignificance for the shortremnant of his days. Sir Thomas Seymour ought to have been consoled bythe share allotted him in this splendid distribution, for themortification of having been named a counsellor only, and not anexecutor. He was made lord Seymour of Sudley, and soon after, lordhigh-admiral--preferments greatly exceeding any expectations which hisbirth or his services to the state could properly authorize. But hemeasured his claims by his nearness to the king; he compared theseinferior dignities with the state and power usurped by his brother, andhis arrogant spirit disdained as a meanness the thought of restingsatisfied or appeased. Circumstances soon arose which converted thisgeneral feeling of discontent in the mind of Thomas Seymour into a morerancorous spirit of envy and hostility against his brother, andgradually involved him in a succession of dark intrigues, which, onaccount of the embarrassments and dangers in which they eventuallyimplicated the princess Elizabeth, it will now become necessary tounravel. The younger Seymour, still in the prime of life, was endowed ina striking degree with those graces of person and manner which serve tocaptivate the female heart, and his ambition had sought in consequenceto avail itself of a splendid marriage. 

It is said that the princess Mary herself was at first the object of hishopes or wishes: but if this were really the case, she must speedilyhave quelled his presumption by the lofty sternness of her repulse; forit is impossible to discover in the history of his life at whatparticular period he could have been occupied with such a design. 

Immediately after the death of Henry, he found means to revive with suchenergy in the bosom of the queen-dowager, an attachment which she hadentertained for him before her marriage with the king, that sheconsented to become his wife with a precipitation highly indecorous andreprehensible. The connexion proved unfortunate on both sides, and itsfirst effect was to embroil him with his brother. 

The protector, of a temper still weaker than his not very vigorousunderstanding, had long allowed himself to be governed both in great andsmall concerns by his wife, a woman of little principle and of adisposition in the highest degree violent, imperious, and insolent. Nothing could be more insupportable to the spirit of this lady, whoprided herself on her descent from Thomas of Woodstock, and now saw herhusband governing the kingdom with all the prerogatives and almost allthe splendor of royalty, than to find herself compelled to yieldprecedency to the wife of his younger brother; and unable to submitpatiently to a mortification from which, after all, there was no escape, she could not forbear engaging in continual disputes on the subjectwith the queen-dowager. Their husbands soon were drawn in to take partin this senseless quarrel, and a serious difference ensued between them. The protector and council soon after refused to the lord-admiral certaingrants of land and valuable jewels which he claimed as bequests to hiswife from the late king, and the, perhaps, real injury, thus added tothe slights of which he before complained, gave fresh exasperation tothe pride and turbulence of his character. 

Taking advantage of the protector's absence on that campaign in Scotlandwhich ended with the victory of Pinkey, he formed partisans among thediscontented nobles, won from his brother the affections of the youngking, and believing every thing ripe for an attack on his usurpedauthority, he designed to bring forward in the ensuing parliament aproposal for separating, according to ancient precedent, the office ofguardian of the king's person from that of protector of the realm, andfor conferring upon himself the former. But he discovered too late thathe had greatly miscalculated his forces; his proposal was not evenpermitted to come to a hearing. Having rendered himself furtherobnoxious to the vengeance of the administration by menaces thrown outin the rage of disappointment, he saw himself reduced, in order toescape a committal to the Tower, to make submissions to his brother. Anapparent reconciliation took place; and the admiral was compelled tochange, but not to relinquish, his schemes of ambition. 

The princess Elizabeth had been consigned on the death of her father tothe protection and superintendance of the queen-dowager, with whom, atone or other of her jointure-houses of Chelsea or Hanworth, she usuallymade her abode. By this means it happened, that after the queen'sremarriage she found herself domesticated under the roof of thelord-admiral; and in this situation she had soon the misfortune tobecome an object of his marked attention. 

What were, at this particular period, Seymour's designs upon theprincess, is uncertain; but it afterwards appeared from the testimony ofeye-witnesses, that neither respect for her exalted rank, nor a sense ofthe high responsibility attached to the character of a guardian, withwhich circumstances invested him, had proved sufficient to restrain himfrom freedoms of behaviour towards her, which no reasonable allowancefor the comparative grossness of the age can reduce within the limits ofpropriety or decorum. We learn that, on some occasions at least, sheendeavoured to repel his presumption by such expedients as her youthfulinexperience suggested; but her governess and attendants, gained over orintimidated, were guilty of a treacherous or cowardly neglect of duty, and the queen herself appears to have been very deficient in delicacyand caution till circumstances arose which suddenly excited herjealousy[10]. A violent scene then took place between the royalstep-mother and step-daughter, which ended, fortunately for the peaceand honor of Elizabeth, in an immediate and final separation. 

[Note 10: It seems that on one occasion the queen held the hands ofthe princess while the lord-admiral amused himself with cutting her gownto shreds; and that, on another, she introduced him into the chamber ofElizabeth before she had left her bed, when a violent romping scene tookplace, which was afterwards repeated without the presence of the queen. 

Catherine was so unguarded in her own conduct, that the lord-admiralprofessed himself jealous of the servant who carried up coals to herapartment. ]

There is no ground whatever to credit the popular rumor that the queen, who died in childbed soon after this affair, was poisoned by theadmiral; but there is sufficient proof that he was a harsh and jealoushusband; and he did not probably at this juncture regard as unpropitiouson the whole, an event which enabled him to aspire to the hand ofElizabeth, though other and more intricate designs were at the same timehatching in his busy brain, to which his state of a widower seemed atfirst to oppose some serious obstacles. 

Lady Jane Grey, eldest daughter of the marchioness of Dorset, who hadbeen placed immediately after the two princesses in order of succession, had also resided in the house of the lord-admiral during the lifetime ofthe queen-dowager, and he was anxious still to retain in his hands apledge of such importance. To the applications of the marquis andmarchioness for her return, he pleaded that the young lady would be assecure under the superintendance of his mother, whom he had invited toreside in his house, as formerly under that of the queen, and that amark of the esteem of friends whom he so highly valued, would in thisseason of his affliction be doubly precious to him. He caused a secretagent to insinuate to the weak marquis, that if the lady Jane remainedunder his roof, it might eventually be in his power to marry her to theyoung king; and finally, as the most satisfactory proof of the sincerityof his professions of regard, he advanced to this illustrious peer thesum of five hundred pounds in ready money, requiring no other securityfor its repayment than the person of his fair guest, or hostage. Sucheloquence proved irresistible: lady Jane was suffered to remain underthis very singular and improper protection, and report for some timevibrated between the sister and the cousin of the king as the realobject of the admiral's matrimonial projects. But in his own mind thereappears to have been no hesitation between them. The residence of ladyJane in his house was no otherwise of importance to him, than as itcontributed to insure to him the support of her father, and as itenabled him to counteract a favorite scheme of the protector's, orrather of his duchess's, for marrying her to their eldest son. WithElizabeth, on the contrary, he certainly aimed at the closest of allconnexions, and he was intent on improving by every means the impressionwhich his dangerous powers of insinuation had already made on herinexperienced heart. 

Mrs. Ashley, her governess, he had long since secured in his interests;his next step was to gain one Parry, her cofferer, and through theseagents he proposed to open a direct correspondence with herself. Hisdesigns prospered for some time according to his desires; and though itseems never to have been exactly known, except to the partiesthemselves, what degree of secret intelligence Elizabeth maintained withher suitor; it cannot be doubted that she betrayed towards himsentiments sufficiently favorable to render the difficulty of obtainingthat consent of the royal executors which the law required, theprincipal obstacle, in his own opinion, to the accomplishment of hiswishes. It was one, however, which appeared absolutely insuperable solong as his brother continued to preside over the administration withauthority not to be resisted; and despair of gaining his object by fairand peaceful means, soon suggested to the admiral further measures of adark and dangerous character. 

By the whole order of nobility the protector, who affected the love ofthe commons, was envied and hated; but his brother, on the contrary, hadcultivated their friendship with assiduity and success; and he now tookopportunities of emphatically recommending it to his principaladherents, the marquis of Northampton (late earl of Essex), the marquisof Dorset, the earl of Rutland, and others, to go into their countiesand "make all the strength" there which they could. He boasted of thecommand of men which he derived from his office of high-admiral;provided a large quantity of arms for his followers; and gained over themaster of Bristol mint to take measures for supplying him, on any suddenemergency, with a large sum of money. He likewise opened a secretcorrespondence with the young king, and endeavoured by many accusations, true or false, to render odious the government of his brother. Buthappily those turbulent dispositions and inordinate desires whichprompt men to form plots dangerous to the peace and welfare of acommunity, are rarely found to co-exist with the sagacity and prudencenecessary to conduct them to a successful issue; and to this remark theadmiral was not destined to afford an exception. Though he ought to havebeen perfectly aware that his late attempt had rendered him an object ofthe strongest suspicion to his brother, and that he was surrounded byhis spies, such was the violence and presumption of his temper, that hecould not restrain himself from throwing out vaunts and menaces whichserved to put his enemies on the track of the most importantdiscoveries; and in the midst of vain schemes and flatteringanticipations, he was surprised on the sudden by a warrant for hiscommittal to the Tower. His principal agents were also seized, andcompelled to give evidence before the council. Still the protectorseemed reluctant to proceed to extremities against his brother; but hisown impetuous temper and the ill offices of the earl of Warwickconspired to urge on his fate. 

Far from submitting himself as before to the indulgence of theprotector, and seeking to disarm his indignation by promises andentreaties, Seymour now stood, as it were, at bay, and boldly demanded afair and equal trial, --the birthright of Englishmen. But this was a boonwhich it was esteemed on several accounts inexpedient, if not dangerous, to grant. No overt act of treason could be proved against him:circumstances might come out which would compromise the young kinghimself, whom a strong dislike of the restraint in which he was held byhis elder uncle had thrown pretty decidedly into the party of theyounger. The name of the lady Elizabeth was implicated in thetransaction further than it was delicate to declare. An acquittal, whichthe far-extended influence of the lord-admiral over all classes of menrendered by no means impossible, would probably be the ruin of theprotector;--and in the end it was decided to proceed against him by thearbitrary and odious method of attainder. 

Several of those peers, on whose support he had placed the firmestreliance, rose voluntarily in their places, and betrayed the designswhich he had confided to them. The depositions before the council weredeclared sufficient ground for his condemnation; and in spite of theopposition of some spirited and upright members of the house of commons, a sentence was pronounced, in obedience to which, in March 1549, he wasconducted to the scaffold. 

The timely removal of this bad and dangerous man, however illegal andunwarrantable the means by which it was accomplished, deserves to beregarded as the first of those signal escapes with which the life ofElizabeth so remarkably abounds. Her attachment for Seymour, certainlythe earliest, was perhaps also the strongest, impression of the tenderkind which her heart was destined to receive; and though there may be aprobability that in this, as in subsequent instances, where herinclinations seemed most to favor the wishes of her suitors, hercharacteristic caution would have interfered to withhold her from anirrevocable engagement, it might not much longer have been in her powerto recede with honor, or even, if the designs of Seymour had prospered, with safety. 

The original pieces relative to this affair have fortunately beenpreserved, and furnish some very remarkable traits of the earlycharacter of Elizabeth, and of the behaviour of those about her. 

The confessions of Mrs. Ashley and of Parry before the privy-council, contain all that is known of the conduct of the admiral towards theirlady during the lifetime of the queen. They seem to cast upon Mrs. Ashley the double imputation of having suffered such behaviour to passbefore her eyes as she ought not to have endured for a moment, and ofhaving needlessly disclosed to Parry particulars respecting it whichreflected the utmost disgrace both on herself, the admiral, and herpupil. Yet we know that Elizabeth, so far from resenting any thing thatMrs. Ashley had either done or confessed, continued to love and favorher in the highest degree, and after her accession promoted her husbandto a considerable office:--a circumstance which affords ground forsuspicion that some important secrets were in her possession respectinglater transactions between the princess and Seymour which she hadfaithfully kept. It should also be observed in palliation of theliberties which she accused the admiral of allowing to himself, and theprincess of enduring, that the period of Elizabeth's life to which theseparticulars relate was only her fourteenth year. 

We are told that she refused permission to the admiral to visit herafter he became a widower, on account of the general report that she waslikely to become his wife; and not the slightest trace was at this timefound of any correspondence between them, though Harrington afterwardsunderwent an imprisonment for having delivered to her a letter from theadmiral. Yet it is stated that the partiality of the young princessbetrayed itself by many involuntary tokens to those around her, who werethus encouraged to entertain her with accounts of the admiral'sattachment, and to inquire whether, if the consent of the council couldbe obtained, she would consent to admit his addresses. The admiral isrepresented to have proceeded with caution equal to her own. Anxious toascertain her sentiments, earnestly desirous to accomplish so splendidan union, but fully sensible of the inutility as well as danger of aclandestine connexion, he may be thought rather to have regarded herhand as the recompense which awaited the success of all his other plansof ambition, than as the means of obtaining that success; and it seemedto have been only by distant hints through the agents whom he trusted, that he had ventured as yet to intimate to her his views and wishes; butit is probable that much of the truth was by these agents suppressed. 

The protector, rather, as it seems, with the desire of criminating hisbrother than of clearing the princess, sent sir Robert Tyrwhitt to herresidence at Hatfield, empowered to examine her on the whole matter; andhis letters to his employer inform us of many particulars. When, by thebase expedient of a counterfeit letter, he had brought her to believethat both Mrs. Ashley and Parry were committed to the Tower, "her gracewas, " as he expresses it, "marvellously abashed, and did weep verytenderly a long time, demanding whether they had confessed any thing ornot. " Soon after, sending for him, she related several circumstanceswhich she said she had forgotten to mention when the master of thehousehold and master Denny came from the protector to examine her. "After all this, " adds he, "I did require her to consider her honor, andthe peril that might ensue, for she was but a subject; and I furtherdeclared what a woman Mrs. Ashley was, with a long circumstance, sayingthat if she would open all things herself, that all the evil and shameshould be ascribed to them, and her youth considered both with theking's majesty, your grace, and the whole council. But in no way shewill not confess any practice by Mrs. Ashley or the cofferer concerningmy lord-admiral; and yet I do see it in her face that she is guilty, anddo perceive as yet that she will abide the storms or she accuse Mrs. Ashley. 

"Upon sudden news that my lord great-master and master Denny was arrivedat the gate, the cofferer went hastily to his chamber, and said to mylady his wife, 'I would I had never been born, for I am undone, ' andwrung his hands, and cast away his chain from his neck, and his ringsfrom his fingers. This is confessed by his own servant, and there isdivers witnesses of the same. "

The following day Tyrwhitt writes, that all he has yet gotten from theprincess was by gentle persuasion, whereby he began to grow with her incredit, "for I do assure your grace she hath a good wit, and nothing isgotten off her but by great policy. "

A few days after, he expresses to the protector his opinion that therehad been some secret promise between the princess, Mrs. Ashley, and thecofferer, never to confess till death; "and if it be so, " he observes, "it will never be gotten of her but either by the king's majesty or elseby your grace. " On another occasion he confirms this idea by statingthat he had tried her with false intelligence of Parry's havingconfessed, on which she called him "false wretch, " and said that it wasa great matter for him to make such a promise and break it. He noticesthe exact agreement between the princess and the other two in all theirstatements, but represents it as a proof that "they had set the knotbefore. " It appears on the whole, that sir Robert with all his pains wasnot able to elicit a single fact of decisive importance; but probablythere was somewhat more in the matter than we find acknowledged in aletter from Elizabeth herself to the protector. She here states, thatshe did indeed send her cofferer to speak with the lord-admiral, but onno other business than to recommend to him one of her chaplains, and torequest him to use his interest that she might have Durham Place for hertown house; that Parry on his return informed her, that the admiral saidshe could not have Durham Place, which was wanted for a mint, butoffered her his own house for the time of her being in London; and thatParry then inquired of her, whether, if the council would consent to hermarrying the admiral, she would herself be willing? That she refused toanswer this question, requiring to know who bade him ask it. He said, Noone; but from the admiral's inquiries what she spent in her house, andwhether she had gotten her patents for certain lands signed, and otherquestions of a similar nature, he thought "that he was given that wayrather than otherwise. " She explicitly denies that her governess everadvised her to marry the admiral without the consent of the council; butrelates with great apparent ingenuousness, the hints which Mrs. Ashleyhad thrown out of his attachment to her, and the artful attempts whichshe had made to discover how her pupil stood affected towards such aconnexion. 

The letter concludes with the following wise and spirited assertion ofherself. "Master Tyrwhitt and others have told me, that there goethrumours abroad which be greatly both against my honor and honesty, (which above all things I esteem) which be these; that I am in theTower, and with child by my lord admiral. My lord, these are shamefulslanders, for the which, besides the desire I have to see the king'smajesty, I shall most humbly desire your lordship that I may come to thecourt after your first determination, that I may show myself there as Iam. "

That the cofferer had repeated his visits to the admiral oftener thanwas at first acknowledged either by his lady or himself, a confessionafterwards addressed by Elizabeth to the protector seems to show; buteven with this confession Tyrwhitt declares himself unsatisfied. 

Parry, in that part of his confession where he relates what passedbetween himself and the lord-admiral when he waited upon him by hislady's command, takes notice of the earnest manner in which the admiralhad urged her endeavouring to procure, by way of exchange, certain crownlands which had been the queen's, and seem to have been adjacent to hisown, from which, he says, he inferred, that he wanted to have both themand his lady for himself. He adds, that the admiral said he wished theprincess to go to the duchess of Somerset, and by her means make suit tothe protector for the lands, and for a town house, and "to entertain hergrace for her furtherance. " That when he repeated this to her, Elizabethwould not at first believe that he had said such words, or could wishher so to do; but on his declaring that it was true, "she seemed to beangry that she should be driven to make such suits, and said, 'In faithI will not come there, nor begin to flatter now. '"

Her spirit broke out, according to Tyrwhitt, with still greatervehemence, on the removal of Mrs. Ashley, whom lady Tyrwhitt succeededin her office:--the following is the account which he gives of herbehaviour. 

"Pleaseth it your grace to be advertised, that after my wife's repairhither, she declared to the lady Elizabeth's grace, that she was calledbefore your grace and the council and had a rebuke, that she had nottaken upon her the office to see her well governed, in the lieu of Mrs. Ashley. Her answer was, that Mrs. Ashley was her mistress, and that shehad not so demeaned herself that the council should now need to put anymo mistresses unto her. Whereunto my wife answered, seeing she did allowMrs. Ashley to be her mistress, she need not to be ashamed to have anyhonest woman to be in that place. She took the matter so heavily thatshe wept all that night and lowered all the next day, till she receivedyour letter; and then she sent for me and asked me whether she was bestto write to you again or not: I said, if she would make answer that shewould follow the effect of your letter, I thought it well done that sheshould write; but in the end of the matter I perceived that she was veryloth to have a governor; and to avoid the same, said the world wouldnote her to be a great offender, having so hastily a governor appointedher. And all is no more, she fully hopes to recover her old mistressagain. The love she yet beareth her is to be wondered at. I told her, ifshe would consider her honor and the sequel thereof, she would, considering her years, make suit to your grace to have one, rather thanto make delay to be without one one hour. She cannot digest such advicein no way; but if I should say my phantasy, it were more meet she shouldhave two than one. She would in any wise write to your grace, wherein Ioffered her my advice, which she would in no wise follow, but write herown phantasy. She beginneth now a little to droop, by reason she heareththat my lord-admiral's houses be dispersed. And my wife telleth me now, that she cannot hear him discommended but she is ready to make answertherein; and so she hath not been accustomed to do, unless Mrs. Ashleywere touched, whereunto she was very ready to make answer vehemently. "&c. [11]

[Note 11: For the original documents relative to this affair seeBurleigh Papers by Haynes, _passim_. ]

Parry had probably the same merit of fidelity as Mrs. Ashley; forthough Tyrwhitt says he was found faulty in his accounts, he was notonly continued at this time by his mistress in his office of cofferer, but raised afterwards to that of comptroller of the royal household, which he held till his death. 

A gentleman of the name of Harrington, then in the admiral's service, who was much examined respecting his master's intercourse with theprincess, and revealed nothing, was subsequently taken by her into herown household and highly favored; and so certain did this gentleman, whowas a man of parts, account himself of her tenderness for the memory ofa lover snatched from her by the hand of violence alone, that heventured, several years after her accession to the throne, to presenther with a portrait of him, under which was inscribed the followingsonnet. 

 "Of person rare, strong limbs and manly shape, By nature framed to serve on sea or land; In friendship firm in good state or ill hap, In peace head-wise, in war, skill great, bold hand. On horse or foot, in peril or in play, None could excel, though many did essay. A subject true to king, a servant great, Friend to God's truth, and foe to Rome's deceit. Sumptuous abroad for honor of the land, Temp'rate at home, yet kept great state with stay, And noble house that fed more mouths with meat Than some advanced on higher steps to stand; Yet against nature, reason, and just laws, His blood was spilt, guiltless, without just cause. "

The fall of Seymour, and the disgrace and danger in which she hadherself been involved, afforded to Elizabeth a severe but usefullesson; and the almost total silence of history respecting her duringthe remainder of her brother's reign affords satisfactory indication ofthe extreme caution with which she now conducted herself. 

This silence, however, is agreeably supplied by documents of a moreprivate nature, which inform us of her studies, her acquirements, thedisposition of her time, and the bent of her youthful mind. 

The Latin letters of her learned preceptor Roger Ascham abound withanecdotes of a pupil in whose proficiency he justly gloried; and theparticulars interspersed respecting other females of high rank, alsodistinguished by the cultivation of classical literature, enhance theinterest of the picture, by affording objects of comparison to theprincipal figure, and illustrating the taste, almost the rage, forlearning which pervaded the court of Edward VI. 

Writing in 1550 to his friend John Sturmius, the worthy and eruditerector of the protestant university of Strasburgh, Ascham has thefollowing passages. 

 * * * * *

"Never was the nobility of England more lettered than at present. Ourillustrious king Edward in talent, industry, perseverance, anderudition, surpasses both his own years and the belief of men. . . . Idoubt not that France will also yield the just praise of learning to theduke of Suffolk[12] and the rest of that band of noble youths educatedwith the king in Greek and Latin literature, who depart for thatcountry on this very day. 

[Note 12: This was the second duke of the name of Brandon, who diedyoung of the sweating sickness. ]

"Numberless honorable ladies of the present time surpass the daughtersof sir Thomas More in every kind of learning. But amongst them all, myillustrious mistress the lady Elizabeth shines like a star, excellingthem more by the splendor of her virtues and her learning, than by theglory of her royal birth. In the variety of her commendable qualities, Iam less perplexed to find matter for the highest panegyric than tocircumscribe that panegyric within just bounds. Yet I shall mentionnothing respecting her but what has come under my own observation. 

"For two years she pursued the study of Greek and Latin under mytuition; but the foundations of her knowledge in both languages werelaid by the diligent instruction of William Grindal, my late belovedfriend and seven years my pupil in classical learning at Cambridge. Fromthis university he was summoned by John Cheke to court, where he soonafter received the appointment of tutor to this lady. After some years, when through her native genius, aided by the efforts of so excellent amaster, she had made a great progress in learning, and Grindal, by hismerit and the favor of his mistress, might have aspired to highdignities, he was snatched away by a sudden illness, leaving a greatermiss of himself in the court, than I remember any other to have donethese many years. 

"I was appointed to succeed him in his office; and the work which he hadso happily begun, without my assistance indeed, but not without somecounsels of mine, I diligently labored to complete. Now, however, released from the throng of a court, and restored to the felicity of myformer learned leisure, I enjoy, through the bounty of the king, anhonorable appointment in this university. 

"The lady Elizabeth has accomplished her sixteenth year; and so muchsolidity of understanding, such courtesy united with dignity, have neverbeen observed at so early an age. She has the most ardent love of truereligion and of the best kind of literature. The constitution of hermind is exempt from female weakness, and she is endued with a masculinepower of application. No apprehension can be quicker than her's, nomemory more retentive. French and Italian she speaks like English;Latin, with fluency, propriety, and judgement; she also spoke Greek withme, frequently, willingly, and moderately well. Nothing can be moreelegant than her handwriting, whether in the Greek or Roman character. In music she is very skilful, but does not greatly delight. With respectto personal decoration, she greatly prefers a simple elegance to showand splendor, so despising 'the outward adorning of plaiting the hairand of wearing of gold, ' that in the whole manner of her life she ratherresembles Hippolyta than Phædra. 

"She read with me almost the whole of Cicero, and a great part of Livy:from these two authors, indeed, her knowledge of the Latin language hasbeen almost exclusively derived. The beginning of the day was alwaysdevoted by her to the New Testament in Greek, after which she readselect orations of Isocrates and the tragedies of Sophocles, which Ijudged best adapted to supply her tongue with the purest diction, hermind with the most excellent precepts, and her exalted station with adefence against the utmost power of fortune. For her religiousinstruction, she drew first from the fountains of Scripture, andafterwards from St. Cyprian, the 'Common places' of Melancthon, andsimilar works which convey pure doctrine in elegant language. In everykind of writing she easily detected any ill-adapted or far-fetchedexpression. She could not bear those feeble imitators of Erasmus whobind the Latin language in the fetters of miserable proverbs; on theother hand, she approved a style chaste in its propriety, and beautifulby perspicuity, and she greatly admired metaphors, when not too violent, and antitheses when just, and happily opposed. By a diligent attentionto these particulars, her ears became so practised and so nice, thatthere was nothing in Greek, Latin, or English, prose or verse, which, according to its merits or defects, she did not either reject withdisgust, or receive with the highest delight. . . . Had I more leisure, Iwould speak to you at greater length of the king, of the lady Elizabeth, and of the daughters of the duke of Somerset, whose minds have also beenformed by the best literary instruction. But there are two Englishladies whom I cannot omit to mention; nor would I have you, my Sturmius, omit them, if you meditate any celebration of your English friends, thanwhich nothing could be more agreeable to me. One is Jane Grey[13], theother is Mildred Cecil, who understands and speaks Greek like English, so that it may be doubted whether she is most happy in the possession ofthis surpassing degree of knowledge, or in having had for her preceptorand father sir Anthony Coke, whose singular erudition caused him to bejoined with John Cheke in the office of tutor to the king, or finally, in having become the wife of William Cecil, lately appointed secretaryof state; a young man indeed, but mature in wisdom, and so deeplyskilled both in letters and in affairs, and endued with such moderationin the exercise of public offices, that to him would be awarded by theconsenting voice of Englishmen the four-fold praise attributed toPericles by his rival Thucydides--'To know all that is fitting, to beable to apply what he knows, to be a lover of his country, and superiorto money. '"

[Note 13: This lady is commemorated at greater length in anotherplace, and therefore a clause is here omitted. ]

 * * * * *

The learned, excellent, and unfortunate Jane Grey is repeatedlymentioned by this writer with warm and merited eulogium. He relates toSturmius, that in the month of August 1550, taking his journey fromYorkshire to the court, he had deviated from his course to visit thefamily of the marquis of Dorset at his seat of Broadgate inLeicestershire. Lady Jane was alone at his arrival, the rest of thefamily being on a hunting party; and gaining admission to her apartment, he found her reading by herself the Phædo of Plato in the original, which she understood so perfectly as to excite in him extreme wonder;for she was at this time under fifteen years of age. She also possessedthe power of speaking and writing Greek, and she willingly promised toaddress to him a letter in this language. In his English work 'TheSchoolmaster, ' referring again to this interview with Jane Grey, Aschamadds the following curious and affecting particulars. Having asked herhow at her age she could have attained to such perfection both inphilosophy and Greek, "I will tell you, " said she, "and tell you atruth, which perchance you will marvel at. One of the greatest benefitsthat ever God gave me is, that he sent me so sharp and severe parents, and so gentle a schoolmaster. For when I am in presence either of fatheror mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go; eat, drink, be merry or sad; be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing any thing else, Imust do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even soperfectly, as God made the world, or else I am so sharply taunted, socruelly threatened, yea presently sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobsand other ways which I will not name, for the honor I bear them, sowithout measure misordered, that I think myself in hell, till time comethat I must go to Mr. Elmer, who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the timenothing while I am with him. And when I am called from him I fall onweeping, because whatsoever else I do but learning, is full of grief, trouble, fear, and whole misliking unto me. And thus my book hath beenso much my pleasure, and bringeth daily to me more pleasure and more, that in respect of it, all other pleasures, in very deed, be but triflesand troubles unto me. "

The epistles from which the extracts in the preceding pages are withsome abridgement translated, and which are said to be the firstcollection of private letters ever published by any Englishman, were allwritten during the year 1550, when Ascham, on some disgust, had quittedthe court and returned to his situation of Greek reader at Cambridge;and perhaps the eulogiums here bestowed, in epistles which hiscorrespondent lost no time in committing to the press, were not composedwithout the secret hope of their procuring for him a restoration to thatcourt life which it seems difficult even for the learned to quit withouta sigh. It would be unjust, however, to regard Ascham in the light of aflatterer; for his praises are in most points corroborated by theevidence of history, or by other concurring testimonies. Hisobservations, for instance, on the modest simplicity of Elizabeth'sdress and appearance at this early period of her life, which might bereceived with some incredulity by the reader to whom instances arefamiliar of her inordinate love of dress at a much more advanced age, and when the cares of a sovereign ought to have left no room for avanity so puerile, receive strong confirmation from another and veryrespectable authority. 

Dr. Elmer or Aylmer, who was tutor to lady Jane Grey and her sisters, and became afterwards, during Elizabeth's reign, bishop of London, thusdraws her character when young, in a work entitled "A Harbour forfaithful Subjects. " "The king left her rich cloaths and jewels; and Iknow it to be true, that in seven years after her father's death, shenever in all that time looked upon that rich attire and precious jewelsbut once, and that against her will. And that there never came gold orstone upon her head, till her sister forced her to lay off her formersoberness, and bear her company in her glittering gayness. And then sheso wore it, as every man might see that her body carried that which herheart misliked. I am sure that her maidenly apparel which she used inking Edward's time, made the noblemen's daughters and wives to beashamed to be dressed and painted like peacocks; being more moved withher most virtuous example than with all that ever Paul or Peter wrotetouching that matter. Yea, this I know, that a great man's daughter(lady Jane Grey) receiving from lady Mary before she was queen goodapparel of tinsel, cloth of gold and velvet, laid on with parchment laceof gold, when she saw it, said, 'What shall I do with it?' 'Mary, ' saida gentlewoman, 'wear it. ' 'Nay, ' quoth she, 'that were a shame, tofollow my lady Mary against God's word, and leave my lady Elizabethwhich followeth God's word. ' And when all the ladies at the coming ofthe Scots queen dowager, Mary of Guise, (she who visited England inEdward's time, ) went with their hair frownsed, curled, and doublecurled, she altered nothing but kept her old maidenly shamefacedness. " Thisextract may be regarded as particularly curious, as an exemplificationof the rigid turn of sentiment which prevailed at the court of youngEdward, and of the degree in which Elizabeth conformed herself to it. There is a print from a portrait of her when young, in which the hair iswithout a single ornament and the whole dress remarkably simple. 

But to return to Ascham. --The qualifications of this learned man as awriter of classical Latin recommended him to queen Mary, notwithstandinghis known attachment to the protestant faith, in the capacity of Latinsecretary; and it was in the year 1555, while holding this station, thathe resumed his lessons to his illustrious pupil. 

"The lady Elizabeth and I, " writes he to Sturmius, "are reading togetherin Greek the Orations of Æschines and Demosthenes. She reads before me, and at first sight she so learnedly comprehends not only the idiom ofthe language and the meaning of the orator, but the whole grounds ofcontention, the decrees of the people, and the customs and manners ofthe Athenians, as you would greatly wonder to hear. "

Under the reign of Elizabeth, Ascham retained his post of Latinsecretary, and was admitted to considerable intimacy by his royalmistress. Addressing Sturmius he says, "I received your last letters onthe 15th of January 1560. Two passages in them, one relative to theScotch affairs, the other on the marriage of the queen, induced me togive them to herself to read. She remarked and graciously acknowledgedin both of them your respectful observance of her. Your judgement in theaffairs of Scotland, as they then stood, she highly approved, and sheloves you for your solicitude respecting us and our concerns. The partrespecting her marriage she read over thrice, as I well remember, andwith somewhat of a gentle smile; but still preserving a modest andbashful silence. 

"Concerning that point indeed, my Sturmius, I have nothing certain towrite to you, nor does any one truly know what to judge. I told yourightly, in one of my former letters, that in the whole ordinance of herlife she resembled not Phædra but Hippolyta; for by nature, and not bythe counsels of others, she is thus averse and abstinent from marriage. When I know any thing for certain, I will write it to you as soon aspossible; in the mean time I have no hopes to give you respecting theking of Sweden. "

In the same letter, after enlarging, somewhat too rhetorically perhaps, on the praises of the queen and her government, Ascham recurs to hisfavorite theme, --her learning; and roundly asserts, that there were notfour men in England, distinguished either in the church or the state, who understood more Greek than her majesty: and as an instance of herproficiency in other tongues, he mentions that he was once present atcourt when she gave answers at the same time to three ambassadors, theImperial, the French, and the Swedish, in Italian, in French, and inLatin; and all this, fluently, without confusion, and to the purpose. 

A short epistle from queen Elizabeth to Sturmius, which is inserted inthis collection, appears to refer to that of Sturmius which Aschamanswers above. She addresses him as her beloved friend, expresses in thehandsomest terms her sense of the attachment towards herself and hercountry evinced by so eminent a cultivator of genuine learning and truereligion, and promises that her acknowledgements shall not be confinedto words alone; but for a further explanation of her intentions sherefers him to the bearer; consequently we have no data for estimatingthe actual pecuniary value of these warm expressions of royal favor andfriendship. But we have good proof, unfortunately, that no munificentact of Elizabeth's ever interposed to rescue her zealous and admiringpreceptor from the embarrassments into which he was plunged, probablyindeed by his own imprudent habits, but certainly by no faults whichought to have deprived him of his just claims on the purse of a mistresswhom, he had served with so much ability, and with such distinguishedadvantage to herself. The other learned females of this age whom Aschamhas complimented by addressing them in Latin epistles, are, Annecountess of Pembroke, sister of queen Catherine Parr; a young lady ofthe name of Vaughan; Jane Grey; and Mrs. Clark, a grand-daughter of sirThomas More, by his favorite daughter Mrs. Roper. In his letter to thislast lady, written during the reign of Mary, after congratulating her onher cultivation, amid the luxury and dissipation of a court, of studiesworthy the descendant of a man whose high qualities had ennobled Englandin the estimation of foreign nations, he proceeds to mention, that he isthe person whom, several years ago, her excellent mother had requestedto undertake the instruction of all her children in Greek and Latinliterature. At that time, he says, no offer could tempt him to quit hislearned retirement at Cambridge, and he was reluctantly compelled todecline the proposal; but being now once more established at court, hefreely offers to a lady whose accomplishments he so much admires, anyassistance in her laudable pursuits which it may be in his power toafford. 

A few more scattered notices may be collected relative to this period ofthe life of Elizabeth. Her talents, her vivacity, her proficiency inthose classical studies to which he was himself addicted, and especiallythe attachment which she manifested to the reformed religion, endearedher exceedingly to the young king her brother, who was wont to callher, --perhaps with reference to the sobriety of dress and manners bywhich she was then distinguished, --his sweet sister Temperance. On herpart his affection was met by every demonstration of sisterlytenderness, joined to those delicate attentions and respectfulobservances which his rank required. 

It was probably about 1550 that she addressed to him the followingletter on his having desired her picture, which affords perhaps the mostfavorable specimen extant of her youthful style. 

 * * * * *

"Like as the rich man that daily gathereth riches to riches, and to onebag of money layeth a great sort till it come to infinite: so methinksyour majesty, not being sufficed with so many benefits and gentlenessshewed to me afore this time, doth now increase them in asking anddesiring where you may bid and command; requiring a thing not worthy thedesiring for itself, but made worthy for your highness' request. Mypicture I mean: in which, if the inward good mind toward your gracemight as well be declared, as the outward face and countenance shall beseen, I would not have tarried the commandment but prevented it, norhave been the last to grant but the first to offer it. For the face Igrant I might well blush to offer, but the mind I shall never beashamed to present. But though from the grace of the picture the colorsmay fade by time, may give by weather, may be spited by chance; yet theother, nor time with her swift wings shall overtake, nor the mistyclouds with their lowering may darken, nor chance with her slippery footmay overthrow. 

"Of this also yet the proof could not be great, because the occasionshave been so small; notwithstanding, as a dog hath a day, so may Iperchance have time to declare it in deeds, which now I do write thembut in words. And further, I shall humbly beseech your majesty, thatwhen you shall look on my picture, you will witsafe to think, that asyou have but the outward shadow of the body afore you, so my inward mindwisheth that the body itself were oftener in your presence. Howbeitbecause both my so being I think could do your majesty little pleasure, though myself great good; and again, because I see not as yet the timeagreeing thereunto, I shall learn to follow this saying of Horace, '_Feras, non culpes, quod vitari non potest_. ' And thus I will(troubling your majesty I fear) end with my most humble thanks;beseeching God long to preserve you to his honor, to your comfort, tothe realms profit, and to my joy. 

(From Hatfield this 15th day of May. )

Your majesty's most humble sister and servant

ELIZABETH. "

 * * * * *

An exact memorialist[14] has preserved an instance of the highconsideration now enjoyed by Elizabeth in the following passage, whichis further curious as an instance of the state which she already assumedin her public appearances. "March 17th (1551). The lady Elizabeth, theking's sister, rode through London unto St. James's, the king's palace, with a great company of lords, knights, and gentlemen; and after her agreat company of ladies and gentlemen on horseback, about two hundred. On the 19th she came from St. James's through the park to the court; theway from the park gate unto the court spread with fine sand. She wasattended with a very honorable confluence of noble and worshipfulpersons of both sexes, and received with much ceremony at the courtgate. "

[Note 14: Strype. ]

The ensuing letter, however, seems to intimate that there were thoseabout the young king who envied her these tokens of favor and credit, and were sometimes but too successful in estranging her from the royalpresence, and perhaps in exciting prejudices against her:--It isunfortunately without date of year. 

 * * * * *

"The princess Elizabeth to king Edward VI. 

"Like as a shipman in stormy weather plucks down the sails tarrying forbetter wind, so did I, most noble king, in my unfortunate chance aThursday pluck down the high sails of my joy and comfort; and do trustone day, that as troublesome waves have repulsed me backward, so agentle wind will bring me forward to my haven. Two chief occasions movedme much and grieved me greatly: the one, for that I doubted yourmajesty's health; the other, because for all my long tarrying, I wentwithout that I came for. Of the first I am relieved in a part, both thatI understood of your health, and also that your majesty's lodging is farfrom my lord marques' chamber: of my other grief I am not eased; but thebest is, that whatsoever other folks will suspect, I intend not to fearyour grace's good will, which as I know that I never deserved to faint, so I trust will still stick by me. For if your grace's advice that Ishould return, (whose will is a commandment) had not been, I would nothave made the half of my way the end of my journey. 

"And thus as one desirous to hear of your majesty's health, thoughunfortunate to see it, I shall pray God to preserve you. (From Hatfieldthis present Saturday. )

"Your majesty's humble sister to commandment, "ELIZABETH. "

 * * * * *

CHAPTER V. 

1549 TO 1553. 

Decline of the protector's authority. --He is imprisoned--accused ofmisdemeanors--loses his office--is liberated--reconciled with Dudley, who succeeds to his authority. --Dudley pushes on the reformation. --Thecelebration of mass prohibited. --Princess Mary persecuted. --The emperorattempts to get her out of the kingdom, but without success--interferesopenly in her behalf. --Effect of persecution on the mind ofMary. --Marriage proposed for Elizabeth with the prince of Denmark. --Shedeclines it. --King betrothed to a princess of France. --Sweatingsickness. --Death of the duke of Suffolk. --Dudley procures that title forthe marquis of Dorset, and the dukedom of Northumberland forhimself. --Particulars of the last earl of Northumberland. --Trial, conviction, and death of the duke of Somerset. --Christmas festivities ofthe young king. --Account of George Ferrers master of the king'spastimes, and his works. --Views of Northumberland. --Decline of theking's health. --Scheme of Northumberland for lady Jane Grey'ssuccession. --Three marriages contrived by him for this purpose. --Heprocures a settlement of the crown on the lady Jane. --Subserviency ofthe council. --Death of Edward concealed by Northumberland. --Theprincesses narrowly escape falling into his hands. --Courageous conductof Elizabeth. --Northumberland deserted by the council and thearmy. --Jane Grey imprisoned. --Northumberland arrested. --Mary mounts thethrone. 

It was to little purpose that the protector had stained his hands withthe blood of his brother, for the exemption thus purchased from onekind of fear or danger, was attended by a degree of public odium whichcould not fail to render feeble and tottering an authority based, likehis, on plain and open usurpation. 

Other causes conspired to undermine his credit and prepare hisoverthrow. The hatred of the great nobles, which he augmented by asomewhat too ostentatious patronage of the lower classes against therich and powerful, continually pursued and watched the opportunity toruin him. Financial difficulties pressed upon him, occasioned in greatmeasure by the wars with France and Scotland which he had carried on, inpursuance of Henry's design of compelling the Scotch to marry theiryoung queen to his son. An object which had finally been frustrated, notwithstanding the vigilance of the English fleet, by the safe arrivalof Mary in France, and her solemn betrothment to the dauphin. The greatand glorious work of religious reformation, though followed by Somerset, under the guidance of Cranmer, with a moderation and prudence whichreflect the highest honor on both, could not be brought to perfectionwithout exciting the rancorous hostility of thousands, whom variousmotives and interests attached to the cause of ancient superstition; andthe abolition, by authority, of the mass, and the destruction of imagesand crucifixes, had given birth to serious disturbances in differentparts of the country. The want and oppression under which the lowerorders groaned, --and which they attributed partly to the suppression ofthe monasteries to which they had been accustomed to resort for thesupply of their necessities, partly to a general inclosure billextremely cruel and arbitrary in its provisions, --excited commotionsstill more violent and alarming. In order to suppress the insurrectionin Norfolk, headed by Kett, it had at length been found necessary tosend thither a large body of troops under the earl of Warwick, who hadacquired a very formidable degree of celebrity by the courage andconduct which he exhibited in bringing this difficult enterprise to asuccessful termination. 

A party was now formed in the council, of which Warwick, Southampton, Arundel, and St. John, were the chiefs; and strong resolutions wereentered into against the assumed authority of the protector. Thisunfortunate man, whom an inconsiderate ambition, fostered bycircumstances favorable to its success, had pushed forward into astation equally above his talents and his birth, was now found destituteof all the resources of courage and genius which might yet haveretrieved his authority and his credit. He suffered himself to besurprised into acts indicative of weakness and dismay, which soon robbedhim of his remaining partisans, and gave to his enemies all theadvantage which they desired. 

His committal to the Tower on several charges, of which his assumptionof the whole authority of the state was the principal, soon followed. Ashort time after he was deprived of his high office, which was nominallyvested in six members of the council, but really in the earl of Warwick, whose private ambition seems to have been the main-spring of the wholeintrigue, and who thus became, almost without a struggle, undisputedmaster of the king and kingdom. 

That poorness of spirit which had sunk the duke of Somerset intoinsignificance, saved him at present from further mischief. In thebeginning of the ensuing year, 1550, having on his knees confessedhimself guilty of all the matters laid to his charge, withoutreservation or exception, and humbly submitted himself to the king'smercy, he was condemned in a heavy fine, on remission of which by theking he was liberated. Soon after, by the special favor of his royalnephew, he was readmitted into the council; and a reconciliation wasmediated for him with Warwick, cemented by a marriage between one of hisdaughters and the son and heir of this aspiring leader. 

The catholic party, which had flattered itself that the earl of Warwick, from gratitude for the support which some of its leaders had affordedhim, and perhaps also from principle, no less than from opposition tothe duke of Somerset, would be led to embrace its defence, was nowdestined to deplore its disappointment. 

Determined to rule alone, he soon shook off his able but too aspiringcolleague, the earl of Southampton, and disgraced, by the imposition ofa fine for some alleged embezzlement of public money, the earl ofArundel, also a known assertor of the ancient faith, finally, havingobserved how closely the principles of protestantism, which Edward hadderived from instructors equally learned and zealous, had interwoventhemselves with the whole texture and fabric of his mind, he resolvedto merit the lasting attachment of the royal minor by assisting him tocomplete the overthrow of popery in England. 

A confession of faith was now drawn up by commissioners appointed forthe purpose, and various alterations were made in the Liturgy, which hadalready been translated into the vulgar tongue for church use. Testswere imposed, which Gardiner, Bonner, and several others of the bishopsfelt themselves called upon by conscience, or a regard to their ownreputation, to decline subscribing, even at the price of deprivation;and prodigious devastations were made by the courtiers on the propertyof the church. To perform or assist at the performance of the mass wasalso rendered highly penal. But no dread of legal animadversion wascapable of deterring the lady Mary from the observance of this essentialrite of her religion; and finding herself and her household exposed toserious inconveniences on account of their infraction of the newstatute, she applied for protection to her potent kinsman the emperorCharles V. , who is said to have undertaken her rescue by means whichcould scarcely have failed to involve him in a war with England. By hisorders, or connivance, certain ships were prepared in the ports ofFlanders, manned and armed for an attempt to carry off the princesseither by stealth or open force, and land her at Antwerp. In furtheranceof the design, several of her gentlemen had already taken theirdeparture for that city, and Flemish light vessels were observed to keepwatch on the English coast. But by these appearances the apprehensionsof the council were awakened, and a sudden journey of the princess fromHunsdon in Hertfordshire towards Norfolk, for which she was unable toassign a satisfactory reason, served as strong confirmation of theirsuspicions. 

A violent alarm was immediately sounded through the nation, of foreigninvasion designed to co-operate with seditions at home; bodies of troopswere dispatched to protect different points of the coast; and severalships of war were equipped for sea; while a communication on the subjectwas made by the council to the nobility throughout the kingdom, in termscalculated to awaken indignation against the persecuted princess, andall who were suspected, justly or unjustly, of regarding her cause withfavor. A few extracts from this paper will exhibit the fierce andjealous spirit of that administration of which Dudley formed the soul. 

"So it is, that the lady Mary, not many days past, removed from Newhallin Essex to her house of Hunsdon in Hertfordshire, the cause whereof, although we knew not, yet did we rather think it likely that her gracewould have come to have seen his majesty; but now upon Tuesday last, shehath suddenly, without knowledge given either to us here or to thecountry there, and without any cause in the world by us to her given, taken her journey from Hunsdon towards Norfolk" &c. "This her doing webe sorry for, both for the evil opinion the king's majesty our mastermay conceive thereby of her, and for that by the same doth appearmanifestly the malicious rancour of such as provoke her thus to breedand stir up, as much as in her and them lieth, occasion of disorder andunquiet in the realm" &c. "It is not unknown to us but some near aboutthe said lady Mary have very lately in the night seasons had privyconferences with the emperor's embassador here being, which councils canno wise tend to the weal of the king's majesty our master or his realm, nor to the nobility of this realm. And whatsoever the lady Mary shallupon instigation of these forward practices further do, like to theseher strange beginnings, we doubt not but your lordship will provide thather proceedings shall not move any disobedience or disorder--The effectwhereof if her counsellors should procure, as it must be to her grace, and to all other good Englishmen therein seduced, damnable, so shall itbe most hurtful to the good subjects of the country" &c. [15]

[Note 15: Burleigh Papers by Haynes. ]

Thus did the fears, the policy, or the party-spirit, of the members ofthe council lead them to magnify the peril of the nation from theenterprises of a young and defenceless female, whose best friend was aforeign prince, whose person was completely within their power, and who, at this period of her life "more sinned against than sinning, " was noteven suspected of any other design than that of withdrawing herself froma country in which she was no longer allowed to worship God according toher conscience. Some slight tumults in Essex and Kent, in which she wasnot even charged with any participation, were speedily suppressed; andafter some conference with the chancellor and secretary Petre, Maryobeyed a summons to attend them to the court, where she was now to bedetained for greater security. 

On her arrival she received a reprimand from the council for herobstinacy respecting the mass, with an injunction to instruct herself, by reading, in the grounds of protestant belief. To this she replied, with the inflexible resolution of her character, that as to protestantbooks, she thanked God that she never had read any, and never intendedso to do; that for her religion she was ready to lay down her life, andonly feared that she might not be found worthy to become its martyr. Oneof her chaplains was soon after thrown into prison; and furtherseverities seemed to await her, when a message from the emperor, menacing the country with war in case she should be debarred from thefree exercise of her religion, taught the council the expediency ofrelaxing a little the sternness of their intolerance. But the scruplesof the zealous young king on this head could not be brought to yield toreasons of state, till he had "advised with the archbishop of Canterburyand the bishops of London and Rochester, who gave their opinion that togive license to sin was sin, but to connive at sin might be allowed incase it were neither long, nor without hope of reformation[16]. "

[Note 16: Hayward's Life of Edward VI. ]

By this prudent and humane but somewhat jesuitical decision thisperplexing affair was set at rest for the present; and during the smallremainder of her brother's reign, a negative kind of persecution, consisting in disfavor, obloquy, and neglect, was all, apparently, thatthe lady Mary was called upon to undergo. But she had already enduredenough to sour her temper, to aggravate with feelings of personalanimosity her systematic abhorrence of what she deemed impious heresy, and to bind to her heart by fresh and stronger ties that cherishedfaith, in defence of which she was proudly conscious of having struggledand suffered with a lofty and unyielding intrepidity. 

In order to counterbalance the threatened hostility of Spain, and imposean additional check on the catholic party at home, it was now judgedexpedient for the king to strengthen himself by an alliance withChristian III. King of Denmark; an able and enlightened prince, who inthe early part of his reign had opposed with vigor the aggressions ofthe emperor Charles V. On the independence of the north of Europe, andmore recently had acquired the respect of the whole protestant body byestablishing the reformation in his dominions. An agent was accordinglydispatched with a secret commission to sound the inclinations of thecourt of Copenhagen towards a marriage between the prince-royal and thelady Elizabeth. 

That this negotiation proved fruitless, was apparently owing to thereluctance to the connexion manifested by Elizabeth; of whom it isobservable, that she never could be prevailed upon to afford thesmallest encouragement to the addresses of any foreign prince whilstshe herself was still a subject; well aware that to accept of analliance which would carry her out of the kingdom, was to hazard theloss of her succession to the English crown, a splendid reversion neverabsent from her aspiring thoughts. 

Disappointed in this design, Edward lost no time in pledging his ownhand to the infant daughter of Henry II. Of France, which contract hedid not live to complete. 

The splendid French embassy which arrived in England during the year1550 to make arrangements respecting the dower of the princess, and toconfer on her intended spouse the order of St. Michael, was receivedwith high honors, but found the court-festivities damped by a visitationof that strange and terrific malady the sweating sickness. 

This pestilence, first brought into the island by the foreignmercenaries who composed the army of the earl of Richmond, afterwardsHenry VII. , now made its appearance for the fourth and last time in ourannals. It seized principally, it is said, on males, on such as were inthe prime of their age, and rather on the higher than the lower classes:within the space of twenty-four hours the fate of the sufferer wasdecided for life or death. Its ravages were prodigious; and the generalconsternation was augmented by a superstitious idea which went forth, that Englishmen alone, were the destined victims of this mysteriousminister of fate, which tracked their steps, with the malice andsagacity of an evil spirit, into every distant country of the earthwhither they might have wandered, whilst it left unassailed allforeigners in their own. 

Two of the king's servants died of this disease, and he in consequenceremoved to Hampton Court in haste and with very few attendants. The dukeof Suffolk and his brother, students at Cambridge, were seized with itat the same time, sleeping in the same bed, and expired within two hoursof each other. They were the children of Charles Brandon by his lastwife, who was in her own right baroness Willoughby of Eresby. This ladyhad already made herself conspicuous by that earnest profession of theprotestant faith for which, in the reign of Mary, she underwent manyperils and a long exile. She was a munificent patroness of the learnedand zealous divines of her own persuasion, whether natives orforeigners; and the untimely loss of these illustrious youths, who seemto have inherited both her religious principles and her love of letters, was publicly bewailed by the principal members of the university. 

But by the earl of Warwick the melancholy event was rendered doublyconducive to the purposes of his ambition. In the first place it enabledhim to bind to his interests the marquis of Dorset married to thehalf-sister of the young duke of Suffolk, by procuring a renewal of theducal title in his behalf, and next authorized him by a kind ofprecedent to claim for himself the same exalted dignity. 

The circumstances attending Dudley's elevation to the ducal rank areworthy of particular notice, as connected with a melancholy part of thestory of that old and illustrious family of the Percies, celebratedthrough so many ages of English history. 

The last of this house who had borne the title of earl of Northumberlandwas that ardent and favored suitor of Anne Boleyn, who was compelled byhis father to renounce his pretensions to her hand in deference to thewishes of a royal competitor. 

The disappointment and the injury impressed themselves in indeliblecharacters on the heart of Percy: in common with the object of hisattachment, he retained against Wolsey, whom he believed to have beenactively instrumental in fostering the king's passion, a deepresentment, which is said to have rendered peculiarly acceptable to himthe duty afterwards imposed upon him, of arresting that celebratedminister in order to his being brought to his trial. For the lady towhom a barbarous exertion of parental authority had compelled him togive his hand, while his whole heart was devoted to another, he alsoconceived an aversion rather to be lamented than wondered at. 

Unfortunately, she brought him no living offspring; and after a fewyears he separated himself from her to indulge his melancholy alone andwithout molestation. In this manner he spun out a suffering existence, oppressed with sickness of mind and body, disengaged from public life, and neglectful of his own embarrassed affairs, till the fatalcatastrophe of his brother, brought to the scaffold in 1537 for hisshare in the popish rebellion under Aske. By this event, and theattainder of sir Thomas Percy's children which followed, the earl sawhimself deprived of the only consolation which remained to him, --that oftransmitting to the posterity of a brother whom he loved, the titles andestates derived to him through a long and splendid ancestry. As a lastresource, he bequeathed all his land to the king, in the hope, which wasnot finally frustrated, that a return of royal favor might one dayrestore them to the representatives of the Percies. 

This done, he yielded his weary spirit on the last day of the same monthwhich had seen the fatal catastrophe of his misguided brother. 

From this time the title had remained dormant, till the earl of Warwick, untouched by commiseration or respect for the misfortunes of so great ahouse, cut off for the present all chance of its restoration, by causingthe young monarch whom he governed to confer upon himself the whole ofthe Percy estates, with the new dignity of duke of Northumberland; anhonor undeserved and ill-acquired, which no son of his was everpermitted to inherit. 

But the soaring ambition of Dudley regarded even these splendidacquisitions of wealth and dignity only as steps to that summit of powerand dominion which he was resolved by all means and at all hazards toattain; and his next measure was to procure the removal of the only mancapable in any degree of obstructing his further progress. This was thelate protector, by whom some relics of authority were still retained. 

At the instigation of Northumberland, a law was passed making it felonyto conspire against the life of a privy-counsellor; and by variousinsidious modes of provocation, he was soon enabled to bring within thedanger of this new act an enemy who was rash, little sagacious, by nomeans scrupulous, and surrounded with violent or treacherous advisers. On October 16th 1551, Somerset and several of his relations anddependants, and on the following day his haughty duchess with certain ofher favorites, were committed to the Tower, charged with treason andfelony. The duke, being put upon his trial, so clearly disproved most ofthe accusations brought against him that the peers acquitted him oftreason; but the evidence of his having entertained designs against thelives of the duke of Northumberland, the marquis of Northampton, and theearl of Pembroke, appeared so conclusive to his judges, --among whomthese three noblemen themselves did not blush to take their seats, --thathe was found guilty of the felony. 

After his condemnation, Somerset acknowledged with contrition that hehad once mentioned to certain persons an intention of assassinatingthese lords; but he protested that he had never taken any measures forcarrying this wicked purpose into execution. However this might be, noact of violence had been committed, and it was hoped by many andexpected by more, that the royal mercy might yet be extended to preservehis life: but Northumberland spared no efforts to incense the kingagainst his unhappy uncle; he also contrived by a course of amusementsand festivities to divert him from serious thought; and on January 21st1552, to the great regret of the common people and the dismay of theprotestant party, the duke of Somerset underwent the fatal stroke onTower-hill. 

During the whole interval between the condemnation and death of hisuncle, the king, as we are informed, had been entertained by the noblesof his court with "stately masques, brave challenges at tilt and atbarriers, and whatsoever exercises or disports they could conjecture tobe pleasing to him. Then also he first began to _keep hall_[17], and theChristmas-time was passed over with banquetings, plays, and much varietyof mirth[18]. "

[Note 17: To keep hall, was to keep "open household with frankresort to court. "]

[Note 18: Hayward's Life of Edward VI. ]

We learn that it was an ancient custom, not only with the kings ofEngland but with noblemen and "great housekeepers who used liberalfeasting in that season, " to appoint for the twelve days of theChristmas festival a lord of misrule, whose office it was to providediversions for their numerous guests. Of what nature theseentertainments might be we are not exactly informed; they probablycomprised some rude attempts at dramatic representation: but the tasteof an age rapidly advancing in literature and general refinement, evidently began to disdain the flat and coarse buffooneries which hadformed the solace of its barbarous predecessors; and it was determinedthat devices of superior elegance and ingenuity should distinguish thefestivities of the new court of Edward. Accordingly, George Ferrers, agentleman regularly educated at Oxford, and a member of the society ofLincoln's inn, was chosen to preside over the "merry disports;" "who, "says Holinshed, "being of better credit and estimation than commonly hispredecessors had been before, received all his commissions and warrantsby the name of master of the king's pastimes. Which gentleman so wellsupplied his office, both in show of sundry sights and devices of rareinventions, and in act of divers interludes and matters of pastimeplayed by persons, as not only satisfied the common sort, but also werevery well liked and allowed by the council, and other of skill in thelike pastimes; but best of all by the young king himself, as appeared byhis princely liberality in rewarding that service. "

"On Monday the fourth day of January, " pursues our chronicler, whosecircumstantial detail is sometimes picturesque and amusing, "the saidlord of merry disports came by water to London, and landing at the Towerwharf entered the Tower, then rode through Tower-street, where he wasreceived by Vause, lord of misrule to John Mainard, one of the sheriffsof London, and so conducted through the city with a great company ofyoung lords and gentlemen to the house of sir George Burne lord-mayor, where he with the chief of his company dined, and after had a greatbanquet, and at his departure the lord-mayor gave him a standing cupwith a cover of silver and gilt, of the value of ten pounds, for areward, and also set a hogshead of wine and a barrel of beer at hisgate, for his train that followed him. The residue of his gentlemen andservants dined at other aldermen's houses and with the sheriffs, andthen departed to the Tower wharf again, and so to the court by water, tothe great commendation of the mayor and aldermen, and highly accepted, of the king and council. "

From this time Ferrers became "a composer almost by profession ofoccasional interludes for the diversion of the court[19]. " None of theseproductions of his have come down to posterity; but their author isstill known to the student of early English poetry, as one of thecontributors to an extensive work entitled "The Mirror for Magistrates, "which will be mentioned hereafter in speaking of the works of ThomasSackville lord Buckhurst. The legends combined in this collection, whichcame from the pen of Ferrers, are not distinguished by any high flightsof poetic fancy, nor by a versification extremely correct or melodious. Their merit is that of narrating after the chronicles, facts in Englishhistory, in a style clear, natural, and energetic, with an intermixtureof political reflections conceived in a spirit of wisdom and moderation, highly honorable to the author, and well adapted to counteract theturbulent spirit of an age in which the ambition of the high and thediscontent of the low were alike apt to break forth into outragesdestructive of the public tranquillity. 

[Note 19: See Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. Iii. P. 213et seq. ]

Happy would it have been for England in more ages than one, had thesentiment of the following humble stanza been indelibly inscribed onthe hearts of children. 

 "Some haply here will move a further doubt, And as for York's part allege an elder right: O brainless heads that so run in and out! When length of time a state hath firmly pight, And good accord hath put all strife to flight, Were it not better such titles still to sleep Than all a realm about the trial weep?"

This estimable writer had been a member of parliament in the time ofHenry VIII. , and was imprisoned by that despot in 1542, very probablywithout any just cause. He about the same time translated into Englishthe great charter of Englishmen which had become a dead letter throughthe tyranny of the Tudors; and he rendered the same public servicerespecting several important statutes which existed only in Latin orNorman French; proofs of a free and courageous spirit extremely rare inthat servile age!

Ferrers lived far into the reign of Elizabeth, finishing his career atFlamstead in his native county of Herts in 1579. 

From the pleasing contemplation of a life devoted to those honorablearts by which society is cultivated, enlightened and adorned, we mustnow return to tread with Northumberland the maze of dark and crookedpolitics. By many a bold and many a crafty step this adept in his arthad wound his way to the highest rank of nobility attainable by asubject, and to a station of eminence and command scarcely compatiblewith that character. But no sooner had he reached it, than a suddencloud lowered over the splendid prospect stretched around him, andthreatened to snatch it for ever from his sight. The youthful monarch inwhom, or over whom, he reigned, was seized with a lingering diseasewhich soon put on appearances indicative of a fatal termination. UnderMary, the next heir, safety with insignificance was the utmost thatcould be hoped by the man who had taken a principal and conspicuous partin every act of harshness towards herself, and every demonstration ofhostility towards the faith which she cherished, and against whom, whenhe should be no longer protected by the power which he wielded, so manylawless and rapacious acts were ready to rise up in judgement. 

One scheme alone suggested itself for the preservation of his authority:it was dangerous, almost desperate; but loss of power was more dreadedby Dudley than any degree of hazard to others or himself; and heresolved at all adventures to make the attempt. 

By means of the new honors which he had caused to be conferred on themarquis of Dorset, now duke of Suffolk, he engaged this weak andinconsiderate man to give his eldest daughter, the lady Jane Grey, inmarriage to his fourth son Guildford Dudley. At the same time heprocured an union between her sister, the lady Catherine, and the eldestson of his able but mean-spirited and time-serving associate, the earlof Pembroke; and a third between his own daughter Catherine and lordHastings, son of the earl of Huntingdon by the eldest daughter andco-heir of Henry Pole lord Montacute; in whom the claims of the line ofClarence now vested. 

These nuptials were all celebrated on one day, and with an ostentationof magnificence and festivity which the people exclaimed against ashighly indecorous in the present dangerous state of the king's health. But it was not on _their_ good will that Northumberland founded hishopes, and their clamors were braved or disregarded. 

His next measure was to prevail upon the dying king to dispose of thecrown by will in favor of the lady Jane. The animosity against hissister Mary, to which their equal bigotry in opposite modes of faith hadgiven birth in the mind of Edward, would naturally induce him to lend awilling ear to such specious arguments as might be produced injustification of her exclusion: but that he could be brought with equalfacility to disinherit also Elizabeth, a sister whom he loved, aprincess judged in all respects worthy of a crown, and one with whosereligious profession he had every reason to be perfectly satisfied, appears an indication of a character equally cold and feeble. Muchallowance, however, may be made for the extreme youth of Edward; theweakness of his sinking frame; his affection for the pious and amiableJane, his near relation and the frequent companion of his childhood; andabove all, for the importunities, the artifices, of the practisedintriguers by whom his dying couch was surrounded. 

The partisans of Northumberland did not fail to urge, that if one of theprincesses were set aside on account of the nullification of hermother's marriage, the same ground of exclusion was valid against theother. If, on the contrary, the testamentary dispositions of the lateking were to be adhered to, the lady Mary must necessarily precede hersister, and the cause of religious reformation was lost, perhaps forever. 

With regard to the other claimants who might still be interposed betweenJane and the English throne, it was pretended that the Scottish branchof the royal family was put out of the question by that clause ofHenry's will which placed the Suffolk line next in order to his ownimmediate descendants; as if an instrument which was set aside as toseveral of its most important provisions was necessarily to be heldbinding in all the rest. Even admitting this, the duchess of Suffolkherself stood before her daughter in order of succession; but arenunciation obtained from this lady by the authority of Northumberland, not only of her own title but of that of any future son who might beborn to her, was supposed to obviate this objection. 

The right of the king, even if he had attained the age of majority, todispose of the crown by will without the concurrence of parliament, wasabsolutely denied by the first law authorities: but the power andviolence of Northumberland overruled all objections, and in the end thenew settlement received the signature of all the privy council, and thewhole bench of judges, with the exception of justice Hales, and perhapsof Cecil, then secretary of state, who afterwards affirmed that he puthis name to this instrument only as a witness to the signature of theking. Cranmer resisted for some time, but was at length won tocompliance by the tears and entreaties of Edward. 

Notwithstanding this general concurrence, it is probable that very fewof the council either expected or desired that this act should besanctioned by the acquiescence of the nation: they signed it merely as aprotection from the present effects of the anger of Northumberland, whommost of them hated as well as feared; each privately hoping that heshould find opportunity to disavow the act of the body in time to obtainthe forgiveness of Mary, should her cause be found finally to prevail. The selfish meanness and political profligacy of such a conduct it isneedless to stigmatize; but this was not the age of public virtue inEngland. 

A just detestation of the character of Northumberland had rendered veryprevalent an idea, that the constitution of the king was undermined byslow poisons of his administering; and it was significantly remarked, that his health had begun to decline from the period of lord RobertDudley's being placed about him as gentleman of the bed-chamber. Nothing, however, could be more destitute both of truth and probabilitythan such a suspicion. Besides the satisfactory evidence that Edward'sdisease was a pulmonary consumption, such as no poison could produce, ithas been well remarked, that if Northumberland were a sound politician, there could be no man in England more sincerely desirous, for his ownsake, of the continuance of the life and reign of this young prince. Bya change he had every thing to lose, and nothing to gain. Severalcircumstances tend also to show that the fatal event, hastened by thetreatment of a female empiric to whom the royal patient had been veryimproperly confided, came upon Northumberland at last somewhat bysurprise, and compelled him to act with a precipitation injurious to hisdesigns. Several preparatory steps were yet wanting; in particular theimportant one of securing the persons of the two princesses: but thisomission it seemed still possible to supply; and he ordered the death ofthe king to be carefully concealed, while he wrote letters in his namerequiring the immediate attendance of his sisters on his person. WithMary the stratagem had nearly succeeded: she had reached Hoddesdon onher journey to London, when secret intelligence of the truth, conveyedto her by the earl of Arundel, caused her to change her course. It wasprobably a similar intimation from some friendly hand, Cecil's perhaps, which caused Elizabeth to disobey the summons, and remain tranquil atone of her houses in Hertfordshire. 

Here she was soon after waited upon by messengers from Northumberland, who apprized her of the accession of the lady Jane, and proposed to herto resign her own title in consideration of a sum of money, and certainlands which should be assigned her. But Elizabeth wisely andcourageously replied, that her elder sister was first to be agreed with, during whose lifetime she, for her part, could claim no right at all. And determined to make common cause with Mary against their commonenemies, she equipped with all speed a body of a thousand horse, at thehead of which she went forth to meet her sister on her approach toLondon. 

The event quickly proved that she had taken the right part. Though thecouncil manifested their present subserviency to Northumberland byproclaiming queen Jane in the metropolis, and by issuing in her name asummons to Mary to lay aside her pretensions to the crown, this leaderwas too well practised in the arts of courts, to be the dupe of theirhollow professions of attachment to a cause unsupported, as he soonperceived, by the favor of the people. 

The march of Northumberland at the head of a small body of troops toresist the forces levied by Mary in Norfolk and Suffolk, was the signalfor the defection of a great majority of the council. They broke fromthe kind of honorable custody in the Tower in which, from a well-foundeddistrust of their intentions, Northumberland had hitherto held them; andordering Mary to be proclaimed in London, they caused the hapless Jane, after a nominal reign of ten days, to be detained as a prisoner in thatfortress which she had entered as a sovereign. 

Not a hand was raised, not a drop of blood was shed, in defence of thispageant raised by the ambition of Dudley. Deserted by his partisans, hissoldiers and himself, the guilty wretch sought, as a last feebleresource, to make a merit of being the first man to throw up his cap inthe market-place of Cambridge, and cry "God save queen Mary!" But onthe following day the earl of Arundel, whom he had disgraced, and whohated him, though a little before he had professed that he could wish tospend his blood at his feet, came and arrested him in her majesty'sname, and Mary, proceeding to London, seated herself without oppositionon the throne of her ancestors. 

CHAPTER VI. 

1553 AND 1554. 

Mary affects attachment to Elizabeth. --Short duration of herkindness. --Earl of Devonshire liberated from the Tower. --Hischaracter. --He rejects the love of Mary--shows partiality toElizabeth. --Anger of Mary. --Elizabeth retires from court. --Queen'sproposed marriage unpopular. --Character of sir T. Wyat. --Hisrebellion. --Earl of Devonshire remanded to the Tower. --Elizabethsummoned to court--is detained by illness. --Wyat taken--is said toaccuse Elizabeth. --She is brought prisoner to the court--examined by thecouncil--dismissed--brought again to court--re-examined--committed tothe Tower. --Particulars of her behaviour. --Influence of Mary'sgovernment on various eminent characters. --Reinstatement of the duke ofNorfolk in honor and office. --His retirement and death. --Liberation fromthe Tower of Tonstal. --His character and after fortunes. --Of Gardinerand Bonner. --Their views and characters. --Of the duchess of Somerset andthe marchioness of Exeter. --Imprisonment of the Dudleys--of severalprotestant bishops--of judge Hales. --His sufferings anddeath. --Characters and fortunes of sir John Cheke, sir Anthony Cook, Dr. Cox, and other protestant exiles. 

The conduct of Elizabeth during the late alarming crisis, earned for herfrom Mary, during the first days of her reign, some demonstration ofsisterly affection. She caused her to bear her company in her publicentry into London; kindly detained her for a time near her own person;and seemed to have consigned for ever to an equitable oblivion all themortifications and heartburnings of which the child of Anne Boleyn hadbeen the innocent occasion to her in times past, and under circumstanceswhich could never more return. 

In the splendid procession which attended her majesty from the Tower toWhitehall previously to her coronation on October 1st 1553, the royalchariot, sumptuously covered with cloth of tissue and drawn by sixhorses with trappings of the same material, was immediately followed byanother, likewise drawn by six horses and covered with cloth of silver, in which sat the princess Elizabeth and the lady Anne of Cleves, whotook place in this ceremony as the adopted sister of Henry VIII. 

But notwithstanding these fair appearances, the rancorous feelings ofMary's heart with respect to her sister were only repressed ordisguised, not eradicated; and it was not long before a new subject ofjealousy caused them to revive in all their pristine energy. 

Amongst the state prisoners committed to the Tower by Henry VIII. , whoseliberation his executors had resisted during the whole reign of Edward, but whom it was Mary's first act of royalty to release and reinstate intheir offices or honors, was Edward Courtney, son of the unfortunatemarquis of Exeter. From the age of fourteen to that of six-and-twenty, this victim of tyranny had been doomed to expiate in a captivity whichthreatened to be perpetual, the involuntary offence of inheritingthrough an attainted father the blood of the fourth Edward. To thesurprise and admiration of the court, he now issued forth a comely andaccomplished gentleman; deeply versed in the literature of the age;skilled in music, and still more so in the art of painting, which hadformed the chief solace of his long seclusion; and graced with thatpolished elegance of manners, the result, in most who possess it, ofearly intercourse with the world and an assiduous imitation of the bestexamples, but to a few of her favorites the free gift of nature herself. To all his prepossessing qualities was superadded that deep romantickind of interest with which sufferings, long, unmerited, andextraordinary, never fail to invest a youthful sufferer. 

What wonder that Courtney speedily became the favorite of thenation!--what wonder that even the severe bosom of Mary herself wastouched with tenderness! With the eager zeal of the sentiment justawakened in her heart, she hastened to restore to her too amiablekinsman the title of earl of Devonshire, long hereditary in theillustrious house of Courtney, to which she added the whole of thosepatrimonial estates which the forfeiture of his father had vested in thecrown. She went further; she lent a propitious ear to the whisperedsuggestion of her people, still secretly partial to the house of York, that an English prince of the blood was most worthy to share the throneof an English queen. It is even affirmed that hints were designedlythrown out to the young man himself of the impression which he had madeupon her heart. But Courtney generously disdained, as it appears, tobarter his affections for a crown. The youth, the talents, the gracesof Elizabeth had inspired him with a preference which he was eitherunwilling or unable to conceal; Mary was left to vent her disappointmentin resentment against the ill-fated object of her preference, and inevery demonstration of a malignant jealousy towards her innocent andunprotected rival. 

By the first act of a parliament summoned immediately after thecoronation, Mary's birth had been pronounced legitimate, the marriage ofher father and mother valid, and their divorce null and void. A stigmawas thus unavoidably cast on the offspring of Henry's second marriage;and no sooner had Elizabeth incurred the displeasure of her sister, thanshe was made to feel how far the consequences of this new declaration ofthe legislature might be made to extend. Notwithstanding the unrevokedsuccession act which rendered her next heir to the crown, she wasforbidden to take place of the countess of Lenox, or the duchess ofSuffolk, in the presence-chamber, and her friends were discountenancedor affronted obviously on her account. Her merit, her accomplishments, her insinuating manners, which attracted to her the admiration andattendance of the young nobility, and the favor of the nation, were somany crimes in the eyes of a sovereign who already began to feel her ownunpopularity; and Elizabeth, who was not of a spirit to endure publicand unmerited slights with tameness, found it at once the most dignifiedand the safest course, to seek, before the end of the year, the peacefulretirement of her house of Ashridge in Buckinghamshire. It was howevermade a condition of the leave of absence from court which she wasobliged to solicit, that she should take with her sir Thomas Pope andsir John Gage, who were placed about her as inspectors andsuperintendants of her conduct, under the name of officers of herhousehold. 

The marriage of Mary to Philip of Spain was now openly talked of. It wasgenerally and justly unpopular: the protestant party, whom the measuresof the queen had already filled with apprehensions, saw, in her desireof connecting herself yet more closely with the most bigoted royalfamily of Europe, a confirmation of their worst forebodings; and thetyranny of the Tudors had not yet so entirely crushed the spirit ofEnglishmen as to render them tamely acquiescent in the prospect of theircountry's becoming a province to Spain, subject to the sway of thatdetested people whose rapacity, and violence, and unexampled cruelty, had filled both hemispheres with groans and execrations. 

The house of commons petitioned the queen against marrying a foreignprince: she replied by dissolving them in anger; and all hope of puttinga stop to the connexion by legal means being thus precluded, measures ofa more dangerous character began to be resorted to. 

Sir Thomas Wyat of Allingham Castle in Kent, son of the poet, wit, andcourtier of that name, had hitherto been distinguished by a zealousloyalty; and he is said to have been also a catholic. Though allied inblood to the Dudleys, not only had he refused to Northumberland hisconcurrence in the nomination of Jane Grey, but, without waiting amoment to see which party would prevail, he had proclaimed queen Mary inthe market-place at Maidstone, for which instance of attachment he hadreceived her thanks[20]. But Wyat had been employed during several yearsof his life in embassies to Spain; and the intimate acquaintance whichhe had thus acquired of the principles and practices of its court, filled him with such horror of their introduction into his nativecountry, that, preferring patriotism to loyalty where their claimsappeared incompatible, he incited his neighbours and friends toinsurrection. 

[Note 20: See Carte's History of England. ]

In the same cause sir Peter Carew, and sir Gawen his uncle, endeavouredto raise the West, but with small success; and the attempts made by theduke of Suffolk, lately pardoned and liberated, to arm his tenantry andretainers in Warwickshire and Leicestershire, proved still more futile. Notwithstanding however this want of co-operation, Wyat's rebellion worefor some time a very formidable appearance. The London trained-bandssent out to oppose him, went over to him in a body under Bret, theircaptain; the guards, almost the only regular troops in the kingdom, werechiefly protestants, and therefore little trusted by the queen; and itwas known that the inhabitants of the metropolis, for which he was infull march, were in their hearts inclined to his cause. 

It was pretty well ascertained that the earl of Devonshire had receivedan invitation to join the western insurgents; and though he appeared tohave rejected the proposal, he was arbitrarily remanded to his ancientabode in the Tower. 

Elizabeth was naturally regarded under all these circumstances of alarmwith extreme jealousy and suspicion. It was well known that her presentcompliance with the religion of the court was merely prudential; thatshe was the only hope of the protestant party, a party equallyformidable by zeal and by numbers, and which it was resolved to crush;it was more than suspected, that though Wyat himself still professed aninviolable fidelity to the person of the reigning sovereign, andstrenuously declared the Spanish match to be the sole grievance againstwhich he had taken arms, many of his partisans had been led by theirreligious zeal to entertain the further view of dethroning the queen, infavor of her sister, whom they desired to marry to the earl ofDevonshire. It was not proved that the princess herself had given anyencouragement to these designs; but sir James Croft, an adherent ofWyat's, had lately visited Ashridge, and held conferences with some ofher attendants; and it had since been rumored that she was projecting aremoval to her manor of Donnington castle in Berkshire, on the southside of the Thames, where nothing but a day's march through an opencountry would be interposed between her residence and the station of theKentish rebels. 

Policy seemed now to dictate the precaution of securing her person; andthe queen addressed to her accordingly the following letter. 

 * * * * *

"Right dear and entirely beloved sister, "We greet you well: And whereas certain evil-disposed persons, mindingmore the satisfaction of their own malicious and seditious minds thantheir duty of allegiance towards us, have of late foully spread diverslewd and untrue rumours; and by that means and other devilish practisesdo travail to induce our good and loving subjects to an unnaturalrebellion against God, us, and the tranquillity of our realm: We, tendering the surety of your person, which might chance to be in someperil if any sudden tumult should arise where you now be, or aboutDonnington, whither, as we understand, you are minded shortly to remove, do therefore think expedient you should put yourself in good readiness, with all convenient speed, to make your repair hither to us. Which wepray you fail not to do: Assuring you, that as you may most safelyremain here, so shall you be most heartily welcome to us. And of yourmind herein we pray you to return answer by this messenger. 

"Given under our signet at our manor of St. James's the 26th of Januaryin the 1st year of our reign. 

"Your loving sister, "MARY, the queen. "

 * * * * *

This summons found Elizabeth confined to her bed by sickness; and herofficers sent a formal statement of the fact to the privy-council, praying that the delay of her appearance at court might not, under suchcircumstances, be misconstrued either with respect to her or tothemselves. Monsieur de Noailles, the French ambassador, in some papersof his, calls this "a favorable illness" to Elizabeth, "since, " addshe, "it seems likely to save Mary from the crime of putting her sisterto death by violence. " And true it is, that by detaining her in thecountry till the insurrection was effectually suppressed, it preservedher from any sudden act of cruelty which the violence of the alarm mighthave prompted: but other and perhaps greater dangers still awaited her. 

A few days after the date of the foregoing letter, Wyat enteredWestminster, but with a force very inadequate to his undertaking: he wasrepulsed in an attack on the palace; and afterwards, finding the gatesof London closed against him and seeing his followers slain, taken, orflying in all directions, he voluntarily surrendered himself to one ofthe queen's officers and was conveyed to the Tower. It was immediatelygiven out, that he had made a full discovery of his accomplices, andnamed amongst them the princess and the earl of Devonshire; and on thispretext, for it was probably no more, three gentlemen were sent, attended by a troop horse, with peremptory orders to bring Elizabethback with them to London. 

They reached her abode at ten o'clock at night, and bursting into hersick chamber, in spite of the remonstrances of her ladies, abruptlyinformed her of their errand. Affrighted at the summons, she declaredhowever her entire willingness to wait upon the queen her sister, towhom she warmly protested her loyal attachment; but she appealed totheir own observation for the reality of her sickness, and her utterinability to quit her chamber. The gentlemen pleaded, on the otherside, the urgency of their commission, and said that they had broughtthe queen's litter for her conveyance. Two physicians were then calledin, who gave it as their opinion that she might be removed withoutdanger to her life; and on the morrow her journey commenced. 

The departure of Elizabeth from Ashridge was attended by the tears andpassionate lamentations of her afflicted household, who naturallyanticipated from such beginnings the worst that could befal her. Soextreme was her sickness, aggravated doubtless by terror and dejection, that even these stern conductors found themselves obliged to allow herno less than four nights' rest in a journey of only twenty-nine miles. 

Between Highgate and London her spirits were cheered by the appearanceof a number of gentlemen who rode out to meet her, as a public testimonyof their sympathy and attachment; and as she proceeded, the generalfeeling was further manifested by crowds of people lining the waysides, who flocked anxiously about her litter, weeping and bewailing her aloud. A manuscript chronicle of the time describes her passage on thisoccasion through Smithfield and Fleet-street, in a litter open on bothsides, with a hundred "velvet coats" after her, and a hundred others "incoats of fine red guarded with velvet;" and with this train she passedthrough the queen's garden to the court. 

This open countenancing of the princess by a formidable party in thecapital itself, seems to have disconcerted the plans of Mary and heradvisers; and they contented themselves for the present with detainingher in a kind of honorable custody at Whitehall. Here she underwent astrict examination by the privy-council respecting Wyat's insurrection, and the rising in the West under Carew; but she steadfastly protestedher innocence and ignorance of all such designs; and nothing coming outagainst her, in about a fortnight she was dismissed, and suffered toreturn to her own house. Her troubles, however, were as yet onlybeginning. Sir William St. Low, one of her officers, was apprehended asan adherent of Wyat's; and this leader himself, who had been respitedfor the purpose of working on his love of life, and leading him tobetray his confederates, was still reported to accuse the princess. Anidle story was officiously circulated, of his having conveyed to her ina bracelet the whole scheme of his plot; and on March 15th she was againtaken into custody and brought to Hampton-court. 

Soon after her arrival, it was finally announced to her by a deputationof the council, not without strong expressions of concern from severalof the members, that her majesty had determined on her committal to theTower till the matter could be further investigated. Bishop Gardiner, now a principal counsellor, and two others, came soon after, and, dismissing the princess's attendants, supplied their place with some ofthe queen's, and set a guard round the palace for that night. The nextday, the earl of Sussex and another lord were sent to announce to herthat a barge was in readiness for her immediate conveyance to the Tower. She entreated first to be permitted to write to the queen; and the earlof Sussex assenting, in spite of the angry opposition of his companion, whose name is concealed by the tenderness of his contemporaries, andundertaking to be himself the bearer of her letter, she took theopportunity to repeat her protestations of innocence and loyalty, concluding, with an extraordinary vehemence of asseveration, in thesewords: "As for that traitor Wyat, he might peradventure write me aletter; but on my faith I never received any from him. And as for thecopy of my letter to the French king, I pray God confound me eternally, if ever I sent him word, message, token, or letter, by any means. " Withrespect to the last clause of this disavowal, it may be fit to observe, that there is indeed no proof that Elizabeth ever returned any answer tothe letters or messages of the French king; but that it seems awell-authenticated fact, that during some period of her adversity HenryII. Made her the offer of an asylum in France. The circumstance of thedauphin's being betrothed to the queen of Scots, who claimed to precedeElizabeth in the order of succession, renders the motive of thisinvitation somewhat suspicious; at all events, it was one which she wasnever tempted to accept. 

Her letter did not obtain for the princess what she sought, --aninterview with her sister; and the next day, being Palm Sunday, strictorders were issued for all people to attend the churches and carry theirpalms; and in the mean time she was privately removed to the Tower, attended by the earl of Sussex and the other lord, three of her ownladies, three of the queen's, and some of her officers. Severalcharacteristic traits of her behaviour have been preserved. On reachingher melancholy place of destination, she long refused to land atTraitor's gate; and when the uncourteous nobleman declared "that sheshould not choose, " offering her however, at the same time, his cloak toprotect her from the rain, she retained enough of her high spirit to putit from her "with a good dash. " As she set her foot on the ill-omenedstairs, she said, "Here landeth as true a subject, being a prisoner, asever landed at these stairs; and before thee, O God! I speak it, havingno other friends but thee alone. "

On seeing a number of warders and other attendants drawn out in order, she asked, "What meaneth this?" Some one answered that it was customaryon receiving a prisoner. "If it be, " said she, "I beseech you that formy cause they may be dismissed. " Immediately the poor men kneeled downand prayed God to preserve her; for which action they all lost theirplaces the next day. 

Going a little further, she sat down on a stone to rest herself; and thelieutenant urging her to rise and come in out of the cold and wet, sheanswered, "Better sitting here than in a worse place, for God knowethwhither you bring me. " On hearing these words her gentleman-usher wept, for which she reproved him; telling him he ought rather to be hercomforter, especially since she knew her own truth to be such, that noman should have cause to weep for her. Then rising, she entered theprison, and its gloomy doors were locked and bolted on her. Shocked anddismayed, but still resisting the weakness of unavailing lamentation, she called for her book, and devoutly prayed that she might build herhouse upon the rock. 

Meanwhile her conductors retired to concert measures for keeping hersecurely; and her firm friend, the earl of Sussex, did not neglect theoccasion of reminding all whom it might concern, that the king theirmaster's daughter was to be treated in no other manner than they mightbe able to justify, whatever should happen hereafter; and that they wereto take heed to do nothing but what their commission would bear out. Tothis the others cordially assented; and having performed their office, the two lords departed. 

Having now conducted the heroine of the protestant party to the dismalabode which she was destined for a time to occupy, it will be proper torevert to the period of Mary's accession. 

Little more than eight months had yet elapsed from the death of Edward;but this short interval had sufficed to change the whole face of theEnglish court; to alter the most important relations of the country withforeign states; and to restore in great measure the ancient religion, which it had been the grand object of the former reign finally andtotally to overthrow. It is the business of the historian to record theseries of public measures by which this calamitous revolution wasaccomplished: the humbler but not uninteresting task, of tracing itseffects on the fortunes of eminent individuals, belongs to the compilerof memoirs, and forms an appropriate accompaniment to the relation ofthe perils, sufferings and obloquy, through which the heiress of theEnglish crown passed on safely to the accomplishment of her highdestinies. 

The liberation of the state-prisoners confined in the Tower, --an act ofgrace usual on the accession of a prince, --was one which the causes ofdetention of the greater part of them rendered it peculiarly gratifyingto Mary to perform. The enemies of Henry's or of Edward's government sheregarded with reason as her friends and partisans, and the adherents, open or concealed, of that church establishment which was to be forcedback on the reluctant consciences of the nation. 

The most illustrious of the captives was that aged duke of Norfolk whomthe tyrant Henry had condemned to die without a crime, and who had beensuffered to languish in confinement during the whole reign of Edward;chiefly, it is probable, because the forfeiture of his vast estatesafforded a welcome supply to the exhausted treasury of the young king;though the extensive influence of this nobleman, and the attachment forthe old religion which he was believed to cherish, had served asplausible pretexts for his detention. His high birth, his hereditaryauthority, his religious predilections, were so many titles of merit inthe eyes of the new queen, who was also desirous of profiting by hisabilities and long experience in all affairs civil and military. Withoutwaiting for the concurrence of parliament, she declared by her ownauthority his attainder irregular and null, restored to him such of hislands as remained vested in the crown, and proceeded to reinstate him inoffices and honors. On August 10th he took his seat at thecouncil-board of the eighth English monarch whose reign he had survivedto witness; on the same day he was solemnly reinvested with the garter, of which he had been deprived on his attainder; and a few days after, hesat as lord-high-steward on the trial of that very duke ofNorthumberland to whom, not long before, his friends and adherents hadbeen unsuccessful suitors for his own liberation. 

There is extant a remarkable order of council, dated August 27th of thisyear, "for a letter to be written to the countess of Surry to send up toMountjoy Place in London her youngest son, and the rest of her children, by the earl of Surry, where they shall be received by the duke ofNorfolk their grandfather[21]. " It may be conjectured that these youngpeople were thus authoritatively consigned to the guardianship of theduke, for the purpose of correcting the protestant predilections inwhich they had been educated; and the circumstance seems also toindicate, what indeed might be well imagined, that little harmony orintercourse subsisted between this nobleman and a daughter-in-law whomhe had formerly sought to deprive of her husband in order to form forhim a new and more advantageous connexion. 

[Note 21: See Burleigh Papers by Haynes. ]

The eldest son of the earl of Surry, now in the seventeenth year of hisage, was honored with the title of his father; and he began hisdistinguished though unfortunate career by performing, as deputy to theduke of Norfolk, the office of earl-marshal at the queen's coronation. On the first alarm of Wyat's rebellion, the veteran duke was summoned tomarch out against him; but his measures, which otherwise promisedsuccess, were completely foiled by the desertion of the London bands tothe insurgents; and the last military expedition of his life wasdestined to conclude with a hasty and ignominious flight. He soon afterwithdrew entirely from the fatigues of public life, and after all thevicissitudes of court and camp, palace and prison, with which the lapseof eighty eventful years had rendered him acquainted, calmly breathedhis last at his own castle of Framlingham in September 1554. 

Three deprived bishops were released from the Tower, and restored withhonor to their sees. These were, Tonstal of Durham, Gardiner ofWinchester, and Bonner of London. Tonstal, many of whose younger yearshad been spent in diplomatic missions, was distinguished in Europe byhis erudition, which had gained him the friendship and correspondence ofErasmus; he was also mild, charitable, and of unblemished morals. Attached by principle to the faith of his forefathers, but loth eitherto incur personal hazard, or to sacrifice the almost princely emolumentsof the see of Durham, he had contented himself with regularly opposingin the house of lords all the ecclesiastical innovations of Edward'sreign, and as regularly giving them his concurrence when onceestablished. It was not, therefore, professedly on a religious accountthat he had suffered deprivation and imprisonment, but on an obscurecharge of having participated in some traitorous or rebellious design: acharge brought against him, in the opinion of most, falsely, andthrough the corrupt procurement of Northumberland, to whose project oferecting the bishopric of Durham into a county palatine for himself, thedeprivation of Tonstal, and the abolition of the see by act ofparliament, were indispensable preliminaries. This meek and amiableprelate returned to the exercise of his high functions, without a wishof revenging on the protestants, in their adversity, the painful acts ofdisingenuousness which their late ascendency had forced upon him. Duringthe whole of Mary's reign, no person is recorded to have suffered forreligion within the limits of his diocess. The mercy which he had shown, he afterwards most deservedly experienced. Refusing, on the accession ofElizabeth, to preserve his mitre by a repetition of compliances of whichso many recent examples of conscientious suffering in men of bothpersuasions must have rendered him ashamed, he suffered a seconddeprivation; but his person was only committed to the honorable custodyof archbishop Parker. By this learned and munificent prelate theacquirements and virtues of Tonstal were duly appretiated and esteemed. He found at Lambeth a retirement suited to his age, his tastes, hisfavorite pursuits; by the arguments of his friendly host he was broughtto renounce several of the grosser corruptions of popery; and dying inthe year 1560, an honorable monument was erected by the primate to hismemory. 

With views and sentiments how opposite did Gardiner and Bonner resumethe crosier! A deep-rooted conviction of the truth and vital importanceof the religious opinions which he defends, supplies to the persecutorthe only apology of which his foolish and atrocious barbarity admits;and to men naturally mild and candid, we feel a consolation in allowingit in all its force;--but by no particle of such indulgence shouldBonner or Gardiner be permitted to benefit. It would be credulity, notcandor, to yield to either of these bad men the character of sincere, though over zealous, religionists. True it is that they had subjectedthemselves to the loss of their bishoprics, and to a severeimprisonment, by a refusal to give in their renunciation of certaindoctrines of the Romish church; but they had previously gone muchfurther in compliance than conscience would allow to any real catholic;and they appear to have stopped short in this career only because theyperceived in the council such a determination to strip them, under onepretext or another, of all their preferments, as manifestly renderedfurther compliance useless. Both of them had policy enough to restrainthem, under such circumstances, from degrading their charactersgratuitously, and depriving themselves of the merit of having sufferedfor a faith which might soon become again predominant. They receivedtheir due reward in the favor of Mary, who recognised them with joy asthe fit instruments of all her bloody and tyrannical designs, to whichGardiner supplied the crafty and contriving head, Bonner the vigorousand unsparing arm. 

The proud wife of the protector Somerset, --who had been imprisoned, butnever brought to trial, as an accomplice in her husband's plots, --wasnow dismissed to a safe insignificance. The marchioness of Exeter, against whom, in Henry's reign, an attainder had passed too iniquitousfor even him to carry into effect, was also rescued from her longcaptivity, and indemnified for the loss of her property by some valuablegrants from the new confiscations of the Dudleys and their adherents. 

The only state prisoner to whom the door was not opened on this occasionwas Geffrey Pole, that base betrayer of his brother and his friends bywhose evidence lord Montacute and the marquis of Exeter had been broughtto an untimely end. It is some satisfaction to know, that thecommutation of death for perpetual imprisonment was all the favor whichthis wretch obtained from Henry; that neither Edward nor Mary broke hisbonds; and that, as far as appears, his punishment ended only with hismiserable existence. 

Not long, however, were these dismal abodes suffered to remainunpeopled. The failure of the criminal enterprise of Northumberlandfirst filled the Tower with the associates, or victims, of his guilt. Nearly the whole of the Dudley family were its tenants for a longer orshorter time; and it was another remarkable coincidence of theirdestinies, which Elizabeth in the after days of her power and glorymight have pleasure in recalling to her favorite Leicester, that duringthe whole of her captivity in this fortress he also was included in thenumber of its melancholy inmates. 

The places of Tonstal, Gardiner, and Bonner, were soon after supplied bythe more zealous of Edward's bishops, Holgate, Coverdale, Ridley, andHooper; and it was not long before the vehement Latimer and even thecautious Cranmer were added to their suffering brethren. 

The queen made no difficulty of pardoning and receiving into favor thosenoblemen and others, members of the privy-council, whom a base dread ofthe resentment of Northumberland had driven into compliance with hismeasures in favor of Jane Grey; wisely considering, perhaps, that themen who had submitted to be the instruments of his violent and illegalproceedings, would feel little hesitation in lending their concurrenceto hers also. On this principle, the marquis of Winchester and the earlsof Arundel and Pembroke were employed and distinguished; the last ofthese experienced courtiers making expiation for his past errors, bycausing his son, lord Herbert, to divorce the lady Catherine Grey, towhom it had so lately suited his political views to unite him. 

Sir James Hales on the contrary, that conscientious and upright judge, who alone, of all the privy-counsellors and crown-lawyers, had persistedin refusing his signature to the act by which Mary was disinherited ofthe crown, found himself unrewarded and even discountenanced. The queenwell knew, what probably the judge was not inclined to deny, that it wasattachment, not to her person, but to the constitution of his country, which had prompted his resistance to that violation of the legal orderof succession; and had it even been otherwise, she would have regardedall her obligations to him as effectually cancelled by his zealousadherence to the church establishment of the preceding reign. Fordaring to urge upon the grand juries whom he addressed in his circuit, the execution of some of Edward's laws in matter of religion, yetunrepealed, judge Hales was soon after thrown into prison. He enduredwith constancy the sufferings of a long and rigorous confinement, aggravated by the threats and ill-treatment of a cruel jailor. At lengthsome persons in authority were sent to propound to him terms of release. It is suspected that they extorted from him some concessions on thepoint of religion; for immediately after their departure, retiring tohis cell, in a fit of despair he stabbed himself with his knife indifferent parts of the body, and was only withheld by the suddenentrance of his servant from inflicting a mortal wound. Bishop Gardinerhad the barbarity to insult over the agony or distraction of a noblespirit overthrown by persecution; he even converted his solitary actinto a general reflection against protestantism, which he called "thedoctrine of desperation. " Some time after, Hales obtained hisenlargement on payment of an arbitrary fine of six thousand pounds. Buthe did not with his liberty recover his peace of mind; and afterstruggling for a few months with an unconquerable melancholy, he soughtand found its final cure in the waters of a pond in his garden. 

No blood except of principals, was shed by Mary on account of theproclamation of Jane Grey; but she visited with lower degrees ofpunishment, secretly proportioned to the zeal which they had displayedin the reformation of religion, several of the more eminent partisansof this "meek usurper. " The three tutors of king Edward, sir AnthonyCook, sir John Cheke and Dr. Cox, were sufficiently implicated in thisaffair to warrant their imprisonment for some time on suspicion; and allwere eager, on their release, to shelter themselves from the approachingstorm by flight. 

Cheke, after confiscation of his estate, obtained permission to travelfor a given time on the continent. Strasburgh was selected by Cook forhis place of exile. The wise moderation of character by which thisexcellent person was distinguished, seems to have preserved him fromtaking any part in the angry contentions of protestant with protestant, exile with exile, by which the refugees of Strasburgh and Frankfortscandalized their brethren and afforded matter of triumph to the churchof Rome. On the accession of Elizabeth he returned with alacrity tore-occupy and embellish the modest mansion of his forefathers, and"through the loopholes of retreat" to view with honest exultation thehigh career of public fortune run by his two illustrious sons-in-law, Nicholas Bacon and William Cecil. 

The enlightened views of society taken by sir Anthony led him to extendto his daughters the noblest privileges of the other sex, those whichconcern the early and systematic acquisition of solid knowledge. Throughhis admirable instructions their minds were stored with learning, strengthened with principles, and formed to habits of reasoning andobservation, which rendered them the worthy partners of great statesmen, who knew and felt their value. The fame, too, of these distinguishedfemales has reflected back additional lustre on the character of afather, who was wont to say to them in the noble confidence ofunblemished integrity, "My life is your portion, my example yourinheritance. "

Dr. Cox was quite another manner of man. Repairing first to Strasburgh, where the English exiles had formed themselves into a congregation usingthe liturgy of the church of England, he went thence to Frankfort, another city of refuge to his countrymen at this period; where theintolerance of his zeal against such as more inclined to the form ofworship instituted by the Genevan reformer, embarked him in a violentquarrel with John Knox, against whom, on pretext of his having libelledthe emperor, he found means to kindle the resentment of the magistrates, who compelled him to quit the city. After this disgraceful victory overa brother reformer smarting under the same scourge of persecution withhimself, he returned to Strasburgh, where he more laudably employedhimself in establishing a kind of English university. 

His zeal for the church of England, his sufferings in the cause, and hisservices to learning, obtained for him from Elizabeth the bishopric ofEly; but neither party enjoyed from this appointment all thesatisfaction which might have been anticipated. The courage, perhaps theself opinion, of Dr. Cox, engaged him on several occasions in oppositionto the measures of the queen; and his narrow and persecuting spiritinvolved him in perpetual disputes and animosities, which rendered theclose of a long life turbulent and unhappy, and took from his learningand gray hairs their due reverence. The rapacity of the courtiers, whoobtained grant after grant of the lands belonging to his bishopric, wasanother fruitful source to him of vexation; and he had actually tenderedthe resignation of his see on very humiliating terms, when death came tohis relief in the year 1581, the eighty-second of his age. 

If in this and a few other instances, the polemical zeal natural to menwho had sacrificed their worldly all for the sake of religion, wasobserved to degenerate among the refugees into personal quarrelsdisgraceful to themselves and injurious to their noble cause, it oughton the other hand to be observed, that some of the firmest and mostaffectionate friendships of the age were formed amongst these companionsin adversity; and that by many who attained under Elizabeth the highestpreferments and distinctions, the title of fellow-exile never ceased tobe regarded as the most sacred and endearing bond of brotherhood. 

Other opportunities will arise of commemorating some of the more eminentof the clergy who renounced their country during the persecutions ofMary; but respecting the laity, it may here be remarked, that with theexception of Catherine duchess-dowager of Suffolk, not a single personof quality was found in this list of conscientious sufferers; though onepeer, probably the earl of Bedford, underwent imprisonment on areligious account at home. Of the higher gentry, however, there wereconsiderable numbers who either went and established themselves in theprotestant cities of Germany, or passed away the time in travelling. 

Sir Francis Knowles, whose lady was niece to Anne Boleyn, took theformer part, residing with his eldest son at Frankfort; Walsinghamadopted the latter. With the views of a future minister of state, hevisited in succession the principal courts of Europe, where he employedhis diligence and sagacity in laying the foundations of that intimateknowledge of their policy and resources by which he afterwards renderedhis services so important to his queen and country. 

CHAPTER VII. 

1554 AND 1555. 

Arrival of Wyat and his associates at the Tower. --Savage treatment ofthem. --Further instances of Mary's severity. --Duke of Suffolkbeheaded. --Death of lady Jane Grey--of Wyat, who clears Elizabeth of allshare in his designs. --Trial of Throgmorton. --Bill for the exclusion ofElizabeth thrown out. --Parliament protects her rights--isdissolved. --Rigorous confinement of Elizabeth in the Tower. --She isremoved under guard of Beddingfield--carried to Richmond--offeredliberty with the hand of the duke of Savoy--refuses--is carriedto Ricot, thence prisoner to Woodstock. --Anecdotes of herbehaviour. --Cruelty of Gardiner towards her attendants. --Verses byHarrington. --Marriage of the queen. --Alarms of the protestants. --Arrivalof cardinal Pole. --Popery restored. --Persecution begun. --King Philipprocures the liberation of state prisoners. --Earl of Devon travels intoItaly--dies. --Obligation of Elizabeth to Philip discussed. --She isinvited to court--keeps her Christmas there--returns to Woodstock--isbrought again to court by Philip's intercession. --Gardiner urges her tomake submissions, but in vain. --She is brought to the queen--permittedto reside without guards at one of the royal seats--finally settled atHatfield. --Character of sir Thomas Pope. --Notice of theHarringtons. --Philip quits England. --Death of Gardiner. 

It is now proper to return to circumstances more closely connected withthe situation of Elizabeth at this eventful period of her life. 

Two or three weeks before her arrival in the Tower, Wyat with some ofhis principal adherents had been carried thither. Towards these unhappypersons, none of those decencies of behaviour were observed which thesex and rank of Elizabeth had commanded from the ministers of hersister's severity; and Holinshed's circumstantial narrative of thecircumstances attending their committal, may be cited as an instructiveexample of the fierce and brutal manners of the age. 

"Sir Philip Denny received them at the bulwark, and as Wyat passed by, he said, 'Go, traitor, there was never such a traitor in England. ' Towhom sir Thomas Wyat turned and said, 'I am no traitor; I would thoushouldest well know that thou art more traitor than I; it is not thepoint of an honest man to call me so. ' And so went forth. When he cameto the Tower gate, sir Thomas Bridges lieutenant took in through thewicket first Mantell, and said; 'Ah thou traitor! what hast thou and thycompany wrought?' But he, holding down his head, said nothing. Then cameThomas Knevet, whom master Chamberlain, gentleman-porter of the Tower, took in. Then came Alexander Bret, (captain of the white coats, ) whomsir Thomas Pope took by the bosom, saying, 'O traitor! how couldst thoufind in thy heart to work such a villainy as to take wages, and beingtrusted over a band of men, to fall to her enemies, returning againsther in battle?' Bret answered, 'Yea, I have offended in that case. ' Thencame Thomas Cobham, whom sir Thomas Poins took in, and said; 'Alas, master Cobham, what wind headed you to work such treason?' And heanswered, 'O sir! I was seduced. ' Then came sir Thomas Wyat, whom sirThomas Bridges took by the collar, and said; 'O thou villain! howcouldst thou find in thy heart to work such detestable treason to thequeen's majesty, who gave thee thy life and living once already, although thou didst before this time bear arms in the field againsther?[22]. . . If it were not (saith he) but that the law must pass uponthee, I would stick thee through with my dagger. ' To the which Wyat, holding his arms under his sides and looking grievously with a grim lookupon the lieutenant, said, 'It is no mastery now;' and so passed on. "

[Note 22: It is plain that Wyat is here accused of having taken armsfor Jane Grey; but most wrongfully, if Carte's account of him is to becredited, which there seems no reason to disbelieve. ]

Other circumstances attending the suppression of this rebellion markwith equal force the stern and vindictive spirit of Mary's government, and the remaining barbarity of English customs. The inhabitants ofLondon being for the most part protestants and well affected, as thedefection of their trained bands had proved, to the cause of Wyat, itwas thought expedient to admonish them of the fruits of rebellion by thegibbeting of about sixty of his followers in the most public parts ofthe city. Neither were the bodies suffered to be removed till the publicentry of king Philip after the royal nuptials; on which festal occasionthe streets were cleared of these noisome objects which had disgracedthem for nearly half a year. 

Some hundreds of the meaner rebels, to whom the queen was pleased toextend her mercy, were ordered to appear before her bound two-and-twotogether, with halters about their necks; and kneeling before her inthis guise, they received her _gracious_ pardon of all offences; but nogeneral amnesty was ever granted. 

That the rash attempt of the duke of Suffolk should have been visitedupon himself by capital punishment, is neither to be wondered at norcensured; but it was a foul act of cruelty to make this the pretext fortaking away the lives of a youthful pair entirely innocent of this lastdesign, and forgiven, as it was fondly hoped, for the almost involuntarypart which they had taken in a former and more criminal enterprise. Butreligious bigotry and political jealousy, each perhaps sufficient forthe effect, combined in this instance to urge on the relentless temperof Mary; and the lady Jane Grey and Guildford Dudley her husband wereordered to prepare for the execution of the sentence which had remainedsuspended over them. 

Every thinking mind must have been shocked at the vengeance taken onGuildford Dudley, --a youth too insignificant, it might be thought, tocall forth the animadversion of the most apprehensive government, andguilty of nothing but having accepted, in obedience to his father'spleasure, the hand of Jane Grey. But the fate of this distinguished ladyherself was calculated to awaken stronger feelings. The fortitude, thepiety, the genuine humility and contrition evinced by her in the lastscene of an unsullied life, furnished the best evidence of herguiltlessness even of a wish to resume the sceptre which paternalauthority had once forced on her reluctant grasp; and few could witnessthe piteous spectacle of her violent and untimely end, without a thrillof indignant horror, and secret imprecations against the barbarity ofher unnatural kinswoman. 

The earl of Devonshire was still detained in the Tower on Wyat'sinformation, as was pretended, and on other indications of guilt, all ofwhich were proved in the end equally fallacious: and at the time ofElizabeth's removal hither this state-prison was thronged with captivesof minor importance implicated in the designs of Wyat. These wereassiduously plied on one hand with offers of liberty and reward, andsubjected on the other to the most rigorous treatment, the closestinterrogatories, and one of them even to the rack, in the hope ofeliciting from them some evidence which might reconcile to Mary'sconscience, or color to the nation, the death or perpetual imprisonmentof a sister whom she feared and hated. 

To have brought her to criminate herself would have been better still;and no pains were spared for this purpose. A few days after hercommittal, Gardiner and other privy-councillors came to examine herrespecting the conversation which she had held with sir James Crofttouching her removal to Donnington Castle. She said, after somerecollection, that she had indeed such a place, but that she neveroccupied it in her life, and she did not remember that any one had movedher so to do. Then, "to enforce the matter, " they brought forth sirJames Croft, and Gardiner demanded what she had to say to that man? Sheanswered that she had little to say to him or to the rest that were inthe Tower. "But, my lords, " said she, "you do examine every meanprisoner of me, wherein methinks you do me great injury. If they havedone evil and offended the queen's majesty, let them answer to itaccordingly. I beseech you, my lords, join not me in this sort with anyof these offenders. And concerning my going to Donnington Castle, I doremember that master Hobby and mine officers and you sir James Croft hadsuch talk;--but what is that to the purpose, my lords, but that I may goto mine own houses at all times?" The earl of Arundel kneeling downsaid, "Your grace sayeth true, and certainly we are very sorry that wehave troubled you about so vain matter. " She then said, "My lords, youdo sift me very narrowly; but I am well assured you shall not do more tome than God hath appointed, and so God forgive you all. "

Before their departure sir James Croft kneeled down before her, declaring that he was sorry to see the day in which he should be broughtas a witness against her grace. But he added, that he had been"marvellously tossed and examined touching her grace;" and ended byprotesting his innocence of the crime laid to his charge[23]. 

[Note 23: Fox's narrative in Holinshed. ]

Wyat was at length, on April 11th, brought to his death; when heconfounded all the hopes and expectations of Elizabeth's enemies, bystrenuously and publicly asserting her entire innocence of anyparticipation in his designs. 

Sir Nicholas Throgmorton was brought to the bar immediately afterwards. His trial at length, as it has come down to us in Holinshed's Chronicle, is one of the most interesting documents of that nature extant. He wasesteemed "a deep conspirator, whose post was thought to be at London asa factor, to give intelligence as well to them in the West, as to Wyatand the rest in Kent. It was believed that he gave notice to Wyat tocome forward with his power, and that the Londoners would be ready totake his part. And that he sent a post to sir Peter Carew also, toadvance with as much speed as might be, and to bring his forces withhim. 

"He was said moreover to be the man that excited the earl of Devon to godown into the West, and that sir James Croft and he had many timesconsulted about the whole matter[24]. "

[Note 24: Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials. ]

To these political offences, sir Nicholas added religious principlesstill more heinous in the eyes of Mary. He, with two other gentlemen ofhis family, had been of the number of those who attended to the stakethat noble martyr Anne Askew, burned for heresy in the latter end ofHenry's reign; when they were bid to take care of their lives, for theywere all marked men. Since the accession of Mary also he had "bemoanedto his friend sir Edward Warner, late lieutenant of the Tower, his ownestate and the tyranny of the times, extending upon divers honestpersons for religion, and wished it were lawful for all of eachreligion to live safely according to their conscience. For the law_ex-officio_ he said would be intolerable, and the clergy discipline nowmight rather be resembled to the Turkish tyranny than the teaching ofthe Christian religion. Which words he was not afraid at his trialopenly to acknowledge that he had said to the said Warner[25]. "

[Note 25: Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials. ]

The prosecution was conducted with all the iniquity which the corruptpractice of that age admitted. Not only was the prisoner debarred theassistance of counsel on his trial, he was even refused the privilege ofcalling a single witness in his favor. He defended himself however underall these disadvantages, with surprising skill, boldness and presence ofmind; and he retorted with becoming spirit the brutal taunts of thecrown lawyers and judges, who disgraced themselves on the occasion byall the excesses of an unprincipled servility. Fortunately forThrogmorton, the additional clauses to the treason laws added underHenry VIII. Had been abolished under his successor and were not yetre-enacted. Only the clear and equitable statute of Edward III. Remainedtherefore in force; and the lawyers were reduced to endeavour at such anexplanation of it as should comprehend a kind of constructive treason. "If, " said they, "it be proved that the prisoner was connected withWyat, and of his counsel, the overt acts of Wyat are to be taken as his, and visited accordingly. " But besides that no participation with Wyatafter he had taken up arms, was proved upon Throgmorton, the jury weremoved by his solemn protest against so unwarrantable a principle as thatthe overt acts of one man might be charged as overt acts upon another. They acquitted him therefore with little hesitation, to theinexpressible disappointment and indignation of the queen and herministers, who then possessed the power of making their displeasure onsuch an occasion deeply felt. The jury were immediately committed tocustody, and eight of them, who refused to confess themselves in fault, were further imprisoned for several months and heavily fined. 

The acquitted person himself, in defiance of all law and justice, wasremanded to the Tower, and did not regain his liberty till thecommencement of the following year, when the intercession of king Philipobtained the liberation of almost all the prisoners there detained. 

Throgmorton, like all the others called in question for the lateinsurrections, was closely questioned respecting Elizabeth and the earlof Devon; "and very fain, " we are told, "the privy-councillors employedin this work would have got out of him something against them. For whenat Throgmorton's trial, his writing containing his confession was readin open court, he prayed the queen's serjeant that was reading it toread further, 'that hereafter, ' said he, 'whatsoever become of me, mywords may not be perverted and abused to the hurt of some others, andespecially against the great personages of whom I have been sundrytimes, as appears by my answers, examined. For I perceive the net wasnot cast only for little fishes but for great ones[26]. "

[Note 26: Strype's Memorials. ]

This generous concern for the safety of Elizabeth in the midst of hisown perils appears not to have been lost upon her; and under the ensuingreign we shall have the satisfaction of seeing the abilities of sirNicholas displayed in other scenes and under happier auspices. 

All manifestations of popular favor towards those whom the court hadproscribed and sought to ruin, were at this juncture visited with theextreme of arbitrary severity. Two merchants of London, for wordsinjurious to the queen, but principally for having affirmed that Wyat athis death had cleared the lady Elizabeth and the earl of Devonshire, were set in the pillory, to which their ears were fastened with largenails. 

It was in fact an object of great importance to the catholic party tokeep up the opinion, so industriously inculcated, of the princess beingimplicated in the late disturbances; since it was only on this falsepretext that she could be detained close prisoner in the Tower while afatal stroke was aimed against her rights and interests. 

Gardiner, now chancellor and prime minister, the most inveterate ofElizabeth's enemies and the most devoted partisan of the Spanishinterest, thinking that all was subdued to the wishes of the court, brought before the new parliament a bill for declaring the princessillegitimate and incapable of succeeding:--it was indignantly rejected, however, by a great majority; but the failure only admonished him torenew the attack in a more indirect and covert manner. Accordingly, thearticles of the marriage treaty between Mary and the prince of Spain, artfully drawn with great seeming advantage to England, had no soonerreceived the assent of the two houses, than he proposed a law forconferring upon the queen the same power enjoyed by her father; that ofnaming a successor. But neither could this be obtained from a house ofcommons attached for the most part to the protestant cause and theperson of the rightful heir, and justly apprehensive of the extinctionof their few remaining privileges under the yoke of a detested foreigntyrant. Nobody doubted that it was the purpose of the queen, in defaultof immediate issue of her own, to bequeath the crown to her husband, whose descent from a daughter of John of Gaunt had been already muchinsisted on by his adherents. The bill was therefore thrown out; and thealarm excited by its introduction had caused the house to pass severalspirited resolutions, one of which declared that her majesty shouldreign as a sole queen without any participation of her authority, whilethe rest guarded in various points against the anticipated encroachmentsof Philip, when Mary thought good to put a stop to the furtherdiscussion of the subject by a prorogation of parliament. 

After these manifold disappointments, the court party was compelled togive up, with whatever reluctance, its deep-laid plots against theunoffending princess. Her own prudence had protected her life; and theindependent spirit of a house of commons conscious of speaking the senseof the nation guarantied her succession. One only resource remained toGardiner and his faction:--they judged that a long-continued absence, while it gradually loosened her hold upon the affections of the people, would afford many facilities for injuring or supplanting her; and it wasdetermined soon to provide for her a kind of honorable banishment. 

The confinement of the princess in the Tower had purposely been renderedas irksome and comfortless as possible. It was not till after a month'sclose imprisonment, by which her health had suffered severely, that sheobtained, after many difficulties, permission to walk in the royalapartments; and this under the constant inspection of the constable ofthe Tower and the lord-chamberlain, with the attendance of three of thequeen's women; the windows also being shut, and she not permitted tolook out at them. Afterwards she had liberty to walk in a small garden, the gates and doors being carefully closed; and the prisoners whoserooms looked into it being at such times closely watched by theirkeepers, to prevent the interchange of any word or sign with theprincess. Even a child of five years old belonging to some inferiorofficer in the Tower, who was wont to cheer her by his daily visits, andto bring her flowers, was suspected of being employed as a messengerbetween her and the earl of Devonshire; and notwithstanding the innocentsimplicity of his answers to the lord-chamberlain by whom he wasstrictly examined, was ordered to visit her no more. The next day thechild peeped in through a hole of the door as she walked in the garden, crying out, "Mistress, I can bring you no more flowers!" for which, itseems, his father was severely chidden and ordered to keep his boy outof the way. 

From the beginning of her imprisonment orders had been given that theprincess should have mass regularly said in her apartment. It isprobable that Elizabeth did not feel any great repugnance to thisrite:--however this might be, she at least expressed none; and by thiscompliance deprived her sister of all pretext for persecuting her on areligious ground. But some of her household were found less submissiveon this head, and she had the mortification of seeing Mrs. Sands, one ofher ladies, carried forcibly away from her under an accusation of heresyand her place supplied by another. 

All these severities failed however of their intended effect: neithersufferings nor menaces could bring the princess to acknowledge herselfguilty of offending even in thought against her sovereign and sister;and as the dying asseverations of Wyat had fully acquitted her in theeyes of the country, it became evident that her detention in the Towercould not much longer be persisted in. Yet the habitual jealousy ofMary's government, and the apparent danger of furnishing a head to theprotestants rendered desperate by her cruelties, forbade the entireliberation of the princess; and it was resolved to adopt as a middlecourse the expedient sanctioned by many examples in that age, ofcommitting her to the care of certain persons who should be answerablefor her safe keeping, either in their own houses, or at some one of theroyal seats. Lord Williams of Thame, and sir Henry Beddingfield captainof the guard, were accordingly joined in commission for the execution ofthis delicate and important trust. 

The unfortunate prisoner conceived neither hope nor comfort from thisapproaching change in her situation, nor probably was it designed thatshe should; for intimidation seems still to have formed an essentialfeature in the policy of her relentless enemies. Sir Henry Beddingfieldentered the Tower at the head of a hundred of his men; and Elizabeth, struck with the unexpected sight, could not forbear inquiring withdismay, whether the lady Jane's scaffold were removed? On being informedthat it was, she received some comfort, but this was not of longduration; for soon a frightful rumor reached her, that she was to becarried away by this captain and his soldiers no one knew whither. Shesent immediately for lord Chandos, constable of the Tower, whosehumanity and courtesy had led him to soften as much as possible thehardships of her situation, though at the hazard of incurring theindignation of the court; and closely questioning him, he at lengthplainly told her that there was no help for it, orders were given, andshe must be consigned to Beddingfield's care to be carried, as hebelieved, to Woodstock. Anxious and alarmed, she now asked of herattendants what kind of man this Beddingfield was; and whether, if themurdering of her were secretly committed to him, his conscience wouldallow him to see it executed? None about her could give a satisfactoryanswer, for he was a stranger to them all; but they bade her trust inGod that such wickedness should not be perpetrated against her. 

At length, on May 19th, after a close imprisonment of three months, shewas brought out of the Tower under the conduct of Beddingfield and histroop; and on the evening of the same day found herself at RichmondPalace, where her sister then kept her court. She was still treated inall respects like a captive: the manners of Beddingfield were harsh andinsolent; and such terror did she conceive from the appearances aroundher, that sending for her gentleman-usher, she desired him and the restof her officers to pray for her; "For this night, " said she, "I think todie. " The gentleman, much affected by her distress, encouraged her aswell as he was able: then going down to lord Williams, who was walkingwith Beddingfield, he called him aside and implored him to tell himsincerely, whether any mischief were designed against his mistress thatnight or no; "that he and his men might take such part as God shouldplease to appoint. " "For certainly, " added this faithful servant, "wewill rather die than she should secretly and innocently miscarry. ""Marry, God forbid, " answered Williams, "that any such wicked purposeshould be wrought; and rather than it should be so, I with my men areready to die at her feet also. "

In the midst of her gloomy apprehensions, the princess was surprised byan offer from the highest quarter, of immediate liberty on condition ofher accepting the hand of the duke of Savoy in marriage. 

Oppressed, persecuted, and a prisoner, sequestered from every friend andcounsellor, guarded day and night by soldiers, and in hourly dread ofsome attempt upon her life, it must have been confidently expected thatthe young princess would embrace as a most joyful and fortunatedeliverance this unhoped-for proposal; and by few women, certainly, under all the circumstances, would such expectations have beenfrustrated. But the firm mind of Elizabeth was not thus to be shaken, nor her penetration deceived. She saw that it was banishment which washeld out to her in the guise of marriage; she knew that it was herreversion of an independent English crown which she was required tobarter for the matrimonial coronet of a foreign dukedom; and she feltthe proposal as what in truth it was;--an injury in disguise. Fortunately for herself and her country, she had the magnanimity todisdain the purchase of present ease and safety at a price sodisproportionate; and returning to the overture a modest but decidednegative, she prepared herself to endure with patience and resolutionthe worst that her enraged and baffled enemies might dare against her. 

No sooner was her refusal of the offered marriage made known, thanorders were given for her immediate removal into Oxfordshire. Oncrossing the river at Richmond on this melancholy journey, she descriedon the other side "certain of her poor servants, " who had beenrestrained from giving their attendance during her imprisonment, andwere anxiously desirous of seeing her again. "Go to them, " said she toone of her men, "and say these words from me, _Tanquam ovis_" (Like asheep to the slaughter). 

As she travelled on horseback the journey occupied four days, and theslowness of her progress gave opportunity for some striking displays ofpopular feeling. In one place, numbers of people were seen standing bythe way-side who presented to her various little gifts; for whichBeddingfield did not scruple, in his anger, to call them traitors andrebels. The bells were every where rung as she passed through thevillages, in token of joy for her liberation; but the people were soonadmonished that she was still a prisoner and in disgrace, by the ordersof Beddingfield to set the ringers in the stocks. 

On the third evening she arrived at Ricot, the house of lord Williams, where its owner, gracefully sinking the character of a watchfulsuperintendant in that of a host who felt himself honored by her visit, introduced her to a large circle of nobility and gentry whom he hadinvited to bid her welcome. The severe or suspicious temper ofBeddingfield took violent umbrage at the sight of such an assemblage: hecaused his soldiers to keep strict watch; insisted that none of theguests should be permitted to pass the night in the house; and askedlord Williams if he were aware of the consequences of thus entertainingthe queen's prisoner? But he made answer, that he well knew what he did, and that "her grace might and should in his house be merry. "Intelligence however had no sooner reached the court of the receptionafforded to the princess at Ricot, than directions arrived for herimmediate removal to Woodstock. Here, under the harsher inspection ofBeddingfield, she found herself once more a prisoner. No visitant waspermitted to approach; the doors were closed upon her as in the Tower;and a military guard again kept watch around the walls both day andnight. 

We possess many particulars relative to the captivity of Elizabeth atWoodstock. In some of them we may recognise that spirit of exaggerationwhich the anxious sympathy excited by her sufferings at the time, andthe unbounded adulation paid to her afterwards, were certain to produce;others bear all the characters of truth and nature. 

It is certain that her present residence, though less painful andespecially less opprobrious than imprisonment in the Tower, was yet astate of rigorous constraint and jealous inspection, in which she washaunted with cares and fears which robbed her youth of its bloom andvivacity, and her constitution of its vigor. On June 8th such was thestate of her health that two physicians were sent from the court whoremained for several days in attendance on her. On their return, theyperformed for their patient the friendly office of making a favorablereport of her behaviour and of the dutiful humility of her sentimentstowards her majesty, which was received, we are told, with morecomplacency by Mary than by her bishops. Soon after, she was advised bysome friend to make her peace with the queen by submissions andacknowledgements, which, with her usual constancy, she absolutelyrefused, though apparently the only terms on which she could hope forliberty. 

Under such circumstances we may give easy belief to the touchinganecdote, that "she, hearing upon a time out of her garden at Woodstock, a milkmaid singing pleasantly, wished herself a milkmaid too; sayingthat her case was better, and her life merrier than hers. "

The instances related of the severity and insolence of sir HenryBeddingfield are to be received with more distrust. We are told, thatobserving a chair of state prepared for the princess in an upper chamberat lord Williams's house, he seized upon it for himself and insolentlyordered his boots to be pulled off in that apartment. Yet we learn fromthe same authority that afterwards at Woodstock, when she seems to havebeen in his sole custody, Elizabeth having called him her jailor, onobserving him lock the gate of the garden while she was walking in it, he fell on his knees and entreated her grace not to give him that name, for he was appointed to be one of her officers. It has also beenasserted, that on her accession to the throne she dismissed him from herpresence with the speech, that she prayed God to forgive him, as shedid, and that when she had a prisoner whom she would have straitly keptand hardly used, she would send for him. But if she ever used to himwords like these, it must have been in jest; for it is known from thebest authority, that Beddingfield was frequently at the court ofElizabeth, and that she once visited him on a progress. If there is anytruth in the stories told of persons of suspicious appearance lurkingabout the walls of the palace, who sought to gain admittance for thepurpose of taking away her life, the exact vigilance of her keeper, bywhich all access was barred, might more deserve her thanks than herreproaches. 

During the period that the princess was thus industriously secluded fromconversation with any but the few attendants who had been allowed toremain about her person, her correspondence was not less watchfullyrestricted. We are told, that when, after urgent application to thecouncil, she had at length been permitted to write to the queen, Beddingfield looked over her as she wrote, took the paper into his ownkeeping when she paused, and brought it back to her when she chose toresume her task. 

Yet could not his utmost precaution entirely cut off her communicationswith the large and zealous party who rested upon her all their hopes ofbetter times for themselves or for the country. Through the medium of avisitor to one of her ladies, she received the satisfactory assurancethat none of the prisoners for Wyat's business had been brought to utterany thing by which she could be endangered. Perhaps it was withimmediate reference to this intelligence that she wrote with a diamondon her window the homely but expressive distich, "Much suspected by me Nothing proved can be, Quoth Elizabeth prisoner. "

But these secret intelligencers were not always fortunate enough toescape detection, of which the consequences were rendered very grievousthrough the arbitrary severity of Mary's government, and the peculiarmalice exercised by Gardiner against the adherents of the princess. 

Sir John Harrington, son to the gentleman of the same name formerlymentioned as a follower of admiral Seymour, thus, in his _Brief View ofthe Church_, sums up the character of this celebrated bishop ofWinchester, with reference to this part of his conduct. 

"Lastly, the plots he laid to entrap the lady Elizabeth, and histerrible hard usage of all her followers, I cannot yet scarce think ofwith charity, nor write of with patience. My father, for only carrying aletter to the lady Elizabeth, and professing to wish her well, he keptin the Tower twelve months, and made him spend a thousand pounds ere hecould be free of that trouble. My mother, that then served the ladyElizabeth, he caused to be sequestered from her as an heretic, insomuchthat her own father durst not take her into his house, but she was gladto sojourn with one Mr. Topcliff; so as I may say in some sort, thisbishop persecuted me before I was born. "

In the twelfth month of his imprisonment, this unfortunate Harrington, having previously sent to the bishop many letters and petitions forliberty without effect, had the courage to address to him a "Sonnet, "which his son has cited as "no ill verse for those unrefined times;" amodest commendation of lines so spirited, which the taste of the moremodern reader, however fastidious, need not hesitate to confirm. 

 TO BISHOP GARDINER. 

 1. "At least withdraw your cruelty, Or force the time to work your will; It is too much extremity To keep me pent in prison still, Free from all fault, void of all cause, Without all right, against all laws. How can you do more cruel spite Than proffer wrong and promise right? Nor can accuse, nor will acquight. 

 2. Eleven months past and longer space I have abode your dev'lish drifts, While you have sought both man and place, And set your snares, with all your shifts, The faultless foot to wrap in wile With any guilt, by any guile: And now you see that will not be, How can you thus for shame agree To keep him bound you should set free?

 3. Your chance was once as mine is now, To keep this hold against your will, And then you sware you well know how, Though now you swerve, I know how ill. But thus this world his course doth pass, The priest forgets a clerk he was, And you that have cried justice still, And now have justice at your will, Wrest justice wrong against all skill. 

 4. But why do I thus coldly plain As if it were my cause alone? When cause doth each man so constrain As England through hath cause to moan, To see your bloody search of such As all the earth can no way touch. And better were that all your kind Like hounds in hell with shame were shrined, Than you add might unto your mind. 

 5. But as the stone that strikes the wall Sometimes bounds back on th' hurler's head, So your foul fetch, to your foul fall May turn, and 'noy the breast that bred. And then, such measure as you gave Of right and justice look to have, If good or ill, if short or long; If false or true, if right or wrong; And thus, till then, I end my song. "

Such were the trials and sufferings which exercised the fortitude ofElizabeth and her faithful followers during her deplorable abode atWoodstock. Mary, meanwhile, was rapt in fond anticipations of thefelicity of her married life with a prince for whom, on the sight of hispicture, she is said to have conceived the most violent passion. Themore strongly her people expressed their aversion and dread of theSpanish match, the more vehemently did she show herself bent on itsconclusion; and having succeeded in suppressing by force the formidablerebellion to which the first report of such an union had given birth, she judged it unnecessary to employ any of those arts of popularity towhich her disposition was naturally adverse, for conciliating to herselfor her destined spouse the good will of her subjects. After many delayswhich severely tried her temper, the arrival of the prince of Spain atSouthampton was announced to the expecting queen, who went as far asWinchester to meet him, in which city Gardiner blessed their nuptials onJuly the 27th, 1554. 

The royal pair passed in state through London a few days after, and thecity exhibited by command the outward tokens of rejoicing customary inthat age. Bonfires were kindled in the open places, tables spread in thestreets at which all passers-by might freely regale themselves withliquor: every parish sent forth its procession singing _Te Deum_; thefine cross in Cheapside was beautified and newly gilt, and pageants wereset up in the principal streets. But there was little gladness of heartamong the people; and one of these festal devices gave occasion to amanifestation of the dispositions of the court respecting religion, which filled the citizens with grief and horror. A large picture hadbeen hung over the conduit in Gracechurch street representing the nineWorthies, and among them king Henry VIII. Made his appearance, accordingto former draughts of him, holding in his hand a book on which wasinscribed "_Verbum Dei_. " This accompaniment gave so much offence, thatGardiner sent for the painter; and after chiding him severely, orderedthat a pair of gloves should be substituted for the bible. 

Religion had already been restored to the state in which it remained atthe death of Henry; but this was by no means sufficient to satisfy theconscience of the queen, which required the entire restoration in allits parts, of the ancient church-establishment. It had been, in fact, one of the first acts of her reign to forward to Rome a respectfulembassy which conveyed to the sovereign pontiff her recognition of thesupremacy of the holy see, and a petition that he would be pleased toinvest with the character of his legate for England Cardinal Pole, --thatearnest champion of her own legitimacy and the church's unity, who hadbeen for so many years the object of her father's bitterest animosity. 

Mary's precipitate zeal had received some check in this instance fromthe worldly policy of the emperor Charles V. , who, either entertainingsome jealousy of the influence of Pole with the queen, or at leastjudging it fit to secure the great point of his son's marriage beforethe patience of the people of England should be proved by the arrival ofa papal legate, had impeded the journey of the cardinal by a detentionof several weeks in his court at Brussels. But no sooner was Philip insecure possession of his bride, than Pole was suffered to proceed on hismission. The parliament, which met early in November 1554, reversed theattainder which had laid him under sentence of death, and on the 24th ofthe same month he was received at court with great solemnity, and withevery demonstration of affection on the part of his royal cousin. 

From this period the cause of popery proceeded triumphantly: a reign ofterror commenced; and the government gained fresh strength and courageby every exertion of the tyrannic power which it had assumed. After themarried clergy had been reduced to give up either their wives or theirbenefices, and the protestant bishops deprived, and many of themimprisoned, without exciting any popular commotion in their behalf, thecourt became emboldened to propose in parliament a solemn reconciliationof the country to the papal see. A house of commons more obsequious thanthe former acceded to the motion, and on November 29th the legateformally absolved the nation from all ecclesiastical censures, andreadmitted it within the pale of the church. 

The ancient statutes against heretics were next revived; and the violentcounsels of Gardiner proving more acceptable to the queen than themilder ones of Pole, a furious persecution was immediately set on foot. Bishops Hooper and Rogers were the first victims; Saunders and Taylor, two eminent divines, succeeded; upon all of whom Gardiner pronouncedsentence in person; after which he resigned to Bonner, his more brutalbut not more merciless colleague, the inglorious task of dragging forthto punishment the heretics of inferior note and humbler station. In themidst however of his barbarous proceedings, of which London was theprincipal theatre, the bench of bishops thought proper in solemnassembly to declare that they had no part in such severities; andPhilip, who shrank from the odium of the very deeds most grateful to hissavage soul, caused a Spanish friar his confessor to preach before himin praise of toleration, and to show that Christians could bring nowarrant from Scripture for shedding the blood of their brethren onaccount of religious differences. But justly apprehensive that soextraordinary a declaration of opinion from such a person might not ofitself suffice to establish in the minds of the English that characterof lenity and moderation which he found it his interest to acquire, hedetermined to add some few deeds to words. 

About the close of the year 1554, sir Nicholas Throgmorton, RobertDudley, and all the other prisoners on account of the usurpation of JaneGrey or the insurrection of Wyat, were liberated, at the intercession, as was publicly declared, of king Philip; and he soon after employed hisgood offices in the cause of two personages still more interesting tothe feelings of the nation, --the princess Elizabeth and the earl ofDevonshire. 

It is worth while to estimate the value of these boasted acts ofgenerosity. With regard to Courtney it may be sufficient to observe, that a close investigation of facts had proved him to have been gratefulfor the liberation extended to him by Mary on her accession, and aversefrom all schemes for disturbing her government, and that the queen'smarriage had served to banish from her mind some former grounds ofdispleasure against him. Nothing but an union with Elizabeth could atthis time have rendered him formidable; and it was easy to guardeffectually against the accomplishment of any such design, without theodious measure of detaining the earl in perpetual imprisonment atFotheringay Castle, whither he had been already removed from the Tower. After all, it was but the shadow of liberty which he was permitted toenjoy; and he found himself so beset with spies and suspicion, that avery few months after his release he requested and obtained the royallicense to travel. Proceeding into Italy, he shortly after ended atPadua his blameless and unfortunate career. Popular fame attributed hisearly death to poison administered by the Imperialists, but probably, asin a multitude of similar cases, on no sufficient authority. 

As to Elizabeth, certain writers have ascribed Philip's protection ofher at this juncture to the following deduction of consequences;--thatif she were taken off, and if the queen should die childless, Englandwould become the inheritance of the queen of Scots, now betrothed to thedauphin, and thus go to augment the power of France, already the mostformidable rival of the Spanish monarchy. Admitting however that such acalculation of remote contingencies might not be too refined to act uponthe politic brain of Philip, it is yet plainly absurd to suppose thatthe life or death of Elizabeth was at this time at all the matter inquestion. Secret assassination does not appear to have been so much asdreamed of, and Mary and her council, even supposing them to have beensufficiently wicked, were certainly not audacious enough to think ofbringing to the scaffold, without form of trial, without even aplausible accusation, the immediate heiress of the crown, and the hopeand favorite of the nation. The only question must now have been, whatdegree of liberty it would be advisable to allow her; and a dueconsideration of the facts, that she had already been removed from theTower, and that after her second release, (that, namely, fromWoodstock), she was never, to the end of the reign, permitted to residein a house of her own without an inspector of her conduct, will reducewithin very moderate limits the vaunted claims of Philip to her lastinggratitude. 

The project of marrying the princess to the duke of Savoy had doubtlessoriginated with the Spanish court; and it was still persisted in byPhilip, from the double motive of providing for the head of theprotestant party in England a kind of honorable exile, and of attachingto himself by the gift of her hand, a young prince whom he favored anddestined to high employments in his service. But as severity had alreadybeen tried in vain to bring Elizabeth to compliance on this point, itseems now to have been determined to make experiment of oppositemeasures. The duke of Savoy, who had attended Philip to England, wasstill in the country; and as he was in the prime of life and a man ofmerit and talents, it appeared not unreasonable to hope that a personalinterview might incline the princess to lend a more propitious ear tohis suit. To this consideration then we are probably to ascribe theinvitation which admitted Elizabeth to share in the festivals of aChristmas celebrated by Philip and Mary at Hampton Court with greatmagnificence, and which must have been that of the year 1554, becausethis is well known to have been the only one passed by the Spanishprince in England. 

A contemporary chronicle still preserved amongst the MSS of the BritishMuseum, furnishes several particulars of her entertainment. On Christmaseve, the great hall of the palace being illuminated with a thousandlamps artificially disposed, the king and queen supped in it; theprincess being seated at the same table, next to the cloth of estate. After supper she was served with a perfumed napkin and a plate of"comfects" by lord Paget, but retired to her ladies before the revels, masking, and disguisings began. On St. Stephen's day she heard mattinsin the queen's closet adjoining to the chapel, where she was attired ina robe of white satin, strung all over with large pearls; and onDecember the 29th she sat with their majesties and the nobility at agrand spectacle of justing, when two hundred spears were broken bycombatants of whom half were accoutered in the Almaine and half in theSpanish fashion. 

How soon the princess again exchanged the splendors of a court for themelancholy monotony of Woodstock does not appear from this document, norfrom any other with which I am acquainted; but several circumstancesmake it clear that we ought to place about this period an incidentrecorded by Holinshed, and vaguely stated to have occurred soon after"the stir of Wyat" and the troubles of Elizabeth for that cause. Aservant of the princess's had summoned a person before the magistratesfor having mentioned his lady by the contumelious appellation of a_jill_, and having made use of other disparaging language respectingher. Was it to be endured, asked the accuser, that a low fellow likethis should speak of her grace thus insolently, when the greatestpersonages in the land treated her with every mark of respect? He added, "I saw yesterday in the court that my lord cardinal Pole, meeting her inthe chamber of presence, kneeled down on his knee and kissed her hand;and I saw also, that king Philip meeting her made her such obeisancethat his knee touched the ground. "

If this story be correct, which is not indeed vouched by the chronicler, but which seems to bear internal evidence of genuineness, it will go farto prove that the situation of Elizabeth during her abode at Woodstockwas by no means that opprobrious captivity which it has usually beenrepresented. She visited the court, it appears, occasionally, perhapsfrequently; and was greeted in public by the king himself with everydemonstration of civility and respect;--demonstrations which, whetheraccompanied or not by the corresponding sentiments, would surely sufficeto protect her from all harsh or insolent treatment on the part of thoseto whom the immediate superintendance of her actions was committed. 

Her enemies however were still numerous and powerful; and it is certainthat she found no advocate in the heart of her sister. That able, butthoroughly profligate politician lord Paget, notwithstanding his servingthe princess with "comfects, " is reported to have said, that the queenwould never have peace in the country till her head were smitten off;and Gardiner never ceased to look upon her with an evil eye. LordWilliams, it seems, had made suit that he might be permitted to take herfrom Woodstock to his own home, giving large bail for her safe keeping;and as he was a known catholic and much in favor, it was supposed atfirst that his petition would be heard; but by some secret influence themind of Mary was indisposed to the granting of this indulgence and theproposal was dropped. But the Spanish counsellors who attended theirprince never ceased, we are told, to persuade him "that the like honorhe should never obtain as he should in delivering the lady Elizabeth"out of her confinement: and Philip, who was now labouring earnestly atthe design, which he had entertained ever since his marriage, ofprocuring himself to be crowned king of England, was himself aware ofthe necessity of previously softening the prejudices of the nation bysome act of conspicuous popularity: he renewed therefore hissolicitations on this point with a zeal which rendered them effectual. The moment indeed was favorable;--Mary, who now believed herself faradvanced in pregnancy, was too happy in her hopes to remain inflexibleto the entreaties of her husband; and the privy-council, in theirsanguine expectations of an heir, viewed the princess as less thanformerly an object of political jealousy. And thus, by a contrariety ofcause and effect by no means rare in the complicated system of humanaffairs, Elizabeth became indebted for present tranquillity andcomparative freedom to the concurrence of projects and expectations themost fatal to all her hopes of future greatness. 

About the end of April, 1555, the princess took at length her finaldeparture from Woodstock, and proceeded, --but still under the escort ofBeddingfield and his men, --to Hampton Court. At Colnbrook she was met byher own gentlemen and yeomen to the number of sixty, "much, " says JohnFox, "to all their comforts, which had not seen her of long seasonbefore, notwithstanding they were immediately commanded in the queen'sname to depart the town, and she not suffered once to speak to them. "

The next day she reached Hampton Court, and was ushered into theprince's lodgings; but the doors were closed upon her and guarded as atWoodstock, and it was a fortnight, according to the martyrologist, before any one had recourse to her. 

At the end of this time she was solaced by a visit from lord WilliamHoward, son of the old duke of Norfolk, and first-cousin to her mother, who "very honorably used her, " and through whom she requested to speakto some of the privy-council. Several of its members waited upon her inconsequence, and Gardiner among the rest, who "humbled himself beforeher with all humility, " but nevertheless seized the opportunity to urgeher once more to make submission to the queen, as a necessarypreliminary to the obtaining of her favor. Elizabeth, with that firmnessand wisdom which had never, in her severest trials, forsaken her, declared that rather than do so, she would lie in prison all the days ofher life; adding, that she craved no mercy at her majesty's hand, butrather the law, if ever she did offend her in thought, word, or deed. "And besides this, " said she, "in yielding I should speak againstmyself, and confess myself an offender, by occasion of which the kingand queen might ever after conceive of me an ill opinion; and it werebetter for me to lie in prison for the truth, than to be abroad andsuspected of my prince. " The councillors now departed, promising todeliver her message to the queen. The next day Gardiner waited upon heragain and told her that her majesty "marvelled she would so stoutlycarry herself, denying to have offended; so that it should seem thequeen had wrongfully imprisoned her grace:" and that she must tellanother tale ere she had her liberty. The lady Elizabeth declared shewould stand to her former resolution, for she would never belie herself. "Then, " said the bishop, "your grace hath the 'vantage of me and theother councillors for your long and wrong imprisonment. " She took God towitness that she sought no 'vantage against them for their so dealingwith her. Gardiner and the rest then kneeled, desiring that all might beforgotten, and so departed; she being locked up again. 

About a week after the failure of this last effort of her crafty enemyto extort some concession which might afterwards be employed tocriminate her or justify himself, she received a sudden summons from thequeen, and was conducted by torch-light to the royal apartments. 

Mary received her in her chamber, to which she had now confined herselfin expectation of that joyful event which was destined never to arrive. The princess on entering kneeled down, and protested herself a true andloyal subject, adding, that she did not doubt that her majesty would oneday find her to be such, whatever different report had gone of her. Thequeen expressed at first some dissatisfaction at her still persisting sostrongly in her assertions of innocence, thinking that she might takeoccasion to inveigh against her imprisonment as the act of injustice andoppression which in truth it was; but on her sister's replying in asubmissive manner, that it was her business to bear what the queen waspleased to inflict and that she should make no complaints, she appearsto have been appeased. Fox's account however is, that they parted withfew comfortable words of the queen in English, but what she said inSpanish was not known: that it was thought that king Philip was therebehind a cloth, and not seen, and that he showed himself "a very friend"in this business. From other accounts we learn, that Elizabeth scruplednot the attempt to ingratiate herself with Mary at this interview byrequesting that her majesty would be pleased to send her some catholictractates for confirmation of her faith and to counteract the doctrineswhich she had imbibed from the works of the reformers. Mary showedherself somewhat distrustful of her professions on this point, butdismissed her at length with tokens of kindness. She put upon herfinger, as a pledge of amity, a ring worth seven hundredcrowns;--mentioned that sir Thomas Pope was again appointed to residewith her, and observing that he was already well known to her sistercommended him as a person whose prudence, humanity, and other estimablequalities, were calculated to render her new situation perfectlyagreeable. 

To what place the princess was first conveyed from this audience doesnot appear, but it must have been to one of the royal seats in theneighbourhood of London, to several of which she was successivelyremoved during some time; after which she was permitted to establishherself permanently at the palace of Hatfield in Hertfordshire. 

From this auspicious interview the termination of her prisoner-state maybe dated. Henceforth she was released from the formidable parade ofguards and keepers; no doors were closed, no locks were turned upon her;and though her place of residence was still prescribed, and could not, apparently, be changed by her at pleasure, she was treated in allrespects as at home and mistress of her actions. 

Sir Thomas Pope was a man of worth and a gentleman; and such were thetenderness and discretion with which he exercised the delicate trustreposed in him, that the princess must soon have learned to regard himin the light of a real friend. It is not a little remarkable at the sametime, that the person selected by Mary to receive so distinguished aproof of her confidence, should have made his first appearance in publiclife as the active assistant of Cromwel in the great work of thedestruction of monasteries; and that from grants of abbey lands, whichthe queen esteemed it sacrilege to touch, he had derived the whole ofthat wealth of which he was now employing a considerable portion in thefoundation of Trinity college Oxford. 

But sir Thomas Pope, even in the execution of the arbitrary andrapacious mandates of Henry, had been advantageously distinguishedamongst his colleagues by the qualities of mildness and integrity; andthe circumstance of his having obtained a seat at the council-board ofMary from the very commencement of her reign, proves him to haveacquired some peculiar merits in her eyes. Certain it is, however, thata furious zeal, whether real or pretended, for the Romish faith, was notamongst his courtly arts; for though strictly enjoined to watch over thedue performance and attendance of mass in the family of the princess, heconnived at her retaining about her person many servants who wereearnest protestants. 

This circumstance unfortunately reached the vigilant ears of Gardiner;and it was to a last expiring effort of his indefatigable malice thatElizabeth owed the mortification of seeing two gentlemen from the queenarrive at Lamer, a house in Hertfordshire which she then occupied, whocarried away her favorite Mrs. Ashley and three of her maids of honor, and lodged them in the Tower. 

Isabella Markham, afterwards the wife of that sir John Harrington whosesufferings in the princess's service have been already adverted to, wasdoubtless one of these unfortunate ladies. Elizabeth, highly to herhonor, never dismissed from remembrance the claims of such as had beenfaithful to her in her adversity; she distinguished this worthy pair bymany tokens of her royal favor; stood godfather to their son, andadmitted him from his tenderest youth to a degree of affectionateintimacy little inferior to that in which she indulged the best belovedof her own relations. 

In the beginning of September 1555 king Philip, mortified by the refusalof his coronation, in which the parliament with steady patriotismpersisted; disappointed in his hopes of an heir; and disgusted by thefondness and the jealousy of a spouse devoid of every attractionpersonal and mental, quitted England for the continent, and deigned notto revisit it during a year and a half. Elizabeth might regret hisabsence, as depriving her of the personal attentions of a powerfulprotector; but late events had so firmly established her as next heir tothe crown, that she was now perfectly secure against the recurrence ofany attempt to degrade her from her proper station; and herreconciliation with the queen, whether cordial or not, obtained for heroccasional admission to the courtly circle. 

A few days after the king's departure we find it mentioned that "thequeen's grace, the lady Elizabeth, and all the court, did fast fromflesh to qualify them to take the Pope's jubilee and pardon granted toall out of his abundant clemency[27];" a trait which makes it probablethat Mary was now in the habit of exacting her sister's attendance atcourt, for the purpose of witnessing with her own eyes her punctualobservance of the rites of that church to which she still believed her areluctant conformist. 

[Note 27: Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials. ]

A few weeks afterwards, the death of her capital enemy, Gardiner, removed the worst of the ill instruments who had interposed to aggravatethe suspicions of the queen, and there is reason to believe that theprincess found in various ways the beneficial effects of this event. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

1555 TO 1558. 

Elizabeth applies herself to classical literature. --Its neglectedstate. --Progress of English poetry. --Account of Sackville and hisworks. --Plan of his Mirror for Magistrates. --Extracts. --Notice of thecontributors to this collection. --Its popularity and literarymerits. --Entertainment given to Elizabeth by sir Thomas Pope. --DudleyAshton's attempt. --Elizabeth acknowledged innocent of his designs. --Herletter to the queen. --She returns to London--quits it in some disgraceafter again refusing the duke of Savoy. --Violence of Philip respectingthis match. --Mary protects her sister. --Festivities at Hatfield, Enfield, and Richmond. --King of Sweden's addresses to Elizabethrejected. --Letter of sir T. Pope respecting her dislike ofmarriage. --Proceedings of the ecclesiastical commission. --Crueltreatment of sir John Cheke. --General decay of nationalprosperity. --Loss of Calais. --Death of Mary. 

Notwithstanding the late fortunate change in her situation, Elizabethmust have entertained an anxious sense of its remaining difficulties, ifnot dangers; and the prudent circumspection of her character again, asin the latter years of her brother, dictated the expediency of shroudingherself in all the obscurity compatible with her rank and expectations. To literature, the never failing resource of its votaries, she turnedagain for solace and occupation; and claiming the assistance whichAscham was proud and happy to afford her, she resumed the diligentperusal of the Greek and Latin classics. 

The concerns of the college of which sir Thomas Pope was the founderlikewise engaged a portion of her thoughts; and this gentleman, in aletter to a friend, mentions that the lady Elizabeth, whom he served, and who was "not only gracious but right learned, " often asked him ofthe course which he had devised for his scholars. 

Classical literature was now daily declining from the eminence on whichthe two preceding sovereigns had labored to place it. The destruction ofmonastic institutions, and the dispersion of libraries, with theimpoverishment of public schools and colleges through the rapacity ofEdward's courtiers, had inflicted far deeper injury on the cause oflearning than the studious example of the young monarch and his chosencompanions was able to compensate. The persecuting spirit of Mary, bydriving into exile or suspending from the exercise of their functionsthe able and enlightened professors of the protestant doctrine, hadrobbed the church and the universities of their brightest luminaries;and it was not under the auspices of her fierce and ignorant bigotrythat the cultivators of the elegant and humanizing arts would seekencouragement or protection. Gardiner indeed, where particularprejudices did not interfere, was inclined to favor the learned; andAscham owed to him the place of Latin secretary. Cardinal Pole also, himself a scholar, was desirous to support, as much as presentcircumstances would permit, his ancient character of a patron ofscholars, and he earnestly pleaded with sir Thomas Pope to provide forthe teaching of Greek as well as Latin in his college; but sir Thomaspersisted in his opinion that a Latin professorship was sufficient, considering the general decay of erudition in the country, which hadcaused an almost total cessation of the study of the Greek language. 

It was in the department of English poetry alone that any perceptibleadvance was effected or prepared during this deplorable æra; and it wasto the vigorous genius of one man, whose vivid personifications ofabstract beings were then quite unrivalled, and have since been rarelyexcelled in our language, and whose clear, copious, and forcible styleof poetic narrative interested all readers, and inspired a whole schoolof writers who worked upon his model, that this advance is chiefly to beattributed. This benefactor to our literature was Thomas Sackville, sonof sir Richard Sackville, an eminent member of queen Mary's council, andsecond-cousin to the lady Elizabeth by his paternal grandmother, who wasa Boleyn. The time of his birth is doubtful, some placing it in 1536, others as early as 1527. He studied first at Oxford and afterwards atCambridge, distinguishing himself at both universities by the vivacityof his parts and the excellence of his compositions both in verse andprose. According to the custom of that age, which required that anEnglish gentleman should acquaint himself intimately with the laws ofhis country before he took a seat amongst her legislators, he nextentered himself of the Inner Temple, and about the last year of Mary'sreign he served in parliament. But at this early period of life poetryhad more charms for Sackville than law or politics; and following thebent of his genius, he first produced "Gorboduc, " confessedly theearliest specimen of regular tragedy in our language; but which will benoticed with more propriety when we reach the period of itsrepresentation before queen Elizabeth. He then, about the year 1557 asis supposed, laid the plan of an extensive work to be called "A Mirrorfor Magistrates;" of which the design is thus unfolded in a highlypoetical "Induction. "

The poet wandering forth on a winter's evening, and taking occasion fromthe various objects which "told the cruel season, " to muse on themelancholy changes of human affairs, and especially on the reversesincident to greatness, suddenly encounters a "piteous wight, " clad allin black, who was weeping, sighing, and wringing her hands, in suchlamentable guise, that

 "----never man did see A wight but half so woe-begone as she. "

Struck with grief and horror at the view, he earnestly requires her to"unwrap" her woes, and inform him who and whence she is, since heranguish, if not relieved, must soon put an end to her life. She answers, "Sorrow am I, in endless torments pained Among the furies in th' infernal lake:"

from these dismal regions she is come, she says, to bemoan the lucklesslot of those

 "Whom Fortune in this maze of misery, Of wretched chance most woful Mirrors chose:"

and she ends by inviting him to accompany her in her return:

 "Come, come, quoth she, and see what I shall show, Come hear the plaining and the bitter bale Of worthy men by Fortune's overthrow: Come thou and see them ruing all in row. They were but shades that erst in mind thou rolled, Come, come with me, thine eyes shall then behold. "

He accepts the invitation, having first done homage to Sorrow as to agoddess, since she had been able to read his thought. The scenery andpersonages are now chiefly copied from the sixth book of the Æneid; butwith the addition of many highly picturesque and original touches. 

The companions enter, hand in hand, a gloomy wood, through which Sorrowonly could have found the way. 

 "But lo, while thus amid the desert dark We passed on with steps and pace unmeet, A rumbling roar, confused with howl and bark Of dogs, shook all the ground beneath our feet, And struck the din within our ears so deep, As half distraught unto the ground I fell; Besought return, and not to visit hell. "

His guide however encourages him, and they proceed by the "lothly lake"Avernus, "In dreadful fear amid the dreadful place. "

 "And first within the porch and jaws of hell Sat deep Remorse of Conscience, all besprent With tears; and to herself oft would she tell Her wretchedness, and cursing never stent To sob and sigh: but ever thus lament With thoughtful care, as she that all in vain Should wear and waste continually in pain. 

 Her eyes, unsteadfast rolling here and there, Whirled on each place as place that vengeance brought, So was her mind continually in fear, Tossed and tormented with tedious thought Of those detested crimes that she had wrought: With dreadful cheer and looks thrown to the sky, Longing for death, and yet she could not die. 

 Next saw we Dread, all trembling how he shook With foot uncertain proffered here and there, Benumbed of speech, and with a ghastly look Searched every place, all pale and dead with fear, His cap borne up with staring of his hair. " &c. 

All the other allegorical personages named, and only named, by Virgil, as well as a few additional ones, are pourtrayed in succession, and withthe same strength and fullness of delineation; but with the exception ofWar, who appears in the attributes of Mars, they are represented simplyas _examples_ of Old age, Malady, &c. , not as the _agents_ by whom theseevils are inflicted upon others. Cerberus and Charon occur in theirappropriate offices, but the monstrous forms Gorgon, Chimæra, &c. , arejudiciously suppressed; and the poet is speedily conducted to the banksof that "main broad flood"

 "Which parts the gladsome fields from place of woe. "

 "With Sorrow for my guide, as there I stood, A troop of men the most in arms bedight, In tumult clustered 'bout both sides the flood: 'Mongst whom, who were ordained t' eternal night, Or who to blissful peace and sweet delight, I wot not well, it seemed that they were all Such as by death's untimely stroke did fall. "

Sorrow acquaints him that these are all illustrious examples of thereverses which he was lately deploring, who will themselves relate tohim their misfortunes; and that he must afterwards

 "Recount the same to Kesar, king and peer. "

The first whom he sees advancing towards him from the throng of ghostsis Henry duke of Buckingham, put to death under Richard III. : and his"Legend, " or story, is unfortunately the only one which its author everfound leisure to complete; the favor of his illustrious kinswoman on heraccession causing him to sink the poet in the courtier, the ambassador, and finally the minister of state. But he had already done enough toearn himself a lasting name amongst the improvers of poetry in England. In tragedy he gave the first regular model; in personification headvanced far beyond all his predecessors, and furnished a prototype tothat master of allegory, Spenser. A greater than Spenser has also beenindebted to him; as will be evident, I think, to all who compare thedescription of the figures on the shield of war in his Induction, andespecially those of them which relate to the siege of Troy, with theexquisitely rich and vivid description of a picture on that subject inShakespeare's early poem on Tarquin and Lucretia. 

The legend of the duke of Buckingham is composed in a style rich, freeand forcible; the examples brought from ancient history, of thesuspicion and inward wretchedness to which tyrants have ever been aprey, and afterwards, of the instability of popular favor, might in thisage be accounted tedious and pedantic; they are however pertinent, wellrecited, and doubtless possessed the charm of novelty with respect tothe majority of contemporary readers. The curses which the unhappy dukepours forth against the dependent who had betrayed him, may almostcompare, in the energy and inventiveness of malice, with those ofShakespeare's queen Margaret; but they lose their effect by being throwninto the form of monologue and ascribed to a departed spirit, whoseagonies of grief and rage in reciting his own death have something inthem bordering on the burlesque. 

The mind of Sackville was deeply fraught, as we have seen, with classicstores; and at a time when England possessed as yet no completetranslation of Virgil, he might justly regard it as a considerableservice to the cause of national taste to transplant into our vernacularpoetry some scattered flowers from his rich garden of poetic sweets. Thus he has embellished his legend with an imitation or ratherparaphrase of the celebrated description of night in the fourth book ofthe Æneid. The lines well merit transcription. 

 "Midnight was come, when ev'ry vital thing With sweet sound sleep their weary limbs did rest; The beasts were still, the little birds that sing Now sweetly slept besides their mother's breast, The old and all were shrowded in their nest; The waters calm, the cruel seas did cease; The woods, the fields, and all things held their peace. 

 The golden stars were whirled amid their race, And on the earth did laugh with twinkling light, When each thing nestled in his resting place Forgat day's pain with pleasure of the night: The hare had not the greedy hounds in sight; The fearful deer had not the dogs in doubt, The partridge dreamt not of the falcon's foot. 

 The ugly bear now minded not the stake, Nor how the cruel mastives do him tear; The stag lay still unroused from the brake; The foamy boar feared not the hunter's spear: All things were still in desert, bush and breer. With quiet heart now from their travails ceast Soundly they slept in midst of all their rest. "

The allusion to bear-bating in the concluding stanza may offend thedelicacy of a modern reader; but let it be remembered that in the daysof Mary, and even of Elizabeth, this amusement was accounted "sport forladies. "

The "Mirror for Magistrates" was not lost to the world by the desertionof Sackville from the service of the muses; for a similar or ratherperhaps the same design was entertained, and soon after carried intoexecution, by other and able though certainly inferior hands. 

During the reign of Mary, --but whether before or after the compositionof Sackville's Induction does not appear, --a certain printer, havingcommunicated to several "worshipful and honorable persons" hisintention of republishing Lydgate's translation in verse of Boccacio's"Fall of Princes, " was by them advised to procure a continuation of thework, chiefly in English examples; and he applied in consequence toBaldwyne, an ecclesiastic and graduate of Oxford. Baldwyne declined toembark alone in so vast a design, and one, as he thought, so littlelikely to prove profitable; but seven other contemporary poets, of whomGeorge Ferrers has already been mentioned as one, having promised theirassistance, he consented to assume the editorship of the work. Thegeneral frame agreed upon by these associates was that employed in theoriginal work of Boccacio, who feigned, that a party of friends beingassembled, it was determined that each of them should contribute to thepleasure of the company by personating some illustrious and unfortunatecharacter, and relating his adventures in the first person. Acontrivance so tame and meagre compared with the descent to the regionsof the dead sketched with so much spirit by Sackville, that it must havepreceded, in all probability, their knowledge at least of hisperformance. The first part of the work, almost entirely by Baldwyne, was written, and partly printed, in Mary's time, but its publication wasprevented by the interference of the lord-chancellor, --a trait of themean and cowardly jealousy of the administration, which speaks volumes. In the first year of Elizabeth lord Stafford, an enlightened patron ofletters, procured a licence for its appearance. A second part soonfollowed, in which Sackville's Induction and Legend were inserted. Thesuccess of this collection was prodigious; edition after edition wasgiven to the public under the inspection of different poetical revisers, by each of whom copious additions were made to the original work. Itsfavor and reputation continued during all the reign of Elizabeth, andfar into that of James; for Mr. Warton tells us that in Chapman's"May-day, " printed in 1611, "a gentleman of the most elegant taste forreading and highly accomplished in the current books of the times, iscalled 'one that has read Marcus Aurelius, Gesta Romanorum, and theMirror of Magistrates. '[28]"

[Note 28: History of English Poetry, vol. Iii. ]

The greater part of the contributors to this work were lawyers; an orderof men who, in most ages and nations, have accounted it a part ofprofessional duty to stand in opposition to popular seditions on onehand, and to the violent and illegal exertion of arbitrary power on theother. Accordingly, many of the legends are made to exemplify the evilsof both these excesses; and though, in more places than one, theunlawfulness, on any provocation, of lifting a hand against "the Lord'sanointed" is in strong terms asserted, the deposition of tyrants isoften recorded with applause; and no mercy is shown to the corrupt judgeor minister who wrests law and justice in compliance with the wickedwill of his prince. 

The newly published chronicles of the wars of York and Lancaster byHall, a writer who made some approach to the character of a genuinehistorian, furnished facts to the first composers of the Mirror; thelater ones might draw also from Holinshed and Stow. There is someprobability that the idea of forming plays on English history wassuggested to Shakespeare by the earlier of these legends; and it iscertain that his plays, in their turn, furnished some of their brightestornaments of sentiment and diction to the legends added by latereditors. 

To a modern reader, the greater part of these once admired pieces willappear trite, prosaic, and tedious; but an uncultivated age--like thechildren and the common people of all ages--is most attracted andimpressed by that mode of narration which leaves the least to besupplied by the imagination of the hearer or reader; and when thiscollection of history in verse is compared, not with the finished laborsof a Hume or a Robertson, but with the prolix and vulgar narratives ofthe chroniclers, the admiration and delight with which it was receivedwill no longer surprise. 

One circumstance more respecting a work so important by the quantity ofhistorical knowledge which it diffused among the mass of readers, andthe influence which it exerted over the public mind during half acentury, deserves to be here adverted to. Baldwyne and hisfellow-laborers began their series from the Norman conquest, and thesame starting-point had been judiciously chosen by Sackville; but thefabulous history of Geffrey of Monmouth still found such powerfuladvocates in national vanity, ignorance and credulity, that succeedingeditors found it convenient to embellish their work with moral examplesdrawn from his fictitious series of British kings before the invasion ofthe Romans. Accordingly they have brought forward a long line ofworthies, beginning with king Albanact, son of Brute the Trojan, andending with Cadwallader the last king of the Britons, scarcely one ofwhom, excepting the renowned prince Arthur, is known even by name to thepresent race of students in English history; though amongst poeticalreaders, the immortal verse of Spenser preserves some recollection thatsuch characters once were fabled. In return for this superfluity, ourSaxon line of kings is passed over with very little notice, only threelegends, and those of very obscure personages, being interposed betweenCadwallader and king Harold. The descent of the royal race of Britainfrom the Trojans was at this period more than an article of poeticalfaith; it was maintained, or rather taken for granted, by the gravestand most learned writers. One Kelston, who dedicated a versifiedchronicle of the Brutes to Edward VI. , went further still, and traced upthe pedigree of his majesty through two-and-thirty generations, toOsiris king of Egypt. Troynovant, the name said to have been given toLondon by Brute its founder, was frequently employed in verse. A songaddressed to Elizabeth entitles her the "beauteous queen of secondTroy;" and in describing the pageants which celebrated her entrance intothe provincial capitals which she visited in her progresses, it willfrequently be necessary to introduce to the reader personages of theancient race of this fabled conqueror of our island, who claimed forhis direct ancestor, --but whether in the third or fourth degree authorsdiffer, --no less a hero than the pious Æneas himself. 

But to return to the personal circumstances of Elizabeth. 

The public and splendid celebration of the festivals of the church wasthe least reprehensible of the measures employed by Mary for restoringthe ascendancy of her religion over the minds of her subjects. She hadbeen profuse in her donations of sacred vestments and ornaments to thechurches and the monasteries, of which she had restored several; andthese gaudy trappings of a ceremonial worship were exhibited, ratherindeed to the scandal than the edification of a dejected people, infrequent processions conducted with the utmost solemnity andmagnificence. Court entertainments always accompanied these devotionalceremonies, and Elizabeth seems by assisting at the latter to havepurchased admission to the former. The Christmas festivities in whichshe shared have already been described in the words of a contemporarychronicler; and from the same source we derive the following account ofthe "antique pageantries" with which another season of rejoicing wascelebrated for her recreation, by the munificence of the indulgentsuperintendent of her conduct and affairs. "In Shrove-tide 1556, sirThomas Pope made for the lady Elizabeth, all at his own costs, a greatand rich masking in the great hall at Hatfield, where the pageants weremarvellously furnished. There were there twelve minstrels anticlydisguised; with forty six or more gentlemen and ladies, many of themknights or nobles, and ladies of honor, apparelled in crimson sattin, embroidered upon with wreaths of gold, and garnished with borders ofhanging pearl. And the devise of a castle of cloth of gold, set withpomegranates about the battlements, with shields of knights hangingtherefrom; and six knights in rich harness tourneyed. At night thecupboard in the hall was of twelve stages mainly furnished with garnishof gold and silver vessul, and a banquet of seventy dishes, and after avoidee of spices and suttleties with thirty six spice-plates; all at thecharges of sir Thomas Pope. And the next day the play of Holophernes. But the queen percase misliked these folleries as by her letters to sirThomas it did appear; and so their disguisings ceased[29]. "

[Note 29: See Nichols's "Progresses, " vol. I. P. 19. ]

A circumstance soon afterwards occurred calculated to recall pastdangers to the mind of the princess, and perhaps to disturb her withapprehensions of their recurrence. 

Dudley Ashton, formerly a partisan of Wyat, had escaped into France, after the defeat and capture of his leader, whence he was still plottingthe overthrow of Mary's government. By the connivance or assistance ofthat court, now on the brink of war with England, he was at lengthenabled to send over one Cleberry, a condemned person, whom heinstructed to counterfeit the earl of Devonshire, and endeavour to raisethe country in his cause. Letters and proclamations were at the sametime dispersed by Ashton, in which the name of Elizabeth was employedwithout scruple. The party had even the slanderous audacity to pretend, that between Courtney and the heiress of the crown the closest of allintimacies, if not an actual marriage, subsisted; and the matter went sofar that at Ipswich, one of the strong holds of protestantism, Cleberryproclaimed the earl of Devonshire and the princess, king and queen. Butthe times were past when any advantage could be taken of thiscircumstance against Elizabeth, whose perfect innocence was well knownto the government; and the council immediately wrote in handsome termsto sir Thomas Pope, directing him to acquaint her, in whatever manner heshould judge best, with the abominable falsehoods circulated respectingher. A few days after, the queen herself wrote also to her sister interms fitted to assure her of perfect safety. The princess replied, saysStrype, "in a well penned letter, " "utterly detesting and disclaimingall concern in the enterprise, and declaiming against the actors in it. "Of the epistle thus commended, a single paragraph will probably beesteemed a sufficient specimen. . . . "And among earthly things I chieflywish this one; that there were as good surgeons for making anatomies ofhearts, that might show my thoughts to your majesty, as there are expertphysicians of the bodies, able to express the inward griefs of theirmaladies to the patient. For then I doubt not, but know well, thatwhatsoever others should suggest by malice, yet your majesty should besure by knowledge; so that the more such misty clouds offuscate theclear light of my truth, the more my tried thoughts should glister tothe dimming of their hidden malice. " &c. It must be confessed that thiserudite princess had not perfectly succeeded in transplanting into herown language the epistolary graces of her favorite Cicero;--but to howmany much superior classical scholars might a similar remark be applied!

The frustration of Mary's hope of becoming a mother, her subsequent illstate of health, and the resolute refusal of the parliament to permitthe coronation of her husband, who had quitted England in disgust toattend his affairs on the continent, conferred, in spite of all theefforts of the catholic party, a daily augmenting importance onElizabeth. When therefore in November 1556 she had come in state toSomerset Place, her town-residence, to take up her abode for the winter, a kind of court was immediately formed around her; and she might hope tobe richly indemnified for any late anxieties or privations, by thebrilliant festivities, the respectful observances, and the still morewelcome flatteries, of which she found herself the distinguishedobject:--But disappointment awaited her. 

She had been invited to court for the purpose of receiving a second andmore solemn offer of the hand of the duke of Savoy, whose suit wasenforced by the king her brother-in-law with the whole weight of hisinfluence or authority. This alliance had been the subject of earnestcorrespondence between Philip and the English council; the Imperialambassadors were waiting in England for her answer; and thedisappointment of the high-raised hopes of the royal party, by herreiteration of a decided negative, was followed by her quitting Londonin a kind of disgrace early in the month of December. 

But Philip would not suffer the business to end here. Indignant at theresistance opposed by the princess to his measures, he seems to haveurged the queen to interfere in a manner authoritative enough to compelobedience; but, by a remarkable exchange of characters, Mary nowappeared as the protectress of her sister from the violence of Philip. 

In a letter still preserved, she tells him, that unless the consent ofparliament were first obtained, she fears that the accomplishment of themarriage would fail to procure for him the advantages which he expected;but that, however this might be, her conscience would not allow her topress the matter further. That the friar Alphonso, Philip's confessor, whom he had sent to argue the point with her, had entirely failed ofconvincing her; that in fact she could not comprehend the drift of hisarguments. Philip, it is manifest, must already have made use of veryharsh language towards the queen respecting her conduct in this affair, for she deprecates his further displeasure in very abject terms; but yetpersists in her resolution with laudable firmness. Her husband was sofar, however, from yielding with a good grace a point on which he hadcertainly no right to dictate either to Mary or to her sister, that soonafterwards he sent into England the duchesses of Parma and Lorrain forthe purpose of conducting the princess into Flanders:--but this step wasill-judged. His coldness and neglect had by this time nearlyextinguished the fond passion of the queen, who is said to have torn hispicture in a fit of rage, on report of some disrespectful language whichhe had used concerning her since his departure for the continent. Resentment and jealousy now divided her gloomy soul; and Philip'sbehaviour, on which she had doubtless her spies, caused her to regardthe duchess of Lorrain as the usurper of his heart. The extraordinarycircumstances of pomp and parade with which this lady, notwithstandingthe smallness of her revenues, now appeared in England, confirmed andaggravated her most painful suspicions; and so far from favoring thesuit urged by such an ambassadress, Mary became more than everdetermined on thwarting it. She would not permit the duchesses to paythe princess a single visit at Hatfield; and her reception gave them solittle encouragement to persevere, that they speedily returned to reporttheir failure to him who sent them. 

These circumstances seem to have produced a cordiality of feeling andfrequency of intercourse between the sisters which had never beforeexisted. In February 1557 the princess arrived with a great retinue atSomerset Place, and went thence to wait upon the queen at Whitehall; andwhen the spring was somewhat further advanced, her majesty honored herby returning the visit at Hatfield. The royal guest was, of course, tobe entertained with every species of courtly and elegant delight; andaccordingly, on the morning after her arrival, she and the princess, after attending mass, went to witness a grand exhibition of_bear-bating_, "with which their highnesses were right well content. " Inthe evening the chamber was adorned with a sumptuous suit of tapestry, called, but from what circumstance does not appear, "the hangings ofAntioch. " After supper a play was represented by the choristers of St. Paul's, then the most applauded actors in London; and after it was over, one of the children accompanied with his voice the performance of theprincess on the virginals. 

Sir Thomas Pope could now without offence gratify his lady with anothershow, devised by him in that spirit of romantic magnificence equallyagreeable to the taste of the age and the temper of Elizabeth herself. She was invited to repair to Enfield Chase to take the amusement ofhunting the hart. Twelve ladies in white satin attended her on their"ambling palfreys, " and twenty yeomen clad in green. At the entrance ofthe forest she was met by fifty archers in scarlet boots and yellowcaps, armed with gilded bows, one of whom presented to her asilver-headed arrow winged with peacock's feathers. The splendid showconcluded, according to the established laws of the chase, by theoffering of the knife to the princess, as first lady on the field; andher _taking 'say_ of the buck with her own fair and royal hand. 

During the summer of the same year the queen was pleased to invite hersister to an entertainment at Richmond, of which we have received somerather interesting particulars. The princess was brought from SomersetPlace in the queen's barge, which was richly hung with garlands ofartificial flowers and covered with a canopy of green sarcenet, wroughtwith branches of eglantine in embroidery and powdered with blossoms ofgold. In the barge she was accompanied by sir Thomas Pope and fourladies of her chamber. Six boats attended filled with her retinue, habited in russet damask and blue embroidered satin, tasseled andspangled with silver; their bonnets cloth of silver with green feathers. The queen received her in a sumptuous pavilion in the labyrinth of thegardens. This pavilion, which was of cloth of gold and purple velvet, was made in the form of a castle, probably in allusion to the kingdom ofCastile; its sides were divided in compartments, which bore alternatelythe fleur de lis in silver, and the pomegranate, the bearing of Granada, in gold. A sumptuous banquet was here served up to the royal ladies, inwhich there was introduced a pomegranate-tree in confectionary work, bearing the arms of Spain:--so offensively glaring was the preferencegiven by Mary to the country of her husband and of her maternal ancestryover that of which she was a native and in her own right queen! Therewas no masking or dancing, but a great number of minstrels performed. The princess returned to Somerset Place the same evening, and the nextday to Hatfield. 

The addresses of a new suitor soon after furnished Elizabeth with anoccasion of gratifying the queen by fresh demonstrations of respect andduty. The king of Sweden was earnestly desirous of obtaining for Erichis eldest son the hand of a lady whose reversionary prospects, added toher merit and accomplishments, rendered her without dispute the firstmatch in Europe. He had denied his son's request to be permitted tovisit her in person, fearing that those violences of temper andeccentricities of conduct of which this ill-fated prince had alreadygiven strong indications, might injure his cause in the judgement of sodiscerning a princess. The business was therefore to be transactedthrough the Swedish ambassador; but he was directed by his sovereign tomake his application by a message to Elizabeth herself, in which thequeen and council were not for the present to participate. The princesstook hold of this circumstance as a convenient pretext for rejecting aproposal which she felt no disposition to encourage; and she declaredthat she could never listen to any overtures of this nature which hadnot first received the sanction of her majesty. The ambassador pleadedin answer, that as a gentleman his master had judged it becoming thathis first application should be made to herself; but that should he beso happy as to obtain her concurrence, he would then, as a king, makehis demand in form to the queen her sister. The princess replied, thatif it were to depend on herself, a single life would ever be her choice;and she finally dismissed the suit with a negative. 

On receiving some hint of this transaction, Mary sent for sir ThomasPope, and having learned from him all the particulars, she directed himto express to her sister her high approbation of her proper and dutifulconduct on this occasion; and also to make himself acquainted with hersentiments on the subject of matrimony in general. He soon aftertransmitted to her majesty all the information she could desire, in thefollowing letter:

"First after I had declared to her grace how well the queen's majestyliked of her prudent and honorable answer made to the same messenger; Ithen opened unto her grace the effects of the said messenger's credence;which after her grace had heard, I said, the queen's highness had sentme to her grace, not only to declare the same, but also to understandhow her grace liked the said motion. Whereunto, after a little pausetaken, her grace answered in form following: 'Master Pope, I requireyou, after my most humble commendations to the queen's majesty, torender unto the same like thanks that it pleased her highness, of hergoodness, to conceive so well of my answer made to the same messenger;and herewithal, of her princely consideration, with such speed tocommand you by your letters to signify the same unto me: who beforeremained wonderfully perplexed, fearing that her majesty might mistakethe same: for which her goodness, I acknowledge myself bound to honor, serve, love, and obey her highness during my life. Requiring you also tosay unto her majesty, that in the king my brother's time there wasoffered me a very honorable marriage, or two; and ambassadors sent totreat with me touching the same; whereupon I made my humble suit untohis highness, as some of honor yet living can be testimonies, that itwould like the same to give me leave, with his grace's favor, to remainin that estate I was, which of all others best liked me, or pleased me. And, in good faith, I pray you say unto her highness, I am even at thispresent of the same mind, and so intend to continue, with her majesty'sfavor: and assuring her highness I so well like this estate, as Ipersuade myself there is not any kind of life comparable unto it. And asconcerning my liking the said motion made by the said messenger, Ibeseech you say unto her majesty, that to my remembrance I never heardof his master before this time; and that I so well like both the messageand the messenger, as I shall most humbly pray God upon my knees, thatfrom henceforth I never hear of the one nor the other: assure you thatif he should eftsoons repair unto me, I would forbear to speak to him. And were there nothing else to move me to mislike the motion, other thanthat his master would attempt the same without making the queen'smajesty privy thereunto, it were cause sufficient. '

"And when her grace had thus ended, I was so bold as of myself to sayunto her grace, her pardon first required, that I thought few or nonewould believe but that her grace could be right well contented to marry;so that there were some honorable marriage offered her by the queen'shighness, or by her majesty's assent. Whereunto her grace answered, 'What I shall do hereafter I know not; but I assure you, upon my truthand fidelity, and as God be merciful unto me, I am not at this timeotherwise minded than I have declared unto you; no, though I wereoffered the greatest prince in all Europe. ' And yet percase, the queen'smajesty may conceive this rather to proceed of a maidenlyshamefacedness, than upon any such certain determination[30]. "

[Note 30: The hint of "some honorable marriage" in the above letter, has been supposed to refer to the duke of Savoy; but if the dateinscribed upon the copy which is found among the Harleian MSS. Becorrect (April 26th 1558), this could not well be; since the queen, early in the preceding year, had declined to interfere further in hisbehalf. ]

This letter appears to have been the last transaction which occurredbetween Mary and Elizabeth: from it, and from the whole of the noticesrelative to the situation of the latter thrown together in the precedingpages, it may be collected, that during the three last years of hersister's reign, --the period, namely, of her residence at Hatfield, --shehad few privations, and no personal hardships to endure: but forindividuals whom she esteemed, for principles to which her consciencesecretly inclined, for her country which she truly loved, herapprehensions must have been continually excited, and too oftenjustified by events the most cruel and disastrous. 

The reestablishment, by solemn acts of the legislature, of the Romishritual and the papal authority, though attended with the entireprohibition of all protestant worship, was not sufficient for thebigotry of Mary. Aware that the new doctrines still found harbour in thebosoms of her subjects, she sought to drag them by her violence fromthis last asylum; for to her, as to all tyrants, it appeared bothdesirable and possible to subject the liberty of thinking to theregulation and control of human laws. 

By virtue of her authority as head of the English church, --a titlewhich the murmurs of her parliament had compelled her against herconscience to resume after laying it aside for some time, --she issued anecclesiastical commission, which wanted nothing of the Spanishinquisition but the name. The commissioners were empowered to callbefore them the leading men in every parish of the kingdom, and tocompel them to bind themselves by oath to give information against suchof their neighbours as, by abstaining from attendance at church or othersymptoms of disaffection to the present order of things, afforded roomto doubt the soundness of their belief. Articles of faith were thenoffered to the suspected persons for their signature, and on theirsimple refusal they were handed over to the civil power, and fire andfaggot awaited them. By this barbarous species of punishment, about twohundred and eighty persons are stated to have perished during the reignof Mary; but, to the disgrace of the learned, the rich, and the noble, these martyrs, with the exception of a few distinguished ecclesiastics, were almost all from the middling or lower, some from the very lowestclasses of society. 

Amongst these glorious sufferers, therefore, the princess could have fewpersonal friends to regret; but in the much larger number of thedisgraced, the suspected, the imprisoned, the fugitive, she saw thegreater part of the public characters, whether statesmen or divines, onwhose support and attachment she had learned to place reliance. 

The extraordinary cruelties exercised upon sir John Cheke, who whilst heheld the post of preceptor to her brother had also assisted in her owneducation, must have been viewed by Elizabeth with strong emotion ofindignation and grief. 

It has been already mentioned, that after his release from imprisonmentincurred in the cause of lady Jane Grey, --a release, by the way, whichwas purchased by the sacrifice of his landed property and all hisappointments, --this learned and estimable person obtained permission totravel for a limited period. This was regarded as a special favor; forit was one of Mary's earliest acts of tyranny to prohibit the escape ofher destined victims, and it was only by joining themselves to theforeign congregations of the reformed, who had license to depart thekingdom, or by eluding with much hazard the vigilance of the officers bywhom the seaports were watched, that any of her protestant subjects hadbeen enabled to secure liberty of conscience in a voluntary exile. It isa little remarkable that Rome should have been Cheke's first city ofpilgrimage; but classical associations in this instance overcame theforce of protestant antipathies. He took the opportunity however ofvisiting Basil in his way, where an English congregation wasestablished, and where he had the pleasure of introducing himself toseveral learned characters, once perhaps the chosen associates ofErasmus. 

In the beginning of 1556 he had reached Strasburgh, for it was thencethat he addressed a letter to his dear friend and brother-in-law sirWilliam Cecil, who appears to have made some compliances with the timeswhich alarmed and grieved him. It is in a strain of the mostaffectionate earnestness that he entreats him to hold fast his faith, and "to take heed how he did in the least warp or strain his conscienceby any compliance for his worldly security. " But such exhortations, however salutary in themselves, did not come with the best grace fromthose who had found in flight a refuge from the terrors of thatpersecution which was raging in all its fierceness before the eyes ofsuch of their unfortunate brethren as had found themselves necessitatedto abide the fiery trial. A remark by no means foreign to the casebefore us! Sir John Cheke's leave of absence seems now to have expired;and it was probably with the design of making interest for its renewalthat he privately repaired, soon after the date of his letter, toBrussels, on a visit to his two learned friends, lord Paget and sir JohnMason, then residing in that city as Mary's ambassadors. These men wererecent converts, or more likely conformists, to the court religion; andPaget's furious councils against Elizabeth have been already mentioned. It is to be hoped that they did not add to the guilt of self-interestedcompliances in matters of faith the blacker crime of a barbarous act ofperfidy against a former associate and brother-protestant who hadscarcely ceased to be their guest;--but certain it is, that on somesecret intimation of his having entered his territories, king Philipissued special orders for the seizure of Cheke. On his return, betweenBrussels and Antwerp, the unhappy man, with sir Peter Carew hiscompanion, was apprehended by a provost-marshal, bound hand and foot, thrown into a cart, and so conveyed on board a vessel sailing forEngland. He is said to have been brought to the Tower muffled, accordingto an odious practice of Spanish despotism introduced into the countryduring the reign of Mary. Under the terror of such a surprise the awfulalternative "Comply or burn" was laid before him. Human frailty underthese trying circumstances prevailed; and in an evil hour this championof light and learning was tempted to subscribe his false assent to thedoctrine of the real presence and the whole list of Romish articles. This was but the beginning of humiliations: he was now required topronounce two ample recantations, one before the queen in person, theother before cardinal Pole, who also imposed upon him various acts ofpenance. Even this did not immediately procure his liberation fromprison; and while he was obliged in public to applaud the mercy of hisenemies in terms of the most abject submission, he bewailed in private, with abundance of bitter tears, their cruelty, and still more his owncriminal compliance. The savage zealots knew not how to set bounds totheir triumph over a man whom learning and acknowledged talents andhonorable employments had rendered so considerable. 

Even when at length he was set free, and flattered himself that he haddrained to the dregs his cup of bitterness, he discovered that themasterpiece of barbarity, the refinement of insult, was yet in store. Hewas required, as evidence of the sincerity of his conversion and a tokenof his complete restoration to royal favor, to take his seat on thebench by the side of the savage Bonner, and assist at the condemnationof his brother-protestants. The unhappy man did not refuse, --sothoroughly was his spirit subdued within him, --but it broke his heart;and retiring at last to the house of an old and learned friend, whosedoor was opened to him in Christian charity, he there ended within a fewmonths, his miserable life, a prey to shame, remorse and melancholy. Asadder tale the annals of persecution do not furnish, or one morehumbling to the pride and confidence of human virtue. Many have failedunder lighter trials; few have expiated a failure by sufferings sosevere. How often must this victim of a wounded spirit have dwelt withenvy, amid his slower torments, on the brief agonies and lasting crownof a courageous martyrdom!

It is happily not possible for a kingdom to flourish under the crushingweight of such a tyranny as that of Mary. The retreat of the foreignprotestants had robbed the country of hundreds of industrious andskilful artificers; the arbitrary exactions of the queen impoverishedand discouraged the trading classes, against whom they principallyoperated; tumults and insurrections were frequent, and afforded apretext for the introduction of Spanish troops; the treasury wasexhausted in efforts for maintaining the power of the sovereign, restoring the church to opulence and splendor, and re-edifying thefallen monasteries. To add to these evils, a foreign marriage renderedboth the queen and country subservient to the interested or ambitiousprojects of the Spanish sovereign. For his sake a needless war wasdeclared against France, which, after draining entirely an alreadyfailing treasury, ended in the loss of Calais, the last remaining trophyof the victories by which the Edwards and the Henrys had humbled in thedust the pride and power of France. 

This last stroke completed the dejection of the nation; and Maryherself, who was by no means destitute of sensibility where the honor ofher crown was concerned, sunk into an incurable melancholy. "When Idie, " said she to her attendants who sought to discover the cause of herdespondency, "Calais will be found at my heart. "

The unfeeling desertion of her husband, the consciousness of havingincurred the hatred of her subjects, the unprosperous state of heraffairs, and the well founded apprehension that her successor would oncemore overthrow the whole edifice of papal power which she had laboredwith such indefatigable ardor to restore, may each be supposed to haveinfused its own drop of bitterness into the soul of this unhappyprincess. The long and severe mortifications of her youth, while theysoured her temper, had also undermined her constitution, and contributedto bring upon her a premature old age; dropsical symptoms began toappear, and after a lingering illness of nearly half a year she sunkinto the grave on the 17th day of November 1558, in the forty-fourthyear of her age. 

CHAPTER IX. 

1558 AND 1559. 

General joy on the accession of Elizabeth. --Views of the nobility--ofthe middling and lower classes. --Flattery with which she isaddressed. --Descriptions of her person. --Her first privy-council. --Parryand Cecil brought into office. --Notices of each. --Death of cardinalPole. --The queen enters London--passes to the Tower. --Lord Robert Dudleyher master of the horse. --Notices respecting him. --The queen's treatmentof her relations. --The Howard family. --Sir Richard Sackville. --HenryCary. --The last, created lord Hunsdon. --Preparations in London againstthe queen's coronation. --Splendid costume of the age. --She passes bywater from Westminster to the Tower. --The procession described. --Herpassage through the city. --Pageants exhibited. --The bishops refuse tocrown her. --Bishop of Carlisle prevailed on. --Religious sentiments ofthe queen. --Prohibition of preaching--of theatrical exhibitions. 

Never perhaps was the accession of any prince the subject of such keenand lively interest to a whole people as that of Elizabeth. 

Both in the religious establishments and political relations of thecountry, the most important changes were anticipated; changes in whichthe humblest individual found himself concerned, and to which a vastmajority of the nation looked forward with hope and joy. 

With the courtiers and great nobles, whose mutability of faith had sohappily corresponded with every ecclesiastical vicissitude of the lastthree reigns, political and personal considerations may well be supposedto have held the first place; and though the old religion might still beendeared to them by many cherished associations and by early prejudice, there were few among them who did not regard the liberation of thecountry from Spanish influence as ample compensation for the probablerestoration of the religious establishment of Henry or of Edward. Besides, there was scarcely an individual belonging to these classes whohad not in some manner partaken of the plunder of the church, and whomthe avowed principles of Mary had not disquieted with apprehensions thatsome plan of compulsory restitution would sooner or later be attemptedby an union of royal and papal authority. 

With the middling and lower classes religious views and feelings werepredominant The doctrines of the new and better system of faith andworship had now become more precious and important than ever in the eyesof its adherents from the hardships which many of them had encounteredfor its sake, and from the interest which each disciple vindicated tohimself in the glory and merit of the holy martyrs whose triumphant exitthey had witnessed. With all the fervor of pious gratitude they offeredup their thanksgivings for the signal deliverance by which their prayershad been answered. The bloody tyranny of Mary was at an end; and thoughthe known conformity of Elizabeth to Romish rites might apparently giveroom for doubts and suspicions, it should seem that neither catholicsnor protestants were willing to believe that the daughter of AnneBoleyn could in her heart be a papist. Under this impression thecitizens of London, who spoke the sense of their own class throughoutthe kingdom, welcomed the new queen as a protectress sent by Heavenitself: but even in the first transports of their joy, and amid thepompous pageantries by which their loyal congratulations were expressed, they took care to intimate, in a manner not to be misunderstood, theirhopes and expectations on the great concern now nearest to their hearts. 

Prudence confined within their own bosoms the regrets and murmurs of thepopish clergy; submission and a simulated loyalty were at presentobviously their only policy: thus not a whisper breathed abroad but ofjoy and gratulation and happy presage of the days to come. 

The sex, the youth, the accomplishments, the graces, the pastmisfortunes of the princess, all served to heighten the interest withwhich she was beheld: the age of chivalry had not yet expired; and inspite of the late unfortunate experience of a female reign, the romanticimage of a maiden queen dazzled all eyes, subdued all hearts, inflamedthe imaginations of the brave and courtly youth with visions of love andglory, exalted into a passionate homage the principle of loyalty, andurged adulation to the very brink of idolatry. 

The fulsome compliments on her beauty which Elizabeth, almost to thelatest period of her life, not only permitted but required and delightedin, have been adverted to by all the writers who have made her reign andcharacter their theme: and those of the number whom admiration and pityof the fair queen of Scots have rendered hostile to her memory, havetaken a malicious pleasure in exaggerating the extravagance of thisweakness, by denying her, even in her freshest years, all pretensions tothose personal charms by which her rival was so eminently, distinguished. Others however have been more favorable, and probablymore just, to her on this point; and it would be an injury to her memoryto withhold from the reader the following portraitures which authorizeus to form a pleasing as well as majestic image of this illustriousfemale at the period of her accession and at the age of five-and-twenty. 

"She was a lady of great beauty, of decent stature, and of an excellentshape. In her youth she was adorned with a more than usual maidenmodesty; her skin was of pure white, and her hair of a yellow colour;her eyes were beautiful and lively. In short, her whole body was wellmade, and her face was adorned with a wonderful and sweet beauty andmajesty. This beauty lasted till her middle age, though itdeclined[31]. " &c. 

[Note 31: Bohun's "Character of Queen Elizabeth. "]

"She was of personage tall, of hair and complexion fair, and therewithwell favored, but high-nosed; of limbs and feature neat, and, whichadded to the lustre of those exterior graces, of stately and majesticcomportment; participating in this more of her father than her mother, who was of an inferior allay, plausible, or, as the French hath it, moredebonaire and affable, virtues which might suit well with majesty, andwhich descending as hereditary to the daughter, did render her of a moresweeter temper and endeared her more to the love and liking of herpeople, who gave her the name and fame of a most gracious and popularprince[32]. "

[Note 32: Naunton's "Fragmenta Regalia. "]

The death of Mary was announced to the two houses, which were thensitting, by Heath bishop of Ely, the lord-chancellor. In bothassemblies, after the decorum of a short pause, the notification wasfollowed by joyful shouts of "God save queen Elizabeth! long and happilymay she reign!" and with great alacrity the members issued out toproclaim the new sovereign before the palace in Westminster and again atthe great cross in Cheapside. 

The Londoners knew not how to contain their joy on this happyoccasion:--the bells of all the churches were set ringing, bonfires werekindled, and tables were spread in the streets according to thebountiful and hospitable custom of that day, "where was plentifuleating, drinking, and making merry. " On the following Sunday _Te Deum_was sung in the churches; probably an unexampled, however merited, expression of disrespect to the memory of the former sovereign. 

Elizabeth received the news of her own accession at Hatfield. We are nottold that she affected any great concern for the loss of her sister, much less did any unbecoming sign of exultation escape her; but, "falling on her knees, after a good time of respiration she uttered thisverse of the Psalms; _A Domino factum est istud, et est mirabile oculisnostris_[33]: which to this day we find on the stamp of her gold; withthis on her silver, _Posui Deum adjutorem meum_[34]. "[35]

[Note 33: It is the Lord's doing, it is marvellous in our eyes. ]

[Note 34: I have chosen God for my helper. ]

[Note 35: "Fragmenta Regalia. "]

Several noblemen of the late queen's council now repairing to her, sheheld at Hatfield on November the 20th her first privy-council; at whichshe declared sir Thomas Parry comptroller of her household, sir EdwardRogers captain of the guard, and sir William Cecil principal secretaryof state, all three being at the same time admitted to thecouncil-board. From these appointments, the first of her reign, somepresages might be drawn of her future government favorable to her owncharacter and correspondent to the wishes of her people. 

Parry was the person who had filled for many years the office of hercofferer, who was perfectly in the secret of whatever confidentialintercourse she might formerly have held with the lord-admiral, andwhose fidelity to her in that business had stood firm against all thethreats of the protector and council, and the artifices of those by whomhis examination had been conducted. That mindfulness of former services, of which the advancement of this man formed by no means a solitaryinstance in the conduct of Elizabeth, appeared the more commendable inher, because she accompanied it with a generous oblivion of the manyslights and injuries to which her defenceless and persecuted conditionhad so long exposed her from others. 

The merit of Cecil was already in part known to the public; and hispromotion to an office of such importance was a happy omen for theprotestant cause, his attachment to which had been judged the soleimpediment to his advancement under the late reign to situations ofpower and trust corresponding with the opinion entertained of hisintegrity and political wisdom. A brief retrospect of the scenes ofpublic life in which he had already been an actor will best explain thecharacter and sentiments of this eminent person, destined to wield formore than forty years with unparalleled skill and felicity, under amistress who knew his value, the energies of the English state. 

Born, in 1520, the son of the master of the royal wardrobe, Cecil earlyengaged the notice of Henry VIII. By the fame of a religious disputewhich he had held in Latin with two popish priests attached to the Irishchieftain O'Neal. A place in reversion freely bestowed on him by theking at once rewarded the zeal of the young polemic, and encouraged himto desert the profession of the law, in which he had embarked, for thepolitical career. 

His marriage with the sister of sir John Cheke strengthened his interestat court by procuring him an introduction to the earl of Hertford, andearly in the reign of Edward this powerful patronage obtained for himthe office of secretary of state. In the first disgrace of the protectorhe lost his place, and was for a short time a prisoner in the Tower; buthis compliant conduct soon restored him to favor: he scrupled not todraw the articles of impeachment against the protector; andNorthumberland, finding him both able in business and highly acceptableto the young monarch, procured, or permitted, his reinstatement inoffice in September 1550. 

Cecil, however, was both too wary and too honest to regard himself aspledged to the support of Northumberland's inordinate schemes ofambition; and scarcely any public man of the day, attached to theprotestant cause, escaped better in the affair of lady Jane Grey. It istrue that one writer accuses him of having drawn all the papers in herfavor: but this appears to be, in part at least, either a mistake or acalumny; and it seems, on the contrary, that he refused toNorthumberland some services of this nature. It has been alreadymentioned that his name appeared with those of the otherprivy-councillors to Edward's settlement of the crown; and his plea ofhaving signed it merely as a witness to the king's signature, deservesto be regarded as a kind of subterfuge. But he was early in paying hisrespects to Mary, and he took advantage of the graciousness with whichshe received his explanations to obtain a general pardon, whichprotected him from all personal danger. He lost however his place ofsecretary, which some have affirmed that he might have retained byfurther compliances in religion. This however is the more doubtful, because it cannot be questioned that he must have yielded a good deal onthis point, without which he neither could nor would have made one of adeputation sent to conduct to England cardinal Pole the papal legate, nor probably would he have been joined in commission with the cardinaland other persons sent to treat of a peace with France. 

But admitting, as we must, that this eminent statesman was far fromaspiring to the praise of a confessor, he will still be found to deservehigh commendation for the zeal and courage with which, as a member ofparliament, he defended the interests of his oppressed and sufferingfellow-protestants. At considerable hazard to himself, he opposed withgreat freedom of speech a bill for confiscating the property of exilesfor religion; and he appears to have escaped committal to the Tower onthis account, solely by the presence of mind which he exhibited beforethe council and the friendship of some of its members. 

He is known to have maintained a secret and intimate correspondence withElizabeth during the time of her adversity, and to have assisted her onvarious trying occasions with his salutary counsels; and nothing couldbe more interesting than to trace the origin and progress of thatconfidential relation between these eminent and in many respectscongenial characters, which after a long course of years was onlyterminated by the hand of death;--but materials for this purpose areunfortunately wanting. 

The letters on both sides were probably sacrificed by the partiesthemselves to the caution which their situation required; and among thepublished extracts from the Burleigh papers, only a single document isfound relative to the connexion subsisting between them during the reignof Mary. This is a short and uninteresting letter addressed to Cecil bysir Thomas Benger, one of the princess's officers, in which, after somemention of accounts, not now intelligible, he promises that he and sirThomas Parry will move the princess to grant his correspondent'srequest, which is not particularized, and assures him that as his comingthither would be thankfully received, so he wishes that all the friendsof the princess entertained the same sense of that matter as he does. The letter seems to point at some official concern of Cecil in theaffairs of Elizabeth. It is dated October 24th 1556. 

The private character of Cecil was in every respect exemplary, and hisdisposition truly amiable. His second marriage with one of the learneddaughters of sir Anthony Cook conferred upon him that exalted species ofdomestic happiness which a sympathy in mental endowments can alonebestow; whilst it had the further advantage of connecting him with theexcellent man her father, with sir Nicholas Bacon and sir Thomas Hobby, the husbands of two of her sisters, and generally with the wisest andmost conscientious supporters of the protestant interest. This greatminister was honorably distinguished through life by an ardor andconstancy of friendship rare in all classes of men, but esteemedpeculiarly so in those whose lives are occupied amid the heartlessceremonial of courts and the political intrigues of princes. Hisattachments, as they never degenerated into the weakness of favoritism, were as much a source of benefit to his country as of enjoyment tohimself; for his friends were those of virtue and the state. And therewere few among the more estimable public men of this reign who were notindebted either for their first introduction to the notice of Elizabeth, their continuance in her favor, or their restoration to it whenundeservedly lost, to the generous patronage or powerful intercession ofCecil. 

On appointing him a member of her council, the queen addressed hersecretary in the following gracious words:

"I give you this charge, that you shall be of my privy-council, andcontent yourself to take pains for me and my realm. This judgement Ihave of you, that you will not be corrupted with any gift, and that youwill be faithful to the state, and that, without respect of my privatewill, you will give me that counsel that you think best: And that if youshall know any thing necessary to be declared to me of secrecy, youshall show it to myself only, and assure yourself I will not fail tokeep taciturnity therein. And therefore herewith I charge you[36]. "

[Note 36: "Nugæ Antiquæ. "]

Cardinal Pole was not doomed to be an eye-witness of the relapse of thenation into what he must have regarded as heresy of the most aggravatednature; he expired a few hours after his royal kinswoman: and Elizabeth, with due consideration for the illustrious ancestry, the learning, themoderation, and the blameless manners of the man, authorized hishonorable interment at Canterbury among the archbishops hispredecessors, with the attendance of two bishops, his ancient friendsand the faithful companions of his long exile. 

On November 23d the queen set forward for her capital, attended by atrain of about a thousand nobles, knights, gentlemen, and ladies, andtook up her abode for the present at the dissolved monastery of theChartreux, or Charterhouse, then the residence of lord North; a splendidpile which offered ample accommodation for a royal retinue. Her nextremove, in compliance with ancient custom, was to the Tower. On thisoccasion all the streets from the Charterhouse were spread with finegravel; singers and musicians were stationed by the way, and a vastconcourse of people freely lent their joyful and admiring acclamations, as preceded by her heralds and great officers, and richly attired inpurple velvet, she passed along mounted on her palfrey, and returningthe salutations of the humblest of her subjects with graceful andwinning affability. 

With what vivid and what affecting impressions of the vicissitudesattending on the great must she have passed again within the antiquewalls of that fortress once her dungeon, now her palace! She had enteredit by the Traitor's gate, a terrified and defenceless prisoner, smartingunder many wrongs, hopeless of deliverance, and apprehending nothingless than an ignominious death. She had quitted it, still a captive, under the guard of armed men, to be conducted she knew not whither. Shereturned to it in all the pomp of royalty, surrounded by the ministersof her power, ushered by the applauses of her people; the cherishedobject of every eye, the idol of every heart. 

Devotion alone could supply becoming language to the emotions whichswelled her bosom; and no sooner had she reached the royal apartments, than falling on her knees she returned humble and fervent thanks to thatProvidence which had brought her in safety, like Daniel from the den oflions, to behold this day of exaltation. 

Elizabeth was attended on her passage to the Tower by one who likeherself returned with honor to that place of his former captivity; butnot, like herself, with a mind disciplined by adversity to receive withmoderation and wisdom "the good vicissitude of joy. " This person waslord Robert Dudley, whom the queen had thus early encouraged to aspireto her future favors by appointing him to the office of master of thehorse. 

We are totally uninformed of the circumstances which had recommended toher peculiar patronage this bad son of a bad father; whose enterprises, if successful, would have disinherited of a kingdom Elizabeth herself noless than Mary. But it is remarkable, that even under the reign of thelatter, the surviving members of the Dudley family had been able torecover in great measure from the effects of their late signal reverses. Lord Robert, soon after his release from the Tower, contrived to makehimself so acceptable to king Philip by his courtier-like attentions, and to Mary by his diligence in posting backwards and forwards to bringher intelligence of her husband during his long visits to the continent, that he earned from the latter several marks of favor. Two of hisbrothers fought, and one fell, in the battle of St. Quintin's; andimmediately afterwards the duchess their mother found means, throughsome Spanish interests and connexions, to procure the restoration inblood of all her surviving children. The appointment of Robert to theplace of master of the ordnance soon followed; so that even before theaccession of Elizabeth he might be regarded as a rising man in thestate. His personal graces and elegant accomplishments are on all handsacknowledged to have been sufficiently striking to dazzle the eyes andcharm the heart of a young princess of a lively imagination and absolutemistress of her own actions. The circumstance of his being alreadymarried, blinded her perhaps to the nature of her sentiments towardshim, or at least it was regarded by her as a sufficient sanction in theeyes of the public for those manifestations of favor and esteem withwhich she was pleased to honor him. But whether the affection which sheentertained for him best deserved the name of friendship or a stilltenderer one, seems after all a question of too subtile and obscure anature for sober discussion; though in a French "_cour d'amour_" itmight have furnished pleas and counterpleas of exquisite ingenuity, prodigious sentimental interest, and length interminable. What isunfortunately too certain is, that he was a favorite, and in the commonjudgement of the court, of the nation, and of posterity, an unworthyone; but calumny and prejudice alone have dared to attack thereputation of the queen. 

Elizabeth had no propensity to exalt immoderately her relations by themother's side;--for she neither loved nor honored that mother's memory;but several of the number may be mentioned, whose merits towardsherself, or whose qualifications for the public service, justly entitledthem to share in her distribution of offices and honors, and whom shealways treated with distinction. The whole illustrious family of theHowards were her relations; and in the first year of her reign sheconferred on the duke of Norfolk, her second-cousin, the order of thegarter. Her great-uncle lord William Howard, created baron of Effinghamby Mary, was continued by her in the high office of lord-chamberlain, and soon after appointed one of the commissioners for concluding a peacewith France. Lord Thomas Howard, her mother's first-cousin, who hadtreated her with distinguished respect and kindness on her arrival atHampton Court from Woodstock, and had the further merit of beingindulgent to protestants during the persecutions of Mary, received fromher the title of viscount Bindon, and continued much in her favor to theend of his days. 

Sir Richard Sackville, also her mother's first-cousin, had filleddifferent fiscal offices under the three last reigns; he was a man ofabilities, and derived from a long line of ancestors great estates andextensive influence in the county of Sussex. The people, who marked hisgrowing wealth, and to whom he was perhaps officially obnoxious, nicknamed him Fill-sack: in Mary's time he was a catholic, aprivy-councillor, and chancellor of the court of Augmentations; underher successor he changed the first designation and retained the twolast, which he probably valued more. He is chiefly memorable as thefather of Sackville the poet, afterwards lord Buckhurst and progenitorof the dukes of Dorset. 

Sir Francis Knolles, whose lady was one of the queen's nearestkinswomen, was deservedly called to the privy-council on his return fromhis voluntary banishment for conscience' sake; his sons gainedconsiderable influence in the court of Elizabeth; his daughter, themother of Essex, and afterwards the wife of Leicester, was for variousreasons long an object of the queen's particular aversion. 

But of all her relations, the one who had deserved most at her hands wasHenry Carey, brother to lady Knolles, and son to Mary Boleyn, hermajesty's aunt. This gentleman had expended several thousand pounds ofhis own patrimony in her service and relief during the time of herimprisonment, and she liberally requited his friendship at her firstcreation of peers, by conferring upon him, with the title of baronHunsdon, the royal residence of that name, with its surrounding park andseveral beneficial leases of crown lands. He was afterwards joined invarious commissions and offices of trust: but his remuneration was, onthe whole, by no means exorbitant; for he was not rapacious, andconsequently not importunate; and the queen, in the employments whichshe assigned him, seemed rather to consult her own advantage and that ofher country, by availing herself of the abilities of a diligent andfaithful servant, than to please herself by granting rewards to anaffectionate and generous kinsman. In fact, lord Hunsdon was skilled aslittle in the ceremonious and sentimental gallantry which she requiredfrom her courtiers, as in the circumspect and winding policy which sheapproved in her statesmen. "As he lived in a ruffling time, " saysNaunton, "so he loved sword and buckler men, and such as our fatherswont to call men of their hands, of which sort he had many bravegentlemen that followed him; yet not taken for a popular or dangerousperson. " Though extremely choleric, he was honest, and not at allmalicious. It was said of him that "his Latin and his dissimulation wereboth alike, " equally bad, and that "his custom in swearing and obscenityin speech made him seem a worse Christian than he was. "

Fuller relates of him the following characteristic anecdote. "Once, oneMr. Colt chanced to meet him coming from Hunsdon to London, in theequipage of a lord of those days. The lord, on some former grudge, gavehim a box on the ear: Colt presently returned the principal withinterest; and thereupon his servants drawing their swords, swarmed abouthim. 'You rogues, ' said my lord, 'may not I and my neighbour change ablow but you must interpose?' Thus the quarrel was begun and ended inthe same minute[37]. "

[Note 37: "Worthies" in Herts. ]

The queen's attachment to such of her family as she was pleased tohonor with her notice, was probably the more constant because there wasnothing in it of excess or of blindness:--even Leicester in the heightof his favor felt that he must hold sacred their claims to her regard:according to Naunton's phrase, he used to say of Sackville and Hunsdon, "that they were of the tribe of Dan, and were Noli me tangere's. "

After a few days spent in the Tower, Elizabeth passed by water toSomerset Place; and thence, about a fortnight after, when the funeral ofher predecessor was over, to the palace of Westminster, where she kepther Christmas. 

Busy preparation was now making in her good city of London against thesolemn day of her passage in state from the Tower to her coronation atWestminster. The usages and sentiments of that age conferred upon thesepublic ceremonials a character of earnest and dignified importance nowlost; and on this memorable occasion, when the mingled sense ofdeliverance received and of future favor to be conciliated had openedthe hearts of all men, it was resolved to lavish in honor of the newsovereign every possible demonstration of loyal affection, and everyknown device of festal magnificence. 

The costume of the age was splendid. Gowns of velvet or satin, richlytrimmed with silk, furs, or gold lace, costly gold chains, and caps orhoods of rich materials adorned with feathers or ouches, decorated onall occasions of display the persons not of nobles or courtiers alone, but of their crowds of retainers and higher menials, and even of theplain substantial citizens. Female attire was proportionally sumptuous. Hangings, of cloth, of silk, of velvet, cloth of gold or silver, or"needlework sublime, " clothed on days of family-festivity the _upperchamber_[38] of every house of respectable appearance; these on publicfestivals were suspended from the balconies, and uniting with thebanners and pennons floating overhead, gave to the streets almost theappearance of a suit of long and gayly-dressed saloons. Everycircumstance thus conspired to render the public entry of queenElizabeth the most gorgeous and at the same time the most interestingspectacle of the kind ever exhibited in the English metropolis. 

[Note 38: As long as that style of domestic architecture prevailedin which every story was made to project considerably beyond the onebeneath it, the upper room, from its superior size and lightsomeness, appears to have been that dedicated to the entertainment of guests. ]

Her majesty was first to be conducted from her palace in Westminster tothe royal apartments in the Tower; and a splendid water procession wasappointed for the purpose. At this period, when the streets were narrowand ill-paved, the roads bad, and the luxury of close carriages unknown, the Thames was the great thoroughfare of the metropolis. The old palaceof Westminster, as well as those of Richmond and Greenwich, the favoritesummer residences of the Tudor princes, stood on its banks, and thecourt passed from one to the other in barges. The nobility werebeginning to occupy with their mansions and gardens the space betweenthe Strand and the water, and it had become a reigning folly amongstthem to vie with each other in the splendor of their barges and of theliveries of the rowers, who were all distinguished by the crests orbadges of their lords. 

The corporation and trading companies of London possessed, as now, theirstate-barges enriched with carved and gilded figures and "decked andtrimmed with targets and banners of their misteries. "

On the 12th of January 1559 these were all drawn forth in grand array;and to enliven the pomp, "the bachelor's barge of the lord-mayor'scompany, to wit the mercers, had their barge with a _foist_ trimmed withthree tops and artillery aboard, gallantly appointed to wait upon them, shooting off lustily as they went, with great and pleasant melody ofinstruments, which played in most sweet and heavenly manner. " In thisstate they rowed up to Westminster and attended her majesty with theroyal barges back to the Tower. 

Her passage through the city took place two days after. 

She issued forth drawn in a sumptuous chariot, preceded by trumpetersand heralds in their coat-armour and "most honorably accompanied as wellwith gentlemen, barons, and other the nobility of this realm, as alsowith a notable train of goodly and beautiful ladies, richly appointed. "The ladies were on horseback, and both they and the lords were habitedin crimson velvet, with which their horses were also trapped. Let it beremarked by the way, that the retinue of fair equestrians constantlyattendant on the person of the maiden queen in all her publicappearances, was a circumstance of prodigious effect; the gorgeousnessof royal pomp was thus heightened, and at the same time rendered moreamiable and attractive by the alliance of grace and beauty; and aromantic kind of charm, comparable to that which seizes the imaginationin the splendid fictions of chivalry, was cast over the heartless paradeof courtly ceremonial. 

It was a very different spirit, however, from that of romance or ofknight-errantry which inspired the bosoms of the citizens whoseacclamations now rent the air on her approach. They beheld in theprincess whom they welcomed the daughter of that Henry who had redeemedthe land from papal tyranny and extortion; the sister of that young andgodly Edward, --the Josiah of English story, --whose pious hand had rearedagain the altars of pure and primitive religion; and they had bodiedforth for her instruction and admonition, in a series of solemnpageants, the maxims by which they hoped to see her equal or surpassthese deep-felt merits of her predecessors. 

These pageants were erections placed across the principal streets in themanner of triumphal arches: illustrative sentences in English and Latinwere inscribed upon them; and a child was stationed in each, whoexplained to the queen in English verse the meaning of the whole. Thefirst was of three stories, and represented by living figures: first, Henry VII. And his royal spouse Elizabeth of York, from whom her majestyderived her name; secondly, Henry VIII. And Anne Boleyn; and lastly, hermajesty in person; all in royal robes. The verses described thefelicity of that union of the houses to which she owed her existence, and of concord in general. The second pageant was styled "The seat ofworthy governance, " on the summit of which sat another representative ofthe queen; beneath were the cardinal virtues trampling under their feetthe opposite vices, among whom Ignorance and Superstition were notforgotten. The third exhibited the eight Beatitudes, all ascribed withsome ingenuity of application to her majesty. The fourth ventured upon amore trying topic: its opposite sides represented in lively contrast theimages of a decayed and of a flourishing commonwealth; and from a cavebelow issued Time leading forth his daughter Truth, who held in her handan English bible, which she offered to the queen's acceptance. Elizabethreceived the volume, and reverently pressing it with both hands to herheart and to her lips, declared aloud, amid the tears and gratefulbenedictions of her people, that she thanked the city more for that giftthan for all the cost they had bestowed upon her, and that she wouldoften read over that book. The last pageant exhibited "a seemly and metepersonage, richly apparelled in parliament robes, with a sceptre in herhand, over whose head was written 'Deborah, the judge and restorer ofthe house of Israel. '"

To render more palatable these grave moralities, the recorder of London, approaching her majesty's chariot near the further end of Cheapside, where ended the long array of the city companies, which had lined thestreets all the way from Fenchurch, presented her with a splendid andample purse, containing one thousand marks in gold. The queen graciouslyreceived it with both hands, and answered his harangue "marvellouspithily. "

To crown the whole, those two griesly personages vulgarly called Gog andMagog, but described by the learned as Gogmagog the Albion and Corineusthe Briton, deserted on this memorable day that accustomed station inGuildhall where they appear as the tutelary genii of the city, and wereseen rearing up their stately height on each side of Temple-bar. Withjoined hands they supported above the gate a copy of Latin verses, inwhich they obligingly expounded to her majesty the sense of all thepageants which had been offered to her view, concluding with complimentsand felicitations suitable to the happy occasion. The queen, in few butcordial words, thanked the citizens for all their cost and pains, assured them that she would "stand their good queen, " and passed thegate amid a thunder of applause. 

Elizabeth possessed in a higher degree than any other English prince whoever reigned, the innocent and honest arts of popularity; and thefollowing traits of her behaviour on this day are recorded by ourchroniclers with affectionate delight. "'Yonder is an ancient citizen, 'said one of the knights attending on her person, 'which weepeth andturneth his face backward: How may it be interpreted? that he doth sofor sorrow or for gladness?' With a just and pleasing confidence, thequeen replied, 'I warrant you it is for gladness, '" "How many nosegaysdid her grace receive at poor women's hands! How many times staid sheher chariot when she saw any simple body offer to speak to her grace! Abranch of rosemary given her grace with a supplication by a poor womanabout Fleet-bridge was seen in her chariot till her grace came toWestminster[39]. "

[Note 39: Holinshed's Chronicles. ]

The reader may here be reminded, that five-and-twenty years before, whenthe mother of this queen passed through London to her coronation, thepageants exhibited derived their personages and allusions chiefly frompagan mythology or classical fiction. But all was now changed; theearnestness of religious controversy in Edward's time, and the fury ofpersecution since, had put to flight Apollo, the Muses, and the Graces:Learning indeed had kept her station and her honors, but she had lenther lamp to other studies, and whether in the tongue of ancient Rome ormodern England, Elizabeth was hailed in Christian strains, and as thesovereign of a Christian country. A people filled with earnest zeal inthe best of causes implored her to free them once again from popery; tooverthrow the tyranny of error and of superstition; to establish gospeltruth; and to accept at their hands, as the standard of her faith andthe rule of her conduct, that holy book of which they regarded the freeand undisturbed possession as their brightest privilege. 

How tame, how puerile, in the midst of sentiments serious and profoundas these, would have appeared the intrusion of classical imagery, however graceful in itself or ingenious in its application! Frigid musthave been the spectator who could even have remarked its absence, whileshouts of patriotic ardor and of religious joy were bursting from thelips of the whole assembled population. 

The august ceremonies of the coronation, which took place on thefollowing day, merit no particular description; regulated in every thingby ancient custom, they afforded little scope for that display ofpopular sentiment which had given so intense an interest to theprocession of the day before. Great perplexity was occasioned by therefusal of the whole bench of bishops to perform the coronation service;but at length, to the displeasure of his brethren, Ogelthorp bishop ofCarlisle suffered himself to be gained over, and the rite was dulycelebrated. This refractoriness of the episcopal order was wiselyoverlooked for the present by the new government; but it proceeded nodoubt from the principle, that, the marriage of Henry VIII. WithCatherine of Arragon having been declared lawful and valid, the child ofAnne Boleyn must be regarded as illegitimate and incapable of thesuccession. The compliance of Ogelthorp could indeed be censured by theother bishops on no other ground than their disallowance of the title ofthe sovereign; in the office itself, as he performed it, there wasnothing to which the most rigid catholic could object, for the ancientritual is said to have been followed without the slightest modification. This circumstance has been adduced among others, to show that it wasrather by the political necessities of her situation, than by herprivate judgement and conscience in religious matters, that Elizabethwas impelled finally to abjure the Roman catholic system, and to declareherself the general protectress of the protestant cause. 

Probably, had she found herself free to follow entirely the dictates ofher own inclinations, she would have established in the church of whichshe found herself the head, a kind of middle scheme like that devised byher father, for whose authority she was impressed with the highestveneration. To the end of her days she could never be reconciled tomarried bishops; indeed with respect to the clergy generally, asagacious writer of her own time observes, that "_cæteris paribus_, andsometimes _imparibus_ too, she preferred the single man before themarried[40]. "

[Note 40: Harrington's "Brief View. "]

She would allow no one "to speak irreverently of the sacrament of thealtar;" that is, to enter into discussions respecting the real presence;she enjoined the like respectful silence concerning the intercession ofsaints; and we learn that one Patch, who had been Wolsey's fool, and hadcontrived, like some others, to keep in favor through all the changes offour successive reigns, was employed by sir Francis Knolles to breakdown a crucifix which she still retained in her private chapel to thescandal of all good protestants. 

A remarkable incident soon served to intimate the coolness and cautionwith which it was her intention to proceed in re-establishing themaxims of the reformers. Lord Bacon thus relates the anecdote: "QueenElizabeth on the morrow of her coronation (it being the custom torelease prisoners at the inauguration of a prince) went to the chapel;and in the great chamber one of her courtiers, who was well known toher, either out of his own motion, or by the instigation of a wiser man, presented her with a petition, and before a great number of courtiersbesought her with a loud voice that now this good time there might befour or five more principal prisoners released: these were the fourevangelists, and the apostle St. Paul, who had been long shut up in anunknown tongue, as it were in prison; so as they could not converse withthe common people. The queen answered very gravely, that it was bestfirst to inquire of themselves whether they would be released ornot[41]. "

[Note 41: Bacon's "Apophthegms. "]

It was not long, however, ere this happy deliverance was fully effected. Before her coronation, Elizabeth had taken the important step ofauthorizing the reading of the liturgy in English; but she forbadepreaching on controverted topics generally, and all preaching at Paul'sCross in particular, till the completion of that revision of the serviceused in the time of Edward VI. Which she had intrusted to Parkerarchbishop-elect of Canterbury, with several of her wisest counsellors. It was the zeal of the ministers lately returned from exile, many ofwhom had imbibed at Geneva or Zurich ideas of a primitive simplicity inChristian worship widely remote from the views and sentiments of thequeen, which gave occasion to this prohibition. The learning, the piety, the past sufferings of the men gave them great power over the minds andopinions of the people, who ran in crowds to listen to their sermons;and Elizabeth began already to apprehend that the hierarchy which shedesired to establish would stand as much in need of protection from thedisciples of Calvin and Zwingle on one hand, as from the adherents ofpopery on the other. 

There is good reason to believe, that a royal proclamation issued sometime after, by which all manner of plays and interludes were forbiddento be represented till after the ensuing hallowmass, was dictated bysimilar reasons of state with the prohibition of popular and unlicensedpreaching. 

From the earliest beginnings of the reformation under Henry VIII. Thestage had come in aid of the pulpit; not, according to the practice ofits purer ages, as the "teacher best of moral wisdom, with delightreceived, " but as the vehicle of religious controversy, and not seldomof polemical scurrility. Several times already had this dangerousnovelty attracted the jealous eyes of authority, and measures had invain been taken for its suppression. 

In 1542 Henry added to an edict for the destruction of Tyndale's Englishbible, with all the controversial works on both sides of which it hadbeen the fertile parent, an injunction that "the kingdom should bepurged and cleansed of all religious plays, interludes, rhymes, ballads, and songs, which are equally pestiferous and noisome to the peace ofthe church. " During the reign of Edward, when the papists had availedthemselves of the license of the theatre to attack Cranmer and theprotector, a similar prohibition was issued against all dramaticperformances, as tending to the growth of "disquiet, division, tumultsand uproars. " Mary's privy-council, on the other hand, found itnecessary to address a remonstrance to the president of the North, respecting certain players, servants to sir Francis Lake, who had goneabout the country representing pieces in ridicule of the king and queenand the formalities of the mass; and the design of the proclamation ofElizabeth was rendered evident by a solemn enactment of heavy penaltiesagainst such as should abuse the Common-prayer in any interludes, songs, or rhymes[42]. 

[Note 42: Warton's "History of English Poetry, " vol. Iii. P. 202 _etseq. _]

CHAPTER X. 

1559. 

Meeting of parliament. --Prudent counsel of sir N. Bacon. --Actdeclaratory of the queen's title. --Her answer to an address praying herto marry. --Philip II. Offers her his hand. --Motives of herrefusal. --Proposes to her the archduke Charles. --The king of Swedenrenews his addresses by the duke of Finland. --Honorable reception of theduke. --Addresses of the duke of Holstein. --The duke of Norfolk, lord R. Dudley, the marquis of Northampton, the earl of Rutland, made knights ofthe garter. --Notices of the two last. --Queen visits the earl ofPembroke. --His life and character. --Arrival and entertainment of aFrench embassy. --Review of the London trained-bands. --Tilt in Greenwichpark. --Band of gentlemen-pensioners. --Royal progress to Dartford, CobhamHall, Eltham, and Nonsuch. --The earl of Arundel entertains her at thelatter place. --Obsequies for the king of France. --Death of Francesduchess of Suffolk. --Sumptuary law respecting apparel. --Fashions ofdress. --Law against witchcraft. 

In the parliament which met in January 1559, two matters personallyinteresting to the queen were agitated; her title to the crown, and hermarriage; and both were disposed of in a manner calculated to afford ajust presage of the maxims by which the whole tenor of her future lifeand reign was to be guided. By the eminently prudent and judiciouscounsels of sir Nicholas Bacon keeper of the seals, she omitted torequire of parliament the repeal of those acts of her father's reignwhich had declared his marriage with her mother null, and herselfillegitimate; and reposing on the acknowledged maxim of law, that thecrown once worn takes away all defects in blood, she contented herselfwith an act declaratory in general terms of her right of succession. Thus the whole perplexing subject of her mother's character and conductwas consigned to an oblivion equally safe and decent; and the memory ofher father, which, in spite of all his acts of violence and injustice, was popular in the nation and respected by herself, was saved from thestigma which the vindication of Anne Boleyn must have impressedindelibly upon it. 

On the other topic she explained herself with an earnest sincerity whichmight have freed her from all further importunity in any concern lessinteresting to the wishes of her people. To a deputation from the houseof commons with an address, "the special matter whereof was to move hergrace to marriage, " after a gracious reception, she delivered an answerin which the following passages are remarkable. 

". . . From my years of understanding, sith I first had consideration of mylife, to be born a servitor of almighty God, I happily chose this kindof life, in the which I yet live; which I assure you for mine own parthath hitherto best contented myself, and I trust hath been mostacceptable unto God. From the which, if either ambition of high estate, offered to me in marriage by the pleasure and appointment of my prince, whereof I have some records in this presence (as you our treasurer wellknow); or if eschewing the danger of mine enemies, or the avoiding ofthe peril of death, whose messenger, or rather a continual watchman, theprince's indignation, was no little time daily before mine eyes, (bywhose means although I know, or justly may suspect, yet I will not nowutter, or if the whole cause were in my sister herself, I will not nowburden her therewith, because I will not charge the dead): if any ofthese, I say, could have drawn or dissuaded me from this kind of life, Ihad not now remained in this estate wherein you see me; but so constanthave I always continued in this determination, although my youth andwords may seem to some hardly to agree together; yet it is most truethat at this day I stand free from any other meaning that either I havehad in times past, or have at this present. "

After a somewhat haughty assurance that she takes the recommendation ofthe parliament in good part, because it contains no limitation of placeor person, which she should have regarded as great presumption in them, "whose duties are to obey, " and "not to require them that may command;"having declared that should she change her resolution, she will chooseone for her husband who shall, if possible, be as careful for the realmas herself, she thus concludes: "And in the end, this shall be for mesufficient, that a marble stone shall declare, that a queen, havingreigned such a time, lived and died a virgin. "

One matrimonial proposal her majesty had already received, and that atonce the most splendid and the least suitable which Europe could afford. Philip of Spain, loth to relinquish his hold upon England, but longsince aware of the impracticability of establishing any claims of hisown in opposition to the title of Elizabeth, now sought to reign by her;and to the formal announcement which she conveyed to him of the death ofhis late wife, accompanied with expressions of her anxiety to preservehis friendship, he had replied by an offer of his hand. 

The objections to this union were so peculiarly forcible, and so obviousto every eye, that it appears at first view almost incredible that theproposal should have been made, as it yet undoubtedly was, seriously andwith strong expectations of success. But Philip, himself a politician, believed Elizabeth to be one also; and he flattered himself that heshould be able to point out such advantages in the connexion as mightover-balance in her mind any scruples of patriotism, of feeling, or ofconscience. She stood alone, the last of her father's house, unsupportedat home by the authority of a powerful royal family, or abroad by greatalliances. The queen of Scots, whom few of the subjects of Elizabethdenied to be next heir to the crown, and whose claim was by most of thecatholics held preferable to her own, was married to the dauphin ofFrance, consequently her title would be upheld by the whole force ofthat country, with which, as well as with Scotland, Elizabeth at heraccession had found the nation involved in an unsuccessful war. The lossof Calais, the decay of trade, the failure of the exchequer, and therecent visitations of famine and pestilence, had infected the minds ofthe English with despondency, and paralysed all their efforts. 

In religion they were confessedly a divided people; but it is probablethat Philip, misled by his own zeal and that of the catholic clergy, confidently anticipated the extirpation of heresy and the final triumphof the papal system, if the measures of _salutary rigor_ which haddistinguished the reign of Mary should be persisted in by her successor;and that he actually supposed the majority of the nation to be at thistime sincerely and cordially catholic. In offering therefore his hand toElizabeth, he seemed to lend her that powerful aid against her foreignfoe and rival without which her possession of the throne could not besecure, and that support against domestic faction without which it couldnot be tranquil. He readily undertook to procure from the pope thenecessary dispensation for the marriage, which he was certain would begranted with alacrity; and before the answer of Elizabeth could reachhim, he had actually dispatched envoys to Rome for this purpose. 

A princess, in fact, of a character less firm and less sagacious thanElizabeth, might have found in these seeming benefits temptations not tobe resisted; the splendor of Philip's rank and power would have dazzledand overawed, the difficulties of her own situation would haveaffrighted her, and between ambition and alarm she would probably havethrown herself into the arms, and abandoned her country to the mercy, ofa gloomy, calculating, relentless tyrant. 

But Elizabeth was neither to be deceived nor intimidated. She well knewhow odious this very marriage had rendered her unhappy sister; sheunderstood and sympathized in the religious sentiments of the greatmass of her subjects; she felt too all the pride, as well as thefelicity, of independence; and looking around with a cheerful confidenceon a people who adored her, she formed at once the patriotic resolutionto wear her English diadem by the suffrage of the English nation alone, unindebted to the protection and free from the participation of anybrother-monarch living, even of him who held the highest place among thepotentates of Europe. 

Her best and wisest counsellors applauded her decision, but theyunanimously advised that no means consistent with the rejection of hissuit should be omitted, by which the friendship of the king of Spainmight be preserved and cultivated. Expedients were accordingly found, without actually encouraging his hopes, for protracting the negotiationtill a peace was concluded with France and with Scotland, and finally ofdeclining the marriage without a breach of amity. Yet the duke de Feria, the Spanish ambassador, had not failed to represent to the queen, thatas the addresses of his master were founded on personal acquaintance andhigh admiration of her charms and merit, a negative could not bereturned without wounding equally his pride and his feelings. Philip, however, soon consoled himself for this disappointment by taking to wifethe daughter of the king of France; and before the end of the year wefind him recommending to Elizabeth as a husband his cousin the archdukeCharles, son of the emperor Ferdinand. The overture was at this timedeclined by the queen without hesitation; but some time afterwards, circumstances arose which caused the negotiation to be resumed withprospect of success, and the pretensions and qualifications of theAustrian prince became, as we shall see, an object of seriousdiscussion. 

Eric, who had now ascended the throne of Sweden, sent his brother theduke of Finland to plead once more with the English princess in hisbehalf; and the king of Denmark, unwilling that his neighbour shouldbear off without a contest so glorious a prize, lost no time in sendingforth on the same high adventure his nephew the duke of Holstein. It ismore than probable that Shakespear, in his description of the wooers ofall countries who contend for the possession of the fair and wealthyPortia[43], satirically alludes to several of these royal suitors, whosedeparture would often be accounted by his sovereign "a gentle ridance, "since she might well exclaim with the Italian heiress, "while we shutthe gate on one wooer, another knocks at the door. "

[Note 43: See "The Merchant of Venice. "]

The duke of Finland was received with high honors. The earl of Oxfordand lord Robert Dudley repaired to him at Colchester and conducted himinto London. At the corner of Gracechurch-street he was received by themarquis of Northampton and lord Ambrose Dudley, attended by manygentlemen, and, what seems remarkable, by ladies also; and thence, followed by a great troop of gentlemen in gold chains and yeomen of theguard, he proceeded to the bishop of Winchester's palace in Southwark, "which was hung with rich cloth of arras, and wrought with gold andsilver and silks. And there he remained. "

On the last circumstance it may be remarked, that it appears at thistime to have been the invariable custom for ambassadors and other royalvisitants to be lodged at some private house, where they wereentertained, nominally perhaps at the expense of the sovereign, butreally to the great cost as well as inconvenience of the selected host. The practice discovers a kind of feudal right of ownership still claimedby the prince in the mansions of his barons, some of which indeed wereroyal castles or manor-houses and held perhaps under peculiarobligations: at the same time it gives us a magnificent idea of the sizeand accommodation of these mansions and of the style of house-keepingused in them. It further intimates that an habitual distrust of theseforeign guests caused it to be regarded as a point of prudence to placethem under the secret inspection of some native of approved loyalty anddiscretion. Prisoners of state, as well as ambassadors and royalstrangers, were thus committed to the private custody of peers orbishops. 

The duke of Holstein on his arrival was lodged at Somerset Place, ofwhich the queen had granted the use to lord Hunsdon. He came, it seems, with sanguine expectations of success in his suit; but the royal fairone deemed it sufficient to acknowledge his pains by an honorablereception, the order of the garter, and the grant of a yearly pension. 

Meantime the queen herself, with equal assiduity and better success thanawaited these princely wooers, was applying her cares to gain theaffections of her subjects of every class, and if possible of bothreligious denominations. 

On her young kinsman the duke of Norfolk, the first peer of the realm byrank, property, and great alliances, and the most popular by his knownattachment to the protestant faith, she now conferred the distinction ofthe garter, decorating with it at the same time the marquis ofNorthampton, the earl of Rutland, and lord Robert Dudley. 

The marquis, a brother of queen Catherine Parr, whom he resembled in theturn of his religious opinions, had been for these opinions a greatsufferer under the last reign. On pretext of his adherence to the causeof Jane Grey, in which he had certainly not partaken more deeply thanmany others who found nothing but favor in the sight of Mary, he wasattainted of high treason, and though his life was spared, his estateswere forfeited and he had remained ever since in disgrace and suspicion. A divorce which he had obtained from an unfaithful wife under theecclesiastical law of Henry VIII. Was also called in question, and anafter marriage which he had contracted declared null, but it appears tohave been confirmed under Elizabeth. He was accounted a modest andupright character, endowed with no great talents for military command, in which he had been unsuccessful, nor yet for civil business; butdistinguished by a fine taste in music and poetry, which formed hischief delight. From the new sovereign substantial benefits as well asflattering distinctions awaited him, being reinstated by her in thepossession of his confiscated estates and appointed a privy-councillor. 

Henry second earl of Rutland of the surname of Manners, was therepresentative of a knightly family seated during many generations atEttal in Northumberland, and known in border history amongst thestoutest champions on the English side. But Ettal, a place of strength, was more than once laid in ruins, and the lands devastated and rendered"nothing worth, " by incursions of the Scots; and though successive kingsrewarded the services and compensated the losses of these valiantknights, by grants of land and appointments to honorable offices in thenorth, it was many an age before they attained to such a degree ofwealth as would enable them to appear with distinction amongst the greatfamilies of the kingdom. At length sir Robert Manners, high sheriff ofNorthumberland, having recommended himself to the favor of theking-making Warwick and of Richard duke of Gloucester, was fortunateenough by a judicious marriage with the daughter of lord Roos, heiressof the Tiptofts earls of Worcester, to add the noble castle and fertilevale of Belvoir to the battered towers and wasted fields of his paternalinheritance. 

A second splendid alliance completed the aggrandizement of the house ofManners. The son of sir Robert, bearing in right of his mother the titleof lord Roos, and knighted by the earl of Surry for his distinguishedbravery in the Scottish wars, was honored with the hand of Anne soleheiress of sir Thomas St. Leger by the duchess-dowager of Exeter, asister of king Edward IV. The heir of this marriage, in considerationof his maternal ancestry, was advanced by Henry VIII. To the title ofearl of Rutland, never borne but by princes of the blood. His successor, whom the queen was pleased to honor on this occasion, had suffered ashort imprisonment in the cause of Jane Grey, but was afterwardsintrusted by Mary with a military command. Under Elizabeth he was lordlieutenant of the counties of Nottingham and Rutland, and one of thecommissioners for enforcing the oath of supremacy on all persons inoffices of trust or profit suspected of adherence to the old religion. He died in 1563. 

Of lord Robert Dudley it is only necessary here to observe, that hisfavor with the queen became daily more apparent, and began to give fearsand jealousies to her best friends and wisest counsellors. 

The hearts of the common people, as this wise princess well knew, wereeasily and cheaply to be won by gratifying their eyes with the frequentview of her royal person, and she neglected no opportunity of offeringherself, all smiles and affability, to their ready acclamations. 

On one occasion she passed publicly through the city to visit the mintand inspect the new coinage, which she had the great merit of restoringto its just standard from the extremely depreciated state to which ithad been brought by the successive encroachments of her immediatepredecessors. Another time she visited the dissolved priory of St. MarySpittle in Bishopsgate-street, which was noted for its pulpit-cross, where, on set days, the lord-mayor and aldermen attended to hearsermons. It is conjectured that the queen went thither for the samepurpose; but if this were the case, her equipage was somewhat whimsical. She was attended, as Stow informs us, by a thousand men in harness withshirts of mail and corselets and morice-pikes, and ten great piecescarried through the city unto the court, with drums and trumpetssounding, and two morice dancings, and in a cart two white bears. 

Having supped one afternoon with the earl of Pembroke at Baynard'scastle in Thames-street, she afterwards took boat and was rowed up anddown the river, "hundreds of boats and barges rowing about her, andthousands of people thronging at the water side to look upon hermajesty; rejoicing to see her, and partaking of the music and sightsupon the Thames. "

This peer was the offspring of a base-born son of William Herbert earlof Pembroke, and coming early to court to push his fortune, became anesquire of the body to Henry VIII. Soon ingratiating himself with thismonarch, he obtained from his customary profusion towards his favorites, several offices in Wales and enormous grants of abbey-lands in some ofthe southern counties. In the year 1554, the 37th of his age, we findhim considerable enough to procure the king's license "to retain thirtypersons at his will and pleasure, over and above such persons asattended on him, and to give them his livery, badges, and cognizance. "The king's marriage with Catherine Parr, his wife's sister, increasedhis consequence, and Henry on his death-bed appointed him one of hisexecutors and a member of the young king's council. He was activelyuseful in the beginning of Edward's reign in keeping down commotions inWales and suppressing some which had arisen in Wiltshire andSomersetshire. This service obtained for him the office of master of thehorse; and that more important service which he afterwards performed atthe head of one thousand Welshmen, with whom he took the field againstthe Cornish rebels, was rewarded by the garter, the presidency of thecouncil for Wales, and a valuable wardship. He figured next as commanderof part of the forces in Picardy and governor of Calais, and foundhimself strong enough to claim of the feeble protector as his reward thetitles of baron Herbert and earl of Pembroke, become extinct by thefailure of legitimate heirs. As soon as his sagacity prognosticated thefall of Somerset, he judiciously attached himself to the rising fortunesof Northumberland. With this aspiring leader it was an object of primeimportance to purchase the support of a nobleman who now appeared at thehead of three hundred retainers, and whose authority in Wales and thesouthern counties was equal, or superior, to the hereditary influence ofthe most powerful and ancient houses. To engage him therefore the morefirmly in his interest, Northumberland proposed a marriage betweenPembroke's son lord Herbert and lady Catherine Grey, which wassolemnized at the same time with that between lord Guildford Dudley andthe lady Jane her eldest sister. 

But no ties of friendship or alliance could permanently engage Pembrokeon the losing side; and though he concurred in the first measures of theprivy-council in behalf of lady Jane's title, it was he who devised apretext for extricating its members from the Tower, where Northumberlandhad detained them in order to secure their fidelity, and, assemblingthem in Baynard's castle, procured their concurrence in the proclamationof Mary. By this act he secured the favor of the new queen, whom hefurther propitiated by compelling his son to repudiate the innocent andill-fated lady Catherine, whose birth caused her to be regarded at courtwith jealous eyes. Mary soon confided to him the charge of effectuallysuppressing Wyat's rebellion, and afterwards constituted him hercaptain-general beyond the seas, in which capacity he commanded theEnglish forces at the battle of St. Quintin's. Such was the respectentertained for his experience and capacity, that Elizabeth admitted himto her privy-council immediately after her accession, and as a stillhigher mark of her confidence named him, --with the marquis ofNorthampton, the earl of Bedford, and lord John Grey, leading men of theprotestant party, --to assist at the meetings of divines and men oflearning by whom the religious establishment of the country was to besettled. He was likewise appointed a commissioner for administering theoath of supremacy. In short, he retained to his death, which occurred in1570, in the 63d year of his age, the same high station among theconfidential servants of the crown which he had held unmoved through allthe mutations of the eventful period of his public life. 

Naunton, in his "Fragmenta Regalia, " speaking of Paulet marquis ofWinchester and lord-treasurer, who, he says, had then served fourprinces "in as various and changeable season that well I may say, neither time nor age hath yielded the like precedent, " thus proceeds:"This man being noted to grow high in her" (queen Elizabeth's) "favor, as his place and experience required, was questioned by an intimatefriend of his, how he stood up for thirty years together amidst thechanges and reigns of so many chancellors and great personages. 'Why, 'quoth the marquis, 'ortus sum ex salice, non ex quercu. ' (By being awillow and not an oak). And truly the old man hath taught them all, especially William earl of Pembroke, for they two were ever of theking's religion, and over-zealous professors. Of these it is said, thatboth younger brothers, yet of noble houses, they spent what was leftthem and came on trust to the court; where, upon the bare stock of theirwits, they began to traffic for themselves, and prospered so well, thatthey got, spent, and left, more than any subjects from the Normanconquest to their own times: whereunto it hath been prettily replied, that they lived in a time of dissolution. --Of any of the former reign, it is said that these two lived and died chiefly in the queen's favor. "

Among the means employed by Pembroke for preserving the good graces ofthe new queen, the obvious one of paying court to her prime favoriteRobert Dudley was not neglected; and lord Herbert, whose first marriagehad been contracted in compliance with the views of the father, nowformed a third in obedience to the wishes of the son. The lady to whomhe was thus united by motives in which inclination had probably no shareon either side, was the niece of Dudley and sister of sir Philip Sidney, one of the most accomplished women of her age, celebrated during herlife by the wits and poets whom she patronized, and preserved in thememory of posterity by an epitaph from the pen of Ben Jonson which willnot be forgotten whilst English poetry remains. 

The arrival of ambassadors of high rank from France, on occasion of thepeace recently concluded with that country, afforded the queen anopportunity of displaying all the magnificence of her court; and theirentertainment has furnished for the curious inquirer in later times someamusing traits of the half-barbarous manners of the age. The duke deMontmorenci, the head of the embassy, was lodged at the bishop ofLondon's, and the houses of the dean and canons of St. Paul's wereentirely filled with his numerous retinue. The gorgeousness of theambassador's dress was thought remarkable even in those gorgeous times. The day after their arrival they were conducted in state to court, wherethey supped with the queen, and afterwards partook of a "goodlybanquet, " with all manner of entertainment till midnight. The next dayher majesty gave them a sumptuous dinner, followed by a baiting of bullsand bears. "The queen's grace herself" stood with them in a gallery, looking on the pastime, till six o'clock, when they returned by water tosup with the bishop their host. On the following day they wereconducted to the Paris Garden, then a favorite place of amusement on theSurry side of the Thames, and there regaled with another exhibition ofbull and bear baiting. Two days afterwards they departed, "taking theirbarge towards Gravesend, " highly delighted, it is to be hoped, with theelegant taste of the English in public diversions, and carrying withthem a number of mastiffs, given them to hunt wolves in their owncountry. 

But notwithstanding all outward shows of amity with France, Elizabethhad great cause to apprehend that the pretensions of the queen of Scotsand her husband the dauphin, who had openly assumed the royal arms ofEngland, might soon reinvolve her in hostilities with that country andwith Scotland; and it consequently became a point of policy with her toanimate by means of military spectacles, graced with her royal presenceand encouragement, the warlike preparations of her subjects. She was nowestablished for a time in her favorite summer-palace of Greenwich, andthe London companies were ordered to make a muster of their men at armsin the adjoining park. 

The employment of fire-arms had not as yet consigned to disuse eitherthe defensive armour or the weapons of offence of the middle ages; andthe military arrays of that time amused the eye of the spectator with arich variety of accoutrement far more picturesque in its details, andprobably more striking even in its general effect, than that magnificentuniformity which, at a modern review, dazzles but soon satiates thesight. 

Of the fourteen hundred men whom the metropolis sent forth on thisoccasion, eight hundred, armed in fine corselets, bore the long Moorishpike; two hundred were halberdiers wearing a different kind of armour, called Almain rivets; and the gunners, or musketeers, were equipped inshirts of mail, with morions or steel caps. Her majesty, surrounded by asplendid court, beheld all their evolutions from a gallery over the parkgate, and finally dismissed them, confirmed in loyalty and valor bypraises, thanks, and smiles of graciousness. 

A few days afterwards the queen's pensioners were appointed "to run withthe spear, " and this chivalrous exhibition was accompanied with suchcircumstances of romantic decoration as peculiarly delighted the fancyof Elizabeth. She caused to be erected for her in Greenwich park abanqueting-house "made with fir poles and decked with birch branches andall manner of flowers both of the field and the garden, as roses, julyflowers, lavender, marygolds, and all manner of strewing-herbs andrushes. " Tents were also set up for her household, and a place wasprepared for the tilters. After the exercises were over, the queen gavea supper in the banqueting-house, succeeded by a masque, and that by asplendid banquet. "And then followed great casting of fire and shootingof guns till midnight. "

This band of gentlemen pensioners, the boast and ornament of the courtof Elizabeth, was probably the most splendid establishment of the kindin Europe. It was entirely composed of the flower of the nobility andgentry, and to be admitted to serve in its ranks was during the whole ofthe reign regarded as a distinction worthy the ambition of young men ofthe highest families and most brilliant prospects. Sir John Holles, afterwards earl of Clare, was accustomed to say, that while he was apensioner to queen Elizabeth, he did not know _a worse man_ in the wholeband than himself; yet he was then in possession of an inheritance offour thousand a year. "It was the constant custom of that queen, "pursues the earl's biographer, "to call out of all counties of thekingdom, the gentlemen of the greatest hopes and the best fortunes andfamilies, and with them to fill the more honorable rooms of herhousehold servants, by which she honored them, obliged their kindred andalliance, and fortified herself[44]. "

[Note 44: Collins's "Historical Collections. "]

On this point of policy it deserves to be remarked, that however itmight strengthen the personal influence of the sovereign to enrollamongst the menial servants of the crown gentlemen of influence andproperty, it is chiefly perhaps to this practice that we ought to imputethat baseness of servility which infected, with scarcely one honorableexception, the public characters of the reign of Elizabeth. 

On July 17th the queen set out on the first of those royal _progresses_which form so striking a feature in the domestic history of her reign. In them, as in most of the recreations in which she at any time indulgedherself, Elizabeth sought to unite political utilities with thegratification of her taste for magnificence, and especially foradmiration. It has also been surmised, that she was not inattentive tothe savings occasioned to her privy purse by maintaining her householdfor several weeks in every year at the expense of her nobles, or of thetowns through which she passed; and it must be admitted that more thanone disgraceful instance might be pointed out, of a great man obliged topurchase the continuance or restoration of her favor by soliciting thealmost ruinous honor of a royal visit. On the whole, however, herdeportment on these occasions warrants the conclusion, that an earnestand constant desire of popularity was her principal motive forpersevering to the latest period of her life to encounter the fatigue ofthese frequent journeys, and of the acts of public representation whichthey imposed upon her. 

"In her progress, " says an acute and lively delineator of her character, "she was most easy to be approached; private persons and magistrates, men and women, country-people and children, came joyfully and withoutany fear to wait upon her and see her. Her ears were then open to thecomplaints of the afflicted and of those that had been any way injured. She would not suffer the meanest of her people to be shut out from theplaces where she resided, but the greatest and the least were then in amanner levelled. She took with her own hand, and read with the greatestgoodness, the petitions of the meanest rustics. And she would frequentlyassure them that she would take a particular care of their affairs, andshe would ever be as good as her word. She was never seen angry withthe most unseasonable or uncourtly approach; she was never offended withthe most impudent or importunate petitioner. Nor was there any thing inthe whole course of her reign that more won the hearts of the peoplethan this her wonderful facility, condescension, and the sweetness andpleasantness with which she entertained all that came to her[45]. "

[Note 45: Bohun's "Character of Queen Elizabeth. "]

The first stage of the queen's progress was to Dartford in Kent, whereHenry VIII. , whose profusion in the article of royal residences wasextreme, had fitted up a dissolved priory as a palace for himself andhis successors. Elizabeth kept this mansion in her own hands during thewhole of her reign, and once more, after an interval of several years, is recorded to have passed two days under its roof. James I. Granted itto the earl of Salisbury: the lords Darcy were afterwards its owners. The embattled gatehouse with an adjoining wing, all that remains inhabitable condition, are at the present time occupied as a farm house;while foundations of walls running along the neighbouring fields to aconsiderable distance, alone attest the magnitude, and leave to beimagined the splendor, of the ancient edifice. Such is at this day thecommon fate of the castles of our ancient barons, the mansions of ournobles of a following age, and the palaces of the Plantagenets, theTudors, and the Stuarts!

From Dartford she proceeded to Cobham Hall, --an exception to the generalrule, --for this venerable mansion is at present the noble seat of theearl of Darnley; and though the centre has been rebuilt in a more modernstyle, the wings remain untouched, and in one of them the apartmentoccupied by the queen on this visit is still pointed out to thestranger. She was here sumptuously entertained by William lord Cobham, anobleman who enjoyed a considerable share of her favor, and who, afteracquitting himself to her satisfaction in an embassy to theLow-Countries, was rewarded with the garter and the place of aprivy-councillor. He was however a person of no conspicuous ability, andhis wealth and his loyalty appear to have been his principal titles ofmerit. 

Eltham was her next stage; an ancient palace frequently commemorated inthe history of our early kings as the scene of rude magnificence andboundless hospitality. In 1270 Henry III. Kept a grand Christmas atEaldham palace, --so it was then called. A son of Edward II. Was namedJohn of Eltham, from its being the place of his birth. 

Edward III. Twice held his parliament in its capacious hall. It wasrepaired at great cost by Edward IV. , who made it a frequent place ofresidence; but Henry VIII. Began to neglect it for Greenwich, andElizabeth was the last sovereign by whom it was visited. 

Its hall, 100 feet in length, with a beautifully carved roof resemblingthat of Westminster-hall and windows adorned with all the elegance ofgothic tracery, is still in being, and admirably serves the purposes ofa barn and granary. 

Elizabeth soon quitted this seat of antique grandeur to contemplate thegay magnificence of Nonsuch, regarded as the triumph of her father'staste and the masterpiece of all the decorative arts. This statelyedifice, of which not a vestige now remains, was situated near Ewel inSurry, and commanded from its lofty turrets extensive views of thesurrounding country. 

It was built round two courts, an outer and an inner one, both veryspacious; and the entrance to each was by a square gatehouse highlyornamented, embattled, and having turrets at the four corners. Thesegatehouses were of stone, as was the lower story of the palace itself;but the upper one was of wood, "richly adorned and set forth andgarnished with variety of statues, pictures, and other antic forms ofexcellent art and workmanship, and of no small cost:" all whichornaments, it seems, were made of _rye dough_. In modern language the"pictures" would probably be called basso-relievos. From the eastern andwestern angles of the inner court rose two slender turrets five storieshigh, with lanthorns on the top, which were leaded and surrounded withwooden balustrades. These towers of observation, from which the twoparks attached to the palace and a wide expanse of champaign countrybeyond might be surveyed as in a map, were celebrated as the peculiarboast of Nonsuch. 

Henry was prevented by death from beholding the completion of this gaudystructure, and queen Mary had it in contemplation to pull it down tosave further charges; but the earl of Arundel, "for the love and honorhe bare to his old master, " purchased the place, and finished itaccording to the original design. It was to this splendid nobleman thatthe visit of the queen was paid. He received her with the utmostmagnificence. On Sunday night a banquet, a mask, and a concert were theentertainments: the next day she witnessed a course from a standing madefor her in the park, and "the children of Paul's" performed a play;after which a costly banquet was served up in gilt dishes. On hermajesty's departure her noble host further presented her with a cupboardof plate. The earl of Arundel was wealthy, munificent, and one of thefinest courtiers of his day: but it must not be imagined that even byhim such extraordinary cost and pains would have been lavished upon hisillustrious guest as a pure and simple homage of that sentimentalloyalty which feels its utmost efforts overpaid by their acceptance. Helooked in fact to a high and splendid recompense, --one which as yetperhaps he dared not name, but which the sagacity of his royal mistresswould, as he flattered himself, be neither tardy nor reluctant todivine. 

The death of Henry II. Of France, which occurred during the summer ofthis year, gave occasion to a splendid ceremony in St. Paul's cathedral, which was rendered remarkable by some circumstances connected with thelate change of religion. This was the performance of his obsequies, thena customary tribute among the princes of Europe to the memory of eachother; which Elizabeth therefore would by no means omit, though thecustom was so intimately connected with doctrines and practicescharacteristic of the Romish church, that it was difficult to divest it, in the judgement of a protestant people, of the character of asuperstitious observance. A hearse magnificently adorned with thebanners and scutcheons of the deceased was placed in the church; a greattrain of lords and gentlemen attended as mourners; and all theceremonies of a real funeral were duly performed, not excepting theoffering at the altar of money, originally designed, without doubt, forthe purchase of masses for the dead. The herald, however, was ordered tosubstitute other words in place of the ancient request to all present topray for the soul of the departed; and several reformations were made inthe service, and in the communion with which this stately piece ofpageantry concluded. 

In the month of December was interred with much ceremony in WestminsterAbbey Frances duchess-dowager of Suffolk, grandaughter to Henry VII. After the tragical catastrophe of her misguided husband and of lady JaneGrey her eldest daughter, the duchess was suffered to remain inunmolested privacy, and she had since rendered herself utterlyinsignificant, not to say contemptible, by an obscure marriage with oneStoke, a young man who was her master of the horse. There is atradition, that on Elizabeth's exclaiming with surprise and indignationwhen the news of this connexion reached her ears, "What, hath shemarried her horse keeper?" Cecil replied, "Yes, madam, and she saysyour majesty would like to do so too;" lord Robert Dudley then fillingthe office of master of the horse to the queen. 

The impolicy or inutility of sumptuary laws was not in this ageacknowledged. A proclamation therefore was issued in October 1559 tocheck that prevalent excess in apparel which was felt as a serious evilat this period, when the manufactures of England were in so rude a statethat almost every article for the use of the higher classes was importedfrom Flanders, France, or Italy, in exchange for the raw commodities ofthe country, or perhaps for money. 

The invectives of divines, in various ages of the Christian church, haveplaced upon lasting record some transient follies which would otherwisehave sunk into oblivion, and the sermons of bishop Pilkington, a warmpolemic of this time, may be quoted as a kind of commentary on theproclamation. He reproves "fine-fingered rufflers, with their sablesabout their necks, corked slippers, trimmed buskins, and warmmittons. "--"These tender Parnels, " he says, "must have one gown for theday, another for the night; one long, another short; one for winter, another for summer. One furred through, another but faced: one for thework-day, another for the holiday. One of this color, another of that. One of cloth, another of silk, or damask. Change of apparel; one aforedinner, another at after: one of Spanish fashion, another of Turkey. Andto be brief, never content with enough, but always devising new fashionsand strange. Yea a ruffian will have more in his ruff and his hose thanhe should spend in a year. He which ought to go in a russet coat, spends as much on apparel for him and his wife, as his father would havekept a good house with. "

The costly furs here mentioned had probably become fashionable since adirect intercourse had been opened in the last reign with Russia, fromwhich country ambassadors had arrived, whose barbaric splendorastonished the eyes of the good people of London. The affectation ofwearing by turns the costume of all the nations of Europe, with whichthe queen herself was not a little infected, may be traced partly to thepractice of importing articles of dress from those nations, and that ofemploying foreign tailors in preference to native ones, and partly tothe taste for travelling, which since the revival of letters had becomelaudably prevalent among the young nobility and gentry of England. Thatmore in proportion was expended on the elegant luxuries of dress, andless on the coarser indulgences of the table, ought rather to have beenconsidered as a desirable approach to refinement of manners than alegitimate subject of censure. 

An act of parliament was passed in this year subjecting the use ofenchantment and witchcraft to the pains of felony. The malcontentcatholics, it seems, were accused of employing practices of this nature;their predictions of her majesty's death had given uneasiness togovernment by encouraging plots against her government; and it wasfeared, "by many good and sober men, " that these dealers in the blackart might even bewitch the queen herself. That it was the learned bishopJewel who had led the way in inspiring these superstitious terrors, towhich religious animosities lent additional violence, may fairly beinferred from the following passage of a discourse which was deliveredby him in the queen's presence the year before. . . . "Witches andsorcerers within these last few years are marvellously increased withinyour grace's realm. These eyes have seen most evident and manifest marksof their wickedness. Your grace's subjects pine away even unto thedeath; their color fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech isbenumbed, their senses are bereft. Wherefore your poor subjects' mosthumble petition to your highness is, that the laws touching suchmalefactors may be put in due execution. For the shoal of them is great, their doing horrible, their malice intolerable, the examples mostmiserable. And I pray God they never practise further than upon thesubject. "

CHAPTER XI. 

1560. 

Successful campaign in Scotland. --Embassy of viscount Montacute toSpain--of sir T. Chaloner to the Emperor. --Account of Chaloner. --Letterof his respecting Dudley and the queen. --Dudley loses hiswife. --Mysterious manner of her death. --Suspicion cast upon herhusband. --Dudley and several other courtiers aspire to the hand of theirsovereign. --Tournaments in her honor. --Impresses. --Sir W. Pickering. --Rivalry of Arundel and Dudley. 

The accession of Francis II. , husband to the queen of Scots, to theFrench throne had renewed the dangers of Elizabeth from the hostility ofFrance and of Scotland; and in the politic resolution of removing fromher own territory to that of her enemies the seat of a war which she sawto be inevitable, she levied a strong army and sent it under the commandof the duke of Norfolk and lord Grey de Wilton to the frontiers ofScotland. She also entered into a close connexion with the protestantparty in that country, who were already in arms against the queen-regentand her French auxiliaries. Success attended this well-plannedexpedition, and at the end of a single campaign Elizabeth was able toterminate the war by the treaty of Edinburgh; a convention the terms ofwhich were such as effectually to secure her from all fear of futuremolestation in this quarter. 

During the period of these hostilities, however, her situation was ananxious one. It was greatly to be feared that the emperor and the kingof Spain, forgetting in their zeal for the catholic church the habitualenmity of the house of Austria against that of Bourbon, would makecommon cause with France against a sovereign who now stood forth theavowed protectress of protestantism; and such a combination of the greatpowers of Europe, seconded by a large catholic party at home, Englandwas by no means in a condition to withstand. By skilful negotiation itseemed possible to avert these evils; and Elizabeth, by her selection ofdiplomatic agents on this important occasion, gave striking evidence ofher superior judgement. 

To plead her cause with the king of Spain, she dispatched Anthony Browneviscount Montacute; a nobleman who, to the general recommendation ofwisdom and experience in public affairs, added the peculiar one, forthis service, of a zealous attachment to the Romish faith, proved by hisdetermined opposition in the house of lords to the bill of uniformitylately carried by a great majority. The explanations and arguments ofthe viscount prevailed so far with Philip, that he ordered hisambassador at Rome to oppose the endeavours of the French court toprevail on the pope to fulminate his ecclesiastical censures againstElizabeth. It was found impracticable, however, to bring him to terms ofcordial amity with a heretic sovereign whose principles he both detestedand dreaded; and by returning, some time after, the decorations of theorder of the garter, he distinctly intimated to the queen, that motivesof policy alone restrained him from becoming her open enemy. 

For ambassador to the emperor she made choice, at the recommendationprobably of Cecil, of his relation and beloved friend sir ThomasChaloner the elder, a statesman, a soldier, and a man of letters; and inthese three characters, so rarely united, one of the distinguishedornaments of his age. He was born in 1515 of a good family in Wales, and, being early sent to Cambridge, became known as a very elegant Latinpoet, and generally as a young man of the most promising talents. Aftera short residence at court, his merit caused him to be selected toattend into Germany sir Henry Knevet the English ambassador, with a viewto his qualifying himself for future diplomatic employment. At the courtof Charles V. He was received with extraordinary favor; and afterwaiting upon that monarch, in several of his journeys, he was at lengthinduced, by admiration of his character, to accompany him as a volunteerin his rash expedition against Algiers. He was shipwrecked in the stormwhich almost destroyed the fleet, and only escaped drowning by catchingin his mouth, as he was struggling with the waves, a cable, by which hewas drawn up into a ship with the loss of several of his teeth. 

Returning home, he was made clerk of the council, which office he heldduring the remainder of Henry's reign. Early in the next he wasdistinguished by the protector, and, having signalized his valor in thebattle of Pinkey, was knighted by him on the field. The fall of hispatron put a stop to his advancement; but he solaced himself under thisreverse by the cultivation of literature, and of friendship with suchmen as Cook, Smith, Cheke, and Cecil. The strictness of his protestantprinciples rendered his situation under the reign of Mary bothdisagreeable and hazardous, and he generously added to its perils by hisstrenuous exertions in behalf of the unfortunate Cheke; but the serviceswhich he had rendered in Edward's time to many of the oppressedcatholics now interested their gratitude in his protection, and werethus the means of preserving him unhurt for better times. 

Soon after his return from his embassy to the emperor Ferdinand, we findhim engaged in a very perplexing and disagreeable mission to theunfriendly court of Philip II. , where the mortifications which heencountered, joined to the insalubrity of the climate, so impaired hishealth that he found himself obliged to solicit his recall, which he didin an Ovidian elegy addressed to the queen. The petition of the poet wasgranted, but too late; he sunk under a lingering malady in October 1565, a few months after his return. 

The poignant grief of Cecil for his loss found its best alleviation inthe exemplary performance of all the duties of surviving friendship. Heofficiated as chief mourner at his funeral, and superintended withsolicitude truly paternal the education of his son, Thomas Chaloner theyounger, afterwards a distinguished character. By his encouragement, theLatin poems of his friend, chiefly consisting of epitaphs and panegyricson his most celebrated contemporaries, were collected and published;and it was under his patronage, and prefaced by a Latin poem from hispen in praise of the author, that a new and complete edition appeared ofthe principal work of this accomplished person;--a tractate "on theright ordering of the English republic, " also in Latin. 

Sir Thomas Chaloner was the first ambassador named by Elizabeth; adistinction of which he proved himself highly deserving. Wisdom andintegrity he was already known to possess; and in his negotiations withthe imperial court, where it was his business to draw the bonds of amityas close as should be found practicable without pledging his mistress tothe acceptance of the hand of the archduke Charles, he also manifested adegree of skill and dexterity which drew forth the warmest commendationsfrom Elizabeth herself. His conduct, she said, had far exceeded all herexpectations of his prudence and abilities. 

This testimony may be allowed to give additional weight to his opinionon a point of great delicacy in the personal conduct of her majesty, aswell as on some more general questions of policy, expressed in apostscript to one of his official letters to secretary Cecil. Theletter, it should be observed, was written near the close of the year1559, when the favor of the queen to Dudley had first become a subjectof general remark, and before all hopes were lost of her finally closingwith the proposals of the archduke. 

"I assure you, sir, these folks are broad-mouthed where I spake of onetoo much in favor, as they esteem. I think ye guess whom they named; ifye do not, I will upon my next letters write further. To tell you whatI conceive; as I count the slander most false, so a young princesscannot be too wary what countenance or familiar demonstration shemaketh, more to one than another. I judge no man's service in the realmworth the entertainment with such a tale of obloquy, or occasion ofspeech to such men as of evil will are ready to find faults. This delayof ripe time for marriage, besides the loss of the realm (for withoutposterity of her highness what hope is left unto us?) ministereth matterto these leud tongues to descant upon, and breedeth contempt. I would Ihad but one hour's talk with you. Think if I trusted not your goodnature, I would not write thus much; which nevertheless I humbly prayyou to reserve as written to yourself. 

"Consider how ye deal now in the emperor's matter: much dependeth on it. Here they hang in expectation as men desirous it should go forward, butyet they have small hope: In mine opinion (be it said to you only) theaffinity is great and honorable: The amity necessary to stop and coolmany enterprises. Ye need not fear his greatness should overrule you; heis not a Philip, but better for us than a Philip. Let the time work forScotland as God will, for sure the French, I believe, shall never longenjoy them: and when we be stronger and more ready, we may proceed withthat, that is yet unripe. The time itself will work, when our greatneighbours fall out next. In the mean time settle we things begun; andlet us arm and fortify our frontiers. " &c. [46]

[Note 46: "Burleigh Papers, " by Haynes, p. 212. ]

Sufficient evidence remains that the sentiments of Cecil respecting thequeen's behaviour to Dudley coincided with those of his friend, and thatfears for her reputation gave additional urgency about this period tothose pleadings in favor of matrimony which her council were doomed topress upon her attention so often and so much in vain. But acircumstance occurred soon after which totally changed the nature oftheir apprehensions respecting her future conduct, and rendered heranticipated choice of a husband no longer an object of hope and joy, butof general dissatisfaction and alarm. 

Just when the whispered scandal of the court had apprized him howobvious to all beholders the partiality of his sovereign hadbecome, --just when her rejection of the proposals of so many foreignprinces had confirmed the suspicion that her heart had given itself athome, --just, in short, when every thing conspired to sanction hopeswhich under any other circumstances would have appeared no lessvisionary than presumptuous, --at the very juncture most favorable to hisambition, but most perilous to his reputation, lord Robert Dudley losthis wife, and by a fate equally sudden and mysterious. 

This unfortunate lady had been sent by her husband, under the conduct ofsir Richard Verney, one of his retainers, --but for what reason or underwhat pretext does not appear, --to Cumnor House in Berkshire, a solitarymansion inhabited by Anthony Foster, also a dependent of Dudley's andbound to him by particular obligations. Here she soon after met with herdeath; and Verney and Foster, who appear to have been alone in thehouse with her, gave out that it happened by an accidental fall downstairs. But this account, from various causes, gained so little creditin the neighbourhood, that reports of the most sinister import werequickly propagated. These discourses soon reached the ears of ThomasLever, a prebendary of Coventry and a very conscientious person, whoimmediately addressed to the secretaries of state an earnest letter, still extant, beseeching them to cause strict inquiry to be made intothe case, as it was commonly believed that the lady had been murdered:but he mentioned no particular grounds of this belief, and it cannot nowbe ascertained whether any steps were taken in consequence of hisapplication. If there were, they certainly produced no satisfactoryexplanation of the circumstance; for not only the popular voice, whichwas ever hostile to Dudley, continued to accuse him as the contriver ofher fate, but Cecil himself, in a memorandum drawn up some years afterof reasons against the queen's making him her husband, mentions amongother objections, "that he is infamed by the death of his wife. "

Whether the thorough investigation of this matter was evaded by theartifices of Dudley, or whether his enemies, finding it impracticable tobring the crime home to him, found it more advisable voluntarily to dropthe inquiry, certain it is, that the queen was never brought in anymanner to take cognisance of the affair, and that the credit of Dudleycontinued as high with her as ever. But in the opinion of the countrythe favorite passed ever after for a dark designer, capable ofperpetrating any secret villainy in furtherance of his designs, andskilful enough to conceal his atrocity under a cloak of artifice andhypocrisy impervious to the partial eyes of his royal mistress, thoughpenetrated by all the world besides. This idea of his character causedhim afterwards to be accused of practising against the lives of severalother persons who were observed to perish opportunely for his purposes. Each of these charges will be particularly examined in its proper place;but it ought here to be observed, that not one of them appears to besupported by so many circumstances of probability as the first; and evenin support of this, no direct evidence has ever been adduced. 

Under all the circumstances of his situation, Dudley could not ventureas yet openly to declare himself the suitor of his sovereign; but shedoubtless knew how to interpret both the vehemence of his opposition tothe pretensions of the archduke, and the equal vehemence with whichthose pretensions were supported by an opposite party in her council, ofwhich the earl of Sussex was the head. 

Few could yet be persuaded that the avowed determination of the queen infavor of the single state would prove unalterable: most therefore whoobserved her averseness to a foreign connexion believed that she wassecretly meditating to honor with her hand some subject of her own, whocould never have a separate interest from that of his country, and whosegratitude for the splendid distinction would secure to her thepossession of his lasting attachment. 

This idea long served to animate the assiduities of her nobles andcourtiers, and two or three besides Dudley were bold enough to publishtheir pretensions. Secret hopes or wishes were cherished in the bosomsof others; and it thus became a fashion to accost her in language wherethe passionate homage of the lover mingled with the base adulation ofthe menial. Her personal vanity, triumphant over her good sense and herperceptions of regal dignity, forbade her to discourage a style ofaddress equally disgraceful to those who employed and to her whopermitted it; and it was this unfortunate habit of receiving, and atlength requiring, a species of flattery which became every year moregrossly preposterous, which depraved by degrees her taste, infected herwhole disposition, and frequently lent to the wisest sovereign of Europethe disgusting affectation of a heroine of French romance. 

Tilts and tournaments were still the favorite amusements of all thecourts of Europe; and it was in these splendid exhibitions that therival courtiers of Elizabeth found the happiest occasions of displayingtheir magnificence, giving proof of their courage and agility, and atthe same time insinuating, by a variety of ingenious devices, theirhopes and fears, their amorous pains, and their profound devotedness toher service. 

In the purer ages of chivalry, no other cognisances on shields wereadopted, either in war or in these games which were its image, than thearmorial bearings which each warrior had derived from his ancestors, orsolemnly received at the hands of the heralds before he entered on hisfirst campaign. But as the spirit of the original institution declined, and the French fashion of gallantry began to be engrafted upon it, aninnovation had taken place in this matter, which is thus commemoratedand deplored by the worthy Camden, Clarencieux king-at-arms, who treatsthe subject with a minuteness and solemnity truly professional. "Whoever, " says he, "would note the manners of our progenitors, --inwearing their coat-armour over their harness, and bearing their arms intheir shields, their banners and pennons, and in what formal manner theywere made bannerets, and had license to rear their banner of arms, whichthey presented rolled up, unto the prince, who unfolded and re-deliveredit with happy wishes; I doubt not but he will judge that our ancestorswere as valiant and gallant as they have been since they left off theirarms and used the colors and curtains of their mistress' bed instead ofthem. " The same author afterwards observes, that these fopperies, aswell as the adoption of _impresses_, first prevailed in the expeditionof Charles VIII. Against Naples in 1494, and that it was about thebeginning of the reign of Henry VIII. That the English wits firstthought of imitating the French and Italians in the invention of thesedevices. 

An _impress_, it seems, was an emblematical device assumed at the willof the bearer, and illustrated by a suitable motto; whereas the coat ofarms had either no motto, or none appropriate. Of this nature thereforewas the representation of an English archer, with the words "Cui adhæreopræest" (He prevails to whom I adhere), used by Henry VIII. At hismeeting with Charles and Francis. 

Elizabeth delighted in these whimsical inventions. Camden says that she"used upon different occasions so many heroical devices as would requirea volume, " but most commonly a sieve without a word. Her favorite mottoswere "Video taceo" (I see and am silent), and "Semper eadem" (Always thesame). Thus patronized, the use of impresses became general. Scarcely apublic character of that age, whether statesman, courtier, scholar, orsoldier, was unprovided with some distinction of this nature; and attournaments in particular, the combatants all vied with each other inthe invention of occasional devices, sometimes quaintly, sometimeselegantly, expressive of their situation or sentiments, and for the mostpart conveying some allusion at once gallant and loyal. 

It may be worth while to cite a few of the most remarkable of these outof a considerable number preserved by Camden. The prevalence amongstthem of astronomical emblems is worthy of observation, as indicative ofthat general belief of the age in the delusions of judicial astrology, which rendered its terms familiar alike to the learned, the great, andthe fair. 

A dial with the sun setting, "Occasu desines esse" (Thy being ceaseswith its setting). The sun shining on a bush, "Si deseris pereo"(Forsake me, and I perish). The sun reflecting his rays from the bearer, "Quousque avertes" (How long wilt thou avert thy face)? Venus in acloud, "Salva me, Domina" (Mistress, save me). The letter I, "Omnia exuno" (All things from one). A fallow field, "At quando messis" (Whenwill be the harvest)? The full moon in heaven, "Quid sine te coelum"(What is heaven without thee)? Cynthia, it should be observed, was afavorite fancy-name of the queen's; she was also designated occasionallyby that of Astræa, whence the following devices. A man hovering in theair, "Feror ad Astræam" (I am borne to Astræa). The zodiac with Virgorising, "Jam redit et Virgo" (The Maid returns); and a zodiac with nocharacters but those of Leo and Virgo, "His ego præsidiis" (With theseto friend). A star, "Mihi vita Spica Virginis" (My life is in SpicaVirginis)--a star in the left hand of Virgo so called: here the allusionwas probably double; to the queen, and to the horoscope of the bearer. The twelve houses of heaven with neither sign nor planet therein, "Dispone" (Dispose). A white shield, "Fatum inscribat Eliza" (Elizawrites my fate). An eye in a heart, "Vulnus alo" (I feed the wound). Aship sinking and the rainbow appearing, "Quid tu si pereo" (To whatavail if I perish)? As the rainbow is an emblem seen in severalportraits of the queen, this device probably reproaches some tardy andineffectual token of her favor. The sun shining on a withered tree whichblooms again, "His radiis rediviva viresco" (These rays revive me). Apair of scales, fire in one, smoke in the other, "Ponderare errare" (Toweigh is to err). 

At one tilt were borne all the following devices, which Camdenparticularly recommends to the notice and interpretation of the reader. Many flies about a candle, "Sic splendidiora petuntur" ("Thus brighterthings are sought). Drops falling into a fire, "Tamen non extinguenda"(Yet not to be extinguished). The sun, partly clouded over, casting itsrays upon a star, "Tantum quantum" (As much as is vouchsafed). A foldedletter, "Lege et relege"[47] (Read and reread). 

[Note 47: See Camden's "Remains. "]

It would have increased our interest in these very significantimpresses, if our author could have informed us who were the respectivebearers. Perhaps conjecture would not err in ascribing one of the mostexpressive to sir William Pickering, a gentleman whose name has beenhanded down to posterity as an avowed pretender to the royal marriage. That a person illustrious neither by rank nor ancestry, and so littleknown to fame that no other mention of him occurs in the history of theage, should ever have been named amongst the suitors of his sovereign, is a circumstance which must excite more curiosity than the scantybiographical records of the time will be found capable of satisfying. Asingle paragraph of Camden's Annals seems to contain nearly all that cannow be learned of a man once so remarkable. 

"Nor were lovers wanting at home, who deluded themselves with vain hopesof obtaining her in marriage. Namely sir William Pickering, a man ofgood family though little wealth, and who had obtained reputation by thecultivation of letters, by the elegance of his manners, and by hisembassies to France and Germany. " &c. 

Rapin speaks of him as one who was encouraged to hope by somedistinguished mark of the queen's favor, which he does not howeverparticularize. Lloyd in his "Worthies" adds nothing to Camden'sinformation but the epithet "comely" applied to his person, the vaguestatement that "his embassies in France and Germany were so wellmanaged, that in king Edward's days he was by the council pitched uponas the oracle whereby our agents were to be guided abroad, " and a hintthat he soon retired from the court of Elizabeth to devote himself tohis studies. 

The earl of Arundel might be the bearer of another of these devices. Wehave already seen with what magnificence of homage this nobleman hadendeavoured to bespeak the favorable sentiments of his youthfulsovereign; and if illustrious ancestry, vast possessions, establishedconsequence in the state, and long experience in public affairs, mighthave sufficed to recommend a subject to her choice, none could haveadvanced fairer pretensions than the representative of the ancient houseof Fitzalan. The advanced age of the earl was indeed an objection ofconsiderable and daily increasing weight; he persevered however in hissuit, notwithstanding the queen's visible preference of Dudley and everyother circumstance of discouragement, till the year 1566. Losing thenall hopes of success, and becoming sensible at length of pecuniarydifficulties from the vast expense which he had lavished on thissplendid courtship, he solicited the permission of his royal mistress toretire for a time into Italy. 

While it lasted, however, the rivalry of Arundel and Dudley, or rather, in the heraldic phraseology of the day, that of the White Horse and theBear, divided the court, inflamed the passions of the numerous retainersof the respective candidates, and but for the impartial vigilance ofCecil might have ended in deeds of blood. 

In the Burleigh Papers is a confession of one Guntor, a servant orretainer of the earl of Arundel, who was punished for certain rashspeeches relative to this competition, from which we learn some curiousparticulars. He says, that he once fell in talk with a gentleman namedCotton, who told him, that the queen, having supped one evening at lordRobert Dudley's, it was dark before she could get away; and someservants of the house were sent with torches to light her home. That bythe way her highness was pleased to enter into conversation with thetorch-bearers, and was reported to have said, that she would make theirlord the best that ever was of his name. As the father of lord Robertwas a duke, this promise was understood to imply nothing less than herdesign of marrying him. On this Guntor answered, that he prayed all menmight take it well, and that no trouble might arise thereof; afterwardshe said, that he thought if a parliament were held, some men wouldrecommend lord Robert, and some his own master to the queen for ahusband; and so it might fortune there would rise trouble among thenoblemen, adding, "I trust the White Horse will be in quiet, and soshall we be out of trouble; it is well known _his_ blood as yet wasnever attaint, nor was he ever man of war, wherefore it is likely thatwe shall sit still; but if he should stomach it, he were able to make agreat power. " In his zeal for the cause of his lord, he also wished thathis rival had been put to death with his father, "or that some ruffianwould have dispatched him by the way as he hath gone, with some dag(pistol) or gun. "

So high did words run on occasion of this great contest. 

CHAPTER XII. 

1560. 

On the conduct of Elizabeth as head of the church. --Sketch of thehistory of the reformation in England. --Notices of Parker, Grindal, andJewel. 

There was no part of the regal office the exercise of which appeared solikely to expose Elizabeth to invidious reflections, as that whichcomprehended the management of ecclesiastical affairs. Few divines, though protestant, could behold without a certain feeling of mingledjealousy and disdain, a female placed at the head of the religion of thecountry, and by the whole papal party such a supremacy was regardedperhaps as the most horrible, certainly as the most preposterous, of allthe prodigies which heresy had yet brought forth. "I have seen the headof the English church dancing!" exclaimed, it is said, with a sarcasticair, an ambassador from one of the catholic courts of Europe. 

A more striking incongruity indeed could scarcely be imagined, thanbetween the winning manners and sprightly disposition of this youthfulprincess, as they displayed themselves amid the festivities of her courtand the homage of her suitors, and the grave and awful character ofGoverness of the church, with which she had been solemnly invested. 

In virtue of this office, it was the right and duty of the queen tochoose a religion for the country; to ordain its rites and ceremonies, discipline, and form of church government; and to fix the rank, officesand emoluments of its ministers. She was also to exercise this powerentirely at her own discretion, free from the control of parliament orthe interference of the clerical body, and assisted only by suchcommissioners, lay or ecclesiastical, as it should please herself toappoint. 

This exorbitant authority was first assumed by her arbitrary father whenit became his will that his people should acknowledge no other pope thanhimself; and the servile spirit of the age, joined to the ignorance andindifference on religious subjects then general, had caused it to besubmitted to without difficulty. In consequence, the title of Head ofthe Church had quietly devolved upon Edward VI. As part of his regalstyle; and while the duties of the office were exercised by Cranmer andthe Protector, the nation, now generally favorable to the cause ofreform, was more inclined to rejoice in its existence than to disputethe authority by which it had been instituted. Mary abhorred the title, as a badge of heresy and a guilty usurpation on the rights of thesovereign pontiff, and in the beginning of her reign she laid it aside, but was afterwards prevailed upon to resume it, because there was aconvenience in the legal sanction which it afforded to her acts oftyranny over the consciences of men. 

The first parliament of Elizabeth, in the fervor of its loyalty, decreedto her, as if by acclamation, all the honors or prerogatives everenjoyed by her predecessors, and it was solely at her own request thatthe appellation of Head, was now exchanged for the less assuming one ofGoverness, of the English church. The power remained the same; it was, as we have seen, of the most absolute nature possible; since, unlimitedby law, it was also, owing to its recent establishment, equallyuncontrolled by custom. It remains to the delineator of the character ofElizabeth to inquire in what manner she acquitted herself, to hercountry and to posterity, of the awful responsibility imposed upon herby its possession. 

A slight sketch of the circumstances attending the introduction of thereformation into England, will serve to illustrate this important branchof her policy. 

On comparing the march of this mighty revolution in our own country withits mode of progress amongst the other nations of Europe, one of thefirst remarks which suggests itself is, that in no other country was itscourse so immediately or effectually subjected to the guidance andcontrol of the civil power. 

In Switzerland, the system of Zwingle, the earliest of the reformers, had fully established itself in the hearts of his fellow-citizens beforethe magistracies of Zurich and its neighbouring republics thought properto interfere. They then gave the sanction of law to the religion whichhad become that of the majority, but abstained from all dictation onpoints of which they felt themselves incompetent judges. 

In Germany, the impulse originating in the daring mind of Luther, wasfirst communicated to the universities, to the lower orders of theclergy, and through them to the people. The princes of the empireafterwards took their part as patrons or persecutors of the newopinions; but in either case they acted under the influence ofecclesiastics, and no where arrogated to themselves the character oflawgivers in matters of faith. 

At Geneva, the vigor and dexterity of Calvin's measures brought themagistracy under a complete subjection to the church, of which he hadmade himself the head, and restricted its agency in religious concernsto the execution of such decrees as the spiritual ruler saw good topromulgate. 

The system of the same reformer had recently been introduced intoScotland by the exertions of John Knox, a disciple who equalled hismaster in the fierceness of his bigotry, in self-opinion, and in thelove of power, whilst he exceeded him in turbulence of temper andferocity of manners: and here the independence of the church on thestate, or rather its paramount legislative authority in all matters offaith, discipline and worship, was held in the loftiest terms. Theopposition which this doctrine, so formed for popularity, experiencedfrom the government in the outset, was overborne or disregarded, and itwas in despite of the utmost efforts of regal authority that the newreligion was established by an act of the Scottish parliament. 

In England, on the contrary, the passions of Henry VIII. Had promptedhim to disclaim submission to the papal decrees before the spirit of thepeople demanded such a step, --before any apostle of reformation hadarisen in the land capable of inspiring the multitude with that zealwhich makes its will omnipotent, and leaves to rulers no otheralternative than to comply or fall, --yet not before the attachment ofmen to the ancient religion was so far weakened, that the majority couldwitness its overthrow with patience if not with complacency. 

To have timed this momentous step so fortunately for the cause ofprerogative might in some princes have been esteemed the result ofprofound combinations, --the triumph of political sagacity; in Henry itwas the pure effect of accident: but the advantages which he derivedfrom the quiescent state of the public mind were not on this account theless real or the less important, nor did he suffer them to gounimproved. On one hand, no considerable opposition was made to hisassumption of the supremacy; on the other, the spoil of the monasterieswas not intercepted in its passage to the royal coffers by the morerapid movements of a populace intoxicated with fanatical rage or firedwith hopes of plunder. What appeared still more extraordinary, he foundit practicable, to the end of his reign, to keep the nation suspended, as to doctrine and the forms of worship, in that nice equilibriumbetween protestant and papist which happened best to accord with hisindividual views or prejudices. 

Cranmer, who has a better title than any other to be revered as thefather of the Anglican church, showed himself during the life of Henrythe most cautious and complaisant of reformers. Aware that any rashnessor precipitation on the part of the favorers of new opinions mightexpose them to all the fury of persecution from a prince so dogmaticaland violent, he constantly refrained from every alarming appeal to thesense of the people on theological questions, and was content to proceedin his great work step by step, with a slow, uncertain, and interruptedprogress, at the will of that capricious master whose vacillations ofhumor or opinion he watched with the patience, and improved with theskill, of a finished courtier. 

Administered in so qualified and mitigated a form, the spirit ofreformation exhibited in this country little of its stronger and moreturbulent workings. No sect at that time arose purely and peculiarlyEnglish: our native divines did not embrace exclusively, or withvehemence, the tenets of any one of the great leaders of reform on thecontinent, and a kind of eclectic system became that of the Anglicanchurch from its earliest institution. 

The respective contributions to this system of the most celebratedtheologians of the age may be thus stated. It was chiefly fromZwingle, --the first, in point of time, of all the reformers of thesixteenth century, and the one whose doctrine on the eucharist and onseveral other points diverged most widely from the tenets of the churchof Rome, --that our principal opponents of popery in the reign of HenryVIII. Derived their notions. Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer himself, wereessentially his disciples. 

By others, the system of Luther was in the whole or in part adopted. But this reformer was personally so obnoxious to Henry, on account ofthe disrespectful and acrimonious style of his answer to the book inwhich that royal polemic had formerly attacked his doctrine, that noEnglish subject thought proper openly to profess himself his follower, or to open any direct communication with him. Thus the Confession ofAugsburg, though more consonant to the notions of the English monarchthan any other scheme of protestant doctrine, failed to obtain thesanction of that authority which might have rendered it predominant inthis country. 

A long and vehement controversy on the subject of the eucharist had beenmaintained between the German and Swiss divines during the later yearsof Henry; but at the period of Edward's accession, when Cranmer firstundertook the formation of a national church according to his own ideasof gospel truth and political expediency, this dispute was in greatmeasure appeased, and sanguine hopes were entertained that adisagreement regarded as dangerous in a high degree to the common causeof religious reform might soon be entirely reconciled. 

Luther, the last survivor of the original disputants, was lately dead;and to the post which he had held in the university of Wittemberg, aswell as to the station of head of the protestant church, Melancthon hadsucceeded. This truly excellent person, who carried into all theologicaldebates a spirit of conciliation equally rare and admirable, wasearnestly laboring at a scheme of comprehension. His laudableendeavours were met by the zealous co-operation of Calvin, who had bythis time extended his influence from Geneva over most of the Helveticcongregations, and was diligent in persuading them to recede from theunambiguous plainness of Zwingle's doctrine, --which reduced the Lord'ssupper to a simple commemoration, --and to admit so much of a mysticalthough spiritual presence of Christ in that rite, as might bring them tosome seeming agreement with the less rigid of the followers of theLutheran opinion. At the same time Bucer, who presided over theflourishing church of Strasburg, was engaged in framing yet anotherexplication of this important rite, by which he vainly hoped toaccommodate the consciences of all these zealous and acute polemics. 

Bucer was remarkable among the theologians of his time by a subtility indistinction resembling that of the schoolmen, and by a peculiar art ofexpressing himself on doctrinal points in terms so nicely balanced, andin a style of such labored intricacy, that it was scarcely possible todiscover his true meaning, or pronounce to which extreme of opinion hemost inclined. These dubious qualifications, by which he disgustedalternately both Calvin and the more zealous Lutherans, were howeveraccompanied and redeemed by great learning and diligence; by aremarkable talent for public business, which rendered him eminentlyuseful in all the various negotiations with temporal authorities, orwith each other, in which the leaders of the reformation found itnecessary to engage; by a mild and candid spirit, and by as much ofsincerity and probity as could co-exist with the open defence of piousfrauds. 

The whole character of the man appeared to Cranmer admirably fitted forco-operation in the work which he had in hand. On the difficult questionof the eucharist Bucer would preserve the wariness and moderation whichappeared essential in the divided state of protestant opinion: onjustification and good works he held a middle doctrine, which mightconciliate the catholics, and was capable of being so interpreted as notgreatly to offend the moderate Lutherans: on the subject of churchgovernment he had not yet committed himself, and there was little doubtthat he would cheerfully submit to the natural predilection of thearchbishop for prelacy. His erudition and his morals could not fail toprove serviceable and creditable to the great cause of nationalinstruction and reformed religion. Accordingly an invitation was sent tohim, in the name of the young king, to come and occupy the theologicalchair in the university of Cambridge; and in the year 1549 he reachedEngland, and began to discharge with much assiduity the duties of hisoffice. 

The name and influence of Bucer became very considerable in thiscountry, though his career was terminated by death within two yearsafter his arrival. A public funeral, attended by all the members of theuniversity and many other persons of eminence, attested theconsideration in which he was held by Edward's ministers; the subsequentdisinterment of his remains by order of cardinal Pole, for the purposeof committing his bones to the flames, gave further evidence of hismerits in the protestant cause; and in the composition of our nationalArticles, it has been said that no hand has left more distinguishabletraces of itself than that of Bucer. 

From Strasburg also the university of Oxford was destined to receive aprofessor of divinity in the person of the celebrated Peter Martyr. Thisgood and learned man, a Florentine by birth and during some yearsprincipal of a college of Augustines at Naples, having gradually becomea convert to the doctrines of the reformers, and afterwards proceedingopenly to preach them, was compelled to quit his country in order toavoid persecution. Passing into Switzerland, he was received withaffectionate hospitality by the disciples of Zwingle at Zurich; andafter making some abode there he repaired to Basil, whence Bucer causedhim to be invited to fill the station of theological professor atStrasburg. He was also appointed the colleague of this divine in theministry, and their connexion had subsisted about five years in perfectharmony when the offers of Cranmer induced the two friends to removeinto England. 

It is to be presumed that no considerable differences of opinion onpoints deemed by themselves essential could exist between associates sounited; but a greater simplicity of character and of views, and superiorboldness in the enunciation of new doctrines, strikingly distinguishedthe proceedings of Peter Martyr from those of his friend. With respectto church government, he, like Bucer, was willing to conform to theregulations of Cranmer and the English council; but he preached atOxford on the eucharist with so Zwinglian a cast of sentiment, that thepopish party raised a popular commotion against him, by which his lifewas endangered, and he was compelled for a time to withdraw from thecity. Tranquillity was soon however restored by the interference of thepublic authority, and the council proceeded vigorously in obliteratingthe last vestiges of Romish superstition. Ridley throughout his owndiocese now caused the altars to be removed from the churches, andcommunion-tables to be placed in their room; and, as if by way ofcomment on this alteration, Martyr and others procured a publicrecognition of the Genevan as a sister church, and the admission intothe English service-book of the articles of faith drawn up by Calvin. 

During the remainder of Edward's reign the tide of public opinioncontinued running with still augmenting velocity towards Geneva. Calvintook upon him openly to expostulate with Bucer on the preference ofstate expediency to Scripture truth, betrayed, as he asserted, by theobstinate adherence of this divine to certain doctrines and observanceswhich savoured too much of popery; and it is probable that a stillnearer approach might have been made to his simpler ritual, but for theuntimely death of the zealous young king, and the total ruin of the newestablishment which ensued. 

Just before the persecutions of Mary drove into exile so many of themost zealous and conscientious of her protestant subjects, the discordbetween the Lutherans and those whom they styled Sacramentarians hadburst out afresh in Germany with more fury than ever. The incendiary onthis occasion was Westphal, superintendant of the Lutheran church ofHamburgh, who published a violent book on the subject of the eucharist;and through the influence of this man, and of the outrageous spirit ofintolerance which his work had raised, Latimer and Ridley werestigmatized by fellow protestants as "the devil's martyrs, " and theLutheran cities drove from their gates as dangerous and detestableheretics the English refugees who fled to them for shelter. By thosecities or congregations, on the contrary, --whether in Germany, France, or Switzerland, --in which the tenets either of Zwingle or Calvin wereprofessed, these pious exiles were received with open arms, venerated asconfessors, cherished as brethren in distress, and admitted with perfectconfidence into the communion of the respective churches. 

Treatment so opposite from the two contending parties, between whichthey had supposed themselves to occupy neutral ground, failed not toproduce corresponding effects on the minds of the exiles. At Frankfort, where the largest body of them was assembled, and where they had formedan English congregation using king Edward's liturgy, this form ofworship became the occasion of a division amongst themselves, and astrong party soon declared itself in favor of discarding all of popishforms or doctrine which the English establishment, in common with theLutheran, had retained, and of adopting in their place the simplercreed and ritual of the Genevan church. 

It was found impracticable to compromise this difference; a considerablenumber finally seceded from the congregation, and it was from thisdivision at Frankfort that English nonconformity took its birth. Noequally strong manifestation of opinion occurred amongst the exiles inother cities; but on the whole it may be affirmed, that the majority ofthese persons returned from their wanderings with their previouspredilection for the Calvinistic model confirmed and augmented by theunited influence of the reasonings and persuasions of its ablestapostles, and of those sentiments of love and hatred from which thespeculative opinions of most men receive an irresistible though secretbias. 

Their more unfortunate brethren, in the mean time, who, unwilling toresign their country, or unable to escape from it, had been compelled tolook persecution in the face and deliberately acquaint themselves withall its horrors, were undergoing other and in some respects oppositeinfluences. 

An overpowering dread and abhorrence of the doctrines of the church ofRome must so have absorbed all other thoughts and feelings in the mindsof this dispersed and affrighted remnant of the English church, as toleave them little attention to bestow upon the comparatively triflingobjects of dispute between protestant and protestant. They might even bedisposed to regard such squabbles with emotions of indignation anddisgust, and to ask how brethren in affliction could have the heart tonourish animosities against each other. The memory of Edward VI. Wasdeservedly dear to them, and they would contemplate the restoration ofhis ritual by the successor of Mary as an event in which they ought toregard all their prayers as fulfilled:--yet the practice, forced uponthem by the vigilance of persecution, of holding their assemblies fordivine worship in places unconsecrated, with the omission of everycustomary ceremonial and under the guidance frequently of men whom zealand piety alone had ordained to the office of teachers and ministers ofreligion, must amongst them also have been producing a secret alienationfrom established forms and rituals, and a propensity to thoseextemporaneous effusions of devotion, or urgencies of supplication, which seem best adapted to satisfy the wants of the pious soul under thefiery trial of persecution and distress. The Calvinistic modeltherefore, as the freest of all, and that which most industriouslyavoided any resemblance of popish forms, might be the one most likely toobtain their suffrage also. 

Such being the state of religious opinion in England at the accession ofElizabeth, it will not appear wonderful that the Genevan reformer shouldhave begun to indulge the flattering expectation of seeing his ownscheme established in England as in Scotland, and himself reveredthroughout the island as a spiritual director from whose decisions therecould be no appeal. Emboldened at once by zeal and ambition, he hastenedto open a communication with the new government, in the shape of anexhortation to the queen to call a protestant council for establishinguniformity of doctrine and of church government; but his dream ofsupremacy was quickly dissipated on receiving for answer, that Englandwas determined to preserve her episcopacy. 

This decisive rejection of the presbyterian form was followed up byother acts on the part of the queen which gave offence to all the realfriends of reformed religion, and went far to prove that Elizabeth wasat heart little more of a protestant than her father. The generalprohibition of preaching, which was strictly enforced during the firstmonths of her reign, was understood as a measure of repression levelledfull as much against the indiscreet zeal of the returned exiles, asagainst the disaffection of the catholics. An order that until the nextmeeting of parliament no change should be made in the order of worshipestablished by the late queen, except the reading of the creed andcommandments in English, implied, at least, a determination in the civilpower to take the management of religion entirely out of the hands of aclergy whose influence over the minds of the people it viewed with ajealous eye. It was soon also discovered, to the increasing horror ofall true protestants, that the queen was strongly disposed to insist onthe celibacy of the clergy; and even when the strenuous efforts of Ceciland others had brought her to yield with reluctance this capital point, she still pertinaciously refused to authorize their marrying by anexpress law. She would not even declare valid the marriages contractedby them during the reign of her brother; so that it became necessary toprocure private bills of legitimation in behalf of the offspring ofthese unions, though formed under the express sanction of then existinglaws. The son of Cranmer himself, and the son of archbishop Parker, wereof the number of those who found it necessary to resort to thisdisagreeable and degrading expedient. 

Other things which offended the reformists were, the queen'spredilection, already mentioned, for crucifixes, which she did not causeto be removed from the churches till after considerable delay anddifficulty, and retained in her private chapel for many yearslonger, --and her wish to continue the use of altars. This being regardedas a dangerous compliance with the Romish doctrine, since an _altar_could only suit with the notion of a _sacrifice_ of Christ in the mass, earnest expostulations on the subject were addressed to her by severalof the leading divines; and in the end the queen found it expedient, with whatever reluctance, to ordain the substitution ofcommunion-tables. 

She was also bent upon retaining in the church of which she was the headthe use of vestments similar to those worn by the different orders ofpopish priests in the celebration of the various offices of theirreligion. A very natural association of ideas caused the protestantclergy to regard with suspicion and abhorrence such an approximation inexternals to that worship which was in their eyes the abomination ofidolatry; and several of the returned exiles, to whom bishoprics werenow offered, scrupled to accept of them under the obligation of wearingthe appointed habits. Repeated and earnest representations were made tothe queen against them, but she remained inflexible. In this dilemma, the divines requested the advice of Peter Martyr, who had quittedEngland on the accession of Mary and was now professor of theology atZurich. He persuaded compliance, representing to them that it was betterthat high offices in the church should be occupied by persons likethemselves, though with the condition of submitting to some things whichthey did not approve, than that such posts should be given to Lutheransor concealed catholics, who, instead of promoting any furtherreformation, would labor continually to bring back more and more of theancient ceremonies and superstitions. This argument was deemedconclusive, and the bishoprics were accepted. But such a plea, though itmight suffice certain men for a time, could not long satisfyuniversally; and we shall soon have occasion to take notice of scrupleson this point, as the source of the first intestine divisions by whichthe Anglican church was disturbed, and of the first persecutions of herown children by which she disgraced herself. 

On the whole, it must be admitted that the personal conduct of Elizabethin this momentous business exhibited neither enlargement of mind norelevation of soul. Considerably attached to ceremonial observances, andsuperior to none of the superstitions which she might have imbibed inher childhood, she was however more attached to her own power andauthority than to these. Little under the influence of any individualamongst her clergy, and somewhat inclined to treat that order in generalwith harshness, if not cruelty, --as in the article of their marriages, in the unmitigated rigor with which she exacted from them her firstfruits, and in the rapacity which she permitted her courtiers toexercise upon the temporalities of the bishoprics, --the only view whichshe took of the subject was that of the sovereign and the politician. Aware on one hand of the manner in which her title to the crown wasconnected with the renunciation of papal authority, of theirreconcileable enmity borne her by the catholic powers, and of thegeneral attachment of her subjects to the cause of the reformation, shefelt herself called upon to assume the protection of the protestantinterest of Europe, and to re-establish that worship in her owndominions. On the other hand, she remarked with secret dread andaversion the popular spirit and republican tendency of the institutionsof Calvin, and she resolved at all hazards to check the growth of hisopinions in England. Accordingly, it was the scope of every alterationmade by her in the service-book of Edward, to give it more of a Lutheranaspect, and it was for some time apprehended that she would cause theentire Confession of Augsburg to be received into it. 

Of toleration, of the rights of conscience, she had as little feeling orunderstanding as any prince or polemic of her age. Her establishment wasformed throughout in the spirit of compromise and political expediency;she took no pains to ascertain, either by the assembling of a nationalsynod or by the submission of the articles to free discussion inparliament, whether or not they were likely to prove agreeable to theopinions of the majority; it sufficed that she had decreed theirreception, and she prepared, by means of penal statutes strictlyexecuted, to prevent the propagation of any doctrines, or the observanceof any rites, capable of interfering with the exact uniformity inreligion then regarded as essential to the peace and stability of everywell constituted state. 

To Cecil her chief secretary of state and to Nicholas Bacon her keeperof the seals, assisted by a select number of divines, the management ofthis great affair was chiefly intrusted by the queen: and much might besaid of the sagacity displayed by her in this appointment, and of thewisdom and moderation exercised by them in the discharge of theiroffice; much also might be, much has been said, of the excellencies ofthe form of worship by them established;--but little, alas! of moral orof religious merit can be awarded by the verdict of impartial history tothe motives or conduct of the heroine of protestantism in a transactionso momentous and so memorable. 

Three acts of the parliament of 1559 gave the sanction of law to the newecclesiastical establishment; they were those of Supremacy, ofUniformity, and a third empowering the queen to appoint bishops. By thefirst, the authority of the pope was solemnly renounced, and the wholegovernment of the church vested in the queen, her heirs and successors;and an important clause further enabled her and them to delegate theirauthority to commissioners of their own appointment, who amongst otherextraordinary powers were to be invested with the cognisance of allerrors and heresies whatsoever. On this foundation was erected thefamous High Commission Court, which grew into one of the principalgrievances of this and the two following reigns, and of which, from themoment of its formation, the proceedings assumed a character ofarbitrary violence utterly incompatible with the security and happinessof the subject, and hostile to the whole tenor of the ancient charters. 

The act of Uniformity ordained an exact compliance in all points withthe established form of worship and a punctual attendance on itsoffices; it also rendered highly penal the exercise, public or private, of any other; and of this law it was not long before several unfortunatecatholics were doomed to experience the utmost rigor. 

Many parish priests who had been open and violent papists in the lastreign, permitted themselves to take the oath of supremacy and retaintheir cures under the new order of things, a kind of compliance with thetimes which the court of Rome is said sometimes to have permitted, sometimes even to have privately enjoined, --on the principle of PeterMartyr, that it was better that its secret adherents should continue tooccupy the churches, on whatever conditions, than that they should besurrendered entirely into the hands of an opposite party. The bishops, on the contrary, considered themselves as called upon by the dignity oftheir character and office to bear a public testimony against thedefection of England from the holy see; and those of them who had notpreviously been deprived on other grounds, now in a body refused theoaths and submitted themselves to the consequences. All were deprived, afew imprisoned, several committed to honorable custody. The policy ofElizabeth, unlike the genuine bigotry of her sister, contented itselfwith a kind of negative intolerance; and as long as the degraded bishopsabstained from all manifestations, by words or deeds, of hostilityagainst her government and ecclesiastical establishment, and allcelebration of the peculiar rites of their religion, they were securefrom molestation; and never to them, as to their unfortunate protestantpredecessors, were articles of religion offered for signature under thefearful alternative of compliance or martyrdom. 

To supply the vacancies of the episcopal bench became one of theearliest cares of the queen and her ministers; and their choice, whichfell on the most eminent of the confessors and exiles, was generallyapproved by the nation. 

Dr. Parker, formerly her mother's chaplain and the religious instructorof her own childhood, was designated by Elizabeth for the primacy. Thiseminent divine had likewise been one of the chaplains of Edward VI. , andenjoyed under his reign considerable church preferments. He had been thefriend of Cranmer, Bucer, Latimer, and Ridley; of Cook, Cheke, andCecil; and was the ardent coadjutor of these meritorious publiccharacters in the promotion of reformed religion, and the advancementof general learning, --two grand objects, which were regarded by them asinseparable and almost identical. 

On the accession of Mary, being stripped of all his benefices as amarried priest, Parker with his family was reduced to poverty anddistress; and it was only by a careful concealment of his person, byfrequent changes of place, and in some instances by the timelyadvertisements of watchful friends, that he was enabled to avoid a stillseverer trial of his constancy. During this period of distress he foundsupport and solace from the pious task of translating into English metrethe whole of the Psalms. The version still exists in manuscript, and isexecuted with some spirit, and not inelegantly, in the old measure offourteen syllables. 

Parker's "_Nolo episcopari_" is supposed to have been more thanordinarily sincere: in fact, the station of metropolitan must at thisjuncture have been felt as one of considerable difficulty, perhaps evenof danger; and the stormy temper of the queen afterwards prepared forthe prelate so much of contradiction and humiliation as caused him morethan once to bewail his final acceptance of the highest dignity of theEnglish church. 

With all her personal regard for the primate, Elizabeth could not alwaysrefrain in his presence from reflections against married priests, whichgave him great pain. 

During a progress which she made in 1561 into Essex and Suffolk, sheexpressed high displeasure at finding so many of the clergy married, and the cathedrals and colleges so filled with women and children; andin consequence she addressed to the archbishop a royal injunction, "thatno head or member of any college or cathedral should bring a wife or anyother woman into the precincts of it, to abide in the same, on pain offorfeiture of all ecclesiastical promotion. " Parker regarded it as hisduty to remonstrate with her in person against so popish a prohibition;on which, after declaring to him that she repented of having made anymarried bishops, she went on to treat the institution of matrimonyitself with a satire and contempt which filled him with horror. 

It was to his wife that her majesty, in returning acknowledgements forthe magnificent hospitality with which she had been received at thearchiepiscopal palace, made use of the well-known ungracious address;"Madam I may not call you, mistress I am ashamed to call you, and so Iknow not what to call you; but howsoever I thank you. "

But these fits of ill-humor were transient; for Parker learned the artof dispelling them by submissions, or soothing them by the frequent andrespectful tender of splendid entertainments and costly gifts. He didnot long remain insensible to the charms of rank and fortune; and itmust not be concealed that an inordinate love of power, and a haughtyintolerance of all opposition, gradually superseded that candor andChristian meekness of which he had formerly been cited as an edifyingexample. Against that sect amongst the clergy who refused to adopt theappointed habits and scrupled some of the ceremonies, soon afterdistinguished by the appellation of Puritans, he exercised his authoritywith unsparing rigor; and even stretched it by degrees so far beyond alllegal bounds, that the queen herself, little as she was inclined totolerate this sect or to resent any arbitrary conduct in hercommissioners, was moved at length to interpose and reverse some of hisproceedings. The archbishop, now become incapable of yielding his ownwill even to that of his sovereign, complained and remonstrated insteadof submitting: reproaches ensued on the part of Elizabeth; and in May1575 the learned prelate ended in a kind of disgrace the career which hehad long pursued amid the warmest testimonies of royal approbation. 

The fairest, at least the most undisputed, claim of this eminent prelateto the gratitude of his contemporaries and the respect of posterity, isfounded on the character which his high station enabled him to assumeand maintain, of the most munificent patron of letters of his age andcountry. The study which he particularly encouraged, and to which hisown leisure was almost exclusively devoted, was that of Englishantiquities; and he formed and presented to Corpus Christi college alarge and valuable collection of the manuscripts relative to theseobjects which had been scattered abroad at the dissolution of themonasteries, and must have been irretrievably lost but for his diligencein inquiring after them and the liberality with which he rewarded theirdiscovery. He edited four of our monkish historians; was the firstpublisher of that interesting specimen of early English satire andversification, Pierce Plowman's Visions; composed a history in Latin ofhis predecessors in the see of Canterbury, and encouraged the labors ofmany private scholars by acts of generosity and kindness. 

Grindal, a divine of eminence, who during his voluntary exile atFrankfort had taken a strong part in favor of king Edward'sService-book, was named as the successor of Bonner in the bishopric ofLondon; but a considerable time was spent in overcoming his objectionsto the habits and ceremonies, before he could be prevailed upon toassume a charge of which he deeply felt the importance andresponsibility. 

To the reputation of learning and piety which this prelate enjoyed incommon with so many of his clerical contemporaries, he added anextraordinary earnestness in the promotion of Christian knowledge, and acourageous inflexibility on points of professional duty, imitated by fewand excelled by none. His manly spirit disdained that slavishobsequiousness by which too many of his episcopal brethren paid homageto the narrow prejudices and state-jealousies of an imperious mistress, and it soon became evident that strife and opposition awaited him. 

His first difference was with archbishop Parker, whom he highly offendedby his backwardness in proceeding to extremities against the puritans, asect many of whose scruples Grindal himself had formerly entertained, and was still inclined to view with respect or pity rather than withindignation. Cecil, who was his chief friend and patron, apprehensive ofhis involving himself in trouble, gladly seized an occasion ofwithdrawing him from the contest, by procuring his appointment in 1570to the vacant archbishopric of York; a hitherto neglected province, inwhich his efforts for the instruction of the people and the reformationof the state of the church were peculiarly required and eminentlysuccessful. 

For his own repose, Grindal ought never to have quitted this sphere ofunmolested usefulness; but when, on the death of Parker in 1575, theprimacy was offered to him, ambition, or perhaps the hope of renderinghis plans more extensively beneficial, unfortunately prompted itsacceptance. Thus was he brought once more within the uncongenialatmosphere of a court, and subjected to the immediate control of hissovereign in matters on which he regarded it as a duty, on the doubleground of conscience and the rights of his office, to resist the fiat ofa temporal head of the church. 

The queen, whose dread and hatred of the puritans augmented with theseverities which she exercised against them, had conceived a violentaversion to certain meetings called prophesyings, at this time held bythe clergy for the purpose of exercising their younger members inexpounding the Scriptures, and at which the laity had begun to attend asauditors in great numbers and with much interest. Such assemblies, hermajesty declared, were nothing else than so many schools of puritanism, where the people learned to be so inquisitive that their spiritualsuperiors would soon lose all influence over them, and she issuedpositive commands to Grindal for their suppression. At the same timeshe expressed to him her extreme displeasure at the number of preacherslicensed in his province, and required that it should be veryconsiderably lessened, "urging that it was good for the world to havefew preachers, that three or four might suffice for a county; and thatthe reading of the homilies to the people was enough. " But the venerableprimate, so far from consenting to abridge the means of that religiousinstruction which he regarded it as the most sacred duty of a protestantchurch to afford, took the freedom of addressing to her majesty a veryplain and earnest letter of expostulation. In this piece, after showingthe great necessity which existed for multiplying, rather thandiminishing, opportunities of edification both to the clergy and thepeople, and protesting that he could not in conscience be instrumentalto the suppression either of preaching or prophesyings, he proceeded toremonstrate with her majesty on the arbitrary, imperious, and as it werepapal manner, in which she took upon herself to decide points betterleft to the management of her bishops. He ended by exhorting her toremember that she also was a mortal creature, and accountable to God forthe exercise of her power, and that she ought above all things to bedesirous of employing it piously for the promotion of true religion. 

The event showed this remonstrance to be rather well-intended thanwell-judged. Indignation was the only sentiment which it awakened in thehaughty mind of Elizabeth, and she answered it by an order of theStar-chamber, in virtue of which the archbishop was suspended from hisfunctions for six months, and confined during the same period to hishouse. At the end of this time he was urged by Burleigh to acknowledgehimself in fault and beg the queen's forgiveness but he steadily refusedto compromise thus a good cause, and his sequestration was continued. Iteven appears that nothing but the honest indignation of some of herministers and courtiers restrained the queen from proceeding to deprivehim. 

At the end of four or five years, her anger being somewhat abated, itpleased her to take off the sequestration, but without restoring theprimate to her favor; and as he was now old and blind, he willinglyconsented to resign the primacy and retire on a pension: but in 1583, before the matter could be finally arranged, he died. 

Archbishop Grindal was a great contributor to Fox's "Acts andMonuments, " for which he collected many materials; but he was the authorof no considerable work, and on the whole he seems to have been lessadmirable by the display of any extraordinary talents than revered andexemplary for the primitive virtues of probity, sincerity, and godlyzeal. These were the qualities which obtained for him the celebration ofSpenser in his "Shepherd's Calendar, " where he is designated by the nameof Algrind, and described as a true teacher of the Gospel and a severereprover of the pride and worldliness of the popish clergy. The lineswere written during the period of the prelate's disgrace, which isallegorically related and bewailed by the poet. 

Another distinguished ornament of the episcopal bench was Jewel, consecrated to the see of Salisbury in 1560. It is remarkable that thislearned apologist of the church of England had expressed at first astronger repugnance to the habits than most of his colleagues; buthaving once brought himself to compliance, he thenceforth became notedfor the rigor with which he exacted it of others. 

In the time of Henry VIII. Jewel had become suspected of opinions whichhe openly embraced on the accession of Edward, and he was sufficientlydistinguished amongst the reformers of this reign to be marked out asone of the first objects of persecution under Mary. As a preliminarystep, on which proceedings might be founded, the Romish articles wereoffered for his signature, when he disappointed alike his enemies andhis friends by subscribing them without apparent reluctance. But hisinsincerity in this act was notorious, and it was in contemplation tosubject him to the fierce interrogatories of Bonner, when timely warningenabled him, through many perils, to escape out of the country. Safearrived at Frankfort, he made a public confession, before the Englishcongregation, of his guilt in signing articles which his conscienceabhorred, and humbly entreated forgiveness of God and the church. Afterthis, he repaired to Strasburgh and passed away the time with his friendPeter Martyr. 

The erudition of Jewel was profound and extensive, his private lifeamiable, his performance of his episcopal duties sedulous; and such wasthe esteem in which his celebrated "Apology" was held, that Elizabeth, and afterwards James I. , ordained that a copy of it should be kept inevery parish-church in England. 

Of Dr. Cox, elevated to the see of Ely, mention has already been made;and it would be superfluous here to enter more largely into theecclesiastical history of the reign. 

A careful consideration of the behaviour of Elizabeth towards the twosuccessive primates Parker and Grindal, will furnish a sufficientlyaccurate notion of the spirit of her religious policy, besides affordinga valuable addition to the characteristic traits illustrative of hertemper and opinions. 

CHAPTER XIIIa. 

1561. 

Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex. --Translations of ancient tragedies. --Deathof Francis II. --Mary refuses to ratify the treaty of Edinburgh--returnsto Scotland. --Enmity between Mary and Elizabeth. --Philip II. Secretlyencourages the English papists. --Measures of rigor adopted against themby Elizabeth. --Anecdote of the queen and Dr. Sampson. --St. Paul's struckby lightning. --Bishop Pilkington's sermon on the occasion. --Paul'sWalk. --Precautions against the queen's being poisoned. --The king ofSweden proposes to visit her. --Steps taken in this matter. 

The eighteenth of January 1561 ought to be celebrated as the birthday ofthe English drama; for it was on this day that Thomas Sackville causedto be represented at Whitehall, for the entertainment of Elizabeth andher court, the tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex, otherwise called Gorboduc, the joint production of himself and Thomas Norton. From the unrivalledforce of imagination, the vigor and purity of diction, and the intimateknowledge and tasteful adaptation of the beauties of the Latin poetsdisplayed in the contributions of Sackville to the Mirror ofMagistrates, a lettered audience would conceive high expectations fromhis attempt in a new walk of poetry; but in the then barbarous state ofour Theatre, such a performance as Gorboduc must have been hailed asnot only a novelty but a wonder. It was the first piece composed inEnglish on the ancient tragic model, with a regular division into fiveacts, closed by lyric choruses. 

It offered the first example of a story from British history, or whatpassed for history, completely dramatized and represented with anattempt at theatrical illusion; for the earlier pieces published underthe title of tragedies were either ballads or monologues, which mightindeed be sung or recited, but were incapable of being acted. The plotof the play was fraught with those circumstances of the deepest horrorby which the dormant sensibilities of an inexperienced audience requireand delight to be awakened. An unwonted force of thought and dignity oflanguage claimed the patience, if not the admiration, of the hearers, for the long political disquisitions by which the business of the piecewas somewhat painfully retarded. 

The curiosity of the public respecting a drama which had been performedwith general applause both at court and before the society of the MiddleTemple, encouraged its surreptitious appearance in print in 1565, and asecond stolen edition was followed, some years after, by a corrected onepublished under the inspection of the authors themselves. The taste forthe legitimate drama thus awakened, may be supposed to have led to thenaturalization amongst us of several of its best ancient models. ThePhoenissæ of Euripides appeared under the title of Jocasta, havingreceived an English dress from Gascoigne and Kinwelmershe, two studentsof Gray's Inn. The ten tragedies of Seneca, englished by differenthands, succeeded. It is worthy of note, however, that none of thesetranslators had the good taste to imitate the authors of Ferrex andPorrex in the adoption of blank verse, and that one only amongst themmade use of the heroic rhymed couplet; the others employing the oldalexandrine measure, excepting in the choruses, which were given invarious kinds of stanza. Her majesty alone seems to have perceived thesuperior advantages, or to have been tempted by the greater facility ofSackville's verse; and amongst the MSS. Of the Bodleian library there isfound a translation by her own hand of part of Seneca's Hercules Oetæus, which is in this measure. Warton however adds, that this specimen "hasno other recommendation than its royalty. "

The propensity of Elizabeth, amid all the serious cares of governmentand all the pettinesses of that political intrigue to which she wasaddicted, to occupy herself with attempts in polite literature, forwhich she possessed no manner of talent, is not the least remarkableamong the features of her extraordinary and complicated character. 

At the period of her reign however which we are now considering, publicaffairs must have required from her an almost undivided attention. Bythe death of Francis II. About the end of the year 1560, the queen ofScots had become a widow, and the relations of England with France andScotland had immediately assumed an entirely novel aspect. 

The change was in one respect highly to the advantage of Elizabeth. Bythe loss of her royal husband, Mary was deprived of that command overthe resources of the French monarchy by which she had hoped to rendereffective her claim to the English crown, and she found it expedient todiscontinue for the present the use of the royal arms of England. Theenmity of the queen-mother had even chased her from that court where shehad reigned so lately, and obliged her to retire to her uncle, thecardinal of Lorrain at Rheims. But from the age and temper of thebeautiful and aspiring Mary, it was to be expected that she would erelong be induced to re-enter the matrimonial state with some one of theprinces of Europe; and neither as a sovereign nor a woman couldElizabeth regard without jealousy the plans for her reestablishmentalready agitated by her ambitious uncles of the house of Guise. Underthese circumstances, it was the first object of Elizabeth to obtain fromher rival the formal ratification, which had hitherto been withheld, ofthe treaty of Edinburgh, by one article of which Mary was pledged neverto resume the English arms; and Throgmorton, then ambassador to France, was instructed to urge strongly her immediate compliance with thiscertainly not inequitable demand. The queen of Scots, however, persistedin evading its fulfilment, and on pleas so forced and futile as justlyto confirm all previous suspicions of her sincerity. 

Matters were in this state between the two sovereigns, when Mary came tothe resolution of acceding to the unanimous entreaties of her subjectsof both religions, by returning to govern in person the kingdom of herancestors; and she sent to request of Elizabeth a safe-conduct. TheEnglish princess promptly replied, that the queen had only to ratify thetreaty of Edinburgh, and she should obtain not merely a safe-conduct butfree permission to shorten the fatigues of her voyage by passing throughEngland, where she should be received with all the marks of affectiondue to a beloved sister. By this answer Mary chose to regard herself asinsulted; and declaring to the English ambassador in great heat thatnothing vexed her so much as to have exposed herself without necessityto such a refusal, and that she doubted not that she should be able toreturn to her country without the permission of Elizabeth, as she hadquitted it in spite of all the vigilance of her brother, she abruptlybroke off the conference. 

Henceforth the breach between these illustrious kinswomen becameirreparable. In vain did Mary, after her arrival in Scotland, endeavourto remedy the imprudence which she was conscious of having committed, byprofessions of respect and friendship; for with these hollow complimentsshe had the further indiscretion to mingle the demand that Elizabethshould publicly declare her next heir to the English throne; a proposalwhich this high-spirited princess could never hear without rage. Neitherof the queens was a novice in the arts of dissimulation, and as often asit suited the interest or caprice of the moment, each would lavish uponthe other, without scruple, every demonstration of amity, every pledgeof affection; but jealousy, suspicion, and hatred dwelt irremoveably inthe inmost recesses of their hearts. The protestant party in Scotlandwas powerfully protected by Elizabeth, the catholic party in England wassecretly incited by Mary; and it became scarcely less the care andoccupation of each to disturb the administration of her rival than tofix her own on a solid basis. 

Mary had been attended on her return to Scotland by her three uncles, the duke of Aumale, the grand prior and the marquis of Elbeuf, with anumerous retinue of French nobility; and when after a short visit theduke and the grand prior took their leave of her, they with theircompany consisting of more than a hundred returned through England, visiting in their way the court of Elizabeth. Brantome, who was of theparty, has given incidentally the following particulars of theirentertainment in the short memoir which he has devoted to thecelebration of Henry II. Of France. 

"Bref, c'estoit un roy tres accomply & fort aymable. J'ay ouy conter ala reigne d'Angleterre qui est aujourd'huy, que c'estoit le roy & leprince du monde qu'elle avoit plus desiré de voir, pour le beau rapportqu'on luy en avoit fait, & pour sa grande renommée qui en voloit partout. Monsieur le connestable qui vit aujourd'huy s'en pourra bienressouvenir, ce fut lorsque retournant d'Escosse M. Le grand prieur deFrance, de la maison de Lorreine, & luy, la reigne leur donna un soir asoupper, où après se fit un ballet de ses filles, qu'elle avoit ordonné& dressé, representant les vierges de l'evangile, desquelles les unesavoient leurs lampes allumées & les autres n'avoient ny huile ny feu &en demandoient. Ces lampes estoient d'argent fort gentiment faites &elabourées, & les dames étoient tres-belles & honnestes & bien apprises, qui prirent nous autres François pour danser, mesme la reigne dansa, &de fort bonne grace & belle majesté royale, car elle l'avoit & estoitlors en sa grande beauté & belle grace. Rien ne l'a gastée quel'execution de la pauvre reigne d'Escosse, sans cela c'estoit unetres-rare princesse. 

". . . Estant ainsi à table devisant familierement avec ces seigneurs, elledit ces mots, (après avoir fort loüé le roy): C'estoit le prince dumonde que j'avois plus desiré de voir, & luy avois deja mandé quebientost je le verrois, & pour ce j'avois commandé de me faire bienappareiller mes galeres (usant de ces mots) pour passer en France exprèspour le voir. Monsieur le connestable, d'aujourd'huy, qui estoit lorsMonsieur d'Amville, respondit, Madame, je m'asseure que vous eussiezesté tres-contente de le voir, car son humeur & sa façon vous eussentpleu; aussi lui eust il esté tres-content de vous voir, car il eust fortaimé vôtre belle humeur & vos agreables façons, & vous eust fait unhonorable accueil & tres-bonne chere, & vous eust bien fait passer letemps. Je le croy & m'en asseure, dit elle. " &c. 

By the death of the king of France, and the increasing distractions ofthat unhappy country under the feeble minority of Charles IX. , thepolitics of the king of Spain also were affected. He had not now to fearthe union of the crowns of England France and Scotland under the jointrule of Francis and Mary, which he had once regarded as a notimprobable event; consequently his strongest inducement for keepingmeasures with Elizabeth ceased to operate, and he began daily todisclose more and more of that animosity with which he could not fail toregard a princess who was at once the heroine and patroness ofprotestantism. From this time he began to furnish secret aids whichadded hope and courage to the English partisans of popery and of Mary;and Elizabeth judged it a necessary policy to place her catholicsubjects under a more rigid system of restraint. It was contrary to herprivate inclinations to treat this sect with severity, and she was themore reluctant to do so as she thus gratified in an especial manner thewishes of the puritanical or Calvinistic party in the church, theirinveterate enemies; and by identifying in some measure her cause withtheirs, saw herself obliged to conform in several points to their viewsrather than her own wishes. 

The law which rendered it penal to hear mass was first put in forceagainst several persons of rank, that the example might strike the moreterror. Sir Edward Waldegrave, in Mary's reign a privy-councillor, wason this account committed to the Tower, with his lady and some others;and lord Loughborough, also a privy-councillor much favored and trustedby the late queen, was brought into trouble on the same ground. AgainstWaldegrave it is to be feared that much cruelty was exercised during hisimprisonment; for it is said to have occasioned his death, whichoccurred in the Tower a few months afterwards. The High Commissioncourt now began to take cognisance of what was called recusancy, or therefusal to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy; it alsoencouraged informations against such as refrained from joining in theestablished worship; and numerous professors of the old religion, bothecclesiastics and laity, were summoned on one account or other beforethis tribunal. Of these, some were committed to prison, othersrestricted from entering certain places, as the two universities, orcircumscribed within the limits of some town or county; and most werebound in great penalties to be forthcoming whenever it should berequired. 

As a further demonstration of zeal against popery, the queen caused allthe altars in Westminster abbey to be pulled down; and about the sametime a remarkable scene occurred between her majesty and Dr. ThomasSampson dean of Christ-church. 

It happened that the queen had appointed to go to St. Paul's on NewYear's day to hear the dean preach; and he, thinking to gratify her onthat day with an elegant and appropriate present, had procured someprints illustrative of the histories of the saints and martyrs, which hecaused to be inserted in a richly bound prayer-book and laid on thequeen's cushion for her use. Her majesty opened the volume; but nosooner did the prints meet her eye, than she frowned, blushed, andcalled to the verger to bring her the book she was accustomed to use. Assoon as the service was ended, she went into the vestry and inquired ofthe dean who had brought that book? and when he explained that he hadmeant it as a present to her majesty, she chid him severely, inquired ifhe was ignorant of her proclamation against images, pictures, and Romishreliques in the churches, and of her aversion to all idolatry, andstrictly ordered that no similar mistake should be made in future. Whatrenders this circumstance the more curious is, that Elizabeth at thisvery time kept a crucifix in her private chapel, and that Sampson was sofar from being popishly inclined, that he had refused the bishopric ofNorwich the year before, on account of the habits and ceremonies, andwas afterwards deprived of his deanery by archbishop Parker fornonconformity. 

Never did parties in religion run higher than about this period of thereign of Elizabeth; and we may remark as symptomatic of the temper ofthe times, the manner in which a trivial accident was commented upon byadverse disputants. The beautiful steeple of St. Paul's cathedral, theloftiest in the kingdom, had been stricken by lightning and utterlydestroyed, together with the bells and roof. A papist immediatelydispersed a paper representing this accident as a judgement of Heavenfor the discontinuance of the matins and other services which had usedto be performed in the church at different hours of the day and night. Pilkington bishop of Durham, who preached at Paul's cross after theaccident, was equally disposed to regard it as a judgement, but on thesins of London in general, and particularly on certain abuses by whichthe church had formerly been polluted. In a tract published in answer tothat of the papist he afterwards gave an animated description of thepractices of which this cathedral had been the theatre; curious at thepresent day as a record of forgotten customs. He said that "no place hadbeen more abused than Paul's had been, nor more against the receiving ofChrist's Gospel; wherefore it was more wonder that God had spared it solong, than that he overthrew it now. . . . From the top of the spire, atcoronations or other solemn triumphs, some for vain glory had used tothrow themselves down by a rope, and so killed themselves, vainly toplease other men's eyes. At the battlements of the steeple, sundry timeswere used their popish anthems, to call upon their Gods, with torch andtaper, in the evenings. In the top of one of the pinnacles was Lollards'Tower, where many an innocent soul had been by them cruelly tormentedand murdered. In the middest alley was their long censer, reaching fromthe roof to the ground; as though the Holy Ghost came down in theircensing, in likeness of a dove. In the arches, men commonly complainedof wrong and delayed judgments in ecclesiastical causes: and divers hadbeen condemned there by Annas and Caiaphas for Christ's cause. Theirimages hung on every wall, pillar and door, with their pilgrimages andworshipings of them: passing over their massing and many altars, and therest of their popish service. The south alley was for usury and popery, the north for simony; and the horse fair in the midst for all kind ofbargains, meetings, brawlings, murders, conspiracies. The font forordinary payments of money as well known to all men as the beggar knowshis dish. . . . So that without and within, above the ground and under, over the roof and beneath, from the top of the steeple and spire down tothe low floor, not one spot was free from wickedness. "

The practice here alluded to, of making the nave of St. Paul's a kind ofexchange for the transaction of all kinds of business, and a place ofmeeting for idlers of every sort, is frequently referred to by thewriters of this and the two succeeding reigns; and when or by what meansthe custom was put an end to, does not appear. It was here that sirNicholas Throgmorton held a conference with an emissary of Wyat's; itwas here that one of the bravoes engaged in the noted murder of Arden ofFeversham was hired. It was in Paul's that Falstaff is made to say he"bought" Bardolph. 

In bishop Earl's admirable little book called Micro-cosmography thescene is described with all the wit of the author and somewhat of thequaintness of his age, which was that of James I. 

"_Paul's walk_ is the land's epitome, or you may call it the lesser isleof Great Britain. It is, more than this, the whole world's map, whichyou may here discern in its perfectest motion, justling, and turning. Itis the great exchange of all discourse, and no business whatsoever butis here stirring and afoot. It is the synod of all pates politic, joinedand laid together in most serious posture, and they are not half so busyat the parliament. . . . It is the market of young lecturers, whom you maycheapen here at all rates and sizes. It is the general mint of allfamous lies, which are here, like the legends of popery, first coinedand stamped in the church. All inventions are emptied here, and not afew pockets. The best sign of a temple in it is, that it is the thievessanctuary. . . . The visitants are, all men without exception, but theprincipal inhabitants and possessors are, stale knights, and captainsout of service, men of long rapiers and breeches which, after all, turnmerchants here, and traffic for news. Some make it a preface to theirdinner, but thriftier men make it their ordinary, and board here verycheap. "

The vigilant ministers of Elizabeth had now begun to alarm themselvesand her with apprehensions of plots against her life from the malice ofthe papists; and it would be rash to pronounce that such fears wereentirely void of foundation; but we may be permitted to smile at theignorant credulity on the subject of poisons, --universal indeed in thatage, --which dictated the following minute of council, extant in thehandwriting of Cecil. "We think it very convenient that your majesty'sapparel, and specially all manner of things that shall touch any part ofyour majesty's body bare, be circumspectly looked unto; and that noperson be permitted to come near it, but such as have the trust andcharge thereof. 

"Item. That no manner of perfume either in apparel or sleeves, gloves orsuch like, or otherwise that shall be appointed for your majesty'ssavor, be presented by any stranger or other person, but that the samebe corrected by some other fume. 

"Item. That no foreign meat or dishes being dressed out of yourmajesty's court, be brought to your food, without assured knowledge fromwhom the same cometh; and that no use be had hereof. 

"Item. That it may please your majesty to take the advice of yourphysician for the receiving weekly twice some preservative 'contrapestem et venena, ' as there be many good things 'et salutaria. '

"Item. It may please your majesty to give order who shall take thecharge of the back doors to your chamberers chambers, where landresses, tailors, wardrobers, and the like, use to come; and that the same doorsbe duly attended upon, as becometh, and not to stand open but uponnecessity. 

"Item. That the privy chamber may be better ordered, with an attendanceof an usher, and the gentlemen and grooms[48]. "

[Note 48: "Burleigh Papers" by Haynes, p. 368. ]

It was fortunate that the same exaggerated notions of the power ofpoisons prevailed amongst papists as protestants. Against the illeffects of a drug applied by direction of a Spanish friar to the arms ofa chair and the pommel of a saddle, the antidotes received twice a weekmight be depended upon as an effectual preservative. 

From these perils, real and imaginary, --none of which however appear tohave taken strong hold of the cheerful and courageous temper of thequeen, --her attention and that of her council was for some time divertedby the expectation of a royal suitor. 

Eric king of Sweden, --whose hopes of final success in his addresses werekept up in spite of the repeated denials of the queen, by the artificeof some Englishmen at his court who deluded him by pretended secretintelligence, --had sent to her majesty a royal present, and declared hisintention of following in person. The present consisted of eighteenlarge piebald horses, and two ship-loads of precious articles which arenot particularized. It does not appear that this offering wasill-received; but as Elizabeth was determined not to relent in favor ofthe sender, she caused him to be apprized of the impositions passed uponhim by the English to whom he had given ear, at the same time expressingher anxious hope that he would spare himself the fatigues of a fruitlessvoyage. Fearing however that he might be already on his way, sheoccupied herself in preparations for receiving him with all thehospitality and splendor due to his errand, his rank and her own honor. It was at the same time a business of some perplexity so to regulate allthese matters of ceremony that neither Eric himself nor others mightconclude that he was a favored suitor. Among the state papers of thetime we find, first a letter of council to the lord mayor, settingforth, that, "Whereas certain bookbinders and stationers did uttercertain papers wherein were printed the face of her majesty and the kingof Sweden; although her majesty was not miscontented that either her ownface or that of this king should be pourtrayed; yet to be joined in thesame paper with him or any other prince who was known to have maderequest for marriage to her, was what she could not allow. Accordinglyit was her pleasure that the lord mayor should seize all such papers, and pack them up so that none of them should get abroad. Otherwise shemight seem to authorize this joining of herself in marriage to him, which might seem to touch her in honor. " Next we have a letter to theduke of Norfolk directing the manner in which he should go to meet theking, if he landed at any part of Norfolk or Suffolk: and lastly, wehave the solemn judgement of the lord-treasurer, the lord-steward, andthe lord-chamberlain, on the ceremonial to be observed towards him onhis arrival by the queen herself. 

One paragraph is conceived with all the prudery and the deep policyabout trifles, which marked the character of Elizabeth herself. "Bycausethe queen's majesty is a maid, in this case would many things be omittedof honor and courtesy, which otherwise were mete to be showed to him, asin like cases hath been of kings of this land to others, and thereforeit shall be necessary that the gravest of her council do, as of theirown judgement, excuse the lack thereof to the king; and yet on their ownparts offer the supplement thereof with reverence. "

After all, the king of Sweden never came. 

CHAPTER XIIIb. 

1561 TO 1565. 

Difficulties respecting the succession. --Lady C. Grey marries the earlof Hertford. --Cruel treatment of them by Elizabeth. --Conspiracy of thePoles. --Law against prophecies. --Sir H. Sidney ambassador toFrance. --Some account of him. --Defence of Havre under the earl ofWarwick. --Its surrender. --Proposed interview between Elizabeth andMary. --Plague in London. --Studies of the queen. --Proclamation respectingportraits of her. --Negotiations concerning the marriage ofMary. --Elizabeth proposes to her lord R. Dudley. --Hales punished fordefending the title of the Suffolk line. --Sir N. Bacon and lord J. Greyin some disgrace on the same account. --Queen's visit toCambridge. --Dudley created earl of Leicester. --Notice of sir JamesMelvil and extracts from his memoirs. --Marriage of Mary withDarnley. --Conduct of Elizabeth respecting it. --She encourages, thendisavows the Scotch malcontent lords. --Behaviour of sir N. Throgmorton. --The puritans treated with greater lenity. 

The situation of Elizabeth, amid its many difficulties, presented noneso perplexing, none which the opinions of her most prudent counsellorswere so much divided on the best mode of obviating, as those arising outof the doubt and confusion in which the right of succession was stillinvolved. Her avowed repugnance to marriage, which was now feared to beinsurmountable, kept the minds of men continually busy on thisdangerous topic, and she was already incurring the blame of many by thebackwardness which she discovered in designating a successor and causingher choice to be confirmed, as it would readily have been, by theparliament. 

But this censure must be regarded as unjust. Even though the jealousy ofpower had found no entrance into the bosom of Elizabeth, sound policyrequired her long to deliberate before she formed a decision, andperhaps, whatever that decision might be, forbade her, under presentcircumstances, to announce it to the world. 

The title of the queen of Scots, otherwise unquestionable, was barred bythe will of Henry VIII. , ratified by an unrepealed act of parliament, and nothing less solemn than a fresh act of the whole legislature wouldhave been sufficient to render it perfectly free from objection: andcould Elizabeth be in reason expected to take such a step in behalf of aforeign and rival sovereign, professing a religion hostile to her ownand that of her people; of one, above all, who had openly pretended aright to the crown preferable to her own, and who was even nowexhausting the whole art of intrigue to undermine and supplant her?

On the other hand, to confirm the exclusion of the Scottish line, andadopt as her successor the representative of that of Suffolk, appearedneither safe nor equitable. 

The testamentary disposition of Henry had evidently been dictated bycaprice and resentment, and the title of Mary was nevertheless heldsacred and indisputable not only by all the catholics, but by thepartisans of strict hereditary right in general, and by all who dulyappretiated the benefits which must flow from an union of the Englishand Scottish sceptres. To inflict a mortal injury on Mary might be asdangerous as to give her importance by an express law establishing herclaims, and against any perils in which Elizabeth might thus involveherself the house of Suffolk could afford her no accession of strength, since their allegiance, --all they had to offer, --was hers already. 

The lady Catherine Grey, the heiress of this house, might indeed havebeen united in marriage to some protestant prince, whose power wouldhave acted as a counterpoise to that of Scotland. But a secret andreluctant persuasion that the real right was with the Scottish line, constantly operated on the mind of Elizabeth so far as to prevent herfrom taking any step towards the advancement of the rival family; andthe unfortunate lady Catherine was doomed to undergo all the restraints, the persecutions and the sufferings, which in that age formed themelancholy appanage of the younger branches of the royal race, withlittle participation of the homage or the hopes which some minds wouldhave accepted as an adequate compensation. 

It will be remembered, that the hand of this high-born lady was given tolord Herbert, son of the earl of Pembroke, on the same day thatGuildford Dudley fatally received that of her elder sister the ladyJane; and that on the accession of Mary this short-lived and perhapsuncompleted union had been dissolved at the instance of the politicfather of lord Herbert. From this time lady Catherine had remained inneglect and obscurity till the year 1560, when information of her havingformed a private connexion with the earl of Hertford, son of theProtector Somerset, reached the ears of Elizabeth. The lady, on beingquestioned, confessed her pregnancy, declaring herself at the same timeto be the lawful wife of the earl: her degree of relationship to thequeen was not so near as to render her marriage without the royalconsent illegal, yet by a stretch of authority familiar to the Tudorsshe was immediately sent prisoner to the Tower. Hertford, in the meantime, was summoned to produce evidence of the marriage, by a certainday, before special commissioners named by her majesty, from whosedecision no appeal was to lie. He was at this time in France, and soearly a day was designedly fixed for his answer, that he found itimpracticable to collect his proofs in time, and to the Tower he alsowas committed, as the seducer of a maiden of royal blood. 

By this iniquitous sentence, a color was given for treating theunfortunate lady and those who had been in her confidence with everyspecies of harshness and indignity, and the following extract from awarrant addressed in the name of her majesty to Mr. Warner, lieutenantof the Tower, sufficiently indicates the cruel advantage taken of hersituation. 

. . . "Our pleasure is, that ye shall, as by our commandment, examine thelady Catherine very straightly, how many hath been privy to the lovebetween her and the earl of Hertford from the beginning; and let hercertainly understand that she shall have no manner of favor except shewill show the truth, not only what ladies or gentlewomen of this courtwere thereto privy, but also what lords and gentlemen: For it doth nowappear that sundry personages have dealt herein, and when it shallappear more manifestly, it shall increase our indignation against her, if she will forbear to utter it. 

"We earnestly require you to use your diligence in this. Ye shall alsosend to alderman Lodge secretly for St. Low, and shall put her in awe ofdivers matters confessed by the lady Catherine; and so also deal withher that she may confess to you all her knowledge in the same matters. It is certain that there hath been great practices and purposes; andsince the death of the lady Jane she hath been most privy. And as yeshall see occasion so ye may keep St. Low two or three nights more orless, and let her be returned to Lodge's or kept still with you as yeshall think meet[49]. " &c. 

[Note 49: "Burleigh Papers" by Haynes. ]

The child of which the countess of Hertford was delivered soon after hercommittal, was regarded as illegitimate, and she was doomed to expiateher pretended misconduct by a further imprisonment at the arbitrarypleasure of the queen. The birth of a second child, the fruit of stolenmeetings between the captive pair, aggravated in the jealous eyes ofElizabeth their common guilt. Warner lost his place for permitting orconniving at their interviews, and Hertford was sentenced in theStar-chamber to a fine of fifteen thousand pounds for the double offenceof vitiating a female of the royal blood, and of breaking his prison torenew his offence. 

It might somewhat console this persecuted pair under all theirsufferings, to learn how unanimously the public voice was in theirfavor. No one doubted that they were lawfully married, --a fact which wasafterwards fully established, --and it was asked, by what right, or onwhat principle, her majesty presumed to keep asunder those whom God hadjoined? Words ran so high on this subject after the sentence of theStar-chamber, that some alarmists in the privy-council urged thenecessity of inflicting still severer punishment on the earl, and ofintimidating the talkers by strong measures. The further consequences ofthis affair to persons high in her majesty's confidence will be relatedhereafter: meantime it must be recorded, to the eternal disgrace ofElizabeth's character and government, that she barbarously and illegallydetained her ill-fated kinswoman, first in the Tower and afterwards inprivate custody, till the day of her death in January 1567; and that theearl her husband, having added to the original offence of marrying aprincess, the further presumption of placing upon legal record theproofs of his children's legitimacy, was punished, besides his fine, with an imprisonment of nine whole years. So much of the jealous spiritof her grandfather still survived in the bosom of this last of theTudors!

On another occasion, however, she exercised towards a family whosepretensions had been viewed by her father with peculiar dread andhostility, a degree of forbearance which had in it somewhat ofmagnanimity. 

Arthur and Edmund Pole, two nephews of the cardinal, with sir AnthonyFortescue their sister's husband, and other accomplices, had been led, either by private ambition, by a vehement zeal for the Romish faith, orboth together, to meditate the subversion of the existing state ofthings, and to plan the following wild and desperate scheme. 

Having first repaired to France, where they expected to receive aid andcounsels from the Guises, the conspirators were to return at the head ofan army and make a landing in Wales. Here Arthur Pole, assuming at thesame time the title of duke of Clarence, was to proclaim the queen ofScots, and the new sovereign was soon after to give her hand to hisbrother Edmund. This absurd plot was detected before any steps weretaken towards its execution: the Poles were apprehended, and made a fulldisclosure on their trial of all its circumstances; pleading however inexcuse, that they had no thought of putting their design in practicetill the death of the queen, an event which certain diviners in whomthey placed reliance had confidently predicted within the year. 

In consideration of this confession, and probably of the insignificanceof the offenders, the royal pardon was extended to their lives, and theillustrious name of Pole was thus preserved from extinction. It isprobable, however, that they were kept for some time prisoners in theTower; and thither was also sent the countess of Lenox, on discovery ofthe secret correspondence which she carried on with the queen of Scots. 

The confession of the Poles seems to have given occasion to the renewal, by the parliament of 1562, of a law against "fond and fantasticalprophecies, " promulgated with design to disturb the queen's government;by which act also it was especially forbidden to make prognosticationson or by occasion of any coats of arms, crests, or badges; a clauseadded, it is believed, for the particular protection of the favorite, Dudley, whose _bear and ragged staff_ was the continual subject of openderision or emblematical satire. 

A legend in the "Mirror for Magistrates, " relating the unhappycatastrophe of George duke of Clarence, occasioned by a prophecy againstone whose name began with a G, appears to have been composed in aid ofthe operation of this law. The author takes great pains to impress hisreaders with the futility as well as wickedness of such predictions, andconcludes with the remark, that no one ought to imagine the foolish andmalicious inventors of modern prophecies inspired, though

 . . . "learned _Merlin_ whom God gave the sprite To know and utter princes' acts to come, Like to the Jewish prophets did recite In shade of beasts their doings all and some; Expressing plain by manners of the doom That kings and lords such properties should have As have the beasts whose name he to them gave!"

In France every thing now wore the aspect of an approaching civil warbetween the partisans of the two religions, under the conduct on oneside of the Guises, on the other of the princes of the house of Condé. Elizabeth judged it her duty, or her policy, to make a last effort forthe reconciliation of these angry factions, and she dispatched anambassador to Charles IX. Charged with her earnest representations onthe subject. They were however ineffectual, and produced apparently noother valuable result than that of rendering her majesty betteracquainted with the talents and merit of the eminent person whom she hadhonored with this delicate commission. 

This person was sir Henry Sidney, one of the most upright as well asable of the ministers of Elizabeth:--that he was the father of sirPhilip Sidney was the least of his praises; and it may be cited as oneof the caprices of fame, that he should be remembered by his son, ratherthan his son by him. Those qualities which in sir Philip could affordlittle but the promise of active virtue, were brought in sir Henry tothe test of actual performance; and lasting monuments of his wisdom andhis goodness remain in the institutions by which he softened thebarbarism of Wales, and appeased the more dangerous turbulence ofIreland by promoting its civilization. 

Sir Henry was the son of sir William Sidney, a gentleman of goodparentage in Kent, whose mother was of the family of Brandon and nearlyrelated to the duke of Suffolk of that name, the favorite andbrother-in-law of Henry VIII. Sir William in his youth had made one of aband of gentlemen of figure, who, with their sovereign's approbation, travelled into Spain and other countries of Europe to study the mannersand customs of their respective courts. He likewise distinguishedhimself in the field of Flodden. The king stood godfather to his sonHenry, born in 1529, and caused him to be educated with the prince ofWales, to whom sir William was appointed tutor, chamberlain, andsteward. 

The excellent qualities and agreeable talents of young Sidney soonendeared him to Edward, who made him his inseparable companion and oftenhis bed-fellow; kept him in close attendance on his person during hislong decline, and sealed his friendship by breathing his last in hisarms. 

During the short reign of this lamented prince Sidney had received thehonor of knighthood, and had been intrusted, at the early age of one ortwo and twenty, with an embassy to the French king, in which heacquitted himself so ably that he was soon afterwards sent in adiplomatic character to Scotland. He had likewise formed connexionswhich exerted important influence on his after fortunes. Sir John Chekeheld him in particular esteem, and through his means he had contracted acordial friendship with Cecil, of which in various ways he found thebenefit to the end of his life. A daughter of the all-powerful duke ofNorthumberland had also honored him with her hand, --a dangerous gift, which was likely to have involved him in the ruin which the guiltyprojects of that audacious man drew down upon the heads of himself andhis family. But the prudence or loyalty of Sidney preserved him fromthe snare. No sooner had his royal master breathed his last, than, relinquishing all concern in public affairs, he withdrew to the saferetirement of his own seat at Penshurst, where he afterwards afforded agenerous asylum to such of the Dudleys as had escaped death orimprisonment. 

Queen Mary seems to have held out an earnest of future favor to Sidney, by naming him amongst the noblemen and knights appointed to attendPhilip of Spain to England for the completion of his nuptials; and thisprince further honored him by becoming sponsor to his afterwardscelebrated son and giving him his own name. But Sidney soon quitted acourt in which a man of protestant principles could no longer residewith satisfaction, if with safety, and accompanied to Ireland hisbrother-in-law viscount Fitzwalter, then lord-deputy. In that kingdom heat first bore the office of vice-treasurer, and afterwards, during thefrequent absences of the lord-deputy, the high one of sole lord-justice. 

The accession of Elizabeth enabled lord Robert Dudley to make a largereturn for the former kindness of his brother-in-law; and supported bythe influence of this distinguished favorite, in addition to hispersonal claims, sir Henry Sidney rose in a few years to the dignitiesof privy-councillor and knight of the garter. After his embassy toFrance he was appointed to the post of lord-president of Wales, towhich, in 1565, the still more important one of lord-deputy of Irelandwas added;--an union of two not very compatible offices, unexampled inour annals before or since. Some particulars of sir Henry Sidney'sgovernment of Ireland may come under review hereafter: it is sufficienthere to observe, that ample testimony to his merit was furnished byElizabeth herself, in the steadiness with which she persisted inappointing and re-appointing him to this most perplexing department ofpublic service, in spite of all the cabals, of English or Irish growth, by which, though his favor with her was sometimes shaken, her rootedopinion of his probity and sufficiency could never be overthrown. 

The failure of Elizabeth's negotiations with the French court wasfollowed by her taking up arms in support of the oppressed Hugonots; andAmbrose Dudley earl of Warwick, the elder brother of lord Robert, wassent to Normandy at the head of three thousand men. Of the two Dudleysit was said by their contemporaries, that the elder inherited the money, and the younger the wit, of his father. If this remark were wellfounded, which seems doubtful, the appointment of Warwick to animportant command must probably be set down to the account offavoritism. It was not however the wish of the queen that her troopsshould often be led into battle. It was her main object to obtainlasting possession of the town of Havre, as an indemnification for theloss of Calais, so much deplored by the nation; and into this placeWarwick threw himself with his chief force. In the next campaign, whenit was assailed with the whole power of France, he prepared, accordingto the orders of Elizabeth, for a desperate defence, and no blame wasever imputed to him for a surrender, which became unavoidable throughthe ravages of the plague, and the delay of reinforcements by contrarywinds[50]. Warwick appears to have preserved through life the characterof a man of honor and a brave soldier. 

[Note 50: It was by no remissness on the part of the queen that thistown was lost; the preservation of which was an object very near herheart, as appears from a letter of encouragement addressed by theprivy-council to Warwick, which has the following postscript in her ownhandwriting. 

"My dear Warwick; If your honor and my desire could accord with the lossof the needfullest finger I keep, God so help me in my utmost need as Iwould gladly lose that one joint for your safe abode with me; but sinceI cannot that I would, I will do that I may, and will rather drink in anashen cup than you or yours should not be succoured both by sea andland, yea, and that with all speed possible, and let this my scribblinghand witness it to them all. 

"Yours as my own, "E. R. "

See "Archæologia, " vol. Xiii. P. 201. ]

A project which had been for some time under discussion, of a personalinterview at York between the English and Scottish queens, was nowfinally given up. Elizabeth, it is surmised, was unwilling to afford herbeautiful and captivating enemy such an opportunity of winning upon theaffections of the English people, and Mary was fearful of offending heruncles the princes of Guise by so public an advance towards a goodunderstanding with a princess now engaged in open hostilities againsttheir country and faction. The failure of this design deserves not to beregretted. The meetings of princes have never, under any circumstances, been known to produce a valuable political result; and an interviewbetween these jealous and exasperated rivals could only have exhibiteddisgusting scenes of forced civility and exaggerated profession, thinlyveiling the inveterate animosity which neither party could hopeeffectually to hide from the intuitive perception of the other. 

A terrible plague, introduced by the return of the sickly garrison ofHavre, raged in London during the year 1563, and for some time carriedoff about a thousand persons weekly. The sittings of parliament wereheld on this account at Hertford Castle; and the queen, retiring toWindsor, kept herself in unusual privacy, and took advantage of theopportunity to pursue her literary occupations with more than commonassiduity. Without entirely deserting her favorite Greek classics, sheat this time applied herself principally to the study of the Christianfathers, with the laudable purpose, doubtless, of making herselfmistress of those questions respecting the doctrine and discipline ofthe primitive church now so fiercely agitated between the divines ofdifferent communions, and on which, as head of the English church, shewas often called upon to decide in the last resort. 

Cecil had mentioned these pursuits of her majesty in a letter to Coxbishop of Ely, and certainly as matter of high commendation; but thebishop answered, perhaps with better judgement, that after all, Scripture was "that which pierced;" that of the fathers, one wasinclined to Pelagianism, another to Monachism, and he hoped that hermajesty only occupied herself with them at idle hours. 

Even studies so solemn could not however preserve the royal theologian, now in her thirtieth year, from serious disturbance on account ofcertain ill-favored likenesses of her gracious countenance which hadobtained a general circulation among her loving subjects. So provokingan abuse was thought to justify and require the special exertion of theroyal prerogative for its correction, and Cecil was directed to draw upan energetic proclamation on the subject. 

This curious document sets forth, that "forasmuch as through the naturaldesire that all sorts of subjects had to procure the portrait andlikeness of the queen's majesty, great numbers of painters, and someprinters and gravers, had and did daily attempt in divers manners tomake portraitures of her, wherein none hitherto had sufficientlyexpressed the natural representation of her majesty's person, favor, orgrace; but had for the most part erred therein, whereof daily complaintswere made amongst her loving subjects, --that for the redress hereof hermajesty had been so importunately sued unto by the lords of her counciland other of her nobility, not only to be content that some specialcunning painter might be permitted by access to her majesty to take thenatural representation of her, whereof she had been always of her ownright disposition very unwilling, but also to prohibit all manner ofother persons to draw, paint, grave, or portrait her personage or visagefor a time, until there were some perfect pattern or example to befollowed:

"Therefore her majesty, being herein as it were overcome with thecontinual requests of so many of her nobility and lords, whom she couldnot well deny, was pleased that some cunning person should shortly makea portrait of her person or visage to be participated to others for thecomfort of her loving subjects; and furthermore commanded, that tillthis should be finished, all other persons should abstain from makingany representations of her; that afterwards her majesty would be contentthat all other painters, printers, or gravers, that should be known menof understanding, and so therein licensed by the head officers of theplaces where they should dwell (as reason it was that every personshould not without consideration attempt the same), might at theirpleasure follow the said pattern or first portraiture. And for that hermajesty perceived a great number of her loving subjects to be muchgrieved with the errors and deformities herein committed, she straitlycharged her officers and ministers to see to the observation of thisproclamation, and in the meantime to forbid the showing or publicationof such as were apparently deformed, until they should be reformed whichwere reformable[51]. "

[Note 51: "Archæologia, " vol. Ii. P. 169. ]

On the subject of marriage, so perpetually moved to her both by herparliament and by foreign princes, Elizabeth still preserved a cautiousambiguity of language, well exemplified in the following passage: "Theduke of Wirtemburg, a German protestant prince, had lately friendlyoffered his service to the queen, in case she were minded to marry. Towhich, January 27th she gave him this courteous and princely answer:'That although she never yet were weary of single and maiden life, yetindeed she was the last issue of her father left, and the only of herhouse; the care of her kingdom and the love of posterity did counsel herto alter this course of life. But in consideration of the leave that hersubjects had given her in ampler manner to make her choice than they didto any prince afore, she was even in courtesy bound to make that choiceso as should be for the best of her state and subjects. And for that heoffered therein his assistance, she graciously acknowledged the same, promising to deserve it hereafter[52]. '"

[Note 52: Strype's "Annals, " vol. I. P. 398. ]

It might be curious to inquire of what nature the _assistance_ politelyproffered by the duke in this matter, and thus favorably received by hermajesty, could be; it does not appear that he tendered his own hand toher acceptance. 

The French court became solicitous about this time to draw closer itsbond of amity with the queen of Scots, who, partly on account of somewrong which had been done her respecting the payment of her dower, partly in consequence of various affronts put upon her subjects, hadbegun to estrange herself from her old connexions, and to seek inpreference the alliance of Elizabeth. French agents were now sent overto Scotland to urge upon her the claims of former friendship, and totempt her by brilliant promises to listen to proposals of marriage fromthe duke of Anjou, preferably to those made her by the archduke Charlesor by don Carlos. 

Intelligence of these negotiations awakened all the jealousies, political and personal, of Elizabeth. She ordered her agent Randolph, apractised intriguer, to devise means for crossing the matrimonialproject. Meantime, by way of intimidation, she appointed the earl ofBedford to the lieutenancy of the four northern counties, and thepowerful earl of Shrewsbury to that of several adjoining ones, andordered a considerable levy of troops in these parts for thereinforcement of the garrison of Berwick and the protection of theEnglish border, on which she affected to dread an attack by an unitedFrench and Scottish force. 

Randolph soon after received instructions to express openly to Mary hissovereign's dislike of her matching either with the archduke or with anyother foreign prince, and her wish that she would choose a husbandwithin the island; and he was next empowered to add, that if theScottish queen would gratify his mistress in this point, she need notdoubt of obtaining a public recognition of her right of succession tothe English crown. Elizabeth afterwards came nearer to the point; shedesignated lord Robert Dudley as the individual on whom she desired thatthe choice of her royal kinswoman should fall. By a queen-dowager ofFrance, and a queen-regnant of Scotland, the proposal of so inferior analliance might almost be regarded as an insult, and Mary was naturallyhaughty; but her hopes and fears compelled her to dissemble herindignation, and even to affect to take the matter into consideration. She trusted that pretexts might be found hereafter for evading thecompletion of the marriage, even if the queen of England were sincere indesiring such an advancement for her favorite, which was much doubted, and she determined for the present to show herself docile to all thesuggestions of her royal sister, and to preserve the good understandingon her part unbroken. 

It was during the continuance of this state of apparent amity betweenthe rival queens, that Elizabeth thought proper to visit with tokens ofher displeasure the leaders in an attempt to establish the title of theSuffolk line, which still found adherents of some importance. 

John Hales, clerk of the hanaper, a learned and able man, and, like allwho espoused this party, a zealous protestant, had written, and secretlycirculated, a book in defence of the claims of the lady Catherine, andhe had also procured opinions of foreign lawyers in favor of thevalidity of her marriage. For one or both of these offences he wascommitted to the Fleet prison, and the secretary was soon aftercommanded to examine thoroughly into the business, and learn to whomHales had communicated his work. A more disagreeable task could scarcelyhave been imposed upon Cecil; for, besides that he must probably havebeen aware that his friend and brother-in-law sir Nicholas Bacon wasimplicated, it seems that he himself was not entirely free fromsuspicion of some participation in the affair. But he readilyacknowledged his duty to the queen to be a paramount obligation to allothers, and he wrote to a friend that he was determined to proceed withperfect impartiality. 

In conclusion, Hales was liberated after half a year's imprisonment. Bacon, the lord keeper, who appeared to have seen the book, and eitherto have approved it, or at least to have taken no measures for itssuppression or the punishment of its author, was not removed from hisoffice; but he was ordered to confine himself strictly to its duties, and to abstain henceforth from taking any part in political business. But by this prohibition Cecil affirmed that public business sufferedessentially, for Bacon had previously discharged with distinguishedability the functions of a minister of state; and he never desisted fromintercession with her majesty till he saw his friend fully reinstated inher favor. Lord John Grey of Pyrgo, uncle to lady Catherine, had been aprincipal agent in this business, and after several examinations bymembers of the privy-council, he was committed to a kind of honorablecustody, in which he appears to have remained till his death, which tookplace a few months afterwards. These punishments were slight comparedwith the customary severity of the age; and it has plausibly beenconjectured that the anger of Elizabeth on this occasion was ratherfeigned than real, and that although she thought proper openly to resentany attempt injurious to the title of the queen of Scots, she wassecretly not displeased to let this princess perceive that she muststill depend on her friendship for its authentic and unanimousrecognition. 

Her anger against the earl of Hertford for the steps taken by him inconfirmation of his marriage was certainly sincere, however unjust. Shewas provoked, perhaps alarmed, to find that he had been advised toappeal against the decision of her commissioners: on betterconsideration, however, he refrained from making this experiment; but bya process in the ecclesiastical courts, with which the queen could notor would not interfere, he finally succeeded in establishing thelegitimacy of his sons. 

Of the progresses of her majesty, during several years, nothingremarkable appears on record; they seem to have had no other object thanthe gratification of her love of popular applause, and her taste formagnificent entertainments which cost her nothing; and the trivialdetails of her reception at the different towns or mansions which shehonored with her presence, are equally barren of amusement andinstruction. But her visit to the university of Cambridge in the summerof 1564 presents too many characteristic traits to be passed over insilence. 

Her gracious intention of honoring this seat of learning with her royalpresence was no sooner disclosed to the secretary, who was chancellor ofthe university, than it was notified by him to the vice-chancellor, witha request that proper persons might be sent to receive his instructionson the subject. It appears to have been part of these instructions, thatthe university should prepare an extremely respectful letter to lordRobert Dudley, who was its high-steward, entreating him in such mannerto commend to her majesty their good intentions, and to excuse anytheir failure in the performance, that she might be inclined to receivein good part all their efforts for her entertainment. So notorious wasat this time the pre-eminent favor of this courtier with his sovereign, and so humble was the style of address to him required from a body sovenerable and so illustrious!

Cecil arrived at Cambridge the day before the queen to set all things inorder, and received from the university a customary offering of twopairs of gloves, two sugarloaves, and a marchpane. Lord Robert and theduke of Norfolk were complimented with the same gift, and finer glovesand more elaborate confectionary were presented to the queen herself. 

When she reached the door of King's college chapel, the chancellorkneeled down and bade her welcome; and the orator, kneeling on thechurch steps, made her an harangue of nearly half an hour. "First hepraised and commended many and singular virtues planted and set in hermajesty, which her highness not acknowledging of shaked her head, bither lips and her fingers, and sometimes broke forth into passion andthese words; 'Non est veritas, et utinam'--On his praising virginity, she said to the orator, 'God's blessing of thy heart, there continue. 'After that he showed what joy the university had of her presence" &c. "When he had done she commended him, and much marvelled that his memorydid so well serve him, repeating such diverse and sundry matters; sayingthat she would answer him again in Latin, but for fear she should speakfalse Latin, and then they would laugh at her. "

This concluded, she entered the chapel in great state; lady Strange, aprincess of the Suffolk line, bearing her train, and her ladiesfollowing in their degrees. _Te Deum_ was sung and the evening serviceperformed, with all the pomp that protestant worship admits, in thatmagnificent temple, of which she highly extolled the beauty. The nextmorning, which was Sunday, she went thither again to hear a Latin sermon_ad clerum_, and in the evening, the body of this solemn edifice beingconverted into a temporary theatre, she was there gratified with arepresentation of the Aulularia of Plautus. Offensive as such anapplication of a sacred building would be to modern feelings, itprobably shocked no one in an age when the practice of performingdramatic entertainments in churches, introduced with the mysteries andmoralities of the middle ages, was scarcely obsolete, and certainly notforgotten. Neither was the representation of plays on Sundays at thistime regarded as an indecorum. 

A public disputation in the morning and a Latin play on the story ofDido in the evening formed the entertainment of her majesty on the thirdday. On the fourth, an English play called Ezechias was performed beforeher. The next morning she visited the different colleges, --at each ofwhich a Latin oration awaited her and a parting present of gloves andconfectionary, besides a volume richly bound, containing the verses inEnglish, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Chaldee, composed by the members ofeach learned society in honor of her visit. 

Afterwards she repaired to St. Mary's church, where a very long and verylearned disputation by doctors in divinity was prepared for heramusement and edification. When it was ended, "the lords, and especiallythe duke of Norfolk and lord Robert Dudley, kneeling down, humblydesired her majesty to speak something to the university, and in Latin. Her highness at the first refused, saying, that if she might speak hermind in English, she would not stick at the matter. But understanding byMr. Secretary that nothing might be said openly to the university inEnglish, she required him the rather to speak; because he waschancellor, and the chancellor is the queen's mouth. Whereunto heanswered, that he was chancellor of the university, and not hers. Thenthe bishop of Ely kneeling said, that three words of her mouth wereenough. " By entreaties so urgent, she appeared to suffer herself to beprevailed upon to deliver a speech which had doubtless been prepared forthe occasion, and very probably by Cecil himself. This harangue is notworth transcribing at length: it contained some disqualifying phrasesrespecting her own proficiency in learning, and a pretty profession offeminine bashfulness in delivering an unstudied speech before so eruditean auditory:--her attachment to the cause of learning was then setforth, and a paragraph followed which may thus be translated: "I sawthis morning your sumptuous edifices founded by illustrious princes mypredecessors for the benefit of learning; but while I viewed them mymind was affected with sorrow, and I sighed like Alexander the Great, when having perused the records of the deeds of other princes, turningto his friends or counsellors, he lamented that any one should havepreceded him either in time or in actions. When I beheld your edifices, I grieved that I had done nothing in this kind. Yet did the vulgarproverb somewhat lessen, though it could not entirely remove myconcern;--that 'Rome was not built in a day. ' For my age is not yet sofar advanced, neither is it yet so long since I began to reign, but thatbefore I pay my debt to nature, --unless Atropos should prematurely cutmy thread, --I may still be able to execute some distinguishedundertaking: and never will I be diverted from the intention while lifeshall animate this frame. Should it however happen, as it may, I knownot how soon, that I should be overtaken by death before I have beenable to perform this my promise, I will not fail to leave some greatwork to be executed after my decease, by which my memory may be renderedfamous, others excited by my example, and all of you animated to greaterardor in your studies. "

After such a speech, it might naturally be inquired, which college didshe endow? But, alas! the prevailing disposition of Elizabeth was thereverse of liberal; and her revenues, it may be added, were narrow. During the whole course of her long reign, not a single conspicuous actof public munificence sheds its splendor on her name, and the pledgethus solemnly and publicly given, was never redeemed by her, living ordying. An annuity of twenty pounds bestowed, with the title of _herscholar_, on a pretty young man of the name of Preston, whose gracefulperformance in a public disputation and in the Latin play of Dido hadparticularly caught her fancy, appears to have been the only solidbenefit bestowed by her majesty in return for all the cost and all thelearned incense lavished on her reception by this loyal and splendiduniversity[53]. 

[Note 53: A seeming contradiction to the assertions in the text maybe discovered in the circumstance that Elizabeth is the nominalfoundress of Jesus College Oxford. But it was at the expense, as well asat the suggestion, of Dr. Price, a patriotic Welshman, that thisseminary of learning, designed for the reception of hisfellow-countrymen, was instituted. Her name, a charter of incorporationdated June 27th 1571, and some timber from her forests of Stow andShotover, were the only contributions of her majesty towards an objectso laudable, and of which the inadequate funds of the real founder longdelayed the accomplishment. ]

Soon after her return from her progress, the queen determined to gratifyher feelings by conferring on her beloved Dudley some signal testimoniesof her royal regard; and she invested him with the dignities of baron ofDenbigh and earl of Leicester, accompanying these honors with thesplendid gift of Kennelworth Castle, park and manor:--for in behalf ofDudley, and afterwards of Essex, she could even forget for a time herdarling virtue, --frugality. The chronicles of the time describe withextraordinary care and minuteness the whole pompous ceremonial of thiscreation; but a much more lively and interesting description of thisscene, as well as of several others of which he was an eye-witness inthe court of Elizabeth, has been handed down to us in the entertainingmemoirs of sir James Melvil; a Scotch gentleman noted among thepolitical agents, or diplomatists of second rank, whom that age ofintrigue brought forth so abundantly. 

A few particulars of the history of this person, curious in themselves, will also form a proper introduction to his narrative. 

Melvil was born in Fifeshire in the year 1530, of a family patronized bythe queen regent, Mary of Guise, who having taken into her own servicehis brothers Robert and Andrew, both afterwards noted in public life, determined to send James to France to be brought up as page to the queenher daughter, then dauphiness. He was accordingly placed under the careof the crafty Monluc bishop of Valence, then on his return from hisScotch embassy; and previously to his embarkation for the continent hehad the advantage of accompanying this master of intrigue on a secretmission to O'Neil, then the head of the Irish rebels. The youth wasapparently not much delighted with his visit to this barbarouschieftain, whose dwelling was "a great dark tower, where, " says he, "wehad cold cheer, such as herrings and biscuit, for it was Lent. " Arrivingat Paris, the bishop caused him to be carefully instructed in all therequisite accomplishments of a page, --the French tongue, dancing, fencing, and playing on the lute: and after nine years spent under hisprotection, Melvil passed into the service of the constable Montmorenci, by whose interest he obtained a pension from the king of France. Whilstin this situation, he was dispatched on a secret mission to Scotland, to learn the real designs of the prior of St. Andrews, and to informhimself of the state of parties in that country. 

In the year 1560 he obtained permission from his own sovereign totravel, and gained admission into the service of the elector palatine. This prince employed him in an embassy of condolence on the death ofFrancis II. Some time after his return he received a commission from thequeen of Scots to make himself personally acquainted with the archdukeCharles, who was proposed to her for a husband. 

This done, he made a tour in Italy, and then returned to the electorpalatine at Heidelberg. He was next employed by Maximilian king of theRomans to carry to France the portrait of one of his daughters, to whomproposals of marriage had been made on the part of Charles IX. At thiscourt Catherine dei Medici would gladly have detained him; but a summonsfrom his own queen determined him to repair again to Scotland. 

Duke Casimir, son of the elector palatine, having some time before madean offer of his hand to queen Elizabeth, to which a dubious answer hadbeen returned, requested Melvil, in passing through England, to conveyhis picture to that princess. The envoy, secretly despairing of thesuit, desired that he might also be furnished with portraits of theother members of the electoral family, and with some nominal commissionby means of which he might gain more easy access to the queen, andproduce the picture as if without design. He was accordingly instructedto press for a more explicit answer than had yet been given to theproposal of an alliance offensive and defensive between England and theprotestant princes of Germany; and thus prepared he reached London earlyin the year 1564. 

After some discourse with the queen on the ostensible object of hismission, Melvil found occasion to break forth into earnest commendationsof the elector, whose service nothing, he said, but this duty to his ownsovereign could have induced him to quit; and he added, that for theremembrance of so good a master, he had desired to carry home with himhis portrait, as well as those of all his sons and daughters. "So soonas she heard me mention the pictures, " continues he, "she enquired if Ihad the picture of duke Casimir, desiring to see it. And when I allegedthat I had left the pictures in London, she being then at Hampton Court, and that I was ready to go forward on my journey, she said I should notpart till she had seen the pictures. So the next day I delivered themall to her majesty, and she desired to keep them all night; and shecalled upon my lord Robert Dudley to be judge of duke Casimir's picture, and appointed me to meet her the next morning in her garden, where shecaused to deliver them all unto me, giving me thanks for the sight ofthem. I then offered unto her majesty all the pictures, so she wouldpermit me to retain the elector's and his lady's, but she would havenone of them. I had also sure information that first and last shedespised the said duke Casimir. "

It was a little before this time that Elizabeth had been consulted byMary on the proposal of the archduke, and had declared by Randolph herstrong disapprobation of it. 

She now told Melvil, with whom she conversed on this and other subjectsvery familiarly and with apparent openness, that she intended soon tomention as fit matches for his queen two noblemen, one or other of whomshe hoped to see her accept. These two, according to Melvil, were Dudleyand lord Darnley, eldest son of the earl of Lenox by the lady MargaretDouglas. It must however be remarked, that Melvil appears to be the onlywriter who asserts that the first suggestion of an union between Maryand Darnley came from the English queen, who afterwards so vehementlyopposed this step. But be this as it may, it is probable that Elizabethwas more sincere in her desire to impede the Austrian match than topromote any other for the queen of Scots; and with the former viewMelvil accuses her of throwing out hints by which the archduke wasencouraged to renew his suit to herself. Provoked, as he asserts, bythis duplicity, of which she soon received certain information, Maryreturned a sharp answer to a letter from her kinswoman of seeminglyfriendly advice, and hence had ensued a coldness and a cessation ofintercourse between them. But Mary, "fearing that if their discordcontinued it would cut off all correspondence between her and herfriends in England, " thought good, a few weeks after Melvil had returnedto Scotland, to dispatch him again towards London, "to deal with thequeen of England, with the Spanish ambassador, and with my ladyMargaret Douglas, and with sundry friends she had in England ofdifferent opinions. "

It was the interest of neither sovereign at this time to be on bad termswith the other; and their respective ministers and secretaries beingalso agreed among themselves to maintain harmony between the countries, the excuses and explanations of Melvil were allowed to pass current, andthe demonstrations of amity were resumed between the hostile queens. 

Some particulars of the reception of this envoy at the English court arecurious, and may probably be relied on. "Being arrived at London Ilodged near the court, which was at Westminster. My host immediatelygave advertisement of my coming, and that same night her majesty sentMr. Hatton, afterwards governor of the isle of Wight, to welcome me, andto show me that the next morning she would give me audience in hergarden at eight of the clock. " "The next morning Mr. Hatton and Mr. Randolph, late agent for the queen of England in Scotland, came to mylodging to convey me to her majesty, who was, as they said, already inthe garden. With them came a servant of my lord Robert's with a horseand foot-mantle of velvet, laced with gold, for me to ride upon. Whichservant, with the said horse, waited upon me all the time that Iremained there. "

At a subsequent interview, "the old friendship being renewed, Elizabethinquired if the queen had sent any answer to the proposition of marriagemade to her by Mr. Randolph. I answered, as I had been instructed, thatmy mistress thought little or nothing thereof, but attended the meetingof some commissioners upon the borders. . . To confer and treat upon allsuch matters of greatest importance, as should be judged to concern thequiet of both countries, and the satisfaction of both their majesties'minds. " Adding, "the queen my mistress is minded, as I have said, tosend for her part my lord of Murray, and the secretary Lidingtoun, andexpects your majesty will send my lord of Bedford and my lord RobertDudley. " She answered, "it appeared I made but small account of my lordRobert, seeing I named the earl of Bedford before him, but that erelongshe would make him a far greater earl, and that I should see it donebefore my returning home. For she esteemed him as her brother and bestfriend, whom she would have herself married had she ever minded to havetaken a husband. But being determined to end her life in virginity, shewished the queen her sister might marry him, as meetest of all otherwith whom she could find in her heart to declare her second person. Forbeing matched with him, it would remove out of her mind all fears andsuspicions, to be offended by any usurpation before her death. Beingassured that he was so loving and trusty that he would never suffer anysuch thing to be attempted during her time. And that the queen mymistress might have the higher esteem of him, I was required to staytill I should see him made earl of Leicester and baron of Denbigh; whichwas done at Westminster with great solemnity, the queen herself helpingto put on his ceremonial (mantle), he sitting upon his knees before herwith a great gravity. But she could not refrain from putting her handin his neck, smilingly tickling him, the French ambassador and Istanding by. Then she turned, asking at me how I liked him? I answered, that as he was a worthy servant, so he was happy, who had a princess whocould discern and reward good service. Yet, says she, you like better ofyonder long lad, pointing towards my lord Darnley, who, as nearestprince of the blood, did bear the sword of honor that day before her. "

"She appeared to be so affectionate to the queen her good sister, thatshe expressed a great desire to see her. And because their so much byher desired meeting could not so hastily be brought to pass, sheappeared with great delight to look upon her majesty's picture. She tookme to her bed-chamber, and opened a little cabinet, wherein were diverslittle pictures wrapped within paper, and their names written with herown hand upon the papers. Upon the first that she took up was written'My lord's picture. ' I held the candle, and pressed to see that pictureso named; she appeared loath to let me see it, yet my importunityprevailed for a sight thereof, and I found it to be the earl ofLeicester's picture. I desired that I might have it to carry home to myqueen, which she refused, alleging that she had but that one picture ofhis. I said, 'Your majesty hath here the original, for I perceived himat the furthest part of the chamber, speaking with secretary Cecil. 'Then she took out the queen's picture, and kissed it, and I adventuredto kiss her hand, for the great love evidenced therein to my mistress. She showed me also a fair ruby, as great as a tennis-ball; I desiredthat she would send either it, or my lord of Leicester's picture, as atoken to my queen. She said, that if the queen would follow her counsel, she would in process of time get all that she had; that in the meantimeshe was resolved in a token to send her with me a fair diamond. It wasat this time late after supper; she appointed me to be with her the nextmorning by eight of the clock, at which time she used to walk in hergarden. "

"She enquired of me many things relating to this kingdom (Scotland) andother countries wherein I had travelled. She caused me to dine with herdame of honor, my lady Strafford (an honorable and godly lady, who hadbeen at Geneva banished during the reign of queen Mary), that I might bealways near her, that she might confer with me. "

. . . "At divers meetings we had divers purposes. The queen my mistress hadinstructed me to leave matters of gravity sometimes, and cast in merrypurposes, lest otherwise she should be wearied; she being well informedof that queen's natural temper. Therefore in declaring my observationsof the customs of Dutchland, Poland, and Italy; the buskins of the womenwas not forgot, and what country weed I thought best becominggentlewomen. The queen said she had clothes of every sort, which everyday thereafter, so long as I was there, she changed. One day she had theEnglish weed, another the French, and another the Italian, and so forth. She asked me, which of them became her best? I answered, in myjudgement the Italian dress; which answer I found pleased her well, forshe delighted to show her golden coloured hair, wearing a caul andbonnet as they do in Italy. Her hair was rather reddish than yellow, curled in appearance naturally. 

"She desired to know of me what colour of hair was reputed best, andwhether my queen's hair or hers was best, and which of them two wasfairest? I answered, the fairness of them both was not their worstfaults. But she was earnest with me to declare which of them I judgedfairest? I said, she was the fairest queen in England, and mine inScotland. Yet she appeared earnest. I answered, they were both thefairest ladies in their countries; that her majesty was whiter, but myqueen was very lovely. She enquired, which of them was of higheststature? I said, my queen. Then, saith she, she is too high, for Imyself am neither too high nor too low. Then she asked, what exercisesshe used? I answered, that when I received my dispatch, the queen waslately come from the Highland hunting. That when her more seriousaffairs permitted, she was taken up with reading of histories: thatsometimes she recreated herself in playing upon the lute and virginals. She asked if she played well? I said reasonably, for a queen. "

"That same day after dinner, my lord of Hunsdon drew me up to a quietgallery that I might hear some music, but he said he durst not avow it, where I might hear the queen play upon the virginals. After I hadharkened awhile, I took by the tapestry that hung before the door of thechamber, and seeing her back was toward the door, I ventured within thechamber, and stood a pretty space hearing her play excellently well; butshe left off immediately, so soon as she turned about and saw me. Sheappeared to be surprised to see me, and came forward, seeming to strikeme with her hand, alleging that she used not to play before men, butwhen she was solitary, to shun melancholy. She asked how I came there? Ianswered, as I was walking with my lord of Hunsdon, as we passed by thechamber door, I heard such melody as ravished me, whereby I was drawn inere I knew how, excusing my fault of homeliness as being brought up inthe court of France, where such freedom was allowed; declaring myselfwilling to endure what kind of punishment her majesty should be pleasedto inflict upon me, for so great an offence. Then she sat down low upona cushion, and I upon my knees by her, but with her own hand she gave mea cushion to lay under my knee, which at first I refused, but shecompelled me to take it. She then called for my lady Strafford out ofthe next chamber, for the queen was alone. She enquired whether my queenor she played best? In that I found myself obliged to give her thepraise. She said my French was very good, and asked if I could speakItalian, which she spoke reasonably well. I told her majesty I had notime to learn the language, not having been above two months in Italy. Then she spake to me in Dutch, which was not good; and would know whatkind of books I most delighted in, whether theology, history, or lovematters? I said I liked well of all the sorts. Here I took occasion topress earnestly my dispatch: she said I was sooner weary of her companythan she was of mine. I told her majesty, that though I had no reason ofbeing weary, I knew my mistress her affairs called me home; yet I wasstayed two days longer, that I might see her dance, as I was afterwardinformed. Which being over, she enquired of me whether she or my queendanced best? I answered, the queen danced not so high or disposedly asshe did. Then again she wished that she might see the queen at someconvenient place of meeting. I offered to convey her secretly toScotland by post, cloathed like a page, that under this disguise shemight see the queen, as James V. Had gone in disguise with his ownambassador to see the duke of Vendome's sister, who should have been hiswife. Telling her that her chamber might be kept in her absence, asthough she were sick; that none need be privy thereto except ladyStrafford, and one of the grooms of her chamber. She appeared to likethat kind of language, only answered it with a sigh, saying, Alas, if Imight do it thus!"

Respecting Leicester, Melvil says, that he was conveyed by him in hisbarge from Hampton Court to London, and that, by the way, he inquired ofhim what the queen of Scots thought of him and of the marriage proposedby Randolph. "Whereunto, " says he, "I answered very coldly, as I hadbeen by my queen commanded. " Then he began to purge himself of so prouda pretence as to marry so great a queen, declaring that he did notesteem himself worthy to wipe her shoes, and that the invention of thatproposition of marriage proceeded from Mr. Cecil, his secret enemy:"For if I, " said he, "should have appeared desirous of that marriage, Ishould have offended both the queens, and lost their favor[54]. "

[Note 54: Melvil's "Memoirs, " _passim_. ]

If we are to receive as sincere this declaration of his sentiments byLeicester, --confessedly one of the deepest dissemblers of the age, --whata curious view does it afford of the windings and intricacies of thecharacter of Elizabeth, of the tissue of ingenious snares which shedelighted to weave around the foot-steps even of the man whom she mostfavored, loved, and trusted! Perhaps she encouraged, if she did notoriginally devise, this matrimonial project purely as a romantic trialof his attachment to herself, and pleased her fancy with the idea of hisrejecting for her a younger and a fairer queen;--perhaps she entertaineda transient thought of making him her own husband, and wished previouslyto give him consequence by this proposal;--perhaps she meant nothingmore than to perplex Mary by a variety of suitors, and thus delay hermarriage; an event which she could not anticipate without vexation. 

That she was not sincere in her recommendation of Leicester is certainfrom the circumstance, that when the queen of Scots, appearing toincline to a speedy conclusion of the business, pressed to know on whatconditions Elizabeth would give her approbation to the union, theearnestness in the cause which she had before displayed immediatelyabated. 

Her conduct with respect to Darnley is equally involved in perplexityand double-dealing. Melvil, as we have seen, asserts that it wasElizabeth herself who first mentioned him as a suitable match for thequeen of Scots: and if his relation be correct, which his partialitytowards his own sovereign makes indeed somewhat doubtful, the Englishprincess must have been well aware, when she conversed with him, of thefavor with which the addresses of this young nobleman were likely to bereceived, though the envoy says that he forbore openly to express thesentiments of his court on this topic. It was after Melvil's departurethat Elizabeth, not indeed without reluctance and hesitation, permittedDarnley to accompany the earl his father into Scotland, ostensibly forthe purpose of witnessing the reversal of the attainder formerly passedagainst him, and his solemn restoration in blood; but really, as shemust well have known, with the object of pushing his suit with thequeen. 

Mary no sooner beheld the handsome youth than she was seized with apassion for him, which she determined to gratify: but apprehensive, withreason, of the interference of Elizabeth, she disguised for the presenther inclinations, and engaged with a feigned earnestness in negotiationspreparatory to an union with Leicester. Meanwhile she was secretlysoliciting at Rome the necessary dispensation for marrying within theprohibited degrees of the church; and it was not till the arrival ofthis instrument was speedily expected, and all her other preparationswere complete, that, taking off the mask, she requested her goodsister's approbation of her approaching nuptials with lord Darnley. 

It is scarcely credible that a person of Elizabeth's sagacity, with hermeans of gaining intelligence and after all that had passed, could havebeen surprised by this notification of the intentions of the queen ofScots, and it is even problematical how far she was really displeased atthe occurrence. Except by imitating her perpetual celibacy, --acompliment to her envy and her example which could not in reason beexpected, --it might seem impossible for the queen of Scots better toconsult the views and wishes of her kinswoman than by uniting herself toDarnley;--a subject, and an English subject, a near relation both of herown and Elizabeth's, and a man on whom nature had bestowed not a singlequality calculated to render him either formidable or respectable. Thequeen of England, however, frowardly bent on opposing the match to theutmost, directed sir Nicholas Throgmorton, her ambassador, to set beforethe eyes of Mary a long array of objections and impediments; and he wasfurther authorized secretly to promise support to such of the Scottishnobles as would undertake to oppose it. She ordered, in the mostimperious terms, the earl of Lenox and his son to return immediatelyinto England; threw the countess of Lenox into the Tower by way ofintimidation; and caused her privy-council to exercise their ingenuityin discovering the manifold inconveniences and dangers likely to ariseto herself and to her country from the alliance of the queen of Scotswith a house so nearly connected with the English crown. 

Mary, however, persisted in accomplishing the union on which her mindwas set: Darnley and his father neglected Elizabeth's order of recall;and her privy-council vexed her by drawing from the melancholyforebodings which she had urged them to promulgate two unwelcomeinferences;--that the queen ought to lose no time in forming a connexionwhich might cut off the hopes of others by giving to the nationposterity of her own;--and that as the Lenox family were known papists, it would now be expedient to exercise against all of that persuasion theutmost severity of the penal laws. The earl of Murray and some othermalcontent lords in Scotland were the only persons who entered withwarmth and sincerity into the measures of Elizabeth against themarriage; for they alone had any personal interest in impeding theadvancement of the Lenox family. Rashly relying on the assurances whichthey had received of aid from England, they took up arms against theirsovereign; but finding no support from any quarter, they were sooncompelled to make their escape across the border and seek refuge withthe earl of Bedford, lord warden of the marches. On their arrival inLondon, the royal dissembler insisted on their declaring, in presence ofthe French and Spanish ambassadors, that their rebellious attempts hadreceived no encouragement from her; but after this open disavowal, shepermitted them to remain unmolested in her dominions, secretlysupplying them with money and interceding with their offended sovereignin their behalf. 

Melvil acquaints us that when sir Nicholas Throgmorton, on returningfrom his embassy, found that the promises which he had made to thesemalcontents had been disclaimed both by her majesty and by Randolph, he"stood in awe neither of queen nor council to declare the verity, thathe had made such promises in her name, whereof the councillors andcraftiest courtiers thought strange, and were resolving to punish himfor avowing the same promise to be made in his mistress' name, had nothe wisely and circumspectly obtained an act of council for his warrant, which he offered to produce. And the said sir Nicholas was so angry thathe had been made an instrument to deceive the said banished lords, thathe advised them to sue humbly for pardon at their own queen's hand, andto engage never again to offend her for satisfaction of any princealive. And because, as they were then stated, they had no interest, hepenned for them a persuasive letter and sent to her majesty. " On thisoccasion Throgmorton showed himself a warm friend to Mary's successionin England, and advised clemency to the banished lords as one mean tosecure it. Mary, highly esteeming him and convinced by his reasons, resolved to follow his counsels. 

Elizabeth never willingly remitted any thing of that rigor against thepuritans which she loved to believe it politic to exercise; but theywere fortunate enough to find an almost avowed patron in Leicester, andsecret favorers in several of her ministers and counsellors; and duringthe persecutions of the catholics which followed the marriage of Mary, she was compelled to press upon them with a less heavy hand. 

Archbishop Parker, who was proceeding with much self-satisfaction andsuccess in the task of silencing by the pains of suspension anddeprivation all scruples of conscience among the clergy respectinghabits and ceremonies, was now mortified to find his zeal restrained bythe interference of the queen herself, while the exulting puritansstudied to improve to the utmost the temporary connivance of the rulingpowers. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

1565 AND 1566. 

Renewal of the archduke's proposal. --Disappointment ofLeicester. --Anecdote concerning him. --Disgrace of the earl ofArundel. --Situation of the duke of Norfolk. --Leicester his secretenemy. --Notice of the earl of Sussex. --Proclamation respecting fencingschools. --Marriage of lady Mary Grey. --Sir H. Sidney deputy ofIreland. --Queen's letter to him. --Prince of Scotland born. --Melvil sentwith the news to Elizabeth. --His account of his reception. --Motion inthe house of commons for naming a successor. --Discord between the houseand the queen on this ground. --She refuses a subsidy--dissolvesparliament--visits Oxford. --Particulars of her reception. 

Whether or not it was with a view of impeding the marriage of the queenof Scots that Elizabeth had originally encouraged the renewal of theproposals of the archduke to herself, certain it is that the treaty wasstill carried on, and even with increased earnestness, long after thismotive had ceased to operate. 

It was subsequently to Mary's announcement of her approaching nuptials, that to the instances of the imperial ambassador Elizabeth had replied, that she desired to keep herself free till she had finally decidedon the answer to be given to the king of France, who had also offeredher his hand[55]. After breaking off this negotiation with Charles IX. , she declared to the same ambassador, that she would never engage tomarry a person whom she had not seen;--an answer which seemed to hint tothe archduke that a visit would be well received. It was accordinglyreported with confidence that this prince would soon commence hisjourney to England; and Cecil himself ventured to write to a friend, that if he would accede to the national religion, and if his personproved acceptable to her majesty, "except God should please to continuehis displeasure against us, we should see some success. " But he thoughtthat the archduke would never explain himself on religion to any oneexcept the queen, and not to her until he should see hopes of speeding. 

[Note 55: It is on the authority of Strype's "Annals" that thisoffer of Charles IX. To Elizabeth is recorded. Hume, Camden, Rapin, areall silent respecting it; but as it seems that Catherine dei Medici wasat the time desirous of the appearance of a closer connexion withElizabeth, it is not improbable that she might throw out some hint ofthis nature without any real wish of bringing about an union in allrespects so unsuitable. ]

The splendid dream of Leicester's ambition was dissipated for ever bythese negotiations; and a diminution of the queen's partiality towardshim, distinctly visible to the observant eyes of her courtiers, eitherpreceded or accompanied her entertaining so long, and with such an airof serious deliberation, the proposals of a foreign prince. The enemiesof Leicester, --a large and formidable party, comprehending almost allthe highest names among the nobility and the greater part of theministers, --openly and zealously espoused the interest of the archduke. Leicester at first with equal warmth and equal openness opposed hispretensions; but he was soon admonished by the frowns of his royalmistress, that if he would preserve or recover his influence, he mustnow be content to take a humbler tone, and disguise a disappointmentwhich there was arrogance in avowing. 

The disposition of Elizabeth partook so much more of the haughty thanthe tender, that the slightest appearances of presumption would alwaysprovoke her to take a pleasure in mortifying the most distinguished ofher favorites; and it might be no improbable guess, that almost thewhole of the encouragement given by her to the addresses of the archdukewas prompted by the desire of humbling the pride of Leicester, andshowing him that his ascendency over her was not so complete or sosecure as he imagined. 

A circumstance is related which we may conjecture to have occurred aboutthis time, and which sets in a strong light this part of the characterof Elizabeth. "Bowyer, a gentleman of the Black Rod, being charged byher express command to look precisely into all admissions into theprivy-chamber, one day stayed a very gay captain, and a follower of mylord of Leicester's, from entrance; for that he was neither well known, nor a sworn servant to the queen: at which repulse, the gentleman, bearing high on my lord's favor, told him, he might perchance procurehim a discharge. Leicester coming into the contestation, said publicly(which was none of his wont) that he was a knave, and should notcontinue long in his office; and so turning about to go in to the queen, Bowyer, who was a bold gentleman and well beloved, stepped before himand fell at her majesty's feet, related the story, and humbly craves hergrace's pleasure; and whether my lord of Leicester was king, or hermajesty queen? Whereunto she replied with her wonted oath, 'God's death, my lord, I have wished you well; but my favor is not so locked up foryou, that others shall not partake thereof; for I have many servants, towhom I have, and will at my pleasure, bequeath my favor, and likewiseresume the same: and if you think to rule here, I will take a course tosee you forthcoming. I will have here but one mistress, and no master;and look that no ill happen to him, lest it be required at your hands. 'Which words so quelled my lord of Leicester, that his feigned humilitywas long after one of his best virtues[56]. "

[Note 56: Naunton's "Fragmenta Regalia. "]

It might be some consolation to Leicester, under his own mortifications, to behold his ancient rival the earl of Arundel subjected to far severerones. This nobleman had resigned in disgust his office oflord-chamberlain; subsequently, the queen, on some ground of displeasurenow unknown, had commanded him to confine himself to his own house; andat the end of several months passed under this kind of restraint, shestill denied him for a further term the consolation and privilege ofapproaching her royal presence. Disgraces so public and so lastingdetermined him to throw up the desperate game on which he had hazardedso deep a stake: he obtained leave to travel, and hastened to conceal orforget in foreign lands the bitterness of his disappointment and theembarrassment of his circumstances. 

It is probable that from this time Elizabeth found no more serioussuitors amongst her courtiers, though they flattered her by continuing, almost to the end of her life, to address her in the language of love, or rather of gallantry. With all her coquetry, her head was clear, herpassions were cool; and men began to perceive that there was littlechance of prevailing with her to gratify her heart or her fancy at theexpense of that independence on which her lofty temper led her to set sohigh a value. Some were still uncharitable, unjust enough to believethat Leicester was, or had been, a fortunate lover; but few now expectedto see him her husband, and none found encouragement sufficient to renewthe experiment in which he had failed. Notwithstanding her short andcapricious fits of pride and anger, it was manifest that Leicester stillexercised over her mind an influence superior on the whole to that ofany other person; and the high distinction with which she continued totreat him, both in public and private, alarmed the jealousy and provokedthe hostility of all who thought themselves entitled by rank, byrelationship, or by merit, to a larger share of her esteem and favor, ora more intimate participation in her councils. 

One nobleman there was, who had peculiar pretensions to supersedeLeicester in his popular appellation of "Heart of the Court, " and onwhom he had already fixed in secret the watchful eye of a rival. Thiswas Thomas duke of Norfolk. Inheriting through several channels theblood of the Plantagenets, --nearly related to the queen by her maternalancestry, and connected by descent or alliance with the whole body ofthe ancient nobility; endeared also to the people by many shiningqualities, and still more by his unfeigned zeal for reformedreligion, --his grace stood first amongst the peers of England, not indegree alone or in wealth, but in power, in influence, and in publicestimation. 

He was in the prime of manhood and lately a widower; and when, in theparliament of 1566, certain members did not scruple to maintain that thequeen ought to be compelled to marry for the good of her country, theduke was named by some, as the earl of Pembroke was by others and theearl of Leicester by a third party, as the person whom she ought toaccept as a husband. It does not however appear that the duke himselfhad aspired, openly at least, to these august but unattainable nuptials. 

Elizabeth seems to have entertained for him at this period a realregard: he could be to her no object of distrust or danger, and theexample which she was ever careful to set of a scrupulous observance ofthe gradations of rank, led her on all occasions to prefer him to thepost of honor. Thus, after the peace with France in 1564, when CharlesIX. In return for the Garter, which the queen of England had sent him, offered to confer the order of St. Michael on two English nobles of herappointment, she named without hesitation the duke of Norfolk and theearl of Leicester. 

The arrogance of Dudley seldom escaped from the control of policy; andas he had the sagacity to perceive that the duke was a competitor overwhom treachery alone could render him finally triumphant, he cautiouslyavoided with him any open collision of interests, any offensive rivalryin matters of place and dignity. He even went further; he compelledhimself, by a feigned deference, to administer food to that exaggeratedself-consequence, --the cherished foible of the house of Howard ingeneral and of this duke in particular, --out of which he perhaps alreadyhoped that matter would arise to work his ruin. The chronicles of theyear 1565 give a striking instance of this part of his behaviour, in theinformation, that the duke of Norfolk, going to keep his Christmas inhis own county, was attended out of London by the earls of Leicester andWarwick, the lord-chamberlain and other lords and gentlemen, who broughthim on his journey, "doing him all the honor in their power. "

The duke was not gifted with any great degree of penetration, and thegenerosity of his disposition combined with his vanity to render himgenerally the dupe of outward homage and fair professions. He repaid theinsidious complaisance of Leicester with good will and even withconfidence; and it was not till all was lost that he appears to haverecognised this fatal and irreparable error. 

Thomas earl of Sussex was an antagonist of a different nature, --an enemyrather than a rival, --and one who sought the overthrow of Leicesterwith as much zeal and industry as Leicester himself sought his, or thatof the duke; but by means as open and courageous as those of hisopponent were ever secret, base, and cowardly. This nobleman, the thirdearl of the surname of Radcliffe, and son of him who had interfered witheffect to procure more humane and respectful treatment of Elizabethduring the period of her adversity, had been first known by the title oflord Fitzwalter, which he derived from a powerful line of barons wellknown in English history from the days of Henry I. By his mother, adaughter of Thomas second duke of Norfolk, he was first-cousin to queenAnne Boleyn; and friendship, still more than the ties of blood, closelyconnected him with the head of the Howards. Several circumstances renderit probable that he was not a zealous protestant, though it is no wherehinted that he was even secretly attached to the catholic party. Duringthe reign of Mary, his high character and approved loyalty had causedhim to be employed, first in an embassy to the emperor Charles V. Tosettle the queen's marriage-articles; and afterwards in the arduous postof lord-deputy of Ireland. Elizabeth continued him for some time in thissituation; but wishing to avail herself of his counsels and service athome, she recalled him in 1565, conferred upon him the high dignity oflord-chamberlain, vacant by the resignation of the earl of Arundel, andappointed as his successor in Ireland his excellent second in office sirHenry Sidney, who stood in the same relation, that of brother-in-law, toSussex and to Leicester, and whose singular merit and good fortune itwas to preserve to the end the esteem and friendship of both. 

The ostensible cause of quarrel between these two earls seems to havebeen their difference of opinion respecting the Austrian match; but thiswas rather the pretext than the motive of an animosity deeply rooted inthe natures and situation of each, and probably called into action byparticular provocations now unknown. The disposition of Sussex wascourageous and sincere; his spirit high, his judgement clear and strong, his whole character honorable and upright. In the arts of a courtier, which he despised, he was confessedly inferior to his wily adversary; inall the qualifications of a statesman and a soldier he vastly excelledhim. 

Sussex was endowed with penetration sufficient to detect, beneath thethick folds of hypocrisy and artifice in which he had involved them, themonstrous vices of Leicester's disposition; and he could not withoutindignation and disgust behold a princess whose blood he shared, whosecharacter he honored, and whose service he had himself embraced withpure devotion, the dupe of an impostor so despicable and so pernicious. That influence which he saw Leicester abuse to the dishonor of the queenand the detriment of the country, he undertook to overthrow by fair andpublic means, and, so far as appears, without motives of personalinterest or ambition:--thus far all was well, and for the effort, whether successful or not, he merited the public thanks. But theremingled in the bosom of the high-born Sussex an illiberal disdain ofthe origin of Dudley, with a just abhorrence of his character andconduct. 

He was wont to say of him, that two ancestors were all that he couldnumber, his father and grandfather; both traitors and enemies to theircountry. His sarcasms roused in Leicester an animosity which he did notattempt to disguise: with the exception of Cecil and his friends, whostood neuter, the whole court divided into factions upon the quarrel ofthese two powerful peers; and to such extremity were matters carried, that for some time neither of them would stir abroad without a numeroustrain armed, according to the fashion of the day, with daggers andspiked bucklers. 

Scarcely could the queen herself restrain these "angry opposites" frombreaking out into acts of violence: at length however, summoning themboth into her presence, she forced them to a reconciliation neither morenor less sincere than such pacifications by authority have usuallyproved. 

The open and unmeasured enmity of Sussex seems to have been productivein the end of more injury to his own friends than to Leicester. Thestorm under which the favorite had bowed for an instant was quicklyoverpast, and he once more reared his head erect and lofty as before. Torevenge himself by the ruin or disgrace of Sussex was however beyond hispower: the well-founded confidence of Elizabeth in his abilities and hisattachment to her person, he found to be immovable; but against hisfriends and adherents, against the duke of Norfolk himself, hismalignant arts succeeded but too well; and it seems not improbable thatLeicester, for the purpose of carrying on without molestation hispractices against them, concurred in procuring for his adversary anhonorable exile in the shape of an embassy to the imperial court, onwhich he departed in the year 1567. 

After his return from this mission the queen named the earl of Sussexlord-president of the North, an appointment which equally removed himfrom the immediate theatre of court intrigue. Not long after, the handof death put a final close to his honorable career, and to an enmitydestined to know no other termination. As he lay upon his death-bed, this eminent person is recorded to have thus addressed his surroundingfriends: "I am now passing into another world, and must leave you toyour fortunes and to the queen's grace and goodness; but beware of the_Gipsy_ (meaning Leicester), for he will be too hard for you all; youknow not the beast so well as I do[57]. "

[Note 57: Naunton's "Fragmenta Regalia. "]

This earl left no children, and his widow became the munificentfoundress of Sidney Sussex college, Cambridge. Of his negotiations withthe court of Vienna respecting the royal marriage which he had so muchat heart, particulars will be given in due time; but the miscellaneoustransactions of two or three preceding years claim a priority ofnarration. 

By a proclamation of February 1566, the queen revived some formersumptuary laws respecting apparel; chiefly, it should appear, from anapprehension that a dangerous confusion of ranks would be theconsequence of indulging to her subjects the liberty of privatejudgement in a matter so important. The following clause concerningfencing schools is appended to this instrument. 

"Because it is daily seen what disorders do grow and are likely toincrease in the realm, by the increase of numbers of persons taking uponthem to teach the multitude of common people to play at all kind ofweapons; and for that purpose set up schools called schools of fence, inplaces inconvenient; tending to the great disorder of such people asproperly ought to apply to their labours and handy works: Therefore hermajesty ordereth and commandeth, that no teacher of fence shall keep anyschool or common place of resort in any place of the realm, but withinthe liberties of some city of the realm. Where also they shall beobedient to such orders as the governors of the cities shall appoint tothem, for the better keeping of the peace, and for prohibition of resortof such people to the same schools as are not mete for that purpose. "&c. 

On these restrictions, which would seem to imply an unworthy jealousy ofputting arms and the skill to use them into the hands of the commonpeople, it is equitable to remark, that the custom of constantly wearingweapons, at this time almost universal, though prohibited by the laws ofsome of our early kings, had been found productive of those frequentacts of violence and outrage which have uniformly resulted from thistruly barbarous practice in all the countries where it has been sufferedto prevail. 

From the description of England prefixed to Holinshed's Chronicles, welearn several particulars on this subject. Few men, even of the gravestand most pacific characters, such as ancient burgesses and citymagistrates, went without a dagger at their side or back. The nobilitycommonly wore swords or rapiers as well as daggers, as did every commonserving-man following his master. Some "desperate cutters" carried twodaggers, or two rapiers in a sheath, always about them, with which inevery drunken fray they worked much mischief; their swords and daggersalso were of an extraordinary length (an abuse which was providedagainst by a clause of the proclamation above quoted); some "suspiciousfellows" also would carry on the highways staves of twelve or thirteenfeet long, with pikes of twelve inches at the end, wherefore the honesttraveller was compelled to ride with a case of _dags_ (pistols) at hissaddle-bow, and none travelled without sword, or dagger, or hanger. 

About this time occurred what a contemporary reporter called "an unhappychance and monstrous;" the marriage of lady Mary Grey to theserjeant-porter: a circumstance thus recorded by Fuller, with hisaccustomed quaintness. "Mary Grey. . . Frighted with the infelicity of hertwo elder sisters, Jane and this Catherine, forgot her honor to rememberher safety, and married one whom she could love and none need fear, Martin Kays, of Kent esquire, who was a judge at court, (but only ofdoubtful casts at dice, being serjeant-porter, ) and died without issuethe 20th of April 1578[58]. "

[Note 58: "Worthies in Leicestershire. "]

The queen, according to her usual practice in similar cases, sent bothhusband and wife to prison. What became further of the husband I do notfind; but respecting the wife, sir Thomas Gresham the eminent merchant, in a letter to lord Burleigh dated in April 1572, mentions, that thelady Mary Grey had been kept in his house nearly three years, and begsof his lordship that he will make interest for her removal. Thus itshould appear that this unfortunate lady did not sufficiently "rememberher safety" in forming this connexion, obscure and humble as it was; forall matrimony had now become offensive to the austerity or the secretenvy of the maiden queen. 

Sir Henry Sidney, on arriving to take the government of Ireland, foundthat unhappy country in a state of more than ordinary turbulence, distraction, and misery. Petty insurrections of perpetual recurrenceharassed the English pale; and the native chieftains, disdaining toaccept the laws of a foreign sovereign as the umpire of their disputes, were waging innumerable private wars, which at once impoverished, afflicted, and barbarized their country. The most important of thesefeuds was one between the earls of Ormond and Desmond, which sodisquieted the queen that, in addition to all official instructions, shedeemed it necessary to address her deputy on the subject in a privateletter written with her own hand. This document, printed in the Sidneypapers, is too valuable, as a specimen of her extraordinary style andher manner of thinking, to be omitted. It is without date, but must havebeen written in 1565. 

 * * * * *

"Letter of Queen Elizabeth to Sir Henry Sidney, on the Quarrel betweenThomas Earl of Ormond and the Earl of Desmond, _anno_ 1565. 

"HARRY, "If our partial slender managing of the contentious quarrel between thetwo Irish earls did not make the way to cause these lines to pass myhand, this gibberish should hardly have cumbered your eyes; but warnedby my former fault, and dreading worser hap to come, I rede you takegood heed that the good subjects lost state be so revenged that I hearnot the rest be won to a right bye way to breed more traitor's stocks, and so the goal is gone. Make some difference between tried, just, andfalse friend. Let the good service of well-deservers be never rewardedwith loss. Let their thank be such as may encourage no strivers for thelike. Suffer not that Desmond's denying deeds, far wide from promisedworks, make you to trust to other pledge than either himself or John forgage: he hath so well performed his English vows, that I warn you trusthim no longer than you see one of them. Prometheus let me be, _Epimetheus_[59] hath been mine too long. I pray God your old strangesheep late (as you say) returned into the fold, wore not her woolygarment upon her wolvy back. You know a kingdom knows no kindred, _siviolandum jus regnandi causa_. A strength to harm is perilous in thehand of an ambitious head. Where might is mixed with wit, there is toogood an accord in a government. Essays be oft dangerous, specially whenthe cup-bearer hath received such a preservative as, what might so everbetide the drinker's draught, the carrier takes no bane thereby. 

[Note 59: In the original, "and Prometheus, " but evidently by a mereslip of the pen. ]

"Believe not, though they swear, that they can be full sound, whoseparents sought the rule that they full fain would have. I warrant youthey will never be accused of bastardy; you were to blame to lay it totheir charge, they will trace the steps that others have passed before. If I had not espied, though very late, legerdemain, used in these cases, I had never played my part. No, if I did not see the balances held awry, I had never myself come into the weigh house. I hope I shall have sogood a customer of you, that all other officers shall do their dutyamong you. If aught have been amiss at home, I will patch though Icannot whole it. Let us not, nor no more do you, consult so long as tilladvice come too late to the givers: where then shall we wish the deedswhile all was spent in words; a fool too late bewares when all the perilis past. If we still advise, we shall never do, thus are we stillknitting a knot never tied; yea, and if our _web_[60] be framed withrotten hurdles, when our _loom_ is welny done, our work is new tobegin. God send the weaver true prentices again, and let them bedenizens I pray you if they be not citizens; and such too as yourancientest aldermen, that have or now dwell in your official place, havehad best cause to commend their good behaviour. 

[Note 60: The words _web_ and _loom_ in this sentence oughtcertainly to be transposed. ]

"Let this memorial be only committed to Vulcan's base keeping, withoutany longer abode than the reading thereof, yea, and with no mention madethereof to any other wight. I charge you as I may command you. Seem notto have had but secretary's letter from me. 

"Your loving mistress

"ELIZABETH R. "

 * * * * *

In the month of June 1566, the queen of Scots was delivered of a son. James Melvil was immediately dispatched with the happy intelligence toher good sister of England: and he has fortunately left us a narrativeof this mission, which equals in vivacity the relation of his formervisit. "By twelve of the clock I took horse, and was that night atBerwick. The fourth day after, I was at London, and did first meet withmy brother sir Robert (then ambassador to England), who that same nightsent and advertised secretary Cecil of my arrival, and of the birth ofthe prince, desiring him to keep it quiet till my coming to court toshow it myself unto her majesty, who was for the time at Greenwich, where her majesty was in great mirth, dancing after supper. But so soonas the secretary Cecil whispered in her ear the news of the prince'sbirth, all her mirth was laid aside for that night. All presentmarvelling whence proceeded such a change; for the queen did sit down, putting her hand under her cheek, bursting out to some of her ladies, that the queen of Scots was mother of a fair son, while she was but abarren stock. 

"The next morning was appointed for me to get audience, at what time mybrother and I went by water to Greenwich, and were met by some friendswho told us how sorrowful her majesty was at my news, but that she hadbeen advised to show a glad and cheerful countenance; which she did inher best apparel, saying, that the joyful news of the queen her sister'sdelivery of a fair son, which I had sent her by secretary Cecil, hadrecovered her out of a heavy sickness which she had lain under forfifteen days. Therefore she welcomed me with a merry volt, and thankedme for the diligence I had used in hasting to give her that welcomeintelligence. " &c. "The next day her majesty sent unto me her letter, with the present of a fair chain. "

Resolved to perform with a good grace the part which she had assumed, Elizabeth accepted with alacrity the office of sponsor to the prince ofScotland, sending thither as her proxies the earl of Bedford, Mr. Careyson of lord Hunsdon, and other knights and gentlemen; who met with socordial a reception from Mary, --now at open variance with her husband, and therefore desirous of support from England, --as to provoke thejealousy of the French ambassadors. The present of the royal godmotherwas a font of pure gold worth above one thousand pounds; in return forwhich, rings, rich chains of diamond and pearl, and other jewels wereliberally bestowed upon her substitutes. 

The birth of her son lent a vast accession of strength to the party ofthe queen of Scots in England; and Melvil was commissioned to conveyback to her from several of the principal personages of the court, warmprofessions of an attachment to her person and interests, which thejealousy of their mistress compelled them to dissemble. Elizabeth, onher part, was more than ever disturbed by suspicions on this head, whichwere kept in constant activity by the secret informations of the armiesof spies whom it was her self-tormenting policy to set over the wordsand actions of the Scottish queen and her English partisans. The moreshe learned of the influence privately acquired by Mary amongst hersubjects, the more, of course, she feared and hated her, and thestronger became her determination never to give her additionalconsequence by an open recognition of her right of succession. At thesame time she was fully sensible that no other person could be thoughtof as the inheritrix of her crown; and she resolved, perhaps wisely, tomaintain on this subject an inflexible silence: this policy, however, connected with her perseverance in a state of celibacy, began to awakenin her people an anxiety respecting their future destinies, which, beingartfully fomented by Scottish emissaries, produced, in 1566, the firstsymptoms of discord between the queen and her faithful commons. 

A motion was made in the lower house for reviving the suit to hermajesty touching the naming of a successor in case of her death withoutposterity; and in spite of the strenuous opposition of the court party, and the efforts of the ministers to procure a delay by declaring "thatthe queen was moved to marriage and inclined to prosecute the same, " itwas carried, and a committee appointed to confer with the lords. Thebusiness was not very agreeable to the upper house: a committee howeverwas named, and the queen soon after required some members of both housesto wait upon her respecting this matter; when the lord-keeper explainedtheir sentiments in a long speech, to which her majesty was pleased toreply after her darkest and most ambiguous manner. "As to her marriage, "she said, "a silent thought might serve. She thought it had been sodesired that none other trees blossom should have been minded or everany hope of fruit had been denied them. But that if any doubted that shewas by vow or determination never bent to trade in that kind of life, she bade them put out that kind of heresy, for their belief was thereinawry. And though she could think it best for a private woman, yet shestrove with herself to think it not meet for a prince. As to thesuccession, she bade them not think that they had needed this desire, ifshe had seen a time so fit; and it so ripe to be denounced. That thegreatness of the cause, and the need of their return, made her say thata short time for so long a continuance ought not to pass by rote. Thatas cause by conference with the learned should show her matter worthutterance for their behoof, so she would more gladly pursue their goodafter her days, than with all her prayers while she lived be a means tolinger out her living thread. That for their comfort, she had goodrecord in that place that other means than they mentioned had beenthought of perchance for their good, as much as for her own surety:which, if they could have been presently or conveniently executed, ithad not been now deferred or over-slipped. That she hoped to die inquiet with _Nunc dimittis_, which could not be without she saw someglimpse of their following surety after her graved bones. "

These vague sentences tended little to the satisfaction of the house;and a motion was made, and strongly supported by the speeches of severalmembers, for reiteration of the suit. At this her majesty was soincensed, that she communicated by sir Francis Knowles her positivecommand to the house to proceed no further in this business, satisfyingthemselves with the promise of marriage which she had made on the wordof a prince. But that truly independent member Paul Wentworth could notbe brought to acquiesce with tameness in this prohibition, and he movedthe house on the question, whether the late command of her majesty wasnot a breach of its privileges? The queen hereupon issued an injunctionthat there should be no debates on this point; but the spirit ofresistance rose so high in the house of commons against this herarbitrary interference, that she found it expedient, a few days after, to rescind both orders, making a great favor however of her compliance, and insisting on the condition, that the subject should not at this timebe further pursued. 

In her speech on adjourning parliament she did not omit to acquaint bothhouses with her extreme displeasure at their interference touching thenaming of a successor; a matter which she always chose to regard asbelonging exclusively to her prerogative;--and she ended by tellingthem, "that though perhaps they might have after her one better learnedor wiser, yet she assured them none more careful over them. Andtherefore henceforth she bade them beware how they proved their prince'spatience as they had now done hers. And notwithstanding, not meaning, she said, to make a Lent of Christmas, the most part of them mightassure themselves that they departed in their prince's grace[61]. "

[Note 61: Strype's "Annals. "]

She utterly refused an extraordinary subsidy which the commons hadoffered on condition of her naming her successor, and even of theordinary supplies which she accepted, she remitted a fourth, popularlyobserving, that it was as well for her to have money in the coffers ofher subjects as in her own. By such an alternation of menaces andflatteries did Elizabeth contrive to preserve her ascendency over thehearts and minds of her people!

The earl of Leicester had lately been elected chancellor of theuniversity of Oxford, and in the autumn of 1566 the queen consented tohonor with her presence this seat of learning, long ambitious of such adistinction. She was received with the same ceremonies as at Cambridge:learned exhibitions of the same nature awaited her; and she made asimilar parade of her bashfulness, and a still greater of her erudition;addressing this university not in Latin, but in Greek. 

Of the dramatic exhibitions prepared for her recreation, an elegantwriter has recorded the following particulars[62]. "In the magnificenthall of Christ-church, she was entertained with a Latin comedy calledMarcus Geminus, the Latin tragedy of Progne, and an English comedy onthe story of Palamon and Arcite, (by Richard Edwards gentleman of thequeen's chapel, and master of the choristers, ) all acted by the studentsof the university. When the last play was over, the queen summoned thepoet into her presence, whom she loaded with thanks and compliments: andat the same time, turning to her levee, remarked, that Palamon was sojustly drawn as a lover, that he must have been in love indeed; thatArcite was a right martial knight, having a swart and manly countenance, yet with the aspect of a Venus clad in armour: that the lovely Emiliawas a virgin of uncorrupted purity and unblemished simplicity; and thatthough she sung so sweetly, and gathered flowers alone in the garden, she preserved her chastity undeflowered. The part of Emilia, the onlyfemale part in the play, was acted by a boy of fourteen, whoseperformance so captivated her majesty, that she made him a present ofeight guineas[63]. During the exhibition, a cry of hounds belonging toTheseus was counterfeited without in the great square of the college;the young students thought it a real chase, and were seized with asudden transport to join the hunters: at which the queen cried out fromher box, "O excellent! these boys, in very troth, are ready to leap outof the windows to follow the hounds!"

[Note 62: Warton's "History of English Poetry. "]

[Note 63: Mr. Warton apparently forgets that _guineas_ were firstcoined by Charles II. ]

Dr. Lawrence Humphreys, who had lately been distinguished by hisstrenuous opposition to the injunctions of the queen and archbishopParker respecting the habits and ceremonies, was at this timevice-chancellor of Oxford; and when he came forth in procession to meetthe queen, she could not forbear saying with a smile, as she gave himher hand to kiss--"That loose gown, Mr. Doctor, becomes you mighty well;I wonder your notions should be so narrow. "

CHAPTER XV. 

1567 AND 1568. 

Terms on which Elizabeth offers to acknowledge Mary as hersuccessor, --rejected by the Scots. --Death of Darnley. --Conduct ofElizabeth towards his mother. --Letter of Cecil. --Letter of Elizabeth toMary. --Mary marries Bothwell--is defeated at Langside--committed to LochLeven castle. --Interference of Elizabeth in her behalf. --Earl of Sussexambassador to Vienna. --Letters from him to Elizabeth respecting thearchduke. --Causes of the failure of the marriage treaty with thisprince. --Notice of lord Buckhurst. --Visit of the queen to Fotheringaycastle. --Mary escapes from prison--raises an army--is defeated--fliesinto England. --Conduct of Elizabeth. --Mary submits her cause toher--is detained prisoner. --Russian embassy. --Chancellor's voyageto Archangel. --Trade opened with Russia. --Treaty with theCzar. --Negotiations between Elizabeth and the French court. --Marriageproposed with the duke of Anjou. --Privy-council hostile toFrance. --Queen on bad terms with Spain. 

Notwithstanding the uniform success and general applause which hadhitherto crowned her administration, at no point perhaps of her wholereign was the path of Elizabeth more beset with perplexities anddifficulties than at the commencement of the year 1567. 

The prevalence of the Scottish faction had compelled her to give apledge to her parliament respecting matrimony, which must either beredeemed by the sacrifice of her darling independence, or forfeitedwith the loss of her credit and popularity. Her favoritestate-mystery, --the choice of a successor, --had also been invaded byrude and daring hands; and to such extremity was she reduced on thispoint, that she had found it necessary to empower the commissioners whomshe sent into Scotland for the baptism of the prince, distinctly topropound the following offer. That on a simple ratification by Mary ofonly so much of the treaty of Edinburgh as engaged her to advance noclaim upon the English crown during the lifetime of Elizabeth or anyposterity of hers, a solemn recognition of her right of successionshould be made by the queen and parliament of England. 

The Scottish ministry, instead of closing instantly with so advantageousa proposal, were imprudent enough to insist upon a previous examinationof the will of Henry VIII. , which they fondly believed that they couldshow to be a forgery: and the delay which the refusal of Elizabethoccasioned, gave time for the interposition of circumstances whichruined for ever the character and authority of Mary, and rescued hersister-queen from this dilemma. 

On February the 9th 1567, lord Darnley, then called king of Scots, perished by a violent and mysterious death. Bothwell, the queen's newfavorite, was universally accused of the murder; and the open discordwhich had subsisted, even before the assassination of Rizzio, betweenthe royal pair, gave strong ground of suspicion that Mary herself was aparticipator in the crime. 

Elizabeth behaved on this tragical occurrence with the utmost decorumand moderation; she expressed no opinion hostile to the fame of thequeen of Scots, and took no immediate measures of a public naturerespecting it. It can scarcely be doubted however, that, in common withall Europe, she secretly believed in the guilt of Mary; and even thoughat the bottom of her heart she may have desired rather to see hercondemned than acquitted in the general verdict, such a feeling oughtnot, under all the circumstances, to be imputed to her as indicative ofany extraordinary malignity of disposition. To announce to the countessof Lenox, still her prisoner, the frightful catastrophe which had closedthe history of her rash misguided son, was the first step taken byElizabeth: it was a proper, and even an indispensable one; but therespectful and considerate manner of the communication, contrasted withformer harsh treatment, might be designed to intimate to the house ofLenox that it should now find in her a protectress, and perhaps anavenger. 

We possess a letter addressed by Cecil to sir Henry Norris ambassador inFrance, in which are found some particulars on this subject, oddlyprefaced by a commission on which it is amusing to a modern reader tocontemplate a prime minister at such a time, and with so much gravity, engaged. But the division of labor in public offices seems to have beenin this age very imperfect: Elizabeth employed her secretary of state toprocure her a mantua-maker; James I. Occupied his in transcribingsonnets of his own composition. 

 * * * * *

"Sir William Cecil to sir Henry Norris. February 20th 1566-7. 

". . . The queen's majesty would fain have a taylor that had skill to makeher apparel both after the French and Italian manner; and she thinkeththat you might use some means to obtain some one such there as serveththat queen, without mentioning any manner of request in the queen'smajesty's name. First, to cause my lady your wife to use some such meansto get one as thereof knowledge might not come to the queen mother'sears, of whom the queen's majesty thinketh thus: That if she didunderstand it were a matter wherein her majesty might be pleasured, shewould offer to send one to the queen's majesty. Nevertheless, if itcannot be so obtained by this indirect means, then her majesty wouldhave you devise some other good means to obtain one that were skilful. 

"I have stayed your son from going hence now these two days, upon thequeen's commandment, for that she would have him to have as much of thetruth of the circumstances of the murder of the king of Scots as mightbe; and hitherto the same is hard to come by, other than in agenerality. . . . The queen's majesty sent yesterday my lady Howard and mywife to the lady Lenox to the Tower, to open this matter unto her, whocould not by any means be kept from such passions of mind as thehorribleness of the fact did require. And this last night were with herthe said lady, the dean of Westminster, and Dr. Huick, and I hope hermajesty will show some favorable compassion of the said lady, whom anyhumane nature must needs pity[64]. "

[Note 64: "Scrinia Ceciliana. "]

 * * * * *

The liberation of the countess followed; and the earl her husband soonafter gratified Elizabeth's desire to interfere, by invoking herassistance to procure, by representations to Mary, some extension of theunusually short time within which he was required to bring forward hisproofs against Bothwell, whom he had accused of the assassination of hisson. 

This petition produced a very earnest letter from one queen to theother; in which Elizabeth plainly represented to her royal sister, thatthe refusal of such a request to the father of her husband would bringher into greater suspicion than, as she hoped, she was aware, or wouldbe willing to hear; adding, "For the love of God, madam, use suchsincerity and prudence in this case, which touches you so nearly, thatall the world may have reason to judge you innocent of so enormous acrime; a thing which unless you do, you will be worthily blotted outfrom the rank of princesses, and rendered, not undeservedly, theopprobrium of the vulgar; rather than which fate should befal you, Ishould wish you an honorable sepulture instead of a stained life[65]. "

[Note 65: See the French original in Robertson's "Hist. OfScotland, " vol. Iii. Append. Xix. ]

But to these and all other representations which could be made to her, this criminal and infatuated woman replied by marrying Bothwell threemonths after the death of her husband. She now attempted by the mostartful sophistries to justify her conduct to the courts of France andEngland: but vain was the endeavour to excuse or explain away factswhich the common sense and common feelings of mankind told them couldadmit of neither explanation nor apology. The nobles conspired, thepeople rose in arms against her; and within a single month after herill-omened nuptials, she saw her guilty partner compelled to tearhimself from her arms and seek his safety in flight, and herself reducedto surrender her person into the power of her rebellious subjects. 

The battle of Langside put all the power of the country into the handsof the insurgent nobles; but they were much divided in opinion as to theuse to be made of their victory. Some wished to restore Mary to regalauthority under certain limitations;--others wanted to depose her andproclaim her infant son in her place;--some proposed to detain her inperpetual imprisonment;--others threatened to bring her to trial andcapital punishment as an accessary to the death of the king. Meantimeshe was detained a prisoner in Loch Leven castle, subjected to variousindignities, and a prey to the most frightful apprehensions. But therewas an eye which watched over her for her safety; and it was that ofElizabeth. 

Fears and rivalries, ancient offences and recent provocations, --all theimprudence which she had censured, and all the guilt which she hadimputed, vanished from the thought of this princess the moment that shebeheld a woman, a kinswoman, and, what was much more, a sister-queen, reduced to this extremity of distress, and exposed to the menaces andinsults of her own subjects. For a short time the cause of Mary seemedto her as her own; she interposed in her behalf in a tone of suchimperative earnestness, that the Scotch nobles, who feared her power andsought her friendship, did not dare to withstand her; and in allprobability Mary at this juncture owed no less than her life to the goodoffices of her who was destined finally to bring her, with moreinjustice and after many years of sorrow, to an ignominious death. 

It was not however within the power, if indeed it were the wish, ofElizabeth to restore the queen of Scots to the enjoyment either ofauthority or of freedom. All Scotland seemed at this period unitedagainst her; she was compelled to sign a deed of abdication in favor ofher son, who was crowned king in July 1567. The earl of Murray wasdeclared regent: and a parliament assembled about the close of the yearconfirmed all these acts of the confederate lords, and sanctioned thedetention of the deposed queen in a captivity of which none could thenforesee the termination. Elizabeth ordered her ambassador to abstainfrom countenancing by his presence the coronation of the king of Scots, and she continued to negotiate for the restoration of Mary: but herministers strongly represented to her the danger of driving the lords, by a further display of her indignation at their proceedings, into aconfederacy with France; and Throgmorton, her ambassador in Scotland, urged her to treat with them to deliver their young king into herhands, in order to his being educated in England. 

Some proposal of this nature she accordingly made: but the lords, whomformer experience had rendered suspicious of her dealings, absolutelyrefused to give up their prince without the pledge of a recognition ofhis right of succession to the English throne; and Elizabeth, reluctantas ever to come to a declaration on this point, reluctant also to desertentirely the interests of Mary, with whose remaining adherents she stillmaintained a secret intercourse, seems to have abstained for some timefrom any very active interference in the perplexed affairs of theneighbour kingdom. 

The recent occurrences in Scotland had procured Elizabeth some respitefrom the importunities of her subjects relative to the succession; butit was not the less necessary for her to take some steps in discharge ofher promise respecting marriage. Accordingly the earl of Sussex, in thiscause a negotiator no less zealous than able, was dispatched in solemnembassy to Vienna, to congratulate the emperor Maximilian on hiscoronation, and at the same time to treat with his brother the archdukeCharles respecting his long agitated marriage with the queen. Twoobstacles were to be surmounted, --the attachment of the archduke to thecatholic faith, and the repugnance of Elizabeth to enter intoengagements with a prince whose person was unknown to her. Both areattempted to be obviated in two extant letters from the ambassador tothe queen, which at the same time so well display the manly spirit ofthe writer, and present details so interesting, that it would be aninjury to give their more important passages in other language than hisown. 

In the first (dated Vienna, October 1567, ) the earl of Sussex acquaintsher majesty with the arrival of the archduke in that city, and hisadmission to a first audience, which was one of ceremony only; afterwhich he thus proceeds:--

"On Michaelmas day in the afternoon, the emperor rode in his coach tosee the archduke run at the ring; who commanded me to run at his side, and my lord North, Mr. Cobham, and Mr. Powel on the other side: Andafter the running was done, he rode on a courser of Naples: and surelyhis highness, in the order of his running, the managing of his horse andthe manner of his seat, governed himself exceedingly well, and so as, inmy judgement, it was not to be amended. Since which time I have haddiverse conferences with the emperor, and with his highness apart, aswell in times of appointed audience as in several huntings; wherein Ihave viewed, observed, and considered of his person and qualities asmuch as by any means I might; and have also by good diligence enquiredof his state; and so have thought fit to advertise your majesty what Iconceive of myself, or understand by others, which I trust your majestyshall find to be true in all respects. 

"His highness is of a person higher surely a good deal than my lordmarquis; his hair and beard of a light auburn; his face wellproportioned, amiable, and of a good complexion, without show ofredness, or over paleness; his countenance and speech cheerful, verycourteous, and not without some state; his body well shaped, withoutdeformity or blemish: his hands very good and fair; his legs clean, wellproportioned, and of sufficient bigness for his stature; his foot asgood as may be. 

"So as, upon my duty to your majesty, I find not one deformity, mis-shape, or any thing to be noted worthy disliking in his wholeperson; but contrariwise, I find his whole shape to be good, worthycommendation and liking in all respects, and such as is rarely to befound in such a prince. 

"His highness, besides his natural language of Dutch, speaketh very wellSpanish and Italian, and, as I hear, Latin. His dealings with me be verywise; his conversation such as much contenteth me; and, as I hear, nonereturneth discontented from his company. He is greatly beloved here ofall men: the chiefest gallants of these parts be his men, and follow hiscourt; the most of them have travelled other countries, speak manylanguages, and behave themselves thereafter; and truly we cannot be soglad there to have him come to us, as they will be sad here to have himgo from them. He is reported to be wise, liberal, valiant, and of greatcourage, which in the last wars he well showed, in defending all hiscountries free from the Turk with his own force only, and giving themdivers overthrows when they attempted any thing against his rules; andhe is universally (which I most weigh) noted to be of such virtue as hewas never spotted or touched with any notable vice of crime, which ismuch in a prince of his years, endued with such qualities. Hedelighteth much in hunting, riding, hawking, exercise of feats of arms, and hearing of music, whereof he hath very good. He hath, as I hear, some understanding in astronomy and cosmography, and taketh pleasure inclocks that set forth the course of the planets. 

"He hath for his portion the countries of Styria, Carinthia, Friola, Treiste, and Histria, and hath the government of that is left inCroatia, wherein, as I hear, he may ride without entering into any otherman's territories, near three hundred miles. . . Surely he is a greatprince in subjects, territories, and revenues; and liveth in great honorand state, with such a court as he that seeth it will say is fit for agreat prince. " &c. On October 26th he writes thus:--"Since the writingof my other letters, upon the resolution of the emperor and thearchduke, I took occasion to go to the archduke, meaning to sound him tothe bottom in all causes, and to feel whether such matter as he haduttered to me before (contained in my other letters) proceeded from him_bona fide_, or were but words of form. . . . After some ordinary speech, used to minister occasion, I began after this sort. 'Sir, I see it is agreat matter to deal in the marriage of princes; and therefore it isconvenient for me, that by the queen my mistress' order intermeddle inthis negotiation, to foresee that I neither deceive you, be deceivedmyself, nor, by my ignorance, be the cause that she be deceived; inrespect whereof, I beseech your highness to give me leave to treat asfrankly with you in all things, now I am here, as it pleased hermajesty to give me leave to deal with her before my coming from thence;whereby I may be as well assured of your disposition, upon your assuredword, as I was of hers upon her word, and so proceed in all thingsthereafter:' Whereunto his highness answered me that he thanked me forthat kind of dealing, and he would truly utter to me what he thought andmeant in all things that I should demand; which upon his word he willedme to credit, and I should not be abused myself, nor abuse your majesty. I then said that (your licence granted) I was bold humbly to beseechyour majesty to let me understand your inward disposition in this cause;and whether you meant a lingering entertaining of the matter, or adirect proceeding to bring it to a good end, with a determination toconsummate the marriage if conveniently you might; whereupon yourmajesty not only used such speeches to me as did satisfy me of yourplain and good meaning to proceed in this matter without delay, if byconvenient means you might, but also gave me in commission to affirm, upon your word, to the emperor, that ye had resolved to marry. Ye werefree to marry where God should put it in your heart to like; and you hadgiven no grateful ear to any motion of marriage but to this, althoughyou had received sundry great offers from others; and therefore yourmajesty by your letters, and I by your commandment, had desired of hismajesty some determinate resolution whereby the matter might one ways oranother grow to an end with both your honors; the like whereof I hadalso said to his highness before, and did now repeat it. And for thathis highness had given me the like licence. I would be as bold with himas I had been with your majesty; and therefore beseeched him to let me, upon his honor, understand whether he earnestly desired, for love ofyour person, the good success and end of this cause, and had determinedin his heart upon this marriage; or else, to satisfy others thatprocured him thereto, was content to entertain the matter, and cared notwhat became thereof; that I also might deal thereafter; for in the one Iwould serve your majesty and him truly, and in the other, I was noperson of quality to be a convenient minister. 

"His highness answered, 'Count, I have heard by the emperor of the orderof your dealing with him, and I have had dealings with you myself, wherewith he and I rest very well contented; but truly I never restedmore contented of any thing than I do of this dealing, wherein, besidesyour duty to her that hath trusted you, you show what you be yourself, for the which I honor you as you be worthy;' (pardon me, I beseech yourmajesty, in writing the words he spake of myself, for they serve toutter his natural disposition and inclination. ) 'and although I havealways had a good hope of the queen's honorable dealing in this matter, yet I have heard so much of her not meaning to marry, as might give mecause to suspect the worst; but understanding by the emperor of yourmanner of dealing with him, perceiving that I do presently by yourwords, I think myself bound' (wherewith he put off his cap) 'to honor, love, and serve her majesty while I live, and will firmly credit thatyou on her majesty's behalf have said: and therefore, so I might hopeher majesty would bear with me for my conscience, I know not that thingin the world that I would refuse to do at her commandment: And surely Ihave from the beginning of this matter settled my heart upon her, andnever thought of other wife, if she would think me worthy to be herhusband; and therefore be bold to inform her majesty truly herein, for Iwill not fail of my part in any thing, as I trust sufficiently appearethto you by that I have heretofore said. '

"I thanked his highness of his frank dealing, wherein I would believehim and deal thereafter, 'And now I am satisfied in this, I beseech yourhighness satisfy me also in another matter, and bear with me though I besomewhat busy, for I mean it for the best. I have many times heard ofmen of good judgement and friends to this cause, that as the emperor'smajesty, being in disposition of the Augustan confession, hath beenforced in these great wars of the Turk to temporise in respect ofChristendom; so your highness, being of his mind inwardly, hath alsoupon good policy forborne to discover yourself until you might see someend of your own causes; and expecting, by marriage or other means, asettling of yourself in further advancement of state than your ownpatrimony, you temporise until you see on which side your lot will fall;and if you find you shall settle in this marriage, ye will, when ye aresure thereof, discover what ye be. If this be true, trust me, sir, Ibeseech you, and I will not betray you, and let me know the secret ofyour heart, whereby you may grow to a shorter end of your desire; and asI will upon my oath assure you, I will never utter your counsel to anyperson living but to the queen my mistress, so do I deliver unto you herpromise upon her honor not to utter it to any person without yourconsent; and if you will not trust me herein, commit it to her majesty'strust by your own letters or messenger of trust, and she will notdeceive you. '

"'Surely, ' said his highness, 'whoever hath said this of me to thequeen's majesty, or to you, or to any other, hath said more than heknoweth, God grant he meant well therein. My ancestors have alwaysholden this religion that I hold, and I never knew other, and thereforeI never could have mind hitherto to change; and I trust, when hermajesty shall consider my case well, my determination herein shall nothurt me towards her in this cause. For, count, ' said he, 'how could youwith reason give me counsel to be the first of my race that so suddenlyshould change the religion that all my ancestors have so long holdenwhen I know no other; or how can the queen like of me in any otherthing, that should be so light in changing of my conscience? Where onthe other side, in knowing my duty constantly to God for conscience, Ihave great hope that her majesty, with good reason, will conceive that Iwill be the more faithful and constant to her in all that honor andconscience bindeth. And therefore I will myself crave of her majesty, bymy letters, her granting of this my only request; and I pray you withall my heart to further it in all you may; and shrink not to assure hermajesty, that if she satisfy me in this, I will never slack to serve andsatisfy her, while I live, in all the rest. '

"In such like talk, to this effect, his highness spent almost two hourswith me, which I thought my duty to advertise your majesty; and hereuponI gather that reputation ruleth him much for the present in this case ofreligion, and that if God couple you together in liking, you shall haveof him a true husband, a loving companion, a wise counsellor and afaithful servant; and we shall have as virtuous a prince as ever ruled:God grant (though you be worthy a great deal better than he, if he wereto be found) that our wickedness be not such as we be unworthy of him, or of such as he is. [66]" &c. 

[Note 66: Lodge's "Illustrations, " vol. I. ]

It may be matter as much of surprise as regret to the reader of theseletters, that a negotiation should have failed of success, which themanly plainness of the envoy on one hand and the honourable unreserve ofthe prince on the other had so quickly freed from the customaryintricacies of diplomatic transactions. Religion furnished, toappearance, the only objection which could be urged against the union;and on this head the archduke would have been satisfied with terms theleast favorable to himself that could be devised. He only stipulated forthe performance of Catholic worship in a private room of the palace, atwhich none but himself and such servants of his own persuasion as heshould bring with him should have permission to attend. He consentedregularly to accompany the queen to the services of the church ofEngland, and for a time to intermit the exercise of his own religionshould any disputes arise; and he engaged that neither he nor hisattendants should in any manner contravene, or give countenance to suchas contravened, the established religion of the country. In short, heasked no greater indulgence on this head than what was granted withoutscruple to the ambassadors of Catholic powers. But even this, it wasaffirmed, was more than the queen could with safety concede; and on thisground the treaty was finally closed. 

There is great room, however, to suspect that the real and theostensible reasons of the failure of this marriage were by no means thesame. It could scarcely have been expected or hoped that a prince of thehouse of Austria would consent to desert the religion of his ancestors, which he must have regarded himself as pledged by the honor of his birthto maintain; and without deserting it he could not go beyond the termswhich Charles actually offered. This religion, as a system of faith andworship, was by no means regarded by Elizabeth with such abhorrence aswould render it irksome to her to grant it toleration in a husband, though on political grounds she forbade under heavy penalties itsexercise to her subjects. It is true that to the puritans the smallestdegree of indulgence to its idolatrous rites appeared a heinous sin, andfrom them the Austrian match would have had to encounter all theopposition that could prudently be made by a sect itself obnoxious tothe rod of persecution. The duke of Norfolk is said to have given greatoffence to this party, with which he was usually disposed to act, by thecordial approbation which he was induced, probably by his friendship forthe earl of Sussex, to bestow on this measure. Leicester is believed tohave thwarted the negotiations by means of one of his creatures, forwhom he had procured the second rank in the embassy of the earl ofSussex; he also labored in person to fill the mind of the queen withfears and scruples respecting it. But it is probable that, after all, the chief difficulty lay in Elizabeth's settled aversion to the marriedstate; and notwithstanding all her professions to her ambassador, theknown dissimulation of her character permits us to believe, not onlythat small obstacles were found sufficient to divert her fromaccomplishing the union which she pretended to have at heart; but thatfrom the very beginning she was insincere, and that not even the totalsacrifice of his religion would have exempted her suitor from finaldisappointment. 

The decease of sir Richard Sackville in 1566 called his son, theaccomplished poet, to the inheritance of a noble fortune, and opened tohim the career of public life. At the time of his father's death he waspursuing his travels through France and Italy, and had been subjected toa short imprisonment in Rome, "which trouble, " says his eulogist, "wasbrought upon him by some who hated him for his love to religion and hisduty to his sovereign. "

Immediately on his return to his native country the duke of Norfolk, bythe queen's command, conferred upon him the honor of knighthood, and onthe same day he was advanced by her to the degree of a baron by thestyle of lord Buckhurst. The new peer immediately shone forth one of thebrightest ornaments of the court: but carried away by the ardor of hisimagination, he plunged so deeply into the expensive pleasures of theage as seriously to injure his fortune, and in part his credit: timelyreflection however, added, it is said, to the counsels of his royalkinswoman, cured him of the foible of profusion, and he lived not onlyto retrieve, but to augment his patrimony to a vast amount. 

Amid the factions of the court, lord Buckhurst, almost alone, preserveda dignified neutrality, resting his claims to consideration andinfluence not on the arts of intrigue, but on his talents, his merit, his extensive possessions, and his interest in his royal kinswoman. Leicester was jealous of his approach, as of that of every man of honorwho affected an independence on his support; but it was not till manyyears afterwards, and on an occasion in which his own reputation andsafety were at stake, that the wily favorite ventured a direct attackupon the credit of lord Buckhurst. At present they preserved towardseach other those exteriors of consideration and respect which in theworld, and especially at courts, are found so perfectly compatible withfear, hatred, or contempt. 

It was about this time, that in one of her majesty's summer progressesan incident occurred which the painter or the poet might seize andembellish. 

Passing through Northamptonshire, she stopped to visit her royal castleof Fotheringay, then, or soon after, committed by her to the keeping ofsir William Fitzwilliam several times lord-deputy of Ireland. The castlewas at this time entire and magnificent, and must have been viewed byElizabeth with sentiments of family pride. It was erected by her remoteprogenitor Edmund of Langley, son of king Edward III. And founder of thehouse of York. By his directions the keep was built in the likeness of afetter-lock, the well known cognisance of that line, and in the windowsthe same symbol with its attendant falcon was repeatedly andconspicuously emblazoned. From Edmund of Langley it descended to his sonEdward duke of York, slain in the field of Agincourt, and next to theson of his unfortunate brother the decapitated earl of Cambridge; tothat Richard who fell at Wakefield in the attempt to assert his title tothe crown, which the victorious arms of his son Edward IV. Afterwardsvindicated to himself and his posterity. 

In a collegiate church adjoining were deposited the remains of Edwardand Richard dukes of York, and of Cecily wife to the latter, whosurvived to behold so many bloody deeds of which her children were theperpetrators or the victims. Elizabeth, attended by all the pomp ofroyalty, proceeded to visit the spot of her ancestors' interment: butwhat was her indignation and surprise on discovering, that the splendidtombs which had once risen to their memory, had been involved in thesame destruction with the college itself, of which the rapaciousNorthumberland had obtained a grant from Edward VI. , and that scarcelya stone remained to protect the dust of these descendants andprogenitors of kings! She instantly gave orders for the erection ofsuitable monuments to their honor: but her commands were ill obeyed, anda few miserable plaster figures were all that the illustrious deadobtained at last from her pride or her piety. These monuments however, such as they are, remain to posterity, whilst of the magnificent castle, the only adequate commemoration of the power and greatness of itspossessors, one stone is not left upon another:--it was levelled withthe ground by order of James I. , that not a vestige might remain of thelast prison of his unhappy mother, the fatal scene of her trial, condemnation, and ignominious death. 

The close of the year 1567 had left the queen of Scots a prisoner inLochleven-castle, her infant son declared king, and the regentMurray, --a man of vigor, prudence, and in the main of virtue, --holdingthe reins with a firm hand. For the peace and welfare of Scotland, forthe security of reformed religion, and for the ends of that moralretribution from which the crimes and vices of the rulers of mankindought least of all to be exempt, nothing could be more desirable thanthat such a state of things should become permanent, by the acquiescenceof the potentates of Europe, and of that powerful aristocracy which inScotland was unhappily superior to the whole force of the laws and theconstitution. But for its destruction many interests, many passions andprejudices conspired. It was rather against Bothwell than against thequeen that many of the nobles had taken arms; and more favorable termswould at first have been granted her, could she have been brought toconsent as a preliminary to divorce and banish him for ever from herpresence. The flight of Bothwell and the prolongation of her owncaptivity had subdued her obstinacy on this point: it was understoodthat she was now willing that her marriage should be dissolved, and thisconcession alone sufficed to bring her many partisans. Sentiments ofpity began to arise in favor of an unfortunate queen and beauty, and tocause her crimes to be extenuated or forgotten. All the catholics inScotland were her earnest friends, and the foreign princes of the samepersuasion were unceasingly stimulating them to act openly in herbehalf. With these Elizabeth, either by her zeal for the common cause ofsovereigns, or by some treacherous designs of her own, was brought intomost preposterous conjunction, and she had actually proposed to thecourt of France that they should by joint consent cut off allcommunication with Scotland till the queen should be reinstated. Thehaughty and unconciliating temper of Murray had embittered the animosityentertained against him by several nobles of the blood-royal, each ofwhom regarded himself as the person best entitled to the office ofregent; and an insurrection against his authority was already incontemplation, when Mary, having by her promises and blandishmentsbribed an unthinking youth to effect her liberation, suddenly reappearedin readiness to put herself at the head of such of her countrymen asstill owned her allegiance. 

Several leading nobles flocked hastily to her standard; a bond wasentered into for her defence, and in a few days she saw herself at thehead of six thousand men. Elizabeth made her an immediate offer oftroops and succour, stipulating however, from a prudent jealousy of theFrench, that no foreign forces should be admitted into Scotland; andfurther, that all disputes between Mary and her subjects should besubmitted to her arbitration. 

Fortunately for Scotland, though disastrously for the future days ofMary and the fame of Elizabeth, this formidable rising in favor of thedeposed sovereign was crushed at a single blow. Murray, with inferiorforces, marched courageously against the queen, gained a complete andeasy victory, and compelled her to a hasty flight. 

Accompanied only by a few attendants, the defeated princess reached theEnglish border. What should she do? Behind her was the hostile army, acting in the name of her son to whom she had signed an abdication ofthe throne, in virtue of which her late attempt to reinstate herselfmight lawfully be visited with the rigors of perpetual imprisonment, oreven with death itself. 

Before her lay the dominions of a princess whose titles she had onceusurped, and whose government she had never ceased to molest by herintrigues, --of one who had hated her as a competitor in power and inbeauty, --as an enemy in religion, and most of all as the heiress of hercrown. But this very princess had interfered, generously interfered, tosave her life; she had shown herself touched by her situation; she hadoffered her, under certain conditions, succours and protection. Perhapsshe would no longer remember in the suppliant who embraced her knees, the haughty rival who had laid claim to her crown;--perhaps she wouldshow herself a real friend. The English people too, --could they beholdunmoved "a queen, a beauty, " hurled from her throne, chased from hercountry by the rude hands of her rebellious subjects, and driven toimplore their aid? No surely, --ten thousand swords would spring fromtheir scabbards to avenge her injuries;--so she hoped, so she reasoned;for merited misfortune had not yet impaired her courage or abated herconfidence, nor had the sense of guilt impressed upon her mind onelesson of humility. Her situation, also, admitted of no otheralternative than to confide herself to Elizabeth or surrender toMurray, --a step not to be thought of. Time pressed; fear urged; andresolved to throw herself at the feet of her kinswoman, she crossed, never to return, the Rubicon of her destiny. A common fishing-boat, theonly vessel that could be procured, landed her on May 16th 1568, withabout twenty attendants, at Workington in Cumberland, whence she wasconducted with every mark of respect to Carlisle-castle; and from thisasylum she instantly addressed to Elizabeth a long letter, relating herfresh reverse of fortune, complaining of the injuries which she hadreceived at the hands of her subjects, and earnestly imploring her favorand protection. 

With what feelings this important letter was received it would bedeeply interesting to inquire, were there any possibility of arriving atthe knowledge of a thing so secret. If indeed the professions offriendship and offers of effectual aid lavished by Elizabeth upon Maryduring the period of her captivity, were nothing else than a series ofstratagems by which she sought to draw an unwary victim within hertoils, and to wreak on her the vengeance of an envious temper andunpitying heart, we might now imagine her exulting in the success of herwiles, and smiling over the atrocious perfidy which she was about tocommit. If, on the other hand, we judge these demonstrations to havebeen at the time sincere, and believe that Elizabeth, though profoundlysensible of Mary's misconduct, was yet anxious to save her from thesevere retribution which her exasperated subjects had taken upon them toexact, we must imagine her whole soul agitated at this crisis by a crowdof conflicting thoughts and adverse passions. 

In the first moments, sympathy for an unhappy queen, and the intuitivesense of generosity and honor, would urge her to fulfil every promise, to satisfy or surpass every hope which her conduct had excited. But soonthe mingled suggestions of female honor, of policy, of caution, unitingwith the sentiment of habitual enmity, would arise, first to moderate, then to extinguish, her ardor in the cause of her supplicant. Furtherreflection, enforced perhaps by the reasonings of her most trustedcounsellors, would serve to display in tempting colors the advantages tobe taken of the now defenceless condition of a competitor onceformidable and always odious; and gradually, but not easily, not withoutreluctance and shame and secret pangs of compunction, she would sufferthe temptation, --one, it must be confessed, of no common force and aidedby pleas of public utility not a little plausible, --to become victoriousover her first thoughts, her better feelings, her more virtuousresolves. For the honor of human nature, it may be believed that thelatter state of feeling must have been that experienced by a princesswhose life had been as yet unsullied by any considerable violations offaith, justice, or humanity: but it must not escape remark, that thefirst steps taken by her in this business were strong, decided in theircharacter, and almost irretrievable. 

Lady Scrope, sister of the duke of Norfolk, was indeed sent to attendthe illustrious stranger at Carlisle, and lord Scrope warden of the westmarches and sir Francis Knolles the vice-chamberlain were soon afterdispatched thither with letters for her of kind condolence: but whenMary applied to these persons for permission to visit their queen, theyreplied, that, until she should have cleared herself of the shockingimputation of her husband's murder, public decorum and her ownreputation must preclude a princess so nearly related to the late kingof Scots from receiving her into her presence. That it was however withregret that their mistress admitted this delay; and as soon as the queenof Scots should have vindicated herself on this point, they wereempowered to promise her a reception suited at once to a sovereign and akinswoman in distress. 

Had not Elizabeth previously committed herself in some degree byinterference in behalf of Mary, and by promises to her of support, noone could reasonably have blamed the caution or the coldness of thisreply to a request, which, under all the circumstances, might justly betaxed with effrontery. But in the judgement of Mary and her friends, andperhaps even of more impartial judges, the part already taken byElizabeth had deprived her of the right of recurring to former events asa plea for the exclusion of the queen of Scots from her presence andfavor. 

Tears of grief and anger burst from the eyes of Mary on this unexpectedcheck, which struck her heart with the most melancholy forebodings; butaware of the necessity of disguising fears which would pass for anevidence of guilt, she hastily replied, that she was willing to submither whole conduct to the judgement of the queen her sister, and did notdoubt of being able to produce such proofs of her innocence as wouldsatisfy her and confound her enemies. 

This was enough for Elizabeth: she was now constituted umpire betweenthe queen of Scots and her subjects, and the future fate of both mightbe said to lie in her hands; in the mean time she had gained a pretextfor treating as a culprit the party who had appealed to her tribunal. Welearn that lord Scrope and sir Francis Knolles had from the firstreceived secret instructions not only to watch the motions of Mary, butto prevent her departure; her person had also been surrounded withsentinels under the semblance of a guard of honor. But hitherto thesemeasures of precaution had probably remained concealed from theirobject; they were now gradually replaced by others of a more open anddecided character, and it was not much longer permitted to the haplessfugitive to doubt the dismal truth, that she was once more a prisoner. 

Alarmed at her situation, and secretly conscious how ill her conductwould stand the test of judicial inquiry, Mary no sooner learned thatElizabeth had actually named commissioners to hear the pleadings on bothsides, and written to summon the regent to produce before them whateverhe could bring in justification of his conduct towards his sovereign, than she hastened to retract her former unwary concession. 

In a letter full of impotent indignation, assumed majesty and realdismay, she now sought to explain away or evade her late appeal. Sherepeated her demand of admission to the presence of Elizabeth, refusedto compromise her royal dignity by submitting to a trial in which herown subjects were to appear as parties against her, and ended byrequiring that the queen would either furnish her with that assistancewhich it behoved her more than any one to grant, or would suffer her toseek the aid of other princes whose delicacy on this head would be less, or their resentment of her wrongs greater. This last proposal might havesuggested to Elizabeth the safest, easiest, and most honorable mode ofextricating herself from the dilemma in which, by further intermeddlingin the concerns of Scotland, she was likely to become involved. Happywould it have been for her credit and her peace of mind, had shesuffered her perplexing guest to depart and seek for partisans andavengers elsewhere! But her pride of superiority and love of sway wereflattered by the idea of arbitrating in so great a cause; her secretmalignity enjoyed the humiliation of her enemy; and her characteristiccaution represented to her in formidable colors the danger of restoringto liberty one whom she had already offended beyond forgiveness. Shelaid Mary's letter before her privy-council; and these confidentialadvisers, after wisely and uprightly deciding that it would beinconsistent with the honor and safety of the queen and her governmentto undertake the restoration of the queen of Scots, were induced to add, that it would also be unsafe to permit her departure out of the kingdom, and that the inquiry into her conduct ought to be pursued. 

In spite of her remonstrances, Mary was immediately removed toBolton-castle in Yorkshire, a seat of lord Scrope's; her communicationswith her own country were cut off; her confinement was rendered morestrict; and by secret promises from Elizabeth of finally causing her tobe restored to her throne under certain limitations, she was led torenew her consent to the trial of her cause in England, and to engageherself to name commissioners to confer with those of the regent and ofElizabeth at York. 

It would be foreign from the purpose of the present work to engage in aregular narrative of the celebrated proceedings begun soon after at thecity last mentioned, and ended at Westminster: some remarkablecircumstances illustrative of the character of the English princess, orconnected with the fate of her principal noble, will however be relatedhereafter, as well as their final result;--at present other subjectsclaim attention. 

An embassy arrived in London in 1567, from Ivan Basilowitz czar ofMuscovy, the second which had been addressed to an English sovereignfrom that country, plunged as yet in barbarous ignorance, and far fromanticipating the day when it should assume a distinguished station inthe system of civilized Europe. 

It was by a bold and extraordinary enterprise that the barrier of theFrozen Sea had been burst, and a channel of communication opened betweenthis country and Russia by means of which an intercourse highlybeneficial to both nations was now begun: the leading circumstances werethe following. 

During the reign of Henry VII. , just after the unparalleled achievementof Columbus had rendered voyages of discovery the ruling passion ofEurope, a Venetian pilot, named Cabot, who had resided long in Bristol, obtained from this monarch for himself and his sons a patent for makingdiscoveries and conquests in unknown regions. By this navigator and hisson Sebastian, Newfoundland was soon after discovered; and by Sebastianafter his father's death a long series of maritime enterprises weresubsequently undertaken with various success. For many years he was inthe service of Spain; but returning to England at the close of Henry theeighth's reign, he was received with merited favor at court. Young kingEdward listened with eagerness to the relations of the aged navigator;and touched by the unquenchable ardor of discovery which still burned inthe bosom of this contemporary and rival of Columbus, granted withalacrity his royal license for the fitting out of three ships to explorea north passage to the East Indies. The instructions for this voyagewere drawn up in a masterly manner by Cabot himself, and the command ofthe expedition was given to sir Hugh Willoughby, and under him toRichard Chancellor, a gentleman who had long been attached to theservice of the excellent sir Henry Sidney, by whom he was recommended tothis appointment in the warmest terms of affection and esteem. 

The ships were separated by a tempest off the Norwegian coast; andWilloughby, having encountered much foul weather and judging the seasontoo far advanced to proceed on so hazardous a voyage, laid up his vesselin a bay on the shore of Lapland, with the purpose of awaiting thereturn of spring. But such was the rigor of the season on this bleak andinhospitable coast, that the admiral and his whole crew were frozen todeath in their cabin. Chancellor in the mean time, by dint of superiorsailing, was enabled to surmount the perils of the way. He doubled theNorth Cape, a limit never passed by English keel before, and stillproceeding eastward, found entrance into an unknown gulf, which provedto be the White Sea, and dropped anchor at length in the port ofArchangel. 

The rude natives were surprised and terrified by the appearance of astrange vessel much superior in size to any which they had beforebeheld; but after a time, venturing on an intercourse with thenavigators, they acquainted them, that they were subjects of the czar ofMuscovy, and that they had sent to apprize him of so extraordinary anarrival. On the return of the messenger, Chancellor received aninvitation to visit the court of Moscow. The czar, barbarian as he wasin manners and habits, possessed however strong sense and an inquiringmind; he had formed great projects for the improvement of his empire, and he was immediately and fully aware of the advantages to be derivedfrom a direct communication by sea with a people capable of supplyinghis country with most of the commodities which it now received from thesouthern nations of Europe by a tedious and expensive land-carriage. Heaccordingly welcomed the Englishmen with distinguished honors; returneda favorable answer to the letter from king Edward of which they were thebearers, and expressed his willingness to enter into commercialrelations with their country, and to receive an ambassador from theirsovereign. Edward did not live to learn the prosperous success of thispart of the expedition, but fortunately his successor extended equalencouragement to the enterprise. A Russia company was formed, of whichthe veteran Sebastian Cabot was made governor, and Chancellor wasdispatched on a second voyage, charged with further instructions for thesettlement of a commercial treaty. His voyage was again safe andprosperous, and he was accompanied on his return by a Russianambassador; but off the coast of Scotland the ship was unhappilywrecked, and Chancellor with several other persons was drowned; theambassador himself reaching the land with much difficulty. The vesselwas plundered of her whole cargo by the neighbouring peasantry; but theambassador and his train were hospitably entertained by the queen-regentof Scotland, and forwarded on their way to London, where their grotesquefigures and the barbaric pomp of their dress and equipage astonished thecourt and city. 

The present embassy, which reached its destination without accident, wasone of greater importance, and appeared with superior dignity. Itconveyed to the queen, besides all verbal assurances of the friendshipof the czar, a magnificent present of the richest furs, and otherarticles of great rarity; and the ambassadors had it in charge toconclude a treaty of amity and commerce, of which the terms provedhighly advantageous for England. They were accompanied by an Englishmannamed Jenkinson, who had been sent out several years before, by theRussia company, to explore the southern and eastern limits of that vastempire, and to endeavour to open an overland trade with Persia. By theassistance of the czar he had succeeded in this object, and was thefirst Englishman who ever sailed upon the Caspian, or travelled over thewild region which lies beyond. In return for all favors, he had nowundertaken on behalf of the czar to propose to his own sovereign certainsecret articles in which this prince was more deeply interested than inany commercial matters, and which he deemed it unsafe to commit to thefidelity or discretion of his own ambassadors. 

Ivan, partly by a marked preference shown to foreigners, which his ownbarbarians could not forgive, partly by his many acts of violence andcruelty, had highly incensed his subjects against him. In the precedingyear, a violent insurrection had nearly hurled him from the throne; andstill apprehensive of some impending disaster, he now proposed to thequeen of England a league offensive and defensive, of which he wasanxious to make it an article, that she should bind herself by oath togrant a kind and honorable reception in her dominions to himself, hiswife and children, should any untoward event compel them to quit theircountry. But that never-failing caution which, in all the complicationand diversity of her connexions with foreign powers, withheld Elizabethfrom ever, in a single instance, committing herself beyond the power ofretreat, caused her to waive compliance with the extraordinary proposalof Ivan. She entertained his ambassadors however with the utmostcordiality, gratified his wishes in every point where prudence wouldpermit, and finally succeeded, by the adroitness of her management, insecuring for her country, without sacrifice or hazard on her own part, every real benefit which an intercourse with such a people and such asovereign appeared capable of affording. To have come off with advantagein a trial of diplomatic skill with a barbarous czar of Muscovy, washowever an exploit of which a civilized politician would be ashamed toboast, --on him no glory could be won, --and we may imagine Elizabethturning from him with a kind of disdain to an antagonist more worthy ofher talents. 

The king and court of France were at this time subjected to the guidanceof the execrable Catherine dei Medici. To this woman the religiousdifferences which then agitated Europe were in themselves perfectlyindifferent, and on more than one occasion she had allowed it to beperceived that they were so: but a close and dispassionate study of thestate of parties in her son's kingdom, had at length convinced her thatit was necessary to the establishment of his authority and her ownconsequence, that the Hugonot faction should be crushed, and she stoodsecretly prepared and resolved to procure the accomplishment of thisobject by measures of perfidy and atrocity from which bigotry itself, ina mind not totally depraved, must have revolted. 

By the secret league of Bayonne, the courts of France and Spain hadpledged themselves to pursue in concert the great work of theextirpation of heresy; and while Catherine was laying hidden trains forthe destruction of the Hugonots, Philip II. , by measures of open forceand relentless cruelty, was striving to annihilate the protestants ofthe Low Countries, and to impose upon those devoted provinces thedetested yoke of the inquisition. 

Elizabeth was aware of all that was going on; and she well knew thatwhen once these worthy associates had succeeded in crushing thereformation in their own dominions, Scotland and England would becomethe immediate theatre of their operations. Already were the catholics ofthe two countries privately encouraged to rely on them for support, andincited to aid the common cause by giving all the disturbance in theirpower to their respective governments. 

Considerations of policy therefore, no less than of religion, moved herto afford such succours, first to the French protestants and afterwardsto the Flemings, as might enable them to prolong at least the contest;but her caution and her frugality conspired to restrain her frominvolving herself in actual warfare for the defence of either. At thevery time therefore that she was secretly supplying the Hugonots withmoney and giving them assurances of her support, she was more than everattentive to preserve all the exteriors of friendship with the court ofFrance. 

It suited the views of the queen-mother to receive with complacency andencouragement the dissembling professions of Elizabeth; by which she wasnot herself deceived, but which served to deceive and to alarm herenemies the protestants, and in some measure to mask her designs againstthem. We have seen what high civilities had passed between the courts onoccasion of the admission of the French king into the order of thegarter, --but this is little to what followed. 

In 1568, after the remonstrances and intercession of Elizabeth, thesuccours lent by the German protestants, and the strenuous resistancemade by the Hugonots themselves, had procured for this persecuted sect ashort and treacherous peace, Catherine, in proof and confirmation of herentire friendship with the queen of England, began to drop hints to herambassador of a marriage between his mistress and her third son theduke of Anjou, then only seventeen years of age. Elizabeth was assuredlynot so much of a dupe as to believe the queen-mother sincere in thisstrange proposal; yet it was entertained by her with the utmost apparentseriousness. She even thought proper to give it a certain degree ofcautious encouragement, which Catherine was doubtless well able rightlyto interpret; and with this extraordinary kind of mutual understanding, these two ingenious females continued for months, nay years, to amusethemselves and one another with the representation of carrying on ofnegotiations for a treaty of marriage. Elizabeth, with the most candidand natural air in the world, remarked that difference of religion wouldpresent the most serious obstacle to so desirable an union: Catherine, with equal plausibility, hoped that on this point terms of agreementmight be found satisfactory to both parties; and warming as theyproceeded, one began to imagine the conditions to which a catholicprince could with honor accede, and the other to invent the objectionswhich ought to be made to them by a protestant princess. 

The philosophical inquirer, who has learned from the study of historyhow much more the high destinies of nations are governed by thepermanent circumstances of geographical position and relative force, andthe great moral causes which act upon whole ages and peoples, than bynegotiations, intrigues, schemes of politicians and tricks of state, will be apt to regard as equally futile and base the petty manoeuvresof dissimulation and artifice employed by each queen to incline in herown favor the political balance. But in justice to the memories ofCatherine and Elizabeth, --women whom neither their own nor anyafter-times have taxed with folly, --it ought at least to be observed, that in mistaking the excess of falsehood for the perfection of address, the triumphs of cunning for the masterpieces of public wisdom, they didbut partake the error of the ablest male politicians of that age ofstatesmen. The same narrow views of the interest of princes and ofstates governed them all: they seem to have believed that the right andthe expedient were constantly opposed to each other; in the intercoursesof public men they thought that nothing was more carefully to be shunnedthan plain speaking and direct dealings, and in these functionaries theyregarded the use of every kind of "indirection" as allowable, becauseabsolutely essential to the great end of serving their country. 

Amongst the wiser and better part of Elizabeth's council however, such aprofound abhorrence of the measures of the French court at this timeprevailed, and such an honest eagerness to join heart and hand with theoppressed Hugonots for the redress of their intolerable grievances, thatit required all her vigilance and address to keep them within the limitsof that temporizing moderation which she herself was bent on preserving. 

In the correspondence of Cecil with sir Henry Norris, then ambassador inFrance, the bitterness of his feelings is perpetually breaking out, andhe cannot refrain from relating with extreme complacency such words ofdispleasure as her majesty was at any time moved to let fall againsther high allies. In November 1567, when civil war had again broken outin France, he acquaints the ambassador that the queen dislikes to giveassistance to Condé and his party against their sovereign, butrecommends it to him to do it occasionally notwithstanding, as thecouncil are their friends. 

In September 1568 he writes thus: "The French ambassador has sent hisnephew to require audience, and that it might be ordered to have hermajesty's council present at the bishop's missado. Her majesty's answerwas, that they forgot themselves, in coming from a king that was butyoung, to think her not able to conceive an answer without her council:and although she could use the advice of her council, as was meet, yetshe saw no cause why they should thus deal with her, being of fullyears, and governing her realm in better sort than France was. So theaudience, being demanded on Saturday, was put off till Tuesday, wherewith I think they are not contented. " Again: "Monsieur deMontausier. . . Was brought to the queen's presence to report the victorywhich God had given the French king by a battle, as he termed it, wherein was slain the prince of Condé; whereunto, as I could conceive, her majesty answered, that of any good fortune happening to the king shewas glad; but that she thought it also to be condoled with the king, that it should be counted a victory to have a prince of his blood slain;and so with like speech, not fully to their contentation[67]. "

[Note 67: Scrinia Ceciliana. ]

With the Spanish court the queen was on the worst possible terms shortof open hostilities. Her ambassador at Madrid had been banished from thecity to a little village in the neighbourhood; the Spanish ambassador atLondon had been placed under guard for dispersing libels against herperson and government; and in consequence of her adroit seizure of a sumof money belonging to some Genoese merchants designed as a loan to theduke of Alva, to enable him to carry on the war against the protestantsin Flanders, the king of Spain had ordered all commerce to be broken offbetween those provinces and England. 

In the midst of these menaces of foreign war, cabals were formingagainst Elizabeth in her own kingdom and court which threatened her withnearer dangers. Of all these plots, the Scottish queen was, directly orindirectly, the cause or the pretext; and in order to place them in aclear light, it will now be necessary to return to the conferences atYork. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

1568 TO 1570. 

Proceedings of the commissioners at York in the cause ofMary. --Intrigues of the duke of Norfolk with the regent Murray. --Theconferences transferred to Westminster. --Mary's guilt disclosed. --Freshintrigues of Norfolk. --Conspiracy for procuring his marriage withMary. --Conduct of Throgmorton. --Attempt to ruin Cecil baffled by thequeen. --Endeavour of Sussex to reconcile Norfolk and Cecil. --Norfolkbetrayed by Leicester--his plot revealed--committed to the Tower. --Marygiven in charge to the earl of Huntingdon. --Remarks on thissubject. --Notice of Leonard Dacre--of the earls of Westmorland andNorthumberland. --Their rebellion. --Particulars of the Nortonfamily. --Severities exercised against the rebels. --Conduct of the earlof Sussex. --Rising under Leonard Dacre. --His after-fortunes and those ofhis family. --Expedition of the earl of Sussex into Scotland. --Murder ofregent Murray. --Influence of this event on the affairs ofElizabeth. --Campaign in Scotland. --Papal bull against thequeen. --Trifling effect produced by it. --Attachment of the people to hergovernment. 

The three commissioners named by Elizabeth to sit as judges in the greatcause between Mary and her subjects, of which she had been named theumpire, were the duke of Norfolk, the earl of Sussex, and sir RalphSadler, a very able negotiator and man of business. On the part of theScottish nation, the regent Murray, fearing to trust the cause in otherhands, appeared in person, attended by several men of talent andconsequence. The situation of Mary herself was not more critical or moreunprecedented, and scarcely more humiliating, than that in which Murraywas placed by her appeal to Elizabeth. Acting on behalf of the infantking his nephew, he saw himself called upon to submit to the tribunal ofa foreign sovereign such proofs of the atrocious guilt of the queen hissister; as should justify in the eyes of this sovereign, and in those ofEurope, the degradation of Mary from the exalted station which she wasborn to fill, her imprisonment, her violent expulsion from the kingdom, and her future banishment or captivity for life:--an attempt in which, though successful, there was both disgrace to himself and detriment tothe honor and independence of his country; and from which, ifunsuccessful, he could contemplate nothing but certain ruin. Struck withall the evils of this dilemma; with the danger of provoking beyondforgiveness his own queen, whose restoration he still regarded as noimprobable event, and with the imprudence of relying implicitly on thedubious protection of Elizabeth, Murray long hesitated to bring forwardthe only charge dreaded by the illustrious prisoner, --that of havingconspired with Bothwell the murder of her husband. 

In the mean time Maitland, a Scottish commissioner secretly attached toMary, found means to open a private communication with the duke ofNorfolk, and to suggest to this nobleman, now a widower for the thirdtime, the project of obtaining for himself the hand of Mary, and ofreplacing her by force on the throne of her ancestors. The vanity ofNorfolk, artfully worked upon by the bishop of Ross, Mary's primeagent, caused him to listen with complacency to this rash proposal; andhaving once consented to entertain it, he naturally became earnest toprevent Murray from preferring that heinous accusation which he had atlength apprized the English commissioners that he was provided withample means of substantiating. After some deliberation on the means ofeffecting this object, he accordingly resolved upon the step ofdiscovering his views to the regent himself, and endeavouring to obtainhis concurrence. Murray, who seems to have felt little confidence in thestability of the government of which he was the present head, and whojudged perhaps that the return of the queen as the wife of an Englishprotestant nobleman would afford the best prospect of safety to himselfand his party, readily acceded to the proposal, and consented still towithhold the "damning proofs" of Mary's guilt which he held in his hand. 

But neither the Scottish associates of Murray nor the English cabinetwere disposed to rest satisfied with this feeble and temporizingconduct. Mary's commissioners too, emboldened by his apparent timidity, of which the motives were probably not known to them all, began to pushtheir advantage in a manner which threatened final defeat to his party:the queen of England artfuly incited him to proceed; and in spite of hissecret engagements with the duke and his own reluctance, he at lengthsaw himself compelled to let fall the long suspended stroke on the headof Mary. He applied to the English court for encouragement andprotection in his perilous enterprise; and Elizabeth, being at lengthsuspicious of the intrigue which had hitherto baffled all herexpectations from the conferences at York, suddenly gave orders for theremoval of the queen of Scots from Bolton-castle and the superintendenceof lord Scrope, the duke's brother-in-law, to the more secure situationof Tutbury-castle in Staffordshire and the vigilant custody of the earlof Shrewsbury. At the same time she found pretexts for transferring theconferences from York to Westminster, and added to the number of hercommissioners sir Nicholas Bacon, lord-keeper, the earls of Arundel andLeicester, lord Clinton, and Cecil. 

Anxious to preserve an air of impartiality, Elizabeth declined giving tothe regent all the assurances for his future security which he required;but on his arrival in London she extended to him a reception equallykind and respectful, and by alternate caresses and hints of intimidationshe gradually led him on to the production of the fatal casketcontaining the letters of Mary to Bothwell, by which her participationin the murder of her husband was clearly proved. 

After steps on the part of his sovereign from which the duke might haveinferred her knowledge of his secret machinations; after discoveriesrespecting the conduct of Mary which impeached her of guilt so heinous, and covered her with infamy so indelible; prudence and honor alikerequired that he should abandon for ever the thought of linking hisdestiny with hers. But in the light and unbalanced mind of Norfolk, theambition of matching with royalty unfortunately preponderated over allother considerations: he speedily began to weave anew the tissue ofintrigue which the removal of the conferences had broken off; andturning once more with fond credulity to Murray, by whom his cause hadbeen before deserted, he again put confidence in his assurances that themarriage-project had his hearty approbation, and should receive hiseffectual support. Melvil informs us that this fresh compact was broughtabout by sir Nicholas Throgmorton, "being a man of a deep reach andgreat prudence and discretion, who had ever travelled for the union ofthis isle. " But notwithstanding his "deep reach, " he was certainlyimposed upon in this affair; for the regent, insincere perhaps from thebeginning, had now no other object than to secure his present personalsafety by lavishing promises which he had no intention to fulfil. Melvil, who attended him on his return to Scotland, thus explains thesecret of his conduct: "At that time the duke commanded over all thenorth parts of England, where our mistress was kept, and so might havetaken her out when he pleased. And when he was angry at the regent, hehad appointed the earl of Westmorland to lie in his way, and cut offhimself and so many of his company as were most bent upon the queen'saccusation. But after the last agreement, the duke sent and dischargedthe said earl from doing us any harm; yet upon our return the earl camein our way with a great company of horse, to signify to us that we wereat his mercy. "

It is difficult to believe, notwithstanding this positive testimony, that the duke of Norfolk, a man of mild dispositions and guided in themain by religion and conscience, would have hazarded, or would not havescrupled, so atrocious, so inexpiable an act of violence, as that ofcutting off the regent of Scotland returning to his own country undersanction of the public faith and the express protection of the queen:but he may have indulged himself in vague menaces, which Westmorland, abigoted papist, ripe for rebellion against the government of Elizabeth, would have felt little reluctance to carry into effect, and thus theregent's duplicity might in fact be prompted and excused to himself by aprinciple of self-defence. 

Whatever degree of confidence Norfolk and his advisers might place inMurray's sincerity, they were well aware that other steps must be taken, and other confederates engaged, before the grand affair of the marriagecould be put in a train to ensure its final success. There was noimmediate prospect of Mary's regaining her liberty by means of the queenof England, or with her concurrence; for since the production of thegreat charge against her, to which she had instructed her commissionersto decline making any answer, Elizabeth had regarded her as one who hadsuffered judgement to go against her by default, and began to treat heraccordingly. Her confinement was rendered more rigorous, and henceforththe still pending negotiations respecting her return to her own countrywere carried on with a slackness which evidently proceeded from thedread of Mary, and the reluctance of Elizabeth, to bring to a decideddetermination a business which could not now be ended either with creditor advantage to the deposed queen. 

Elizabeth had dismissed the regent to his government without openapprobation of his conduct as without censure; but he had received fromher in private an important supply of money, and such other effectualaids as not only served to establish the present preponderance of hisauthority, but would enable him, it was thought, successfully towithstand all future attempts for the restoration of Mary. Evidentlythen it was only by the raising of a formidable party in the Englishcourt that any thing could be effected in behalf of the royal captive;but her agents and those of the duke assured themselves that ample meanswere in their hands for setting this machine in action. 

Elizabeth, it was now thought, would not marry: the queen of Scots wasgenerally admitted to be her legal heir; and it appeared highlyimportant to the welfare of England that she should not transfer herclaims, with her hand, to any of the more powerful princes of Europe;consequently the duke entertained little doubt of uniting in favor ofhis suit the suffrages of all those leading characters in the Englishcourt who had formerly conveyed to Mary assurances of their attachmentto her title and interests. His own influence amongst the nobility wasvery considerable, and he readily obtained the concurrence of the earlof Pembroke, the earl of Arundel (his first wife's father), and lordLumley (a catholic peer closely connected with the house of Howard). Thedesign was now imparted to Leicester, who entered into it with anostentation of affectionate zeal which ought perhaps to have alarmed thetoo credulous duke. As if impatient to give an undeniable pledge of hissincerity, he undertook to draw up with his own hand a letter to thequeen of Scots, warmly recommending the duke to her matrimonial choice, which immediately received the signatures of the three nobles abovementioned and the rest of the confederates. By these subscribers it wasdistinctly stipulated, that the union should not take place without theknowledge and approbation of the queen of England, and that the reformedreligion should be maintained in both the British kingdoms;--conditionsby which they at first perhaps believed that they had providedsufficiently for the interests of Elizabeth and of protestantism: it washowever immediately obvious that the duke and his agents had the designof concealing carefully all their measures from their sovereign, tillthe party should have gained such strength that it would no longer besafe for her to refuse a consent which it was well known that she wouldalways be unwilling to grant. 

But when, on encouragement being given by Mary to the hopes of hersuitor, the kings of France and Spain, and even the Pope himself, weremade privy to the scheme and pledged to give it their assistance, allits English, and especially all its protestant supporters, ought to havebeen aware that their undertaking was assuming the form of a conspiracywith the enemies of their queen and country against her government andpersonal safety; against the public peace, and the religion by lawestablished; and nothing can excuse the blindness, or palliate theguilt, of their perseverance in a course so perilous and so crooked. 

Private interests were doubtless at the bottom with most or all of theparticipators in this affair who were not papists; and those, --they werenot a few, --who envied or who feared the influence and authority ofCecil, eagerly seized the occasion to array against him a body ofhostility by which they trusted to work his final and irretrievableruin. 

It seems to have been by an ambitious rivalry with the secretary, thatsir Nicholas Throgmorton, whose early life had exhibited so bold aspirit of resistance to tyranny and popery when triumphant andenthroned, had been carried into a faction which all his principlesought to have rendered odious to him. In his intercourses with the queenof Scots as ambassador from Elizabeth, he had already shown himself herzealous partisan. In advising her to sign for her safety the deed ofabdication tendered to her at Loch-Leven, he had basely suggested thatthe compulsion under which she acted would excuse her from regarding itas binding: to the English crown he also regarded her future title asincontrovertible. He now represented to his party, that Cecil wassecretly inclined to the house of Suffolk; and that no measure favorableto the reputation or authority of the queen of Scots could be carriedwhilst he enjoyed the confidence of his mistress. By these suggestions, the duke, unfortunately for himself, was led to sanction an attemptagainst the power and reputation of this great minister. 

Leicester, who had long hated his virtues; the old corrupt statesmenWinchester, Pembroke, and Arundel; and the discontented catholic peersNorthumberland and Westmorland, eagerly joined in the plot. It wasagreed to attack the secretary in the privy-council, on the ground ofhis having advised the detention of the money going into the LowCountries for the service of the king of Spain, and thus exposing thenation to the danger of a war with this potentate; and Throgmorton issaid to have advised that, whatever he answered, they should find somepretext for sending him to the Tower; after which, he said, it would beeasy to compass his overthrow. 

But the penetration of Elizabeth enabled her to appretiate justly, witha single exception, the principles, characters, and motives of all herservants; and she knew that, while his enemies were exclusively attachedto their own interests, Cecil was attached also to the interests of hisprince, his country, and his religion; that while others, --with thatfar-sighted selfishness which involves men in so many intrigues, usuallyrendered fruitless or needless by the after-course of events, --were benton securing to themselves the good graces of her successor, he wascontent to depend on her alone; that while others were the courtiers, the flatterers, or the ministers, of the queen, he, and perhaps he only, was the friend of Elizabeth. All the rest she knew that she couldreplace at a moment;--him never. Secret information was carried to herof all that her council were contriving, and had almost executed, against the secretary: full of indignation she hurried to their meeting, where she was not expected, and by her peremptory mandate put an instantstop to their proceedings; making Leicester himself sensible, by awarmth which did her honor, that the man who held the first place in heresteem was by no one to be injured with impunity. 

The earl of Sussex, the true friend of Norfolk, and never his abettor indesigns of which his sober judgement could discern all the criminalityand all the rashness, was grieved to the soul that the artifices of hisfollowers should have set him at variance with Cecil. He was doubtlessaware of the advantage which their disagreement would minister againstthem both to the malignant Leicester, his and their common enemy; andtrembling for the safety of the duke and the welfare of both, headdressed to the secretary, from the north, where he was then occupiedin the queen's service, a letter on the subject, eloquent by itsuncommon earnestness. 

He tells him that he knows not the occasion of the coldness between himand the duke, of which he had acknowledged the existence; but that hecannot believe other, esteeming both parties as he does, than that itmust have had its origin in misrepresentation and the ill offices oftheir enemies; and he implores him, as the general remedy of all suchdifferences, to resort to a full and fair explanation with the dukehimself, in whom he will find "honor, truth, wisdom and plainness. "

These excellent exhortations were not without effect: it is probablethat the incautious duke had either been led inadvertently or draggedunwillingly, by his faction, into the plot against the secretary, whoseruin he was not likely to have sought from any personal motive ofenmity; and accordingly a few weeks after (June 1569) we find Sussexcongratulating Cecil, in a second letter, on a reconciliation betweenthem which he trusts will prove entire and permanent[68]. 

[Note 68: "Illustrations" &c. By Lodge, vol. Ii. ]

Hitherto the queen had preserved so profound a silence respecting theintrigues of the duke, that he flattered himself she was without asuspicion of their existence; but this illusion was soon to vanish. InAugust 1569, the queen being at Farnham in her progress and the duke inattendance on her, she took him to dine with her, and in the course ofconversation found occasion, "without any show of displeasure, " but withsufficient significance of manner, to give him the advice, "to be verycareful on what pillow he rested his head. " Afterwards she cautioned himin plain terms against entering into any marriage treaty with the queenof Scots. The duke, in his first surprise, made no scruple to promise onhis allegiance that he would entertain no thoughts of her; he evenaffected to speak of such a connexion with disdain, declaring that heesteemed his lands in England worth nearly as much as the whole kingdomof Scotland, wasted as it was by wars and tumults, and that in histennis-court at Norwich he reckoned himself equal to many aprince. --These demonstrations were all insincere; the duke remainedsteady to his purpose, and his correspondence with the queen of Scotswas not for a single day intermitted in submission to his Sovereign. Buthe felt that it was now time to take off the mask; and fully confidingin the strength of his party, he requested the earl of Leicesterimmediately to open the marriage proposal to her majesty, and solicither consent. This the favorite promised, but for his own ends continuedto defer the business from day to day. 

Cecil, who had recently been taken into the consultations of the duke, urged upon him with great force the expediency of being himself thefirst to name his wishes to the queen; but Norfolk, either fromtimidity, or, more probably, from an ill-founded reliance on Leicester'ssincerity, and a distrust, equally misplaced, of that of Cecil, whom hewas conscious of having ill treated, neglected to avail himself of thiswise and friendly counsel, by which he might yet have been preserved. Leicester, who watched all his motions, was at length satisfied that hispurpose was effected, --the victim was inveigled beyond the power ofretreat or escape, and it was time for the decoy-bird to slip out of thesnare. 

He summoned to his aid a fit of sickness, the never-failing resource ofthe courtiers of Elizabeth in case of need. His pitying mistress, as hehad doubtless anticipated, hastened to pay him a charitable visit at hisown house, and he then suffered her to discover that his malady wasoccasioned by some momentous secret which weighed upon his spirits; andafter due ostentation of penitence and concern, at length revealed toher the whole of the negotiations for the marriage of the duke with thequeen of Scots, including the part which he had himself taken in thatbusiness. 

Elizabeth, who seems by no means to have suspected that matters had goneso far, or that so many of her nobles were implicated in thistransaction, was moved with indignation, and commanded the immediateattendance of the duke, who, conscious of his delinquency, anddisquieted by the change which he thought he had observed in thecountenance of her majesty and the carriage towards him of his brotherpeers, had sometime before quitted the court, and retired first to hishouse in London, and afterwards to his seat of Kenninghall in Norfolk. The duke delayed to appear, not daring to trust himself in the hands ofhis offended sovereign; and after a short delay, procured for him by thecompassion of Cecil, who persisted in assuring the queen that he woulddoubtless come shortly of his own accord, a messenger was sent to bringhim up to London. This messenger, on his arrival, found the dukeapparently, and perhaps really, laboring under a violent ague; and hesuffered himself to be prevailed upon to accept his solemn promise ofappearing at court as soon as he should be able to travel, and to returnwithout him. 

Meanwhile the queen, now bent upon sifting this matter to the bottom, had written to require the Scottish regent to inform her of the sharewhich he had taken in the intrigue, and whatever else he knew respectingit. Murray had become fully aware how much more important it was to hisinterests to preserve the favor and friendship of Elizabeth than to aimat keeping any measures with Mary, by whom he was now hated with extremebitterness; and learning that the confidence of the duke had alreadybeen betrayed by the earl of Leicester, he made no scruple ofacquainting her with all the particulars in which he was immediatelyconcerned. 

It thus became known to Elizabeth, that as early as the conferences atYork, the regent had been compelled, by threats of personal violence onhis return to Scotland, to close with the proposals of the duke relativeto his marriage;--that it was with a view to this union that Mary hadsolicited from the states of Scotland a sentence of divorce fromBothwell, which Murray by the exertion of his influence had induced themto refuse, and thus delayed the completion of the contract: but itappeared from other evidence, that written promises of marriage hadactually been exchanged between the duke and Mary, and committed to thesafe keeping of the French ambassador. It was also found to be a part ofthe scheme to betroth the infant king of Scots to a daughter of the dukeof Norfolk. 

The anger of Elizabeth disdained to be longer trifled with; and shedispatched a messenger with peremptory orders to bring up the duke, "hisague notwithstanding, " who found him already preparing to set out on hisjourney. Cecil in one of his letters to sir Henry Norris, dated October1569, relates these circumstances at length, and expresses hissatisfaction in the last, both for the sake of the state and of theduke himself, whom, of all subjects, he declares he most loved andhonored. He then proceeds thus: "The queen's majesty hath willed theearl of Arundel and my lord of Pembroke to keep their lodgings here, forthat they were privy of this marriage intended, and did not reveal it toher majesty; but I think none of them did so with any evil meaning, andof my lord of Pembroke's intent herein I can witness, that he meantnothing but well to the queen's majesty; my lord Lumley is alsorestrained: the queen's majesty hath also been grievously offended withmy lord of Leicester; but considering that he hath revealed all that hesaith he knoweth of himself, her majesty spareth her displeasure themore towards him. Some disquiets must arise, but I trust not hurtful;for her majesty saith she will know the truth, so as every one shall seehis own fault, and so stay. . . . My lord of Huntingdon is joined with theearl of Shrewsbury for the Scots queen's safety. Whilst this matter wasin passing, you must not think but the queen of Scots was nearer lookedto than before. "

The duke on his arrival was committed to the Tower; but neither againsthim nor any of his adherents did the queen think proper to proceed bycourse of law, and they were all liberated after a restraint of longeror shorter duration. 

It is proper to mention, that the adherents of Mary in her own time, andvarious writers since, have conspired to cast severe reflections uponElizabeth for committing her to the joint custody of the earl ofHuntingdon, because this nobleman, being descended by his mother, adaughter of Henry Pole lord Montacute, from the house of Clarence, wassupposed to put his right of succession to the crown in competition withhers, and therefore to entertain against her peculiar animosity. But onthe part of Elizabeth it may be observed, First, that there is not theslightest ground to suspect that this nobleman, who was childless, entertained the most distant idea of reviving the obsolete claims of hisfamily; and certainly if Elizabeth had suspected him of it, he wouldnever have held so high a place in her confidence. Secondly, nothingless than the death of Mary would have served any designs that he mighthave formed; and by joining him in commission with others for her safekeeping, Elizabeth will scarcely be said to have put it in his power tomake away with her. Thirdly, the very writers who complain of thevigilance and strictness with which the queen of Scots was now guarded, all acknowledge that nothing less could have baffled the plans of escapewhich the zeal of her partisans was continually setting on foot. Amongstthe warmest of these partisans was Leonard Dacre, a gentleman whosepersonal qualities, whose errors, injuries and misfortunes, all conspireto render him an object of attention, illustrative as they also are ofthe practices and sentiments of his age. 

Leonard was the second son of William lord Dacre of Gilsland, descendedfrom the ancient barons Vaux who had held lordships in Cumberland fromthe days of the Conqueror. 

In 1568, on the death without issue of his nephew, a minor in wardshipto the duke of Norfolk, Leonard as heir male laid claim to the title andfamily estates, but the three sisters of the last lord disputed with himthis valuable succession; and being supported by the interest of theduke of Norfolk their step-father, to whose three sons they weremarried, they found means to defeat the claims of their uncle, thoughindisputably good in law;--one instance in a thousand of the scandalouspartiality towards the rich and powerful exhibited in the legaldecisions of that age. 

Stung with resentment against the government and the queen herself, bywhom justice had been denied him, Leonard Dacre threw himself, with allthe impetuosity of his character, into the measures of the malcontentsand the interests of the queen of Scots, and he laid a daring plan forher deliverance from Tutbury-castle. This plan the duke on its beingcommunicated to him had vehemently opposed, partly from his repugnanceto measures of violence, partly from the apprehension that Mary, when atliberty, might fall into the hands of a foreign and catholic party, anddesert her engagements with him for a marriage with the king of Spain. Dacre, however, was not to be diverted from his design, especially bythe man with whom he was at open enmity, and he assembled a troop ofhorse for its execution; but suspicions had probably been excited, andthe sudden removal of the prisoner to Wingfield frustrated all hismeasures. 

This was not the only attempt of that turbulent and dangerous faction ofwhich the inconsiderate ambition of the duke had rendered him nominallythe head but really the tool and victim, which he had now the grief tofind himself utterly unable to guide or restrain. 

The earls of Northumberland and Westmorland, heads of the ancient andwarlike families of Percy and Nevil, were the first to break thatinternal tranquillity which the kingdom had hitherto enjoyed, withoutthe slightest interruption, under the wise and vigorous rule ofElizabeth. The remoteness of these noblemen from the court and capital, with the poverty and consequent simplicity, almost barbarism, of thevassals over whom they bore sway, and whose homage they received likenative and independent princes, appears to have nourished in their mindsideas of their own importance better suited to the period of the wars ofthe Roses than to the happier age of peace and order which hadsucceeded. 

The offended pride of the earl of Westmorland, a man destitute in factof every kind of talent, seems on some occasion to have conducted him tothe discovery that at the court of Elizabeth the representative of theking-making Warwick was a person of very slender consideration. Thefailure of the grand attack upon the secretary, in which he had takenpart, confirmed this mortifying impression; and the committal of hisbrother-in-law, the great and powerful duke of Norfolk himself, mustsubsequently have carried home to the bottom of his heart unwillingconviction that the preponderance of the ancient aristocracy of thecountry was subverted, and its proudest chieftains fast sinking to thecommon level of subjects. His attachment to the religion, with theother practices and prejudices of former ages, gave additionalexasperation to his discontent against the established order of things:the incessant invectives of Romish priests against a princess whom thepope was on the point of anathematizing, represented the cause of herenemies as that of Heaven itself; and the spirit of the earl was rousedat length to seek full vengeance for all the injuries sustained by hispride, his interests, or his principles. 

Every motive of disaffection which wrought upon the mind of Westmorland, affected equally the earl of Northumberland; and to the cause of poperythe latter was still further pledged by the example and fate of hisfather, that sir Thomas Percy who had perished on the scaffold for hisshare in Aske's rebellion. The attainder of sir Thomas had debarred hisson from succeeding to the titles and estates of the last unhappy earlhis uncle, and he had suffered the mortification of seeing them go toraise the fortunes of the house of Dudley; but on the accession of Mary, by whom his father was regarded as a martyr, he had been restored to allthe honors of his birth, and treated with a degree of favor which couldnot but strengthen his predilection for the faith of which she was thepatroness. It appears, however, that the attachment of the earl to thecause of popery had not on all occasions been proof against immediatepersonal interest. Soon after the marriage of the queen of Scots withDarnley, that rash and ill-judging pair esteeming their authority in thecountry sufficiently established to enable them to venture on anattempt for the restoration of the old religion, the pope, infurtherance of their pious designs, had remitted the sum of eightthousand crowns. "But the ship wherein the said gold was, " says JamesMelvil in his memoirs, "did shipwrack upon the coast of England, withinthe earl of Northumberland's bounds, who alleged the whole to appertainto him by just law, which he caused his advocate to read unto me, when Iwas directed to him for the demanding restitution of the said sum, inthe old Norman language, which neither he nor I understood well, it wasso corrupt. But all my entreaties were ineffectual, he altogetherrefusing to give any part thereof to the queen, albeit he was himself acatholic, and professed secretly to be her friend. " And through thisdisappointment Mary was compelled to give up her design. 

An additional trait of the earl's character is furnished by the sameauthor, in transcribing the instructions which he carried home from hisbrother sir Robert Melvil, then ambassador to England, on his returnfrom that country, after announcing the birth of the prince of Scotland. "_Item_, that her majesty cast not off the earl of Northumberland, albeit as a fearful and facile man he delivered her letter to the queenof England; neither appear to find fault with sir Henry Percy as yet forhis dealing with Mr. Ruxbie, " (an English spy in Scotland) "which hedoth to gain favor at court, being upon a contrary faction to hisbrother the earl. "

The machinations of the two earls, however cautiously carried on, didnot entirely escape the penetration of the earl of Sussex, lordpresident of the north, who sent for them both and subjected them tosome kind of examination; but no sufficient cause for their detentionthen appearing, he dismissed them, hoping probably that the warningwould prove efficacious in securing their peaceable behaviour. In thisidea, however, he was deceived: on their return they instantly resumedtheir mischievous designs; and they were actually preparing for aninsurrection, which was to be supported by troops from Flanders promisedby the duke of Alva, when a summons from the queen for their immediateattendance at court disconcerted all their measures. 

To comply with the command seemed madness in men who were conscious thattheir proceedings had already amounted to high treason;--but to refuseobedience, and thus set at defiance a power to which they were as yetunprepared to oppose any effectual resistance, seemed equally desperate. They hesitated; and it is said that the irresolution of Northumberlandwas only ended by the stratagem of some of his dependents, who waked himone night with a false alarm that his enemies were upon him, and thushurried him into the irretrievable step of quitting his home and joiningWestmorland, on which the country flocked in for their defence, and theyfound themselves compelled to raise their standard. 

The enterprise immediately assumed the aspect of a Holy War, or crusadeagainst heresy: on the banners of the insurgents were displayed thecross, the five wounds of Christ, and the cup of the eucharist: masswas regularly performed in their camp; and on reaching Durham, theycarried off from the cathedral and committed to the flames the bible andthe English service books. 

The want of money to purchase provisions compelled the earls torelinquish their first idea of marching to London; they took however aneighbouring castle, and remained masters of the country as long as noarmy appeared to oppose them; but on the approach of the earl of Sussexand lord Hunsdon from York, with a large body of troops, they graduallyretreated to the Scotch borders; and there disbanded their men without ablow. The earl of Westmorland finally made his escape to Flanders, wherehe dragged out a tedious existence in poverty and obscurity, barelysupplied with the necessaries of life by a slender pension from the kingof Spain. Northumberland, being betrayed for a reward by a Scottishborderer to whom, as to a friend, he had fled for refuge, was at lengthdelivered up by the regent Morton to the English government, and wasbeheaded at York. 

Posterity is not called upon to respect the memory of these rebelliousearls as martyrs even to a mistaken zeal for the good of their country, or to any other generous principle of action. The objects of theirenterprise, as assigned by themselves, were the restoration of the oldreligion, the removal of evil counsellors, and the liberation of theduke of Norfolk and other imprisoned nobles. But even their attachmentto popery appears to have been entirely subservient to their views ofpersonal interest; and so little was the duke inclined to blend hiscause with theirs, that he exerted himself in every mode that hissituation would permit to strengthen the hands of government for theiroverthrow; and it was in consideration of the loyal spirit manifested byhim on occasion of this rebellion, and of a subsequent rising inNorfolk, that he soon after obtained his liberty on a solemn promise torenounce all connexion with the queen of Scots. 

In the northern counties, however, the cause and the persons of the twoearls, who had well maintained the hospitable fame of their greatancestors, were alike the objects of popular attachment: the miserabledestiny of the outlawed and ruined Westmorland, and the untimely end ofNorthumberland through the perfidy of the false friend in whom he hadput his trust, were long remembered with pity and indignation, and manya minstrel "tuned his rude harp of border frame" to the fall of thePercy or the wanderings of the Nevil. There was also an ancientgentleman named Norton, of Norton in Yorkshire, who bore the banner ofthe cross and the five wounds before the rebel army, whose tragic fall, with that of his eight sons, has received such commemoration andembellishment as the pathetic strains of a nameless but probablycontemporary bard could bestow. The excellent ballad entitled "TheRising in the North[69]" impressively describes the mission of Percy's"little foot page" to Norton, to pray that he will "ride in hiscompany;" the council held by Richard Norton with his nine sons, when

 "Eight of them did answer make, Eight of them spake hastily, O father! till the day we die We'll stand by that good earl and thee;"

while Francis, the eldest, seeks to dissuade his father from rebellion, but finding him resolved, offers to accompany him "unarmed and naked. "Their standard is then mentioned: and after recording the flight of thetwo earls, the minstrel adds, "Thee Norton with thine eight good sons They doomed to die, alas for ruth! Thy reverend locks thee could not save, Nor them their fair and blooming youth!"

[Note 69: See Percy's "Reliques, " vol. Ii. ]

But how slender is the authority of a poet in matters of history! It isquite certain that Richard Norton did not perish by the hands of theexecutioner, and it is uncertain whether any one of his sons did. It istrue that the old man with three more of the family was attainted, thathis great estates were confiscated, and that he ended his days amiserable exile in Flanders. We also know that two gentlemen of the nameof Norton were hanged at London: but some authorities make them brothersof the head of the family; and two of the sons of Richard Norton, Francis, and Edmund ancestor of the present lord Grantley, certainlylived and died in peace on their estates in Yorkshire. 

It is little to the honor of Elizabeth's clemency, that a rebellionsuppressed almost without bloodshed should have been judged by her tojustify and require the unmitigated exercise of martial law over thewhole of the disaffected country. Sir John Bowes, marshal of the army, made it his boast, that in a tract sixty miles in length and forty inbreadth, there was scarcely a town or village where he had not put someto death; and at Durham the earl of Sussex caused sixty-three constablesto be hanged at once;--a severity of which it should appear that he wasthe unwilling instrument; for in a letter written soon after to Cecil hecomplains, that during part of the time of his command in the north hehad nothing left to him "but to direct hanging matters. " But thesituation of this nobleman at the time was such as would by no meanspermit him at his own peril to suspend or evade the execution of suchorders as he received from court. Egremond Ratcliffe his half-brotherwas one of about forty noblemen and gentlemen attainted for theirconcern in this rebellion; he had in the earl of Leicester an enemyequally vindictive and powerful; and some secret informations hadinfused into the mind of the queen a suspicion that there had been somewilful slackness in his proceedings against the insurgents. There washowever at the bottom of Elizabeth's heart a conviction of the truth andloyalty of her kinsman which could not be eradicated, and he soon aftertook a spirited step which disconcerted entirely the measures of hisenemies, and placed him higher than ever in her confidence and esteem. Cecil thus relates the circumstance in one of his letters to Norris, dated February 1570. 

"The earl of Sussex. . . Upon desire to see her majesty, came hitherunlooked for; and although, in the beginning of this northern rebellion, her majesty sometimes uttered some misliking of the earl, yet this dayshe, meaning to deal very princely with him, in presence of her council, charged him with such things as she had heard to cause her misliking, without any note of mistrust towards him for his fidelity; whereupon hedid with such humbleness, wisdom, plainness and dexterity, answer hermajesty, as both she and all the rest were fully satisfied, and headjudged by good proofs to have served in all this time faithfully, andso circumspectly, as it manifestly appeareth that if he had not so usedhimself in the beginning, the whole north part had entered into therebellion. "

A formidable mass of discontent did in fact subsist among the catholicsof the north, and it was not long before a new and more daring leaderfound means to set it again in fierce and violent action. 

Leonard Dacre had found no opportunity to take part in the enterprise ofthe two earls, though a deep participator in their counsels; for knowingthat their design could not yet be ripe for execution, and foreseeing aslittle as the rest of the faction those measures of the queen by whichtheir affairs were prematurely brought to a crisis, he had proceeded tocourt on his private concerns, and was there amusing her majesty withprotestations of his unalterable fidelity and attachment, while hisassociates in the north were placing their lands and lives on the hazardof rebellion. Learning on his journey homewards the total discomfitureof the earls, he carefully preserved the semblance of a zealousloyalty, till, having armed the retainers of his family on pretence ofpreserving the country in the queen's obedience, and having stronglygarrisoned its hereditary castles of Naworth and Greystock, which hewrested from the custody of the Howards, he declared himself, and brokeout into violent rebellion. 

The late severities had rather exasperated than subdued the spirit ofdisaffection in this neighbourhood, and three thousand men rangedthemselves under the scallop-shells of Dacre;--a well known ensign whichfrom age to age had marshalled the hardy borderers to deeds of warlikeprowess. Lord Hunsdon, the governor of Berwick, marched promptly forthwith all the force he could muster to disperse the rebels; but this timethey stood firmly on the banks of the little river Gelt, to give himbattle. Such indeed was the height of fanaticism or despair to whichthese unhappy people were wrought up, that the phrensy gained the softersex; and there were seen in their ranks, says the chronicler, "manydesperate women that gave the adventure of their lives, and fought rightstoutly. " After a sharp action in which about three hundred were leftdead on the field, victory at length declared for the queen's troops;and Leonard Dacre, who had bravely sustained, notwithstanding thedeformity of his person, the part of soldier as well as general, seeingthat all was lost, turned his horse's head and rode off full speed forScotland, whence he passed into Flanders and took up at Lovain hismelancholy abode. 

The treason of this unfortunate gentleman was, it must be confessed, both notorious and heinous; and had he been intercepted in making hisescape, no blame could have attached to Elizabeth in exacting the fullpenalty of his offence. But when, five-and-twenty years after this time, we find his aged mother at court "an earnest suitor" for the pardon ofher two sons[70]; obtaining, probably by costly bribes, a promise ofadmission to the queen's presence, and at length gaining nothingmore, --it is impossible not to blame or lament that relentless severityof temper which rendered Elizabeth so much a stranger to the fairestattribute of sovereign power. The case of Francis Dacre indeed was onewhich ought to have appealed to her sense of justice rather than to herfeelings of mercy. This gentleman, after the expatriation and attainderof his elder brother, had prosecuted at law the claims to the honors andlands of the barony of Gilsland which had thus devolved upon him; butbeing baffled in all his appeals to the equity of the courts, he hadwithdrawn in disgust to Flanders, and on this account suffered asentence of outlawry. He lived and died in exile, leaving a son, namedRanulph, heir only to poverty and misfortunes, to noble blood, and torights which he was destitute of the power of rendering available. LordDacre of the south, as he was usually called, settled on this poor man, his very distant relation, a small annuity; and on his death thefollowing lord Dacre, becoming the heir male of the family, received byway of compromise from the Howards no less than thirteen manors whichthey had enjoyed to the prejudice of Leonard Dacre, of his brother andof his nephew. 

[Note 70: Letter of R. Whyte in "Sidney Papers. "]

On the suppression of this second rising in the north, the queen, betteradvised or instructed by experience, granted a general pardon to all butits leader; and such was the effect of this lenity, or of the example ofrepeated failure on the part of the insurgents, that the internaltranquillity of her kingdom was never more disturbed from this quarter, the most dangerous of all from the vicinity of Scotland. 

The earl of Sussex had been kept for some time in a state ofdissatisfaction, as appears from one of his letters to Cecil, by hermajesty's dilatoriness in conferring upon him such a mark of her specialfavor as she had graciously promised at the conclusion of hissatisfactory defence of himself before the council; but she appeased atlength his wounded feelings, by admitting him to the council-board andgiving him the command of a strong force appointed to act on theScottish border. 

The occasion for this military movement arose out of the tragicalincident of the assassination of the regent Murray, which had proved thesignal for a furious inroad upon the English limits by some of thesouthern clans, who found themselves immediately released from therestraints of an administration vigorous enough to make the lawlesstremble. Sussex was ordered to chastize their insolence; and heperformed the task thoroughly and pitilessly, laying waste with fire andsword the whole obnoxious district. 

Besides recognising in Murray a valuable coadjutor, neighbour and ally, Elizabeth appears to have loved and esteemed him as a man and a friend, and she bewailed his death with an excess of dejection honorable surelyto her feelings, though regarded by some as derogatory from the dignityof her station. It was indeed an event which broke all her measures, andwhich, at a period when difficulties and dangers were besetting her onall hands, added fresh embarrassment to her perplexity and presented newchances of evil to her fears. What degree of compunction she felt forher unjustifiable detention of Mary may be doubtful; but it is certainthat her mind was now shaken with perpetual terrors and anxieties forthe consequences of that irrevocable step, and that there was nothingwhich she more earnestly desired than to transfer to other hands thecustody of so dangerous a prisoner. 

She had nearly concluded an agreement for this purpose with Murray, towhom she was to have surrendered the person of the captive queen, receiving six Scottish noblemen as hostages for her safe keeping; andthough the interference of the French and Spanish ambassadors hadobliged her to suspend its execution, there is no reason to suppose thatthe design was relinquished, when this unexpected stroke rendered it forever impracticable. The regency of Scotland, too, was now to becontested by the enraged factions of that distracted country, and it wasof great importance to Elizabeth that the victory should fall to theparty of the young king; yet such were the perplexities of her politicalsituation, that it was some time before she could satisfy herself thatthere would not be too great a hazard in supporting by arms theelection of the earl of Lenox, to whom she gave her interest. 

Her first recourse was to her favorite arts of intrigue; and she sentRandolph, her chosen instrument for these occasions, to tamper withvarious party-leaders, while Sussex, whose character inclined him moreto measures of coercion, exhorted her to put an end to her irresolutionand throw the sword into the scale of Lenox. She at length found reasonto adopt this counsel; and the earl, re-entering Scotland with his army, laid waste the lands and took or destroyed the castles of Mary'sadherents. 

Sir William Drury, marshal of the army, was afterwards sent further intothe country to chastize the Hamiltons, of which clan was the assassin ofMurray. 

The contemporary accounts of this expedition, amid many lamentableparticulars of ravages committed, afford one amusing trait of manners. Lord Fleming, who held out Dumbarton castle for the queen of Scots, haddemanded a parley with sir William Drury, during which he treacherouslycaused him to be fired upon; happily without effect. Sir George Cary, burning to avenge the injury offered to his commander, sent immediatelya letter of defiance to lord Fleming, challenging him to meet him insingle combat on this quarrel, when, where and how he dares; concludingthus: "Otherwise I will baffle your good name, sound with the trumpetyour dishonor, and paint your picture with the heels upward and bear itin despite of yourself. " That this was not the only species of affrontto which portraits were in these days exposed, we learn from anexpression of Ben Jonson's:--"Take as unpardonable offence as if he hadtorn your mistress's colors, or _breathed on her picture_[71]. "

[Note 71: See "Every Man out of his Humour. "]

The Scotch war was terminated a few months after, by an agreementbetween Elizabeth and Mary, by virtue of which the former consented towithdraw her troops from the country on the engagement of the latterthat no French forces should enter it in support of her title. Afterthis settlement, Elizabeth returned to her usual ambiguous dealing inthe affairs of Scotland; and so far from insisting that Lenox should benamed regent, she sent a request to the heads of the king's party thatthey would refrain for a time from the nomination of any person to thatoffice. In consequence of this mandate, which they dared not disobey, Lenox was only chosen lieutenant for a time; an appointment which servedequally well the purposes of the English queen. 

Connected with all the other measures adopted by the zeal of the greatcatholic combination for the destruction of Elizabeth and the ruin ofthe protestant cause, was one from which their own narrow prejudices orsanguine wishes, rather than any just views of the state of publicopinion in England, led them to anticipate important results. This wasthe publication of a papal bull solemnly anathematizing the queen, anddispensing her subjects from their oath of allegiance. A fanatic namedFulton was found willing to earn the crown of martyrdom by affixing thisinstrument to the gate of the bishop of London's palace. He was takenin the fact, and suffered the penalty of treason without exciting amurmur among the people. A trifling insurrection in Norfolk ensued, ofwhich however the papal bull was not openly assigned as the motive, andwhich was speedily suppressed with the punishment of a few of theoffenders according to law. Even the catholic subjects of Elizabeth forthe most part abhorred the idea of lifting their hands against hergovernment and the peace of their native land; and several of them werenow found among the foremost and most sincere in their offers of serviceagainst the disaffected. 

On the whole, the result of the great trial of the hearts of her peopleafforded to the queen by the alarms of this anxious period, wassatisfactory beyond all example. Henceforth she knew, and the worldknew, the firmness of that rock on which her throne was planted;--basedon religion, supported by wisdom and fortitude and adorned by everyattractive art, it stood dear and venerable to her people, defying theassaults of her baffled and malignant enemies. The anniversary of heraccession began this year to be celebrated by popular festivals all overthe country;--a practice which was retained not only to the end of thereign, but for many years afterwards, during which the 17th of Novembercontinued to be solemnly observed under designation of the Birthday ofthe Gospel. 

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 

_Printed by R. And A. Taylor, Shoe-Lane. _

 * * * * *

MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. 

VOL. II. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

1571 TO 1573. 

Notice of sir T. Gresham. --Building of his exchange. --The queen's visitto it. --Cecil created lord Burleigh and lord-treasurer. --Justs atWestminster. --Notices of the earl of Oxford, Charles Howard, sir H. Lee, sir Chr. Hatton. --Fresh negotiations for the marriage of Elizabeth withthe duke of Anjou. --Renewal of the intrigues of Norfolk. --Hisre-committal, trial, and conviction. --Death of Throgmorton. --Sonnetby Elizabeth. --Norfolk beheaded. --His character anddescendants. --Hostility of Spain. --Wylson's translation ofDemosthenes. --Walsingham ambassador to France. --Treaty withthat country. --Massacre of Paris. --Temporizing conduct ofElizabeth. --Burleigh's calculation of the queen's nativity. --Notice ofPhilip Sidney. 

From the intrigues and violences of crafty politicians and discontentednobles, we shall now turn to trace the prosperous and honorable careerof a private English merchant, whose abilities and integrity introducedhim to the notice of his sovereign, and whose patriotic munificencestill preserves to him the respectful remembrance of posterity. Thismerchant was Thomas Gresham. Born of a family at once enlightened, wealthy and commercial, he had shared the advantage of an education atthe university of Cambridge previously to his entrance on the walk oflife to which he was destined, and which, fortunately for himself, hissuperior acquirements did not tempt him to desert or to despise. 

His father, sir Richard Gresham, had been agent to Henry VIII. For thenegotiation of loans with the merchants of Antwerp, and in 1552 hehimself was nominated to act in a similar capacity to Edward VI. , whenhe was eminently serviceable in redeeming the credit of the king, sunkto the lowest ebb by the mismanagement of his father's immediatesuccessor in the agency. Under Elizabeth he enjoyed the sameappointment, to which was added that of queen's merchant; and it appearsby the official letters of the time, that political as well as pecuniaryaffairs were often intrusted to his discreet and able management. He wasalso a spirited promoter of the infant manufactures of his country, several of which owed to him their first establishment. By his diligenceand commercial talents he at length rendered himself the most opulentsubject in the kingdom, and the queen showed her sense of his merit andconsequence by bestowing on him the honor of knighthood. 

Gresham had always made a liberal and patriotic use of his wealth; butafter the death of his only son, in 1564, he formed the resolution ofmaking his country his principal heir. The merchants of London hadhitherto been unprovided with any building in the nature of a burse orexchange, such as Gresham had seen in the great commercial cities ofFlanders; and he now munificently offered, if the city would give him apiece of ground, to build them one at his own expense. The edifice wasbegun accordingly in 1566, and finished within three years. It was aquadrangle of brick, with walks on the ground floor for the merchants, (who now ceased to transact their business in the middle aisle of St. Paul's cathedral, ) with vaults for warehouses beneath and a range ofshops above, from the rent of which the proprietor sought someremuneration for his great charges. But the shops did not immediatelyfind occupants; and it seems to have been partly with the view ofbringing them into vogue that the queen promised her countenance to theundertaking. In January 1571, attended by a splendid train, she enteredthe city; and after dining with sir Thomas at his spacious mansion inBishopsgate-street (still remaining), she repaired to the burse, visitedevery part of it, and caused proclamation to be made by sound of trumpetthat henceforth it should bear the name of the Royal Exchange. Greshamoffered the shops rent-free for a year to such as would furnish themwith wares and wax lights against the coming of the queen; and a mostsumptuous display was made of the richest commodities and manufacturesof every quarter of the globe. 

Afterwards the shops of the exchange became the favorite resort offashionable customers of both sexes: much money was squandered here, and, if we are to trust the representations of satirists and comicwriters, many reputations lost. The building was destroyed in the fireof London; and the divines of that day, according to their custom, pronounced this catastrophe a judgement on the avarice and unfairdealing of the merchants and shopkeepers, and the pride, prodigality andluxury of the purchasers and idlers by whom it was frequented andmaintained. 

Elizabeth soon after paid homage to merit in another form, by conferringon her invaluable servant Cecil, --whose wisdom, firmness and vigilancehad most contributed to preserve her unhurt amid the machinations of herimplacable enemies, --the dignity of baron of Burleigh; an elevationwhich might provoke the envy or resentment of some of the courtiers hisopponents, but which was hailed by the applauses of the people. 

Before the close of the year, the death, at a great but not venerableage, of that corrupt and selfish statesman the marquis of Winchester, afforded her an opportunity of apportioning to the new dignity of hersecretary a suitable advance in office and emolument, by conferring onhim the post of lord-high-treasurer, which he continued to enjoy to theend of his life. 

On the first of May and the two following days solemn justs were heldbefore the queen at Westminster; in which the challengers were the earlof Oxford, Charles Howard, sir Henry Lee and sir ChristopherHatton, --all four deserving of biographical commemoration. 

Edward earl of Oxford was the seventeenth of the illustrious family ofVere who had borne that title, and his character presented anextraordinary union of the haughtiness, violence and impetuosity of thefeudal baron, with many of the elegant propensities and mentalaccomplishments which adorn the nobleman of a happier age. It wasprobably to his travels in Italy that he owed his more refined tastesboth in literature and in luxury, and it was thence that he broughtthose perfumed and embroidered gloves which he was the first tointroduce into England. A superb pair which he presented to her majestywere so much approved by her, that she sat for her portrait with them onher hands. These gloves became of course highly fashionable, but thoseprepared in Spain were soon found to excel in scent all others; and theimportance attached to this discovery may be estimated by the followingcommission given by sir Nicholas Throgmorton, then in France, to sirThomas Chaloner ambassador in Spain:--"I pray you, good my lordambassador, send me two pair of perfumed gloves, perfumed withorange-flowers and jasmin, the one for my wife's hand, the other formine own; and wherein soever I can pleasure you with any thing in thiscountry, you shall have it in recompense thereof, or else so much moneyas they shall cost you; provided always that they be of the best choice, wherein your judgement is inferior to none[72]. "

[Note 72: "Burleigh Papers" by Haynes. ]

The earl of Oxford enjoyed in his own times a high poetical reputation;but his once celebrated comedies have perished, and two or threefugitive pieces inserted in collections are the only legacy bequeathedto posterity by his muse. Of these, "The complaint of a lover wearingblack and tawny" has ceased, in the change of manners and fashions, tointerest or affect the reader. "Fancy and Desire" may still lay claim tothe praise of ingenuity, though the idea is perhaps not original evenhere, and has since been exhibited with very considerable improvementsboth in French and English, especially in Ben Jonson's celebrated song, "Tell me where was Fancy bred?" Two or three stanzas may bear quotation. 

 "Where wert thou born Desire?" "In pomp and pride of May. " "By whom sweet boy wert thou begot?" "By Fond Conceit men say. "

 "Tell me who was thy nurse?" "Fresh Youth in sugred joy. " "What was thy meat and daily food?" "Sad sighs with great annoy. "

 "What had'st thou then to drink?" "Unsavoury lovers' tears. " "What cradle wert thou rocked in?" "In hope devoid of fears. " &c. 

In the chivalrous exercises of the tilt and tournament the earl ofOxford had few superiors: he was victor in the justs both of this yearand of the year 1580, and on the latter occasion he was led by twoladies into the presence-chamber, all armed as he was, to receive aprize from her majesty's own hand. Afterwards, by gross misconduct, heincurred from his sovereign a disgrace equally marked and public, beingcommitted to the Tower for an attempt on one of her maids of honor. Onother occasions his lawless propensities broke out with a violence whichElizabeth herself was scarcely able to restrain. 

He had openly begun to muster his friends, retainers and servants, totake vengeance on sir Thomas Knevet, by whom he had been wounded in aduel; and the queen, who interfered to prevent the execution of thissavage design, was obliged for some time to appoint Knevet a guard inorder to secure his life. He also publicly insulted sir Philip Sidney inthe tennis-court of the palace; and her majesty could discover no othermeans of preventing fatal consequences than compelling sir PhilipSidney, as the inferior in rank, to compromise the quarrel on termswhich he regarded as so inequitable and degrading, that aftertransmitting to her majesty a spirited remonstrance against encouragingthe insolence of the great nobles, he retired to Penshurst in disgust. The duke of Norfolk was the nephew of this earl of Oxford, who was verystrongly attached to him, and used the utmost urgency of entreaty withBurleigh, whose daughter he had married, to prevail on him to procurehis pardon: "but not succeeding, " says lord Orford, "he was so incensedagainst that minister, that in most absurd and unjust revenge (thoughthe cause was amiable) he swore he would do all he could to ruin hisdaughter; and accordingly not only forsook her bed, but sold andconsumed great part of the vast inheritance descended to him from hisancestors[73]. "

[Note 73: "Royal and Noble Authors. "]

This remarkable person died very aged early in the reign of James I. 

Sir Charles Howard, eldest son of lord Howard of Effingham, was at thisperiod of his life chiefly remarkable for the uncommon beauty of hisperson, --a species of merit never overlooked by her majesty, --for graceand agility in his exercises, and for the manners of an accomplishedcourtier. At no time was he regarded as a person of profound judgement, and of vanity and self-consequence he is said to have possessed anabundant share. He was however brave, courteous, liberal, and diligentin affairs; and the favor of the queen admitted him in 1585 to succeedhis father in the office of lord-high-admiral. His intrepid bearing, inthe year 1588, encouraged his sailors to meet the terrible Armada withstout hearts and cheerful countenances, and the glory of its defeat wasas much his own as the participation of winds and waves would allow. Inconsideration of this distinguished piece of service he was created earlof Nottingham; and the queen's partiality towards her relationsincreasing with her years, he became towards the end of the reign one ofthe most considerable persons at her court, where his hostility to Essexgrew equally notorious with the better grounded antipathy entertained bySussex, also a royal kinsman, against Leicester, the earlier favorite ofher majesty. 

The earl of Nottingham survived to the year 1624, the 88th of his age. 

Sir Henry Lee was one of the finest courtiers and certainly the mostcomplete knight-errant of his time. He was now in the fortieth year ofhis age, had travelled, and had seen some military service; but thetilt-yard was ever the scene of his most conspicuous exploits and thosein which he placed his highest glory. He had declared himself thequeen's own knight and champion, and having inscribed upon his shieldthe constellation of Ariadne's Crown, culminant in her majesty'snativity, bound himself by a solemn vow to appear armed in the tilt-yardon every anniversary of her happy accession till disabled by age. Thisvow gave origin to the annual exercises of the Knights-Tilters, asociety consisting of twenty-five of the most gallant and favored of thecourtiers of Elizabeth. The modern reader may wonder to find included inthis number so grave an officer as Bromley lord chancellor; but underthe maiden reign neither the deepest statesman, the most studiouslawyer, nor the rudest soldier was exempted from the humiliatingobligation of accepting, and even soliciting, those household and menialoffices usually discharged by mere courtiers, nor from the irksome oneof assuming, for the sake of their sovereign lady, the romantic disguiseof armed champions and enamoured knights. Sir Henry Lee, however, appears to have devoted his life to these chivalrous pageantries ratherfrom a quixotical imagination than with any serious views of ambition orinterest. He was a gentleman of ancient family and plentiful fortune, little connected, as far as appears, with any court faction orpolitical, party, and neither capable nor ambitious of any publicstation of importance. It is an amiable and generous trait of hischaracter, that he attended the unfortunate duke of Norfolk even to thescaffold, received his last embrace, and repeated to the assembledmultitude his request that they would assist him with their prayers inhis final agony. His royal Dulcinea rewarded his fatigues and hisadoration by the lieutenancy of Woodstock manor, the office of keeper ofthe armoury, and especially by the appropriate meed of admission intothe most noble order of the Garter. He resigned the championship at theapproach of old age with a solemn ceremony hereafter to be described, died at his mansion of Quarendon in Bucks, in 1611, in his 81st year, and was interred in the parish church under a splendid tomb hung roundwith military trophies, and inscribed with a very long, very quaint andvery tumid epitaph. 

Christopher Hatton, the last of this undaunted band of challengers, wasa new competitor for the smiles of royalty, and bright was the dawn offortune and of favor which already broke upon him. He was of a decayedfamily of Northamptonshire gentry, and had just commenced the study ofthe law at one of the inns of court, when hope or curiosity stimulatedhim to gain admittance at some court-festival, where he had anopportunity of dancing before the queen in a mask. His figure and hisperformance so captivated her fancy, that she immediately bestowed uponhim some flattering marks of attention, which encouraged him to quit hisprofession and turn courtier. 

This showy outside and these gay accomplishments were unexpectedly foundin union with a moderate and cautious temper, enlightened views, and asolid understanding; and after due deliberation, Elizabeth, thatpenetrating judge of men, decided, in spite of ridicule, that she couldnot do better than make this superlatively-excellent dancer of galliardsher lord-chancellor. 

The enemies of Hatton are said to have promoted this appointment inexpectation of his disgracing himself by ignorance and incapacity; buttheir malice was disappointed; whatever he did not know, he was able tolearn and willing to be taught; he discharged the duties of his highoffice with prudence first and afterwards with ability, and died in 1591in possession of it and of the public esteem. It is remarkable, considering the general predilection of the queen in favor of celibacy, that Hatton was the only one of her ministers who lived and died abachelor. 

Early in this year the king of France married a daughter of the emperorMaximilian; and Elizabeth, desirous at this time of being on the bestterms both with the French and Imperial courts, sent lord Buckhurst toParis on a splendid embassy of congratulation. 

Catherine de' Medici took this opportunity of renewing proposals ofmarriage to the queen of England on the part of her son the duke ofAnjou, and they were listened to with an apparent complacency whichperplexed the politicians. It is certainly to this negotiation, and tothe intrigues of the duke of Norfolk and other nobles with the queen ofScots, that Shakespear alludes in the following ingenious and exquisitepassage. 

 . . . "Once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a _Mermaid_ on a _Dolphin_'s back Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song; And _certain stars shot madly from their spheres_, To hear the sea-maid's music. 

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 That very time I saw, but thou could'st not, Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all-arm'd: a certain aim he took At _a fair Vestal throned by the West_, And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts; But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watry moon, And the Imperial Votress passed on, In maiden meditation, fancy-free. "

 _Midsummer Night's Dream. _

Unfortunately for himself, the duke of Norfolk had not acquired, evenfrom the severe admonition of a long imprisonment, resolution sufficientto turn a deaf ear to the enchantments of this syren. His situation wasindeed perplexing: He had entered into the most serious engagements withhis sovereign to abstain from all further intercourse with the queen ofScots: at the same time the right of Elizabeth to interdict him analliance so flattering to his vanity might plausibly be questioned, andthe previous interchange between himself and Mary of solemn promises ofmarriage, seemed to have brought him under obligations to her toosacred to be dissolved by any subsequent stipulation of his, though oneto which Mary herself had been compelled to become a party. Neither hadchivalrous ideas by any means lost their force in this age; and as aknight and a gentleman the duke must have esteemed himself bound inhonor to procure the release of the captive princess, and to claimthrough all perils the fair hand which had been plighted to him. Impressed by such sentiments, he returned to a letter of eloquentcomplaint which she found means to convey to him, an answer filled withassurances of his inviolable constancy; and the intrigues of the partywere soon renewed with as much activity as ever. 

But the vigilance of the ministry of Elizabeth could not long be eluded. An important packet of letters written by Ridolfi, a Florentine who hadbeen sent abroad by the party to confer with the pope and with the dukeof Alva, was intercepted; and in consequence of the plots thus unfolded, the bishop of Ross, who bore the character of Mary's ambassador inEngland, was given into private custody. Soon after, a servant of theduke's, intrusted by him with the conveyance of a sum of money from theFrench ambassador to Mary's adherents in Scotland, carried the parcelcontaining it to the secretary of state. The duke's secretary was thensent for and examined. This man, who was probably in the pay ofgovernment, not only confessed with readiness all that he knew, butproduced some letters from the queen of Scots which his lord hadcommanded him to burn after decyphering them. Other concurringindications of the duke's guilt appearing, he was recommitted to theTower in September 1571. 

After various consultations of civilians on the extent of anambassador's privilege, and the title which the agent of a deposedsovereign might have to avail himself of that sacred character, it wasdetermined that the laws of nations did not protect the bishop of Ross, and he was carried to the Tower, where, in fear of death, he made fullconfession of all his machinations against the person and state ofElizabeth. In the most guilty parts of these designs he affirmed thatthe duke had constantly refused his concurrence;--and in fact, weak andinfatuated as he was, the agents of Mary seem to have found itimpracticable, by all their artifices, to bring this unfortunatenobleman entirely to forget that he was a protestant and an Englishman. He would never consent directly to procure the death or dethronement ofElizabeth; though it must have been perfectly evident to any man ofclear and unbiassed judgement, that, under all the circumstances, theaccomplishment of his wishes could by no other means be attained. 

This affair was regarded in so very serious a light, that the queenthought it necessary, before the duke was put on his trial, to lay allthe circumstances of his case before the court of France; and theparliament, which was again assembled after an interval of five years, passed some new laws for the protection of the queen's person from theimminent perils by which they saw her environed. 

The illustrious prisoner was now brought before the tribunal of hisbrother-peers; and a perfectly fair and regular trial, according to thepractices of that age, was accorded him. Whatever his intentions mighthave been, his actions appear to have come clearly within the limits oftreason; and the earl of Shrewsbury, as lord-high-steward for the day, pronounced upon him, with tears, a verdict of Guilty. But the queenhesitated or deferred, from clemency or caution, to sign his deathwarrant, and he was remanded to the Tower under some uncertainty whetheror not the last rigor of the offended laws awaited him. 

The name of sir Nicholas Throgmorton was so mixed up in the confessionsof the bishop of Ross, that it was perhaps an indulgent fate which hadremoved him some months previously from the sphere of human action. Hedied at the house of the earl of Leicester, and certainly of a pleurisy;but the malevolent credulity of that age seldom allowed a person of anyeminence to quit the world without imputing the occurrence in somemanner, direct or indirect, to the malice of his enemies. It was rumoredthat Throgmorton had fallen a victim to the hostility of Leicester, which he was thought to have provoked by quitting the party of the earlto reconcile himself with Burleigh, his secret enemy; and the suspicionof proficiency in the art of poisoning, which had so long rested uponthe favorite, obtained credit to this absurd report. Possibly theremight be more truth in the general opinion, that it was in some measureowing to the enmity of Burleigh that a person of such acknowledgedabilities in public affairs, and one who had conducted himself soskilfully in various important negotiations, should never have beenadvanced to any considerable office of trust or profit. But the loftyand somewhat turbulent spirit of Throgmorton himself, ought probably tobear the chief blame both of this enmity, and of his want of success atthe court of a princess who exacted from her servants the exercise ofthe most refined and cautious policy, as well as an entire and implicitsubmission to all her views and wishes. It is highly probable that shenever entirely pardoned Throgmorton for giving the lie to herdeclarations respecting the promises made to the earl of Murray and hisparty, by the open production of his own diplomatic instructions. 

The hostility of Leicester extended, as we shall see hereafter, to otherbranches of the unfortunate family of Throgmorton, whom an imprudent orcriminal zeal in the cause of popery exposed without defence to thewhole weight of his vengeance. On some slight pretext he procured thedismissal of sir John Throgmorton, the brother of sir Nicholas; from hisoffice of chief justice of Chester, who did not long survive thedisgrace though apparently unmerited. Puttenham, author of the "Art ofEnglish Poesie, " ventured, though a professed courtier, to compose anepitaph on this victim of oppression, of which he has preserved to usthe following lines in the work above mentioned:

 "Whom Virtue reared Envy hath overthrown, And lodged full low under this marble stone: Ne never were his values so well known Whilst he lived here, as now that he is gone. 

 No sun by day that ever saw him rest Free from the toils of his so busy charge, No night that harboured rancour in his breast, Nor merry mood made Reason run at large. 

 His head a source of gravity and sense, His memory a shop of civil art: His tongue a stream of sugred eloquence, Wisdom and meekness lay mingled in his heart. " &c. 

The literary propensities of Elizabeth have already come under ournotice: they had frequently served to divert her mind from the cares ofgovernment; but in the state of unremitted anxiety occasioned by herdread of the machinations relative to the queen of Scots, in which shehad found the first peer of her realm a principal actor, her thoughts, even in the few leisure hours which she found means to bestow on thesesoothing recreations, still hovered about the objects from which shemost sought to withdraw them. 

The following sonnet of her composition will illustrate this remark: itwas published during her lifetime in Puttenham's "Arte of EnglishPoesie, " and its authenticity, its principal merit, has never beencalled in question. 

 SONNET _by Queen Elizabeth_. 

 The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy, And wit me warns to shun such snares as threaten mine annoy. For falsehood now doth flow, and subjects' faith doth ebb; Which would not be if Reason ruled, or Wisdom weaved the web. But clouds of toys untried do cloak aspiring minds, Which turn to rain of late repent by course of changed winds. The top of hope supposed the root of ruth will be; And fruitless all their graffed guiles, as shortly ye shall see. Those dazzled eves with pride, which great ambition blinds, Shall be unseal'd by worthy wights whose foresight falsehood finds. The Daughter of Debate that eke discord doth sow, Shall reap no gain where former rule hath taught still peace to grow. No foreign banish'd wight shall anchor in this port; Our realm it brooks no strangers' force, let them elsewhere resort. Our rusty sword with rest shall first his edge employ, To poll their tops that seek such change, and gape for joy. 

The house of commons, in which great dread and hatred of the queen ofScots and her adherents now prevailed, showed itself strongly disposedto pass an act by which Mary should be declared for ever unworthy andincapable of the English succession: but Elizabeth, with her usualaverseness to all unqualified declarations and irrevocable decisions, interfered to prevent the completion of a measure which most sovereigns, under all the circumstances, would have been eager to embrace. To theunanimous expression of the opinion of the house, that the execution ofthe sentence against the duke of Norfolk ought not to be longer delayed, she was however prevailed upon to lend a more favorable ear; and on June2d, 1572, this nobleman received his death on Tower-hill. 

Norfolk was a man of many amiable and several estimable qualities, andmuch too good for the faction with which he had been enticed to act andthe cause in which he suffered. On the scaffold he acknowledged, withgreat apparent sincerity, the justice of his sentence, and his peculiarguiltiness in breaking the solemn promise which he had pledged to hissovereign. He declared himself to have been an earnest protestant eversince he had had any taste for religion, and in this faith he died verydevoutly. He bequeathed by his will his best George to his kinsman andtrue friend the earl of Sussex, whose faithful counsels he too latereproached himself with neglecting. By his attainder the dukedom waslost to the family of Howard; but Philip, his eldest son, succeeded hismaternal grandfather in the earldom of Arundel; lord Thomas, his secondson, (whose mother was the daughter and heiress of lord Audley, ) wascreated lord Howard of Walden by Elizabeth and earl of Suffolk by James;and lord William, the youngest, who possessed Naworth-castle in right ofElizabeth Dacre his wife, and was known upon the West Border (of whichhe was warden) by the appellation of "Belted Will, " was ancestor to theearls of Carlisle[74]. 

[Note 74:

 "His Bilboa blade, by marchmen felt, Hung in a broad and studded belt; Hence in rude phrase the Borderers still Call noble Howard Belted Will. "

 Lay of the Last Minstrel. ]

The king of Spain had long been regarded in England as the mostimplacable and formidable of the enemies of Elizabeth; and on goodgrounds. It was believed to be through his procurement that Sixtus V. Had been led to fulminate his anathema against her;--it was well knownthat the pope had made a donation to him of the kingdom of Ireland, ofwhich he was anxious to avail himself;--there was strong ground tosuspect that he had sent one of his ablest generals in embassy toEngland with no other view than to have taken the command of thenorthern rebels, had their enterprise prospered;--and the intimateparticipation of his agents in all the intrigues of the queen of Scotswas notorious. Dr. Wylson, a learned civilian, an accomplished scholar, and one of the first refiners of English prose, had published in 1571, with the express view of rousing the spirit of his readers against thisformidable tyrant, a version of the Orations of Demosthenes against theking Philip of his day, and had been at the pains of pointing out in thenotes coincidences in the situation of Athens and of England. Theauthor, who was an earnest protestant, had the further motive in thiswork of paying a tribute to the memory of the learned and unfortunateCheke, who during his voluntary exile had read gratuitous lectures tohis countrymen at Padua on the works of the great Grecian orator, ofwhich Wylson had been an auditor, and who had also made a Latin versionof them, of which the English translator freely availed himself. 

It was principally her dread of the Spaniards which led Elizabeth intothose perpetual reciprocations of deceitful professions and emptynegotiations with the profligate and perfidious court of France, whichin the judgement of posterity have redounded so little to her honor, butwhich appeared to her of so much importance that she now thought herselfpeculiarly fortunate in having discovered an agent capable of conductingwith all the wariness, penetration and profound address so peculiarlyrequisite where sincerity and good faith are wanting. This agent was sirFrancis Walsingham, whose rare acquisitions of political knowledge, madeprincipally during the period of his voluntary exile for religion, andstill rarer talents for public business, had induced lord Burleigh torecommend him to the service and confidence of his mistress. For severalyears from this time he resided as the queen's ambassador at the courtof France, at first as coadjutor to sir Thomas Smith, --a learned andable man, who afterwards became a principal secretary of state, --therest of the time alone. There was not in England a man who was regardedas a more sincere and earnest protestant than Walsingham; yet such wasat this time his sense of the importance to the country of the Frenchalliance, that he expressed himself strongly in favor of the matchbetween Elizabeth and the duke of Anjou, and, as a minister, spared nopains to promote it. 

Similar language was held on this subject both by Leicester andBurleigh; but the former was perhaps no more in earnest on the subjectthan his mistress; and finally all parties, except the Frenchprotestants, who looked to the conclusion of these nuptials as theirbest security, seem to have been not ill pleased when, the marriagetreaty being at length laid aside, a strict league of amity between thetwo countries was agreed upon in its stead. 

Splendid embassies were reciprocally sent to receive the ratificationsof this treaty; and Burleigh writes to a friend, between jest andearnest, that an unexpected delay of the French ambassador was cursed byall the husbands whose ladies had been detained at great expense andinconvenience in London, to contribute to the splendor of the court onhis reception. On the 9th of June 1572 the duke de Montmorenci and hissuite at length arrived. His entertainment was magnificent; all seemedpeace and harmony between the rival nations; and Elizabeth eveninstructed her ambassadors to give favorable ear to a hint which thequeen-mother had dropped of a matrimonial treaty between the queen ofEngland and her youngest son, the duke d'Alençon, who had then scarcelyattained the age of seventeen. 

Lulled by these flattering appearances of tranquillity, her majesty setout on her summer progress, and she was enjoying the festivitiesprepared by Leicester for her reception at his splendid castle ofKennelworth, when news arrived of the execrable massacre of Paris;--anatrocity not to be paralleled in history! Troops of affrighted Hugonots, who had escaped through a thousand perils with life, and life alone, from the hands of their pitiless assassins, arrived on the Englishcoast, imploring the commiseration of their brother protestants, andrelating in accents of despair their tale of horrors. After such astroke, no one knew what to expect; the German protestants flew toarms; even the subjects of Elizabeth trembled for their countrymentravelling on the continent and for themselves in their island-home. Thepope applauded openly the savage deed; the court of Spain showed itselfunited hand and heart with that of France, --to the astonishment ofElizabeth, who had been taught to believe them at enmity;--and it seemedas if the signal had been given of a general crusade against thereformed churches of Europe. 

For several days fears were entertained for the safety of Walsinghamhimself, who had not dared to transmit any account of the event exceptone by a servant of his own, whose passage had been by some accidentdelayed. Even this minister, cautious and crafty and sagacious as hewas, assisted by all the spies whom he constantly kept in pay, had beenunable to penetrate any part of the bloody secret;--he was completelytaken by surprise. But of his personal safety the perfidious young kingand his detestable mother were, for their own sakes, careful; and notonly were himself and his servants protected from injury, but everyEnglishman who had the presence of mind to take shelter in his housefound it an inviolable sanctuary. Two persons only of this nation fellvictims to the fury of that direful night, but the property of many wasplundered. The afflicted remnant of the French protestants prepared tostand upon their defence with all the intrepidity of despair. Theyclosed the gates of Rochelle, their strong hold, against the king'stroops, casting at the same time an imploring eye towards England, where thousands of brave and generous spirits were burning withimpatience to hasten to their succour. 

No act would have been hailed with such loud and general applause of herpeople as an instant renunciation by Elizabeth of all friendship andintercourse with the perjured and blood-stained Charles, the midnightassassin of his own subjects; and it is impossible to contemplatewithout disdain the coldness and littleness of that character which, insuch a case, could consent to measure its demonstrations of indignationand abhorrence by the narrow rules of a self-interested caution. Butthat early experience of peril and adversity which had formed the mindof this princess to penetration, wariness, and passive courage, andgiven her a perfect command of the whole art of simulation anddissimulation, had at the same time robbed her of some of the noblestimpulses of our nature; of generosity, of ardor, of enterprise, ofmagnanimity. Where more exalted spirits would only have felt, shecalculated; where bolder ones would have flown to action, she contentedherself with words. 

Charles and his mother, while still in uncertainty how far theirmaster-stroke of policy, --so they regarded it, --would be successful incrushing entirely the Hugonots, prudently resolved to spare no effortsto preserve Elizabeth their friend, or to prevent her at least frombecoming an open enemy. Instructions had therefore been in the firstinstance dispatched to La Mothe Fenelon, the French ambassador inEngland, to communicate such an account of the massacre and its motivesas suited these views, and to solicit a confirmation of the late treatyof amity. His reception at court on this occasion was extremely solemn:the courtiers and ladies who lined the rooms leading to thepresence-chamber were all habited in deep mourning, and not one of themwould vouchsafe a word or a smile to the ambassador, though himself aman of honor, and one whom they had formerly received on the footing ofcordial intimacy. The queen herself, in listening to his message, assumed an aspect more composed, but extremely cold and serious. Sheexpressed her horror at the idea that a sovereign could imagine himselfunder a necessity of taking such vengeance on his own subjects;represented the practicability of proceeding with them according to law, and desired to be better informed of the reality of the treasonabledesigns imputed to the Hugonots. She also declared that it would bedifficult for her to place reliance hereafter on the friendship of aprince who had shown himself so deadly a foe to those who professed herreligion; but, at the suit of the ambassador, she consented to suspendin some degree her judgement of the deed till further information. 

Even these feeble demonstrations of sensibility to crime so enormouswere speedily laid aside. In spite of Walsingham's declared opinion, that the demonstrations of the French court towards her were soevidently treacherous that its open enmity was less to be dreaded thanits feigned friendship, Elizabeth suffered her indignation to evaporatein a few severe speeches, restrained her subjects from carrying such aidto the defenders of Rochelle as could be made a ground of seriousquarrel, and even permitted a renewal of the shocking and monstrousovertures for her marriage with the youngest son of Catherine de' Mediciherself. By this shameless woman various proposals were now made forbringing about a personal interview between herself and Elizabeth. Shefirst named England as the place of meeting, then the sea between Doverand Calais, and afterwards the isle of Jersey; but from the first planshe herself departed, and the others were rejected in anger by theEnglish council, who remarked, with a proper and laudable spirit, thatthey who had ventured upon such propositions must imagine them strangelycareless of the personal safety of their sovereign. 

Charles IX. Was particularly anxious that Elizabeth, as a pledge offriendship, should consent to stand sponsor to his new-born daughter;and with this request, after some difficulties and a few declarations ofhorror at his conduct, she had the baseness to comply. She refusedhowever to indulge that king in his further desire, that she wouldappoint either the earl of Leicester or lord Burleigh as her proxy;--notchoosing apparently to trust these pillars of state and of theprotestant cause within his reach; and she sent instead her cousin theearl of Worcester, "a good simple gentleman, " as Leicester called him, and a catholic. 

All this time Elizabeth was in her heart as hostile to the court ofFrance as the most zealous of her protestant subjects; for she well knewthat it was and ever must be essentially hostile to her and hergovernment; and in the midst of her civilities she took care to supplyto the Hugonots such secret aids as should enable them still topersevere in a formidable resistance. 

It is worth recording, on the subject of these negotiations betweenElizabeth and the royal family of France, that Burleigh seems to havebeen encouraged to expect a successful issue by a calculation of thequeen's nativity, seen by Strype in his own handwriting, from which itwas foretold that she should marry, in middle life, a foreign princeyounger than herself; and probably be the mother of a son, who should beprosperous in his middle age. Catherine de' Medici also, to whom somefemale fortune-teller had predicted that all her sons should be kings, hoped, after the election of her second son to the throne of Poland, tofind the full accomplishment of the prophecy in the advancement of theyoungest to the matrimonial crown of England. So serious was the beliefof that age in the lying oracles of judicial astrology!

Among the English travellers doomed to be eye-witnesses of the horrorsof the massacre of St. Bartholomew was the celebrated Philip Sidney, then a youth of eighteen. He was the eldest son of sir Henry Sidney, lord-deputy of Ireland, and from this excellent man and parent he hadreceived, amongst his earliest and strongest impressions, those elevatedprinciples of honor, veracity and moral purity which regulated andadorned the whole tenor of his after-life. An extraordinary solidity ofcharacter with great vivacity of parts had distinguished him from achild, and fortune conspired with genius to bring him early before thepublic eye. 

He was nephew and presumptive heir to the earl of Leicester, by whom hewas in a manner adopted; and thus patronized, his rapid advancement wasanticipated as a matter of course. 

It was the practice of that day for parents in higher life to dispose oftheir children in marriage at an age now justly accounted immature[75];and no sooner had young Sidney completed his fourteenth year thanarrangements were made for his union with Anne Cecil, daughter of thesecretary. Why the connexion never took place we do not learn: sir HenrySidney in a letter to Cecil says, with reference to this affair; "I amsorry that you find coldness any where in proceeding, where such goodliking appeared in the beginning; but, for my part, I was never moreready to perfect that affair than presently I am. " &c. Shortly after, the lady, unfortunately for herself, became the wife of the earl ofOxford; and Sidney, still unfettered by matrimonial engagements, obtained license to travel, and reached Paris in May 1572. Charles IX. , in consideration no doubt of the influence of his uncle at the Englishcourt, gave him the appointment of a gentleman of his bed-chamber, afortnight only before the massacre. On that night of horrors Sidneytook shelter in the house of Walsingham, and thus escaped all personaldanger; but his after-conduct fully proved how indelible was theimpression left upon his mind of the monstrous wickedness of the Frenchroyal family, and the disgrace and misery which an alliance with it mustentail on his queen and country. 

[Note 75: Thus we find sir George Manners, ancestor of the dukes ofRutland, who died in 1513, bequeathing to each of his unmarrieddaughters a portion of three hundred marks to be paid at the time oftheir marriage, or within _four_ years after if the husband be nottwenty-one years of age; or at such time as the husband came of age. 

Collins's "Peerage, " by sir E. Brydges. ]

He readily obeyed his uncle's directions to quit France without delay;and, proceeding to Frankfort, there formed a highly honorable andbeneficial friendship with the virtuous Hubert Languet, who opened tohim at once his heart and his purse. The remonstrances of this patron, who dreaded to excess for his youthful friend the artifices of the papalcourt, deterred him from extending his travels to Rome, an omissionwhich he afterwards deeply regretted; but a leisurely survey of thenorthern cities of Italy, during which he became advantageously known tomany eminent characters, occupied him profitably and delightfully tillhis return to his native country in 1575, after which he will againoccur to our notice as the pride and wonder of the English court. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

1573 TO 1577. 

Letters of lord Talbot to his father. --Connexion of Leicester with ladySheffield. --Anecdote of the queen and Mr. Dyer. --Queen suspicions ofBurleigh. --Countesses of Lenox and Shrewsbury imprisoned. --Queen refusesthe sovereignty of Holland. --Her remarkable speech to thedeputies. --Alchemy. --Notice of Dr. Dee--of Frobisher. --Family ofLove. --Burning of two Anabaptists. --Entertainment of the queen atKennelworth. --Notice of Walter earl of Essex. --General favor towards hisson Robert. --Letter of the queen to the earl of Shrewsbury respectingLeicester. 

Great as had been the injustice committed by Elizabeth in the detentionof the queen of Scots, it must be confessed that the offence broughtwith it its own sufficient punishment in the fears, jealousies anddisquiets which it entailed upon her. 

Where Mary was concerned, the most approved loyalty, the longest courseof faithful service, and the truest attachment to the protestant cause, were insufficient pledges to her oppressor of the fidelity of her noblesor ministers. The earl of Shrewsbury, whom she had deliberately selectedfrom all others to be the keeper of the captive queen, and whosevigilance had now for so long a period baffled all attempts for herdeliverance, was, to the last, unable so to establish himself in theconfidence of his sovereign as to be exempt from such starts ofsuspicion and fits of displeasure as kept him in a state of continualapprehension. Feeling with acuteness all the difficulties of hissituation, this nobleman judged it expedient to cause Gilbert lordTalbot, his eldest son, to remain in close attendance on the motions ofthe queen; charging him to study with unremitting attention all theintrigues of the court, on which in that day so much depended, and toacquaint him with them frequently and minutely. To this precaution ofthe earl's we owe several extant letters of lord Talbot, which throwconsiderable light on the minor incidents of the time. 

In May 1573, this diligent news-gatherer acquaints his father, that theearl of Leicester was much with her majesty, that he was more thanformerly solicitous to please her, and that he was as high in favor asever: but that two sisters, lady Sheffield and lady Frances Howard, weredeeply in love with him and at great variance with each other; that thequeen was on this account very angry with them, and not well pleasedwith him, and that spies were set upon him. To such open demonstrationsof feminine jealousy did this great queen condescend to have recourse!Yet she remained all her life in ignorance of the true state of thisaffair, which, in fact, is not perfectly cleared up at the present day. 

It appears that a criminal intimacy was known to subsist betweenLeicester and lady Sheffield even before the death of her lord, inconsequence of which, this event, which was sudden, and preceded it issaid by violent symptoms, was popularly attributed to the Italian artsof Leicester. During this year, lady Sheffield bore him a son, whosebirth was carefully concealed for fear of giving offence to the queen, though many believed that a private marriage had taken place. Afterwardshe forsook the mother of his child to marry the countess of Essex, andthe deserted lady became the wife of another. In the reign of James I. , many years after the death of Leicester, sir Robert Dudley his son, towhom he had left a great part of his fortune, laid claim to the familyhonors, bringing several witnesses to prove his mother's marriage, andamong others his mother herself. This lady declared on oath thatLeicester, in order to compel her to form that subsequent marriage inhis lifetime which must deprive her of the power of claiming him as herhusband, had employed the most violent menaces, and had even attemptedher life by a poisonous potion which had thrown her into an illness bywhich she lost her hair and nails. After the production of all thisevidence, the heirs of Leicester exerted all their interest to stopproceedings;--no great argument of the goodness of their cause;--and sirRobert Dudley died without having been able to bring the matter to alegal decision. In the next reign the evidence formerly given wasreviewed, and the title of duchess Dudley conferred on the widow of sirRobert, the patent setting forth that the marriage of the earl ofLeicester with lady Sheffield had been satisfactorily proved. 

So close were the contrivances, so deep, as it appears, the villanies ofthis celebrated favorite! But his consummate art was successful inthrowing over these and other transactions of his life, a veil of doubtand mystery which time itself has proved unable entirely to remove. 

Hatton was at this time ill, and lord Talbot mentions that the queenwent daily to visit him, but that a party with which Leicester wasthought to co-operate, was endeavouring to bring forwards Mr. EdwardDyer to supplant him in her majesty's favor. This gentleman, it seems, had been for two years in disgrace; and as he had suffered during thesame period from a bad state of health, the queen was made to believethat the continuance of her displeasure was the cause of his malady, andthat his recovery was without her pardon hopeless. This was taking herby her weak side; she loved to imagine herself the dispenser of life anddeath to her devoted servants, and she immediately dispatched to thesick gentleman a comfortable message, on receipt of which he was madewhole. The letter-writer observes, to the honor of lord Burleigh, thathe concerned himself as usual only in state affairs, and suffered allthese love-matters and petty intrigues to pass without notice before hiseyes. 

All the caution, however, and all the devotedness of this great ministerwere insufficient to preserve him, on the following occasion, from theunworthy suspicions of his mistress. The queen of Scots had this yearwith difficulty obtained permission to resort to the baths of Buxton forthe recovery of her health; and a similar motive led thither at the sametime the lord-treasurer. Elizabeth marked the coincidence; and when, ayear or two afterwards, it occurred for the second time, her displeasurebroke forth: she openly accused her minister of seeking occasions ofentering into intelligence with Mary by means of the earl of Shrewsburyand his lady, and it was not without difficulty that he was able toappease her. This striking fact is thus related by Burleigh himself in aremarkable letter to the earl of Shrewsbury. 

 * * * * *

_Lord Burleigh to the earl of Shrewsbury. _

"My very good lord, "My most hearty and due commendations done, I cannot sufficientlyexpress in words the inward hearty affection that I conceive by yourlordship's friendly offer of the marriage of your younger son; and thatin such a friendly sort, by your own letter, and, as your lordshipwriteth, the same proceeding of yourself. Now, my lord, as I thinkmyself much beholding to you for this your lordship's kindness, andmanifest argument of a faithful good will, so must I pray your lordshipto accept mine answer, with assured opinion of my continuance in thesame towards your lordship. There are specially two causes why I do notin plain terms consent by way of conclusion hereto; the one for that mydaughter is but young in years; and upon some reasonable respects I havedetermined, notwithstanding I have been very honorably offered matches, not to treat of marrying of her, if I may live so long, until she shallbe above fifteen or sixteen; and if I were of more likelihood myself tolive longer than I look to do, she should not, with my liking, bemarried before she were near eighteen or twenty. 

"The second cause why I defer to yield to conclusion with yourlordship, is grounded upon such a consideration as, if it were not trulyto satisfy your lordship, and to avoid a just offence which yourlordship might conceive of my forbearing, I would not by writing ormessage utter, but only by speech to your lordship's self. My lord, itis over true and over much against reason, that upon my being atBuckstones last, advantage was sought by some that loved me not, toconfirm in her majesty a former conceit which had been labored to be putinto her head, that I was of late time become friendly to the queen ofScots, and that I had no disposition to encounter her practises; andnow, at my being at Buckstones, her majesty did directly conceive thatmy being there was, by means of your lordship and my lady, to enter intointelligence with the queen of Scots; and hereof at my return to hermajesty's presence I had very sharp reproofs for my going to Buckstones, with plain charging of me for favoring the queen of Scots, and that inso earnest a sort as I never looked for, knowing my integrity to hermajesty; but, specially, knowing how contrariously the queen of Scotsconceived of me for many things past to the offence of the said queen ofScots. And yet, true it is, I never indeed gave just cause by anyprivate affection of my own, or for myself, to offend the queen ofScots; but whatsoever I did was for the service of mine own lady andqueen, which if it were yet again to be done I would do. And though Iknow myself subject to contrary workings of displeasure, yet I will not, for remedy of any of them both, decline from the duty I owe to God andmy sovereign queen; for I know, and do understand, that I am in thiscontrary sort maliciously depraved, and yet in secret sort; on the onepart, and that of long time, that I am the most dangerous enemy and evilwiller to the queen of Scots; on the other side, that I am also a secretwell willer to her and her title; and that I have made my party goodwith her. Now, my lord, no man can make both these true together; but itsufficeth for such as like not me in doing my duty to deprave me, andyet in such sort is done in darkness as I cannot get opportunity toconvince them in the light. In all these crossings, my good lord, Iappeal to God, who knoweth, yea, I thank him infinitely, who directethmy thoughts to intend principally the service and honor of God, and, jointly with that, the surety and greatness of my sovereign lady thequeen's majesty; and for any other respect but that may tend to thosetwo, I appeal to God to punish me if I have any. As for the queen ofScots, truly I have no spot of evil meaning to her; neither do I mean todeal with any titles to the crown. If she shall intend any evil to thequeen's majesty my sovereign, for her sake I must and will mean toimpeach her; and therein I may be her unfriend or worse. 

"Well now, my good lord, your lordship seeth I have made a longdigression from my answer, but I trust your lordship can consider whatmoveth me thus to digress: Surely it behoveth me not only to liveuprightly, but to avoid all probable arguments that may be gathered torender me suspected to her majesty, whom I serve with all dutifulnessand sincerity; and therefore I gather this, that if it were understoodthat there were a communication, or a purpose of a marriage between yourlordship's son and my daughter, I am sure there would be an advantagesought to increase these former suspicions [word missing] purpose. Considering the young years of our two children [word missing] as if thematter were fully agreed betwixt us, the parents, the marriage could nottake effect, I think it best to refer the motion in silence, and yet soto order it with ourselves, that, when time shall hereafter be moreconvenient, we may, and then also with less cause of vain suspicion, renew it. And, in the meantime, I must confess myself much bounden toyour lordship for your goodness; wishing your lordship's son all thegood education that may be mete to teach him to fear God, love yourlordship his natural father, and to know his friends; without anycuriosity of human learning, which, without the fear of God, I see dothmuch hurt to all youth in this time and age. My lord, I pray you bearwith my scribbling, which I think your lordship shall hardly read, andyet I would not use my man's hand in such a matter as this is. [FromHampton Court, 25th Dec. 1575. ]

"Your lordship's most assured at command

"W. BURLEIGH[76]. "

[Note 76: "Illustrations" by Lodge. ]

 * * * * *

A similar caution to that of lord Burleigh was not observed in thedisposal of her daughters by the countess of Shrewsbury; a womanremarkable above all her contemporaries for a violent, restless andintriguing spirit, and an inordinate thirst of money and of sway. Shebrought to effect in 1574 a marriage between Elizabeth Cavendish, herdaughter by a former husband, and Charles Stuart, brother of Darnley andnext to the king of Scots in the order of succession to the crowns bothof England and Scotland. Notwithstanding the rooted enmity between Maryand the house of Lenox, this union was supposed to be the result of someprivate intrigue between lady Shrewsbury and the captive queen; and inconsequence of it Elizabeth committed to custody for some time, both themother of the bride and the unfortunate countess of Lenox, doomed toexpiate by such a variety of sufferings the unpardonable offence, in theeyes of Elizabeth, of having given heirs to the British sceptres. 

A signal occasion presented itself to the queen in 1575 of demonstratingto all neighbouring powers, that whatever suspicions her close andsomewhat crooked system of policy might now and then have excited, self-defence was in reality its genuine principle and single object; andthat the clear and comprehensive view which she had taken of her owntrue interests, joined to the habitual caution of her character, wouldever restrain her from availing herself of the most temptingopportunities of aggrandizement at their expense. 

The provinces of Holland and Zealand, goaded into revolt by the bigotryand barbarity of Philip of Spain, had from the first experienced in theEnglish nation, and even in Elizabeth herself, a disposition toencourage and shelter them; and despairing of being able longer tomaintain alone the unequal contest which they had provoked, yet resoluteto return no more under the tyranny of a detested master, they nowembraced the resolution of throwing themselves entirely upon herprotection. It was urged that Elizabeth, --as descended from Philippawife of Edward III. , a daughter of that count of Hainalt and Hollandfrom one of whose co-heiresses the king of Spain derived the Flemishpart of his dominions, --might claim somewhat of a hereditary title totheir allegiance, and a solemn deputation was appointed to offer to herthe sovereignty of the provinces on condition of defending them from theSpaniards. 

There was much in the proposal to flatter the pride and tempt theambition of a prince; much also to gratify that desire of retaliationwhich the encouragement given by Philip to the Northern rebellion and tocertain movements in Ireland, as well as to all the machinations of thequeen of Scots, may reasonably be supposed to have excited in the bosomof Elizabeth. Zeal for the protestant cause, had she ever entertained itseparately from considerations of personal interest and safety, mighthave proved a further inducement with her to accept the patronage ofthese afflicted provinces:--but not all the motives which could be urgedwere of force to divert her from her settled plan of policy; and after ashort interval of anxious hesitation, she resolved to dismiss the envoyswith an absolute refusal. The speech which she addressed to them on thisoccasion was highly characteristic, and in one point extremelyremarkable. 

She reprobated, doubtless with great sincerity, the principle, thatthere were cases in which subjects might be justified in throwing offallegiance to their lawful prince; and protested that, for herself, nothing could ever tempt her to usurp upon the dominions either of hergood brother of Spain or any other prince. Finally, she took upon her toadvert to the religious scruples which had produced the revolt of theHollanders, in a tone of levity which it is difficult to understand hermotive for assuming: since it could not fail, from her lips especially, to give extreme scandal to the deputies and to all other serious men. She said, that it was unreasonable in the Dutch to have stirred up sogreat a commotion merely on account of the celebration of mass; and thatso contumacious a resistance to their king could never redound to theirhonor, since they were not compelled to believe in the divinity of themass, but only to be spectators of its performance, --as at a publicspectacle. "What!" said she, "if I were to begin to act some scene in adress like this, " (for she was clad in white like a priest, ) "should youregard it as a crime to behold it?[77]" Was the queen here making theapology of her own compliances under the reign of her sister, or was shegenerously furnishing a salvo for others? In any case, the sentiment, ascoming from the heroine of protestantism, is extraordinary. 

[Note 77: Reidani "Annal. " Vide Bayle's "Dictionary, " art. _Elizabeth_. ]

An ineffectual remonstrance, addressed by Elizabeth to the king ofSpain, was the only immediate result of this attempt of the Provincesto engage her in their concerns. She kept a watchful eye, however, upontheir great and glorious struggle; and the time at length came, when shefound it expedient to unite more closely her interest with theirs. 

England now enjoyed profound tranquillity, internal and external, andour annalists find leisure to advert to various circumstances ofdomestic history. They mention a corporation formed for thetransmutation of iron into copper by the method of one Medley analchemist, of which the learned but credulous sir Thomas Smith, secretary of state, was a principal promoter, and in which bothLeicester and Burleigh embarked some capital. The master of the Mintventured to express a doubt of the success of the experiment, becausethe adept had engaged that the weight of copper procured should exceedthat of all the substances employed in its production; but nobody seemsto have felt the force of this simple objection, and great was thedisappointment of all concerned when at length the bubble burst. 

About the same time the famous Dr. Dee, mathematician, astrologer, andprofessor of the occult sciences, being pressed by poverty, supplicatedBurleigh to procure her majesty's patronage for his infallible method ofdiscovering hidden treasures. This person, who stood at the head of hisclass, had been early protected by Leicester, who employed him to fix alucky day for the queen's coronation. He had since been patronized byher majesty, who once visited him at his house at Mortlake, took lessonsof him in astronomy, and occasionally supplied him with money to defraythe expenses of his experiment. She likewise presented him to someecclesiastical benefices; but he often complained of the delay ornon-performance of her promises of pensions and preferment. On oneoccasion he was sent to the continent, ostensibly for the purpose ofconsulting physicians and philosophers on the state of her majesty'shealth; but probably not without some secret political commission. Aftera variety of wild adventures in different countries of Europe, in whichhe and his associate Kelly discovered still more knavery than credulityin the exercise of their various false sciences and fallacious arts, Deewas invited home by her majesty in 1589, and was afterwards presented byher with the wardenship of Manchester-college. But he was hated andsometimes insulted by the people as a conjurer; quarrelled with thefellows of his college, quitted Manchester in disgust, and failing toobtain the countenance of king James died at length in poverty andneglect;--the ordinary fate of his class of projectors. Elizabethperformed a more laudable part in lending her support to the enterpriseof that able and spirited navigator Martin Frobisher, who had long beensoliciting in vain among the merchants the means of attempting anorthwest passage to the Indies, and was finally supplied by the queenwith two small vessels. With these he set sail in June 1576, and thoughunsuccessful in the prime object of his voyage, extended considerablythe previous acquaintance of navigators with the coasts of Greenland, and became the discoverer of the straits which still bear his name. 

A sect called "The family of Love" had lately sprung up in England. Itsdoctrines, notwithstanding the frightful reports raised of them, wereprobably dangerous neither to the established church, with the rites ofwhich the brethren willingly complied, nor yet to the state; and it maybe doubted whether they were in any respect incompatible with privatemorals; but no innovations in religion were regarded as tolerable orvenial under the rigid administration of Elizabeth; and the leaders ofthe new heresy were taken into custody, and compelled to recant. Someanabaptists were apprehended about the same time, who acknowledged theirerror at Paul's Cross, bearing faggots, --the tremendous symbol of thefate from which their recantation had rescued them. Two of these unhappymen, however, repented of the disingenuous act into which human frailtyhad betrayed them; and returning to the open profession of theiropinions were burned in Smithfield, to the eternal opprobrium ofprotestant principles and the deep disgrace of the governess andinstitutress of the Anglican Church. 

The observation of lord Talbot, that the earl of Leicester showedhimself more than ever solicitous to improve the favor of his sovereign, received confirmation from the unparalleled magnificence of thereception which he provided for her when, during her progress in thesummer of 1575, she honored him with a visit in Warwickshire. 

The "princely pleasures of Kennelworth, " were famed in their day as thequintessence of all courtly delight, and very long and very pompousdescriptions of these festive devices have come down to our times. Theywere conducted on a scale of grandeur and expense which may stillsurprise; but taste as yet was in its infancy, and the whole wascharacterized by the unmerciful tediousness, the ludicrousincongruities, and the operose pedantry of a semi-barbarous age. 

A temporary bridge 70 feet in length was thrown across a valley to thegreat gate of the castle, and its posts were hung with the offerings ofseven of the Grecian deities to her majesty; displaying in grotesqueassemblage, cages of various large birds, fruits, corn, fishes, grapes, and wine in silver vessels, musical instruments of many kinds andweapons and armour hung trophy-wise on two ragged staves. A poetstanding at the end of the bridge explained in Latin verse the meaningof all. The Lady of the Lake, invisible since the disappearance of therenowned prince Arthur, approached on a floating island along the moatto recite adulatory verses. Arion, being summoned for the like purpose, appeared on a dolphin four-and-twenty feet long, which carried in itsbelly a whole orchestra. A Sibyl, a "Salvage man" and an Echo posted inthe park, all harangued in the same strain. Music and dancing enlivenedthe Sunday evening. Splendid fireworks were displayed both on land andwater;--a play was performed;--an Italian tumbler exhibited hisfeats;--thirteen bears were baited;--there were three stag-hunts, and arepresentation of a country bridal, followed by running at the quintin:finally, the men of Coventry exhibited, by express permission, theirannual mock fight in commemoration of a signal defeat of the Danes. 

Nineteen days did the earl of Leicester sustain the overwhelming honorof this royal visit;--a demonstration of her majesty's satisfaction inher entertainment quite unexampled, but which probably awakened lessenvy than any other token of her peculiar grace by which she might havebeen pleased to distinguish her favorite. 

No domestic incident had for a long time excited so strong a sensationas the death of Walter Devereux earl of Essex, which took place atDublin in the autumn of the year 1576. This nobleman is celebrated forhis talents, his virtues, his unfortunate and untimely death, and alsoas the father of a son still more distinguished and destined to a fateyet more disastrous. He was of illustrious descent, deriving a part ofhis hereditary honors from the lords Ferrers of Chartley, and the restfrom the noble family of Bourchier, through a daughter of Thomas ofWoodstock youngest son of Edward III. In his nineteenth year hesucceeded his grandfather as viscount Hereford, and coming to courtattracted the merited commendations of her majesty by his learning, hisabilities, and his ingenuous modesty. 

During a short period the viscount was joined in commission with theearls of Huntingdon and Shrewsbury for the safe keeping of the queen ofScots. On the breaking out of the northern rebellion, he joined theroyal army with all the forces he could raise; and in reward of thisforwardness in her service her majesty conferred on him the garter, andsubsequently invested him, after the most solemn and honorable form ofcreation, with the dignity of earl of Essex, long hereditary in thehouse of Bourchier. 

By these marks of favor the jealousy of Leicester and of other courtierswas strongly excited; but with little cause. The spirit of the earl hadtoo much of boldness, of enterprise, of a high-souled generosity, topermit him to take root and flourish in that scene of treachery andintrigue--a court; it quickly prompted him to seek occupation at adistance, in the attempt to subdue and civilize a turbulent Irishprovince. 

He solicited and obtained from the queen, by a kind of agreement thennot unusual, a grant to himself and the adventurers under him of half ofthe district of Clandeboy in Ulster, on condition of his rescuing anddefending the whole of it from the rebels and defraying half theexpenses of the service. Great things were expected from his expedition, on which he embarked in August 1573: but sir William Fitzwilliams, deputy of Ireland, viewed the arrival of the earl with sentiments whichled him to oppose every possible obstacle to his success. Probably, too, Essex himself found, on trial, the task of subduing the _Irishry_ (asthe natives of the island were then called) a more difficult one than hehad anticipated. Some brilliant service, however, amid many delays anddisappointments, he performed in various parts of the country; andhaving returned to England in 1575 to lay all his grievances before thequeen, and face the court faction which injured him in his absence, hewas sent back with the title of Marshal of Ireland, an appointmentwhich Leicester, for his own purposes, is said to have been active inprocuring him. 

Sir Henry Sidney had now succeeded Fitzwilliams as lord-deputy; and fromhim it does not appear that Essex had the same systematic opposition toencounter: on the contrary, having been applied to by the queen for hisopinion of the expediency of granting several requests of the earlrelative to this service, sir Henry advised her majesty to comply withmost of them, prefacing his counsel with the following sentence: "Of theearl I must say, that he is so noble and worthy a personage, and soforward in all his actions, and so complete a gentleman wherein he mayeither advance your honor or service, as you may take comfort to have instore so rare a subject, who hath nothing in greater regard than to showhimself such an one indeed as the common fame reporteth him; which hathbeen no more, in troth, than his due deserts and painful travels in theworst parts of this miserable country have deserved[78]. "

[Note 78: "Sidney Papers, " vol. I. ]

Such in fact was the apparent cordiality between the deputy and themarshal, that a proposal passed for the marriage of Philip Sidney to thelady Penelope Devereux daughter of the earl: but if this friendship wereever sincere on the part of sir Henry, it was at least short-lived; for, writing a few months after Essex's death to Leicester respecting theearl of Ormond, whom the favorite regarded as his enemy, he says. . . . "Infine, my lord, I am ready to accord with him; but, my most dear lordand brother, be you upon your keeping for him; for, if Essex had lived, you should have found him as violent an enemy as his heart, power andcunning would have served him to have been; and for that their malice, Itake God to record, I could brook neither of them both[79]. "

[Note 79: "Sidney Papers, " vol. I. ]

Ireland was, during the whole of Elizabeth's reign, that part of herdominions which it cost her most trouble to govern, and with which hersystem of policy prospered the least. Without a considerable militaryforce it was impossible to bring into subjection those parts of thecountry which still remained in a state of barbarism under the sway ofnative chieftains, or even to preserve in safety and civility suchdistricts as were already reclaimed and brought within the English pale. But the queen's parsimony, or, more truly, the narrowness of her income, caused her perpetually to repine at the great expenses to which she wasput for this service, and frequently to run the risk of losing all thathad been slowly gained, by a sudden withdrawment, or long delay, of thenecessary supplies. Her suspicious temper caused her likewise to lendready ear to the complaints, whether founded or not, brought by thedisaffected Irish against her officers. Sir Henry Sidney himself, thedeputy whom she most favored and trusted, and continued longer in officethan any other, supported as he was at court by the potent influence ofLeicester and the steady friendship of Burleigh, had many causes offeredhim of vexation and discontent; and those who held inferior commands, and were less ably protected from the attacks of their enemies, experienced almost insupportable anxieties from counteractions, difficulties and hardships of every kind. Of these the unfortunate earlof Essex had his full share. 

The hopes of improving his fortune, with which he had entered upon theservice, were so far from being realized that he found himself sinkingcontinually deeper in debt. His efforts against the rebels were by nomeans uniformly successful. His court enemies contrived to divert mostof the succours designed him by his sovereign, and the perplexities ofhis situation went on accumulating instead of diminishing. The bodilyfatigue which he endured in the prosecution of his designs, joined tothe anguish of a wounded spirit, undermined at length the powers of hisconstitution, and after repeated attacks he was carried off by adysentery in September 1576. 

Essex was liberal, affable, brave and eloquent, and generally belovedboth in England and Ireland. The symptoms of his disease, though such asexposure alone to the pestilential damps of the climate might well haveproduced, were also susceptible of being ascribed to poison; and one ofhis attendants, a divine who likewise professed medicine, seeing him ingreat pain, suddenly exclaimed, "By the mass, my lord, you arepoisoned!" The report spread like wild-fire. To common minds it is arelief under irremediable misfortune to find an object for blame; andaccordingly, though no direct evidence of the fact was produced, it wasuniversally believed that some villain had administered to him "an illdrink. "

As Leicester was known to be his enemy, strongly suspected of anintrigue with his wife, and believed capable of any enormity, thefriends and partisans of Essex seem immediately to have pointed at himas the contriver of his death; yet I find no contemporary evidence ofthe imputation, except in the conduct of sir Henry Sidney on thisoccasion, which indicates great anxiety for the reputation of his patronand brother-in-law. 

The lord-deputy was unfortunately absent from Dublin at the time of theearl of Essex's death, and before he could institute a regularexamination into the manner of it, a thousand false tales had beencirculated which were greedily received by the public. On his return, however, he entered into the investigation with great zeal anddiligence:--the decisive test of an examination of the body was notindeed applied, for it was one with which that age seems to have beenunacquainted; but many witnesses were called, reports were traced totheir source and in some instances disproved, and the result of thewhole was transmitted by the deputy to the privy-council in a letterwhich appears satisfactorily to prove that there was no solid ground toascribe the event to any but natural causes. That the deputy himself wasconvinced of the correctness of this representation is seen from one ofhis private letters to Leicester, published long after in the "SidneyPapers. "

In all probability, posterity would scarcely have heard of thisimputation on the character of Leicester, had not his marriage with thewidow of Essex served as corroboration of the charge, and given occasionto the malicious comments of the author of "Leicester's Commonwealth. "This union, however, was not publicly celebrated till two yearsafterwards; and we have no certain authority for the fact of thecriminal connexion of the parties during the life of the earl of Essex, nor for the private marriage said to have been huddled up with indecentprecipitation on his decease. 

Walter earl of Essex left Robert his son and successor, then in thetenth year of his age, to the care and protection of the earl of Sussexand lord Burleigh; but Mr. Edward Waterhouse, a person of great meritand abilities, then employed in Ireland and distinguished by the favorboth of lord Burleigh and sir Henry Sidney, had the immediate managementof the fortune and affairs of the minor. Of this friend Essex is relatedto have taken leave in his last moments with many kisses, exclaiming, "Omy Ned, my Ned, farewell! thou art the faithfulest and friendliestgentleman that ever I knew. " He proved the fidelity of his attachment byattending the body of the earl to Wales, whither it was conveyed forinterment, and it was thence that he immediately afterwards addressed tosir Henry Sidney a letter, of which the following is an extract. 

"The state of the earl of Essex, being best known to myself, dothrequire my travel for a time in his causes; but my burden cannot begreat when every man putteth to his helping hand. Her majesty hathbestowed upon the young earl his marriage, and all his father's rules inWales, and promiseth the remission of his debt. The lords do generallyfavor and further him; some for the trust reposed, some for love to thefather, other for affinity with the child, and some for other causes. All these lords that wish well to the children, and, I suppose, all thebest sort of the English lords besides, do expect what will become ofthe treaty between Mr. Philip and my lady Penelope. 

"Truly, my lord, I must say to your lordship, as I have said to my lordof Leicester and Mr. Philip, the breaking off of this match, if thedefault be on your parts, will turn to more dishonor than can berepaired with any other marriage in England. And I protest unto yourlordship, I do not think that there is at this day so strong a man inEngland of friends as the little earl of Essex; nor any man morelamented than his father since the death of king Edward[80]. "

[Note 80: "Sidney Papers. "]

Under such high auspices, and with such a general consent of men's mindsin his favor, did the celebrated, the rash, the lamented Essex commencehis brief and ill-starred course! The match between Philip Sidney andlady Penelope Devereux was finally broken off, as Waterhouse seems tohave apprehended. She married lord Rich, and afterwards Charles Blountearl of Devonshire, on whose account she had been divorced from herfirst husband. 

How little all the dark suspicions and sinister reports to which thedeath of the earl of Essex had given occasion, were able to influencethe mind of Elizabeth against the man of her heart, may appear by thetenor of an extraordinary letter written by her in June 1577 to the earland countess of Shrewsbury. 

 * * * * *

"Our very good cousins;

"Being given to understand from our cousin of Leicester how honorably hewas not only lately received by you our cousin the countess atChatsworth, and his diet by you both discharged at Buxtons, but alsopresented with a very rare present, we should do him great wrong(holding him in that place of favor we do) in case we should not let youunderstand in how thankful sort we accept the same at both your hands, not as done unto him but to our own self; reputing him as another self;and therefore ye may assure yourselves that we, taking upon us the debt, not as his but our own, will take care accordingly to discharge the samein such honorable sort as so well deserving creditors as ye shall neverhave cause to think ye have met with an ungrateful debtor. " &c. 

 * * * * *

Lord Talbot, on another occasion, urged upon his father the policy ofingratiating himself with Leicester by a pressing invitation toChatsworth, adding moreover, that he did not believe it would greatlyeither further or hinder his going into that part of the country. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

1577 TO 1582. 

Relations of the queen with France and Spain. --She sends succours to theDutch--is entertained by Leicester, and celebrated in verse by P. Sidney. --Her visit to Norwich. --Letter of Topcliffe. --Notice of sir T. Smith. --Magical practices against the queen. --Duke Casimir's visit toEngland. --Duke of Anjou urges his suit with the queen. --Simier'smission. --Leicester's marriage. --Behaviour of the queen. --A shot firedat her barge. --Her memorable speech. --First visit of Anjou inEngland. --Opinions of privy-councillors on the match. --Letter of PhilipSidney. --Stubbs's book. --Punishment inflicted on him. --Notice of sir N. Bacon. --Drake's return from his circumnavigation. --Jesuitseminaries. --Arrival of a French embassy. --A triumph. --Notice of FulkGreville. --Marriage-treaty with Anjou. --His second visit. --His returnand death. 

About the middle of the year 1576, Walsingham in a letter to sir HenrySidney thus writes: "Here at home we live in security as we were wont, grounding our quietness upon other harms. " The harms here alludedto, --the religious wars of France, and the revolt of the Dutch provincesfrom Spain, --had proved indeed, in more ways than one, the safeguard ofthe peace of England. They furnished so much domestic occupation to thetwo catholic sovereigns of Europe, most formidable by their power, theirbigotry, and their unprincipled ambition, as effectually to precludethem from uniting their forces to put in execution against Elizabeth thepapal sentence of deprivation; and by the opportunity which theyafforded her of causing incalculable mischiefs to these princes throughthe succours which she might afford to their rebellious subjects, theylong enabled her to restrain both Philip and Charles within the boundsof respect and amity. But circumstances were now tending with increasedvelocity towards a rupture with Spain, clearly become inevitable; and in1577 the queen of England saw herself compelled to take steps in theaffairs of the Low Countries equally offensive to that power and toFrance. 

The states of Holland, after the rejection of their sovereignty byElizabeth, cast their eyes around in search of another protector: andCharles IX. , suffering his ambition and his rivalry with Philip II. Tooverpower all the vehemence of his zeal for the catholic religion, showed himself eager to become their patron. His brother the duked'Alençon, doubtless with his concurrence, offered on certain terms tobring a French army for the expulsion of don John of Austria, governorof the Low Countries; and this proposal he urged with so muchimportunity, that the Hollanders, notwithstanding their utter antipathyto the royal family of France, seemed likely to accede to it, as thelightest of that variety of evils of which their present situationoffered them the choice. But Elizabeth could not view with indifferencethe progress of a negotiation which might eventually procure to Francethe annexation of these important provinces; and she encouraged thestates to refuse the offers of Alençon by immediately transmitting fortheir service liberal supplies of arms and money to duke Casimir, son ofthe Elector Palatine, then at the head of a large body of Germanprotestants in the Low Countries. 

At the same time she endeavoured to repress the catholics in her owndominions by a stricter enforcement of the penal laws, and two or threepersons in this year suffered capitally for their denial of the queen'ssupremacy[81]. 

[Note 81: Dr. Whitgift, then bishop of Worcester and vice-presidentof the marches of Wales under sir Henry Sidney, peculiarly distinguishedhimself by his activity in detecting secret meetings of catholics forthe purpose of hearing mass and practising other rites of theirreligion. The privy-council, in reward of his zeal, promised to directto him and to some of the Welsh bishops a special commission for thetrial of these delinquents. They further instructed him, in the case ofone Morice who had declined answering directly to certaininterrogatories tending to criminate himself in these matters, that ifhe remained obstinate, and the commissioners saw cause, they might attheir discretion cause some kind of torture to be used upon him. Thesame means he was also desired to take with others; in order to come toa full knowledge of all reconcilements to the church of Rome, and otherpractices of the papists in these parts. See Strype's "Whitgift, " p. 83. ]

These steps on the part of Elizabeth threatened to disconcert entirelythe plans of the French court; but it still seemed practicable, to theking and to his brother, to produce a change in her measures; and two orthree successive embassies arrived in London during the spring andsummer of 1578, to renew with fresh earnestness the proposals ofmarriage on the part of the duke d'Alençon. The earl of Sussex and hisparty favored this match, Leicester and all the zealous protestants inthe court and the nation opposed it. The queen "sat arbitress, " andperhaps prolonged her deliberations on the question, for the pleasure ofreceiving homage more than usually assiduous from both factions. 

The favorite, anxious to secure his ascendency by fresh efforts ofgallantry and instances of devotedness, entreated to be indulged in theprivilege of entertaining her majesty for several days at his seat ofWanstead-house; a recent and expensive purchase, which he had beenoccupied in adorning with a magnificence suited to the ostentatiousprodigality of his disposition. 

It was for the entertainment of her majesty on this occasion that PhilipSidney condescended to task a genius worthy of better things with thecomposition of a mask in celebration of her surpassing beauties androyal virtues, entitled "The Lady of May. " In defence of this public actof adulation, the young poet had probably the particular request of hisuncle and patron to plead, as well as the common practice of the age;but it must still be mortifying under any circumstances, to record theabasement of such a spirit to a level with the vulgar herd ofElizabethan flatterers. 

Unsatiated with festivities and homage, the queen continued her progressfrom Wanstead through the counties of Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, receiving the attendance of numerous troops of gentry, and making visitsin her way to all who felt themselves entitled, or called, to solicitwith due humility the costly honor of entertaining her. Her train wasnumerous and brilliant, and the French ambassadors constantly attendedher motions. About the middle of August she arrived at Norwich. 

This ancient city, then one of the most considerable in the kingdom, yielded to none in a zealous attachment to protestant principles and tothe queen's person; and as its remote situation had rendered the arrivalof a royal visitant within its walls an extremely rare occurrence, themagistrates resolved to spare nothing which could contribute to thesplendor of her reception. 

At the furthest limits of the city she was met by the mayor, whoaddressed her in a long and very abject Latin oration, in which he wasnot ashamed to pronounce that the city enjoyed its charters andprivileges "by her only clemency. " At the conclusion he produced a largesilver cup filled with gold pieces, saying, "Sunt hic centum libræ puriauri:" Welcome sounds, which failed not to reach the ear of her graciousmajesty, who, lifting up the cover with alacrity, said audibly to thefootman to whose care it was delivered, "Look to it, there is a hundredpound. " Pageants were set up in the principal streets, of which one hadat least the merit of appropriateness, since it accurately representedthe various processes employed in those woollen manufactures for whichNorwich was already famous. 

Two days after her majesty's arrival, Mercury, in a blue satin doubletlined with cloth of gold, with a hat of the same garnished with wings, and wings at his feet, appeared under her chamber window in anextraordinarily fine painted coach, and invited her to go abroad andsee more shows; and a kind of mask, in which Venus and Cupid withWantonness and Riot were discomfited by the Goddess of Chastity and herattendants, was performed in the open air. A troop of nymphs and fairieslay in ambush for her return from dining with the earl of Surry; and inthe midst of these Heathenish exhibitions, the minister of the Dutchchurch watched his opportunity to offer to her the grateful homage ofhis flock. To these deserving strangers, protestant refugees fromSpanish oppression, the policy of Elizabeth, in this instance equallygenerous and discerning, had granted every privilege capable of inducingthem to make her kingdom their permanent abode. At Norwich, where thegreater number had settled, a church was given them for the performanceof public worship in their own tongue, and according to the form whichthey preferred; and encouragement was held out to them to establish hereseveral branches of manufacture which they had previously carried on togreat advantage at home. This accession of skill and industry soonraised the woollen fabrics of England to a pitch of excellence unknownin former ages, and repaid with usury to the country this exercise ofpublic hospitality. 

It appears that the inventing of masks, pageants and devices for therecreation of the queen on her progresses had become a distinctprofession. George Ferrers, formerly commemorated as master of thepastimes to Edward VI. , one Goldingham, and Churchyard, author of "theWorthiness of Wales, " of some legends in the "Mirror for Magistrates, "and of a prodigious quantity of verse on various subjects, were themost celebrated proficients in this branch; all three are handed down toposterity as contributors to "the princely pleasures of Kennelworth, "and the two latter as managers of the Norwich entertainments. They viedwith each other in the gorgeousness, the pedantry and the surprisingnessof their devices; but the palm was surely due to him of the number whohad the glory of contriving a battle between certain allegoricalpersonages, in the midst of which, "legs and arms of men, well andlively wrought, were to be let fall in numbers on the ground as bloodyas might be. " The combat was to be exhibited in the open air; but theskies were unpropitious, and a violent shower of rain unfortunatelydeprived her majesty of the satisfaction of witnessing the effect of soextraordinary and elegant a device. 

Richard Topcliffe, a Lincolnshire gentleman employed by government tocollect informations against the papists, and so much distinguished inthe employment, that _Topcliffizare_ became the cant term of the day for_hunting a recusant_, was at this time a follower of the court; and aletter addressed by him to the earl of Shrewsbury contains someparticulars of this progress worth preserving. . . . "I did never see hermajesty better received by two counties in one journey than Suffolk andNorfolk now; Suffolk of gentlemen and Norfolk of the meaner sort, withexceeding joy to themselves and well liking to her majesty. Greatentertainment at the master of the Rolls'; greater at Kenninghall, andexceeding of all sorts at Norwich. 

"The next good news, (but in account the highest) her majesty hathserved God with great zeal and comfortable examples; for by her counciltwo notorious papists, young Rookwood (the master of Euston-hall, whereher majesty did lie upon Sunday now a fortnight) and one Downes, agentleman, were both committed, the one to the town prison at Norwich, the other to the county prison there, for obstinate papistry; and sevenmore gentlemen of worship were committed to several houses in Norwich asprisoners. . . . For badness of belief. This Rookwood is a papist of kind, newly crept out of his late wardship. Her majesty, by some means I knownot, was lodged at his house, Euston, far unmeet for her highness, butfitter for the black guard; nevertheless, (the gentleman brought intoher majesty's presence by like device) her excellent majesty gave toRookwood ordinary thanks for his bad house, and her fair hand to kiss;after which it was braved at. But my lord chamberlain, nobly andgravely, understanding that Rookwood was excommunicated for papistry, called him before him; demanded of him how he durst to attempt her royalpresence, he, unfit to accompany any Christian person? Forthwith said hewas fitter for a pair of stocks; commanded him out of the court, and yetto attend her council's pleasure, and at Norwich he was committed. And, to decypher the gentleman to the full; a piece of plate being missed inthe court and searched for in his hay-house, in the hayrick such animage of our lady was there found, as for greatness, for gayness, andworkmanship, I did never see a match; and after a sort of countrydances ended, in her majesty's sight the idol was set behind the people, who avoided. She rather seemed a beast raised upon a sudden from hell byconjuring, than the picture for whom it had been so often and so longabused. Her majesty commanded it to the fire, which in her sight by thecountry folks was quickly done, to her content, and unspeakable joy ofevery one, but some one or two who had sucked of the idol's poisonedmilk. 

"Shortly after, a great sort of good preachers, who had been commandedto silence for a little niceness, were licensed, and again commanded topreach; a greater and more universal joy to the counties, and the mostof the court, than the disgrace of the papists; and the gentlemen ofthose parts, being great and hot protestants (almost before by policydiscredited and disgraced), were greatly countenanced. " The letterwriter afterwards mentions in a splenetic style the envoy from Monsieur, one Baqueville a Norman, "with four or five of Monsieur's youths, " whoattended the queen and were "well entertained and regarded. " After them, he says, came M. Rambouillet from the French king, brother of thecardinal, who had not long before written vilely against the queen, andwhose entertainment, it seemed to him, was not so good as that of theothers[82]. 

[Note 82: "Illustrations, " by Lodge, vol. Ii. P. 187. ]

The queen was about this time deprived by death of an old and faithfulcounsellor, in the person of sir Thomas Smith one of the principalsecretaries of state. This eminent person, the author of a work "on theCommonwealth of England, " still occasionally consulted, and in variousways a great benefactor to letters in his day, was one of the few whohad passed at once with safety and credit through all the perils andrevolutions of the three preceding reigns. His early proficiency atcollege obtained for Smith the patronage of Henry VIII. , at whoseexpense he was sent to complete his studies in Italy; and he took atPadua the degree of Doctor of Laws. Resuming on his return his residenceat Cambridge, he united his efforts with those of Cheke for reformingthe pronunciation of the Greek language. Afterwards he furnished anexample of attachment to his mother-tongue which among classicalscholars has found too few imitators, by giving to the public a work onEnglish orthography and pronunciation; objects as yet almost totallyneglected by his countrymen, and respecting which, down to a much laterperiod, no approach to system or uniformity prevailed, but, on thecontrary, a vagueness, a rudeness and an ignorance disgraceful to alettered people. 

Though educated in the civil law, Smith now took deacon's orders andaccepted a rectory, and the deanery of Carlisle. His principles secretlybegan to incline towards the reformers, and he lent such protection ashe was able to those who in the latter years of Henry VIII. Underwentpersecution for the avowal of similar sentiments. 

Protector Somerset patronized him: under his administration he wasknighted notwithstanding his deacon's orders, and became the colleagueof Cecil as secretary of state. On the accession of Mary he was strippedof the lucrative offices which he held, but a small pension was assignedhim on condition of his remaining in the kingdom; and he contrived topass away those days of horror in an unmolested obscurity. 

He was among the first whom Mary's illustrious successor recalled topublic usefulness; being summoned to take his place at her earliestprivy-council. In the important measures of the beginning of the reignfor the settlement of religion, he took a distinguished part: afterwardshe was employed with advantage to his country in several difficultembassies; he was then appointed assistant and finally successor toBurleigh in the same high post which they had occupied together so manyyears before under the reign of Edward, and in this station he died atthe age of sixty-three. 

No statesman of the age bore a higher character than sir Thomas Smithfor rectitude and benevolence, and nothing of the wiliness and craftconspicuous in most of his coadjutors is discernible in him. There wasone foible of his day, however, from which he was by no means exempt: oncertain points he was superstitious beyond the ordinary measure oflearned credulity in the sixteenth century. Of his faith in alchemicalexperiments a striking instance has already occurred; he was likewise agreat astrologer, and gave himself much concern in conjecturing whatdireful events might be portended by the appearance of a comet whichbecame visible in the last year of his life. During a temporaryretirement from court, he had also distinguished himself as a magistrateby his extraordinary diligence in the prosecution of suspected witches. But the date of these and similar delusions had not yet expired. Greatalarms were excited in the country during the year 1577 by theprevalence of certain magical practices, which were supposed to strikeat the life of her majesty. There were found at Islington, concealed inthe house of a catholic priest who was a reputed sorcerer, three waxenimages, formed to represent the queen and two of her chief counsellors;other dealings also of professors of the occult sciences were from timeto time discovered. "Whether it were the effect of this magic, " saysStrype, who wrote in the beginning of the eighteenth century, "orproceeded from some natural cause, but the queen was in some part ofthis year under excessive anguish by pains of her teeth: Insomuch thatshe took no rest for divers nights, and endured very great torment nightand day. " In this extremity, a certain "outlandish" physician wasconsulted, who composed on the case, with much solemnity of style, along Latin letter, in which, after observing with due humility that itwas a perilous attempt in a person of his slender abilities to prescribefor a disease which had caused perplexity and diversity of opinion amongthe skilful and eminent physicians ordinarily employed by her majesty, he ventured however to suggest various applications as worthy of trial;finally hinting at the expediency of having recourse to extraction onthe possible failure of all other means to afford relief. How thisweighty matter terminated we are not here informed; but it is uponrecord that Aylmer bishop of London once submitted to have a toothdrawn, in order to encourage her majesty to undergo that operation; andas the promotion of the learned prelate was at this time recent, and hisgratitude, it may be presumed, still lively, we may perhaps be permittedto conjecture that it was the bishop who on this occasion performed thepart of exorcist. 

The efforts of duke Casimir for the defence of the United Provinces hadhitherto proved eminently unfortunate; and in the autumn of 1578 hejudged it necessary to come over to England to apologize in person toElizabeth for the ill success of his arms, and to make arrangements forthe future. 

He was very honorably received by her majesty, who recollected perhapswith some little complacency that he had formerly been her suitor. Justings, tilts, and runnings at the ring were exhibited for hisentertainment, and he was engaged in hunting-parties, in which hegreatly delighted. Leicester loaded him with presents; the earl ofPembroke also complimented him with a valuable jewel. The earl ofHuntingdon, a nobleman whose religious zeal, which had rendered him thepeculiar patron of the puritan divines, interested him also in the causeof Holland, escorted him on his return as far as Gravesend; and sirHenry Sidney attended him to Dover. The queen willingly bestowed on herprincely guest the cheap distinction of the garter; but her partingpresent of two golden cups, worth three hundred pounds a-piece, wasextorted from her, after much murmuring and long reluctance, by theurgency of Walsingham, who was anxious, with the rest of his party, thattowards this champion of the protestant cause, though unfortunate, nomark of respect should be omitted. 

The Spanish and French ambassadors repined at the favors heaped onCasimir; but in the mean time the French faction was not inactive. Theearl of Sussex, whose generally sound judgement seems to have beenwarped in this instance by his habitual contrariety to Leicester, wrotein August 1578 a long letter to the queen, in which, after stating thearguments for and against the French match, he summed up prettydecidedly in its favor. What was of more avail, Monsieur sent over toplead his cause an agent named Simier, a person of great dexterity, whowell knew how to ingratiate himself by a thousand amusing arts; by asprightly style of conversation peculiarly suited to the taste of thequeen; and by that ingenious flattery, the talent of his nation, whichis seldom entirely thrown away even upon the sternest and mostimpenetrable natures. Elizabeth could not summon resolution to dismissabruptly a suit which was so agreeably urged, and in February 1579 lordTalbot sends the following information to his father: "Her majestycontinueth her very good usage of M. Simier and all his company, and hehath conference with her three or four times a week, and she is the bestdisposed and pleasantest when she talketh with him (as by her gesturesappeareth) that is possible. " He adds, "The opinion of Monsieur'scoming still holdeth, and yet it is secretly bruited that he cannot takeup so much money as he would on such a sudden, and therefore will notcome so soon[83]. "

[Note 83: "Illustrations, " &c. Vol. Ii. ]

The influence of Simier over the queen became on a sudden so potent, that Leicester and his party reported, and perhaps believed, that he hademployed philters and other unlawful means to inspire her with love forhis master. Simier on his side amply retaliated these hostilities bycarrying to her majesty the first tidings of the secret marriage of herfavorite with the countess of Essex;--a fact which none of her courtiershad found courage to communicate to her, though it must have been bythis time widely known, as sir Francis Knowles, the countess's father, had insisted, for the sake of his daughter's reputation, that thecelebration of the nuptials should take place in presence of aconsiderable number of witnesses. 

The rage of the queen on this disclosure transported her beyond all thebounds of justice, reason, and decorum. It has been already remarkedthat she was habitually, or systematically, an open enemy to matrimonyin general; and the higher any persons stood in her good graces and themore intimate their access to her, the greater was her resentment atdetecting in them any aspirations after this state; because a kind ofjealousy was in these cases superadded to her malignity, and it offendedher pride that those who were honored with her favor should findthemselves at leisure to covet another kind of happiness of which shewas not the dispenser. But that Leicester, the dearest of her friends, the first of her favorites, after all the devotedness to her charmswhich he had so long professed, and which she had requited by apreference so marked and benefits so signal, --that he, --her opinionunconsulted, her sanction unimplored, should have formed, --and with herown near relation, --this indissoluble tie, and having formed it shouldhave attempted to conceal the fact from her when known to so manyothers, --appeared to her the acme of ingratitude, perfidy, and insult. She felt the injury like a weak disappointed woman, she resented it likea queen and a Tudor. 

She instantly ordered Leicester into confinement in a small fort thenstanding in Greenwich park, and she threw out the menace, nay actuallyentertained the design, of sending him to the Tower. But the lofty andhonorable mind of the earl of Sussex revolted against proceedings soviolent, so lawless, and so disgraceful in every point of view to hisroyal kinswoman. He plainly represented to her, that it was contrary toall right and all decorum that any man should be punished for lawfulmatrimony, which was held in honor by all; and his known hostility tothe favorite giving weight to his remonstrance, the queen curbed heranger, gave up all thoughts of the Tower, and soon restored the earl toliberty. In no long time afterwards, he was readmitted to her presence;and so necessary had he made himself to her majesty, or so powerful inthe state, that she found it expedient insensibly to restore him to thesame place of trust and intimacy as before; though it is probable thathe never entirely regained her affections; and his countess, for whomindeed she had never entertained any affection, remained the avowedobject of her utter antipathy even after the death of Leicester, and inspite of all the intercessions in her behalf with which her son Essex, in the meridian of his favor, never ceased to importune his sovereign. 

The quarrel of Leicester against Simier proceeded to such extremityafter this affair, that the latter believed his life in danger from hisattempts. It was even said that the earl had actually hired one of thequeen's guard to assassinate the envoy, and that the design had onlymiscarried by chance. However this might be, her majesty, on account ofthe spirit of enmity displayed towards him by the people, to whom theidea of the French match was ever odious, found it necessary, by aproclamation, to take Simier under her special protection. It was aboutthis time that as the queen was taking the air on the Thames, attendedby this Frenchman and by several of her courtiers, a shot was fired intoher barge, by which one of the rowers was severely wounded. Somesupposed that it was aimed at Simier, others at the queen herself; butthe last opinion was immediately silenced by the wise and graciousdeclaration of her majesty, "that she would believe nothing of hersubjects that parents would not believe of their children. "

After due inquiry the shot was found to have been accidental, and theperson who had been the cause of the mischief, though condemned todeath, was pardoned. Such at least is the account of the affairtransmitted to us by contemporary writers; but it still remains amystery how the man came to be capitally condemned if innocent, or to bepardoned if guilty. 

Leicester, from all these circumstances, had incurred so much obloquy atcourt, and found himself so coldly treated by the queen herself, that ina letter to Burleigh he offered, or threatened, to banish himself; wellknowing, perhaps, that the proposal would not be accepted; while theFrench prince, now created duke of Anjou, adroitly seized the moment ofthe earl's disgrace to try the effect of personal solicitations on theheart of Elizabeth. He arrived quite unexpectedly, and almost withoutattendants, at the gate of her palace at Greenwich; experienced a verygracious reception; and after several long conferences with the queenalone, of which the particulars never transpired, took his leave andreturned home, re-committing his cause to the skilful management of hisown agent, and the discussion of his brother's ambassadors. 

Long and frequent meetings of the privy-council were now held, bycommand of her majesty, for the discussion of the question of marriage;from the minutes of which some interesting details may be recovered. 

The earl of Sussex was still, as ever, strongly in favor of the match;and chiefly, as it appears, from an apprehension that France and Spainmight otherwise join to dethrone the queen and set up another in herplace. Lord Hunsdon was on the same side, as was also the lord-admiral(the earl of Lincoln), but less warmly. Burleigh labored to findarguments in support of the measure, but evidently against his judgementand to please the queen. Leicester openly professed to have changed hisopinion, "for her majesty was to be followed. " Sir Walter Mildmayreasoned freely and forcibly against the measure, on the ground of thetoo advanced age of the queen, and the religion, the previous publicconduct and the family connexions of Anjou. Sir Ralph Sadler subscribedto most of the objections of Mildmay, and brought forward additionalones. Sir Henry Sidney approved all these, and subjoined, "that themarriage could not be made good by all the counsel between England andRome; a mass might not be suffered in the court;" meaning, probably, that the marriage rite could not by any expedient be accommodated to theconsciences of both parties and the law of England. 

On the whole, with the single exception perhaps of the earl of Sussex, those counsellors who pronounced in favor of the marriage in thisdebate, did so, almost avowedly, in compliance with the wishes of thequeen, whose inclination to the alliance had become very evident sincethe visit of her youthful suitor; while such as opposed it were moved bystrong and earnest convictions of the gross impropriety and thoroughunsuitableness of the match, with respect to Elizabeth herself, and thedreadful evils which it was likely to entail on the nation. How entirelythe real sentiments of this body were adverse to the step, becamefurther evident when the council, instead of immediately obeying hermajesty's command, that they should come to a formal decision on thequestion and acquaint her with the same, hesitated, temporized, assuredher of their readiness to be entirely guided on a matter so personal toherself, by her feelings and wishes; requested to be further informedwhat these might be, and inquired whether, under all the circumstances, she was desirous of their coming to a full determination. "This messagewas reported to her majesty in the forenoon, " (October 7th 1579) "andshe allowed very well of the dutiful offer of their services. Nevertheless, she uttered many speeches, and that not without sheddingof many tears, that she should find in her councillors, by their longdisputations, any disposition to make it doubtful, whether there couldbe any more surety for her and her realm than to have her marry and havea child of her own body to inherit, and so to continue the line of kingHenry the eighth; and she said she condemned herself of simplicity incommitting this matter to be argued by them, for that she thought, tohave rather had an universal request made to her to proceed in thismarriage, than to have made doubt of it; and being much troubledherewith she requested" the bearers of this message "to forbear her tillthe afternoon. "

On their return, she repeated her former expressions of displeasure;then endeavoured at some length to refute the objections brought againstthe match; and finally, her "great misliking" of all opposition, and herearnest desire for the marriage, being reported to her faithful council, they agreed, after long consultations, to offer her their services infurtherance of it, should such really be her pleasure[84]. 

[Note 84: "Burleigh Papers, " by Murdin, _passim. _]

But the country possessed some men less obsequious thanprivy-councillors, who could not endure to stand by in silence andbehold the great public interests here at stake surrendered in slavishdeference to the fond fancy of a romantic woman, caught by the image ofa passion which she was no longer of an age to inspire, and which sheought to have felt it an indecorum to entertain. Of this number, to hisimmortal honor, was Philip Sidney. This young gentleman bore at the timethe courtly office of cup-bearer to the queen, and was looking forfurther advancement at her hands; and as on a former occasion he had notscrupled to administer some food to her preposterous desire of personaladmiration, Elizabeth, when she applied to him for his opinion on hermarriage, assuredly did so in the hope and expectation of hearing fromhim something more graceful to her ears than the language of truth andwisdom. But Sidney had beheld with his own eyes the horrors of the Parismassacre; he had imbibed with all the eagerness of a youthful andgenerous mind the principles of his friend the excellent Hubert Languet, one of the ablest advocates of the protestant cause; and he had since, on his embassy to Germany and Holland, enjoyed the favor andcontemplated the illustrious virtues of William prince of Orange itsheroic champion. 

To this sacred cause the purposed marriage must prove, as he well knew, deeply injurious, and to the reputation of his sovereign fatal:--thiswas enough to decide his judgement and his conduct; and magnanimouslydisdaining the suggestions of a selfish and servile policy, he repliedto the demand of her majesty, by a letter of dissuasion, almost ofremonstrance, at once the most eloquent and the most courageous piece ofthat nature which the age can boast. Every important view of the subjectis comprised in this letter, which is long, but at the same time socondensed in style, and so skilfully compacted as to matter, that itwell deserves to be read entire, and must lose materially either byabridgement or omission. Yet it may be permitted to detach frompolitical reasonings, foreign to the nature and object of this work, afew sentences referring more immediately to the personal character ofAnjou, and displaying in a strong light the enormous unfitness of theconnexion; and also the animated and affectionate conclusion by whichthe writer seems desirous to atone for the enunciation of so manyunwelcome truths. 

"These, " speaking of her majesty's protestant subjects. . . "These, howwill their hearts be galled, if not aliened, when they shall see youtake a husband, a Frenchman and a papist, in whom (howsoever fine witsmay find further dealings or painted excuses) the very common peoplewell know this, that he is the son of a Jezabel of our age; that hisbrother made oblation of his own sister's marriage, the easier to makemassacres of our brethren in belief: That he himself, contrary to hispromise and all gratefulness, having his liberty and principal estateby the Hugonots' means, did sack La Charité, and utterly spoil them withfire and sword! This, I say, even at first sight, gives occasion to alltruly religious to abhor such a master, and consequently to diminishmuch of the hopeful love they have long held to you. "

"Now the agent party, which is Monsieur. Whether he be not apt to workon the disadvantage of your estate, he is to be judged by his will andpower: his will to be as full of light ambition as is possible, besidesthe French disposition and his own education, his inconstant temperagainst his brother, his thrusting himself into the Low Country matters, his sometimes seeking the king of Spain's daughter, sometimes yourmajesty, are evident testimonies of his being carried away with everywind of hope; taught to love greatness any way gotten; and having forthe motioners and ministers of the mind only such young men as haveshowed they think evil contentment a ground of any rebellion; who haveseen no commonwealth but in faction, and divers of which have defiledtheir hands in odious murders. With such fancies and favorites what isto be hoped for? or that he will contain himself within the limits ofyour conditions?"

. . . . "Against contempt, if there be any, which I will never believe, letyour excellent virtues of piety, justice and liberality, daily, if it bepossible, more and more shine. Let such particular actions be found out(which be easy, as I think, to be done) by which you may gratify all thehearts of your people. Let those in whom you find trust, and to whom youhave committed trust, in your weighty affairs, be held up in the eyesof your subjects: Lastly, doing as you do, you shall be as you be, theexample of princes, the ornament of this age, and the most excellentfruit of your progenitors, and the perfect mirror of your posterity. "

Such had ever been the devoted loyalty of Philip Sidney towardsElizabeth, and so high was the place which he held in her esteem, thatshe appears to have imputed the boldness of this letter to no motivesbut good ones; and instead of resenting his interference in so delicatea matter, she is thought to have been deeply moved by his eloquence, andeven to have been influenced by it in the formation of her finalresolve. But far other success attended the efforts of a differentcharacter, who labored with equal zeal, equal reason, and probably notinferior purity of intention, though for less courtliness of address, todeter rather than dissuade her from the match, on grounds much moreoffensive to her feelings, and by means of what was then accounted aseditious appeal to the passions and prejudices of the nation. 

The work alluded to was entitled "The discovery of a gaping gulf whereinEngland is like to be swallowed by another French marriage, if the Lordforbid not the banns by letting her see the sin and punishment thereof. "Its author was a gentleman named Stubbs, then of Lincoln's Inn, andpreviously of Bene't College Cambridge, where we are told that hisintimacies had been formed among the more learned and ingenious class ofstudents, and where the poet Spenser had become his friend. He wasknown as a zealous puritan, and had given his sister in marriage to thecelebrated Edmund Cartwright the leader of the sect. It is probable thatneither his religious principles nor this connexion were forgotten bythe queen in her estimate of his offence. A furious proclamation wasissued against the book, all the copies of which were ordered to beseized and burned; and the author and publisher, being proceeded againston a severe statute of Philip and Mary, which many lawyers held to be nolonger in force, were found guilty, and condemned to the barbarouspunishment of amputation of the right hand. 

The words of Stubbs on being brought to the scaffold to undergo hissentence have been preserved, and well merit transcription. "What agrief it is to the body to lose one of his members you all know. I amcome hither to receive my punishment according to the law. I am sorryfor the loss of my hand, and more sorry to lose it by judgement; butmost of all with her majesty's indignation and evil opinion, whom I haveso highly displeased. Before I was condemned, I might speak for myinnocency; but now my mouth is stopped by judgement, to the which Isubmit myself, and am content patiently to endure whatsoever it pleasethGod, of his secret providence, to lay upon me, and take it justlydeserved for my sins; and I pray God it may be an example to you all, that it being so dangerous to offend the laws, without an evil meaning, as breedeth the loss of a hand, you may use your hands holily, and prayto God for the long preservation of her majesty over you, whom God hathused as an instrument for a long peace and many blessings over us; andspecially for his Gospel, whereby she hath made a way for us to rest andquietness to our consciences. For the French I force not; but mygreatest grief is, in so many weeks and days of imprisonment, hermajesty hath not once thought me worthy of her mercy, which she hathoften times extended to divers persons in greater offences. For my hand, I esteem it not so much, for I think I could have saved it, and might doyet; but I will not have a guiltless heart and an infamous hand. I prayyou all to pray with me, that God will strengthen me to endure and abidethe pain that I am to suffer, and grant me this grace, that the loss ofmy hand do not withdraw any part of my duty and affection toward hermajesty, and because, when so many veins of blood are opened, it isuncertain how they may be stayed, and what wilt be the eventthereof. ". . . . The hand ready on the block to be stricken off, he saidoften to the people: "Pray for me now my calamity is at hand. " And so, with these words, it was smitten off, whereof he swoonded[85]. "

[Note 85: "Nugæ. "]

In this speech, the language of which is so remarkably contrasted withthose abject submissions which fear extorted from the high-born victimsof the tyranny of Henry VIII. , the attentive reader will discernsomewhat of the same spirit which combated popery and despotism underthe Stuarts, though tempered by that loyal attachment towards therestorer and protectress of reformed religion which dwelt in the heartsof all the protestant subjects of Elizabeth without exception. 

After the execution of the more painful part of his sentence, Stubbs wasfurther punished by an imprisonment of several months in the Tower: butunder all these inflictions, his courage and his cheerfulness weresupported by a firm persuasion of the goodness of the cause in which hesuffered. He wrote many letters to his friends with the left hand, signing them Scævola; a surname which it was his pleasure to adopt inmemory of a circumstance by which he did not feel himself to be theperson dishonored. Such was the opinion entertained by Burleigh of thetheological learning of this eminent person and the soundness of hisprinciples, that he engaged him in 1587 to answer Cardinal Allen'sviolent book entitled "The English Justice;" a task which he is said tohave performed with distinguished ability. 

During the whole of the year 1580, the important question of the queen'smarriage remained in an undecided state. The court of France appears tohave suffered the treaty to languish, and Elizabeth, conscious no doubtthat her fond inclination could only be gratified at the expense of thatpopularity which it had been the leading object of her policy tocherish, sought not to revive it. Various circumstances occurred tooccupy public attention during the interval. 

Sir Nicholas Bacon, who under the humbler title of lord keeper hadexercised from the beginning of the reign the office of lord highchancellor, died generally regretted in 1579. No one is recorded to havefilled this important post with superior assiduity or a greaterreputation for uprightness and ability than sir Nicholas, and severalwell-known traits afford a highly pleasing image of the generalcharacter of his mind. Of this number are his motto, "_Mediocriafirma_, " and his handsome reply to the remark of her majesty that hishouse was too little for him;--"No, madam; but you have made me too bigfor my house. " Even when, upon this royal hint, he erected his elegantmansion of Gorhambury, he was still careful not to lose sight of thatidea of lettered privacy in which he loved to indulge; and theaccomplishments of his mind were reflected in the decorations of hishome. In the gardens, on which his chief care and cost were bestowed, arose a banqueting-house consecrated to the seven Sciences, whosefigures adorned the walls, each subscribed with a Latin distich andsurrounded with portraits of her most celebrated votaries; a temple inwhich we may imagine the youthful mind of that illustrious son of his, who "took all learning to be" his "province, " receiving with delight itsearliest inspiration! In his second wife, --one of the learned daughtersof sir Anthony Cook, a woman of a keen and penetrating intellect, andmuch distinguished by her zeal for reformed religion in its austererforms, --sir Nicholas found a partner capable of sharing his views andappreciating his character. By her he became the father of two sons;that remarkable man Anthony Bacon, and Francis, the light of science, the interpreter of nature; the admiration of his own age, and the wonderof succeeding ones; the splendid dawn of whose unrivalled genius hisfather was happy enough to behold; more happy still in not surviving towitness the calamitous eclipse which overshadowed his reputation at itshighest noon. 

The lord keeper was esteemed the second pillar of that state of whichBurleigh was the prime support. In all public measures of importancethey acted together; and similar speculative opinions, with coincidingviews of national policy, united these two eminent statesmen in abrotherhood dearer than that of alliance; but in their motives ofaction, and in the character of their minds, a diversity was observablewhich it may be useful to point out. 

Of Burleigh it has formerly been remarked, that with his own interest heconsidered also, and perhaps equally, that of his queen and his country:but the patriotism of Bacon seems to have risen higher; and hisconformity with the wishes and sentiments of his sovereign was lessobsequiously exact. In the affair of lady Catherine Grey's title, he didnot hesitate to risk the favor of the queen and his own continuance inoffice, for the sake of what appeared to him the cause of religion andhis country. On the whole, however, moderation and prudence were thegoverning principles of his mind and actions. The intellect of Burleighwas more versatile and acute, that of Bacon more profound; and theirparts in the great drama of public life were cast accordingly: Burleighhad most of the alertness of observation, the fertility of expedient, the rapid calculation of contingencies, required in the minister ofstate; Bacon, of the gravity and steadfastness which clothe withreverence and authority the counsellor and judge. "He was a plain man, "says Francis Bacon of his father, "direct and constant, without allfinesse and doubleness, and one that was of a mind that a man in hisprivate proceedings and estate, and in the proceedings of state, shouldrest upon the soundness and strength of his own courses, and not uponpractice to circumvent others. "

After Elizabeth had forgiven his interference respecting the succession, no one was held by her in greater honor and esteem than her lord keeper;she visited him frequently, conversed with him familiarly; took pleasurein the flashes of wit which often relieved the seriousness of hiswisdom; and flattered with kind condescension his parental feelings bythe extraordinary notice which she bestowed on his son Francis, whosebrightness and solidity of parts early manifested themselves to herdiscerning eye, and caused her to predict that her "little lord keeper"would one day prove an eminent man. 

Great interest was excited by the arrival in Plymouth harbour, inNovember 1580, of the celebrated Francis Drake from his circumnavigationof the globe. National vanity was flattered by the idea that thisEnglishman should have been the first commander-in-chief by whom thisgreat and novel enterprise had been successfully achieved; and bothhimself and his ship became in an eminent degree the objects of publiccuriosity and wonder. The courage, skill and perseverance of this greatnavigator were deservedly extolled; the wealth which he had broughthome, from the plunder of the Spanish settlements, awakened the cupiditywhich in that age was a constant attendant on the daring spirit ofmaritime adventure, and half the youth of the country were on fire toembark in expeditions of pillage and discovery. 

But the court was not so easily induced to second the ardor of thenation. Drake's captures from the Spaniards had been made, under somevague notion of reprisals, whilst no open war was subsisting between thenations; and the Spanish ambassador, not, it must be confessed, withoutsome reason, branded his proceedings with the reproach of piracy, andloudly demanded restitution of the booty. Elizabeth wavered for sometime between admiration of the valiant Drake, mixed with a desire ofsharing in the profits of his expedition, and a dread of incensing theking of Spain; but she at length decided on the part most acceptable toher people, --that of giving a public sanction to his acts. During thespring of 1581 she accepted of a banquet on board his ship off Deptford, conferred on him the order of knighthood, and received him into favor. 

Much anxiety and alarm was about this time occasioned to the queen andher protestant subjects by the clandestine arrival in the country of aconsiderable number of catholic priests, mostly English by birth, buteducated at the seminaries respectively founded at Douay, Rheims, andRome, by the king of Spain, cardinal Lorrain, and the pope, for theexpress purpose of furnishing means for the disturbance of the queen'sgovernment. Monks of the new order of Jesuits presided over theseestablishments, who made it their business to inspire the pupils withthe most frightful excess of bigotry and fanaticism; and two of thesefriars, fathers Parsons and Campion, coming over to England to guide andregulate the efforts of their party, were detected in treasonablepractices; on account of which Campion, with some accomplices, underwentcapital punishment, or, in the language of his church, received thecrown of martyrdom. 

In order to check the diffusion among the rising generation of doctrinesso destructive of the peace and good government of the country, aproclamation was issued in June 1580, requiring that all persons who hadany children, wards, or kinsmen, in any parts beyond seas, should withinten days give in their names to the ordinaries, and within four monthssend for them home again. 

Circular letters were also dispatched by the privy-council to thebishops, setting forth, that whereas her majesty found dailyinconvenience to the realm by the education of numbers of younggentlemen and others her subjects in parts beyond the seas;--where forthe most part they were "nourselled and nourished in papistry, " withsuch instructions as "made them to mislike the government of theircountry, and thus tended to render them undutiful subjects;" &c. Andintending to "take some present order therein;" as well by prohibitingthat any but such as were known to be well affected in religion, andwould undertake for the good education of their children, should sendthem abroad; and they not without her majesty's special license;--asalso, by recalling such as were at present, in Spain, France, or Italy, without such license;--had commanded that the bishops should call beforethem, in their respective dioceses, certain parents or guardians whosenames were annexed, and bind them in good sums of money for the recallof their sons or wards within three months[86]. Many other indicationsof a jealousy of the abode of English youth in catholic countries, whichat such a juncture will scarcely appear unreasonable, might be collectedfrom various sources. 

[Note 86: Strype's "Whitgift. "]

A friend of Anthony Bacon's sends him this warning to Bordeaux in 1583:"I can no longer abstain from telling you plainly that the injury isgreat, you do to yourself, and your best friends, in this your voluntarybanishment (for so it is already termed). . . . The times are not asheretofore for the best disposed travellers: but in one word, sir, believe me, they are not the best thought of where they would be thattake any delight to absent themselves in foreign parts, especially suchas are of quality, and known to have no other cause than their privatecontentment; which also is not allowable, or to be for any long time, asyou will shortly hear further; touching these limitations. In the meantime I could wish you looked well to yourself, and to think, thatwhilst you live there, perhaps in no great security, you are within thecompass of some sinister conceits or hard speeches here, if not of thatjealousy which is now had even of the best, that in these doubtful days, wherein our country hath need to be furnished of the soundest membersand truest hearts to God and prince, do yet take delight to live inthose parts where our utter ruin is threatened[87]: &c. "

[Note 87: Birch's "Memoirs. "]

"The old lord Burleigh, " says a contemporary, "if any one came to thelords of the council for a license to travel, would first examine him ofEngland. And if he found him ignorant, would bid him stay at home andknow his own country first[88]. " A plausible evasion, doubtless, ofrequests with which that cautious minister judged it inexpedient tocomply. 

[Note 88: "Complete Gentleman, " by H. Peacham. ]

These machinations of the papists afforded a plea to the puritans in thehouse of commons for the enactment of still severer laws against thisalready persecuted sect; and Elizabeth judged it expedient to accord aready assent to these statutes, for the purpose of tranquillizing theminds of her protestant subjects on the score of religion, previously tothe renewal of negotiations with the court of France. 

Simier, who still remained in England, had been but too successful incontinuing or reviving the tender impressions created in the heart ofthe queen by the personal attentions of his master; and the Frenchking, finding leisure to turn his attention once more to this object, from which he had been apparently diverted by the civil wars which hadbroken out afresh in his country, was encouraged to send in 1581 asplendid embassy, headed by a prince of the blood, to settle the termsof this august alliance, of which every one now expected to see thecompletion. A magnificent reception was prepared by Elizabeth for thesenoble strangers; but she had the weakness to choose to appear beforethem in the borrowed character of a heroine of romance, rather than inthat of a great princess whose vigorous yet cautious politics hadrendered her for more than twenty years the admiration of all thestatesmen of Europe. She caused to be erected on the south side of herpalace of Whitehall, a vast banqueting-house framed of timber andcovered with painted canvass, which was decorated internally in a styleof the most fantastic gaudiness. Pendants of fruits of various kinds(amongst which cucumbers and carrots are enumerated) were hung fromfestoons of ivy, bay, rosemary, and different flowers, the wholelavishly sprinkled with gold spangles: the ceiling was painted like asky, with stars, sunbeams, and clouds, intermixed with scutcheons of theroyal arms; and a profusion of glass lustres illuminated the whole. Inthis enchanted palace the French ambassadors were entertained by themaiden queen at several splendid banquets, while her ministers wereengaged by her command in drawing up the marriage articles. Meantimeseveral of her youthful courtiers, anxious to complete the gay illusionin the imagination of their sovereign, prepared for the exhibition ofwhat was called _a triumph_, --of which the following was the plan. 

The young earl of Arundel, lord Windsor, Philip Sidney, and FulkeGreville, the four challengers, styled themselves the foster-children ofDesire, and to that end of the tilt-yard where her majesty was seated, their adulation gave the name of the Castle of Perfect Beauty. Thiscastle the queen was summoned to surrender in a very courtly messagedelivered by a boy dressed in red and white, the colours of Desire. Onher refusal, a mount placed on wheels was rolled into the tilt-yard, andthe four cavaliers rode in superbly armed and accoutred, and each at thehead of a splendid troop; and when they had passed in military orderbefore the queen, the boy who had delivered the former message thusagain addressed her:--

"If the message lately delivered unto you had been believed andfollowed, O queen! in whom the whole story of virtue is written with thelanguage of beauty; nothing should this violence have needed in yourinviolate presence. Your eyes, which till now have been wont to discernonly the bowed knees of kneeling hearts, and, inwardly turned, foundalways the heavenly peace of a sweet mind, should not now have theirfair beams reflected with the shining of armour, should not now bedriven to see the fury of desire, nor the fiery force of fury. But sithso it is (alas that it is so!) that in the defence of obstinate refusalthere never groweth victory but by compassion, they are come:--what needI say more? You see them, ready in heart as you know, and able withhands, as they hope, not only to assailing, but to prevailing. Perchance you despise the smallness of number. I say unto you, the forceof Desire goeth not by fulness of company. Nay, rather view with whatirresistible determination themselves approach, and how not only theheavens send their invisible instruments to aid them, (_music within themount_) but also the very earth, the dullest of all the elements, whichwith natural heaviness still strives to the sleepy centre, yet, foradvancing this enterprise, is content actively (as you shall see) tomove itself upon itself to rise up in height, that it may the bettercommand the high and high-minded fortresses. 

"(_Here the mount rose up in height. _) Many words, when deeds are in thefield, are tedious both unto the speaker and hearer. You see theirforces, but know not their fortunes: if you be resolved, it boots not, and threats dread not. I have discharged my charge, which was even whenall things were ready for the assault, then to offer parley, a thing notso much used as gracious in besiegers. You shall now be summoned toyield, which if it be rejected, then look for the affectionate alarm tobe followed with desirous assault. The time approacheth for theirapproaches, but no time shall stay me from wishing, that however thissucceed the world may long enjoy its chiefest ornament, which decks itwith herself, and herself with the love of goodness. "

The rolling mount was now moved close to the queen, the music sounded, and one of the boys accompanied with cornets sung a fresh summons to thefortress. 

When this was ended, another boy, turning to the challengers and theirretinue, sung an alarm, which ended, the two canons were shot off, 'theone with sweet powder and the other with sweet water, very odoriferousand pleasant, and the noise of the shooting was very excellent consentof melody within the mount. And after that, was store of prettyscaling-ladders, and the footmen threw flowers and such fancies againstthe walls, with all such devices as might seem fit shot for Desire. Allwhich did continue till time the defendants came in. ' These were abovetwenty in number, and each accompanied by his servants, pages, andtrumpeters. Speeches were delivered to the queen on the part of theseknights, several of whom appeared in some assumed character; sir ThomasPerrot and Anthony Cook thought proper to personate Adam and Eve; thelatter having 'hair hung all down his helmet. ' The messenger sent on thepart of Thomas Ratcliff described his master as a forlorn knight, whomdespair of achieving the favor of his peerless and sunlike mistress haddriven out of the haunts of men into a cave of the desert, where mosswas his couch, and moss, moistened by tears, his only food. Even herehowever the report of this assault upon the castle of Perfect Beauty hadreached his ears, and roused him from his slumber of despondency; and intoken of his devoted loyalty and inviolable fidelity to his divine lady, he sent his shield, which he in treated her to accept as the ensign ofher fame, and the instrument of his glory, prostrating himself at herfeet as one ready to undertake any adventures in hope of her graciousfavor. --Of this romantic picture of devoted and despairing passion thedescription of Amadis de Gaul at the Poor Rock seems to have been theprototype. 

On the part of the four sons of sir Francis Knolles, Mercury appeared, and described them as 'legitimate sons of Despair, brethren to hardmishap, suckled with sighs, and swathed up in sorrow, weaned in woe, anddry nursed by Desire, longtime fostered with favorable countenance, andfed with sweet fancies, but now of late (alas) wholly given over togrief and disgraced by disdain. ' &c. The speeches being ended, probablyto the relief of the hearers, the tilting commenced and lasted tillnight. It was resumed the next day with some fresh circumstances ofmagnificence and a few more harangues:--at length the challengerspresented to the queen an olive bough in token of their humblesubmission, and both parties were dismissed by her with thanks andcommendations[89]. 

[Note 89: Holinshed. ]

By whom the speeches for this triumph were composed does not appear; buttheir style appears to correspond very exactly with that of John Lilly, a dramatic poet who in this year gave to the public a romance in twoparts; the first entitled "Euphues the Anatomy of Wit, " the second"Euphues and his England. " A work which in despite, or rather perhaps byfavor, of the new and singular affectations with which it was overrun, obtained extraordinary popularity, and communicated its infection for atime to the style of polite writing and fashionable speech. 

An author of the present day, whose elegant taste and whose profoundacquaintance with the writers of this and the following reign entitlehim to be heard with deference, has favored us with his opinion ofEuphues in these words. "This production is a tissue of antithesis andalliteration, and therefore justly entitled to the appellation of_affected_; but we cannot with Berkenhout consider it as a most_contemptible piece of nonsense_[90]. The moral is uniformly good; thevices and follies of the day are attacked with much force and keenness;there is in it much display of the manners of the times; and though as acomposition it is very meretricious and sometimes absurd in point ofornament, yet the construction of its sentences is frequently turnedwith peculiar neatness and spirit, though with much monotony ofcadence. " "So greatly, " adds the same writer, "was the style of Euphuesadmired in the court of Elizabeth, and, indeed, throughout the kingdom, that it became a proof of refined manners to adopt its phraseology. Edward Blount, who republished six of Lilly's plays in 1632, under thetitle of _Sixe Court Comedies_, declares that 'Our nation are in hisdebt for a new English which he taught them. '_Euphues_ and his_England_, ' he adds, 'began first that language. All our ladies werethen his scholars; and that beauty in court who could not parleyEuphuesme, was as little regarded as she which now there speaks notFrench:' a representation certainly not exaggerated; for Ben Jonson, describing a fashionable lady, makes her address her gallant in thefollowing terms;--'O master Brisk, (as it is in Euphues, ) hard is thechoice when one is compelled, either by silence to die with grief, or byspeaking, to live with shame:' upon which Mr. Whalley observes, that'the court ladies in Elizabeth's time had all the phrases of Euphues byheart'[91]. "

[Note 90: Berkenhout's "Biographia Literaria, " p. 377, note _a_. ]

[Note 91: "Shakspeare and his Times:" &c. By Nathan Drake, M. D. ]

Shakespeare is believed to have satirized the affectations of Lilly, amongst other prevailing modes of pedantry and bad taste, under thecharacter of the schoolmaster Holophernes; and to Sidney is ascribed byDrayton the merit, that he

 . . . "did first reduce Our tongue from Lilly's writing then in use, Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies, Playing with words and idle similies. "

But in this statement there is an inaccuracy, if it refers to the bettermodel of style furnished by him in his Arcadia, since that work, thoughnot published till after the death of its author, is known to have beencomposed previously to the appearance of Euphues. Possibly however thelines of Drayton may be explained as alluding to the critical preceptscontained in Sidney's Defence of Poetry, which was written in 1582 or1583. 

It may appear extraordinary that this accomplished person, after hisnoble letter of remonstrance against the French marriage, should haveconsented to take so conspicuous a part in festivities designed tocelebrate the arrival of the commissioners by whom its terms were to beconcluded. But the actions of every man, it may be pleaded, belong tosuch an age, or such a station, as well as to such a school ofphilosophy, religious sect, political party, or natural class ofcharacter; and the spirit which prompted this eminent person to aspireafter all praise and every kind of glory, compelled him, at the court ofElizabeth, to unite, with whatever incongruity, the quaint personage ofa knight errant of romance and a devotee of the beauties and perfectionsof his liege lady, with the manly attributes of an English patriot and achampion of reformed religion. 

Fulke Greville furnishes another instance of a respectable characterstrangely disguised by the affectations and servilities of a courtier ofthis "Queen of Faery. " He was the cousin, school-fellow, and inseparablecompanion of Sidney, and so devoted to him that, in the inscriptionwhich he composed long after for his own tomb, he entitled himself"servant to queen Elizabeth, councillor to king James, and friend to sirPhilip Sidney. " Born to a fortune so ample as to render him entirelyindependent of the emoluments of office or the favors of a sovereign, and early smitten with a passion for the gentle muse which rendered himnearly insensible to the enticements of ambition, Greville was yetcontented to devote himself, as a volunteer, to that court-life theirksomeness of which has often been treated as insupportable by men whohave embraced it from interest or from necessity. 

A devotedness so signal was not indeed suffered to go without itsreward. Besides that it obtained for him a lucrative place, Naunton saysof Greville, "He had no mean place in queen Elizabeth's favor, neitherdid he hold it for any short time or term; for, if I be not deceived, hehad the longest lease, the smoothest time without rubs, of any of herfavorites. " Lord Bacon also testifies that he "had much and privateaccess to her, which he used honorably and did many men good: yet hewould say merrily of himself, that he was like Robin Goodfellow; forwhen the maids spilt the milk-pans or kept any racket, they would lay itupon Robin: so what tales the ladies about the queen told her, or otherbad offices that they did, they would put it upon him. " The poems ofFulke Greville, celebrated and fashionable in his own time, but nowknown only to the more curious students of our early literature, consistof two tragedies in interwoven rhyme, with choruses on the Greek model;a hundred love sonnets, in one of which he styles his mistress "Fairdog:" and "Treaties" "on Human learning, " "on Fame and Honor, " and "ofWars. " Of these pieces the last three, as well as the tragedies, containmany noble, free, and virtuous sentiments; many fine and ingeniousthoughts, and some elegant lines; but the harshness and pedantry of thestyle render their perusal on the whole more of a fatigue than apleasure, and they have gradually sunk into that neglect whichconstantly awaits the verse of which it has been the aim to instructrather than to delight. Among the English patrons of letters however, Fulke Greville, afterwards lord Brook, will ever deserve a conspicuousstation; and Speed and Camden have gratefully recorded their obligationsboth to his liberality and to his honorable exertion of court interest. 

The articles of the marriage-treaty were at length concluded between thecommissioners of France and England, and it was stipulated that thenuptials should take place six weeks after their ratification: butElizabeth, whose uncertainties were not yet at an end, had insisted on aseparate article purporting, that she should not however be obliged tocomplete the marriage until further matters, not specified, should havebeen settled between herself and the duke of Anjou; by which stipulationit still remained in her power to render the whole negotiation vain. 

The moment that all opposition on the part of her privy-council wasover, and every external obstacle surmounted, Elizabeth seems to havebegun to recover her sound discretion, and to see in their truemagnitude all the objections to which she had hitherto been anxious toblind her own eyes and those of others. She sent Walsingham to open newnegotiations at Paris, and to try whether the league offensive anddefensive, stipulated by the late articles, could not be brought toeffect before the marriage, which she now discovered that it was not aconvenient season to complete. The French court, after some hesitation, had just been brought to agree to this proposal, when she inclined againto go on with the marriage; but no sooner had it resumed with alacritythis part of the discussion, than she again declared for the alliance. Walsingham, puzzled and vexed by such a series of capricious changes, proceeding from motives in which state-expediency had no share, remaineduncertain how to act; and at length all the politicians English andFrench, equally disconcerted, seem to have acquiesced in the convictionthat this strange strife must end where it began, in the bosom ofElizabeth herself, while nothing was left to them but to await theresult in anxious silence. But the duke of Anjou, aware that from ayouthful lover some unequivocal symptoms of impatience would berequired, and that upon a skilful display of this kind his final successmight depend, brought to a speedy conclusion his campaign in theNetherlands, which a liberal supply of money from the English queen, whonow concurred in his views, had rendered uniformly successful, andputting his army into winter-quarters, hurried over to England to throwhimself at her feet. 

He was welcomed with all the demonstrations of satisfaction which couldrevive or confirm the hopes of a suitor; every mark of honor, everypledge of affection, was publicly conferred upon him; and the queen, atthe conclusion of a splendid festival on the anniversary of hercoronation, even went so far as to place on his finger a ring drawn fromher own. This passed in sight of the whole assembled court, whonaturally regarded the action as a kind of betrothment; and the longsuspense being apparently ended, the feelings of every party broke forthwithout restraint or disguise. 

Some rejoiced; more grieved or wondered; Leicester, Hatton andWalsingham loudly exclaimed that ruin impended over the church, thecountry, and the queen. The ladies of the court alarmed and agitatedtheir mistress by tears, cries, and lamentations. A sleepless andmiserable night was passed by the queen amid her disconsolate handmaids:the next morning she sent for Anjou, and held with him a long privateconversation; after which he retired to his chamber, and hastilythrowing from him, but as quickly resuming, the ring which she had givenhim, uttered many reproaches against the levity of women and thefickleness of islanders. 

Such is the account given by the annalist Camden; our only authority forcircumstances some of them so public in their nature that it issurprising they should not be recorded by others, the rest so secretthat we are at a loss to conceive how they should have become known tohim. What is certain in the matter is, --that the French prince remainedin England above two months after this festival;--that no diminution ofthe queen's attentions to him became apparent during that time;--thatwhen his affairs imperiously demanded his return to the Netherlands, Elizabeth still detained him that she might herself conduct him on hisway as far as Canterbury;--that she then dismissed him with a largesupply of money and a splendid retinue of English lords and gentlemen, and that he promised a quick return. 

Let us hear on the subject lord Talbot's report to his father. 

. . . "Monsieur hath taken shipping into Flanders. . . There is gone overwith him my lord of Leicester, my lord Hunsdon, my lord Charles Howard, my lord Thomas Howard, my lord Windsor, my lord Sheffield, my lordWilloughby, and a number of young gentlemen besides. As soon as he is atAntwerp all the Englishmen return, which is thought will be about afortnight hence. . . . The departure was mournful between her majesty andMonsieur; she loth to let him go, and he as loth to depart. Her majestyon her return will be long in no place in which she lodged as she went, neither will she come to Whitehall, because the places shall not givecause of remembrance to her of him with whom she so unwillingly parted. Monsieur promised his return in March, but how his Low Country causeswill permit him is uncertain. Her highness went no further butCanterbury, Monsieur took shipping at Sandwich[92]. "

[Note 92: "Illustrations, " vol. Ii. P. 258. ]

It is, after all, extremely difficult to decide whether thecircumstances here related ought to invalidate any part of Camden'snarrative. There can be no doubt that Elizabeth had at times beenviolently tempted to accept this young prince for a husband; and evenwhen she sent Walsingham to France instructed to conclude, if possible, the league without the marriage, she evidently had not in her own mindabsolutely concluded against the latter measure, because sheparticularly charged him to examine whether the duke, who had latelyrecovered from the small pox, still retained enough of his good looks toengage a lady's affections. It is probable that his second visitrevived her love; and the truth of the circumstance of her publiclypresenting to him a ring, is confirmed by Camden's further statement, that St. Aldegond, minister in England for the United Provinces, wroteword of it to the States, who, regarding the match as now concluded, caused public rejoicings to be celebrated at Antwerp. After this theduke would undoubtedly press for a speedy solemnization, and he cannotbut have experienced some degree of disappointment in at length quittingthe country, _re infecta_. But it was still greatly and obviously hisinterest to remain on the best possible terms with Elizabeth, in orderto secure from her that co-operation, and those pecuniary aids, on whichthe success of his affairs in the Netherlands must mainly depend. It iseven possible that a further acquaintance with the state of publicopinion in England, and with the temper, maxims, and personal qualitiesof the queen herself, might very much abate the poignancy of hismortification, or even incline him secretly to prefer the character ofher ally to that of her husband. Be this as it may, the favorite son ofCatherine de' Medici was a sufficient adept in the dissimulation ofcourts to assume with ease all the demonstrations of complacency andgood understanding that the case required, whatever portion ofindignation or malice he might conceal in his heart. Neither wasElizabeth a novice in the arts of feigning; and even without thepromptings of those tender regrets which accompany a sacrifice extortedby reason from inclination, she would have been careful, by everymanifestation of friendship and esteem, to smooth over the affront whichher change of purpose had compelled her to put upon the brother and heirof so potent a monarch as the king of France. 

Shortly after his return to the continent, the duke of Anjou lost atonce his reputation, and his hopes of an independent principality, in anunprincipled and abortive attempt on the liberties of the provinceswhich had chosen him as their protector; and his death, which soonfollowed, brings to a conclusion this long and mortifying chapter, occupied with the follies of the wise. It is worth observing, thatappearances in this affair were kept up to the last: the Englishambassador refrained from giving in his official letters any particularsof the last illness of Monsieur, lest he should aggravate the grief ofher majesty; and the king of France, in defiance of some establishedrules of court precedence and etiquette, admitted this minister to payhis compliments of condolence before all others, professedly because herepresented that princess who best loved his brother. 

Bohun ends his minute description of "the habit of queen Elizabeth inpublic and private" with a passage proper to complete this portion ofher history. "The coming of the duke d'Alençon opened a way to a morefree way of living, and relaxed very much the old severe form ofdiscipline. The queen danced often then, and omitted no sort ofrecreation, pleasing conversation, or variety of delights for hissatisfaction. At the same time, the plenty of good dishes, pleasantwines, fragrant ointments and perfumes, dances, masks, and variety ofrich attire, were all taken up and used to show him how much he washonored. There were then acted comedies and tragedies with much cost andsplendor. When these things had once been entertained, the courtierswere never more to be reclaimed from them, and they could not besatiated or wearied with them. But when Alençon was once dismissed andgone, the queen herself left off these diversions, and betook herself asbefore to the care of her kingdom, and both by example and severecorrections endeavoured to reduce her nobility to their old severe wayof life. "

CHAPTER XX. 

1582 TO 1587. 

Traits of the queen. --Brown and his sect. --Promotion ofWhitgift. --Severities exercised against the puritans. --Embassy ofWalsingham to Scotland. --Particulars of lord Willoughby. --Transactionswith the Czar. --Death of Sussex. --Adventures of Egremond Ratcliffe--ofthe earl of Desmond. --Account of Raleigh--of Spenser. --Prosecutions ofcatholics. --Burleigh's apology for the government. --Leicester'sCommonwealth. --Loyal association. --Transactions with the queen ofScots. --Account of Parry. --Case of the earl of Arundel--of theearl of Northumberland. --Transactions of Leicester in Holland. --Deathand character of P. Sidney--of sir H. Sidney. --Return ofLeicester. --Approaching war with Spain. --Babington's conspiracy. --Trialand condemnation of the queen of Scots. --Rejoicings of thepeople. --Artful conduct of the queen. --Reception of the Scotchembassy. --Conduct of Davison. --Death of Mary. --Behaviour ofElizabeth. --Davison's case. --Conduct of Leicester. --Reflections. 

The disposition of Elizabeth was originally deficient in benevolence andsympathy, and prone to suspicion, pride and anger; and we observe withpain in the progress of her history, how much the influences to whichher high station and the peculiar circumstances of her reign inevitablyexposed her, tended in various modes to exasperate these radical evilsof her nature. 

The extravagant flattery administered to her daily and hourly, was ofmost pernicious effect; it not only fostered in her an absurd excess ofpersonal vanity, but, what was worse, by filling her with exaggeratednotions both of her own wisdom and of her sovereign power andprerogative, it contributed to render her rule more stern and despotic, and her mind on many points incapable of sober counsel. This effect wasremarked by one of her clergy, who, in a sermon preached in herpresence, had the boldness to tell her, that she who had been meek aslamb was become an untameable heifer; for which reproof he was in histurn reprehended by her majesty on his quitting the pulpit, as "an overconfident man who dishonored his sovereign. "

The decay of her beauty was an unwelcome truth which all the artificesof adulation were unable to hide from her secret consciousness; sinceshe could never behold her image in a mirror, during the latter years ofher life, without transports of impotent anger; and this circumstancecontributed not a little to sour her temper, while it rendered the youngand lovely the chosen objects of her malignity. 

On this head the following striking anecdote is furnished by sir JohnHarrington. . . . "She did oft ask the ladies around her chamber, if theyloved to think of marriage? And the wise ones did conceal well theirliking hereto, as knowing the queen's judgement in this matter. SirMatthew Arundel's fair cousin, not knowing so deeply as her fellows, wasasked one day hereof, and simply said, she had thought much aboutmarriage, if her father did consent to the man she loved. 'You seemhonest, i'faith, ' said the queen; 'I will sue for you to yourfather. '. . . The damsel was not displeased hereat; and when sir Robertcame to court, the queen asked him hereon, and pressed his consenting, if the match was discreet. Sir Robert, much astonied at this news, saidhe never heard his daughter had liking to any man, and wanted to gainknowledge of her affection; but would give free consent to what was mostpleasing to her highness will and advice. 'Then I will do the rest, 'saith the queen. The lady was called in, and the queen told her that herfather had given his free consent. 'Then, ' replied the lady, 'I shall behappy, and please your grace'. 'So thou shalt, but not to be a fool andmarry; I have his consent given to me, and I vow thou shalt never get itinto thy possession. So go to thy business, I see thou art a bold one toown thy foolishness so readily[93]. '"

[Note 93: "Nugæ. "]

The perils of many kinds, from open and secret enemies, by whichElizabeth had found herself environed since her unwise and unauthorizeddetention of the queen of Scots, aggravated the mistrustfulness of hernature; and the severities which fear and anger led her to exerciseagainst that portion of her subjects who still adhered to the ancientfaith, increased its harshness. It is true that, since the fulminationof the papal anathema, the zealots of this church had kept no measureswith respect to her either in their words, their writings, or theiractions. Plans of insurrection and even of assassination werefrequently revolved in their councils, but as often disappointed by theextraordinary vigilance and sagacity of her ministers; while the courageevinced by herself under these circumstances of severe probation wastruly admirable. Bacon relates that "the council once represented to herthe danger in which she stood by the continual conspiracies against herlife, and acquainted her that a man was lately taken who stood ready ina very dangerous and suspicious manner to do the deed; and they showedher the weapon wherewith he thought to have acted it. And therefore theyadvised her that she should go less abroad to take the air, weaklyattended, as she used. But the queen answered, 'that she had rather bedead than put in custody. '"

"Ireland, " says Naunton, "cost her more vexation than any thing else;the expense of it pinched her, the ill success of her officers weariedher, and in that service she grew hard to please. " She also arrived at asettled persuasion that the extreme of severity was safer than that ofindulgence; an opinion which, being communicated to her officers andministers, was the occasion, especially in Ireland, of many a cruel andarbitrary act. 

When angry, she observed little moderation in the expression of herfeelings. In the private letters even of Cecil, whom she treated on thewhole with more consideration than any other person, we find notunfrequent mention of the harsh words which he had to endure from her, sometimes, as he says, on occasions when he appeared to himselfdeserving rather of thanks than of censure. The earl of Shrewsburyoften complains to his correspondents of her captious and irascibletemper; and we find Walsingham taking pains to console sir Henry Sidneyunder some manifestations of her displeasure, by the assurance that theyhad proceeded only from one of those transient gusts of passion forwhich she was accustomed to make sudden amends to her faithful servantsby new and extraordinary tokens of her favor. 

There was no branch of prerogative of which Elizabeth was more tenaciousthan that which invested her with the sole and supreme direction ofecclesiastical affairs. The persevering efforts therefore of thepuritans, to obtain various relaxations or alterations of the laws whichshe in her wisdom had laid down for the government of the church, --onfailure of which they scrupled not to recall to her memory the strongdenunciations of the Jewish prophets against wicked and irreligiousprinces, --at once exasperated and alarmed her, and led her to assumecontinually more and more of the incongruous and odious character of aprotestant persecutor of protestants. But the puritans themselves musthave seemed guiltless in her eyes compared with a new sect, theprinciples of which, tending directly to the abrogation of all authorityof the civil magistrate in spiritual concerns, called forth about thistime her indignation manifested by the utmost severity of penalinfliction. 

It was in the year 1580 that Robert Brown, having completed his studiesin divinity at Cambridge, began to preach at Norwich against thediscipline and ceremonies of the church of England, and to promulgate ascheme which he affirmed to be more conformable to the apostolicalmodel. According to his system, each congregation of believers was to beregarded as a separate church, possessing in itself full jurisdictionover its own concerns; the _liberty of prophesying_ was to be indulgedto all the brethren equally, and pastors were to be elected anddismissed at the pleasure of the majority, in whom he held that allpower ought of right to reside. On account of these opinions Brown wascalled before certain ecclesiastical commissioners, who imprisoned himfor contumacy; but the interference of his relation lord Burleighprocured his release, after which he repaired to Holland, where hefounded several churches and published a book in defence of his system, in which he strongly inculcated upon his disciples the duty ofseparating themselves from what he stated antichristian churches. Forthe sole offence of distributing this work, two men were hanged inSuffolk in 1583; to which extremity of punishment they were subjected ashaving impugned the queen's supremacy, which was declared felony by alate statute now for the first time put in force against protestants. Brown himself, after his return from Holland, was repeatedly imprisoned, and, but for the protection of his powerful kinsman might probably haveshared the fate of his two disciples. At length, the terror of asentence of excommunication drove him to recant, and joining theestablished church he soon obtained preferment. But the Brownist sectsuffered little by the desertion of its founder, whose privatecharacter was far from exemplary: in spite of penal laws, ofpersecution, and even of ridicule and contempt, it survived, increased, and eventually became the model on which the churches not only of thesect of Independents but also of the two other denominations of Englishprotestant dissenters remain at the present day constituted. 

The death of archbishop Grindal in 1583 afforded the queen the longdesired opportunity of elevating to the primacy a prelate not inclinedto offend her, like his predecessor, by any remissness in putting inforce the laws against puritans and other nonconformists. She nominatedto this high dignity Whitgift bishop of Worcester, known to polemics asthe zealous antagonist of Cartwright the puritan, and furtherrecommended to her majesty by his single life, his talents for business, whether secular or ecclesiastical, his liberal and hospitable style ofliving, and the numerous train of attendants which swelled the pomp ofhis appearance on occasions of state and ceremony, when he even claimedto be served on the knee. 

This promotion forms an important æra in the ecclesiastical history ofthe reign of Elizabeth: but only a few circumstances more peculiarlyillustrative of the sentiments and disposition of Whitgift, of the queenherself, and of some of her principal counsellors, can with proprietyfind a place in a work like the present. 

To bring back the clergy to that exact uniformity with respect todoctrines, rites, and ceremonies, from which the lenity of hispredecessor had suffered them in many instances to recede, appeared tothe new primate the first and most essential duty of his office; andthe better to enforce obedience, he eagerly demanded to be armed withthat plenitude of power which her majesty as head of the church wasauthorized to delegate at her pleasure. His request was granted withalacrity, and the work of intolerance began. Subscriptions were nowrequired of the whole clerical body to the supremacy; to the book ofCommon-prayer; and to the articles of religion settled by theconvocation of 1560. In consequence of this first step alone, so large anumber of zealous preachers and able divines attached to the Calvinisticmodel were suspended from their functions for non-compliance, that theprivy-council took alarm, and addressed a letter to the archbishoprequesting a conference; but he loftily reproved their interference inmatters of this nature, declaring himself amenable in the discharge ofhis functions to his sovereign alone. In the following year he prevailedupon her majesty to appoint a second high-commission court, the membersof which were authorized, _ex officio_, to administer interrogatories onoath in matters of faith;--an assumption of power not merely cruel andoppressive, but absolutely illegal, if we are to rely on Beal, clerk ofthe council, an able and learned but somewhat intemperate partisan ofthe puritans, who published on this occasion a work against thearchbishop. To enter into controversy was now no part of the plan ofWhitgift; he held it as a maxim, that it was safer and better for anestablished church to silence than to confute; and a book of Calvinisticdiscipline having issued from the Cambridge press, he procured aStar-chamber decree for lessening and limiting the number of presses;for restraining any man from exercising the trade of a printer without aspecial license; and for subjecting all works to the censorship, of thearchbishop or the bishop of London. At the same time he vehementlydeclared that he would rather lie in prison all his life, or die, thangrant any indulgence to puritans; and he expressed his wonder, as wellas indignation, that men high in place should countenance the factiousportion of the clergy, low and obscure individuals and not evenconsiderable by their numbers, against him the second person of thestate. The earl of Leicester was not however to be intimidated fromextending to these conscientious sufferers a protection which was inmany instances effectual: Walsingham occasionally interceded in behalfof Calvinistic preachers of eminence; and sir Francis Knolles, whoseinfluence with the queen was considerable, never failed to encounter themeasures of the primate with warm, courageous, and perseveringopposition. Even Burleigh, whom Whitgift had regarded as a friend andpatron and hoped to number among his partisans, could not forbearexpressing to him on various occasions his serious disapprobation of therigors now resorted to; nor was he to be silenced by the plea of thearchbishop, that he acted entirely by the command of her majesty. On thecontrary, as instances multiplied daily before his eyes of the tyrannyand persecution exercised, through the extraordinary powers of theecclesiastical commission, on ministers of unblemished piety and oftenof exemplary usefulness, his remonstrances assumed a bolder tone andmore indignant character: as in the following instance. "But when thesaid lord treasurer understood, that two of these ministers, living inCambridgeshire, whom for the good report of their modesty andpeaceableness he had a little before recommended unto the archbishop'sfavor, were by the archbishop in commission sent to a register inLondon, to be strictly examined upon those four and twenty articlesbefore mentioned, he was displeased. And reading over the articleshimself, disliked them as running in a Romish style, and making nodistinction of persons. Which caused him to write in some earnestness tothe archbishop, and in his letter he told him, that he found thesearticles so curiously penned, so full of branches and circumstances, ashe thought the inquisitors of Spain used not so many questions tocomprehend and to trap their preys. And that this juridical andcanonical sifting of poor ministers was not to edify and reform. Andthat in charity he thought, they ought not to answer to all these nicepoints, except they were very notorious offenders in papistry or heresy:Begging his grace to bear with that one fault, if it were so, that hehad willed these ministers not to answer those articles, except theirconsciences might suffer them[94]. "

[Note 94: "Life of Whitgift" by Strype. ]

The archbishop, in a long and labored answer, expressed his surprise athis lordship's "vehement speeches" against the administering ofinterrogatories, "seeing it was the ordinary course in other courts: asin the star-chamber, in the courts of the marches, and in other places:"and he advanced many arguments, or assertions, in defence of hisproceedings, none of which proved satisfactory to the lord treasurer, asappeared by his reply. In the end, the archbishop found himself obligedto compromise this dispute by engaging that in future the twenty-fourarticles should only be administered to students in divinity previouslyto their ordination; and not to ministers already settled in cures, unless they should have openly declared themselves against thechurch-government by law established. But this instance of concessionextorted by the urgency of Walsingham appears to have been a solitaryone; the high commission, with the archbishop at its head, proceededunrelentingly in the work of establishing conformity, and crushing witha strong hand all appeals to the sense of the public on controvertedpoints of discipline or doctrine. The queen, vehemently prepossessedwith the idea that the opposers of episcopacy must ever be ill affectedalso to monarchy, made no scruple of declaring, after some yearsexperience of the untameable spirit of the sect, that the puritans weregreater enemies of hers than the papists; and in the midst of hergreatest perils from the machinations of the latter sect, she seldomjudged it necessary to conciliate by indulgence the attachment of theformer. Several Calvinistic ministers, during the course of the reign, were subjected even to capital punishment on account of the scrupleswhich they entertained respecting the lawfulness of acknowledging thequeen's supremacy: on the other hand, the attempts of sir FrancisKnowles to inspire her majesty with jealousy of the designs of thearchbishop, by whom some advances were made towards claiming for theepiscopal order an authority by divine right, independently of theappointment of the head of the church, failed entirely of success. Noecclesiastic had ever been able to acquire so great an ascendency overthe mind of Elizabeth as Whitgift; there was a conformity in theirviews, and in some points a sympathy in their characters; which seem tohave secured to the primate in all his undertakings the sanction andapproval of his sovereign: his favor continued unimpaired to the latesthour of her life: it was from his lips that she desired to receive thefinal consolations of religion; and regret for her loss, from theapprehension of unwelcome changes in the ecclesiastical establishmentunder the auspices of her successor, is believed to have contributed tothe attack which carried off the archbishop within a year after thedecease of his gracious and lamented mistress. 

Elizabeth took an important though secret part in the struggles forpower among the Scottish nobles of opposite factions by which thatkingdom was now agitated during several years. It has been suspected, but seems scarcely probable, that she was concerned in the conspiracy ofthe earl of Gowry for seizing the person of the young king; shecertainly however interposed afterwards to mitigate his just angeragainst the participators in that dark design. On the whole, she wasgenerally enabled to gain all the influence in the court of Scotlandwhich she found necessary to her ends; for James could always beintimidated, and his minions most frequently bribed or cajoled. Sheregarded it however as an object of some consequence to gain an accurateknowledge of the character and capacity of her young kinsman, from oneon whom she could rely; and for this purpose she prevailed onWalsingham, notwithstanding his age and infirmities, to undertake anembassy into Scotland, of which the ostensible objects were so triflingthat its real purpose became perfectly evident to the more sagacious ofJames's counsellors. Melvil confesses, that it cost him prodigious painsto equip the king, at short notice, with so much of artificial dignityand borrowed wisdom as might enable him to pass successfully through theordeal of Walsingham's examination. But his labor was not thrown away;for James, who really possessed considerable quickness of parts and acompetent share of book learning, played with such plausibility the partassigned him, that even this sagacious statesman is believed to havereturned impressed with a higher opinion of his abilities than any partof his after conduct was found to warrant. 

Her increasing apprehensions from the hostility of the king of Spain, caused Elizabeth to cultivate with added zeal the friendship of thenorthern powers of Europe, and in 1582 she sent the garter to the kingof Denmark as a pledge of amity; making at the same time a fruitlessendeavour to obtain for English merchant ships some remission of theduties newly levied by the Danish sovereign on the passage of the Sound. It was the prudent practice of her majesty to intrust these embassies ofcompliment to young noblemen lately come into possession of theirestates, who, for her favor and their own honor, were willing todischarge them in a splendid manner at their private expense. The Danishmission was the price which she exacted from Peregrine Bertie, latelycalled up to the house of peers as lord Willoughby of Eresby in right ofhis mother, for her reluctant and ungracious recognition of hisundeniable title to this dignity. On the occurrence of this firstmention of a high-spirited nobleman, afterwards celebrated for abrilliant valor which rendered him the idol of popular fame, theremarkable circumstances of his birth and parentage must not be omitted. His mother, only daughter and heir of the ninth lord Willoughby by aSpanish lady of high birth who had been maid of honor to queen Catherineof Arragon, was first the ward and afterwards the third wife of CharlesBrandon duke of Suffolk, by whom she had two sons, formerly mentioned asvictims to the sweating-sickness. 

Few ladies of that age chose long to continue in the unprotected stateof widowhood; and the duchess had already re-entered the matrimonialstate with Richard Bertie, a person of obscure birth but liberaleducation, when the accession of Mary exposed her to all the crueltiesand oppressions exercised without remorse by the popish persecutors ofthat reign upon such of their private enemies as they could accuse ofbeing also the enemies of the catholic church. The duchess, during theformer reign, had drawn upon herself the bitter enmity of Gardiner bysome imprudent and insulting manifestations of her abhorrence of hischaracter and contempt for his religion; and she now learned with dismaythat it was his intention to subject her to a strict interrogatory onthe subject of her faith. 

Except apostasy, there was no other resource than the hazardous andpainful one of voluntary banishment, and this she without hesitationadopted. Bertie first obtained license for quitting the country on somepretended business; and soon after, the duchess, attended only by two orthree domestics, escaped by night with her infant daughter from herhouse in Barbican, and taking boat on the Thames arrived at a port inKent. Here she embarked; and through many perils, --for stress of weathercompelled her to put back into an English port, and the search was everywhere very strict, --she reached at length a more hospitable shore, andrejoined her husband at Santon in the duchy of Cleves. From this town, however, they were soon chased by the imminent apprehension ofmolestation from the bishop of Arras. It was on an October evening that, followed only by two maid-servants, on foot, through rain and mire anddarkness, Bertie carrying a bundle and the duchess her child, theforlorn wanderers began their march for Wesel one of the Hanse-towns, about four miles distant. On their arrival, their wild and wretchedappearance, with the sword which Bertie carried, gave them in the eyesof the inhabitants so suspicious an appearance, that no one wouldharbour them; and while her husband ran from inn to inn vainly imploringadmittance, the afflicted duchess was compelled to betake herself to theshelter of a church porch; and there, in that misery and desolation andwant of every thing, was delivered of a child, to whom, in memory of thecircumstance, she gave the name of Peregrine. Bertie meantime, addressing himself in Latin to two young scholars whom he overheardspeaking together in that language, obtained a direction to a Walloonminister, to whom the duchess had formerly shown kindness in England. Byhis means such prompt and affectionate succour was administered asserved to restore her to health; and here for some time they found restfor the sole of their foot. A fresh alarm then obliged them to removeinto the dominions of the Palsgrave, where they had remained till thesupplies which they had brought with them in money and jewels werenearly exhausted; when a friend of the duchess's having interested theking of Poland in their behalf, they fortunately received an invitationfrom this sovereign. Arriving in his country, after great hardships andimminent danger of their lives from the brutality of some soldiers ontheir way, a large demesne was assigned them by their princelyprotector, on which they lived in great honor and tranquillity till thehappy accession of Elizabeth recalled them to their native land. 

Peregrine lord Willoughby found many occasions of distinguishinghimself in the wars of Flanders, where he rose to the rank oflieutenant-general. He was not less magnanimous than brave; anddisdaining the servility of a court life, is thought to have enjoyed onthis account less of the queen's favor than her admiration of militarymerit would otherwise have prompted her to bestow upon him. He diedgovernor of Berwick in 1601; his son was afterwards created earl ofLindsey, and the title of duke of Ancaster is now borne by hisdescendants. 

The king of Sweden, conducted to the brink of ruin by an unequal contestwith the arms of Russia, sent in 1583 a solemn embassy to the queen ofEngland to entreat her to mediate a peace for him. This good work, inwhich she cheerfully engaged, was speedily brought to a happy issue; andthe Czar seized the opportunity of the negotiations to press for theconclusion of that league offensive and defensive with England, which hehad formerly proposed in vain. The objection that such an alliance wasinconsistent with the laws of nations, since it might engage the queento commit hostilities on princes against whom she had never declaredwar, made, as might be expected, little impression on this barbarian;and Elizabeth had considerable difficulty in escaping from the intimateembrace of his proffered friendship, to the cool civilities of acommercial treaty. Another perplexing circumstance occurred. The Czarhad set his heart upon an English wife; some say he ventured to addressthe queen herself; but however this might be, she was about to gratifyhis wish by sending him for a bride a lady of royal blood, sister of theearl of Huntingdon, when the information which she received of theunlimited privilege of divorce exercised by his Muscovite majesty, deterred her from completing her project. She was in consequence obligedto excuse the failure on the ground of the delicate health of the younglady, the reluctance of her brother to part with her, and, what musthave filled the despot with astonishment, her own inability to disposeof her female subjects in marriage against the consent of their ownrelations. 

About this time died the earl of Sussex. In him the queen was deprivedof a faithful and honorable counsellor and an affectionate kinsman;Leicester lost the antagonist whom he most dreaded, and the nobility oneof its principal ornaments. Dying childless, his next brother succeededhim, in whom the race ended; for Egremond Ratcliffe, his youngestbrother, had already completed his disastrous destiny. This unfortunategentleman, it will be remembered, was rendered a fugitive and an outlawby the part which he had taken, at a very early age, in the Northernrebellion. For several years he led a forlorn and rambling life, sometimes in Flanders, sometimes in Spain, deriving his sole supportfrom an ill paid pension and occasional donations of Philip II. , andoften enduring extremities of poverty and hardship. 

Wearied with so many sufferings in a desperate cause, he then employedall his endeavours to make his peace at home; and impatient at length ofthe suspense which he endured, he took the step of returning to Englandat all hazards and throwing himself on the compassion of lord Burleigh. The treasurer, touched with his misery and his expressions ofpenitence, interceded with the queen for his pardon; but she, on somefresh occasion of suspicion, caused him to be advised to steal out ofthe kingdom again; and neglecting this intimation, he was committed tothe Tower. After some months he was released, possibly under a promiseof attempting some extraordinary piece of service to his country, andwas sent back to Flanders, where he was soon after apprehended on acharge of conspiring against the life of don John of Austria: some say, and some deny, that he confessed his guilt, and accused the Englishministry of a participation in the design: however this might be, heperished by the hand of public justice, a lamentable victim to theguilty violence of the popish faction which first beguiled hisinexperience; to the relentless policy of Elizabeth, which forbade thereturn of offenders perhaps not incorrigible; and to the desperationwhich gaining dominion over his mind had subverted all its moralprinciples. 

Ireland had been as usual the scene of much danger and disturbance. In1582 an attempt was made by the king of Spain to incite the catholicinhabitants to a general rebellion, by throwing on the coast a smallbody of troops seconded by a very considerable sum of money, andattended by a number of priests prepared to preach up his title to thesovereignty of the island in virtue of the papal donation. But thevigorous measures of Arthur lord Grey the deputy, by holding the Irishin check, rendered this effort abortive. The Spaniards, unable topenetrate into the country, raised a fort near the place of theirlanding, which they hoped to be able to hold out till the arrival ofreinforcements. They obstinately refused the terms of surrender firstoffered them by the deputy; and the fort being afterwards taken byassault, the whole garrison, with the exception of the officers, was putto the sword: an act of cruelty which the deputy is said to havecommanded with tears, in obedience to the decision of a court-martialfrom which he could not venture to depart; and which Elizabeth publiclyreprobated, perhaps without internally condemning. 

The earl of Desmond, who on the arrival of the Spanish troops had risenin arms against the government with all the power he could muster, wasexcepted from the general pardon granted to other Irish insurgents, andthus remaining by necessity in a state of rebellion, gave for some timeconsiderable disquiet, if not alarm, to the English government. But hisresources of every kind gradually falling off, he was hunted aboutthrough bogs and forests, from one fastness or lurking-place to another, enduring every kind of privation and hardship, and often foiling hispursuers by hair-breadth scapes. It is even related that he and hiscountess on one occasion being roused from their bed in the middle ofthe night, found no other mode of concealment than that of wading up totheir necks in the river which bathed the walls of their retreat. Atlength, a small party of soldiers having entered by surprise a solitarycabin, they there found one old man sitting alone, to whom their brutalleader gave a blow with his sword, which nearly cut off his arm, andanother on the side of his head; on which he cried out, "I am the earlof Desmond. " The name was no protection; for perceiving that he bledfast and was unable to march, the ruthless soldier, bidding him preparefor instant death, struck off his head and brought it away as a trophy;leaving the mangled trunk to the chance of interment by any faithfulfollower of the house of Fitzgerald who might venture from hishiding-place to explore the fate of his chief. The head was sent toEngland as a present to the queen, and placed by her command on LondonBridge. 

From this time, the beginning of 1583, Ireland enjoyed a short respitefrom scenes of violence and blood under the vigorous yet humaneadministration of sir John Perrot, the new deputy. 

The petty warfare of this turbulent province, amid the many and greatevils of various kinds which it brought forth, was productive however ofsome contingent advantage to the queen's affairs, by serving as a schoolof military discipline to many an officer of merit whose abilities sheafterwards found occasion to employ in more important enterprises tocheck the power of Spain. Ireland was, in particular, the scene ofseveral of the early exploits of that brilliant and extraordinary geniusWalter Raleigh; and it was out of his service in this country that anoccasion arose for his appearing before her majesty, which he had thetalent and dexterity so to improve as to make it the origin of all hisfavor and advancement. Raleigh was the poor younger brother of adecayed but ancient family in Devonshire. His education at Oxford wasyet incomplete, when the ardor of his disposition impelled him to join agallant band of one hundred volunteers led by his relation HenryChampernon, in 1569, to the aid of the French protestants. Here heserved a six-years apprenticeship to the art of war, after which, returning to his own country, he gave himself for a while to the moretranquil pursuits of literature; for "both Minervas" claimed him astheir own. In 1578 he resumed his arms under general Norris, commanderof the English forces in the Netherlands; the next year, ambitious of anew kind of glory, he accompanied that gallant navigator sir HumphreyGilbert, his half brother, in a voyage to Newfoundland. This expeditionproving unfortunate, he obtained in 1580 a captain's commission in theIrish service; and recommended by his vigor and capacity, rose to begovernor of Cork. He was the officer appointed to carry into effect thebloody sentence passed upon the Spanish garrison; a cruel service, butone which the military duty of obedience rendered matter ofindispensable obligation. A quarrel with lord Grey put a stop to hispromotion in Ireland; and on his following this nobleman to England, their difference was brought to a hearing before the privy-council, whenthe great talents and uncommon flow of eloquence exhibited by Raleigh inpleading his own cause, by raising the admiration of all present, provedthe means of introducing him to the presence of the queen. His comelyperson, fine address, and prompt proficiency in the arts of a courtier, did all the rest; and he rapidly rose to such a height of royal favor asto inspire with jealousy even him who had long stood foremost in thegood graces of his sovereign. 

It is recorded of Raleigh during the early days of his court attendance, when a few handsome suits of clothes formed almost the sum total of hisworldly wealth, that as he was accompanying the queen in one of herdaily walks, --during which she was fond of giving audience, because sheimagined that the open air produced a favorable effect on hercomplexion, --she arrived at a miry spot, and stood in perplexity how topass. With an adroit presence of mind, the courtier pulled off his richplush cloak and threw it on the ground to serve her for a footcloth. Sheaccepted with pleasure an attention which flattered her, and it wasafterwards quaintly said that the spoiling of a cloak had gained himmany _good suits_. 

It was in Ireland too that Edmund Spenser, one of our first genuinepoets, whose rich and melodious strains will find delighted audience aslong as inexhaustible fertility of invention, truth, fluency andvivacity of description, copious learning, and a pure, amiable andheart-ennobling morality shall be prized among the students of Englishverse, was now tuning his enchanting lyre; and the ear of Raleigh wasthe first to catch its strains. This eminent person was probably ofobscure parentage and slender means, for it was as a sizer, the lowestorder of students, that he was entered at Cambridge; but that his humblemerit early attracted the notice of men of learning and virtue isapparent from his intimacy with Stubbs, already commemorated, and fromhis friendship with that noted literary character Gabriel Hervey, bywhom he was introduced to the acquaintance of Philip Sidney. His leaningtowards puritanical principles, clearly manifested by various passagesin the Shepherd's Calendar, had probably betrayed itself to hissuperiors at the university, by his choice of associates, or othercircumstances, previously to the publication of that piece; and possiblymight have some share in the disappointment of his hopes of a fellowshipwhich occurred in 1576. Quitting college on this occurrence, he retiredfor some time into the north of England; but the friendship of Sidneydrew him again from his solitude, and it was at Penshurst that hecomposed much of his Shepherd's Calendar, published in 1579 under thesignature of Immerito, and dedicated to this generous patron of hismuse. The earl of Leicester, probably at his nephew's request, sentSpenser the same year on some commission to France; and in the next heobtained the post of secretary to lord Grey, and attended him toIreland. 

Though the child of fancy and the muse, Spenser now showed that businesswas not "the contradiction of his fate;" he drew up an excellentdiscourse on the state of Ireland, still read and valued, and receivedas his reward the Grant of a considerable tract of land out of theforfeited Desmond estates, and of the castle of Kilcolman, whichhenceforth became his residence, and where he had soon the satisfactionof receiving a first visit from Raleigh. Both pupils of classicalantiquity, both poets and aspirants after immortal fame, they met inthis land of ignorance and barbarity as brothers; and so strong was theimpression made on the mind of Raleigh, that even on becoming asuccessful courtier he dismissed not from his memory or his affectionthe tuneful shepherd whom he had left behind tending his flocks "underthe foot of Mole, that mountain hoar. " He spoke of him to the queen withall the enthusiasm of kindred genius; obtained for him some favors, orpromises of favors; and on a second visit which he made to Ireland, probably for the purpose of inspecting the large grants which he hadhimself obtained, he dragged his friend from his obscure retreat, carried him over with him to England, and hastened to initiate him inthose arts of pushing a fortune at court which with himself hadsucceeded so prosperously. But bitterly did the disappointed poet learnto deprecate the mistaken kindness which had taught him to exchangeleisure and independence, though in a solitude so barbarous and remote, for the servility, the intrigues and the treacheries of thisheart-sickening scene. He put upon lasting record his grief and hisrepentance, in a few lines of energetic warning to the inexperienced inthe ways of courts, and hastened back to earn in obscurity his title toimmortal fame by the composition of the Faery Queen. This great workappeared in 1589, with a preface addressed to Raleigh and a considerableapparatus of recommendatory poems; one of which, a sonnet of greatelegance, is marked with initials which assign it to the samepatronizing friend. 

The proceedings of the administration against papists accused oftreasonable designs or practices, began about this time to exciteconsiderable perturbation in the public mind; for though circumstanceswere brought to light which seemed to justify in some degree the worstsuspicions entertained of this faction, a system of conduct on the partof the government also became apparent which no true Englishman couldwithout indignation and horror contemplate. The earl of Leicester, besides partaking with the other confidential advisers of her majesty inthe blame attached to the general character of the measures now pursued, lay under the popular imputation of making these acts of powersubservient, in many atrocious instances, to his private purposes ofrapacity or vengeance, and a cloud of odium was raised against him whichthe breath of his indulgent sovereign was in vain exerted to disperse. 

There was in Warwickshire a catholic gentleman named Somerville, aperson of violent temper and somewhat disordered in mind, who had beenworked up, by the instigations of one Hall his confessor, to such apitch of fanatical phrensy, that he set out for London with the fixedpurpose of killing the queen; but falling furiously upon some of herprotestant subjects by the way, he was apprehended, and readilyconfessed the object of his journey. Being closely questioned, perhapswith torture, he is said to have dropped something which touched Mr. Arden his father-in-law; and Hall on examination positively declaredthat this gentleman had been made privy to the bloody purpose ofSomerville. On this bare assertion of the priest, unconfirmed, asappears, by any collateral evidence, Arden was indicted, found guilty, and underwent the whole sentence of the law. It happened to be publiclyknown that Arden was the personal enemy of Leicester, for he had refusedto wear his livery;--a base kind of homage which was paid him withoutscruple, as it seems, by other neighbouring gentlemen;--and he was alsoin the habit of reproaching him with the murder of his first wife. Thewife also of Arden was the sister of sir Nicholas Throgmorton, whomLeicester was vulgarly supposed to have poisoned, and of the chiefjustice of Chester lately displaced. When therefore, in addition tothese circumstances of suspicion, it was further observed thatSomerville, instead of being produced to deny or confirm on the scaffoldthe evidence which he was said to have given against Arden, diedstrangled in prison, by his own hand as was affirmed;--when it was seenthat Hall, who was confessedly the instigator of the whole, and furtherobnoxious to the laws as a catholic priest, was quietly sent out of thekingdom by Leicester's means, in spite of the opposition of sirChristopher Hatton;--and finally, when it appeared that the forfeitedlands of Arden went to enrich a creature of the same great man, --thisvictim of law was regarded as a martyr, and it was found impossible totie up the tongues of men from crying shame and vengeance on his crueland insidious destroyer. 

The plot thickened when Francis Throgmorton, son of the degraded judgeof Chester, was next singled out. Some intercepted letters to the queenof Scots formed the first ground of this gentleman's arrest; but beingcarried to the Tower, he was there racked to extort further discoveries, and lord Paget and Charles Arundel, a courtier, quitted the kingdom inhaste as soon as they knew him to be in custody. After this many of theleading catholics fell into suspicion, particularly the earls ofNorthumberland and Arundel, who were ordered to confine themselves totheir houses; lord William Howard, brother to the latter nobleman, andhis uncle lord Henry Howard, were likewise subjected to several long andrigorous examinations, but were dismissed at length on full proof oftheir perfect innocence. The confessions of Throgmorton furtherimplicated the Spanish ambassador; who replied in so high a tone to therepresentations made him on the subject, that her majesty commanded himto quit the kingdom. 

Francis Throgmorton was condemned, and suffered as a traitor, and, it isprobable, not undeservedly: there was reason also to believe that adangerous activity was exercised by the queen of Scots and her agents, and that the letters which she was continually finding means ofconveying not only to the heads of the popish party, but to all whoseconnexions led her to imagine them in any degree favorable to the cause, had shaken the allegiance of numbers. On the other hand, the catholicscomplained, and certainly not without reason, of dark and detestablemeans employed by the ministry to betray and ensnare them. Counterfeited letters, it seems, were often addressed to gentlemen ofthis persuasion, purporting to come either from the queen of Scots orfrom certain English exiles, and soliciting concurrence in some schemefor her deliverance, or some design against the government. If theunwary receivers either answered the letters, or simply forbore todeliver them up to the secretary of state, their houses were entered;search was made for these papers by the emissaries of government, whowere themselves the fabricators of them; the unfortunate owners weredragged to prison as suspected persons; and interrogated, and perhapstortured, till they discovered all that they knew of the secrets of theparty. Spies were planted upon them, every unguarded word was caught upand interpreted in the worst sense, and false or frivolous accusationswere greedily entertained. 

Walsingham, next to Leicester, bore the chief odium of theseproceedings; but to him no corrupt motives or private ends ever appearto have been imputed in particular cases, though an anxiety to preservehis place, and to recommend himself to the queen his mistress by anextraordinary manifestation of care for her safety and zeal in herservice, may not unfairly be supposed to have influenced the generalcharacter of his policy. 

The loud complaints of the catholics had excited so strong and so widelydiffused a sentiment of compassion for them and indignation againsttheir oppressors, that it was judged expedient to publish an apology forthe measures of government, written either by lord Burleigh himself orunder his direction, which bore the title of "A declaration of thefavorable dealing of her majesty's commissioners appointed for theexamination of certain traitors, and of tortures unjustly reported to bedone upon them for matters of religion. "

It thus begins: "Good reader, although her majesty's most mild andgracious government be sufficient to defend itself against those mostslanderous reports of heathenish and unnatural tyranny and crueltortures pretended to have been exercised upon certain traitors wholately suffered for their treason, and others; as well as spread abroadby rungates, Jesuits, and seminary men in their seditious books, lettersand libels, in foreign countries and princes courts, as also intimatedinto the hearts of some of our own countrymen and her majesty'ssubjects. . . . I have conferred with a very honest gentleman whom I knewto have good and sufficient means to deliver the truth. " &c. And thefollowing are the heads of this "honest gentleman's" testimony. "It isaffirmed for truth, and is offered upon due examination to be proved, ""that the forms of torture in their severity or rigor of execution havenot been such as is slanderously represented". . . "that even theprincipal offender Campion himself". . . "before the conference had withhim by learned men in the Tower, wherein he was charitably used, wasnever so racked but that he was presently able to walk and to write, anddid presently write and subscribe all his confessions. " That Briant, aman said to, have been reduced to such extremities of hunger and thirstin prison, that he ate the clay out of the walls and drank the droppingsof the roof, was kept in that state by his own fault; for certaintreasonable writings being found upon him, he was required to give aspecimen of his handwriting; which refusing, he was told he should haveno food till he wrote for what he wanted, and after fasting nearly twodays and nights he complied. Also, that both with respect to these twoand others, it might be affirmed, that the warders, whose office it isto use the rack, "were ever by those that attended the examinationsspecially charged to use it in as charitable a manner as such a thingmight be. "

Secondly, that none of those catholics who have been racked during hermajesty's reign were, "upon the rack or in any other torture, " demandedof any points of faith and doctrine merely, "but only with what persons, at home or abroad, and touching what plots and practises they haddealt. . . About attempts against her majesty's estate or person, or toalter the laws of the realm for matters of religion, by treason or byforce; and how they were persuaded themselves and did persuade others, touching the pope's pretence of authority to depose kings and princes;and namely for deprivation of her majesty, and to discharge subjectsfrom their allegiance. " &c. 

"Thirdly, that none of them have been put to the rack or torture, no notfor the matters of treason, or partnership of treason, or such like, butwhere it was first known and evidently probable, by former detections, confessions, and otherwise, that the party was guilty, and coulddeliver truth of the things wherewith he was charged; so as it was firstassured that no innocent was at any time tormented, and the rack wasnever used to wring out confessions at adventure upon uncertainties. "&c. 

"Fourthly, that none of them hath been racked or tortured unless he hadfirst said expressly, or amounting to as much, that he will not tell thetruth though the queen did command him. " &c. 

"Fifthly, that the proceeding to torture was always so slowly, sounwillingly, and with so many preparations of persuasions to sparethemselves, and so many means to let them know that the truth was bythem to be uttered, both in duty to her majesty, and in wisdom forthemselves, as whosoever was present at those actions must needsacknowledge in her majesty's ministers a full purpose to follow theexample of her own gracious disposition. ". . . "Thus it appeareth, thatalbeit, by the more general laws of nations, torture hath been and islawfully judged to be used in lesser cases, and in sharper manner, forinquisition of truth in crimes not so near extending to public danger asthese ungracious persons have committed, whose conspiracies, and theparticularities thereof, it did so much import and behove to havedisclosed; yet even in that necessary use of such proceeding, enforcedby the offenders notorious obstinacy, is nevertheless to be acknowledgedthe sweet temperature of her majesty's mild and gracious clemency, andtheir slanderous lewdness to be the more condemned, that have in favorof heinous malefactors and stubborn traitors spread untrue rumours andslanders, to make her merciful government disliked, under false pretenceand rumors of sharpness and cruelty to those against whom nothing can becruel, and yet upon whom nothing hath been done but gentle andmerciful. "

This is a document which speaks sufficiently for itself. Torture, in anyshape, was even at this time absolutely contrary to the law of the land;and happily, there was enough of true English feeling in the country, even under the rule of a Tudor, to render it expedient for Elizabeth, soon after the exposition of these "favorable dealings" of hercommissioners, to issue an order that no species of it should in futurebe applied to state-prisoners on any pretext whatsoever. 

Parsons the Jesuit, who had been fortunate enough to make his escapewhen his associate Campion was apprehended, is believed to have been thepapist who sought to avenge his party on its capital enemy by thecomposition of that virulent invective called "Leicester'sCommonwealth:" a pamphlet which was printed in Flanders in 1584, and ofwhich a vast number of copies were imported into England, where itobtained, from the color of the leaves and the supposed author, thefamiliar title of "Father Parsons' Green-coat. " In this work all thecurrent stories against the unpopular favorite were collected and setforth as well attested facts; and they were related with thatcircumstantiality and minuteness of detail which are too apt to passupon the common reader as the certain and authentic characters of truth. The success of this book was prodigious; it was read universally andwith the utmost avidity. All who envied Leicester's power and grandeur;all who had smarted under his insolence, or felt the gripe of hisrapacity; all who had been scandalized, or wounded in family honor, byhis unbridled licentiousness; all who still cherished in their heartsthe image of the unfortunate duke of Norfolk, whom he was believed tohave entangled in a deadly snare; all who knew him for the foe andsuspected him for the murderer of the gallant and lamented earl ofEssex;--finally, all, and they were nearly the whole of the nation, wholooked upon him as a base and treacherous miscreant, shielded by theaffection of his sovereign and wrapped in an impenetrable cloud ofhypocrisy and artifice, who aimed in the dark his envenomed weaponsagainst the bosom of innocence;--exulted in this exposure of his secretcrimes, and eagerly received and propagated for truth even the grossestof the exaggerations and falsehoods with which the narrative wasintermixed. 

Elizabeth, incensed to the last degree at so furious an attack upon theman in whom her confidence was irremoveably fixed, caused her council towrite letters to all persons in authority for the suppression of thesebooks, and punishment of such as were concerned in their dispersion;adding at the same time the declaration, that her majesty "testified inher conscience before God, that she knew in assured certainty the booksand libels against the earl to be most malicious, false and scandalous, and such as none but an incarnate devil himself could dream to be true. "The letters further stated, that her majesty regarded this publicationas an attempt to discredit her own government, "as though she shouldhave failed in good judgement and discretion in the choice of soprincipal a councillor about her, or to be without taste or care of alljustice or conscience, in suffering such heinous and monstrous crimes, as by the said books and libels be infamously imputed, to passunpunished; or finally, at the least, to want either good will, abilityor courage, if she knew these enormities were true, to call any subjectof hers whatsoever to render sharp account of them, according to theforce of her laws. " The councillors in their own persons afterwards wenton to declare, that they, "to do his lordship but right, of theirsincere consciences must needs affirm these strange and abominablecrimes to be raised of a wicked and venomous malice against the saidearl, of whose good service, sincerity of religion, and all otherfaithful dealings towards her majesty and the realm, they had had longand true experience. "

These letters said too much; it was not credible that either her majestyor her privy-councillors should each individually know to be false allthe imputations thrown upon Leicester in the libels written against him;there was even good reason to believe that many of them were firmlybelieved to be well founded by several, and perhaps most, of theprivy-councillors; at all events nothing like exculpatory evidence wasbrought, or attempted to be brought, on the subject, consequently noeffect was produced on public opinion; the whole was regarded as an_ex-parte_ proceeding. Philip Sidney, who probably set out with asincere disbelief of these shocking accusations brought against anyuncle who had shown for him an affection next to parental, eagerly tookup the pen in his defence. But the only point on which his refutationappears to have been triumphant, was unfortunately one of no moralmoment, --the antiquity and nobility of the Dudley family, falsely, as itseems, impugned by the libeller. Some inconsistencies and contradictionshe indeed pointed out in other matters; but, on the whole, the answerwas miserably deficient in every thing but invective, of which there wasfar too much; and either from a gradual perception of the badness of hiscause or the weakness of his performance, or perhaps for other reasonswith which we are unacquainted, he abandoned his design; and thefragment never saw the light till the publication of the Sidney Papersabout sixty years ago. But whatever might be the private judgements ofmen concerning the character and conduct of the earl of Leicester; thesupport of the queen, and the strength of the party which the longpossession of power, and a remarkable fidelity in the observance of hisengagements towards his own adherents, had enabled him to form, effectually protected him from experiencing any decline of his politicalinfluence. Of this a proof appeared soon after, when in consequence offurther disclosures of the dangerous designs of the catholics, a form ofassociation, by which the subscribers bound themselves to pursue, to theutmost of their power, even to the death, all who should attempt anything against the queen in favor of any pretender to the crown, wasdrawn up by this nobleman and obtained the signatures of all orders ofmen. 

This was a measure which the queen of Scots perceived to be aimedexpressly against herself, and of which she sought to divert the illeffects by all the means still within her power. She desired to be oneof the first to whom the association should be offered for subscription;and she begged that this act might form the basis of a treaty by whichall differences between herself and Elizabeth might be finally composed, and her long captivity exchanged at length, if not for absolute freedom, at least for a state of comparative independence under articlesguarantied by the principal powers of Europe. These articles, fardifferent from the former claims of Mary, appeared to Walsingham soadvantageous to his mistress, by the exemption which they seemed topromise her from future machinations on the part of the queen of Scots, that he strenuously urged their acceptance; but it was in vain. Mutualinjuries, dissimulation on both sides, and causes of jealousy on thepart of Elizabeth from which all her advantages over her captive enemyhad not served to set her free, now, as ever, opposed the conclusion ofany terms of agreement; and the imprudent and violent conduct of Maryserved to confirm Elizabeth in her unrelentingness. Even while the termswere under discussion, a letter was intercepted addressed by the queenof Scots to sir Francis Englefield, an English exile and pensioner inSpain, in which she thus wrote: "Of the treaty between the queen ofEngland and me, I may neither hope nor look for good issue. Whatsoevershall become of me, by whatsoever change of my state and condition, letthe execution of the _Great Plot_ go forward, without any respect ofperil or danger to me. For I will account my life very happily bestowed, if I may with the same help and relieve so great a number of theoppressed children of the Church. . . . And further, I pray you, use allpossible diligence and endeavour to pursue and promote, at the pope'sand other kings' hand, such a speedy execution of their formerdesignments, that the same may be effectuated sometime this nextspring. " &c. It must be confessed, that after such a letter Mary hadlittle right to complain of the failure of these negotiations. Thecountess of Shrewsbury, now at open variance with her husband, hademployed every art to infuse into the queen suspicions of a too greatintimacy subsisting between the earl and his prisoner; and Elizabeth, either from a jealousy which the long fidelity of Shrewsbury to hisarduous trust was unable to counteract, or, as was believed, at theinstigation of some who meant further mischief to Mary, ordered aboutthis time her removal to the custody of sir Amias Paulet and sir DrugoDrury. 

This change filled the mind of the captive queen with terror, whichprepared her to listen with avidity to any schemes, however desperate, for her own deliverance and the destruction of her enemy; and proved theprelude to that tragical castastrophe which was now advancing fast uponher. 

A violent quarrel between Mary and the countess of Shrewsbury hadnaturally resulted from the conduct of this furious woman; and Mary, whose passions, whether fierce or tender, easily hurried her beyond thebounds of decency and of prudence, gratified her resentment at onceagainst the countess and the queen by addressing to Elizabeth a letterwhich could never be forgiven or forgotten. In this piece, much toogross for insertion in the present work, she professes to comply withthe request of her royal sister, by acquainting her very exactly withall the evil of every kind that the countess of Shrewsbury had everspoken of her majesty in her hearing. She then proceeds to repeat orinvent all that the most venomous malice could devise against thecharacter of Elizabeth: as, that she had conferred her favors on anameless person (probably Leicester) to whom she had promised marriage;on the duke of Anjou, on Simier, on Hatton and others; that the latterwas quite disgusted with her fondness; that she was generous to none butthese favorites, &c. That her conceit of her beauty was such, that noflattery could be too gross for her to swallow; and that this folly wasthe theme of ridicule to all her courtiers, who would often pretend thattheir eyes were unable to sustain the radiance of her countenance, --atrait, by the way, which stands on other and better authority than thisinfamous letter. That her temper was so furious that it was dreadful toattend upon her;--that she had broken the finger of one lady, andafterwards pretended to the courtiers that it was done by the fall of achandelier, and that she had cut another across the hand with aknife;--stories very probably not entirely unfounded in fact, since wefind the earl of Huntingdon complaining, in a letter still preserved inthe British Museum, that the queen, on some quarrel, had pinched hiswife "very sorely. " That she interfered in an arbitrary manner with themarriage of one of the countess of Shrewsbury's daughters, and wanted toengross the disposal of all the heiresses in the kingdom;--in whichcharge there was also some truth. This insulting epistle concluded withassurances of the extreme anxiety of the writer to see a goodunderstanding restored between herself and Elizabeth. 

Meantime, the most alarming manifestations of the inveterate hostilityof the persecuted papists against the queen, continued to agitate theminds of a people who loved and honored her; and who anticipated withwell founded horror the succession of another Mary, which seemedinevitable in the event of her death. A book was written by a Romishpriest, exhorting the female attendants of her majesty to emulate themerit and glory of Judith by inflicting on her the fate of Holophernes. Dr. Allen, afterwards cardinal, published a work to justify andrecommend the murder of a heretic prince; and by this piece a gentlemanof the name of Parry was confirmed, it is said, in the black designwhich he had several times revolved in his mind, but relinquished asoften from misgivings of conscience. 

In the history of this person there are some circumstances veryremarkable. He was a man of considerable learning, but, being viciousand needy, had some years before this time committed a robbery, forwhich he had received the royal pardon. Afterwards he went abroad, andwas reconciled to the Romish church, though employed at the same time bythe ministers of Elizabeth to give intelligence respecting the Englishexiles, whom he often recommended to pardon or favor, and sometimesapparently with success. Returning home, he gained access to the queen, who admitted him to several private interviews; and he afterwardsdeclared, that fearing he might be tempted to put in act the bloodypurpose which perpetually haunted his mind, he always left his dagger athome when he went to wait upon her. On these occasions he apprized hermajesty of the existence of many designs against her life, andendeavoured, with great earnestness and plainness of speech, to convinceher of the cruelty and impolicy of those laws against the papists whichhad rendered them her deadly foes: but finding his arguments thrown awayupon the queen, he afterwards procured a seat in parliament, where hewas the sole opponent of a severe act passed against the Jesuits. Onaccount of the freedom with which he expressed himself on this occasion, he was for a few days imprisoned. 

Soon after a gentleman of the family of Nevil, induced it is said by thehope of obtaining as his reward the honors and lands of the rebel earlof Westmorland lately dead, disclosed to the government a plot forassassinating the queen, in which he affirmed that Parry had engaged hisconcurrence. Parry confessed in prison that he had long deliberated onthe means of effectually serving his church, and it appeared that hehad come to the decision that the assassination of the queen's greatestsubject might be lawful: a letter was also found upon him from cardinalComo, expressing approbation of some design which he had communicated tohim. On this evidence he was capitally condemned; but to the last hestrongly denied that the cardinal's letter, couched in general terms, referred to any attempt on the queen's person, or that he had everentertained the design charged upon him. Unlike all the other martyrs ofpopery at this time, he died, --not avowing and glorying in the crimecharged upon him, --but earnestly protesting his innocence, his loyalty, his warm attachment to her majesty. An account of his life was publishedimmediately afterwards by the queen's printer, written in a style of theutmost virulence, and filled with tales of his monstrous wickednesswhich have much the air of violent calumnies. 

Parry was well known to lord Burleigh, with whom he had corresponded forseveral years; and the circumstance of his being brought by him to thepresence of the queen, proves that this minister was far from regardinghim either as the low, the infamous, or the desperate wretch that he ishere represented. That he had sometimes _imagined_ the death of thequeen, he seems to have acknowledged; but most probably he had never sofar conquered the dictates of loyalty and conscience as to have laid anyplan for her destruction, or even to have resolved upon hazarding theattempt. The case therefore was one in which mercy and even justice seemto have required the remission of a harsh and hasty sentence; but thepanic terror which had now seized the queen, the ministry, theparliament, and the nation, would have sufficed to overpower thepleadings of the generous virtues in hearts of nobler mould than thoseof Elizabeth, of Leicester, or of Walsingham. 

Nevil, the accuser of Parry, far from gaining any reward, was detainedprisoner in the Tower certainly till the year 1588, and whether he eventhen obtained his liberation does not appear. 

The severe enactments of the new parliament against papists, whichincluded a total prohibition of every exercise of the rites of theirreligion, so affected the mind of Philip Howard earl of Arundel, alreadyexasperated by the personal hardships to which the suspicions of hermajesty and the hostility of her ministers had exposed him, that heformed the resolution of banishing himself for ever from his nativeland. Having secretly prepared every thing for his departure, he put hiswhole case upon record in a letter addressed to her majesty, and leftbehind at his house in London. This piece ought, as it appears, to haveexcited in the breast of his sovereign sentiments of regret andcompunction rather than of indignation. The writer complains, thatwithout any offence given on his part, or even objected against him byher majesty, he had long since fallen into her disfavor, as by her"bitter speeches" had become publicly known; so that he was generallyaccounted, "nay in a manner pointed at, " as one whom her majesty leastfavored, and in most disgrace as a person whom she did deeply suspectand especially mislike. " That after he had continued for some monthsunder this cloud, he had been called sundry times by her command beforethe council, where charges had been brought against him, some of themridiculously trifling, others incredible, all so untrue, that even hisgreatest enemies could not, after his answers were made, reproach himwith any disloyal thought;--yet was he in the end ordered to keep hishouse. That his enemies still continued to pursue him withinterrogatories, and continued his restraint; and that even after thelast examination had failed to produce any thing against him, he wasstill kept fifteen weeks longer in the same state, though accused ofnothing. That when, either his enemies being ashamed to pursue theseproceedings further, or her majesty being prevailed upon by his friendsto put an end to them, he had at length recovered his liberty, he hadbeen led to meditate on the fates of his three unfortunate ancestors, all circumvented by their enemies, and two of them (the earl of Surryhis grandfather and the duke of Norfolk his father) brought for slightcauses to an untimely end. And having weighed their cases with what hadjust befallen himself, he concluded that it might well be his lot tosucceed them in fortune as in place. His foes were strong to overthrow, he weak to defend himself, since innocence, he had found, was noprotection; her majesty being "easily drawn to an ill opinion of" his"ancestry;" and moreover, he had been "charged by the council to be ofthe religion which was accounted odious and dangerous to her estate. ""Lastly, " he adds, "but principally, I weighed in what miserabledoubtful case my soul had remained if my life had been taken, as it wasnot unlikely, in my former troubles. For I protest, the greatest burdenthat rested on my conscience at that time was, because I had not livedaccording to the prescript rule of that which I undoubtedly believed. "&c. 

The earl had actually embarked at a small port in Sussex, when, hisproject having been betrayed to the government by the mercenary villanyof the master of the vessel and of one of his own servants, orders wereissued for his detention, and he was brought back in custody andcommitted to the Tower. The letter just quoted was then produced againsthim; it was declared to reflect on the justice of the country; and forthe double offence of having written it and of attempting to quit thekingdom without license, he underwent a long imprisonment, and wasarbitrarily sentenced to a fine of one thousand pounds, which he provedhis inability to pay. The barbarous tyranny which held his body inthraldom, served at the same time to rivet more strongly upon his mindthe fetters of that stern superstition which had gained dominion overhim. The more he endured for his religion, the more awful and importantdid it appear in his eyes; while in proportion to the severity andtediousness of his sufferings from without, the scenery within becamecontinually more cheerless and terrific; and learning to dread in afuture world the prolonged operation of that principle of cruelty underwhich he groaned in this, he sought to avert its everlasting action bypractising upon himself the expiatory rigors of asceticism. The sequelof his melancholy history we shall have occasion to contemplatehereafter. 

Thomas Percy earl of Northumberland, brother to that earl who hadsuffered death on account of the Northern rebellion, --by hisparticipation in which he had himself also incurred a fine, thoughafterwards remitted, --was naturally exposed at this juncture to vehementsuspicions. After some examinations before the council, cause was foundfor his committal to the Tower; and here, according to the iniquitouspractice of the age, he remained for a considerable time without beingbrought to trial. At length the public was informed that anotherprisoner on a like account having been put to the torture to forcedisclosures, had revealed matters against the earl of Northumberlandamounting to treason, on which account he had thought fit to anticipatethe sentence of the law by shooting himself through the heart. That theearl was really the author of his own death was indeed proved before acoroner's jury by abundant and unexceptionable testimony, as well as byhis deliberate precautions for making his lands descend to his son, andhis indignant declaration that the queen, on whom he bestowed a mostopprobrious epithet, should never have his estate; though it may stillbear a doubt whether a consciousness of guilt, despair of obtainingjustice, or merely the misery of an indefinite captivity, were themotive of the rash act: but the catholics, actuated by the true spiritof party, added without scruple the death of this nobleman to the "fouland midnight murders" perpetrated within these gloomy walls. 

Meantime the opposition to popery, which had now become the reigningprinciple of English policy, was to be maintained on other ground, andwith other weapons than those with which an inquisitorialhigh-commission, or a fierce system of penal enactments, had armed thehands of religious intolerance, political jealousy, or privateanimosity; and all the more generous and adventurous spirits preparedwith alacrity to draw the sword in the noble cause of Belgianindependence, against the united tyranny and bigotry of the detestablePhilip II. 

The death of that patriot hero William prince of Orange by the hand of afanatical assassin, had plunged his country in distress and dismay, andthe States-general had again made an earnest tender of their sovereigntyto Elizabeth. She once more declined it, from the same motives ofcaution and anxiety to avoid the imputation of ambitious encroachment onthe rights of neighbouring princes, which had formerly determined her. But more than ever aware how closely her own safety and welfare wereconnected with the successful resistance of these provinces, she nowconsented to send over an army to their succour, and to grant themsupplies of money; in consideration of which several cautionary townswere put into her hands. Of these, Flushing was one; and Elizabethgratified at once the protestant zeal of Philip Sidney and hisaspirations after military glory, by appointing him its governor. It wasin November 1585 that he took possession of his charge. 

Meanwhile the earl of Leicester, whose haughty and grasping spirit ledhim to covet distinction and authority in every line, was eagerlysoliciting the supreme command of this important armament; and in spiteof the general mediocrity of his talents and his very slight experiencein the art of war, his partial mistress had the weakness to indulge himin this unreasonable and ill-advised pretension. The title of general ofthe queen's auxiliaries in Holland was conferred upon him, and with it acommand over the whole English navy paramount to that of thelord-high-admiral himself. 

He landed at Flushing, and was received first by its governor andafterwards by the States of Holland and Zealand with the highest honors, and with the most magnificent festivities which it was in their power toexhibit. A splendid band of youthful nobility followed in histrain:--the foremost of them all was his stepson Robert earl of Essex, now in his 19th year, who had already made his appearance at court, andexperienced from her majesty a reception which clearly prognosticated, to such as were conversant in the ways of the court, the height of favorto which he was predestined. 

It was highly characteristic of the jealous haughtiness of Elizabeth'stemper, that the extraordinary honors lavished by the States uponLeicester instantly awakened her utmost indignation. She regarded themas too high for any subject, even for him who enjoyed the first place inher royal favor, whom she had invested with an amplitude of authorityquite unexampled, and who represented herself in the council of theStates-general. She expressed her anger in a tone which made bothLeicester and the Belgians tremble; and the explanations and humblesubmissions of both parties were found scarcely sufficient to appeaseher. At the same time, the incapacity and misconduct of Leicester as acommander were daily becoming more conspicuous and offensive in the eyesof the Dutch authorities; and the most serious evils would immediatelyhave ensued, but for the prudence, the magnanimity, the conciliatingbehaviour, and the strenuous exertions, by which his admirable nephewlabored unceasingly to remedy his vices and cover his deficiencies. 

The brilliant valor of the English troops, and particularly of the youngnobility and gentry who led them on, was conspicuous in every encounter;but the want of a chief able to cope with that accomplished general theprince of Parma, precluded them from effecting any important object. Philip Sidney distinguished himself by a well-conducted surprise of thetown of Axel, and received in reward among a number of others the honorof knighthood from the hands of his uncle. Afterwards, having made anattack with the horse under his command on a reinforcement which theenemy was attempting to throw into Zutphen, a hot action ensued, inwhich though the advantage remained with the English, it was dearlypurchased by the blood of their gallant leader, who received a shotabove the knee, which after sixteen days of acute suffering brought hisvaluable life to its termination. 

Thus perished at the early age of thirty-two sir Philip Sidney, thepride and pattern of his time, the theme of song, the favorite ofEnglish story. The beautiful anecdote of his resigning to the dyingsoldier the draught of water with which he was about to quench histhirst as he rode faint and bleeding from the fatal field, is told toevery child, and inspires a love and reverence for his name which neverceases to cling about the hearts of his countrymen. He is regarded asthe most perfect example which English history affords of the _preuxChevalier_; and is named in parallel with the spotless and fearlessBayard the glory of Frenchmen, whom he excelled in all theaccomplishments of peace as much as the other exceeded him in the numberand splendor of his military achievements. 

The demonstrations of grief for his loss, and the honors paid to hismemory, went far beyond all former example, and appeared to exceed whatbelonged to a private citizen. The court went into mourning for him, andhis remains received a magnificent funeral in St. Paul's, the UnitedProvinces having in vain requested permission to inter him at their ownexpense, with the promise that he should have as fair a tomb as anyprince in Christendom. Elizabeth always remembered him with affectionand regret. Cambridge and Oxford published three volumes of "_Lachrymæ_"on the melancholy event. Spenser in verse, and Camden in prose, commemorated and deplored their friend and patron. A crowd of humblercontemporaries pressed emulously forward to offer up their mite ofpanegyric and lamentation; and it would be endless to enumerate thepoets and other writers of later times, who have celebrated in variousforms the name of Sidney. Foreigners of the highest distinction claimeda share in the general sentiment. Du Plessis Mornay condoled withWalsingham on the loss of his incomparable son-in-law in terms of thedeepest sorrow. Count Hohenlo passionately bewailed his friend andfellow-soldier, to whose representations and intercessions he hadsacrificed his just indignation against the proceedings of Leicester. Even the hard heart of Philip II. Was touched by the untimely fate ofhis godson, though slain in bearing arms against him. 

We are told that on the next tilt-day after the last wife of the earl ofLeicester had borne him a son, Sidney appeared with a shield on whichwas the word "_Speravi_" dashed through. This anecdote, --if indeed theallusion of the motto be rightly explained, which it is difficult tobelieve, --would serve to show how publicly he had been regarded, both byhimself and others, as the heir of his all-powerful uncle. The death ofthis child, on which occasion adulatory verses were produced by theuniversity of Cambridge, restored Sidney, the year before his death, tothis brilliant expectancy; and it cannot reasonably be doubted, that theacademic honors paid to his memory were, like the court-mourning, ahomage to the power of the living rather than the virtues of the dead. But though he should be judged to have owed to his connexion with aroyal favorite much of his contemporary celebrity, and even in somemeasure his enduring fame, no candid estimator will suffer himself tobe hurried, under an idea of correcting the former partiality offortune, into the clear injustice of denying to this accomplishedcharacter a just title to the esteem and admiration of posterity. On thecontrary, it will be considered, that the very circumstances whichrendered him so early conspicuous, would also expose him to the shaftsof malice and envy; and that if his spirit had not been in realitynoble, and his conduct irreproachable, it would have exceeded all thepower of Leicester to shield the reputation of his nephew againstattacks similar to those from which he had found it impracticable todefend his own. 

Philip Sidney was educated, by the cares of a wise and excellent father, in the purest and most elevated moral principles and in the bestlearning of the age. A letter of advice addressed to him by thisexemplary parent at the age of twelve, fully exemplifies both thelaudable solicitude of sir Henry respecting his future character, andthe soundness of his views and maxims: in the character of his son, asadvancing to manhood, he saw his hopes exceeded and his prayersfulfilled. Nothing could be more correct than his conduct, more laudablethan his pursuits, while on his travels; young as he was, he merited thefriendship of Hubert Languet. He also gained just and high reputationfor the manner in which he acquitted himself of an embassy to theprotestant princes of Germany, though somewhat of the ostentation andfamily pride of a Dudley was apparent in the port which he thought itnecessary to assume on the occasion. After his return, he commenced thelife of a courtier; and that indiscriminate thirst for glory which wasin some measure the foible of his character, led him into anostentatious profusion, which, by involving his affairs, rendered itnecessary for him to solicit the pecuniary favors of her majesty, and toearn them by some acts of adulation unworthy of his spirit: for allthese, however, he made large amends by his noble letter against theFrench marriage. He afterwards took up, with a zeal and ability highlyhonorable to his heart and his head, the defence of his father, accused, but finally acquitted, of some stretches of power as lord-deputy ofIreland. This business involved him in disputes with the earl of Ormond, his father's enemy, who seems to have generously overlooked provocationswhich might have led to more serious consequences, in consideration ofthe filial feelings of his youthful adversary. 

These indications of a bold and forward spirit appear however to havesomewhat injured him in the mind of her majesty; his advancement by nomeans kept pace either with his wishes or his wants; and a subsequentquarrel with the earl of Oxford, --in which he refused to make theconcessions required by the queen, reminding her at the same time thatit had been her father's policy, and ought to be hers, rather tocountenance the gentry against the arrogance of the great nobles thanthe contrary, --sent him in disgust from court. Retiring to Wilton, theseat of his brother-in-law the earl of Pembroke, he composed theArcadia. This work he never revised or completed; it was publishedafter his death, probably contrary to his orders; and it is of a kindlong since obsolete. Under all these disadvantages, however, thoughfaulty in plan and as a whole tedious, this romance has been found toexhibit extensive learning, a poetical cast of imagination, nicediscrimination of character, and, what is far more, a fervor ofeloquence in the cause of virtue, a heroism of sentiment and purity ofthought, which stamp it for the offspring of a noble mind, --which evincethat the workman was superior to his work. 

But the world re-absorbed him; and baffled at court he meditated, incorrespondence with one of his favorite mottoes, --"_Aut viam inveniamaut faciam_, "--to join one of the almost piratical expeditions of Drakeagainst the Spanish settlements. Perhaps he might then be diverted fromhis design by the strong and kind warning of his true friend Languet, "to beware lest the thirst of lucre should creep into a mind which hadhitherto admitted nothing but the love of truth and an anxiety todeserve well of all men. " After the death of this monitor, however, heengaged in a second scheme of this very questionable nature, and wasonly prevented from embarking by the arrival of the queen's peremptoryorders for his return to court and that of Fulke Greville whoaccompanied him. 

It would certainly be difficult to defend in point of dignity andconsistency his conspicuous appearance, as formerly recorded, at thetriumph held in honor of the French embassy, or his attendance upon theduke of Anjou on his return to the Netherlands. 

The story of his nomination to the throne of Poland deserves littleregard; it is certain that such an elevation was never within hispossibilities of attainment. His reputation on the continent was howeverextremely high; Don John of Austria himself esteemed him; the greatprince of Orange corresponded with him as a real friend; and Du PlessisMornay solicited his good offices on behalf of the French protestants. Nothing but the highest praise is due to his conduct in Holland; to thevalor of a knight-errant he added the best virtues of a commander andcounsellor. Leicester himself apprehended that it would be scarcelypossible for him to sustain his high post without the countenance andassistance of his beloved nephew; and the event showed that he wasright. 

His death was worthy of the best parts of his life; he showed himself tothe last devout, courageous, and serene. His wife, the beautifuldaughter of Walsingham; his brother Robert, to whom he had performed thepart rather of an anxious and indulgent parent than of a brother; andmany sorrowing friends, surrounded his bed. Their grief was beyond adoubt sincere and poignant, as well as that of the many persons ofletters and of worth who gloried in his friendship and flourished by hisbountiful patronage. 

On the whole, though justice claims the admission that the character ofSidney was not entirely free from the faults most incident to his ageand station, and that neither as a writer, a scholar, a soldier, or astatesman, --in all which characters during the course of his short lifehe appeared, and appeared with distinction, --is he yet entitled to thehighest rank; it may however be firmly maintained that, as a _man_, anaccomplished and high-souled man, he had among his contemporarycountrymen neither equal nor competitor. Such was the verdict in his owntimes not of flatterers only, or friends, but of England, of Europe;such is the title of merit under which the historian may enroll him, with confidence and with complacency, among the illustrious few whosename and example still serve to kindle in the bosom of youth theanimating glow of virtuous emulation. 

Leicester never appears in an amiable light except in connexion with hisnephew, for whom his affection was not only sincere but ardent. A fewextracts from a letter written by him to sir Thomas Heneage, captain ofthe queen's guards, giving an account of the action in which Sidneyreceived his mortal wound, will illustrate this remark, while it recordsthe gallant exploits of several of his companions in arms. 

After relating that sir Philip had gone out with a party to intercept aconvoy of the enemy's, he adds, "Many of our horses were hurt andkilled, among which was my nephew's own. He went and changed to another, and would needs to the charge again, and once passed those musqueteers, where he received a sore wound upon his thigh, three fingers above hisknee, the bone broken quite in pieces; but for which chance, God didsend such a day as I think was never many years seen, so few against somany. " The earl then enumerates the other commanders and distinguishedpersons engaged in the action. Colonel Norris, the earl of Essex, sirThomas Perrot; "and my unfortunate Philip, with sir William Russell, anddivers gentlemen; and not one hurt but only my nephew. They killed fourof their enemy's chief leaders, and carried the valiant count HannibalGonzaga away with them upon a horse; also took captain George Cressier, the principal soldier of the camp, and captain of all the Albanese. Mylord Willoughby overthrew him at the first encounter, man and horse. Thegentleman did acknowledge it himself. There is not a properer gentlemanin the world towards than this lord Willoughby is; but I can hardlypraise one more than another, they all did so well; yet every one hadhis horse killed or hurt. And it was thought very strange that sirWilliam Stanley with three hundred of his men should pass, in spite ofso many musquets, such troops of horse three several times, making themremove their ground, and to return with no more loss than he did. Albeit, I must say it, it was too much loss for me; for this young man, he was my greatest comfort, next her majesty, of all the world; and if Icould buy his life with all I have, to my shirt I would give it. How Godwill dispose of him I know not, but fear I must needs, greatly, theworst; the blow in so dangerous a place and so great; yet did I neverhear of any man that did abide the dressing and setting of his bonesbetter than he did; and he was carried afterwards in my barge toArnheim, and I hear this day, he is still of good heart, and comfortethall about him as much as may be. God of his mercy grant me his life!which I cannot but doubt of greatly. I was abroad that time in thefield giving some order to supply that business, which did endure almosttwo hours in continual fight; and meeting Philip coming upon hishorseback, not a little to my grief. But I would you had stood by tohear his most loyal speeches to her majesty; his constant mind to thecause; his loving care over me, and his most resolute determination fordeath, not one jot appalled for his blow; which is the most grievous Iever saw with such a bullet; riding so a long mile and a half upon hishorse, ere he came to the camp; not ceasing to speak still of hermajesty, being glad if his hurt and death might any way honor hermajesty; for hers he was whilst he lived, and God's he was sure to be ifhe died. Prayed all men to think the cause was as well her majesty's asthe country's; and not to be discouraged; for you have seen such successas may encourage us all; and this my hurt is the ordinance of God by thehap of the war. Well, I pray God, if it be his will, save me his life;even as well for her majesty's service sake, as for mine owncomfort[95]. "

[Note 95: "Sidney Papers. "]

Sir Henry Sidney was spared the anguish of following such a son to thegrave, having himself quitted the scene a few months before. It was in1578 that he received orders to resign the government of Ireland, havingbecome obnoxious to the gentlemen of the English pale by his rigor inlevying certain assessments for the maintenance of troops and theexpenses of his own household, which they affirmed to be illegallyimposed. There is every reason to believe that their complaint was wellfounded; but Elizabeth, refusing as usual to allow her prerogative to betouched, imprisoned several Irish lawyers, who came to England to appealagainst the tax; and sir Henry, being able to prove that he had royalwarrant for what he had done, was finally exonerated by theprivy-council from all the charges which had been preferred against him, and retained to the last his office of lord-president of Wales. 

The sound judgement of sir Henry Sidney taught him, that his nearconnexion with the earl of Leicester had its dangers as well as itsadvantages; and observing the turn for show and expense with which itserved to inspire the younger members of his family, he would frequentlyenjoin them "to consider more whose sons than whose nephews they were. "In fact, he was not able to lay up fortunes for them;--the offices heheld were higher in dignity than emolument; his spirit was noble andmunificent; and the following, among other anecdotes, may serve to showthat he himself was not averse to a certain degree of parade; at leaston particular occasions. The queen, standing once at a window of herpalace at Hampton-court, saw a gentleman approach escorted by twohundred attendants on horseback; and turning to her courtiers, she askedwith some surprise, who this might be? But on being informed that it wassir Henry Sidney, her lord deputy of Ireland and president of Wales, sheanswered, "And he may well do it, for he has two of the best offices inmy kingdom. "

The following letter, addressed to sir Henry as lord-president ofWales, discloses an additional trait of his character, which cannot failto recommend him still more to the esteem of a humane and enlightenedage;--his reluctance, namely, to lend his concurrence to the measures ofreligious persecution which the queen and her bishops now urged upon allpersons in authority as their incumbent duty. 

 * * * * *

_Sir Francis Walsingham to sir H. Sidney lord president of Wales_. 

"My very good lord;

"My lords of late calling here to remembrance the commission that wasmore than a year ago given out to your lordship and certain others forthe reformation of the recusants and obstinate persons in religion, within Wales and the marches thereof, marvelled very much that in allthis time they have heard of nothing done by you and the rest; andtruly, my lord, the necessity of this time requiring so greatly to havethese kind of men diligently and sharply proceeded against, there willhere a very hard construction be made, I fear me, of you, to retain withyou the said commission so long, doing no good therein. Of late now Ireceived your lordship's letter touching such persons as you think meetto have the custody and oversight of Montgomery Castle, by which itappeareth you have begun, in your present journeys in Wales, to dosomewhat in causes of religion; but having a special commission for thatpurpose, in which are named special and very apt persons to join withyou in those matters, it will be thought strange to my lords to hear ofyour proceeding in those causes without their assistance; and therefore, to the end their lordships should conceive no otherwise than well ofyour dealing without them, I have forborne to acquaint them with ourlate letter, wishing your lordship, for the better handling and successof those matters in religion, you called unto you the bishop ofWorcester, Mr. Philips, and certain others specially named in thecommission. They will, I am sure, be glad to wait on you in so good aservice, and your proceeding together with them in these matters will bebetter allowed of here, &c. 

"P. S. Your lordship had need to walk warily, for your doings arenarrowly observed, and her majesty is apt to give ear to any that shallill you. Great hold is taken by your enemies for neglecting theexecution of this commission. 

"Oatlands, August 9th 1580[96]. "

[Note 96: "Sidney Papers, " vol. I. P. 276. ]

 * * * * *

Leicester, soon after the death of his nephew, placed his army inwinter-quarters, having effected no one object of importance. The Statesremonstrated with him in strong terms on the various and grievous abusesof his administration; he answered them in the tone of graciousness andconciliation which it suited his purpose to assume; and publiclysurrendering up to them the whole apparent authority of the provinces, whilst by a secret act of restriction he in fact retained for himselffull command over all the governors of towns and provinces, he set sailfor England. 

Elizabeth received her favorite with her usual complacency, eitherbecause his abject submissions had in reality succeeded in banishingfrom her mind all resentment of his conduct in Holland, or because sherequired the support of his long-tried counsels under the awfulresponsibilities of that impending conflict with the whole collectedforce of the Spanish monarchy for which she felt herself summoned toprepare. The king of Denmark, astonished to behold a princess ofElizabeth's experienced caution involving herself with seemingindifference in peril so great and so apparent, exclaimed, that she hadnow taken the diadem from her brow to place it on the doubtful cast ofwar; and trembling for the fate of his friend and ally, he dispatched anambassador in haste to offer her his mediation for the adjustment of alldifferences arising out of the revolt of the Netherlands. But Elizabethfirmly, though with thanks, declined all overtures towards areconciliation with a sovereign whom she now recognised as herimplacable and determined foe. 

She was far, however, from despising the danger which she braved; andwith a prudence and diligence equal to her fortitude, she had begun toassemble and put in action all her means, internal and external, ofdefence and annoyance. She linked herself still more closely, bybenefits and promises, with the prince of Condé, chief of the Hugonotsnow in arms against the League, or Catholic association, formed inFrance under the auspices of the king of Spain. With the king of Scotsalso she entered into an intimate alliance; and she had previouslysecured the friendship of all the protestant princes of Germany and thenorthern powers of Europe. She now openly avowed the enterprises ofDrake, which she had hitherto only encouraged underhand, or on certainpretexts of retaliation; and she sent him with a fleet of twenty-oneships, carrying above eleven thousand soldiers, to make war upon theSpanish settlements in the West Indies. 

But if all these measures seemed likely to afford her kingdom sufficientmeans of protection against the attacks of a foreign enemy, it wasdifficult for her to regard her own person as equally well securedagainst the dark conspiracies of her catholic subjects, instigated asthey were by the sanguinary maxims of the Romish see, fostered by theatrocious activity of the emissaries of Philip, and sanctioned by theauthority of the queen of Scots, to whom homage was rendered by herparty as rightful sovereign of the British isles. 

During the festival of Easter 1586, some English priests of the seminaryat Rheims had encouraged a fanatical soldier named Savage to vow thedeath of the queen. About the same time Ballard, also a priest of thisseminary, was concerting in France, with Mendoça and the fugitive lordPaget, the means of procuring an invasion of the country during theabsence of its best troops in Flanders. Repairing to England, Ballardcommunicated both these schemes to Anthony Babington, a gentleman whohad been gained over on a visit to France by the bishop of Glasgow, Mary's ambassador there, and whose vehement attachment to her cause hadrendered him capable of any enterprise, however criminal or desperate, for her deliverance. Babington entered into both plots with eagerness;but he suggested, that so essential a part of the action as theassassination of the queen ought not to be intrusted to one adventurer;and he lost no time in associating five others in the vow of Savage, himself undertaking the part of setting free the captive Mary. With herhe had previously been in correspondence, having frequently taken thecharge of transmitting to her by secret channels her letters fromFrance; and he immediately imparted to her this new design for herrestoration to liberty and advancement to the English throne. There isfull evidence that Mary approved it in all its parts; that in severalsuccessive letters she gave Babington counsels or directions relative toits execution; and that she promised to the perpetrators of the murderof Elizabeth every reward which it should hereafter be in her power tobestow. 

All this time the vigilant eye of Walsingham was secretly fixed on thesecure conspirators. He held a thread which vibrated to their everymotion, and he was patiently awaiting the moment of their completeentanglement to spring forth and seize his victims. 

To the queen, and to her only, he communicated the daily intelligencewhich he received from a spy who had introduced himself into all theirsecrets; and Elizabeth had the firmness to hasten nothing, though apicture was actually shown her, in which the six assassins had absurdlycaused themselves to be represented with a motto underneath intimatingtheir common design. These dreadful visages remained however soperfectly impressed on her memory, that she immediately recognised oneof the conspirators who had approached very near her person as she wasone day walking in her garden. She had the intrepidity to fix him with alook which daunted him; and afterwards, turning to her captain of theguards, she remarked that she was well guarded, not having a singlearmed man at the time about her. 

At length Walsingham judged it time to interpose and rescue hissovereign from her perilous situation. Ballard was first seized, andsoon after Babington and his associates. All, overcome by terror orallured by vain hopes, severally and voluntarily confessed their guiltand accused their accomplices. The nation was justly exasperated againstthe partakers in a plot which comprised foreign invasion, domesticinsurrection, the assassination of a beloved sovereign, the elevation tothe throne of her feared and hated rival, and the restoration of popery. The traitors suffered, notwithstanding the interest which the extremeyouth and good moral characters of most or all of them were formed toinspire, amid the execrations of the protestant spectators. But what wasto be the fate of that "pretender to the crown, " on whose behalf andwith whose privity this foul conspiracy had been entered into, and whowas by the late statute, passed with a view to this very case, liable tocondign punishment?

This was now the important question which awaited the decision ofElizabeth, and divided the judgements of her most confidentialcounsellors. Some advised that the royal captive should be spared theignominy of any public proceeding; but that her attendants should beremoved, and her custody rendered so severe as to preclude allpossibility of her renewing her pestilent intrigues. Leicester, inconformity with the baseness and atrocity of his character, is relatedto have suggested the employment of treachery against the life of aprisoner whom it appeared equally dangerous to spare or to punish; andto have sent a divine to convince Walsingham of the lawfulness of takingher off by poison. But that minister rejected the proposal withabhorrence, and concurred with the majority of the council in urging thequeen to bring her without fear or scruple to an open trial. In favor ofthis measure Elizabeth at length decided, and steps were takenaccordingly. 

By means of well concerted precautions, Mary had been kept in totalignorance of the apprehension of the conspirators, till theirconfessions had been made and their fates decided:--a gentleman was thensent to her from the court to announce that all was discovered. 

It was just as she had mounted her horse to take her usual exercise withher keepers, that this alarming message was delivered to her; and forobvious reasons she was compelled to proceed on her excursion, insteadof returning, as she desired, to her chamber. Meantime all her paperswere seized, sealed up, and conveyed to the queen. Amongst them wereletters from a large proportion of the nobility and other leadingcharacters of the English court, filled with expressions of attachmentto the person of the queen of Scots and sympathy in her misfortunes, notunmixed, in all probability, with severe reflections on the conduct ofher rival and oppressor. All these Elizabeth perused, and no doubtstored up in her memory; but her good sense and prudence supplied onthis occasion the place of magnanimity; and well knowing that theconscious fears of the writers would be ample security for their futureconduct, she buried in lasting silence and apparent oblivion all thediscoveries which had reached her through this channel. 

The principal domestics of Mary were now apprehended, and committed todifferent keepers; and Nau and Curl her two secretaries were sentprisoners to London. She herself was immediately removed from Tutbury, and conveyed with a great attendance of the neighbouring gentry, andwith pauses at several noblemen's houses by the way, to the strongcastle of Fotheringay in Northamptonshire. This part of the business wassafely and prudently conducted by sir Amias Paulet; and he received forhis encouragement and reward the following characteristic letter, subscribed by the hand of her majesty, and surely of her own inditing. 

 * * * * *

"To my faithful Amias. 

"Amias, my most careful servant, God reward thee treble fold in thedouble for thy most troublesome charge so well discharged! If you knew, my Amias, how kindly, besides dutifully, my grateful heart acceptethyour double labors and faithful actions, your wise orders and safeconduct performed in so dangerous and crafty a charge, it would easeyour troubles and rejoice your heart. And (which I charge you to carrythis most just thought) that I cannot balance in any weight of myjudgement the value I prize you at: And suppose no treasure tocountervail such a faith: And condemn myself in that fault which I havecommitted, if I reward not such deserts. Yea, let me lack when I havemost need, if I acknowledge not such a merit with a reward '_non omnibusdatum_. '

"But let your wicked mistress know, how with hearty sorrow her viledeserts compel those orders; and bid her from me ask God forgiveness forher treacherous dealing toward the saver of her life many years, to theintolerable peril of her own. And yet, not content with so manyforgivenesses, must fall again so horribly, far passing a woman, muchmore a princess. Instead of excusing thereof, not one can serve, itbeing so plainly confessed by the authors of my guiltless death. 

"Let repentance take place; and let not the fiend possess so as her bestpart be lost. Which I pray, with hands lifted up to him that may bothsave and spill. With my loving adieu and prayer for thy long life, "Your assured and loving sovereign in heart, by good desert induced, "ELIZ. R. "

 * * * * *

Soon, after the arrival of Mary at Fotheringay, Elizabeth, according tothe provisions of the late act, issued out a commission to fortynoblemen and privy-councillors, empowering them to try and pass sentenceupon Mary daughter and heir of king James V. And late queen of Scots;for it was thus that she was designated, with a view of intimating toher that she was no longer to be regarded as possessing the rights of asovereign princess. Thirty-six of the commissioners repaired immediatelyto Fotheringay, where they arrived on October 9th 1586, and cited Maryto appear before them. This summons she refused to obey, on the doubleground, that as an absolute princess she was free from all humanjurisdiction, since kings only could be her peers; and that having beendetained in England as a prisoner, she had not enjoyed the protection ofthe laws, and consequently ought not in equity to be regarded asamenable to their sentence. Weighty as these objections may appear, thecommissioners refused to admit them, and declared that they wouldproceed to judge her by default. This menace she at first disregarded;but soon after, overcome by the artful representations of Hatton on theinferences which must inevitably be drawn from her refusal to justifyherself for the satisfaction of a princess who had declared that shedesired nothing so much as the establishment of her innocence, shechanged her mind and consented to plead. None of her papers wererestored, no counsel was assigned her; and her request that her twosecretaries, whose evidence was princicipally relied on by theprosecutors, might be confronted with her, was denied. But all thesewere hardships customarily inflicted on prisoners accused of hightreason and it does not appear that, with respect to its forms andmodes of proceedings, Mary had cause to complain that her trial wasother than a regular and legal one. 

On her first appearance she renewed her protestation against thecompetence of the tribunal. Bromley lord-chancellor answered her, showing the jurisdiction of the English law over all persons within thecountry; and the commissioners ordered both the objection and the replyto be registered, as if to save the point of law; but it does not appearthat it was ever referred for decision to any other authority. 

Intercepted letters, authenticated by the testimony of her secretaries, formed the chief evidence against Mary. From these the crown lawyersshowed, and she did not attempt to deny, that she had suffered hercorrespondents to address her as queen of England; that she hadendeavoured by means of English fugitives to incite the Spaniards toinvade the country; and that she had been negotiating at Rome the termsof a transfer of all her claims, present and future, to the king ofSpain, disinheriting by this unnatural act her own schismatic son. Thefurther charge of having concurred in the late plot for theassassination of Elizabeth, she strongly denied and attempted todisprove; but it stood on equally good evidence with all the rest; andin spite of some suggestions of which her modern partisans haveendeavoured to give her the benefit, there appears no solid foundationon which an impartial inquirer can rest any doubt of the fact. 

The deportment of Mary on this trying emergency exhibited somewhat ofthe dignity, but more of the spirit and adroitness, for which she hasbeen famed. She justified her negotiations, or intrigues, with foreignprinces, on the ground of her inalienable right to employ all the meanswithin her power for the recovery of that liberty of which she had beencruelly and unjustly deprived. With great effrontery she persisted indenying that she had ever entertained with Babington any correspondencewhatever; and she urged that his pretending to receive, or having infact received, letters written in her cipher, was no conclusive proofagainst her; since it was the same which she used in her Frenchcorrespondence, and might have fallen into other hands. But findingherself hard pressed by evidence on this part of the subject, sheafterwards hazarded a rash attempt to fix on Walsingham the imputationof having suborned witnesses and forged letters for her destruction. Theaged minister, greatly moved by this attack upon his character, immediately rose and asserted his innocence in a manner so solemn, andwith such circumstantial corroboration, as compelled her to retract theaccusation with an apology. 

On some mention of the earl of Arundel and lord William Howard hisbrother, which occurred in the intercepted letters, she sighed, andexclaimed with a feeling which did her honor, "Alas, what has not thenoble house of Howard suffered for my sake!"

On the whole, her presence of mind was remarkable; though the quicksensibilities of her nature could not be withheld from breaking out attimes, either in vehement sallies of anger or long fits of weeping, asthe sense of past and present injuries, or of her forlorn and afflictedstate and the perils and sufferings which still menaced her, rose byturns upon her agitated and affrighted mind. 

The commissioners, after a full hearing, of the cause, quittedFotheringay, and, meeting again in the Star-chamber summoned before themthe two secretaries, who voluntarily confirmed on oath the whole oftheir former depositions: after this, they proceeded to an unanimoussentence of death against Mary, which was immediately transmitted to thequeen for her approbation. On the same day a declaration was publishedon the part of the commissioners and judges, importing, that thesentence did in no manner derogate from the titles and honors of theking of Scots. 

Most of the subsequent steps taken by Elizabeth in this unhappy businessare marked with the features of that intense selfishness which, scrupling nothing for the attainment of its own mean objects, seldomfails by exaggerated efforts and overstrained manoeuvres to exposeitself to detection and merited contempt. 

Never had she enjoyed a higher degree of popularity than at thisjuncture: the late discoveries had opened to view a series of popishmachinations which had fully justified, in the eyes of an alarmed andirritated people, even those previous measures of severity on the partof her government which had most contributed to provoke these attempts. 

The queen was more than ever the heroine of the protestant party; andthe image of those imminent and hourly perils to which her zeal in thegood cause had exposed her, inflamed to enthusiasm the sentiment ofloyalty. On occasion of the detection of Babington's plot, the wholepeople gave themselves up to rejoicings. Sixty bonfires, says thechronicler, were kindled between Ludgate and Charing-Cross, and tableswere set out in the open streets at which happy neighbours feastedtogether. The condemnation of the queen of Scots produced similardemonstrations. After her sentence had been ratified by both houses ofparliament, it was thought expedient, probably by way of feeling thepulse of the people, that solemn proclamation of it should be made inLondon by the lord-mayor and city officers, and by the magistrates ofthe county in Westminster. The multitude, untouched by the longmisfortunes of an unhappy princess born of the blood-royal of Englandand heiress to its throne, --insensible too of every thing arbitrary, unprecedented, or unjust, in the treatment to which she had beensubjected, received the notification of her doom with expressions oftriumph and exultation truly shocking. Bonfires were lighted, churchbells were rung, and every street and lane throughout the city resoundedwith psalms of thanksgiving[97]. 

[Note 97: Hollinshed's Castrations. ]

It is manifest, therefore, that no deference for the opinions orfeelings of her subjects compelled Elizabeth to hesitate or to dissemblein this matter. 

Had she permitted the execution of the sentence simply, and withoutdelay, all orders of men attached to the protestant establishment wouldhave approved it as an act fully justified by state-expediency and thelaw of self-defence; and though misgivings might have arisen in theminds of some on cooler reflection, when alarm had subsided and thebitterness of satiated revenge had begun to make itself felt, --these"compunctious visitings" could have led to no consequences capable ofalarming her. It must have been felt as highly inequitable to reproachthe queen, when all was past and irrevocable, for the consent which shehad afforded to a deed sanctioned by a law, ratified by the legislatureand applauded by the people, and from which both church and state hadreaped the fruits of security and peace. Foreign princes also would haverespected the vigor of this proceeding; they would not have beendispleased to see themselves spared by a decisive act the pain of makingdisregarded representations on such a subject; and a secretconsciousness that few of their number would have scrupled under all thecircumstances to take like vengeance on a deadly foe and rival, mightfurther have contributed to reconcile them to the fact. Even as it was, pope Sixtus V. Himself could scarcely restrain his expressions ofadmiration at the completion of so strong a measure as the finalexecution of the sentence: his holiness had indeed a strange passion forcapital punishments, and he is said to have envied the queen of Englandthe glorious satisfaction of cutting off a royal head:--a sentiment notmuch more extraordinary from such a personage, than the ardent desirewhich he is reported to have expressed, that it were possible for him tohave a son by this heretic princess; because the offspring of suchparents could not fail, he said, to make himself king of the world. 

But it was the weakness of Elizabeth to imagine, that an extraordinaryparade of reluctance, and the interposition of some affected delays, would change in public opinion the whole character of the deed which shecontemplated, and preserve to her the reputation of feminine mildnessand sensibility, without the sacrifice of that great revenge on whichshe was secretly bent. The world, however, when it has no interest indeceiving itself, is too wise to accept of words instead of deeds, or inopposition to them; and the sole result of her artifices was toaggravate in the eyes of all mankind the criminality of the act, bygiving it rather the air of a treacherous and cold-blooded murder, thanof solemn execution done upon a formidable culprit by the sentence ofoffended laws. The parliament which Elizabeth had summoned to partakethe odium of Mary's death, met four days after the judges had pronouncedher doom, and was opened by commission. An unanimous ratification of thesentence by both houses was immediately carried, and followed by anearnest address to her majesty for its publication and execution; towhich she returned a long and labored answer. 

She began with the expression of her fervent gratitude to Providence forthe affections of her people; adding protestations of her love towardsthem, and of her perfect willingness to have suffered her own life stillto remain exposed as a mark to the aim of enemies and traitors, had shenot perceived how intimately the safety and well-being of the nationwas connected with her own. With regard to the queen of Scots, she said, so severe had been the grief which she had sustained from her recentconduct, that the fear of renewing this sentiment had been the cause, and the sole cause, of her withholding her personal appearance at theopening of that assembly, where she knew that the subject must ofnecessity become matter of discussion; and not, as had been suggested, the apprehension of any violence to be attempted against herperson;--yet she might mention, that she had actually seen a bond bywhich the subscribers bound themselves to procure her death within amonth. 

So far was she from indulging any ill will against one of the same sex, the same rank, the same race as herself, --in fact her nearestkinswoman, --that after having received full information of certain ofher machinations, she had secretly written with her own hand to thequeen of Scots, promising that, on a simple confession of her guilt in aprivate letter to herself, all should be buried in oblivion. She doubtednot that the ancient laws of the land would have been sufficient toreach the guilt of her who had been the great artificer of the recenttreasons; and she had consented to the passing of the late statute, notfor the purpose of ensnaring her, but rather to give her warning of thedanger in which she stood. Her lawyers, from their strict attachment toancient forms, would have brought this princess to trial within thecounty of Stafford, have compelled her to hold up her hand at the bar, and have caused twelve jurymen to pass judgement upon her. But to herit had appeared more suitable to the dignity of the prisoner and theimportance of the cause to refer the examination to the judges, nobles, and counsellors of the realm;--happy if even thus she could escape thatready censure to which the conspicuous station of sovereigns on alloccasions exposed them. 

The statute, by requiring her to pronounce judgement upon her kinswoman, had involved her in anxiety and difficulties. Amid all her perils, however, she must remember with gratitude and affection the voluntaryassociation into which her subjects had entered for her defence. It wasnever her practice to decide hastily on any matter; in a case so rareand important some interval of deliberation must be allowed her; and shewould pray Heaven to enlighten her mind, and guide it to the decisionmost beneficial to the church, to the state, and to the people. 

Twelve days after the delivery of this speech, her majesty sent amessage to both houses, entreating that her parliament would carefullyreconsider the matter, and endeavour to hit upon some device by whichthe life of the queen of Scots might be rendered consistent with her ownsafety and that of the country. Her faithful parliament, however, soonafter acquainted her, that with their utmost diligence they had found itimpracticable to form any satisfactory plan of the kind she desired; andthe speakers of the two houses ended a long representation of themischiefs to be expected from any arrangement by which Mary would besuffered to continue in life, with a most earnest and humble petition, that her majesty would not longer deny to the united wishes andentreaties of all England, what it would be iniquitous to refuse to themeanest individual; the execution of justice. 

Elizabeth, after pronouncing a second long harangue designed to displayher own clemency, to upbraid the malice of her libellers, and to refutethe suspicion, which her conscience no doubt helped her to anticipate, that all this irresolution was but feigned, and that the decisions ofthe two houses were influenced by a secret acquaintance with herwishes, --again dismissed their petitions without any positive answer. Soon after, however, she permitted herself to authorize the proclamationof the sentence, and sent lord Buckhurst, and Beal clerk of the council, to announce it to Mary herself. 

During the whole of this time, the kings of France and of Scotland wereinterceding by their ambassadors for the pardon of the illustriousprisoner. How the representations of Henry III. Were received, we do notfind minutely recorded; but Elizabeth knew that they might be safelydisregarded: that monarch was himself too much a sufferer by thearrogance and ambition of the house of Guise, to be very strenuous inhis friendship towards any one so nearly connected with it; and it iseven said that, while a sense of decorum extorted from him in publicsome energetic expressions of the interest taken by him in the fate of asister-in-law and queen-dowager of France, a sentiment of regard forElizabeth, his friend and ally, prompted him to counsel her, through asecret agent, to execute the sentence with the least possible delay. Ofthe treatment experienced by the master of Gray, the envoy of James, wegain some particulars from an original memorial drawn up by himself. 

He appears to have reached Ware on December 24th, whence he sent todesire Keith and Douglas, the resident Scotch ambassadors, to announceto the queen his approach; and she voluntarily promised that the life ofMary should be spared till his proposals were heard. His reception inLondon was somewhat ungracious;--no one was sent to welcome or convoyhim, and it was ten days before he and sir Robert Melvil his coadjutorwere admitted to an audience. Elizabeth's first address to them was, "Athing long looked for should be welcome when it comes; I would now seeyour master's offers. " Gray desired first to be assured that the causefor which those offers were made was "still extant;" that is, that thelife of Mary was still safe, and should be so till their mission hadbeen heard. She answered, "I think it be extant yet, but I will notpromise for an hour. " They then brought forward certain proposals, nothere recited, which she rejected with contempt; and calling inLeicester, the lord-admiral, and Hatton, "very despitefully" repeatedthem in hearing of them all. Gray then propounded his last offer:--thatthe queen of Scots should resign all her claims upon the Englishsuccession to her son, by which means the hopes of the papists would, ashe said, be cut off. The terms in which this overture was made Elizabethaffected not to understand; Leicester explained their meaning to be, that the king of Scots should be put in his mother's place. "Is it so?"the queen answered; "then I put myself in a worse case than before:--ByGod's passion, that were to cut my own throat; and for a duchy or anearldom to yourself, you, or such as you, would cause some of yourdesperate knaves to kill me. No, by God, he shall never be in thatplace!" Gray answered, "He craves nothing of your majesty, but only ofhis mother. " "That, " said Leicester, "were to make him _party_ (rival oradversary) to the queen my mistress. " "He will be far more party, "replied Gray, "if he be in her place through her death. " Her majestyexclaimed, that she should not have a worse in his mother's place, andadded; "Tell your king what good I have done for him in holding thecrown on his head since he was born, and that I _mind_ (intend) to keepthe league that now stands between us, and if he break it, it shall be adouble fault. " With this speech she would have left them; but theypersisted in arguing the matter further, though in vain. Gray thenrequested that Mary's life might be spared for fifteen days; the queenrefused: sir Robert Melvil begged for only eight days; she said not foran hour, and so quitted them. 

After this, the Scotch ambassadors assumed a tone of menace: but theperfidious Gray secretly fortified Elizabeth's resolution with theproverb, "The dead cannot bite;" and undertook soon to pacify, in anyevent, the anger of his master, whose minion he at this time was. 

No sooner had Elizabeth silenced with this show of inflexibility all thepleadings or menaces by which others had attempted to divert her fromher fatal aim, than she began, as in the affair of the French marriage, to feel her own resolution waver. It appears unquestionable that toaffected delays a real hesitation succeeded. When her pride was nolonger irritated by opposition, she had leisure to survey the meditateddeed in every light; and as it rose upon her view in all its nativedeformity, anxious fears for her own fame and credit, yet untainted byany crime, and perhaps genuine scruples of conscience, forcibly assailedher resolution. But her ministers, deeply sensible that both she andthey had already gone too far to recede with reputation or with safety, encountered her growing reluctance with a proportional increase in thevehemence of their clamors for what they called, and perhaps thought, justice. All the hazards to which her excess of clemency might beimagined to expose her, were conjured up in the most alarming forms torepel her scruples. A plot for her assassination was disclosed, to whichthe French ambassador was ascertained to have been privy;--rumors wereraised of invasions and insurrections; and it may be suspected that thequeen, really alarmed in the first instance by the representations ofher council, voluntarily contributed afterwards to keep up thesedelusions for the sake of terrifying the minds of men into an approvalof the deed of blood. 

At length, on February 1st 1587, her majesty ordered secretary Davisonto bring her the warrant, which had remained ready drawn in his handsfor some weeks; and having signed it, she told him to get it sealed withthe great seal, and in his way to call on Walsingham and tell him whatshe had done; "though, " she added smiling, "I fear he will die of griefwhen he hears of it;"--this minister being then sick. Davison obeyed herdirections, and the warrant was sealed. The next day he received amessage from her, purporting that he should forbear to carry the warrantto the lord keeper till further orders. Surprised and perplexed, heimmediately waited upon her to receive her further directions; when shechid him for the haste he had used in this matter, and talked in afluctuating and undetermined manner respecting it which greatly alarmedhim. On leaving the queen, he immediately communicated the circumstancesto Burleigh and Hatton; and thinking it safest for himself to rid hishands of the warrant, he delivered it up to Burleigh, by whom it hadbeen drawn and from whom he had at first received it. A council was nowcalled, consisting of such of the ministers as either the queen herselfor Davison had made acquainted with the signing of the warrant; and itwas proposed that, without any further communication with her majesty, it should be sent down for immediate execution to the four earls to whomit was directed. 

Davison appears to have expressed some fears that he should be made tobear the blame of this step; but all his fellow-councillors then presentjoined to assure him that they would share the responsibility: it wasalso said, that her majesty had desired of several that she might not betroubled respecting any of the particulars of the last dismal scene;consequently it was impossible that she could complain of theirproceeding without her privity. By these arguments Davison was seducedto give his concurrence; and Beal, a person noted for the vehemence ofhis attachment to the protestant cause and to the title of the countessof Hertford, was dispatched with the instrument; in obedience to whichMary underwent the fatal stroke on February 8th. 

The news of this event was received by Elizabeth with the mostextraordinary demonstrations of astonishment, grief, and anger. Hercountenance changed, her voice faltered, and she remained for somemoments fixed and motionless; a violent burst of tears and lamentationssucceeded, with which she mingled expressions of rage against her wholecouncil. They had committed, she said, a crime never to be forgiven;they had put to death without her knowledge her dear kinswoman andsister, against whom they well knew that it was her fixed resolutionnever to proceed to this fatal extremity. She put on deep mourning, keptherself retired among her ladies abandoned to sighs and tears, and drovefrom her presence with the most furious reproaches such of her ministersas ventured to approach her. She caused several of the councillors to beexamined as to the share which they had taken in this transaction. Burleigh was of the number; and against him she expressed herself withsuch peculiar bitterness that he gave himself up for lost, and beggedpermission to retire with the loss of all his employments. Thisresignation was not accepted; and after a considerable interval, duringwhich this great minister deprecated the wrath of his sovereign inletters of penitence and submission worthy only of an Oriental slave, she condescended to be reconciled to a man whose services she felt to beindispensable. 

But the manes of Mary, or the indignation of her son, could not beappeased, it seems, without a sacrifice; and a fit victim was at hand. From some words dropped by lord Burleigh on his examination, it hadappeared that it was the declaration of Davison respecting thesentiments of the queen, as expressed to himself, which had finallydecided the council to send down the warrant; and on this groundproceedings were instituted against the unfortunate secretary. He wasstripped of his office, sent to the Tower in spite of the warm andhonest remonstrances of Burleigh, and after several examinationssubjected to a process in the Star-chamber for a twofold contempt. First, in revealing her majesty's counsels to others of herministers;--secondly, in giving up to them an instrument which she hadcommitted to him in special trust and secrecy, to be kept in case of anysudden emergency which might require its use. 

Davison demanded that his own examination, which with that of Burleighformed the whole evidence against him, should be read entire, instead ofbeing picked and garbled by the crown lawyers; but this piece of justicethe queen's counsel refused him, on the ground that they containedmatter unfit to be divulged. He was found guilty, and sentenced to afine of ten thousand marks and imprisonment during the queen's pleasure, by judges who at the same time expressed a high opinion both of hisabilities and his integrity, and who certainly regarded his offence asnothing more than an error of judgement or want of due caution. Elizabeth ordered a copy of his sentence to be immediately transmittedto the king of Scots, as triumphant evidence of that perfect innocencein the tragical _accident_ of his mother's death, of which she hadalready made solemn protestation. James complied so far with obviousmotives of policy as to accept her excuses without much inquiry; butimpartial posterity will not be disposed to dismiss so easily animportant and curious investigation which it possesses abundant means ofpursuing. The record of Burleigh's examination is still extant, and solikewise is Davison's apology; a piece which was composed by himself atthe time and addressed to Walsingham, who could best judge of itsaccuracy; and which after being communicated to Camden, who has insertedan extract from it in his Annals, has at length been found entire amongthe original papers of sir Amias Paulet. From this authentic source wederive the following very extraordinary particulars. 

It was by the lord-admiral that the queen first sent a message toDavison requiring him to bring the warrant for her signature; aftersubscribing it, she asked him if he were not heartily sorry it weredone? to which he replied by a moderate and cautious approval of theact. She bade him tell the chancellor when he carried the warrant to besealed, that he must "use it as secretly as might be. " She then signedother papers which he had brought; dispatching them all "with the bestdisposition and willingness that could be. " Afterwards she recurred tothe subject; mentioned that she had delayed the act so long that theworld might see "that she had not been violently or maliciously drawnunto it;" but that she had all along perceived the necessity of it toher own security. She then said, that she would have it done as secretlyas might be, and not in the open court or green of the castle, but inthe hall. Just as Davison was gathering up his papers to depart, "shefell into some complaint of sir Amias Paulet and others that might haveeased her of this burthen;" and she desired that he would yet "deal withsecretary Walsingham to write jointly to sir Amias and sir Drue Drury tosound them in this matter; "aiming still at this, that it might be sodone as the blame might be removed from herself. " This nefariouscommission Davison strangely consented to execute, though he declaresthat he had always before refused to meddle therein "upon sundry of hermajesty's motions, "--as a thing which he utterly disapproved; and thoughhe was fully persuaded that the wisdom and integrity of sir Amias wouldrender the application fruitless. The queen repeated her injunctions ofsecrecy in the matter, and he departed. 

He went to Walsingham, told him that the warrant was signed forexecuting the sentence against the queen of Scots; agreed with him atthe same time about the letter to be written to sir Amias for herprivate assassination;--then got the warrant sealed, then dispatched theletter. 

The next morning, the queen sent him word to forbear going to thechancellor till she had spoken with him again. He went directly toacquaint her that he had already seen him. She asked, "what needed suchhaste?" He pleaded her commands, and the danger of delay. The queenparticularized some other form in which she thought it would be saferand better for her to have the thing done. Davison answered, that thejust and honorable way would, he thought, be the safest and the best, ifshe meant to have it done at all. The queen made no reply, but went todinner. --It appears from another statement of Davison's case, also drawnup by himself, that it was on this very day, without waiting either forPaulet's answer or for more explicit orders from her majesty, that hehad the incredible rashness to deliver up the warrant to Burleigh, andto concur in the subsequent proceedings of the council; though awarethat the members were utterly ignorant of the queen's application toPaulet. 

A day or two after, her majesty called him to her in the privy chamber, and told him smiling, that she had been troubled with him in a dreamwhich she had had the night before, that the queen of Scots was put todeath; and which so disturbed her, that she thought she could have runhim through with a sword. He answered at first jestingly, but, onrecollection, asked her with great earnestness, whether she did notintend that the matter should go forward? She answered vehemently andwith an oath, that she did; but again harped upon the old string;--thatthis mode would cast all the blame upon herself, and a better might becontrived. The same afternoon she inquired if he had received an answerfrom sir Amias; which at the time he had not, but he brought it to herthe next morning. It contained an absolute refusal to be concerned inany action inconsistent with justice and honor. At this the queen wasmuch offended; she complained of what she called the "dainty perjury" ofhim and others, who contrary to their oath of association cast theburthen upon herself. Soon after, she again blamed "the niceness ofthese precise fellows;" but said she would have the thing done withoutthem, and mentioned one Wingfield who would undertake it. Davisonremonstrated against this design; and also represented the dangerousdilemma in which Paulet and Drury would have been placed by complyingwith her wishes; since, if she avowed their act, she took it uponherself, "with her infinite dishonor;" if she disavowed it, they wereruined. It is absolutely inconceivable how a man who understood so wellthe perils which these persons had skilfully avoided, should haveremained so blind to those which menaced himself; yet Davison, by hisown account, still suffered the queen to go on devising new schemes forthe taking off of Mary, without either acquainting her that theprivy-council had already sent off Beal with the warrant, or interferingwith them to procure, if possible, the recall of this messenger ofdeath. Even on his next interview with her, which he believes to havebeen on Tuesday, the very day before the execution of the sentence, whenher majesty, after speaking of the daily peril in which she lived, sworea great oath, that it was a shame for them all that the thing was notyet done, and spoke to him to write a letter to Paulet for the dispatchof the business; he contented himself with observing generally, thatthe warrant was, he thought, sufficient; and though the queen stillinclined to think the letter requisite, he left her without evendropping a hint that it was scarcely within the limits of possibilitythat it should arrive before the sentence had been put in execution. 

Of this unaccountable imprudence the utmost advantage was taken againsthim by his cruel and crafty mistress; whose chief concern it had allalong been to discover by what artifice she might throw the greatestpossible portion of the blame from herself upon others. Davisonunderwent a long imprisonment; the fine, though it reduced him tobeggary, was rigorously exacted; some scanty supplies for the relief ofhis immediate necessities, while in prison, were all that her majestywould vouchsafe him; and neither the zealous attestations of Burleigh inthe beginning to his merit and abilities and the importance of hispublic services, nor the subsequent earnest pleadings of her own belovedEssex for his restoration, could ever prevail with Elizabeth to layaside the appearances of perpetual resentment which she thought good topreserve against him. She would neither reinstate him in office nor evermore admit him to her presence; unable perhaps to bear the pain ofbeholding a countenance which carried with it an everlasting reproach toher conscience. 

From the formidable responsibilities of this unprecedented action, thewary Walsingham had withdrawn himself by favor of an opportune fit ofsickness, which disabled him from taking part in any thing but theapplication to sir Amias Paulet, by which he could incur, as he wellknew, no hazard. A still more crafty politician, Leicester, afterthrowing out in the privy-council hints of her majesty's wishes, whichserved to accelerate the decisive steps there taken, had artfullycontrived to escape from all further participation in their proceedings. Both ministers, in secret letters to Scotland, washed their hands of theblood of Mary. But Leicester, not content with these defensive measures, sought to improve the opportunity to the destruction of a rival whom hehad never ceased to hate and envy. To his insidious arts the temporarydisgrace of Burleigh is probably to be imputed; and it seems to havebeen from the apprehension of his malignant misconstructions that thelord treasurer refused to put on paper the particulars of his defence, and never ceased to implore admission to plead his cause before hissovereign in person. His perseverance at length prevailed: the queen sawhim; heard his justification, and restored him to her wonted grace;after which the tacit compromise between the minister and the favoritewas restored;--that compromise by which, during eight-and-twenty years, each had vindicated to himself an equality of political power, personalinfluence, and royal favor, with the secret enemy whom he vainly wished, or hoped, or plotted, to displace. 

To relate again those melancholy details of Mary's closing scene, onwhich the historians of England and of Scotland, as well as the numerousbiographers of this ill-fated princess, have exhausted all the arts ofeloquence, would be equally needless and presumptuous. It is, however, important to remark, that she died rather with the triumphant air of amartyr to her religion, the character which she falsely assumed, thanwith the meekness of a victim or the penitence of a culprit. She badeMelvil tell her son that she had done nothing injurious to his rights orhonor; though she was actually in treaty to disinherit him, and had alsoconsented to a nefarious plot for carrying him off prisoner to Rome; andshe denied with obstinacy to the last the charge of conspiring the deathof Elizabeth, though by her will, written the day before her death, sherewarded as faithful servants the two secretaries who had borne thistestimony against her. A spirit of self-justification so haughty and sounprincipled, a perseverance in deliberate falsehood so resolute and soshameless, ought under no circumstances and in no personage, not even ina captive beauty and an injured queen, to be confounded, by any writerstudious of the moral tendencies of history and capable of sounddiscrimination, with genuine religion, true fortitude, or the dignitywhich renders misfortune respectable. 

Let due censure be passed on the infringement of morality committed byElizabeth, in detaining as a captive that rival kinswoman, and pretenderto her crown, whom the dread of still more formidable dangers hadcompelled to seek refuge in her dominions: let it be admitted, that theexercise of criminal jurisdiction over a person thus lawlessly detainedin a foreign country was another sacrifice of the just to theexpedient, which none but a profligate politician will venture todefend; and let the efforts of Mary to procure her own liberty, thoughwith the destruction of her enemy and at the cost of a civil war toEngland, be held, if religion will permit, justifiable or venial;--butlet not our resentment of the wrongs, or compassion for the longmisfortunes, of this unhappy woman betray us into a blind concurrence ineulogiums lavished, by prejudice or weakness, on a character blemishedby many foibles, stained by some enormous crimes, and never under theguidance of the genuine principles of moral rectitude. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

1587 AND 1588. 

Small political effect of the death of Mary. --Warlike preparations ofSpain destroyed by Drake. --Case of lord Beauchamp. --Death and characterof the duchess of Somerset. --Hatton appointed chancellor. --Leicesterreturns to Holland--is again recalled. --Disgrace of lordBuckhurst. --Rupture with Spain. --Preparations against theArmada. --Notices of the earls of Cumberland and Northumberland--T. AndR. Cecil--earl of Oxford--sir C. Blount--W. Raleigh--lord Howard ofEffingham--Hawkins--Frobisher--Drake. --Leicester appointedgeneral. --Queen at Tilbury. --Defeat of the Armada. --Introduction ofnewspapers. --Death of Leicester. 

It is well deserving of remark, that the strongest and mostextraordinary act of the whole administration of Elizabeth, --that whichbrought the blood of a sister-queen upon her head and indelible reproachupon her memory, --appears to have been productive of scarcely anyassignable political effect. It changed her relations with no foreignpower, it altered very little the state of parties at home, itrecommended no new adviser to her favor, it occasioned the displacementof Davison alone. 

She may appear, it is true, to have obtained by this stroke an immunityfrom that long series of dark conspiracies by which, during so manyyears, she had been disquieted and endangered. To deliver the queen ofScots was an object for which many men had been willing to risk theirlives; but none were found desperate or chivalrous enough to run thesame hazard in order to avenge her. But the recent detection ofBabington and his associates, and the rigorous justice executed uponthem, was likely, even without the death of Mary, to have deterred fromthe speedy repetition of similar practices; and a crisis was nowapproaching fitted to suspend the machinations of faction, to check theoperation even of religious bigotry, and to unite all hearts in thelove, all hands in the protection, of their native soil. 

Philip of Spain, though he purposely avoided as yet a declaration ofwar, was known to be intently occupied upon the means of taking signalvengeance on the queen of England for all the acts of hostility on herpart of which he thought himself entitled to complain. 

Already in the summer of 1587 the ports of Spain and Portugal had begunto be thronged with vessels of various sorts and every size, destined tocompose that terrible armada from which nothing less than the completesubjugation of England was anticipated;--already had the pope showereddown his benedictions on the holy enterprise; and, by a bull declaringthe throne of the schismatic princess forfeited to the first occupant, made way for the pretensions of Philip, who claimed it as the true heirof the house of Lancaster. 

But Elizabeth was not of a temper so timid or so supine as to sufferthese preparations to advance without interruption. She ordered Draketo sail immediately for the coast of Spain, and put in practice againsther enemy every possible mode of injury and annoyance. To the four greatships which she allotted to him for this service, the English merchants, instigated by the hopes of plunder, cheerfully added twenty-six more ofdifferent sizes; and with this force the daring leader steered for theport of Cadiz, where a richly-laden fleet lay ready to sail for Lisbon, the final rendezvous for the whole armada. By the impetuosity of hisattack, he compelled six galleys which defended the mouth of the harbourto seek shelter under its batteries; and having thus forced an entrance, he took, burned and destroyed about a hundred store-ships and twogalleons of superior size. This done, he returned to Cape St. Vincent;then took three castles; and destroying as he proceeded every thing thatcame in his way, even to the fishing-boats and nets, he endeavoured toprovoke the Spanish admiral to come out and give him battle off themouth of the Tagus. But the marquis of Santa Croce deemed it prudent tosuffer him to pillage the coast without molestation. Having fullyeffected this object, he made sail for the Azores, where the capture ofa bulky carrack returning from India amply indemnified the merchants forall the expenses of the expedition, and enriched the admiral and hiscrews. Drake returned to England in a kind of triumph, boasting that hehad "singed the whiskers" of the king of Spain: nor was his vauntunfounded; the destruction of the store-ships, and the havoc committedby him on the magazines of every kind, was a mischief so great, and forthe present so irreparable, that it crippled the whole design, andcompelled Philip to defer, for no less than a year, the sailing of hisinvincible armada. 

The respite thus procured was diligently improved by Elizabeth for thecompletion of her plans of defence against the hour of trial, which shestill anticipated. --The interval seems to afford a fit occasion for therelation of some incidents of a more private nature, but interesting asillustrative of the manners and practices of the age. 

It has been already mentioned, that the secret marriage of the earl ofHertford with lady Catherine Gray, notwithstanding the sentence ofnullity which the queen had caused to be so precipitately pronounced andthe punishment which she had tyrannically inflicted on the parties, hadat length been duly established by a legal decision in which her majestywas compelled to acquiesce. The eldest son of the earl assumed inconsequence his father's second title of lord Beauchamp, and becameundoubted heir to all the claims of the Suffolk line. About the year1585, this young nobleman married, unknown to his father, a daughter ofsir Richard Rogers, of Brianston, a gentleman of ancient family, whoseson had already been permitted to intermarry with a daughter of thehouse of Seymour. It might have been hoped that the earl of Hertford, from his own long and unmerited sufferings on a similar account, wouldhave learned such a lesson of indulgence towards the affections of hischildren, that a match of greater disparity might have received fromhim a ready forgiveness. But he inherited, it seems, too much of theunfeeling haughtiness of his high-born mother; and in the fury of hisresentment on discovery of this connexion of his son's, he made noscruple of separating by force the young couple, in direct defiance ofthe sacred tie which bound them to each other. Lord Beauchamp bore inthe beginning this arbitrary treatment with a dutiful submission, bywhich he flattered himself that the heart of his father must sooner orlater be touched; but at length, finding all entreaties vain, and seeingreason to believe that a settled plan was entertained by the earl ofestranging him for ever from his wife, he broke on a sudden from thesolitary mansion which had been assigned him as his place of abode, orof banishment, and was hastening to London to throw himself at the feetof her majesty and beseech her interposition, when a servant of hisfather's overtook and forcibly detained him. 

Well aware that his nearness to the crown must have rendered peculiarlyoffensive to the queen what she would regard as his presumption inmarrying without her knowledge and consent, he at first suspected hermajesty as the author of this attack on his liberty; but being sooninformed of her declaration, "that he was no prisoner of hers, and theman had acted without warrant, " he addressed to lord Burleigh an earnestpetition for redress. In this remarkable piece, after a statement of hiscase, he begs to submit himself by the lord-treasurer's means to thequeen and council, hoping _that they will grant him the benefit of thelaws of the realm_; that it would please his lordship to send for him byhis warrant; and that he might not be injured by his father's men, though hardly dealt with by himself. Such were the lengths to which, inthis age, a parent could venture to proceed against his child, and suchthe measures which it was then necessary to take in order to obtain theprotection of the laws. It is not stated whether lord Beauchamp was atthis time a minor; but if so, he probably made application to Burleighas master of the wards. Apparently his representations were not withouteffect; for he procured in the end both a re-union with his wife and areconciliation with his father. 

The grandmother of this young nobleman, Anne duchess-dowager ofSomerset, died at a great age in 1587. Maternally descended from thePlantagenets, and elevated by marriage to the highest rank of Englishnobility, she perhaps gloried in the character of being the proudestwoman of her day. It has often been repeated, that her repugnance toyield precedence to queen Catherine Parr, when remarried to the youngerbrother of her husband, was the first occasion of that division in thehouse of Seymour by which Northumberland succeeded in working itsoverthrow. In the misfortune to which she had thus contributed, theduchess largely shared. When the Protector was committed to the Tower, she also was carried thither amid the insults of the people, to whom herarrogance had rendered her odious; and rigorous examinations and animprisonment of considerable duration here awaited her. She saw herhusband stripped of power and reputation, convicted of felony, and ledby his enemies to an ignominious death; and what to a woman of hertemper was perhaps a still severer trial, she beheld her son, --that sonfor whose aggrandizement she had without remorse urged her weak husbandto strip of his birthright his own eldest born, --dispossessed in histurn of title and estates, and reduced by an act of forfeiture to thehumble level of a private gentleman. 

Her remarriage to an obscure person of the name of Newdigate, may prove, either that ambition was not the only inordinate affection to which thedisposition of the duchess was subject, or that she was now reduced toseek safety in insignificance. 

During the reign of Mary, no favor beyond an unmolested obscurity was tobe expected by the protestant house of Seymour; but it was one of theearliest acts of Elizabeth generously to restore to Edward Seymour thewhole of the Protector's confiscated estates not previously granted tohis elder half-brother, and with them the title of earl of Hertford, thehighest which his father had received from Henry VIII. , and that withwhich he ought to have rested content. Still no door was opened for thereturn of the duchess of Somerset to power or favor; Elizabeth neverceasing to behold in this haughty woman both the deadly enemy of admiralSeymour, --that Seymour who was the first to touch her youthful heart, and whose pretensions to her hand had precipitated his ruin, --and thatrigid censor of her early levities, who, dressed in a "brief authority, "had once dared to assume over her a kind of superiority, which she hadtreated at the time with disdain, and apparently continued to recollectwith bitterness. 

It appears from a letter in which the duchess earnestly implores theintercession of Cecil in behalf of her son, when under confinement onaccount of his marriage, that she was at the time of writing it excludedfrom the royal presence; and it was nine whole years before all theinterest she could make, all the solicitations which she compelledherself to use towards persons whom she could once have commanded at herpleasure, proved effectual in procuring his release. The vast wealthwhich she had amassed must still, however, have maintained herascendency over her own family and numerous dependents, though with itsfinal disposal her majesty evinced a strong disposition to intermeddle. Learning that she had appointed her eldest son sole executor, to theprejudice of his brother sir Henry Seymour, whom she did not love, thequeen sent a gentleman to expostulate with her, and urge her strongly tochange this disposition. The aged duchess, after long refusal, agreed atlength to comply with the royal wish: but this promise she omitted tofulfil, and some obstruction was in consequence given to the executionof her last will. We possess a large inventory of her jewels andvaluables, among which are enumerated "two pieces of unicorn's horn, " anarticle highly valued in that day, from its supposed efficacy as anantidote, or a test, for poisons. The extreme smallness of her bequestsfor charitable purposes was justly remarked as a strong indication of aharsh and unfeeling disposition, in an age when similar benefactionsformed almost the sole resource of the sick and needy. 

In this year lord-chancellor Bromley died: and it should appear thatthere was at the time no other lawyer of eminence who had the goodfortune to stand high in the favor of the queen and her counsellors, forwe are told that she had it in contemplation to appoint as his successorthe earl of Rutland; a nobleman in the thirtieth year of his age, distinguished indeed among the courtiers for his proficiency in elegantliterature and his knowledge of the laws of his country, but known tothe public only in the capacity of a colonel of foot in the bloodlesscampaign of the earl of Sussex against the Northern rebels. 

How far this young man might have been qualified to do honor to soextraordinary a choice, remains matter of conjecture; his lordship beingcarried off by a sudden illness within a week of Bromley himself, afterwhich her majesty thought proper to invest with this high office sirChristopher Hatton her vice-chamberlain. 

This was a nomination scarcely less mortifying to lawyers than that ofthe earl of Rutland. Hatton's abode at one of the inns of court had beenso short as scarcely to entitle him to a professional character; andsince his fine dancing had recommended him to the favor of her majesty, he had entirely abandoned his legal pursuits for the life and the hopesof a courtier. It is asserted that his enemies promoted his appointmentwith more zeal than his friends, in the confident expectation of seeinghim disgrace himself: what may be regarded as more certain is, that hewas so disquieted by intimations of the queen's repenting of her choice, that he tendered to her his resignation before he entered on the dutiesof his office; and that in the beginning of his career the serjeantsrefused to plead before him. But he soon found means both to vanquishtheir repugnance and to establish in the public mind an opinion of hisintegrity and sufficiency, which served to redeem his sovereign from thecensure or ridicule to which this extraordinary choice seemed likely toexpose her. He had the wisdom to avail himself, in all cases of peculiardifficulty, of the advice of two learned serjeants;--in other matters hemight reasonably regard his own prudence and good sense as competentguides. In fact, it was only since the reformation that this greatoffice had begun to be filled by common-law lawyers: before this periodit was usally exercised by some ecclesiastic who was also a civilian, and instances were not rare of the seals having been held in commissionby noblemen during considerable intervals;--facts which, in justice toHatton and to Elizabeth, ought on this occasion to be kept in mind. 

The pride of Leicester had been deeply wounded by the circumstances ofthat forced return from Holland which, notwithstanding all his artfulendeavours to color it to the world, was perfectly understood at courtas a disgraceful recall. 

The queen, in the first emotions of indignation and disappointmentcalled forth by his ill-success, had in public made use of expressionsrespecting his conduct, of which he well knew that the effect couldonly be obviated by some mark of favor equally public; and he spared nolabor for the accomplishment of this object. By an extraordinaryexertion of that influence over her majesty's affections which enabledhim to hold her judgement in lasting captivity, he was at lengthsuccessful, and the honorable and lucrative place of chief justice inEyre of all the forests south of Trent was bestowed upon him early in1587. So far was well; but he disdained to rest satisfied with less thanthe restitution of that supreme command over the Dutch provinces whichhad flattered his vanity with a title never borne by Englishman before;that of _Excellence_. His usual arts prevailed in this instancelikewise. By means of the authority which he had surreptitiouslyreserved to himself, he held the governors of towns and forts in Hollandin complete dependence, whilst his solemn ostentation of religion hadsecured the zealous attachment of the protestant clergy; an order whichthen exerted an important influence over public opinion. It had thusbeen in his power to raise a strong faction in the country, through theinstrumentality of which he raised such impediments to the measures ofadministration, that the States-general saw themselves at lengthcompelled, as the smaller of two evils, to solicit the queen for hisreturn. It was a considerable time before she could be brought tosanction a step of which her sagest counsellors, secretly hostile toLeicester, labored to demonstrate the entire inexpediency. The affairsof Holland suffered at once by the dissensions which the malice ofLeicester had sown, and by the long irresolution of Elizabeth; and sheat length sent over lord Buckhurst to make inquiry into some measures ofthe States which had given her umbrage, and to report upon the wholematter. 

The sagacious and upright statesman was soon satisfied where the blameought to rest, and he suggested a plan for the government of the countrywhich excluded the idea of Leicester's return. But the intrigues of thefavorite finally prevailed, and he was authorized in June 1587 to resumea station of which he had proved himself equally incapable and unworthy, having previously been further gratified by her majesty with the officeof lord high-steward, and with permission to resign that of master ofthe horse to his stepson the earl of Essex. But fortune disdained tosmile upon his arms; and his failure in an attempt to raise the siege ofSluys produced such an exasperation of his former quarrel with theStates, that in the month of November the queen found herself compelledto supersede him, appointing the brave lord Willoughby captain-generalin his place. 

On his return to England, Leicester found lord Buckhurst preparingagainst him a charge of malversation in Holland, and he received asummons to justify himself before the privy-council; but he betterconsulted his safety by flying for protection to the footstool of thethrone. The queen, touched by his expressions of humility and sorrow, and his earnest entreaties "that she would not receive with disgrace onhis return, him whom she had sent forth with honor, nor bring downalive to the grave one whom her former goodness had raised from thedust, " consented once again to receive him into wonted favor. Nor wasthis all; for on the day when he was expected to give in his answerbefore the council, he appeared in his place, and by a triumphant appealto her majesty, whose secret orders limited, as he asserted, his publiccommission, baffled at once the hopes of his enemies and the claims ofpublic justice. What was still more gross, he was suffered to succeed inprocuring a censure to be passed upon lord Buckhurst, who continued indisgrace for the nine remaining months of Leicester's life, during whicha royal command restrained him within his house. Elizabeth must in thisinstance have known her own injustice even while she was committing it;but by the loyal and chivalrous nobility, who knelt before the footstoolof the maiden-queen, "her buffets and rewards were ta'en with equalthanks;" and Abbot, the chaplain of lord Buckhurst, has recorded of hispatron, that "so obsequious was he to this command, that in all the timehe never would endure, openly or secretly, by day or night, to seeeither wife or child. " He had his reward; for no sooner was the queenrestored to liberty by the death of her imperious favorite, than shereleased her kinsman, honored him with the garter, procured, two yearsafter, his election to the chancellorship of the university of Oxford, and finally appointed him Burleigh's successor in the honorable andlucrative post of lord treasurer. 

During the unavoidable delay which the expedition of Drake had broughtto the designs of Philip II. , the prince of Parma had by his master'sdirections been endeavouring to amuse the vigilance of Elizabeth withovertures of negotiation. The queen, at the request of the prince, sentplenipotentiaries to treat with him in Flanders; and though theHollanders absolutely refused to enter into the treaty, they proceededwith apparent earnestness in the task of settling preliminaries. Somewriters maintain, that there was, from the beginning, as littlesincerity on one side as on the other; to gain time for the preparationsof attack or defence, being the sole object of both parties in thesemanoeuvres. Yet the cautious and pacific character of the policy ofElizabeth, and the secret dread which she ever entertained of a seriouscontest with the power of Spain, seem to render it more probable thatthe wish and hope of an accommodation was at first on her side real; andthat the fears of the States that their interests might become thesacrifice, must have been by no means destitute of foundation. Leicesteris said to have had the merit of first opening the eyes of his sovereignto the fraudulent conduct of the prince of Parma, --who in fact wasfurnished with no powers to treat, --and to have earned for himself bythis discovery the restoration of her favor. 

In March 1588 these conferences broke off abruptly. It was impossiblefor either party longer to deceive or to act the being deceived; for allEurope now rang with the mighty preparations of king Philip for theconquest of England;--preparations which occupied the whole of his vastthough disjointed empire, from the Flemish provinces which still ownedhis yoke, to the distant ports of Sicily and Naples. 

The spirit of the English people rose with the emergency. All ranks andorders vied with each other in an eager devotedness to the sacred causeof national independence; the rich poured forth their treasures withunsparing hand; the chivalrous and young rushed on-board ships of theirown equipment, a band of generous volunteers; the poor demanded arms toexterminate every invader who should set foot on English ground; whilethe clergy animated their audience against the Pope and the Spaniard, and invoked a blessing on the holy warfare of their fellow-citizens. Elizabeth, casting aside all her weaknesses, showed herself worthy to bethe queen and heroine of such a people. Her prudence, her vigilance, herpresence of mind, which failed not for a moment, inspired unboundedconfidence, while her cheerful countenance and spirited demeanourbreathed hope and courage and alacrity into the coldest bosoms. Neverdid a sovereign enter upon a great and awful contest with a morestrenuous resolution to fulfil all duties, to confront all perils; neverdid a people repay with such ardor of gratitude, such enthusiasm ofattachment, the noblest virtues of a prince. 

The best troops of the country were at this time absent in Flanders; andthere was no standing army except the queen's guard and the garrisonskept in a few forts on the coast or the Scottish border. The royal navywas extremely small, and the revenues of the crown totally inadequateto the effort of raising it to any thing approaching a parity with thefleets of Spain. The queen possessed not a single ally on the continentcapable of affording her aid; she doubted the fidelity of the king ofScots to her interests, and a formidable mass of disaffection wasbelieved to subsist among her own subjects of the catholic communion. Itwas on the spontaneous efforts of individuals that the whole safety ofthe country at this momentous crisis was left dependent: if thesefailed, England was lost;--but in such a cause, at such a juncture, theycould not fail; and the first appeal made by government to thepatriotism of the people was answered with that spirit in which a nationis invincible. A message was sent by the privy-council to inquire of thecorporation of London what the city would be willing to undertake forthe public service? The corporation requested to be informed what thecouncil might judge requisite in such a case. Fifteen ships and fivethousand men, was the answer. Two days after, the city "humbly intreatedthe council, in sign of their perfect love and loyalty, to prince andcountry, to accept ten thousand men and thirty ships amply furnished. ""And, " adds the chronicler, "even as London, London like, gaveprecedent, the whole kingdom kept true rank and equipage. " At this time, the able-bodied men in the capital between the ages of eighteen andsixty amounted to no more than 17, 083. 

Without entering into further detail respecting the particularcontributions of different towns or districts to the common defence, itis sufficient to remark, that every sinew was strained, and that littlewas left to the charge of government but the task of arranging andapplying the abundant succours furnished by the zeal of the country. Onetrait of the times, however, it is essential to commemorate. Terror isperhaps the most merciless of all sentiments, and that which is leastrestrained either by shame or a sense of justice; and under thisdebasing influence some of the queen's advisers did not hesitate tosuggest, that in a crisis so desperate, she ought to consult her ownsafety and that of the country, by seeking pretexts to take away thelives of some of the leading catholics. They cited in support of thisatrocious proposal the example of Henry VIII. Her father, who, beforehis departure for the French wars, had without scruple brought to theblock his own cousin the marquis of Exeter and several others, whosechief crime was their attachment to the ancient faith and their enjoyinga degree of popularity which might enable them to raise commotions inhis absence. 

Elizabeth rejected with horror these suggestions of cowardice andcruelty, at the same time that she omitted no measures of precautionwhich she regarded as justifiable. The existing laws against priests andseminary-men were enforced with vigilance and severity, all popishrecusants were placed under close inspection, and a considerable numberof those accounted most formidable were placed under safe custody inWisbeach-castle. 

To these gentlemen, however, the queen caused it to be intimated, thatthe step which she had taken was principally designed for theirprotection, since it was greatly to be apprehended that, in the event oflanding of the Spaniards, the Roman catholics might become the victimsof some ebullition of popular fury which it would not then be in thepower of government to repress. 

This lenient proceeding on the part of her majesty was productive of thebest effects; the catholics who remained at liberty became earnest toprove themselves possessed of that spirit of patriotism and loyalty forwhich she had given them credit. Some entered the ranks as volunteers;others armed and encouraged their tenantry and dependants for thedefence of their country; several even fitted out vessels at their ownexpense, and intrusted the command of them to protestant officers onwhom the government could entirely rely. 

After the defeat of the Armada, the prisoners at Wisbeach-castle, havingsigned the submission required by law of such as had offended in hearingmass and absenting themselves from church, petitioned the privy-councilfor their liberty; but a bond for good behaviour being further demandedof them, with the condition of being obedient to such orders as sixmembers of the privy-council should write down respecting them, theyrefused to comply with such terms of enlargement, and remained incustody. As the submission which they had tendered voluntarily was interms apparently no less strong than the bond which they refused, it wasconjectured that the former piece had been drawn up by their ghostlyfathers with some private equivocation or mental reservation; asuspicion which receives strong confirmation from the characters andsubsequent conduct of some of these persons, --the most noted fanaticscertainly of their party, --and amongst whom we read the names of Talbot, Catesby, and Tresham, afterwards principal conspirators in thedetestable gunpowder plot[98]. 

[Note 98: Life of Whitgift, by Strype. ]

The ships equipped by the nobility and gentry to combat the armadaamounted in the whole to forty-three, and it was on-board these vesselsthat young men of the noblest blood and highest hopes now made theirfirst essay in arms. In this number may be distinguished George Cliffordthird earl of Cumberland, one of the most remarkable, if not thegreatest, characters of the reign of Elizabeth. 

The illustrious race of Clifford takes origin from William duke ofNormandy; in a later age its blood was mingled with that of thePlantagenets by the intermarriage of the seventh lord de Clifford and adaughter of the celebrated Hotspur by Elizabeth his wife, whose fatherwas Edward Mortimer earl of March. Notwithstanding this alliance withthe house of York, two successive lords de Clifford were slain in thecivil wars fighting strenuously on the Lancastrian side. It was to theyounger of these, whose sanguinary spirit gained him the surname of theButcher, that the barbarous murder of the young earl of Rutland waspopularly imputed; and a well-founded dread of the vengeance of theYorkists caused his widow to conceal his son and heir under the lowlydisguise of a shepherd-boy, in which condition he grew up among thefells of Westmorland totally illiterate, and probably unsuspicious ofhis origin. 

At the end of five-and-twenty years, the restoration of the line ofLancaster in the person of Henry VII. Restored to lord de Clifford thename, rank, and large possessions of his ancestors; but thepeasant-noble preferred through life that rustic obscurity in which hischaracter had been formed and his habits fixed, to the splendors of acourt or the turmoils of ambition. He kept aloof from the capital; andit was only on the field of Flodden, to which he led in person his hardytenantry, that this de Clifford exhibited some sparks of the warlikefire inherent in his race. 

His successor, by qualities very different from the homely virtues whichhad obtained for his father among his tenantry and neighbours thesurname of the Good, recommended himself to the special favor of HenryVIII. , who created him earl of Cumberland, and matched his heir to hisown niece lady Eleanor Brandon. The sole fruit of this illustriousalliance, which involved the earl in an almost ruinous course ofexpense, was a daughter, who afterwards became the mother of Ferdinandoearl of Derby, a nobleman whose mysterious and untimely fate remains tobe hereafter related. By a second and better-assorted marriage, the earlof Cumberland became the father of George, his successor, our presentsubject, who proved the most remarkable of this distinguished family. The death of his father during his childhood had brought him underwardship to the queen; and by her command he was sent to pursue hisstudies at Peterhouse, Cambridge, under Whitgift, afterwards primate. Here he applied himself with ardor to the mathematics, and it wasapparently the bent of his genius towards these studies which firstcaused him to turn his attention to nautical matters. An enterprisingspirit and a turn for all the fashionable profusions of the day, whichspeedily plunged him in pecuniary embarrassments, added incitements tohis activity in these pursuits; and in 1586 he fitted out three shipsand a pinnace to cruise against the Spaniards and plunder theirsettlements. It appears extraordinary that he did not assume in personthe command of his little squadron; but combats and triumphs perhapsstill more glorious in his estimation awaited him on the smootherelement of the court. 

In the games of chivalry he bore off the prize of courage and dexterityfrom all his peers; the romantic band of knights-tilters boasted of himas one of its brightest ornaments, and her majesty deigned to encouragehis devotedness to her glory by an envied pledge of favor. 

As he stood or kneeled before her, she dropped her glove, perhaps notundesignedly, and on his picking it up, graciously desired him to keepit. He caused the trophy to be encircled with diamonds, and ever afterat all tilts and tourneys bore it conspicuously placed in front of hishigh-crowned hat. 

But the emergencies of the year 1588 summoned him to resign thefopperies of an antiquated knight-errantry for serious warfare and theexercise of genuine valor. Taking upon him the command of a ship, hejoined the fleet appointed to hang upon the motions of the Spanisharmada and harass it in its progress up the British Channel; and onseveral occasions, especially in the last action, off Calais, hesignalized himself by uncommon exertions. 

In reward of his services, her majesty granted him her royal commissionto pursue a voyage to the South Sea, which he had already projected; sheeven lent him for the occasion one of her own ships; and thusencouraged, he commenced that long series of naval enterprises which hasgiven him an enduring name. After two or three voyages he constantlydeclined her majesty's gracious offers of the loan of her ships, becausethey were accompanied with the express condition that he should neverlay any vessel of hers on-board a Spanish one, lest both should bedestroyed by fire. Such was the character of mingled penuriousness andtimidity which pervaded the maritime policy of this great princess, evenafter the defeat of the armada had demonstrated that, ship for ship, hernavy might defy the world!

At this period, all attempts against the power and prosperity of Spainwere naturally regarded with high favor and admiration; and it cannot bedenied that in his long and hazardous expeditions the earl of Cumberlandevinced high courage, undaunted enterprise, and an extraordinary shareof perseverance under repeated failures, disappointments, and hardshipsof every kind. It is also true that his vigorous attacks embarrassedextremely the intercourse of Spain with her colonies; and, besides thedirect injury which they inflicted, compelled this power to incur animmense additional expense for the protection of her treasure-ships andsettlements. But the benefit to England was comparatively trifling; andto the earl himself, notwithstanding occasional captures of great value, his voyages were far from producing any lasting advantage; they scarcelyrepaid on the whole the cost of equipment; while the influx of suddenwealth with which they sometimes gratified him, only ministered food tothat magnificent profusion in which he finally squandered both hisacquisitions and his patrimony. None of the liberal and enlightenedviews which had prompted the efforts of the great navigators of this anda preceding age appear to have had any share in the enterprises of theearl of Cumberland. Even the thirst of martial glory seems in him tohave been subordinate to the love of gain, and that appetite for rapineto which his loose and extravagant habits had given the force of apassion. 

He had formed, early in life, an attachment to the beautiful daughter ofthat worthy character and rare exemplar of old English hospitality, sirWilliam Holles, ancestor to the earls of Clare of that surname; but herfather, from a singular pride of independence, refused to listen to hisproposals, saying "that he would not have to stand cap in hand to hisson-in-law; his daughter should marry a good gentleman with whom hemight have society and friendship. " Disappointed thus of the object ofhis affections, he matched himself with a daughter of the earl ofBedford; a woman of merit, as it appears, but whom their mutualindifference precluded from exerting over him any salutary influence. Asa husband, he proved both unfaithful and cruel; and separating himselfafter a few years from his countess, on pretence of incompatibility oftempers, he suffered her to pine not only in desertion, but in poverty. We shall hereafter have occasion to view this celebrated earl in theidly-solemn personage of queen's champion; meantime, he must bedismissed with no more of applause than may be challenged by a charactersignally deficient in the guiding and restraining virtues, and endowedwith such a share only of the more active ones as served to render itconspicuous and glittering rather than truly and permanentlyillustrious. 

Henry earl of Northumberland likewise joined the fleet, on-board avessel hired by himself. Immediately after the fatal catastrophe of hisfather in 1585, this young nobleman, anxious apparently to efface thestigma of popery and disaffection stamped by the rash attempts of hisuncle and father on the gallant name of Percy, had seized theopportunity of embarking with Leicester for the wars of the LowCountries. He now sought distinction on another element, and in a causestill nearer to the hearts of Englishmen. The conversion toprotestantism and loyalty of the head of such a house could not but beregarded by Elizabeth with feelings of peculiar complacency, and in1593 she was pleased to confer upon the earl the insignia of the garter. He was present in 1601 at the siege of Ostend, where he consideredhimself as so much aggrieved by the conduct of sir Francis Vere, that onthe return of this officer to England he sent him a challenge. Duringthe decline of the queen's health, Northumberland was distinguished bythe warmth with which he embraced the interests of the king of Scots, and he was the first privy-councillor named by James on his accession tothe English throne. But the fate of his family seemed still to pursuehim: on some unsupported charges connected with the gunpowder plot, hewas stripped of all his offices, heavily fined, and sentenced toperpetual imprisonment: the tardy mercy of the king procured however hisrelease at the end of fifteen years, and he spent the remnant of hislife in tranquil and honorable retirement. This unfortunate nobleman wasa man of parts: the abundant leisure for intellectual pursuits affordedby his long captivity was chiefly employed by him in the study of themathematics, including perhaps the occult sciences; and as he waspermitted to enjoy freely the conversation of such men of learning as hewished to assemble around him, he became one of their most bountifulpatrons. 

Thomas Cecil, eldest son of the lord-treasurer, formerly a volunteer inthe expedition to Scotland undertaken in favor of the regent Murray, andmore recently appointed governor of the Brill in consideration of hisservices in the war in Flanders, also embarked to repel the invaders;as did Robert his half-brother, the afterwards celebrated secretary ofstate created earl of Salisbury by James I. 

Robert Cecil was deformed in his person, of a feeble and sicklyconstitution, and entirely devoted to the study of politics; andnothing, it is to be presumed, but his steady determination of omittingno means of attracting to himself that royal favor which he contemplatedas the instrument by which to work out his future fortunes, could haveengaged him in a service so repugnant to his habits and pursuits, andfor which the hand of nature herself had so evidently disabled him. 

The earl of Oxford, in expiation perhaps of some of those violences oftemper and irregularities of conduct by which he was perpetuallyoffending the queen and obstructing his own advancement in the state, equipped on this occasion a vessel which he commanded. 

Sir Charles Blount, notwithstanding the narrowness of his presentfortunes, judged it incumbent on him to give a similar proof ofattachment to his queen and country; and the circumstance affords anoccasion of introducing to the notice of the reader one of the brightestornaments of the court of Elizabeth. 

This distinguished gentleman, now in the twenty-fifth year of his age, was the second son of James sixth lord Montjoy of the ancient Normanname of Le Blonde, corruptly written Blount. The family history mightserve as a commentary on the reigning follies of the English courtduring two or three generations. His grandfather, a splendid courtier, consumed his resources on the ostentatious equipage with which heattended to the French wars his master Henry VIII. With whom he had themisfortune to be a favorite. His father squandered a diminishedpatrimony still more absurdly in his search after the philosopher'sstone; and the ruin of the family was so consummated by the ill-timedprodigalities of his elder brother, that when his death without childrenin 1594 transmitted the title of lord Montjoy to sir Charles, a thousandmarks was the whole amount of the inheritance by which this honor was tobe maintained. It is needless to add that the younger brother's portionwith which he set out in life was next to nothing. Having thus his ownway to make, he immediately after completing his education at Oxfordentered himself of the Inner Temple, as meaning to pursue the professionof the law: but fortune had ordained his destiny otherwise; and beingled by his curiosity to visit the court, he there found "a prettystrange kind of admission, " which cannot be related with more vivacitythan in the original words of Naunton. "He was then much about twentyyears of age, of a brown hair, a sweet face, a most neat composure, andtall in his person. The queen was then at Whitehall, and at dinner, whither he came to see the fashion of the court. The queen had soonfound him out, and with a kind of an affected frown asked the ladycarver who he was? She answered, she knew him not; insomuch that enquirywas made from one to another who he might be, till at length it was toldthe queen that he was brother to the lord William Mountjoy. Thisinquisition, with the eye of majesty fixed upon him, (as she was wontto do to daunt men she knew not, ) stirred the blood of this younggentleman, insomuch as his colour went and came; which the queenobserving called him unto her, and gave him her hand to kiss, encouraging him with gracious words and new looks; and so diverting herspeech to the lords and ladies, she said, that she no sooner observedhim but that she knew there was in him some noble blood, with some otherexpressions of pity towards his house. And then again, demanding hisname, she said, 'Fail you not to come to the court, and I will bethinkmyself how to do you good. ' And this was his inlet, and the beginning ofhis grace. " It does not appear what boon the queen immediately bestowedupon her new courtier; but he deserted the profession of the law, sat inthe parliaments of 1585 and 1586 as the representative of two differentCornish boroughs, received in the latter year the honor of knighthood, and soon after his present expedition appeared considerable enough atcourt to provoke the hostility of the earl of Essex himself. Raleigh, now high in favor, and invested with the offices of captain of thequeen's guard and her lieutenant for Cornwall, had been actively engagedsince the last year in training to arms the militia of that county. Hehad also been employed, as a member of the council of war, in concertingthe general plan of national defence: but his ardent and adventurousvalor prompted him to aid his country in her hour of trial on bothelements, and with hand as well as head: throwing himself therefore intoa vessel of his own which waited his orders, he hastened to share inthe discomfiture of her insulting foe. 

But it would be endless to enumerate all who spontaneously came forwardto partake the perils and the glory of this ever-memorable contest; andthe naval commanders of principal eminence have higher claims to ournotice. 

The dignity of lord-high-admiral, --customarily conferred on mere men ofrank, in whom not the slightest tincture of professional knowledge wasrequired or expected, --at this critical juncture belonged to Charlessecond lord Howard of Effingham, of whom we have formerly spoken, andwho appears never in the whole course of his life to have been at seabut once before, and that only on an occasion of ceremony. He was everyway an untried man, and as yet distinguished for nothing except theaccomplishments of a courtier: but he exhibited on trial courage, resolution, and conduct; an affability of manner which endeared him tothe sailors; and a prudent sense of his own inexperience, which renderedhim perfectly docile to the counsels of those excellent sea-officers bywhom he had the good fortune to find himself surrounded. He encouragedhis crew, and manifested his alacrity in the service, by putting his ownhand to the rope which was to tow his ship out of harbour; and heafterwards gave proof of his good sense and his patriotism, by hisopposition to the orders which her majesty's excess of oeconomy ledher to issue on the first dispersion of the armada by a storm, forlaying up four of her largest ships; earnestly requesting that he mightbe permitted to retain them at his own expense rather than the safety ofthe country should be risked by their dismissal. John Hawkins, one ofthe ablest and most experienced seamen of the age, was chiefly reliedupon for the conduct of the main fleet, in which he acted asvice-admiral. For his good service he was knighted by the lord-admiralon board his own ship immediately after the action, when the like honorwas bestowed on that eminent navigator Frobisher, who led into actionthe Triumph, one of the three first-rates which were then all that theEnglish navy could boast. 

To the hero Drake, as rear-admiral, a separate squadron was intrusted;and it was by this division that the principal execution was done uponthe discomfited armada as it fled in confusion before the valor of theEnglish and the fury of their tempestuous seas. An enormous galleonsurrendered without firing a shot to the much smaller vessel of Drake, purely from the terror of his name. 

Whilst the lord-admiral, with the principal fleet stationed offPlymouth, prepared to engage the armada in its passage up the Channel, sir Henry Seymour, youngest son of the protector, was stationed with asmaller force, partly English partly Flemish, off Dunkirk, for thepurpose of intercepting the duke of Parma, who was lying with hisveteran forces on the coast, ready to embark and co-operate in theconquest of England. 

In the midst of these naval preparations, which happily sufficed in theevent to frustrate entirely the designs of the enemy, equal activitywas exerted to place the land-forces in a condition to dispute the soilagainst the finest troops and most consummate general of Europe. 

An army of reserve consisting of about thirty-six thousand men was drawntogether for the defence of the queen's person, and appointed to marchtowards any quarter in which the most pressing danger should manifestitself. A smaller, but probably better appointed, force of twenty-threethousand was stationed in a camp near Tilbury to protect the capital, against which it was not doubted that the most formidable efforts of theenemy on making good his landing would be immediately directed. 

Owing to the long peace which the country had enjoyed, England possessedat this juncture no general of reputation, though, doubtless, asufficiency of men of resolution and capacity whom a short experience ofactual service would have matured into able officers. Undercircumstances which afforded to the government so small a choice of men, the respective appointments of Arthur lord Grey, --distinguished by thevigor which he had exerted in suppressing the last Irish rebellion, --tothe post of president of the council of war; of lord Hunsdon, --a bravesoldier long practised in the desultory warfare of the northern border, as well as in several regular campaigns against Scotland, --to thecommand of the army of reserve; and of the earl of Essex, --a gallantyouth who had fleshed his maiden sword and gained his spurs in theaffair of Zutphen, --to the post of general of the horse in the mainarmy;--seem to have merited the sanction of public approbation. But themost strenuous defender of the measures of her majesty must have beenstaggered by her nomination of Leicester, --the hated, the disgraced, theincapable Leicester, --to the station of highest honor, danger, andimportance;--that of commander in chief of the army at Tilbury. Militaryexperience, indeed, the favorite possessed in a higher degree than mostof those to whom the defence of the country was now of necessityintrusted, but of skill and conduct he had proved himself destitute;even his personal courage was doubtful; and his recent failures inHolland must have inspired distrust in the bosom of every individual, whether officer or private, appointed to serve under him. Something mustbe allowed for the embarrassments of the time; the deficiency ofmilitary talent; the high rank of Leicester in the service, whichforbade his employment in any inferior capacity: but, with all thesepalliations, the nomination of such an antagonist to confront the dukeof Parma must eternally be regarded as the weakest act into which theprudence of Elizabeth was ever betrayed by a blind and unaccountablepartiality. 

All these preparations for defence being finally arranged, her majestyresolved to visit in person the camp at Tilbury, for the purpose ofencouraging her troops. 

It had been a part of the commendation of Elizabeth, that in her publicappearances, of whatsoever nature, no sovereign on record had _acted_the part so well, or with such universal applause. But on thismemorable and momentous occasion, when, --like a second Boadicea, armedfor defence against the invader of her country, --she appeared at oncethe warrior and the queen, the sacred feelings of the moment, superiorto all the artifices of regal dignity and the tricks of regalcondescension, inspired her with that impressive earnestness of look, ofwords, of gesture, which alone is truly dignified and truly eloquent. 

Mounted on a noble charger, with a general's truncheon in her hand, acorselet of polished steel laced on over her magnificent apparel, and apage in attendance bearing her white-plumed helmet, she rode bare-headedfrom rank to rank with a courageous deportment and smiling countenance;and amid the affectionate plaudits and shouts of military ardor whichburst from the animated and admiring soldiery, she addressed them in thefollowing short and spirited harangue. 

"My loving people; we have been persuaded by some that are careful ofour safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but, assure you, I do not desire to live todistrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear: I have alwaysso behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strengthand safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects. Andtherefore I am come amongst you at this time, not as for my recreationor sport, but being resolved in the midst and heat of the battle, tolive or die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honor and my blood, even in the dust. I know Ihave but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart of aking, and of a king of England too; and think foul scorn that Parma orSpain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of myrealms: To which, rather than any dishonor should grow by me, I myselfwill take up arms; I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder ofevery one of your virtues in the field. 

"I know already by your forwardness, that you have deserved rewards andcrowns; and we do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall beduly paid you. In the meantime, my lieutenant-general shall be in mystead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble and worthy subject;not doubting by your obedience to my general, by your concord in thecamp, and your valor in the field, we shall shortly have a famousvictory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people. "

The extraordinary reliance placed by the queen in this emergency uponthe counsels of Leicester encouraged the insatiable favorite to grasp athonor and authority still more exorbitant; and he ventured to urge hermajesty to invest him with the office of her lieutenant in England andIreland; a dignity paramount to all other commands. She had the weaknessto comply; and it is said that the patent was actually drawn out, whenthe defeat of the armada, by taking away all pretext for the creation ofsuch an officer, gave her leisure to attend to the earnestrepresentations of Hatton and Burleigh on the imprudence of conferringon any subject powers so excessive, and capable even in some instancesof controlling her own prerogative. On better consideration the projecttherefore was dropped. 

It is foreign from the business of this work to detail the particularsof that signal victory obtained by English seamanship and English valoragainst the boasted armament of Spain, prodigiously superior as it wasin every circumstance of force excepting the moral energies employed towield it. While the history of the year 1588 in all its details mustever form a favorite chapter in the splendid tale of England's navalglory, it will here suffice to mark the general results. 

Not a single Spaniard set foot on English ground but as a prisoner; oneEnglish vessel only, and that of smaller size, became the prize of theinvaders. The duke of Parma did not venture to embark a man. The king ofScots, standing firm to his alliance with his illustrious kinswoman, afforded not the slightest succour to the Spanish ships which the stormsand the English drove in shattered plight upon his rugged coasts; whilethe lord-deputy of Ireland caused to be butchered without remorse thecrews of all the vessels wrecked upon that island in their disastrouscircumnavigation of Great Britain: so that not more than half of thisvaunted _invincible armada_ returned in safety to the ports of Spain. Never in the records of history was the event of war on one side moreentirely satisfactory, and glorious, on the other more deeplyhumiliating and utterly disgraceful. Philip did indeed support thecredit of his personal character by the dignified composure with whichhe heard the tidings of this great disaster; but it was out of his powerto throw the slightest veil over the dishonor of the Spanish arms, orrepair the total and final failure of the great popish cause. 

By the English nation, this signal discomfiture of its most dreaded anddetested foe was hailed as the victory of protestant principles no lessthan of national independence; and the tidings of the nationaldeliverance were welcomed, by all the reformed churches of Europe, withan ardor of joy and thankfulness proportioned to the intenseness ofanxiety with which they had watched the event of a conflict where theirown dearest interests were staked along with the existence of their bestally and firmest protector. 

Repeated thanksgivings were observed in London in commemoration of thisgreat event: on the anniversary of the queen's birth a general festivalwas proclaimed and celebrated with "sermons, singing of psalms, bonfires, &c. " and on the following Sunday her majesty went in state toSt. Paul's, magnificently attended by her nobles and great officers, andborne along on a sumptuous chariot formed like a throne, with fourpillars supporting a canopy, and drawn by a pair of white horses. Thestreets through which she passed were hung with blue cloth, in honordoubtless of the navy, and the colors taken from the enemy were borne intriumph. 

Her majesty rewarded the lord-admiral with a considerable pension, andsettled annuities on the wounded seamen and on some of the morenecessitous among the officers; the rest she honored with much personalnotice and many gracious terms of commendation, which they were expectedto receive in lieu of more substantial remuneration;--for parsimony, thedarling virtue of Elizabeth, was not forgotten even in her gratitude tothe brave defenders of her country. 

Two medals were struck on this great occasion; one, representing a fleetretiring under full sail, with the motto, "_Venit, vidit, fugit_;" theother, fire-ships scattering a fleet; the motto, "_Dux fæmina facti_;" acompliment to the queen, who is said to have herself suggested theemployment of these engines of destruction, by which the armada sufferedseverely. 

The intense interest in public events excited in every class by thethreatened invasion of Spain, gave rise to the introduction in thiscountry of one of the most important inventions of social life, --that ofnewspapers. Previously to this period all articles of intelligence hadbeen circulated in manuscript; and all political remarks which thegovernment had found itself interested in addressing to the people, hadissued from the press in the shape of pamphlets, of which many had beencomposed during the administration of Burleigh, either by himself orimmediately under his direction. But the peculiar convenience at such ajuncture of uniting these two objects in a periodical publicationbecoming obvious to the ministry, there appeared, some time in the monthof April 1588, the first number of _The English Mercury_; a paperresembling the present London Gazette, which must have come out almostdaily; since No. 50, the earliest specimen of the work now extant, isdated July 23d of the same year. This interesting relic is preserved inthe British Museum. 

In the midst of the public rejoicings an event occurred, which, inwhatever manner it might be felt by Elizabeth herself, certainly cast nodamp on the spirits of the nation at large; the death of Leicester. 

After the frequent notices of this celebrated favorite contained in theforegoing pages, a formal delineation of his character isunnecessary;--a few traits may however be added. 

Speaking of his letters and public papers, Naunton says, "I never yetsaw a style or phrase more seeming religious and fuller of the streamsof devotion;" and notwithstanding the charge of hypocrisy on this headusually brought against Leicester in the most unqualified terms, manyreasons might induce us to believe his religious faith sincere, and hisattachment for certain schemes of doctrine, zealous. On no othersupposition does it appear possible to account for that steady patronageof the puritanical party, --so odious to his mistress, --which gave onsome occasions such important advantages over him to his adversaryHatton, --the only minister of Elizabeth who appears to have aimed at thecharacter of a high church-of-England man. The circumstance also of hisdevoting during his lifetime a considerable sum of ready money, whichhe could ill spare, to the endowment of a hospital, has much the air ofan act of expiation prompted by religious fears. As a statesmanLeicester appears to have displayed on some occasions considerableacuteness and penetration, but in the higher kind of wisdom he wasutterly deficient. His moral insensibility sometimes caused him to offerto his sovereign the most pernicious counsels; and had not the superiorrectitude of Burleigh's judgement interposed, his influence might haveinflicted still deeper wounds on the honor of the queen and theprosperity of the nation. 

Towards his own friends and adherents he is said to have been areligious observer of his promises; a virtue very remarkable in such aman. In the midst of that profusion which rendered him rapacious, he wascapable of acts of real generosity, and both soldiers and scholarstasted largely of his bounty. That he was guilty of many detestable actsof oppression, and pursued with secret and unrelenting vengeance such asoffended his arrogance by any failure in the servile homage which hemade it his glory to exact, are charges proved by undeniable facts; butit has already been observed that the more atrocious of the crimespopularly imputed to him, remain, and must ever remain, matters ofsuspicion rather than proof. 

His conduct during the younger part of life was scandalously licentious:latterly he became, says Camden, uxorious to excess. In the early daysof his favor with the queen, her profuse donations had gratified hiscupidity and displayed the fondness of her attachment; but at a laterperiod the stream of her bounty ran low; and following the natural bentof her disposition, or complying with the necessity of her affairs, shecompelled him to mortgage to her his barony of Denbigh for the expensesof his last expedition to Holland. Immediately after his death she alsocaused his effects to be sold by auction, for the satisfaction ofcertain demands of her treasury. From these circumstances it mayprobably be inferred, that the influence which Leicester still retainedover her was secured rather by the chain of habit than the tie ofaffection; and after the first shock of final separation from him whomshe had so long loved and trusted, it is not improbable that she mightcontemplate the event with a feeling somewhat akin to that ofdeliverance from a yoke under which her haughty spirit had repinedwithout the courage to resist. 

Leicester died, beyond all doubt, of a fever; but so reluctant were theprejudices of that age to dismiss any eminent person by the ordinaryroads of mortality, that it was judged necessary to take examinationsbefore the privy-council respecting certain magical practices said tohave been employed against his life. The son of sir James Croftcomptroller of the household, made no scruple to confess that he hadconsulted an adept of the name of Smith, to learn who were his father'senemies in the council; that Smith mentioned the earl of Leicester; andthat a little while after, flirting with his thumbs, he exclaimed, alluding to this nobleman's cognisance, "The bear is bound to thestake;" and again, that nothing could now save him. But as it mightafter all have been difficult to show in what manner the flirting of athumb in London could have exerted a fatal power over the life of theearl at Kennelworth, the adept seems to have escaped unpunished, notwithstanding the accidental fulfilment of his denunciations. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

FROM 1588 TO 1591. 

Effects of Leicester's death. --Rise of the queen's affection forEssex. --Trial of the earl of Arundel. --Letter of Walsingham on religiousaffairs. --Death of Mildmay. --Case of don Antonio. --Expedition toCadiz. --Behaviour of Essex. --Traits of sir C. Blount. --Sir H. Leigh'sresignation. --Conduct of Elizabeth to the king of Scots. --Hismarriage. --Death and character of sir Francis Walsingham. --Strugglebetween the earl of Essex and lord Burleigh for the nomination of hissuccessor. --Extracts of letters from Essex to Davison. --Inveteracy ofthe queen against Davison. --Robert Cecil appointed assistantsecretary. --Private marriage of Essex. --Anger of the queen. --Reformeffected by the queen in the collection of the revenue. --Speech ofBurleigh. --Parsimony of the queen considered. --Anecdotes on thissubject. --Lines by Spenser. --Succours afforded by her to the king ofFrance. --Account of sir John Norris. --Essex's campaign in France. --Royalprogress. --Entertainment at Coudray--at Elvetham--at Theobald's. --Deathand character of sir Christopher Hatton. --Puckering lord-keeper. --Noticeof sir John Perrot. --Puttenham's Art of Poetry. --Verses byGascoigne. --Warner's Albion's England. 

The death of Leicester forms an important æra in the history of thecourt of Elizabeth, and also in that of her private life and moreintimate feelings. The powerful faction of which the favorite had beenthe head, acknowledged a new leader in the earl of Essex, whom hisstep-father had brought forward at court as a counterpoise to theinfluence of Raleigh, and who now stood second to none in the goodgraces of her majesty. But Essex, however gifted with noble andbrilliant qualities totally deficient in Leicester, was on the otherhand confessedly inferior to him in several other endowments still moreessential to the leader of a court party. Though not void of art, he wasby no means master of the profound dissimulation, the exquisite address, and especially the wary coolness by which his predecessor well knew howto accomplish his ends in despite of all opposition. His character wasimpetuous, his natural disposition frank; and experience had not yettaught him to distrust either himself or others. 

With the friendships, Essex received as an inheritance the enmities alsoof Leicester, and no one at court could have entertained the least doubtwhom he regarded as his principal opponent; but it would have beendeemed too high a pitch of presumption in so young a man and so recent afavorite as Essex, to place himself in immediate and open hostility tothe long established and far extending influence of Burleigh. With thisgreat minister therefore and his adherents he attempted at first a kindof compromise, and the noted division of the court into the Essex andthe Cecil parties does not appear to have taken place till some yearsafter the period of which we are treating. Meantime, the death ofWalsingham afforded the lord-treasurer an occasion of introducing to thenotice and confidence of her majesty, and eventually to the importantoffice of secretary of state, his son Robert, whose transcendent talentsfor affairs, joined to the utmost refinement of intrigue and duplicity, immediately established him in the same independence on the good will ofthe new favorite, as the elder Cecil had ever asserted on that of theformer one; and appears finally to have enabled him to prepare in secretthat favorite's disastrous fall. 

With regard to Elizabeth herself, it has been a thousand times remarked, that she was never able to forget the woman in the sovereign; and inspite of that preponderating love of sway which all her life forbade herto admit a partner of her bed and throne, her heart was to the lastdeeply sensible to the want, or her imagination to the charm, of lovingand being beloved. The death therefore of the man who had been forthirty years the object of a tenderness which he had long repaid byevery flattering profession, every homage of gallantry, and everymanifestation of entire devotedness, left, notwithstanding any latedisgusts which she might have entertained, a void in her existence whichshe felt it necessary to supply. It was this situation, doubtless, ofher feelings which led to the gradual conversion into a softersentiment, of that natural and innocent tenderness with which she hadhitherto regarded the brilliant and engaging qualities of her youthfulkinsman the earl of Essex;--a change which terminated so fatally toboth. 

The enormous disproportion of ages gave to the new inclination of thequeen a stamp of dotage inconsistent with the reputation for good senseand dignity of conduct which she had hitherto preserved. Nor did shelong receive from the indulgence of so untimely a sentiment any portionof the felicity which she coveted. The careless and even affrontingbehaviour in which Essex occasionally indulged himself, combined withher own sagacity to admonish her that her fondness was unreturned; andthat nothing but the substantial benefits by which it declared itselfcould have induced its object to meet it with even the semblance ofgratitude. As this mortifying conviction came home to her bosom, shegrew restless, irritable, and captious to excess; she watched all hismotions with a self-tormenting jealousy; she fed her own disquiet bylistening to the malicious informations of his enemies; and her heart atlength becoming callous by repeated exasperations, she began to visithis delinquencies with an unrelenting sternness. This conduct, attemptedtoo late and persisted in too long, hurried Essex to his ruin, and endedby inflicting upon herself the mortal agonies of an unavailingrepentance. 

Lord Bacon relates, in his Apophthegms, that "a great officer aboutcourt when my lord of Essex was first in trouble, and that he and thosethat dealt for him would talk much of my lord's friends and of hisenemies, answered to one of them; 'I will tell you, I know but onefriend and one enemy my lord hath; and that one friend is the queen, andthat one enemy, is himself. '" But rather might both have been esteemedhis enemies; for what except the imprudent fondness of the queen, andthe excess of favor which she at first lavished upon him, was theoriginal cause of that intoxication of mind which finally became theinstrument of his destruction?

But from observations which anticipate perhaps too much the catastropheof this melancholy history, it is time to return to a narrative ofevents. 

The Spanish armament incidentally became the occasion of involving theearl of Arundel in a charge of a capital nature. Ever since thetreachery of his agents, in the year 1585, had baffled his design ofquitting for ever a country in which his religion and his politicalattachments had rendered him an alien, this unfortunate nobleman hadremained close prisoner in the Tower. Such treatment might well besupposed calculated to augment the vehemence of his bigotry and therancor of his disaffection; and it became a current report that, onhearing news of the sailing of the armada, he had caused a mass of theHoly Ghost and devotions of twenty-four hours continuance to becelebrated for its success. This rumor being confirmed by one Bennet, apriest then under examination, and other circumstances of suspicioncoming out, the earl, on April the 14th, 1589, was brought to the bar ofthe house of lords on a charge of high treason. Bennet, struck withcompunction, addressed to him a letter acknowledging his testimony tohave been false, and extorted from him solely by the fear of the rack. But it appears that this letter, still extant among the Burleigh papers, was intercepted by the government; and the prisoner, by this cruel andiniquitous artifice, was deprived of all means of invalidating thetestimony of Bennet, who was brought into court as a witness againsthim. By a second violation of every principle of justice, the mattersfor which, as contempts, he had already undergone the sentence of theStar-chamber, were now introduced into his indictment for high treason, to which the following articles were added;--that he had engaged toassist cardinal Allen in the restoration of popery;--that he hadintimated the unfitness of the queen to govern;--that he had causedmasses to be said for the success of the armada;--that he had attemptedto withdraw himself beyond seas for the purpose of serving under theduke of Parma;--and that he had been privy to the bull of Pope Sixtus V. Transferring the sovereignty of England from her majesty to the king ofSpain. 

To all these articles, which he was not allowed to separate, the earlpleaded Not guilty; but afterwards, in his defence, confessed some ofthem, though with certain extenuations. He asserted, that the prayersand masses which he had caused to be said, were for the averting of ageneral massacre of the English catholics, alleged to be designed; andnot for the success of the armada. The aid to the catholic cause, whichhe had promised in his correspondence with cardinal Allen, he declaredto refer only to peaceful attempts at making converts, not to theencouragement of any plan of rebellion. He acknowledged a design ofgoing to serve under the prince of Parma, since he was denied theexercise of his religion at home; but he argued his innocence of anyview of cooperating in plans of invasion, from the circumstance, thathis attempt to leave England had taken place during the year fixed bycardinal Allen and the queen of Scots for the execution of a scheme ofthis nature. 

The crown-lawyers, in order to make out a case of constructive treason, urged the reconcilement of the prisoner with the church of Rome, whichthey held to be of itself a traitorous act; his correspondence withdeclared traitors; and the high opinion entertained of him by the queenof Scots and cardinal Allen, as the chief support of popery in England. They likewise exhibited an emblematical picture found in his house, representing in one part a hand shaking off a viper into the fire, withthe motto, "If God is for us who can be against us?" and in another parta lion, the cognisance of the Howard family, deprived of his claws, under him the words, "Yet still a lion. " On these charges, none ofwhich, though proved by the most unexceptionable witnesses, could bringhim within the true meaning of the old statute of Edward III. , on whichhe was indicted, the peers were base enough to pronounce an unanimousverdict of Guilty; which he received, as his father had done before him, with the words "God's will be done!" But here the queen felt herselfconcerned in honor to interpose. It had ever been her maxim and herboast, to punish none capitally for religious delinquencies unconnectedwith traitorous designs; and sensible probably how imperfectly in thiscase the latter had been proved, she was pleased, in her abundant mercy, to commute the capital part of the sentence against her unhappy kinsmanfor perpetual imprisonment, attended with the forfeiture of the greaterpart of his estate. 

In 1595, this victim of the religious dissensions of a fierce andbigoted age ended in his thirty-ninth year an unfortunate life, shortened, as well as embittered, by the more than monkish austeritieswhich he imagined it meritorious to inflict upon himself. 

From the period of the abortive attempt at insurrection under the earlsof Northumberland and Westmorland, the whole course of public events hadtended to increase the difficulties and aggravate the sufferings inwhich the catholics of England found themselves inextricably involved. Their situation was thus forcibly depicted by Philip Sidney, in apassage of his celebrated letter to her majesty against the Frenchmarriage, which at the present day will probably be read in a spiritvery different from that in which it was written. 

"The other faction, most rightly indeed to be called a faction, is thepapists; men whose spirits are full of anguish; some being infested byothers whom they accounted damnable; some having their ambition stoppedbecause they are not in the way of advancement; some in prison anddisgrace; some whose best friends are banished practisers; many thinkingyou an usurper; many thinking also you had disannulled your rightbecause of the pope's excommunication; all burthened with the weight oftheir consciences. Men of great numbers, of great riches (because theaffairs of state have not lain on them), of united minds, as all menthat deem themselves oppressed naturally are. "

A further commentary on the hardships of their condition may beextracted from an apology for the measures of the English governmenttowards both papists and puritans, addressed by Walsingham to M. Critoythe French secretary of state. 

 * * * * *

"Sir, "Whereas you desire to be advertised touching the proceedings here inecclesiastical causes, because you seem to note in them some inconstancyand variation, as if we sometimes inclined to one side, sometimes toanother, as if that clemency and lenity were not used of late that wasused in the beginning, all which you impute to your own superficialunderstanding of the affairs of this state, having notwithstanding hermajesty's doing in singular reverence, as the real pledges which shehath given unto the world of her sincerity in religion and her wisdom ingovernment well meriteth; I am glad of this occasion to impart thatlittle I know in that matter to you, both for your own satisfaction, andto the end you may make use thereof towards any that shall not be somodestly and so reasonably minded as you are. I find therefore hermajesty's proceedings to have been grounded upon two principles. 

"1. The one, that consciences are not to be forced, but to be won andreduced by the force of truth, with the aid of time, and use of all goodmeans of instruction and persuasion. 

"2. The other, that the causes of conscience, wherein they exceed theirbounds, and grow to be matter of faction, lose their nature; and thatsovereign princes ought distinctly to punish the practice in contempt, though coloured under the pretence of conscience and religion. 

"According to these principles, her majesty, at her coming to the crown, utterly disliking the tyranny of Rome, which had used by terror andrigor to settle commandments of men's faiths and consciences; though, asa prince of great wisdom and magnanimity, she suffered but the exerciseof one religion, yet her proceedings towards the papists was with greatlenity, expecting the good effects which time might work in them. Andtherefore her majesty revived not the laws made in the 28 and 35 of herfather's reign, whereby the oath of supremacy might have been offered atthe king's pleasure to any subject, though he kept his conscience neverso modestly to himself; and the refusal to take the same oath withoutfurther circumstance was made treason. But contrariwise her majesty, notliking to make windows into men's hearts and secret thoughts, except theabundance of them did overflow into overt or express acts oraffirmations, tempered her laws so as it restraineth every manifestdisobedience in impugning and impeaching advisedly and maliciously hermajesty's supreme power, maintaining and extolling a foreignjurisdiction. And as for the oath, it was altered by her majesty into amore grateful form; the hardness of the name and appellation of supremehead was removed; and the penalty of the refusal thereof turned onlyinto disablement to take any promotion, or to exercise any charge, andyet with liberty of being reinvested therein if any man should acceptthereof during his life. But when, after Pius Quintus had excommunicatedher majesty, and the bills of excommunication were published in London, whereby her majesty was in a sort proscribed; and that thereupon, as aprincipal motive or preparative, followed the rebellion in the North;yet because the ill-humors of the realm were by that rebellion partlypurged, and that she feared at that time no foreign invasion, and muchless the attempt of any within the realm not backed by some potentsuccour from without, she contented herself to make a law against thatspecial case of bringing and publishing any bulls, or the likeinstruments; whereunto was added a prohibition, upon pain, not oftreason, but of an inferior degree of punishment, against the bringingin of _agnus Dei_, hallowed bread, and such other merchandise of Rome, as are well known not to be any essential part of the Romish religion, but only to be used in practice as love-tokens to inchant the people'saffections from their allegiance to their natural sovereign. In allother points her majesty continued her former lenity: but when, aboutthe twentieth year of her reign, she had discovered in the king of Spainan intention to invade her dominions, and that a principal part of theplot was, to prepare a party within the realm that might adhere to theforeigner; and after that the seminaries began to blossom, and to sendforth daily priests and professed men, who should by vow taken at shriftreconcile her subjects from their obedience, yea, and bind many of themto attempt against her majesty's sacred person; and that, by the poisonwhich they spread, the humors of papists were altered, and that theywere no more papists in conscience, and of softness, but papists infaction; then were there new laws made for the punishment of such asshould submit themselves to such reconcilements, or renunciations ofobedience. And because it was a treason carried in the clouds, and inwonderful secresy, and came seldom to light, and that there was nopresupposition thereof so great, as the recusants to come to divineservice, because it was set down by their decrees, that to come tochurch before reconcilement was absolutely heretical and damnable. Therefore there were laws added containing punishment pecuniary againstsuch recusants, not to enforce conscience, but to enfeeble andimpoverish the means of those of whom it resteth indifferent andambiguous whether they were reconciled or no. And when, notwithstandingall this provision, this poison was dispersed so secretly, as that therewere no means to stay it but by restraining the merchants that broughtit in; then, lastly, there was added another law, whereby such seditiouspriests of new erection were exiled, and those that were at that timewithin the land shipped over, and so commanded to keep hence on pain oftreason. 

"This hath been the proceeding, though intermingled not only with sundryexamples of her majesty's grace towards such as she knew to be papistsin conscience, and not in faction and singularity, but also with anordinary mitigation towards offenders in the highest degree committedby law, if they would but protest, that in case the realm should beinvaded with a foreign army, by the Pope's authority, for the catholiccause, as they term it, they would take part with her majesty and notadhere to her enemies. " &c. 

 * * * * *

The country sustained a heavy loss in 1589 by the death of sir WalterMildmay chancellor of the exchequer, one of the most irreproachablepublic characters and best patriots of the age. He was old enough tohave received his introduction to business in the time of Henry VIII. , under whom he enjoyed a gainful office in the court of augmentations. During the reign of Edward he was warden of the mint. Under Mary, heshrowded himself in that profound obscurity in which alone he could makesafety accord with honor and conscience. Elizabeth, on the death of sirRichard Sackville in 1568, advanced Mildmay to the important post ofchancellor of the exchequer, which he held to the end of his life; butnot so, it should appear, the favor of her majesty, some of his _backfriends_, or secret enemies, having whispered in her ear, that he was abetter patriot than subject, and over-popular in parliament, where hehad gone so far as to complain that many subsidies were granted and fewgrievances redressed. Another strong ground of royal displeasure existedin the imputation of puritanism under which he labored. 

Generously sacrificing to higher considerations the aggrandizement ofhis children, Mildmay devoted a large share of the wealth which he hadgained in the public service to the erection and endowment of acollege;--that of Emanuel at Cambridge, --an action little agreeable itseems to her majesty, --for, on his coming to court after the completionof this noble undertaking, she said tartly to him; "Sir Walter, I hearyou have erected a puritan foundation. " "No, Madam, " replied he; "far beit from me to countenance any thing contrary to your established laws;but I have set an acorn, which, when it comes to be an oak, God aloneknows what will be the fruit of it. " That this fruit however proved tobe of the flavor so much distasted by her majesty, there is goodevidence. 

 "In the house of pure Emanuel I had my education, Where some surmise I dazzled my eyes With the light of revelation;"

says "the Distracted Puritan, " in a song composed in king James's daysby the witty bishop Corbet. 

Mildmay was succeeded in his office by sir John Fortescue, master of thewardrobe, a gentleman whose accomplishments in classical literature hadinduced the queen to take him for her guide and assistant in the studyof the Greek and Latin writers. In the discharge of his new functions hetoo was distinguished by moderation and integrity, so that in thisimportant department of administration no oppression was exercised uponthe subject during the whole of the reign;--a circumstance highlyconducive both to the popularity of the queen, and to the alacrity ingranting supplies usually exhibited by her parliaments. 

The late attempt at invasion, so gloriously and happily frustrated, hadgiven a new impulse to the public mind; the gallant youth of the countrywere seized with an universal rage for military enterprise, and burnedat once for vengeance and renown. The riches and the weakness of theSpanish empire, both of them considerably exaggerated in popularopinion, tempted the hopes and the cupidity of adventurers of adifferent class; and by means of the united stimulus of gain and glory, a numerous fleet was fitted out in the spring of 1589 for an expeditionto Portugal, which was equipped and manned almost entirely by theexertions of individuals, the queen contributing only sixty-six thousandpounds to the expenses, and six of her ships to the armament. 

It will be remembered, that on the death in 1580 of Henry king ofPortugal, Philip of Spain had possessed himself of that kingdom asrightful heir; having compelled don Antonio, an illegitimate nephew ofthe deceased sovereign, who had ventured to dispute the succession, toquit the country, and take refuge first in France and afterwards inEngland. 

This pretender had hitherto received little support or encouragement atthe hands of Elizabeth; in fact, she had suffered him to languish in themost abject poverty; for there is a letter extant from a person abouthim to lord Burleigh[99], entreating that he would move her majestyeither to advance don Antonio two hundred thousand crowns out of hershare of the rich Portuguese carrack captured by sir Francis Drake, toenable him to recover his kingdom, --or at least to take upon herself thepayment of his debts, amounting to twelve or thirteen pounds, withoutwhich his poor creditors are likely to be ruined. The first part of thisextraordinary alternative the prudent princess certainly declined; whatmight be the fate of the second does not in this place appear: but welearn elsewhere, that during the long vacancy of the see of Ely whichthe queen caused to succeed to the death of bishop Cox in 1581, a partof its revenues were appropriated to the maintenance of this unfortunatecompetitor for royalty. It was imagined however, by the projectors ofthe present expedition, that the discontent of the Portuguese under theyoke of Spain would now incline them to receive as a deliverer even thisspurious representative of their ancient race of monarchs; and donAntonio received an invitation, which he joyfully embraced, to embarkhimself and his fortunes on board the English fleet. 

[Note 99: Strype's Annals, vol. Iii. P. 450. ]

The armament consisted of 180 vessels of all kinds, carrying 21, 000 men;it set sail from Plymouth on April 18th, sir Francis Drake being admiraland sir John Norris general. The earl of Essex, urged by the romanticgallantry of his disposition, afterwards joined the expedition withseveral ships fitted out at his own expense in support of don Antonio'stitle, though he bore in it no regular command, since he sailed withoutthe consent or privity of her majesty. The first landing of the forceswas at Corunna; where having captured four ships of war in the harbour, they took and burned the lower town and made some bold attempts on theupper, which was strongly fortified: but after defeating with greatslaughter a body of Spaniards who were intrenched in the neighbourhood, sir John Norris, finding it impracticable to renew his assaults on theupper town, on account of a general want of powder in the fleet, re-embarked his men, already suffering from sickness, and made sail forPortugal. 

After some consultation they landed at Penicha, about thirty miles tothe north of Lisbon, took the castle; and having thrown into it agarrison, every man of which was afterwards put to the sword by theSpaniards, they began their march for the capital. So ill was the armyprovided, that many died on the road for want of food; and others whohad fainted with the heat must also have perished, had not Essex, withcharacteristic generosity, caused all his baggage to be thrown out, andthe carriages to be filled with the sick and weary. Instead of thetroops of nobility and gentry by whom don Antonio had flattered himselfand his companions that he should be joined and recognised, there onlyappeared upon their march a band of miserable peasants without shoes orstockings, and one gentleman who presented him with a basket of plumsand cherries. The English however proceeded, and made themselves masterswithout difficulty of the suburbs of Lisbon, in which they found greatriches; but the entreaties of don Antonio, and his anxiety to preservethe good will of the people, caused the general, to restrain his menfrom plunder. Essex distinguished himself in every skirmish; and, knocking at the gates of Lisbon itself, challenged the governor, or anyother of equal rank, to single combat: but this romantic proposal wasprudently declined; and though the city was known to be weakly guarded, the total want of battering cannon in the English army precluded thegeneral from making an assault. 

In the meantime Drake, who was to have co-operated with the land forcesby an attack upon the city from the water side, found his progresseffectually barred by the forts at the mouth of the Tagus, and was thuscompelled to relinquish all share in the enterprise. Thisdisappointment, joined to the want of ammunition and other necessaries, and the rapid progress of sickness among the men, rendered necessary aspeedy retreat and re-embarkation. About sixty vessels lying at themouth of the Tagus, laden with corn and other articles of commerce, wereseized by the English, though the property of the Hanse Towns, and Drakeand Norris in their return burned Vigo: but various disasters overtookthe fleet on its homeward voyage, subsequently to its dispersion by aviolent storm. On the whole, it was computed that not less than eleventhousand persons perished in this unfortunate and ill-plannedexpedition, by which no one important object had been attained; and thatof eleven hundred gentlemen who accompanied it, not more than threehundred and fifty escaped the united ravages of famine, sickness, andthe sword. 

The queen, on discovering that Essex had without permission absentedhimself from her court and from the duties of his office of master ofthe horse, to embark in the voyage to Portugal, had instantlydispatched a peremptory order for his return, enforced by menaces of herutmost indignation in case of disobedience; but even to this pressingmandate he had dared to turn a deaf ear. During the four or five monthstherefore of his absence, the whole court had remained in fearful orexulting anticipation of the thunderbolt about to fall on his devotedhead. But the laurels with which he had encircled his brows proved hissafeguard: Elizabeth had listened with a secret complacency to thereports of his valor and generosity which reached her through variouschannels; her tenderness had been strongly excited by the image of theperils to which he was daily exposing himself; and her joy at his safereturn, too genuine and too lively for concealment, left her so littleof the power or the wish to chide, that his pardon seemed granted evenbefore it could be implored. Essex had too much sensibility not to bedeeply touched by this affectionate behaviour on the part of hissovereign; he redoubled his efforts to deserve the oblivion of his pastoffence, and with a success so striking, that it was soon evident to allthat the temerity which might have ruined another had but heightened andconfirmed his favor. 

Essex possessed, as much as Leicester himself, the art of stimulatingElizabeth in his own behalf to acts of munificence; and she soonconsoled him by some valuable grants for any anxiety which herthreatened indignation might have occasioned him, or any disappointmentwhich he might have conceived in seeing sir Christopher Hattonpreferred by her to himself as Leicester's successor in the office ofchancellor of the university of Cambridge. 

Among the gallant adventurers in the cause of don Antonio sir WalterRaleigh had made one, and he also was received by her majesty on hisreturn with tokens of distinguished favor. But not long after heembarked for Ireland, in which country he remained without publicemployment till the spring of 1592, when he undertook an expeditionagainst the Spanish settlements in South America. 

The ostensible purpose of his visit to Ireland was to superintend themanagement of those large estates which had been granted him in thatcountry; but it was the story of the day, that "the earl of Essex hadchased Raleigh from court and confined him into Ireland[100]:" and thelength of his absence, with the known enmity between theserival-favorites, lends some countenance to the suggestion. 

[Note 100: Birch's Memoirs. ]

That Essex, even in the early days of his favor, already assumed theright of treating as interlopers such as advanced too rapidly in thegood graces of his sovereign, we learn from an incident which probablyoccurred about this time, and is thus related by Naunton. "My lordMontjoy, being but newly come to court, and then but sir Charles Blount, had the good fortune one day to run very well a tilt; and the queentherewith was so well pleased, that she sent him a token of her favor, aqueen at chess of gold, richly enamelled, which his servants had thenext day fastened on his arm with a crimson ribbon; which my lord ofEssex, as he passed through the privy chamber, espying, with his cloakcast under his arm, the better to commend it to the view, enquired whatit was, and for what cause there fixed. Sir Fulk Greville told him thatit was the queen's favor, which the day before, and after the tilting, she had sent him: whereat my lord of Essex, in a kind of emulation, andas though he would have limited her favor, said, 'Now I perceive everyfool must have a favor. '

"This bitter and public affront came to sir Charles Blount's ear, whosent him a challenge, which was accepted by my lord; and they went nearMarybonepark, where my lord was hurt in the thigh and disarmed: thequeen, missing the men, was very curious to learn the truth; and when atlast it was whispered out, she swore by God's death, it was fit thatsome one or other should take him down, and teach him better manners, otherwise there would be no rule with him[101]. "

[Note 101: Fragmenta Regalia. ]

Notwithstanding her majesty's ostentation of displeasure against herfavorite on this occasion, it is pretty certain that he could not betterhave paid his court to her than by a duel of which, in spite of herwisdom and her age, she seems to have had the weakness to imagine herpersonal charms the cause. She compelled however the rivals to bereconciled: from this period all the externals of friendship werepreserved between them; and there is even reason to believe, notwithstanding some insinuations to the contrary, that latterly atleast the sentiment became a genuine one. If the queen had furtherinsisted on cementing their reconciliation by an alliance, she wouldhave preserved from its only considerable blot the brilliant reputationof sir Charles Blount. This courtier, whilst he as yet enjoyed no higherrank than that of knighthood, had conceived an ardent passion for asister of the earl of Essex; the same who was once destined to be thebride of Philip Sidney. She returned his attachment; but her friends, judging the match inferior to her just pretensions, broke off the affairand compelled her to give her hand to lord Rich; a man of disagreeablecharacter, who was the object of her aversion. In such a marriage theunfortunate lady found it impossible to forget the lover from whomtyrannical authority had severed her; and some years after, when Montjoyreturned victorious from the Irish wars, she suffered herself to beseduced by him into a criminal connexion, which was detected after ithad subsisted for several years, and occasioned her divorce from lordRich. Her lover, now earl of Devonshire, regarded himself as bound inlove and in honor to make her his wife; but to marry a divorced woman inthe lifetime of her husband was at this time so unusual a proceeding andregarded as so violent a scandal, that Laud, then chaplain to the earlof Devonshire, who joined their hands, incurred severe blame, andthought it necessary to observe the anniversary ever after as a day ofhumiliation. King James, in whose reign the circumstance took place, long refused to avail himself further of the services of the earl; andthe disgrace and vexation of the affair embittered, and some sayabridged, the days of this otherwise admirable person. Whether anyincidents connected with this attachment had a share in producing thathostile state of feeling in the mind of Essex towards Blount which ledto their combat, remains matter of conjecture. 

This year the customary festivities on the anniversary of her majesty'saccession were attended by one of those romantic ceremonies which markso well the taste of the age and of Elizabeth. This was no other thanthe formal resignation by that veteran of the tilt-yard, sir HenryLeigh, of the office of queen's champion, so long his glory and delight. The gallant earl of Cumberland was his destined successor, and themomentous transfer was accomplished after the following fashion. 

Having first performed their respective parts in the chivalrousexercises of the band of knights-tilters, sir Henry and the earlpresented themselves to her majesty at the foot of the gallery where shewas seated, surrounded by her ladies and nobles, to view the games. Theyadvanced to slow music, and a concealed performer accompanied the strainwith the following song. 

 My golden locks time hath to silver turn'd, (Oh time too swift, and swiftness never ceasing) My youth 'gainst age, and age at' youth hath spurn'd: But spurn'd in vain, youth waneth by increasing, Beauty, strength, and youth, flowers fading been, Duty, faith, and love, are roots and evergreen. 

 My helmet now shall make a hive for bees, And lovers songs shall turn to holy psalms; A man at arms must now sit on his knees, And feed on pray'rs that are old age's alms. And so from court to cottage I depart; My saint is sure of mine unspotted heart. 

 And when I sadly sit in homely cell, I'll teach my swains this carrol for a song: "Blest be the hearts that think my sovereign well, Curs'd be the souls that think to do her wrong. " Goddess, vouchsafe this aged man his right, To be your beadsman now, that was your knight. 

During this performance, there arose out of the earth a pavilion ofwhite taffeta, supported on pillars resembling porphyry and formed toimitate the temple of the Vestal virgins. A superb altar was placedwithin it, on which were laid some rich gifts for her majesty. Beforethe gate stood a crowned pillar embraced by an eglantine, to which avotive tablet was attached, inscribed "To Elizabeth:" The gifts and thetablet being with great reverence delivered to the queen, and the agedknight in the meantime disarmed, he offered up his armour at the foot ofthe pillar; then kneeling, presented the earl of Cumberland to hermajesty, praying her to be pleased to accept of him for her knight andto continue these annual exercises. The proposal being graciouslyaccepted, sir Henry armed the earl and mounted him on his horse: thisdone, he clothed himself in a long velvet gown and covered his head, inlieu of a helmet, with "a buttoned cap of the country fashion. "

The king of Scots had now for a considerable time deserved extremelywell of Elizabeth. During the whole period of the Spanish armament hehad remained unshaken in his attachment to her cause, resolutely turninga deaf ear to the flattering offers of Philip II. With the shrewdremark, that all the favor he had to expect from this monarch in case ofhis success against England, was that of Polypheme to Ulysses;--to bedevoured the last. A bon mot which was carefully copied into _TheEnglish Mercury_. The ambassador to Scotland, from an unfounded opinionthat the discomfited armada sought shelter in the ports of that countryunder the faith of some secret engagement with James, had thought itnecessary to bribe him to fidelity by some brilliant promises, of whichwhen the danger was past Elizabeth unhandsomely evaded the fulfilment;but even on this occasion he abstained from any vehement expressions ofindignation: in short, his whole demeanour towards his lofty kinswomanwas that of a submissive expectant much more than of a competitor andrival prince. True it is, that he had begun to attach to himself amongher nobles and courtiers as many adherents as his means permitted; butbesides that his manoeuvres remained for the most part concealed fromher knowledge, they certainly carried with them no danger to hergovernment. The partisans of James were not, like those of his mother, the adherents also of a religious faction leagued with the foreignpowers most inimical to her rule, and from whose machinations she wasexposed to daily peril of her throne and life. They were protestants andEnglishmen, and many of them possessed of such strong hereditaryinfluence or official rank, that it could never become their interest tothrow the country into confusion by ill-timed efforts in favor of theking of Scots; whose cause they in fact embraced with no other view thanto secure the state from commotion, and themselves from the loss ofpower on the event of the queen's demise. The puritan party indeed, bywhom several attempts were afterwards made in parliament to extort fromthe queen a settlement of the crown in James's favor, were doubtlessactuated in part by discontent with the present church-establishment, and the hope of seeing it superseded under James by a presbyterian formresembling that of Scotland. For the present, however, thesereligionists were sufficiently repressed under the iron rod of theHigh-commission court, and James had entered with them into no regularcorrespondence, and engaged their attachment by no promises of futureindulgence or support. 

On the whole, therefore, the violent jealousy with which Elizabethcontinued to regard this feeble and inoffensive young king, in everypoint so greatly her inferior, must rather be imputed to her narrownessand malignity of temper than to any dictates of sound policy oradvisable precaution; and the measures with which it prompted her wereimpressed accordingly with every character of spite and meanness. Shewas peculiarly solicitous to prevent James from increasing hisconsequence by marriage, and through innumerable intrigues with hisministers and favorites she had hitherto succeeded in her object. Whenhe appeared to have set his mind on a union with the eldest daughter ofthe king of Denmark, she contrived to interpose so many delays andobstacles that this sovereign, conceiving himself trifled with, endedthe affair by giving the princess in marriage to another. To embarrassmatters still more, she next proposed to James a match with the sisterof the king of Navarre, a princess much older than himself, destitute offortune, and whose brother might be influenced to protract thenegotiation to any length convenient to his valuable ally the queen ofEngland. This proposal being declined by James, and overtures made inhis name to a younger daughter of the Danish house, she again set herengines at work to thwart his wishes: but indignation and an amorousimpatience for once lent to James resolution sufficient to carry hispoint. Disregarding a declaration of his privy-council against thematch, he instigated the citizens of Edinburgh to take up arms in hiscause, and finally accomplished the sending out of a splendid embassy, by which the marriage-articles were speedily settled, and the princessconducted on board the fleet which was to convey her to Scotland. Aviolent storm having driven her for shelter into a port of Norway, theyoung monarch carried his gallantry so far as to set sail in quest ofher; and re-conducting her, at the request of the king her father, toCopenhagen, he there passed the winter in great joy and festivity; andas soon as the season would permit, conducted his royal consort home intriumph, and crowned her with all the magnificence that Scotland coulddisplay. Seeing the turn which matters had taken, Elizabeth now made avirtue of necessity, and dispatched a solemn embassy to express to hergood brother of Scotland her hearty congratulations on his nuptials, andher satisfaction in his happy return from so adventurous a voyage. 

In April 1590 died sir Francis Walsingham, principal secretary of state, whose name is found in such intimate connexion with the whole domesticpolicy of Elizabeth during several eventful years, that his character isin a manner identified with that of the measures at this period pursued. 

This eminent person, in his youth an exile for the protestant cause, retained through life so serious a sense of religion as sometimes toexpose him to the suspicion of puritanism. In his private capacity hewas benevolent, friendly, and accounted a man of strict integrity: butit is right that public characters should principally be estimated bythat part of their conduct in which the public is concerned; and toWalsingham as a minister the unsullied reputation of virtue and honor isnot to be conceded. Unlike that pure and noble patriot who "would havelost his life with pleasure to serve his country, but would not havedone a base thing to save it, " this statesman seems to have held thatfew base things ought to be scrupled by which his queen and countrymight be served. 

That Walsingham was of unimpeached fidelity towards his sovereignrequires no proof; that he was not stimulated by views of privateemolument seems also to be satisfactorily evinced, though somewhat tothe discredit of his mistress, by the load of debt incurred in hisofficial capacity under the pressure of which he lived and died: buthere our praise of his public virtue must end. It is impossible toregard without indignation and disgust the system of artifice andintrigue which he contrived for the purpose of insnaring the persecutedand therefore disaffected catholics; and while due credit is given tohis unwearied diligence and remarkable sagacity in detecting dangerousconspiracies, it cannot be doubted that the extraordinary encouragementsheld out by him to spies and informers, --those pests of acommonwealth, --must in numberless instances have rendered himself thedupe, and innocent persons the victims, of designing villany. Lookingeven to the immediate results of his measures, it may triumphantly bedemanded by the philanthropist and the sage, whether a system lessartificial, less treacherous and less cruel, would not equally well havesucceeded in protecting the person of the queen from the machinations oftraitors, with the further and inestimable advantage of preserving hergovernment from reproach, and the national character from degradation. 

That the system of Walsingham was in the main that also of his court andof his age, is indeed true; and this consideration might in some degreeplead his excuse, did it not appear that there was in his personalcharacter a native subtilty and talent of insinuation which, aptlyconspiring with the nature of his office, might truly be said to renderhis duty his delight:--a feature of his mind which is thus happilydelineated by a witty and ingenious writer. 

"None alive did better ken the secretary's craft, to get counsels out ofothers and keep them in himself. Marvellous his sagacity in examiningsuspected persons, either to make them confess the truth, or confoundthemselves by denying it to their detection. Cunning his hands, whocould unpick the cabinets in the pope's conclave; quick his ears, whocould hear at London what was whispered at Rome; and numerous the spiesand eyes of this Argus dispersed in all places. 

"The Jesuits, being outshot in their own bow, complained that he outequivocated their equivocation, having a mental reservation deeper andfurther than theirs. They tax him for making heaven bow too much toearth, oft-times borrowing a point of conscience with full intent neverto pay it again; whom others excused by reasons of state and dangers ofthe times. Indeed his simulation (which all allow lawful) was as like todissimulation (condemned by all good men) as two things could be whichwere not the same. He thought that gold might, but intelligence couldnot, be bought too dear;--the cause that so great a _statesman_ left sosmall an _estate_, and so _public_ a person was so _privately_ buried inSt. Pauls[102]. "

[Note 102: Fuller's Worthies in Kent. ]

The long state of infirmity which preceded the death of Walsingham, hadafforded abundant opportunity for various intrigues and negotiationsrespecting the appointment of his successor in office. Burleigh hoped tomake the choice of her majesty fall on his son Robert; Essex wasanxious to decide it in favor of the discarded Davison, who seems tohave been performing some part of the functions of a secretary of stateduring the illness of Walsingham, though he did not venture to appear inthe sight of his still-offended mistress. No one was more susceptible ofgenerous emotions than Essex; and it ought not to be doubted that muchof the extraordinary zeal which he manifested, during two or threeentire years, in the cause of this unfortunate and ill-treated man, isto be ascribed to genuine friendship: but neither must it be concealedthat this struggle for the nomination of a secretary was in effect thegreat and decisive trial of strength between himself and the Cecils. Several letters have been printed, written by Essex to Davison andbearing date between the years 1587 and 1590, from which a few extractsmay be worth transcribing, both for the excellence of the style and thelight which they reflect on the behaviour and sentiments of Elizabeth inthis matter. "I had speech with her majesty yesternight after mydeparture from you, and I did find that the success of my speech(although I hoped for good) yet did much overrun my expectation. . . . Imade her majesty see what, in your health, in your fortune, in yourreputation in the world, you had suffered since the time that it was herpleasure to commit you; I told her how many friends and well-wishers theworld did afford you, and how, for the most part, throughout the wholerealm her best subjects did wish that she would do herself the honor torepair for you and restore to you that state which she had overthrown;your humble suffering of these harms and reverend regard to her majesty, must needs move a princess so noble and so just, to do you right; andmore I had said, if my gift of speech had been any way comparable to mylove. Her majesty, seeing her judgement opened by the story of her ownactions, showed a very feeling compassion of you, she gave you manypraises, and among the rest, that she seemed to please herself in was, that you were a man of her own choice. In truth she was so well pleasedwith those things that she spake and heard of you, that I dare (if ofthings future there be any assurance) promise to myself that your peacewill be made to your content and the desire of your friends, I mean inher favor and your own fortune, to a better estate than, or at least thesame you had, which with all my power I will employ myself to effect. "&c. 

That these sanguine hopes were soon checked, appears by the followingpassage of a subsequent letter. "I have, as I could, taken myopportunity since I saw you to perform as much as I promised you; andthough in all I have been able to effect nothing, yet even now I havehad better leisure to solicit the queen than in this stormy time I didhope for. My beginning was, as being amongst others entreated to moveher in your behalf; my course was, to lay open your sufferings and yourpatience; in them you had felt poverty, restraint and disgrace, and yetyou showed nothing but faith and humility; faith, as being never weariednor discouraged to do her service, humbleness, as content to forget allthe burdens that had been laid upon you, and to serve her majesty withas frank and willing a heart as they that have received greatest gracefrom her. To this I received no answer but in general terms, that herhonor was much touched; your presumption had been intolerable, and thatshe could not let it slip out of her mind. When I urged your access shedenied it, but so as I had no cause to be afraid to speak again. When Ioffered in them both to reply, she fell into other discourse, and so weparted. " &c. 

On the death of Walsingham he writes thus. . . . "Upon this unhappyaccident I have tried to the bottom what the queen will do for you, andwhat the credit of your solicitor is worth. I urged not the comparisonbetween you and any other, but in my duty to her and zeal to her serviceI did assure her, that she had not any other in England that would forthese three or four years know how to settle himself to support so greata burden. She gave me leave to speak, heard me with patience, confessedwith me that none was so sufficient, and would not deny but that whichshe lays to your charge was done without hope, fear, malice, envy, orany respects of your own, but merely for her safety both of state andperson. In the end she absolutely denied to let you have that place andwilled me to rest satisfied, for she was resolved. Thus much I write tolet you know, I am more honest to my friends than happy in their cases. "&c. 

As the fear of giving offence to the king of Scots was one reason orpretext for the implacability of the queen towards Davison, Essexhazarded the step of writing to request, as a personal favor tohimself, the forgiveness and good offices of this monarch in behalf ofthe man who bore the blame of his mother's death. Nothing could be moredexterous than the turn of this letter; but what reception it found wedo not discover. On the whole, all his efforts were unavailing: thelonger Elizabeth reflected on the matter, the less she felt herself ableto forgive the _presumption_ of the rash man who had anticipated herfinal resolution on the fate of Mary. Other considerations probablyconcurred; as, the apprehension which seems to have been of perpetualrecurrence to her mind, of rendering her young favorite too confidentand presuming by an uniform course of success in his applications toher; the habitual ascendency of Burleigh; and, probably, some distrustof the capacity of Davison for so difficult and important a post. 

In conclusion, no principal secretary was at present appointed; butRobert Cecil was admitted as an assistant to his father, who resumed onthis condition the duties of the office, and held it, as it were intrust, till her majesty, six years afterwards, was pleased to sanctionhis resignation in favor of his son, now fully established in herconfidence and good opinion. Of Davison nothing further is known;probably he did not long survive. 

Some time in the year 1590, the earl of Essex married in a privatemanner the widow of sir Philip Sidney, and daughter of Walsingham; astep with which her majesty did not scruple to show herself highlyoffended. The inferiority of the connexion in the two articles of birthand fortune to the just pretensions of the earl, and the circumstancethat the union had been formed without that previous consultation of hergracious pleasure, --which from her high nobility and favorite courtiers, and especially from those who, like Essex and his lady, shared the honorof her relationship, she expected as a homage and almost claimed as aright, --were the ostensible grounds of her displeasure. But thatpeculiar compound of ungenerous feelings which rendered her theuniversal foe of matrimony, exalted on this occasion by a jealousy toohumiliating to be owned, but too powerful to be repressed, formedwithout doubt the more genuine sources of her deep chagrin. Thecourtiers quickly penetrated the secret of her heart;--for what vice, what weakness, can long lurk unsuspected in a royal bosom? and it isthus that John Stanhope, one of her attendants, ventures to write on thesubject to lord Talbot. 

"This night, God willing, she will to Richmond, and on Saturday next toSomerset-house, and if she could overcome her passion against my lord ofEssex for his marriage, no doubt she would be much quieter; yet doth sheuse it more temperately than was thought for, and, God be thanked, dothnot strike all that she threats[103]. The earl doth use it with goodtemper, concealing his marriage as much as so open a matter may be: notthat he denies it to any, but for her majesty's better satisfaction, ispleased that my lady shall live very retired in her mother'shouse. [104]"

[Note 103: It may be regarded as dubious whether this expression isto be understood literally or metaphorically. ]

[Note 104: "Illustrations" by Lodge. ]

On the whole, the indignation of the queen against Essex stopped veryshort of the rage with which she had been transported against Leicesteron a similar occasion; she never even talked of sending him to prisonfor his marriage. Her good sense came to her assistance somewhat indeedtoo late for her own dignity, but soon enough to intercept any seriousmischief to the earl; and having found leisure to reflect on the follyand disgrace of openly maintaining an ineffectual resentment, she soonafter readmitted the offender to the same station of seeming favor asbefore. There has appeared however some ground to suspect that the queennever entirely dismissed her feelings of mortification; or again reposedin Essex the same unbounded confidence with which she had once honoredhim. From a passage of a letter addressed by lord Buckhurst to sirRobert Sidney, then governor of the Brill, we learn, that in the autumnof the next year she still retained such displeasure against sir Robertfor having been present at a banquet given by Essex, either on occasionof his marriage, or with a view to the furtherance of some design of hiswhich excited her suspicion, that she could not be induced to grant himleave of absence for a visit to England. 

But cares and occupations of a nature peculiarly uncongenial with theindulgence of sentimental sorrows, now claimed, and not in vain, theserious thoughts of this prudent and vigilant princess. The low stateof her finances, exhausted by no wasteful prodigalities, but by thenecessary measures of national defence and the politic aid which she hadextended to the United Provinces and to the French Hugonots, nowthreatened to place her in a painful dilemma. She must either desert herallies, and suffer her navy to relapse into the dangerous state ofweakness from which she had exerted all her efforts to raise it, orsummon a new parliament for the purpose of making fresh demands upon thepurses of her people; and this at the risk either of shaking theirattachment, or, --a humiliation not to be endured, --seeing herselfcompelled to sacrifice to the importunities of the popular members someof the more oppressive branches of her prerogative; the right ofpurveyance for instance, or that of granting monopolies; both of whichshe had suffered to grow into enormous grievances. Mature reflectiondiscovered to her, however, a third alternative; that of practising astill stricter oeconomy on one hand, and on the other, of increasingthe productiveness to the exchequer of the customs and other branches ofrevenue, by reforming abuses, by detecting frauds and embezzlements, andby cutting off the exorbitant profits of collectors. 

This last plan, which best accorded with her disposition, was thatadopted by Elizabeth. It may be mentioned as a characteristic trait, that a few years before, she had accepted with thanks an offer secretlymade to herself by some person holding an inferior station in thecustoms, of a full disclosure of the impositions practised upon her inthat department. She had admitted this voluntary informer several timesto her presence; had imposed silence in the tone of a mistress on theremonstrances of Leicester, Burleigh, and Walsingham, who indignantlyurged that he was not of a rank to be thus countenanced in accusation ofhis superiors; and had reaped the reward of this judicious patronage, byfinding herself entitled to demand from her farmer of the customs anannual rent of forty-two thousand pounds, instead of the twelve thousandpounds which he had formerly paid. She now exacted from him a furtheradvance of eight thousand pounds per annum; and stimulated Burleigh tosuch a rigid superintendence of all the details of public oeconomy asproduced a very important general result. It was probably in the ensuingparliament that a conference being held between the two housesrespecting a bill for making the patrimonial estates of accountantsliable for their arrears to the queen, and the commons desiring that itmight not be retrospective, the lord treasurer pithily said; "My lords, if you had lost your purse by the way, would you look back or forwardsto find it? The queen hath lost her purse. "

This rigid parsimony, at once the virtue and the foible of Elizabeth, was attended accordingly with its good and its evil. It endeared her tothe people, whom it protected from the imposition of new and oppressivetaxes; but, being united in the complex character of this remarkablewoman with an extraordinary taste for magnificence in all that relatedto her personal appearance, it betrayed her into a thousand meannesses, which, in spite of all the arts of graciousness in which she was anadept, served to alienate the affections of such as more nearlyapproached her. Her nobles found themselves heavily burthened by thelong and frequent visits which she paid them at their country-seats, attended always by an enormous retinue; as well as by the contributionsto her jewelry and wardrobe which custom required of them under the nameof new year's gifts, and on all occasions when they had favors, or evenjustice, to ask at her hands[105]. There were few of the inferiorsuitors and court-attendants composing the crowd by which she had avanity in seeing herself constantly surrounded, who did not find causebitterly to rue the day when first her hollow smiles and flatteringspeeches seduced them to long years of irksome, servile, and oftenprofitless assiduity. 

[Note 105: Lists of the New Year's Gifts received by Elizabethduring many years have more than once appeared in print. They show thatnot only jewels, trinkets, rich robes, and every ornamental article ofdress, were abundantly supplied to her from this source, but that setsof body linen worked with black silk round the bosom and sleeves, wereregarded as no inappropriate offering from peers of the realm to themaiden-queen. The presents of the bishops and of some of the nobilityalways consisted of gold pieces, to the value of from five to twenty orthirty pounds, contained in embroidered silk purses. Her majestydistributed at the same season pieces of gilt plate; but not always tothe same persons from whom she had received presents, nor, apparently, to an equal amount. ]

Bacon in his Apophthegms relates on this subject the following anecdote. "Queen Elizabeth, seeing sir Edward---- in her garden, looked out ather window and asked him, in Italian, 'What does a man think of when hethinks of nothing?' Sir Edward, who had not had the effect of some ofthe queen's grants so soon as he had hoped and desired, paused a little, and then made answer; 'Madam, he thinks of a woman's promise. ' The queenshrunk in her head, but was heard to say; 'Well, sir Edward, I must notconfute you: Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor. '"

"Queen Elizabeth, " says the same author, "was dilatory enough in suitsof her own nature; and the lord treasurer Burleigh, being a wise man, and willing therein to feed her humor, would say to her; 'Madam, you dowell to let suitors stay; for I shall tell you, _Bis dat qui cito dat_;if you grant them speedily, they will come again the sooner. '"

It is probable that the popular story of this minister's interceptingthe very moderate bounty which her majesty had proposed to herself thehonor of bestowing on Spenser, is untrue with respect to this greatpoet; since the four lines relating to the circumstance, "Madam, You bid your treasurer on a time To give me reason for my rhime, But from that time and that season I have had nor rhyme nor reason, "

long attributed to Spenser, are now known to be Churchyard's. Yet thatthe author of the _Faery Queen_ had similar injuries to endure, ismanifest from those lines of unrivalled energy in which the poet, fromthe bitterness of his soul, describes the miseries of a profitlesscourt-attendance. Few readers will have forgotten a passage socelebrated; but it will here be read with peculiar interest, asillustrative of the character of Elizabeth and the sufferings of herunfortunate courtiers. 

 "Full little knowest thou that hast not tried What hell it is in suing long to bide; To lose good days that might be better spent; To waste long nights in pensive discontent; To speed today, to be put back tomorrow; To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow; To have thy prince's grace, yet want her peers; To have thy asking, yet wait many years; To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares; To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs; To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run; To spend, to give, to want, to be undone. "

 _Mother Hubbard's Tale. _

One of the most laudable objects of the parsimony exercised by Elizabethat this period was that of enabling herself to afford effectual aid toHenry IV. Of France, now struggling, with adverse fortune but invincibleresolution, to conquer from the united armies of Spain and the Leaguethe throne which was his birthright. In the depth of his distress, justwhen his Swiss and German auxiliaries were on the point of disbandingthemselves for want of pay, the friendship of Elizabeth came in aid ofhis necessities with a supply of twenty-two thousand pounds; a sum, trifling as it may seem in modern estimation, which sufficed to rescueHenry from his immediate embarrassment, and which he frankly avowed tobe the largest he had ever seen. The generosity of his ally did not stophere; for she speedily equipped a body of four thousand men and sentthem to join him at Dieppe under command of the gallant lord Willoughby. By this reinforcement Henry was enabled to march to Paris and possesshimself of its suburbs, and subsequently to engage in several otherenterprises, in which he gratefully acknowledged the eminent servicerendered him by the valor and fidelity of this band of English. 

The next year Elizabeth, alarmed at seeing several of the ports ofBretagne opposite to her own shores garrisoned by Spanish troops, whomthe Leaguers had called in to their assistance, readily entered into anew treaty with Henry, by virtue of which she sent a fresh supply ofthree thousand men to assist him in the recovery of this province. Herexpenses however were to be repaid by the king after the expulsion ofthe enemy. 

Sir John Norris, the appointed leader of this force, ranked among themost eminent of Elizabeth's captains; and was also possessed of somehereditary claims to her regard, which she did not fail to acknowledgeas far as the jealousy of her favorites would give her leave. One of sirJohn's grandfathers was that Norris who suffered in the cause of AnneBoleyn; the other was lord Williams of Tame, to whom she had herselfbeen indebted for so much respectful attention in the days of hergreatest adversity. She had called up his father to the house of peers, as lord Norris of Ricot; and his mother she constantly addressed by asingular term of endearment, "My own Crow. " This pair had six sons, ofwhom sir John was the eldest;--all, it is said, brave men, addicted toarms, and much respected by her majesty. But an unfortunate quarrel withthe four sons of sir Francis Knolles, their Oxfordshire neighbour, arising out of a tournament in which the two brotherhoods were opposedto each other, procured to the Norrises the lasting enmity of thisfamily, which, strong both by its relationship to the queen and itsclose alliance with Leicester, was able to impede their advancement tostations equal to their merits. 

Sir John Norris learned the rudiments of military science under thecelebrated admiral Coligni, to whom in his early youth he acted as apage; and he enlarged his experience as captain of the Englishvolunteers who in 1578 generously carried the assistance of their swordsto the oppressed Netherlanders when they had rushed to arms in thesacred cause of liberty and conscience. This gallant band particularlysignalized its valor in the repulse of an assault made by don John ofAustria upon the Dutch camp; a hot action in which Norris had threehorses shot under him. In 1588 he was a distinguished member of thecouncil of war. The expedition to Portugal in which he commanded hasbeen already related, and its ill-success was certainly imputable to nowant of courage or conduct on his part. In the war of Bretagne he gainedhigh praise by a skilful retreat, in which he drew off his small band ofEnglish safe and entire amid a host of foes. We shall afterwards hearof him in a high command in Ireland. 

Military glory was the darling object of the ambition of Essex; andjealous perhaps of the fame which sir John Norris was acquiring in theFrench wars, he prevailed upon the queen to grant him the command of afresh body of troops destined to assist Henry in expelling the Leaguersfrom Normandy. The new general was deeply mortified at being obliged toremain for some time inactive at Dieppe, while the French king wascarrying his arms into another quarter, whither Essex was restrained bythe positive commands of his sovereign from following him. At lengththey formed in concert the siege of Rouen; but when the town was nearlyreduced to extremity, an unexpected march of the duke of Parma compelledHenry to desert the enterprise. Elizabeth made it a subject of complaintagainst her ally, that the English soldiers were always thrust foremoston every occasion of danger; but by themselves this perilous preeminencewas claimed as a privilege due to the brilliancy of their valor; andtheir leader, delighted with the spirit which they displayed, encouragedand rewarded it by distributing among his officers, with a profusionwhich highly offended his sovereign, the honor of knighthood, bestowedby herself with so much selection and reserve. Essex supported hischaracter for personal courage, and indulged his impetuous temper, bysending an idle challenge to the governor of Rouen, who seems to haveknown his duty too well to accept it; but his sanguine anticipations ofsome distinguished success were baffled by a want of correspondencebetween the plans of Henry and the commands of Elizabeth; perhaps alsoin some degree by his own deficiency in the skill of a general. He hadthe further grief to lose by a musket-shot his only brother WalterDevereux, a young man of great hopes to whom he was fondly attached; andleaving his men before Rouen, under the conduct of sir Roger Williams, abrave soldier, he returned with little glory in the beginning of 1592 tosoothe the displeasure of the queen and combat the malicious suggestionsof his enemies. In this bloodless warfare better success awaited him. His partial mistress received with favor his excuses; and not onlyrestored him to her wonted grace, but soon after testified her opinionof his abilities by granting him admission into the privy-council. 

The royal progress of this year in Sussex and Hampshire affords somecircumstances worthy of mention. Viscount Montacute, (now writtenMontagu, ) a nobleman in much esteem with Elizabeth, though a zealouscatholic, solicited the honor of entertaining her at his seat of Coudraynear Midhurst; a mansion splendid enough to attract the curiosity andadmiration of a royal visitant. The manor of Midhurst, in which Coudrayis situated, had belonged during several ages to a branch of the potentfamily of Bohun; thence it passed into possession of the Nevils, a racesecond to none in England in the antiquity of its nobility and thesplendor of its alliances. It thus became a part of the vast inheritanceof Margaret countess of Salisbury, daughter of George duke of Clarence. Coudray-house was the principal residence of this illustrious andinjured lady, and it was here that the discovery took place of thosepapal bulls and emblematical banners which afforded a pretext to maliceand rapacity to arm themselves against the miserable remnant of herdays. 

By the attainder of the countess, this with the rest of her estatesbecame forfeited to the crown; but the tyrant Henry was prevailed uponto regrant it, in exchange for other lands, to the heirs of hergreat-uncle John Nevil marquis Montagu. From an heir female of thisbranch viscount Montagu, son of sir Anthony Brown master of the horse toHenry VIII. , derived it and his title, conferred by queen Mary. But tothe ancient mansion there had previously been substituted by hishalf-brother the earl of Southampton, a costly structure decoratedinternally with that profusion of homely art which displayed the wealthand satisfied the taste of a courtier of Henry VIII. The building was asusual quadrangular, with a great gate flanked by two towers in thecentre of the principal front. At the upper end of the hall stood abuck, as large as life, carved in brown wood, bearing on his shoulderthe shield of England and under it that of Brown with, many quarterings:ten other bucks, in various attitudes and of the size of life, wereplanted at intervals. There was a parlour more elegantly adorned withthe works of Holbein and his scholars;--a chapel richly furnished;--along gallery painted with the twelve apostles;--and a corresponding onehung with family pictures and with various old paintings on subjectsreligious and military, brought from Battle Abbey, the spoils of whichhad been assigned to sir Anthony Brown as that share of the generalplunder of the monasteries to which his long and faithful service hadentitled him from the bounty of his master. 

Amongst other particulars of the visit of her majesty at Coudray, we aretold that on the morning after her arrival she rode in the park, where"a delicate bower" was prepared, and a nymph with a sweet song deliveredher a cross-bow to shoot at the deer, of which she killed three or fourand the countess of Kildare one:--it may be added, that this was a kindof amusement not unfrequently shared by the ladies of that age; anadditional trait of the barbarity of manners. 

Viscount Montagu died two years after this visit, and, to complete hisstory, lies buried in Midhurst church under a splendid monument ofmany-colored marbles, on which may still be seen a figure representinghim kneeling before an altar, in fine gilt armour, with a cloak and"beard of formal cut. " Beneath are placed recumbent effigies of his twowives dressed in rich cloaks and ruffs, with chained unicorns at theirfeet, and the whole is surrounded with sculptured scutcheons laboriouslyexecuted with innumerable quarterings. 

At Elvetham in Hampshire the queen was sumptuously entertained during avisit of four days by the earl of Hertford. This nobleman was reputed tobe master of more ready money than any other person in the kingdom; andthough the cruel imprisonment of nine years, by which Elizabeth haddoomed him to expiate the offence of a clandestine union with theblood-royal, could scarcely have been obliterated from his indignantmemory, certain considerations respecting the interests of his childrenmight probably render him not unwilling to gratify her by a splendid actof homage, though peculiar circumstances increased beyond measure theexpense and inconvenience of her present visit. Elvetham, which waslittle more than a hunting-seat, was far from possessing sufficientaccommodation for the court, and the earl was obliged to supply itsdeficiencies by very extensive erections of timber, fitted up andfurnished with all the elegance that circumstances would permit. Helikewise found it necessary to cause a large pond to be dug, in whichwere formed three islands, artificially constructed in the likeness of afort, a ship, and a mount, for the exhibition of fireworks and othersplendid pageantries. The water was made to swarm with swimming andwading sea-gods, who blew trumpets instead of shells, and recited versesin praise of her majesty: finally, a tremendous battle was enactedbetween the Tritons of the pond and certain sylvan deities of the park, which was long and valiantly disputed, with darts on one side and largesquirts on the other, and suddenly terminated, to the delight of allbeholders, by the seizure and submersion of old Sylvanus himself. 

Elizabeth quitted Elvetham so highly gratified by the attentions of thenoble owner, that she made him a voluntary promise of her special favorand protection; but we shall find hereafter, that her long-enduringdispleasure against him relative to his first marriage was not yet soentirely laid aside but that a slight pretext was sufficient to bring itonce more into malignant activity. 

Early in the same summer the queen had also paid a visit to lordBurleigh at his favorite seat in Hertfordshire, of which sir ThomasWylks thus speaks in a letter to sir Robert Sidney:

"I suppose you have heard of her majesty's great entertainment atTheobalds', of her knighting Mr. Robert Cecil, and of the expectation ofhis advancement to the secretaryship; but so it is as we say in court, that the knighthood must serve for both[106]. "

[Note 106: "Sidney Papers. "]

Sir Christopher Hatton died in the latter end of the year 1591. Itappears that he had been languishing for a considerable time under amortal disease; yet the vulgar appetite for the wonderful and thetragical occasioned it to be reported that he died of a broken heart, inconsequence of her majesty's having demanded of him, with a rigor whichhe had not anticipated, the payment of certain moneys received by himfor tenths and first fruits: it was added, that struck with compunctionon learning to what extremity her severity had reduced him, her majestyhad paid him several visits, and endeavoured by her gracious andsoothing speeches to revive his failing spirits;--but that the blow wasstruck, and her repentance came too late. It is indeed certain that thequeen manifested great interest in the fate of her chancellor, and paidhim during his last illness very extraordinary personal attentions:--butit ought to be mentioned, in refutation of the former part of the story, that she remitted to his nephew and heir, who was married to agrand-daughter of Burleigh's, all her claims on the property which heleft behind him. 

During his lifetime, also, Hatton seems to have tasted more largely thanmost of his competitors of the solid fruits of royal favor. Elizabethpersevered in the practice originating in the reigns of her father andbrother, of endowing her courtiers out of the spoils of the church. Sometimes, to the public scandal, she would keep a bishopric many yearsvacant for the sake of appropriating its whole revenues to secular usesand persons; and still more frequently, the presentation to a see wasgiven under the condition, express or implied, that certain manorsshould be detached from its possessions, or beneficial leases of landsand tenements granted to particular persons. Thus the bishop of Ely wasrequired to make a cession to sir Christopher Hatton of the garden andorchard of Ely-house near Holborn; on the refusal of the prelate tosurrender property which he regarded himself as bound in honor andconscience to transmit unimpaired to his successors, Hatton institutedagainst him a chancery suit; and having at length succeeded in wrestingfrom him the land, made it the site of a splendid house surrounded bygardens, which have been succeeded by the street still bearing his name. He had even sufficient interest with her majesty to cause her toaddress to the bishop the following violent letter, several times, withsome variations, reprinted. 

 * * * * *

"Proud prelate;

"I understand you are backward in complying with your agreement; but Iwould have you to know, that I who made you what you are can unmake you;and if you do not forthwith fulfil your engagement, by God I willimmediately unfrock you. 

"Yours as you demean yourself, "ELIZABETH. "

 * * * * *

Sir John Harrington, in his Brief View of the Church of England, accusesthe lord-chancellor Hatton of coveting likewise a certain manor attachedto the see of Bath and Wells, and of inflaming the queen's indignationagainst bishop Godwin on account of his second marriage, in order tofrighten him into compliance; a manoeuvre which in part succeeded, since the bishop was reduced, by way of compromise, to grant him a longlease of another manor somewhat inferior in value. 

With all this, Hatton, as we have formerly observed, was distinguishedas the patron of the established church against the puritans: but hiszeal in its behalf, whether real or affected, was attended by a spiritof moderation then rare and always commendable. He disliked, andsometimes checked, the oppressions exercised against the papists by therigid enforcement of recent statutes; and he is reported to have heldthe doctrine, at that time a novel one, that neither fire nor steelought ever to be employed on a religious account. 

The chancellor, besides his other merits and accomplishments, was acultivator of the drama. In 1568 a tragedy was performed before hermajesty, and afterwards published, entitled Tancred and Gismund, orGismonde of Salerne, the joint performance of five students of theTemple, who appear each to have taken an act; the fourth bears thesignature of Hatton. It is also probable that he gave the queen someassistance in similar pursuits, as her translation of a part of thetragedy of Hercules Oetæus, preserved in the Bodleian, is in hishandwriting. 

But it was never forgotten by others, nor apparently by himself, that hewas brought into notice by his dancing; and we learn from a contemporaryletter-writer, that even after he had attained the dignity of lordchancellor he laid aside his gown to dance at the wedding of his nephew. The circumstance is pleasantly alluded to by Gray in the description ofStoke-Pogeis house with which his "Long Story" opens. 

 "In Britain's isle, no matter where, An ancient pile of building stands; The Huntingdons and Hattons there Employed the power of fairy hands

 To raise the ceiling's fretted height, Each pannel in achievements clothing, Rich windows that exclude the light, And passages that lead to nothing. 

 Full oft within the spacious walls, When he had fifty winters o'er him, My grave lord keeper led the brawls, The seal and maces danced before him. 

 His bushy beard and shoe-strings green, His high-crown'd hat and satin doublet, Moved the stout heart of England's queen, Though pope and Spaniard could not trouble it. "

As chancellor of Oxford, Hatton was succeeded by lord Buckhurst, to thefresh mortification of Essex, who again advanced pretensions to thishonorary office, and was a second time baffled by her majesty's openinterference in behalf of his competitor. 

The more important post of lord chancellor remained vacant for somemonths, the seals being put in commission; after which serjeantPickering was appointed lord keeper, --a person of respectable character, who appears to have performed the duties of his office without takingany conspicuous part in the court factions, or exercising any markedinfluence over the general administration of affairs. 

Towards one person of considerable note in his day, sir John Perrot, some time deputy of Ireland, Hatton is reported to have acted the partof an industrious and contriving enemy; being provoked by the tauntswhich sir John was continually throwing out against him as one who "hadentered the court in a galliard, " and further instigated by thecomplaints, well or ill founded, against the deputy, of some of hisparticular friends and adherents. 

Sir John Perrot derived from a considerable family of that name seatedat Haroldstone in Pembrokeshire, his name and large estates; but hisfeatures, his figure, his air, and common fame, gave him king HenryVIII. For a father. Nor was his resemblance to this redoubted monarchmerely external; his temper was haughty and violent, his behaviour_blustering_, his language always coarse, and, in the fits of rage towhich he was subject, abusive to excess. Yet was he destitute neither ofmerit nor abilities. As president of Munster, he had rendered greatservices to her majesty in 1572 by his vigorous conduct against therebels. As lord deputy of Ireland between the years 1584 and 1588, hehad made efforts still more praiseworthy towards the pacification ofthat unhappy and ill-governed country, by checking as much as possiblethe oppressions of every kind exercised by the English of the paleagainst the miserable natives, towards whom his policy was liberal andbenevolent. But his attempts at reformation armed against him, as usual, a host of foes, amongst whom was particularly distinguished Loftusarchbishop of Dublin, whom he had exasperated by proposing to apply therevenues of St. Patrick's cathedral to the foundation of an universityin the capital of Ireland. Forged letters were amongst the means towhich the unprincipled malice of his adversaries resorted for hisdestruction. One of these atrocious fabrications, in which an Irishchieftain was made to complain of excessive injustice on the part of thedeputy, was detected by the exertions of the supposed writer, whomPerrot had in reality attached to himself by many benefits; but a secondletter, which contained a protection to a catholic priest and made himemploy the words _our_ castle of Dublin, _our_ kingdom of Ireland, produced a fatally strong impression on the jealous mind of Elizabeth. 

Meantime the ill-fated deputy, conscious of his own fidelity andessential loyalty, and unsuspicious of the snares spread around him, wasoften unguarded enough to give vent in gross and furious invectiveagainst the person of majesty itself, to the profound vexation which he, in common with all preceding and following governors of Ireland underElizabeth, was destined to endure from the penury of her supplies andthe magnitude of her requisitions. His words were all carried to thequeen, mingled with such artful insinuations as served to impart tothese unmeaning ebullitions of a hasty temper the air of deliberatecontempt and meditated disloyalty towards his sovereign. 

Just before the sailing of the armada, Perrot was recalled, partlyindeed at his own request. A rigid or rather a malicious inquiry wasthen instituted into all the details of his actions, words and behaviourin Ireland, and he was committed to the friendly custody of lordBurleigh. Afterwards, the lords Hunsdon and Buckhurst, with two or threeother councillors, were ordered to search and seize his papers in thehouse of the lord treasurer without the participation of this greatminister, who was at once offended and alarmed at the step. Perrot wascarried to the Tower, and at length, in April 1592, put upon his trialfor high treason. The principal heads of accusation were;--hiscontemptuous words of the queen;--his secret encouragement of O'Rourk'srebellion and the Spanish invasion, and his favoring of traitors. Of allthese charges except the first he seems to have proved his innocence, and on this he excused himself by the heat of his temper and the absenceof all ill intention from his mind. He was however found guilty by ajury much more studious of the reputation of loyalty than careful of therights of Englishmen. 

On leaving the bar, he is reported to have exclaimed, "God's death! willthe queen suffer her brother to be offered up as a sacrifice to the envyof my frisking adversaries!"

The queen felt the force of this appeal to the ties of blood. It waslong before she could be brought to confirm his sentence, and she wouldnever sign a warrant for its execution. Burleigh shed tears on hearingthe verdict, saying with a sigh, that hatred was always the moreinveterate the less it was deserved. 

Elizabeth, when her first emotions of anger had passed away, was nowfrequently heard to praise that rescript of the emperor Theodosius inwhich it is thus written:--

"Should any one have spoken evil of the emperor, if through levity, itshould be despised; if through insanity, pitied; if through malice, forgiven. " She is likewise said, in language more familiar to her, tohave sworn a great oath that they who accused Perrot were all knaves, and he an honest and faithful man. It was accordingly presumed that sheentertained the design of extending to him the royal pardon; but hermercy, if such it merits to be called, was tardy; and in September 1592, six months after his condemnation, this victim of malice perished in theTower, of disease, according to Camden; but, by other accounts, of abroken heart. In either case the story is an affecting one, and worthyto be had in lasting remembrance, as a striking and terrible example ofthe potency of court-intrigue, and the guilty subserviency of judicialtribunals under the jealous rule of the last of the Tudors. 

English literature, under the auspices of Elizabeth and her learnedcourt, had been advancing with a steady and rapid progress; and it maybe interesting to contemplate the state of one of its fairest provincesas exhibited by the pen of an able critic, who in the year 1589 gave tothe world an Art of English Poesy. This work, though addressed to thequeen, was published with a dedication by the printer to lord Burleigh;for the author thought proper to remain concealed: on its firstappearance its merit caused it to be ascribed to Spenser by some, and byothers to Sidney; but it was traced at length to Puttenham, one of hermajesty's gentleman-pensioners, the author of some adulatory poemsaddressed to her and called Partheniads, and of various other pieces nowlost. 

The subject is here methodically treated in three books; the first, "OfPoets and Poesy;" the second, "Of Proportion;" the third, "Of Ornament. "After some remarks on the origin of the art and its earliest professors, and an account of the various kinds of poems known to the ancients, --inwhich there is an absence of pedantry, of quaintness, and of everyspecies of puerility, very rare among the didactic writers of theage, --the critic proceeds to an enumeration of our principal vernacularpoets, or "_vulgar makers_, " as he is pleased to anglicize the words. Beginning with a just tribute to Chaucer, as the father of genuineEnglish verse, he passes rapidly to the latter end of the reign of HenryVIII. , when, as he observes, there "sprung up a new company of courtlymakers, of whom sir Thomas Wyat the elder and Henry earl of Surry werethe two chieftains; who having travelled into Italy, and there tastedthe sweet and stately measures and style of the Italian poesy, asnovices newly crept out of the schools of Dante, Arioste, and Petrarch, they greatly polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar poesy, fromthat it had been before, and for that cause may justly be said the firstreformers of our English metre and style[107]. "

[Note 107: I have quoted this passage partly for the sake of theexpress and authentic testimony which it bears to the fact of Surry'shaving visited Italy, which Mr. Chalmers and after him Dr. Nott, intheir respective biographies of the noble poet, have been induced tocall in question. ]

After slight notice of the minor poets, who flourished under Edward VI. And Mary, he goes on to observe that "in her majesty's time that now is, are sprung up another crew of courtly makers, noblemen and gentlemen ofher majesty's own servants, who have written excellently well, as itwould appear if their doing could be found out and made public with therest. " And in a subsequent passage he thus awards to each of them hisappropriate commendation. "Of the latter sort I think thus: That fortragedy the lord Buckhurst and master Edward Ferrys (Ferrers), for suchdoings as I have seen of theirs do deserve the highest price. The earlof Oxford and master Edwards of her majesty's chapel for comedy andinterlude. For eglogue and pastoral poesy, sir Philip Sidney and masterChaloner, and that other gentleman who wrate the late 'Shepherd'sCalendar'[108]. For dirty and amorous ode I find sir Walter Raleigh'svein most lofty, insolent and passionate. Master Edward Dyer for elegy, most sweet, solemn and of high conceit. Gascoigne for a good metre andfor a plentiful vein. Phaer and Golding for a learned and well correctedverse, specially in translation clear and very faithfully answeringtheir author's intent. Others have also written with much facility, butmore commendably perchance if they had not written so much nor sopopularly[109]. " The passage concludes with a piece of flattery to hermajesty in her poetical capacity, unworthy of transcription. 

[Note 108: Spenser published this work under the signature of"Immerito. "]

[Note 109: Art of English Poesy, book i. ]

Under the head of "Poetical proportion" or metre, our author writeslearnedly of the measures of the ancients, and on those employed by ournative poets with singular taste and judgement, except that theartist-like pride in difficulty overcome has inspired him with anunwarrantable fondness for verses arranged in eggs, roundels, lozenges, triquets, and other ingenious figures, of which he has given diagramsfurther illustrated by finished specimens of his own construction. 

Great efforts had been made about this period by a literary party, ofwhich Stainhurst the translator of Virgil, Sidney and Gabriel Herveywere the leaders, to introduce the Greek and Roman measures intoEnglish verse, and Puttenham has judged it necessary to compose achapter thus intituled: "How, if all manner of sudden innovations werenot very scandalous, specially in the laws of any language or art, theuse of Greek and Latin feet might be brought into our vulgar poesy, andwith good grace enough. " But it is evident on the whole, that he bore nogood will to this pedantic novelty. 

In treating of "Ornament, " our author enumerates, explains andexemplifies all the rhetorical figures of the Greeks; adding, for thebenefit of courtiers and ladies, to whom his work is principallyaddressed, translations of their names; several of which would requireto be retranslated for the benefit of the modern reader, as for examplethe three following, all figures of derision:--"The fleeringfrump;"--"The broad flout;"--"The privy nip. " At the present day, however, the work of Puttenham is most of all to be valued for theremarks on language and on manners, and the contemporary anecdotes withwhich it abounds, and of which some examples may be quoted. Afterobserving that "as it hath been always reputed a great fault to usefigurative speeches foolishly and indiscreetly, so it is esteemed noless an imperfection in man's utterance, to have none use of figure atall, specially in our writing and speeches public, making them but asour ordinary talk, than which nothing can be more unsavory and far fromall civility:--'I remember, ' says he, 'in the first year of queen Mary'sreign a knight of Yorkshire was chosen speaker of the parliament, agood gentleman and wise, in the affairs of his shire, and not unlearnedin the laws of the realm; but as well for lack of some of his teeth asfor want of language, nothing well spoken, which at that time andbusiness was most behoveful for him to have been: this man, after he hadmade his oration to the queen; which ye know is of course to be done atthe first assembly of both houses; a bencher of the Temple, both welllearned and very eloquent, returning from the parliament house askedanother gentleman his friend how he liked Mr. Speaker's oration; 'Mary, 'quoth the other, 'methinks I heard not a better alehouse tale told thisseven years. '. . . And though grave and wise councillors in theirconsultations do not use much superfluous eloquence, and also in theirjudicial hearings do much mislike all scholastical rhetorics: yet insuch a case. . . If the lord chancellor of England or archbishop ofCanterbury himself were to speak, he ought to do it cunningly andeloquently, which cannot be without the use of figures: and neverthelessnone impeachment or blemish to the gravity of the persons or of thecause: wherein I report me to them that knew sir Nicholas Bacon lordkeeper of the great seal, or the now lord treasurer of England, and havebeen conversant with their speeches made in the Parliament house andStar-chamber. From whose lips I have seen to proceed more grave andnatural eloquence, than from all the orators of Oxford or Cambridge; butall is as it is handled, and maketh no matter whether the same eloquencebe natural to them or artificial (though I rather think natural); yetwere they known to be learned and not unskilful of the art when theywere younger men. . . . I have come to the lord keeper sir Nicholas Bacon, and found him sitting in his gallery alone with the works of Quintilianbefore him; indeed he was a most eloquent man, and of rare learning andwisdom as ever I knew England to breed; and one that joyed as much inlearned men and men of good wits. " He mentions being a by-stander when adoctor of civil law, "pleading in a litigious cause betwixt a man andhis wife, before a great magistrate, who (as they can tell that knewhim) was a man very well learned and grave, but somewhat sour and of noplausible utterance: the gentleman's chance was to say: 'My lord, thesimple woman is not so much to blame as her leud abettors, who by_violent_ persuasions have led her into this wilfulness. ' Quoth theJudge; 'What need such eloquent terms in this place?' The gentlemanreplied, 'Doth your lordship mislike the term (_violent_)? and methinksI speak it to great purpose; for I am sure she would never have done it, but by force of persuasion. '" &c. 

Pursuing the subject of language, which, he says, "in our maker or poetmust be heedily looked unto that it be natural, pure, and the most usualof all his country, " after some other rules or cautions he adds: "Ourmaker therefore at these days shall not follow Piers Plowman, nor Gower, nor Lydgate, nor yet Chaucer, for their language is now out of use withus: neither shall he take the terms of Northern men, such as they use indaily talk, whether they be noblemen or gentlemen or of their bestclerks, all is a matter; nor in effect any speech used beyond the riverof Trent, though no man can deny but that theirs is the purer EnglishSaxon at this day, yet it is not so courtly nor so current as ourSouthern English is; no more is the far Western man's speech: ye shalltherefore take the usual speech of the court, and that of London and theshires lying about London within sixty miles and not much above. I saynot this but in every shire of England there be gentlemen and othersthat speak, but specially write, as good Southern as we of Middlesex orSurry do; but not the common people of every shire, to whom thegentlemen and also their learned clerks do for the most part condescend;but herein we are ruled by the English dictionaries and other bookswritten by learned men, and therefore it needeth none other direction inthat behalf. Albeit peradventure some small admonition be notimpertinent, for we find in our English writers many words and speechesamendable, and ye shall see in some many inkhorn terms so ill affectedbrought in by men of learning, as preachers and schoolmasters; and manystrange terms of other languages by secretaries and merchants andtravellers, and many dark words and not usual nor well sounding, thoughthey be daily spoken in court. Wherefore great heed must be taken by ourmaker in this point that his choice be good. " He modestly expresses hisapprehensions that in some of these respects he may himself be accounteda transgressor, and he subjoins a list of the new, foreign or unusualwords employed by him in this tract, with his reasons for theiradoption. Of this number are; _scientific_, _conduict_, "a French word, but well allowed of us, and long since usual; it sounds something morethan this word (leading) for it is applied only to the leading of acaptain, and not as a little boy should lead a blind man;" _idiom_, fromthe Greek; _significative_, "borrowed of the Latin and French, but to usbrought in first by some noblemen's secretary, as I think, yet doth sowell serve the turn as it could not now be spared; and many more likeusurped Latin and French words; as, _method_, _methodical_, _placation_, _function_, _assubtiling_, _refining_, _compendious_, _prolix_, _figurative_, _inveigle_, a term borrowed of our common lawyers:_impression_, also a new term, but well expressing the matter, and morethan our English word:" _penetrate_, _penetrable_, _indignity_ in thesense of unworthiness, and a few more[110]. The whole enumeration iscurious, and strikingly exhibits the state of language at this epoch, when the rapid advancement of letters and of all the arts of social lifewas creating a daily want of new terms, which writers in all classes andindividuals in every walk of life regarded themselves as authorized tosupply at their own discretion, in any manner and from any sources mostaccessible to them, whether pure or corrupt, ancient or modern. Thepedants of the universities, and the travelled coxcombs of the court, had each a neological jargon of their own, unintelligible to each otherand to the people at large; on the other hand, there were a few personsof grave professions and austere characters, who, like Cato the Censorduring a similar period of accelerated progress in the Roman state, prided themselves on preserving in all its unsophisticated simplicity, or primitive rudeness, the tongue of their forefathers. The judiciousPuttenham, uniting the accuracy of scholastic learning with theenlargement of mind acquired by long intercourse among foreign nations, and with the polish of a courtier, places himself between the contendingparties, and with a manly disdain of every species of affectation, butespecially that of rusticity and barbarism, avails himself, withoutscruple as without excess, of the copiousness of other languages tosupply the remaining deficiencies of his own. 

[Note 110: Art of English Poesy, book iii. ]

Several chapters of the book "of Ornament" are devoted to the discussionof the decent, or seemly, in words and actions, and prove the author tohave been a nice observer of manners as well as a refined critic ofstyle. He severely censures a certain translator of Virgil, who said"that Æneas was fain to _trudge_ out of Troy; which term better becameto be spoken of a beggar, or of a rogue, or of a lackey:" and anotherwho called the same hero "by fate a _fugitive_;" and who inquires "Whatmoved Juno to _tug_ so great a captain;" a word "the most indecent inthis case that could have been devised, since it is derived from thecart, and signifies the draught or pull of the horses. " The phrase "aprince's _pelf_" is reprobated, because _pelf_ means properly "thescraps or shreds of taylors and of skinners. " He gives strict rules forthe decorous behaviour of ambassadors and all who address themselves toprinces, being himself a courtier, and having probably exercised somediplomatic function. "I have seen, " says he, "foreign ambassadors in thequeen's presence laugh so dissolutely at some rare pastime or sport thathath been made there, that nothing in the world could have worse becomenthem. " With respect to men in other stations of life he is pleased tosay, it is decent for a priest "to be sober and sad;" "a judge to beincorrupted, solitary, and unacquainted with courtiers or courtlyentertainments. . . Without plait or wrinkle, sour in look and churlish inspeech; contrariwise a courtly gentleman to be lofty and curious incountenance, yet sometimes a creeper and a curry favell with hissuperiors. " "And in a prince it is decent to go slowly and to march withleisure, and with a certain grandity rather than gravity; as oursovereign lady and mistress, the very image of majesty and magnificence, is accustomed to do generally, unless it be when she walketh apace forher pleasure, or to catch her a heat in the cold mornings. Neverthelessit is not so decent in a meaner person, as I have discerned in somecounterfeit ladies of the country, which use it much to their ownderision. This comeliness was wanting in queen Mary, _otherwise a verygood and honorable princess_. And was some blemish to the emperorFerdinando, a most noble-minded man, yet so careless and forgetful ofhimself in that behalf, as I have seen him run up a pair of stairs soswift and nimble a pace, as almost had not become a very mean man, whohad not gone in some hasty business. "

Respecting the poets mentioned by Puttenham whose names have notalready occurred in the present work, it may be observed, that exceptinga few lines quoted by this critic, there is nothing remaining of sirEdward Dyer's, except, which is highly probable, he is to be reckonedamong the anonymous contributors to the popular collections of that day. Of Gascoigne, on the contrary, enough is left to exhaust the patience ofany modern reader. In his youth, neglecting the study of the law forpoetry and pleasure, he poured forth an abundance of amatory pieces;some of them sonnets closely imitating the Italian ones in style as wellas structure. Afterwards, during a five-years service in the war ofFlanders, he found leisure for much serious thought; and discarding thelevities of his early years, he composed by way of expiation a moralsatire in blank verse called the Steel Glass, and several religiouspieces. Notwithstanding however this newly assumed seriousness, heattended her majesty in her progress in the summer of 1575, and composeda large number of courtly verses as a contribution to "the princelypleasures of Kennelworth. " Gascoigne died in October 1577. Of his minorpoems the following may be cited as a pleasing specimen. 

 THE LULLABY OF A LOVER. 

 Sing lullaby as women do, Wherewith they bring their babes to rest, And lullaby can I sing too As womanly as can the best. With lullaby they still the child; And if I be not much beguil'd, Full many wanton babes have I, Which must be still'd with lullaby. 

 First lullaby my youthful years. It is now time to go to bed, For crooked age and hoary years Have won the haven within my head: With lullaby then youth be still, With lullaby content thy will, Since courage quails and comes behind, Go sleep and so beguile thy mind. 

 Next lullaby my gazing eyes, Which wonted were to glaunce apace; For every glass may now suffice To shew the furrows in my face. With lullaby then wink awhile, With lullaby your looks beguile: Let no fair face or beauty bright Entice you eft with vain delight. 

 And lullaby my wanton will, Let reason's rule now reign thy thought, Since all too late I find by skill, How dear I have thy fancies bought: With lullaby now take thine ease, With lullaby thy doubts appease; For trust to this, if thou be still, My body shall obey thy will. 

 Thus lullaby my youth, mine eyes, My will, my ware, and all that was, I can no mo delays devise, But welcome pain, let pleasure pass: With lullaby now take your leave, With lullaby your dreams deceive, And when you rise with waking eye, Remember then this lullaby. 

Respecting another poet of greater popularity than Gascoigne, and of amore original turn of genius, Warner, the author of Albion's England, Puttenham has preserved a discreet silence; for his great work had beenprohibited by the capricious tyranny, or rigid decorum, of archbishopWhitgift, and seizure made in 1586 of the copies surreptitiouslyprinted. This long and singular poem is a kind of metrical chronicle, containing the remarkable events of _English_ history from theflood, --the starting point of all chroniclers, --to the reign of queenElizabeth. It is written in the common ballad measure, and in a styleoften creeping and prosaic, sometimes quaint and affected; but passagesof beautiful simplicity and strokes of genuine pathos frequently occurto redeem its faults, and the tediousness of the historical narration isrelieved by a large intermixture of interesting and entertainingepisodes. The ballads of Queen Eleanor and fair Rosamond, Argentile andCuran, and the Patient Countess, selected by Dr. Percy in his Relics ofAncient Poetry, may be regarded by the poetical student of the presentday as a sufficient specimen of the talents of Warner: but in his owntime he was complimented as the Homer or Virgil of the age; thepersevering reader travelled, not only with patience but delight, through his seventy-seven long chapters; and it is said that the workbecame popular enough, notwithstanding its prohibition by authority, tosupersede in some degree its celebrated predecessor the Mirror forMagistrates. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

FROM 1591 TO 1593. 

Naval war against Spain. --Death of sir Richard Grenville--Notice ofCavendish. --Establishment of the East India company. --Results of voyagesof discovery. --Transactions between Raleigh and the queen. --Anecdotes ofRobert Cary--of the Holles family. --Progress of the drama. --Dramaticpoets before Shakespeare. --Notice of Shakespeare. --Proclamationrespecting bear-baiting and acting of plays. --Censorship of thedrama. --Anecdote of the queen and Tarleton. 

The maritime war with Spain, notwithstanding the cautious temper of thequeen, was strenuously waged during the year 1591, and produced somestriking indications of the rising spirit of the English navy. 

A squadron under lord Thomas Howard, which had been waiting six monthsat the Azores to intercept the homeward bound ships from SpanishAmerica, was there surprised by a vastly more numerous fleet of theenemy which had been sent out for their convoy. The English admiral gotto sea in all haste and made good his retreat, followed by his wholesquadron excepting the Revenge, which was entangled in a narrow channelbetween the port and an island. Sir Richard Grenville her commander, after a vain attempt to break through the Spanish line, determined, witha kind of heroic desperation, to sustain alone the conflict with awhole fleet of fifty-seven sail, and to confront all extremities ratherthan strike his colors. From three o'clock in the afternoon tillday-break he resisted, by almost incredible efforts of valor, all theforce which could be brought to bear against him, and fifteen times beatback the boarding parties from his deck. At length, when all his bravesthad fallen, and he himself was disabled by many wounds; his powder alsobeing exhausted, his small-arms lost or broken, and his ship a perfectwreck, he proposed to his gallant crew to sink her, that no trophy mightremain to the enemy. But this proposal, though applauded by several, wasoverruled by the majority: the Revenge struck to the Spaniards; and twodays after, her brave commander died on board their admiral's ship ofhis glorious wounds, "with a joyful and quiet mind, " as he expressedhimself, and admired by his enemies themselves for his high spirit andinvincible resolution. This was the first English ship of anyconsiderable size captured by the Spaniards during the whole war, and itdid them little good; for, besides that the vessel had been shattered topieces, and sunk a few days after with two hundred Spanish sailors onboard, the example of heroic self-devotion set by sir Richard Grenvillelong continued in the hour of battle to strike awe and terror to theirhearts. 

Thomas Cavendish, elated by the splendid success of that firstexpedition in which, with three slender barks of insignificant sizecarrying only one hundred and twenty-three persons of every degree, hehad plundered the whole coast of New Spain and Peru, burned Paita andAcapulco, and captured a Spanish admiral of seven hundred tons, besidesmany other vessels taken or burned;--then crossed the great South Sea, and circumnavigated the globe in the shortest time in which that exploithad yet been performed;--set sail again in August 1591 on a secondvoyage. But this time, when his far greater force and more adequatepreparations of every kind seemed to promise results still moreprofitable and glorious, scarce any thing but disasters awaited him. Hetook indeed the town of Santos in Brazil, which was an acquisition ofsome importance; but delaying here too long, he arrived at a wrongseason in the Straits of Magellan, and was compelled to endure thewinter of that inhospitable clime; where seeing his numbers thinned bysickness and hardship, and his plans baffled by dissentions andinsubordination, he found it necessary to abandon his original design ofcrossing the South Sea, and resolved to undertake the voyage to China bythe Cape of Good Hope. First, however, he was fatally prevailed upon toreturn to the coast of Brazil, where he lost many men in rash attemptsagainst various towns, which expecting his attacks were now armed fortheir defence, and a still greater number by desertion. Baffled in allhis designs, worn out with fatigue, anxieties, and chagrin, this bravebut unfortunate adventurer breathed his last far from England on thewide ocean, and so obscurely that even the date of his death is unknown. 

At this period, a peculiar education was regarded as not more necessaryto enable a gentleman to assume the direction of a naval expedition thanthe command of a troop of horse; and it is probable that even byCavendish, whose exploits we read with amazement, but a very slenderstock of maritime experience was possessed when he first embarked onboard the vessel in which he had undertaken to circumnavigate the globe. He was the third son of a Suffolk gentleman of large estate; came earlyto court; and having there consumed his patrimony in the fashionablemagnificence of the time, suddenly discovered within himself sufficientcourage to attempt the reparation of his broken fortunes by thatfavorite resource, the plunder of the Spanish settlements. On his returnfrom his first voyage he sailed up the Thames in a kind of triumph, displaying a top-sail of cloth of gold, and making ostentation of theprofit rather than the glory of the enterprise. He appears to have beenequally deficient in the enlightened prudence which makes an essentialfeature of the great commander, and in that lofty disinterestedness ofmotive which constitutes the hero; but in the activity, the enterprise, the brilliant valor, which now form the spirit of the English navy, hehad few equals and especially few predecessors; and amongst the foundersof its glory the name of Cavendish is therefore worthy of a conspicuousand enduring place. 

By the failure of the late attempt to seat don Antonio on the throne ofPortugal, the sovereignty of Philip II. Over that country and itsdependencies had finally been established; and in consequence its tradeand settlements in the East offered a fair and tempting prize to theambition or cupidity of English adventurers. 

The passage by the Cape of Good Hope, repeatedly accomplished bycircumnavigators of this nation, had now ceased to oppose any formidableobstacle to the spirit of maritime enterprise; and the papal donationwas a bulwark still less capable of preserving inviolate to thesovereigns of Portugal their own rich Indies. The first expedition everfitted out from England for those eastern regions, where it nowpossesses an extent of territory in comparison of which itself is but apetty province, consisted of three "tall ships, " which sailed in thisyear under the conduct of George Raymond and James Lancaster. Afterdoubling the Cape and refreshing themselves in Saldanha Bay, which thePortuguese had named but not yet settled, the navigators steered alongthe eastern coast of Africa, where the ship commanded by Raymond waslost. With the other two, however, they proceeded still eastward; passedwithout impediment all the stations of the Portuguese on the shores ofthe Indian ocean, doubled Cape Comorin, and extended their voyage to theNicobar isles, and even to the peninsula of Malacca. They landed inseveral parts, where they found means to open an advantageous trafficwith the natives; and, after capturing many Portuguese vessels ladenwith various kinds of merchandise, repassed the Cape in perfect safetywith all their booty. In their way home they visited the West Indies, where great disasters overtook them; for here their two remaining shipswere lost, and Lancaster, with the slender remnant of their crews, wasglad to obtain a passage to Europe on board a French ship which happilyarrived to their relief. But as far as respected the eastern part ofthe expedition, their success had been such as strongly to invite theattempts of future adventurers; and nine years after its sailing, hermajesty was prevailed upon to grant a charter of incorporation withample privileges to an East India company, under whose auspicesLancaster consented to undertake a second voyage. Annual fleets werefrom this period fitted out by these enterprising traders, and factoriesof their establishment soon arose in Surat, in Masulipatam, in Bantam, in Siam, and even in Japan. The history of their progress makes no partof the subject of the present work; but the foundation of a mercantilecompany which has advanced itself to power and importance absolutelyunparalleled in the annals of the world, forms a feature not to beoverlooked in the glory of Elizabeth. 

These long and hazardous voyages of discovery, of hostility, or ofcommerce, began henceforth to afford one of the most honorableoccupations to those among the youthful nobility or gentry of thecountry, whose active spirits disdained the luxurious and servileidleness of the court: they also opened a welcome resource to youngersons, and younger brothers, impatient to emancipate themselves from thegalling miseries of that necessitous dependence on the head of theirhouse to which the customs of the age and country relentlessly condemnedthem. 

Thus Shakespeare in his Two Gentlemen of Verona, . . . "He wondered that your lordship Would suffer him to spend his youth at home, While other men of slender reputation Put forth their sons to seek preferment out: Some to the wars to try their fortune there; _Some to discover islands far away_; Some to the studious universities. For any or for all these exercises, He said, that Protheus your son was meet: And did request me to importune you To let him spend his time no more at home; Which would be great impeachment to his age, In having known no travel in his youth. "

But the advancement of the fortunes of individuals was by no means theprincipal or most permanent good which accrued to the nation by theseenterprises. The period was still indeed far distant, in which voyagesof discovery were to be undertaken on scientific principles and withlarge views of general utility; but new animals, new vegetables, naturalproductions or manufactured articles before unknown to them, attractedthe attention even of these first unskilful explorers. Specimens inevery kind were brought home, and, recommended as they never failed tobe by fabulous or grossly exaggerated descriptions, in the firstinstance only served to gratify and inflame the vulgar passion forwonders. But the attention excited to these striking novelties graduallybecame enlightened; a more familiar acquaintance disclosed their genuineproperties, and the purposes to which they might be applied athome;--Raleigh introduced the potatoe on his Irish estates;--anacceptable however inelegant luxury was discovered in the use oftobacco; and somewhat later, the introduction of tea gradually broughtsobriety and refinement into the system of modern English manners. 

Many allusions to the prevailing passion for beholding foreign, or, asthey were then accounted, monstrous animals, may be found scattered overthe works of Shakespeare and contemporary dramatists. Trinculo says, speaking of Caliban, "Were I but in England now. . . And had but this fishpainted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver. There would this monster _make_ a man; any strange beast there makes aman: when they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they willlay out ten to see a dead Indian. " And again; "Do you put tricks upon'swith savages and men of Inde?" &c. The whole play of the Tempest, exquisite as it is, must have derived a still more poignant relish, tothe taste of that age, from the romantic ideas of desert islands thenfloating in the imaginations of men. 

In the following year, 1592, Raleigh, weary of his Irish exile, andanxious by some splendid exploit to revive the declining favor of thequeen, projected a formidable attack on the Spanish power in America, and engaged without difficulty in the enterprise a large number ofvolunteers. But unavoidable obstacles arose, by which the fleet wasdetained till the proper season for its sailing was past: Elizabethrecalled Raleigh to court; and the only fortunate result of theexpedition, to the command of which Martin Frobisher succeeded, was thecapture of one wealthy carrack and the destruction of another. 

Raleigh, in the meantime, was amusing his involuntary idleness by anintrigue with one of her majesty's maids of honor, a daughter of thecelebrated sir Nicholas Throgmorton. The queen, in the heat of herindignation at the scandal brought upon her court by the consequences ofthis amour, resorted, as in a thousand other cases, to a vigor beyondthe laws; and though sir Walter offered immediately to make the lady thebest reparation in his power, by marrying her, which he afterwardsperformed, Elizabeth unfeelingly published her shame to the whole worldby sending both culprits to the Tower. 

Sir Walter remained a prisoner during several months. Meanwhile hisships returned from their cruise, and the profits from the sale of thecaptured carrack were to be divided among the queen, the admiral, thesailors, and the several contributors to the outfit. Disputes arose; hermajesty was dissatisfied with the share allotted her; and takingadvantage of the situation into which her own despotic violence hadthrown Raleigh, she appears to have compelled him to buy his liberty, and the undisturbed enjoyment of all that he held under her, by thesacrifice of no less than eighty thousand pounds due to him as admiral. Such was the disinterested purity of that zeal for morals of whichElizabeth judged it incumbent on her to make profession!

It may be curious to learn, from another incident which occurred aboutthe same time, at what rate her majesty caused her forgiveness oflawful matrimony to be purchased. 

Robert Cary, third son of lord Hunsdon, created lord Leppington by JamesI. And earl of Monmouth by his successor, --from whose memoirs of himselfthe following particulars are derived, --was at this time a young man andan assiduous attendant on the court of his illustrious kinswoman. Beinga younger son, he had no patrimony either in possession or reversion; hereceived from the exchequer only one hundred pounds per annum duringpleasure, and by the style of life which he found it necessary tosupport, had incurred a debt of a thousand pounds. In this situation hemarried a widow possessed of five hundred pounds per annum and someready money. His father evinced no displeasure on the occasion; but hisother friends, and especially the queen, were so much offended at thematch, that he took his wife to Carlisle and remained there withoutapproaching the court till the next year. Being then obliged to visitLondon on business, his father suggested the expediency of his payingthe queen the compliment of appearing on _her day_. Accordingly, hesecretly prepared caparisons and a present for her majesty, at the costof more than four hundred pounds, and presented himself in the tilt-yardin the character of "a forsaken knight who had vowed solitariness. " Thefestival over, he made himself known to his friends in court; but thequeen, though she had received his gift, would not take notice of hispresence. 

It happened soon after, that the king of Scots sent to Cary's elderbrother, then marshal of Berwick, to beg that he would wait upon him toreceive a secret message which he wanted to transmit to the queen. Themarshal wrote to his father to inquire her majesty's pleasure in thematter. She did not choose that he should stir out of Berwick; but"knowing, though she would not know it, " that Robert Cary was in court, she said at length to lord Hunsdon, "I hear your fine son that hasmarried lately so worthily is hereabouts; send him if you will to knowthe king's pleasure. " His lordship answered, that he knew he would behappy to obey her commands. "No, " said she, "do you bid him go, for Ihave nothing to do with him. " Robert Cary thought it hard to be sent offwithout first seeing the queen; "Sir, " said he to his father, who urgedhis going, "if she be on such hard terms with me, I had need be warywhat I do. If I go to the king without her license, it were in her powerto hang me at my return, and that, for any thing I see, it were illtrusting her. " Lord Hunsdon "merrily" told the queen what he said. "Ifthe gentleman be so distrustful, " she answered, "let the secretary makea safe-conduct to go and come, and I will sign it. " On his return withletters from James, Robert Cary hastened to court, and entered thepresence-chamber splashed and dirty as he was; but not finding the queenthere, lord Hunsdon went to her to announce his son's arrival. Shedesired him to receive the letter, or message, and bring it to her. Butthe young gentleman knew the court and the queen too well to consent togive up his dispatches even to his father; he insisted on deliveringthem himself, and at length, with much difficulty gained admission. 

The first encounter was, as he expresses it, "stormy and terrible, "which he passed over with silence; but when the queen had "said herpleasure" of himself and his wife, he made her a courtly excuse; withwhich she was so well appeased, that she at length assured him all wasforgiven and forgotten, and received him into her wonted favor. Afterthis happy conclusion of an adventure so perilous to a courtier ofElizabeth, Cary returned to Carlisle; and his father's death soonoccurring, he had orders to take upon himself the government of Berwicktill further orders. In this situation he remained a year withoutsalary; impairing much his small estate, and unable to obtain from courteither an allowance, or leave of absence to enable him to solicit one inperson. At length, necessity rendering him bold, he resolved to hazardthe step of going up without permission. On his arrival, however, neither secretary Cecil nor even his own brother would venture tointroduce him to the queen's presence, but advised him to hasten backbefore his absence should be known, for fear of her anger. At last, ashe stood sorrowfully pondering on his case, a gentleman of the chamber, touched with pity, undertook to mention his arrival to her majesty in away which should not displease her: and he opened the case by tellingher, that she was more beholden to the love and service of one man thanof many whom she favored more. This excited her curiosity; and on herasking who this person might be, he answered that it was Robert Cary, who, unable longer to bear his absence from her sight, had posted up tokiss her hand and instantly return. She sent for him directly, receivedhim with greater favor than ever, allowed him after the interview tolead her out by the hand, which seemed to his brother and the secretarynothing less than a miracle; and what was more, granted him five hundredpounds immediately, a patent of the wardenry of the east marches, and arenewal of his grant of Norham-castle. It was this able courtier, ratherthan grateful kinsman, who earned the good graces of king James by beingthe first to bring him the welcome tidings of the decease of Elizabeth. 

Incidental mention has already been made of sir William Holles ofHaughton in Nottinghamshire, the gentleman who refused to marry hisdaughter to the earl of Cumberland, because he did not choose "to standcap in hand" to his son-in-law: this worthy knight died at a great agein the year 1590; and a few further particulars respecting him and hisdescendants may deserve record, on account of the strong light whichthey reflect on several points of manners. Sir William wasdistinguished, perhaps beyond any other person of the same rank in thekingdom, for boundless hospitality and a magnificent style of living. "He began his Christmas, " says the historian of the family, "atAllhallowtide and continued it until Candlemas; during which any man waspermitted to stay three days, without being asked whence he came or whathe was. " For each of the twelve days of Christmas he allowed a fat oxand other provisions in proportion. He would never dine till after oneo'clock; and being asked why he preferred so unusually late an hour, heanswered, that "for aught he knew there might a friend come twenty milesto dine with him, and he would be loth he should lose his labor. "

At the coronation of Edward VI. He appeared with fifty followers in bluecoats and badges, --then the ordinary costume of retainers andserving-men, --and he never went to the sessions at Retford, though onlyfour miles from his own mansion, without thirty "proper fellows" at hisheels. What was then rare among the greatest subjects, he kept a companyof actors of his own to perform plays and masques at festival times; insummer they travelled about the country. 

This sir William was succeeded in his estates by sir John Holles hisgrandson, who was one of the band of gentlemen pensioners to Elizabeth, and in the reign of James I. Purchased the title of earl of Clare. Hisgrandfather had engaged his hand to a kinswoman of the earl ofShrewsbury; but the young man declining to complete this contract, andtaking to wife a daughter of sir Thomas Stanhope, the consequence was along and inveterate feud between the houses of Holles and of Talbot, which was productive of several remarkable incidents. Its first effectwas a duel between Orme, a servant of Holles, and Pudsey, master ofhorse to the earl of Shrewsbury, in which the latter was slain. The earlprosecuted Orme, and sought to take away his life; but sir John Hollesin the first instance caused him to be conveyed away to Ireland, andafterwards obtained his pardon of the queen. For his conduct in thisbusiness he was himself challenged by Gervase Markham, champion andgallant to the countess of Shrewsbury; but he refused the duel, becausethe unreasonable demand of Markham, that it should take place in a parkbelonging to the earl his enemy, gave him just ground to apprehend thatsome treachery was meditated. Anxious however to wipe away theaspersions which his adversary had taken occasion to cast upon hiscourage, he sought a rencounter which might wear the appearance ofaccident; and soon after, having met Markham on the road, theyimmediately dismounted and attacked each other with their rapiers;Markham fell, severely wounded, and the earl of Shrewsbury lost no timein raising his servants and tenantry to the number of one hundred andtwenty in order to apprehend Holles in case Markham's hurt should provemortal. On the other side lord Sheffield, the kinsman of Holles, joinedhim with sixty men. "I hear, cousin, " said he on his arrival, "that mylord of Shrewsbury is prepared to trouble you; but take my word, beforehe carry you it shall cost many a broken pate;" and he and his companyremained at Haughton till the wounded man was out of danger. Markham hadvowed never to eat supper or take the sacrament till he was revenged, and in consequence found himself obliged to abstain from both to the dayof his death[111]. What appears the most extraordinary part of thestory is, that we do not find the queen and council interfering to put astop to this private war, worthy of the barbarism of the feudal ages. Gervase Markham, who was the portionless younger son of aNottinghamshire gentleman of ancient family, became the most voluminousmiscellaneous writer of his age, using his pen apparently as his chiefmeans of subsistence. He wrote on a vast variety of subjects, and bothin verse and prose; but his works on farriery and husbandry appear tohave been the most useful, and those on field sports the mostentertaining, of his performances. 

[Note 111: See Historical Collections, by Collins. ]

The progress of the drama is a subject which claims in this place someshare of our attention, partly because it excited in a variety of waysthat of Elizabeth herself. By the appearance of Ferrex and Porrex in1561, and that of Gammer Gurton's Needle five years later, a new impulsehad been given to English genius; and both tragedies and comediesapproaching the regular models, besides historical and pastoral dramas, allegorical pieces resembling the old moralities, and translations fromthe ancients, were from this time produced in abundance, and received byall classes with avidity and delight. 

About twenty dramatic poets flourished between 1561 and 1590; and aninspection of the titles alone of their numerous productions wouldfurnish evidence of an acquaintance with the stores of history, mythology, classical fiction, and romance, strikingly illustrative ofthe literary diligence and intellectual activity of the age. 

Richard Edwards produced a tragi-comedy on the affecting ancient storyof Damon and Pithias, besides his comedy of Palamon and Arcite, formerlynoticed as having been performed for the entertainment of her majesty atOxford. In connexion with this latter piece it may be remarked, that ofthe chivalrous idea of Theseus in this celebrated tale and in theMidsummer Night's Dream, as well as of all the other _gothicized_representations of ancient heroes, of which Shakespeare's Troilus andCressida, his Rape of Lucrece, and some passages of Spenser's FaeryQueen, afford further examples, Guido Colonna's _Historia Trojana_, written in 1260, was the original: a work long and widely popular, whichhad been translated, paraphrased and imitated in French and English, andwhich the barbarism of its incongruities, however palpable, had not asyet consigned to oblivion or contempt. 

George Gascoigne, besides his tragedy from Euripides, translated also acomedy from Ariosto, performed by the students of Gray's Inn under thetitle of The Supposes; which was the first specimen in our language of adrama in prose. Italian literature was at this period cultivated amongstus with an assiduity unequalled either before or since, and it possessedfew authors of merit or celebrity whose works were not speedilyfamiliarized to the English public through the medium of translations. The study of this enchanting language found however a vehement opponentin Roger Ascham, who exclaims against the "enchantments of Circe, brought out of Italy to mar men's manners in England; much by examplesof ill life, but more by precepts of fond books, of late translated outof Italian into English, and sold in every shop in London. " Heafterwards declares that "there be more of these ungracious books setout in print within these few months than have been seen in England manyyears before. " To these strictures on the moral tendencies of thepopular writers of Italy some force must be allowed; but it is obviousto remark, that similar objections might be urged with at least equalcogency against the favorite classics of Ascham; and that the use of sovaluable an instrument of intellectual advancement as the freeintroduction of the literature of a highly polished nation into onecomparatively rude, is not to be denied to beings capable of moraldiscrimination, from the apprehension of such partial and incidentalinjury as may arise out of its abuse. Italy, in fact, was at once theplenteous store-house whence the English poets, dramatists and romancewriters of the latter half of the sixteenth century drew their mostprecious materials; the school where they acquired taste and skill toadapt them to their various purposes; and the Parnassian mount on whichthey caught the purest inspirations of the muse. 

Elizabeth was a zealous patroness of these studies; she spoke theItalian language with fluency and elegance, and used it frequently inher mottos and devices: by her encouragement, as we shall see, Harrington was urged to complete his version of the Orlando Furioso, andshe willingly accepted in the year 1600 the dedication of Fairfax'sadmirable translation of the great epic of Tasso. 

But to return to our dramatic writers:. . . Thomas Kyd was the author of atragedy entitled Jeronimo, which for the absurd horrors of its plot, andthe mingled puerility and bombast of its language, was a source ofperpetual ridicule to rival poets, while from a certain wild pathoscombined with its imposing grandiloquence it was long a favorite withthe people. The same person also translated a play by Garnier on thestory of Cornelia the wife of Pompey;--a solitary instance apparently ofobligation to the French theatre on the part of these founders of ournational drama. 

By Thomas Hughes the misfortunes of Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, weremade the subject of a tragedy performed before the queen. 

Preston, to whom when a youth her majesty had granted a pension of ashilling a day in consideration of his excellent acting in the play ofPalamon and Arcite, composed on the story of Cambyses king of Persia "Alamentable tragedy mixed full of pleasant mirth, " which is now onlyremembered as having been an object of ridicule to Shakespeare. 

Lilly, the author of Euphues, composed six court comedies and otherpieces principally on classical subjects, but disfigured by all thebarbarous affectations of style which had marked his earlier production. 

Christopher Marlow, unquestionably a man of genius, however deficient intaste and judgement, astonished the world with his Tamburlain theGreat, which became in a manner proverbial for its rant andextravagance: he also composed, but in a purer style and with a patheticcast of sentiment, a drama on the subject of king Edward II. , andministered fuel to the ferocious prejudices of the age by his fiend-likeportraiture of Barabas in The rich Jew of Malta. Marlow was also theauthor of a tragedy, in which the sublime and the grotesque wereextraordinarily mingled, on the noted story of Dr. Faustus; a tale ofpreternatural horrors, which, after the lapse of two centuries, wasagain to receive a similar distinction from the pen of one of the mostcelebrated of German dramatists: not the only example which could beproduced of a coincidence of taste between the early tragedians of thetwo countries. 

Of the works of these and other contemporary poets, the fathers of theEnglish theatre, some are extant in print, others have come down to usin manuscript, and of no inconsiderable portion the titles alonesurvive. A few have acquired an incidental value in the eyes of thecurious, as having furnished the ground-work of some of the dramas ofour great poet; but not one of the number can justly be said to make apart of the living literature of the country. 

It was reserved for the transcendent genius of Shakespeare alone, inthat infancy of our theatre when nothing proceeded from the crowd ofrival dramatists but rude and abortive efforts, ridiculed by the learnedand judicious of their own age and forgotten by posterity, to astonishand enchant the nation with those inimitable works which form theperpetual boast and immortal heritage of Englishmen. 

By a strange kind of fatality, which excites at once our surprise andour unavailing regrets, the domestic and the literary history of thisgreat luminary of his age are almost equally enveloped in doubt andobscurity. Even of the few particulars of his origin and earlyadventures which have reached us through various channels, the greaternumber are either imperfectly attested, or exposed to objections ofdifferent kinds which render them of little value; and respecting histheatrical life the most important circumstances still remain matter ofconjecture, or at best of remote inference. 

When Shakespeare first became a writer for the stage;--what was hisearliest production;--whether all the pieces usually ascribed to him bereally his, and whether there be any others of which he was in whole orin part the author;--what degree of assistance he either received fromother dramatic writers or lent to them;--in what chronological order hisacknowledged pieces ought to be arranged, and what dates should beassigned to their first representation;--are all questions on which theingenuity and indefatigable diligence of a crowd of editors, critics andbiographers have long been exerted, without producing any considerableapproximation to certainty or to general agreement. 

On a subject so intricate, it will suffice for the purposes of thepresent work to state a few of the leading facts which appear to rest onthe most satisfactory authorities. William Shakespeare, who was born in1564, settled in London about 1586 or 1587, and seems to have almostimmediately adopted the profession of an actor. Yet his earliest effortin composition was not of the dramatic kind; for in 1593 he dedicated tohis great patron the earl of Southampton, as "the first heir of hisinvention, " his Venus and Adonis, a narrative poem of considerablelength in the six-line stanza then popular. In the subsequent year healso inscribed to the same noble friend his Rape of Lucrece, a stilllonger poem of similar form in the stanza of seven lines, and containingpassages of vivid description, of exquisite imagery, and of sentimentalexcellence, which, had he written nothing more, would have entitled himto rank on a level with the author of the Faery Queen, and far above allother contemporary poets. He likewise employed his pen occasionally inthe composition of sonnets, principally devoted to love and friendship, and written perhaps in emulation of those of Spenser, who, as one ofthese sonnets testifies, was at this period the object of his ardentadmiration. 

Before the publication however of any one of these poems he must alreadyhave attained considerable note as a dramatic writer, since RobertGreen, in a satirical piece printed in 1592, speaking of theatricalconcerns, stigmatizes this "player" as "an absolute Joannes Factotum, "and one who was "in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country. "

The tragedy of Pericles, which was published in 1609 with the name ofShakespeare in the title-page, and of which Dryden says in one of hisprologues to a first play, "Shakespeare's own muse his Pericles firstbore, " was probably acted in 1590, and appears to have been longpopular. Romeo and Juliet was certainly an early production of his muse, and one which excited much interest, as may well be imagined, amongstthe younger portion of theatrical spectators. 

There is high satisfaction in observing, that the age showed itselfworthy of the immortal genius whom it had produced and fostered. It isagreed on all hands that Shakespeare was beloved as a man, and admiredand patronized as a poet. In the profession of an actor, indeed, hissuccess does not appear to have been conspicuous; but the never-failingattraction of his pieces brought overflowing audiences to the Globetheatre in Southwark, of which he was enabled to become a jointproprietor. Lord Southampton is said to have once bestowed on him amunificent donation of a thousand pounds to enable him to complete apurchase; and it is probable that this nobleman might also introduce himto the notice of his beloved friend the earl of Essex. Of any particulargratuities bestowed on him by her majesty we are not informed: but thereis every reason to suppose that he must have received from her onvarious occasions both praises and remuneration; for we are told thatshe caused several of his pieces to be represented before her, and thatthe Merry Wives of Windsor in particular owed its origin to her desireof seeing Falstaff exhibited in love. 

It remains to notice the principal legal enactments of Elizabethrespecting the conduct of the theatre, some of which are remarkable. During the early part of her reign, Sunday being still regardedprincipally in the light of a holiday, her majesty not only selectedthat day, more frequently than any other, for the representation ofplays at court for her own amusement, but by her license granted toBurbage in 1574 authorized the performance of them at the publictheatre, _on Sundays only_ out of the hours of prayer. Five years after, however, Gosson in his School of Abuse complains that the players, "because they are allowed to play every Sunday, make four or fiveSundays at least every week. " To limit this abuse, an order was issuedby the privy-council in July 1591, purporting that no plays should bepublicly exhibited on Thursdays, because on that day bear-baiting andsimilar pastimes had usually been practised; and in an injunction to thelord mayor four days after, the representation of plays on Sunday (orthe Sabbath as it now began to be called among the stricter sort ofpeople) was utterly condemned; and it was further complained that on"all other days of the week in divers places the players do use torecite their plays, to the great hurt and destruction of the game ofbear-baiting, and like pastimes, which are maintained for her majesty'spleasure. "

In the year 1589 her majesty thought proper to appoint commissioners toinspect all performances of writers for the stage, with full powers toreject and obliterate whatever they might esteem unmannerly, licentious, or irreverent:--a regulation which might seem to claim the applause ofevery friend to public decency, were not the state in which the dramasof this age have come down to posterity sufficient evidence, that torender these impressive appeals to the passions of assembled multitudespolitically and not morally inoffensive, was the genuine or principalmotive of this act of power. 

In illustration of this remark the following passage may be quoted: "Atsupper" the queen "would divert herself with her friends and attendants;and if they made her no answer, she would put them upon mirth andpleasant discourse with great civility. She would then admit Tarleton, afamous comedian and pleasant talker, and other such men, to divert herwith stories of the town, and the common jests and accidents. Tarleton, who was then the best comedian in England, had made a pleasant play; andwhen it was acting before the queen, he pointed at Raleigh, and said, 'See the knave commands the queen!' for which he was corrected by afrown from the queen: yet he had the confidence to add, that he was oftoo much and too intolerable a power; and going on with the sameliberty, he reflected on the too great power of the earl of Leicester;which was so universally applauded by all present, that she thought fitto bear these reflections with a seeming unconcernedness. But yet shewas so offended that she forbad Tarleton and all jesters from comingnear her table[112]. "

[Note 112: See Bohun's Character of Queen Elizabeth. Among thevarious sources whence the preceding dramatic notices have been derived, it is proper to point out Dr. Drake's Memoirs of Shakspeare and his Age, and Warton's History of English Poetry. ]

CHAPTER XXIV. 

FROM 1593 TO 1597. 

A parliament. --Haughty language of the queen. --Committal of Wentworthand other members--of Morice. --His letter to lord Burleigh. --Act toretain subjects in their due obedience. --Debates on the subsidy. --Freespeeches of Francis Bacon and sir E. Hobby. --Queen's speech. --Notice ofFrancis Bacon--of Anthony Bacon. --Connexion of the two Bacons withEssex. --Francis disappointed of preferment. --Conduct of Burleigh towardshim. --Of Fulk Greville. --Reflections. --Conversion of HenryIV. --Behaviour of Elizabeth. --War in Bretagne. --Anecdote of the queenand sir C. Blount. --Affair of Dr. Lopez. --Squire's attempt on the lifeof the queen. --Notice of Ferdinando earl of Derby. --Letter of the queento lord Willoughby. --Particulars of sir Walter Raleigh. --His expeditionto Guiana. --Unfortunate enterprise of Drake and Hawkins. --Death ofHawkins. --Death and character of Drake. --Letters of Rowland Whyte. --Caseof the earl of Hertford. --Anecdote of Essex. --Queen at the lordkeeper's. --Anecdote of the queen and bishop Rudd. --Case of sir T. Arundel. 

Notwithstanding all the frugal arts of Elizabeth, the state of herfinances compelled her in the spring of 1593 to summon a parliament. Itwas four entire years since this assembly had last met: but her majestytook care to let the commons know, that the causes of offence which hadthen occurred were still fresh in her memory, and that her resolution topreserve her own prerogative in its rigor, and the ecclesiasticalcommission in all its terrors, was still inflexible. 

It even appeared, that an apprehension lest her present necessitiesmight embolden the parliament to treat her despotic mandates with adeference less profound than formerly, irritated her temper, andprompted her to assume a more haughty and menacing style than herhabitual study of popularity had hitherto permitted her to employ. Inanswer to the three customary requests made by the speaker, for libertyof speech, freedom from arrests, and access to her person, she repliedby her lord keeper, That such liberty of speech as the commons werejustly entitled to, --liberty, namely, of aye and no, --she was willing togrant; but by no means a liberty for every one to speak what he listed. And if any idle heads should be found careless enough of their ownsafety to attempt innovations in the state, or reforms in the church, she laid her injunctions on the speaker to refuse the bills offered forsuch purposes till they should have been examined by those who werebetter qualified to judge of these matters. She promised that she wouldnot impeach the liberty of their persons, provided they did not permitthemselves to imagine that any neglect of duty would be allowed to passunpunished under shelter of this privilege; and she engaged not to denythem access to her person on weighty affairs, and at convenient seasons, when she should have leisure from other important business of state. 

But threats alone were not found sufficient to restrain all attempts onthe part of the commons to exercise their known rights and fulfil theirduty to the country. Peter Wentworth, a member whose courageous andindependent spirit had already drawn upon him repeated manifestations ofroyal displeasure, presented to the lord keeper a petition, praying thatthe upper house would join with the lower in a supplication to the queenfor fixing the succession. Elizabeth, enraged at the bare mention of asubject so offensive to her, instantly committed to the Fleet prisonWentworth, sir Thomas Bromley who had seconded him, and two othermembers to whom he had imparted the business; and when the house waspreparing to petition her for their release, some privy-councillorsdissuaded the step, as one which could only prove injurious to thesegentlemen by giving additional offence to her majesty. 

Soon after, James Morice, an eminent lawyer, who was attorney of thecourt of Wards and chancellor of the Duchy, made a motion for redress ofthe abuses in the bishops' courts, and especially of the monstrous onescommitted under the High Commission. Several members supported themotion: but the queen, sending in wrath for the speaker, required him todeliver up to her the bill; reminded him of her strict injunctions atthe opening of the sessions, and testified her extreme indignation andsurprise at the boldness of the commons in intermeddling with subjectswhich she had expressly forbidden them to discuss. She informed him, that it lay in her power to summon parliaments and to dismiss them; andto sanction or to reject any determination of theirs; that she had atpresent called them together for the twofold purpose, of enactingfurther laws for the maintenance of religious conformity, and ofproviding for the national defence against Spain; and that these oughttherefore to be the objects of their deliberations. 

As for Morice, he was seized by a serjeant at arms in the house itself, stripped of his offices, rendered incapable of practising as a lawyer, and committed to prison, whence he soon after addressed to Burleigh thefollowing high-minded appeal:

 * * * * *

"Right honorable my very good lord;

"That I am no more hardly handled, I impute next unto God to yourhonorable good will and favor; for although I am assured that the causeI took in hand is good and honest, yet I believe that, besides yourlordship and that honorable person your son, I have never an honorablefriend. But no matter; for the best causes seldom find the most friends, especially having many, and those mighty, enemies. 

"I see no cause in my conscience to repent me of that I have done, norto be dismayed, although grieved, by this my restraint of liberty; for Istand for the maintenance of the honor of God and of my prince, and forthe preservation of public justice and the liberties of my countryagainst wrong and oppression; being well content, at her majesty's goodpleasure and commandment, (whom I beseech God long to preserve in allprincely felicity, ) to suffer and abide much more. But I had thoughtthat the judges ecclesiastical, being charged in the great council ofthe realm to be dishonorers of God and of her majesty, perverters oflaw and public justice, and wrong-doers unto the liberties and freedomsof all her majesty's subjects, by their extorted oaths, wrongfulimprisonments, lawless subscription, and unjust absolutions, wouldrather have sought means to be cleared of this weighty accusation, thanto shrowd themselves under the suppressing of the complaint and shadowof mine imprisonment. 

"There is fault found with me that I, as a private person, preferred notmy complaint to her majesty. Surely, my lord, your wisdom can conceivewhat a proper piece of work I had then made of that: The worst prisonhad been I think too good for me, since now (sustaining the person of apublic counsellor of the realm speaking for her majesty's prerogatives, which by oath I am bound to assist and maintain) I cannot escapedispleasure and restraint of liberty. Another fault, or error, isobjected; in that I preferred these causes before the matters deliveredfrom her majesty were determined. My good lord, to have stayed so long, I verily think, had been to come too late. Bills of assize of bread, shipping of fish, pleadings, and such like, may be offered and receivedinto the house, and no offence to her majesty's royal commandment (beingbut as the tything of mint); but the great causes of the law and publicjustice may not be touched without offence. Well, my good lord, be itso; yet I hope her majesty and you of her honorable privy-council willat length thoroughly consider of these things, lest, as heretofore weprayed, From the tyranny of the bishop of Rome, good Lord deliver us, we be compelled to say, From the tyranny of the clergy of England, goodLord deliver us. 

"Pardon my plain speech, I humbly beseech your honor, for it proceedethfrom an upright heart and sound conscience, although in a weak andsickly body: and by God's grace, while life doth last, which I hope now, after so many cracks and crazes, will not be long, I will not be ashamedin good and lawful sort to strive for the freedom of conscience, publicjustice, and the liberty of my country. And you, my good lord, to whosehand the stern of this commonwealth is chiefly committed, I humblybeseech, (as I doubt not but you do, ) graciously respect both me and thecauses I have preferred, and be a mean to pacify and appease hermajesty's displeasure conceived against me her poor, yet faithful, servant and subject. " &c. [113]

[Note 113: Nugæ. ]

 * * * * *

In October following, the earl of Essex ventured to mention to hermajesty this persecuted patriot amongst lawyers qualified for the postof attorney-general, when "her majesty acknowledged his gifts, but saidhis speaking against her in such manner as he had done, should be a baragainst any preferment at her hands. " He is said to have been kept forsome years a prisoner in Tilbury castle; and whether he ever recoveredhis liberty may seem doubtful, since he died in February 1596, aged 48. 

The house of commons, unacquainted as yet with its own strength, submitted without further question to regard as law the will of animperious mistress, and passed with little opposition "An act to retainher majesty's subjects in their due obedience, " which vied in crueltywith the noted Six Articles of her tyrannical father. 

By this law, any person above sixteen who should refuse during a monthto attend the established worship was to be imprisoned; when, should hefurther persist in his refusal during three months longer, he mustabjure the realm; but in case of his rejecting this alternative, orreturning from banishment, his offence was declared felony withoutbenefit of clergy. 

The business of supplies was next taken into consideration, and thecommons voted two subsidies and four fifteenths; but this not appearingto the ministry sufficient for the exigencies of the state, the peerswere induced to request a conference with the lower house for thepurpose of proposing the augmentation of the grant to four subsidies andsix fifteenths. The commons resented at first this interference withtheir acknowledged privilege of originating all money bills; but dreadof the well-known consequences of offending their superiors, prevailedat length over their indignation; and first the conference, then theadditional supply, was acceded to. Some debate, however, arose on thetime to be allowed for the payment of so heavy an imposition; and theillustrious Francis Bacon, then member for Middlesex, enlarged upon thedistresses of the people, and the danger lest the house, by this grant, should be establishing a precedent against themselves and theirposterity, in a speech to which his courtly kinsman sir Robert Cecilreplied with much warmth, and of which her majesty showed a resentfulremembrance on his appearing soon after as a candidate for the office ofattorney-general. His cousin sir Edward Hobby also, whose speeches inthe former parliament had been ill-received by certain great persons, took such a part in some of the questions now at issue between the crownand the commons, as procured him an imprisonment till the end of thesessions, when he was at length liberated; "but not, " as Anthony Baconwrote to his mother, "without a notable public disgrace laid upon him byher majesty's royal censure delivered amongst other things, by herself, after my lord keeper's speech[114]. "

[Note 114: Birch's Memoirs, vol. I. P. 96. ]

In this parting harangue to her parliament, the queen, little touched bythe unprecedented liberality of the supplies which it had granted her, and the passing of her favorite bill against the schismatics andrecusants, animadverted in severe terms on the oppositionists, reiterated the lofty claims with which she had opened the sessions, andpronounced an eulogium on the justice and moderation of her owngovernment. She also entered into the grounds of her quarrel with theking of Spain; showed herself undismayed by the apprehension of anything which his once dreaded power could attempt against her; andcharacteristically added, in adverting to the defeat of the armada, thefollowing energetic warning: "I am informed, that when he attempted thislast invasion, some upon the sea coast forsook their towns, fled uphigher into the country, and left all naked and exposed to hisentrance. But I swear unto you by God, if I knew those persons, or mayknow hereafter, I will make them know what it is to be fearful in sourgent a cause. "

The appearance of Francis Bacon in the house of commons affords a fitoccasion of tracing the previous history of this wonderful man, and ofexplaining his peculiar situation between the two great factions of thecourt and the influence exerted by this circumstance on his characterand after fortunes. That early promise of his genius which in childhoodattracted the admiring observation of Elizabeth herself, had beenconfirmed by every succeeding year. In the thirteenth of his age, anearlier period than was even then customary, he was entered, togetherwith his elder brother Anthony, of Trinity college Cambridge. At thisseat of learning he remained three years, during which, besidesexhibiting his powers of memory and application by great proficiency inthe ordinary studies of the place, he evinced the extraordinaryprecocity of his penetrating and original intellect, by forming thefirst sketch of a new system of philosophy in opposition to that ofAristotle. 

His father, designing him for public life, now sent him to complete hiseducation in the house of sir Amias Paulet, the queen's ambassador inFrance. He gained the confidence of this able and honorable man to sucha degree, as to be intrusted by him with a mission to her majestyrequiring secrecy and dispatch, of which he acquitted himself with greatapplause. Returning to France, he engaged in several excursions throughits different provinces, and diligently occupied himself in thecollection of facts and observations, which he afterwards threw togetherin a "Brief View of the State of Europe;" a work, however juvenile, which is said to exhibit much both of the peculiar spirit and of themethod of its illustrious author. But the death of his father, in 1580, put an end to his travels, and cast a melancholy blight upon his openingprospects. 

For Anthony Bacon, the eldest of his sons by his second marriage, thelord keeper had handsomely provided by the gift of his manor ofGorhambury, and he had amassed a considerable sum with which he wasabout to purchase another estate for the portion of the younger, whendeath interrupted his design; and only one-fifth of this money fallingto Francis under the provisions of his father's will, he unexpectedlyfound himself compelled to resort to the practice of some gainfulprofession for his support. That of the law naturally engaged hispreference. He entered himself of Gray's Inn, and passed within itsprecincts several studious years, during which he made himself master ofthe general principles of jurisprudence, as well as of the rules oflegal practice in his own country; and he also found leisure to tracethe outlines of his new philosophy in a work not now known to exist in aseparate state, but incorporated probably in one of his more finishedproductions. In 1588 her majesty, desirous perhaps of encouraging a moreentire devotion of his talents to the study of the law, distinguishedhim by the title of her Counsel extraordinary, --an office of littleemolument, though valuable as an introduction to practice. But thegenius of Bacon disdained to plod in the trammels of a laboriousprofession; he felt that it was given him for higher and largerpurposes: yet perceiving, at the same time, that the narrowness of hiscircumstances would prove an insuperable bar to his ambition ofbecoming, as he once beautifully expressed it, "the servant ofposterity, " he thus, in 1591, solicited the patronage of his uncle lordBurleigh: "Again, the meanness of my estate doth somewhat move me; forthough I cannot accuse myself that I am either prodigal or slothful; yetmy health is not to spend, nor my course to get: Lastly, I confess thatI have as vast contemplative ends as I have moderate civil ends; for Ihave taken all knowledge to be my province; and if I could purge it oftwo sorts of rovers, whereof the one with frivolous disputations, confutations and verbosities, the other with blind experiments andauricular traditions and impostures, hath committed so many spoils, Ihope I should bring in industrious observations, grounded conclusions, and profitable inventions and discoveries, the best state of thatprovince. This, whether it be curiosity, or vain glory, or nature, or, if one take it favorably, _philanthropia_, is so fixed in my mind as itcannot be removed. And I do easily see, that place of any reasonablecountenance doth bring commandment of more wits than a man's own; whichis the thing I do greatly affect. "

Burleigh was no philosopher, though a lover of learning, and it couldnot perhaps be expected that he should at once perceive how eminentlyworthy was this laborer of the hire which he was reduced to solicit. Hecontented himself therefore with procuring for his kinsman the reversionof the place of register of the Star-chamber, worth about sixteenhundred pounds per annum. Of this office however, which might amply havesatisfied the wants of a student, it was unfortunately near twenty yearsbefore Bacon obtained possession; and during this tedious time ofexpectation, he was wont to say, "that it was like another man's groundabutting upon his house, which might mend his prospect, but it did notfill his barn. " He made however a grateful return to the lord treasurerfor this instance of patronage, by composing an answer to a popishlibel, entitled "A Declaration of the true Causes of the late Troubles, "in which he warmly vindicated the conduct of this minister, of his ownfather, and of other members of the administration; not forgetting tomake a high eulogium on the talents and dispositions of RobertCecil, --now the most powerful instrument at court to serve or to injure. Unhappily for the fortunes of Bacon, and in some respects for his moralcharacter also, this selfish and perfidious statesman was endowed withsufficient reach of intellect to form some estimate of the transcendentabilities of his kinsman; and struck with dread or envy, he seems tohave formed a systematic design of impeding by every art his favor andadvancement. Unmoved by the eloquent adulation with which Bacon soughtto propitiate his regard, he took all occasions to represent him to thequeen, and with some degree of justice though more of malice, as a manof too speculative a turn to apply in earnest to the practical detailsof business; one moreover whose head was so filled with abstract andphilosophical notions, that he would not fail to perplex any publicaffairs in which he might be permitted to take a lead. The effect ofthese suggestions on the mind of Elizabeth was greatly aggravated by theconduct of Bacon in the parliament of 1593, in consequence of which hermajesty for a considerable time denied him that access to her personwith which he had hitherto been freely and graciously indulged. 

Some years before this period, Francis Bacon had become known to theearl of Essex, whose genuine love of merit induced him to offer him hisfriendship and protection. The eagerness with which these were acceptedhad deeply offended the Cecils; and their displeasure was about thistime increased, on seeing Anthony Bacon, by his brother's persuasion, enlist himself under the banner of the same political leader. 

Anthony, whose singular history is on many accounts worthy of notice, was a man of an inquisitive and crafty turn of mind, and seemingly bornfor a politician. He, like his brother, had been induced to pay a visitto France, as the completion of a liberal education; and not findinghimself involved in the same pecuniary difficulties, he had been enabledto make his abode in that country of much longer duration. From Paris, which he first visited in 1579, he proceeded to Bourges, Geneva, Montpelier, Marseilles, Montauban and Bordeaux, in each of which citieshe resided for a considerable length of time. At the latter place herendered some services to the protestant inhabitants at great personalhazard. In 1584 he visited Henry IV. , then king of Navarre, at Bearn, and in 1586 he contracted at Montauban an intimacy with the celebratedHugonot leader, du Plessis de Mornay. As Anthony Bacon was invested withno public character, his continued and voluntary abode in a catholiccountry began at length to excite a suspicion in the mind of his mother, his friends, and the queen herself, that his conduct was influenced bysome secret bias towards the Romish faith;--an impression which receivedconfirmation from the intimacies which he cultivated with severalEnglish exiles and pensioners of the king of Spain. This idea appears, however, to have been unfounded. It was often by the express, thoughsecret, request of Burleigh that he formed these connexions; and he hadfrequently supplied this minister with important articles ofintelligence procured from such persons, with whom it was by no meansunusual to perform the office of spy to England and to Spainalternately, or even to both at the same time. At length, the urgency ofhis friends and the clamors of his mother, whose protestant zeal, setting a sharper edge on a temper naturally keen, prompted her toemploy expressions of great violence, compelled him, after many delays, to quit the continent; and in the beginning of 1592 he returned to hisnative country. His miserable state of health, from the gout and otherdisorders which rendered him a cripple for life, prevented hisencountering the fatigues of the usual court attendance: yet he lost notime in procuring a seat in parliament; and his close connexion with theCecils, joined to the opinion entertained of his political talents, seems to have excited a general expectation of his rising to highimportance in the state. But he was not long in discovering, that forsome unknown reason the lord treasurer was little his friend; andoffended at the coolness with which his secret intelligence fromnumerous foreign correspondents was received by this minister and hisson, in their joint capacity of secretaries of state, he was easilyprevailed upon to address himself to Essex. 

The earl had by this time learned, that there was no surer mode ofrecommending himself to her majesty, and persuading her of hisextraordinary zeal for her service, than to provide her with a constantsupply of authentic and early intelligence from the various countries ofEurope, on which she kept a vigilant and jealous eye. He was accordinglyoccupied in establishing news-agents in every quarter, and the opportuneoffers of Anthony Bacon were accepted by him with the utmost eagerness. A connexion was immediately established between them, which ripened withtime into so confidential an intimacy, that in 1595 the earl prevailedon Mr. Bacon to accept of apartments in Essex-house, which he continuedto occupy till commanded by her majesty to quit them on the breaking outof the last rash enterprise of his patron. 

Struck with the boundless affection manifested by Anthony towards hisbrother, with whom he had established an entire community of interests, Essex now espoused with more warmth than ever the cause of Francis. Hestrained every nerve to gain for him, in 1592, the situation ofattorney-general: but Burleigh opposed the appointment; Robert Cecilopenly expressed to the earl his surprise that he should seek to procureit for "a raw youth;" and her majesty declared that, after the manner inwhich Francis Bacon had stood up against her in parliament, admission toher presence was the only favor to which he ought to aspire. She added, that in her father's time such conduct would have been sufficient tobanish a man the court for life. Lowering his tone, Essex afterwardssought for his friend the office of solicitor-general; but the sameprejudices and antipathies still thwarted him: and finding all hisefforts vain to establish him in any public station of honor oremolument, he nobly compensated his disappointment and relieved hisnecessities by the gift of an estate. 

The spirit of Bacon was neither a courageous nor a lofty one. He toosoon repented of his generous exertions in the popular cause, and soughtto atone for them by so entire a submission of himself to her majesty, accompanied with such eloquent professions of duty, humility andprofound respect, that we can scarcely doubt that a word of solicitationfrom the lips of Burleigh might have gained him an easy pardon. It ispainful to think that any party jealousies, or any compliance with themalignant passions of his son, should so have poisoned the naturallyfriendly and benevolent disposition of this aged minister, that hecould bear to withhold the offices of kindness from the nephew of hislate beloved wife, and the son of one of his nearest friends and mostcordial coadjutors in public life. But according to the maxims ofcourt-factions his desertion of the Bacons might be amplyjustified;--they had made their election, and it was the patronage ofEssex which they preferred. Experience taught them too late, that fortheir own interests they had chosen wrong. Since the death of Leicester, the Cecils had possessed all the real power at the court of Elizabeth:they and they only could advance their adherents. Essex, it is true, through the influence which he exerted over the imagination or theaffections of the queen, could frequently obtain grants to himself ofreal importance and great pecuniary value. But her majesty's singularcaprice of temper rendered her jealous of every mark of favor extortedfrom the tender weakness of her heart; and she appears to have almostmade it a rule to compensate every act of bounty towards himself, bysome sensible mortification which she made him suffer in the person of afriend. So little was his patronage the road to advancement, that sirThomas Smith, clerk of the council, is recorded as the solitary instanceof a man preferred out of his household to the service of her majesty;and Bacon himself somewhere says, speaking of the queen, "Against me sheis never positive but to my lord of Essex. "

Fulk Greville was one of the few who did honor to themselves by becomingat this time the advocate of Francis Bacon with the queen; and hissolicitations were heard by her with such apparent complacency, that hewrote to Bacon, that he would wager two to one on his chance of becomingattorney, or at least solicitor-general. But Essex was to be mortified, and the influence of this generous Mæcenas was exerted finally in vain. To his unfortunate choice of a patron then, joined to the indiscreetzeal with which that patron pleaded his cause "in season and out ofseason, " we are to ascribe in part the neglect experienced by Baconduring the reign of Elizabeth. But other causes concurred, which it maybe interesting to trace, and which it would be injustice both to thequeen and to Burleigh to pass over in silence. 

At the period when Bacon first appealed to the friendship of the lordtreasurer in the letter above cited, he was already in the thirtiethyear of his age, and had borne for two years the character of queen'scounsel extraordinary; but to the courts of law he was so entire astranger that it was not till one or two years afterwards that we findhim pleading his first cause. It was pretty evident therefore in 1592, when he sought the office of attorney-general, that necessity alone hadmade it the object of his wishes; and his known inexperience in thepractice of the law might reasonably justify in the queen and herministers some scruple of placing him in so responsible a post. As aphilosopher indeed, no encouragement could exceed his deserts; but thiswas a character which very few even of the learned of that day werecapable of appretiating. Physical science, disgraced by its alliancewith the "blind experiments" of alchemy and the deluding dreams ofjudicial astrology, was in possession of few titles to the respect ofmankind; and its professors, --credulous enthusiasts, for the most part, or designing impostors, --usually ended by bringing shame and loss onsuch persons as greedy hopes or vain curiosity bribed to become theirpatrons. 

That general "Instauration" of the sciences which the mighty genius ofBacon had projected, was a scheme too vast and too profound to becomprehended by the minds of Elizabeth and her statesmen; and as it wasnot of a nature to address itself to their passions and interests, wemust not wonder if they should have regarded it with indifference. Atthis period, too, it existed only in embryo; and so little was thepublic intellect prepared to seize the first hints thrown out by itsillustrious author, that even many years afterwards, when his system hadbeen produced to the world nearly in a state of maturity, the generalsentiment seems pretty much to have corresponded with the judgement ofking James, "that the philosophy of Bacon was like the peace of God, which passeth all understanding. "

All these considerations, however, are scarcely sufficient to vindicatethe boasted discernment of Elizabeth from disgrace, in having sufferedthe most illustrious sage of her reign and country, who was at the sametime its brightest wit and most accomplished orator, known to her fromhis birth, and the son of a wise and faithful servant whose memory sheheld in honor, --to languish in poverty and discouragement; useless toherself and to the public affairs, and a burthen to his own thoughts. 

The king of France found it expedient about this time to declare himselfa convert to the church of Rome. For this change of religion, whethersincere or otherwise, he might plead, not only the personal motive ofgaining possession of the throne of his inheritance, which seemed to bedenied to him on other terms, but the patriotic one of rescuing hisexhausted country from the miseries of a protracted civil war; andwhatever might be the decision of a scrupulous moralist on the case, itis certain that Elizabeth at least had small title to reprobate acompliance of which, under the reign of her sister, she had herself setthe example. But the character of the protestant heroine with whichcircumstances had invested her, obliged her to overlook thisinconsistency; and as demonstrations cost her little, she not onlyindicted on the occasion a solemn letter of reproof to her ally, butactually professed herself so deeply wounded by his dereliction ofprinciple, that it was necessary for her to tranquillize her mind by theperusal of many pious works, and the study of Boethius on consolation, which she even undertook the task of translating. Essex, whom shehonored with a sight of her performance, was adroit enough to suggest tothe royal author, as a principal motive of his urgency with her torestore Francis Bacon to her favor, the earnest desire which he feltthat her majesty's excellent translations should be viewed by those mostcapable of appretiating their merits. 

The indignation of Elizabeth against Henry's apostasy was not however soviolent as to exclude the politic consideration, that it was still herinterest to support the king of France against the king of Spain; andbesides continuing her wonted supplies, she soon after entered with himinto a new engagement, purporting that they should never make peace butby mutual consent. 

Bretagne was still the scene of action to the English auxiliaries. Undersir John Norris, their able commander, they shared in the service ofwresting from the Spaniards, by whom they had been garrisoned, the townsof Morlaix, Quimpercorentin and Brest; their valor was every whereconspicuous; and the eagerness of the young courtiers of Elizabeth toshare in the glory of these enterprises rose to a passion, which shesometimes thought it necessary to repress with a show of severity; as inthe following instance related by Naunton. 

Sir Charles Blount, afterwards lord Montjoy, "having twice or thricestolen away into Bretagne (where under sir John Norris he had then acompany) without the queen's leave and privity, she sent a messengerunto him, with a strict charge to the general to see him sent home. Whenhe came into the queen's presence, she fell into a kind of reviling, demanding how he durst go over without her leave? 'Serve me so, ' quothshe, 'once more, and I will lay you fast enough for running; you willnever leave it until you are knocked on the head, as that inconsideratefellow Sidney was. You shall go when I send you, and in the meantimesee that you lodge in the court, ' (which was then at Whitehall) 'whereyou may follow your book, read and discourse of the wars. '"

Philip II. , unable to win glory or advantage against Elizabeth in openand honorable warfare, sought a base revenge upon her by proposingthrough secret agents vast rewards to any who could be brought toattempt her destruction. It was no easy task to discover personssufficiently rash, as well as wicked, to undertake from motives purelymercenary a villany of which the peril was so appalling; but at lengthFuentes and Ibarra, joint governors of the Netherlands, succeeded inbribing Dr. Lopez, domestic physician to the queen, to mix poison in hermedicine. Essex, whose watchfulness over the life of his sovereign wasremarkable, whilst his intelligences were comparable in extent andaccuracy to those of Walsingham himself, was the first to give notice ofthis atrocious plot. At his instance Lopez was apprehended, examinedbefore himself, the treasurer, the lord admiral, and Robert Cecil, andcommitted to custody in the earl's house. But nothing decisive appearingon his first examination, Robert Cecil took occasion to represent thecharge as groundless; and her majesty, sending in heat for Essex, calledhim "rash and temerarious youth, " and reproached him for bringing onslight grounds so heinous a suspicion upon an innocent man. The earl, incensed to find his diligent service thus repaid, through thesuccessful artifice of his enemy, quitted the presence in a paroxysm ofrage, and, according to his practice on similar occasions, shut himselfup in his chamber, which he refused to quit till the queen herself twoor three days afterwards sent the lord admiral to mediate areconciliation. 

Further interrogatories, mingled probably with menaces of the torture, brought Lopez to confess the fact of his having received the king ofSpain's bribe; but he persisted in denying that it was ever in histhoughts to perpetrate the crime. This subterfuge did not, however, savehim from an ignominious death, which he shared with two other personswhom Fuentes and Ibarra had hired for a similar undertaking. 

The Spanish court disdained to return any satisfactory answer to thecomplaints of Elizabeth respecting these designs against her life; buteither shame, or more likely the fear of reprisals, seems to havedeterred it from any repetition of experiments so perilous. 

About two years afterwards, however, an English Jesuit named Walpole, who was settled in Spain and intimately connected with the noted fatherParsons, instigated an attempt worthy of record, partly as a curiousinstance of the exaggerated ideas then prevalent of the force ofpoisons. In the last voyage of Drake to the West Indies, a small vesselof his was captured and carried into a port of Spain, on board of whichwas one Squire, formerly a purveyor for the queen's stables. With thisprisoner Walpole, as a diligent servant of his Church, undertook to makehimself acquainted; and finding him a resolute fellow, and of capacityand education above his rank, he spared no pains to convert him topopery. This step gained, he diligently plied him with his jesuiticalarguments, and so thoroughly persuaded him of the duty and merit ofpromoting by any kind of means the overthrow of heresy, that Squire atlength consented to bind himself by a solemn vow to make an attemptagainst the life of Elizabeth in the mode which should be pointed out tohim:--an enterprise, as he was assured, which would be attended withlittle personal danger, and, in case of the worst, would assuredly berecompensed by an immediate admission into the joys of heaven. 

Finally the worthy father presented to his disciple a packet of somepoisonous preparation, which he enjoined him to take an opportunity ofspreading on the pommel of the queen's saddle. The queen in mountingwould transfer the ointment to her hand; with her hand she was likely totouch her mouth or nostrils; and such, as he averred, was the virulenceof the poison that certain death must follow. 

Squire returned to England, enlisted for the Cadiz expedition, and onthe eve of its sailing took the preparation and disposed of it asdirected. Desirous of adding to his merits, he found means during thevoyage to anoint in like manner the arms of the earl of Essex's chair. The failure of the application in both instances greatly surprised him. To the Jesuit it appeared so unaccountable, that he was persuaded Squirehad deceived him; and actuated at once by the desire of punishing hisdefection, and the fear of his betraying such secrets of the party ashad been confided to him, he consummated his villany by artfullyconveying to the English government an intimation of the plot. Squirewas apprehended, and at first denied all: "but by good counsel, and thetruth working withal, " according to Speed's expression, was brought toconfess what could not otherwise have been proved against him, andsuffered penitently for his offence. Our chronicler admires theprovidence which interfered for the protection of her majesty in thisgreat peril, and compares it to the miraculous preservation of St. Paulfrom the bite of the viper. 

The Jesuits are supposed to have employed more efficacious instrumentsfor the destruction of Ferdinando earl of Derby, who died in April 1594. This nobleman had the misfortune to be grandson of Eleanor countess ofCumberland, the younger daughter of Mary queen dowager of France andsister of Henry VIII. By her second husband Charles Brandon duke ofSuffolk; and although the children of lady Catherine Grey countess ofHertford obviously stood before him in this line of succession, occasionwas taken by the Romish party from this descent to urge him to assumethe title of king of England. One Hesket, a zealous agent of the Jesuitsand popish fugitives, was employed to tamper with the earl, who on onehand undertook that his claim should be supported by powerful succoursfrom abroad, and on the other menaced him with certain and speedy deathin case of his rejecting the proposal or betraying its authors. But theearl was too loyal to hesitate a moment. He revealed the whole plot togovernment, and Hesket on his information was convicted of treason andsuffered death. Not long after, the earl was suddenly seized with aviolent disorder of the bowels, which in a few days carried him off; andon the first day of his illness, his gentleman of the horse took hislord's best saddle-horse and fled. These circumstances might be thoughtpretty clearly to indicate poison as the means of his untimely end: butalthough a suspicion of its employment was entertained by some, themelancholy event appears to have been more generally ascribed towitchcraft. An examination being instituted, a waxen image wasdiscovered in his chamber with a hair of the color of the earl's drawnthrough the body; also, an old woman in the neighbourhood, a reputedwitch, being required to recite after a prompter the Lord's Prayer inLatin, was observed to blunder repeatedly in the same words. But thesecircumstances, however strong, not being deemed absolutely conclusive, the poor old woman was apparently suffered to escape:--after thegentleman of the horse, or his instigators, we do not find that anysearch was made. 

The mother of this earl of Derby died two years after. At one period ofher life we find her much in favor with the queen, whom she wasaccustomed to attend in quality of first lady of the blood-royal; butshe had subsequently excited her majesty's suspicions by her imprudentconsultations of fortune-tellers and diviners, on the delicate subject, doubtless, of succession to the crown. 

The animosity between Elizabeth and her savage adversary the king ofSpain was continually becoming more fierce and more inveterate. Undeterred by former failures, Philip was thought to meditate a freshinvasion either of England or of Ireland, which latter country wasbesides in so turbulent a state from the insurrections of nativechieftains, that it had been found necessary to send over sir JohnNorris as general of Ulster, with a strong reinforcement of veteransfrom the Low Countries. The queen, on her part, was well prepared toresist and retaliate all attacks. The spirit of the nation wasthoroughly roused; gallant troops and able officers formed in theFlemish school of glory, or under the banners of the Bourbon hero, burned with impatience for the signal to revenge the wrongs of theirqueen and country on their capital and most detested enemy. Still theconflict threatened to be an arduous one: Elizabeth felt all itsdifficulties; and loth to lose the support of one of her bravest andmost popular captains, she addressed the following letter of recall tolord Willoughby, who had repaired to Spa ostensibly for the recovery ofhis health; really, perhaps, in resentment of some injury inflicted by avenal and treacherous court, of which his noble nature scorned alike theintrigues and the servility. 

 * * * * *

"Good Peregrine, "We are not a little glad that by your journey you have received suchgood fruit of amendment, especially when we consider how great avexation it is to a mind devoted to actions of honor, to be restrainedby any indisposition of body from following those courses which, to yourown reputation and our great satisfaction, you have formerly performed. And therefore we must now (out of our desire of your well-doing)chiefly enjoin you to an especial care to encrease and continue yourhealth, which must give life to all your best endeavours; so we next asseriously recommend to you this consideration, that in these times, whenthere is such an appearance that we shall have the trial of our best andnoble subjects, you seem not to affect the satisfaction of your ownprivate contentation, beyond the attending on that which nature and dutychallengeth from all persons of your quality and profession. For ifunnecessarily, your health of body being recovered, you should elloignyourself by residence there from those employments whereof we shall havetoo good store, you shall not so much amend the state of your body, ashaply you shall call in question the reputation of your mind andjudgement, even in the opinion of those that love you, and are bestacquainted with your disposition and discretion. 

"Interpret this our plainness, we pray you, to an extraordinaryestimation of you, for it is not common with us to deal so freely withmany; and believe that you shall ever find us both ready and willing, onall occasions, to yield you the fruits of that interest which yourendeavours have purchased for you in our opinion and estimation. Notdoubting but when you have with moderation made trial of the successesof these your sundry peregrinations, you will find as great comfort tospend your days at home as heretofore you have done; of which we do wishyou full measure, howsoever you shall have cause of abode or return. Given under our signet at our manor of Nonesuch, the 7th of October1594, in the 37th year of our reign. 

"Your most loving sovereign

"E. R. "

 * * * * *

We do not perceive the effects of this letter in the employment of lordWilloughby in any of the expeditions against Spain which ensued; but hewas afterwards appointed governor of Berwick, and held that situationtill his death in 1601. 

Sir Walter Raleigh, that splendid genius with a sordid soul, whom aromantic spirit of adventure and a devouring thirst of gain equallystimulated to activity, had unexpectedly found his advancement at courtimpeded, after the first steps, usually accounted the most difficult, had been speedily and fortunately surmounted. Several conspiring causesmight however be assigned for this check in his career of fortune. Hishigh pretensions to the favor of the queen, joined to his open adherenceto the party of sir Robert Cecil, had provoked the hostility of Essex;who, in defiance of him, at one of the ostentatious tournaments of theday, is said to have "filled the tilt-yard with two thousandorange-tawny feathers, " the distinction doubtless of his followers andretainers. He had incurred the resentment of more than one of the orderof bishops, by his ceaseless and shameless solicitations of grants andleases out of the property of the Church. In Ireland, he had renderedsir William Russell the lord deputy his enemy by various demonstrationsof opposition and rivalry; at court, his abilities and his first rapidsuccesses with her majesty had stirred up against him the envy of awhole host of competitors. Elizabeth, who for the best reasons had anextreme dislike to any manifestations of a mercenary disposition in herservants, had been disgusted by the frequency and earnestness of hispetitions for pecuniary favors. "When, sir Walter, " she had onceexclaimed, "will you cease to be a beggar?" He replied, "When yourgracious majesty ceases to be a benefactor. " So dexterous an answerappeased her for a time; and the profusion of eloquent adulation withwhich he never failed to soothe her ear, engaged her self-love stronglyin his behalf. But to complete the ill-fortune of Raleigh, fatherParsons, provoked by the earnestness with which he had urged inparliament the granting of supplies for a war offensive and defensiveagainst Spain, had published a pamphlet charging him with atheism andimpiety, which had not only found welcome reception with his enemies, but with the people, to whom he was ever obnoxious, and had even raiseda prejudice against him in the mind of his sovereign. On this subject, awriter contemporary with the later years of Raleigh thus expresseshimself:

"Sir Walter Raleigh was the first, as I have heard, that ventured totack about and sail aloof from the beaten track of the schools; who, upon the discovery of so apparent an error as a torrid zone, intended toproceed in an inquisition after more solid truths; till the mediation ofsome whose livelihood lay in hammering shrines for this superannuatedstudy, possessed queen Elizabeth that such doctrine was against God noless than her father's honor; whose faith, if he owed any, was groundedupon school divinity. Whereupon she chid him, who was, by his ownconfession, ever after branded with the name of an atheist, though aknown assertor of God and providence[115]. "

[Note 115: Osborne's "Introduction" to his Essays. ]

The business of Mrs. Throgmorton, and the disputes arising out of thesale of the captured carrack, succeeded, to inflame still more theill-humour of the queen; and Raleigh, finding every thing adverse to himat court, resolved to quit the scene for a time, in the hope ofreturning with better omens, when absence and dangers should again haveendeared him to his offended mistress, and when the splendor of hisforeign successes might enable him to impose silence on the clamors ofmalignity at home. 

The interior of the pathless wilds of Guiana had been reported to aboundin those exhaustless mines of the precious metals which filled theimaginations of the earliest explorers of the New World, and, to theirignorant cupidity, appeared the only important object of research andacquisition in regions where the eye of political wisdom would havediscerned so many superior inducements to colonization or to conquest. The fabulous city of El Dorado, --which became for some time proverbialin our language to express the utmost profusion and magnificence ofwealth, --was placed by the romantic narrations of voyagers somewhere inthe centre of this vast country, and nothing could be more flattering tothe mania of the age than the project of exploring its hiddentreasures. Raleigh conceived this idea; the court and the city vied ineagerness to share the profits of the enterprise; a squadron wasspeedily fitted out, though at great expense; and in February 1595 theardent leader weighed anchor from the English shore. Proceeding first toTrinidad, he possessed himself of the town of St. Joseph; then, with thenumerous pinnaces of his fleet, he entered the mouth of the great riverOronoco, and sailing upwards penetrated far into the bosom of thecountry. But the intense heat of the climate, and the difficulties ofthis unknown navigation, compelled him to return without any morevaluable result of his enterprise than that of taking formal possessionof the land in her majesty's name. Raleigh however, unwilling toacknowledge a failure, published on his return an account of Guiana, filled with the most disgraceful and extravagant falsehoods;--falsehoodsto which he himself became eventually the victim, when, on the solecredit of his assurances, king James released him from a tediousimprisonment to head a second band of adventurers to this disastrousshore. 

A still more unfortunate result awaited an expedition of greaterconsequence, which sailed during the same year, under Hawkins and Drake, against the settlements of Spanish America. Repeated attacks had atlength taught the Spaniards to stand on their defence; and the Englishwere first repulsed from Porto Rico, and afterwards obliged torelinquish the attempt of marching across the isthmus of Darien toPanama. But the great and irreparable misfortune of the enterprise wasthe loss, first of the gallant sir John Hawkins, the kinsman and earlypatron of Drake, and afterwards of that great navigator himself, whofell a victim to the torrid climate, and to fatigue and mortificationwhich conspired to render it fatal. A person of such eminence, and whosegreat actions reflect back so bright a lustre on the reign which hadfurnished to him the most glorious occasions of distinguishing himselfin the service of his country, must not be dismissed from the scene insilence. 

The character of Francis Drake was remarkable not alone for thoseconstitutional qualities of valor, industry, capacity and enterprise, which the history of his exploits would necessarily lead us to infer, but for virtues founded on principle and reflection which render it in ahigh degree the object of respect and moral approbation. It is true thathis aggressions on the Spanish settlements were originally founded on avague notion of reprisals, equally irreconcilable to public law andprivate equity. But with the exception of this error, --which may findconsiderable palliation in the deficient education of the man, theprevalent opinions of the day, and the peculiar animosity against PhilipII. Cherished in the bosom of every protestant Englishman, --the conductof Drake appears to demand almost unqualified commendation. It was bysobriety, by diligence in the concerns of his employers, and by a triedintegrity, that he early raised himself from the humble station of anordinary seaman to the command of a vessel. When placed in authorityover others, he showed himself humane and considerate; his treatment ofhis prisoners was exemplary, his veracity unimpeached, his private lifereligiously pure and spotless. In the division of the rich booty whichoften rewarded his valor and his toils, he was liberal towards his crewsand scrupulously just to the owners of his vessels; and in theappropriation of his own share of wealth, he displayed that munificencetowards the public, of which, since the days of Roman glory, history hasrecorded so few examples. 

With the profits of one of his earliest voyages, in which he capturedthe town of Venta Cruz and made prize of a string of fifty mules ladenwith silver, he fitted out three stout frigates and sailed with them toIreland, where he served as a volunteer under Walter earl of Essex, andperformed many brilliant actions. After the capture of a rich Spanishcarrack at the Terceras in 1587, he undertook at his own expense tobring to the town of Plymouth, which he represented in parliament, asupply of spring water, of which necessary article it suffered a greatdeficiency; this he accomplished by means of a canal or aqueduct abovetwenty miles in length. 

Drake incurred some blame in the expedition to Portugal for failing tobring his ships up the river to Lisbon, according to his promise to sirJohn Norris, the general; but on explaining the case before theprivy-council on his return, he was entirely acquitted by them; havingmade it appear that, under all the circumstances, to have carried thefleet up the Tagus would have been to expose it to damage without thepossibility of any benefit to the service. By his enemies, this greatman was stigmatized as vain and boastful; a slight infirmity in one whohad achieved so much by his own unassisted genius, and which the greatflow of natural eloquence which he possessed may at once have producedand rendered excusable. One trait appears to indicate that he wasambitious of a species of distinction which he might have regardedhimself as entitled to despise. He had thought proper to assume, apparently without due authority, the armorial coat of sir BernardDrake, also a seaman and a native of Devonshire: sir Bernard, from afalse pride of family, highly resented this unwarrantable intrusion, ashe regarded it, and in a dispute on the subject gave sir Francis a boxon the ear. The queen now deemed it necessary to interfere, and shegranted to the illustrious navigator the following arms of her owndevice. _Sable, a fess wavy between two pole stars argent_, and forcrest, _a ship on a globe under ruff_, with a cable held by a handcoming out of the clouds; the motto _Auxilio divino_, and beneath, _Sicparvis magna_; in the rigging of the ship _a wivern gules_, the arms ofsir Bernard Drake, _hung up by the heels_. 

Sir John Baskerville, who succeeded by the death of Drake to the commandof the unfortunate expedition to which he had fallen a sacrifice, encountered the Spanish fleet off Cuba in an action, which, though lessdecisive on the English side than might have been hoped, left at leastno ground of triumph to the enemy. Meantime the court was by no meansbarren of incident; and we are fortunate in possessing a minute andauthentic journal of its transactions in a series of letters addressedto sir Robert Sidney governor of Flushing by several of his friends, but chiefly by Rowland Whyte, a gentleman to whom, during his absence, he had recommended the care of his interests, and the task oftransmitting to him whatever intelligence might appear either useful orentertaining[116]. 

[Note 116: See Sidney Papers, _passim. _]

In October 1595 Mr. Whyte mentions the following abominable instance oftyranny. That the earl of Hertford had been sent for by a messenger andcommitted to custody in his own house, because it had appeared by a casefound among the papers of a Dr. Aubrey, that he had formerly taken theopinions of civilians on the validity of his first marriage, and causeda record of it to be secretly put into the court of Arches. Whyte addssignificantly, that the earl was accounted one of the wealthiestsubjects in England. Soon after, his lordship was committed to theTower; and it was said that orders were given that his son, who sincethe establishment of the marriage had borne the title of lord Beauchamp, should henceforth be again called Mr. Seymour. Several lawyers and otherpersons were also imprisoned for a short time about this matter, underwhat law, or pretext of law, it would be vain to inquire. Lady Hertford, though a sister of the lord admiral and nearly related to the queen, wasfor some time an unsuccessful suitor at court for the liberty of herlord. Her majesty however was graciously pleased to declare that"neither his life nor living should be called in question;"--as if bothhad been at her mercy! and though she would not consent to see thecountess, she regularly sent her broths in a morning, and, at meals, meat from her own trencher;--affecting, it should seem, in thesetrifles, to acquit herself of the promises of her special favor, withwhich she had a few years before repaid the splendid hospitality of thisnoble pair. We do not learn how long the durance of the earl continued;but it is highly probable that he was once more compelled to purchasehis liberty. 

Great uneasiness was given about this time to the earl of Essex by abook written in defence of the king of Spain's title to the Englishcrown, which contained "dangerous praises of his valor and worthiness, "inserted for the express purpose of exciting the jealousy of the queenand bringing him into disgrace. The work was shown him by Elizabethherself. On coming from her presence he was observed to look "pale andwan, " and going home he reported himself sick;--an expedient for workingon the feelings of his sovereign, to which, notwithstanding the truthand honor popularly regarded as his characteristics, Essex is known tohave frequently condescended. On this, as on most occasions, he found itsuccessful: her majesty soon made him a consolatory visit; and in spiteof the strenuous efforts of his enemies, this attempt to injure him onlyserved to augment her affection and root him more firmly in herconfidence. 

"Her majesty, " says Whyte soon after, "is in very good health, and comesmuch abroad; upon Thursday she dined at Kew, at my lord keeper's house, (who lately obtained of her majesty his suit for one hundred pounds ayear in fee-farm, ) her entertainment for that meal was great andexceeding costly. At her first lighting she had a fine fan garnishedwith diamonds, valued at four hundred pounds at least. After dinner, inher privy-chamber, he gave her a fair pair of virginals. In herbed-chamber, he presented her with a fine gown and a juppin, whichthings were pleasing to her highness; and, to grace his lordship themore, she of herself took from him a fork, a spoon, and a salt, of fairagate. " It must be confessed that this was a mode of "gracing" acourtier peculiarly consonant to the disposition of her majesty. 

The further Elizabeth descended into the vale of years, the strongerwere her efforts to make ostentation of a youthful gaiety of spirits andan unfailing alacrity in the pursuit of pleasure; though avarice, thevice of age, mingled strangely with these her juvenile affectations. Toremark to her the progress of time, was to wound her in the tenderestpart, and not even from her ghostly counsellors would she endure a topicso offensive as the mention of her age: an anecdote to this effectbelongs to the year 1596, and is found in the account of Rudd bishop ofSt. Davids given in Harrington's Brief View of the Church. 

"There is almost none that waited in queen Elizabeth's court andobserved any thing, but can tell that it pleased her very much to seem, to be thought, and to be told that she looked young. The majesty andgravity of a sceptre borne forty-four years could not alter that natureof a woman in her: This notwithstanding, this good bishop beingappointed to preach before her in the Lent of the year 1596. . . Wishingin a godly zeal, as well became him, that she should think sometime ofmortality, " took a text fit for the purpose, on which he treated for atime "well, " "learnedly, " and "respectively. " "But when he had spokenawhile of some sacred and mystical numbers, as three for the Trinity, three for the heavenly Hierarchy, seven for the Sabbath, and seven timesseven for a Jubilee; and lastly, --seven times nine for the grandclimacterical year; she, perceiving whereto it tended, began to betroubled with it. The bishop discovering that all was not well, for thepulpit stands there _vis à vis_ to the closet, he fell to treat of somemore plausible numbers, as of the number 666, making _Latinus_, withwhich he said he could prove the pope to be Antichrist; also of thefatal number of 88, --so long before spoken of for a dangerous year, . . . But withal interlarding it with some passages of Scripture that touchthe infirmities of age. . . He concluded his sermon. The queen, as themanner was, opened the window; but she was so far from giving him thanksor good countenance, that she said plainly he should have kept hisarithmetic for himself. 'But I see, ' said she, 'the greatest clerks arenot the wisest men;' and so went away for the time discontented. 

"The lord keeper Puckering, though reverencing the man much in hisparticular, yet for the present, to assuage the queen's displeasure, _commanded him to keep his house for a time_, which he did. But of atruth her majesty showed no ill nature in this, for within three daysshe was not only displeased at his restraint, but in my hearing rebukeda lady yet living for speaking scornfully of him and his sermon. Onlyto show how the good bishop was deceived in supposing she was so decayedin her limbs and senses as himself perhaps and other of that age werewont to be; she said she thanked God that neither her stomach norstrength, nor her voice for singing, nor fingering instruments, nor, lastly, her sight, was any whit decayed; and to prove the last before usall, she produced a little jewel that had an inscription of very smallletters, and offered it first to my lord of Worcester, and then to sirJames Crofts to read, and both protested _bona fide_ that they couldnot; yet the queen herself did find out the poesy, and made herselfmerry with the standers by upon it. "

A point of some importance to the peers of England was about this timebrought to a final decision by the following circumstance. Sir Thomas, son and heir of sir Matthew Arundel of Wardour-castle, a young man of acourageous and enterprising disposition, going over to Germany, had beeninduced to engage as a volunteer in the wars of the emperor against theTurks; and in the assault of the city of Gran in Hungary had taken withhis own hand a Turkish banner. For this and other good service, Rodolphthe Second had been pleased to confer upon him the honor of count of theholy Roman empire, extending also, as usual, the title of counts andcountesses to all his descendants for ever. On his return to England inthe year following, the question arose whether this dignity, conferredby a foreign prince without the previous consent of his own sovereign, should entitle the bearer to rank, precedence, or any other privilegein this country. 

The peers naturally opposed a concession which tended to lessen thevalue of their privileges by rendering them accessible through foreignchannels; and her majesty, being called upon to settle the debate, pronounced the following judgement. That the closest tie of affectionsubsisted between sovereigns and their subjects: that as chaste wivesshould fix their eyes upon their husbands alone, in like manner faithfulsubjects should only direct theirs towards the prince whom it hadpleased God to set over them. And that she would not allow her sheep tobe branded with the mark of a stranger, or be taught to follow thewhistle of a foreign shepherd. And to this effect she wrote to theemperor, who by a special letter had recommended sir Thomas Arundel toher favor. The decision appears to have been reasonable and politic, andwould at the time be regarded as peculiarly so in the instance of honorsconferred on a catholic gentleman by a catholic prince. King James, however, created sir Thomas, lord Arundel of Wardour; and he seems tohave borne in common speech, the title of count[117]. 

[Note 117: Camden's Annals. Peerage, by Sir E. Brydges. ]

CHAPTER XXV. 

1595 to 1598. 

Essex and Cecil factious--Expedition to Cadiz. --Robert Cecil appointedsecretary. --Notice of sir T. Bodley. --Critical situation ofEssex. --Francis Bacon addresses to him a letter of advice--composesspeeches for him. --Notice of Toby Matthew. --Outrages in London repressedby martial law. --Death of lord Hunsdon--of the earl of Huntingdon--ofbishop Fletcher. --Anecdote of bishop Vaughan. --Book on the queen'stouching for the evil. 

From this period nearly of the reign of Elizabeth, her court exhibited ascene of perpetual contest between the faction of the earl of Essex andthat of lord Burleigh, or rather of Robert Cecil; and so widely did theeffects of this intestine division extend, that there was perhapsscarcely a single court-attendant or public functionary whose interestsdid not become in some mode or other involved in the debate. Yet thequarrel itself may justly be regarded as base and contemptible; nopublic principle was here at stake; whether religious, as in thestruggles between papists and protestants which often rent the cabinetof Henry VIII. ; or civil, as in those of whigs and tories by which theadministrations of later times have been divided and overthrown. It wassimply and without disguise a strife between individuals, for theexclusive possession of that political power and court influence ofwhich each might without disturbance have enjoyed a share capable ofcontenting an ordinary ambition. 

In religion there was apparently no shade of difference between thehostile leaders; neither of them had studied with so little diligencethe inclinations of the queen as to persist at this time in thepatronage of the puritans, though the early impressions, certainly ofEssex and probably of sir Robert Cecil also, must have been considerablyin favor of this persecuted sect. Still less would either venture tostand forth the advocate of the catholics; though it was among the mostdaring and desperate of this body that Essex was compelled at length toseek adherents, when the total ruin of his interest with his sovereignfatally compelled him to exchange the character of head of a court partyfor that of a conspirator and a rebel. Of the title of the king of Scotsboth were steady supporters; and first Essex and afterwards Cecilmaintained a secret correspondence with James, who flattered each in histurn with assurances of present friendship and future favor. 

On one public question alone of any considerable magnitude do the rivalsappear to have been at issue;--that of the prosecution of an offensivewar against Spain. 

The age and the wisdom of lord Burleigh alike inclined him to a pacificpolicy; and though Robert Cecil, for the purpose of strengtheninghimself and weakening his opponent, would frequently act the patrontowards particular officers, --those especially of whom he observed theearl to entertain a jealousy, --it is certain that warlike ardor made nopart of his natural composition. Essex on the contrary was all on firefor military glory; and at this time he was urging the queen withunceasing importunities to make a fresh attack upon her capital enemy inthe heart of his European dominions. In this favorite object, afterencountering considerable opposition from her habits of procrastinationand from some remaining fears and scruples, he succeeded; and the zealof the people hastening to give full effect to the designs of hermajesty, a formidable armament was fitted out in all diligence, which inJune 1596 set sail for Cadiz. 

Lord Howard of Effingham, as lord admiral, commanded the fleet; Essexhimself received with transport the appointment of general of all theland-forces, and spared neither pains nor cost in his preparations forthe enterprise. Besides his constant eagerness for action, his spiritwas on this occasion inflamed by an indignation against the tyrantPhilip, "which rose, " according to the happy expression of one of hisbiographers, "to the dignity of a personal aversion[118]. " In hisletters he was wont to employ the expression, "I will make that proudking know" &c. : a phrase, it seems, which gave high offence toElizabeth, who could not tolerate what she regarded as arrogance againsta crowned head, though her bitterest foe. 

[Note 118: See A Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, by lordOrford. ]

Subordinate commands were given to lord Thomas Howard, second son of thelate duke of Norfolk, who was at this time inclined to the party ofEssex; to Raleigh, who now affected an extraordinary deference for theearl, his secret enemy and rival; to that very able officer sir FrancisVere of the family of the earls of Oxford, who had highly distinguishedhimself during several years in the wars of the Low Countries; to sirGeorge Carew, an intimate friend of sir Robert Cecil; and to someothers, who formed together a council of war. 

The queen herself composed on this occasion a prayer for the use of thefleet, and she sent to her land and her sea commander jointly "a letterof license to depart; besides comfortable encouragement. " "But ours inparticular, " adds a follower of Essex, "had one fraught with all kind ofpromises and loving offers, as the like, since he was a favorite, henever had. "

Enterprise was certainly not the characteristic of the lord admiral as acommander; and when on the arrival of the armament off Cadiz, it wasproposed that an attack should be made by the fleet on the ships in theharbour, he remonstrated against the rashness of such an attempt, andprevailed on several members of the council of war to concur in hisobjections. In the end, however, the arguments or importunities of themore daring party prevailed; and Essex threw his hat into the sea in awild transport of joy on learning that the admiral consented to make theattack. He was now acquainted by the admiral with the queen's secretorder, dictated by her tender care for the safety of her youngfavorite, --that he should by no means be allowed to lead theassault;--and he promised an exact obedience to the mortifyingprohibition. But, once in presence of the enemy, his impetuosity wouldbrook no control. He broke from the station of inglorious security whichhad been assigned him, and rushed into the heat of the action. 

The Spanish fleet was speedily driven up the harbour, under the guns ofthe fort of Puntal, where the admiral's ship and another first-rate wereset on fire by their own crews, and the rest run aground. Of these, twofine ships fell into the hands of the English; and the lord admiralhaving refused to accept of any ransom for the remainder, saying that hecame to consume and not to compound, they were all, to the number offifty, burned by the Spanish admiral. 

Meantime, Essex landed his men and marched them to the assault of Cadiz. The town was on this side well fortified, and the defenders, having alsothe advantage of the ground, received the invaders so warmly that theywere on the point of being repulsed from the gate against which they haddirected their attack: but Essex, just at the critical moment, rushedforward, seized his own colors and threw them over the wall; "givingwithal a most hot assault unto the gate, where, to save the honor oftheir ensign, happy was he that could first leap down from the wall andwith shot and sword make way through the thickest press of the enemy. "

The town being thus stormed, was of course given up to plunder; butEssex, whose humanity was not less conspicuous than his courage, put animmediate stop to the carnage by a vigorous exertion of his authority;protected in person the women, children, and religious, whom he causedto retire to a place of safety; caused the prisoners to be treated withthe utmost tenderness; and allowed all the citizens to withdraw, onpayment of a ransom, before the place with its fortifications wascommitted to the flames. It was indeed the wish and intention of Essexto have kept possession of Cadiz; which he confidently engaged to thecouncil of war to hold out against the Spaniards, with a force of nomore than three or four thousand men, till succours could be sent fromEngland; and with this view he had in the first instance sedulouslypreserved the buildings from all injury. But among his brother officersfew were found prepared to second his zeal: the expedition was in greatmeasure an adventure undertaken at the expense of private persons, whoengaged in it with the hope of gain rather than glory; and as these menprobably attributed the success which had hitherto crowned their arms ingreat measure to the surprise of the Spaniards, they were unwilling torisk in a more deliberate contest the rich rewards of valor of whichthey had possessed themselves. 

The subsequent proposals of Essex for the annoyance of the enemy, eitherby an attack on Corunna, or on St. Sebastian and St. Andero, or bysailing to the Azores in quest of the homeward-bound carracks, allexperienced the same mortifying negative from the members of the councilof war, of whom lord Thomas Howard alone supported his opinions. Butundeterred by this systematic opposition, he persevered in urging, thatmore might and more ought to be performed by so considerable anarmament; and the lord admiral, weary of contesting the matter, sailedaway at length and left him on the Spanish coast with the few ships andthe handful of men which still adhered to him. Want of provisionscompelled him in a short time to abandon an enterprise now desperate;and he returned full of indignation to England, where fresh strugglesand new mortifications awaited him. The appointment during his absenceof Robert Cecil to the office of secretary of state, instead of ThomasBodley, afterwards the founder of the library which preserves hisname, --for whom, since he had found the restoration of Davison hopeless, Essex had been straining every nerve to procure it, --gave him amplewarning of all the counteraction on other points which he was doomed toexperience; and was in fact the circumstance which finally establishedthe ascendency of his adversaries: yet to an impartial eye manyconsiderations may appear to have entirely justified on the part of thequeen this preference. Where, it might be asked, could a fittersuccessor be found to lord Burleigh in the post which he had so longfilled to the satisfaction of his sovereign and the benefit of hiscountry, than in the son who certainly inherited all hisability;--though not, as was afterwards seen, his principles or hisvirtues;--and who had been trained to business as the assistant of hisfather and under his immediate inspection? Why should the earl of Essexinterfere with an order of things so natural? On what pretext should thequeen be induced to disappoint the hopes of her old and faithfulservant, and to cast a stigma upon a young man of the most promisingtalents, who was unwearied in his efforts to establish himself in herfavor?

By the queen and the people, Essex, their common favorite, was welcomed, on his safe return from an expedition to himself so glorious, with everydemonstration of joy and affection, and no one appeared to sympathizemore cordially than her majesty in his indignation that nothing had beenattempted against the Spanish treasure-ships. On the other hand, nopains were spared by his adversaries to lessen in public estimation theglory of his exploits, by ascribing to the naval commanders a principalshare in the success at Cadiz, which he accounted all his own. Ananonymous narrative of the expedition which he had prepared, wassuppressed by means of a general prohibition to the printers ofpublishing any thing whatsoever relating to that business; and no otherresource was left him than the imperfect one of dispersing copies inmanuscript. It was suggested to the queen by some about her, that thoughthe treasure-ships had escaped her, she might at least reimburse herselffor the expenses incurred out of the rich spoils taken at Cadiz; and nosooner had this project gained possession of her mind than she began toquarrel with Essex for his lavish distribution of prize-money. Sheinsisted that the commanders should resign to her a large share of theirgains; and she had even the meanness to cause the private soldiers andsailors to be searched before they quitted the ships, that the value ofthe money or other booty of which they had possessed themselves might bededucted from their pay. Her first feelings of displeasure anddisappointment over, the rank and reputation of the officers concerned, and especially the brilliancy of the actual success, were allowed tocover all faults. The influence of her kinsman the lord admiral over themind of the queen was one which daily increased in strength with heradvance in age, --according to a common remark respecting familyattachments; and it will appear that he finally triumphed so completelyover the accusations of his youthful adversary, as to ground on thisvery expedition his claim of advancement to a higher title. 

It was the darling hope of Essex that he might be authorized to leadwithout delay his flourishing and victorious army to the recovery ofCalais, now held by a Spanish garrison; and he took some secret stepswith the French ambassador in order to procure a request to this effectfrom Henry IV. To Elizabeth. But this king absolutely refused to allowthe town to be recaptured by his ally, on the required condition of herretaining it at the peace as an ancient possession of the English crown;the Cecil party also opposed the design; and the disappointed generalsaw himself compelled to pause in the career of glory. 

It was not in the disposition of Essex to support these mortificationswith the calmness which policy appeared to dictate; and Francis Bacon, alarmed at the courses which he saw the earl pursuing, and alreadyforeboding his eventual loss of the queen's favor, and the ruin ofthose, himself included, who had placed their dependence on him, addressed to him a very remarkable letter of caution and remonstrance, not less characteristic of his own peculiar mind than illustrative ofthe critical situation of him to whom it was written. 

After appealing to the earl himself for the advantage which he hadlately received by following his own well-meant advice, in renewing withthe queen "a treaty of obsequious kindness, " which "did much attemper acold malignant humor then growing upon her majesty towards him, " herepeats his counsel that he should "win the queen;" adding, "if this benot the beginning of any other course, I see no end. And I will not nowspeak of favor or affection, but of other correspondence andagreeableness, which, when it shall be conjoined with the other ofaffection, I durst wager my life. . . That in you she will come toquestion of _Quid fiet homini quem rex vult honorare?_ But how is itnow? A man of a nature not to be ruled; that hath the advantage of myaffection and knoweth it; of an estate not grounded to his greatness; ofa popular reputation; of a military dependence. I demand whether therecan be a more dangerous image than this represented to any monarchliving, much more to a lady, and of her majesty's apprehension? And isit not more evident than demonstration itself, that whilst thisimpression continueth in her majesty's breast, you can find no othercondition than inventions to keep your estate bare and low; crossing anddisgracing your actions; extenuating and blasting of your merit;carping with contempt at your nature and fashions; breeding, nourishingand fortifying such instruments as are most factious against you;repulses and scorns of your friends and dependents that are true andsteadfast; winning and inveigling away from you such as are flexible andwavering; thrusting you into odious employments and offices to supplantyour reputation; abusing you and feeding you with dalliances anddemonstrations to divert you from descending into the seriousconsideration of your own case; yea and percase venturing you inperilous and desperate enterprises?"

With his usual exactness of method, he then proceeds to offer remediesfor the five grounds of offence to her majesty here pointed out; amongstwhich the following are the most observable. That he ought to ascribeany former and irrevocable instance of an ungovernable humor in him todissatisfaction, and not to his natural temper:--That though he soughtto shun, and in some respects rightly, any imitation of Hatton orLeicester, he should yet allege them on occasion to the queen as authorsand patterns, because there was no readier means to make her think himin the right course:--That when his lordship happened in speeches _to doher majesty right_, "for there is no such matter as flattery amongst youall, " he had rather the air of paying fine compliments than of speakingwhat he really thought; "so that, " adds he, "a man may read yourformality in your countenance, " whereas "it ought to be done familiarlyand with an air of earnest. "

That he should never be without some particulars on foot which heshould seem to pursue with earnestness and affection, and then let themfall upon taking knowledge of her majesty's opposition and dislike. Ofwhich kind the weightiest might be, if he offered to labor, in thebehalf of some whom he favored, for some of the places then void, choosing such a subject as he thought her majesty likely to oppose. . . . Aless weighty sort of particulars might be the pretence of some journeys, which at her majesty's request his lordship might relinquish; as if heshould pretend a journey to see his estate towards Wales, or thelike. . . . And the lightest sort of particulars, which yet were not to beneglected, were in his habits, apparel, wearings, gestures, and thelike. "

With respect to a "military dependence, " which the writer regards as themost injurious impression respecting him of all, he declares that hecould not enough wonder that his lordship should say the wars were hisoccupation, and go on in that course. He greatly rejoiced indeed, now itwas over, in his expedition to Cadiz, on account of the large share ofhonor which he had acquired, and which would place him for many yearsbeyond the reach of military competition. Besides that the disposal ofplaces and other matters relating to the wars, would of themselves flowin to him as he increased in other greatness, and preserve to him thatdependence entire. It was indeed a thing which, considering the timesand the necessity of the service, he ought above all to retain; butwhile he kept it in substance, he should abolish it in shows to thequeen, who loved peace, and did not love cost. And on this account hecould not so well approve of his affecting the place of earl-marshal ormaster of the ordnance, on account of their affinity to a militarygreatness, and rather recommended to his seeking the peaceful, profitable and courtly office of lord privy seal. In the same manner, with respect to the reputation of popularity, which was a good thing initself, and one of the best flowers of his greatness both present andfuture, the only way was to quench it _verbis, non rebus_; to take alloccasions to declaim against popularity and popular courses to thequeen, and to tax them in all others, yet for himself, to go on asbefore in all his honorable commonwealth courses. "And therefore, " sayshe, "I will not advise to cure this by dealing in monopolies or anyoppressions. "

The last and most curious article of all, respects his quality of afavorite. As, separated from all the other matters it could not hurt, so, joined with them, he observes that it made her majesty more fearfuland captious, as not knowing her own strength. For this, the only remedywas to give place to any other favorite to whom he should find hermajesty incline, "so as the subject had no ill or dangerous aspect"towards himself. "For otherwise, " adds this politic adviser, "whoevershall tell me that you may not have singular use of a favorite at yourdevotion, I will say he understandeth not the queen's affection, noryour lordship's condition. "

These crafty counsels, which steadily pursued would have laid the army, the court, and the people, and in effect the queen herself, at the feetof a private nobleman, seem to have made considerable impression forthe time on the mind of Essex; though the impetuosity of his temper, joined to a spirit of sincerity, honor and generosity, which not eventhe pursuits of ambition and the occupations of a courtier couldentirely quench, soon caused him to break loose from their intolerablerestraint. 

Francis Bacon, in furtherance of the plan which he had suggested to hispatron of appearing to sink all other characters in that of a devotedservant of her majesty, likewise condescended to employ his genius upona device which was exhibited by the earl on the ensuing anniversary ofher accession, with great applause. 

First, his page, entering the tilt-yard, accosted her majesty in a fitspeech, and she in return graciously pulled off her glove and gave it tohim. Some time after appeared the earl himself, who was met by anancient hermit, a secretary of state, and a soldier; each of whompresented him with a book recommending his own course of life, and, after a little pageantry and dumb show to relieve the solemnity of themain design, pronounced a long and well-penned speech to the sameeffect. All were answered by an esquire, or follower of the earl, whopointed out the evils attached to each pursuit, and concluded, says ourreporter, "with an excellent but too plain English, that this knightwould never forsake his mistress' love, whose virtue made all histhoughts divine, whose wisdom taught him all true policy, whose beautyand worth made him at all times fit to command armies. He showed allthe defects and imperfections of their times, and therefore thought hisown course of life to be best in serving his mistress. . . . The queen saidthat if she had thought there had been so much said of her, she wouldnot have been there that night; and so went to bed. " These speeches maystill be read, with mingled admiration and regret, amongst the immortalworks of Francis Bacon. In majesty of diction and splendor of allusionthey are excelled by none of his more celebrated pieces; and with such aweight of meaning are they fraught, that they who were ignorant of theserious purpose which he had in view might wonder at the prodigality ofthe author in employing massy gold and real gems on an occasion whichdeserved nothing better than tinsel and false brilliants. That fulljustice might be done to the eloquence of the composition, the favoritepart of the esquire was supported by Toby Matthew, whose father wasafterwards archbishop of York; a man of a singular and waywarddisposition, whose prospects in life were totally destroyed by hissubsequent conversion to popery; but whose talents and learning wereheld in such esteem by Bacon, that he eagerly engaged his pen in thetask of translating into Latin some of the most important of his ownphilosophical works. Such were the "wits, besides his own, " of which themunificent patronage of Essex had given him "the command!"

A few miscellaneous occurrences of the years 1595 and 1596 remain to benoticed. 

The size of London, notwithstanding many proclamations and acts ofparliament prohibiting the erection of any new buildings except on thesite of old ones, had greatly increased during the reign of Elizabeth;and one of the first effects of its rapid growth was to render itsstreets less orderly and peaceful. The small houses newly erected in thesuburbs being crowded with poor, assembled from all quarters, theftsbecame frequent; and a bad harvest having plunged the lower classes intodeeper distress, tumults and outrages ensued. In June 1595 greatdisorders were committed on Tower-hill; and the multitude havinginsulted the lord mayor who went out to quell them, Elizabeth took theviolent and arbitrary step of causing martial law to be proclaimed inher capital. Sir Thomas Wilford, appointed provost-marshal for theoccasion, paraded the streets daily with a body of armed men ready tohang all rioters in the most summary manner; and five of these offenderssuffered for high treason on Tower-hill, without resistance on the partof the people, or remonstrance on that of the parliament, against soflagrant a violation of the dearest rights of Englishmen. 

Lord Hunsdon, the nearest kinsman of the queen, whose character has beenalready touched upon, died in 1596. It is related that Elizabeth, onhearing of his illness, finally resolved to confer upon him the title ofearl of Wiltshire, to which he had some claim as nephew and heir male tosir Thomas Boleyn, her majesty's grandfather, who had borne thatdignity. She accordingly made him a gracious visit, and caused thepatent and the robes of an earl to be brought and laid upon his bed; butthe old man, preserving to the last the blunt honesty of his character, declared, that if her majesty had accounted him unworthy of that honorwhile living, he accounted himself unworthy of it now that he was dying;and with this refusal be expired. Lord Willoughby succeeded him in theoffice of governor of Berwick, and lord Cobham, a wealthy butinsignificant person of the party opposed to Essex, in that of lordchamberlain. 

Henry third earl of Huntingdon of the family of Hastings died about thesame time. By his mother, eldest daughter and coheiress of Henry Polelord Montacute, he was the representative of the Clarence branch of thefamily of Plantagenet; but no pretensions of his had ever awakenedanxiety in the house of Tudor. He was a person of mild disposition, greatly attached to the puritan party, which, bound together by a secretcompact, now formed a church within the church; he is said to haveimpaired his fortune by his bounty to the more zealous preachers; and belargely contributed by his will to the endowment of Emanuel college, thepuritanical character of which was now well known. 

Richard Fletcher bishop of London, "a comely and courtly prelate, " whodeparted this life in the same year, affords a subject for a fewremarks. It was a practice of the more powerful courtiers of that day, when the lands of a vacant see had excited, as they seldom failed to do, their cupidity, to "find out some men that had great minds and smallmeans or merits, that would be glad to leave a small deanery to make apoor bishopric, by new leasing lands that were almost out oflease[119];" and on these terms, which more conscientious churchmendisdained, Fletcher had taken the bishopric of Oxford, and had in duetime been rewarded for his compliance by translation first to Worcesterand afterwards to London. His talents and deportment pleased the queen;and it is mentioned, as an indication of her special favor, that sheonce quarrelled with him for wearing too short a beard. But heafterwards gave her more serious displeasure by taking a wife, a gay andfair court lady of good quality; and he had scarcely pacified hermajesty by the propitiatory offering of a great entertainment at hishouse in Chelsea, when he was carried off by a sudden death, ascribed byhis contemporaries to his immoderate use of the new luxury of smokingtobacco. This prelate was the father of Fletcher the dramatic poet. 

[Note 119: Harrington's Brief View. ]

Bishop Vaughan succeeded him, of whom Harrington gives the followingtrait: "He was an enemy to all supposed miracles, insomuch as onearguing with him in the closet at Greenwich in defence of them, andalleging the queen's healing of the evil for an instance, asking himwhat he could say against it, he answered, that he was loth to answerarguments taken from the topic-place of the cloth of estate; but ifthey would urge him to answer, he said his opinion was, she did it byvirtue of some precious stone in possession of the crown of England thathad such a natural quality. But had queen Elizabeth been told that heascribed more virtue to her jewels (though she loved them well) than toher person, she would never have made him bishop of Chester. "

Of the justice of the last remark there can be little question. In thisreign, the royal pretension referred to, was asserted with unusualearnestness, and for good reasons, as we learn from a differentauthority. In 1597 a quarto book appeared, written in Latin anddedicated to her majesty by one of her chaplains, which contained arelation of the cures thus performed by her; in which it is related, that a catholic having been so healed went away persuaded that thepope's excommunication of her majesty was of no effect: "For if she hadnot by right obtained the sceptre of the kingdom, and her throneestablished by the authority and appointment of God, what she attemptedcould not have succeeded. Because the rule is, that God is not any wherewitness to a lie[120]. " Such were the reasonings of that age. 

[Note 120: Strype's Annals. ]

It is probably to bishop Vaughan also that sir John Harrington refers inthe following article of his Brief Notes. 

"One Sunday (April last) my lord of London preached to the queen'smajesty, and seemed to touch on the vanity of decking the body toofinely. Her majesty told the ladies, that if the bishop held morediscourse on such matters, she would fit him for heaven, but he shouldwalk thither without a staff, and leave his mantle behind him. Perchancethe bishop hath never sought her highness' wardrobe, or he would havechosen another text[121]. "

[Note 121: Nugæ Antiquæ. ]

CHAPTER XXVI. 

1597 AND 1598. 

Fresh expedition against Spain proposed. --Extracts from Whyte'sletters. --Raleigh reconciles Essex and R. Cecil. --Essex master of theordnance. --Anecdote of the queen and Mrs. Bridges. --Preparations for theexpedition. --Notice of lord Southampton. --Ill success of thevoyage. --Quarrel of Essex and Raleigh. --Displeasure of the queen. --Lordadmiral made earl of Nottingham. --Anger of Essex. --He is declaredhereditary earl marshal. --Reply of the queen to a Polish ambassador. --toa proposition of the king of Denmark. --State of Ireland. --Treaty ofVervins. --Agreement between Cecil and Essex. --Anecdotes of Essex and thequeen. --Their quarrel. --Letter of Essex to the lord keeper. --Disputebetween Burleigh and Essex. --Agreement with the Dutch. --Death andcharacter of Burleigh. --Transactions between the queen and the king ofScots, and an extract from their correspondence. --Anecdote of sir RogerAston and the queen. --Anecdote of archbishop Hutton. --Death ofSpenser. --Hall's satires. --Notice of sir John Harrington. --Extracts fromhis note-book. 

A fresh expedition against the Spaniards was in agitation from thebeginning of this year, which occasioned many movements at court, and, as usual, disturbed the mind of the queen with various perplexities. Hercaptious favor towards Essex, and the arts employed by him to gain hiswill on every contested point, are well illustrated in the letters ofRowland White, to which we must again recur. 

On February twenty-second he writes: "My lord of Essex kept his bed themost part of all yesterday; yet did one of his chamber tell me, he couldnot weep for it, for he knew his lord was not sick. There is not a daypasses that the queen sends not often to see him, and himself every daygoeth privately to her. " Two days after, he reports that "my lord ofEssex comes out of his chamber in his gown and night-cap. . . . Fullfourteen days his lordship kept in; her majesty, as I heard, resolved tobreak him of his will and to pull down his great heart, who found it athing impossible, and says he holds it from the mother's side; but allis well again, and no doubt he will grow a mighty man in our state. "

The earl of Cumberland made "some doubt of his going to sea, " becauselord Thomas Howard and Raleigh were to be joined with him in equalauthority; the queen mentioned the subject to him, and on his repeatingto herself his refusal, he was "well chidden. "

In March, Raleigh was busied in mediating a reconciliation between Essexand Robert Cecil, in which he was so far successful that a kind ofcompromise took place; and henceforth court favors were shared withoutany open quarrels between their respective adherents. The motives urgedby Raleigh for this agreement were, that it would benefit the country;that the queen's "continual unquietness" would turn to contentment, andthat public business would go on to the hurt of the common enemy. 

Essex however was malcontent at heart; he began to frequent certainmeetings held in Blackfriars at the house of lady Russel, a busypuritan, who was one of the learned daughters of sir Anthony Cook. "Wearied, " says White, "with not knowing how to please, he is notunwilling to listen to those motions made him for the public good. " Hewas soon after so much offended with her majesty for giving the officeof warden of the cinque ports to his enemy lord Cobham, after he hadasked it for himself, that he was about to quit the court; but the queensent for him, and, to pacify him, made him master of the ordnance. 

It is mentioned about this time, that the queen had of late "used thefair Mrs. Bridges with words and blows of anger. " This young lady wasone of the maids of honor, and the same referred to in a subsequentletter, where it is said, "it is spied out by envy that the earl ofEssex is again fallen in love with his fairest B. " On which Whiteobserves, "It cannot choose but come to the queen's ears; and then is heundone, and all that depend upon his favor. " A striking indication ofthe nature of the sentiment which the aged sovereign cherished for heryouthful favorite!

In May our intelligencer writes thus: "Here hath been much ado betweenthe queen and the lords about the preparation to sea; some of themurging the necessity of setting it forward for her safety; but sheopposing it by no danger appearing towards her any where; and that shewill not make wars but arm for defence; understanding how much of hertreasure was already spent in victual, both for ships and soldiers atland. She was extremely angry with them that made such haste in it, andat Burleigh for suffering it, seeing no greater occasion. No reason norpersuasion by some of the lords could prevail, but that her majesty hathcommanded order to be given to stay all proceeding, and sent my lordThomas (Howard) word that he should not go to sea. How her majesty maybe wrought to fulfil the most earnest desire of some to have it goforward, time must make it known. "

But the reconciliation, whether sincere or otherwise, brought about byRaleigh between Essex and the Cecils, rendered at this time thewar-party so strong, that the scruples of the queen were at lengthoverruled, and a formidable armament was sent to sea, with the doubleobject of destroying the Spanish ships in their harbours andintercepting their homeward-bound West India fleet. Essex was commanderin chief by sea and land; lord Thomas Howard and Raleigh vice and rearadmirals; lord Montjoy was lieutenant-general; sir Francis Vere, marshal. Several young noblemen attached to Essex joined the expeditionas volunteers; as lord Rich his brother-in-law, the earl of Rutland, afterwards married to the daughter of the countess of Essex by sirPhilip Sidney; lord Cromwel, and the earl of Southampton. The last, whose friendship for Essex afterwards hurried him into an enterprisestill more perilous, appears to have been attracted to him by anextraordinary conformity of tastes and temper. Like Essex, he was braveand generous, but impetuous and somewhat inclined to arrogance:--likehim, a munificent patron of the genius which he loved. Like his friendagain, he received from her majesty tokens of peculiar favor, which sheoccasionally suspended on his giving indications of an ungovernabletemper or too lofty spirit, and which she finally withdrew, on hispresuming to marry without that consent which to certain persons shecould never have been induced to accord. This earl of Southampton wasgrandson of that ambitious and assuming but able and diligent statesman, lord chancellor Wriothesley, appointed by Henry VIII. One of hisexecutors; he was father of the virtuous Southampton lord treasurer, andby him, grandfather of the heroical and ever-memorable Rachel ladyRussel. 

A storm drove the ill-fated armament back to Plymouth, where it remainedwind-bound for a month, and Essex and Raleigh posted together up tocourt for fresh instructions. Having concerted their measures, they madesail for the Azores, and Raleigh with his division arriving first, attacked and captured the isle of Fayal without waiting for his admiral. Essex was incensed; and there were not wanting those about him whoapplied themselves to fan the flame, and even urged him to bring sirWalter to a court-martial: but he refused; and his anger soonevaporating, lord Thomas Howard was enabled to accommodate thedifference, and the rivals returned to the appearance of friendship. Essex was destitute of the naval skill requisite for the prosperousconduct of such an enterprise: owing partly to his mistakes, and partlyto several thwarting circumstances, the West India fleet escaped him, and three rich Havannah ships, which served to defray most of theexpenses, were the only trophies of his "Island Voyage, " from whichhimself and the nation had anticipated results so glorious. 

The queen received him with manifest dissatisfaction; his severitytowards Raleigh was blamed, and it was evident that matters tended toinvolve him in fresh differences with Robert Cecil. During his absence, the lord admiral had been advanced to the dignity of earl of Nottingham, and he now discovered that by a clause in the patent this honor wasdeclared to be conferred upon him in consideration of his good serviceat the taking of Cadiz, an action of which Essex claimed to himself thewhole merit. To make the injury greater, this title, conjoined to theoffice of lord high admiral, gave the new earl precedency of all othersof the same rank, Essex amongst the rest. To such complicatedmortifications his proud spirit disdained to submit; and afterchallenging without effect to single combat the lord admiral himself orany of his sons who would take up the quarrel, the indignant favoriteretired a sullen malcontent to Wanstead-house, feigning himself sick. This expedient acted on the heart of the queen with all its wontedforce;--she showed the utmost concern for his situation, chid the Cecilsfor wronging him, and soon after made him compensation for the act whichhad wounded him, by admitting his claim to the hereditary office of earlmarshal, with which he was solemnly invested in December 1597; and inright of it once more took place above the lord admiral. 

It was during this summer that the arrogant deportment of a Polishambassador, sent to complain of an invasion of neutral rights in theinterruption given by the English navy to the trade of his master'ssubjects with Spain, gave occasion to a celebrated display of the spiritand the erudition of the queen of England. Speed, the ablest of ourchroniclers, gives at length her extemporal Latin reply to his harangue;adding in his quaint but expressive phrase, that she "thus lion likerising, daunted the malapert orator no less with her stately port andmajestical deporture, than with the tartness of her princely checks: andturning to the train of her attendants thus said, 'God's death, mylords, ' (for that was her oath ever in anger, ) 'I have been inforcedthis day to scour up my old Latin, that hath lain long in rusting. '" Thesame author mentions, that the king of Denmark having by his ambassadoroffered to mediate between England and Spain, the queen declined theoverture, adding, "I would have the king of Denmark and all princesChristian and Heathen to know, that England hath no need to crave peace;nor myself indured one hour's fear since I attained the crown thereof, being guarded with so valiant and faithful subjects. " Such was the loftytone which Elizabeth, to the end of her days, maintained towards foreignpowers; none of whom had she cause to dread or motive to court. Yet hercheerfulness and fortitude were at the same time on the point of sinkingunder the harassing disquietudes of a petty war supported against her byan Irish chief of rebels. 

The head of the sept O'Neal, whom she had in vain endeavoured to attachpermanently to her interests by conferring upon him the dignity of earlof Tyrone, had now for some years persevered in a resistance to herauthority, which the most strenuous efforts of the civil and militarygovernors of this turbulent and miserable island had proved inadequateto overcome. That brave officer sir John Norris, then general of Ulster, had found it necessary to grant terms to the rebel whom he would gladlyhave brought in bonds to the feet of his sovereign. But the treaty thusmade, this perfidious barbarian, according to his custom, observed onlytill the English forces were withdrawn and he saw the occasion favorableto rise again in arms. Lord Borough, whom the queen had appointed deputyin 1598, --on which sir John Norris, appointed to act under him, died, asit is thought, of chagrin, --began his career with a vigorous attack, bywhich he carried, though not without considerable loss, the fort ofBlackwater, the only place of strength possessed by the rebels; butbefore he was able to pursue further his success, death overtook him, and the government was committed for a time to the earl of Ormond. Tyrone, nothing daunted, laid siege in his turn to Blackwater; and sirHenry Bagnal, with the flower of the English army, being sent to relieveit, sustained the most signal defeat ever experienced by an Englishforce in Ireland. The commander himself, several captains of distinctionand fifteen hundred men, were left on the field; and the fortimmediately surrendered to the rebel chief, who now vauntingly declared, that he would accept of no terms from the queen of England, beingresolved to remain in arms till the king of Spain should send forces tohis assistance. 

Such was the alarming position of affairs in this island at theconclusion of the year 1598. At home, several incidents had intervenedto claim attention. 

The king of France had received from Spain proposals for a peace, whichthe exhausted state of his country would not permit him to neglect; andhe had used his utmost endeavours to persuade his allies, the queen ofEngland and the United Provinces, to enter into the negotiations for ageneral pacification. But Philip II. Still refused to acknowledge theindependence of his revolted subjects, the only basis on which the newrepublic would condescend to treat. Elizabeth, besides that shedisdained to desert those whom she had so long and so zealouslysupported, was in no haste to terminate a war from which she and hersubjects anticipated honor with little peril, and plunder which wouldmore than repay its expenses; and both from England and Holland agentswere sent to remonstrate with Henry against the breach of treaty whichhe was about to commit by the conclusion of a separate peace. Elizabethwrote to admonish him that the true sin against the Holy Ghost wasingratitude, of which she had so much right to accuse him; that fidelityto engagements was the first of duties and of virtues; and that union, according to the ancient apologue of the bundle of rods, was the sourceof strength. But to all her eloquence and all her invectives Henry hadto oppose the necessity of his affairs, and the treaty of Vervins wasconcluded; but not without some previous stipulations on the part of theFrench king which softened considerably the resentment of his ally. Ofthe commissioners named by Elizabeth to arrange this business withHenry, Robert Cecil was the chief; who held before his departure manyprivate conferences with Essex, and would not move from court till hehad bound him by favors and promises to do him no injury by promotinghis enemies in his absence. The earl of Southampton having given someoffence to her majesty for which she had ordered him to absent himselfawhile from court, took the opportunity to obtain license to travel, andattended the secretary to France, perhaps in the character of a spy uponhis motions on behalf of Essex, who seems to have prepared him for theservice by much private instruction. 

"I acquainted you, " says Rowland Whyte to his correspondent, "with thecare had to bring my lady of Leicester to the queen's presence. It wasoften granted, and she brought to the privy galleries, but the queenfound some occasion not to come. Upon Shrove Monday the queen waspersuaded to go to Mr. Comptroller's at the tilt end, and there was mylady of Leicester with a fair jewel of three hundred pounds. A greatdinner was prepared by my lady Chandos; the queen's coach ready, and allthe world expecting her majesty's coming; when, upon a sudden, sheresolved not to go, and so sent word. My lord of Essex that had kept hischamber all the day before, in his nightgown went up to the queen theprivy way; but all would not prevail, and as yet my lady Leicester hathnot seen the queen. It had been better not moved, for my lord of Essex, by importuning the queen in these unpleasing matters, loses theopportunity he might take to do good unto his ancient friends. " But onMarch 2d he adds; "My lady Leicester was at court, kissed the queen'shand and her breast, and did embrace her, and the queen kissed her. Mylord of Essex is in exceeding favor here. Lady Leicester departed fromcourt exceedingly contented, but being desirous again to come to kissthe queen's hand, it was denied, and, as I heard, some wonted unkindwords given out against her. "

This extraordinary height of royal favor was not merely the precursor, but, by the arrogant presumption with which it inspired him, a principalcause of Essex's decline, which was now fast approaching. Confident inthe affections of Elizabeth, he suffered himself to forget that she wasstill his queen and still a Tudor; he often neglected the attentionswhich would have gratified her; on any occasional cause of ill humour hewould drop slighting expressions respecting her age and person which, ifthey reached her ear, could never be forgiven; on one memorable instancehe treated her with indignity openly and in her presence. A dispute hadarisen between them in presence of the admiral, the secretary, and theclerk of the signet, respecting the choice of a commander for Ireland;the queen resolving to send sir William Knolles, the uncle of Essex, while he vehemently supported sir George Carew, because this person, who was haughty and boastful, had given him some offence; and he wantedto remove him out of his way. Unable either by argument or persuasion toprevail over the resolute will of her majesty, the favorite at lastforgot himself so far as to turn his back upon her with a laugh ofcontempt; an outrage which she revenged after her own manner, by boxinghis ears and bidding him "Go and be hanged. " This retort so inflamed theblood of Essex that he clapped his hand on his sword, and while the lordadmiral hastened to throw himself between them, he swore that not fromHenry VIII. Himself would he have endured such an indignity, and foamingwith rage he rushed out of the palace. His sincere friend the lordkeeper immediately addressed to him a prudential letter, urging him tolose no time in seeking with humble submissions the forgiveness of hisoffended mistress: but Essex replied to these well intended admonitionsby a letter which, amid all the choler that it betrays, must still beapplauded both for its eloquence and for a manliness of sentiment ofwhich few other public characters of the age appear to have beencapable. The lord keeper in his letter had strongly urged the religiousduty of absolute submission on the part of a subject to every thing thathis sovereign, justly or unjustly, should be pleased to lay upon him; towhich the earl thus replies: "But, say you, I must yield and submit. Ican neither yield myself to be guilty, or this imputation laid upon meto be just. I owe so much to the author of all truth, as I can neveryield falsehood to be truth, or truth to be falsehood. Have I givencause, ask you, and take scandal when I have done? No; I gave no causeto take so much as Fimbria's complaint against me, for I did _totumtelum corpore recipere_. I patiently bear all, and sensibly feel all, that I then received, when this scandal was given me. Nay more, when thevilest of all indignities are done unto me, doth religion enforce me tosue? or doth God require it? Is it impiety not to do it? What, cannotprinces err? cannot subjects receive wrong? Is an earthly power orauthority infinite? Pardon me, pardon me, my good lord, I can neversubscribe to these principles. Let Solomon's fool laugh when he isstricken; let those that mean to make their profit of princes, show tohave no sense of princes' injuries; let them acknowledge an infiniteabsoluteness on earth, that do not believe in an absolute infinitenessin heaven. As for me, I have received wrong, and feel it. My cause isgood; I know it; and whatsoever come, all the powers on earth can nevershow more strength and constancy in oppressing, than I can show insuffering whatsoever can or shall be imposed upon me. " &c. 

Several other friends of Essex, his mother, his sister and the earl ofNorthumberland her husband, urged him in like manner to return to hisattendance at court and seek her majesty's forgiveness; while she, onher part, secretly uneasy at his absence, permitted certain persons togo to him, as from themselves, and suggest terms of accommodation. SirGeorge Carew was made lord president of Munster; and sir WilliamKnolles, who perhaps had not desired the appointment, assured hisnephew of his earnest wish to serve him. Finally, this great quarrel wasmade up, we scarcely know how, and Essex appeared as powerful at courtas ever; though some have believed, and with apparent reason, that fromthis time the sentiments of the queen for her once cherished favorite, partook more of fear than of love; and that confidence was neverre-established between them. 

This celebrated dispute appears to have been in some manner mingled orconnected with the important question of peace or war with Spain, whichhad previously been debated with extreme earnestness between Essex andBurleigh. The former, who still thirsted for military distinction, contended with the utmost vehemence of invective for the maintenance ofperpetual hostility against the power of Philip; while the latter urged, that he was now sufficiently humbled to render an accommodation bothsafe and honorable. Wearied and disgusted at length with the violence ofhis young antagonist, the hoary minister, in whom

 . . . "old experience did attain To something like prophetic strain, "

drew forth a Prayer-book, and with awful significance pointed to thetext, "Men of blood shall not live out half their days. " But the clamorfor war prevailed over the pleadings of humanity and prudence, and itwas left for the unworthy successor of Elizabeth to patch up in haste aninconsiderate and ignoble peace, in place of the solid and advantageousone which the wisdom of Elizabeth and her better counsellor might atthis time with ease have concluded. 

The lord treasurer enjoyed however the satisfaction of completing forhis mistress an agreement with the states of Holland, which provided ina satisfactory manner for the repayment of the sums which she hadadvanced to them, and exonerated her from a considerable portion of theannual expense which she had hitherto incurred in their defence. Thiswas the last act of lord Burleigh's life, which terminated by a long andgradual decay on August 4th 1598, in the 78th year of his age. 

On the character of this great minister, identified as it is with thatof the government of Elizabeth during a period of no less than fortyyears, a few additional remarks may here suffice. --Good sense was theleading feature of his intellect; moderation of his temper. His nativequickness of apprehension was supported by a wonderful force andsteadiness of application, and by an exemplary spirit of order. Hismorals were regular; his sense of religion habitual, profound, andoperative. In his declining age, harassed by diseases and cares andsaddened by the loss of a beloved wife, the worthy sharer of his inmostcounsels, he became peevish and irascible; but his heart was good; inall the domestic relations he was indulgent and affectionate; in hisfriendships tender and faithful, nor could he be accused of pride, oftreachery, or of vindictiveness. Rising as he did by the strength of hisown merits, unaided by birth or connexions, he seems to have earlyformed the resolution, more prudent indeed than generous, of attachinghimself to no political leader, so closely as to be entangled in hisfall. Thus he deserted his earliest patron, protector Somerset, on achange of fortune, and is even said to have drawn the articles ofimpeachment against him. 

He extricated himself with adroitness from the ruin of Northumberland, by whom he had been much employed and trusted; and at some expense ofprotestant consistency contrived to escape persecution, though not tohold office, under the rule of Mary. Towards the queen his mistress, hisdemeanor was obsequious to the brink of servility; he seems on nooccasion to have hesitated on the execution of any of her commands; andthe kind of tacit compromise by which he and Leicester, in spite oftheir mutual animosity, were enabled for so long a course of years tohold divided empire in the cabinet, could not have been maintainedwithout a general acquiescence on the part of Burleigh in the variousmalversations and oppressions of that guilty minion. 

Another accusation brought against him is that of taking money forecclesiastical preferments. Of the truth of this charge, sufficientevidence might be brought from original documents; but an apologistwould urge with justice that his royal mistress, who virtually delegatedto him the most laborious duties of the office of head of the church, both expected and desired that emolument should thence accrue to him andto the persons under him. Thus we find it stated that bishop Fletcherhad "bestowed in allowances and gratifications to divers attendantsabout her majesty, since his preferment to the see of London, the sum ofthirty one hundred pounds or there abouts; which money was given byhim, for the most part of it, by her majesty's direction and specialappointment[122]. "

[Note 122: Birch's Memoirs. ]

The ministers of a sovereign who scrupled not to accept of bribes fromparties engaged in law-suits for the exertion of her own interest withher judges, could scarcely be expected to exhibit much delicacy on thishead. In fact, the venality of the court of Elizabeth was so gross, thatno public character appears even to have professed a disdain of theinfluence of gifts and bribes; and we find lord Burleigh inserting thefollowing among rules moral and prudential drawn up for the use of hisson Robert when young: "Be sure to keep some great man thy friend. Buttrouble him not for trifles. Compliment him often. Present him with manyyet small gifts, and of little charge. And if thou have cause to bestowany great gratuity, let it be some such thing as may be daily in hissight. Otherwise, in this ambitious age, thou shalt remain as a hopwithout a pole; live in obscurity, and be made a football for everyinsulting companion[123]. "

[Note 123: In connexion with this subject the following letterappears worthy of notice. 

 _Hutton Archbishop of York to the lord treasurer:_--

I am bold at this time to inform your lordship, what ill success I hadin a suit for a pardon for Miles Dawson, seminary priest, whom Iconverted wholly the last summer from popery. Upon his coming to church, receiving the holy communion and taking the oath of supremacy, I and thecouncil here, about Michaelmas last, joined in petition to her majestyfor her gracious pardon, and commended the matter to one of the mastersof requests, and writ also to Mr. Secretary to further it if need were, which he willingly promised to do. In Michaelmas term nothing was done. And therefore in Hilary term, I being put in mind that all was not donein that court for God's sake only, sent up twenty French crowns of mineown purse, as a small remembrance for a poor man's pardon, which wasthankfully accepted of. 

Some say that Mr. Topcliffe did hinder his pardon; who protesteth thathe knoweth no cause to stay it. There is some fault somewhere, I know itis not in her majesty. Of whom I will say, as the prophet David speakethof God, "Hath queen Elizabeth forgotten to be gracious? And is her mercycome to an end for evermore?" _Absit. _ The whole world knoweth thecontrary. Your lordship may do very well in mine opinion to move Mr. Secretary Cecil to deal often in these works of mercy. It will make himbeloved of God and man. 

(Dated York, May 1597. )]

In his office of lord treasurer, this minister is allowed to havebehaved with perfect integrity and to have permitted no oppression onthe subject; wisely and honorably maintaining that nothing could be forthe advantage of a sovereign which in any way injured his reputation. His conduct in this high post, added to a general opinion of hisprudence and virtue, caused his death to be sincerely deplored and hismemory to be constantly held in higher esteem by the people than that ofany former minister of any English prince. 

Elizabeth was deeply sensible that to her the loss of such a servant, counsellor, and friend was indeed irreparable. Contrary to her custom, she wept much; and retired for a time from all company; and it is saidthat to the end of her life she could never hear or pronounce his namewithout tears. Although she was not sufficiently mistress of herself inthose fits of rage to which she was occasionally liable, to refrain fromtreating him with a harshness and contempt which sometimes moved theold man even to weeping, her behaviour towards him satisfactorilyevinced on the whole her deep sense of his fidelity and various meritsas a minister, and her affection for him as a man. He was perhaps theonly person of humble birth whom she condescended to honor with thegarter: she constantly made him sit in her presence, on account of hisbeing troubled with the gout, and would pleasantly tell him, "My lord, we make much of you, not for your bad legs but your good head[124]. " Inhis occasional fits of melancholy and retirement, she would woo him backto her presence by kind and playful letters, and she absolutely refusedto accept of the resignation which his bodily infirmities led him totender two or three years before his death. She constantly visited himwhen confined by sickness:--on one of these occasions, being admonishedby his attendant to stoop as she entered at his chamber-door, shereplied, "For your master's sake I will, though not for the king ofSpain. " His lady was much in her majesty's favor and frequently inattendance on her; and it has been surmised that her husband found heran important auxiliary in maintaining his influence. 

[Note 124: Fuller. ]

Elizabeth had the weakness, frequent among princes and not unusual withprivate individuals, of hating her heir; a sentiment which gained groundupon her daily in proportion as the infirmities of age admonished her ofher approach towards the destined limit of her long and splendid course. Notwithstanding the respectful observances by which James exertedhimself to disguise his impatience for her death, particular incidentsoccurred from time to time to aggravate her suspicion and exasperate heranimosity; and the present year was productive of some remarkablecircumstances of this nature. The queen had long been displeased at theindulgence exercised by the king of Scots towards certain catholicnoblemen by whom a treasonable correspondence had been carried on withSpain and a very dangerous conspiracy formed against his person andgovernment. Such misplaced lenity, combined with certain negotiationswhich he carried on with the catholic princes of Europe, she regarded asevincing a purpose to secure to himself an interest with the popishparty in England as well as Scotland, which she could not view withoutanxiety: And her worst apprehensions were now confirmed by theinformation which reached her from two different quarters, that James, in a very respectful letter to the pope, had given him assurance underhis own hand of his resolution to treat his catholic subjects withindulgence, at the same time requesting that his holiness would give acardinal's hat to Drummond bishop of Vaison. Almost at the same time, one Valentine Thomas, apprehended in London for a theft, accused theking of Scots of some evil designs against herself. Explanations howeverbeing demanded, James solemnly disavowed the letter to the pope, whichhe treated as a forgery and imposture; though circumstances which cameout several years afterwards render the king's veracity in this pointvery questionable. 

To the charge brought by Thomas, he returned a denial, probably betterfounded; and required that the accuser should be arraigned in presenceof some commissioner whom he should send: but Elizabeth, less jealous ofhis dealings with the papal party now that she no longer dreaded aSpanish invasion, judged it more prudent to bury the whole matter insilence, and resumed, in the tone of friendship, the correspondencewhich she regularly maintained with her kinsman. 

This correspondence, which still exists in MS. In the Salisburycollection, is rendered obscure and sometimes unintelligible by itsreference to verbal messages which the bearers of the letters werecommissioned to deliver: but several of those of Elizabeth afford a richdisplay of character. She sometimes assures James of the tenderness ofher affection and her disinterested zeal for his welfare in that tone ofhypocrisy which was too congenial to her disposition; at other times shebreaks forth into vehement invective against the weakness and mutabilityof his counsels, and offers him excellent instructions in the art ofreigning; but clouded by her usual uncouth and obscure phraseology andrendered offensive by their harsh and dictatorial style. When sheregards herself as personally injured by any part of his conduct, hercomplaints are seasoned with an equal portion of menace and contempt; asin the following specimen. 

 * * * * *

_Queen Elizabeth to the king of Scots:_

"When the first blast of a strange, unused, and seld heard of sound hadpierced my ears, I supposed that flying fame, who with swift quills oftpaceth with the worst, had brought report of some untruth, but when tootoo many records in your open parliament were witnesses of suchpronounced words, not more to my disgrace than to your dishonor, who didforget that (above all other regard) a prince's word ought utter noughtof any, much less of a king, than such as to which truth might say Amen:But you, neglecting all care of yourself, what danger of reproach, besides somewhat else, might light upon you, have chosen so unseemly atheme to charge your only careful friend withal, of such matter as (wereyou not amazed in all senses) could not have been expected at yourhands; of such imagined untruths as were never thought of in our time;and do wonder what evil spirits have possessed you, to set forth soinfamous devices void of any show of truth. I am sorry that you have sowilfully fallen from your best stay, and will needs throw yourself intothe hurlpool of bottomless discredit. Was the haste so great to hie tosuch opprobry as that you would pronounce a never thought of actionafore you had but asked the question of her that best could tell it? Isee well we two be of very different natures, for I vow to God I wouldnot corrupt my tongue with an unknown report of the greatest foe I have;much less could I detract my best deserving friend with a spot so foulas scarcely may be ever outrazed. Could you root the desire of gifts ofyour subjects upon no better ground than this quagmire, which to passyou scarcely may without the slip of your own disgrace? Shall ambassagebe sent to foreign princes laden with instructions of your rash-advisedcharge?. . . I never yet loved you so little as not to moan your infamousdealings, which you are in mind, we see, that myself shall possess moreprinces witness of my causeless injuries, which I should have wished hadpassed no seas to testify such memorials of your wrongs. Bethink you ofsuch dealings, and set your labor upon such mends as best may, thoughnot right, yet salve some piece of this overslip; and be assured thatyou deal with such a king as will bear no wrongs and endure infamy; theexamples have been so lately seen as they can hardly be forgotten of afar mightier and potenter prince than any Europe hath. Look you nottherefore that without large amends, I may or will slupper up suchindignities. We have sent this bearer Bowes, whom you may safely credit, to signify such particularities as fits not a letters talk. And so Irecommend you to a better mind and more advised conclusions. " DatedJanuary 4th 1597-1598[125]. 

[Note 125: M. S. In Dr. Haynes's extracts from the Salisburycollection. --I am unable to discover to what particular circumstancethis angry letter refers. ]

 * * * * *

From another of these letters we learn that James had addressed alove-sonnet to the queen and complained of her having taken no notice ofit; reminding her that Cupid was a God of a most impatient disposition. 

An author has the following notice respecting sir Roger Aston, frequently the bearer of these curious epistles. "He was an Englishmanborn, but had his breeding wholly in Scotland, and had served the kingmany years as his barber; an honest and free-hearted man, and of anancient family in Cheshire, but of no breeding answerable to his birth. Yet was he the only man ever employed as a messenger from the king toqueen Elizabeth, as a letter-carrier only, which expressed their ownintentions without any help from him, besides the delivery; but even inthat capacity was in very good esteem with her majesty, and receivedvery royal rewards, which did enrich him, and gave him a better revenuethan most gentlemen in Scotland. For the queen did find him as faithfulto her as to his master, in which he showed much wisdom, though of nobreeding. In this his employment I must not pass over one pretty passageI have heard himself relate. That he did never come to deliver anyletters from his master, but ever he was placed in the lobby; thehangings being turned towards him, where he might see the queen dancingto a little fiddle; which was to no other end than that he should tellhis master, by her youthful disposition, how likely he was to come tothe possession of the crown he so much thirsted after: for you mustunderstand, the wisest in that kingdom did believe the king should neverenjoy this crown, as long as there was an old wife in England, whichthey did believe we ever set up as the other was dead[126]. "

[Note 126: Weldon's Court of King James. ]

Though in her own letters to James, Elizabeth made no scruple oftreating him as the destined heir to her throne, she still resisted withas much pertinacity as ever, all the proposals made her for publiclydeclaring her successor; and on this subject, a lively anecdote isrelated by sir John Harrington in his account of Hutton archbishop ofYork, which must belong to the year 1595 or 1596. 

"I no sooner, " says he, "remember this famous and worthy prelate, butmethinks I see him in the chappel at Whitehall, queen Elizabeth at thewindow in the closet; all the lords of the parliament spiritual andtemporal about them, and then, after his three curtsies that I hear himout of the pulpit thundering this text, 'The kingdoms of the earth aremine, and I do give them to whom I will, and I have given them toNebuchodonosor and his son, and his son's son:' which text when he hadthus produced, taking the sense rather than words of the prophet, therefollowed first so general a murmur of one friend whispering to another, then such an erected countenance in those that had none to speak to, lastly, so quiet a silence and attention in expectance of some strangedoctrine, where text itself gave away kingdoms and sceptres, as I havenever observed before or since. 

"But he. . . Showed how there were two special causes of translating ofkingdoms, the fullness of time and the ripeness of sin. . . . Then comingnearer home, he showed how oft our nation had been a prey to foreigners;as first when we were all Britons subdued by these Romans; then, whenthe fullness of time and ripeness of our sin required it, subdued by theSaxons; after this a long time prosecuted and spoiled by the Danes, finally conquered and reduced to perfect subjection by the Normans, whose posterity continued in great prosperity to the days of hermajesty, who for peace, for plenty, for glory, for continuance, hadexceeded them all; that had lived to change all her councillors but one;all officers twice or thrice; some bishops four times: only theuncertainty of succession gave hopes to foreigners to attempt freshinvasions and breed fears in many of her subjects of a new conquest. Theonly way then, said he, that is in policy left to quail those hopes andto assuage those fears, were to establish the succession. . . At last, insinuating as far as he durst the nearness of blood of our presentsovereign, he said plainly, that the expectations and presages of allwriters went northward, naming without any circumlocution Scotland;which, said he, if it prove an error, yet will it be found a learnederror. 

"When he had finished this sermon, there was no man that knew queenElizabeth's disposition, but imagined that such a speech was as welcomeas salt to the eyes, or, to use her own word, to pin up her windingsheet before her face, so to point out her successor and urge her todeclare him; wherefore we all expected that she would not only have beenhighly offended, but in some present speech have showed her displeasure. It is a principle not to be despised, _Qui nescit dissimulare nescitregnare_; she considered perhaps the extraordinary auditory, shesupposed many of them were of his opinion, she might suspect some ofthem had persuaded him to this motion; finally, she ascribed so much tohis years, to his place, to his learning, that when she opened thewindow we found ourselves all deceived; for very kindly and calmly, without shew of offence (as if she had but waked out of some sleep) shegave him thanks for his very learned sermon. Yet when she had betterconsidered the matter, and recollected herself in private, she sent twocouncillors to him with a sharp message, to which he was glad to give apatient answer. "

The premature death of Edmund Spenser, under circumstances of severedistress, now called forth the universal commiseration and regret of thefriends and patrons of English genius. After witnessing the plunder ofhis house and the destruction of his whole property by the Irish rebels, the unfortunate poet had fled to England for shelter, --the annuity offifty pounds which he enjoyed as poet-laureat to her majesty apparentlyhis sole resource; and having taken up his melancholy abode in anobscure lodging in London, he pined away under the pressure of penuryand despondence. 

The genius of this great poet, formed on the most approved models of thetime, and exercised upon themes peculiarly congenial to its taste, received in all its plenitude that homage of contemporary applause whichhas sometimes failed to reward the efforts of the noblest masters of thelyre. The adventures of chivalry, and the dim shadowings of moralallegory, were almost equally the delight of a romantic, a serious and alearned age. It was also a point of loyalty to admire in Gloriana queenof Faery, or in the empress Mercilla, the avowed types of the graces andvirtues of her majesty; and she herself had discernment sufficient todistinguish between the brazen trump of vulgar flattery with which herear was sated, and the pastoral reed of antique frame tuned sweetly toher praise by Colin Clout. Spenser was interred with great solemnity inWestminster abbey by the side of Chaucer; the generous Essex defrayingthe cost of the funeral and walking himself as a mourner. Thatostentatious but munificent woman Anne countess of Dorset, Pembroke, andMontgomery, erected a handsome monument to his memory several yearsafterwards; the brother-poets who attended his obsequies threw elegiesand sonnets into the grave; and of the more distinguished votaries ofthe muse in that day there is scarcely one who has withheld his tributeto the fame and merit of this delightful author. Shakespeare in one ofhis sonnets had already testified his high delight in his works; JosephHall, afterwards eminent as a bishop, a preacher, and polemic, but atthis time a young student of Emanuel college, has more than onecomplimentary allusion to the poems of Spenser in his "ToothlessSatires" printed in 1597. Thus, in the invocation to his first satire, referring to Spenser's description of the marriage of the Thames andMedway, he inquires, . . . "what baser Muse can bide To sit and sing by Granta's naked side? They haunt the tided Thames and salt Medway, E'er since the fame of their late bridal day. Nought have we here but willow-shaded shore, To tell our Grant his banks are left forlore. "

And again, in ridiculing the imitation of some of the more extravagantfictions of the Orlando Furioso, he thus suddenly checks himself;

 "But let no rebel satyr dare traduce Th' eternal legends of thy faery muse, Renowned Spenser! whom no earthly wight Dares once to emulate, much less dares despight. Salust of France[127] and Tuscan Ariost, Yield up the laurel garland ye have lost. "

[Note 127: Du Bartas, then an admired writer in England as well asFrance. ]

These pieces of Hall, reprinted in 1599 with three additional booksunder the uncouth title of "Virgidemiarum" (a harvest of rods), presentthe earliest example in our language of regular satire on the ancientmodel, and have gained from an excellent poetical critic the followinghigh eulogium. "These satires are marked with a classical precision, towhich English poetry had yet rarely attained. They are replete withanimation of style and sentiment. The indignation of the satirist isalways the result of good sense. Nor are the thorns of severe invectiveunmixed with the flowers of pure poetry. The characters are delineatedin strong and lively colouring, and their discriminations are touchedwith the masterly traces of genuine humour. The versification is equallyenergetic and elegant, and the fabric of the couplets approaches to themodern standard[128]. "

[Note 128: Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. Iv. ]

A few of his allusions to reigning follies may here be quoted. Contrasting the customs of our barbarous ancestors with those of his owntimes, he says:

 "They naked went, or clad in ruder hide, Or homespun russet void of foreign pride. But thou can'st mask in garish gaudery, To suit a fool's far-fetched livery. A French head joined to neck Italian, Thy thighs from Germany and breast from Spain. An Englishman in none, a fool in all, Many in one, and one in several. "

Shakespeare makes Portia satirize the same affectation in her Englishadmirer;--"How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his doublet inItaly, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviorevery where. "

Other contemporary writers have similar allusions, and it may beconcluded, that the passion for travelling then, and ever since, soprevalent amongst the English youth, was fast eradicating all traces ofa national costume by rendering fashionable the introduction of novelgarments, capriciously adopted by turns from every country of Europe. 

"Cadiz spoil" is more than once referred to by Hall; and amongstexpedients for raising a fortune he enumerates, with a satirical glanceat sir Walter Raleigh, the trading to Guiana for gold; as also thesearch of the philosopher's stone. He likewise ridicules the costlymineral elixirs of marvellous virtues vended by alchemical quacks; andwith sounder sense in this point than usually belonged to his age, mocksat the predictions of judicial astrology. 

In several passages he reprehends the new luxuries of the time, amongwhich coaches are not forgotten. 

It should appear that the increasing conveniences and pleasures of aLondon life had already begun to occasion the desertion of ruralmansions, and the decay of that boundless hospitality which the formerpossessors had made their boast; for thus feelingly and beautifully doesthe poet describe the desolation of one of these seats of antiquatedmagnificence:

 "Beat the broad gates, a goodly hollow sound With double echoes doth again rebound; But not a dog doth bark to welcome thee, Nor churlish porter canst thou chafing see; All dumb and silent like the dead of night, Or dwelling of some sleepy Sybarite! The marble pavement hid with desert weed, With houseleek, thistle, dock, and hemlock-seed. -- Look to the towered chimneys, which should be The windpipes of good hospitality:-- Lo there the unthankful swallow takes her rest, And fills the tunnel with her circled nest. "

The translation of the Orlando Furioso through which that singular workof genius had just become known to the English reader, was executed bysir John Harrington, the same who afterwards composed for Henry princeof Wales, the Brief View of the English Church, the godson of Elizabeth, and the child of her faithful servants James Harrington and IsabellaMarkham. 

After the usual course of school and college education, youngHarrington, who was born in 1561, presented himself at court, where hiswit and learning soon procured him a kind of distinction, which was nothowever unattended with danger. A satirical piece was traced to him asits author, containing certain allusions to living characters, whichgave so much offence to the courtiers, that he was threatened with theanimadversions of the star-chamber; but the secret favor of Elizabethtowards a godson whom she loved and who amused her, saved him from thisvery serious kind of retaliation. A tale which he sometime aftertranslated out of Ariosto proved very entertaining to the court ladies, and soon met the eyes of the queen; who in affected displeasure atcertain indelicate passages, ordered him to appear no more atcourt--till he had translated the whole poem. The command was obeyedwith alacrity; and he speedily committed his Orlando to the press, witha dedication to her majesty. Before this time our sprightly poet hadfound means to dissipate a considerable portion of the large estate towhich he was born; and being well inclined to listen to the friendlycounsels of Essex, who bade him, "lay good hold on her majesty's bountyand ask freely, " he dexterously opened his case by the following linesslipped behind her cushion. 

 "For ever dear, for ever dreaded prince, You read a verse of mine a little since; And so pronounced each word and every letter, Your gracious reading graced my verse the better: Sith then your highness doth by gift exceeding Make what you read the better for your reading; Let my poor muse your pains thus far importune, Like as you read my verse, so--read my fortune. 

 "_From your Highness' saucy Godson. _"

Of the further progress of his suit and the various little arts ofpleasing to which Harrington now applied himself, some amusing hintsmay be gathered out of the following extracts taken from a note-bookkept by himself[129]. 

[Note 129: See Nugæ Antiquæ. ]

. . . "I am to send good store of news from the country for her highnessentertainment. . . . Her highness loveth merry tales. "

"The queen stood up and bade me reach forth my arm to rest her thereon. O! what sweet burden to my next song. Petrarch shall eke out good matterfor this business. "

"The queen loveth to see me in my new frize jerkin, and saith 'tis wellenough cut. I will have another made liken to it. I do remember she spiton sir Matthew's fringed cloth, and said the fool's wit was gone torags. --Heaven spare me from such jibing!"

"I must turn my poor wits towards my suit for the lands in the north. . . . I must go in an early hour, be fore her highness hath special mattersbrought up to counsel on. --I must go before the breakfast covers areplaced, and stand uncovered as her highness cometh forth her chamber;then kneel and say, God save your majesty, I crave your ear at what hourmay suit for your servant to meet your blessed countenance. Thus will Igain her favor to follow to the auditory. 

 "Trust not a friend to do or say, In that yourself can sue or pray. "

The lands alluded to in the last extract, formed a large estate in thenorth of England, which an ancestor of Harrington had forfeited by hisadherence to the house of York during the civil wars, and which he wasnow endeavouring to recover. This further mention of the business occursin one of his letters. 

"Yet I will adventure to give her majesty five hundred pounds in money, and some pretty jewel or garment, as you shall advise, only praying hermajesty to further my suit with some of her learned counsel; which Ipray you to find some proper time to move in; this some hold as adangerous adventure, but five and twenty manors do well justify mytrying it. "

How notorious must have been the avarice and venality of a sovereign, before such a mode of insuring success in a law-suit could have enteredinto the imagination of a courtier!

But the fortunes of Harrington, as of persons of more importance, nowbecome involved in the state of Irish affairs, to which the attention ofthe reader must immediately be directed. 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

1599 TO 1603. 

Irish affairs. --Essex appointed lord deputy. --His letter to thequeen. --Letter of Markham to Harrington. --Departure of Essex andproceedings in Ireland. --His letter to the privy council, --conferenceswith Tyrone, --unexpected arrival at court. --Behaviour of thequeen. --State of parties. --Letters of sir J. Harrington. --Furtherparticulars respecting Essex. --His letter of submission. --Relentlessnessof the queen. --Sir John Hayward's history. --Second letter ofEssex. --Censure passed upon him in council. --Anecdote of thequeen. --Essex liberated. --Reception of a Flemish ambassador. --Discontentof Raleigh. --Traits of the queen. --Letter of sir Robert Sidney to sirJohn Harrington. --Crisis of the fortune of Essex. --Conduct of lordMontjoy. --Proceedings at Essex house. --Revolt of Essex. --He defends hishouse. --Is taken and committed to the Tower. --His trial and that of lordSouthampton. --Conduct of Bacon. --Confessions of Essex. --Behavior of thequeen. --Death of Essex. --Fate of his adherents. --Reception of theScotch ambassadors. --Interview of the queen and Sully. --Irishaffairs. --Letter of sir John Harrington. --A parliament summoned. --Affairof monopolies. --Quarrel between the Jesuits and secularpriests. --Conversation of the queen respecting Essex. --Letter of sir J. Harrington. --Submission of Tyrone. --Melancholy of Elizabeth. --Story ofthe ring. --Her death. --Additional traits of her character. --Her eulogyby bishop Hall. 

The death in September 1598 of Philip II. , and the succession of thefeeble Philip III. , under whom the Spanish monarchy advanced withaccelerated steps towards its decline, had finally released the queenfrom all apprehensions of foreign invasion and left her at liberty toturn her whole attention to the pacification of Ireland. The state ofthat island was in every respect deplorable:--the whole province ofUlster in open rebellion under Tyrone;--the rest of the country onlywaiting for the succours from the pope and the king of Spain, which thecredulous natives were still taught to expect, to join openly in therevolt; and in the meantime reduced to such a state of despair byinnumerable oppressions and by the rumor of further severities meditatedby the queen of England, that it seemed prepared to oppose the mostobstinate resistance to every measure of government. In what manner andby whom, this wretched province should be brought back to itsallegiance, had been the subject of frequent and earnest debates in theprivy-council; in which Essex had vehemently reprobated the conduct offormer governors in wasting time on inferior objects, instead of firstundertaking the reduction of Tyrone, and appears to have spared no painsto impress the queen with an opinion of the superior justness of his ownviews of the subject. Elizabeth believed, and with reason, that shediscovered in lord Montjoy talents not unequal to the arduous office oflord deputy at so critical a juncture; but when the greater part of hercouncil appeared to concur in the choice, Essex insinuated a variety ofobjections;--that the experience of Montjoy in military matters wassmall;--that neither in the Low Countries nor in Bretagne, where he hadserved, had he attained to any principal or independent command;--thathis retainers were few or none; his purse inadequately furnished for thefirst expenses of so high an appointment; and that he was too muchaddicted to a sedentary and studious life. By this artful enumeration ofthe deficiencies of Montjoy, he was clearly understood to intimate hisown superior fitness for the office. The queen, notwithstanding certainsuspicions which had been infused into her of danger in committing toEssex the command of an army, and notwithstanding the unwillingnesswhich she still felt to deprive herself of his presence, appears to haveadopted with eagerness this suggestion of her favorite;--for she held inhigh estimation both his talents and his good fortune. Montjoy promptlyretired from a competition in which he must be unsuccessful; theadherents of the earl, except a few of the more sagacious, eagerlyforwarded his appointment with imprudent eulogiums of his valor and hisgenius and still more imprudent anticipations of his certain andcomplete success. His enemies, desirous of his absence and hopeful ofhis failure, concurred with no less zeal in the promotion of his wishes;and he soon found himself importuned on every side to accept thecommand. But it now became his part to make objections;--perhaps hebegan to open his eyes to the difficulties to be confronted inIreland;--perhaps he penetrated too late the designs and expectations ofhis adversaries at home;--perhaps, for his character was not free fromartifice, he chose by a display of reluctance to enhance in the eyes ofhis sovereign the merit of his final acquiescence. However this mightbe, the difficulties which he raised kept the business for some time insuspense. Secretary Cecil observed in a letter of December 4th, 1598, that "the opinion of the earl's going to Ireland had some stop, byreason of his lordship's indisposition to it, except with some suchconditions as were disagreeable to her majesty's mind;" "although, " headded, "the cup will hardly pass from him in regard of his worth andfortune: but if it do, my lord Montjoy is named[130]. "

[Note 130: Birch. ]

It was in the midst of the debates and contentions on this matter thatEssex endeavoured to work upon the feelings of Elizabeth by thefollowing romantic but eloquent address. 

 * * * * *

"To the Queen. 

"From a mind delighting in sorrow, from spirits wasted with passion, from a heart torn in pieces with care grief and travel, from a man thathateth himself and all things else that keep him alive, what service canyour majesty expect; since any service past deserves no more thanbanishment and proscription to the cursedest of all islands? It is yourrebels' pride and succession must give me leave to ransom myself out ofthis hateful prison, out of my loathed body; which, if it happeneth so, your majesty shall have no cause to mislike the fashion of my death, since the course of my life could never please you. 

 Happy could he finish forth his fate In some unhaunted desert most obscure From all society, from love and hate Of worldly folk; then should he sleep secure. Then wake again, and yield God ever praise, Content with hips and haws and brambleberry; In contemplation passing out his days, And change of holy thoughts to make him merry. Who when he dies, his tomb may be a bush, Where harmless robin dwells with gentle thrush. "

"Your majesty's exiled servant

"ROBERT ESSEX. "

 * * * * *

It seems also to have been at this juncture that on some public occasionhe bore a plain mourning shield, with the words, "_Par nulla figuradolori_. "

A very sensible and friendly letter addressed to Harrington by hisrelation Robert Markham may serve to throw additional light on thesituation and sentiments of Essex, and on the state of court parties. 

 * * * * *

_Mr. Robert Markham to John Harrington Esquire. _

"Notwithstanding the perilous state of our times, I shall not fail togive you such intelligence and advices of our matters here as may tendto your use and benefit. We have gotten good account of some matters, and as I shall find some safe conduct for bearing them to you, it mayfrom time to time happen that I send tidings of our courtly concerns. 

"Since your departure from hence, you have been spoken of, and with noill will, both by the nobles and the queen herself. Your book is almostforgiven, and I may say forgotten; but not for its lack of wit orsatire. Those whom you feared most are now bosoming themselves in thequeen's grace; and though her highness signified displeasure in outwardsort, yet did she like the marrow of your book. Your great enemy, sirJames, did once mention the star-chamber, but your good esteem in betterminds outdid his endeavours, and all is silent again. The queen isminded to take you to her favor, but she sweareth that she believes youwill make epigrams and write _misacmos_ again on her and all the court. She hath been heard to say, 'that merry poet her godson, must not cometo Greenwich till he hath grown sober and leaveth the ladies' sports andfrolics. ' She did conceive much disquiet on being told you had aimed ashaft at Leicester; I wish you knew the author of that ill deed; I wouldnot be in his best jerkin for a thousand marks. You yet stand well inher highness' love, and I hear you are to go to Ireland with thelieutenant Essex; if so, mark my counsel in this matter. I doubt notyour valor nor your labor, but that d----e uncovered honesty will maryour fortunes. Observe the man who commandeth, and yet is commandedhimself; he goeth not forth to serve the queen's realm, but to humor hisown revenge. Be heedful of your bearings, speak not your mind to all youmeet. I tell you I have ground for my caution: Essex hath enemies; hehath friends too. Now there are two or three of Montjoy's kindred sentout in your army; they are to report all your conduct to us at home. Asyou love yourself, the queen and me, discover not these matters; if Idid not love you, they had never been told. High concerns deserve highattention; you are to take account of all that passes in yourexpedition, and keep journal thereof, unknown to any in the company;this will be expected of you; I have reasons to give for this order. 

"If the lord deputy performs in the field what he hath promised in thecouncil, all will be well; but though the queen hath granted forgivenessfor his late demeanour in her presence; we know not what to thinkhereof. She hath, in all outward semblance, placed confidence in the manwho so lately sought other treatment at her hands; we do sometime thinkone way, and sometime another; what betideth the lord deputy is known tohim only who knoweth all; but when a man hath so many showing friends, and so many unshowing enemies, who learneth his end here below? I say, do not you meddle in any sort, nor give your jesting too freely amongthose you know not; obey the lord deputy in all things, but give notyour opinion; it may be heard in England. Though you obey, yet seem notto advise in any one point; your obeysance may be, and must be, construed well; but your counsel may be ill thought of if any badbusiness follow. 

"You have now a secret from one that wishes you all welfare and honor; Iknow there are overlookers set on you all, so God direct yourdiscretion. Sir William Knolles is not well pleased, the queen is notwell pleased, the lord deputy may be pleased now, but I sore fear whatmay happen hereafter. The heart of man lieth close hid oft time, men donot carry it in their hand, nor should they do so that wish to thrive inthese times and in these places; I say this that your own honesty maynot show itself too much, and turn to your own ill favor. Stifle yourunderstanding as much as may be; mind your books and make your jests, but take heed who they light on. My love hath overcome almost myconfidence and trust, which my truth and place demandeth. I have saidtoo much for one in my dependent occupation, and yet too little for afriend and kinsman, who putteth himself to this hard trial for youradvantage. You have difficult matters to encounter beside Tyrone and therebels; there is little heed to be had to show of affection in statebusiness; I find this by those I discourse with daily, and those too ofthe wiser sort. If my lord treasurer had lived longer, matters would goon surer. He was our great pilot, on whom all cast their eyes, andsought their safety. The queen's highness doth often speak of him intears, and turn aside when he is discoursed of; nay, even forbiddeth anymention to be made of his name in the council. This I learn by somefriends who are in good liking with my lord Buckhurst[131]. 

[Note 131: Lord Buckhurst had succeeded to the office of lordtreasurer on the death of Burleigh. ]

"My sister beareth this to you, but doth not know what it containeth, nor would I disclose my dealings to any woman in this sort; for dangergoeth abroad, and silence is the safest armour. " &c. [132]

[Note 132: Nugæ Antiquæ. ]

 * * * * *

Such were the bodings of distant evil with which the more discerningcontemplated the new and arduous enterprise in which the ambition ofEssex had engaged him! In the meantime, all things conspired to deludehim into a false security and to augment that presumption which formedthe most dangerous defect of his character. All the obstacles which haddelayed his appointment were gradually smoothed away; the queenconsented to invest him with powers far more ample than had ever beenconferred on a lord deputy before; all his requisitions of men and othersupplies were complied with; and an army of 20, 000 foot and 1, 300 horse, afterwards increased to 2, 000, --a far larger force than Ireland had yetbeheld, --was placed at his disposal. 

At parting, the tenderness of the queen revived in full force; and shedismissed him with expressions of regret and affection which, as heafterwards professed to her, had "pierced his very soul. " The peoplefollowed him with acclamations and blessings; and the flower of thenobility now, as in the Cadiz expedition, attended him with alacrity asvolunteers. 

It was in the end of March 1599 that he embarked; and landing after adangerous passage at Dublin, his first act was the appointment of hisdear friend the earl of Southampton to the office of general of thehorse;--a step which he afterwards found abundant cause to repent. 

An error of which the consequences were much more pernicious to himself, and fatal to the success of his undertaking, was his abandoning hisoriginal resolution of marching immediately against Tyrone, andspending his first efforts in the suppression of a minor revolt inMunster:--an attempt in which he encountered a resistance so much moreformidable than he had anticipated, and found himself so ill supportedby his troops, whom the nature of the service speedily disheartened, that its results were by no means so brilliant as to strike terror intoTyrone or the other insurgents. What was still worse, almost four monthswere occupied in this service, and the forces returned sick, wearied, and incredibly reduced in number by various accidents. 

Learning that the queen was much displeased at this expedition intoMunster, Essex addressed a letter to the privy-council, in which, afteraffirming that he had performed his part to the best of his abilitiesand judgement, he thus proceeded: "But as I said, and ever must say, Iprovided for this service a breastplate, and not a cuirass; that is, Iam armed on the breast, but not on the back. I armed myself withconfidence that rebels in so unjust a quarrel could not fight so well aswe could in a good. Howbeit if the rebels shall but once come to knowthat I am wounded on the back, not slightly, but to the heart, as I fearme they have too true and too apparent advertisement of this kind; thenwhat will be their pride and the state's hazard, your lordships in yourwisdoms may easily discern. "

In a subsequent letter, the warmth of his friendship for Southamptonbreaks out in the following eloquent and forcible appeal. --"But to leavethis, and come to that which I never looked I should have come to, Imean your lordships' letter touching the displacing of the earl ofSouthampton; your lordships say, that her majesty thinketh it strange, and taketh it offensively, that I should appoint him general of thehorse, seeing not only her majesty denied it when I moved it, but gavean express prohibition to any such choice. Surely, my lord, it shall befar from me to contest with your lordships, much less with her majesty. Howbeit, God and my own soul are my witnesses, that I had not in thisnomination any disobedient or irreverent thought; that I never moved hermajesty for the placing of any officer, my commission fully enabling meto make free choice of all officers and commanders of the army. Iremember, that her majesty in her privy-chamber at Richmond, I onlybeing with her, showed a dislike of his having any office; but my answerwas, that if her majesty would revoke my commission, I would cast bothit and myself at her majesty's feet. But if it pleased her majesty thatI should execute it, I must work with my own instruments. And from thisprofession and protestation I never varied; whereas if I had held myselfbarred from giving my lord of Southampton place and reputation some wayanswerable to his degree and expense, there is no one, I think, dothimagine, that I loved him so ill as to have brought him over. Thereforeif her majesty punish me with her displeasure for this choice, _poenadolenda venit_. And now, my lords, were now, as then it was, that I wereto choose, or were there nothing in a new choice but my lord ofSouthampton's disgrace and my discomfort, I should easily be induced todisplace him, and to part with him. But when, in obeying this command, Imust discourage all my friends, who now, seeing the days of my sufferingdraw near, follow me afar off, and are some of them tempted to renounceme; when I must dismay the army, which already looks sadly, as pityingboth me and itself in this comfortless action; when I must encourage therebels, who doubtless will think it time to hew upon a withering tree, whose leaves they see beaten down, and the branches in part cut off;when I must disable myself for ever in the course of this service, theworld now perceiving that I want either reason to judge of merit, orfreedom to right it, disgraces being there heaped where, in my opinion, rewards are due; give just grief leave once to complain. O! miserableemployment, and more miserable destiny of mine, that makes it impossiblefor me to please and serve her majesty at once! Was it treason in mylord of Southampton to marry my poor kinswoman, that neither longimprisonment, nor any punishment besides that hath been usual in likecases, can satisfy and appease? Or will no kind of punishment be fit forhim, but that which punisheth, not him, but me, this army, and this poorcountry of Ireland? Shall I keep the country when the army breaks? Orshall the army stand when all the volunteers leave it? Or will anyvoluntaries stay when those that have will and cause to follow are thushandled? No, my lords, they already ask passports, and that daily. " &c. 

In spite of all this earnestness, in spite of the remaining affectionof the queen for her favorite, she still persisted in requiring that heshould displace his friend, and even chid him severely for having waitedthe result of his further representations and entreaties, after oncelearning her pleasure on the point. Success in the main object of hisexpedition might still have procured him a triumph over hiscourt-enemies and a sweet reconciliation with his offended sovereign, but fortune had no such favor in store for Essex. The necessity ofquelling some rebels in Leinster again impeded his march into Ulster;for which expedition he was obliged to solicit a further supply fromEngland of two thousand foot, which was immediately forwarded to him, asif with the design of leaving him without excuse should he fail toreduce Tyrone. But by this time the season was so far advanced, and thearmy so sickly, that both the earl and the Irish council were of opinionthat nothing effectual could be done; and at the first notice of hisintended march great part of his forces deserted. He neverthelessproceeded, and in a few days during which a little skirmishing tookplace, came in sight of the rebel's main army, considerably morenumerous than his own; Tyrone however would not venture to give himbattle, but sent to request a parley. This, after some delay, the lorddeputy granted; and a conference was held between them, Essex standingon the bank of a stream which separated the two hosts, while the rebelsat on his horse in the middle of the water. A truce was concluded, tobe renewed from six weeks to six weeks, till terms of peace should beagreed on; those proposed by Tyrone containing several arrogant andunreasonable articles. At a second meeting with the Irish chief, Essexwas attended by some of his principal officers; but it was afterwardsproved that previously to the first conference, he had opened a veryunwarrantable correspondence with this enemy of his queen and country, who took upon himself to promise that if Essex would come into hismeasures he would make him the greatest man in England. During the wholeof this time, sharp letters were passing between Elizabeth and herprivy-council and the earl; and it is hard to say on which side theheaviest list of grievances was produced. The queen remonstrated againsthis contemptuous disobedience of her orders, and the waste in frivolousenterprises of the vast supplies of men and money which she hadintrusted to her deputy for a specific and momentous object;--the earl, in addition to his usual murmurings against the sinister suggestions ofhis enemies, amongst whom he singled out by name Raleigh and lordCobham; found further grounds of complaint and alarm in the circumstanceof her majesty's having caused some troops to be called out under thelord admiral, on pretext of fears from the Spaniard, but really with aview of protecting her against certain designs imputed to himself: andin her having granted to secretary Cecil during his absence the officeof master of the wards, for which he was himself a suitor. 

Apprehensive lest by his longer delay her affections should beirrecoverably alienated from him by the discovery of his traitorouscorrespondence with Tyrone, he rashly resolved to risk yet another actof disobedience;--that of deserting without license, and under itspresent accumulated circumstances of danger, his important charge, andhastening to throw himself at the feet of an exasperated, but heflattered himself, not inexorable mistress. At one time he had evenentertained the desperate and criminal design of carrying over with hima large part of his army, for the purpose of intimidating hisadversaries; but being diverted from this scheme by the earl ofSouthampton and sir Christopher Blount his step-father, he embarked withthe attendance only of most of his household and a number of hisfavorite officers, and arrived at the court, which was then at Nonsuch, on Michaelmas eve in the morning. 

On alighting at the gate, covered with mire and stained with travel ashe was, he hastened up stairs, passed through the presence and theprivy-chambers, and never stopped till he reached the queen'sbed-chamber, where he found her newly risen with her hair about herface. He kneeled and kissed her hands, and she, in the agreeablesurprise of beholding at her feet one whom she still loved, received himwith so kind an aspect, and listened with such favor to his excuses, that on leaving her, after a private conference of some duration, heappeared in high spirits, and thanked God, that though he had sufferedmany storms abroad, he found a sweet calm at home. He waited on heragain as soon as he had changed his dress; and after a second long andgracious conference, was freely visited by all the lords, ladies, andgentlemen at court, excepting the secretary and his party, who appearedsomewhat shy of him. But all these fair appearances quickly vanished. Onrevisiting the queen in the evening, he found her much changed towardshim; she began to call him to account for his unauthorised return andthe hazard to which he had committed all things in Ireland; and fourprivy-councillors were appointed by her to examine him that night andhear his answers: but by them nothing was concluded, and the matter wasreferred to a full council summoned for the following day, the earlbeing in the meantime commanded to keep his chamber. Notwithstanding thenatural impetuosity of his temper, Essex now armed himself with patienceand moderation, and answered with great gravity and discretion to thecharges brought against him, which resolved themselves into thefollowing articles. "His contemptuous disobedience of her majesty'sletters and will in returning: his presumptuous letters written fromtime to time: his proceedings in Ireland contrary to the points resolvedupon in England, ere he went: his rash manner of coming away fromIreland: his overbold going the day before to her majesty's presence toher bed-chamber: and his making of so many idle knights[133]. " Thecouncil, after hearing his defence, remained awhile in consultation andthen made their report to her majesty, who said she should take time toconsider of his answers: meanwhile the proceedings were kept veryprivate, and the earl continued a prisoner in his own apartment. Anopen division now took place between the two great factions which hadlong divided the court in secret. The earls of Shrewsbury andNottingham, lords Thomas Howard, Cobham, and Grey, sir Walter Raleigh, and sir George Carew, attended on the secretary; while Essex wasfollowed by the earls of Worcester and Rutland, lords Montjoy, Rich, Lumley, and Henry Howard; the last of whom however was already suspectedto be the traitor which he afterwards proved to the patron whom heprofessed to love, to honor, and almost to worship. Sir William Knollesalso joined the party of his nephew, with many other knights andgentlemen, and lord Effingham, though son to the earl of Nottingham, wasoften with him, and "protested all service" to him. "It is a world to behere, " adds Whyte, "and see the humors of the place. " On October thesecond, Essex was "commanded from court, " and committed to the lordkeeper, with whom he remained at York house. At his departure from courtfew or none of his friends accompanied him. 

[Note 133: Rowland Whyte in Sidney Papers. ]

"His lordship's sudden return out of Ireland, " says Whyte, "brings allsorts of knights, captains, officers, and soldiers, away from thence, that this town is full of them, to the great discontentment of hermajesty, that they are suffered to leave their charge. But the most partof the gallants have quitted their commands, places, and companies, notwilling to stay there after him; so that the disorder seems to begreater there than stands with the safety of that service. " Harringtonthe wit and poet had the misfortune to be one of the threescore "idleknights, " dubbed by the lord deputy during his short and ingloriousreign, and likewise one of the officers whom he selected to accompanyhim in his return; and we may learn from two of his own letters, writtenseveral years subsequently, after what manner he was welcomed on hisarrival by his royal godmother. 

 * * * * *

"_Sir John Harrington to Dr. Still, the bishop of Bath and Wells. _ 1603. 

"My worthy lord, "I have lived to see that d----e rebel Tyrone brought to England, courteously favored, honored, and well-liked. O! my lord, what is therewhich doth not prove the inconstancy of worldly matters! How did I laborafter that knave's destruction! I was called from my home by hermajesty's command, adventured perils by sea and land; endured toil, wasnear starving, ate horse-flesh at Munster; and all to quell that man, who now smileth in peace at those that did hazard their lives to destroyhim. Essex took me to Ireland, I had scant time to put on my boots; Ifollowed with good will, and did return with the lord-lieutenant to meetill-will; I did bear the frowns of her that sent me; and were it not forher good liking, rather than my good deservings, I had been sorediscountenanced indeed. I obeyed in going with the earl to Ireland, andI obeyed in coming with him to England. But what did I encounterthereon? Not his wrath, but my gracious sovereign's ill humor. What didI advantage? Why truly a knighthood; which had been better bestowed byher that sent me, and better spared by him that gave it. I shall neverput out of memory her majesty's displeasure; I entered her chamber, butshe frowned and said. 'What, did the fool bring you too? Go back to yourbusiness. ' In sooth these words did sore hurt him that never heard suchbefore; but Heaven gave me more comfort in a day or two after. Hermajesty did please to ask me concerning our northern journeys, and I didso well quit me of the account, that she favoured me with such discoursethat the earl himself had been well glad of. And now doth Tyrone dare usold commanders with his presence and protection. " &c. [134]

[Note 134: Nugæ. ]

 * * * * *

"_Sir John Harrington to Mr. Robert Markham_, 1606. 

"My good cousin, "Herewith you will have my journal, with our history during our marchagainst the Irish rebels. I did not intend any eyes should have seenthis discourse but my own children's; yet alas! it happened otherwise;for the queen did so ask, and I may say, demand my account, that I couldnot withhold showing it; and I, even now, almost tremble to rehearse herhighness' displeasure hereat. She swore by God's son, we were all idleknaves, and the lord deputy worse, for wasting our time and her commandsin such-wise as my journal doth write of. 

"I could have told her highness of such difficulties, straits, andannoyance, as did not appear therein to her eyes, nor, I found, could bebrought to her ear; for her choler did outrun all reason, though I didmeet it at a second hand. For what show she gave at first to my lorddeputy at his return, was far more grievous, as will appear in goodtime. 

"I marvel to think what strange humors do conspire to patch up thenatures of some minds. The elements do seem to strive which shallconquer and rise above the other. In good sooth our late queen didinfold them all together. I bless her memory for all her goodness to meand my family; and now will I show you what strange temperament she didsometimes put forth. Her mind was oftimes like the gentle air thatcometh from the westerly point in a summer's morn; 'twas sweet andrefreshing to all around her. Her speech did win all affections, and hersubjects did try to show all love to her commands; for she would say, her state did require her to command what she knew her people wouldwillingly do from their own love to her. Herein did she show her wisdomfully; for who did choose to lose her confidence; or who would withholda show of love and obedience, when their sovereign said it was their ownchoice, and not her compulsion? Surely she did play well her tables togain obedience thus without constraint; again could she put forth suchalterations, when obedience was lacking, as left no doubtings whosedaughter she was. I say this was plain on the lord deputy's coming home, when I did come into her presence. She chafed much, walked fastly to andfro, looked with discomposure in her visage; and I remember, shecatched my girdle when I kneeled to her, and swore, 'By God's son I amno queen, that _man_ is above me;--who gave him command to come here sosoon? I did send him on other business. ' It was long before moregracious discourse did fall to my hearing; but I was then put out of mytrouble, and bid go home. I did not stay to be bidden twice; if all theIrish rebels had been at my heels, I should not have made better speed, for I did now flee from one whom I both loved and feared too[135]. "

[Note 135: Nugæ. ]

 * * * * *

The fate of Essex remained long in suspense; while several littlecircumstances seemed to indicate the strength of her majesty'sresentment against him; especially her denying, to the personal requestof lady Walsingham, permission for the earl to write to his countess, her daughter, who was in childbed and exceedingly troubled that sheneither saw nor heard from her husband; and afterwards her refusing toallow his family physician access to him, though he was now so ill as tobe attended by several other physicians, with whom however Dr. Brown waspermitted to consult. At the same time it was given out, that if hewould beg his liberty for the purpose of going back to Ireland, it wouldbe granted him;--but he appeared resolute never to return thither, andprofessed a determination of leading henceforth a retired life in thecountry, free from all participation in public affairs. 

Pamphlets were written on his case, but immediately suppressed byauthority, and perhaps at the request of the earl himself, whosebehaviour at this time exhibited nothing but duty and submission. Hissister lady Rich, and lady Southampton, quitted Essex house and wentinto the country, because the resort of company to them had givenoffence. He himself neither saw nor desired to see any one. His veryservants were afraid to meet in any place to make merry lest it might beill taken. "At the court, " says Whyte, "lady Scrope is only noted tostand firm to him, for she endures much at her majesty's hands becauseshe daily does all kind offices of love to the queen in his behalf. Shewears all black; she mourns and is pensive, and joys in nothing but in asolitary being alone. And 'tis thought she says much that few wouldventure to say but herself. " This generous woman was daughter to thefirst lord Hunsdon, and nearly related both to the queen and to Essex. She was sister to the countess of Nottingham who is believed to haveacted so opposite a part. 

About the middle of October strong hopes were entertained of the earlsenlargement; but it was said that "he stood to have his liberty by thelike warrant he was committed. " The secretary was pleased to express tohim the satisfaction that he felt in seeing her majesty so well appeasedby his demeanor, and his own wish to promote his good and contentment. The reasons which he had assigned for his conduct in Ireland appeared tohave satisfied the privy-council and mollified the queen. But hermajesty characteristically declared, that she would not bear the blameof his imprisonment; and before she and her council could settle amongstthem on whom it should be made to rest, a new cause of exasperationarose. Tyrone, in a letter to Essex which was intercepted, declared thathe found it impossible to prevail on his confederates to observe theconditions of truce agreed upon between them; and the queen, relapsinginto anger, triumphantly asked if there did not now appear good causefor the earl's committal? She immediately made known to lord Montjoy herwish that he should undertake the government of Ireland; but thefriendship of this nobleman to Essex, joined with a hope that the queenmight be induced to liberate him by a necessity of again employing histalents in that country, induced Montjoy to excuse himself. The councilunanimously recommended to her majesty the enlargement of the prisoner;but she angrily replied, that such contempts as he had been guilty ofought to be openly punished. They answered, that by her sovereign powerand the rigor of law, such punishment might indeed be inflicted, butthat it would be inconsistent with her clemency and her honor; shehowever caused heads of accusation to be drawn up against him. All thistime Essex continued very sick; and his high spirit condescended tosupplications like the following. 

 * * * * *

"When the creature entereth into account with the Creator, it can nevernumber in how many things it needs mercy, or in how many it receives it. But he that is best stored, must still say _da nobis hodie_; and he thathath showed most thankfulness, must ask again, _Quid retribuamus_? AndI can no sooner finish this my first audit, most dear and most admiredsovereign, but I come to consider how large a measure of his grace, andhow great a resemblance of his power, God hath given you upon earth; andhow many ways he giveth occasion to you to exercise these divine officesupon us, that are your vassals. This confession best fitteth me of allmen; and this confession is most joyfully and most humbly now made by meof all times. I acknowledge upon the knees of my heart your majesty'sinfinite goodness in granting my humble petition. God, who seeth all, iswitness, how faithfully I do vow to dedicate the rest of my life, nextafter my highest duty, in obedience faith and zeal to your majesty, without admitting any other worldly care; and whatsoever your majestyresolveth to do with me, I shall live and die

"Your majesty's humblest vassal, "ESSEX. "

 * * * * *

The earl abased himself in vain; those courtiers who had formerlywitnessed her majesty's tenderness and indulgence towards him, nowwondered at the violence of her resentment; and somewhat of mysterystill involves the motives of her conduct. At one time she deferred hisliberation "because she heard that some of his friends and followersshould say he was wrongfully imprisoned:" and the French ambassador whospoke for him, found her very short and bitter on that point. Soonafter, however, on hearing that he continued very sick and was makinghis will, she was surprised into some signs of pity, and gave ordersthat a few of his friends should be admitted to visit him, and that heshould be allowed the liberty of the garden. Alarmed at theserelentings, Raleigh, to whose nature the basest court arts were notrepugnant, thought proper to fall sick in his turn, and was healed inlike manner by a gracious message from the queen. The countess of Essexwas indefatigable in her applications to persons in power, but withlittle avail; all that was gained for the dejected prisoner was effectedby the intercession of some of the queen's favorite ladies, who obtainedleave for his two sisters to come to court and solicit for him. Soonafter, the storm seemed to gather strength again;--a warrant was madeout for the earl's committal to the Tower, and though it was not carriedinto force, "the hopes of liberty grew cold. " About the middle ofNovember lord Montjoy received orders to prepare for Ireland. 

The appearance of the first part of a history in Latin of the life andreign of Henry IV. By sir John Hayward, dedicated to the earl of Essex, was the unfortunate occasion of fresh offence to the queen; the subject, as containing the deposition of a lawful prince, was in itselfunpalatable; but what gave the work in her jealous eyes a peculiar andsinister meaning was an expression addressed to the earl which may bethus rendered: "You are great both in present judgement and futureexpectation. "

Hayward was detained a considerable time in prison; and the queen, froman idle suspicion that the piece was in fact the production of some moredangerous character, declared that she would have him racked todiscover the secret. "Nay, Madam, " answered Francis Bacon, "he is aDoctor; never rack his person, but rack his style. Let him have pen, inkand paper, and help of books, and be enjoined to continue the storywhere it breaketh off; and I will undertake, by collating the styles, tojudge whether he were the author or no. " And thus her mind was divertedfrom this atrocious purpose!

Measures had now been carried too far against the earl to admit of hisspeedy restoration to favor, whatever might be the secret sentiments ofher majesty in his behalf; and her conduct respecting him preserved avacillating and undecided character which marks the miserable perplexityof her mind, no longer enlightened by the clear and dispassionatejudgement of Burleigh. 

On one occasion she spoke of the earl with such favor as greatlytroubled the opposite party. Soon after, on his sending to her hispatents of master of the horse and master of the ordnance, sheimmediately returned them to him; and at the same time his lady hadleave to visit him. Two days after, the queen ordered a consultation ofeight physicians upon his case, who gave little hope of his life, butearnestly recommended that his mind should be quieted; on which, unablelonger to conceal her feelings, she sent Dr. James to him with somebroth and the message, that he should comfort himself, and that if shemight consistently with her honor she would visit him; and it was notedthat she had tears in her eyes as she spoke. But it was soon afterhinted to her, that though divines watched by the bed of the earl andpublicly prayed for him in their pulpits, some of them "with speechestending to sedition, " his life was in no real danger. On this, sherefused his sisters, his son, and his mother-in-law permission to visithim, and ceased to make inquiries after his health, which was in no longtime restored. A rich new year's gift, which was sent "as it were in acloud no man knew how, " but thought to come from the earl, was left forsome time in the hands of sir William Knolles, as neither accepted norrefused, but finally rejected with disdain on some new accession ofanger. Yet the letters of lady Rich in his behalf were read, and hermany presents received, as well as one from the countess of Leicester. 

Lady Essex was now restrained for a time from making her daily visits toher husband, and the queen declared her intention of bringing him beforethe Star-chamber; but on his writing a very submissive letter, which wasdelivered by the secretary, the design was dropped; and the secretary, who had been earnest in his intercession with her majesty to spare thisinfliction, gained in consequence much credit with the public. About themiddle of March the earl was suffered to remove, under thesuperintendance of a keeper, to his own house; for which he returnedthanks to her majesty in very grateful terms, saying that "this furtherdegree of her goodness sounded in his ears as if she had said, 'Die not, Essex; for though I punish thine offence, and humble thee for thy good, yet will I one day be served again by thee. ' And my prostrate soul, " headds, "makes this answer, 'I hope for that blessed day. '" Two monthsafterwards, however, perceiving no immediate prospect of his return tofavor or to liberty, he addressed her in a more expostulating style, thus:

 * * * * *

"Before all letters written with this hand be banished, or he that sendsthis enjoin himself eternal silence, be pleased, I humbly beseech yourmajesty, to read over these few lines. At sundry times and by severalmessengers, I received these words as your majesty's own; that you meantto correct, but not to ruin. Since which time, when I languished in fourmonths sickness; forfeited almost all that I was able to engage; feltthe very pangs of death upon me; and saw that poor reputation, whatsoever it was, that I had hitherto enjoyed, not suffered to die withme, but buried and I alive; I yet kissed your majesty's fair correctinghand, and was confident in your royal words. For I said unto myself, Between my ruin and my sovereign's favor there is no mean: and if shebestow favor again, she gives with it all things that in this world Ieither need or desire. But now, the length of troubles, and thecontinuance, or rather the increase, of your majesty's indignation, hathmade all men so afraid of me, as mine own state is not only ruined, butmy kind friends and faithful servants are like to die in prison becauseI cannot help myself with mine own. Now I do not only feel theintolerable weight of your majesty's indignation, and am subject totheir wicked information that first envied me for my happiness in yourfavor and now hate me out of custom; but, as if I were thrown into acorner like a dead carcase, I am gnawed on and torn by the vilest andbasest creatures upon earth. The tavern-haunter speaks of me what helists. Already they print me and make me speak to the world, and shortlythey will play me in what forms they list upon the stage. The least ofthese is a thousand times worse than death. But this is not the worst ofmy destiny; for your majesty, that hath mercy for all the world but me, that hath protected from scorn and infamy all to whom you once vowedfavor but Essex, and never repented you of any gracious assurance youhad given till now; your majesty, I say, hath now, in this eighth monthof my close imprisonment (as if you thought my infirmities, beggary andinfamy, too little punishment for me), rejected my letters, refused tohear of me, which to traitors you never did. What therefore remainethfor me? Only this, to beseech your majesty on the knees of my heart, toconclude my punishment, my misery and my life together; that I may go tomy Saviour, who hath paid himself a ransom for me, and whom, methinks, Istill hear calling me out of this unkind world, in which I have livedtoo long, and once thought myself too happy. 

"From your majesty's humblest servant, "ESSEX. "

 * * * * *

At length, the queen prepared to make an end of this lingering business;the earl's entreaties that it might not be made a Star-chamber matterwere listened to, and eighteen commissioners were selected out of theprivy-council, to discuss his conduct, hear his accusation and defence, and finally pronounce upon him such a _censure_, for it was not to becalled a _sentence_, as they should see fit. The crown lawyers, --amongstwhom Francis Bacon chose to take his place, though the queen had offeredto excuse his attendance on account of the ties of gratitude which oughtto have attached him to Essex, --spoke one after another in aggravationof his offence; and some of them, as the attorney-general (Coke), withgreat virulence of language. Next came the prisoner's defence, which hepronounced kneeling;--an attitude in which he was suffered to remainduring a great part of the proceedings. He began with a humble avowal ofhis errors, and many expressions of penitence and humility towards hermajesty; a temperate apology for particular parts of his conduct, followed; but as he was proceeding to reflect in some points on theconduct of the Irish council, and to refute the exaggerated charges ofhis enemies, he was interrupted by the lord keeper, who reminded himthat this was not a course likely to do him good. The earl explainedthat he had no wish but to clear himself of disloyalty; it was answered, that with this he never had been charged. The pathetic eloquence of thenoble prisoner moved many of the council to tears, and was not withoutits effect on his enemies themselves. The secretary, who was the firstto rise in reply, even in refuting a part of his excuses, did himjustice in other points, and treated him on the whole with greatcourtesy. Finally, it was the unanimous censure of the council, thatthe earl should abstain from exercising the functions ofprivy-councillor, earl marshal, or master of the ordnance; that heshould return to his own house, and there remain a prisoner as before, till it should please her majesty to remit both this and all the otherparts of the sentence. 

By this solemn hearing the mind of the queen was much tranquillized;because her grave councillors and learned judges in their speeches, "amplifying her majesty's clemency and the earl's offences, according tothe manner in the Star-chamber, " had held him worthy of much morepunishment than he had yet received. A few days after her majestyrepaired to lady Russel's house in Blackfriars to grace the nuptials ofher daughter, a maid of honor, with lord Herbert, son of the earl ofWorcester;--on which occasion it may be mentioned, that she was conveyedfrom the water-side in a _lectica_, or half-litter, borne by sixknights. After dining with the wedding company, she passed to theneighbouring house of lord Cobham to sup. Here she was entertained witha mask of eight ladies, who, after performing their appointed part, chose out eight ladies more to dance the measure, when Mrs. Fitton theprincipal masker came and "wooed" the queen also to dance. Her majestyinquired who she was? "Affection, " she replied. "_Affection_, " said thequeen, "_is false_;" yet she rose and danced. 

Elizabeth was now possessed with a strange fancy of _unmaking_ theknights made by Essex; being flattered in this folly by Bacon, whoassured her, certainly in contradiction to all the laws of chivalry, that her general had no right to confer that degree after a prohibitionlaid upon him by her majesty. She was resolved to command at least thatno ancient gentleman should give place to these new knights; and she hadactually signed the warrant for a proclamation to this effect, when thetimely interference of the secretary saved her from thus exposingherself. 

Late in August 1600, the earl was acquainted in form by theprivy-council that his liberty was restored, but that he was stillprohibited from appearing at court. He answered, that it was his designto lead a retired life at his uncle's in Oxfordshire, yet he beggedtheir intercession that he might be admitted to kiss the queen's handbefore his departure. But this was still too great a favor to beaccorded, and he was informed, that though free from restraint, he wasstill to regard himself as under indignation; a distinction which servedto deter all but his nearest relations from resorting to him. 

In the spring of this year, Vereiken, an ambassador from Flanders, wasvery honorably received by the queen, whose counsels had assumed a morepacific aspect since the disgrace of Essex. 

Whyte informs us, with his usual minuteness, that the ambassador waslodged with alderman Baning in Dowgate; and that he was fetched to courtin great state, the whole household being drawn up in the hall; thegreat ladies and fair maids appearing "excellently brave" in the roomsthrough which he passed; and the queen, very richly dressed andsurrounded by her council, extending to him a most gracious reception. He solemnly congratulated himself on the happiness of beholding hermajesty, "who for _beauty_ and wisdom did excel all other princes of theearth;" and she, in requital, promised to consider of his proposals. Thenegotiation proved in the end abortive; but great offence was taken atthe publication in this juncture of a letter by the earl of Essexagainst a peace with Spain. 

Raleigh was at this time leaving London in discontent because nothingwas done for him;--it does not appear what was now the particular objectof his solicitation; but a writer has recorded it as an instance of theprudent reserve of Elizabeth in the advancement of her courtiers, thatshe would never admit the eloquent and ambitious Raleigh to a seat ather council-board[136]. 

[Note 136: Bohun's Memoirs. ]

In the midst of her extreme anxiety for the fate of Ireland, --whereTyrone for the present carried all things at his will, boasting himselfthe champion of the Romish cause, and proclaiming his expectation ofSpanish aid; and of her more intimate and home-felt uneasinessrespecting the effect of her measures of chastisement on the haughtymind of Essex, --we find Elizabeth promoting with some affectation theamusements of her court. "This day, " says Whyte, "she appoints to see aFrenchman do feats upon a cord in the conduit court. Tomorrow she hathcommanded the bears, the bull and the ape to be baited in thetilt-yard; upon Wednesday she will have solemn dancing. "

A letter from sir Robert Sidney to sir John Harrington, written sometime in this year, affords some not uninteresting traits of herbehaviour, mixed with other matters:

 * * * * *

"Worthy knight;

"Your present to the queen was well accepted of; she did much commendyour verse, nor did she less praise your prose. . . . The queen hath tastedyour dainties, and saith you have marvellous skill in cooking of goodfruits. If I can serve you in your northern suit, you may command me. . . . Our lawyers say, your title is well grounded in conscience, but thatstrict law doth not countenance your recovering those lands of yourancestors. . . . Visit your friends often, and please the queen by all youcan, _for all the great lawyers do much fear her displeasure_. . . . I dosee the queen often, she doth wax weak since the late troubles, andBurleigh's death doth often draw tears from her goodly cheeks; shewalketh out but little, meditates much alone, and sometimes writes inprivate to her best friends. The Scottish matters do cause muchdiscourse, but we know not the true grounds of state business, norventure further on such ticklish points[137]. Her highness hath donehonor to my poor house by visiting me, and seemed much pleased at whatwe did to please her. My son made her a fair speech, to which she didgive most gracious reply. The women did dance before her, whilst thecornets did salute from the gallery; and she did vouchsafe to eat twomorsels of rich comfit cake, and drank a small cordial out of a goldencup. She had a marvellous suit of velvet, borne by four of her firstwomen-attendants in rich apparel; two ushers did go before; and at goingup stairs she called for a staff, and was much wearied in walking aboutthe house, and said she wished to come another day. Six drums and sixtrumpets waited in the court, and sounded at her approach and departure. My wife did bear herself in wonderous good liking, and was attired in apurple kirtle fringed with gold; and myself in a rich band and collar ofneedlework, and did wear a goodly stuff of the bravest cut and fashion, with an under body of silver and loops. The queen was much incommendation of our appearances, and smiled at the ladies who in theirdances often came up to the step on which the seat was fixed to maketheir obeisance, and so fell back into their order again. The youngerMarkham did several gallant feats on a horse before the gate, leapingdown and kissing his sword, then mounting swiftly on the saddle, andpassing a lance with much skill. The day well nigh spent, the queen wentand tasted a small beverage that was set out in divers rooms where shemight pass, and then in much order was attended to her palace; thecornets and trumpets sounding through the streets. " &c. 

[Note 137: The mysterious affair of the Gowrie conspiracy isprobably here alluded to. ]

 * * * * *

The fate of Essex was now drawing to a crisis. The mixture of severityand indulgence with which he had been treated;--her majesty'sperseverance in refusing to readmit him to her presence, though allother liberty was restored to him;--her repeated assurances that shemeant only to chastise, not to ruin him, contrasted with the tediousduration of her anger and the utter uncertainty when, or by what means, it was to be brought to an end;--had long detained him in the mazes of atormenting uncertainty: but he at length saw the moment when herdisposition towards him must be brought to a test which he secretlyassured his adherents that he should regard as decisive. 

The term for which the earl had held the lucrative farm of sweet wineswould expire at Michaelmas; he was soliciting its renewal; and on thedoubtful balance of success or failure his already wavering loyalty wassuspended. He spared on this occasion no expressions of humility andcontrition which might soften the heart of the queen:--He professed tokiss the hand and the rod with which he had been corrected; to lookforward to the beholding again those blessed eyes, so long his Cynosure, as the only real happiness which he could ever enjoy; and he declaredhis intention with Nebuchodonosor, to make his habitation with thebeasts of the field, to eat hay like an ox, and to be wet with the dewsof heaven, until it should please the queen to restore him. To lordHenry Howard, who was the bearer of these dutiful phrases, Elizabethexpressed her unfeigned satisfaction to find him in so proper a frame ofmind; she only wished, she said, that his deeds might answer to hiswords; and as he had long tried her patience, it was fit that sheshould make some experiment of his humility. Her father would never haveendured such perversity:--but she would not now look back:--All thatglittered was not gold, but if such results came forth from her furnace, she should ever after think the better of her chemistry. Soon after, having detected the motive of immediate interest which had inspired suchmoving expressions of penitence and devotion, her disgust against Essexwas renewed; and in the end, she not only rejected his suit, but addedthe insulting words, that an ungovernable beast must be stinted of hisprovender, in order to bring him under management. 

The spirit of Essex could endure no more;--rage took possession of hissoul; and equally desperate in fortune and in mind, he prepared to throwhimself into any enterprise which the rashness of the worst adviserscould suggest. It was at this time that he is reported, in speaking ofthe queen, to have used the expression, maliciously repeated to her bycertain court ladies, --that through old age her mind was become ascrooked as her carcase:--words which might have sufficed to plunge himat once from the height of favor into irretrievable ruin. 

The doors of Essex-house, hitherto closed night and day since thedisgrace of the earl, were now thrown popularly open. Sir Gilly Merrick, his steward, kept an open table for all military adventurers, men ofbroken fortunes and malcontents of every party. Sermons were deliveredthere daily by the most zealous and popular of the puritan divines, towhich the citizens ran in crowds; and lady Rich, who had lately beenplaced under restraint by the queen and was still in deep disgrace, onaccount of her intermeddling in the affairs of her brother, and on thefurther ground of her scandalous intrigue with lord Montjoy, became adaily visitant. The earl himself, listening again to the suggestions ofhis secretary Cuff, whom he had once dismissed on account of his violentand dangerous character, began to meditate new counsels. 

An eye-witness has thus impressively described the struggles of his mindat this juncture. "It resteth with me in opinion, that ambition thwartedin its career doth speedily lead on to madness: herein I am strengthenedby what I learn in my lord of Essex, who shifteth from sorrow andrepentance to rage and rebellion so suddenly as well proveth him devoidof good reason or right mind; in my last discourse he littered suchstrange words, bordering on such strange designs, that made me hastenforth, and leave his presence. Thank heaven I am safe at home, and if Igo in such troubles again, I deserve the gallows for a meddling fool. His speeches of the queen becometh no man who hath _mens sana in corporesano_. He hath ill advisers, and much evil hath sprung from this source. 

"The queen well knoweth how to humble the haughty spirit, the haughtyspirit knoweth not how to yield, and the man's soul seemeth tossed toand fro like the waves of a troubled sea[138]. "

[Note 138: Sir John Harrington in Nugæ. ]

The affinity of Essex to the crown by his descent from Thomas ofWoodstock has been already adverted to;--it seems never to have awakenedthe slightest jealousy in the mind of Elizabeth; but the absurd vauntsof some of his followers, commented upon by the malicious ingenuity ofhis enemies, had sufficed to excite sinister suspicions in the bosom ofthe king of Scots. For the purpose of counteracting these, lord Montjoy, near the beginning of the earl's captivity, had sent Henry Leigh intoScotland, to give the king assurance that Essex entertained none of theambitious views which had been imputed to him, but was, on the contrary, firmly resolved to endure no succession but that of his majesty; furtherhinting at some steps for causing his right to be recognised in thelifetime of the queen. From this time a friendly correspondence had beenmaintained between James and the Essex party; and Montjoy, on beingappointed lord deputy of Ireland, had gone so far as to offer to theking to bring over to England such part of his army as, acting inconcert with the force that the earl would be able to raise, mightcompass by force the object which they had in view. By some delay in thereturn of the messenger, added to the dilatoriness or reluctance ofJames, this plan was frustrated; but some time after Essex, impatientalike of the disgrace and the inactivity of his present restraint, urgedMontjoy to bring over his forces without waiting for the tardyco-operation of the king of Scots. The lord deputy replied, "that hethought it more lawful to enter into such a course with one that hadinterest in the succession than otherwise; and though he had been ledbefore out of the opinion he had to do his country good by theestablishment of the succession, and to deliver my lord of Essex out ofthe danger he was in; yet now his life appeared to be safe, to restorehis fortune only, and to save himself from the danger which hangs overhim by discovery, and to satisfy my lord of Essex's private ambition, hewould not enter into any enterprise of that" kind[139]. 

[Note 139: Confession of sir Charles Davers, in Birch's Memoirs. ]

After this repulse, Essex as a last resource applied himself once moreto the court of Scotland, and, with the disingenuousness inseparablefrom the conduct of political intrigue, exerted all his efforts todeceive James into a belief that the party now in power were pensionersof Spain, hired to the support of the pretended title of the Infanta. Hefurther alarmed the king by representing that the places most proper forthe reception of Spanish forces were all in the hands of the creaturesof Cecil;--Raleigh being governor of Jersey, lord Cobham warden of theCinque Ports, lord Burleigh president of the North, and sir George Carewpresident of Munster. In consequence, he urged James to lose no time inclaiming by his ambassadors a solemn acknowledgement of his title. Thesesuggestions were listened to; and Essex was animated to proceed in hisperilous career by hopes of the speedy arrival of the Scottish embassy. In the meantime he formed a council of five of the friends most devotedto his cause:--the earl of Southampton, sir Charles Davers, sirFerdinando Gorges, sir John Davis surveyor of the ordnance, and JohnLittleton esquire of Frankley. By this junto, which met privately atDrury-house, the plot was matured. The earl delivered in a list of onehundred and twenty nobles, knights and gentlemen, on whose attachment hethought he could rely: it was agreed that an attempt should be made toseize the palace, and to persuade or compel the queen to remove from hercouncils the enemies of the earl, and to summon a new parliament; andtheir respective parts were allotted to the intended actors in thisscene of violence. 

Meantime the extraordinary concourse to Essex-house had fixed theattention of government, and measures were taken for obtainingintelligence of all that passed within its walls. Lord Henry Howard, whohad made a timely secession from the leader to whom, in terms of thegrossest adulation, he had professed everlasting and unlimitedattachment, is believed to have discovered some of his secrets; and adomestic educated with the earl from childhood, and entirely trusted byhim, had also the baseness to reveal his counsels. On the 7th ofFebruary 1601, the privy-council, being fully informed of hisproceedings, dispatched secretary Herbert to summon the earl to appearbefore them. But apprehensive that he was betrayed, and conscious thatthe steps which he had already taken were incapable of being justified, the earl excused himself from attending the council, and summoningaround him the most confidential of his friends, he represented to themthat they were on the point of being committed to prison, and bade themdecide whether they would quietly submit themselves to the disposal oftheir enemies, or attempt thus prematurely to carry into effect thedesigns which they had meditated. 

During the debate which ensued, a person entered who pretended to bedeputed by the people of London to assure the earl of their cordialco-operation in his cause. This decided the question; Essex, with a morecheerful countenance, began to expatiate on the affection borne him bythe city, and his expectation of being joined by sheriff Smith with athousand of the trained bands whom he commanded. The following morningwas fixed for the insurrection; and in the meantime emissaries weredispatched, who ran about the town in all directions, to spread amongthe friends of the earl the alarm of a design upon his life by Cobhamand Raleigh. 

Early on the morrow the lord keeper, the lord chief justice, and sir W. Knolles comptroller of the household, arrived at Essex-house anddemanded entrance on the part of the queen. They themselves were withdifficulty admitted through the wicket of the gate, which was now keptshut and guarded; but all their servants, except the purse-bearer, wereexcluded. They beheld the court-yard filled with a confused multitude, in the midst of which stood Essex accompanied by the earls ofSouthampton and Rutland and many others. The lord keeper demanded in thename of her majesty the cause of this unusual concourse; adding anassurance that if any had injured his lordship, he should find redress. Essex in a vehement manner complained of letters counterfeited in hisname, --of designs against his life, --of perfidious dealings towards him:but the conference was interrupted by the clamors of the crowd, some ofwhom threatened violence against the court-emissaries. Without furtherparley the earl conducted them into the house, where he ordered them tobe safely kept as hostages till his return from the city, whither he washastening to take measures with the lord-mayor and sheriffs. 

About ten o'clock he entered the city attended by the "chief gallants"of the time; as the earls of Southampton and Rutland, lords Sandys andMonteagle, sir Charles Davers, sir Christopher Blount, and many others. As they passed Fleet-street, they cried, "For the queen, for the queen!"in other places they gave out that Cobham and Raleigh would havemurdered the earl in his bed; and the multitude, universally wellaffected to Essex, eagerly reported that he and the queen werereconciled, and that she had appointed him to ride in that triumphantmanner through the city to his house in Seething-lane. The lord-mayorhowever received warning from the privy-council to look well to hischarge, and by eleven the gates were closed and strongly guarded. Theearl, though a good deal disconcerted at observing no preparations forjoining him, made his way to the house of sheriff Smith; but thisofficer slipped out at his back door and hastened to the lord-mayor forinstructions. He next proceeded to an armourer's and demandedammunition, which was refused; and while he was hastening to and fro, without aim or object as appears, lord Burleigh courageously enteredthe city with a king-at-arms and half a score horse-men, and in twoplaces proclaimed the earl and all his adherents traitors. A pistol wasfired at him by one of the followers of Essex; but the multitude showedno disposition to molest him, and he hastened back to assure the queenthat a popular commotion was not at all to be apprehended. 

The palace was now fortified and double-guarded; the streets wereblocked up with carts and coaches; and the earl, after wandering in vainabout the town till two o'clock, finding himself joined by none of thecitizens and deserted by a great portion of his original followers, determined to make his way back to Essex-house. At Ludgate he wasopposed by some troops posted there by order of the bishop; and drawinghis sword, he directed sir Christopher Blount to attack them; "which hedid with great bravery, and killed Waite, a stout officer, who had beenformerly hired by the earl of Leicester to assassinate sir Christopher, and was now abandoned by his company[140]. " In the end, however, theearl was repulsed with the loss of one young gentleman killed and sirChristopher Blount wounded and taken prisoner; and retreating with hisdiminished band to the river side, he returned by water to his ownhouse. 

[Note 140: Birch's Memoirs. ]

He was much disappointed to find that his three prisoners had beenliberated in his absence by sir Ferdinando Gorges: but sanguine to thelast in his hopes of an insurrection of the citizens in his favor, heproceeded to fortify his house in the best manner that circumstanceswould admit. 

It was soon invested by a considerable force under the lord admiral, theearls of Cumberland and Lincoln, and other commanders. Sir Robert Sidneywas ordered to summon the little garrison to surrender, when the earl ofSouthampton demanded terms and hostages; but being answered that nonewould be granted to rebels, except that the ladies within the house andtheir women would be permitted to depart if they desired it, thedefenders declared their resolution to hold out, and the assaultcontinued. 

Lord Sandys, the oldest man in the party, encouraged the earl in theresolution which he once appeared to have adopted, of cutting a waythrough the assailants; observing, that the boldest courses were thesafest, and that at all events it was more honorable for men of qualityto die sword in hand than by the axe of the executioner:--but Essex, whohad not yet resigned the flattering hopes of life, was easily moved bythe tears and cries of the surrounding females to yield to lesscourageous, not more prudent, counsels. Captain Owen Salisbury, a braveveteran, seeing that all was lost, planted himself at a windowbare-headed, for the purpose of being slain: on receiving from one ofthe assailants a bullet on the side of his head, "O!" cried he, "thatthou hadst been so much my friend to have shot but a little lower!" Ofthis wound however he expired the next morning. 

About six in the evening the earl made known his willingness tosurrender, on receiving assurance, for himself and his friends, of civiltreatment and a legal trial; and permission for a clergyman named Astonto attend him in prison:--the lord admiral answered that of the twofirst articles there could be no doubt, and for the last he wouldintercede. The house was then yielded with all that were in it. Duringthat night the principal offenders were lodged in Lambeth-palace, thenext day they were conveyed to the Tower; while the common prisonsreceived the accomplices of meaner rank. 

On February 19th Essex and Southampton were brought to their trialbefore the house of peers; lord Buckhurst sitting as lord high steward. Essex inquired whether peers might not be challenged like commonjurymen, but was answered in the negative. He pleaded Not guilty;professed his unspotted loyalty to his queen and country, and earnestlylabored to give to his attempt to raise the city the color of anecessary act of self-defence against the machinations of enemies fromwhom his life was in danger. Had this interpretation of his conduct beenadmitted, possibly his offence might not have come within the limits oftreason: but it was held, that his refusal to attend the council; theimprisonment of the three great officers sent to him by the queen; andabove all the consultations held at Drury-house for bringing soldiersfrom Ireland, for surprising the Tower, for seizing the palace, and forcompelling the queen to remove certain persons from her counsels and tocall a parliament, assigned to his overt acts the character of designsagainst the state itself. For the confessions of his accomplices, bywhich the secrets of the Drury-house meetings were brought to light, hewas evidently unprepared; and the native violence of his temper brokeout in invectives against those associates by whom, as he falselypretended, all these criminal designs had been originally suggested tohis mind. This evidence, he said, had been elicited by the hope ofpardon and reward;--let those who had given it enjoy their lives withimpunity;--to him death was far more welcome than life. Whateverinterpretation lawyers might put upon it, the necessity of self-defenceagainst Cobham, Raleigh and Cecil, had impelled him to raise the city;and he was consoled by the testimony of a spotless conscience. LordCobham here rose, and protested that he had never acted with maliceagainst the earl, although he had disapproved of his ambition. "On myfaith, " replied the earl, "I would have given this right hand to haveremoved from the queen such an informer and calumniator. "

He afterwards proceeded to accuse sir Robert Cecil of having affirmedthat the title of the Infanta was equally well founded with that of anyother claimant. But the secretary here stepped forward to entreat that, the prisoner might be obliged to bring proof of his assertions; and itthus became manifest, and in the end was confessed with contrition bythe earl himself, that he had advanced this charge on false grounds. 

It was with better reason that he reproached Francis Bacon, who thenstood against him as queen's counsel, with the glaring inconsistencybetween his past professions and his present conduct. This cowardlydesertion of his generous and affectionate friend and patron, --or ratherthis open revolt from him, this shameless attack upon him in the hour ofhis extreme distress and total ruin, --forms indeed the foulest of themany blots which stain the memory of this illustrious person: it mayeven be pronounced, on a deliberate survey of all its circumstances, thebasest and most profligate act of that reign, which yet affordsexamples, in the conduct of its public men, of almost every species ofprofligacy and baseness. That it continued to be matter of generalreproach against him, clearly appears from the long and labored apologywhich Bacon thought it necessary, several years afterwards, to addressto lord Montjoy, then earl of Devon;--an apology which extenuates in nodegree the turpitude of the fact; but which may be consulted for anumber of highly curious, if authentic, particulars. 

The earl of Southampton likewise pleaded Not guilty, and professed hisinviolate fidelity towards her majesty: he excused whatever criminalityhe might have fallen into by the warmth of his attachment for Essex, andbehaved throughout with a mildness and an ingenuous modesty which movedall hearts in his favor. After a trial of eleven hours, sentence ofGuilty was unanimously pronounced on both the prisoners. Southampton inan affecting manner implored all present to intercede for him with hermajesty, and Essex, with great earnestness, joined in this petition ofhis unfortunate friend: as to himself, he said, he was not anxious forlife; wishing for nothing more than to lay it down with entire fidelitytowards God and his prince. --Yet he would have no one insinuate to thequeen that he despised her mercy, though he believed he should not toosubmissively implore it; and he hoped all men would in their consciencesacquit him, though the law had pronounced him guilty. Such was the loftytone of self-justification assumed by Essex on this memorable occasion, when his pride was roused and his temper exasperated, by the open war ofrecrimination and reproaches into which he had so unadvisedly plungedwith his personal enemies; and by the cruel and insolent invectives ofthe crown lawyers. But he was soon to undergo on this point a mostremarkable and total change. 

The mind of the earl of Essex was deeply imbued with sentiments ofreligion: from early youth he had conversed much with divines of thestricter class, whom he held in habitual reverence; and conscious in theconduct of his past life of many deviations from the Gospel rule ofright, he now, in the immediate prospect of its violent termination, surrendered himself into the hands of these spiritual guides withextraordinary humility and implicit submission. To the criminality ofhis late attempt, his conscience was not however awakened; he seems tohave believed, that in contriving the fall of his enemies, he was at thesame time deserving the thanks of his country, oppressed by theirmaladministration; and he repelled all the efforts of Dr. Dove, by whomhe was first visited, to inspire him with a different sense of this partof his conduct. Cut his favorite divine, Mr. Aston, --who is describedby a contemporary as "a man base, fearful and mercenary, " in whom theearl was much deceived, --practised with more success upon his mind. Byan artful pretext of believing him to have aimed at the crown, he firstdrew him into a warm defence of his conduct on this point; then bydegrees into a confession of all that he had really plotted, and theconcurrence which he had found from others. This was the end aimed at byAston, or by the government which employed him: he professed that hecould not reconcile it to his conscience to conceal treasons so foul anddangerous; alarmed the earl with all the terrors of religion; andfinally persuaded him, that a full discovery of his accomplices was theonly atonement which he could make to heaven and earth. The humbledEssex was brought to entreat that several privy-councillors, of whomCecil by name was one, should be sent to hear his confessions; and sostrangely scrupulous did he show himself to leave nothing untold, thathe gave up even the letters of the king of Scots, and betrayed everyprivate friend whom attachment to himself had ever seduced into anacquiescence in his designs, or a nice sense of honor withheld frombetraying them. 

Sir Henry Nevil, for having only concealed projects in which he hadabsolutely refused to concur, was thus exposed to the loss of hisappointment of ambassador to France; to imprisonment, and to a longpersecution;--and lord Montjoy might have suffered even capitally, hadnot his good and acceptable service in Ireland induced the queen to winkat former offences. Cuff, the secretary of the earl, whom he sent forto exhort him to imitate his sincerity, sternly upbraided his masterwith his altered mind, and his treachery towards those who had evincedthe strongest attachment to his service: but the earl remained unmovedby his reproaches, and calmly prepared for death in the full persuasionthat he had now worked out his own salvation. 

Elizabeth had behaved on occasion of the late insurrection with all herwonted fortitude; even at the time when Essex was actually in the cityand a false report was brought her of its revolt to him, "she was nevermore amazed, " says Cecil in a letter to sir George Carew, "than shewould have been to have heard of a fray in Fleet-street. " But when, inthe further progress of the affair, she beheld her once loved Essexbrought to the bar for high-treason and condemned by the unanimousverdict of his peers; when it rested solely with herself to take theforfeit of his life or interfere by an act of special grace for hispreservation, --her grief, her agitation and her perplexity becameextreme. A sense of the many fine qualities and rare endowments of herkinsman, --his courage, his eloquence, his generosity, and theaffectionate zeal with which he had served her:--indulgence for theyouthful impetuosity which had carried him out of the path of duty, notunmixed with compunction for that severe and contemptuous treatment bywhich she had exasperated to rebellion the spirit which mildness mighthave softened into penitence and submission;--above all, the remainingaffection which still lurked at the bottom of her heart, pleaded formercy with a force scarcely to be withstood. On the other hand, theingratitude, the neglect, the insolence with which he had occasionallytreated her, and the magnitude of his offences, which daily grew uponher by his own confessions and those of his accomplices, fatally unitedto confirm the natural bias of her mind towards severity. 

At this juncture Thomas Leigh, one of the dark and desperate characterswhose service Essex had used in his criminal negotiations with Tyrone, by an atrocious plot for entering the palace, seizing the person of thequeen and compelling her to sign a warrant for the release of the twoearls, renewed her fears and gave fresh force to her anger. Irresolutefor some days, she once countermanded by a special messenger the orderfor the death of Essex; then, as repenting of her weakness, she signed asecond warrant, in obedience to which he was finally, on February 25th, brought to the scaffold. 

The last scene was performed in a manner correspondent in all respectsto the contrite and humiliated frame of mind to which the noble culprithad been wrought. It was no longer the brave, the gallant, the haughtyearl of Essex, the favorite of the queen, the admiration of the ladies, the darling of the soldiery, the idol of the people;--no longer even theundaunted prisoner, pouring forth invectives against his enemies inanswer to the charges against himself; loudly persisting in theinnocence of his intentions, instead of imploring mercy for his actions, and defending his honor while he asserted a lofty indifference tolife;--it was a meek and penitent offender, profoundly sensible of allhis past transgressions, but taught to expect their remission in theworld to which he was hastening, through the fervency of his prayers andthe plenitude of his confessions; and prepared, as his latest act, toperform in public a solemn religious service, composed for his use bythe assistant clergy, whose directions he obeyed with the mostscrupulous minuteness. Under a change so entire, even his nativeeloquence had forsaken him. Sir Robert Cecil, who seems to have been acool and critical spectator of the fatal scene, remarks to hiscorrespondent that "the conflict between the flesh and the soul did thusfar appear, that in his prayers he was fain to be helped; otherwise noman living could pray more christianly than he did. "

Essex had requested of the queen that he might be put to death in aprivate manner within the walls of the Tower, fearing, as he told thedivines who attended him, that "the acclamations of the citizens shouldhave hoven him up. " His desire in this point was willingly compliedwith; but about a hundred nobles, knights and gentlemen witnessed thetransaction from seats placed near the scaffold. Sir Walter Raleighchose to station himself at a window of the armory whence he could seeall without being observed by the earl. This action, universally imputedto a barbarous desire of glutting his eyes with the blood of the manwhom he hated and had pursued with a hostility more unrelenting thanthat of Cecil himself, was never forgiven by the people, who detestedhim no less than they loved and admired his unfortunate rival. Severalyears after, when Raleigh in his turn was brought to the same end in thesame place, he professed however, and perhaps truly, that the sorrowfulspectacle had melted him to tears: meantime, he at least extracted fromthe late events large gratification for another ruling passion of hisbreast, by setting to sale his interest in procuring pardons togentlemen concerned in the insurrection. Mr. Lyttleton in particular isrecorded to have paid him ten thousand pounds for his good offices, andMr. Bainham a sum not specified. The life of the earl of Southampton wasspared, at the intercession chiefly of Cecil, but he was confined in theTower till the death of the queen: others escaped with shortimprisonments and the imposition of fines, few of which were exacted;sir Fulk Greville having humanely made it his business to represent tothe queen that no danger was to be apprehended from a faction which hadlost its leader. Four only of the principal conspirators sufferedcapitally; sir Christopher Blount and sir Charles Davers, bothcatholics, sir Gilly Merrick and Henry Cuff. 

Those ambassadors from the king of Scots on whose co-operation Essex hadplaced his chief reliance, now arrived; and finding themselves too latefor other purposes, they obeyed their master's instructions in such acase by offering to the queen his warmest congratulations on her escapefrom so foul and dangerous a conspiracy. They were further charged tomake secret inquiry whether James's correspondence with Essex andconcurrence in the late conspiracy had come to her knowledge; andwhether any measures were likely to be taken in consequence for hisexclusion from the succession. The confessions of Essex to theprivy-councillors had indeed rendered Elizabeth perfectly acquaintedwith the machinations of James; but resolute to refrain during theremnant of her days from all angry discussions with the prince whom shesaw destined to succeed her, she had caused the earl to be not onlyrequested, but commanded, to forbear the repetition of this part of hisacknowledgements on the scaffold. She was thus left free to receive withall those demonstrations of amity which cost her nothing the complimentsof James; and she remained deliberately ignorant of all that he desiredher not to know. The Scottish emissaries had the further satisfaction ofcarrying back to their master assurances of the general consent ofEnglishmen in his favor, and in particular a pledge of the adherence ofsecretary Cecil, who immediately opened a private correspondence withthe king, of which lord Henry Howard, who had formerly conducted that ofEssex, became the willing medium. 

There is good evidence that the peace of Elizabeth received an incurablewound by the loss of her unhappy favorite, which she daily foundadditional cause to regret on perceiving how completely it had deliveredher over to the domination of his adversaries; but she still retainedthe resolution to pursue with unabated vigor the great objects on whichshe was sensible that the mind of a sovereign ought to be with littleremission employed. The memorable siege of Ostend, begun during thissummer by the archduke Albert, fixed her attention and that of Europe. The defence was conducted by that able officer sir Francis Vere at thehead of a body of English auxiliaries, whom the States had enlisted withthe queen's permission, at their own expense. Henry IV. , as if for thepurpose of observing more nearly the event, had repaired to Calais. Thequeen of England, earnestly desirous of a personal interview, wrote himtwo letters on the subject; and Henry sent in return marshal Biron andtwo other ambassadors of rank, with a train of three or four hundredpersons, whom the queen received with high honors, and caused toaccompany her in her progress. During her visit of thirteen days to themarquis of Winchester at Basing, the French embassy was lodged at thehouse of lord Sandys, which was furnished for the occasion with plateand hangings from Hampton-court; the queen defraying all the charges, which were more than those of her own court at Basing. She made it herboast that she had in this progress entertained royally a royalambassador at her subjects' houses; which she said no other prince coulddo. The meeting of the two sovereigns, in hopes of which Elizabeth hadactually gone to Dover, could not for some unknown reason be at lastarranged; but Henry, at the particular instance of his friend and ally, sent Sully over in disguise to confer confidentially with her respectingan important political project which she had announced. This was no lessthan a plan for humbling the house of Austria, and establishing a moreperfect balance of power in Europe by uniting into one state theseventeen Flemish provinces. It was an idea, as Sully declared to her, which had previously occurred to Henry himself; and the coincidence wasflattering to both; but various obstacles were found likely to retardits execution till a period to which Elizabeth could scarcely lookforward. One advantage, however, was gained to the queen of England bythe interview;--the testimony of this celebrated statesman, recorded inhis own memoirs, to the solidity of her judgement and the enlargement ofher views; and his distinct avowal that she was in all respects worthyof the high estimation which she had for more than forty years enjoyedby common consent of all the politicians of Europe. 

Ireland was still a source to Elizabeth of anxiety and embarrassment. Inorder to sustain the expenses of the war, she suffered herself to beprevailed on to issue base money for the pay of the troops;--amortifying circumstance, after the high credit which she had gained bythat restoration of the coin to its original standard which was one ofthe first acts of her reign. Montjoy in the meantime was struggling withvigor and progressive success against the disorders of the country. Withthe assistance of sir George Carew president of Munster, and other ablecommanders, he was gradually reducing the inferior rebels and cuttingoff the supplies of Tyrone himself: but the courage of this insurgentwas still supported by the hope of aids from Spain; and during thissummer two bodies of Spanish troops, one of four thousand, the other oftwo thousand men, made good their landing. The larger number, underAquila, took possession of Kinsale; the smaller, under Ocampo, wasjoined by Tyrone and other rebels with all their forces. The appearanceof affairs was alarming, since the catholic Irish every where welcomedthe Spaniards as deliverers and brethren: but Montjoy, after blockadingAquila in Kinsale, marched boldly to attack Ocampo and his Irish allies;gave them a complete defeat, in which the Spanish general was madeprisoner and Tyrone compelled to fly into Ulster; and afterwardsreturning to the siege of Kinsale, compelled Aquila to capitulate oncondition of a safe conveyance to their own country for himself and allthe Spanish troops in the island. 

The state of the queen's mind while the fate of Ireland seemed to hangin the balance, and while the impression made by the attempt of Essexwas still recent, is depicted in the following letter by sir JohnHarrington with his usual minuteness and vivacity. 

 * * * * *

_To sir Hugh Portman knight. _ (Dated October 9th 1601. )

". . . For six weeks I left my oxen and sheep and ventured to court. . . . Much was my comfort in being well received, notwithstanding it is an illhour for seeing the queen. The madcaps are all in riot, and much evilthreatened. In good sooth I feared her majesty more than the rebelTyrone, and wished I had never received my lord of Essex's honor ofknighthood. She is quite _disfavored_[141] and unattired, and thesetroubles waste her much. She disregarded every costly cover that comethto the table, and taketh little but manchet and succory pottage. Everynew message from the city doth disturb her, and she frowns on all theladies. I had a sharp message from her, brought by my lord Buckhurst, namely thus. 'Go tell that witty fellow my godson to get home; it is noseason now to fool it here, ' I liked this as little as she doth myknighthood, so took to my boots, and returned to the plough in badweather. I must not say much even by this trusty and sure messenger, butthe many evil plots and designs hath overcome all her highness' sweettemper. She walks much in her privy chamber, and stamps with her feet atill news, and thrusts her rusty sword at times into the arras in greatrage. My lord Buckhurst is much with her, and few else since the citybusiness; but the dangers are over, and yet she always keeps a sword byher table. I obtained a short audience at my first coming to court, whenher highness told me, if ill counsel had brought me so far from home, she wished heaven might mar that fortune which she had mended. I made mypeace in this point, and will not leave my poor castle of Kelston, forfear of finding a worse elsewhere, as others have done. I will eatAldborne rabbits, and get fish as you recommend from the man atCurry-Rival; and get partridge and hares when I can; and my venisonwhere I can; and leave all great matters to those like them better thanmyself. . . . I could not move in any suit to serve your neighbour B. Suchwas the face of things: and so disordered is all order that her highnesshath worn but one change of raiment for many days, and swears much atthose that cause her griefs in such wise, to the no small discomfitureof all about her, more especially our sweet lady Arundel, that _Venusplus quam venusta_. "

[Note 141: Changed in countenance. ]

 * * * * *

In the month of October 1601, the wants of her treasury compelled thequeen to call a parliament. Her procession to the house had somethinggloomy and ominous; the people, still resenting the death of theirfavorite, whom they never could be taught to regard as a traitor to hissovereign, refused to gratify her ears as formerly with thoseaffectionate acclamations on which this wise and gracious princess hadever placed so high a value. The house of commons however, inconsideration of her extraordinary expenses in the Irish wars, granted asupply large beyond example. Having thus deserved well of her majesty, they ventured to revive the topic of monopolies, the crying grievance ofthe age, against which the former parliament had petitioned her, butwithout effect. It was universally allowed, that the granting ofexclusive privileges to trade in certain articles was a prerogativeinherent in the crown; and though the practice so lavishly adopted byElizabeth of providing in this manner for her courtiers without expenseto herself, had rendered the evil almost intolerable, the ministerialmembers insisted strongly that no right existed in the house to frame abill for its redress. It was maintained by them, that the dispensingpower possessed by the queen would enable her to set at nought anystatute which could be made in this matter;--in short, that she was anabsolute prince; and consequently that the mode of petition, of whichthe last parliament had proved the inefficacy, was the only course ofproceeding open to them. Other members, in whose bosoms some sparks ofliberty had now been kindled, supported the bill which had been offeredto the house: the event was, that in the midst of the debate the queensent for the speaker, to inform him that she would voluntarily cancelsome of the patents which had excited most discontent. 

This concession, though extorted doubtless by necessity, was yet madewith so good a grace, that her faithful commons were filled withadmiration and gratitude. One member pronounced the message "a gospel ofglad tidings;" others employed phrases of adulation equally profane;--acommittee was appointed to return their acknowledgements to her majesty, who kneeled for some time at her feet, while the speaker enlarged uponher "preventing grace and all-deserving goodness, " She graciously gavethanks to the commons for pointing out to her abuses which mightotherwise have escaped her notice; since the truth, as she observed, wastoo often disguised from princes by the persons about them, throughmotives of private interest: and thus, with the customary assurances ofher loving care over her loyal subjects, she skilfully accomplished herretreat from a contest in which she judged perseverance to be dangerousand final success at best uncertain. In her farewell speech, however, at the close of the session, she could not refrain from observing, inreference to this matter, that she perceived private respects to bemasked with them under public pretences. Such was the final partingbetween Elizabeth and her last parliament!

The year 1602 was not fertile of domestic incident. One of the mostremarkable circumstances was a violent quarrel between the Jesuitsand the secular priests in England. The latter accused the former, and not without reason, of having been the occasion, by theirassassination-plots and conspiracies against the queen and government, of all the severe enactments under which the English catholics hadgroaned since the fulmination of the papal bull against her majesty. Inthe height of this dispute, intelligence was conveyed to theprivy-council of some fresh plots on the part of the Jesuits and theiradherents; on which a proclamation was immediately issued, banishingthis order the kingdom on pain of death; and the same penalty wasdeclared against all secular priests who should refuse to take the oathof allegiance. 

The queen continued to pursue from habit, and probably from policy also, amusements for which all her relish was lost. She went a-maying to Air. Buckley's at Lewisham, and paid several other visits in the course ofthe year;--but her efforts were unavailing; the irrevocable past stillhung upon her spirits. About the beginning of June, in a conversationwith M. De Beaumont the French ambassador, she owned herself weary oflife; then sighing, whilst her eyes filled with tears, she adverted tothe death of Essex; and mentioned, that being apprehensive, from hisambition and the impetuosity of his temper, of his throwing himself intosome rash design which would prove his ruin, she had repeatedlycounselled him, during the two last years, to content himself withpleasing her, and forbear to treat her with the insolent contempt whichhe had lately assumed; above all, not to touch her sceptre; lest sheshould be compelled to punish him by the laws of England, and notaccording to her own laws; which he had found too mild and favorable togive him any cause of fear: but that her advice, however salutary andaffectionate, had proved ineffectual to prevent his ruin. 

A letter from sir John Harrington to his lady, dated December 27th, 1602, gives the following melancholy picture of the state of hissovereign and benefactress. 

 * * * * *

"Sweet Mall;

"I herewith send thee what I would God none did know, some ill-bodingsof the realm and its welfare. Our dear queen, my royal godmother andthis state's natural mother, doth now bear some show of human infirmity;too fast, for that evil which we shall get by her death, and too slow, for that good which she shall get by her releasement from pains andmisery. Dear Mall, how shall I speak what I have seen or what I havefelt? thy good silence in these matters emboldens my pen. For thanks tothe sweet God of silence, thy lips do not wanton out of discretion'spath like the many gossiping dames we could name, who lose theirhusbands' fast hold in good friends rather than hold fast their owntongues. Now I will trust thee with great assurance; and whilst thoudost brood over thy young ones in the chamber, thou shalt read thedoings of thy grieving mate in the court. I find some less mindful ofwhat they are soon to lose, than of what they may perchance hereafterget: Now, on my own part, I cannot blot from my memory's table thegoodness of our sovereign lady to me, even, I will say, before born. Heraffection to my mother, who waited in privy-chamber, her bettering thestate of my father's fortune (which I have, alas, so much worsted), herwatchings over my youth, her liking to my free speech and admiration ofmy little learning and poesy, which I did so much cultivate on hercommand, have rooted such love, such dutiful remembrance of her princelyvirtues, that to turn askant from her condition with tearless eyes, would stain and foul the spring and fount of gratitude. It was not manydays since I was bidden to her presence; I blessed the happy moment, andfound her in most pitiable state; she bade the archbishop ask me if Ihad seen Tyrone? I replied with reverence, that I had seen him with thelord deputy; she looked up with much choler and grief in hercountenance, and said: O! now it mindeth me that you was _one_ who sawthis man _elsewhere_[142], and hereat she dropped a tear and smote herbosom; she held in her hand a golden cup, which she often put to herlips; but in truth her heart seemeth too full to need more filling. Thissight moved me to think of what passed in Ireland, and I trust she didnot less think on _some_ who were busier there than myself. She gave mea message to the lord deputy, and bade me come to the chamber at seveno'clock. Hereat some who were about her did marvel, as I do not hold sohigh place as those she did not choose to do her commands. . . . Hermajesty inquired of some matters which I had written; and as she waspleased to note my fanciful brain, I was not unheedful to feed herhumour, and read some verses, whereat she smiled once, and was pleasedto say: 'When thou dost feel creeping time at thy gate, these foolerieswill please thee less; I am past my relish for such matters; thou seestmy bodily meat doth not suit me well; I have eaten but one ill-tastedcake since yesternight. ' She rated most grievously at noon at some onewho minded not to bring up certain matters of account: several men havebeen sent to, and when ready at hand, her highness hath dismissed inanger; but who, dearest Mall, shall say, that 'your highness hathforgotten?'"

[Note 142: Harrington had been at a conference held with him byEssex; for which he had been severely rated by the queen. ]

 * * * * *

During the campaign of 1602, lord Montjoy had been occupied in Irelandin reducing the inferior rebels to submission; in building forts andplanting garrisons; at the same time wasting the country in everydirection, for the purpose of straitening the quarters of Tyrone andcutting off his supplies. At length, having collected all his forces, hepurposed to hazard an attack on the chieftain himself, in the midst ofthe desert fastnesses to which he had driven him; but the difficultieswhich he experienced from the impassable state of the roads, thetreachery of scouts and the inclemency of the season, compelled him todefer this undertaking till the return of spring. Meantime, such was theextremity of distress to which Tyrone had been reduced, that numbers ofhis people had perished by hunger; and perceiving the remnant fastdiminishing by daily desertion, he renewed the offer of surrender oncertain conditions which he had propounded some months before. At thattime, Cecil had once prevailed upon her majesty, for the sake ofavoiding the intolerable expense of a further prosecution of the Irishwar, to sign the rebel's pardon;--but she had immediately retracted theconcession, and all that he was able finally to gain of her, by theintercession of the French ambassador, was a promise, that if Tyronewere not taken by the lord deputy before winter, she would consent topardon him. About Christmas her council urged upon her the fulfilment ofthis engagement; but she replied with warmth, that she would not beginat her age to treat with her subjects, nor leave such an ill exampleafter her decease[143]. 

[Note 143: Carte. ]

The importunities of her ministers, however, among whom Tyrone is saidto have made himself friends, finally overpowered the reluctance of thequeen; and she authorized the deputy to grant the rebel his life, withsome part of the terms which he asked; but so extreme was hermortification in making this concession, that many have regarded it asthe origin of that deep melancholy to which she soon after fell avictim. The council apprehended, or affected to apprehend, that Tyronewould still refuse to surrender on the hard conditions imposed by thequeen; but so desperate was now his situation, that without even waitingto receive them, he had thrown himself at the feet of the deputy andsubmitted his lands and life to the queen's mercy. Ministers moreresolute, or more disinterested, might therefore have spared her thedegradation, as she regarded it, of treating with a rebel. The news ofhis final submission, which occurred four days only before her death, she never learned. 

 * * * * *

The closing scene of the long and eventful life of queen Elizabeth isall that now remains to be described; but that marked peculiarity ofcharacter and of destiny which has attended her from the cradle, pursuesher to the grave, and forbids us to hurry over as trivial anduninteresting the melancholy detail. 

Notwithstanding the state of bodily and mental indisposition in whichshe was beheld by Harrington at the close of the year 1602, the queenhad persisted in taking her usual exercises of riding and hunting, regardless of the inclemencies of the season. One day in January shevisited the lord admiral, probably at Chelsea, and about the same timeshe removed to her palace of Richmond. 

In the beginning of March her illness suddenly increased; and it wasabout this time that her kinsman Robert Cary arrived from Berwick tovisit her. In his own memoirs he has thus related the circumstanceswhich he witnessed on this occasion. 

"When I came to court I found the queen ill-disposed, and she kept herinner lodging; yet she, hearing of my arrival, sent for me. I found herin one of her withdrawing chambers, sitting low upon her cushions. Shecalled me to her; I kissed her hand, and told her it was my chiefesthappiness to see her in safety and in health, which I wished might longcontinue. She took me by the hand, and wrung it hard, and said, 'No, Robin, I am not well;' and then discoursed with me of her indisposition, and that her heart had been sad and heavy for ten or twelve days, and inher discourse she fetched not so few as forty or fifty great sighs. Iwas grieved at the first to see her in this plight; for in all mylifetime I never knew her fetch a sigh, but when the queen of Scots wasbeheaded. Then, upon my knowledge, she shed many tears and sighs, manifesting her innocence, that she never gave consent to the death ofthat queen. 

"I used the best words I could to persuade her from this melancholyhumour; but I found by her it was too deep rooted in her heart, andhardly to be removed. This was upon a Saturday night, and she gavecommand that the great closet should be prepared for her to go to chapelthe next morning. The next day, all things being in a readiness, we longexpected her coming. After eleven o'clock, one of the grooms came outand bade make ready for the private closet, she would not go to thegreat. There we stayed long for her coming, but at last she had cushionslaid for her in her privy-chamber hard by the closet door, and there sheheard service. 

"From that day forward she grew worse and worse. She remained upon hercushions four days and nights at the least. All about her could notpersuade her either to take any sustenance or go to bed. . . . The queengrew worse and worse because she would be so, none about her being ableto go to bed. My lord-admiral was sent for, (who by reason of mysister's death, that was his wife, had absented himself some fortnightfrom court;) what by fair means what by force, he gat her to bed. Therewas no hope of her recovery, because she refused all remedies. 

"On Wednesday the 23rd of March she grew speechless. That afternoon bysigns she called for her council, and by putting her hand to her headwhen the king of Scots was named to succeed her, they all knew he wasthe man she desired should reign after her. 

"About six at night she made signs for the archbishop and her chaplainsto come to her; at which time I went in with them and sat upon my kneesfull of tears to see that heavy sight. Her majesty lay upon her backwith one hand in the bed and the other without. The bishop kneeled downby her and examined her first of her faith; and she so punctuallyanswered all his several questions, by lifting up her eyes and holdingup her hand, as it was a comfort to all the beholders. . . . After he hadcontinued long in prayer, till the old man's knees were weary, heblessed her; and meant to rise and leave her. The queen made a sign withher hand. My sister Scrope, knowing her meaning, told the bishop thequeen desired he would pray still. He did so for a long half hour after, and then thought to leave her. The second time she made sign to have himcontinue in prayer. He did so for half an hour more, with earnest criesto God for her soul's health, which he uttered with that fervency ofspirit, as the queen to all our sight much rejoiced thereat, and gavetestimony to us all of her christian and comfortable end. By this timeit grew late, and every one departed, all but her women that attendedher. . . . Between one and two o'clock of the Thursday morning, he that Ileft in the cofferer's chamber brought me word that the queen was dead. "

A Latin letter written the day after her death to Edmund Lambert, whether by one of her physicians or not is uncertain, gives an accountof her sickness in no respect contradictory to Robert Cary's. 

"It was after laboring for nearly three weeks under a morbid melancholy, which brought on stupor not unmixed with some indications of adisordered fancy, that the queen expired. During all this time she couldneither by reasoning, entreaties, or artifices be brought to make trialof any medical aid, and with difficulty was persuaded to receivesufficient nourishment to sustain nature; taking also very little sleep, and that not in bed, but on cushions, where she would sit whole daysmotionless and sleepless; retaining however the vigor of her intellectto her last breath, though deprived for three days before her death ofthe power of speech. "

Another contemporary writes to his friend thus. . . . "No doubt you shallhear her majesty's sickness and manner of death diversly reported; foreven here the papists do tell strange stories, as utterly void of truthas of all civil honesty or humanity. . . . Here was some whispering thather brain was somewhat distempered, but there was no such matter; onlyshe held an obstinate silence for the most part; and, because she had apersuasion that if she once lay down she should never rise, could not begot to go to bed in a whole week, till three days before her death. . . . She made no will, neither gave any thing away; so that they which comeafter shall find a well-furnished jewel-house and a rich wardrobe ofmore than two thousand gowns, with all things else answerable[144]. "

[Note 144: Printed in Nichols's Progresses. ]

That a profound melancholy was either the cause, or at least a leadingsymptom, of the last illness of the queen, so many concurringtestimonies render indisputable; but the origin of this affection hasbeen variously explained. Some, as we have seen, ascribed it to herchagrin on being in a manner compelled to grant the pardon of Tyrone;--acause disproportioned surely to the effect. Others have imagined it toarise from grief and indignation at the neglect which she began toexperience from the venal throng of courtiers, who were hastening to paytimely homage to her successor. By others, again, her dejection hasbeen regarded as nothing more than a natural concomitant of bodilydecay; a physical rather than a mental malady. But the prevalentopinion, even at the time, appears to have been, that the grief orcompunction for the death of Essex, with which she had long maintained asecret struggle, broke forth in the end superior to control, and rapidlycompleted the overthrow of powers which the advances of old age and anaccumulation of cares and anxieties had already undermined. "Our queen, "writes an English correspondent to a Scotch nobleman in the service ofJames, "is troubled with a rheum in her arm, which vexeth her very much, besides the grief she hath conceived for my lord of Essex's death. Shesleepeth not so much by day as she used, neither taketh rest by night. Her delight is to sit in the dark, and sometimes, with shedding tears, to bewail Essex. "

A remarkable anecdote first published in Osborn's Traditional Memoirs ofQueen Elizabeth, and confirmed by M. Maurier's Memoirs, --where it isgiven on the authority of sir Dudley Carleton the English ambassador inHolland, who related it to prince Maurice, --offers the solution of thesedoubts. According to this story, the countess of Nottingham, who was arelation, but no friend, of the earl of Essex, being on her death-bed, entreated to see the queen; declaring that she had something to confessto her before she could die in peace. On her majesty's arrival, thecountess produced a ring, which she said the earl of Essex had sent toher after his condemnation, with an earnest request that she woulddeliver it to the queen, as the token by which he implored her mercy;but which, in obedience to her husband, to whom she had communicated thecircumstance, she had hitherto withheld; for which she entreated thequeen's forgiveness. On sight of the ring, Elizabeth instantlyrecognised it as one which she had herself presented to her unhappyfavorite on his departure for Cadiz, with the tender promise, that ofwhatsoever crimes his enemies might have accused him, or whatsoeveroffences he might actually have committed against her, on his returningto her that pledge, she would either pardon him, or admit him at leastto justify himself in her presence. Transported at once with grief andrage, on learning the barbarous infidelity of which the earl had beenthe victim and herself the dupe, the queen shook in her bed the dyingcountess, and vehemently exclaiming, that God might forgive her, but shenever could, flung out of the chamber. 

Returning to her palace, she surrendered herself without resistance tothe despair which seized her heart on this fatal and too latedisclosure. --Hence her refusal of medicine and almost of food;--henceher obstinate silence interrupted only by sighs, groans, and brokenhints of a deep sorrow which she cared not to reveal;--hence the daysand nights passed by her seated on the floor, sleepless, her eyes fixedand her finger pressed upon her mouth;--hence, in short, all thoseheart-rending symptoms of incurable and mortal anguish which conductedher, in the space of twenty days, to the lamentable termination of along life of power, prosperity and glory[145]. 

[Note 145: See the evidence for this extraordinary story fullystated in Birch's Negotiations. On the whole, it appears sufficient towarrant our belief; yet it should be remarked that the accounts whichhave come down to us differ from each other in some important points, and are traceable to no original witness of the interview between thequeen and the countess. ]

 * * * * *

The queen expired on March 24th 1603. 

 * * * * *

After the minute and extended survey of the life and actions ofElizabeth which has made the principal business of these pages, it wouldbe a trespass alike on the patience and the judgement of the reader todetain him with a formal review of her character;--let it suffice tocomplete the portrait by a few additional touches. 

The ceremonial of her court rivalled the servility of the East: noperson of whatever rank ventured to address her otherwise than kneeling;and this attitude was preserved by all her ministers during theiraudiences of business, with the exception of Burleigh, in whose favor, when aged and infirm, she dispensed with its observance. Hentzner, aGerman traveller who visited England near the conclusion of her reign, relates, that as she passed through several apartments from the chapelto dinner, wherever she turned her eyes he observed the spectators throwthemselves on their knees. The same traveller further relates, that theofficers and ladies whose business it was to arrange the dishes and givetastes of them to the yeomen of the guard by whom they were brought in, did not presume to approach the royal table, without repeatedprostrations and genuflexions and every mark of reverence due to hermajesty in person. 

The appropriation of her time and the arrangements of her domestic lifepresent more favorable traits. 

"First in the morning she spent some time at her devotions; then shebetook herself to the dispatch of her civil affairs, reading letters, ordering answers, considering what should be brought before the council, and consulting with her ministers. When she had thus wearied herself, she would walk in a shady garden or pleasant gallery, without any otherattendance than that of a few learned men. Then she took her coach andpassed in the sight of her people to the neighbouring groves and fields, and sometimes would hunt or hawk. There was scarce a day but sheemployed some part of it in reading and study; sometimes before sheentered upon her state affairs, sometimes after them[146]. "

[Note 146: Bohun's Character of Queen Elizabeth. ]

She slept little, seldom drank wine, was sparing in her diet, and areligious observer of the fasts. She sometimes dined alone, but morecommonly had with her some of her friends. "At supper she would divertherself with her friends and attendants, and if they made her no answerwould put them upon mirth and pleasant discourse with great civility. She would then also admit Tarleton, a famous comedian and pleasanttalker, and other such men, to divert her with stories of the town andthe common jests and accidents. "

"She would recreate herself with a game of chess, dancing or singing. . . . She would often play at cards and tables, and if at any time shehappened to win, she would be sure to demand the money. . . . She waswaited on in her bed-chamber by married ladies of the nobility; themarchioness of Winchester widow, lady Warwick, and lady Scrope; and hereshe would seldom suffer any to wait upon her but Leicester, Hatton, Essex, Nottingham, and Raleigh. . . . Some lady always slept in herchamber; and besides her guards, there was always a gentleman of goodquality and some others up in the next chamber, to wake her if any thingextraordinary happened[147]. "

[Note 147: Bohun's Character of Queen Elizabeth. ]

"She loved a prudent and moderate habit in her private apartment andconversation with her own servants; but when she appeared in public shewas ever richly adorned with the most valuable clothes; set off againwith much gold and jewels of inestimable value; and on such occasionsshe ever wore high shoes, that she might seem taller than indeed shewas. The first day of the parliament she would appear in a robeembroidered with pearls, the royal crown on her head, the golden ball inher left hand and the sceptre in her right; and as she never failed thenof the loud acclamations of her people, so she was ever pleased withit, and went along in a kind of triumph with all the ensigns of majesty. The royal name was ever venerable to the English people; but thisqueen's name was more sacred than any of her ancestors. . . . In thefurniture of her palaces she ever affected magnificence and anextraordinary splendor. She adorned the galleries with pictures by thebest artists; the walls she covered with rich tapestries. She was a truelover of jewels, pearls, all sorts of precious stones, gold and silverplate, rich beds, fine couches and chariots, Persian and Indian carpets, statues, medals, &c. Which she would purchase at great prices. Hampton-court was the most richly furnished of all her palaces; and hereshe had caused her naval victories against the Spaniards to be worked infine tapestries and laid up among the richest pieces of her wardrobe. . . . When she made any public feasts, her tables were magnificently servedand many side-tables adorned with rich plate. At these times many of thenobility waited on her at table. She made the greatest displays of herregal magnificence when foreign ambassadors were present. At these timesshe would also have vocal and instrumental music during dinner; andafter dinner, dancing[148]. "

[Note 148: Bohun's Character of Queen Elizabeth. ]

The queen was laudably watchful over the morals of her court; and notcontent with dismissing from her service, or banishing her presence, such of her female attendants as were found offending against the lawsof chastity, she was equitable enough to visit with marks of herdispleasure the libertinism of the other sex; and in several instancesshe deferred the promotion of otherwise deserving young men till she sawthem reform their manners in this respect. Europe had assuredly neverbeheld a court so decent, so learned, or so accomplished as hers; and itwill not be foreign from the purpose of illustrating more fully thecharacter of the sovereign, to borrow from a contemporary writer a fewparticulars on this head. 

It was rare to find a courtier acquainted with no language but his own. The ladies studied Latin, Greek, Spanish, Italian, and French. The "moreancient" among them exercised themselves some with the needle, some with"_caul work_, " (probably netting) "divers in spinningsilk, some incontinual reading either of the Scriptures or of histories either oftheir own or foreign countries; divers in writing volumes of their own, or translating the works of others into Latin or English;" while theyounger ones in the meantime applied to their "lutes, citharnes, pricksong and all kinds of music. " Many of the elder sort were also"skilful in surgery and distillation of waters, beside sundry artificialpractices pertaining to the ornature and commendations of their bodies. ""This, " adds our author, "I will generally say of them all; that as eachof them are cunning in something whereby they keep themselves occupiedin the court, there is in manner none of them but when they be at homecan help to supply the ordinary want of the kitchen with a number ofdelicate dishes of their own devising, wherein the _portingal_ is theirchief counsellor, as some of them are most commonly with the clerk ofthe kitchen, " &c. 

"Every office, " at court, had "either a Bible or the book of the Actsand Monuments of the Church of England, or both, besides some historiesand chronicles lying therein, for the exercise of such as come into thesame[149]. "

[Note 149: Description of England prefixed to Holinshed'sChronicles. ]

Such was the scene over which Elizabeth presided;--such the companionswhom she formed to herself, and in whom she delighted! The new men andnew manners brought in by James I. Served more fully to instruct thenation in the value of all that it had enjoyed under his illustriouspredecessor, the vigor which had rendered her government respectableabroad; and the wise and virtuous moderation which caused it to belovedat home, were now recalled with that sense of irreparable loss whichexalts to enthusiasm the sentiment of veneration and the principle ofgratitude; and almost in the same proportion as the sanguinary bigotryof her predecessor had occasioned her accession to be desired, thedespicable weakness of her successor caused her decease to be regrettedand deplored. 

It was on the tenth anniversary of the proclamation of king James thatthe eloquent Hall, in his sermon at Paul's Cross, gave utterance to thegeneral sentiment in the following animated apostrophe to the manes ofthe departed sovereign:

 * * * * *

"O blessed queen! the mother of this nation, the nurse of this church, the glory of womanhood, the envy and example of foreign nations, thewonder of times, how sweet and sacred shall thy memory be to allposterity!--How excellent were her masculine graces of learning, valorand wisdom, by which she might justly challenge to be the queen of men!So learned was she, that she could give present answer to ambassadors intheir own tongues; so valiant, that like Zisca's drum made the proudestRomanist to quake; so wise, that whatsoever fell out happily against thecommon adversary in France, Netherland, Ireland, it was by themselvesascribed to her policy. 

"Why should I speak of her long and successful government, of hermiraculous preservations; of her famous victories, wherein the waters, wind, fire and earth fought for us, as if they had been in pay underher; of her excellent laws and careful execution? Many daughters havedone worthily, but thou surmountedest them all. Such was the sweetnessof her government and such the fear of misery in her loss, that manyworthy christians desired that their eyes might be closed beforehers. . . . Every one pointed to her white hairs, and said, with thatpeaceable Leontius, "When this snow melteth there will be a flood. "

 * * * * *

In the progress of the preceding work, I have inserted some incidentalnotices respecting the domestic architecture of the reign of Elizabeth;but becoming gradually sensible of the interesting details of which thesubject was susceptible and entirely aware of my own inability to do itjustice, I solicited, and esteem myself fortunate in having procured, the following remarks from the pen of a brother who makes this noble artat once his profession and his delight. 

ON THE DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE

OF

The Reign of Elizabeth. 

DURING the period of English history included in our present survey, thenobility continued for the most part to inhabit their ancient castles;edifices which, originally adapted by strength of situation andconstruction merely to defence, were now in many instances, by thealteration of the original buildings and by the accession of additionalones, become splendid palaces. Among these it may be sufficient tomention Kennelworth, renowned for gorgeous festivities, where the earlof Leicester was reported to have expended 60, 000 pounds in buildings. 

Some curious notices of the habitations of the time are preserved inLeland's Itinerary, written about 1535, as in the following descriptionof Wresehill-castle near Howden in Yorkshire:--'Most part of the basecourt is of timber. The castle is moted about on three parts; the fourthpart is dry, where the entry is into the castle. Five towers, one ateach corner; the gateway is the fifth, having five lodgings in height;three of the other towers have four lodgings in height; the fourthcontaineth the buttery, pantry, pastry, lardery, and kitchen. In one ofthe towers a study called Paradise, where was a closet in the middle ofeight squares latticed; about and at the top of every square was a desklodged to set books on, &c. The garde robe in the castle was exceedingfair, and so were the gardens within the mote and the orchards without;and in the orchards were mounts _opere topiario_ writhen about withdegrees like turnings of a cockle-shell, to come to top without pain. '

These castles, though converted into dwellings of some convenience andmagnificence, still retained formidable strength, which was proved inthe following century, when so many of them sustained sieges for theking or parliament and were finally dilapidated. 

Besides the regularly fortified castles, there were many mansion-housesof inferior importance, which, though not capable of resisting a regularsiege, were strengthened against a tumultuous or hasty invasion. Thesehouses generally formed a square of building enclosing a court andsurrounded by a moat. A drawbridge formed the only access, which wasprotected by an embattled gatehouse. One side of the square wasprincipally occupied by a great hall; and the offices and lodgings weredistributed on the other sides. Oxburgh-hall in Norfolk and Layer Marneyin Essex are fine examples of these houses. They were frequently oftimber, as Moreton-hall in Cheshire, Speke-hall near Liverpool. Lelanddescribes Morley-house near Manchester as 'builded, --saving thefoundation of stone squared that riseth within a great mote a 6 footabove the water, --all of timber, after the common sort of building ofthe gentlemen for most of Lancashire. ' Sometimes a strong tower wasadded at one corner as a citadel, which might be maintained when therest of the house was destroyed. This is the case with the curious houseof Stoke Say in Shropshire, where the situation near the Welsh bordermight render such an additional security desirable. 

Thus the forms of ancient fortification were continued awhile ratherfrom habit or ostentation than from any more important motives; but inthe new buildings erected during the reign of Elizabeth and hersuccessor they were finally laid aside. In some stately houses, thoughthe show of strength was discontinued, the general form remained howeverthe same. The circuit of building was entire, and enclosed one or morecourts; a gateway formed the entrance, and the great hall was placed atthe opposite side of the first court. Such was Audley End, in itsoriginal state one of the largest and most sumptuous houses in thekingdom. In other instances the house assumes the half H shape, with theoffices placed in the wings; and the circuit is only completed byterraces and low walls; the gatehouse remains as a detached lodge, or isentirely omitted: examples of this form are numerous; as Holland-houseat Kensington, Oxnead and Blickling halls in Norfolk, Beaudesert andWimbledon-house, built by sir Thomas Cecil in 1588, remarkable for agreat ascent of steps and terraces disposed in a manner resembling someItalian villas. In others the offices are detached in separate masses, or concealed, or placed in a basement story; and only the body of thehouse remains, either as a solid mass or enclosing small courts: thisdisposition does not differ from the most modern arrangements. Of thesehouses Longleat in Wiltshire and Wollaton near Nottingham are fineexamples[150]. 

[Note 150: Views of most of the buildings here mentioned may befound in Britton's Architectural Antiquities, vols. I. Ii. And iv. ]

The distribution of domestic buildings is well illustrated in the Surveyof Theobald's taken by the Parliament's Commissioners in 1650[151]. Thismansion was built by lord Burleigh about 1560: it afterwards became afavourite residence of James I. Who received it from lord Salisbury inexchange for the manor and palace of Hatfield. The Survey contains avery minute and accurate description of Theobald's palace, from whichthe following account is given partly in the words of the oldsurveyors. --It consisted of two principal quadrangles besides the dialcourt, the buttery court and the dove-house court, in which the officeswere situated. The fountain court was a square of 86 feet, on the eastside of which was a cloister of seven arches. On the ground floor ofthis quadrangle was a spacious hall; the roof of which was arched withcarved timber of curious workmanship. On the same floor were the lordHolland's, the marquis of Hamilton's, and lord Salisbury's apartments, the council chamber and waiting room. On the second floor was thepresence chamber, finished with carved oak wainscoting and a ceilingfull of gilded pendants. Also the privy chamber, the withdrawing room, the king's bed-chamber, and a gallery 123 feet long, 'wainscoted withoak, and paintings over the same of divers cities, rarely painted andset forth with a fret ceiling, with divers pendants, roses andflower-de-luces; also divers large stags heads, which were an excellentornament to the same. ' On the upper floor were the lord chamberlain'slodgings and several other apartments, with terrace walks on the leads. At each corner stood a high and fair tower, and over the hall in themiddle 'a large and fair turret in the fashion of a lantern, curiouslywrought with divers pinnacles at each corner, wherein hangeth 12 bellsfor chiming and a clock with chimes and sundry work. ' The middle courtwas a quadrangle of 110 feet square, on the south side of which were thequeen's chapel, presence chamber, and other apartments. The prince'slodgings were on the north side; on the east side was a cloister, overwhich was the green gallery, 109 feet by 12 feet, 'excellently wellpainted with the several shires in England and the arms of the noblemenand gentlemen in the same. ' Over the gallery was a leaded walk, on whichwere two lofty arches of brick, 'of no small ornament to the house, andrendering it comely and pleasant to all that passed by. ' On the westside of the quadrangle was another cloister, on five arches, over whichwere the duke's lodgings and over them the queen's gallery. On the southside of the house stood a large open cloister, built upon several largefair pillars, arched over 'with a fair rail and ballustres; well paintedwith the kings and queens of England and the pedigree of the old lordBurleigh and divers other ancient families; with paintings of manycastles and battles. ' The gardens at Theobald's were large, andornamented with labyrinths, canals and fountains. The great gardencontained seven acres; besides which there were the pheasant garden, privy garden, and laundry garden. In the former were nine knotsartificially and exquisitely made, one of which was set forth inlikeness of the king's arms. This description, and Bacon's idea of apalace in his 45th Essay, with their numerous cloisters, galleries andturrets, are well illustrated by the plan of Audley End, in its originalstate, given in Britton's _Architectural Antiquities_, vol. Ii. 

[Note 151: Lysons's Environs of London, vol. Iv. ]

The houses erected during the sixteenth and the early part of theseventeenth century were frequently of magnificent dimensions, picturesque from the varied lines and projections of the plan andelevation, and rich by the multiplicity of parts; but they had lost allbeauty of detail. The builders, having abandoned the familiar and longpractised Gothic style, were now to serve their apprenticeship inGrecian architecture: 'stately Doricke and neat Ionicke work' wereintroduced as fashionable novelties, employed first in the porches andfrontispieces and gradually extended over the whole fronts of buildings. Among the architects employed at this period some foreign names occur. Holbein was much favoured by Henry VIII. , and gave various designs forbuildings at the old palaces of Whitehall and St. James. John of Paduahad a salary as deviser of his majesty's buildings, and was employed tobuild the palace of the protector Somerset. Jerome de Trevisi is alsomentioned; and it is said that the designs for Longleat and a model ofAudley End were obtained from Italy. The last circumstance is altogetherextraordinary; this was the very best period of Italian architecture, and it seems highly improbable that semi-barbarous designs shouldproceed from the country of Palladio and Vignola. Thorpe, Smithson, andother Englishmen, were also eminent builders; and probably these personsmight have travelled, and thus have gained the imperfect knowledge ofGrecian architecture which appears in their works. They were immediatelyfollowed by Inigo Jones, who formed his style particularly on the worksof Palladio, and became the founder of classic architecture in thiscountry. 

There is a remarkable and beautiful analogy between the progress ofGrecian and Gothic architecture, in both of which we find, that whilethe powers of decoration were extended, the process of construction wasimproved and simplified. Thus the Doric, the primitive order, is full ofdifficulties in its arrangement, which render it only applicable tosimple plans and to buildings where the internal distribution is ofinferior consequence. The Ionic, though more ornamental, is by thesuppression of the divisions in the frieze so simplified as to bereadily applicable to more complicated arrangements: still the capitalpresents difficulties from the dissimilarity of the front and sides;which objection is finally obviated by the introduction of that rich andexquisite composition, the Corinthian capital. Thus is obtained an orderof the most elegant and ornamented character, but possessing a happysimplicity and regularity of composition which renders it more easy ofapplication than any other. In like manner in the later, which has beencalled the florid style of Gothic architecture, there are buildingsastonishingly rich and elaborate; but we find this excess of ornamentsupported and rendered practicable by a principle of simplicity indesign and construction. In the earlier and middle styles of Gothicthere are various difficulties of execution and some faults ofcomposition: such as the slender detached shafts, the richly carvedcapitals, the flowing and varied tracery of windows, and that profusevariety in detail which frequently causes all the windows, capitals, buttresses and pinnacles of the same buildings to differ from oneanother. But the later style has more uniformity in corresponding parts;the capitals are very generally composed of plain mouldings, and thedivisions of the windows consist chiefly of horizontal and perpendicularlines, with few of the beautiful and difficult combinations of curveswhich are found in the preceding style. The general principle ofdecoration is to leave no plain surface, but to divide the whole into aseries of pannelling; by which is produced an extraordinary richness ofeffect, though the parts, when examined separately, are generally ofsimple forms and such as will admit of an easy and mechanical execution. The introduction of the four-centred arch enlarged the powers of design, enabled architects in many instances to proportion better the vault tothe upright, and even to introduce vaults where they would have beeninapplicable in the former style, on account of the want of elevation inrooms; as in the divinity school at Oxford. Without concurring in theignorant wonder which has raised the vaulted ceilings of this style tothe rank of mysteries, we may admire the ingenuity which has renderedreal simplicity of construction the foundation of beautiful forms and ofthe most elaborate decoration. The most celebrated examples of thisstyle are so highly finished, so exuberant in ornament, that the term_florid_ has been applied as a characteristic epithet for the style; butthere are many instances of very simple and unornamented buildings ofthe same period agreeing in all the essential principles of constructionand design; and a late writer has with more propriety adopted the term_perpendicular_ for this mode of architecture. This later Gothic, easyof construction and possessing a variety of character applicable toevery kind of building, is well adapted for modern imitation. 

But the power of mutability was at work, and Gothic architecture wasdoomed to fall. The first step towards its decline was pursuing toexcess the principle of simplification and retrenching the mostessential ornaments. The large windows of houses were merely divided byhorizontal and upright bars, and, deprived of tracery and feathering, were as void of beauty in the details as in the general proportions;buttresses and battlements were generally omitted. A great deteriorationtook place in the decorative part; the ornamental pannels and freizesof the Gothic style, consisting of geometrical combinations of circlesand straight lines, had always a distinct outline and a sharpness ofeffect which contrasted agreeably with the foliage so often intermixed;but these were succeeded by strange grotesque combinations, confused, and void of outline and regularity. The source of ornament was nowsought in the orders and members of Grecian architecture; but the eyeswhich had been accustomed to the Gothic flutter of parts, were notprepared to relish the simplicity of line which is essential to thebeauty of the Greek style. Columns of a small size, inaccurately andcoarsely executed, with arcades and grotesque caryatids, formed theornaments of porches and frontispieces, --as at Browseholme-house inYorkshire, Wimbledon, and the Schools-tower at Oxford, --or were spreadover the whole front and formed the cloisters and galleries in whichthose ancient mansions abounded; as at Holland-house, Longleat, Wollaton, Audley End, Longford-castle, &c. The roofs were either facedwith notched and curved gables, or screened by parapets of ballustres orlatticed work and decorated with obelisks and columnar chimney shafts;while turrets and pavilions broke the line of elevation. The windowswere very large, and frequently bowed: thus Bacon remarks, in the Essaybefore referred to, that 'you shall have sometimes fair houses so fullof glass that one cannot tell where to become to be out of the sun orcold. ' In wooden houses and particularly town houses, the upper storiesgenerally projected beyond the lower, with windows extremely wide, so asto occupy almost the whole line of front. The timbers were frequentlyleft bare, carved and disposed in forms of pannelling; while the variousprojections were supported by grotesque figures. Very curious houses ofthis character are still found in several old towns, as Chester, Shrewsbury, Coventry, and the obscure parts of London; though naturaldecay, fire and modern improvements, are continually diminishing theirnumber. Among interior decorations, chimney-pieces were veryconspicuous: they were miniature frontispieces, consisting, like theporches of the houses, of a mass of columns, arches, niches andcaryatids, piled up to the ceiling. Of these there is one at the oldTabley-hall in Cheshire singularly rude and grotesque, though dated solate as 1619, containing a hunting-piece and the figures of Lucrece andCleopatra. Another in queen Elizabeth's gallery at Windsor Castle isvery rich, and comparatively pure and elegant in design. The sepulchralmonuments of this age are very numerous, but only differ from those ofan earlier date in the substitution of the members of Grecian for thoseof Gothic architecture, or rather in the confused mixture of both. 

On the whole, this, though a glorious period for literature, was lostfor the fine arts. The incongruous mixture of the conflicting principlesof Grecian and Gothic architecture produced buildings more trulybarbarous, more disgusting to a cultivated taste, than the rudest Normanwork. Together with the architectural orders, our artists had receivedmodels and authorities for the grotesque style, which they were but tooready to follow. This extraordinary style of ornament had prevailed inancient Rome early enough to be reprobated in the work of Vitruvius, andlay unobserved among obscure and subterraneous ruins till the discoveryof the Baths of Titus opened a rich magazine of gay and capriciousornament. Raffaelle, struck with these remains of the antique art ofpainting, adopted the same style of ornament in the galleries of theVatican, enriching and enlivening it with the stores of allegory andmythology furnished by his poetical fancy. The example of such a mancould not want imitators; it influenced the whole architecture ofFrance, --which very early possessed artists of great merit, --andappeared in this country with very inferior effect. It may well beimagined that this style, naturally licentious and only renderedtolerable by grace of composition and brilliancy of execution, wouldbecome utterly contemptible when presenting only coarsely executed andunmeaning extravagances. Such was the general character of art. We mayhowever make discriminations, and admit comparative merit. Wimbledon-house, seated on the side of a hill, was remarkable for amagnificent disposition of steps and terraces worthy an Italian villa. Wollaton-hall is admired by Mr. Price for the grandeur of its masses. Charlton-house has a very picturesque arrangement of heights in theelevation; Longleat, on the other hand, has much simplicity of form. Inits square projections and three orders of columns, or pilasters, itbears no remote resemblance to the ancient part of the Louvre builtabout thirty years previously, though without the purity and delicacy ofthe details of the architecture and sculpture which distinguish theFrench building. 

EDMUND AIKIN. 

Liverpool, February 10, 1818. 

INDEX. 

Alençon, duke of, II 22. 56. Created duke of Anjou, 71. Visits the queen, ib. His second visit, 98 et seq death, 103. 

Anjou, duke of, 451. II. 11. _See_ Alençon. 

Anne of Cleves, 48. 49. 52. 53. 133. 

Arragon, Catherine of, 3. 15. 

Arundel, sir Thomas, case of, II. 370. 

Ascham, Roger, extracts from his Latin letters, 92 et seq, 97, 98, 99 et seq. 

Ashley, Mrs. 194. 

Aston, sir Roger, II. 414. 

Aylmer or Elmer (bishop), on the dress of Elizabeth, 98. 99. II. 65. 

B. 

Babington, Anthony, II. 166. 168. 

Bacon, sir Nicholas, 257. Employed in the settlement of religion, 320. In disgrace, 366 and 7. II. 81 et seq. 

----, Anthony, II. 86. 343. 

----, Francis, II. 83. 337. 339 to 343. 346 to 350. His letter to the earl of Essex, 380. Speeches written by, 385. Base conduct of, 434. 

Beddingfield, sir II. 171. 174. 176. 177. 

Bertie, Peregrine, lord Willoughby, II. 117. 119. 120. Letter to, from the queen, II. 357. 

Blount, sir Charles, lord Montjoy, II. 221. 256 et seq. 351. 427 and 8. 464. 482. 490. 

Boleyn, Thomas, earl of Wilts, 10. 

Boleyn, Anne, 2, 3, and 4. Conduct respecting queen Catherine, 16. Disgrace, 16. 17. Conduct as affecting her daughter, 19 et seq. 

Bonner, bishop, 148. 150. 183. 

Bourchier family, 49. 50. 

----, Henry, earl of Essex, 7. 

Brandon, Charles, duke of Suffolk, 9. II. 117 et seq. 

----, Catherine, duchess dowager of Suffolk, 117. 

Brantome, M. De, description of the court of Elizabeth, 337. 

Brown, Anthony, viscount Montacute, 286. 

Brown, Robert, II. 108. 

Bryan, lady, her letter respecting Elizabeth, 21. 

C. 

Cabot, Sebastian, 444-6. 

Cambridge, the queen's visit to, 368. 

Cary, Henry, lord Hunsdon, 243. 387. 

----, Robert, II. 315. 493. 

Casimir, duke, 375. 376. II. 66. 

Cavendish, Thomas, II. 307. 

Cecil, Mildred, 95. 96. 127. 

----, William, lord Burleigh, 96. 233. Account of, 234. Employed in the settlement of religion, 320. Takes precaution against the poisoning of the queen, 344. Draws a proclamation respecting portraits of the queen, 362. Directs her reception at Cambridge, 368 et seq. Letters of, to sir H. Norris, 417. 452 et seq. Attempt made to ruin him, 463, 4, and 5. His advice to the duke of Norfolk, 467. Created lord Burleigh, II. 4. Letter to the earl of Shrewsbury, 34. Character compared with sir N. Bacon's, II. 82. Anecdote of, 87. Discussions with Whitgift, 112 et seq. Anger of the queen against, 186. Restored to favor, 193. Warning to Essex, 405. Death and character of, 406. 

Cecil, sir Thomas, II. 220. 

Cecil, sir Robert, II. 221. 285. 372. Appointed secretary, 378. 401. 478. 

Chaloner, sir Thomas, 287. His letter respecting the queen and lord R. Dudley, 289. 

Chancellor, Richard, 445 and 6. 

Charles IX. Of France, a suitor to Elizabeth, 392. II. 24. 26. 

Cheke, sir John, 154. 222. 

Classical literature, decline of, 198. 

Clifford, George, earl of Cumberland, II. 214. 259. 

Cook, sir Anthony, 154. 

Courtney, W. , marquis of Exeter, 7. 43. 44

----, Edward, earl of Devon, 133. 137. 162. 184 and 5. 

Cox, bishop, 154. 361. 

Cranmer, archbishop, 5. 12. 19. 47. 55. 56. 

Cromwel, Thomas, earl of Essex, 47 to 52. 

D. 

Dacre, Leonard, 471. 481, 2, and 3. 

Darnley, lord, 386. 416. 

Davison, secretary, conduct of, respecting the queen of Scots, II. 184 et seq. 187. 188 to 192. 267 to 270. 

Dee, Dr. , II. 41. 

Denmark, prince of, proposed in marriage to Elizabeth, 115. 

Desmond, earl of, II. 123. 

Devereux, Walter, earl of Essex, II. 45 to 51. 

Devereux, Robert, earl of Essex, II. 51. Appointed general of horse, 226. His position at court, 237 et seq. Expedition to Portugal, 252 et seq. 254. Duel with sir Charles Blount, 256. Letters to Davison, 267 et seq. Marriage, 270. Campaign in France, 280. Trait of, 367. Connexion with Anthony and Francis Bacon, 346. Conduct respecting Lopez, 352. View of his and the Cecil parties, 372. His conduct at Cadiz, 374 et seq. Traits of, 392. His Island voyage, 395. His quarrel with the queen, 402. Conduct in Irish affairs, 427. Service in Ireland, 434 to 440. Return to England, 440. Disgrace, 446 to 454. Censure on, 454. Dangerous designs, 460. Intrigues with the king of Scots, 465. Insurrection, 465 to 471. Trial, after-conduct, and death, 471 to 478. Story respecting his ring. 497. 

Discovery, voyages of, II. 310 et seq. 

Dorset, marchioness dowager, 8. 

Douglas, lady Margaret, 27. 28. 60. _See_ Lenox, countess of. 

Drake, sir Francis, II. 83. 166. 198. 225. 227. 252. 254. Death and character of, 362. 

Drama, progress of the, II. 321. 

Dudley, John, duke of Northumberland, 12. 50. 73 to 75. 109. 117. 119. 124. 129. 131. 

Dudley, Ambrose, earl of Warwick, 359. 360. 

Dudley, Robert, earl of Leicester, 12. 151. 184. Appointed master of the horse, and favored by Elizabeth, 240. Knight of the garter, 265. Suspected of procuring the death of his wife, 291. His rivalry with the earl of Arundel, 299. Proposed as a husband to the queen of Scots, 365. Created earl of Leicester, 373. His declarations to Melvil, 385. Means taken by the queen to humble him, 392. His conduct to the duke of Norfolk, 397. 467. Suspected of poisoning sir N. Throgmorton, II. 15. His connexion with lady Sheffield, 31. Entertains Elizabeth at Kennelworth, 43. Letter of the queen respecting him, 53. Opposes the French marriage, 56. Marries the countess of Essex, 68. Imprisoned, 69. Suspected of attempting the life of Simier, 70. Instances of his oppressive conduct, 129. 130. Book written against him, 136 et seq. Appointed commander in Holland, 150. His letter respecting sir P. Sidney, 159. Returns from Holland, 164 and 5. Advises the poisoning of the queen of Scots, 169. Consequences of his conduct in Holland, 205. 207. Appointed commander in chief, 227. Desires the office of lieutenant in England and Ireland, 229. His death and character, 233. 

Dyer, sir Edward, II. 303. 

E. 

Edward VI. 37. 58. 59. Letters to him from Elizabeth, 103 and 105. 126. 

Eric king of Sweden offers marriage to Elizabeth, 217. 263. Expected in England, 346. 

Exeter, marchioness, 9. 46. 151. 

F. 

Fence, schools of, regulated, 402. 

Ferrers, George, master of the king's pastimes, 122 et seq. 

Fletcher, bishop, II. 388. 

Fitzalan, Henry, earl of Arundel, 72. 73. 109. 110. 131. Entertains Elizabeth at Nonsuch, 279. A suitor to her, 299. In disgrace, 394. 

Fitzgerald, family of, 31 et seq. 

Fitzgerald, Gerald, adventures of, 33 et seq. 

Fortescue, sir John, II. 251. 

G. 

Gardiner, bishop, 47. 51. 148, 149 et seq. Brings in a bill against Elizabeth, 167. 178. 181. 183. Conduct towards Elizabeth, 189. 190. 194. Death, 196. 

Gascoigne, George, II. 303. 

Gresham, sir Thomas, II. 1. 

Grenville, sir Richard, II. 306. 

Greville, Fulk, II. 95 et seq. 347. 479. 

Grey, Arthur, lord, II. 122. 

----, lady Catherine, 125. 152. 350. 

----, Henry, marquis of Dorset, 7. 117. 161. 

----, lady Jane, 79. 96, 97. 125. 130. 161. 

----, lord Leonard, 54, 55. 

----, lady Mary, 403. 

Grindal, archbishop, 326. II. 110. 

H. 

Hales, sir James, 152. 

----, John, 366. 

Hall, reverend Joseph, and his satires, II. 419. Praise of Elizabeth, 504. 

Harrington, sir John, the elder, 91. His verses on the death of admiral Seymour, 91. --To bishop Gardiner, 179. Gratitude of Elizabeth towards, 194. 

Harrington, sir John, the younger, II. 366. 422. Letter to, 430. Letters of, 443, 444. 483. 488. 

Hastings, Henry, earl of Huntingdon, II. 388. 

Hatton, sir Christopher, II. 10. 33. 204. 285. 

Henry VIII. 1. 13. 24. 26. 48. 52, 53. 56. 60. 62. 70. 

Herbert, William, earl of Pembroke, 268. 

Holles, sir William, II. 318. 

Holstein, duke of, suitor to Elizabeth, 263, 264. 

Howard, Catherine, 53. 55. 56. 

----, Henry, earl of Surry, 50. 56, 66 et seq. 

----, lord Henry, II. 131. 

----, lady Mary, 8. 

----, Philip, earl of Arundel, II. 19. 131. 146. 241. 

----, Thomas, third duke of Norfolk, 9. 30. 51. 64. 69. 146. 148. 

----, ----, fourth duke of Norfolk, 147. 242. 285. How regarded by the queen, 395 et seq. Conduct towards the queen of Scots, 456 to 463. Towards Cecil, 463 to 466. His intrigues, 466 to 470. Renewal of them, II. 12. Trial, death and issue, 15 to 19. 

----, lord Thomas, 11. 27. 

----, ---- ---- II. 306. 374. 

----, William, lord Effingham, II. 242. 

----, Charles, lord Effingham, II. 8. 224. 374 et seq. 

----, lord William, II. 19. 131. 

Humphreys, Dr. Lawrence, 414. 

I. 

Impresses, 295. 

Ivan Basilowitz, Czar, 444. 446, 7 and 8. II. 120. 

J. 

James VI of Scotland, 407. 421. 261 et seq. Conduct by which he offends Elizabeth, 410 et seq. Her correspondence with him, 412. Sermon respecting him, 416. 

Jewel, bishop, 284. 330. 

K. 

Knolles, sir Francis, 243. 253. II. 112. 

L. 

Lee, sir Henry, II. 8. 259. 

Leicester, countess of, queen's behaviour towards, II. 401. 

Lenox, countess of, 387. 417, 418. II. 38. 

Lilly, John, II. 92 et seq. 

M. 

Manners, Henry, earl of Rutland, 265, 266. 

Markham, Gervase, II. 320. 

----, Isabella, 194. 

Mary, queen of England, 29. Persecuted for religion, 111 et seq. Mounts the throne, 131. Letter from her to Elizabeth, 139. Marriage of, 181. Sends an embassy to the pope, 182. Her reception of Elizabeth, 191. Letter of Elizabeth to, 212. Visits Elizabeth at Hatfield, 215. Receives her at Richmond, 216. Establishes an ecclesiastical commission, 221. Her melancholy and death, 227. 

Mary, queen of Scots, 58. 59. Becomes a widow--quarrels with Elizabeth--returns to Scotland, 334 et seq. Falls in love with Darnley, 386. Suspected of his death, 416. Letter to, from Elizabeth, 419. Married to Bothwell, 419 et seq. Defeated and imprisoned, 420. Released, 436. Takes refuge in England, 437 et seq. Writes to Elizabeth, 338. Submits to her judgement, 441. Retracts, 442. Is committed to Bolton-castle, 443. Consents to send commissioners to York, ib. Signs the association, II. 140. Conduct of, 140 et seq. Concern in Babington's plot, 167. Consultations respecting, 168. Seizure of her papers, 169. Her removal to Fotheringay, 170. Trial, 171 et seq. Sentence, 175. Death, 186. Remarks on her character, 193 et seq. 

Medici, Catherine de', 449. 450 et seq. 

Melvil, sir James, 374. Sent to announce the birth of James of Scotland, 407. 

Mildmay, sir Walter, II. 249. 

Mirror for Magistrates, 200 et seq. 

Morice, James, II. 333. 

Murray, earl of, regent of Scotland, 421. 435. 455 et seq. 469. His assassination, 484 and 5. 

N. 

Newspapers, introduction of, II. 232. 

Nevil, Charles, earl of Westmorland, 473 to 477. 

Nobility, great power of, 31. 

Norfolk, duchess dowager of, 8. 

Norris, Henry, 18. 

----, sir John, II. 252. 278. 351. 399. 

Norton, family of, 478 and 9. 

Norwich, queen's entertainment at, II. 58 to 60. 

O. 

Oxford, queen's visit to, 413. 

P. 

Paget, lord, 187, 188. 224. 

Parker, archbishop, 14. 322. 391. 

Parr, Catherine, 60, 61. 76. 

----, marquis of Northampton, 256. 

Parry, Dr. , II. 143 to 146. 

Parry, sir Thomas, 233. 

Paulet, sir Amias, letter of the queen to, II. 170. 

----, marquis of Winchester, 271. 

Percy, Henry, earl of Northumberland, 20. 118. 

Percy, Henry, earl of Northumberland, 473 to 7. 

----, Thomas, earl of Northumberland, II. 131. 149. 

----, Henry, earl of Northumberland, II. 219. 

Perrot, sir John, II. 124. 289. 

Philip II. 181. 183. Conduct towards Elizabeth, 184. 186. 188. And 192. 195. Sends the duchess of Parma and Loraine to her, 214. Offers her his hand, 259. Becomes her enemy, 339. 449. 454. II. 352. 

Pickering, sir William, a suitor of the queen, 298. 

Pilkington, bishop of Durham, curious sermon by, 341. 

Pole, Arthur and Edmund, plot of, 354. 

----, Geffrey, 42. 151. 

----, Henry, viscount Montacute, 43. 

----, Margaret, countess of Salisbury, 42, 43. 46. 54. 

----, Reginald, 40. 182. 198. 238. 

Pope, sir Thomas, 136. 192, 193. Mention of Elizabeth, 198. Gives entertainments to her, 210. 216. Writes to the queen respecting her, 219. 

Puttenham's Art of Poesy, II. 293. 

R. 

Raleigh, sir Walter, II. 124 to 128. 223. 256. 313. 359. 393. 396. 458. 478. 

Ratcliffe, Thomas, earl of Sussex, 397. Letters of to the queen, 423. To Cecil, 465 and 6. Conduct as president of the North, 476. 480. Campaign in Scotland, 484. Behaviour respecting Leicester, II. 69. Favors the French match, 71. Death of, 121. 

----, Egremond, 480. 481. II. 121 et seq. 

Royal Progresses, 275. 

Royal succession, vague ideas on, 25, 26. 

Rudd, bishop, sermon of, before the queen, II. 309. 

S. 

Sackville, sir Richard, 242. 433. 

Sackville, Thomas, lord Buckhurst, 199. 433. II. 207, 208. 

Sampson, Dr. Thomas, offends the queen, 340. 

Savoy, duke of, offered to Elizabeth in marriage, 173. 213. 

Seymour, Edward, duke of Somerset, 39. 64. 74. 76. 107 to 110. 120. 

----, Edward, second earl of Herts; how treated for his marriage with lady Catherine Grey, 351 et seq. Establishes the legitimacy of his sons, 368. II. 283. 366. 

----, Jane, 17. 38. 

----, sir Thomas, lord admiral, 39. 75 to 77. Conduct to Elizabeth, 77 to 82. 

Shakespeare, William, II. 325. 

Sidney, sir Henry, 356. Letter of the queen to, 405. Death and character of, II. 161. 

----, sir Philip, II. 27. 57. His opposition to the French match and letter to the queen, 74 et seq. Appearance at a triumph, 89. 94. Defence of Leicester, 139. Death and character, 152 et seq. 

----, sir Robert, letter of, 459. 

Simier, Monsieur, II. 67, 68. 70. 

Sixtus V. Pope. Extraordinary speeches of, II. 177. 

Smith, sir Thomas, II. 21. 41. 62. 

Somerset, H. Earl of Worcester, 12. 

----, duchess dowager of, 76. 120. 150. II. 201. 

Spenser, Edmund, II. 126. 418. 

Stanley, Edward, earl of Derby, 10. 

----, Ferdinando, earl of Derby, II. 355. 

Stubbs, Mr. 77 et seq. 

Suffolk, Frances, duchess dowager of, 281. II. 117 et seq. 

Sully, duke of, conference with Elizabeth, II. 481. 

T. 

Talbot, Gilbert, lord, letters of, II. 31. 

Throgmorton, sir John, II. 16. 

----, Francis, II. 130, 131. 

----, sir Nicholas, 164. 184. 389. 463. II. 15. 

Tonstal, bishop, 148. 

Topcliffe, Richard, II. 60 et seq. 

Torture defended, II. 133 et seq. 

Tyrwhitt, sir Robert, his letters to the Protector respecting Elizabeth and admiral Seymour, 85 et seq. 89, 90. 

V. 

Vaughan, bishop, anecdotes of, II. 389. 

Vere, Edward, seventeenth earl of Oxford, II. 4. 221. 

----, sir Francis, II. 375. 

W. 

Walsingham, sir Francis, II. 21. 23. 55. 97 and 8. Sent into Scotland, 116. Conduct respecting queen of Scots, 192. Letter of, to M. Critoy, 245. Death and character, 264. 

Whitgift, archbishop, II. 56 _note_. 110 et seq. 

Williams, lord, 171. 172. 174. 189. 

Willoughby, sir Hugh, 445. 

Wriothesley, earl of Southampton, II. 395. 401. 465. 470. 471. 473. 479. 

Wyat, sir Thomas, 136. 140. 159. 

_R. And A. Taylor, Printers, London. _