Makers of History

 Queen Elizabeth

 BY

 JACOB ABBOTT

 WITH ENGRAVINGS

 NEW YORK AND LONDON

 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

 1901

 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine, by

 HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. 

 Copyright, 1876, by JACOB ABBOTT. 

[Illustration: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. ]

PREFACE. 

The author of this series has made it his special object to confinehimself very strictly, even in the most minute details which he records, to historic truth. The narratives are not tales founded upon history, but history itself, without any embellishment or any deviations from thestrict truth, so far as it can now be discovered by an attentiveexamination of the annals written at the time when the events themselvesoccurred. In writing the narratives, the author has endeavored to availhimself of the best sources of information which this country affords;and though, of course, there must be in these volumes, as in allhistorical accounts, more or less of imperfection and error, there is nointentional embellishment. Nothing is stated, not even the most minuteand apparently imaginary details, without what was deemed goodhistorical authority. The readers, therefore, may rely upon the recordas the truth, and nothing but the truth, so far as an honest purpose anda careful examination have been effectual in ascertaining it. 

CONTENTS. 

Chapter Page

 I. ELIZABETH'S MOTHER 13

 II. THE CHILDHOOD OF A PRINCESS 39

 III. LADY JANE GREY 57

 IV. THE SPANISH MATCH 81

 V. ELIZABETH IN THE TOWER 100

 VI. ACCESSION TO THE THRONE 120

 VII. THE WAR IN SCOTLAND 141

 VIII. ELIZABETH'S LOVERS 161

 IX. PERSONAL CHARACTER 187

 X. THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA 208

 XI. THE EARL OF ESSEX 232

 XII. THE CONCLUSION 260

ENGRAVINGS. 

 Page

 PORTRAIT OF DRAKE _Frontispiece. _

 PORTRAIT OF HENRY VIII 16

 PORTRAIT OF ANNE BOLEYN 20

 GROUP OF CHRISTENING GIFTS 25

 TOWER OF LONDON 31

 PORTRAIT OF EDWARD VI. 44

 LADY JANE GREY AT STUDY 63

 PORTRAIT OF PHILIP OF SPAIN 84

 ELIZABETH IN THE TOWER 112

 ELIZABETH'S PROGRESS TO LONDON 135

 THE FIRTH OF FORTH, WITH LEITH AND EDINBURGH IN THE DISTANCE 156

 LEICESTER 169

 THE BARGES ON THE RIVER 182

 PORTRAIT OF QUEEN ELIZABETH 203

 THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA 229

 THE HOUSE OF THE EARL OF ESSEX 242

 ELIZABETH IN HER LAST HOURS 270

 HEAD OF JAMES I. 275

 ELIZABETH'S TOMB 279

QUEEN ELIZABETH

CHAPTER I. 

ELIZABETH'S MOTHER. 

1533-1536

Greenwich. --The hospital. --Its inmates. --GreenwichObservatory. --Manner of taking time. --Henry the Eighth. --Hischaracter. --His six wives. --Anne Boleyn. --Catharine of Aragon. --Henrydiscards her. --Origin of the English Church. --Henry marries AnneBoleyn. --Birth of Elizabeth. --Ceremony of christening. --Baptism ofElizabeth. --Grand procession. --Train-bearers. --The church. --The silverfont. --The presents. --Name of the infant princess. --Elizabeth madePrincess of Wales. --Matrimonial schemes. --Jane Seymour. --Thetournament. --The king's suspicions. --Queen Anne arrested. --She issent to the Tower. --Sufferings of the queen. --Her mentaldistress. --Examination of Anne. --Her letter to the king. --Anne'sfellow-prisoners. --They are executed. --Anne tried and condemned. --Sheprotests her innocence. --Anne's execution. --Disposition of thebody. --The king's brutality. --Elizabeth's forlorn condition. 

Travelers, in ascending the Thames by the steamboat from Rotterdam, ontheir return from an excursion to the Rhine, have often their attentionstrongly attracted by what appears to be a splendid palace on the banksof the river at Greenwich. The edifice is not a palace, however, but ahospital, or, rather, a retreat where the worn out, maimed, and crippledveterans of the English navy spend the remnant of their days in comfortand peace, on pensions allowed them by the government in whose servicethey have spent their strength or lost their limbs. The magnificentbuildings of the hospital stand on level land near the river. Behindthem there is a beautiful park, which extends over the undulating andrising ground in the rear; and on the summit of one of the eminencesthere is the famous Greenwich Observatory, on the precision of whosequadrants and micrometers depend those calculations by which thenavigation of the world is guided. The most unconcerned and carelessspectator is interested in the manner in which the ships which throngthe river all the way from Greenwich to London, "take their time" fromthis observatory before setting sail for distant seas. From the top of acupola surmounting the edifice, a slender pole ascends, with a blackball upon it, so constructed as to slide up and down for a few feet uponthe pole. When the hour of 12 M. Approaches, the ball slowly rises towithin a few inches of the top, warning the ship-masters in the river tobe ready with their chronometers, to observe and note the preciseinstant of its fall. When a few seconds only remain of the time, theball ascends the remainder of the distance by a very deliberate motion, and then drops suddenly when the instant arrives. The ships depart ontheir several destinations, and for months afterward when thousands ofmiles away they depend for their safety in dark and stormy nights, andamong dangerous reefs and rocky shores, on the nice approximation tocorrectness in the note of time which this descending ball had giventhem. 

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF HENRY VIII]

This is Greenwich, as it exists at the present day. At the time when theevents occurred which are to be related in this narrative, it was mostknown on account of a royal palace which was situated there. This palacewas the residence of the then queen consort of England. The kingreigning at that time was Henry the Eighth. He was an unprincipled andcruel tyrant, and the chief business of his life seemed to be selectingand marrying new queens, making room for each succeeding one bydiscarding, divorcing, or beheading her predecessor. There were six ofthem in all, and, with one exception, the history of each one is adistinct and separate, but dreadful tragedy. As there were so many ofthem, and they figured as queens each for so short a period, they arecommonly designated in history by their personal family names, and evenin these names there is a great similarity. There were three Catharines, two Annes, and a Jane. The only one who lived and died in peace, respected and beloved to the end, was the Jane. 

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF ANNE BOLEYN. ]

Queen Elizabeth, the subject of this narrative, was the daughter of thesecond wife in this strange succession, and her mother was one of theAnnes. Her name in full was Anne Boleyn. She was young and verybeautiful, and Henry, to prepare the way for making her his wife, divorced his first queen, or rather declared his marriage with her nulland void, because she had been, before he married her, the wife of hisbrother. Her name was Catharine of Aragon. She was, while connected withhim, a faithful, true, and affectionate wife. She was a Catholic. TheCatholic rules are very strict in respect to the marriage of relatives, and a special dispensation from the pope was necessary to authorizemarriage in such a case as that of Henry and Catharine. Thisdispensation had, however, been obtained, and Catharine had, in relianceupon it, consented to become Henry's wife. When, however, she was nolonger young and beautiful, and Henry had become enamored of AnneBoleyn, who was so, he discarded Catharine, and espoused the beautifulgirl in her stead. He wished the pope to annul his dispensation, whichwould, of course, annul the marriage; and because the pontiff refused, and all the efforts of Henry's government were unavailing to move him, he abandoned the Catholic faith, and established an independentProtestant church in England, whose supreme authority _would_ annul themarriage. Thus, in a great measure, came the Reformation in England. The Catholics reproach us, and, it must be confessed, with some justice, with the ignominiousness of its origin. 

The course which things thus took created a great deal of delay in theformal annulling of the marriage with Catharine, which Henry was tooimpatient and imperious to bear. He would not wait for the decree ofdivorce, but took Anne Boleyn for his wife before his previousconnection was made void. He said he was privately married to her. Thishe had, as he maintained, a right to do, for he considered his firstmarriage as void, absolutely and of itself, without any decree. When, atlength, the decree was finally passed, he brought Anne Boleyn forward ashis queen, and introduced her as such to England and to the world by agenuine marriage and a most magnificent coronation. The people ofEngland pitied poor Catharine, but they joined very cordially, notwithstanding, in welcoming the youthful and beautiful lady who was totake her place. All London gave itself up to festivities and rejoicingson the occasion of these nuptials. Immediately after this the youngqueen retired to her palace in Greenwich, and in two or three monthsafterward little Elizabeth was born. Her birth-day was the 7th ofSeptember, 1533. 

The mother may have loved the babe, but Henry himself was sadlydisappointed that his child was not a son. Notwithstanding her sex, however, she was a personage of great distinction from her very birth, as all the realm looked upon her as heir to the crown. Henry washimself, at this time, very fond of Anne Boleyn, though his feelingsafterward were entirely changed. He determined on giving to the infant avery splendid christening. The usage in the Church of England is to makethe christening of a child not merely a solemn religious ceremony, but agreat festive occasion of congratulations and rejoicing. The unconscioussubject of the ceremony is taken to the church. Certain near anddistinguished friends, gentlemen and ladies, appear as godfathers andgodmothers, as they are termed, to the child. They, in the ceremony, areconsidered as presenting the infant for consecration to Christ, and asbecoming responsible for its future initiation into the Christian faith. They are hence sometimes called sponsors. These sponsors are supposed totake, from the time of the baptism forward, a strong interest in allthat pertains to the welfare of their little charge, and they usuallymanifest this interest by presents on the day of the christening. Thesethings are all conducted with considerable ceremony and parade inordinary cases, occurring in private life; and when a princess is to bebaptized, all, even the most minute details of the ceremony, assume agreat importance, and the whole scene becomes one of great pomp andsplendor. 

The babe, in this case, was conveyed to the church in a grandprocession. The mayor and other civic authorities in London came down toGreenwich in barges, tastefully ornamented, to join in the ceremony. Thelords and ladies of King Henry's court were also there, in attendance atthe palace. When all were assembled, and every thing was ready, theprocession moved from the palace to the church with great pomp. Theroad, all the way, was carpeted with green rushes, spread upon theground. Over this road the little infant was borne by one of hergodmothers. She was wrapped in a mantle of purple velvet, with a longtrain appended to it, which was trimmed with ermine, a very costly kindof fur, used in England as a badge of authority. This train was borne bylords and ladies of high rank, who were appointed for the purpose bythe king, and who deemed their office a very distinguished honor. Besides these train-bearers, there were four lords, who walked two oneach side of the child, and who held over her a magnificent canopy. Other personages of high rank and station followed, bearing variousinsignia and emblems, such as by the ancient customs of England areemployed on these occasions, and all dressed sumptuously in gorgeousrobes, and wearing the badges and decorations pertaining to their rankor the offices they held. Vast crowds of spectators lined the way, andgazed upon the scene. 

[Illustration: THE CHRISTENING GIFTS. ]

On arriving at the church, they found the interior splendidly decoratedfor the occasion. Its walls were lined throughout with tapestry, and inthe center was a crimson canopy, under which was placed a large silverfont, containing the water with which the child was to be baptized. Theceremony was performed by Cranmer, the archbishop of Canterbury, whichis the office of the highest dignitary of the English Church. After itwas performed, the procession returned as it came, only now there was anaddition of four persons of high rank, who followed the child with thepresents intended for her by the godfathers and godmothers. Thesepresents consisted of cups and bowls, of beautiful workmanship, someof silver gilt, and some of solid gold. They were very costly, thoughnot prized much yet by the unconscious infant for whom they wereintended. She went and came, in the midst of this gay and joyousprocession, little imagining into what a restless and unsatisfying lifeall this pageantry and splendor were ushering her. 

They named the child Elizabeth, from her grandmother. There have beenmany queens of that name, but Queen Elizabeth of England became so muchmore distinguished than any other, that that name alone has become herusual designation. Her family name was Tudor. As she was nevermarried--for, though her life was one perpetual scene of matrimonialschemes and negotiations, she lived and died a maiden lady--she has beensometimes called the Virgin Queen, and one of the states of this Union, Virginia, receives its name from this designation of Elizabeth. She isalso often familiarly called Queen Bess. 

Making little Elizabeth presents of gold and silver plate, and arrangingsplendid pageants for her, were not the only plans for heraggrandizement which were formed during the period of her infantileunconsciousness. The king, her father, first had an act of Parliamentpassed, solemnly recognizing and confirming her claim as heir to thecrown, and the title of Princess of Wales was formally conferred uponher. When these things were done, Henry began to consider how he couldbest promote his own political schemes by forming an engagement ofmarriage for her, and, when she was only about two years of age, heoffered her to the King of France as the future wife of one of his sons, on certain conditions of political service which he wished him toperform. But the King of France would not accede to the terms, and sothis plan was abandoned. Elizabeth was, however, notwithstanding thisfailure, an object of universal interest and attention, as the daughterof a very powerful monarch, and the heir to his crown. Her life openedwith very bright and serene prospects of future greatness; but all theseprospects were soon apparently cut off by a very heavy cloud which aroseto darken her sky. This cloud was the sudden and dreadful fall and ruinof her mother. 

Queen Anne Boleyn was originally a maid of honor to Queen Catharine, andbecame acquainted with King Henry and gained his affections while shewas acting in that capacity. When she became queen herself, she had, ofcourse, her own maids of honor, and among them was one named JaneSeymour. Jane was a beautiful and accomplished lady, and in the end shesupplanted her mistress and queen in Henry's affections, just as Anneherself had supplanted Catharine. The king had removed Catharine to makeway for Anne, by annulling his marriage with her on account of theirrelationship: what way could he contrive now to remove Anne, so as tomake way for Jane?

He began to entertain, or to pretend to entertain, feelings of jealousyand suspicion that Anne was unfaithful to him. One day, at a sort oftournament in the park of the royal palace at Greenwich, when a greatcrowd of gayly-dressed ladies and gentlemen were assembled to witnessthe spectacle, the queen dropped her handkerchief. A gentleman whom theking had suspected of being one of her favorites picked it up. He didnot immediately restore it to her. There was, besides, something in theair and manner of the gentleman, and in the attendant circumstances ofthe case, which the king's mind seized upon as evidence of criminalgallantry between the parties. He was, or at least pretended to be, ina great rage. He left the field immediately and went to London. Thetournament was broken up in confusion, the queen was seized by theking's orders, conveyed to her palace in Greenwich, and shut up in herchamber, with a lady who had always been her rival and enemy to guardher. She was in great consternation and sorrow, but she declared mostsolemnly that she was innocent of any crime, and had always been trueand faithful to the king. 

[Illustration: THE TOWER OF LONDON. ]

The next day she was taken from her palace at Greenwich up the river, probably in a barge well guarded by armed men, to the Tower of London. The Tower is an ancient and very extensive castle, consisting of a greatnumber of buildings inclosed within a high wall. It is in the lower partof London, on the bank of the Thames, with a flight of stairs leadingdown to the river from a great postern gate. The unhappy queen waslanded at these stairs and conveyed into the castle, and shut up in agloomy apartment, with walls of stone and windows barricaded with strongbars of iron. There were four or five gentlemen, attendants upon thequeen in her palace at Greenwich, whom the king suspected, or pretendedto suspect, of being her accomplices in crime, that were arrested atthe same time with her and closely confined. 

When the poor queen was introduced into her dungeon, she fell on herknees, and, in an agony of terror and despair, she implored God to helpher in this hour of her extremity, and most solemnly called him towitness that she was innocent of the crime imputed to her charge. Seeking thus a refuge in God calmed and composed her in some smalldegree; but when, again, thoughts of the imperious and implacable temperof her husband came over her, of the impetuousness of his passions, ofthe certainty that he wished her removed out of the way in order thatroom might be made for her rival, and then, when her distracted mindturned to the forlorn and helpless condition of her little daughterElizabeth, now scarcely three years old, her fortitude andself-possession forsook her entirely; she sank half insane upon her bed, in long and uncontrollable paroxysms of sobs and tears, alternating withstill more uncontrollable and frightful bursts of hysterical laughter. 

The king sent a commission to take her examination. At the same time, heurged her, by the persons whom he sent, to confess her guilt, promisingher that, if she did so, her life should be spared. She, however, protested her innocence with the utmost firmness and constancy. Shebegged earnestly to be allowed to see the king, and, when this wasrefused, she wrote a letter to him, which still remains, and whichexpresses very strongly the acuteness of her mental sufferings. 

In this letter, she said that she was so distressed and bewildered bythe king's displeasure and her imprisonment, that she hardly knew whatto think or to say. She assured him that she had always been faithfuland true to him, and begged that he would not cast an indelible stainupon her own fair fame and that of her innocent and helpless child bysuch unjust and groundless imputations. She begged him to let her have afair trial by impartial persons, who would weigh the evidence againsther in a just and equitable manner. She was sure that by this course herinnocence would be established, and he himself, and all mankind wouldsee that she had been most unjustly accused. 

But if, on the other hand, she added, the king had determined on herdestruction, in order to remove an obstacle in the way of hispossession of a new object of love, she prayed that God would forgivehim and all her enemies for so great a sin, and not call him to accountfor it at the last day. She urged him, at all events, to spare the livesof the four gentlemen who had been accused, as she assured him they werewholly innocent of the crime laid to their charge, begging him, if hehad ever loved the name of Anne Boleyn, to grant this her last request. She signed her letter his "most loyal and ever faithful wife, " and datedit from her "doleful prison in the Tower. "

The four gentlemen were promised that their lives should be spared ifthey would confess their guilt. One of them did, accordingly, admit hisguilt, and the others persisted to the end in firmly denying it. Theywho think Anne Boleyn was innocent, suppose that the one who confesseddid it as the most likely mode of averting destruction, as men haveoften been known, under the influence of fear, to confess crimes ofwhich it was afterward proved they could not have been guilty. If thiswas his motive, it was of no avail. The four persons accused, after avery informal trial, in which nothing was really proved against them, were condemned, apparently to please the king, and were executedtogether. 

Three days after this the queen herself was brought to trial before thepeers. The number of peers of the realm in England at this time wasfifty-three. Only twenty-six were present at the trial. The king ischarged with making such arrangements as to prevent the attendance ofthose who would be unwilling to pass sentence of condemnation. At anyrate, those who did attend professed to be satisfied of the guilt of theaccused, and they sentenced her to be burned, or to be beheaded, at thepleasure of the king. He decided that she should be beheaded. 

The execution was to take place in a little green area within the Tower. The platform was erected here, and the block placed upon it, the wholebeing covered with a black cloth, as usual on such occasions. On themorning of the fatal day, Anne sent for the constable of the Tower tocome in and receive her dying protestations that she was innocent of thecrimes alleged against her. She told him that she understood that shewas not to die until 12 o'clock, and that she was sorry for it, for shewished to have it over. The constable told her the pain would be veryslight and momentary. "Yes, " she rejoined, "I am told that a veryskillful executioner is provided, and my neck is very slender. "

At the appointed hour she was led out into the court-yard where theexecution was to take place. There were about twenty persons present, all officers of state or of the city of London. The bodily sufferingattendant upon the execution was very soon over, for the slender neckwas severed at a single blow, and probably all sensibility to painimmediately ceased. Still, the lips and the eyes were observed to moveand quiver for a few seconds after the separation of the head from thebody. It was a relief, however, to the spectators when this strange andunnatural prolongation of the mysterious functions of life came to anend. 

No coffin had been provided. They found, however, an old wooden chest, made to contain arrows, lying in one of the apartments of the tower, which they used instead. They first laid the decapitated trunk withinit, and then adjusted the dissevered head to its place, as if vainlyattempting to repair the irretrievable injury they had done. Theyhurried the body, thus enshrined, to its burial in a chapel, which wasalso within the tower, doing all with such dispatch that the whole wasfinished before the clock struck twelve; and the next day the unfeelingmonster who was the author of this dreadful deed was publicly married tohis new favorite, Jane Seymour. 

The king had not merely procured Anne's personal condemnation; he hadalso obtained a decree annulling his marriage with her, on the ground ofher having been, as he attempted to prove, previously affianced toanother man. This was, obviously, a mere pretense. The object was to cutoff Elizabeth's rights to inherit the crown, by making his marriage withher mother void. Thus was the little princess left motherless andfriendless when only three years old. 

CHAPTER II. 

THE CHILDHOOD OF A PRINCESS. 

1536-1548

Elizabeth's condition at the death of her mother. --Herresidence. --Letter of Lady Bryan, Elizabeth's governess. --Conclusion ofletter. --Troubles and trials of infancy. --Birth of Edward. --The kingreconciled to his daughters. --Death of King Henry. --His children. --KingHenry's violence. --The order of succession. --Elizabeth's troubles. --Thetwo Seymours. --The queen dowager's marriage. --The Seymoursquarrel. --Somerset's power and influence. --Jealousies andquarrels. --Mary Queen of Scots. --Marriage schemes. --Seymour'spromotion. --Jane Grey. --Family quarrels. --Death of the queendowager. --Seymour's schemes. --Seymour's arrest. --His trial andattainder. --Seymour beheaded. --Elizabeth's trials. --Elizabeth'sfirmness. --Lady Tyrwhitt. --Elizabeth's sufferings. --Her fidelity toher friends. 

Elizabeth was about three years old at the death of her mother. She wasa princess, but she was left in a very forlorn and desolate condition. She was not, however, entirely abandoned. Her claims to inherit thecrown had been set aside, but then she was, as all admitted, thedaughter of the king, and she must, of course, be the object of acertain degree of consideration and ceremony. It would be entirelyinconsistent with the notions of royal dignity which then prevailed tohave her treated like an ordinary child. 

She had a residence assigned her at a place called Hunsdon, and was putunder the charge of a governess whose name was Lady Bryan. There is anancient letter from Lady Bryan, still extant, which was written to oneof the king's officers about Elizabeth, explaining her destitutecondition, and asking for a more suitable supply for her wants. It mayentertain the reader to see this relic, which not only illustrates ourlittle heroine's condition, but also shows how great the changes arewhich our language has undergone within the last three hundred years. The letter, as here given, is abridged a little from the original:

 My Lord:

 When your Lordship was last here, it pleased you to say that I should not be mistrustful of the King's Grace, nor of your Lordship, which word was of great comfort to me, and emboldeneth me now to speak my poor mind. 

 Now so it is, my Lord, that my Lady Elizabeth is put from the degree she was afore, and what degree she is at now[A] I know not but by hearsay. Therefore I know not how to order her, nor myself, nor none of hers that I have the rule of--that is, her women and her grooms. But I beseech you to be good, my Lord, to her and to all hers, and to let her have some rayment; for she has neither gown, nor kirtle, nor no manner of linen, nor foresmocks, nor kerchiefs, nor sleeves, nor rails, nor bodystitchets, nor mufflers, nor biggins. All these her Grace's wants I have driven off as long as I can, by my troth, but I can not any longer. Beseeching you, my Lord, that you will see that her Grace may have that is needful for her, and that I may know from you, in writing, how I shall order myself towards her, and whatever is the King's Grace's pleasure and yours, in every thing, that I shall do. 

 [Footnote A: That is, in what light the king and the government wish to have her regarded, and how they wish her to be treated. ]

 My Lord Mr. Shelton would have my Lady Elizabeth to dine and sup at the board of estate. Alas, my Lord, it is not meet for a child of her age to keep such rule yet. I promise you, my Lord, I dare not take upon me to keep her in health and she keep that rule; for there she shall see divers meats and fruits, and wines, which would be hard for me to restrain her Grace from it. You know, my Lord, there is no place of correction[B] there, and she is yet too young to correct greatly. I know well, and she be there, I shall never bring her up to the King's Grace's honor nor hers, nor to her health, nor my poor honesty. Wherefore, I beseech you, my Lord, that my Lady may have a mess of meat to her own lodging, with a good dish or two that is meet for her Grace to eat of. 

 [Footnote B: That is, _opportunity_ for correction. ]

 My Lady hath likewise great pain with her teeth, and they come very slowly forth, and this 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 have her Grace after another fashion than she is yet, so as I trust the King's Grace shall have great comfort in her Grace; for she is as toward a child, and as gentle of conditions, as ever I knew any in my life. Jesu preserve her Grace. 

 Good my Lord, have my Lady's Grace, and us that be her poor servants, in your remembrance. 

This letter evinces that strange mixture of state and splendor withdiscomfort and destitution, which prevailed very extensively in royalhouseholds in those early times. A part of the privation which Elizabethseems, from this letter, to have endured, was doubtless owing to therough manners of the day; but there is no doubt that she was also, atleast for a time, in a neglected and forsaken condition. The new queen, Jane Seymour, who succeeded Elizabeth's mother, had a son a year or twoafter her marriage. He was named Edward. Thus Henry had three children, Mary, Elizabeth, and Edward, each one the child of a different wife; andthe last of them, the son, appears to have monopolized, for a time, theking's affection and care. 

Still, the hostility which the king had felt for these queens insuccession was owing, as has been already said, to his desire to removethem out of his way, that he might be at liberty to marry again; and so, after the mothers were, one after another, removed, the hostilityitself, so far as the children were concerned, gradually subsided, andthe king began to look both upon Mary and Elizabeth with favor again. Heeven formed plans for marrying Elizabeth to persons of distinction inforeign countries, and he entered into some negotiations for thispurpose. He had a decree passed, too, at last, reversing the sentence bywhich the two princesses were cut off from an inheritance of the crown. Thus they were restored, during their father's life, to their properrank as royal princesses. 

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF EDWARD VI. ]

At last the king died in 1547, leaving only these three children, eachone the child of a different wife. Mary was a maiden lady, of aboutthirty-one years of age. She was a stern, austere, hard-hearted woman, whom nobody loved. She was the daughter of King Henry's first wife, Catharine of Aragon, and, like her mother, was a decided Catholic. 

Next came Elizabeth, who was about fourteen years of age. She was thedaughter of the king's second wife, Queen Anne Boleyn. She had beeneducated a Protestant. She was not pretty, but was a very lively andsprightly child, altogether different in her cast of character and inher manners from her sister Mary. 

Then, lastly, there was Edward, the son of Jane Seymour, the thirdqueen. He was about nine years of age at his father's death. He was aboy of good character, mild and gentle in his disposition, fond of studyand reflection, and a general favorite with all who knew him. 

It was considered in those days that a king might, in some sense, dispose of his crown by will, just as, at the present time, a man maybequeath his house or his farm. Of course, there were some limits tothis power, and the concurrence of Parliament seems to have beenrequired to the complete validity of such a settlement. King Henry theEighth, however, had little difficulty in carrying any law throughParliament which he desired to have enacted. It is said that, on oneoccasion, when there was some delay about passing a bill of his, he sentfor one of the most influential of the members of the House of Commonsto come into his presence. The member came and kneeled before him. "Ho, man!" said the king, "and will they not suffer my bill to pass?" He thencame up and put his hand upon the kneeling legislator's head, and added, "Get my bill passed to-morrow, or else by to-morrow this head of yoursshall be off. " The next day the bill was passed accordingly. 

King Henry, before he died, arranged the order of succession to thethrone as follows: Edward was to succeed him; but, as he was a minor, being then only nine years of age, a great council of state, consistingof sixteen persons of the highest rank, was appointed to govern thekingdom in his name until he should be _eighteen_ years of age, when hewas to become king in reality as well as in name. In case he should diewithout heirs, then Mary, his oldest sister, was to succeed him; and ifshe died without heirs, then Elizabeth was to succeed her. Thisarrangement went into full effect. The council governed the kingdom inEdward's name until he was sixteen years of age, when he died. ThenMary followed, and reigned as queen five years longer, and died withoutchildren, and during all this time Elizabeth held the rank of aprincess, exposed to a thousand difficulties and dangers from the plots, intrigues and conspiracies of those about her, in which, on account ofher peculiar position and prospects, she was necessarily involved. 

One of the worst of these cases occurred soon after her father's death. There were two brothers of Jane Seymour, who were high in King Henry'sfavor at the time of his decease. The oldest is known in history by histitle of the Earl of Hertford at first, and afterward by that of Duke ofSomerset. The youngest was called Sir Thomas Seymour. They were bothmade members of the government which was to administer the affairs ofstate during young Edward's minority. They were not, however, satisfiedwith any moderate degree of power. Being brothers of Jane Seymour, whowas Edward's mother, they were his uncles, of course, and the oldest onesoon succeeded in causing himself to be appointed protector. By thisoffice he was, in fact, king, all except in name. 

The younger brother, who was an agreeable and accomplished man, paid hisaddresses to the queen dowager, that is, to the widow whom King Henryleft, for the last of his wives was living at the time of his death. Sheconsented to marry him, and the marriage took place almost immediatelyafter the king's death--so soon in fact, that it was consideredextremely hasty and unbecoming. This queen dowager had two houses leftto her, one at Chelsea, and the other at Hanworth, towns some littledistance up the river from London. Here she resided with her newhusband, sometimes at one of the houses, and sometimes at the other. Theking had also directed, in his will, that the Princess Elizabeth shouldbe under her care, so that Elizabeth, immediately after her father'sdeath, lived at one or the other of these two houses under the care ofSeymour, who, from having been her uncle, became now, in some sense, herfather. He was a sort of uncle, for he was the brother of one of herfather's wives. He was a sort of father, for he was the husband ofanother of them. Yet, really, by blood, there was no relation betweenthem. 

The two brothers, Somerset and Seymour, quarreled. Each was veryambitious, and very jealous of the other. Somerset, in addition to beingappointed protector by the council, got a grant of power from the youngking called a patent. This commission was executed with great formality, and was sealed with the great seal of state, and it made Somerset, insome measure independent of the other nobles whom King Henry hadassociated with him in the government. By this patent he was placed insupreme command of all the forces by land and sea. He had a seat on theright hand of the throne, under the great canopy of state, and wheneverhe went abroad on public occasions, he assumed all the pomp and paradewhich would have been expected in a real king. Young Edward was whollyunder his influence, and did always whatever Somerset recommended him todo. Seymour was very jealous of all this greatness, and was contrivingevery means in his power to circumvent and supersede his brother. 

The wives, too, of these great statesmen quarreled. The Duchess ofSomerset thought she was entitled to the precedence, because she was thewife of the protector, who, being a kind of regent, she thought he wasentitled to have his wife considered as a sort of queen. The wife ofSeymour, on the other hand, contended that she was entitled to theprecedence as a real queen, having been herself the actual consort of areigning monarch. The two ladies disputed perpetually on this point, which, of course, could never be settled. They enlisted, however, ontheir respective sides various partisans, producing a great deal ofjealousy and ill will, and increasing the animosity of their husbands. 

All this time the celebrated Mary Queen of Scots was an infant in JanetSinclair's arms, at the castle of Stirling, in Scotland. King Henry, during his life, had made a treaty with the government of Scotland, bywhich it was agreed that Mary should be married to his son Edward assoon as the two children should have grown to maturity; but afterward, the government of Scotland having fallen from Protestant into Catholichands, they determined that this match must be given up. The Englishauthorities were very much incensed. They wished to have the marriagetake effect, as it would end in uniting the Scotch and English kingdoms;and the protector, when a time arrived which he thought was favorablefor his purpose, raised an army and marched northward to make war uponScotland, and compel the Scots to fulfill the contract of marriage. 

While his brother was gone to the northward, Seymour remained at home, and endeavored, by every means within his reach, to strengthen his owninfluence and increase his power. He contrived to obtain from thecouncil of government the office of lord high admiral, which gave himthe command of the fleet, and made him, next to his brother, the mostpowerful and important personage in the realm. He had, besides, as hasalready been stated, the custody and care of Elizabeth, who lived in hishouse; though, as he was a profligate and unprincipled man, thisposition for the princess, now fast growing up to womanhood, wasconsidered by many persons as of doubtful propriety. Still, she was atpresent only fourteen years old. There was another young lady likewisein his family, a niece of King Henry, and, of course, a second cousin ofElizabeth. Her name was Jane Grey. It was a very unhappy family. Themanners and habits of all the members of it, excepting Jane Grey, seemto have been very rude and irregular. The admiral quarreled with hiswife, and was jealous of the very servants who waited upon her. Thequeen observed something in the manners of her husband toward the youngprincess which made her angry both with him and her. Elizabeth resentedthis, and a violent quarrel ensued, which ended in their separation. Elizabeth went away, and resided afterward at a place called Hatfield. 

Very soon after this, the queen dowager died suddenly. People accusedSeymour, her husband, of having poisoned her, in order to make way forthe Princess Elizabeth to be his wife. He denied this, but heimmediately began to lay his plans for securing the hand of Elizabeth. There was a probability that she might, at some future time, succeed tothe crown, and then, if he were her husband, he thought he should be thereal sovereign, reigning in her name. 

Elizabeth had in her household two persons, a certain Mrs. Ashley, whowas then her governess, and a man named Parry, who was a sort oftreasurer. He was called the _cofferer_. The admiral gained thesepersons over to his interests, and, through them, attempted to opencommunications with Elizabeth, and persuade her to enter into hisdesigns. Of course, the whole affair was managed with great secrecy. They were all liable to a charge of treason against the government ofEdward by such plots, as his ministers and counselors might maintainthat their design was to overthrow Edward's government and makeElizabeth queen. They, therefore, were all banded together to keeptheir councils secret, and Elizabeth was drawn, in some degree, into thescheme, though precisely how far was never fully known. It was supposedthat she began to love Seymour, although he was very much older thanherself, and to be willing to become his wife. It is not surprisingthat, neglected and forsaken as she had been, she should have beeninclined to regard with favor an agreeable and influential man, whoexpressed a strong affection for her, and a warm interest in herwelfare. 

However this may be, Elizabeth was one day struck with consternation athearing that Seymour was arrested by order of his brother, who hadreturned from Scotland and had received information of his designs, andthat he had been committed to the Tower. He had a hurried and irregulartrial, or what, in those days, was called a trial. The council wentthemselves to the Tower, and had him brought before them and examined. He demanded to have the charges made out in form, and the witnessesconfronted with him, but the council were satisfied of his guilt withoutthese formalities. The Parliament immediately afterward passed a bill ofattainder against him, by which he was sentenced to death. His brother, the protector, signed the warrant for his execution, and he wasbeheaded on Tower Hill. 

The protector sent two messengers in the course of this affair toElizabeth, to see what they could ascertain from her about it. SirRobert Tyrwhitt was the name of the principal one of these messengers. When the cofferer learned that they were at the gate, he went in greatterror into his chamber, and said that he was undone. At the same time, he pulled off a chain from his neck, and the rings from his fingers, andthrew them away from him with gesticulations of despair. The messengersthen came to Elizabeth, and told her, falsely as it seems, with a viewto frighten her into confessions, that Mrs. Ashley and the cofferer wereboth secured and sent to the Tower. She seemed very much alarmed; shewept bitterly, and it was a long time before she regained her composure. She wanted to know whether they had confessed any thing. The protector'smessengers would not tell her this, but they urged her to confessherself all that had occurred; for, whatever it was, they said that theevil and shame would all be ascribed to the other persons concerned, andnot to her, on account of her youth and inexperience. But Elizabethwould confess nothing. The messengers went away, convinced, as theysaid, that she was guilty; they could see that in her countenance; andthat her silence was owing to her firm determination not to betray herlover. They sent word to the protector that they did not believe thatany body would succeed in drawing the least information from her, unlessit was the protector, or young King Edward himself. 

These mysterious circumstances produced a somewhat unfavorableimpression in regard to Elizabeth, and there were some instances, it wassaid, of light and trifling behavior between Elizabeth and Seymour, while she was in his house during the life-time of his wife. They tookplace in the presence of Seymour's wife, and seem of no consequence, except to show that dukes and princesses got into frolics sometimes inthose days as well as other mortals. People censured Mrs. Ashley for notenjoining a greater dignity and propriety of demeanor in her youngcharge, and the government removed her from her place. 

Lady Tyrwhitt, who was the wife of the messenger referred to above thatwas sent to examine Elizabeth, was appointed to succeed Mrs. Ashley. Elizabeth was very much displeased at this change. She told LadyTyrwhitt that Mrs. Ashley was her mistress, and that she had not doneany thing to make it necessary for the council to put more mistressesover her. Sir Robert wrote to the protector that she took the affair soheavily that she "wept all night, and lowered all the next day. " He saidthat her attachment to Mrs. Ashley was very strong; and that, if anything were said against the lord admiral, she could not bear to hear it, but took up his defense in the most prompt and eager manner. 

How far it is true that Elizabeth loved the unfortunate Seymour can nownever be known. There is no doubt, however, but that this whole affairwas a very severe trial and affliction to her. It came upon her when shewas but fourteen or fifteen years of age, and when she was in aposition, as well of an age, which renders the heart acutely sensitiveboth to the effect of kindness and of injuries. Seymour, by his death, was lost to her forever, and Elizabeth lived in great retirement andseclusion during the remainder of her brother's reign. She did not, however, forget Mrs. Ashley and Parry. On her accession to the throne, many years afterward, she gave them offices very valuable, consideringtheir station in life, and was a true friend to them both to the end oftheir days. 

CHAPTER III. 

LADY JANE GREY. 

1550-1553

Lady Jane Grey. --Her disposition and character. --LadyJane's parents. --Restraints put upon her. --Lady Jane'sattainments. --Character of her teacher. --Anecdote of Elizabeth andAylmer. --Lady Jane's attachment to Aylmer. --Elizabeth's studies. --RogerAscham. --Lady Jane's acquirements in Greek. --Her interview withAscham. --Lady Jane's intimacy with Edward. --The Earl ofNorthumberland. --Harsh treatment of Mary. --Decline of Edward'shealth. --Uncertainty in respect to the succession. --Strugglefor power. --Queen Elizabeth's family connections. --Explanationof the table. --King Henry's will. --Various claimants for thethrone. --Perplexing questions. --Power of Northumberland. --Hisschemes. --Marriage of Lady Jane. --Feelings of the people. --Effortsto set Mary aside. --Northumberland works on the young king. --Conductof the judges. --Pardon by anticipation. --Edward's deed ofsettlement. --Plan to entrap the princesses. --Death of Edward. --Escapeof the princesses. --Precautions of Mary. --Lady Jane proclaimedqueen. --Great excitement. --Public opinion in favor ofMary. --Northumberland taken prisoner. --He is beheaded. --Mary'striumphal procession. --Shared by Elizabeth. 

Among Elizabeth's companions and playmates in her early years was ayoung lady, her cousin, as she was often called, though she was reallythe daughter of her cousin, named Jane Grey, commonly called in historyLady Jane Grey. Her mother was the Marchioness of Dorset, and was thedaughter of one of King Henry the Eighth's sisters. King Henry had namedher as the next in the order of succession after his own children, thatis, after Edward his son, and Mary and Elizabeth his two daughters; and, consequently, though she was very young, yet, as she might one day beQueen of England, she was a personage of considerable importance. Shewas, accordingly, kept near the court, and shared, in some respects, theeducation and the studies of the two princesses. 

Lady Jane was about four years younger than the Princess Elizabeth, andthe sweetness of her disposition, united with an extraordinaryintellectual superiority, which showed itself at a very early period, made her a universal favorite. Her father and mother, the Marquis andMarchioness of Dorset, lived at an estate they possessed, calledBroadgate, in Leicestershire, which is in the central part of England, although they took their title from the county of Dorset, which is onthe southwestern coast. They were very proud of their daughter, andattached infinite importance to her descent from Henry VII. , and to thepossibility that she might one day succeed to the English throne. Theywere very strict and severe in their manners, and paid great attentionto etiquette and punctilio, as persons who are ambitious of rising inthe world are very apt to do. In all ages of the world, and among allnations, those who have long been accustomed to a high position are easyand unconstrained in their manners and demeanor, while those who havebeen newly advanced from a lower station, or who are anticipating oraspiring to such an advance, make themselves slaves to the rules ofetiquette and ceremony. It was thus that the father and mother of LadyJane, anticipating that she might one day become a queen, watched andguarded her incessantly, subjected her to a thousand unwelcomerestraints, and repressed all the spontaneous and natural gayety andsprightliness which belongs properly to such a child. 

She became, however, a very excellent scholar in consequence of thisstate of things. She had a private teacher, a man of great eminence forhis learning and abilities, and yet of a very kind and gentle spirit, which enabled him to gain a strong hold on his pupil's affection andregard. His name was John Aylmer. The Marquis of Dorset, Lady Jane'sfather, became acquainted with Mr. Aylmer when he was quite young, andappointed him, when he had finished his education, to come and reside inhis family as chaplain and tutor to his children. Aylmer afterwardbecame a distinguished man, was made Bishop of London, and held manyhigh offices of state under Queen Elizabeth, when she came to reign. Hebecame very much attached to Queen Elizabeth in the middle and latterpart of his life, as he had been to Lady Jane in the early part of it. Acurious incident occurred during the time that he was in the service ofElizabeth, which illustrates the character of the man. The queen wassuffering from the toothache, and it was necessary that the tooth shouldbe extracted. The surgeon was ready with his instruments, and severalladies and gentlemen of the royal household were in the queen's roomcommiserating her sufferings; but the queen dreaded the operation soexcessively that she could not summon fortitude enough to submit to it. Aylmer, after trying some time in vain to encourage her, took his seatin the chair instead of her, and said to the surgeon, "I am an old man, and have but few teeth to lose; but come, draw this one, and let hermajesty see how light a matter it is. " One would not have supposed thatElizabeth would have allowed this to be done; but she did, and, findingthat Aylmer made so light of the operation, she submitted to have itperformed upon herself. 

But to return to Lady Jane. She was very strongly attached to herteacher, and made great progress in the studies which he arranged forher. Ladies of high rank, in those days, were accustomed to devote greatattention to the ancient and modern languages. There was, in fact, agreat necessity then, as indeed there is now, for a European princess tobe acquainted with the principal languages of Europe; for the variousroyal families were continually intermarrying with each other, which ledto a great many visits, and other intercourse between the differentcourts. There was also a great deal of intercourse with the pope, inwhich the _Latin_ language was the medium of communication. Lady Janedevoted a great deal of time to all these studies, and made rapidproficiency in them all. 

The Princess Elizabeth was also an excellent scholar. Her teacher was avery learned and celebrated man, named Roger Ascham. She spoke Frenchand Italian as fluently as she did English. She also wrote and spokeLatin with correctness and readiness. She made considerable progress inGreek too. She could write the Greek character very beautifully, andcould express herself tolerably well in conversation in that language. One of her companions, a young lady of the name of Cecil, is said tohave spoken Greek as well as English. Roger Ascham took great interestin advancing the princess in these studies, and in the course of thesehis instructions he became acquainted with Lady Jane, and he praisesvery highly, in his letters, the industry and assiduity of Lady Jane insimilar pursuits. 

[Illustration: LADY JANE GREY AT STUDY. ]

One day Roger Ascham, being on a journey from the north of England toLondon, stopped to make a call at the mansion of the Marquis of Dorset. He found that the family were all away; they had gone off upon a huntingexcursion in the park. Lady Jane, however, had been left at home, andAscham went in to see her. He found her in the library reading Greek. Ascham examined her a little, and was very much surprised to find howwell acquainted with the language she had become, although she was thenonly about fifteen years old. He told her that he should like very muchto have her write him a letter in Greek, and this she readily promisedto do. He asked her, also, how it happened that, at her age, she hadmade such advances in learning. "I will tell you, " said she, "how it hashappened. One of the greatest benefits that God ever conferred upon mewas in giving me so sharp and severe parents and so gentle a teacher;for, when I am in the presence of either my father or mother, whether Ispeak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go; eat, drink, be merry or sad; besewing, playing, dancing, or doing any thing else, I must do it, as itwere, in just such weight, measure, and number, as perfectly aspossible, or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea, presently, sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobs, and other ways, which I will not name for the honor I bear my parents, that I amcontinually teased and tormented. And then, when the time comes for meto go to Mr. Aylmer, he teaches me so gently, so pleasantly, and withsuch fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time nothingwhile I am with him; and I am always sorry to go away from him, becausewhatsoever else I do but learning is full of grief, trouble, fear, andsuffering. "

Lady Jane Grey was an intimate friend and companion of the young KingEdward as long as he lived. Edward died when he was sixteen years ofage, so that he did not reach the period which his father had assignedfor his reigning in his own name. One of King Edward's most prominentand powerful ministers during the latter part of his life was the Earlof Northumberland. The original name of the Earl of Northumberland wasJohn Dudley. He was one of the train who came in the procession at theclose of the baptism of Elizabeth, carrying the presents. He was aProtestant, and was very friendly to Edward and to Lady Jane Grey, forthey were Protestants too. But his feelings and policy were hostile toMary, for she was a Catholic. Mary was sometimes treated very harshlyby him, and she was subjected to many privations and hardships onaccount of her religious faith. The government of Edward justified thesemeasures, on account of the necessity of promoting the Reformation, anddiscouraging popery by every means in their power. Northumberlandsupposed, too, that it was safe to do this, for Edward being very young, it was probable that he would live and reign a long time. It is truethat Mary was named, in her father's will, as his successor, if sheoutlived him, but then it was highly probable that she would not outlivehim, for she was several years older than he. 

All these calculations, however, were spoiled by the sudden failure ofEdward's health when he was sixteen years old. Northumberland was muchalarmed at this. He knew at once that if Edward should die, and Marysucceed him, all his power would be gone, and he determined to makedesperate efforts to prevent such a result. 

It must not be understood, however, that in coming to this resolution, Northumberland considered himself as intending and planning a deliberateusurpation of power. There was a real uncertainty in respect to thequestion who was the true and rightful heir to the crown. Northumberlandwas, undoubtedly, strongly biased by his interest, but he may have beenunconscious of the bias, and in advocating the mode of succession onwhich the continuance of his own power depended, he may have reallybelieved that he was only maintaining what was in itself rightful andjust. 

In fact, there is no mode which human ingenuity has ever yet devised fordetermining the hands in which the supreme executive of a nation shallbe lodged, which will always avoid doubt and contention. If this powerdevolves by hereditary descent, no rules can be made so minute and fullas that cases will not sometimes occur that will transcend them. If, onthe other hand, the plan of election be adopted, there will often betechnical doubts about a portion of the votes, and cases will sometimesoccur where the result will depend upon this doubtful portion. Thusthere will be disputes under any system, and ambitious men will seizesuch occasions to struggle for power. 

In order that our readers may clearly understand the nature of the planwhich Northumberland adopted, we present, on the following page, a sortof genealogical table of the royal family of England in the days ofElizabeth. 

 TABLE OF THE ROYAL FAMILY OF ENGLAND IN THE TIME OF ELIZABETH. ________________________________________________________________________ = 2. KING HENRY VIII. _Catharine of Aragon. _ = 4. QUEEN MARY. _Anne Boleyn. _ = 5. QUEEN ELIZABETH. _Jane Seymour. _ = 3. KING EDWARD VI. _Anne of Cleves. _ _Catharine Howard. _ _Catharine Parr. _

 = Margaret _James IV. Of Scotland_ = James V. Of Scotland = Mary Queen of Scots 1. KING HENRY VII. = 6. KING JAMES VI. OF SCOTLAND AND I. OF ENGLAND. _Earl Of Angus_ = Margaret Douglas = Earl of Lenox = Lord Darnley

 = Mary. _Charles Brandon, duke = Frances, marchioness of Suffolk_ of Dorset = Lady Jane Grey. = Eleanor. ________________________________________________________________________

 EXPLANATION. 

 This table gives the immediate descendants of Henry VII. , a descent being denoted by the sign =. The names of the persons whom they respectively married are in italics. Those who became sovereigns of England are in small capitals, and the order in which they reigned is denoted by the figures prefixed to their names. 

By examination of this table it will be seen that King Henry VII. Left ason and two daughters. The son was King Henry VIII. , and _he_ had threechildren. His third child was King Edward VI. , who was now about to die. The other two were the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth, who wouldnaturally be considered the next heirs after Edward; and besides, KingHenry had left a will, as has been already explained, confirming theirrights to the succession. This will he had made near the time of hisdeath; but it will be recollected that, during his life-time, both themarriages from which these princesses had sprung had been formallyannulled. His marriage with Catharine of Aragon had been annulled on oneplea, and that of Anne Boleyn on another. Both these decrees ofannulment had afterward been revoked, and the right of the princesses tosucceed had been restored, or attempted to be restored, by the will. Still, it admitted of a question, after all, whether Mary and Elizabethwere to be considered as the children of true and lawful wives or not. 

If they were not, then Lady Jane Grey was the next heir, for she wasplaced next to the princesses by King Henry the Eighth's will. Thiswill, for some reason or other, set aside a the descendants ofMargaret, who went to Scotland as the wife of James IV. Of that country. What right the king had thus to disinherit the children of his sisterMargaret was a great question. Among her descendants was Mary Queen ofScots, as will be seen by the table, and she was, at this time, therepresentative of that branch of the family. The friends of Mary Queenof Scots claimed that she was the lawful heir to the English throneafter Edward. They maintained that the marriage of Catharine, thePrincess Mary's mother, and also that of Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth'smother, had both been annulled, and that the will could not restorethem. They maintained, also, that the will was equally powerless insetting aside the claims of Margaret, her grandmother. Mary Queen ofScots, though silent now, advanced her claim subsequently, and madeElizabeth a great deal of trouble. 

Then there was, besides these, a third party, who maintained that KingHenry the Eighth's will was not effectual in legalizing again theannulled marriages, but that it was sufficient to set aside the claimsof Margaret. Of course, with them, Lady Jane Grey, who, as will be seenby the table, was the representative of the _second_ sister of HenryVIII. , was the only heir. The Earl of Northumberland embraced this view. His motive was to raise Lady Jane Grey to the throne, in order toexclude the Princess Mary, whose accession he knew very well would bringall his greatness to a very sudden end. 

The Earl of Northumberland was at this time the principal ministerof the young king. The protector Somerset had fallen long ago. Northumberland, whose name was then John Dudley, had supplanted him, andhad acquired so great influence and power at court that almost everything seemed to be at his disposal. He was, however, generally hated bythe other courtiers and by the nation. Men who gain the confidence of ayoung or feeble-minded prince, so as to wield a great power not properlytheir own, are almost always odious. It was expected, however, that hiscareer would be soon brought to an end, as all knew that King Edwardmust die, and it was generally understood that Mary was to succeed him. 

Northumberland, however, was very anxious to devise some scheme tocontinue his power, and in revolving the subject in his mind, heconceived of plans which seemed to promise not only to continue, butalso greatly to increase it. His scheme was to have the princesses'claims set aside, and Lady Jane Grey raised to the throne. He hadseveral sons. One of them was young, handsome, and accomplished. Hethought of proposing him to Lady Jane's father as the husband of LadyJane, and, to induce the marquis to consent to this plan, he promised toobtain a dukedom for him by means of his influence with the king. Themarquis agreed to the proposal. Lady Jane did not object to the husbandthey offered her. The dukedom was obtained, and the marriage, togetherwith two others which Northumberland had arranged to strengthen hisinfluence, were celebrated, all on the same day, with great festivitiesand rejoicings. The people looked on moodily, jealous and displeased, though they had no open ground of displeasure, except that it wasunsuitable to have such scenes of gayety and rejoicing among the highofficers of the court while the young monarch himself was lying upon hisdying bed. They did not yet know that it was Northumberland's plan toraise his new daughter-in-law to the throne. 

Northumberland thought it would greatly increase his prospect of successif he could obtain some act of acknowledgment of Lady Jane's claims tothe crown before Edward died. An opportunity soon occurred for effectingthis purpose. One day, as he was sitting by young Edward's bedside, heturned the conversation to the subject of the Reformation, which hadmade great progress during Edward's reign, and he led Edward on in theconversation, until he remarked that it was a great pity to have thework all undone by Mary's accession, for she was a Catholic, and would, of course, endeavor to bring the country back again under the spiritualdominion of Rome. Northumberland then told him that there was one way, and one way only, to avert such a calamity, and that was to make LadyJane his heir instead of Mary. 

King Edward was a very thoughtful, considerate, and conscientious boy, and was very desirous of doing what he considered his duty. He thoughtit was his duty to do all in his power to sustain the Reformation, andto prevent the Catholic power from gaining ascendency in England again. He was, therefore, easily persuaded to accede to Northumberland's plan, especially as he was himself strongly attached to Lady Jane, who hadoften been his playmate and companion. 

The king accordingly sent for three judges of the realm, and directedthem to draw up a deed of assignment, by which the crown was to beconveyed to Lady Jane on the young king's death, Mary and Elizabethbeing alike excluded. The judges were afraid to do this; for, by KingHenry the Eighth's settlement of the crown, all those persons who shoulddo any thing to disturb the succession as he arranged it were declaredto be guilty of high treason. The judges knew very well, therefore, thatif they should do what the king required of them, and then, if thefriends of Lady Jane should fail of establishing her upon the throne, the end of the affair would be the cutting off of their own heads in theTower. They represented this to the king, and begged to be excused fromthe duty that he required of them. Northumberland was in a great rage atthis, and seemed almost ready to break out against the judges in openviolence. They, however, persisted in their refusal to do what they wellknew would subject them to the pains and penalties of treason. 

Northumberland, finding that threats and violence would not succeed, contrived another mode of obviating the difficulty. He proposed toprotect the judges from any possible evil consequences of their act by aformal pardon for it, signed by the king, and sealed with the greatseal, so that, in case they were ever charged with treason, the pardonwould save them from punishment. This plan succeeded. The pardon wasmade out, being written with great formality upon a parchment roll, andsealed with the great seal. The judges then prepared and signed the deedof settlement by which the crown was given to Lady Jane, though, afterall, they did it with much reluctance and many forebodings. 

Northumberland next wanted to contrive some plan for getting theprincesses into his power, in order to prevent their heading anymovement in behalf of their own claims at the death of the king. He wasalso desirous of making such arrangements as to conceal the death of theking for a few days after it should take place, in order that he mightget Lady Jane and her officers in complete possession of the kingdombefore the demise of the crown should be generally known. For thispurpose he dismissed the regular physicians who had attended upon theking, and put him under the charge of a woman, who pretended that shehad a medicine that would certainly cure him. He sent, also, messengersto the princesses, who were then in the country north of London, requesting that they would come to Greenwich, to be near the sickchamber where their brother was lying, that they might cheer and comforthim in his sickness and pain. 

The princesses obeyed the summons. They each set out immediately on thejourney, and moved toward London on their way to Greenwich. In the meantime, Edward was rapidly declining. The change in the treatment whichtook place when his physicians left him, made him worse instead ofbetter. His cough increased, his breathing became more labored anddifficult; in a word, his case presented all the symptoms of approachingdissolution. At length he died. Northumberland attempted to keep thefact concealed until after the princesses should arrive, that he mightget them into his power. Some faithful friend, however, made all hasteto meet them, in order to inform them what was going on. In this wayMary received intelligence of her brother's death when she had almostreached London, and was informed, also, of the plans of Northumberlandfor raising Lady Jane to the throne. The two princesses were extremelyalarmed, and both turned back at once toward the northward again. Marystopped to write a letter to the council, remonstrating against theirdelay in proclaiming her queen, and then proceeded rapidly to a strongcastle at a place called Framlingham, in the county of Suffolk, on theeastern coast of England. She made this her head-quarters, because shesupposed that the people of that county were particularly friendly toher; and then, besides, it was near the sea, and, in case the course ofevents should turn against her, she could make her escape to foreignlands. It is true that the prospect of being fugitive and an exile wasvery dark and gloomy, but it was not so terrible as the idea of beingshut up a prisoner in the Tower, or being beheaded on a block fortreason. 

In the mean time, Northumberland went, at the head of a troop of hisadherents, to the residence of Lady Jane Grey, informed her of the deathof Edward, and announced to her their determination to proclaim herqueen. Lady Jane was very much astonished at this news. At first sheabsolutely refused the offered honor; but the solicitations and urgencyof Northumberland, and of her father and her young husband, at lengthprevailed. She was conducted to London, and instated in at least thesemblance of power. 

As the news of these transactions spread throughout the land, auniversal and strong excitement was produced, every body at once takingsides either for Mary or Lady Jane. Bands of armed men began toassemble. It soon became apparent, however, that, beyond the immediateprecincts of London, the country was almost unanimous for Mary. Theydreaded, it is true, the danger which they anticipated from her Catholicfaith, but still they had all considered it a settled point, since thedeath of Henry the Eighth, that Mary was to reign whenever Edward shoulddie; and this general expectation that she would be queen had passedinsensibly into an opinion that she ought to be. Considered strictly asa legal question, it was certainly doubtful which of the four claimantsto the throne had the strongest title; but the public were not disposedso to regard it. They chose, on the whole, that Mary should reign. Largemilitary masses consequently flocked to her standard. Elizabeth tooksides with her, and, as it was important to give as much public effectto her adhesion as possible, they furnished Elizabeth with a troop of athousand horsemen, at the head of which she rode to meet Mary and tenderher aid. 

Northumberland went forth at the head of such forces as he couldcollect, but he soon found that the attempt was vain. His troops forsookhim. The castles which had at first been under his command surrenderedthemselves to Mary. The Tower of London went over to her side. Finally, all being lost, Northumberland himself was taken prisoner, and all hisinfluential friends with him, and were committed to the Tower. Lady Janeherself too, together with her husband and father, were seized and sentto prison. 

Northumberland was immediately put upon his trial for treason. He wascondemned, and brought at once to the block. In fact, the whole affairmoved very promptly and rapidly on, from its commencement to itsconsummation. Edward the Sixth died on the 5th of July, and it was onlythe 22d of August when Northumberland was beheaded. The period for whichthe unhappy Lady Jane enjoyed the honor of being called a queen was ninedays. 

It was about a month after this that Mary passed from the Tower throughthe city of London in a grand triumphal procession to be crowned. Theroyal chariot, covered with cloth of golden tissue, was drawn by sixhorses most splendidly caparisoned. Elizabeth, who had aided hersister, so far as she could, in the struggle, was admitted to share thetriumph. She had a carriage drawn by six horses too, with cloth anddecorations of silver. They proceeded in this manner, attended andfollowed by a great cavalcade of nobles and soldiery, to WestminsterAbbey, where Mary took her seat with great formality upon her father'sthrone. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE SPANISH MATCH. 

1553-1555

Queen Mary's character. --Bigotry and firmness. --Suitors for Queen Mary'shand. --Emperor Charles the Fifth. --Character of his son Philip. --Theemperor proposes his son. --Mary pleased with the proposal. --Plans of theministers. --The people alarmed. --Opposition to the match. --The emperorfurnishes money. --The emperor's embassy. --Stipulations of the treaty ofmarriage. --Wyatt's rebellion. --Duke of Suffolk. --Wyatt advances towardLondon. --The queen retreats into the city. --Wyatt surrenders. --The Dukeof Suffolk sent to the Tower. --Beheading of Lady Jane Grey. --Her heroicfortitude. --Death of Suffolk. --Imprisonment of Elizabeth. --Execution ofWyatt. --The wedding plan proceeds. --Hostility of the sailors. --Mary'sfears and complainings. --Philip lands at Southampton. --Philip's proudand haughty demeanor. --The marriage ceremony. --Philip abandonsMary. --Her repinings. --Her death. 

When Queen Mary ascended the throne, she was a maiden lady not far fromthirty-five years of age. She was cold, austere, and forbidding in herappearance and manners, though probably conscientious and honest in herconvictions of duty. She was a very firm and decided Catholic, or, rather, she evinced a certain strict adherence to the principles of herreligious faith, which we generally call firmness when it is exhibitedby those whose opinions agree with our own, though we are very apt toname it bigotry in those who differ from us. 

For instance, when the body of young Edward, her brother, after hisdeath, was to be deposited in the last home of the English kings inWestminster Abbey, which is a very magnificent cathedral a little way upthe river from London, the services were, of course, conducted accordingto the ritual of the English Church, which was then Protestant. Mary, however, could not conscientiously countenance such services even bybeing present at them. She accordingly assembled her immediateattendants and personal friends in her own private chapel, andcelebrated the interment there, with Catholic priests, by a serviceconformed to the Catholic ritual. Was it a bigoted, or only a firm andproper, attachment to her own faith, which forbade her joining in thenational commemoration? The reader must decide; but, in deciding, he isbound to render the same verdict that he would have given if it had beena case of a Protestant withdrawing thus from Catholic forms. 

At all events, whether bigoted or not, Mary was doubtless sincere; butshe was so cold, and stern, and austere in her character, that she wasvery little likely to be loved. There were a great many persons whowished to become her husband, but their motives were to share hergrandeur and power. Among these persons, the most prominent one, and theone apparently most likely to succeed, was a prince of Spain. His namewas Philip. 

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF PHILIP OF SPAIN. ]

It was his father's plan, and not his own, that he should marry QueenMary. His father was at this time the most wealthy and powerful monarchin Europe. His name was Charles. He is commonly called in historyCharles V. Of Spain. He was not only King of Spain, but Emperor ofGermany. He resided sometimes at Madrid, and sometimes at Brussels inFlanders. His son Philip had been married to a Portuguese princess, buthis wife had died, and thus Philip was a widower. Still, he was onlytwenty-seven years of age, but he was as stern, severe, and repulsive inhis manners as Mary. His personal appearance, too, corresponded with hischaracter. He was a very decided Catholic also, and in his naturalspirit, haughty, ambitious, and domineering. 

The Emperor Charles, as soon as he heard of young Edward's death and ofMary's accession to the English throne, conceived the plan of proposingto her his son Philip for a husband. He sent over a wise and sagaciousstatesman from his court to make the proposition, and to urge it by suchreasons as would be most likely to influence Mary's mind, and the mindsof the great officers of her government. The embassador managed theaffair well. In fact, it was probably easy to manage it. Mary wouldnaturally be pleased with the idea of such a young husband, who, besidesbeing young and accomplished, was the son of the greatest potentate inEurope, and likely one day to take his father's place in that loftyelevation. Besides, Mary Queen of Scots, who had rival claims to QueenMary's throne, had married, or was about to marry, the son of the Kingof France, and there was a little glory in outshining her, by having fora husband a son of the King of Spain. It might, however, perhaps, be aquestion which was the greatest match; for, though the court of Pariswas the most brilliant, Spain, being at that time possessed of the goldand silver mines of its American colonies, was at least the _richest_country in the world. 

Mary's ministers, when they found that Mary herself liked the plan, fellin with it too. Mary had been beginning, very quietly indeed, but veryefficiently, her measures for bringing back the English government andnation to the Catholic faith. Her ministers told her now, however, thatif she wished to succeed in effecting this match, she must suspend allthese plans until the match was consummated. The people of England weregenerally of the Protestant faith. They had been very uneasy andrestless under the progress which the queen had been making in silencingProtestant preachers, and bringing back Catholic rites and ceremonies;and now, if they found that their queen was going to marry so rigid anduncompromising a Catholic as Philip of Spain, they would be doublyalarmed. She must suspend, therefore, for a time, her measures forrestoring papacy, unless she was willing to give up her husband. Thequeen saw that this was the alternative, and she decided on followingher ministers' advice. She did all in her power to quiet and calm thepublic mind, in order to prepare the way for announcing the proposedconnection. 

Rumors, however, began to be spread abroad that such a design wasentertained before Mary was fully prepared to promulgate it. Theserumors produced great excitement, and awakened strong opposition. Thepeople knew Philip's ambitious and overbearing character, and theybelieved that if he were to come to England as the husband of the queen, the whole government would pass into his hands, and, as he wouldnaturally be very much under the influence of his father, the connectionwas likely to result in making England a mere appendage to the alreadyvast dominions of the emperor. The House of Commons appointed acommittee of twenty members, and sent them to the queen, with a humblepetition that she would not marry a foreigner. The queen was muchdispleased at receiving such a petition, and she dissolved theParliament. The members dispersed, carrying with them every whereexpressions of their dissatisfaction and fear. England, they said, wasabout to become a province of Spain, and the prospect of such aconsummation, wherever the tidings went, filled the people of thecountry with great alarm. 

Queen Mary's principal minister of state at this time was a craftypolitician, whose name was Gardiner. Gardiner sent word to the emperorthat there was great opposition to his son's marriage in England, andthat he feared that he should not be able to accomplish it, unless theterms of the contract of marriage were made very favorable to the queenand to England, and unless the emperor could furnish him with a largesum of money to use as a means of bringing influential persons of therealm to favor it. Charles decided to send the money. He borrowed it ofsome of the rich cities of Germany, making his son Philip give his bondto repay it as soon as he should get possession of his bride, and of therich and powerful country over which she reigned. The amount thusremitted to England is said by the historians of those days to havebeen a sum equal to two millions of dollars. The bribery was certainlyon a very respectable scale. 

The emperor also sent a very magnificent embassy to London, with adistinguished nobleman at its head, to arrange the terms and contractsof the marriage. This embassy came in great state, and, during theirresidence in London, were the objects of great attention and parade. Theeclat of their reception, and the influence of the bribes, seemed tosilence opposition to the scheme. Open opposition ceased to beexpressed, though a strong and inveterate determination against themeasure was secretly extending itself throughout the realm. This, however, did not prevent the negotiations from going on. The terms wereprobably all fully understood and agreed upon before the embassy came, so that nothing remained but the formalities of writing and signing thearticles. 

Some of the principal stipulations of these articles were, that Philipwas to have the title of King of England jointly with Mary's title ofqueen. Mary was also to share with him, in the same way, his titles inSpain. It was agreed that Mary should have the exclusive power of theappointment of officers of government in England, and that no Spaniardsshould be eligible at all. Particular provisions were made in respect tothe children which might result from the marriage, as to how they shouldinherit rights of government in the two countries. Philip had one sonalready, by his former wife. This son was to succeed his father in thekingdom of Spain, but the other dominions of Philip on the Continentwere to descend to the offspring of this new marriage, in modes minutelyspecified to fit all possible cases which might occur. The making of allthese specifications, however, turned out to be labor lost, as Marynever had children. 

It was also specially agreed that Philip should not bring Spanish orforeign domestics into the realm, to give uneasiness to the Englishpeople; that he would never take the queen out of England, nor carry anyof the children away, without the consent of the English nobility; andthat, if the queen were to die before him, all his rights and claims ofevery sort, in respect to England, should forever cease. He also agreedthat he would never carry away any of the jewels or other property ofthe crown, nor suffer any other person to do so. 

These stipulations, guarding so carefully the rights of Mary and ofEngland, were intended to satisfy the English people, and remove theirobjections to the match. They produced some effect, but the hostilitywas too deeply seated to be so easily allayed. It grew, on the contrary, more and more threatening, until at length a conspiracy was formed by anumber of influential and powerful men, and a plan of open rebellionorganized. 

The leader in this plan was Sir Thomas Wyatt, and the outbreak whichfollowed is known in history as Wyatt's rebellion. Another of theleaders was the Duke of Suffolk, who, it will be recollected, was thefather of Lady Jane Grey. This led people to suppose that the plan ofthe conspirators was not merely to prevent the consummation of theSpanish match, but to depose Queen Mary entirely, and to raise the LadyJane to the throne. However this may be, an extensive and formidableconspiracy was formed. There were to have been several risings indifferent parts of the kingdom. They all failed except the one whichWyatt himself was to head, which was in Kent, in the southeastern partof the country. This succeeded so far, at least, that a considerableforce was collected, and began to advance toward London from thesouthern side. 

Queen Mary was very much alarmed. She had no armed force in readiness toencounter this danger. She sent messengers across the Thames and downthe river to meet Wyatt, who was advancing at the head of four thousandmen, to ask what it was that he demanded. He replied that the queen mustbe delivered up as his prisoner, and also the Tower of London besurrendered to him. This showed that his plan was to depose the queen. Mary rejected these proposals at once, and, having no forces to meetthis new enemy, she had to retreat from Westminster into the city ofLondon, and here she took refuge in the city hall, called the Guildhall, and put herself under the protection of the city authorities. Some ofher friends urged her to take shelter in the Tower; but she had moreconfidence, she said, in the faithfulness and loyalty of her subjectsthan in castle walls. 

Wyatt continued to advance. He was still upon the south side of theriver. There was but one bridge across the Thames, at London, in thosedays, though there are half a dozen now, and this one was so stronglybarricaded and guarded that Wyatt did not dare to attempt to cross it. He went up the river, therefore, to cross at a higher point; and thiscircuit, and several accidental circumstances which occurred, detainedhim so long that a considerable force had been got together to receivehim when he was ready to enter the city. He pushed boldly on into thenarrow streets, which received him like a trap or a snare. The citytroops hemmed up his way after he had entered. They barricaded thestreets, they shut the gates, and armed men poured in to take possessionof all the avenues. Wyatt depended upon finding the people of London onhis side. They turned, instead, against him. All hope of success in hisenterprise, and all possibility of escape from his own awful danger, disappeared together. A herald came from the queen's officer callingupon him to surrender himself quietly, and save the effusion of blood. He surrendered in an agony of terror and despair. 

The Duke of Suffolk learned these facts in another county, where he wasendeavoring to raise a force to aid Wyatt. He immediately fled, and hidhimself in the house of one of his domestics. He was betrayed, however, seized, and sent to the Tower. Many other prominent actors in theinsurrection were arrested, and the others fled in all directions, wherever they could find concealment or safety. 

Lady Jane's life had been spared thus far, although she had been, infact, guilty of treason against Mary by the former attempt to take thecrown. She now, however, two days after the capture of Wyatt, receivedword that she must prepare to die. She was, of course, surprised andshocked at the suddenness of this announcement; but she soon regainedher composure, and passed through the awful scenes preceding her deathwith a fortitude amounting to heroism, which was very astonishing in oneso young. Her husband was to die too. He was beheaded first, and she sawthe headless body, as it was brought back from the place of execution, before her turn came. She acknowledged her guilt in having attempted toseize her cousin's crown. As the attempt to seize this crown _failed_, mankind consider her technically guilty. If it had succeeded, Mary, instead of Jane, would have been the traitor who would have died forattempting criminally to usurp a throne. 

In the mean time Wyatt and Suffolk remained prisoners in the Tower. Suffolk was overwhelmed with remorse and sorrow at having been themeans, by his selfish ambition, of the cruel death of so innocent andlovely a child. He did not suffer this anguish long, however, for fivedays after his son and Lady Jane were executed, his head fell too fromthe block. Wyatt was reserved a little longer. 

He was more formally tried, and in his examination he asserted that thePrincess Elizabeth was involved in the conspiracy. Officers wereimmediately sent to arrest Elizabeth. She was taken to a royal palace atWestminster, just above London, called Whitehall, and shut up there inclose confinement, and no one was allowed to visit her or speak to her. The particulars of this imprisonment will be described more fully in thenext chapter. Fifty or sixty common conspirators, not worthy of beingbeheaded with an ax, were hanged, and a company of six hundred more werebrought, their hands tied, and halters about their necks, a miserablegang, into Mary's presence, before her palace, to be pardoned. Wyatt wasthen executed. When he came to die, however, he retracted what he hadalleged of Elizabeth. He declared that she was entirely innocent of anyparticipation in the scheme of rebellion. Elizabeth's friends believethat he accused her because he supposed that such a charge would beagreeable to Mary, and that he should himself be more leniently treatedin consequence of it, but that when at last he found that sacrificingher would not save him, his guilty conscience scourged him into doingher justice in his last hours. 

All obstacles to the wedding were now apparently removed; for, after thefailure of Wyatt's rebellion, nobody dared to make any open oppositionto the plans of the queen, though there was still abundance of secretdissatisfaction. Mary was now very impatient to have the marriagecarried into effect. A new Parliament was called, and its concurrence inthe plan obtained. Mary ordered a squadron of ships to be fitted out andsent to Spain, to convey the bridegroom to England. The admiral who hadcommand of this fleet wrote to her that the sailors were so hostile toPhilip that he did not think it was safe for her to intrust him to theirhands. Mary then commanded this force to be dismissed, in order toarrange some other way to bring Philip over. She was then full ofanxiety and apprehension lest some accident might befall him. His shipmight be wrecked, or he might fall into the hands of the French, whowere not at all well disposed toward the match. Her thoughts and herconversation were running upon this topic all the time. She wasrestless by day and sleepless by night, until her health was at lastseriously impaired, and her friends began really to fear that she mightlose her reason. She was very anxious, too, lest Philip should find herbeauty so impaired by her years, and by the state of her health, thatshe should fail, when he arrived, of becoming the object of his love. 

In fact, she complained already that Philip neglected her. He did notwrite to her, or express in any way the interest and affection which shethought ought to be awakened in his mind by a bride who, as sheexpressed it, was going to bring a kingdom for a dowry. This sort ofcold and haughty demeanor was, however, in keeping with theself-importance and the pride which then often marked the Spanishcharacter, and which, in Philip particularly, always seemed to beextreme. 

At length the time arrived for his embarkation. He sailed across the Bayof Biscay, and up the English Channel until he reached Southampton, afamous port on the southern coast of England. There he landed with greatpomp and parade. He assumed a very proud and stately bearing, which madea very unfavorable impression upon the English people who had been sentby Queen Mary to receive him. He drew his sword when he landed, andwalked about with it, for a time, in a very pompous manner, holding thesword unsheathed in his hand, the crowd of by-standers that hadcollected to witness the spectacle of the landing looking on all thetime, and wondering what such an action could be intended to intimate. It was probably intended simply to make them wonder. The authorities ofSouthampton had arranged it to come in procession to meet Philip, andpresent him with the keys of the gates, an emblem of an honorablereception into the city. Philip received the keys, but did not deign aword of reply. The distance and reserve which it had been customary tomaintain between the English sovereigns and their people was alwayspretty strongly marked, but Philip's loftiness and grandeur seemed tosurpass all bounds. 

Mary went two thirds of the way from London to the coast to meet thebridegroom. Here the marriage ceremony was performed, and the wholeparty came, with great parade and rejoicings, back to London, and Mary, satisfied and happy, took up her abode with her new lord in WindsorCastle. 

The poor queen was, however, in the end, sadly disappointed in herhusband. He felt no love for her; he was probably, in fact, incapable oflove. He remained in England a year, and then, growing weary of his wifeand of his adopted country, he went back to Spain again, greatly toQueen Mary's vexation and chagrin. They were both extremely disappointedin not having children. Philip's motive for marrying Mary was ambitionwholly, and not love; and when he found that an heir to inherit the twokingdoms was not to be expected, he treated his unhappy wife with greatneglect and cruelty and finally went away from her altogether. He cameback again, it is true, a year afterward, but it was only to compel Maryto join with him in a war against France. He told her that if she wouldnot do this, he would go away from England and never see her again. Maryyielded; but at length, harassed and worn down with useless regrets andrepinings, her mental sufferings are supposed to have shortened herdays. She died miserably a few years after her marriage, and thus theSpanish match turned out to be a very unfortunate match indeed. 

CHAPTER V. 

ELIZABETH IN THE TOWER. 

1554-1555

Elizabeth's position. --Legitimacy of Mary and Elizabeth's birth. --Maryand Elizabeth's differences. --Courteney's long imprisonment. --Mary'sattentions to Courteney. --Courteney's attentions to Elizabeth. --Mary'splan to get Elizabeth in her power. --Elizabeth's wariness. --Wyattaccuses Elizabeth. --Her seizure. --Elizabeth borne in a litter. --She isexamined and released. --Elizabeth again arrested. --Her letter toMary. --Situation of the Tower. --The Traitors' Gate. --Elizabeth conveyedto the Tower. --She is landed at the Traitors' Gate. --Elizabeth'sreception at the Tower. --Her unwillingness to enter. --Elizabeth'sindignation and grief. --She is closely imprisoned. --Elizabeth in thegarden. --The little child and the flowers. --Elizabeth greatlyalarmed. --Her removal from the Tower. --Elizabeth's fears. --Mary'sdesigns. --Elizabeth taken to Richmond. --Mary's plan formarrying her. --Elizabeth's journey to Woodstock. --Christmasfestivities. --Elizabeth persists in her innocence. --The torch-lightvisit. --Reconciliation between Elizabeth and Mary. --Elizabeth's release. 

The imprisonment of Queen Elizabeth in the Tower, which was brieflyalluded to in the last chapter, deserves a more full narration than waspossible to give to it there. She had retired from court some timebefore the difficulties about the Spanish match arose. It is true thatshe took sides with Mary in the contest with Northumberland and thefriends of Jane Grey, and she shared her royal sister's triumph in thepomp and parade of the coronation; but, after all, she and Mary couldnot possibly be very good friends. The marriages of their respectivemothers could not both have been valid. Henry the Eighth was soimpatient that he could not wait for a divorce from Catharine before hemarried Anne Boleyn. The only way to make the latter marriage legal, therefore, was to consider the former one null and void _from thebeginning_, and if the former one was not thus null and void, the lattermust be so. If Henry had waited for a divorce, then both marriages mighthave been valid, each for the time of its own continuance, and both theprincesses might have been lawful heirs; but as it was, neither of themcould maintain her own claims to be considered a lawful daughter, without denying, by implication at least, those of the other. They weretherefore, as it were, natural enemies. Though they might be outwardlycivil to each other, it was not possible that there could be any trueharmony or friendship between them. 

A circumstance occurred, too, soon after Mary's accession to the throne, which resulted in openly alienating the feelings of the two ladies fromeach other. There was a certain prisoner in the Tower of London, agentleman of high rank and great consideration, named Courteney, nowabout twenty-six years of age, who had been imprisoned in the Tower byKing Henry the Eighth when he was only twelve years old, on account ofsome political offenses of his father! He had thus been a close prisonerfor fourteen years at Mary's accession; but Mary released him. It wasfound, when he returned to society again, that he had employed hissolitary hours in cultivating his mind, acquiring knowledge, andavailing himself of all the opportunities for improvement which hissituation afforded, and that he came forth an intelligent, accomplished, and very agreeable man. The interest which his appearanceand manners excited was increased by the sympathy naturally felt for thesufferings that he had endured. In a word, he became a general favorite. The rank of his family was high enough for Mary to think of him for herhusband, for this was before the Spanish match was thought of. Marygranted him a title, and large estates, and showed him many otherfavors, and, as every body supposed, tried very hard to make animpression on his heart. Her efforts were, however, vain. Courteney gavean obvious preference to Elizabeth, who was young then, at least, if notbeautiful. This successful rivalry on the part of her sister filled thequeen's heart with resentment and envy, and she exhibited her chagrin byso many little marks of neglect and incivility, that Elizabeth'sresentment was roused in its turn, and she asked permission to retirefrom court to her residence in the country. Mary readily gave thepermission, and thus it happened that when Wyatt's rebellion first brokeout, as described in the last chapter, Elizabeth was living inretirement and seclusion at Ashridge, an estate of hers at some distancewest of London. As to Courteney, Mary found some pretext or other forsending him back again to his prison in the Tower. 

Mary was immediately afraid that the malcontents would join withElizabeth and attempt to put forward her name and her claims to thecrown, which, if they were to do, it would make their movement veryformidable. She was impressed immediately with the idea that it was ofgreat importance to get Elizabeth back again into her power. The mostprobable way of succeeding in doing this, she thought, was to write hera kind and friendly letter, inviting her to return. She accordinglywrote such a letter. She said in it that certain evil-disposed personswere plotting some disturbances in the kingdom, and that she thoughtthat Elizabeth was not safe where she was. She urged her, therefore, toreturn, saying that she should be truly welcome, and should be protectedagainst all danger if she would come. 

An invitation from a queen is a command, and Elizabeth would have feltbound to obey this summons, but she was sick when it came. At least shewas _not well_, and she was not much disposed to underrate her sicknessfor the sake of being able to travel on this occasion. The officers ofher household made out a formal certificate to the effect that Elizabethwas not able to undertake such a journey. 

In the mean time Wyatt's rebellion broke out; he marched to London, wasentrapped there and taken prisoner, as is related at length in the lastchapter. In his confessions he implicated the Princess Elizabeth, andalso Courteney, and Mary's government then determined that they mustsecure Elizabeth's person at all events, sick or well. They sent, therefore, three gentlemen as commissioners, with a troop of horse toattend them, to bring her to London. They carried the queen's litterwith them, to bring the princess upon it in case she should be foundunable to travel in any other way. 

This party arrived at Ashridge at ten o'clock at night. They insisted onbeing admitted at once into the chamber of Elizabeth, and there theymade known their errand. Elizabeth was terrified; she begged not to bemoved, as she was really too sick to go. They called in some physicians, who certified that she could be moved without danger to her life. Thenext morning they put her upon the litter, a sort of covered bed, formedlike a palanquin, and borne, like a palanquin, by men. It wastwenty-nine miles to London, and it took the party four days to reachthe city, they moved so slowly. This circumstance is mentioned sometimesas showing how sick Elizabeth must have been. But the fact is, there wasno reason whatever for any haste. Elizabeth was now completely in Mary'spower, and it could make no possible difference how long she was uponthe road. 

The litter passed along the roads in great state. It was a princess thatthey were bearing. As they approached London, a hundred men in handsomeuniforms went before, and an equal number followed. A great many peoplecame out from the city to meet the princess, as a token of respect. Thisdispleased Mary, but it could not well be prevented or punished. Ontheir arrival they took Elizabeth to one of the palaces at Westminster, called Whitehall. She was examined by Mary's privy council. Nothing wasproved against her, and, as the rebellion seemed now wholly at an end, she was at length released, and thus ended her first durance as apolitical prisoner. 

It happened, however, that other persons implicated in Wyatt's plot, when examined, made charges against Elizabeth in respect to it, andQueen Mary sent another force and arrested her again. She was taken nowto a famous royal palace, called Hampton Court, which is situated on theThames, a few miles above the city. She brought many of the officers ofher household and of her personal attendants with her; but one of thequeen's ministers, accompanied by two other officers, came soon after, and dismissed all her own attendants, and placed persons in the serviceof the queen in their place. They also set a guard around the palace, and then left the princess, for the night, a close prisoner, and yetwithout any visible signs of coercion, for all these guards might beguards of honor. 

The next day some officers came again, and told her that it had beendecided to send her to the Tower, and that a barge was ready at theriver to convey her. She was very much agitated and alarmed, and beggedto be allowed to send a letter to her sister before they took her away. One of the officers insisted that she should have the privilege, and theother that she should not. The former conquered in the contest, andElizabeth wrote the letter and sent it. It contained an earnest andsolemn disavowal of all participation in the plots which she had beencharged with encouraging, and begged Mary to believe that she wasinnocent, and allow her to be released. 

The letter did no good. Elizabeth was taken into the barge and conveyedin a very private manner down the river. Hampton Court is above London, several miles, and the Tower is just below the city. There are severalentrances to this vast castle, some of them by stairs from the river. Among these is one by which prisoners accused of great political crimeswere usually taken in, and which is called the Traitors' Gate. There wasanother entrance, also, from the river, by which a more honorableadmission to the fortress might be attained. The Tower was not solely aprison. It was often a place of retreat for kings and queens from anysudden danger, and was frequently occupied by them as a somewhatpermanent residence. There were a great number of structures within thewalls, in some of which royal apartments were fitted up with greatsplendor. Elizabeth had often been in the Tower as a resident or avisitor, and thus far there was nothing in the circumstances of the caseto forbid the supposition that they might be taking her there as a guestor resident now. She was anxious and uneasy, it is true, but she was notcertain that she was regarded as a prisoner. 

In the mean time, the barge, with the other boats in attendance, passeddown the river in the rain, for it was a stormy day, a circumstancewhich aided the authorities in their effort to convey their captive toher gloomy prison without attracting the attention of the populace. Besides, it was the day of some great religious festival, when thepeople were generally in the churches. This day had been chosen on thatvery account. The barge and the boats came down the river, therefore, without attracting much attention; they approached the landing-place atlast, and stopped at the flight of steps leading up from the water tothe Traitors' Gate. 

Elizabeth declared that she was no traitor, and that she would not belanded there. The nobleman who had charge of her told her simply, inreply, that she could not have her choice of a place to land. At thesame time, he offered her his cloak to protect her from the rain inpassing from the barge to the castle gate. Umbrellas had not beeninvented in those days. Elizabeth threw the cloak away from her invexation and anger. She found, however, that it was of no use to resist. She could not choose. She stepped from the barge out upon the stairs inthe rain, saying, as she did so, "Here lands as true and faithful asubject as ever landed a prisoner at these stairs. Before thee, O God, Ispeak it, having now no friends but thee alone. "

A large company of the warders and keepers of the castle had been drawnup at the Traitors' Gate to receive her, as was customary on occasionswhen prisoners of high rank were to enter the Tower. As these men werealways dressed in uniform of a peculiar antique character, such a paradeof them made quite an imposing appearance. Elizabeth asked what itmeant. They told her that that was the customary mode of receiving aprisoner. She said that if it was, she hoped that they would dispensewith the ceremony in her case, and asked that, for her sake, the menmight be dismissed from such attendance in so inclement a season. Themen blessed her for her goodness, and kneeled down and prayed that Godwould preserve her. 

She was extremely unwilling to go into the prison. As they approachedthe part of the edifice where she was to be confined, through thecourt-yard of the Tower, she stopped and sat down upon a stone, perhapsa step, or the curb stone of a walk. The lieutenant urged her to go inout of the cold and wet. "Better sitting here than in a worse place, "she replied, "for God knoweth whither you are bringing me. " However, sherose and went on. She entered the prison, was conducted to her room, andthe doors were locked and bolted upon her. 

Elizabeth was kept closely imprisoned for a month; after that, somelittle relaxation in the strictness of her seclusion was allowed. Permission was very reluctantly granted to her to walk every day in theroyal apartments, which were now unoccupied, so that there was nosociety to be found there, but it afforded her a sort of pleasure torange through them for recreation and exercise. But this privilege couldnot be accorded without very strict limitations and conditions. Twoofficers of the Tower and three women had to attend her; the windows, too, were shut, and she was not permitted to go and look out at them. This was rather melancholy recreation, it must be allowed, but it wasbetter than being shut up all day in a single apartment, bolted andbarred. 

[Illustration: ELIZABETH IN THE TOWER. ]

There was a small garden within the castle not far from the prison, andafter some time Elizabeth was permitted to walk there. The gates anddoors, however, were kept carefully closed, and all the prisoners, whose rooms looked into it from the surrounding buildings, were closelywatched by their respective keepers, while Elizabeth was in the garden, to prevent their having any communication with her by looks or signs. There were a great many persons confined at this time, who had beenarrested on charges connected with Wyatt's rebellion, and theauthorities seem to have been very specially vigilant to prevent thepossibility of Elizabeth's having communication with any of them. Therewas a little child of five years of age who used to come and visitElizabeth in her room, and bring her flowers. He was the son of one ofthe subordinate officers of the Tower. It was, however, at lastsuspected that he was acting as a messenger between Elizabeth andCourteney. Courteney, it will be recollected, had been sent by Mary backto the Tower again, so that he and Elizabeth were now suffering the samehard fate in neighboring cells. When the boy was suspected of bearingcommunications between these friends and companions in suffering, he wascalled before an officer and closely examined. His answers were all openand childlike, and gave no confirmation to the idea which had beenentertained. The child, however, was forbidden to go to Elizabeth'sapartment any more. He was very much grieved at this, and he watched forthe next time that Elizabeth was to walk in the garden, and putting hismouth to a hole in the gate, he called out, "Lady, I can not bring youany more flowers. "

After Elizabeth had been thus confined about three months, she was oneday terribly alarmed by the sounds of martial parade within the Tower, produced by the entrance of an officer from Queen Mary, named Sir ThomasBeddingfield, at the head of three hundred men. Elizabeth supposed thatthey were come to execute sentence of death upon her. She askedimmediately if the platform on which Lady Jane Grey was beheaded hadbeen taken away. They told her that it had been removed. She was thensomewhat relieved. They afterward told her that Sir Thomas had come totake her away from the Tower, but that it was not known where she was togo. This alarmed her again, and she sent for the constable of the Tower, whose name was Lord Chandos, and questioned him very closely to learnwhat they were going to do with her. He said that it had been decided toremove her from the Tower, and send her to a place called Woodstock, where she was to remain under Sir Thomas Beddingfield's custody, at aroyal palace which was situated there. Woodstock is forty or fifty milesto the westward of London, and not far from the city of Oxford. 

Elizabeth was very much alarmed at this intelligence. Her mind wasfilled with vague and uncertain fears and forebodings, which were nonethe less oppressive for being uncertain and vague. She had, however, noimmediate cause for apprehension. Mary found that there was no decisiveevidence against her, and did not dare to keep her a prisoner in theTower too long. There was a large and influential part of the kingdomwho were Protestants. They were jealous of the progress Mary was makingtoward bringing the Catholic religion in again. They abhorred theSpanish match. They naturally looked to Elizabeth as their leader andhead, and Mary thought that by too great or too long-continued harshnessin her treatment of Elizabeth, she would only exasperate them, andperhaps provoke a new outbreak against her authority. She determined, therefore, to remove the princess from the Tower to some less odiousplace of confinement. 

She was taken first to Queen Mary's court, which was then held atRichmond, just above London; but she was surrounded here by soldiers andguards, and confined almost as strictly as before. She was destined, however, here to another surprise. It was a proposition of marriage. Mary had been arranging a plan for making her the wife of a certainpersonage styled the Duke of Savoy. His dominions were on the confinesof Switzerland and France, and Mary thought that if her rival were oncemarried and removed there, all the troubles which she, Mary, hadexperienced on her account would be ended forever. She thought, too, that her sister would be glad to accept this offer, which opened such animmediate escape from the embarrassments and sufferings of her situationin England. But Elizabeth was prompt, decided, and firm in the rejectionof this plan. England was her home, and to be Queen of England the endand aim of all her wishes and plans. She had rather continue a captivefor the present in her native land, than to live in splendor as theconsort of a sovereign duke beyond the Rhone. 

Mary then ordered Sir Thomas Beddingfield to take her to Woodstock. Shetraveled on horseback, and was several days on the journey. Her passagethrough the country attracted great attention. The people assembled bythe wayside, expressing their kind wishes, and offering her gifts. Thebells were rung in the villages through which she passed. She arrivedfinally at Woodstock, and was shut up in the palace there. 

This was in July, and she remained in Woodstock more than a year, not, however, always very closely confined. At Christmas she was taken tocourt, and allowed to share in the festivities and rejoicings. On thisoccasion--it was the first Christmas after the marriage of Mary andPhilip--the great hall of the palace was illuminated with a thousandlamps. The princess sat at table next to the king and queen. She was onother occasions, too, taken away for a time, and then returned again toher seclusion at Woodstock. These changes, perhaps, only served to makeher feel more than ever the hardships of her lot. They say that one day, as she sat at her window, she heard a milk-maid singing in the fields, in a blithe and merry strain, and said, with a sigh, that she wished shewas a milk-maid too. 

King Philip, after his marriage, gradually interested himself in herbehalf, and exerted his influence to have her released; and Mary'sministers had frequent interviews with her, and endeavored to induce herto make some confession of guilt, and to petition Mary for release as amatter of mercy. They could not, they said, release her while shepersisted in her innocence, without admitting that they and Mary hadbeen in the wrong, and had imprisoned her unjustly. But the princess wasimmovable. She declared that she was perfectly innocent, and that shewould never, therefore, say that she was guilty. She would rather remainin prison for the truth, than be at liberty and have it believed thatshe had been guilty of disloyalty and treason. 

At length, one evening in May, Elizabeth received a summons to go to thepalace and visit Mary in her chamber. She was conducted there bytorch-light. She had a long interview with the queen, the conversationbeing partly in English and partly in Spanish. It was not verysatisfactory on either side. Elizabeth persisted in asserting herinnocence, but in other respects she spoke in a kind and conciliatorymanner to the queen. The interview ended in a sort of reconciliation. Mary put a valuable ring upon Elizabeth's finger in token of therenewal of friendship, and soon afterward the long period of restraintand confinement was ended, and the princess returned to her own estateat Hatfield in Hertfordshire, where she lived some time in seclusion, devoting herself, in a great measure, to the study of Latin and Greek, under the instructions of Roger Ascham. 

CHAPTER VI. 

ACCESSION TO THE THRONE

1555-1558

Mary's unhappy reign. --Unrequited love. --Mary's sufferings. --Herreligious principles. --Progress of Mary's Catholic zeal. --Hermoderation at first. --Mary's terrible persecution of theProtestants. --Burning at the stake. --The title of Bloody given toMary. --Mary and Elizabeth reconciled. --Scenes of festivity. --The warwith France. --Loss of Calais. --Murmurs of the English. --King ofSweden's proposal to Elizabeth. --Mary's energy. --Mary's privy councilalarmed. --Their perplexity. --Uncertainty about Elizabeth's futurecourse. --Her cautious policy. --Death of Mary. --Announcement toParliament. --Elizabeth proclaimed. --Joy of the people. --The TeDeum. --Elizabeth's emotions. --Cecil made secretary of state. --Hisfaithfulness. --Elizabeth's charge to Cecil. --Her journey toLondon. --Elizabeth's triumphant entrance into the Tower. --Thecoronation. --Pageants in the streets. --Devices. --Presentation of theBible. --The heavy purse. --The sprig of rosemary. --The wedding ring. 

If it were the story of Mary instead of that of Elizabeth that we werefollowing, we should have now to pause and draw a very melancholypicture of the scenes which darkened the close of the queen'sunfortunate and unhappy history. Mary loved her husband, but she couldnot secure his love in return. He treated her with supercilious coldnessand neglect, and evinced, from time to time, a degree of interest inother ladies which awakened her jealousy and anger. Of all the terribleconvulsions to which the human soul is subject, there is not one whichagitates it more deeply than the tumult of feeling produced by themingling of resentment and love. Such a mingling, or, rather, such aconflict, between passions apparently inconsistent with each other, isgenerally considered not possible by those who have never experiencedit. But it is possible. It is possible to be stung with a sense of theingratitude, and selfishness, and cruelty of an object, which, afterall, the heart will persist in clinging to with the fondest affection. Vexation and anger, a burning sense of injury, and desire for revenge, on the one hand, and feelings of love, resistless and uncontrollable, and bearing, in their turn, all before them, alternately get possessionof the soul, harrowing and devastating it in their awful conflict, andeven sometimes reigning over it, for a time, in a temporary but dreadfulcalm, like that of two wrestlers who pause a moment, exhausted in amortal combat, but grappling each other with deadly energy all the time, while they are taking breath for a renewal of the conflict. Queen Mary, in one of these paroxysms, seized a portrait of her husband and tore itinto shreds. The reader, who has his or her experience in affairs of theheart yet to come, will say, perhaps, her love for him then must havebeen all gone. No; it was at its height. We do not tear the portraits ofthose who are indifferent to us. 

At the beginning of her reign, and, in fact, during all the previousperiods of her life, Mary had been an honest and conscientious Catholic. She undoubtedly truly believed that the Christian Church ought to bebanded together in one great communion, with the Pope of Rome as itsspiritual head, and that her father had broken away from thiscommunion--which was, in fact, strictly true--merely to obtain a pretextfor getting released from her mother. How natural, under suchcircumstances, that she should have desired to return. She commenced, immediately on her accession, a course of measures to bring the nationback to the Roman Catholic communion. She managed very prudently andcautiously at first--especially while the affair of her marriage waspending--seemingly very desirous of doing nothing to exasperate thosewho were of the Protestant faith, or even to awaken their opposition. After she was married, however, her desire to please her Catholichusband, and his widely-extended and influential circle of Catholicfriends on the Continent, made her more eager to press forward the workof putting down the Reformation in England; and as her marriage was noweffected, she was less concerned about the consequences of anyopposition which she might excite. Then, besides, her temper, never verysweet, was sadly soured by her husband's treatment of her. She ventedher ill will upon those who would not yield to her wishes in respect totheir religious faith. She caused more and more severe laws to bepassed, and enforced them by more and more severe penalties. The moreshe pressed these violent measures, the more the fortitude andresolution of those who suffered from them were aroused. And, on theother hand, the more they resisted, the more determined she became thatshe would compel them to submit. She went on from one mode of coercionto another, until she reached the last possible point, and inflicted themost dreadful physical suffering which it is possible for man to inflictupon his fellow-man. 

This worst and most terrible injury is to burn the living victim in afire. That a woman could ever order this to be done would seem to beincredible. Queen Mary, however, and her government, were so determinedto put down, at all hazards, all open disaffection to the Catholiccause, that they did not give up the contest until they had burnednearly three hundred persons by fire, of whom more than fifty werewomen, and _four were children_! This horrible persecution was, however, of no avail. Dissentients increased faster than they could be burned;and such dreadful punishments became at last so intolerably odious tothe nation that they were obliged to desist, and then the variousministers of state concerned in them attempted to throw off the blameupon each other. The English nation have never forgiven Mary for theseatrocities. They gave her the name of Bloody Mary at the time, and shehas retained it to the present day. In one of the ancient histories ofthe realm, at the head of the chapter devoted to Mary, there is placed, as an appropriate emblem of the character of her reign, the picture of aman writhing helplessly at a stake, with the flames curling around him, and a ferocious-looking soldier standing by, stirring up the fire. 

The various disappointments, vexations, and trials which Mary enduredtoward the close of her life, had one good effect; they softened theanimosity which she had felt toward Elizabeth, and in the end somethinglike a friendship seemed to spring up between the sisters. Abandoned byher husband, and looked upon with dislike or hatred by her subjects, anddisappointed in all her plans, she seemed to turn at last to Elizabethfor companionship and comfort. The sisters visited each other. FirstElizabeth went to London to visit the queen, and was received with greatceremony and parade. Then the queen went to Hatfield to visit theprincess, attended by a large company of ladies and gentlemen of thecourt, and several days were spent there in festivities and rejoicings. There were plays in the palace, and a bear-baiting in the court-yard, and hunting in the park, and many other schemes of pleasure. Thisrenewal of friendly intercourse between the queen and the princessbrought the latter gradually out of her retirement. Now that the queenbegan to evince a friendly spirit toward her, it was safe for others toshow her kindness and to pay her attention. The disposition to do thisincreased rapidly as Mary's health gradually declined, and it began tobe understood that she would not live long, and that, consequently, Elizabeth would soon be called to the throne. 

The war which Mary had been drawn into with France, by Philip's threatthat he would never see her again, proved very disastrous. The town ofCalais, which is opposite to Dover, across the straits, and, of course, on the French side of the channel, had been in the possession of theEnglish for two hundred years. It was very gratifying to English prideto hold possession of such a stronghold on the French shore; but nowevery thing seemed to go against Mary. Calais was defended by a citadelnearly as large as the town itself, and was deemed impregnable. Inaddition to this, an enormous English force was concentrated there. TheFrench general, however, contrived, partly by stratagem, and partly byoverpowering numbers of troops, and ships, and batteries of cannon, toget possession of the whole. The English nation were indignant at thisresult. Their queen and her government, so energetic in imprisoning andburning her own subjects at home, were powerless, it seemed, in copingwith their enemies abroad. Murmurs of dissatisfaction were heard everywhere, and Mary sank down upon her sick bed overwhelmed withdisappointment, vexation, and chagrin. She said that she should die, andthat if, after her death, they examined her body, they would find Calaislike a load upon her heart. 

In the mean time, it must have been Elizabeth's secret wish that shewould die, since her death would release the princess from all theembarrassments and restraints of her position, and raise her at once tothe highest pinnacle of honor and power. She remained, however, quietlyat Hatfield, acting in all things in a very discreet and cautiousmanner. At one time she received proposals from the King of Sweden thatshe would accept of his son as her husband. She asked the embassador ifhe had communicated the affair to Mary. On his replying that he had not, Elizabeth said that she could not entertain at all any such question, unless her sister were first consulted and should give her approbation. She acted on the same principles in every thing, being very cautious togive Mary and her government no cause of complaint against her, andwilling to wait patiently until her own time should come. 

Though Mary's disappointments and losses filled her mind with anguishand suffering, they did not soften her heart. She seemed to grow morecruel and vindictive the more her plans and projects failed. Adversityvexed and irritated, instead of calming and subduing her. She revivedher persecutions of the Protestants. She fitted out a fleet of a hundredand twenty ships to make a descent upon the French coast, and attempt toretrieve her fallen fortunes there. She called Parliament together andasked for more supplies. All this time she was confined to her sickchamber, but not considered in danger. The Parliament were debating thequestion of supplies. Her privy council were holding daily meetings tocarry out the plans and schemes which she still continued to form, andall was excitement and bustle in and around the court, when one day thecouncil was thunderstruck by an announcement that she was dying. 

They knew very well that her death would be a terrible blow to them. They were all Catholics, and had been Mary's instruments in the terriblepersecutions with which she had oppressed the Protestant faith. WithMary's death, of course they would fall. A Protestant princess wasready, at Hatfield, to ascend the throne. Every thing would be changed, and there was even danger that they might, in their turn, be sent to thestake, in retaliation for the cruelties which they had caused others tosuffer. They made arrangements to have Mary's death, whenever it shouldtake place, concealed for a few hours, till they could consider whatthey should do. 

There was _nothing_ that they could do. There was now no otherconsiderable claimant to the throne but Elizabeth, except Mary Queen ofScots, who was far away in France. She was a Catholic, it was true; butto bring her into the country and place her upon the throne seemed to bea hopeless undertaking. Queen Mary's counselors soon found that theymust give up their cause in despair. Any attempt to resist Elizabeth'sclaims would be high treason, and, of course, if unsuccessful, wouldbring the heads of all concerned in it to the block. 

Besides, it was not _certain_ that Elizabeth would act decidedly as aProtestant. She had been very prudent and cautious during Mary's reign, and had been very careful never to manifest any hostility to theCatholics. She never had acted as Mary had done on the occasion of herbrother's funeral, when she refused even to countenance with herpresence the national service because it was under Protestant forms. Elizabeth had always accompanied Mary to mass whenever occasionrequired; she had always spoken respectfully of the Catholic faith; andonce she asked Mary to lend her some Catholic books, in order that shemight inform herself more fully on the subject of the principles of theRoman faith. It is true, she acted thus not because there was any realleaning in her mind toward the Catholic religion; it was all merely awise and sagacious policy. Surrounded by difficulties and dangers as shewas during Mary's reign, her only hope of safety was in passing asquietly as possible along, and managing warily, so as to keep thehostility which was burning secretly against her from breaking out intoan open flame. This was her object in retiring so much from the courtand from all participation in public affairs, in avoiding all religiousand political contests, and spending her time in the study of Greek, andLatin, and philosophy. The consequence was, that when Mary died, nobodyknew certainly what course Elizabeth would pursue. Nobody had any strongmotive for opposing her succession. The council, therefore, after ashort consultation, concluded to do nothing but simply to send a messageto the House of Lords, announcing to them the unexpected death of thequeen. 

The House of Lords, on receiving this intelligence, sent for the Commonsto come into their hall, as is usual when any important communication isto be made to them either by the Lords themselves or by the sovereign. The chancellor, who is the highest civil officer of the kingdom inrespect to rank, and who presides in the House of Lords, clothed in amagnificent antique costume, then rose and announced to the Commons, standing before him, the death of the sovereign. There was a moment'ssolemn pause, such as propriety on the occasion of an announcement likethis required, all thoughts being, too, for a moment turned to thechamber where the body of the departed queen was lying. But thesovereignty was no longer there. The mysterious principle had fled withthe parting breath, and Elizabeth, though wholly unconscious of it, hadbeen for several hours the queen. The thoughts, therefore, of the augustand solemn assembly lingered but for a moment in the royal palace, whichhad now lost all its glory; they soon turned spontaneously, and witheager haste, to the new sovereign at Hatfield, and the lofty arches ofthe Parliament hall rung with loud acclamations, "God save QueenElizabeth, and grant her a long and happy reign. "

The members of the Parliament went forth immediately to proclaim the newqueen. There are two principal places where it was then customary toproclaim the English sovereigns. One of these was before the royalpalace at Westminster, and the other in the city of London, at a verypublic place called the Great Cross at Cheapside. The people assembledin great crowds at these points to witness the ceremony, and receivedthe announcement which the heralds made, with the most ardentexpressions of joy. The bells were every where rung; tables were spreadin the streets, and booths erected, bonfires and illuminations wereprepared for the evening, and every thing indicated a deep and universaljoy. 

In fact, this joy was so strongly expressed as to be even in some degreedisrespectful to the memory of the departed queen. There is a famousancient Latin hymn which has long been sung in England and on theContinent of Europe on occasions of great public rejoicing. It is calledthe _Te Deum_, or sometimes the _Te Deum Laudamus_. These last are thethree Latin words with which the hymn commences, and mean, _Thee, God, we praise_. They sung the _Te Deum_ in the churches of London on theSunday after Mary died. 

In the mean time, messengers from the council proceeded with all speedto Hatfield, to announce to Elizabeth the death of her sister, and herown accession to the sovereign power. The tidings, of course, filledElizabeth's mind with the deepest emotions. The oppressive sense ofconstraint and danger which she had endured as her daily burden for somany years, was lifted suddenly from her soul. She could not butrejoice, though she was too much upon her guard to express her joy. Shewas overwhelmed with a profound agitation, and, kneeling down, sheexclaimed in Latin, "It is the Lord's doing, and it is wonderful in oureyes. "

Several of the members of Mary's privy council repaired immediately toHatfield. The queen summoned them to attend her, and in their presenceappointed her chief secretary of state. His name was Sir William Cecil. He was a man of great learning and ability, and he remained in officeunder Elizabeth for forty years. He became her chief adviser andinstrument, an able, faithful, and indefatigable servant and friendduring almost the whole of her reign. His name is accordinglyindissolubly connected with that of Elizabeth in all the politicalevents which occurred while she continued upon the throne, and it will, in consequence, very frequently occur in the sequel of this history. Hewas now about forty years of age. Elizabeth was twenty-five. 

Elizabeth had known Cecil long before. He had been a faithful and truefriend to her in her adversity. He had been, in many cases, aconfidential adviser, and had maintained a secret correspondence withher in certain trying periods of her life. She had resolved, doubtless, to make him her chief secretary of state so soon as she should succeedto the throne. And now that the time had arrived, she instated himsolemnly in his office. In so doing, she pronounced, in the hearing ofthe other members of the council, the following charge:

 "I give you this charge that you shall be of my privy council, and content yourself to take pains for me and my realm. This judgment I have of you, that you will not be corrupted with any gift; and that you will be faithful to the state; and that, without respect of my private will, you will give me that counsel that you think best; and that, if you shall know any thing necessary to be declared to me of secrecy you shall show it to myself only; and assure yourself I will not fail to keep taciturnity therein. And therefore herewith I charge you. "

[Illustration: ELIZABETH'S PROGRESS TO LONDON. ]

It was about a week after the death of Mary before the arrangements werecompleted for Elizabeth's journey to London, to take possession of thecastles and palaces which pertain there to the English sovereigns. Shewas followed on this journey by a train of about a thousand attendants, all nobles or personages of high rank, both gentlemen and ladies. Shewent first to a palace called the Charter House, near London, whereshe stopped until preparations could be made for her formal and publicentrance into the Tower; not, as before, through the Traitors' Gate, aprisoner, but openly, through the grand entrance, in the midst ofacclamations as the proud and applauded sovereign of the mighty realmwhose capital the ancient fortress was stationed to defend. The streetsthrough which the gorgeous procession was to pass were spread with fine, smooth gravel; bands of musicians were stationed at intervals, anddecorated arches, and banners, and flags, with countless devices ofloyalty and welcome, and waving handkerchiefs, greeted her all the way. Heralds and other great officers, magnificently dressed, and mounted onhorses richly caparisoned, rode before her, announcing her approach, with trumpets and proclamations; while she followed in the train, mounted upon a beautiful horse, the object of universal homage. ThusElizabeth entered the Tower; and inasmuch as forgetting her friends is afault with which she can not justly be charged, we may _hope_, at least, that one of the first acts which she performed, after gettingestablished in the royal apartments, was to send for and reward thekind-hearted child who had been reprimanded for bringing her theflowers. 

The coronation, when the time arrived for it, was very splendid. Thequeen went in state in a sumptuous chariot, preceded by trumpeters andheralds in armor, and accompanied by a long train of noblemen, barons, and gentlemen, and also of ladies, all most richly dressed in crimsonvelvet, the trappings of the horses being of the same material. Thepeople of London thronged all the streets through which she was to pass, and made the air resound with shouts and acclamations. There weretriumphal arches erected here and there on the way, with a great varietyof odd and quaint devices, and a child stationed upon each, whoexplained the devices to Elizabeth as she passed, in English verse, written for the occasion. One of these pageants was entitled "The Seatof worthy Governance. " There was a throne, supported by figures whichrepresented the cardinal virtues, such as Piety, Wisdom, Temperance, Industry, Truth, and beneath their feet were the opposite vices, Superstition, Ignorance, Intemperance, Idleness, and Falsehood: thesethe virtues were trampling upon. On the throne was a representation ofElizabeth. At one place were eight personages dressed to represent theeight beatitudes pronounced by our Savior in his sermon on theMount--the meek, the merciful, &c. Each of these qualities wasingeniously ascribed to Elizabeth. This could be done with much morepropriety then than in subsequent years. In another place, an ancientfigure, representing Time, came out of a cave which had beenartificially constructed with great ingenuity, leading his daughter, whose name was Truth. Truth had an English Bible in her hands, which shepresented to Elizabeth as she passed. This had a great deal of meaning;for the Catholic government of Mary had discouraged the circulation ofthe Scriptures in the vernacular tongue. When the procession arrived inthe middle of the city, some officers of the city government approachedthe queen's chariot, and delivered to her a present of a very large andheavy purse filled with gold. The queen had to employ both hands inlifting it in. It contained an amount equal in value to two or threethousand dollars. 

The queen was very affable and gracious to all the people on the way. Poor women would come up to her carriage and offer her flowers, whichshe would very condescendingly accept. Several times she stopped hercarriage when she saw that any one wished to speak with her, or hadsomething to offer; and so great was the exaltation of a queen in thosedays, in the estimation of mankind, that these acts were considered byall the humble citizens of London as acts of very extraordinaryaffability, and they awakened universal enthusiasm. There was one branchof rosemary given to the queen by a poor woman in Fleet Street; thequeen put it up conspicuously in the carriage, where it remained all theway, watched by ten thousand eyes, till it got to Westminster. 

The coronation took place at Westminster on the following day. The crownwas placed upon the young maiden's head in the midst of a great throngof ladies and gentlemen, who were all superbly dressed, and who made thevast edifice in which the service was performed ring with theiracclamations and their shouts of "Long live the Queen!" During theceremonies, Elizabeth placed a wedding ring upon her finger with greatformality, to denote that she considered the occasion as the celebrationof her _espousal_ to the realm of England; she was that day a bride, andshould never have, she said, any other husband. She kept this, the onlywedding ring she ever wore, upon her finger, without once removing it, for more than forty years. 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE WAR IN SCOTLAND. 

1559-1560

Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots. --Their rivalry. --Character ofMary. --Character of Elizabeth. --Elizabeth's celebrity whileliving. --Interest in Mary when dead. --Real nature of the questionat issue between Mary and Elizabeth. --The two marriages. --One orthe other necessarily null. --Views of Mary's friends. --Views ofElizabeth's friends. --Circumstances of Henry the Eighth's firstmarriage. --The papal dispensation. --Doubts about it. --Englandturns Protestant. --The marriage annulled. --Mary in France. --Shebecomes Queen of France. --Mary's pretensions to the Englishcrown. --Elizabeth's fears. --Measures of Elizabeth. --Progress ofProtestantism in Scotland. --Difficulties in Scotland. --Elizabeth'sinterference. --Fruitless negotiations. --The war goes on. --TheFrench shut up in Leith. --Situation of the town. --The Englishvictorious. --The Treaty of Edinburgh. --Stipulations of thetreaty. --Mary refuses to ratify it. --Death of Mary's husband. --Shereturns to Scotland. 

Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots are strongly associated togetherin the minds of all readers of English history. They were cotemporarysovereigns, reigning at the same time over sister kingdoms. They werecousins, and yet, precisely on account of the family relationship whichexisted between them, they became implacable foes. The rivalry andhostility, sometimes open and sometimes concealed, was always in action, and, after a contest of more than twenty years, Elizabeth triumphed. Shemade Mary her prisoner, kept her many years a captive, and at lastclosed the contest by commanding, or at least allowing, her fallen rivalto be beheaded. 

Thus Elizabeth had it all her own way while the scenes of her life andof Mary's were transpiring, but since that time mankind have generallysympathized most strongly with the conquered one, and condemned theconqueror. There are several reasons for this, and among them is thevast influence exerted by the difference in the personal character ofthe parties. Mary was beautiful, feminine in spirit, and lovely. Elizabeth was talented, masculine, and plain. Mary was artless, unaffected, and gentle. Elizabeth was heartless, intriguing, andinsincere. With Mary, though her ruling principle was ambition, herruling passion was love. Her love led her to great transgressions andinto many sorrows, but mankind pardon the sins and pity the sufferingswhich are caused by love more readily than those of any other origin. With Elizabeth, ambition was the ruling principle, and the rulingpassion too. Love, with her, was only a pastime. Her transgressions werethe cool, deliberate, well-considered acts of selfishness and desire ofpower. During her life-time her success secured her the applauses of theworld. The world is always ready to glorify the greatness which risesvisibly before it, and to forget sufferings which are meekly andpatiently borne in seclusion and solitude. Men praised and honoredElizabeth, therefore, while she lived, and neglected Mary. But since thehalo and the fascination of the visible greatness and glory have passedaway, they have found a far greater charm in Mary's beauty andmisfortune than in her great rival's pride and power. 

There is often thus a great difference in the comparative interest wetake in persons or scenes, when, on the one hand, they are realitiesbefore our eyes, and when, on the other, they are only imaginings whichare brought to our minds by pictures or descriptions. The hardshipswhich it was very disagreeable or painful to bear, afford often greatamusement or pleasure in the recollection. The old broken gate which agentleman would not tolerate an hour upon his grounds, is a great beautyin the picture which hangs in his parlor. We shun poverty and distresswhile they are actually existing; nothing is more disagreeable to us;and we gaze upon prosperity and wealth with never-ceasing pleasure. Butwhen they are gone, and we have only the tale to hear, it is the storyof sorrow and suffering which possesses the charm. Thus it happened thatwhen the two queens were living realities, Elizabeth was the center ofattraction and the object of universal homage; but when they came to bethemes of history, all eyes and hearts began soon to turn instinctivelyto Mary. It was London, and Westminster, and Kenilworth that possessedthe interest while Elizabeth lived, but it is Holyrood and Loch Levennow. 

It results from these causes that Mary's story is read far morefrequently than Elizabeth's, and this operates still further to theadvantage of the former, for we are always prone to take sides with theheroine of the tale we are reading. All these considerations, which havehad so much influence on the judgment men form, or, rather, on thefeeling to which they incline in this famous contest, have, it must beconfessed, very little to do with the true merits of the case. And if wemake a serious attempt to lay all such considerations aside, and to lookinto the controversy with cool and rigid impartiality, we shall find itvery difficult to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. There are twoquestions to be decided. In advancing their conflicting claims to theEnglish crown, was it Elizabeth or Mary that was in the right? IfElizabeth was right, were the measures which she resorted to to secureher own rights, and to counteract Mary's pretensions, politicallyjustifiable? We do not propose to add our own to the hundred decisionswhich various writers have given to this question, but only to narratethe facts, and leave each reader to come to his own conclusions. 

The foundation of the long and dreadful quarrel between these royalcousins was, as has been already remarked, their consanguinity, whichmade them both competitors for the same throne; and as that throne was, in some respects, the highest and most powerful in the world, it is notsurprising that two such ambitious women should be eager and perseveringin their contest for it. By turning to the genealogical table on page68, where a view is presented of the royal family of England in the timeof Elizabeth, the reader will see once more what was the preciserelationship which the two queens bore to each other and to thesuccession. By this table it is very evident that Elizabeth was the trueinheritor of the crown, provided it were admitted that she was thelawful daughter and heir of King Henry the Eighth, and this depended onthe question of the validity of her father's marriage with his firstwife, Catharine of Aragon; for, as has been before said, he was marriedto Anne Boleyn before obtaining any thing like a divorce from Catharine;consequently, the marriage with Elizabeth's mother could not be legallyvalid, unless that with Catharine had been void _from the beginning_. The friends of Mary Queen of Scots maintained that it was not thusvoid, and that, consequently, the marriage with Anne Boleyn was null;that Elizabeth, therefore, the descendant of the marriage, was not, legally and technically, a daughter of Henry the Eighth, and, consequently, not entitled to inherit his crown; and that the crown, ofright, ought to descend to the next heir, that is, to Mary Queen ofScots herself. 

Queen Elizabeth's friends and partisans maintained, on the other hand, that the marriage of King Henry with Catharine was null and void fromthe beginning, because Catharine had been before the wife of hisbrother. The circumstances of this marriage were very curious andpeculiar. It was his father's work, and not his own. His father was KingHenry the Seventh. Henry the Seventh had several children, and amongthem were his two oldest sons, Arthur and Henry. When Arthur was aboutsixteen years old, his father, being very much in want of money, conceived the plan of replenishing his coffers by marrying his son to arich wife. He accordingly contracted a marriage between him andCatharine of Aragon, Catharine's father agreeing to pay him two hundredthousand crowns as her dowry. The juvenile bridegroom enjoyed the honorsand pleasures of married life for a few months, and then died. 

This event was a great domestic calamity to the king, not because hemourned the loss of his son, but that he could not bear the idea of theloss of the dowry. By the law and usage in such cases, he was bound notonly to forego the payment of the other half of the dowry, but he hadhimself no right to retain the half that he had already received. Whilehis son lived, being a minor, the father might, not improperly, hold themoney in his son's name; but when he died this right ceased, and asArthur left no child, Henry perceived that he should be obliged to payback the money. To avoid this unpleasant necessity, the king conceivedthe plan of marrying the youthful widow again to his second boy, Henry, who was about a year younger than Arthur, and he made proposals to thiseffect to the King of Aragon. 

The King of Aragon made no objection to this proposal, except that itwas a thing unheard of among Christian nations, or heard of only to becondemned, for a man or even a boy to marry his brother's widow. Alllaws, human and divine, were clear and absolute against this. Still, ifthe dispensation of the pope could be obtained, he would make noobjection. Catharine might espouse the second boy, and he would allowthe one hundred thousand crowns already paid to stand, and would alsopay the other hundred thousand. The dispensation was accordinglyobtained, and every thing made ready for the marriage. 

Very soon after this, however, and before the new marriage was carriedinto effect, King Henry the Seventh died, and this second boy, now theoldest son, though only about seventeen years of age, ascended thethrone as King Henry the Eighth. There was great discussion and debate, soon after his accession, whether the marriage which his father hadarranged should proceed. Some argued that no papal dispensation couldauthorize or justify such a marriage. Others maintained that a papaldispensation could legalize any thing; for it is a doctrine of theCatholic Church that the pope has a certain discretionary power over alllaws, human and divine, under the authority given to his greatpredecessor, the Apostle Peter, by the words of Christ: "Whatsoever thoushalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shaltloose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. "[C] Henry seems not to havepuzzled his head at all with the legal question; he wanted to have theyoung widow for his wife, and he settled the affair on that groundalone. They were married. 

[Footnote C: Matthew, xvi. 19]

Catharine was a faithful and dutiful spouse; but when, at last, Henryfell in love with Anne Boleyn, he made these old difficulties a pretextfor discarding her. He endeavored, as has been already related, toinduce the papal authorities to annul their dispensation; because theywould not do it, he espoused the Protestant cause, and England, as anation, seceded from the Catholic communion. The ecclesiastical andparliamentary authorities of his own realm then, being made Protestant, annulled the marriage, and thus Anne Boleyn, to whom he had previouslybeen married by a private ceremony, became legally and technically hiswife. If this annulling of his first marriage were valid, then Elizabethwas his heir--otherwise not; for if the pope's dispensation was tostand, then Catharine was a wife. Anne Boleyn would in that case, ofcourse, have been only a companion, and Elizabeth, claiming through her, a usurper. 

The question, thus, was very complicated. It branched into extensiveramifications, which opened a wide field of debate, and led to endlesscontroversies. It is not probable, however, that Mary Queen of Scots, or her friends, gave themselves much trouble about the legal points atissue. She and they were all Catholics, and it was sufficient for themto know that the Holy Father at Rome had sanctioned the marriage ofCatharine, and that that marriage, if allowed to stand, made her theQueen of England. She was at this time in France. She had been sentthere at a very early period of her life, to escape the troubles of hernative land, and also to be educated. She was a gentle and beautifulchild, and as she grew up amid the gay scenes and festivities of Paris, she became a very great favorite, being universally beloved. She marriedat length, though while she was still quite young, the son of the Frenchking. Her young husband became king himself soon afterward, on accountof his father's being killed, in a very remarkable manner, at atournament; and thus Mary, Queen of Scots before, became also Queen ofFrance now. All these events, passed over thus very summarily here, arenarrated in full detail in the History of Mary Queen of Scots pertainingto this series. 

While Mary was thus residing in France as the wife of the king, she wassurrounded by a very large and influential circle, who were Catholicslike herself, and who were also enemies of Elizabeth and of England, andglad to find any pretext for disturbing her reign. These persons broughtforward Mary's claim. They persuaded Mary that she was fairly entitledto the English crown. They awakened her youthful ambition, and excitedstrong desires in her heart to attain to the high elevation of Queen ofEngland. Mary at length assumed the title in some of her official acts, and combined the arms of England with those of Scotland in theescutcheons with which her furniture and her plate were emblazoned. 

When Queen Elizabeth learned that Mary was advancing such pretensions toher crown, she was made very uneasy by it. There was, perhaps, noimmediate danger, but then there was a very large Catholic party inEngland, and they would naturally espouse Mary's cause and they might, at some future time, gather strength so as to make Elizabeth a greatdeal of trouble. She accordingly sent an embassador over to France toremonstrate against Mary's advancing these pretensions. But she couldget no satisfactory reply. Mary would not disavow her claim toElizabeth's crown, nor would she directly assert it. Elizabeth, then, knowing that all her danger lay in the power and influence of her ownCatholic subjects, went to work, very cautiously and warily, but in avery extended and efficient way, to establish the Reformation, and toundermine and destroy all traces of Catholic power. She proceeded inthis work with great circumspection, so as not to excite opposition oralarm. 

In the mean time, the Protestant cause was making progress in Scotlandtoo, by its own inherent energies, and against the influence of thegovernment. Finally, the Scotch Protestants organized themselves, andcommenced an open rebellion against the regent whom Mary had left inpower while she was away. They sent to Elizabeth to come and aid them. Mary and her friends in France sent French troops to assist thegovernment. Elizabeth hesitated very much whether to comply with therequest of the rebels. It is very dangerous for a sovereign tocountenance rebellion in any way. Then she shrunk, too, from the expensewhich she foresaw that such an attempt would involve. To fit out afleet, and to levy and equip an army, and to continue the forces thusraised in action during a long and uncertain campaign, would cost alarge sum of money, and Elizabeth was constitutionally economical andfrugal. But then, on the other hand, as she deliberated upon the affairlong and, anxiously, both alone and with her council, she thought that, if she should so far succeed as to get the government of Scotland intoher power, she could compel Mary to renounce forever all claims to theEnglish crown, by threatening her, if she would not do it, with the lossof her own. 

Finally, she decided on making the attempt. Cecil, her wise and prudentcounselor, strongly advised it. He said it was far better to carry onthe contest with Mary and the French in one of their countries than inher own. She began to make preparations. Mary and the French government, on learning this, were alarmed in their turn. They sent word toElizabeth that for her to render countenance and aid to rebels in armsagainst their sovereign, in a sister kingdom, was wholly unjustifiable, and they remonstrated most earnestly against it. Besides making thisremonstrance, they offered, as an inducement of another kind, that ifshe would refrain from taking any part in the contest in Scotland, theywould restore to her the great town and citadel of Calais, which hersister had been so much grieved to lose. To this Elizabeth repliedthat, so long as Mary adhered to her pretensions to the English crown, she should be compelled to take energetic measures to protect herselffrom them; and as to Calais, the possession of a fishing town on aforeign coast was of no moment to her in comparison with the peace andsecurity of her own realm. This answer did not tend to close the breach. Besides the bluntness of the refusal of their offer, the French wereirritated and vexed to hear their famous sea-port spoken of socontemptuously. 

Elizabeth accordingly fitted out a fleet and an army, and sent themnorthward. A French fleet, with re-enforcements for Mary's adherents inthis contest, set sail from France at about the same time. It was a veryimportant question to be determined which of these two fleets should getfirst upon the stage of action. 

[Illustration: THE FIRTH OF FORTH WITH LEITH AND EDINBURGH IN THEDISTANCE. ]

In the mean time, the Protestant party in Scotland, or the rebels, asQueen Mary and her government called them, had had very hard work tomaintain their ground. There was a large French force already there, andtheir co-operation and aid made the government too strong for theinsurgents to resist. But, when Elizabeth's English army crossed thefrontier, the face of affairs was changed. The French forces retreatedin their turn. The English army advanced. The Scotch Protestants cameforth from the recesses of the Highlands to which they had retreated, and, drawing closer and closer around the French and the governmentforces, they hemmed them in more and more narrowly, and at last shutthem up in the ancient town of Leith, to which they retreated in searchof a temporary shelter, until the French fleet, with re-enforcements, should arrive. 

The town of Leith is on the shore of the Firth of Forth, not far fromEdinburgh. It is the port or landing-place of Edinburgh, in approachingit from the sea. It is on the southern shore of the firth, and Edinburghstands on higher land, about two miles south of it. Leith was stronglyfortified in those days, and the French army felt very secure there, though yet anxiously awaiting the arrival of the fleet which was torelease them. The English army advanced in the mean time, eager to getpossession of the city before the expected succors should arrive. TheEnglish made an assault upon the walls. The French, with desperatebravery, repelled it. The French made a sortie; that is, they rushed outof a sudden and attacked the English lines. The English concentratedtheir forces at the point attacked, and drove them back again. Thesestruggles continued, both sides very eager for victory, and bothwatching all the time for the appearance of a fleet in the offing. 

At length, one day, a cloud of white sails appeared rounding the pointof land which forms the southern boundary of the firth, and the Frenchwere thrown at once into the highest state of exultation and excitement. But this pleasure was soon turned into disappointment and chagrin byfinding that it was Elizabeth's fleet, and not theirs, which was cominginto view. This ended the contest. The French fleet never arrived. Itwas dispersed and destroyed by a storm. The besieged army sent out aflag of truce, proposing to suspend hostilities until the terms of atreaty could be agreed upon. The truce was granted. Commissioners wereappointed on each side. These commissioners met at Edinburgh, and agreedupon the terms of a permanent peace. The treaty, which is called inhistory the Treaty of Edinburgh, was solemnly signed by thecommissioners appointed to make it, and then transmitted to England andto France to be ratified by the respective queens. Queen Elizabeth'sforces and the French forces were then both, as the treaty provided, immediately withdrawn. The dispute, too, between the Protestants and theCatholics in Scotland was also settled, though it is not necessary forour purpose in this narrative to explain particularly in what way. 

There was one point, however, in the stipulations of this treaty whichis of essential importance in this narrative, and that is, that it wasagreed that Mary should relinquish all claims whatever to the Englishcrown so long as Elizabeth lived. This, in fact, was the essential pointin the whole transaction. Mary, it is true, was not present to agree toit; but the commissioners agreed to it in her name, and it wasstipulated that Mary should solemnly ratify the treaty as soon as itcould be sent to her. 

But Mary would not ratify it--at least so far as this last article wasconcerned. She said that she had no intention of doing any thing tomolest Elizabeth in her possession of the throne, but that as toherself, whatever rights might legally and justly belong to her, shecould not consent to sign them away. The other articles of the treatyhad, however, in the mean time, brought the war to a close, and both theFrench and English armies were withdrawn. Neither party had anyinclination to renew the conflict; but yet, so far as the great questionbetween Mary and Elizabeth was concerned, the difficulty was as far frombeing settled as ever. In fact, it was in a worse position than before;for, in addition to her other grounds of complaint against Mary, Elizabeth now charged her with dishonorably refusing to be bound by acompact which had been solemnly made in her name, by agents whom she hadfully authorized to make it. 

It was about this time that Mary's husband, the King of France, died, and, after enduring various trials and troubles in France, Maryconcluded to return to her own realm. She sent to Elizabeth to get asafe-conduct--a sort of permission allowing her to pass unmolestedthrough the English seas. Elizabeth refused to grant it unless Marywould first ratify the treaty of Edinburgh. This Mary would not do, butundertook, rather, to get home without the permission. Elizabeth sentships to intercept her; but Mary's little squadron, when they approachedthe shore, were hidden by a fog, and so she got safe to land. After thisthere was _quiet_ between Mary and Elizabeth for many years, but nopeace. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

ELIZABETH'S LOVERS. 

1560-1581

Claimants to the throne. --General character of Elizabeth'sreign. --Elizabeth's suitors. --Their motives. --Philip of Spainproposes. --His strange conduct. --Elizabeth declines Philip'sproposal. --Her reasons for so doing. --The English people wishElizabeth to be married. --Petition of the Parliament. --Elizabeth's"gracious" reply. --Elizabeth attacked with the small-pox. --Alarm ofthe country. --The Earl of Leicester. --His character. --Services ofCecil. --Elizabeth's attachment to Leicester. --Leicester's wife. --Hermysterious death. --Leicester hated by the people. --Variousrumors. --The torch-light conversation. --The servantsquarrel. --Splendid style of living. --Public ceremonies. --Elizabethrecommends Leicester to Mary Queen of Scots. --Mary marriesDarnley. --Elizabeth's visit to Kenilworth. --Leicester'smarriage. --Elizabeth sends him to prison. --Prosperity of Elizabeth'sreign. --The Duke of Anjou. --Catharine de Medici. --She proposes her sonto Elizabeth. --Quarrels of the favorites. --The shot. --The peopleoppose the match. --The arrangements completed. --The match brokenoff. --The duke's rage. --The duke's departure. --The farewell. 

Elizabeth was now securely established upon her throne. It is true thatMary Queen of Scots had not renounced her pretensions, but there was noimmediate prospect of her making any attempt to realize them, and verylittle hope for her that she would be successful, if she were toundertake it. There were other claimants, it is true, but their claimswere more remote and doubtful than Mary's. These conflicting pretensionswere likely to make the country some trouble after Elizabeth's death, but there was very slight probability that they would sensibly molestElizabeth's possession of the throne during her life-time, though theycaused her no little anxiety. 

The reign which Elizabeth thus commenced was one of the longest, mostbrilliant, and, in many respects, the most prosperous in the wholeseries presented to our view in the long succession of Englishsovereigns. Elizabeth continued a queen for forty-five years, during allwhich time she remained a single lady; and she died, at last, avenerable maiden, seventy years of age. 

It was not for want of lovers, or, rather, of admirers and suitors, thatElizabeth lived single all her days. During the first twenty years ofher reign, one half of her history is a history of matrimonial schemesand negotiations. It seemed as if all the marriageable princes andpotentates of Europe were seized, one after another, with a desire toshare her seat upon the English throne. They tried every possible meansto win her consent. They dispatched embassadors; they opened longnegotiations; they sent her ship-loads of the most expensive presents:some of the nobles of high rank in her own realm expended their vastestates, and reduced themselves to poverty, in vain attempts to pleaseher. Elizabeth, like any other woman, loved these attentions. Theypleased her vanity, and gratified those instinctive impulses of thefemale heart by which woman is fitted for happiness and love. Elizabethencouraged the hopes of those who addressed her sufficiently to keepthem from giving up in despair and abandoning her. And in one or twocases she seemed to come very near yielding. But it always happenedthat, when the time arrived in which a final decision must be made, ambition and desire of power proved stronger than love, and shepreferred continuing to occupy her lofty position by herself, alone. 

Philip of Spain, the husband of her sister Mary, was the first of thesesuitors. He had seen Elizabeth a good deal in England during hisresidence there, and had even taken her part in her difficulties withMary, and had exerted his influence to have her released from herconfinement. As soon as Mary died and Elizabeth was proclaimed, one ofher first acts was, as was very proper, to send an embassador toFlanders to inform the bereaved husband of his loss. It is a curiousillustration of the degree and kind of affection that Philip had borneto his departed wife, that immediately on receiving intelligence of herdeath by Elizabeth's embassador, he sent a special dispatch to his ownembassador in London to make a proposal to Elizabeth to take him for_her_ husband!

Elizabeth decided very soon to decline this proposal. She had ostensiblereasons, and real reasons for this. The chief ostensible reason was, that Philip was so inveterately hated by all the English people, andElizabeth was extremely desirous of being popular. She relied solely onthe loyalty and faithfulness of her Protestant subjects to maintain herrights to the succession, and she knew that if she displeased them bysuch an unpopular Catholic marriage, her reliance upon them must be verymuch weakened. They might even abandon her entirely. The reason, therefore, that she assigned publicly was, that Philip was a Catholic, and that the connection could not, on that account, be agreeable to theEnglish people. 

Among the real reasons was one of a very peculiar nature. It happenedthat there was an objection to her marriage with Philip similar to theone urged against that of Henry with Catharine of Aragon. Catharine hadbeen the wife of Henry's brother. Philip had been the husband ofElizabeth's sister. Now Philip had offered to procure the pope'sdispensation, by which means this difficulty would be surmounted. Butthen all the world would say, that if this dispensation could legalizethe latter marriage, the former must have been legalized by it, and thiswould destroy the marriage of Anne Boleyn, and with it all Elizabeth'sclaims to the succession. She could not, then, marry Philip, without, bythe very act, effectually undermining all her own rights to the throne. She was far too subtle and wary to stumble into such a pitfall as that. 

Elizabeth rejected this and some other offers, and one or two yearspassed away. In the mean time, the people of the country, though theyhad no wish to have her marry such a stern and heartless tyrant asPhilip of Spain, were very uneasy at the idea of her not being marriedat all. Her life would, of course, in due time, come to an end, and itwas of immense importance to the peace and happiness of the realm that, after her death, there should be no doubt about the succession. If shewere to be married and leave children, they would succeed to the thronewithout question; but if she were to die single and childless, theresult would be, they feared, that the Catholics would espouse the causeof Mary Queen of Scots, and the Protestants that of some Protestantdescendant of Henry VII. , and thus the country be involved in all thehorrors of a protracted civil war. 

The House of Commons in those days was a very humble council, convenedto discuss and settle mere internal and domestic affairs, and standingat a vast distance from the splendor and power of royalty, to which itlooked up with the profoundest reverence and awe. The Commons, at theclose of one of their sessions, ventured, in a very timid and cautiousmanner, to send a petition to the queen, urging her to consent, for thesake of the future peace of the realm, and the welfare of her subjects, to accept of a husband. Few single persons are offended at arecommendation of marriage, if properly offered, from whatever quarterit may come. The queen, in this instance, returned what was called avery gracious reply. She, however, very decidedly refused the request. She said that, as they had been very respectful in the form of theirpetition, and as they had confined it to general terms, withoutpresuming to suggest either a person or a time, she would not takeoffense at their well-intended suggestion, but that she had no design ofever being married. At her coronation, she was married, she said, to herpeople, and the wedding ring was upon her finger still. Her people werethe objects of all her affection and regard. She should never have anyother spouse. She said she should be well contented to have it engravedupon her tomb-stone, "Here lies a queen who lived and died a virgin. "

This answer silenced the Commons, but it did not settle the question inthe public mind. Cases often occur of ladies saying very positivelythat they shall never consent to be married, and yet afterward alteringtheir minds; and many ladies, knowing how frequently this takes place, sagaciously conclude that, whatever secret resolutions they may form, they will be silent about them, lest they get into a position from whichit will be afterward awkward to retreat. The princes of the Continentand the nobles of England paid no regard to Elizabeth's declaration, butcontinued to do all in their power to obtain her hand. 

One or two years afterward Elizabeth was attacked with the small-pox, and for a time was dangerously sick, in fact, for some days her life wasdespaired of, and the country was thrown into a great state of confusionand dismay. Parties began to form--the Catholics for Mary Queen ofScots, and the Protestants for the family of Jane Grey. Every thingportended a dreadful contest. Elizabeth, however, recovered; but thecountry had been so much alarmed at their narrow escape, that Parliamentventured once more to address the queen on the subject of her marriage. They begged that she would either consent to that measure, or, if shewas finally determined not to do that, that she would cause a law to bepassed, or an edict to be promulgated, deciding beforehand who wasreally to succeed to the throne in the event of her decease. 

Elizabeth would not do either. Historians have speculated a great dealupon her motives; all that is certain is the fact, she would not doeither. 

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE EARL OF LEICESTER. ]

But, though Elizabeth thus resisted all the plans formed for giving hera husband, she had, in her own court, a famous personal favorite, whohas always been considered as in some sense her lover. His name wasoriginally Robert Dudley, though she made him Earl of Leicester, and heis commonly designated in history by this latter name. He was a son ofthe Duke of Northumberland, who was the leader of the plot for placingLady Jane Grey upon the throne in the time of Mary. He was a veryelegant and accomplished man, and young, though already married. Elizabeth advanced him to high offices and honors very early in herreign, and kept him much at court. She made him her Master of Horse, butshe did not bestow upon him much real power. _Cecil_ was her greatcounselor and minister of state. He was a cool, sagacious, wary man, entirely devoted to Elizabeth's interests, and to the glory andprosperity of the realm. He was at this time, as has already beenstated, forty years of age, thirteen or fourteen years older thanElizabeth. Elizabeth showed great sagacity in selecting such a minister, and great wisdom in keeping him in power so long. He remained in herservice all his life, and died at last, only a few years beforeElizabeth, when he was nearly eighty years of age. 

Dudley, on the other hand, was just about Elizabeth's own age. In fact, it is said by some of the chronicles of the times that he was born onthe same day and hour with her. However this may be, he became a greatpersonal favorite, and Elizabeth evinced a degree and kind of attachmentto him which subjected her to a great deal of censure and reproach. 

She could not be thinking of him for her husband, it would seem, for hewas already married. Just about this time, however, a mysteriouscircumstance occurred, which produced a great deal of excitement, andhas ever since marked a very important era in the history of Leicesterand Elizabeth's attachment. It was the sudden and very singular death ofLeicester's wife. 

Leicester had, among his other estates, a lonely mansion in Berkshire, about fifty miles west of London. It was called Cumnor House. Leicester's wife was sent there, no one knew why; she went under thecharge of a gentleman who was one of Leicester's dependents, andentirely devoted to his will. The house, too, was occupied by a man whohad the character of being ready for any deed which might be required ofhim by his master. The name of Leicester's wife was Amy Robesart. 

In a short time news came to London that the unhappy woman was killed bya fall down stairs! The instantaneous suspicion darted at once intoevery one's mind that she had been murdered. Rumors circulated allaround the place where the death had occurred that she had beenmurdered. A conscientious clergyman of the neighborhood sent an accountof the case to London, to the queen's ministers, stating the facts, andurging the queen to order an investigation of the affair, but nothingwas ever done. It has accordingly been the general belief of mankindsince that time, that the unprincipled courtier destroyed his wife inthe vain hope of becoming afterward the husband of the queen. 

The people of England were greatly incensed at this transaction. Theyhad hated Leicester before, and they hated him now more inveteratelystill. Favorites are very generally hated; royal favorites always. He, however, grew more and more intimate with the queen, and every bodyfeared that he was going to be her husband. Their conduct was watchedvery closely by all the great world, and, as is usual in such cases, athousand circumstances and occurrences were reported busily from tongueto tongue, which the actors in them doubtless supposed passed unobservedor were forgotten. 

One night, for instance, Queen Elizabeth, having supped with Dudley, wasgoing home in her chair, lighted by torch-bearers. At the present day, all London is lighted brilliantly at midnight with gas, and ladies gohome from their convivial and pleasure assemblies in luxuriouscarriages, in which they are rocked gently along through broad andmagnificent avenues, as bright, almost, as day. Then, however, it wasvery different. The lady was borne slowly along through narrow, anddingy, and dangerous streets, with a train of torches before and behindher, dispelling the darkness a moment with their glare, and then leavingit more deep and somber than ever. On the night of which we arespeaking, Elizabeth, feeling in good humor, began to talk with some ofthe torch-bearers on the way. They were Dudley's men, and Elizabethbegan to praise their master. She said to one of them, among otherthings, that she was going to raise him to a higher position than any ofhis name had ever borne before. Now, as Dudley's father was a duke, which title denotes the highest rank of the English nobility, the maninferred that the queen's meaning was that she intended to marry him, and thus make him a sort of king. The man told the story boastingly toone of the servants of Lord Arundel, who was also a suitor of thequeen's. The servants, each taking the part of his master in therivalry, quarreled. Lord Arundel's man said that he wished that Dudleyhad been hung with his father, or else that somebody would shoot him inthe street with a _dag_. A dag was, in the language of those days, thename for a pistol. 

Time moved on, and though Leicester seemed to become more and more afavorite, the plan of his being married to Elizabeth, if any such wereentertained by either party, appeared to come no nearer to anaccomplishment. Elizabeth lived in great state and splendor, sometimesresiding in her palaces in or near London, and sometimes making royalprogresses about her dominions. Dudley, together with the otherprominent members of her court, accompanied her on these excursions, andobviously enjoyed a very high degree of personal favor. She encouraged, at the same time, her other suitors, so that on all the great publicoccasions of state, at the tilts and tournaments, at the plays--which, by-the-way, in those days were performed in the churches--on all theroyal progresses and grand receptions at cities, castles, anduniversities, the lady queen was surrounded always by royal or noblebeaux, who made her presents, and paid her a thousand compliments, andoffered her gallant attentions without number--all prompted by ambitionin the guise of love. They smiled upon the queen with a perpetualsycophancy, and gnashed their teeth secretly upon each other with ahatred which, unlike the pretended love, was at least honest andsincere. Leicester was the gayest, most accomplished, and most favoredof them all, and the rest accordingly combined and agreed in hating himmore than they did each other. 

Queen Elizabeth, however, never really admitted that she had any designof making Leicester, or Dudley, as he is indiscriminately called, herhusband. In fact, at one time she recommended him to Mary Queen of Scotsfor a husband. After Mary returned to Scotland, the two queens were, fora time, on good terms, as professed friends, though they were, in fact, all the time, most inveterate and implacable foes; but each, knowing howmuch injury the other might do her, wished to avoid exciting anyunnecessary hostility. Mary, particularly, as she found she could notget possession of the English throne during Elizabeth's life-time, concluded to try to conciliate her, in hopes to persuade her toacknowledge, by act of Parliament, her right to the succession after herdeath. So she used to confer with Elizabeth on the subject of her ownmarriage, and to ask her advice about it. Elizabeth did not wish to haveMary married at all, and so she always proposed somebody who she knewwould be out of the question. She at one time proposed Leicester, andfor a time seemed quite in earnest about it, especially so long as Maryseemed averse to it. At length, however, when Mary, in order to test hersincerity, seemed inclined to yield, Elizabeth retreated in her turn, and withdrew her proposals. Mary then gave up the hope of satisfyingElizabeth in any way and married Lord Darnley without her consent. 

Elizabeth's regard for Dudley, however, still continued. She made himEarl of Leicester, and granted him the magnificent castle of Kenilworth, with a large estate adjoining and surrounding it; the rents of the landsgiving him a princely income, and enabling him to live in almost royalstate. Queen Elizabeth visited him frequently in this castle. One ofthese visits is very minutely described by the chroniclers of the times. The earl made the most expensive and extraordinary preparations for thereception and entertainment of the queen and her retinue on thisoccasion. The moat--which is a broad canal filled with water surroundingthe castle--had a floating island upon it, with a fictitious personagewhom they called the lady of the lake upon the island, who sung a songin praise of Elizabeth as she passed the bridge. There was also anartificial dolphin swimming upon the water, with a band of musicianswithin it. As the queen advanced across the park, men and women, instrange disguises, came out to meet her, and to offer her salutationsand praises. One was dressed as a sibyl, another like an Americansavage, and a third, who was concealed, represented an echo. This visitwas continued for nineteen days, and the stories of the splendidentertainments provided for the company--the plays, the bear-baitings, the fireworks, the huntings, the mock fights, the feastings andrevelries--filled all Europe at the time, and have been celebrated byhistorians and story-tellers ever since. The Castle of Kenilworth is nowa very magnificent heap of ruins, and is explored every year bythousands of visitors from every quarter of the globe. 

Leicester, if he ever really entertained any serious designs of beingElizabeth's husband at last gave up his hopes, and married anotherwoman. This lady had been the wife of the Earl of Essex. Her husbanddied very suddenly and mysteriously just before Leicester married her. Leicester kept the marriage secret for some time, and when it came atlast to the queen's knowledge she was exceedingly angry. She had himarrested and sent to prison. However, she gradually recovered from herfit of resentment, and by degrees restored him to her favor again. 

Twenty years of Elizabeth's reign thus passed away, and no one of allher suitors had succeeded in obtaining her hand. All this time hergovernment had been administered with much efficiency and power. AllEurope had been in great commotion during almost the whole period, onaccount of the terrible conflicts which were raging between theCatholics and the Protestants, each party having been doing its utmostto exterminate and destroy the other. Elizabeth and her government tookpart, very frequently, in these contests; sometimes by negotiations, andsometimes by fleets and armies, but always sagaciously and cautiously, and generally with great effect. In the mean time, however, the queen, being now forty-five years of age, was rapidly approaching the time whenquestions of marriage could no longer be entertained. Her lovers, or, rather, her suitors, had, one after another, given up the pursuit, anddisappeared from the field. One only seemed at length to remain, on thedecision of whose fate the final result of the great question of thequeen's marriage seemed to be pending. 

It was the Duke of Anjou. He was a French prince. His brother, who hadbeen the Duke of Anjou before him, was now King Henry III. Of France. His own name was Francis. He was twenty five years younger thanElizabeth, and he was only seventeen years of age when it was firstproposed that he should marry her. He was then Duke of Alençon. It washis mother's plan. She was the great Catharine de Medici, queen ofFrance, and one of the most extraordinary women, for her talents, hermanagement, and her power, that ever lived. Having one son upon thethrone of France, she wanted the throne of England for the other. Thenegotiation had been pending fruitlessly for many years, and now, in1581, it was vigorously renewed. The duke himself, who was at this timea young man of twenty-four or five, began to be impatient and earnest inhis suit. There was, in fact, one good reason why he should be so. Elizabeth was forty-eight, and, unless the match were soon concluded, the time for effecting it would be obviously forever gone by. 

[Illustration: THE BARGES ON THE RIVER. ]

He had never had an interview with the queen. He had seen pictures ofher, however, and he sent an embassador over to England to urge hissuit, and to convince Elizabeth how much he was in love with her charms. The name of this agent was Simier. He was a very polite and accomplishedman, and soon learned the art of winning his way to Elizabeth's favor. Leicester was very jealous of his success. The two favorites soonimbibed a terrible enmity for each other. They filled the court withtheir quarrels. The progress of the negotiation, however, went on, thepeople taking sides very violently, some for and some against theprojected marriage. The animosities became exceedingly virulent, untilat length Simier's life seemed to be in danger. He said that Leicesterhad hired one of the guards to assassinate him; and it is a fact, thatone day, as he and the queen, with other attendants, were making anexcursion upon the river, a shot was fired from the shore into thebarge. The shot did no injury except to wound one of the oarsmen, andfrighten all the party pretty thoroughly. Some thought the shot wasaimed at Simier, and others at the queen herself. It was afterwardproved, or supposed to be proved, that this shot was the accidentaldischarge of a gun, without any evil intention whatever. 

In the mean time, Elizabeth grew more and more interested in the idea ofhaving the young duke for her husband; and it seemed as if the maidenlyresolutions, which had stood their ground so firmly for twenty years, were to be conquered at last. The more, however, she seemed to approachtoward a consent to the measure, the more did all the officers of hergovernment, and the nation at large, oppose it. There were, in theirminds, two insuperable objections to the match. The candidate was aFrenchman, and he was a papist. The council interceded. Friendsremonstrated. The nation murmured and threatened. A book was publishedentitled "The Discovery of a gaping Gulf wherein England is like to beswallowed up by another French marriage, unless the Lord forbid the Bansby letting her see the Sin and Punishment thereof. " The author of it hadhis right hand cut off for his punishment. 

At length, after a series of most extraordinary discussions, negotiations, and occurrences, which kept the whole country in a stateof great excitement for a long time, the affair was at last all settled. The marriage articles, both political and personal, were all arranged. The nuptials were to be celebrated in six weeks. The duke came over ingreat state, and was received with all possible pomp and parade. Festivals and banquets were arranged without number, and in the mostmagnificent style, to do him and his attendants honor. At one of them, the queen took off a ring from her finger, and put it upon his, in thepresence of a great assembly, which was the first announcement to thepublic that the affair was finally settled. The news spread every wherewith great rapidity. It produced in England great consternation anddistress, but on the Continent it was welcomed with joy, and the greatEnglish alliance, now so obviously approaching, was celebrated withringing of bells, bonfires, and grand illuminations. 

And yet, notwithstanding all this, as soon as the obstacles were allremoved, and there was no longer opposition to stimulate thedetermination of the queen, her heart failed her at last, and shefinally concluded that she would not be married, after all. She sent forthe duke one morning to come and see her. What takes place preciselybetween ladies and gentlemen when they break off their engagements isnot generally very publicly known, but the duke came out from thisinterview in a fit of great vexation and anger. He pulled off thequeen's ring and threw it from him, muttering curses upon the ficklenessand faithlessness of women. 

Still Elizabeth would not admit that the match was broken off. Shecontinued to treat the duke with civility and to pay him many honors. Hedecided, however, to return to the Continent. She accompanied him apart of the way to the coast, and took leave of him with manyprofessions of sorrow at the parting, and begged him to come back soon. This he promised to do, but he never returned. He lived some timeafterward in comparative neglect and obscurity, and mankind consideredthe question of the marriage of Elizabeth as now, at last, settledforever. 

CHAPTER IX. 

PERSONAL CHARACTER. 

1560-1586

Opinions of Elizabeth's character. --The Catholics andProtestants. --Parties in England. --Elizabeth's wiseadministration. --Mary claims the English throne. --She is made prisonerby Elizabeth. --Various plots. --Execution of Mary. --The impossibilityof settling the claims of Mary and Elizabeth. --Elizabeth'sduplicity. --Her scheming to entrap Mary. --Maiden ladies. --Theirbenevolent spirit. --Elizabeth's selfishness and jealousy. --Themaids of honor. --Instance of Elizabeth's cruelty. --Herirritable temper. --Leicester's friend and the gentleman ofthe black rod. --Elizabeth in a rage. --Her invectives againstLeicester. --Leicester's chagrin. --Elizabeth's powers ofsatire. --Elizabeth's views of marriage. --Her insulting conduct. --TheDean of Christ Church and the Prayer Book. --Elizabeth's goodqualities. --Her courage. --The shot at the barge. --Elizabeth'svanity. --Elizabeth and the embassador. --The pictures. --Elizabeth'sfondness for pomp and parade. --Summary of Elizabeth's character. 

Mankind have always been very much divided in opinion in respect to thepersonal character of Queen Elizabeth, but in one point all have agreed, and that is, that in the management of public affairs she was a woman ofextraordinary talent and sagacity, combining, in a very remarkabledegree, a certain cautious good sense and prudence with the mostdetermined resolution and energy. 

She reigned about forty years, and during almost all that time the wholewestern part of the Continent of Europe was convulsed with the mostterrible conflicts between the Protestant and Catholic parties. Thepredominance of power was with the Catholics, and was, of course, hostile to Elizabeth. She had, moreover, in the field a very prominentcompetitor for her throne in Mary Queen of Scots. The foreign Protestantpowers were ready to aid this claimant, and there was, besides, in herown dominions a very powerful interest in her favor. The greatdivisions of sentiment in England, and the energy with which each partystruggled against its opponents, produced, at all times, a prodigiouspressure of opposing forces, which bore heavily upon the safety of thestate and of Elizabeth's government, and threatened them with continualdanger. The administration of public affairs moved on, during all thistime, trembling continually under the heavy shocks it was constantlyreceiving, like a ship staggering on in a storm, its safety depending onthe nice equilibrium between the shocks of the seas, the pressure of thewind upon the sails, and the weight and steadiness of the ballast below. 

During all this forty years it is admitted that Elizabeth and her wiseand sagacious ministers managed very admirably. They maintained theposition and honor of England, as a Protestant power, with greatsuccess; and the country, during the whole period, made great progressin the arts, in commerce, and in improvements of every kind. Elizabeth'sgreatest danger, and her greatest source of solicitude during her wholereign, was from the claims of Mary Queen of Scots. We have alreadydescribed the energetic measures which she took at the commencement ofher reign to counter act and head off, at the outset, these dangerouspretensions. Though these efforts were triumphantly successful at thetime, still the victory was not final. It postponed, but did notdestroy, the danger. Mary continued to claim the English throne. Innumerable plots were beginning to be formed among the Catholics, inElizabeth's own dominions, for making her queen. Foreign potentates andpowers were watching an opportunity to assist in these plans. At lastMary, on account of internal difficulties in her own land, fled acrossthe frontier into England to save her life, and Elizabeth made herprisoner. 

In England, to plan or design the dethronement of a monarch is, in a_subject_, high treason. Mary had undoubtedly designed the dethronementof Elizabeth, and was waiting only an opportunity to accomplish it. Elizabeth, consequently, condemned her as guilty of treason, in effect;and Mary's sole defense against this charge was that she was not asubject. Elizabeth yielded to this plea, when she first found Mary inher power, so far as not to take her life, but she consigned her to along and weary captivity. 

This, however, only made the matter worse. It stimulated the enthusiasmand zeal of all the Catholics in England, to have their leader, and asthey believed, their rightful queen, a captive in the midst of them, andthey formed continually the most extensive and most dangerous plots. These plots were discovered and suppressed, one after another, each oneproducing more anxiety and alarm than the preceding. For a time Marysuffered no evil consequences from these discoveries further than anincrease of the rigors of her confinement. At last the patience of thequeen and of her government was exhausted. A law was passed againsttreason, expressed in such terms as to include Mary in the liability forits dreadful penalties although she was not a subject, in case of anynew transgression; and when the next case occurred, they brought her totrial and condemned her to death. The sentence was executed in thegloomy castle of Fotheringay, where she was then confined. 

As to the question whether Mary or Elizabeth had the rightful title tothe English crown, it has not only never been settled, but from its verynature it can not be settled. It is one of those cases in which apeculiar contingency occurs which runs beyond the scope and reach ofall the ordinary principles by which analogous cases are tried, andleads to questions which can not be decided. As long as a hereditarysuccession goes smoothly on, like a river keeping within its banks, wecan decide subordinate and incidental questions which may arise; butwhen a case occurs in which we have the omnipotence of Parliament to setoff against the infallibility of the pope--the sacred obligations of awill against the equally sacred principles of hereditary succession--andwhen we have, at last, two contradictory actions of the same ultimateumpire, we find all _technical_ grounds of coming to a conclusion gone. We then, abandoning these, seek for some higher and more universalprinciples--essential in the nature of things, and thus independent ofthe will and action of man--to see if they will throw any light on thesubject. But we soon find ourselves as much perplexed and confounded inthis inquiry as we were before. We ask, in beginning the investigation, What is the ground and nature of the right by which _any king or queen_succeeds to the power possessed by his ancestors? And we give up indespair, not being able to answer even this first preliminary inquiry. 

Mankind have not, in their estimate of Elizabeth's character, condemnedso decidedly the substantial acts which she performed, as the duplicity, the false-heartedness, and the false pretensions which she manifested inperforming them. Had she said frankly and openly to Mary before theworld, if these schemes for revolutionizing England and placing yourselfupon the throne continue, your life must be forfeited, my own safety andthe safety of the realm absolutely demand it; and then had fairly, andopenly, and honestly executed her threat, mankind would have been silenton the subject, if they had not been satisfied. But if she had reallyacted thus, she would not have been Elizabeth. She, in fact, pursued avery different course. She maneuvered, schemed, and planned; shepretended to be full of the warmest affection for her cousin; shecontrived plot after plot, and scheme after scheme, to ensnare her; andwhen, at last, the execution took place, in obedience to her own formaland written authority, she pretended to great astonishment and rage. Shenever meant that the sentence should take effect. She filled England, France, and Scotland with the loud expressions of her regret, and shepunished the agents who had executed her will. This management was toprevent the friends of Mary from forming plans of revenge. 

This was her character in all things. She was famous for her falsepretensions and double dealings, and yet, with all her talents andsagacity, the disguise she assumed was sometimes so thin and transparentthat her assuming it was simply ridiculous. 

Maiden ladies, who spend their lives, in some respects, alone, oftenbecome deeply imbued with a kind and benevolent spirit, which seeks itsgratification in relieving the pains and promoting the happiness of allaround them. Conscious that the circumstances which have caused them tolead a single life would secure for them the sincere sympathy and theincreased esteem of all who know them, if delicacy and propriety allowedthem to be expressed, they feel a strong degree of self-respect, theylive happily, and are a continual means of comfort and joy to all aroundthem. This was not so, however, with Elizabeth. She was jealous, petulant, irritable. She envied others the love and the domesticenjoyments which ambition forbade her to share, and she seemed to takegreat pleasure in thwarting and interfering with the plans of others forsecuring this happiness. 

One remarkable instance of this kind occurred. It seems she wassometimes accustomed to ask the young ladies of the court--her maids ofhonor--if they ever thought about being married, and they, being cunningenough to know what sort of an answer would please the queen alwayspromptly denied that they did so. Oh no! they never thought about beingmarried at all. There was one young lady, however, artless and sincere, who, when questioned in this way, answered, in her simplicity, that sheoften thought of it, and that she should like to be married very much, if her father would only consent to her union with a certain gentlemanwhom she loved. "Ah!" said Elizabeth; "well, I will speak to your fatherabout it, and see what I can do. " Not long after this the father of theyoung lady came to court, and the queen proposed the subject to him. Thefather said that he had not been aware that his daughter had formed suchan attachment, but that he should certainly give his consent, withoutany hesitation, to any arrangement of that kind which the queen desiredand advised. "That is all, then, " said the queen; "I will do the rest. "So she called the young lady into her presence, and told her that herfather had given his free consent. The maiden's heart bounded with joy, and she began to express her happiness and her gratitude to the queen, promising to do every thing in her power to please her, when Elizabethinterrupted her, saying, "Yes, you will act so as to please me, I haveno doubt, but you are not going to be a fool and get married. Yourfather has given his consent to _me_, and not to you, and you may relyupon it you will never get it out of my possession. You were pretty boldto acknowledge your foolishness to me so readily. "

Elizabeth was very irritable, and could never bear any contradiction. Inthe case even of Leicester, who had such an unbounded influence overher, if he presumed a little too much he would meet sometimes a verysevere rebuff, such as nobody but a courtier would endure; butcourtiers, haughty and arrogant as they are in their bearing towardinferiors, are generally fawning sycophants toward those above them, andthey will submit to any thing imaginable from a _queen_. 

It was the custom in Elizabeth's days, as it is now among the great inEuropean countries, to have a series or suite of rooms, one beyond theother, the inner one being the presence chamber, and the others beingoccupied by attendants and servants of various grades, to regulate andcontrol the admission of company. Some of these officers were styled_gentlemen of the black rod_, that name being derived from a peculiarbadge of authority which they were accustomed to carry. It happened, oneday, that a certain gay captain, a follower of Leicester's, and a sortof favorite of his, was stopped in the antechamber by one of thegentlemen of the black rod, named Bowyer, the queen having ordered himto be more careful and particular in respect to the admission ofcompany. The captain, who was proud of the favor which he enjoyed withLeicester, resented this affront, and threatened the officer, and he wasengaged in an altercation with him on the subject when Leicester camein. Leicester took his favorite's part, and told the gentleman usherthat he was a knave, and that he would have him turned out of office. Leicester was accustomed to feel so much confidence in his power overElizabeth, that his manner toward all beneath him had become exceedinglyhaughty and overbearing. He supposed, probably, that the officer wouldhumble himself at once before his rebukes. 

The officer, however, instead of this, stepped directly in beforeLeicester, who was then going in himself to the presence of the queen;kneeled before her majesty, related the facts of the case, and humblyasked what it was her pleasure that he should do. He had obeyed hermajesty's orders, he said, and had been called imperiously to accountfor it, and threatened violently by Leicester, and he wished now to knowwhether Leicester was king or her majesty queen. Elizabeth was very muchdispleased with the conduct of her favorite. She turned to him, and, beginning with a sort of oath which she was accustomed to use whenirritated and angry, she addressed him in invectives and reproaches themost severe. She gave him, in a word, what would be called a scolding, were it not that scolding is a term not sufficiently dignified forhistory, even for such humble history as this. She told him that she hadindeed shown him favor, but her favor was not so fixed and settled uponhim that nobody else was to have any share, and that if he imagined thathe could lord it over her household, she would contrive a way very soonto convince him of his mistake. There was one mistress to rule there, she said, but no _master_. She then dismissed Bowyer, telling Leicesterthat, if any evil happened to him, she should hold him, that is, Leicester, to a strict account for it, as she should be convinced itwould have come through his means. 

Leicester was exceedingly chagrined at this result of the difficulty. Ofcourse he dared not defend himself or reply. All the other courtiersenjoyed his confusion very highly, and one of them, in giving an accountof the affair, said, in conclusion, that "the queen's words so quelledhim, that, for some time after, his feigned humility was one of his bestvirtues. "

Queen Elizabeth very evidently possessed that peculiar combination ofquickness of intellect and readiness of tongue which enables those whopossess it to say very sharp and biting things, when vexed or out ofhumor. It is a brilliant talent, though it always makes those whopossess it hated and feared. Elizabeth was often wantonly cruel in theexercise of this satirical power, considering very little--as is usuallythe case with such persons--the justice of her invectives, but obeyingblindly the impulses of the ill nature which prompted her to utter them. We have already said that she seemed always to have a special feeling ofill will against marriage and every thing that pertained to it, and shehad, particularly, a theory that the bishops and the clergy ought not tobe married. She could not absolutely prohibit their marrying, but shedid issue an injunction forbidding any of the heads of the colleges orcathedrals to take their wives into the same, or any of their precincts. At one time, in one of her royal progresses through the country, she wasreceived, and very magnificently and hospitably entertained, by theArchbishop of Canterbury, at his palace. The archbishop's wife exertedherself very particularly to please the queen and to do her honor. Elizabeth evinced her gratitude by turning to her, as she was about totake her leave, and saying that she could not call her the archbishop'swife, and did not like to call her his mistress, and so she did not knowwhat to call her; but that, at all events, she was very much obliged toher for her hospitality. 

Elizabeth's highest officers of state were continually exposed to hersharp and sudden reproaches, and they often incurred them by sincere andhonest efforts to gratify and serve her. She had made an arrangement, one day, to go into the city of London to St. Paul's Church, to hearthe Dean of Christ Church, a distinguished clergyman, preach. The deanprocured a copy of the Prayer Book, and had it splendidly bound, with agreat number of beautiful and costly prints interleaved in it. Theseprints were all of a religious character, being representations ofsacred history, or of scenes in the lives of the saints. The volume, thus prepared, was very beautiful, and it was placed, when the Sabbathmorning arrived, upon the queen's cushion at the church, ready for heruse. The queen entered in great state, and took her seat in the midst ofall the parade and ceremony customary on such occasions. As soon, however, as she opened the book and saw the pictures, she frowned, andseemed to be much displeased. She shut the book and put it away, andcalled for her own; and, after the service, she sent for the dean, andasked him who brought that book there. He replied, in a very humble andsubmissive manner, that he had procured it himself, having intended itas a present for her majesty. This only produced fresh expressions ofdispleasure. She proceeded to rebuke him severely for countenancing sucha popish practice as the introduction of pictures in the churches. Allthis time Elizabeth had herself a crucifix in her own private chapel, and the dean himself, on the other hand, was a firm and consistentProtestant, entirely opposed to the Catholic system of images andpictures, as Elizabeth very well knew. 

This sort of roughness was a somewhat masculine trait of character for alady, it must be acknowledged, and not a very agreeable one, even inman; but with some of the bad qualities of the other sex, Elizabethpossessed, also, some that were good. She was courageous, and sheevinced her courage sometimes in a very noble manner. At one time, whenpolitical excitement ran very high, her friends thought that there wasserious danger in her appearing openly in public, and they urged her notto do it, but to confine herself within her palaces for a time, untilthe excitement should pass away. But no; the representations made to herproduced no effect. She said she would continue to go out just as freelyas ever. She did not think that there was really any danger; andbesides, if there was, she did not care; she would rather take herchance of being killed than to be kept shut up like a prisoner. 

At the time, too, when the shot was fired at the barge in which she wasgoing down the Thames, many of her ministers thought it was aimed ather. They endeavored to convince her of this, and urged her not toexpose herself to such dangers. She replied that she did not believethat the shot was aimed at her; and that, in fact, she would not believeany thing of her subjects which a father would not be willing to believeof his own children. So she went on sailing in her barge just as before. 

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. ]

Elizabeth was very vain of her beauty, though, unfortunately, she hadvery little beauty to be vain of. Nothing pleased her so much ascompliments. She sometimes almost exacted them. At one time, when adistinguished embassador from Mary Queen of Scots was at her court, sheinsisted on his telling her whether she or Mary was the most beautiful. When we consider that Elizabeth was at this time over thirty years ofage, and Mary only twenty-two, and that the fame of Mary's lovelinesshad filled the world, it must be admitted that this question indicated aconsiderable degree of self-complacency. The embassador had the prudenceto attempt to evade the inquiry. He said at first that they were bothbeautiful enough. But Elizabeth wanted to know, she said, which was_most_ beautiful. The embassador then said that his queen was the mostbeautiful queen in Scotland and Elizabeth in England. Elizabeth was notsatisfied with this, but insisted on a definite answer to her question;and the embassador said at last that Elizabeth had the fairestcomplexion, though Mary was considered a very lovely woman. Elizabeththen wanted to know which was the tallest of the two. The embassadorsaid that Mary was. "Then, " said Elizabeth, "she is too tall, for I amjust of the right height myself. "

At one time during Elizabeth's reign, the people took a fancy to engraveand print portraits of her, which, being perhaps tolerably faithful tothe original, were not very alluring. The queen was much vexed at thecirculation of these prints, and finally she caused a grave and formalproclamation to be issued against them. In this proclamation it wasstated that it was the intention of the queen, at some future time, tohave a proper artist employed to execute a correct and true portrait ofherself, which should then be published; and, in the mean time, allpersons were forbidden to make or sell any representations of herwhatever. 

Elizabeth was extremely fond of pomp and parade. The magnificence andsplendor of the celebrations and festivities which characterized herreign have scarcely ever been surpassed in any country or in any age. She once went to attend Church, on a particular occasion, accompanied bya thousand men in full armor of steel, and ten pieces of cannon, withdrums and trumpets sounding. She received her foreign embassadors withmilitary spectacles and shows, and with banquets and parties ofpleasure, which for many days kept all London in a fever of excitement. Sometimes she made excursions on the river, with whole fleets of boatsand barges in her train; the shores, on such occasions, swarming withspectators, and waving with flags and banners. Sometimes she would makegrand progresses through her dominions, followed by an army ofattendants--lords and ladies dressed and mounted in the most costlymanner--and putting the nobles whose seats she visited to a vast expensein entertaining such a crowd of visitors. Being very saving of her ownmeans, she generally contrived to bring the expense of this magnificenceupon others. The honor was a sufficient equivalent. Or, if it was not, nobody dared to complain. 

To sum up all, Elizabeth was very great, and she was, at the same time, very little. Littleness and greatness mingled in her character in amanner which has scarcely ever been paralleled, except by the equallysingular mixture of admiration and contempt with which mankind havealways regarded her. 

CHAPTER X. 

THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA. 

1585-1588

Fierce contests between Catholics and Protestants. --Philip'scruelty. --Effects of war. --Napoleon and Xerxes. --March ofimprovement. --Spanish armadas. --The Low Countries. --Their situationand condition. --Embassage from the Low Countries. --Theirproposition. --Elizabeth's decision. --Leicester and Drake. --Leicestersets out for the Low Countries. --His reception. --Leicester'selation. --Elizabeth's displeasure. --Drake's success. --His deeds ofcruelty. --Drake's expedition in 1577. --Execution of Doughty. --Straitsof Magellan. --Drake plunders the Spaniards. --Chase of theCacofogo. --Drake captures her. --Drake's escape by going round theworld. --Character of Drake. --Philip demands the treasure. --Alarmingnews. --Elizabeth's navy. --Drake's expedition against theSpaniards. --His bold stroke. --Exasperation of Philip. --Hispreparations. --Elizabeth's preparations. --The army andnavy. --Elizabeth reviews the troops. --Her speech. --Elizabeth'senergy. --Approach of the armada. --A grand spectacle. --A singularfight. --Defeat of the armada. --A remnant escapes. 

Thirty years of Queen Elizabeth's reign passed away. During all thistime the murderous contests between the Catholic governments of Franceand Spain and their Protestant subjects went on with terrible energy. Philip of Spain was the great leader and head of the Catholic powers, and he prosecuted his work of exterminating heresy with the sternest andmost merciless determination. Obstinate and protracted wars, crueltortures, and imprisonments and executions without number, marked hisreign. 

Notwithstanding all this, however, strange as it may seem, the countryincreased in population, wealth, and prosperity. It is, after all, but avery small proportion of fifty millions of people which the most cruelmonster of a tyrant can kill, even if he devotes himself fully to thework. The natural deaths among the vast population within the reach ofPhilip's power amounted, probably, to two millions every year; and ifhe destroyed ten thousand every year, it was only adding one death byviolence to _two hundred_ produced by accidents, disasters, or age. Dreadful as are the atrocities of persecution and war, and vast andincalculable as are the encroachments on human happiness which theyproduce, we are often led to overrate their relative importance, compared with the aggregate value of the interests and pursuits whichare left unharmed by them, by not sufficiently appreciating the enormousextent and magnitude of these interests and pursuits in such communitiesas England, France, and Spain. 

Sometimes, it is true, the operations of military heroes have been onsuch a prodigious scale as to make very serious inroads on thepopulation of the greatest states. Napoleon for instance, on oneoccasion took five hundred thousand men out of France for his expeditionto Russia. The campaign destroyed nearly all of them. It was only a veryinsignificant fraction of the vast army that ever returned. By thistransaction, Napoleon thus just about doubled the annual mortality inFrance at a single blow. Xerxes enjoys the glory of having destroyedabout a million of men--and these, not enemies, but countrymen, followers, and friends--in the same way, on a single expedition. Suchvast results, however, were not attained in the conflicts which markedthe reigns of Elizabeth and Philip of Spain. Notwithstanding thelong-protracted international wars, and dreadful civil commotions of theperiod, the world went on increasing in wealth and population, and allthe arts and improvements of life made very rapid progress. America hadbeen discovered, and the way to the East Indies had been opened toEuropean ships, and the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the Dutch, theEnglish, and the French, had fleets of merchant vessels and ships of warin every sea. The Spaniards, particularly, had acquired greatpossessions in America, which contained very rich mines of gold andsilver, and there was a particular kind of vessels called _galleons_, which went regularly once a year, under a strong convoy, to bring homethe treasure. They used to call these fleets _armada_, which is theSpanish word denoting an armed squadron. Nations at war with Spainalways made great efforts to intercept and seize these ships on theirhomeward voyages, when, being laden with gold and silver, they becameprizes of the highest value. 

Things were in this state about the year 1585, when Queen Elizabethreceived a proposition from the Continent of Europe which threw her intogreat perplexity. Among the other dominions of Philip of Spain, therewere certain states situated in the broad tract of low, level land whichlies northeast of France, and which constitutes, at the present day, thecountries of Holland and Belgium. This territory was then divided intoseveral provinces, which were called, usually, the Low Countries, onaccount of the low and level situation of the land. In fact, there arevast tracts of land bordering the shore, which lie so low that dikeshave to be built to keep out the sea. In these cases, there are lines ofwindmills, of great size and power, all along the coast, whose vastwings are always slowly revolving, to pump out the water whichpercolates through the dikes, or which flows from the water-coursesafter showers of rain. 

The Low Countries were very unwilling to submit to the tyrannicalgovernment which Philip exercised over them. The inhabitants weregenerally Protestants, and Philip persecuted them cruelly. They were, inconsequence of this, continually rebelling against his authority, andElizabeth secretly aided them in these struggles, though she would notopenly assist them, as she did not wish to provoke Philip to open war. She wished them success, however, for she knew very well that if Philipcould once subdue his Protestant subjects at home, he would immediatelyturn his attention to England, and perhaps undertake to deposeElizabeth, and place some Catholic prince or princess upon the throne inher stead. 

Things were in this state in 1585, when the confederate provinces of theLow Countries sent an embassage to Elizabeth, offering her thegovernment of the country as sovereign queen, if she would openlyespouse their cause and protect them from Philip's power. Thisproposition called for very serious and anxious consideration. Elizabethfelt very desirous to make this addition to her dominions on its ownaccount, and besides, she saw at once that such an acquisition wouldgive her a great advantage in her future contests with Philip, if actualwar must come. But then, on the other hand, by accepting theproposition, war must necessarily be brought on at once. Philip would, in fact, consider her espousing the cause of his rebellious subjects asan actual declaration of war on her part, so that making such a leaguewith these countries would plunge her at once into hostilities with thegreatest and most extended power on the globe. Elizabeth was veryunwilling thus to precipitate the contest; but then, on the other hand, she wished very much to avoid the danger that threatened, of Philip'sfirst subduing his own dominions, and then advancing to the invasion ofEngland with his undivided strength. She finally concluded not to acceptthe sovereignty of the countries, but to make a league, offensive anddefensive, with the governments, and to send out a fleet and an army toaid them. This, as she had expected, brought on a general war. 

The queen commissioned Leicester to take command of the forces whichwere to proceed to Holland and the Netherlands; she also equipped afleet, and placed it under the command of Sir Francis Drake, a verycelebrated naval captain, to proceed across the Atlantic and attack theSpanish possessions on the American shores. Leicester was extremelyelated with his appointment, and set off on his expedition with greatpomp and parade. He had not generally, during his life, held stations ofany great trust or responsibility. The queen had conferred upon him hightitles and vast estates, but she had confided all real power to farmore capable and trustworthy hands. She thought however, perhaps, thatLeicester would answer for her allies; so she gave him his commissionand sent him forth, charging him, with many injunctions, as he wentaway, to be discreet and faithful, and to do nothing which shouldcompromise, in any way, her interests or honor. 

It will, perhaps, be recollected that Leicester's wife had been, beforeher marriage with him, the wife of a nobleman named the Earl of Essex. She had a son, who, at his father's death, succeeded to the title. Thisyoung Essex accompanied Leicester on this occasion. His subsequentadventures, which were romantic and extraordinary, will be narrated inthe next chapter. 

The people of the Netherlands, being extremely desirous to pleaseElizabeth, their new ally, thought that they could not honor the greatgeneral she had sent them too highly. They received him with mostmagnificent military parades, and passed a vote in their assemblyinvesting him with absolute authority as head of the government, thusputting him, in fact, in the very position which Elizabeth had herselfdeclined receiving. Leicester was extremely pleased and elated withthese honors. He was king all but in name. He provided himself with anoble life-guard, in imitation of royalty, and assumed all the state andairs of a monarch. Things went on so very prosperously with him for ashort time, until he was one day thunderstruck by the appearance at hispalace of a nobleman from the queen's court, named Heneage, who broughthim a letter from Elizabeth which was in substance as follows:

 "How foolishly, and with what contempt of my authority, I think you have acted, the messenger I now send to you will explain. I little imagined that a man whom I had raised from the dust, and treated with so much favor, would have forgotten all his obligations, and acted in such a manner. I command you now to put yourself entirely under the direction of this messenger, to do in all things precisely as he requires, upon pain of further peril. "

Leicester humbled himself immediately under this rebuke, sent home mostample apologies and prayers for forgiveness, and, after a time, gradually recovered the favor of the queen. He soon, however, becamevery unpopular in the Netherlands. Grievous complaints were madeagainst him, and he was at length recalled. 

Drake was more successful. He was a bold, undaunted, and energeticseaman, but unprincipled and merciless. He manned and equipped hisfleet, and set sail toward the Spanish possessions in America. Heattacked the colonies, sacked the towns, plundered the inhabitants, intercepted the ships, and searched them for silver and gold. In a word, he did exactly what pirates are hung for doing, and execrated afterwardby all mankind. But, as Queen Elizabeth gave him permission to performthese exploits, he has always been applauded by mankind as a hero. Wewould not be understood as denying that there is any difference betweenburning and plundering innocent towns and robbing ships, whether thereis or is not a governmental permission to commit these crimes. Therecertainly is a difference. It only seems to us surprising that thereshould be so great a difference as is made by the general estimation ofmankind. 

Drake, in fact, had acquired a great and honorable celebrity for suchdeeds before this time, by a similar expedition, several years before, in which he had been driven to make the circumnavigation of the globe. England and Spain were then nominally at peace, and the expedition wasreally in pursuit of prizes and plunder. 

Drake took five vessels with him on this his first expedition, but theywere all very small. The largest was only a vessel of one hundred tons, while the ships which are now built are often of _three thousand_. Withthis little fleet Drake set sail boldly, and crossed the Atlantic, beingfifty-five days out of sight of land. He arrived at last on the coast ofSouth America, and then turned his course southward, toward the Straitsof Magellan. Two of his vessels, he found, were so small as to be ofvery little service; so he shipped the men on board the others, andturned the two adrift. When he got well into the southern seas, hecharged his chief mate, whose name was Doughty, with some offenseagainst the discipline of his little fleet, and had him condemned todeath. He was executed at the Straits of Magellan--beheaded. Before hedied, the unhappy convict had the sacrament administered to him, Drakehimself partaking of it with him. It was said, and believed at the time, that the charge against Doughty was only a pretense, and that the realcause of his death was that Leicester had agreed with Drake to kill himwhen far away, on account of his having assisted, with others, inspreading the reports that Leicester had murdered the Earl of Essex, theformer husband of his wife. 

The little squadron passed through the Straits of Magellan, and thenencountered a dreadful storm, which separated the ships, and drove themseveral hundred miles to the westward, over the then boundless andtrackless waters of the Pacific Ocean. Drake himself afterward recoveredthe shore with his own ship alone, and moved northward. He found Spanishships and Spanish merchants every where, who, not dreaming of thepresence of an English enemy in those distant seas, were entirelysecure; and they fell, one after another, a very easy prey. The veryextraordinary story is told of his finding, in one place, a Spaniardasleep upon the shore, waiting, perhaps, for a boat, with thirty bars ofsilver by his side, of great weight and value, which Drake and his menseized and carried off, without so much as waking the owner. In oneharbor which he entered he found three ships, from which the seamen hadall gone ashore, leaving the vessels completely unguarded, so entirelyunconscious were they of any danger near. Drake broke into the cabinsof these ships, and found fifty or sixty wedges of pure silver there, oftwenty pounds each. In this way, as he passed along the coast, hecollected an immense treasure in silver and gold, both coin and bullion, without having to strike a blow for it. At last he heard of a very richship, called the Cacofogo, which had recently sailed for Panama, towhich place they were taking the treasure, in order that it might betransported across the isthmus, and so taken home to Spain; for, beforeDrake's voyage, scarcely a single vessel had ever passed round CapeHorn. The ships which he had plundered had been all built upon thecoast, by Spaniards who had come across the country at the Isthmus ofDarien, and were to be used only to transport the treasure northward, where it could be taken across to the Gulf of Mexico. 

Drake gave chase to the Cacofogo. At last he came near enough to fireinto her, and one of his first shots cut away her foremast and disabledher. He soon captured the ship, and he found immense riches on board. Besides pearls and precious stones of great value, there were eightypounds of gold, thirteen chests of silver coin, and silver enough inbars "to ballast a ship. "

Drake's vessel was now richly laden with treasures, but in the mean timethe news of his plunderings had gone across the Continent, and someSpanish ships of war had gone south to intercept him at the Straits ofMagellan on his return. In this dilemma, the adventurous sailorconceived of the sublime idea of avoiding them by going _round theworld_ to get home. He pushed boldly forward, therefore, across thePacific Ocean to the East Indies, thence through the Indian Ocean to theCape of Good Hope, and, after three years from the time he left England, he returned to it safely again, his ship loaded with the plunderedsilver and gold. 

As soon as he arrived in the Thames, the whole world flocked to see thelittle ship that had performed all these wonders. The vessel was drawnup alongside the land, and a bridge made to it, and, after the treasurewas taken out, it was given up, for some time, to banquetings andcelebrations of every kind. The queen took possession of all thetreasure, saying that Philip might demand it, and she be forced to makerestitution, for it must be remembered that all this took place severalyears before the war. She, however, treated the successful sailor withevery mark of consideration and honor; she went herself on board hisship, and partook of an entertainment there, conferring the honor ofknighthood, at the same time, on the admiral, so that "Sir FrancisDrake" was thenceforth his proper title. 

If the facts already stated do not give sufficient indications of thekind of character which in those days made a naval hero, one othercircumstance may be added. At one time during this voyage, a Spaniard, whose ship Drake had spared, made him a present of a beautiful negrogirl. Drake kept her on board his ship for a time, and then sent herashore on some island that he was passing, and inhumanly abandoned herthere, to become a mother among strangers, utterly friendless and alone. It must be added, however, in justice to the rude men among whom thiswild buccaneer lived, that, though they praised all his other deeds ofviolence and wrong, this atrocious cruelty was condemned. It had theeffect, even in those days, of tarnishing his fame. 

Philip did claim the money, but Elizabeth found plenty of good excusesfor not paying it over to him. 

This celebrated expedition occupied more than three years. Going roundthe world is a long journey. The arrival of the ship in London tookplace in 1581, four years before the war actually broke out betweenEngland and Spain, which was in 1585; and it was in consequence of thegreat celebrity which Drake had acquired in this and similar excursions, that when at last hostilities commenced, he was put in command of thenaval preparations. It was not long before it was found that hisservices were likely to be required near home, for rumors began to findtheir way to England that Philip was preparing a great fleet for theactual invasion of England. The news put the whole country into a stateof great alarm. 

The reader, in order to understand fully the grounds for this alarm, must remember that in those days Spain was the mistress of the ocean, and not England herself. Spain possessed the distant colonies and theforeign commerce, and built and armed the great ships, while England hadcomparatively few ships, and those which she had were small. To meet theformidable preparations which the Spaniards were making, Elizabethequipped only four ships. To these however, the merchants of Londonadded twenty or thirty more, of various sizes, which they furnished oncondition of having a share in the plunder which they hoped would besecured. The whole fleet was put under Drake's command. 

Robbers and murderers, whether those that operate upon the sea or on theland, are generally courageous, and Drake's former success had made himfeel doubly confident and strong. Philip had collected a considerablefleet of ships in Cadiz, which is a strong sea-port in the southeasternpart of Spain, on the Mediterranean Sea, and others were assembling inall the ports and bays along the shore, wherever they could be built orpurchased. They were to rendezvous finally at Cadiz. Drake pushed boldlyforward, and, to the astonishment of the world, forced his way into theharbor, through a squadron of galleys stationed there to protect theentrance, and burned, sunk, and destroyed more than a hundred shipswhich had been collected there. The whole work was done, and the littleEnglish fleet was off again, before the Spaniards could recover fromtheir astonishment. Drake then sailed along the coast, seizing anddestroying all the ships he could find. He next pushed to sea a littleway, and had the good fortune to intercept and capture a richly-ladenship of very large size, called a _carrack_, which was coming home fromthe East Indies. He then went back to England in triumph. He said he hadbeen "singeing the whiskers" of the King of Spain. 

The booty was divided among the London merchants, as had been agreedupon. Philip was exasperated and enraged beyond expression at thisunexpected destruction of armaments which had cost him so much time andmoney to prepare. His spirit was irritated and aroused by the disaster, not quelled; and he immediately began to renew his preparations, makingthem now on a still vaster scale than before. The amount of damage whichDrake effected was, therefore, after all, of no greater benefit toEngland than putting back the invasion for about a year. 

At length, in the summer of 1588, the preparations for the sailing ofthe great armada, which was to dethrone Elizabeth and bring back theEnglish nation again under the dominion of some papal prince, and putdown, finally, the cause of Protestantism in Europe, were complete. Elizabeth herself, and the English people, in the mean time, had notbeen idle. The whole kingdom had been for months filled with enthusiasmto prepare for meeting the foe. Armies were levied and fleets raised. Every maritime town furnished ships; and rich noblemen, in many cases, built or purchased vessels with their own funds, and sent them forwardready for the battle, as their contribution toward the means of defense. A large part of the force thus raised was stationed at Plymouth, whichis the first great sea-port which presents itself on the English coastin sailing up the Channel. The remainder of it was stationed at theother end of the Channel, near the Straits of Dover, for it was fearedthat, in addition to the vast armament which Philip was to bring fromSpain, he would raise another fleet in the Netherlands, which would, ofcourse, approach the shores of England from the German Ocean. 

Besides the fleets, a large army was raised. Twenty thousand men weredistributed along the southern shores of England in such positions as tobe most easily concentrated at any point where the armada might attemptto land and about as many more were marched down the Thames, andencamped near the mouth of the river, to guard that access. Thisencampment was at a place on the northern bank of the river, just aboveits mouth. Leicester, strange as it may seem, was put in command of thisarmy. The queen, however, herself, went to visit this encampment, andreviewed the troops in person. She rode to and fro on horseback alongthe lines, armed like a warrior. At least she had a corslet of polishedsteel over her magnificent dress, and bore a general's truncheon, arichly-ornamented staff used as a badge of command. She had a helmet, too, with a white plume. This, however she did not wear. A page bore it, following her, while she rode, attended by Leicester and the othergenerals, all mounted on horses and splendidly caparisoned, from rank torank, animating the men to the highest enthusiasm by her courageousbearing, her look of confidence, and her smiles. 

She made an address to the soldiers. She said that she had been warnedby some of her ministers of the danger of trusting herself to the powerof such an armed multitude, for these forces were not regularly enlistedtroops, but volunteers from among the citizens, who had suddenly leftthe ordinary avocations and pursuits of life to defend their country inthis emergency. She had, however, she said, no such apprehensions ofdanger. She could trust herself without fear to the courage and fidelityof her subjects, as she had always, during all her reign, considered hergreatest strength and safeguard as consisting in their loyalty and goodwill. For herself, she had come to the camp, she assured them, not forthe sake of empty pageantry and parade, but to take her share with themin the dangers, and toils, and terrors of the actual battle. If Philipshould land, they would find their queen in the hottest of the conflict, fighting by their sides. "I have, " said she, "I know, only the body of aweak and feeble woman, but I have the heart of a king; and I am readyfor my God, my kingdom, and my people, to have that body laid down, evenin the dust. If the battle comes, therefore, I shall myself be in themidst and front of it, to live or die with you. "

These were, thus far, but words, it is true, and how far Elizabeth wouldhave vindicated their sincerity, if the entrance of the armada into theThames had put her to the test, we can not now know. Sir Francis Drakesaved her from the trial. One morning a small vessel came into theharbor at Plymouth, where the English fleet was lying, with the newsthat the armada was coming up the Channel under full sail. The anchorsof the fleet were immediately raised, and great exertions made to get itout of the harbor, which was difficult, as the wind at the time wasblowing directly in. The squadron got out at last, as night was comingon. The next morning the armada hove in sight, advancing from thewestward up the Channel, in a vast crescent, which extended for sevenmiles from north to south, and seemed to sweep the whole sea. 

[Illustration: THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA. ]

It was a magnificent spectacle, and it was the ushering in of that fargrander spectacle still, of which the English Channel was the scene forthe ten days which followed, during which the enormous naval structuresof the armada, as they slowly made their way along, were followed, andfired upon, and harassed by the smaller, and lighter, and more activevessels of their English foes. The unwieldy monsters pressed on, surrounded and worried by their nimbler enemies like hawks driven bykingfishers through the sky. Day after day this most extraordinarycontest, half flight and half battle continued, every promontory on theshores covered all the time with spectators, who listened to the distantbooming of the guns, and watched the smokes which arose from thecannonading and the conflagrations. One great galleon after another fella prey. Some were burned, some taken as prizes, some driven ashore;and finally, one dark night, the English sent a fleet of fire-ships, allin flames, into the midst of the anchorage to which the Spaniards hadretired, which scattered them in terror and dismay, and completed thediscomfiture of the squadron. 

The result was, that by the time the invincible armada had made its waythrough the Channel, and had passed the Straits of Dover, it was sodispersed, and shattered, and broken, that its commanders, far fromfeeling any disposition to sail up the Thames, were only anxious to makegood their escape from their indefatigable and tormenting foes. They didnot dare, in attempting to make this escape, to return through theChannel, so they pushed northward into the German Ocean. Their onlycourse for getting back to Spain again was to pass round the northernside of England, among the cold and stormy seas that are rolling incontinually among the ragged rocks and gloomy islands which darken theocean there. At last a miserable remnant of the fleet--less thanhalf--made their way back to Spain again. 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE EARL OF ESSEX. 

1588-1600

Character of Essex. --Death of Leicester. --Essex becomes the queen'sfavorite. --Cecil and Essex. --Elizabeth's regard for Essex. --Hisimpulsive bravery. --Essex's ardor for battle. --His duel. --Elizabeth'sremark upon the duel. --She gives Essex a ring. --The quarrel. --Thebox on the ear. --Mortification of Essex. --He and Elizabethreconciled. --Essex sent to Ireland. --Curious negotiations. --Thequeen's displeasure. --Essex's sudden return. --Essex isarrested. --Resentment and love. --Essex's anger and chagrin. --He istaken sick. --Nature of Essex's sickness. --The queen's anxiety. --Thequeen's kindness to Essex. --They are reconciled again. --Essex'spromises. --The queen's ungenerous conduct. --Essex's monopoly ofwines. --The queen refuses to renew it. --Essex made desperate. --Histreasonable schemes. --Ramifications of the plot. --It isdiscovered. --Anxious deliberations. --The rising determined upon. --Thehostages. --Essex enters the city. --The proclamation. --Essexunsuccessful. --Essex's hopeless condition. --He escapes to hispalace. --Essex made prisoner, tried, and condemned. --Hisremorse. --Elizabeth's distress. --The ring not sent. --The warrantsigned. --The platform. --Essex's last words. --The closing scene. --Thecourtier. --His fiendish pleasure. 

The lady whom the Earl of Leicester married was, a short time before hemarried her, the wife of the Earl of Essex, and she had one son, who, onthe death of his father, became the Earl of Essex in his turn. He cameto court, and continued in Leicester's family after his mother's secondmarriage. He was an accomplished and elegant young man, and was regardedwith a good deal of favor by the queen. He was introduced at court whenhe was but seventeen years old, and, being the step-son of Leicester, henecessarily occupied a conspicuous position; his personal qualities, joined with this, soon gave him a very high and honorable name. 

About a month after the victory obtained by the English over theinvincible armada, Leicester was seized with a fever on a journey, and, after lingering for a few days, died, leaving Essex, as it were, in hisplace. Elizabeth seems not to have been very inconsolable for herfavorite's death. She directed, or allowed, his property to be sold atauction, to pay some debts which he owed her--or, as the historians ofthe day express it, which he owed _the crown_--and then seemed at onceto transfer her fondness and affection to the young Essex, who was atthat time twenty-one years of age. Elizabeth herself was now nearlysixty. Cecil was growing old also, and was somewhat infirm, though hehad a son who was rapidly coming forward in rank and influence at court. This son's name was Robert. The young Earl of Essex's name was Roberttoo. The elder Cecil and Leicester had been, all their lives, watchfuland jealous of each other, and in some sense rivals. Robert Cecil andRobert Devereux--for that was, in full, the Earl of Essex's familyname--being young and ardent, inherited the animosity of their parents, and were less cautious and wary in expressing it. They soon became openfoes. 

Robert Devereux, or Essex, as he is commonly called in history, washandsome and accomplished, ardent, impulsive, and generous. The war withSpain, notwithstanding the destruction of the armada, continued, andEssex entered into it with all zeal. The queen, who with all herambition, and her proud and domineering spirit, felt, like any otherwoman, the necessity of having something to love, soon began to take astrong interest in his person and fortunes, and seemed to love him as amother loves a son; and he, in his turn, soon learned to act toward heras a son, full of youthful courage and ardor, often acts toward a motherover whose heart he feels that he has a strong control. He would goaway, without leave, to mix in affrays with the Spanish ships in theEnglish Channel and in the Bay of Biscay, and then come back and makehis peace with the queen by very humble petitions for pardon, andpromises of future obedience. When he went, with her leave, on theseexpeditions, she would charge his superior officers to keep him out ofdanger; while he, with an impetuosity which strongly marked hischaracter, would evade and escape from all these injunctions, and pressforward into every possible exposure, always eager to have battle given, and to get, himself, into the hottest part of it, when it was begun. Atone time, off Cadiz, the officers of the English ships hesitated sometime whether to venture an attack upon some ships in the harbor--Essexburning with impatience all the time--and when it was at length decidedto make the attack, he was so excited with enthusiasm and pleasure thathe threw his cap up into the air, and overboard, perfectly wild withdelight, like a school-boy in anticipation of a holiday. 

Ten years passed away, and Essex rose higher and higher in estimationand honor. He was sometimes in the queen's palaces at home, andsometimes away on the Spanish seas, where he acquired great fame. He wasproud and imperious at court, relying on his influence with the queen, who treated him as a fond mother treats a spoiled child. She was oftenvexed with his conduct, but she could not help loving him. One day, ashe was coming into the queen's presence chamber, he saw one of thecourtiers there who had a golden ornament upon his arm which the queenhad given him the day before. He asked what it was; they told him it wasa "favor" from the queen. "Ah, " said he, "I see how it is going to be;every fool must have his favor. " The courtier resented this mode ofspeaking of his distinction, and challenged Essex to a duel. Thecombatants met in the Park, and Essex was disarmed and wounded. Thequeen heard of the affair, and, after inquiring very curiously about allthe particulars, she said that she was glad of it; for, unless therewas somebody to take down his pride, there would be no such thing asdoing any thing with him. 

Elizabeth's feelings toward Essex fluctuated in strange alternations offondness and displeasure. At one time, when affection was in theascendency, she gave him a ring, as a talisman of her protection. Shepromised him that if he ever should become involved in troubles ordifficulties of any kind, and especially if he should lose her favor, either by his own misconduct or by the false accusations of his enemies, if he would send her that ring, it should serve to recall her formerkind regard, and incline her to pardon and save him. Essex took thering, and preserved it with the utmost care. 

Friendship between persons of such impetuous and excitable temperamentsas Elizabeth and Essex both possessed, though usually very ardent for atime, is very precarious and uncertain in duration. After variouspetulant and brief disputes, which were easily reconciled, there came atlength a serious quarrel. There was, at that time, great difficulty inIreland; a rebellion had broken out, in fact, which was fomented andencouraged by Spanish influence. Essex was one day urging very stronglythe appointment of one of his friends to take the command there, whilethe queen was disposed to appoint another person. Essex urged his viewsand wishes with much importunity, and when he found that the queen wasdetermined not to yield, he turned his back upon her in a contemptuousand angry manner. The queen lost patience in her turn, and, advancingrapidly to him, her eyes sparkling with extreme resentment anddispleasure, she gave him a severe box on the ear, telling him, at thesame time, to "go and be hanged. " Essex was exceedingly enraged; heclasped the handle of his sword, but was immediately seized by the othercourtiers present. They, however, soon released their hold upon him, andhe walked off out of the apartment, saying that he could not and wouldnot bear such an insult as that. He would not have endured it, he said, from King Henry the Eighth himself. The name of King Henry the Eighth, in those days, was the symbol and personification of the highestpossible human grandeur. 

The friends of Essex among the courtiers endeavored to soothe and calmhim, and to persuade him to apologize to the queen, and seek areconciliation. They told him that, whether right or wrong, he ought toyield; for in contests with the law or with a prince, a man, they said, ought, if wrong, to submit himself to _justice_; if right, to_necessity_; in either case, it was his duty to submit. 

This was very good philosophy; but Essex was not in a state of mind tolisten to philosophy. He wrote a reply to the friend who had counseledhim as above, that "the queen had the temper of a flint; that she hadtreated him with such extreme injustice and cruelty so many times thathis patience was exhausted, and he would bear it no longer. He knew wellenough what duties he owed the queen as an earl and grand marshal ofEngland, but he did not understand being cuffed and beaten like a menialservant; and that his body suffered in every part from the blow he hadreceived. "

His resentment, however, got soothed and softened in time, and he wasagain admitted to favor, though the consequences of such quarrels areseldom fully repaired. The reconciliation was, however, in this case, apparently complete, and in the following year Essex was himselfappointed the Governor, or, as styled in those days, the Lord Deputy ofIreland. 

He went to his province, and took command of the forces which had beencollected there, and engaged zealously in the work of suppressing therebellion. For some reason or other, however, he made very littleprogress. The name of the leader of the rebels was the Earl ofTyrone. [D] Tyrone wanted a parley, but did not dare to trust himself inEssex's power. It was at last, however, agreed that the two leadersshould come down to a river, one of them upon each side, and talk acrossit, neither general to have any troops or attendants with him. This planwas carried into effect. Essex, stationing a troop near him, on a hill, rode down to the water on one side, while Tyrone came into the river asfar as his horse could wade on the other, and then the two earlsattempted to negotiate terms of peace by shouting across the current ofthe stream. 

[Footnote D: Spelled in the old histories Tir-Oen. ]

Nothing effectual was accomplished by this and some other similarparleys, and in the mean time the weeks were passing away, and littlewas done toward suppressing the rebellion. The queen was dissatisfied. She sent Essex letters of complaint and censure. These letters awakenedthe lord deputy's resentment. The breach was thus rapidly widening, when Essex all at once conceived the idea of going himself to England, without permission, and without giving any notice of his intention, toendeavor, by a personal interview, to reinstate himself in the favor ofthe queen. 

[Illustration: THE HOUSE OF THE EARL OF ESSEX. ]

This was a very bold step. It was entirely contrary to militaryetiquette for an officer to leave his command and go home to hissovereign without orders and without permission. The plan, however, might have succeeded. Leicester did once succeed in such a measure; butin this case, unfortunately, it failed. Essex traveled with the utmostdispatch, crossed the Channel, made the best of his way to the palacewhere the queen was then residing, and pressed through the opposition ofall the attendants into the queen's private apartment, in his travelingdress, soiled and way-worn. The queen was at her toilet, with her hairdown over her eyes. Essex fell on his knees before her, kissed her hand, and made great professions of gratitude and love, and of an extremedesire to deserve and enjoy her favor. The queen was astonished at hisappearance, but Essex thought that she received him kindly. He went awayafter a short interview, greatly pleased with the prospect of afavorable issue to the desperate step he had taken. His joy, however, was soon dispelled. In the course of the day he was arrested by order ofthe queen, and sent to his house under the custody of an officer. He hadpresumed too far. 

Essex was kept thus secluded and confined for some time. His house wason the bank of the river. None of his friends, not even his countess, were allowed access to him. His impetuous spirit wore itself out inchafing against the restraints and means of coercion which were pressingupon him; but he would not submit. The mind of the queen, too, wasdeeply agitated all the time by that most tempestuous of all mentalconflicts, a struggle between resentment and love. Her affection for herproud-spirited favorite seemed as strong as ever, but she was determinedto make him yield in the contest she had commenced with him. How oftencases precisely similar occur in less conspicuous scenes of action, where they who love each other with a sincere and uncontrollableaffection take their stand in attitudes of hostility, each determinedthat the obstinacy of the other shall give way, and each heartpersisting in its own determination, resentment and love struggling allthe time in a dreadful contest, which keeps the soul in a perpetualcommotion, and allows of no peace till either the obstinacy yields orthe love is extinguished and gone. 

It was indirectly made known to Essex that if he would confess hisfault, ask the queen's forgiveness, and petition for a release fromconfinement, in order that he might return to his duties in Ireland, thedifficulty could be settled. But no, he would make no concessions. Thequeen, in retaliation, increased the pressure upon him. The morestrongly he felt the pressure, the more his proud and resentful spiritwas aroused. He walked his room, his soul boiling with anger andchagrin, while the queen, equally distressed and harassed by theconflict in her own soul, still persevered, hoping every day that theunbending spirit with which she was contending would yield at last. 

At length the tidings came to her that Essex, worn out with agitationand suffering, was seriously sick. The historians doubt whether hissickness was real or feigned; but there is not much difficulty inunderstanding, from the circumstances of the case, what its real naturewas. Such mental conflicts as those which he endured suspend the powersof digestion and accelerate the pulsations of the heart, which beats inthe bosom with a preternatural frequency and force, like a birdfluttering to get free from a snare. The result is a sort of feverburning slowly in the veins, and an emaciation which wastes the strengthaway, and, in impetuous and uncontrollable spirits, like that of Essex, sometimes exhausts the powers of life altogether. The sickness, therefore, though of mental origin, becomes bodily and real; but thenthe sufferer is often ready, in such cases, to add a little to it byfeigning. An instinct teaches him that nothing is so likely to move theheart whose cruelty causes him to suffer, as a knowledge of the extremeto which it has reduced him. Essex was doubtless willing that Elizabethshould know that he was sick. Her knowing it had, in some measure, theusual effect. It reawakened and strengthened the love she had felt forhim, but did not give it absolutely the victory. She sent _eight_physicians to him, to examine and consult upon his case. She caused somebroth to be made for him, and gave it to one of these physicians tocarry to him, directing the messenger, in a faltering voice, to say toEssex that if it were proper to do so she would have come to see himherself. She then turned away to hide her tears. Strange inconsistencyof the human heart--resentment and anger holding their ground in thesoul against the object of such deep and unconquerable love. It would beincredible, were it not that probably every single one of all thethousands who may read this story has experienced the same. 

Nothing has so great an effect in awakening in the heart a strongsentiment of kindness as the performance of a kind act. Feelingoriginates and controls action, it is true, but then, on the other hand, action has a prodigious power in modifying feeling. Elizabeth's acts ofkindness to Essex in his sickness produced a renewal of her tendernessfor him so strong that her obstinacy and anger gave way before it, andshe soon began to desire some mode of releasing him from hisconfinement, and restoring him to favor. Essex was softened too. In aword, there was finally a reconciliation, though it was accomplished byslow degrees, and by means of a sort of series of capitulations. Therewas an investigation of his case before the privy council, whichresulted in a condemnation of his conduct, and a recommendation to themercy of the queen; and then followed some communications between Essexand his sovereign, in which he expressed sorrow for his faults, and madesatisfactory promises for the future. 

The queen, however, had not magnanimity enough to let the quarrel endwithout taunting and irritating the penitent with expressions oftriumph. In reply to his acknowledgments and professions, she told himthat she was glad to hear of his good intentions, and she hoped that hewould show, by his future conduct, that he meant to fulfill them; thathe had tried her patience for a long time, but she hoped that henceforthshe should have no further trouble. If it had been her father, sheadded, instead of herself, that he had had to deal with, he would nothave been pardoned at all. It could not be a very cordial reconciliationwhich was consummated by such words as these. But it was very likeElizabeth to utter them. They who are governed by their temper aregoverned by it even in their love. 

Essex was not restored to office. In fact, he did not wish to berestored. He said that he was resolved henceforth to lead a privatelife. But even in respect to this plan he was at the mercy of the queen, for his private income was in a great measure derived from a monopoly, as it is called, in a certain kind of wines, which had been granted tohim some time before. It was a very customary mode, in those days, ofenriching favorites, to grant them monopolies of certain kinds ofmerchandise, that is, the exclusive right to sell them. The persons towhom this privilege was granted would underlet their right to merchantsin various parts of the kingdom, on condition of receiving a certainshare of the profits. Essex had thus derived a great revenue from hismonopoly of wines. The grant, however, was expiring, and he petitionedthe queen that it might be renewed. 

The interest which Essex felt in the renewal of this grant was one ofthe strongest inducements to lead him to submit to the humiliationswhich he had endured, and to make concessions to the queen. But he wasdisappointed in his hopes. The queen, elated a little with the triumphalready attained, and, perhaps, desirous of the pleasure of humblingEssex still more, refused at present to renew his monopoly, saying thatshe thought it would do him good to be restricted a little, for a time, in his means. "Unmanageable beasts, " she said, "had to be tamed by beingstinted in their provender. "

Essex was sharply stung by such a refusal, accompanied, too, by such aninsult. He was full of indignation and anger. At first he gave freeexpression to his feelings of vexation in conversation with those aroundhim. The queen, he said, had got to be a perverse and obstinate oldwoman, as crooked in mind as she was in body. He had plenty of enemiesto listen to these speeches, and to report them in such a way as thatthey should reach the queen. A new breach was consequently opened, whichseemed now wider than ever, and irreparable. 

At least it seemed so to Essex; and, abandoning all plans for againenjoying the favor of Elizabeth, he began to consider what he could doto undermine her power and rise upon the ruins of it. The idea wasinsanity, but passion always makes men insane. James, king of Scotland, the son and successor of Mary, was the rightful heir to the Englishthrone after Elizabeth's death. In order to make his right of successionmore secure, he had wished to have Elizabeth acknowledge it; but she, always dreading terribly the thoughts of death, could never bear tothink of a successor, and seemed to hate every one who entertained anyexpectation of following her. Essex suppressed all outward expressionsof violence and anger; became thoughtful, moody, and sullen; heldsecret consultations with desperate intriguers, and finally formed ascheme to organize a rebellion, to bring King James's troops to Englandto support it, to take possession of the Tower and of the strong-holdsabout London, to seize the palace of the queen, overturn her government, and compel her both to acknowledge James's right to the succession andto restore Essex himself to power. 

The personal character of Essex had given him a very wide-spreadpopularity and influence, and he had, consequently, very extensivematerials at his command for organizing a powerful conspiracy. The plotwas gradually matured, extending itself, in the course of the fewfollowing months, not only throughout England, but also into France andSpain. The time for the final explosion was drawing near, when, as usualin such cases, intelligence of the existence of this treason, in theform of vague rumors, reached the queen. One day, when the leadingconspirators were assembled at Essex's palace, a messenger came tosummon the earl to appear before the council. They received, also, private intelligence that their plots were probably discovered. Whilethey were considering what to do in this emergency--all in a state ofgreat perplexity and fear--a person came, pretending to be a deputy sentfrom some of the principal citizens of London, to say to Essex that theywere ready to espouse his cause. Essex immediately became urgent tocommence the insurrection at once. Some of his friends, on the otherhand, were in favor of abandoning the enterprise, and flying from thecountry; but Essex said he had rather be shot at the head of his bands, than to wander all his days beyond the seas, a fugitive and a vagabond. 

The conspirators acceded to their leader's councils. They sent word, accordingly, into the city, and began to make their arrangements to risein arms the next morning. The night was spent in anxious preparations. Early in the morning, a deputation of some of the highest officers ofthe government, with a train of attendants, came to Essex's palace, anddemanded entrance in the name of the queen. The gates of the palace wereshut and guarded. At last, after some hesitation and delay, theconspirators opened a wicket, that is, a small gate within the largeone, which would admit one person at a time. They allowed the officersthemselves to enter, but shut the gate immediately so as to exclude theattendants. The officers found themselves in a large court-yard filledwith armed men, Essex standing calmly at the head of them. They demandedwhat was the meaning of such an unusual assemblage. Essex replied thatit was to defend his life from conspiracies formed against it by hisenemies. The officers denied this danger, and began to expostulate withEssex in angry terms, and the attendants on his side to reply withvociferations and threats, when Essex, to end the altercation, took theofficers into the palace. He conducted them to a room and shut them up, to keep them as hostages. 

It was now near ten o'clock, and, leaving his prisoners in theirapartment, under a proper guard, Essex sallied forth, with the moreresolute and desperate of his followers, and proceeded into the city, tobring out into action the forces which he supposed were ready toco-operate with him there. He rode on through the streets, calling toarms, and shouting, "For the queen! For the queen!" His design was toconvey the impression that the movement which he was making was notagainst the queen herself, but against his own enemies in her councils, and that she was herself on his side. The people of London, however, could not be so easily deceived. The mayor had received warning before, from the council, to be ready to suppress the movement, if one should bemade. As soon, therefore, as Essex and his company were fairly in thecity, the gates were shut and barred to prevent his return. One of thequeen's principal ministers of state too, at the head of a small troopof horsemen, came in and rode through the streets, proclaiming Essex atraitor, and calling upon all the citizens to aid in arresting him. Oneof Essex's followers fired a pistol at this officer to stop hisproclamation, but the people generally seemed disposed to listen to him, and to comply with his demand. After riding, therefore, through some ofthe principal streets, he returned to the queen, and reported to herthat all was well in the city; there was no danger that Essex wouldsucceed in raising a rebellion there. 

In the mean time, the further Essex proceeded, the more he found himselfenvironed with difficulties and dangers. The people began to assemblehere and there with evident intent to impede his movements. They blockedup the streets with carts and coaches to prevent his escape. Hisfollowers, one after another, finding all hope of success gone, abandoned their despairing leader and fled. Essex himself, with the fewwho still adhered to him, wandered about till two o'clock, finding theway of retreat every where hemmed up against him. At length he fled tothe river side, took a boat, with the few who still remained with him, and ordered the watermen to row as rapidly as possible up the river. They landed at Westminster, retreated to Essex's house, fled into itwith the utmost precipitation, and barricaded the doors. Essex himselfwas excited in the highest degree, fully determined to die there ratherthan surrender himself a prisoner. The terrible desperation to which menare reduced in emergencies like these is shown by the fact that one ofhis followers did actually station himself at a window bare-headed, inviting a shot from the pistols of the pursuers, who had by this timeenvironed the house, and were preparing to force their way in. His plansucceeded. He was shot, and died that night. 

Essex himself was not quite so desperate as this. He soon saw, however, that he must sooner or later yield. He could not stand a siege in hisown private dwelling against the whole force of the English realm. Hesurrendered about six in the evening, and was sent to the Tower. He wassoon afterward brought to trial. The facts, with all the arrangementsand details of the conspiracy, were fully proved, and he was condemnedto die. 

As the unhappy prisoner lay in his gloomy dungeon in the Tower, theinsane excitement under which he had for so many months been actingslowly ebbed away. He awoke from it gradually, as one recovers hissenses after a dreadful dream. He saw how utterly irretrievable was themischief which had been done. Remorse for his guilt in having attemptedto destroy the peace of the kingdom to gratify his own personal feelingsof revenge; recollections of the favors which Elizabeth had shown him, and of the love which she had felt for him, obviously so deep andsincere; the consciousness that his life was fairly forfeited, and thathe must die--to lie in his cell and think of these things, overwhelmedhim with anguish and despair. The brilliant prospects which were sorecently before him were all forever gone, leaving nothing in theirplace but the grim phantom of an executioner, standing with an ax by theside of a dreadful platform, with a block upon it, half revealed andhalf hidden by the black cloth which covered it like a pall. 

Elizabeth, in her palace, was in a state of mind scarcely lessdistressing than that of the wretched prisoner in his cell. The oldconflict was renewed--pride and resentment on the one side, and lovewhich would not be extinguished on the other. If Essex would sue forpardon, she would remit his sentence and allow him to live. Why would henot do it? If he would send her the ring which she had given him forexactly such an emergency, he might be saved. Why did he not send it?The courtiers and statesmen about her urged her to sign the warrant; thepeace of the country demanded the execution of the laws in a case ofsuch unquestionable guilt. They told her, too, that Essex wished to die, that he knew that he was hopelessly and irretrievably ruined, and thatlife, if granted to him, was a boon which would compromise her ownsafety and confer no benefit on him. Still Elizabeth waited and waitedin an agony of suspense, in hopes that the ring would come; the sendingof it would be so far an act of submission on his part as would put itin her power to do the rest. Her love could bend her pride, indomitableas it usually was, _almost_ to the whole concession, but it would notgive up quite all. It demanded some sacrifice on his part, whichsacrifice the sending of the ring would have rendered. The ring did notcome, nor any petition for mercy, and at length the fatal warrant wassigned. 

What the courtiers said about Essex's desire to die was doubtless true. Like every other person involved in irretrievable sufferings andsorrows, he wanted to live, and he wanted to die. The two contradictorydesires shared dominion in his heart, sometimes struggling together in atumultuous conflict, and sometimes reigning in alternation, in calmsmore terrible, in fact, than the tempests which preceded and followedthem. 

At the appointed time the unhappy man was led out to the court-yard inthe Tower where the last scene was to be enacted. The lieutenant of theTower presided, dressed in a black velvet gown, over a suit of blacksatin. The "scaffold" was a platform about twelve feet square and fourfeet high, with a railing around it, and steps by which to ascend. Theblock was in the center of it, covered, as well as the platform itself, with black cloth. There were seats erected near for those who wereappointed to be present at the execution. Essex ascended the platformwith a firm step, and, surveying the solemn scene around him withcalmness and composure, he began to speak. 

He asked the forgiveness of God, of the spectators present, and of thequeen, for the crimes for which he was about to suffer. He acknowledgedhis guilt, and the justice of his condemnation. His mind seemed deeplyimbued with a sense of his accountability to God, and he expressed astrong desire to be forgiven, for Christ's sake, for all the sins whichhe had committed, which had been, he said, most numerous and aggravatedfrom his earliest years. He asked the spectators present to join him inhis devotions, and he then proceeded to offer a short prayer, in whichhe implored pardon for his sins, and a long life and happy reign for thequeen. The prayer ended, all was ready. The executioner, according tothe strange custom on such occasions, then asked his pardon for theviolence which he was about to commit, which Essex readily granted. Essex laid his head upon the block, and it required three blows tocomplete its severance from the body. When the deed was done, theexecutioner took up the bleeding head, saying solemnly, as he held it, "God save the queen. "

There were but few spectators present at this dreadful scene, and theywere chiefly persons required to attend in the discharge of theirofficial duties. There was, however, one exception; it was that of acourtier of high rank, who had long been Essex's inveterate enemy, andwho could not deny himself the savage pleasure of witnessing his rival'sdestruction. But even the stern and iron-hearted officers of the Towerwere shocked at his appearing at the scaffold. They urged him to goaway, and not distress the dying man by his presence at such an hour. The courtier yielded so far as to withdraw from the scaffold; but hecould not go far away. He found a place where he could stand unobservedto witness the scene, at the window of a turret which overlooked thecourt-yard. 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE CONCLUSION. 

1600-1603

Question of Essex's guilt. --General opinion of mankind. --Elizabeth'sdistress. --Fall of Essex's party. --Wounds of the heart. --Elizabeth'sefforts to recover her spirits. --Embassage from France. --Aconversation. --Thoughts of Essex. --Harrington. --The Countess ofNottingham. --The ring. --The Countess of Nottingham's confession. --Thequeen's indignation. --Bitter reminiscences. --The queen removes toRichmond. --Elizabeth grows worse. --The private chapel and theclosets. --The wedding ring. --The queen's friends abandon her. --Thequeen's voice fails. --She calls her council together. --Thechaplains. --The prayers. --The queen's death. --King Jamesproclaimed. --Portrait of James the First. --Burial of thequeen. --Westminster Abbey. --Its history. --The Poet's Corner. --Henrythe Seventh's Chapel. --Elizabeth's monument. --James. --Mary'smonument. --Feelings of visitors. --Summary of Elizabeth's character. 

There can be no doubt that Essex was really guilty of the treason forwhich he was condemned, but mankind have generally been inclined toconsider Elizabeth rather than him as the one really accountable, bothfor the crime and its consequences. To elate and intoxicate, in thefirst place, an ardent and ambitious boy, by flattery and favors, andthen, in the end, on the occurrence of real or fancied causes ofdispleasure, to tease and torment so sensitive and impetuous a spirit toabsolute madness and phrensy, was to take the responsibility, in a greatmeasure, for all the effects which might follow. At least so it hasgenerally been regarded. By almost all the readers of the story, Essexis pitied and mourned--it is Elizabeth that is condemned. It is amelancholy story; but scenes exactly parallel to this case arecontinually occurring in private life all around us, where sorrows andsufferings which are, so far as the heart is concerned, precisely thesame result from the combined action, or rather, perhaps, thealternating and contending action, of fondness, passion, and obstinacy. The results are always, in their own nature, the same, though not oftenon so great a scale as to make the wrong which follows treason against arealm, and the consequences a beheading in the Tower. 

There must have been some vague consciousness of this her share in theguilt of the transaction in Elizabeth's mind, even while the trial ofEssex was going on. We know that she was harassed by the most tormentingsuspense and perplexity while the question of the execution of hissentence was pending. Of course, when the plot was discovered, Essex'sparty and all his friends fell immediately from all influence andconsideration at court. Many of them were arrested and imprisoned, andfour were executed, as he had been. The party which had been opposed tohim acquired at once the entire ascendency, and they all, judges, counselors, statesmen, and generals, combined their influence to pressupon the queen the necessity of his execution. She signed one warrantand delivered it to the officer; but then, as soon as the deed was done, she was so overwhelmed with distress and anguish that she sent torecall it, and had it canceled. Finally she signed another, and thesentence was executed. 

Time will cure, in our earlier years, most of the sufferings, and calmmost of the agitations of the soul, however incurable and uncontrollablethey may at first appear to the sufferer. But in the later periods oflife, when severe shocks strike very heavily upon the soul, there isfound far less of buoyancy and recovering power to meet the blow. Insuch cases the stunned and bewildered spirit moves on, after receivingits wound, staggering, as it were, with faintness and pain, and leavingit for a long time uncertain whether it will ultimately rise andrecover, or sink down and die. 

Dreadfully wounded as Elizabeth was, in all the inmost feelings andaffections of her heart, by the execution of her beloved favorite, shewas a woman of far too much spirit and energy to yield without astruggle. She made the greatest efforts possible after his death tobanish the subject from her mind, and to recover her wonted spirits. Shewent on hunting excursions and parties of pleasure. She prosecuted withgreat energy her war with the Spaniards, and tried to interest herselfin the siege and defense of Continental cities. She received anembassage from the court of France with great pomp and parade, and madea grand progress through a part of her dominions, with a long train ofattendants, to the house of a nobleman, where she entertained theembassador many days in magnificent state, at her own expense, withplate and furniture brought from her own palaces for the purpose. Sheeven planned an interview between herself and the King of France, andwent to Dover to effect it. 

But all would not do. Nothing could drive the thoughts of Essex from hermind, or dispel the dejection with which the recollection of her lovefor him, and of his unhappy fate, oppressed her spirit. A year or twopassed away, but time brought no relief. Sometimes she was fretful andpeevish, and sometimes hopelessly dejected and sad. She told the Frenchembassador one day that she was weary of her life, and when sheattempted to speak of Essex as the cause of her grief, she sighedbitterly and burst into tears. 

When she recovered her composure, she told the embassador that she hadalways been uneasy about Essex while he lived, and, knowing hisimpetuosity of spirit and his ambition, she had been afraid that hewould one day attempt something which would compromise his life, and shehad warned and entreated him not to be led into any such designs, for, if he did so, his fate would have to be decided by the stern authorityof law, and not by her own indulgent feelings but that all her earnestwarnings had been insufficient to save him. 

It was the same whenever any thing occurred which recalled thoughts ofEssex to her mind; it almost always brought tears to her eyes. WhenEssex was commanding in Ireland, it will be recollected that he had, onone occasion, come to a parley with Tyrone, the rebel leader, across thecurrent of a stream. An officer in his army, named Harrington, had beenwith him on this occasion, and present, though at a little distance, during the interview. After Essex had left Ireland, another lord-deputyhad been appointed; but the rebellion continued to give the government agreat deal of trouble. The Spaniards came over to Tyrone's assistance, and Elizabeth's mind was much occupied with plans for subduing him. Oneday Harrington was at court in the presence of the queen, and she askedhim if he had ever seen Tyrone. Harrington replied that he had. Thequeen then recollected the former interview which Harrington had hadwith him, and she said, "Oh, now I recollect that you have seen himbefore!" This thought recalled Essex so forcibly to her mind, and filledher with such painful emotions, that she looked up to Harrington with acountenance full of grief: tears came to her eyes, and she beat herbreast with every indication of extreme mental suffering. 

Things went on in this way until toward the close of 1602, when anincident occurred which seemed to strike down at once and forever whatlittle strength and spirit the queen had remaining. The Countess ofNottingham, a celebrated lady of the court, was dangerously sick, andhad sent for the queen to come and see her, saying that she had acommunication to make to her majesty herself, personally, which she wasvery anxious to make to her before she died. The queen went accordinglyto see her. 

When she arrived at the bedside the countess showed her a ring. Elizabeth immediately recognized it as the ring which she had given toEssex, and which she had promised to consider a special pledge of herprotection, and which was to be sent to her by him whenever he foundhimself in any extremity of danger and distress. The queen eagerlydemanded where it came from. The countess replied that Essex had sentthe ring to her during his imprisonment in the Tower, and after hiscondemnation, with an earnest request that she would deliver it to thequeen as the token of her promise of protection, and of his ownsupplication for mercy. The countess added that she had intended todeliver the ring according to Essex's request, but her husband, who wasthe unhappy prisoner's enemy, forbade her to do it; that ever since theexecution of Essex she had been greatly distressed at the consequencesof her having withheld the ring; and that now, as she was about to leavethe world herself, she felt that she could not die in peace withoutfirst seeing the queen, and acknowledging fully what she had done, andimploring her forgiveness. 

The queen was thrown into a state of extreme indignation and displeasureby this statement. She reproached the dying countess in the bitterestterms, and shook her as she lay helpless in her bed, saying, "God mayforgive you if he pleases, but _I_ never will!" She then went away in arage. 

Her exasperation, however, against the countess was soon succeeded bybursts of inconsolable grief at the recollection of the hopeless andirretrievable loss of the object of her affection whose image the ringcalled back so forcibly to her mind. Her imagination wandered inwretchedness and despair to the gloomy dungeon in the Tower where Essexhad been confined, and painted him pining there, day after day, indreadful suspense and anxiety, waiting for her to redeem the solemnpledge by which she had bound herself in giving him the ring. All thesorrow which she had felt at his untimely and cruel fate was awakenedafresh, and became more poignant than ever. She made them place cushionsfor her upon the floor, in the most inner and secluded of herapartments, and there she would lie all the day long, her hairdisheveled, her dress neglected, her food refused, and her mind a preyto almost uninterrupted anguish and grief. 

In January, 1603, she felt that she was drawing toward her end, and shedecided to be removed from Westminster to Richmond, because there wasthere an arrangement of closets communicating with her chamber, in whichshe could easily and conveniently attend divine service. She felt thatshe had now done with the world, and all the relief and comfort whichshe could find at all from the pressure of her distress was in thatsense of protection and safety which she experienced when in thepresence of God and listening to the exercises of devotion. 

[Illustration: ELIZABETH IN HER LAST HOURS. ]

It was a cold and stormy day in January when she went to Richmond; but, being restless and ill at ease, she would not be deterred by thatcircumstance from making the journey. She became worse after thisremoval. She made them put cushions again for her upon the floor, andshe would lie upon them all the day, refusing to go to her bed. Therewas a communication from her chamber to closets connected with a chapel, where she had been accustomed to sit and hear divine service. Theseclosets were of the form of small galleries, where the queen and herimmediate attendants could sit. There was one open and public;another--a smaller one--was private, with curtains which could be drawnbefore it, so as to screen those within from the notice of thecongregation. The queen intended, first, to go into the great closet;but, feeling too weak for this, she changed her mind, and ordered theprivate one to be prepared. At last she decided not to attempt to makeeven this effort, but ordered the cushions to be put down upon thefloor, near the entrance, in her own room, and she lay there while theprayers were read, listening to the voice of the clergyman as it came into her through the open door. 

One day she asked them to take off the wedding ring with which she hadcommemorated her espousal to her kingdom and her people on the day ofher coronation. The flesh had swollen around it so that it could not beremoved. The attendants procured an instrument and cut it in two, and sorelieved the finger from the pressure. The work was done in silence andsolemnity, the queen herself, as well as the attendants, regarding it asa symbol that the union, of which the ring had been the pledge, wasabout to be sundered forever. 

She sunk rapidly day by day, and, as it became more and more probablethat she would soon cease to live, the nobles and statesmen who had beenattendants at her court for so many years withdrew one after anotherfrom the palace, and left London secretly, but with eager dispatch, tomake their way to Scotland, in order to be the first to hail King James, the moment they should learn that Elizabeth had ceased to breathe. 

Her being abandoned thus by these heartless friends did not escape thenotice of the dying queen. Though her strength of body was almost gone, the soul was as active and busy as ever within its failing tenement. Shewatched every thing--noticed every thing, growing more and more jealousand irritable just in proportion as her situation became helpless andforlorn. Every thing seemed to conspire to deepen the despondency andgloom which darkened her dying hours. 

Her strength rapidly declined. Her voice grew fainter and fainter, until, on the 23d of March, she could no longer speak. In the afternoonof that day she aroused herself a little, and contrived to make signs tohave her council called to her bedside. Those who had not gone toScotland came. They asked her whom she wished to have succeed her on thethrone. She could not answer, but when they named King James ofScotland, she made a sign of assent. After a time the counselors wentaway. 

At six o'clock in the evening she made signs for the archbishop and herchaplains to come to her. They were sent for and came. When they camein, they approached her bedside and kneeled. The patient was lying uponher back speechless, but her eye, still moving watchfully and observingevery thing, showed that the faculties of the soul were unimpaired. Oneof the clergymen asked her questions respecting her faith. Of course, she could not answer in words. She made signs, however, with her eyesand her hands, which seemed to prove that she had full possession of allher faculties. The by-standers looked on with breathless attention. Theaged bishop, who had asked the questions, then began to pray for her. Hecontinued his prayer a long time, and then pronouncing a benedictionupon her, he was about to rise, but she made a sign. The bishop did notunderstand what she meant, but a lady present said that she wished thebishop to continue his devotions. The bishop, though weary withkneeling, continued his prayer half an hour longer. He then closedagain, but she repeated the sign. The bishop, finding thus that hisministrations gave her so much comfort, renewed them with greaterfervency than before, and continued his supplications for a longtime--so long, that those who had been present at the commencement ofthe service went away softly, one after another, so that when at lastthe bishop retired, the queen was left with her nurses and her womenalone. These attendants remained at their dying sovereign's bedside fora few hours longer, watching the failing pulse, the quickened breathing, and all the other indications of approaching dissolution. As hour afterhour thus passed on, they wished that their weary task was done, andthat both their patient and themselves were at rest. This lasted tillmidnight, and then the intelligence was communicated about the palacethat Elizabeth was no more. 

In the mean time all the roads to Scotland were covered, as it were, with eager aspirants for the favor of the distinguished personage, there, who, from the instant Elizabeth ceased to breathe, became King ofEngland. They flocked into Scotland by sea and by land, urging their wayas rapidly as possible, each eager to be foremost in paying his homageto the rising sun. The council assembled and proclaimed King James. Elizabeth lay neglected and forgotten. The interest she had inspired wasawakened only by her power, and that being gone, nobody mourned for her, or lamented her death. The attention of the kingdom was soon universallyabsorbed in the plans for receiving and proclaiming the new monarch fromthe North, and in anticipations of the splendid pageantry which was tosignalize his taking his seat upon the English throne. 

[Illustration: KING JAMES I. ]

In due time the body of the deceased queen was deposited with those ofits progenitors, in the ancient place of sepulture of the English kings, Westminster Abbey. Westminster Abbey, in the sense in which that termis used in history, is not to be conceived of as a building, nor even asa group of buildings, but rather as a long succession of buildings likea dynasty following each other in a line, the various structures havingbeen renewed and rebuilt constantly, as parts or wholes decayed, fromcentury to century, for twelve or fifteen hundred years. The spotreceived its consecration at a very early day. It was then an islandformed by the waters of a little tributary to the Thames, which has longsince entirely disappeared. Written records of its sacredness, and ofthe sacred structures which have occupied it, go back more than athousand years, and beyond that time tradition mounts still further, carrying the consecration of the spot almost to the Christian era, bytelling us that the Apostle Peter himself, in his missionary wanderings, had a chapel or an oratory there. 

The spot has been, in all ages, the great burial-place of the Englishkings, whose monuments and effigies adorn its walls and aisles inendless variety. A vast number, too, of the statesmen, generals, andnaval heroes of the British empire have been admitted to the honor ofhaving their remains deposited under its marble floor. Even literarygenius has a little corner assigned it--the mighty aristocracy whosemortal remains it is the main function of the building to protect havingso far condescended toward intellectual greatness as to allow to Milton, Addison, and Shakspeare modest monuments behind a door. The place iscalled the Poets' Corner; and so famed and celebrated is this vastedifice every where, that the phrase by which even this obscure andinsignificant portion of it is known is familiar to every ear and everytongue throughout the English world. 

The body of Elizabeth was interred in a part of the edifice called Henrythe Seventh's Chapel. The word chapel, in the European sense, denotesordinarily a subordinate edifice connected with the main body of achurch, and opening into it. Most frequently, in fact, a chapel is amere recess or alcove, separated from the area of the church by a smallscreen or gilded iron railing. In the Catholic churches these chapelsare ornamented with sculptures and paintings, with altars andcrucifixes, and other such furniture. Sometimes they are built expresslyas monumental structures, in which case they are often of considerablesize, and are ornamented with great magnificence and splendor. This wasthe case with Henry the Seventh's Chapel. The whole building is, in facthis tomb. Vast sums were expended in the construction of it, the work ofwhich extended through two reigns. It is now one of the most attractiveportions of the great pile which it adorns. Elizabeth's body wasdeposited here, and here her monument was erected. 

[Illustration: ELIZABETH'S TOMB IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. ]

It will be recollected that James, who now succeeded Elizabeth, was theson of Mary Queen of Scots. Soon after his accession to the throne, heremoved the remains of his mother from their place of sepulture near thescene of her execution, and interred them in the south aisle of Henrythe Seventh's Chapel, while the body of Elizabeth occupied the northernone. [E] He placed, also, over Mary's remains, a tomb very similar in itsplan and design to that by which the memory of Elizabeth was honored;and there the rival queens have since reposed in silence and peace underthe same paved floor. And though the monuments do not materiallydiffer in their architectural forms, it is found that the visitors whogo continually to the spot gaze with a brief though lively interest atthe one, while they linger long and mournfully over the other. 

[Footnote E: See our history of Mary Queen of Scots, near the close. Aisles in English Cathedral churches are colonnades, or spaces betweencolumns on an open floor, and not passages between pews, as with us. Inmonumental churches like Westminster Abbey there are no pews. ]

 * * * * *

The character of Elizabeth has not generally awakened among mankind muchcommendation or sympathy. They who censure or condemn her should, however, reflect how very conspicuous was the stage on which she acted, and how minutely all her faults have been paraded to the world. That shedeserved the reproaches which have been so freely cast upon her memorycan not be denied. It will moderate, however, any tendency tocensoriousness in our mode of uttering them, if we consider to howlittle advantage we should ourselves appear, if all the words offretfulness and irritability which we have ever spoken, all ourinsincerity and double-dealing, our selfishness, our pride, our pettyresentments, our caprice, and our countless follies, were exposed asfully to the public gaze as were those of this renowned and glorious, but unhappy queen. 

 THE END. 

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

1. Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors, and toensure consistent spelling and punctuation in this etext; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the original book. 

2. The sidenotes used in this text were originally published asbanners in the page headers, and have been collected at the beginningof each chapter for the reader's convenience.