Cassell's Illustrated History of England/Volume 2/Chapter 16
Chapter XVI.
THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH.—(continued
The time which Elizabeth and her ministers, Burleigh, Walsingham, and Leicester, had been for years pressing forward to had at length arrived. They had hunted the unfortunate Queen of Scots into their toils; had purchased up the secret agency of her subjects, and of her only son, against her; had heaped every possible injury and indignity upon her; had tortured her in mind, and ruined her in health; had blackened her reputation, and had contrived by the basest acts and forgeries to stamp upon her that character which belonged pre-eminently to themselves, that of a murderer. She was prematurely old, stripped of her friends, her attendants, her most secret papers, of her very modicum of money, and even of her last gold chain. Her money amounted only to £107 2s. in English coin—five rouleaux of French crowns. They seized also 2,000 crowns which she had given to Curie's wife as a marriage portion; a gold chain and money belonging to Nau, amounting to £1,548 18s.; they left only three pounds to pay the wages of some of the inferior servants. There remained nothing now to complete this most infamous history than to take the royal and infirm captive's life; and for this they had paved the way by the means which we have detailed.
On the 5th of October a commission was issued to forty-six persons, peers, privy councillors, and judges, constituting a court competent to inquire into and determine all offences committed against the statute of the 27th of the Queen, either by Mary, daughter and heiress of James V., late King of Scotland, or by any other person whomsoever. The moment this was known, Chasteauneuf, the French ambassador, demanded in the name of his sovereign that Mary should be allowed counsel, according to the universal practice of civilised nations. But Elizabeth sent him an angry and insulting message by Hatton, that "she did not require the advice or schooling of foreign powers to instruct her how she ought to act;" and added that the Scottish queen was unworthy of counsel. Thus was refused the necessary defence of the accused, which the humblest citizen had a right to claim; and that it was determined beforehand to condemn and execute the Queen of Scots, was plain by the order of Elizabeth to the commissioners, dated October 7th, not to pass sentence on Mary till they had returned into the queen's presence, and made their report to her, sentence being thus predetermined; and we find the whole proceedings of this arbitrary, one-sided and outrageous cast.
On the 12th the commissioners arrived at the castle. They were the Lord Chancellor Bromley, the Lord Treasurer Burleigh, the Earls of Oxford, Kent, Derby, Rutland, Worcester, Cumberland, Warwick, Pembroke, and Lincoln; the Viscount Montague; the Lords Zouch, Morley, Abergavenny, Stafford, Gray, Lumley, Stourton, Sandys, Wentworth, Mordaunt, St. John of Bletsoe, Compton, and Cheney; Sir James Croft, Sir Christopher Hatton, Sir Francis Walsingham, Sir Ralph Sadler, Sir Walter Mildmay, and Sir Amyas Paulet; Wray, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; Anderson, Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench; Manwood, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and Gawdy and Periam, Justices of the Common Pleas. The next day Mary kept her chamber on the plea of indisposition, but admitted Mildmay and Paulet, with Barker, a notary, who summoned her to attend the court of commission. Mary denied their authority over her, an independent queen, whereupon they produced and handed to her the following extraordinary letter from Elizabeth:—
QUEEN ELIZABETH TO MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.
You have, in various ways and manners, attempted to take my life, and to bring my kingdom to destruction by bloodshed. I have never proceeded so harshly against you, but have, on the contrary, protected and maintained you, like myself. These treasons will be proved to you, and all made manifest. Yet it is my will that you answer the nobles and peers of the kingdom as if I were myself present. I therefore require, charge, and command that you make answer, for I have been well informed of your arrogance.
Act plainly, without reserve, and you will sooner be able to obtain favour of me.Mary read this blunt and dictatorial letter with great composure, and then said to the deputies that she was sorry to be charged by her sister the queen with that of which she was innocent; that she had indeed endeavoured to obtain her liberty, and would continue to do as long as she lived; but she reminded them that she was a queen as well as their mistress, and neither subject to her nor their jurisdiction; that as to plotting against the life of their queen, she abhorred all such attempts; on the contrary, she had repeatedly warned Elizabeth of dangers; that as to the laws of England, she was neither subject to them, nor did she know what they were; that as to defending herself, even if she were inclined to plead, they had deprived her of that power, for they had taken her papers, her secretaries, and would allow her no advocates. In a word, she had done nothing against the queen, had excited no man against her, and could only be charged from her own words and writings, neither of which, she was sure, would serve them.
The next day Paulet and Barker waited on her again, to know whether she still persisted in ignoring the authority of the court. She replied, "Most certainly;" adding, "There are things which I do not understand. The queen says I am subject to the laws of England because I am living under their protection." She denied this protection, declaring that she came into the kingdom to demand aid and assistance, and had ever since been treated neither as a queen nor a subject, but a close prisoner. Finding that their emissaries did not succeed in moving her, the Lord Chancellor, Burleigh, and some others obtained admission to her in the hall of the castle, and assured her that their patent and commission authorised them to try her; that neither her condition as a prisoner nor her state as a queen could make her independent of the laws of the country; and they protested that if she refused to plead, they would proceed against her without regard to her objections. Mary, though alone against a host of the ablest men and most practised in law, chicanery, and state intrigue, still refused to plead, except it were in a full and free parliament. She knew, she said, that they had passed the statute against her, and desired to take her life; but she bade them look to their consciences and remember their reputations, for the theatre of the whole world was much wider than the kingdom of England. She complained of the shameful usage which she had suffered in this country, and Burleigh had the hardened assurance to tell her that the queen had always treated her with a rare kindness!
They then sent her the list of her judges, to show her that they were of a high and honourable character; but she declared that she could not submit her cause to any subjects, and would sooner perish than dishonour her ancestors, the kings of Scotland, by admitting herself the subject of the English monarch. Burleigh then declared that they would, nevertheless, proceed against her on the morrow as contumacious; and Hatton added, "If you are innocent, you have nothing to fear; but if you avoid a trial, you stain your reputation by an everlasting blot." This remark appeared to have sunk into her mind, for in the morning she consented to plead, provided that her protest against the authority of the court was admitted, and that she were called upon to do nothing derogatory to the prerogatives or honour of her ancestors or successors. Burleigh asked her if she would plead, provided the protest was laid before them in writing without their signifying its acceptance; and Mary agreed to this. In fact, they would, she saw, try her with or without that consent; and by pleading she could, at least, make her defence in some manner.
The next day, the 14th of October, the Court assembled in the great hall of Fotheringay, at the upper end of which was placed a chair of state with a canopy, as for the Queen of England; and below it, at some distance, a chair without a canopy, for the Queen of Scots—thus studiously indicating her inferiority. The Chancellor, Bromley, opened the Court by informing Mary that the Queen of England, having heard that she had conspired against her state and person, had deputed them to inquire into the fact. Upon this Mary entered her solemn protest against their authority, declaring that she had come as a friendly sovereign to seek aid from her cousin, the Queen of England, and had been unjustly detained by her as a prisoner; on that ground she denied their authority to try her. It was permitted to record her protest, together with the Chancellor's reply. To use the words of the historian, Lingard—"She was now placed in a position in which, though she might assert, it was impossible that she could prove her innocence. A single and friendless female, the inmate of a prison for the last nineteen years, ignorant of law, unpractised in judicial forms, without papers, witnesses, or counsel, and with no other knowledge of the late transactions than the reports collected by her female servants, nor of the proofs to be adduced by her adversaries but what her own conjectures might supply, she could be no match for that array of lawyers, judges, and statesmen, who sat marshalled against her. … Yet, under all these disadvantages, she defended herself with spirit and address. For two days she kept at bay the hunters of her life."
The charges against her wore two: first, that she had conspired with traitors and foreigners to invade the realm, and secondly, to compass the death of the queen. As to the first charge, Mary pleaded guilty to it, and justified it. They grounded this charge on far better proof than their evidence for the second, namely, letters—a host of letters intercepted or found in her cabinets, to and from Mendoza, Paget, Morgan, and others. From these it appeared that she had fully sanctioned an invasion on her behalf, and had offered to raise her friends to support it, and especially that those in Scotland should make themselves master of the person of her son, and prevent any aid being sent to the Government in England. And what was there in this, Mary demanded, that she had not a right to do? Was she not the equal of Elizabeth, a sovereign as independent as herself? By what right did she, then, detain her in her dungeons, but that of unjust and dishonourable force? She was neither subject to her laws, nor bound by any act or contract to refrain from asserting her own freedom. The laws of nations authorised her to use every exertion to recover her liberty, which was wrongfully withheld. She had proposed all kinds of terms and treaties, and offered all possible securities for observing amity towards Elizabeth's kingdom; but her offers, her entreaties, her protests, had all been treated with contempt. Who, therefore, would contend that she was not justified in seeking and accepting the services of any friendly powers or private friends to aid in the achievement of her liberty?
When they came to the second charge, the conspiracy to murder Elizabeth, she denied any participation in it totally, indignantly, and with many tears. She called God to witness the truth of her assertion, and prayed him, if she were guilty of such a crime, to grant her no mercy. The proofs produced to establish her approval of this design were—first, the copy of the letter of Babington, in which was this passage:—"For the dispatch of the usurper, from the obedience of whom, by the excommunication of her, we are made free, there be six noble gentlemen, all my private friends, who, for the zeal they bear to the Catholic cause and your majesty's service, will undertake the tragical execution." Next there was a copy of seven points, which professed to be derived from her answer to Babington, the sixth of which was, "By what means do the six gentlemen deliberate to proceed?"
After these came the confessions of Nau and Curie, and, finally, reported admissions in her letters to her foreign correspondents of having received these intimations of their intention of assassinating the queen, and of having given their assenting cautions and instructions on this point.
Thus, if all this evidence was based on bonâ fide documents openly produced and fully identified, the case would have been decisive, for Nau and Curie were made to swear to having seen and recognised these documents. But, unfortunately for the case of Elizabeth and her ministers, they produced no original document or letter whatever, but only copies, the very non-production of the originals being plain proof that they durst not produce them, but were compelled to go upon copies, or pretended copies, which, if based on real documents, might be, and, from their non-production, undoubtedly were, garbled to suit their deadly purpose.
Mary, knowing nothing of the proofs to be brought forward, at first denied any correspondence with Babington; but she soon saw enough to convince her that they had their correspondence in their possession, and admitted having written the note of the 18th, but not any such answer to Babington on the 17th of July, as they asserted. She very properly asserted that if they meant only to ascertain truth and fact, they ought to have kept Babington to produce against her, and not have put him out of the way. She demanded the production of the original letters, and the production of Nau and Curle face to face with her, for that Nau was timid and simple, and Curie so accustomed to obey Nau that he would not do otherwise; but she was sure that in her presence they would not venture to speak falsely. But neither of these things, no doubt for the strongest of reasons, were consented to. As to her letters, she said, it was not the first time that they had been garbled and interpolated. It was easy for one man to imitate the writing and ciphers of another; and she greatly feared that Walsingham had done it in this instance, to practise against the lives of both herself and her son.
At this direct charge, Walsingham arose and called God to witness his innocence, protesting that he had done nothing unbecoming an honest man. But Walsingham was so hardened by long years of duplicity and the practice of the basest acts, that he could no longer judge of what was honest or dishonest. His moral sense must have been as dead as the pavement under his feet. Mary, however, desired him not to take offence at what she had said: it was only what she had been told, and she begged him to give no more credit to those who slandered her than she did to those who slandered him.
As her reasonable requests of the production of the original documents and of Nau and Curle were not granted, though Elizabeth was said to offer no objection to the appearance of the secretaries, Mary once more appealed to be heard in full Parliament, or before the queen in council, and then rose, and, after a few words apart with Burleigh, Warwick, Hatton, and Walsingham, she withdrew.
On this the commissioners adjourned their sitting from the present time to the 15th of October, and from Fotheringay to the Star Chamber at Westminster—ominous place, notorious for the perpetration of constant acts of arbitrary injustice. It appears by a letter of Burleigh's that great debate arose on the question after the retirement of Mary, which could only be ended by the adjournment. He says that as the commissioners could not give judgment till the record was drawn up, which would take five or six days, they could not remain there without a dearth of provisions, for they had two thousand people with them. But Walsingham assigns another reason: that they adjourned in consequence of the consideration due to the quality of the prisoner. The real reasons, no doubt, were, that, as we have seen, Elizabeth had bound them not to pass sentence till they had come back to her; and to this must be added the embarrassing fact that Mary had demanded to see Nau and Curle face to face. That was no more convenient than the production of the original documents on which they pretended to adjudge the Queen of Scots. When they did meet again, they summoned Nan and Curle before them—a perfect farce, if it were done in consequence of Mary's challenge, because she was now absent, and could not interrogate them, or keep them to the truth by her presence. They called on the secretaries to affirm afresh the truth of their depositions. This they did not hesitate to do; but Nau again maintained, as he had done all along, that the only points in the indictment which could criminate Mary as an accomplice in any design against the life of Elizabeth were false, and substantiated by no real and authentic evidence. Walsingham was highly indignant with the secretary, and endeavoured to browbeat and silence him by the depositions of the conspirators already executed, and by those of some of Mary's servants; but Nau maintained his assertion that every atom of evidence which went to inculpate the queen in the design of the conspirators was forged and false, and summoned the commissioners to meet him face to face before God and all Christian kings, where no false evidence could avail, and where he would prove the innocence of his queen—a queen as much as the Queen of England.
But nothing could influence this body, whose one impulse was fear of their sovereign. They had their work to do according to her will, and they did it. With the exception of Lord Zouch, who objected to the charge of assassination, the commissioners unanimously signed Mary's condemnation. The sentence was this:—"For that since the conclusion of the session of Parliament, viz., since the 1st day of June, in the twenty-seventh year of her Majesty's reign and before the date of the commission, divers matters have been compassed and imagined within this realm of England by Anthony Babington and others, with the privity of the said Mary, pretending a title to the crown of this realm of England, tending to the hurt, death, and destruction of the royal person of our lady the queen; and also for that the aforesaid Mary, pretending a title to the crown, hath herself compassed and imagined within this realm divers matters tending to the hurt, death, and destruction of the Royal person of our sovereign lady the queen, contrary to the form of the statute in the commission aforesaid specified." Nau and Curle were declared abettors, so that it was a sentence of death to all the three. To this a provision was added that the sentence should in no way derogate from the right or dignity of her son, James King of Scotland.
On the 29th of October—that is, four days after the passing of this sentence—Elizabeth assembled her Parliament. She had summoned it for the 15th, anticipating quicker work at Fotheringay, but prorogued it to this date. The proceedings of the trial were laid before each house, and both Lords and Commons petitioned Elizabeth to enforce the execution of the Queen of Scots without delay. Serjeant Puckering, the Speaker of the Commons, in communicating the prayer of the House, reminded Elizabeth of the wrath of God against persons who neglected to execute His judgments, as in the case of Saul, who had spared Agag, and Ahab, who had spared Benhadad. Elizabeth replied by feigning the utmost reluctance to shed the blood of that wicked woman, the Queen of Scots, though she had so often sought her life, and for the preservation of which she expressed her deep gratitude to Almighty God. She wished that she and Mary were two milkmaids, with pails upon their arms, and then she would forgive her all her wrongs. As for her own life, she had no desire on her own account to preserve it; she had nothing left worth living for; but for her people she could endure much. Still, the call of her Council, her Parliament, and her people to execute justice on her own kinswoman, had brought her into a great strait and struggle of mind. But then, she said, she would confide to them a secret: that certain persons had sworn an oath within these few days to take her life or be hanged themselves. She had written proof of this, and she must, therefore, remind them of their own oath of association for the defence of her person. "She thought it requisite," she said, "with earnest prayer, to beseech the Divine Majesty so to illuminate her understanding, and to inspire her with his grace, that she might see clearly to do and determine that which should serve to the establishment of his Church, the preservation of their estates, and the prosperity of the commonwealth."
She sent a message to the two houses, expressing the great conflict which she had had in her own mind, and begging to know whether they could not devise some means of sparing the life of her relative. Both houses, on the 25th, returned answer that this was impossible. To this declaration of Parliament she returned to them one of her enigmatical answers, "If I should say that I meant not to grant your petition, by my faith, I should say unto you more perhaps than I mean. And if I should say that I mean to grant it, I should tell you more than it is fit for you to know. Thus I must deliver to you an answer answerless."
Elizabeth's next move was to announce to Mary the sentence, and to see whether she could not draw from her a confession of its justice. For this purpose she sent down to Fotheringay Lord Buckhurst and Mr. Robert Beale, with a Protestant bishop and dean, and a strong body of guards. They were to take advantage of her terror and distress of mind to draw from her this important admission. But in this the messengers signally failed. Mary heard the sentence with an air of composure, protested against its injustice, and against the right of any power in England to pass it; but declared that death would be welcome to her as the only way of escape from her weary captivity. She refused to receive the Protestant bishop and dean, and demanded to be allowed the services of her almoner. This was conceded for a brief interval; and during that interval she wrote letters to the Pope, the Duke of Guise, and to the Archbishop of Glasgow, in which she declared her innocence, her steadfastness in her religion, and called upon them to vindicate her memory. These letters were all safely delivered to their several addresses after her death.
This interview took place on the 23rd of November; and the next day Paulet went into her presence with his hat on, declared that she was now dead according to law, and had no right to the insignia of royalty: he therefore ordered the canopy of state to be pulled down, and also that her billiard-table should be taken away, because a woman under her circumstances should be better employed than in mere recreation.
On the 6th of December proclamation of the judgment of the commissioners against the Queen of Scots was made through London by sound of trumpet, whereupon the populace made great rejoicings, kindled large bonfires, and rang the bells all day as if some joyful event had occurred. They were so fully persuaded that the Queen of Scots was at the bottom of all the alleged and real plots for the overturn of the Government, the bringing in of the King of Spain, and the Roman Catholic religion, that their exultation was boundless. Thus the people, as well as the Parliament and Council, had yoked themselves to the responsibility of this act; and Mary, when she heard of it, recollected the fate of the Earl of Northumberland, and was so alarmed lest they should assassinate her in private, that she wrote to Elizabeth her last and most impressive letter. In this letter—worthy of a queen stricken with long years of affliction, grown calm under the sense of injustice, yet careful of her reputation, and mindful of her friends—she requested that her body might be sent to France to lie beside that of her mother; that she might send her last adieu and a jewel to her son; that her faithful servants might be permitted to retain the small tokens of her regard which she had given to them; and especially that she might not be put to death in private, lest her enemies should say, as they had said of others, that she had destroyed herself, or abjured her religion. She then thanked God for having sustained her under so much injustice, and told Elizabeth if she had permitted the real letters and papers to have been brought forward on the trial, they would have shown what were the true objects of her enemies. She added, "Do not accuse me of presumption if, whilst I bid adieu to this world, and am preparing for another, I remind you that one day you will there have to answer for your conduct, as well as those whom you have sent there before you."
Even on the soul of Elizabeth this letter took some effect. "There has been a letter," wrote Leicester to Walsingham, "from the Scottish queen, that hath wrought tears, but I trust shall doe no further herein; albeit, the delay is too dangerous."
The news of the trial of Mary produced a vivid sensation abroad, and Henry III. of France hastened to intercede on her behalf; but, unfortunately, his own affairs were not in that position which enabled him to exert much authority with Elizabeth. At the recommendation of L'Aubespine Chasteauneuf, his resident ambassador, Henry sent an ambassador extraordinary on this mission, M. Bellievre. He was instructed to use the most forcible language, and even menaces, to prevent the spilling of Mary's blood. But the most vexatious obstacles were thrown in the way of the reception of Bellievre. First, he was informed that hired assassins, unknown to him, had mixed themselves with his suite; and then he was questioned whether the plague had not shown itself in his household. Meantime Parliament had supported the commission which condemned Mary, and then, on the 7th of December, she admitted him to an audience at Richmond, seated on her throne and surrounded by her Court. Bellievre faithfully discharged his office, by no means mincing the matter; and Elizabeth, though she had done all in-her power to overawe him, was greatly excited. In reply she professed to have had wonderful forbearance, though Mary had thrice attempted her life, and even now recoiled from shedding her blood, but her people demanded it for her own and the public safety. As for his threat that the King of France would resent the death of the Scottish queen, she asked him whether he had authority to use such language. "Yes, madam," replied Bellievre; "he expressly commanded me to use it." "Is your authority signed with his own hand?" asked Elizabeth. "It is, madam," replied Bellievre. "Then," said the queen, "I command you to testify as much in writing." He did so, and then she told him in a day or two he should receive her answer. Before retiring, however, he spoke many plain things to her. He justified Mary for endeavouring to gain her freedom, for it was notorious, he said, that she had been detained against her will; and that if she had been driven by despair to call in aid conspirators, Elizabeth had only herself to thank for it, for it was perfectly natural; and he warned her not to hope by putting to death the Queen of Scots to annihilate all peril from leagues against her, for so unwarrantable an act would justify and sanctify such leagues.
Sir Francis Walsingham. From the original Picture in the Dorset Collection.
How deep the language of the French envoy had sunk appeared by the high-toned letter which she dispatched to the King of France. She asked whether she was to consider him a friend or an enemy, and said, haughtily, that she was neither sunk so low, nor ruled so petty a kingdom, as to tolerate such language from any sovereign. She would not live another hour if she were weak enough to put up with such a dishonour.
Bellievie waited in vain for his answer, and, after a month's delay and repeated applications, she sent him word she would give an answer to his master by a messenger of her own. When Bellievre was gone, and yet no message followed, Chasteauneuf made application, and was treated with an indignity which was intended to put an end to all further interference of France in this disagreeable subject. He was assured that a new plot for the assassination of the queen was discovered, and traced to no other place than the French embassy. The ministers pretended to exonerate Chasteauneuf himself from any share in or knowledge of the crime, but they seized and imprisoned his secretary, examined evidence, and produced documents in proof of the plot.
Portrait of Dudley, Earl of Leicester. From the original Painting in the Marquis of Salisbury's Collection.
This violation of the sanctity of an embassage, especially from a great nation, was too flagrant for toleration. Chasteauneuf expressed his indignation in the most unsparing terms, and broke off all communication with the English Court; but this did not save him from further insult. Five of his despatches were intercepted and examined in the Council. The King of France was enraged to the highest degree by this insolent treatment of his ambassador, laid an embargo on English shipping, and refused all communication with the English Court. On being made, however, to perceive that it was a mere trick to prevent his interference in behalf of the Queen of Scots, he sacrificed his own feelings of honour to his desire to save Mary, and again dispatched a fresh envoy, but with no better success. Not till Mary was beyond the power of any earthly monarch would Elizabeth admit him, when she freely acknowledged the innocence of Chasteauneuf, made ample apologies, and endeavoured to efface the memory of these insults by adulation and empty compliments. The French Government, however, did not forget the facts, and Villeroy has recorded in his register the estimate of Burleigh, Walsingham, and their companions, in these words:—"These five councillors of England falsified, forged, and invented all such documents as they thought necessary to bear on their object. They never produced the original articles of procedure, but only copies, which they added to, or diminished, as they pleased." The revelations of the State Paper Office in our time have only too truly confirmed these assertions.
Henry of France not only thus honourably exerted himself to save the unfortunate Queen of Scots, though a princess of a house that he detested—that of Guise—but he endeavoured to stimulate her unworthy son, King James, to the rescue. He assured him that if he allowed his mother's life to be thus taken, it would draw upon him the most terrible reproaches, and that, moreover, her execution would exclude him from the English throne. This alarmed James, and he sent to the English Court Robert Keith, a young man of no weight, but who was a pensionary of Elizabeth, like James himself. This did not escape the notice of the public, who concluded that James cared nothing about the fate of his mother whilst he could send such a man, at the time that the chief nobility of Scotland were in a state of high indignation at the idea of a Queen of Scotland being treated like a subject, and a criminal subject, of the Queen of England. Many of the chief nobility offered to go and put in the king's protest at their own cost; yet James, whose resident ambassador at the English Court was the notorious Archibald Douglas, who had been one of the most active of his father's murderers, now added to the wonder by sending that insignificant and bribed emissary. It was proposed to send Francis Stuart, the new Earl of Bothwell, a nephew of Alary, who was bold and outspoken, but Archibald Douglas managed to prevent that. Courcelles, the present French ambassador, wrote to Henry III., that he augured little from James's appointment of his agents; and truly when Keith appeared before Elizabeth and delivered a remonstrance from James, Elizabeth went into a fury that terrified both of her pensioners, James and his man Keith.
The pusillanimous monarch, on receiving the account of Elizabeth's anger, made haste to write a most humble apology, and to send two other envoys who might be more acceptable to the English queen. These were Sir Robert Melville, and Mar, the master of Gray. Melville was a respectable man, but Gray had already betrayed the interests of Mary to the English Court, and he had written before he set out from Scotland that she should be quietly removed by poison, and on arriving he renewed the bait by whispering in the ear of Elizabeth that "the dead cannot bite." Another of his agents, Stuart, assured her that James had only sent them merely to save appearances, and that, whatever he might pretend, he would be easily pacified by a present of dogs or deer.
Thus, with the exception of Melville, James's ambassadors were really the paid tools of Elizabeth, like himself, and came only to sell the life of his mother. Melville endeavoured to persuade the queen to allow Mary to be sent to Scotland, engaging for the king that he would keep her safe. On this Elizabeth turned to Leicester, and openly expressed the utmost contempt for James and his proposals. Gray, who appeared to fulfil his commission whilst he was really bargaining for advantages to himself, now suggested that Mary was willing to resign all her rights in favour of her son, on which Leicester suggested that this merely meant that James should be put in his mother's place in regard to the succession to the English crown. This sore point of the succession drove Elizabeth into one of her furies, and she exclaimed, "Ha! is that your meaning? then I put myself in a worse case than before. That were to cut my own throat, and for a duchy or an earldom to yourself, you, or such as you, would cause some of your desperate knaves to kill me. No, he shall never be in that place."
Gray remarked that it was true that James must succeed, in case of his mother's death, to all her claims, and therefore it appeared useless to execute Mary. This only doubled Elizabeth's wrath, and she retired in fury. Gray had made a public advocacy of the queen, which he was well aware would only hasten her fate; but honest Melville followed Elizabeth, and entreated her with much feeling to delay her execution; but the exasperated woman only exclaimed, "No! not for an hour!" and the door was closed behind her.
James, on learning these particulars, appeared alarmed into anxiety. He wrote with his own hand to Gray, commanding him to speak out plainly and exert himself to save his mother. But Walsingham, who knew the true chord in James's heart to appeal to, wrote to him expressing his surprise at his endeavouring to save a mother who had destroyed his father, never had been a mother to him, and who, if she succeeded in escaping, could only exclude him from the throne, and put down the Reformed Church. James at once, therefore, obeyed Walsingham's hint, whilst he appeared to consult his dignity. He recalled his ambassadors, and took the field for the rescue of his mother, not at the head of an army, but by enjoining the Presbyterian clergy to pray for her, an office which he must have been well aware they would never consent to, on behalf of a queen whom they regarded as the enemy of the Church.
Elizabeth had now thrown the responsibility of Mary's death on the Council, the Parliament, and the people, and bullied the Kings of France and Scotland into silence. What yet restrained her from executing the Queen of Scots? She had to sign the death-warrant, and she must throw even that on some other party too. The mode in which she went about this is, perhaps, more extraordinary than all the rest. She went about continually muttering to herself, "Aut fer aut feri: ne feriare feri" (Either endure or strike: strike lest thou be stricken). Instead of proceeding to sign the death-warrant and let the execution take its course, she had it again debated in the Council whether it were not better to take her off by poison. Walsingham, who saw that the responsibility would be certainly thrown on somebody near the queen, got away from Court; and the warrant, drawn up by Burleigh, was handed by him to Davison, the queen's secretary, to get it engrossed and presented to the queen for signature. When he did this, she bade him keep it awhile, and it lay in his hands for five or six weeks. But both Leicester and Burleigh were impatient for its execution; and directly after the departure of James's ambassadors in February, he was ordered to present it; and then Elizabeth signed it, bidding him take it to the great seal, "and trouble her no more with it." So far from appearing impressed with the seriousness of the act she had performed, she was quite jocose, telling Davison that he might call on Walsingham, who was sick, and show it to him thus signed, which, she said ironically, she feared would kill him outright. Then, as if suddenly recollecting herself, she said, "Surely Paulet and Drury might ease me of this burden. Do you and Walsingham sound their dispositions." Burleigh and Leicester, to whom Davison showed the warrant, urged him to send it to Fotheringay without a moment's delay; but Davison had a feeling that he certainly should get into trouble if he did so. He therefore went on to Walsingham, and after showing him the warrant, they then and there made a rough draft of a letter to Sir Amyas Paulet and Sir Drew Drury, Mary's additional keeper, proposing private assassination, as the queen requested. Whilst Walsingham made a fair copy, Davison went to the lord chancellor and got the great seal affixed to the warrant. On his return to Walsingham, the notable letter urging the murder of the prisoner was ready, and they sent it forthwith. This letter was duly entered by Walsingham in his letter-book, and remains as an everlasting testimony of his and his mistress's infamy. Had he not himself preserved it, it would never have been known. It has been often published. It informed Paulet and Drury that the queen had of late noticed a great lack of zeal in them, and wondered that, without any one moving them to it, they had not found out some way to rid her of the Queen of Scots. It told them that for their own safeties, the public good, the prosperity of religion, they had ample warrant for the deed. That the satisfaction of their consciences towards God, and their reputation in the world as men who had sworn the oath of association, depended upon it: and, therefore, she took it very unkind that they cast the burden upon her, knowing how much she disliked to shed blood, especially the blood of one so near.
Davison the next day had confirmation doubly strong that she was watching to entrap him in the matter. She asked him if the warrant had passed the great seal. He said it had; on which she immediately said, "Why such haste?" He inquired whether, then, she did not wish the affair to proceed. She replied, certainly; but that she thought it might be better managed, as the execution of the warrant threw the whole burden upon her. Davison said he did not know who else could bear it, as her laws made it murder to destroy the meanest subject without her warrant. At this her patience appeared exhausted, and she exclaimed, Oh, if she had but two such subjects as Morton and Archibald Douglas.
Davison was terrified at the gulf on the edge of which he saw himself standing, with the queen ready and longing to drag him in. He went to Hatton, and told him that though he had her orders to send off the warrant to Fotheringay at once, he would not do it of himself. They therefore went together to Burleigh, who coincided with them in the demand for caution. He therefore summoned the Council the next morning, and it was there unanimously agreed, as the queen had discharged her duty, to do theirs, and to proceed on joint responsibility. That very morning, on his waiting on Elizabeth, she told him a dream she had had the preceding night, in which she had severely punished him as the cause of the death of the Scottish queen. Though she appeared to jest as she said it, there was something in the thing which made the secretary shudder with an ominous sensation. That day, being the 4th of February, the reply of Paulet reached him, and he went with it to the queen. This old Puritan officer of Elizabeth would have delighted to witness the legal execution of Mary, whom he hated for her religion and for the many sharp reproofs which the strictness of his gaolership had drawn from her; but he recoiled from the commission of murder. He lamented. he said, in bitterness of soul, that he had lived to see the day when he was required by his sovereign to do a deed abhorrent to God and the laws. His life, his property, he said, were at her majesty's command; she might take them to-morrow if she pleased; but God forbid that he should make so foul a shipwreck of his conscience, or leave so great a blot on his name, as to shed blood without law or warrant.
On hearing this letter the queen broke out into a violent rage, and forgetting in a moment all the fine promises which she had so lately made to Paulet, all the rewards which her profound gratitude for the secure keeping of Mary were to draw from her, she called him "a precise and dainty fellow," and declared that she could point to others who would do that, or greater things for her sake, naming expressly a man of the name of Wingfield. Davison again dared to suggest that if Paulet put Mary to death without a warrant, she would have to avow that it was by her order, in which case the guilt and disgrace would be hers; if she did not, she would have ruined her faithful servant. This language was not such as suited the impetuous queen; she abruptly rose and left him.
But on the 7th of February she called for him, and told him of the dangers with which she was surrounded on account of the Scottish queen; for, in fact, all sorts of rumours of invasion by the Duke of Guise, of the burning of London, and murder of the queen, were purposely propagated, in order to make the populace frantic for Mary's death. Elizabeth, therefore, declared that it was high time that the warrant was executed, and bade Davison, with a great oath, to write a sharp letter to Paulet ordering him to be quick. Davison, who knew that the warrant was gone, avoided the command by saying he did not think it necessary, but she repeated that Paulet would expect it, and whilst so saying, one of her ladies came to ask what she would have for dinner; she rose and went out with her, and her unfortunate secretary saw her no more.
That very day the order for Mary's death reached Fotheringay, and was probably being announced to her at the moment that Elizabeth was urging its dispatch to Davison. The Earl of Shrewsbury, who had guarded her so many years, as earl marshal, had now the painful office of carrying into effect her execution. There had been for some time a growing feeling at Fotheringay that the last day of Mary was at hand, for there had been a remarkable coming and going of strangers. When Shrewsbury was announced, his office proclaimed the fatal secret. The Scottish queen rose from her bed, and was dressed to receive him, having seated herself at a small table with her servants disposed around her. The Earl of Shrewsbury entered, followed by the Earls of Kent, Cumberland, and Derby, as well as by the sheriff and several gentlemen of the county. Beale, the clerk of the Council, read the order for the execution, to which Mary listened with the utmost apparent equanimity. When it was finished she crossed herself, bade them welcome, and assured them that she had long waited for the day which had now arrived; that twenty years of miserable imprisonment had made her a burden to herself and useless to others; and that she could conceive no close of life so happy or so honourable as that of shedding her blood for her religion. She recited her injuries and the frauds and perjuries of her enemies, and then laying her hand on the Testament upon her table, called God to witness that she had never imagined, much loss attempted, anything against the life of the Queen of England.
The Earl of Kent, who appears to have been a bigot and a churl of the rudest description, and whose conduct throughout was brutal and unfeeling in the extreme, cried, "That book is a Popish Testament, and, of course, the oath is of no value." "It is a Catholic Testament," replied the queen, "and on that account I prize it the more; and therefore, according to your own reasoning, you ought to judge my oath the more satisfactory." But the Earl of Kent only bade her have done with her Papistical superstition, and attend to the spiritual services of the Dean of Peterborough, whom her Majesty had appointed to attend her. Mary declined the services of the dean, and requested to have the aid of Le Preau, her almoner, the last indulgence which she had to ask from them. It was refused, on the plea that it was contrary to the law of God and of the land, and would endanger not only the souls but the lives of the commissioners. A long conversation followed this refusal, and Mary asked whether the foreign powers had made no efforts in her behalf, and whether her only son had forgotten her; and finally, when she was to suffer. The Earl of Shrewsbury replied with much emotion, "To-morrow morning, at eight o clock."
Mary received this announcement with a calm dignity which awed and even affected the beholders. When the earls had risen and were about to withdraw, the queen asked earnestly whether Nau was dead or alive. Drury replied that he was still alive in prison. "What!" she exclaimed, "is Nau's life to be spared, and mine taken?" And again laying her hand on the Testament—"I protest before God that Nau is the author of my death. He has brought me to the scaffold to save his own life. I die in the place of Nau, but the truth will soon be known."
When the door was closed after the earls, her attendants burst into an agony of grief, but she bade them dry their tears, for it was not an occasion to weep on but to rejoice in. She bade them hasten supper, for she had much to do. Whilst supper was preparing she prayed long and fervently, and on being called supped sparingly, as was her custom. Before rising, she drank to all her servants, who pledged her in return upon their knees, and with many tears entreated her forgiveness for anything with which, during their service, they had grieved or offended her. She forgave them, and asked their pardon for any faults towards them, on her part; and followed this with some advice regarding their future conduct, adding once more her conviction that Nau was the cause of her death.
This done she sat down to write, and prepared three letters, one to her confessor—in which she complained of the cruelty of her enemies, who refused her his assistance, and begged his prayers during the night—one to the Duke of Guise, and the third to the King of Franco. She now retired to her closet with her maids, Jane Kennedy and Elspeth Curle, and spent the night in devotion. About four o'clock she lay down on her bed, but did not sleep, her lips still continuing in motion, and her mind evidently being occupied in prayer. At dawn she called round her her household, read to them her will, distributed amongst them her clothes and money; kissed the women, and gave her hand to the men to kiss. She then went into her chapel, followed by the whole group, who knelt and prayed behind her, as she knelt and prayed at the altar.
Whilst she was thus engaged, the commissioners, attended by the sheriff, and Paulet and his guard, making from 150 to 200 persons, assembled in the great hall, where a scaffold was already raised and covered with black cloth. At eight o'clock, Andrews, the sheriff, entered, and told her that it was time. She then arose, took the crucifix in her right hand, and her prayer-book in her left, and followed him. Her servants were moving in train, but they were ordered by the officers to remain, and Mary, therefore, bade them be content, and turning gave them her blessing. They received it on their knees, in a convulsion of grief, some kissing her hands, others clinging to and kissing her robe. She went forth with a calm and pleasant air, clad in a gown of black satin, with a veil of lawn fastened to her caul and flowing to the ground. To her girdle hung her chaplet, and she still held in her hand the ivory crucifix. As the door closed behind her, a loud and agonised lament rose from her attendants.
She was received by the earls and her keepers, and at the foot of the stairs she found her old and faithful servant, Sir Robert Melville, who for the last three weeks had been denied access to her. The old man, in a passion of grief, flung himself on his knees before her, and exclaimed, "Ah, madam! unhappy me! Was over a man on earth a bearer of such sorrow as I shall be, when I shall report that my good and gracious queen and mistress was beheaded in England?" This was all that his emotion would allow him to utter, and Mary said, "Good Melville, cease to lament. Thou hast cause to joy rather than mourn, for thou shalt see the end of Mary Stuart's troubles. Know that this world is but vanity, subject to more sorrow than an ocean of tears can bewail. But I pray thee report that I die a true woman to my religion, to Scotland, and to France. May God forgive them that have long thirsted for my blood as the hart doth for the brooks of water. O God! thou art the author of truth, and truth itself. Thou knowest the inmost chambers of my thoughts, and that I always wished the union of England and Scotland. Commend me to my son, and tell him that I have done nothing prejudicial to the dignity or independence of his crown, or favourable to the pretended superiority of our enemies."
Here she burst into tears, kissed Melville, saying, "Good Melville, farewell; and once again, good Melville, farewell, and pray for thy mistress and queen." This parting seemed to make her feel more sensibly the cruelty of being forbidden to have the rest of her servants present at her death. She again entreated that they might be admitted, but the ungenial Earl of Kent objected that they might be troublesome by the clamorousness of their grief, and might practise some Popish mummery, or dip their handkerchiefs in her blood. Mary pledged her word for the propriety of their behaviour, and said she felt assured that Elizabeth, as a maiden queen, would wish her to have her women about her at her death. Still there was no answer, and she added that she thought they might grant her a greater courtesy were she a woman of a less calling than a Queen of Scotland. Seeing that this did not move them, she continued with warmth, "Am I not the cousin to your queen, a descendant of the blood-royal of Henry VII., a married Queen of France, and the anointed Queen of Scotland?" This produced so much effect that it was agreed to admit four of her men and two of her women servants; and she selected the steward, physician, apothecary, and surgeon, with the maids Kennedy and Curle.
The sheriff and his officers then moved towards the scaffold: the Earls of Shrewsbury and Kent followed; next Paulet and Drury, Mary, with Melville bearing her train, in the rear. Old Amyas relaxed some of his sternness, and offered her his arm to mount the scaffold, for which she thanked him, observing that it was the most acceptable service he had ever offered her. On the scaffold was the block, a low stool, and a cushion, all covered with black. The executioner from the Tower, dressed in black velvet, with his assistants, stood opposite to the stool, on which she seated herself. The servants and all but the chief personages just mentioned, stood on the floor of the hall. As soon as Beale had read the warrant, which Mary heard without any symptom of uneasiness, she addressed the spectators, begging them to remember that she was a sovereign princess, not subject to the laws, the sovereign, or the Parliament of England, but was brought there by violence and injustice to suffer. She repeated again her protestation that she had never injured or contemplated injury to the Queen of England; that she pardoned all her enemies, and thanked God that she was thought worthy to shed her blood for her religion. Here the Dean of Peterborough interrupted her, and began to give a history of her life, and of the favours which Elizabeth had shown to her, and who was killing her body to save her soul.
Mary bade the officious churchman spare himself his trouble, for that she was born in her religion, had lived in it, and meant to die in it. She then turned from him; but the unabashed dean, who no doubt thought he was doing God service whilst he was persecuting an unhappy victim in her last moments, went round to the other side of her, and began again. The Earl of Shrewsbury, who seems to have been the only true gentleman present, bade him desist and repeat a prayer. Whilst he repeated his prayer, Mary pronounced one of her own for her suffering Church, for her son, and, imitating the Saviour, for her enemy and destroyer, Elizabeth; then, holding up her crucifix, she said, "As thy arms, O God, were stretched out upon the cross, so receive me into thy arms of mercy, and forgive my sins." "Madam," said the Earl of Kent, who knew much less of real Christianity than he believed, "you had better leave such Popish trumperies, and bear him in your heart." She replied, "I cannot hold this representation of his sufferings in my hand, but I must at the same time bear him in my heart." The whole of Mary's conduct on the scaffold showed that, apart from all sacred rites and ceremonies, she had learnt the true spirit of the Redeemer.
Mary bade her maids disrobe her, which they attempted, drowned in tears; but the executioners, who thought they were going to lose their perquisites, rushed forward, and insisted on doing that themselves. The queen begged them to desist, but finding it useless, observed to the earls, with a smile, that she was not accustomed to employ such grooms, or to undress before so numerous a company; but she signed to her maids to be silent by putting her finger to her lips, giving them her blessing, and soliciting their prayers. Kennedy tied a handkerchief edged with gold over her eyes, and the executioner led her to the block. The chief executioner, though from the Tower, was so unnerved by the fact of severing a crowned head, and by the cries and groans of the attendants, that he missed his aim, struck a deep wound into the base of the skull, and not till the third blow succeeded in his task. When he held up the head, the features of which were so convulsed that they were unrecognisable, and cried, "God save Queen Elizabeth!" the bigoted dean said, "So perish all her enemies;" and the rude, fanatical Kent, "So perish all the enemies of the Gospel." Not a single voice was heard to cry "Amen." The spectacle of a dying queen, long oppressed by captivity and calumny, now blessing her enemies in her last moments, had made all forget that she was of a different creed and party: they felt only that she was a woman and a Christian.
An affecting incident marked the execution. The queen's little dog followed her, concealed herself amongst her clothes, and would not be removed except by force, when he flew back to the body, and lay down betwixt the head and shoulders. The corpse was embalmed, enclosed in lead, and left for six months in the same room, when Elizabeth ordered it to be buried with Royal state in the abbey church of Peterborough, opposite to the tomb of Catherine of Arragon. There it remained for twenty-five years, when it was removed to Westminster Abbey by order of James.
The Earl of Shrewsbury dispatched his son with the intelligence of the execution of Mary, which reached the Court the next day. Burleigh, who received the letter, immediately sent for Davison and several of the Privy Council, and it was concluded to keep the fact from the queen for a short time. But such a fact, though it might be officially, could not be otherwise concealed. The news flew abroad, and the Protestant population gave a loose to their joy by the universal ringing of bells and kindling of bonfires. Elizabeth neither could nor did remain ignorant of the cause of this noisy exultation. She inquired why the bells rung so merrily, and was told, says Davison, for the execution of the Queen of Scots; but she took no notice of it, having not been officially informed. Far from displaying any emotion of any kind, she took her usual airing, and on her return appeared to be enjoying herself in the company of Don Antonio, the pretender to the crown of Portugal. But in the morning, being then officially informed, she flew into very well-acted official paroxysms of rage and grief. She declared that she had never contemplated or sanctioned such a thing; that Davison had betrayed her, whom she had charged not to let the warrant go out of his hands; and that the whole Privy Council had acted most unwarrantably.
Davison, who fondly hoped that he had secured himself under the shield of the Privy Council, made his appearance at Court; but the councillors, who saw there must be a victim, advised him to keep out of sight for a few days; and the consequence was, that his amiable friends of the Council most likely made him their scapegoat, for he was immediately arrested and committed to the Tower. But the ministers themselves did not escape their share of the storm. For four days the matter was before the Council, and they received the severest and most unmeasured upbraidings from their Royal mistress the burden being naturally thrown on poor Davison. The Earl of Buckhurst, however, behaved most honourably on the occasion. He presented a memorial to the queen, in which he dared to maintain that Davison had only done his unavoidable duty, and that to punish him would do to give rise to the assertion that the Queen of Scots had been executed without due warrant, and therefore had been actually murdered. The warrant being actually in existence, and shown openly and read to the Queen of Scots, the story of the delivering of it by the secretary without authority would not be believed.
Sir Francis Drake. From the original Portrait.
But Elizabeth had made up her mind, and the lameness and improbability of her story had no effect in restraining her from the publication of false statements and punishment of the innocent, to screen, if possible, her own guilty name. She sent for Roger, the Groom of the Chamber to the King of France, and bade him assure his sovereign of her profound grief for this sad accident, of her ignorance of the dispatch of the warrant, and of her determination to punish the presumption of her ministers. She kept up the farce for some time, disgracing her ministers, and so rating them, that they were glad to keep, out of her way. But she summoned them into the Star Chamber to answer for their offence, on which they made, their humble apologies, and one by one were gradually restored to their offices. Not so the unfortunate Davison. She had discovered that he was of too honest and unbending material for her Court and service. He would never join in the persecution and malignment of Mary. He refused, even at Elizabeth's request, to join the "association" for the assassination of Mary on any pretence of Elizabeth being in danger. He had taken no part in the examination of Babington and his accomplices. Though named in the commission for Mary's trial, he did not attend, or sign the sentence, as others who absented themselves did; and, still worse, instead of imitating the pliant conduct of the ministers, he maintained the correctness of his proceeding, and even imprudently alluded on his trial to the murder-suggesting message of the queen to Paulet. The following account of him before his examiners, as given by Strype, is sufficiently convincing that he would never escape the vengeance of Elizabeth:—"Did not her majesty give it in commandment to you to keep the warrant secret, and not utter it to any one?
Mary Queen of Scots taking leave of her Attendants. (See page 520.)
He answers that she gave it to him without any such commandment, which he affirmeth as in the presence of God. Did she command you to pass it to the great seal? He answers affirmatively, and mentions such circumstances as, he trusts, will bring that commandment to her recollection. Did she not, after it had passed the great seal, command you, on your life, not to let it go out of your hand? In answer he protesteth before God that he neither remembereth nor received any such command. Did she ever command you to deliver it to anybody? As she did not expressly command him to deliver it, so did he never understand her meaning to be other than to have it proceeded in. Did she not, six or seven days afterwards, tell you she had a better way to proceed therein? He replies, 'On the receipt of a letter from Mr. Paulet on such cause, as she best knoweth, she uttered such a speech as that she could have matters otherwise done—the particulars whereof I leave to her best remembrance.'"
Davison was fined £10,000 for his pretended offence, and committed to prison during her majesty's pleasure. The treasury seized the whole of his property to pay the fine. His sufferings during years of poverty, imprisonment, and palsy—the consequence of it—were great; and to the last day of her reign—seventeen years—she still refused, even at the petition of the Earl of Essex in the height of his favour with her, to pardon him. Yet still another mystery in this affair has come to light. Mr. Frederick Devon, keeper of the Chapter-House, Westminster, gave evidence before the House of Lords on the 10th of May, 1839, on the sale of exchequer records, that he discovered, in a vault of the Chapter-House, a book of warrants of 1587—the very year of Davison's imprisonment, in March; that in October of that year he received £500, and immediately afterwards £1,000, and that his pension of £100 a year was granted, for, says Mr. Devon, "I have seen it regularly entered on the rolls." Thus, whilst Elizabeth was publicly punishing and fining Davison, she was privately feeing him. This is probably the reason which warrants the assertion of Dr. Lingard, that "she thought by this severity to convince the world that she did not dissemble, yet, certainly, she effected one important object: she closed the mouth of her prisoner, whom the spirit of resentment or the hope of vindicating his innocence might have urged to reveal the secret history of the proceedings against Mary, and the unworthy artifices and guilty designs of his sovereign."
Elizabeth allowed some weeks to elapse before she sent an official message of his mother's execution to James of Scotland. Probably she felt quite secure of him, being her pensioner, though he is said to have burst into tears and vowed terrible vengeance on first hearing of it. In about a month Elizabeth dispatched Sir Robert Carey, the son of Lord Hunsdon, with a letter to this contemptible monarch. She therein lamented deeply the occurrence of "the unhappy accident" by which his mother's head had been cut off, totally without her knowledge or consent. She called God to witness her innocence and her indignant grief; protested that she abhorred of all things dissimulation, and above all things loved and admired a sincere and open conduct, than which nothing was more worthy of a prince. She declared that she would punish those who had occasioned the unfortunate "accident;" and as for himself, she loved him dearly, and would be a mother to him. She concluded by stopping his mouth with a present of £4,000, and her agents, duly instructed, backed up the bribe by liberal ones also to the Scottish nobility, who in return warned James to be prudent, to remember that he was now immediate heir to the English throne, and not to endanger his magnificent inheritance by any rash act. To give him a hint, indeed, that there might be danger on that head, Elizabeth sent for to Court, and showed as her successor, Arabella Stuart, the descendant of Henry VIII.'s sister Mary, and Brandon Duke of Suffolk. This little girl was then only twelve years of age, and though Elizabeth had never taken the slightest notice of her before, she now sent for her to Court, gave her precedence over all the ladies, made her dine in public with her, and—what she never did in any other instance, and never would in this case, had she been sincere—pointed her out as her probable successor. She particularly drew the attention of Madame Chasteaunouf, the wife of the French ambassador, to her, saying:—"Look well at her, for one day she will be exactly what I am, she will be the lady-mistress. But I shall have been that before her. She is a maiden of fine talent, and speaks Latin, Italian, and French exceedingly well."
This was quite bugbear enough for the young Scottish Solomon; but it did not prevent the people of Scotland from expressing their honest resentment for the murder of their queen. They called Elizabeth "the English Jezebel," and would have torn her messenger, Sir Robert Carey, to pieces, but James sent a guard and rescued him.
To the King of France Elizabeth was more earnest and assiduous in her attempts at excuse and pacification. Though she had accused the French embassy, and especially the secretary of it, Destrappes, of having been concerned in a plot to murder her, she now sent for L'Aubespine to dine with her at the palace of the Archbishop of Canterbury, at Croydon, on Saturday, the 6th of March. After dinner the ambassador endeavoured to get away, but she would not let him escape, but introduced him to her ministers, taking him by the hand, saying playfully, "Here is the man who wanted to get me murdered!" She then freely confessed that she had never believed a word of it, that she knew it was the scheme of two miserable knaves of her own kingdom, and that as she had written to the King of France against him, she would now write as much in his favour, for she had always known him to be a man of honour, whom she could trust with her life, and that she now loved him better than ever. Even poor Destrappes, whom, she had so expressly accused, she now fully exonerated. Thus could this extraordinary woman, having effected her object, and got rid of the Scottish queen, now shamelessly avow her tricks and calumnies. But as regarded the dead queen, her assertions wore the most astounding. As we find the account in Egerton, they were these. She told the ambassador that since their last interview the greatest of all calamities had befallen her in the death of the Queen of Scots. Of that death, she swore with abundance of oaths that she was innocent. She had determined never to execute the warrant, except in case of invasion or rebellion. Four of her council—they were there in the room—had played her a trick, which she should never forget. They had grown old in her service, and had acted from the best of motives, or by they should have lost their heads. But that which troubled her most was the displeasure of the King of France, whom she honoured above all men, whoso interest she preferred to her own, and whom she was ready to supply with men, money, ships, and German mercenaries against his enemies.
This was so diametrically opposed to all that she had ever done towards the King of France, that L'Aubespine could not help remarking that he wished the queen would show her regard for his master by her deeds. To send men and ammunition to those who were in arms against him, to hire Germans to fight their battles, to capture French ships, and to treat a French ambassador as she had treated him for four mouths, were not convincing proofs of friendship and esteem. She replied, she had done nothing to Henry; she had only sent troops to aid the King of Navarre against the Duke of Guise. He asked whether to do even that without the consent of Henry, were not to do in a foreign realm what she would suffer no foreign prince to do in hers? To this Elizabeth replied with amicable professions, and, says the ambassador, "she detained me three good hours, having well prepared herself, and I let her say all she pleased."
In the midst of all this she displayed her usual ability, and prevented the only thing which she feared—a coalition betwixt Scotland, France, and Spain, to avenge the death of the Scottish queen. James of Scotland was readily checked, being of a pusillanimous character, and more fond of money than the life and honour of his mother. Henry III. of France, Elizabeth well knew, was too much beset by difficulties to be very formidable. His course was now fast running to a close. Civil war was raging in his kingdom; and we may here anticipate a little to take a view of his end. His feud with the Guises grew to such a pitch, that, to rid himself of them, he determined to assassinate their leaders, the duke and cardinal, the cousins of the late Queen of Scots. For this purpose, near the close of 1588, he assembled a body of assassins in the Castle of Blois, where he privately distributed daggers to forty-five of them. The Duke of Guise was invited to the fatal feast, and murdered at the very door of the king's chamber. The next day his brother, the cardinal, was also dispatched. But this infamous action only procured the destruction of Henry himself. The Papists, exasperated by the murder of their chiefs, were infuriated. The Pope excommunicated the king, and the clergy absolved the people from their oath of allegiance; and in a few months Henry was assassinated by a fanatic monk of the name of Jacques Clement, whilst besieging his own capital.
But not so readily was Philip of Spain disposed of. He was crafty and powerful, and remembered the conduct of Elizabeth, who, from the very commencement of her reign, whilst professing friendship and high regard for him, had done all in her power to strip him of the Netherlands. She had supported his insurgent subjects with both money and troops; and at this time her favourite, Leicester, at the head of an army, was enjoying the rule of the revolted territory called the United Provinces, as governor-general. Not only in Europe, but in the new regions of South America, she carried on the same system of invasion and plunder by some of the greatest naval captains of the age—all still without any declaration of war. Philip, therefore, did not hesitate to denounce her as a murderer, and excited amongst his subjects a most intense hatred of her, both as a heretic and a woman oppressive and unjust, and stained with kindred and regal blood. In vain did she attempt to mollify his resentment by recalling Leicester from the Netherlands, and alluring a native prince, the Prince of Orange, to take his place. She opened, through Burleigh, negotiations with Spain, and sent a private mission to the Prince of Parma, in the Netherlands. There was a great suspicion in the minds of the Dutch and Flemings that she meant to give up the cause of Protestantism there, and to sell the cautionary towns which she held to Spain. But, fortunately for them, Philip was too much incensed to listen to her overtures, and had now made up his mind to the daring project of invading England. News of actual preparations for this purpose on a vast scale convinced Elizabeth that pacification was hopeless, and she resumed her predatory measures against Spain and its colonies.
To obtain a clear idea of the causes which, independent of the continual attempts of Elizabeth to break the yoke of Spain in the Low Countries, had so exasperated Philip, we must refer to the marauding expeditions of Hawkins, Cavendish, and Drake—men whose names have descended to our time as types of all that, is enterprising, daring, and successful in the naval heroes of England. They were men who, like most of the prominent persons of that time, had no very nice ideas of international justice or honesty, but had courage which shrank from no attempt, however arduous, and ability to achieve what to this day are regarded as little short of miracles. Whilst in Europe they were Royal commanders, in the distant seas of America they were, to all intents and purposes, pirates and buccaneers.
Sir John Hawkins has the gloomy fame of being the originator of the African slave trade. He made three voyages to the African coast, where he bartered his goods for cargoes of negroes, which he carried to the Spanish settlements in America, and sold them for cargoes of hides sugar, ginger, and pearls. This traffic, which afterwards increased to such terrific and detestable dimensions, was so extremely profitable that Elizabeth fitted out two ships and sent them under his command. On this his third voyage, however, Hawkins was surprised by the Spanish admiral in the Bay of St. Juan da Uloa, a desperate engagement took place, and Hawkins's fleet, with all his treasure, was captured or destroyed except two, one of which afterwards went down at sea, the only one returning home being a little bark of fifty tons, called Judith, and commanded by one Francis Drake. Elizabeth, of course, lost her whole venture in the slave trade.
But this Francis Drake, destined to win a great name, could not rest under the defeat in the bay of Uloa and the loss of his booty. He obtained interest enough to fit out a little fleet, and also made three voyages, like Hawkins, to the Spanish American settlements. In the logic of that age, it was quite right to plunder any people of a particular nation in return for a loss by any other persons of that nation; and Drake felt himself authorised to seize Spanish property wherever he could find it. In his two first voyages he was not eminently successful; but the third, in 1572, made him ample amends. He took and plundered the town of Nombre do Dios, captured about 100 little vessels in the Gulf of Mexico, and made an expedition inland, where, ascending a mountain in Darien, he caught sight of the Pacific, and became inflamed with a desire to sail into that sea and plunder the Spanish settlements there. He captured in March of 1573 a convoy of mules laden with gold and silver, and in October reached England with his booty.
This success awoke a correspondent cupidity in his countrymen. Elizabeth embarked 1,000 crowns in a fresh expedition, which was supported by Walsingham, Hatton, and others of her ministers. In 1577 Drake set out for the Spanish main with five ships and 160 men. In this voyage he pursued steadily his great idea of adventures in the Pacific, coasted the Brazils, passed the straits of Magellan, and reached Santiago, from which place to Lima he found the coast unprotected, and took the vessels and plundered the towns at will. Amongst his prizes was the Cacafuego, a Spanish merchantman of great value, which he captured in the spring of 1579. By this time, however, the Spaniards had sent out a squadron to meet and intercept him at the straits; and Drake, becoming aware of it, took the daring resolution of sailing to the Moluccas, and so home by the Cape of Good Hope. The hardihood of this determination we can scarcely at this day realise, for it implied the circumnavigation of the globe, which had never yet been accomplished, Magellan himself having perished on his voyage at the Philippines. He reached Plymouth safely, November 3rd, 1580, after a voyage of three years. The dangers and hardships which he had endured in this unprecedented exploit may be conceived from the fact that only one of his five vessels reached home with him; but that vessel contained a treasure of £800,000.
Elizabeth was in a great strait. The wealth which Drake had brought, and of which she expected an ample share, was too agreeable a thing to allow her to quarrel with the acquirer; but the ravages which he had committed on a power not openly at war with her, were too flagrant to be acknowledged. For four months, therefore, Drake remained without any public acknowledgment of his services, further than his ship being placed in the dock at Plymouth, as a trophy of his bold circumnavigation of the globe. At length, however, the queen consented to be present at a banquet which Drake gave on board, and she there broke from her duplicity by knighting him on the spot. A tithe of the enormous amount of money was distributed as prize amongst the officers and men; the Spanish ambassador, who had laid claim to the whole as stolen property, was appeased by a considerable sum; and the huge remainder was, according to report, shared by the queen, her favourites, and the fortunate commander.
It was not long before Sir Francis Drake was placed in commission and sent out as the queen's own admiral against Spain. In 1585 he sailed for the West Indies with a fleet of twenty-one ships, where he took and burnt down the town of St. Jago, ravaged Carthagena and St. Domingo, and committed other mischief. The following year Thomas Cavendish followed in Drake's track with three ships which he had built out of the wreck of his fortune, and reaching the Spanish main, committed many depredations. In 1587 he secured the freight of gold and silver of a large Manilla merchantman, and returned home by the new route which Drake had pointed out.
These terrible chastisements of the Spanish colonies had embittered the mind of Philip and his subjects even beyond the warfare of the Netherlands; and he was now steadily preparing that mighty force and that host of vessels by which he vowed to prostrate the power of the heretic queen, and reduce the British Islands to the Spanish yoke and to the yoke of the Papal Church. Elizabeth, having endeavoured in vain to arrange a peace, buckled on the armour of her spirit, and determined to meet the danger with a fearless front. She dispatched Drake with a fleet of thirty vessels to examine the Spanish harbours where these means of invasion were preparing, and to destroy all that he could come at. No task could have delighted him more. On the 18th of April, 1587, he entered the roads of Cadiz, and discovering upwards of eighty vessels, attacked, sunk, and destroyed them all. He then sailed out again, and running along the coast as far as Cape St. Vincent, demolished above a hundred vessels, and, besides other injuries, battered down four forts. This Drake called "singeing the King of Spain's beard." In the Tagus he encountered the grand admiral of Spain, Santa Cruz, but could not bring him to an engagement, owing to the orders which the admiral had received; but he captured, in his very teeth, the St. Philip, one of the finest ships of Spain, and laden with the richest merchandise. Santa Cruz took it so much to heart that he was not permitted to engage Drake, that he is said to have died shortly afterwards of sheer mortification.
When Drake returned from this expedition he was received by the public with acclamations; but Elizabeth was perfectly frightened by the extent of the calamities inflicted, believing that they would only rouse Philip to more inveterate hostility—and in that she was right. She made actually an apology to the Prince of Parma, Philip's general in the Netherlands, for the deeds of Drake, assuring him that she had only sent him out to guard against any attacks on herself. Farnese replied that he could well believe anything of the kind of a man bred as ho was in piracy, and professed still to be ready to make peace. But Philip was in no peaceful mood. He was now eagerly employed in forwarding his huge preparations; and the name of the Spanish Armada began to be a familiar sound in England. He prevailed on the Pope to issue a new bull of excommunication against Elizabeth, and to advance him large sums of money for this holy enterprise, which was to restore these rich but recreant islands to the Holy See. He collected his best vessels into the Spanish ports, and went on industriously building others in all the ports of Spain, Portugal, and those portions of the Netherlands now belonging to him. He collected all the vessels that his Sicilian and Neapolitan subjects could furnish, and hired others from Genoa and Venice. In Flanders he prepared an immense shoal of flat-bottomed boats to carry over an army of 30,000 men to the coasts of England, under the command of the Prince of Parma.
The time appeared to have arrived which was to avenge all the injuries and insults which, during twenty years, the English queen had heaped upon him. She had, in the first place, refused his hand; she had year after year incited and encouraged his subjects in the Netherlands to rebel against his rule; she had supplied them first secretly, then openly, with money; she had hired mercenary troops against him; and, finally, sent the Earl of Leicester to assume the position of a viceroy for herself. Whilst this state of intolerable interference on land had been growing, she had sent out men to attack and plunder his colonies, intercept his treasure ships, and chase from the high seas the merchant vessels of his nation. All this time she had been with an iron hand crushing the Church which he believed the only true one, and had ended by putting to death a queen who was regarded as the champion of that Church in Britain. We are apt, in thinking of the Spanish Armada and the attempt of Philip to invade this kingdom, to overlook these provocations, which were certainly sufficient to rouse any monarch to such au enterprise.
Whilst carrying matters with so high a hand, Elizabeth's parsimony had prevented her making those preparations for defence which such an enemy dictated. In the month of November of this year the danger had grown so palpable that a great council of war was summoned to take into consideration the grand plan of defence, and the mode of mustering an adequate force both at land and at sea. It was well known that the dockyards of Antwerp, Newport, Gravelines, and Dunkirk had long been all alive with the building of boats, and that the forest of Waes had been felled to supply material. Farnese, reputed one of the ablest generals in Europe, had at his command, besides the forces necessary to garrison the Spanish Netherlands, 30,000 infantry and 1,800 cavalry; whilst the Spanish fleet consisted of 135 men-of-war, prepared to carry over 8,000 seamen and 19,000 soldiers. Both in Spain and in the Netherlands the enthusiasm of volunteers for the service had been wonderful; not only the members of the noblest families had enrolled themselves, but the fame of this expedition, which was to be a second conquest of England, yielding far more riches and glory than that of William of Normandy, had drawn adventurers from every comer of Europe.
What had England to oppose to all this force and animating spirit of anticipation? It was discovered that the whole navy of England amounted to only thirty-six sail. As to the army, it did not amount to 20,000 men, and those chiefly raw recruits, the order for the muster of the main body of the forces even having been only issued in June. Courage Elizabeth undoubtedly possessed in an eminent degree; but such was her parsimony, that though tho army which was to serve under Leicester was ordered to assemble in June, that which, under Lord Hunsdon, was to follow particularly the movements of the queen, did not receive orders for enrolment till August. What was to be done with such raw recruits against the disciplined and tried troops of Parma and his military experience? It was the same as regarded the sailors to man the fleet. In the autumn of 1586 she ordered a levy of 5,000 seamen; but in January she thought more of the expense than tho danger, and insisted on 2,000 of them being disbanded. The rumours of growing danger, however, enabled the Council to dissuade her from this impolitic measure, and even obtained an increase to 7,000.
In the war council held in November of this year, Sir Walter Raleigh earnestly advocated what his quick genius had seen at a glance—that the defence of the country must depend on the navy. The enemy must not be suffered to land. At sea, even then, England was a match for almost any amount of force; and never did she possess admirals who had more of that daring and indomitable character which has for ages distinguished the seamen of this country. Sir Walter Raleigh prevailed: and at once was seen that burst of enthusiasm which, on all occasions when Great Britain has been menaced with invasion, has flamed from end to end of the nation. Merchantmen offered their vessels, the people fitted them out at their own expense, and very soon, instead of thirty-six ships of war, there were 191, of various sizes and characters, with not 7,000 but 17,100 sailors on board of them. To the thirty-six Government ships of war wore added eighteen volunteer vessels of heavy burden, forty-three hired vessels, and fifty-three coasters. The Triumph was a ship of 1,100 tons there was another of 1,000, one of 900, two of 800 each, three of 600, five of 500, five of 400, six of 300, six of 250, twenty of 200, besides numbers of smaller size, the total amount of tonnage being 31,985.
But the main strength, after all, was in the character of the men who commanded and animated this fleet. Supreme in command was the Lord-Admiral, Lord Howard of Effingham, a man of undaunted courage, of firm and independent resolution, and very popular with the sailors. Under him served the Earl of Cumberland and the Lords Henry Seymour, Thomas Howard, and Edmund Sheffield, as volunteers; and the want of experience in these aristocrats was amply overbalanced by the staunch men whose fame was world-wide—Drake, who was lieutenant of the fleet, Hawkins, Frobisher, and others of those marine heroes who had made themselves a terror to the remotest shores of the earth.
The neighbouring and Protestant States, who were naturally called on to aid in this struggle, which was not so much for the conquest of England as for the annihilation of the Reformed Church, were Scotland and the Netherlands. But James of Scotland was the worst possible subject to depend on in such an emergency. No noble or daring passion ever animated his heart. His only philosophy was what he called his kingcraft—that was, how he could make the most of any event, without any reference to its moral value as bearing on the good of the nation or the advance of civilisation, and that at the least cost of money or exertion. He waited to see whether Philip or Elizabeth were the highest bidder, not intending to help either of them. Philip was advised to secure him and to land a Spanish army in Scotland; but Philip knew his man too well. Elizabeth, on the contrary, put forth all her power to move him, but in vain: he continued talking of his claims on account of the death of his mother, huckstering for the greatest possible gain out of it, till he had made his bargain, and even then never offered his services with an air of earnestness till the danger was over and his aid was not needed. In the autumn Lord Hunsdon, who was instructed to pacify him for the death of his mother, reported to the queen, "that if she looked for any amity or kindness at his hands she would find herself deceived." In April Lord Hunsdon was authorised to satisfy him for his mother's death; it was unavailing, and the danger from the Armada growing, Mr. Ashby was sent to him in June, and in July Sir Robert Sidney. It was all unavailing; the aspect of Spain had now become still more terrible, and the price was not large enough. The English ministers called earnestly on the Scotch ministers in their pay to urge the necessity of his co-operation on James. All was in vain, till the Spanish Armada received a heavy blow on the 30th of July from the tempest at the mouth of the Scheldt, when James hastened to accept Ashby's proposal that in return for joining the queen he should receive an English dukedom with suitable lands, an annuity of £5,000 a-year, and the pay for a guard of 150 men. The Spaniards were then in full flight along his own shores before the triumphant English; and James forbade his subjects to assist the Spaniards, and offered all the resources of his kingdom to Elizabeth, who had no longer occasion for either him or them.
Very different was the conduct of the so-called phlegmatic Dutch. Though Leicester had wasted their wealth in useless campaigns, abused their confidence, abridged their privileges, encumbered their trade, and insulted their honour; though Elizabeth had appeared quite ready to sell them to Spain, and in their distress had called upon them to raise £100,000 to pay for fresh soldiers, or declared she would abandon them;—yet, knowing that it was not Elizabeth or the worthless Leicester they had to support, but the very existence of that faith for which they had fought so long and so bravely, and for their country, which, if England fell, must fall inevitably too, they at once "came roundly in," says Stowe, "with threescore sail, brave ships of war, firm and full of spleen, not so much in England's aid as in just occasion for their own defence, foreseeing the greatness of the danger that must ensue if the Spaniards should chance to win the day and get the mastery over them." They engaged to block up the mouth of the Scheldt with ten ships of war, and sent the others to unite with the English fleet. That fleet was dispersed to watch as much as possible all points of approach, for rumours confounded the people by naming a variety of places on which the descent was to be made. Lord Howard put the division of the fleet immediately under his command in three squadrons on the western coast; Drake was stationed in the direction of Ushant; Hawkins, a regular adventurer, who had not long ago offered his services to Philip and had been rejected, now thirsting for revenge on him, cruised betwixt the Land's End and the Scilly Isles; Lord Henry Seymour scoured the coast of Flanders, blockading the Spanish ports to prevent the passage of Parma's army; and other commanders sailed to and fro in the Channel.
The Custom House in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth.
On land there was at first a haunting fear of the Roman Catholics. Their oppression had been of a character which was not thought likely to nourish patriotism; and the very invasion was professedly for their relief and revenge. But the moment that the common country was menaced with danger, they forgot all but the common interest. There was no class which displayed more zeal for the national defence. Yet to the very last moment their loyalty was tried to the utmost. Few could believe that they would not seize this opportunity to retaliate those severities which had been practised upon them; and there were those who even advised an English St. Bartholomew, or at least the putting to death of the leading Roman Catholics. This bloody project Elizabeth rejected; but they were, nevertheless, subjected to the most cruel treatment out of fear. A return was ordered of those suspected of this religion in London, who were found to amount to 17,000. All such as were convicted of recusancy were put in prison. All over the country the old domiciliary searches were made, and thousands of every rank and class, men and women, were dragged off to gaol to keep them safe, whilst the Protestant clergy inveighed in awful terms against the designs of the Pope and the terrible intentions of the Papists. All commands, with few exceptions, amongst which were those entrusted to the Lord-Admiral Howard and his family, were placed in the hands of Protestants; yet this did not prevent the Papists offering their services, and gentlemen of family and fortune serving in the ranks, or as common sailors at sea. The peers armed their tenants and servants, and placed them at the disposal of the queen; and gentlemen even fitted out vessels and put Protestants into command of them. The ministers themselves, in the famous "Letter to Mendoza," which they published in almost every language of Europe, confessed that they could see no difference betwixt the Romanists and the Protestants in their enthusiasm for the defence of the country. They mention the Viscount Montague, his son, and grandson, appearing before the queen with 200 horse which they had raised to defend her person, and add that the very prisoners for their religion in Ely signed a memorial to her, declaring that they were ready to fight to the death for her against all her enemies, whether they were Pope, priests, kings, or any power whatever.
Portrait of the Earl of Essex. From the Original Painting.
Meantime the muster throughout the kingdom had brought together 130,000 men. True, the greater part of them were raw recruits without discipline and experience, and could not have stood for a moment before the veterans of Parma, had he landed; but they were instructed to lay waste the country before him, to harass his march day and night by hanging on his skirts, and obstructing his way; and as not a town would have surrendered without a violent struggle, the event, with the dogged courage and perseverance of an English population, could only have been one of destruction to the invaders. This great but irregular force was dispersed in a number of camps on the east, west, and southern coasts. At Milford Haven were stationed 2,200 horse; 5,000 men of Cornwall and Devon defended Plymouth; the men of Dorset and Wiltshire garrisoned Portland; the Isle of Wight swarmed with soldiers, and was fortified at all points. The banks of the Thames were fortified under the direction of a celebrated Italian engineer, Federico Giambelli, who had deserted from the Spaniards. Gravesend was not only fortified, but was defended by a vast assemblage of boats, and had a bridge of them, which at once cut off the passage of the river, and opened a constant passage for troops betwixt Essex and Kent. At Tilbury, opposite to Gravesend, there was a camp of 22,000 foot and 2,000 horse, under the command of the Earl of Leicester, and Lord Hunsdon defended the capital with an army of, 28,000 men, supported by 10,000 Londoners.
Such were the preparations for the vaunted Invincible Armada. With all the courage of Elizabeth, however, she continued to negotiate anxiously for peace to the very last minute, and to the great chagrin of Leicester and Walsingham, who assured her that such a proceeding was calculated to encourage her enemies and depress her own subjects. Burleigh, with his more cautious nature, supported her, and even so late as February, 1587, she sent commissioners to Bourbourg, near Calais, to meet the commissioners of Philip, and they vainly continued their negotiations for peace till the Armada appeared in the Channel.
And now the time for the sailing of this dread fleet had arrived. The King of Spain, tired of delays, ordered its advance. It was in vain that Providence appeared to suggest the wisdom of further postponement, by taking away his experienced Admiral Santa Cruz, and his excellent Vice-Admiral the Duke of Paliano; he immediately gave the command to the Duke of Medina Sidonia, a man wholly without such experience, and the second command to Martinez de Ricaldo, a good seaman. In vain the Duke of Parma entreated that he might reduce Flushing before he carried such a force out of the country, and Sir William Stanley, who had deserted to Spain from the Netherlands army, recommended the occupation of Ireland before the descent on England. The Pope had delivered his bull for the deposition of Elizabeth, had collected the money which he promised to advance, had made Dr. Allen a cardinal, and appointed his legate in England to confer on Philip the investiture of the kingdom; the fleet was at anchor in the Tagus, and he commanded it to put forth.
This famous Armada consisted of 130 vessels of different sizes. There were forty-five galleons and larger vessels of from 500 to 1,000 tons each; twenty-five were pink-built ships, and thirteen were frigates. It carried 2,431 guns of different calibres, and 20,000 troops, exclusive of the crews which worked the vessels, of whom 2,000 were volunteers of the highest families in Spain. The English fleet outnumbered the Armada by about sixty vessels, but its entire tonnage did not amount to half that of the Armada.
On May the 30th, 1588, this formidable and long prepared fleet issued from the Tagus. The spectacle was of such grandeur, that no one could behold it without the strongest emotions and the most flattering expectations of success. But these were of very brief duration: one of those tempests which in every age, since the Norman Conquest, as if indicating the steady purpose of Providence, have assailed and scattered the fleets of England's enemies, burst on the Armada off Cape Finisterre, scattered its vessels along the coast of Gallicia, ran three large ships aground, dismasted and shattered eight others, and compelled the proud fleet to seek shelter in Corunna, and other ports along the coast. The damages to the ships were so considerable, that it occasioned the admiral a delay of three weeks at Corunna.
No sooner was this news announced in London, than Elizabeth, amid her most warlike movements never forgetting the expense, immediately ordered the lord admiral to dismantle four of his largest ships as if the danger were over. Lord Howard had the wise boldness to refuse, declaring that he would rather take the risk of his sovereign's displeasure, and keep the vessels afloat at his own cost, than endanger the country. To show that all his vessels were needed, he called a council of war, and proposed that they should sail for the Spanish coast, and fall on the fleet whilst it was thus disordered. At sea they saw and gave chase to fourteen Spanish ships. The wind veered and became at once favourable to his return, and also to the sailing of the Armada. He turned back to Plymouth, lest some of the Spanish vessels should have reached his unprotected station before him.
The event proved that his caution was not vain. He had scarcely regained Plymouth and moored his fleet, when a Scotch privateer, named Fleming, sailed in after him and informed him he had discovered the Armada off the Lizard. Most of the officers were at the moment playing at bowls on the Hoe, and Drake, who was one of them, bade them not hurry themselves, but play out the game and then go and beat the Spaniards. The wind, too, was blowing right into harbour, but having with great labour warped out their ships they stood off, and the next day, being the 20th of July, they saw the Spanish fleet bearing down full upon them. They were drawn up in the form of a crescent, the horns of which were seven miles apart, and a nobler or more imposing sight was never seen on the ocean. Lord Howard deemed it hazardous to measure strength with ships of such superior size and weight of metal, and he was soon relieved from the necessity, for the Duke of Medina, on perceiving the English fleet, called a council of his officers, who were impatient to attack and destroy the enemy at once, and showed them his instructions, which bound them, strictly to avoid all chance of damage to his vessels by a conflict before he had effected the main object of seeing the Flemish army landed on the English coast. The grand Armada, therefore, swept on in stately magnificence up the Channel, the great galeasses, with their huge hulks, their lofty prows, and their slow imposing motion, making a brave show. To the experienced eyes of the English sailors, however, this immediately communicated encouragement, for they saw at once that they were not calculated like their own nimbler vessels to tack and obey the helm promptly.
And now began, as it were, a strange chase of the mighty Armada by the lesser fleet. The Duke of Medina pressed on with all sail to reach Dunkirk, and make a junction with the fleet of flat-bottomed boats of the Duke of Parma, which were to carry over the army; but some of his vessels soon fell behind, and spite of his signalling for them to come up, they could not do so before the nimbler English vessels were upon them, and fired into them with right good will. The Disdain, a pinnace commanded by Jonas Bradbury, was the first to engage, and was speedily seconded by the lord admiral himself, who attacked a great galleon, and Drake in the Revenge, Hawkins in the Victory, and Frobisher in the Triumph, closed in with the others. Ricaldez, the rear-admiral, was in this affray, and encouraged his men bravely, but it was soon found that the Spaniards, though so much more gigantic in size, had no chance with the more manageable English ships. Their heavy artillery, from their uncommon height, fired over the enemies' heads, and did little mischief, whilst the undaunted English tacked about and hit them first in one place and then in another. Drake justified his fame by boarding a great galleon, the mast of which was shot away, and taking her with 55,000 ducats on board. The Duke of Medina was compelled to heave-to till the jeopardised squadron could come up; but night set in, and there was seen another of the great galleons blazing on the water, having, it was said, been purposely set on fire by a Flemish gunner, whom the captain had accused of cowardice or treachery. In the confusion the neighbouring vessels ran foul of each other, there being a heavy sea, and a third vessel was separated from the fleet, and was captured near the French coast.
Lord Howard on the 23rd again came up with the Armada off Portland. He was now reinforced by forty fresh sail, and had on board this accession Sir Walter Raleigh. The weather was still adverse to the advance of the Spaniards, and the English kept them well engaged by pouring in ever and anon a broadside, and then dropping out of range. Sometimes, the wind lulling, they were compelled to stand the full fire of the great ships, and in one of these encounters Frobisher was surrounded in the Triumph, and had to sustain an unequal combat for two hours. By direction of the admiral, however, a number of vessels moved to his rescue, and reserving their fire till they were close in with the enemy, they poured such a broadside into the Spaniards as turned the scale. Many of the Spanish ships wore completely disabled in this day's fight, and a Venetian argosy and several transports remained in their possession.
The next day the English fleet could not renew the, action, for they had burnt all their powder, and the time to prevent the junction of Medina with Parma, was totally lost. The next, the 25th, having in the meantime procured a fresh supply of ammunition from shore, the admiral renewed the fight off the Isle of Wight, where Hawkins took a large Portuguese galleon, and the Duke of Medina's ship had its mainmast shot away, and was much shattered; but in the midst of the engagement the powder of the English again failed, and they wore obliged to draw off. Fortunately the Spanish admiral also found that he had expended his heavy shot, and sent to the Duke of Parma to hold himself in readiness and send him back some shot. On the 26th the Armada held on its way with a fair breeze up the Channel, and Howard, who had received fresh ammunition, besides continual reinforcements of small vessels and men from the ports as they passed, directly pursued. In the Straits of Dover he expected to be joined by a strong squadron under Lord Henry Seymour and Sir Thomas Winter, and, therefore, he reserved his fire. On the following day, the Duke of Medina, instead of making at once for Dunkirk, as he wished, was prevailed on to cast anchor before Calais. It was represented that there was a Dutch and English fleet blockading Newport and Dunkirk, the only outlets for Parma's flat-bottoms, and that the Armada would then be enclosed betwixt the two hostile fleets. It was necessary first to beat off the fleet which hung on his rear, and he had already found it impracticable with his huge unwieldy vessels. He therefore dispatched a messenger to the Duke of Parma over land, urging him to send him a squadron of his fly-boats to beat off the English ships, and to be ready embarked, that he might land in England under his fire as soon as he could come up.
But Parma sent him the discouraging news that it was impossible for him to move or even to transport his troops till the grand fleet came up to his assistance. Fourteen thousand troops, he informed him, had been already embarked at Newport, and the other division at Dunkirk held in readiness for the word of command, in expectation of the arrival of the fleet; but that, having been so long delayed, their provisions were exhausted, the boats, which had been built in a hurry with green wood, had warped and become unseaworthy, and with the hot weather fever had broken out amongst his troops. Were he, however, otherwise able to stir, there lay a force of Dutch and English vessels at anchor enough to send every boat to the bottom.
Under these circumstances there was nothing for it but to make for Dunkirk, force the blockades at the mouth of the Scheldt, and effect the junction with Parma. But now the expected junction of Winter and Lord Henry Howard had taken place with the lord admiral's squadron, and the Spaniards found themselves closely hemmed in by 140 English sail, crowded with sailors and soldiers eager for the fray, and there was clearly no avoiding a general engagement. This being inevitable, the Spaniards placed their great ships in front, anchored the lesser betwixt them and the shore, and awaited the next morning for the decisive battle. But such captains as Drake and Hawkins saw too well the strong position of the Armada to trust to their fighting, and they determined to throw the enemy into confusion by stratagem. They therefore prepared eight fire-ships, and the wind being in shore, they sent them, under the management of Captains Young and Prouse, at midnight, down towards the Spanish lines. The brave officers effected their hazardous duty, and took to their boats. Presently, there was a wild cry as the eight vessels in full blaze, and sending forth explosion after explosion, bore right down upon the Spaniards. Remembering the terrible fire-ships which the Dutch had formerly sent amongst them, the sailors shouted—"The fire of Antwerp! the fire of Antwerp!" and every vessel was put in motion to escape in the darkness as best it might. The confusion became terrible, and the ships were continually running foul of each other. One of the largest galeasses had her rudder carried away by coming in contact with her neighbour, and, floating at the mercy of the waves, was stranded. When the fire-ships had exhausted themselves, the Duke of Medina fired again to recall his scattered vessels; but few heard it, flying madly as they were in fear and confusion, and the dawn found them scattered along the coast from Ostend to Calais. A more terrible night no unfortunate creatures ever passed, for a tempest had set in, a furious gale blowing from the southwest, the rain falling in torrents, and the pitchy gloom being only lit up by the glare of lightning.
A loud cannonade in the direction of Gravelines announced that the hostile fleets were engaged there, and it became a signal for the fugitives to draw towards, but all along the coast the active English commanders were ready to receive them, and Drake, Hawkins, Raleigh, Frobisher, Seymour, and Cumberland vied in their endeavours to win the highest distinction. Terrible scenes were presented at the different stranded galeasses. That off Calais, after a desperate engagement, was boarded, its crew and troops cut to pieces or pushed overboard, and 50,000 ducats were taken out of her. One great galleon sunk under the English fire; another, the San Matteo, was compelled to surrender; and another, dismantled and in miserable plight, drifted on shore at Flushing and was seized by the sailors. Some of the battered vessels foundered at sea, and the duke, calling a council, proposed to return home. This was vehemently opposed by many officers and the seamen, who had fought furiously and now cried for revenge; but the admiral held that it was impossible long to hold out against such an enemy, and gave the order for Spain. But how? The English now swarmed in the narrow seas, and the issue of the desperate conflict which must attend the attempt the whole way was too clear. The only means of escape he believed was to sail northward, round Scotland and Ireland. Such a voyage, through tempestuous seas and along dangerous coasts, to men little, if at all, acquainted with them, was so charged with peril and hardships, that nothing but absolute necessity could have forced them to attempt it. The remains of the Armada, no longer invincible, and already reduced to eighty vessels, was now, therefore, seen with a favourable wind in full sail northward. With such men as Drake and the rest it might have been safely calculated that not a ship would ever return to Spain. A strong squadron dispatched to meet the Spanish fleet on the west coast of Ireland, and another following in pursuit, would have utterly destroyed this great naval armament. But here again the parsimony of Elizabeth, and the strange want of providence in her Government, became apparent. Instead of pursuing, the English fleet returned to port on the 8th of August for want of powder and shot and, as if satisfied with getting rid of the enemy, no measures whatever were taken to intercept the fugitive fleet. "If," says Sir William Monson, "we had been so happy as to have followed their course, as it was both thought and discoursed of, we had been absolutely victorious over this great and formidable navy, for they were brought to that necessity that they would willingly have yielded, as divers of them confessed that were shipwrecked on the coast of Ireland."
This great piece of misgovernment occasioned much disappointment amongst the brave seamen, both officers and men, a few ships only being able to follow the Spaniards as far as the Frith of Forth. Walsingham, in a letter to the Lord Chancellor at the time, said, "I am sorry the lord admiral was forced to leave the prosecution of the enemy through the want he sustains. Our half doings doth breed dishonour, and leaveth the disease uncured." But the winds and waves did for the English what they themselves left undone in a great measure. A terrible tempest assailed the flying Armada to the north of Scotland, and scattered its unhappy ships amongst the iron-bound islands of the Orkneys and Hebrides. To save themselves, the Spaniards threw overboard their horses, mules, artillery, and baggage, and in many instances to no purpose. On many a wild spot of the shores of the "Western Isles, and those of Scotland and Ireland, you are still told, "Here was stranded one of the great ships of the Invincible Armada." How many summer tourists hear this at Tobermory, in the Isle of Mull; and how many visitors to the Giant's Causeway are shown the terrible cliffs of Port-na-Spagna, still bearing the name from the awful catastrophe which occurred there. More than thirty of these vessels were stranded on the Irish coast; others went down at sea, every soul on board perishing; and others were driven to Norway, and stranded there.
Never was there so fearful a destruction; and well might the triumphant Protestants exult in the idea that the wrath of an avenging deity was let loose against this devoted navy. No mercy was shown to the wretched held that it was impossible long to hold out against such sufferers in general who escaped to land. In Ireland the fear of their joining the natives made the Government scandalously cruel. Instead of taking those prisoners who came on shore, they cut them down in cold blood, and upwards of 200 are said to have been thus mercilessly butchered. Some of the scattered vessels were compelled to fight their way back down the English Channel, and were the prey of the English, the Dutch, and of French Huguenots, who had equipped a number of privateers to have a share in the destruction and plunder of their hated enemies. The Duke of Medina eventually reached the port of St. Andero in September, with the loss of more than half his fleet, and of 10,000 men, those who survived looking more like ghosts than human beings.
Philip, though he must have been deeply mortified by this signal failure of his costly and ambitious enterprise, was too proud to show it. He received the news without a change of countenance, and thanked God that his kingdom was so strong and flourishing that it could well bear such a loss. He gave 50,000 crowns to relieve the sufferers; forbade any public mourning, assigning the mishap, not to the English, but the weather; and wrote to the Duke of Parma—whom the English Government had tempted at this crisis to throw off his allegiance and make himself master of the Catholic provinces of the Netherlands, as the Prince of Orange had done of the Protestant ones—to thank him for his readiness to have carried out his design, and to assure him of his unshaken favour.
In following the fate of the Spanish fleet, and the bravery and address of England's naval commanders, we have left unnoticed the less striking proceedings of the army on shore. The chief camp at Tilbury, which would have come first into conflict with the Spanish army had it effected a landing, was put under the command of Leicester—a man who had been tried in the Netherlands, and found wanting in every qualification of a general. To such a man had Elizabeth confided the destinies of England, and to the son of his wife, the Earl of Essex, now rising also in favour with this lover-loving queen. Had Parma landed, it assuredly would not have been the talents or the bravery of the commander-in-chief which would have repelled him. Elizabeth herself talked loudly of taking the field in person, and, no doubt, would not have flinched there; but Leicester wrote her a very loving and familiar letter, declaring that he could not allow "her person, the most dainty and sacred thing in the world," to be exposed to danger; but that she might, if she pleased, draw to her house of Havering Bower; and he added, "To comfort this army and people of these counties, you may, if it please you, spend two or three days to see both the camps and forts. And thus far, but no farther, can I consent to adventure your person." Accordingly, Elizabeth lay still whilst the danger continued; but, on the 9th of August—the Armada at the time being in full flight, and the English fleet returned to port the day before—she rode through the camp on a white palfrey, with a light cuirass on her back and a marshal's truncheon in her hand, whilst the army of raw recruits rent the air with acclamations, and expressed their sorrow that the Spaniards had not allowed them an opportunity of beating them.
At Tilbury the scene was still more dramatic. Leicester and the new stripling favourite, Essex, led her bridle rein, whilst she is said to have delivered this harangue: "My loving people! we have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear! I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and, therefore, I am come amongst you at this time not as for my recreation and sport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all—to lay down for my God, for my kingdom, and for my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know that I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart of a king, and a King of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma, or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm: to which, rather than any dishonour should grow by me, I myself will take up arms—I myself will be your general—the judge and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I already know by your forwardness that you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid to you. In the meantime my lieutenant-general shall be in my stead—than whom never prince commanded a more noble or more worthy subject; nor will I suffer myself to doubt that, by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and my people."
Lingard, however, does not even insert the speech in his history, observing that he does not believe that it ever was delivered, for that "she certainly could not exhort the soldiers to fight after the enemy was gone, and when she had resolved to disband the army directly."
On Lord Howard, as admiral of the fleet, rewards and favours were conferred; but neither he, nor the other heroes of his immortal contest at sea, received a tithe of the honour of Leicester, who had done nothing but write a love-letter to the queen from Tilbury camp. Nothing that she had done or could do appeared adequate to his incomprehensible merits. She determined to create a new and most invidious office in his favour; and the warrant for his creation of Lord Lieutenant of England and Ireland lay ready for the royal signature, when the remonstrances of Burleigh and Hatton delayed, and the sudden death of the favourite put an end to it. In ten days after the queen's visit to the camp he had disbanded the army, and was on his way to his castle of Kenilworth, when he was seized with sickness at Cornbury Park, in Oxfordshire, and died on the 4th of September, with every symptom of being poisoned. He had discovered or suspected a criminal connection betwixt his wife, the Countess of Essex, and Sir Christopher Blount. He had attempted to assassinate Blount, but failed; and his countess, profiting by his own instructions in getting rid of her former husband, is supposed to have administered the fatal dose.
Leicester appears to have been the most thorough and accomplished scoundrel of that age—by no means famous for moral principle. His fine person and courtier-like manners placed him above all his rivals in the affections of Elizabeth. The contemporary authorities detail the extraordinary scandals of their intercourse. There is no doubt of Elizabeth having promised him marriage; and the dispatches of the Bishop of Aquila, still preserved in the archives of Salamanca, testify to the fact that both Leicester and Elizabeth, whilst he was ambassador in England, importuned him to obtain the approbation of Philip of this marriage; and Aquila finally informs that sovereign that they had been privately contracted at the house of the Earl of Pembroke. The world at the time gave them credit for having several children.
In his written correspondence Leicester affected a religious style. Naunton, in his "Fragmenta Regalia," says, "I never yet saw a style or phrase more seemingly religious, or fuller of the strains of devotion;" and his letters remaining bear out the assertion; but in his life he was one of the most haughty, rapacious, and cold-blooded villains existing. His murder of his first wife, Amy Robsart; his desertion of the second; his poisoning of the Earl of Essex, and adultery with his wife before; his recommendation of dispatching the Queen of Scots with poison; and his ready use of poison or steel where any one stood in the way of his ambition, sufficiently stamp him as a scoundrel of the first magnitude. Only two of the ladies about the Court, married or single, are said to have remained uncorrupted by him: and this could only be through his person and address; for, as a general or a statesman, he was contemptible. Elizabeth showed violent sorrow for his loss; but she soon recovered sufficiently to look after money which, she said, he owed her, and for which she ordered a sale of his effects. Besides, the youthful Robert Devereaux, the Earl of Essex, was fast seizing on the matronly queen's imagination, and greatly curtailed the period of her bereavement.
The first use which Elizabeth made of her victory was to take vengeance on the Papists—not because they had done anything disloyal, but because they were of the same religion as the detested Spaniards. All their demonstrations of devotion to the cause of their country and their queen during the attempted invasion went for nothing. A commission was appointed to try those already in prison; and six priests, three laymen, and a lady of the name of Ward, for having harboured priests, four other laymen, for having been reconciled to the Roman Catholic Church, and fifteen persons, all charged with being connected with them, in all thirty individuals, were, within a period of three months, condemned as traitors, and executed with all the embowelling and other atrocities attending that sentence. Their only crime was the practice of their religion, or the succouring their clergymen.
The queen's attention was next turned to a victim who had long been suffering her severity as a prisoner. This was the Earl of Arundel, who, after enjoying Elizabeth's favour, and leading a gay life at Court, was imprisoned in 1588 for having turned Roman Catholic, and endeavouring to escape out of the kingdom. For a time preceding the coming of the Armada, his imprisonment had been relaxed through a bribe of his countess to the Lieutenant of the Tower. It was, however, suspected that Elizabeth was perfectly cognisant of this connivance, and that the increased liberty was intended as a trap, for he was allowed to go into the cell of an imprisoned priest, where he heard mass, and occasionally met two others of the same faith, Gerard and Shelley. He was now examined on the charge of having prayed for the success of the invaders; and every endeavour was used to induce Bennet, Gerard, and Shelley to give evidence against him. Though much force and menace were used, the result was not successful; yet he was condemned to die. He requested, before his death, to be allowed to see his wife and child, but was not permitted. He was not, however, executed, but allowed to live till 1595, with the expectation that every day or hour his sentence might be put in force. He then died, as it was supposed, of poison—a mode of getting rid of him, after ten years confinement, which many imagined was employed because Elizabeth had executed his father, and shrank from the odium of executing the son also, without some more clearly-established cause. The rancour with which, for some unknown offence, Elizabeth pursued this nobleman, she transferred after his death to his wife, who was not allowed, during the queen's life, to enter London, except for medical advice; and if the queen came to town during such a visit, Lady Arundel received orders to quit London immediately.
Wreck of one of the Armada Vessels on the Irish Coast. (See page 532.)
The rage of persecution which now distinguished the queen, continued the greater part of her life; old age alone appearing to abate her virulence as it dimmed her faculties and subdued her spirits. Sixty-one Roman Catholic clergymen, forty-seven laymen, and two ladies suffered death for their religion. The fines for recusancy were levied with the utmost rigour, £20 per lunar month being the legal sum, so that many gentlemen were fleeced of their entire income. Besides this, they were liable to a year's imprisonment and a fine of 100 marks every time they heard mass. The search for concealed priests was carried on with great avidity, because it gave occasion for plunder, and on conviction of such concealment, forfeiture of the whole of their property, followed with ample gleaning to the informers. The poorer recusants were, for some time, imprisoned; but the prisons becoming full, officers were sent through the country visiting all villages and remote places, and extorting what they could.
As Elizabeth grew in years she more and more resembled her father, and persecuted the Puritans as 
Queen Elizabeth at Tilbury. (See page 533.)
zealously as the Papists. In these Reformers, however, she found a sturdy class of men, who would not endure so quietly her oppressions. Hume blames the Nonconformists for not setting up separate congregations of their own; but he forgot the £20 a month, which would have been levied on every individual that could pay, and the imprisonments and harassing of others. Where, however, the Nonconformists could not preach, they printed. Books and pamphlets flew in all directions; and there was set up a sort of ambulatory press, which was conveyed from place to place, till at length it was hunted down and destroyed near Manchester. In 1590, Sir Richard Knightley, Hooles, of Coventry, and Wigmore and his wife, of Warwick, were fined, in the Star Chamber, as promulgators of a book called "Martin Marprelate," the first £2,000, the second 1,000 marks, the third 500, the fourth 100, and to be imprisoned during the queen's pleasure.
In 1591 Udal, a Nonconformist minister, was condemned to death for publishing a book called "A Demonstration of Discipline," but died in prison. Mr. Cartwright, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, for pointing out defects in the system of the Church, was deprived of his fellowship, expelled the university, and in 1591 was summoned before the ecclesiastical commission with some of his friends, and committed to prison because they would not answer interrogatories on oath—a practice clearly contrary to law. In 1593 Barrow, Greenwood, and Penry, Independent ministers, or Brownists, were put to death for writings said to reflect on the queen. In fact, the whole of the reign of Elizabeth, with the exception of her few last years, when she was failing, and the fear of the Presbyterian King of Scotland as her successor began to awe the persecuting magistrates and officers, was a scene of such intolerance and oppression of her subjects as gives us strange ideas of this Royal champion of Protestantism. As we shall have occasion, however, to notice these matters in our review of the century, we here pass on to other topics.
In the spring of 1589 Parliament and Convocation assembled, and Elizabeth laid before them a statement of the heavy expenses incurred in beating off the Spaniards. She had already levied a forced loan, to which the recusants had been made to contribute heavily, and she now received most liberal grants from both Parliament and Convocation. Having given this freely, the House of Commons prayed the queen to send out a strong force and take vengeance on the Spaniards for their attack on this country. Elizabeth was perfectly agreeable that they should punish Philip to their hearts' content, but not out of the supplies they had granted. She said there were great demands on her exchequer; that she could only furnish ships and soldiers, and they must pay the cost. The proposal of retaliation was so much to the taste of the public that an association was formed under the auspices of Drake and Norris, and very soon they had a fleet of 100 sail at Plymouth, carrying 21,000 men. Elizabeth had long been patronising Don Antonio, prior of Crato, an illegitimate branch of the Royal family of Portugal. This pretender was now sent out in this fleet in Royal state, and the expedition was directed to land in Portugal, and call on the people to throw off the Spanish yoke, and restore their Government under a native, and, as Elizabeth boldly asserted, legitimate prince. If the Portuguese would not receive Don Antonio, the fleet was then to scour the roads of Spain, and inflict on the territory of Philip all the damage possible.
The fascination of this expedition under so renowned a commander as Drake, seized on the youthful fancy of a young noble, who had now succeeded to the post of Leicester as Elizabeth's prince favourite—the Earl of Essex. This was the son of the Countess of Essex whom Leicester had seduced, and, after poisoning her husband, married. Leicester introduced the young earl to Elizabeth, who, for a time, hated him on account of his mother, who had committed the great sin in Elizabeth's eyes—not of being accessory to her husband's murder, but of marrying her favourite. However, some time before Leicester's death, the graces and lively disposition of the young earl had made a strong impression on her heart or head, and she lavished blandishments on the handsome boy in public, even in the face of the camp at Tilbury, which must have been eminently ludicrous. After Leicester's death he became installed as the chief favourite, and she could scarcely bear him out of her sight. Her consternation was great when she found that he had slily eloped, and had set off after the fleet bound for Spain. She immediately dispatched the Earl of Huntingdon to stop him and bring him back; but though the fleet had weighed anchor, Essex, who had glory or plunder before him, and debts to the amount of £20,000, and the caresses of a nauseous and nauseating "old woman," as he invariably called her, behind him, had got off after the Royal fleet in a ship of war, that, luckily, had lingered for some cause behind. Huntingdon, finding the bird had flown, sent a copy of his instructions to the commander of the fleet to hasten the truant back—an order to which Drake or the young man appears to have paid no attention.
Drake made first for Corunna, where he seized a number of merchantmen and ships of war, made himself master of the suburbs or marine part of the town, with great stores of oil and wine, but failed to take the town itself, though he succeeded in making a breach in the wall, at the cost of many lives. Norris, meantime, attacked the forces of the Conde d'Andrada, posted at the Puente de Burgos, and drove them before him for some miles; but sickness and shortness of powder compelled them to embark again. Drake and Norris, as famous for their bulletins as Napoleon in our day, wrote home that they had killed 1,000 of the enemy, with the loss of only three men! but Lord Talbot, writing at the same time to his father, said that they had lost a great number of men, quite as many as the Spaniards. From Corunna they coasted to Peniche, about thirty miles north of Lisbon. At Peniche the young Earl of Essex, who kept out at sea till the commanders could say in their dispatches that they had heard nothing of him, was the first to spring on shore, and showed great gallantry. They quickly took the castle, and the fleet then proceeded along the shore to the Tagus, whilst the army marched by land to Lisbon through Torres Vedras and St. Sebastian.
The garrison in Lisbon was but weak, and Essex knocked at the gates, and summoned the commander to surrender; but the Spaniards had taken the precaution to lay waste the neighbourhood and destroy all the provisions, or carry them into the city, so that famine, fever, and want of powder soon compelled the English to retire. They found that their pretender, Don Antonio, was everywhere treated as a pretender—not a man would own him; and they marched to Cascaes, which they found already plundered by Drake and his squadron. They there embarked for England, but were soon dispersed by a storm, and reached Plymouth in straggling disorder, one of the sections of the fleet having, before leaving Spain, plundered the town of Vigo. It was found that out of their 21,000 men, they had lost one-half. Out of the 1,100 gentlemen who accompanied the expedition one-third had perished. Elizabeth secretly grumbled at the expense and loss, but publicly boasted of the chastisement she had given to Philip.
Essex, on his return, found his post of favourite occupied by two gay cavaliers, Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Charles Blount. Sir Walter was a gentleman of Devonshire, who, besides his handsome person and courtly address, had really much to recommend him—had already, as we have seen, distinguished himself under Lord Gray in Ireland, and since in the attack on the Armada. Though with all his talent, which we shall notice in another place, and the smallest of which gifts was not that of flattery. Sir Walter united an ambition by no means scrupulous, he never took that rank in the queen's favour which made him a dangerous rival to a youth of Essex's gay and passionate character. He was soon dismissed to look after his 14,000 acres in the south of Ireland; and Sir Charles Blount, who was the second son of Lord Mountjoy, and a student of the Inner Temple, was not much longer his antagonist. Their mutual jealousy occasioned them to fight a duel, in which Essex was wounded in the thigh; and Elizabeth, highly flattered by two such knights fighting the quarrel of her beauty—for she still thought herself handsome—made them shake hands, and they soon after became great companions.
In a short time Essex married the widow of Sir Philip Sidney, the daughter of Walsingham, which gave great offence to his Royal mistress, who never could endure that her favourites should show preference to another; but she soon appeared to forget it, and grew more absurdly fond of Essex than ever. In 1591 he endeavoured to get justice for the unfortunate secretary, Davison. Walsingham died on the 6th of April of that year, and Essex strongly recommended him as his successor; but Burleigh had long calculated on the office for his son Robert, afterwards Earl of Salisbury. The queen, who never would appear to forgive and do justice to Davison, secretly favoured Burleigh's son, and not to refuse Essex, conferred the office on Burleigh himself, at the same time letting him know that he could give his son the post in effect by employing him in it as his deputy. Essex was very violent on the occasion, and heaped liberal abuse on "the old fox," as he styled Burleigh, which that cold-blooded minister remembered to his cost. Essex was impatient to get once more from Court, and affairs in France opened a way for him.
The feud betwixt Henry III. and the Duke of Guise, the head of the ultra-Catholic party, continued to rage more and more violently. To cope with his domestic enemies, Henry gathered by degrees a considerable number of troops into Paris; but the Guise party, detecting the object, soon roused the populace to resistance, who rose on the 22nd of September, cut off the communication betwixt the different quarters of the soldiers by barricading the streets, and placed the Duke of Guise in possession of the capital. To rid himself of so troublesome a subject, the king summoned an assembly of the states in November at Blois. There his partisans dispatched the Duke of Guise on his way to the royal chamber, and the next day executed the same royal vengeance on his brother the cardinal, and threw the Cardinal of Bourbon and the other chiefs of the party into prison. Henry thought he had now triumphed by death and the dungeon over the troublesome factionists whom he could by no other means control, but he was deceived. The populace rose at the news in Paris, demanding vengeance for the murdered noblemen, whom they pronounced the martyrs of the popular cause. The third brother of Guise, the Duke of Mayence, who was at Lyons, obeying the call of the infuriated multitude, hastened to Paris, assumed the command under the title of governor, and maintained the city against the king.
Henry had not the vigour to follow up the blow he had given. He allowed the insurgents time to fortify and strengthen themselves every way; and finding himself unable to cope with them, made common cause with the King of Navarre, and their united forces invested the capital. Within the city the most furious spirit raged against the king. The doctrine of deposing and punishing sovereigns was then coming into fashion; it had been openly declared in Scotland, taken up by Goodman and Languet, and was now adopted by the university, the preachers, and the Parliament of Paris. It was declared that Henry, by his crimes, had forfeited his crown; that he was a murderer and an apostate; and that the highest act of patriotism and religion was to free the country of such a wretch. It was not long before a fanatic was found to put in practice this levelling principle. This was a young Dominican friar of the name of Jacques Clement. On pretence of a message from the President of the Parliament, and by means of a forged letter in his name, he obtained access to the king, and stabbed him. At the outcry of the king the attendants rushing in, dispatched the murderer, but by that means prevented any discovery of his accomplices or instigators.
On the death of the king, Henry of Navarre, a lineal descendant of St. Louis, by his youngest son Robert, Count of Clermont, assumed the crown as Henry IV. But Henry's known Protestantism placed him in extreme difficulty, even with those who had hitherto supported himself or the late king. The Papist followers of that monarch insisted that he should sign an engagement to maintain their worship, and that to the exclusion of every other, except in the places in which the Protestant form was already established. They bound Henry to hunt out and punish the murderers of the late king; to give no offices in the State, in cities or corporations, except to Papists, and to permit the nobles of the Roman Catholic league to defend to the Pope their proceedings. But by conceding these conditions, he mortally offended the Protestants, who had hitherto faithfully adhered to him, and who refused any longer to fight under the banners of a prince who had thus, as they deemed it, abandoned their cause. Nine regiments deserted his standard, whilst a regiment of Papists on the other side, not sufficiently satisfied with the concessions thus dearly purchased, also marched out of his camp.
Such was the extent of the disaffection, that instead of being able to take Paris, he was compelled to raise the siege and retreat into Normandy. Thither the Duke of Mayence and his fanatic rabble hotly pursued him, but Henry encamping his little army, which did not amount to a fourth of the enemy, on an advantageous slope opposite to the castle and village of Arques, a few miles from Dieppe, defeated his assailants with great slaughter. The battle was fought on the 21st of September, and the spot is now marked by a lofty column.
On the heels of this victory came a most timely aid from Elizabeth of England, of £20,000 in gold and 4,000 troops under Lord Willoughby. Henry now retraced his steps to Paris, where he made himself master of the suburbs on the left bank of the Seine, and continued to act on the offensive during the remainder of the year. At the commencement of 1591 the English army was dismissed, having suffered great losses, and displayed great bravery.
But they only returned home for Henry to solicit fresh assistance; the Spaniards and the Duke of Mercœur put in claims for the province of Brittany, and united their forces to obtain it. Elizabeth, who professed to desire the Protestant ascendancy in France, yet sorely rued the expense of supporting that interest, and her old and cunning minister, Burleigh, threw his weight into the scale of parsimony, because he delighted to see France depressed. But now that the hated Spaniards had actually landed in that country over against her very coasts, she was roused to do something. She advanced a fresh loan and sent over a small reinforcement of 3,000 men. Essex was impatient to have the command of this force, but the queen, listening to Burleigh, gave it to Sir John Norris, and Essex quitted the Court in a pet. Fresh forces were, however, solicited, and Essex, to his great delight, received the appointment. In August he landed at Dieppe, and finding Henry engaged in the distant Champagne, he pitched his tent at Arques, near the scene of Henry's triumph, and remained there for two months doing nothing but knighting his officers to keep them contented. His whole force consisted only of 300 horse, 300 gentlemen volunteers, and 3,000 infantry. On the king's arrival the siege of Rouen was begun, where the English army suffered terrible hardships, and in the spring of 1592, the siege having been raised on the approach of the Prince of Parma, Essex left his troops with Sir Roger Williams, having lost his brother, Walter Devereaux, in the campaign.
Tilbury Fort, on the Thames.
This unsatisfactory state of things in France continued till the Midsummer of 1593. Henry was continually demanding fresh aid, fresh advances of money, fresh troops, which he did not employ, as was stipulated with Elizabeth, solely against the Spaniards, but against his rebellious subjects. Elizabeth was greatly enraged at his breach of faith, but still found it impossible to refuse him, lest the Spaniards should get the upper hand, and Henry, calculating on this, went on doing with her troops just what he pleased. Elizabeth was further incensed, and went into the worst of tempers on this account, and for this cause not only dealt sharp words, but heavy blows about her on her attendants. But worst of all came the news that Henry IV. was about to embrace the Roman Catholic faith. The fact was he saw that it was impossible otherwise to maintain himself on the throne. She sent off a strong remonstrance composed by Burleigh, but before its arrival the deed was done, nor is it to be supposed that its arrival would have prevented it. Elizabeth's limited aid could not enable him to overcome the tremendous opposition arrayed against him. On the 15th of July, 1593, Henry publicly abjured the Protestant and embraced, if not the Roman Catholic faith, the profession of it. On hearing that this was done, Elizabeth burst into one of her violent passions, and heaped on him her choicest terms of abuse. She wrote to him after four months had somewhat abated her fury, but still in a strain of high remonstrance:—"Ah, what grief! ah, what regret! ah, what pangs have seized my heart, at the news which Morlant has communicated! My God! is it possible that any worldly consideration could render you regardless of the Divine displeasure? Can we reasonably expect any good result can follow such an iniquity? How could you imagine that He who has supported and upheld your cause so long, would fail you at your need? It is a perilous thing to do ill that good may come of it. Nevertheless, I yet hope that your better feelings may return, and in the meantime I promise to give you the first place in my prayers. Esau's hands may not defile the blessing of Jacob," &c.
The persecutions in England and Ireland kept up a rancorous spirit against Elizabeth, both at home and abroad. In foreign countries it was represented that she had murdered Mary of Scotland because she was the heir to her throne, and the sufferings of the persecuted were diligently disseminated, with prints of their barbarous deaths. It is no wonder, therefore, that there were fanatics found ready to assassinate her, as there were to perpetrate the same crime on Henry IV. of France and Philip of Spain. The archives of Simancas retain proofs of these designs against Philip, the most Popish of monarchs, and one of the most terrible persecutors of the Protestants. Elizabeth, in a letter to Henry IV., congratulated him on his escape from the young madman Chalet, but hinted that poison would probably be the next means resorted to. Little did she dream that she was in imminent danger from this secret agent herself about the same time.
Walsingham, the grand detective of the English Government, was dead; and Burleigh, who now in his age saw younger men usurping the queen's favour, took up his deceased colleague's particular function of maintaining spies and poisoners, on the principle of set a rogue to catch a rogue. As there was a constant rivalry betwixt Essex and the Cecils, whom he cordially detested, he also gave himself great trouble to discover any attempts of a traitorous kind. Burleigh, old, sly, and unprincipled, was generally in the advance of Essex, and when the latter brought forward some discovery, he was mortified to find it perfectly well known to Burleigh and the queen. At length, however, fortune favoured him. Antonio Perez, the favourite secretary of Philip, had lost the favour of his master, and was a refugee in England. From such a man it was obvious that immense discoveries might be drawn by the application of the usual means, but Elizabeth took it into her head to treat him not as a useful tool, but as a traitor, with whom she would have nothing to do. Burleigh, instead of using his accustomed acumen, and engaging Perez privately, imitated his Royal mistress, and treated him with neglect. It was a grand political blunder, and Essex instantly availed himself of it. He took Perez into his pay and patronage, and soon learned from him that Roderigo Lopez, a Jew physician, who had acquired such hold on Elizabeth, that though a prisoner at the time of the Armada, she had ever since retained him in her service, was actually in the pay of Philip, as a spy and something worse. On hearing such a charge from Essex, Elizabeth at first refused to believe, and, no doubt, was confirmed in that feeling by the Cecils. But the importunity of Essex prevailed to have a commission of inquiry opened, in which the Cecils were conjoined with him. With such associates Essex might have calculated that he would fail, and he did so. They proceeded to the house of Lopez, searched it for papers, and cross-questioned him, but made out nothing corroborative of the charge. The Cecils triumphantly reported that there was no ground for suspecting Lopez, and Elizabeth sharply reprimanded Essex for bringing so iniquitous a charge against an honourable and innocent man, who, by-the-bye, had presented her with a rich jewel which Ibarra, the Governor of the Netherlands, had sent to him as a bribe. She called Essex a rash, temerarious youth, and the petulant youth quitted her presence in high dudgeon, shut himself up in his house, and refused to come back at her repeated solicitations, till she had by much soothing and coaxing appeased his offended dignity. Meantime, however, stimulated by this conduct of the queen, and his hatred of the Cecils, he was pursuing the inquiry against Lopez, and soon came upon a real secret. Two followers of Don Antonio Perez, named Louis and Ferreira, swore to the treasonable practices of Lopez. Ferreira made oath that, at the instigation of Lopez, he had written to Ibarra, the Spanish governor, and Puentes, the commander-in-chief, in the Netherlands, offering to poison Elizabeth for a reward of 50,000 crowns; and Louis declared that he had been sent out to see that the scheme was executed.
Whether this was a charge drawn from these parties by the rack in the Tower, or the real truth, it succeeded in convincing Elizabeth, who exclaimed that Providence alone had preserved her. Lopez admitted that he had carried on a secret correspondence with the Spanish Court, but stoutly denied any intention of injuring the person of the queen. All three were found guilty, but Ferreira was saved by the influence of Essex, who afterwards took him with him to Cadiz. Lopez and Louis were executed on the 7th of June, 1593. The most important discovery resulting from the inquiry, was that of letters revealing a plot to burn the English fleet.
Elizabeth, after getting over her resentment against Henry IV. on account of his lapse of faith, found it convenient to make a league offensive and defensive with him against Philip. The consequence was that the Spaniards speedily poured into France from the Netherlands. Velasco, the constable of Castillo, penetrated into Champagne, and directed his attack against Franche-Comté. Fuentes marched into Picardy, defeated Henry's army, took Dourlens and Cambray, and threw the King of France into the greatest alarm. In vain he sent to demand aid of Elizabeth: she had heard of preparations in the Spanish ports for a second invasion of her kingdom; and so far from aiding Henry, she withdrew her troops from Brittany, complaining dreadfully of all the money and men which she had foolishly wasted on the apostate monarch of France. In March, 1596, the Archduke Albert, who had become Governor of the Netherlands, suddenly marched on Calais, pretending that his object was to raise the siege of La Fere. By this ruse he was already under the walls of Calais with 15,000 men. The outstanding forts were soon won, and as Elizabeth was one Sunday at church at Greenwich, the distant report of the Archduke's cannonade on the walls of Calais was plainly heard. Elizabeth sprung up in the midst of the service, and vowed that she would rescue that ancient town. She sent off post-haste to order the Lord Mayor of London to immediately impress 1,000 men, and send them on to Calais; but the fit of enthusiasm was soon over, and the next morning she countermanded the order. When Henry's ambassadors urged her for assistance, she coolly proffered it on condition that she should garrison Calais with an English army. When the proposal was made to Henry, he was so incensed that he actually turned his back on her ambassador, Sir Robert Sidney, saying he would rather receive a box on the ear from a man than a fillip from a woman. In a few days—namely, on the 14th of April—the town was carried by storm, and Elizabeth had the mortification of seeing the Spaniards in possession of a port so calculated to enable them to invade England. Henry, on his part, was excessively enraged at her duplicity and selfishness, and spoke in no sparing terms of her.
Destruction of the Spanish Armada. (See page 531.)
Nevertheless, his necessities soon compelled him to lower his tone, and even to condescend to flatter her in the most outrageous manner. He well knew how fulsomely her courtiers incensed her vanity, and that no adulation, however gross, was unacceptable to her, and he adopted this absurd extravagance to move her to his assistance, which was duly reported to her by Unton, her ambassador; who was no doubt prevailed upon purposely to do it. "He asked me one day," wrote Unton, "what I thought of his mistress, the fair Gabrielle, and was so impatient for my opinion that he took me into a private corner of his bed-chamber, betwixt the bed and the wall. I answered very sparingly in her praise, and told him that if without offence I might speak it, I had a picture of a far more excellent mistress, and yet did her picture come far short of her perfection of beauty. 'As you love me,' said Henry, 'show it me, if you have it about you.'" Unton, after making some difficulty, showed him the portrait, on which he went into transports, as though he had never seen a portrait of her before, and as though she was not then in her sixty-third year. "Henry," Unton continues, "beheld it with passion and admiration; saying, I had reason, 'Je me rends;' protesting that he had never seen the like. He kissed it, took it from me, vowing that he would not forego it for any treasure; and that to possess the favour of the original of that lovely picture, he would forsake all the world." Then then began to talk of business: "But I found," continues the ambassador, "that the dumb picture did draw out more speech and affection from him, than all my best arguments and eloquence."
Such was the effect of this most gross flattery that we soon find Elizabeth sending her portrait as a pretended present to Henry's sister, and Henry capping his acting by seizing it, and keeping it, which was done at a hint from Lord Sheffield; and Henry crowned all by sending her word that he felt sure she must have meant it for him, and could not find it in his heart to part with it. The upshot of this amusing farce was, that 2,000 troops were sent to garrison Boulogne and Montreuil, and thus protect them from the Spaniards.
Sir Walter Raleigh. From the original Picture.
The hostile preparations in the ports of Spain at this time occupied all the attention of Elizabeth and her Government, and the more so as during the past years she had lost her two famous commanders, Drake and Hawkins. They had been sent out on one of their predatory expeditions against the Spanish settlements in South America and the West Indies. But circumstances in these quarters had become greatly changed. The colonies had acquired population and strength: the former ravages of these commanders had put the people and the Government on their guard. Wherever the English fleet appeared, it found the ports and coasts well guarded and defended. Their attacks wore repulsed, and such was the deplorable failure of the expedition, and the contrast to their former profitable and splendid exploits, that both commanders sunk under their anxiety and mortification, and died. The survivors only returned to experience the anger of the queen, who felt with equal sensibility the loss of reputation and of the accustomed booty.
The Lord Howard of Effingham, the brave high admiral who had so successfully commanded the fleet against the Armada, recommended at this crisis that the British Government should adopt the advice which he had given on the former occasion, to anticipate the intentions of Spain, and attack and destroy the menacing fleet ere it left the port. In this counsel he was ardently seconded by Essex; who loved above all things an expedition of a bold and romantic character, and the more so, because it was directly opposed to the cold and cautious policy of his enemies, the Cecils. He prevailed, and a fleet of 130 sail was fitted out to carry over an army of 14,000 land forces. The fleet was confided to the command of Lord Howard, the army to Essex; but to put some check on his fiery enthusiasm he was required to take the advice of a council of war on all great occasions, consisting of the lord admiral, Lord Thomas Howard, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Vere, Sir George Carew, and Sir Coniers Clifford.
Sir Walter Raleigh had been for some years in disgrace. He had seduced Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the queen's maids of honour, and had been banished from the Court, suspended from his commission of captain of the Royal guard, and put into confinement in charge of Sir George Carew. In this eclipse he had sought by out-Heroding all the rest of the courtiers in their preposterous and barefaced flattery of the queen, to recover his position. Seeing Elizabeth pass on one occasion in her barge on the Thames, he affected to become frantic, and endeavoured to force his way out to approach the adorable queen of sixty-three. Whilst attempting to restrain him, he pulled off Sir George Carew's new wig, and they drew their daggers, and were with difficulty parted. On another occasion he heard that the queen was setting out on one of her favourite progresses, and he broke out in loud lamentations mixed with praises of the old lady in this style:—"How can I live alone in prison whilst she is far off? I who was wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair about her pure cheeks like a nymph, sometimes sitting in the shade like a goddess, sometimes singing like an angel, sometimes playing like Orpheus. But one amiss hath bereaved me of all! All those past times, the loves, the sighs, the sorrows, the desires, can they not weigh down one frail misfortune? Cannot one drop of gall be hidden under such heaps of sweetness?"
But this wild and impudent sycophancy was so much the staple of the Court address, that it failed to soften the obdurate Royal Venus and female Orpheus, and well had it been for Essex had Raleigh not at length been allowed to accompany the expedition. The Cecils secretly opposed the enterprise, and threw the queen into a very undetermined state of mind, a state into which she fell on the eve of almost all serious undertakings. At length consenting to the sailing of the fleet, she composed two prayers, one to be daily used in the fleet during the expedition, the other for herself. The letter for the fleet was sent to Essex by Sir Robert Cecil, who took the opportunity of adding this piece of almost blasphemous flattery, making himself sure that from Essex it would soon reach the queen:—"No prayer is so fruitful as that which proceedeth from those who nearest in nature and power approach the Almighty. None so near approach his place and essence as a celestial mind in a princely body. Put forth, therefore, my lord, with comfort and confidence, having your sail filled with her heavenly breath for your forewind." On the 1st of June the fleet issued from Plymouth water, and being joined by twenty-two ships from Holland, it amounted to 150 sail, carrying 14,000 men. On the 20th the fleet cast anchor at the mouth of the harbour of Cadiz, and there discovered fifteen men-of-war, and about forty merchantmen. The next morning a fierce battle took place, which lasted from seven in the morning till one o'clock at noon. The English sailed right into the harbour, spite of the fire from the ships and the forts, and the Spaniards, finding the contest going against them, attempted to run their vessels ashore and burn them. The galleons got out to sea, the merchantmen having reached Puerto Real, discharged their cargo, and were burnt by order of the Duke of Medina. Two large ships with an argosy were taken, and much booty fell to the captors. The Earl of Essex displayed the utmost gallantry. Instead of remaining with the army, he went on board and fought in the thick of the danger. The sea-fight over, he landed 3,000 men and marched into Cadiz. A body of horse and foot was posted to oppose his progress, but fled at his approach; and, finding that the inhabitants in their terror had closed the gates, they made their way over a ruinous wall, and the English without delay followed them. Spite of the fire kept up from the tops of the houses, Essex led his men to the market-place, where they were speedily joined by the lord admiral, who had found his way through a portal. The city capitulated, paying 120,000 crowns for the lives of the people, the town and all its wealth being abandoned to the plunder of the troops.
Through the whole of the conquest Essex was the real hero. He not only led the way regardless of danger, but when the place was won, whilst others were engrossed only by the accumulation of booty, he was busy exerting himself to check the cruelties of the invaders—to save the lives and the honour of the inhabitants. He succeeded so well that never was a city taken with so little insult or injury to the people. The soldiers were restrained from shedding blood wantonly—from treating the women with contumely; and so far was the moderation of the conquerors carried, that about 3,000 men were sent away to the fort of St. Mary under guard, being permitted to carry with them all their jewels and apparel. The conduct of Essex in all this drew applause from the very enemy, the king and the infanta, his daughter, joining in it.
Essex proposed to strike a great blow whilst the panic of their victory paralysed the country. He recommended that they should march into the heart of Andalusia; and such was the destitution of disciplined troops from the great drain which the wars of France and the Netherlands had occasioned, such the discontent of the nobles and the disaffection of the Moriscoes, that much mischief might have been done before they could have been successfully opposed. The plan, however, was resisted by the other commanders, and Essex then offered to remain in the Isle de Leon with 4,000 men, and defend it against the whole force of the enemy. But the other leaders would hear of nothing but hastening home. They had laid the town in ruins, with the exception of two or three churches; they had nearly annihilated the fleet, had collected a vast booty, and inflicted on the Spaniards a loss of 20,000,000 ducats.
The conquerors returned home, having dealt the severest blow on Spain that it had received for generations. They had raised the prestige of the English arms, amply avenged the attempt at the invasion of their country, and sunk the reputation of Spain in no ordinary degree. Foreigners regarded the exploit with wonder, and the people raised thunders of acclamations as the victorious vessels sailed into port. But the gallant and magnanimous deeds of Essex had been gall and wormwood to the Cecils, and they had neglected no means of injuring him in his absence. Essex had succeeded ever since the death of Walsingham—that is, for six years—in preventing the dearest wish of Burleigh's heart, to see his son, Sir Robert, established in his post. Whilst Essex was away he carried this point with the queen; and the courtiers, now auguring the ascendancy of the Cecils, united in defaming Essex to win favour with them. They talked freely of the vain-glory, rashness, extravagance, and dissipations of Essex. They represented the fall of Cadiz as entirely owing to the naval victory, which they ascribed to Raleigh; and we are sorry to say that Raleigh, who had beheld with envy the heroism and generous magnanimity of Essex, was only too ready to join in the base design. Raleigh was not always as liberal of his encomiums on his contemporaries as he was on the queen; and even towards her his language was very different the moment she was dead. Then, in his mouth she was everything that was old, ugly, mean, avaricious, headstrong, and unjust. In Osborne and Sir Lewis Stukely may be seen the language which he used towards Elizabeth after her death. "However," he said, "she seemed a great and good mistress to him in the eyes of the world, yet she was tyrannical enough to lay many of her oppressions on him, besides seizing the best part of everything he took at sea for herself," &c. &c.
On this occasion, though Raleigh had done bravely in his ship, the Warspite—for, with all his faults, he was no coward—yet his jealousy led him to oppose the plan of Essex for attacking the merchant fleet; and whilst they were wrangling, the Duke of Medina got them unladen and burnt. Essex—who ought to have been received by the queen as one of the most brilliant and successful generals that she ever had—by the arts of the Cecils and their partisans, was thus met, not only by coldness, but severity. Elizabeth told him that he had been doing his own pleasure, and she would now take care that he should do hers. No time was lost by the Cecils in letting her know that though the fleet had come home almost sinking with treasure, nothing was left to her share but to bear the cost of the expedition. Then the fierce ire of the Tudor blazed out. Avarice was one of her most besetting sins, as it had been that of her father and grandfather. She summoned Essex and the lord admiral before her; and refusing even to Essex any opportunity of private explanation, she made them account to the Privy Council for their conduct, and assured them that, as they had allowed the booty to be divided without reserving a fund for the payment of the soldiers and sailors, they might pay them themselves, for she would not; that the expedition had cost her £50,000, and she looked to them, who knew where the booty was gone, to refund it.
Day after day she subjected Essex to the scrutiny and cross-questioning of his enemies in the Council, till, luckily for him, there came the news that the Spanish treasures from the New World had just arrived safely in port with 20,000,000 of dollars. This put the climax to Elizabeth's exasperation; and Essex, who, since his return from the expedition, as if to take away every ground for the censure of the courtiers, had assumed a totally new character, and was no longer the gay and pleasure-seeking young nobleman, but the grave and religious man; who lived at home with his countess, attended her to church, and exhibited the most pious demeanour; who, instead of his haughty and irritable temper, had displayed the utmost patience and forbearance under the galling examination of the Council, now broke out at once with the declaration that he had done every-thing in his power to persuade his colleagues to permit him to sail to Tercera to intercept this very fleet; that the creatures of the Cecils had opposed him resolutely, defeated the enterprise, and robbed the queen of this princely treasure.
Instantly the whole current of Elizabeth's feelings underwent a change. The anger which had been directed towards Essex was launched at Burleigh, and Essex stood restored to his wonted favour. With the favour of the queen, back rolled the tide of courtier sycophancy towards Essex; and such was the feeling exhibited, that even "the old fox" Burleigh himself thought it safest to take part with Essex. When Elizabeth, having lost this great treasure in imagination, demanded that the £120,000 paid by the people of Cadiz for their ransom should be made over to her as her right, Burleigh decided that it belonged to Essex as the captor of the city. We may regard so gross a political blunder as this a clear proof that the "old fox's" cunning was failing him: for, as it was certain to do, it roused all the queen's choler, who poured on her ancient minister the flaming epithets of "miscreant and coward—more afraid of Essex than herself." The confounded Burleigh retired from her presence in great confusion and distress, and wrote a pitiful letter to Essex, saying that, having had the misfortune to incur his displeasure as well as that of Her Majesty, he was worse off than those who sought to avoid Scylla and fell into Charybdis, for he had fallen into both. He talked of "obtaining leave to live as an anchorite, as fitted for his age, his infirmities, and his declining influence at Court." But his decline was rather before his own son than Essex, for the queen put little faith in Essex's political caution and judgment; for these she looked to Sir Robert Cecil, who had all his father's cool, selfish caution, with the vigour of youth which had departed from his father.
Elizabeth soon gave a proof that she did not place much confidence in the diplomatic talents of Essex. The wardenship of the Cinque Ports became vacant, and though Essex strove hard for it, she gave it to his competitor, Lord Cobham; whereupon Essex, in his usual way, huffed, left the Court in a pet, and had to be coaxed back again by the post of Master of the Ordnance. That, however, did not satisfy him. He still insisted on the place of Secretary of State, which Sir Robert Cecil held in name of his father: and when it was refused him, insisted that it should be given to Sir Thomas Bodley, the founder of the Bodleian Library, at Oxford. But Elizabeth was not to be turned from conferring it on Cecil. Essex, with all his pretences to piety and reformation, could not help falling into his old gallantries. There was a Mrs. Bridges, the most beautiful of the queen's maids of honour, with whom he was soon convicted of carrying on an intrigue, in which they were encouraged by a Mrs. Russell. On its coming to Elizabeth's ears, she sent for the lady culprits, and not only scolded them soundly, but administered a sound beating with her own Royal hands, and dismissed them. They were obliged to seek an asylum for three nights at Lady Stafford's, whence, on humbling themselves and promising reformation, they were received back again.
There needed some public excitement to put an end to these ridiculous scenes at Court, and that soon came in the ambition and revenge of Philip of Spain. The late capture of Cadiz, and destruction of his fleet, at once mortified and roused him. He burned for retaliation, and in this he was encouraged by the active Popish party, which had made use of Mary Queen of Scots so long as she lived, and now found in Philip the likeliest instrument of their plans. The leading members of this party were Parsons the Jesuit, Dr. (now Cardinal) Allen, the Jesuits Cresswell and Holt, Owen and Fitzpatrick, Sir Francis Englefield and Sir Francis Stanley. There could not be a more zealous champion of their religion than Philip, and they formed a scheme for placing him or his line on the throne of England. Philip had, in his struggles with Henry IV., indulged the hope, if he succeeded in conquering him, of placing his daughter, the Infanta Clara Eugenia, on the throne of France, spite of the Salic law. That vision had departed; but he was persuaded that it would be no difficult matter to make her Queen of the British Isles. Elizabeth, by her hatred of the very idea of a successor, had, to a certain degree, favoured their views. The statute, forbidding any one, under pain of treason, ever speaking of it, tended to leave the question doubtful till the queen's death, when a number of competitors might spring up. There was a feeling on the part of the Papists that Sir Robert Cecil had a design of marrying Arabella Stuart, and advocating her right to the Crown. The Jesuits, to prevent this, wrote a treatise, called "A Conference about the next Succession to the Crown of England, had, in 1593, by R. Doleman." This book was said to be the work of various hands, but revised and edited by Parsons. It denied the divine right of kings, declared that the succession to a crown must be decided by fitness, and by positive laws; that a people can lawfully put down a sovereign for abuse of his power; and that a false religion creates an insuperable bar to the throne. It then pointed out the claim of the Infanta as the descendant of John of Gaunt, the son of Edward III., who was of the true religion.
It is curious that from such a source—from the most conservative of all Churches—should have come that doctrine which overturned the dynasty of the Stuarts—a race so attached to Popery—and became the foundation-stone of Protestant ascendancy. This book was largely quoted and reprinted in the dispute with Charles I., was made great use of by Bradshaw, in his speech for the condemnation of Charles, and again furnished the material for most of the arguments used for the deposition of James II.
Philip determined to strike one more blow for the conquest of England and the achievement of this great object. He again prepared a fleet, and gave it into the command of the Adelantado of Castile. It seems that some hope was entertained that Essex might be induced to favour this scheme, which was probably strengthened by the admiration Essex had excited by his conduct at Lisbon. They had dedicated the book to him, and now sent a deputation to sound him. The petulance and occasional quarrels of Essex with the queen might induce a belief that he would be ready to oppose her; but they who cherished this notion could know little of his real character. It brought him under the resentment and severe reprehension of Elizabeth, who sent for him on the publication of the book, and was closeted with him for some hours; and such had been the lecture which he received, that he went away pale and flurried, and kept his bed for above a week.
At the time, however, that it was deemed necessary to send out an expedition to Spain to hunt up the hostile fleet and destroy it as before, Essex stood undoubted in the queen's confidence, and she gave him the command of the fleet for this purpose, with Lord Thomas Howard and Sir Walter Raleigh under him. This time there was no subjection to a council of war. On the 11th of July, 1597, the fleet set sail; but had not sailed more than forty leagues when it was driven back by a tempest, which raged for four days. Essex himself disdained to turn back, but, with his utter contempt of danger and dogged obstinacy, he, to use his own words, beat up his ship in the teeth of the storm, till it was actually falling asunder, having a leak which obliged them to pump eight tons of water per day out of her; her main and foremast being cracked, and most of her beams broken and reft. The gentlemen volunteers were so completely satisfied with sailing with such a man, that on reaching land at Falmouth they all stole away home. But Essex himself was as resolved as ever to prosecute the voyage, though the queen would advance nothing more for refitting the fleet. He got as many of his ships into order as he could, and on the 17th of August was enabled to sail again, though the men by this time had consumed most of their provisions. He made now, not for the coast of Spain, but the Azores, where they took Fayal, Graciosa, and Flores—useless conquests, as they could not keep them, and which led to immediate quarrels, for Raleigh, with his indomitable ambition, took Fayal himself without orders, which Essex very properly deeming an honour stolen from him, resented greatly. He ordered several of the officers concerned to be arrested; but when he was advised to try Raleigh by a court-martial, he replied, "So I would had he been one of my friends." Such was Essex's high feeling of honour, that he would not risk his proceedings against the offender being attributed to malice or pique. What was worse than this dispute, however, was that the Spanish treasure-vessels returning from America, which Elizabeth had expressly ordered them to lay wait for, had escaped into Tercera, and they were obliged to return with the capture of three Spanish ships and other plunder, valued at £100,000.
In the meantime, the adelantado had sailed from Ferrel and menaced the British coast. He contemplated seizing the Isle of Wight, or some town on the Cornish coast, which he might retain till the next spring, so as to favour the landing of the grand fleet, which was then to sail. Essex was already returning, and approaching this Spanish fleet without being aware of it, and a day or two might have seen the two navies engaged; but another storm arose when the adelantado was off the Scilly Isles, and dispersed his fleet. Essex's fleet was also involved in the same tempest, but could escape into friendly ports, whilst the Spanish was compelled to brave the hurricane, and, pursued by it across the Bay of Biscay, reached the Tagus minus sixteen of its best ships.
Essex, on landing, hastened to Court, but the queen was in the worst of humours at the missing of the treasure-ships, and complained that he had done nothing to discharge the expenses of the expedition. She laid all the blame of failure on him, and gave all the credit to Sir Walter Raleigh, whom she accused him of oppressing and insulting. With his usual choleric petulance, he hastily left the Court and retired to his own house at Wanstead. He was so far from admitting that he was in the wrong, that he demanded satisfaction for the injuries which he considered had been done him in his absence. The Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster, which he had asked for a dependent, had been conferred on Cecil, and the Lord Admiral Howard had been created Earl of Nottingham, and thus had attained an official precedence over him. Worse still, and more unjust, the honour of the capture of Cadiz was allowed to be usurped by Lord Howard in his new patent, though it really belonged to Essex. The passionate favourite was so enraged that he offered to fight Nottingham in vindication of his claim, or one of his sons, or any gentleman of the name of Howard.
Elizabeth at length began to relent; and knowing very well that she had in her anger been very unjust to Essex, she now upbraided the Cecils with being the cause of his natural resentment at the infringement of his honour. Happening about this time to meet with Sir Francis Vere in Whitehall Gardens, she entered into conversation with him on the causes of the escape of the treasure-fleet, and on the Spanish fleet not being attacked and burnt in the port of Ferrol. Sir Francis had been in the expedition, and when he heard the queen charge Essex with the failure, he boldly defended him, and did him justice in regard to the whole affair. Elizabeth saw that she had, through the misrepresentations of interested courtiers, been guilty of a still greater injustice, and she set about making the necessary amends. On the 18th of December all was made smooth, and Essex again appeared at Court, being created Earl Marshal, by which he regained the precedency over the new Earl of Nottingham. But in pacifying Essex the unlucky queen had only offended Nottingham, for the office of Earl Marshal had been in his family for many generations, being claimed by right of descent from Thomas of Brotherton, their Royal ancestor, and transferred by his daughter, Margaret Plantagenet, to her grandson, Mowbray, Earl of Norfolk, as her deputy, not being capable of discharging its duties as a woman. Nottingham, deeply offended, on the 20th resigned his staff as Lord Steward of the Household, and retired to his house at Chelsea.
The King of France, in the commencement of the year 1598, announced to the Queen of England his intention to seek peace with Spain. This was news by no means agreeable to Elizabeth, as such a peace would leave Philip at liberty to pursue his designs against her; and she endeavoured by her ambassador to dissuade Henry from such a measure. But Henry had now for thirteen years been harassed by the cares of a kingdom involved on two sides in war with Philip, and rent in every quarter by religious dissension. The death of the Guises had broken up, in a great measure, the Roman Catholic League, but the spirit of opposition was still as much alive as ever, and was fanned into flame by a Protestant League, formed on the same principles. He longed intensely for peace, that he might more fully exert himself to abate this religious discord. His anxiety for it had been doubled by the capture of Amiens by the Spaniards in February, 1597; and his recovery of it in the following September only rendered him the more willing to treat, because he could do it on better terms. It was necessary to send over Sir Robert Cecil as ambassador extraordinary, to attend the negotiations: and fearing the influence of Essex in his absence, the cunning minister had been induced to favour his advancement to the post of Earl Marshal, and he sought to win the earl over more completely by moving the queen to present Essex with a cargo of cochineal worth £7,000, and a contract for the sale of a much larger amount out of the Royal stores. Greatly pleased by these instances of Cecil's friendship, as he deemed it, Essex transacted the business of the secretaryship for Sir Robert in his absence, and that politic gentleman took his departure for France on the 10th of February, 1598.
At the conference both Cecil and the Dutch deputies did everything in their power to prevent the peace, but in vain. Henry was resolved on giving tranquillity to his kingdom; and when reproached by Cecil for deserting Elizabeth, he replied, in aiding him she had served her own interests. On the 20th of April he published the Edict of Nantes, giving security and toleration to the Protestants; and on May the 2nd he signed the treaty with Spain, which was so advantageous that he recovered Calais and all other places which had been taken during the war. Elizabeth was, in reality, a gainer, for she thus became freed from a charge of £120,000 per annum in holding the cautionary towns; and the States gave an acknowledgment of a debt of £800,000, which they engaged to pay by instalments.
On the return of Cecil he submitted to the queen the proposals which Philip had made for the extension of the peace to England, and Burleigh and Sir Robert contended that Spain having made peace with France, it was wise for this kingdom to do the same. Essex, on the contrary, contended for war, and for still punishing the Spaniards for their attempt at invasion. In the midst of one of the debates in the Council, Burleigh put his pocket Bible gently before him, open at these words in the Psalms:—"Blood-thirsty men shall not live out half their days." Essex took no apparent notice of it, but after his death the circumstance came to be looked on as prophetic. The Council was in favour of peace. The nation sympathised with Essex, and especially the army and navy, who hated the Spaniards, and thought Essex stood up for the honour of the country. But if Essex's favour rose with the people, it was in utmost peril at Court. Bacon wrote warningly to him, telling him that in his conversation with the queen it was palpable to every one that he was paying compliments with a bad grace; "that anyone might read the insincerity of his words in his countenance." Bacon saw and remarked, too, that he had fallen into his old intrigue with the fair Bridges, and that if Elizabeth discovered it there would be an end of Essex. Other circumstances were soon added, which precipitated his fall. His sister, the Lady Rich, one of the queen's ladies of the bedchamber, and notorious for her infidelities, had entered into a correspondence along with her husband—with whom on all other points she was always at variance—with the King of Scots. Rich was called "Ricardo," Lady Rich, "Rialta;" James, "Victor;" and every person in the English Court had a nickname. Elizabeth they termed "Venus," and Essex, "The Weary Knight," because, they said, he was so weary of his post as favourite, in which he was a mere slave, and hoped for a change, which was that the queen would die in a year or two. The correspondence was carried on in cipher; but Burleigh got hold of it, and must have felt the long-deferred hour of revenge had arrived at last. He knew Elizabeth too well to believe that she would ever forgive such a stab to her self-love. Meantime, whilst his sister and brother-in-law were thus unconsciously cutting the very ground from under his feet, Essex was acting every day with increasing assurance in the Court and Council-room.
Essex House, in the Strand. From Hollar’s View of London.
A scene soon occurred in the Council-chamber which hastened this event. There was a warm debate on the appointment of a new lord-deputy for Ireland. That country was in such a cruelly distracted state, and the population, both English and Irish, so hostile to the English Government, that no one would willingly accept the office. At this moment the Cecils were warmly recommending Sir William Knollys to that unenviable office, Essex still more vehemently urging the appointment on Sir George Carew. But each party was not striving to confer the host as a favour, but as an annoyance. Sir William Knollys was Essex's uncle, and, therefore, when the queen named him, the Cecils supported the nomination; and Essex, on the contrary, named Sir George Carew as a partisan of the Cecils. The debate grew vehement, and Essex, without regard to the wishes of the queen, spoke violently against the appointment of Sir William. The queen made a sarcastic observation on Essex's advocacy, and the petted favourite turned his back upon her with an expression neither respectful nor prudent. The soul of "the Royal virago," as Agues Strickland terms her, rose in all its Tudor fury, and she fetched the rash and forgetful youth a sound buffet on the ear. Instead of being called to his senses by this action, the fiery earl started to his feet and clapped his hand on his sword; but the lord admiral threw himself betwixt the ungallant earl and the queen; and Essex, exclaiming that "it was an insult which he would not have taken from her father, much less from a king in petticoats," rushed out of the room.
The sensation produced by this violent breach in the Court was intense. Every one prognosticated the ruin of Essex, who retired to his house at Wanstead, and would listen to no persuasions of his friends to humble himself and make an apology. His mother and sisters implored him to forget what had occurred, and make his peace with the incensed queen. Egerton, the lord-keeper, wrote him a long letter, counselling him to forget his wrath and remember his duty to a sovereign who had conferred so many obligations upon him. From the fact that the lord-keeper does not use in his letter the most natural of all arguments—the reverence due from a young man to a princess of her advanced age, and his near relative—for he was the great-grandson of Elizabeth’s aunt, Mary Boleyn—it has been shrewdly suggested that the letter was dictated by the queen herself. Essex, however, replied with undiminished rage, saying, "Let Solomon's fool laugh when he is stricken; let those that mean to make their profit of princes show no sense of princes' injuries: as for me, I have received wrong, and I feel it."
The rupture took place in June, and not till the 6th of November did the haughty favourite and the offended queen become reconciled; and it is not probable that the reconciliation was ever sincere on the part of Elizabeth. She had read the letters of his sister to her heir-apparent, in which he was represented as "the weary knight," waiting impatiently for her death; and his defiant air and words under such circumstances were not likely to be forgotten. Meantime, whilst this quarrel had been proceeding, death had removed two persons of great consequence in the history of Elizabeth—her aged minister Burleigh, and Philip of Spain.
Henry of Navarre (afterwards Henry IV. of France.) From an old Engraving of that period.
Burleigh died on the 4th of August, 1598, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. It has been the fashion to style him a great minister: it is a grand misnomer, he was clever, but a very different man to a great minister. A truly great minister is a man who, with great natural abilities and an accomplished education, possesses great and noble principles, and endeavours to serve his country by means that are honest and honourable. Burleigh had but one principle—that of serving himself and the queen by any means that promised to obtain the end he had in view—which end with him might be safe, but was never generous or elevated. His guiding-star was the doctrine of expediency, not high nor honourable policy. He was cold, calculating, and selfish; and his self-love prompted him to be the obsequious instrument of a lawless and imperious queen. On his deathbed he wrote to his son, concluding with this notable sentiment, which was, indeed, the sole law of his life, "Serve God by serving the queen, for all other service is bondage to the devil." Now the really great statesman serves his sovereign by serving God, and by that means makes him or her remembered in the world with love and benedictions. But he was a minister after Elizabeth's own heart, obedient, worldly-wise, and what is called—by those who estimate a man, not by his honour, his truth, or his conscientiousness—a safe man. She therefore maintained him in his office against all enemies, and especially her own favourites, for forty years; and in his last illness she waited on him like a nurse, and wept bitterly for his loss. "He has left behind him," says Lingard, "a voluminous mass of papers, his own composition, the faithful index of his head and heart. They bear abundant testimony to his habits of application and business, to the extent and variety of his correspondence, and to the solicitude with which he watched the conduct and anticipated the designs of both foreign and domestic enemies; but it is difficult to discern in them a trace of original genius, of lofty and generous feeling, or of enlightened views and commanding intellect." His son, modelled on his own principles, succeeded him in the councils of the queen, and perpetuated the same cautious, creeping, and time-serving system.
Philip II. of Spain died on the 13th of September, six weeks after Burleigh, in the seventy-first year of his age. A bigot by nature and education, he lived to suppress every sentiment of freedom in religion or politics, and died leaving an empire diminished by the loss of Holland, which rose against his bloody despotism. The failure of his gigantic attempts against the independence of England has made his name a word of scorn in this country; and his unnatural treatment of his son, Don Carlos, has crucified it in execration in every honourable mind the entire world over.
It may afford a clearer idea of the stately and high-spirited Elizabeth if we present her as she showed herself at this period to a German traveller, Hentzner. It was on a Sunday when he was present by a lord-chamberlain's order. The presence-chamber through which the queen commonly passed on her way to chapel, was, he says, hung with rich tapestry and strewn with rushes. "At the door stood a gentleman dressed in velvet with a gold chain, whose office was to introduce to the queen any person of distinction that came to wait on her. In the same hall was the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, a great number of councillors of State, officers of the Crown, and gentlemen, who waited the queen's coming out, which she did from her own apartment when it was time to go to prayers, attended in the following manner. First went gentlemen, barons, earls, knights of the Garter, all richly dressed, and bareheaded; next came the chancellor, bearing the seals in a red silk purse, between two, one of which carried the Royal sceptre, the other the sword of state in a red scabbard studded with fleurs-de-lis, the point upwards. Next came the queen, in the sixty-sixth year of her age, as we were told, very majestic; her face oblong, fair, but wrinkled; her eyes small, jet black, and pleasant; her nose a little hooked; her lips narrow, and her teeth black (a defect the English seem subject to from their too great use of sugar). She had in her ears two pearls with very rich drops; she wore false hair, and that red; upon her head she had a small crown, reported to be made of some of the gold of the celebrated Lunebourg table. Her bosom was uncovered, as all the English ladies have it till they marry; and she had on a necklace of exceeding fine jewels. Her hands were small, her fingers long, and her stature neither tall nor low. Her air was stately, her manner of speaking mild and obliging. That day she was dressed in white silk, bordered with pearls of the size of beans, and over it a mantle of black silk, shot with silver threads. Her train was very long, the end of it borne by a marchioness. Instead of a chain, she had an oblong collar of gold and jewels. As she went along in all this state and magnificence, she spoke very graciously, first to one, then to another, whether foreign ministers, or those who attended for different reasons, in English, French and Italian; for besides being well skilled in Greek, Latin, and the languages I have mentioned, she is mistress of Spanish, Scotch, and Dutch. Whoever speaks to her, it is kneeling; now and then she raises some with her hand. While we were there, W. Slawata, a Bohemian baron, had letters to present to her; and she, after pulling off her glove, gave him her right hand to kiss, sparkling with jewels and rings—a mark of particular favour. Wherever she turned her face as she was going along, everybody fell down on their knees. The ladies of the Court followed next to her, very handsome and well-shaped, and for the most part dressed in white. She was guarded on each side by gentleman pensioners, fifty in number, with gilt battle-axes. In the ante-chapel next the hall where we were, petitions were presented to her, and she received them most graciously, which occasioned the acclamation of 'Long live Queen Elizabeth.' She answered it with, 'I thank you, my good people.'"
As a contrast to this portrait of Elizabeth in her gracious moments, we may present one of her in her lion rages, which were quite as frequent. The King of Poland, the son of her quondam lover, John, Duke of Finland, and afterwards King of Sweden, had sent over an ambassador, whom Elizabeth had received in great state in the presence of the assembled Court at Greenwich; but to her astonishment the ambassador delivered her an unexpected and bold remonstrance against her foreign policy, especially her assumption of dominion on the seas, and her interruptions of the trade of the Spaniards with them, assuring her that he, the King of Poland, had made a league with Austria, and that if she did not desist, they were resolved to use strong means to compel her. Astonished at this unexpected harangue, Elizabeth started up from her seat as the Pole concluded, and addressed him in Latin to the following effect:—"Is this the business that your king has sent you about? Surely, I can hardly believe that if the king himself were present he would have used such language; for if he should, I must have thought that he, being a king not of many years, and that not by right of blood but by right of election, they haply have not informed him of that course which his father and ancestors have taken with us, and which, peradventure, shall be observed by those that come to live after him. And as for you, although I perceive that you have read many books to fortify your arguments in this case, yet I am apt to believe that you have not lighted upon that chapter which prescribes the forms to be observed between kings and princes. But were it not for the place you hold, to have so public an imputation thrown upon our justice, which has never yet failed, we would answer this audacity of yours in another style; and for the particulars of your negotiations, we will appoint some of our council to confer with you, to see upon what grounds this clamour of yours has its foundations, who have shown yourself rather a herald than an ambassador." "And thus," says Speed, "lion-like rising, she daunted the malapert orator no less with her stately port and majestical departure than with the hastiness of her princely check; and, turning to her Court, esclaimed, "God's death, my lords! I have this day been enforced to scour up my old Latin, that hath lain long rusting."
Amongst the plots and pretended plots which still disturbed the reign of Elizabeth, there was a strange one reported this year. A soldier of the name of Squires, who had been out with Essex at Tercera, was accused by one Stanley of the most extraordinary design to poison the queen by anointing the pommel of her saddle with so active and deadly a liquid, that on her laying her hand on the pommel, and afterwards putting her hand to her mouth or nose, it would instantly destroy her. It must have been something as instantaneous as the Prussia acid of the present day. Leicester was to have been put an end to in the same way by anointing his chair. The poison was declared to have been enclosed in a double bladder, and was to be pricked with a pin. Squires protested his ignorance of the whole affair; but after having been racked for five hours, he confessed that he had rubbed some of this poison on the queen's saddle, and that he had been engaged to do it by one Walpole, a Jesuit, at Seville, who furnished him with the poison. The counsel who stated this ridiculous story on the trial, was, or pretended to be, so much affected that he burst into tears and was obliged to sit down. The next who rose declared that the miracle of the queen's escape was as striking as that of St. Paul, when he shook the viper from his fingers into the fire. Squires was convicted, and executed as a traitor, declaring on the scaffold as he had done on his defence that the whole story was a fiction, and that the rack could have made him confess anything they pleased. Stanley also, on being put on the rack, declared that he himself had been sent by Christopher de Mora to shoot the queen.
Not even James of Scotland could remain free from charges of conspiracy against Elizabeth. Ever since the death of his mother he had continued to trim betwixt the Papists and the Protestants; betwixt Elizabeth, his own subjects, and Philip, as well as he could. To the Pope he professed to be studying the grounds of the Roman Catholic religion; to Philip, to be ready to join any efficient movement for revenge on Elizabeth; to Elizabeth, to be her admirer and humble servant. All sides, by their spies, were well aware of his professions to the others, and all equally despised him. The Highland chiefs, at the head of whom were the Earls of Huntly, Angus, and Errol, were constantly plotting with the Pope and Philip, through the Jesuits Gordon, Tyrie, and Creighton; and Elizabeth called on James to punish them: but James knew that if he put down the Popish party in Scotland, he should have a poor life of it with Elizabeth and his Presbyterian subjects who would unite against him. At length, in the present year, Elizabeth got hold of one Valentine Thomas, who confessed that he was hired by James to murder the queen. The discovery, or pretended discovery, excited vast horror in England. An indictment was preferred against Thomas, and a true bill found by the grand jury. Elizabeth now sent a statement of these facts to James, at the same time declaring that she did not believe him capable of so atrocious a crime. James at first treated the charge with silent contempt; but eventually, to prevent it being received as a fact, and operate against his succession to the English throne, he demanded that an attestation of the falsehood of the charge, as admitted by the queen, should be sent him under the great seal. A document of the kind was forwarded; but it read so like a pardon for the crime rather than a denial of it, that James returned it, much to Elizabeth's disgust. The man was never brought to trial, but was retained in prison, as if ready at any time, should James prove too independent, to be brought forward; and James, finding him still in prison on his accession to the English throne, took care to execute him.
Ireland, in almost every age of our history a misery to the country which had it, but did not know how to rule it, was now at such a pitch of confusion that the English Government was at its wit's end about it, and no one liked to undertake its vice-royalty. It was come to such a pass that it was even worse than when Walsingham wished it four-and-twenty hours under water. The Lord Gray, though eulogised by Spenser, had left it with the character of a cruel and rapacious tyrant. Sir John Perrot, reputed to be an illegitimate brother of Elizabeth, succeeded him, and dispensed justice with a stern hand. He was as ready to punish the English for their excesses as to do justice to the Irish under their wrongs; and the enmity of his own domineering and avaricious countrymen became much more effective than the respect of the natives. In 1581 the clamours and intrigues of his enemies occasioned his recall. At home, however, he suffered himself to speak incautiously of the queen and of Chancellor Hatton, and a secret inquiry was instituted into his late administration of Ireland. All sorts of charges of a treasonable nature were advanced against him by those whose rapacity he had punished during his deputyship—such as favouring the Roman Catholic clergy, plotting with Parma and the Spaniards, and encouraging the insurrections of the O'Ruarcs and the Burkes. They could establish none of these, but they managed to touch him in a still more dangerous quarter. They proved that in his irritation at the obstructions thrown in his way by the Court, he had spoken sometimes freely of the queen and her ministers. Essex, whose sister his son had married, exerted all his influence in his favour; but where Elizabeth's vanity was wounded she was unforgiving. Sir John was condemned to death, and soon after died in the Tower from chagrin at his unjust treatment, or, as was suspected, from poison.
The most formidable Irish chieftain with whom the English had to contend was Hugh, the son of the late Baron of Dungannon. This active and ambitious chief, who had been rewarded for his services in the war against the Earl of Desmond with the earldom of Tyrone, soon proclaimed himself not merely the successor to the earldom of O'Neil, but the genuine O'Neil himself. The natives of Ulster, in need of such a champion, admitted his claims, and were ready to support him in all his pretensions. As these were not admitted by the English, he became their enemy, and by his military talents proved a terrible thorn in their side. He demanded for the natives liberty of conscience and all their old lands, rights, and privileges; and the successive deputies found themselves engaged in a most harassing and destructive war with this subtle chief and his followers, in which he wore them out by constant skirmishes and surprises amongst the woods, bogs, and mountains of his wild territories. Sir John Norris, who had served with so much honour in the Netherlands and France, sunk under it; and in August of 1598 Sir Henry Bagnall was defeated and slain in a pitched battle at Blackwater, in Tyrone, his baggage and artillery being lost, and 1,500 men killed. The consequence of this victory was that nearly all Ireland rushed into a state of open rebellion, and the great question in the English cabinet was, who was the man capable of reducing the insurgents. It required no common man; for the Irish everywhere proclaimed the Earl of Tyrone the saviour of his country, and looked to him to drive the English wholly out of Ireland. The Earl of Essex dwelt so much in the Council on the necessary bravery and address of the man who should be appointed, that the Cecils, anxious to remove him to a distance from the Court, declared that he himself was by far the most fitting for the office. His friends warned him of the dangers and difficulties of a Government which had been the ruin of so many; but the queen, seconding the recommendations of the Cecils, to induce him to accept the post, remitted him a debt of £8,000, and made him a present of nearly three times that sum. He was furnished with an army of 18,000 men, many of them veteran troops who had fought in the Netherlands, and with the fullest powers that had ever been conferred on any Irish deputy. He had full authority to continue the war or to make peace; to pardon all crimes and treasons at his pleasure, and to determine all his own appointments. Such were the terms of his commission; but in one particular the queen had laid a strict injunction upon him, in conversation, which was, that he should not give the command of the cavalry, as he wished, to his friend and the friend of Shakespeare, the Earl of Southampton, with whom Elizabeth had the old cause of quarrel, that of presuming to marry without her consent. In March, 1599, Essex marched out of London, surrounded by the flower of the young nobility, and followed by the acclamations and good wishes of the populace, of whom he was the idol for his military reputation and his frank and generous disposition.
No sooner did he arrive in Ireland than he set at defiance the orders of the queen, and placed Southampton at the head of the horse. Elizabeth sent an angry command for his removal, and Essex reminded her of the terms of his commission, and wished to know whether she meant to revoke it. It was not till after a very warm correspondence, which on the part of the queen became most peremptory, that the headstrong Essex gave way. This was precisely the conduct that his enemies at home had, probably, foreseen, and certainly rejoiced in. Sir John Harrington was sent out by the queen with Essex to be her spy upon him; and from the correspondence betwixt this gentleman and his friend Markham, we discover the watchful caballing of his enemies to find occasion against him and ruin him in his absence. Markham says:—"What betideth the lord-deputy is known to Him only who knoweth all; but when a man hath so many showing friends, and so many unshowing enemies, who learneth his end here below? I say, do you not meddle in any sort, nor give your jesting too freely amongst those you know not." He adds, "Two or three of Essex's sworn foes and political rivals, Mountjoy's kinsmen, are sent out in your army. They are to report all your conduct to us at home. As you love yourself, the queen, and me, discover not these matters; if I had not loved you, they had never been told. … You are to take account of all that passes in this expedition, and keep journal thereof unknown to any in the company. This will be expected of you."
Such were the circumstances under which Essex went out on this command—bitter and indefatigable enemies labouring for his destruction at home; spies placed around him; and an army, which, spite of some veterans, turned out to contain a majority of raw, worthless fellows, who grew disgusted at the very sight of an Irish campaign, and deserted in numbers. Sickness, from the wretched and unwholesome supplies of provisions—the worst enemy of the British soldier in all ages being frequently the commissariat officers—soon decimated them; and by the month of August his 18,000 men showed no more than 3,500 foot, and 300 horse. He was compelled to demand a reinforcement of 2,000 men before he could march into Ulster, the chief seat of the rebellion. The queen sent the soldiers, but accompanied the order by very bitter letters, complaining of his waste of her troops, her money, and of her time, which was so precious. Essex defended himself by representing the difficulties of the task which he had to encounter, and which had mastered so many before him. He assured her that he acted entirely by the advice of the Lords of the Irish Council; but "these rebels," he said, "are far more numerous than your Majesty's army, and have—though I do unwillingly confess it—better bodies, and more perfect use of their arms, than those men your Majesty sends over." He added, that for his part he received nothing from home but "discomfort and soul-wounds."
Wen he came up with Tyrone on the 5th of September, encamped with his whole army in the county of Louth, that chief demanded a parley, and showed so many causes of real complaint against the former governors of Ireland, and professed such apparently sincere desire for peace on the redress of these grievances, that Essex deemed it both justice and the best policy to listen to them. Instead of a battle, therefore, as was expected, an armistice was agreed upon for six weeks, which was to be renewed from six weeks to six weeks till the following May, to give time for full inquiry.
No man had ever shown himself more ready to plunge into war, and more reckless of danger in the midst of it than Essex; but here he saw every appearance of gross injustice, and had he been permitted to act on his liberal and just sentiments, he would probably have soon reduced all the difficulties of Ireland by doing what was right towards its inhabitants. But, unfortunately for him and for Ireland, his enemies at home were rabid for his destruction, and the queen, ignorant of the real source of the disorders there, and already prejudiced against him, listened to the insidious suggestions of Cobham, Cecil, Gray of Wilton, and Raleigh. These insinuations were no other than that Essex was at heart a traitor, and was in collusion with the Irish to betray his trust and make himself independent. Still worse, that he was waiting for the descent of the Spaniards on the island to assist in the design.
At this moment Philip III., who had succeeded his father on the throne of Spain—a man of far inferior abilities, but with all his father's ambition and enmity to the heretic queen of England—was threatening a fresh descent on some part of the British domains. A fleet under the adelantado had appeared off the coast of Brittany, and an army was immediately set on foot, and the chief command given to the Earl of Nottingham. Apprehensive that the ardent temperament of Essex might induce him to volunteer his services against the enemy whom he had so zealously encountered before, the queen was induced by her ministers to forbid him quitting Ireland. The Spanish fleet cruised up the Channel, and without any opposition entered the harbour of Sluys. No sooner, therefore, had Essex given to Tyrone an opportunity of justifying himself, instead of falling upon him and beating him, in the usual way, without inquiry or reason, than the junto of his enemies at home represented him as playing into the hands of Spain—Ireland being the vulnerable point on which the Spaniards would be sure to make the attack. Instead, therefore, of a fair and judicious inquiry into the merits of the demands presented by Tyrone for the Irish, the bitterest reproaches were showered by the queen on Essex in letters which, from the style, he immediately attributed to Raleigh. Certain that his destruction was determined upon by these implacable foes, and that no justice was to be expected either for himself or the Irish nation whilst he was at such a distance, he formed the sudden resolve to hasten to London and defend his policy in person. His first idea was to take with him such a body of troops as should overawe the adverse party, and secure his own person; but Sir Christopher Blount, who had now married his mother, convinced him of the fatality of such a proceeding. He departed, therefore, with a small attendance; and arriving in London on the 28th of September, and finding the queen was at Nonsuch, he lost not a moment in hastening thither, to prevent any one preceding him to his prejudice. But he found that, quick as he had been, his enemies had been quicker, and that one of the most hostile of them, Lord Gray of Wilton, was on the way at full speed. Essex knew what the effect would be if Cecil got the news before his arrival, for having left his government contrary to the positive order of the queen; and if time were allowed to excite the queen's resentment, he would undoubtedly be arrested the moment of his arrival. For this reason he rode like a madman, through mud and mire, but hate travelled faster, and Gray had been closeted a good quarter of an hour with Cecil when he reached the palace.
Without pausing to alter his dress, Essex rushed into the queen's privy chamber, and not finding her there, did not hesitate to rush into her bed-chamber, though it was only ten o'clock in the morning. The queen was just up, and sat with her hair all about her face in the hands of her tire-woman. She was naturally excessively astonished at this unexpected apparition; but Essex threw himself on his knees before her, covered her hands with kisses, and did not rise till she had given him evidence of her good-will. He retired to make his toilet in such good humour at his reception, that he thanked God that after so many troublous storms abroad, "he found a sweet calm at home."
Within an hour he returned, and had a long interview with Her Majesty, who was so kind and gracious, that the courtiers, who had carefully watched how this rude entrance would be taken, persuaded themselves that love would carry the day against duty with the queen; and they all, except the Cecil party, were very courteous towards him. But by the evening the poison of the venomous minister had been instilled and done its work. Essex was received by the queen with a stern and distant air, and she began to demand of him why he had thus left Ireland without her permission, affairs being in so disordered and dangerous a state. He received an order at night to consider himself a prisoner in his room; and the next day, at two o'clock in the afternoon, he was summoned to give an account of himself to the Council. On entering the Council, the lords arose and saluted him, but reseated themselves, leaving him standing at the end of the board. It was demanded why he had left his charge in Ireland without leave; why he had made so many knights there, contrary to the expressed desire of the queen; why he had dared to write such presumptuous letters to Her Majesty; and how he had presumed to enter Her Majesty's bedroom.
Essex is said to have answered these and other demands concerning his administration of Irish affairs, in a most temperate, grave, and discreet manner. But it was thought that the last charge would go hardest with him. Elizabeth had now had time to reflect on the figure which she must have made in the eyes of the man whom she had the vanity and folly still to regard as a lover. She was now sixty-three years of ago. Her natural locks were thin and grey; her face was wrinkled and haggard, and she had thus been surprised before she was made up by her artists of the toilet, into an impossible imitation of youth. The woman who had eighty wigs of different hues had not had time to put on one; and the humiliating fact would, no doubt, sink deeper into her vain mind every moment.
On the third day after his examination by the Council he was committed to the custody of the Lord Keeper Bacon, who had received much favour from Essex. There was great merry-making in the Court, as if to show that the queen felt no concern for her late favourite, and she then removed to Windsor. Lady Walsingham entreated her that Essex might be allowed to write to his wife, who had just been confined, and was in great trouble at neither seeing nor hearing from him. Elizabeth had the brutality to refuse. She was, in fact, in the worst of humours, neither at peace with herself, nor with any one around her. Sir John Harrington, who had come over with Essex, no sooner appeared before her, than she exclaimed, fiercely—"What! did the fool bring you too? go back to your business." Sir John observes that her demeanour left no doubt whose daughter she was. He was not an hour in London before he was threatened with the Fleet. He replied to his friends, that coming so lately from the land service, he did hope to escape pressing into the Fleet. In another place, Harrington says, he "had nearly been wrecked on the Essex coast." At this first interview he says "the queen chafed much, walked to and fro, and looked with much discomposure in her countenance, and I remember, she catched my girdle when I kneeled to her and swore by God's Son, 'I am no queen! that man is above me. Who gave him command to come here so soon? I did send him on other business.' She bade me go home. I did not stay to be twice bidden. If all the Irish rebels had been at my heels, I should not have made better speed."
The people meantime manifested great sympathy with the fallen favourite, who had been, contrary to such cases in general, at once the favourite of the sovereign and the public. The press teemed with pamphlets, the pulpit with sermons in his vindication; ministers of religion put up prayers for him, and attacks on his enemies were even found scattered about in the palace and posted on its walls. These evidences of regard for him, no doubt, only the more exasperated Elizabeth, as they made her appear in the wrong. She called for the journal which Sir John Harrington had been ordered to keep, but that did not furnish any matter on which she could ground the condemnation of Essex, and "she swore," says Harrington, "with an awful oath, that we were all idle knaves, and the Lord Deputy Essex worse, for wasting our time and her commands in such wise as my journal doth write of." What chagrined her was, that the Council assured her there was no sufficient ground to bear a charge of high treason.
A Barber’s Shop in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
In the winter Essex fell ill, and his friends implored more liberty for him; but Elizabeth, who had been repeatedly deceived by his pretenses of illness when he was out of humour, now would not believe it. His wife sent her a valuable jewel, but she would not accept it. The following week the sorrowful countess presented herself at Court all in mourning, to move the queen in his behalf, but Elizabeth would not see her, but bade her go home and come no more to Court. The King of France, whose ambassador, Boissise, had written him word that the Council had decided unanimously that Essex had well and faithfully served the queen, and that even his return, though contrary to order, was well meant, also desired the ambassador to speak in favour of the earl from him, cautioning Her Majesty not to drive to extremity one of the most faithful and valuable servants that she had. His sisters, the ladies Rich and Northumberland, went to the Court all in mourning too, to solicit more liberty for him on account of his health, and at length she permitted him to take the air in the garden. But all this time she was very gay at Court, and attended a tournament got up by his enemies, to let people see, as she observed, that they could do very well without Essex; and she gave out that she was advised to stay more in London, that she might counteract by her presence the credit of those who had too much influence with the people.
In June of 1600 she put Essex on his trial before a court of eighteen commissioners; a totally illegal court, whom she empowered to pass "censure," but not judgment. Before this court, consisting of his determined enemies, Essex pleaded on his knees, having his papers in his hat on the floor beside him. Thus he was kept for eleven hours, only being allowed, after a long period, to arise and stand, and as he grew fatigued in the latter part of the day, was permitted to lean against a cupboard. Sir Edward Coke, Yelverton, Flemming, and Sir Francis Bacon were the Crown lawyers employed against him. Bacon has been taxed with ingratitude for his suffering himself to appear against his benefactor. It is but justice to the great lawyer and still greater philosopher, to say that he had repeatedly endeavoured to soften Elizabeth and prevail upon her to forgive Essex, but finding that he was on the point of losing her favour by his zealous advocacy of his friend, he was not martyr enough to give his own fortune for his friendship.
James VI. of Scotland.
The result of this trial was that Essex was condemned to forfeit every office which he held by patent from the Crown and to remain a prisoner at the Royal pleasure. Elizabeth trusted that now she had broken the proud spirit of the lord deputy, and that the sentence of the court would bring him humbly to sue for forgiveness. But the great failing of Essex was his high spirit, his indignant sense of wrong, and obstinate refusal to surrender his own will when he felt himself right; though there was no other way of appeasing the determined mind of his equally self-willed sovereign. He only begged to be dismissed, and that she "would let her servant depart in peace." He declared that all the pleasures and ambitions of the world had palled upon his mind; that he saw their vanity, and desired only to live in retirement with his wife, his friends, and his books in the country. Had that been real, few men were better qualified, by their refined and elevated taste, and their love of literature, to have adorned such a life; but Essex, if he really longed for private and domestic life, did not know himself, for he was one of those restless and quick spirits of whom the poet said "quiet is a hell." However, on the 26th of August he was released from custody, but informed that he must not appear at Court.
Elizabeth now appointed Lord Mountjoy, one of the most intimate friends of Essex, Lord Deputy of Ireland in his place; and though Mountjoy endeavoured to excuse himself, she would not hear of it. Though she kept up much appearance of gaiety, and went much a hunting at Oatlands and in the New Forest, she was observed to be very melancholy, at the same time that she showed no disposition to relent towards Essex. She was greatly offended at this time by Hayward's history of Henry IV. of England, in which some passages concerning the unworthy favourites of Richard II. appeared to her to have reference to herself. She demanded of Bacon whether he could not find that in the book which might be construed into treason. "No treason," said Bacon, "but many felonies." "How felonies?" asked the queen. "Many manifest thefts from Cornelius Tacitus," replied Bacon. She then proposed that Hayward should be put on the rack and forced to confess whether he were the real author or not. "Nay," said Bacon; "never rack his person, but rack his style. Give him pen, ink, and paper, and let him continue the story, and I will undertake to discover, by comparing the styles, whether he be the and author or not."
Essex, once at large, cast off his pretences of retirement and contempt of the world, and petitioned the queen for a continuation of his patent for a monopoly of sweet wines. Elizabeth replied that she would first inquire into the value of this privilege, which she understood was worth £50,000 per annum. She accompanied this message with an ominous remark that when horses became unmanageable it was necessary to stint them in their corn. Accordingly, she refused his request, and appointed commissioners to manage the tax for herself.
Essex now became beside himself. Hitherto he had lived in privacy, but now he came to Essex House, in the Strand, where he gave free entertainment to all sorts of people. His secretary Ouffe, and other dangerous persons, encouraged him in the belief that by his popularity with the people it would be no difficult matter to force Cecil, Raleigh, and his other enemies from office; and that once removed from the queen, all would be right. He therefore kept open house, and was soon surrounded by crowds of military men and adventurers, by Roman Catholics and Puritans. His military friends formed themselves into a sort of guard; and it was remarked that many of the nobility also visited him, as the Earls of Worcester, Southampton, Sussex, Rutland, and Bedford. There were daily preachings in his house, and he proposed to some of the theologians the question whether it were not lawful, in case of mal-administration, to compel a sovereign to govern according to law. He moreover sent to the King of Scotland, assuring him that there was a design at Court to exclude him in favour of the Infanta of Spain, and urged James to send an ambassador to demand a distinct declaration of his right to the succession. James, who was in great anxiety on this head already, appears to have listened to the advice of Essex, and to have taken measures to act upon it.
Essex was now stimulated by his passions into a most perilous position. He was actively engaged in dangerous courses; and though some pains were taken to conceal his real designs, by the chief coadjutors in the conspiracy meeting at the Earl of Southampton's, and communicating privately by letter with Essex, the proceedings could not escape the lynx vision or the ever-open ears of Cecil and his party. The conspirators had concluded that the safest thing to do in the first instance was for Sir Christopher Blount, Sir John Davis, and Sir Charles Davers to head three parties, and take possession of the palace gate, the guard, and the presence chamber, whilst Essex threw himself on his knees before the queen, and refused to rise till she had complied with his petition, and dismissed the obnoxious ministers. But whilst they were planning, Cecil and his friends acted. The secretary, Herbert, arrived with a summons for Essex to appear before the Council. He replied that he was too unwell to attend; and whilst he was thus evading the summons, he received an anonymous note, warning him to escape as he valued his life; and this was immediately followed by the intelligence that the guard had been doubled at the palace. It was high time now to act, as his arrest was certain. In the night he dispatched messages to assemble his friends; and it was resolved that the next morning, which was Sunday, the 8th of February, 1601, the Earls of Southampton and Rutland, the Lords Sandys and Mounteagle, and about 600 gentlemen, should enter the City with Essex during sermon time, and assembling at St. Paul's Cross, where the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and companies were wont to attend, to call upon them to accompany them to the palace to assist in obtaining the removal of the pernicious advisers of the Crown.
When they were on the point of executing this plan, they were interrupted by a visit from the Lord Keeper Egerton, the Earl of Worcester, Knollys, the comptroller of the household, and the Lord Chief Justice. Essex ordered them to be admitted through the wicket, but without any of their attendants, except the purse-bearer. When the officers of the Crown found themselves in the midst of an armed company, Egerton demanded what was the meaning of it; on which Essex replied in a loud and exciting tone, "There is a plot laid for my life. Letters have been counterfeited in my name; men have been hired to murder me in my bed. We are met to defend our lives, since my enemies cannot be satisfied without sucking my blood."
"If such be the case," said the Lord Chief Justice Popham, "let it be proved. We will relate it fairly, and the queen will do impartial justice." "Impartial justice!" said the Earl of Southampton; "then why is it not done on Lord Grey?" Grey had attacked Southampton in the Strand with a number of followers on account of an old grudge, Southampton having only a foot-boy with him, whose hand was struck off, and Southampton himself was in great danger, till a number of people with clubs came to his help. Popham replied that Grey was imprisoned for the offence; and Egerton desired Essex to explain his grievances in private, when there was a cry of "They abuse you, my lord; they are undoing you; you lose your time!" Egerton put on his cap, and commanded every man, in the queen's name, to lay down his arms and depart. The crowd outside continued to shout, "Kill them, kill them! Keep them for hostages! Throw the great seal out of the window!" The queen's officers, being shown into a back room guarded by musketeers, Essex begged them to have patience for half an hour, and, locking the door upon them, left them. Sir John Davis, Sir Gilly Merrick, Francis Tresham, and Owen Salisbury were left in charge of them.
Then Essex, rushing into the street, drew his sword, and followed by Southampton, Rutland, Sandys, Mounteagle, and most of the knights and gentlemen, he made for the City. They were joined on the way by the Earl of Bedford and Lord Cromwell, with 200 others. At Ludgate the guard suffered them to pass, Essex declaring that he was endeavouring to save his life from Raleigh, Cobham, and their accomplices. To their great disappointment, they found nobody at St. Paul's Cross, the queen having sent and warned the corporation to keep away, and see that the people kept within their houses. Essex rode along shouting, "For the queen, my mistress! a plot is laid for my life!" and called upon the citizens to come and follow him. He had relied on his popularity with the masses; but he now found himself miserably deceived. The common people shouted "God bless your honour!" but no man joined him. He had placed much dependence on Smith, one of the sheriffs; but on reaching his house he found him away, and then felt that his whole scheme was abortive. Ho became greatly agitated, and remained a long time in Smith's house, uncertain what to do.
In the meantime there had been great terror at the palace. The ministers were afraid of the friends of Essex declaring in his favour, and admitting him or the people. They therefore had the guards mustered, every avenue to the palace closed, and the streets barricaded with carriages and chairs. The queen alone had shown any courage. About two in the afternoon, Lord Burleigh, with a herald, and the Earl of Cumberland, with Sir Thomas Gerard, proceeded to the City in different directions, proclaimed Essex a traitor, and offered a reward of £1,000 for his apprehension, with a pardon for all his associates who at once returned to their allegiance.
Essex, at the same time, was endeavouring to return towards the Strand, when he met Lord Burleigh, who fled at the sight of him. The guard at Ludgate now resisted his return, and he returned to Queenhithe, whence he went by water to Essex House. There he found that a man in whom he had placed the utmost trust, Ferdinando Gorges, had liberated the Lords of the Council and escorted them to Court, as the price of his own pardon. Captain Owen Salisbury, with better faith, had stood out, and was so wounded as he looked out of a window, that he died the next day.
Essex set about fortifying the house; but it was presently surrounded by a military force with a battering train, and not a soul rose in his defence. The case was hopeless, and about ten o'clock at night Essex and Southampton held a parley from the top of the house with Sir Robert Sidney, and surrendered on promise of a fair trial. They were conveyed for the night to Lambeth Palace. The next day, Essex and Southampton were committed to the Tower, and the other prisoners to different gaols in London and Westminster. But the first victim of this insane insurrection was a soldier of fortune named Thomas Lee, who, on the evening of Essex's arrest, had offered his services to Sir Robert Cecil; but was reported to havo said a day or two after that it Essex's friends meant to save his life, they should petition the queen in a body, and not depart till their prayer was granted. For this trivial expression of opinion he was arrested as he stood in the throng at the door of the presence-chamber whilst the queen was at supper, and, in spite of his protestations of innocence, was accused of a design to murder the queen, and was condemned and executed at Tyburn as a traitor.
On the 19th of February, Essex and Southampton were arraigned before a commission of twenty-five peers, Lord Buckhurst being Lord Steward. With a flagrant contempt of justice, Cobham, Grey, and others, the bitter enemies of Essex, were amongst his judges. He pointed them out to Southampton and smiled. He then demanded of the Lord Chief Justice whether the privilege granted to every commoner of challenging such of his jurors as he had real cause of exception against was to be refused to peers. The Chief Justice replied that peers could not be challenged, for such was their estimation that they were not required to take any oath on arraignment. The Crown lawyers engaged against them were Coke, Yelverton, and Bacon. Coke, as Attorney-General, gave way to all that savage insolence and abuse for which he was famous. He branded the noble prisoners as Papistical, dissolute, desperate, and atheistical rebels. The Earl of Essex, he said, "would have called a Parliament, and a bloody Parliament would that have been, when my Lord of Essex, that now stands all in black, would have worn a bloody robe; but now, in God's judgment, he of his earldom shall be Robert the Last, that of a kingdom thought to be Robert the First."
Essex protested against being judged by Coke's ferocious and unfounded words, declaring that no thought of violence to the queen had ever entered his head, but that they had been compelled to take arms to remove evil counsellors, naming Cobham and Raleigh. Cobham thereupon rose in his place, and denied that he had any hatred to Essex, but only to his ambition. Essex replied that he would gladly lose his right hand to remove from the queen's council such a talebearing, vile calumniator as Cobham. Yelverton compared Essex to Cataline; and on Lord Southampton appealing to Coke whether he really in his conscience believed that they would have done any injury to the queen were it in their power, Coke retorted that in his soul and his conscience he did believe she would not have lived long had she been in their power, remarking that they would have treated her as Henry IV. did Richard II. This base allusion was to the history of Henry IV. by Hayward, which had so much incensed the queen.
From Yelverton and Coke, who, with all their abilities, were time-serving and truculent lawyers, no better could be expected; but every one who reverences the fame of Bacon must read with pain the speech by which he sought to bring the head of his generous patron to the block, and extol the characters of Cecil, Raleigh, and Cobham. Essex asked him who composed the eloquent letters which he had been advised to send to Her Majesty in exposure of their crimes; and Coke, with his audacious effrontery, was obliged to come to the aid of the crest-fallen Lord Keeper.
In the course of the trial, Essex being accused of saying that the crown of England was sold to the Spaniards, declared that it was said of Sir Robert Cecil that he had declared the Infanta's title to the succession as good as any other. Cecil, who was in the court, but not within view, then came forward, and, by permission of the Lord Steward, was allowed to make a violent attack on Essex, calling him a wolf in sheep's clothing, and a Papist, as was seen by the company he had kept. He called on him to name the man who had said this. Lord Southampton said it was Sir William Knollys; whereupon Sir William was summoned, and, as was to be expected in a courtier where the person accused was the prime minister, qualified the expression so that it meant nothing. He had heard Sir Robert Cecil merely say that the title of the Infanta was maintained in a printed book.
Such were the leading features of this trial, where Essex was certain to be condemned, for he had been guilty, in his wild passion, of really treasonable acts; but innocence itself would not have saved him before such a tribunal. Both were condemned as traitors. The Lord Steward recommended Essex to submit and implore the queen's mercy on the acknowledgment of all his offences. Essex replied that he could not implore pardon for any intention to injure Her Majesty, for that he had entertained none; but that he did entreat her pardon for many short-comings. For himself, he was tired of life, and would neither seek nor refuse mercy; but he earnestly begged that mercy might be extended to his friend Southampton, who had only offended through his affection to him. The edge of the axe was turned towards them, and they were conducted to the Tower. On the way the citizens, hearing of the sentence, ran out to see them. Essex walked on at a swift pace, with his face towards the ground; and though several persons spoke to him, he paid no attention and gave no reply. It seemed as if his thought was that they had not answered to his appeal, and, therefore, now they were nothing to him.
As soon as he was in the Tower, Dove, Dean of Norwich, was sent to him, who exhorted him to reconcile himself to the Almighty by the free confession of his crime, and also of his accomplices. Essex declared that he had committed no offence against God, any more than David in resisting the murderous attempts of Saul; and he refused to be a traitor to his friends, Then one Ashton, his own chaplain, attended him, who is declared to have been a man of the worst and most perfidious character. He so wrought on Essex by the threatened terrors of an omniscient Judge that he declared himself ready to confess everything; and Bacon, Cecil, the Earl of Nottingham, the treasurer, were sent for, whose forgiveness he asked, and to whom he made a confession which filled five sheets of paper. This confession has been thoroughly discredited as Essex's real one, and when we know its contents, and the character of the men who drew it up and witnessed it, we may well believe that whatever the unfortunate earl said of himself, he would not wholly implicate and endanger the lives and fortunes of his associates. Yet he was made to do all that, and to load his friends and himself with crimes of which neither he nor they were guilty. We shall soon see another reason for believing this confession a forgery.
The public were now all curious to know whether Elizabeth would really sign his death-warrant. Some thought that her resentment would certainly carry her that length, others that she would fear to bring him to the scaffold lest he should betray secrets by no means to her credit; but against such an emergency she had provided, and Essex had, by contemning her person, long ago sinned an unpardonable sin. Raleigh declares the real cause of his fall plainly. "The late Earl of Essex told Queen Elizabeth that her conditions were as crooked as her carcass; but it cost him his head, which his insurrection had not cost him, but for that speech."
The story went that her hand trembled so much in signing his death-warrant, that her signature was scarcely discernible; but the autograph remains, and totally contradicts the assertion. It is written with singular steadiness, and so artistically flourished that she might have intended it as a specimen of her best penmanship. The story of the ring, which many historians reject, we believe to be much better founded, and is thoroughly characteristic. It is related by Osborne, and is, says Miss Strickland, "not only quoted by historians of all parties, but is a family tradition of the Careys, who were the persons most likely to be in the secret, as they were the friends and relations of all parties concerned, and enjoyed the confidence of Queen Elizabeth." Lady Elizabeth Spelman, a descendant of that house, gives the narrative in the life of Carey, Earl of Monmouth. It is, that on some occasion Elizabeth gave to Essex a ring, which in any extreme case he was to send to her, and to claim the promise of aid or pardon then made. This ring he contrived to send to the Lady Scrope, his cousin, to convey to Elizabeth; but the messenger, a boy, by mistake put it into the hand of Lady Scrope's sister, the Countess of Nottingham. The countess took it to her husband, one of the most inveterate enemies of Essex, who insisted that she should keep the possession of the ring and the message accompanying it secret. On the one hand, the queen, expecting the arrival of this token, delayed the execution, the warrant for which, with her usual irresolution, she had once revoked. On the other hand, Essex waited the effect of the ring, and no evidence of it reaching him, doomed the queen inexorable. Some years after, when the Countess of Nottingham was on her death-bed, her conscience compelled her to send for the queen and reveal the fact, imploring her pardon, but instead of pardon Elizabeth shook the dying woman in her bed, and said, "God may forgive you, but I never can!"
Many have taken this anecdote to prove that Elizabeth still retained a tenderness for Essex, and would have pardoned him had the ring reached her. We believe neither of these things; but that Elizabeth was glad to have a person to cast the blame upon, as she always strove to have. In her vacillation regarding Essex's death she sent his kinsman, Edward Carey, to forbid the execution, and then again sent Lord Darcy to order its immediate completion. It took place about eight o'clock in the morning of February the 25th, within the court of the Tower. The most careful measures had been concerted to prevent access to him by any but those hostile to him, and firmly in the interest of Government. Neither his wife, his mother, nor any of his relations or friends were suffered to see him after he went to the Tower, or have any communication with him. It was industriously published by the Court, that the earl especially desired to have a private execution; but the fact was, that the ministers took all means to prevent the earl speaking on the scaffold except just what they wanted. The day before the execution, Cecil, Egerton, and Buckhurst wrote to Lord Thomas Howard, Constable of the Tower, forbidding him to admit a single individual except such as they furnished with an order; some seven or eight noble men, they informed him, Her Majesty wished to be there whom she would name, and two "discreet" divines, who would bring an order from the Archbishop of Canterbury. The constable and lieutenant were to take all possible care and circumspection that the earl should confine himself exclusively in his speech to his confession of his treason, his offences to God, and his repentance. If he attempted to break off into any other particulars they were at once to stop him. These are amply sufficient proofs that the earl's confession was not his free and honest declaration, and that it was in his power to say things most damning to the queen and Government. When Elizabeth's ambassador informed Henry IV. that Essex had petitioned to die in private, he exclaimed, "Nay, rather the contrary, as he desired nothing more than to die in public." Being thus gagged, the earl was allowed to say that his offence was a great, bloody, crying, and infectious sin, and to ask pardon of God and the queen, and his head was severed at three strokes from his body. He was buried in the Tower chapel, near the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Arundel. Raleigh says, he witnessed his execution from the armoury, as he did also those of Sir Christopher Blount and Sir Charles Davers on the 17th of March, and Sir Walter made a very profitable merchandise in the pardons of others of Essex's followers.
Essex was only thirty-three years old at his death. The character of this extraordinary man—for such he was, both in his virtues and defects—essentially unfitted him for a court. He had all the impulses and aspirations of a hero. He was generous, impulsive, and open in his disposition. Nature inspired him with the noblest sentiments, the most disinterested spirit, and unconquerable thirst of glory. As a commander, or even a statesman, in better times, he would have made the most distinguished figure. In all his military commands he was restricted by colleagues, carefully chosen, to restrain his impetuosity, or he was tied down by the caution of a Court most grovelling in its policy; yet, in almost every instance, he at once carried all opposition before him by the rapidity and enthusiasm of his actions, and won the respect and admiration of his enemies by his justice and magnanimity. The very glory which he acquired by his victory and his nobility amongst the Spaniards whom he vanquished, deepened the serpentine jealousy of his mean rivals at home. In Ireland he went to conquer by the sword, but saw at once that the natives needed not crushing but conciliating. "The Irish," he said, "are alienated from the English as well for religion as government. I would achieve pacification there by composition rather than by the sword." But this, by the Court which he served, which could not understand aims of policy so elevated, was treated as a crime, and was punished as such. He was, in that most intolerant age, a firm friend to religious toleration. Roman Catholic or Puritan were alike in his eyes Christians, and were welcomed to his house and his councils as men sincere in their own views, and, therefore, trustworthy. "The Catholics," says Carte, "venerated him for his extreme aversion to put any one to death on account of his religion." His literary genius and taste were of a high order, and make us regret that he did not rather cultivate them than the more ordinary ones of diplomacy in a period when diplomacy was one of the meanest and most dishonest of crafts. Those who would form a true estimate of his writings should consult Ellis's "Original Letters." The greatest men of his age, Shakespeare and Bacon, were his friends. He was the man who first took the great revolutionist of science, the great and little-minded Bacon, by the hand, to receive from that hand a deadly blow in his last days of mortal peril. Southampton, the friend of Shakespeare, was his most intimate associate, and risked death on his account. In person he was not distinguished by his grace or dignity; he stooped forward, danced awkwardly, and despised the elegancies of dress; yet, by the fire and brilliancy of his mind and conversation, he captivated the queen of many lovers, when age was creeping over her frozen bosom and her deadly and unforgiving disposition. The temper of Essex, like that of many men of genius, was extremely sensitive; he felt keenly and resented deeply. The sense of unadmitted wrong drove him into rash measures, which his cool and calculating rivals are said to have artfully stimulated by their spies; and he fell where such a man could only fall, because, hating disguise, he was open to attack; despising meanness, he was certain to excite its hatred. In a nobler arena Essex would have burned forth one of the fairest lights of history. As it was, the people felt and acknowledged his rare merits—those of a high-hearted, honest, and honourable man, far before his period in the breadth of his moral horizon. They seemed to desert him at the last hour because his attempt was hopeless; but they remembered him with affection, and with him departed the waning popularity of the queen. When she appeared again in public she was no longer followed by acclamations, but by a moody silence; and her ministers, who had laboured so zealously for the destruction of her noblest servant, were pursued by the undisguised scorn and abhorrence of the people.
The Government endeavoured to put down all expression of such feeling; and on the last day of February a young man named Woodhouse was hanged for speaking against the apprehension and treatment of Essex. On the 13th of March, Cuffe, the false secretary, and Merrick, the steward of Essex, were butchered at Tyburn in the usual horrid manner, as traitors. Sir Charles Davers, or Danvers, was beheaded on Tower Hill on the 18th, dying with great courage; and as soon as his body was removed Sir Christopher Blount, Essex's step-father, suffered the same fate. Sir John Davies received a year's imprisonment; Baynham purchased his life of Sir Walter Raleigh for a large sum; Lyttleton paid a fine of £10,000, and surrendered an estate of £7,000 per annum, and then only received the mitigation of being removed from Newgate to the King's Bench prison, where he died in about three months. Southampton was imprisoned during Elizabeth's life, as was also Sir Henry Neville, who took no active part in the conspiracy, but, according to his own account, condemned the only discussion of the conspirators that he had heard, and then set out on his embassy to France.
The Reconciliation between Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Essex.
Confession of the Countess of Nottingham.
a friend of him. They were to go into the shires and to appoint secretly good sowers, who would zealously prepare the people for his succession, which, he said, must be soon, unless "the old lady meant to last as long as the sun or the moon."
Whilst James, with his usual scheming, was thus tampering with the subjects of Elizabeth, it is supposed that she was by no means unaware of his proceedings, and had a hand in a transaction which remains to this hour one of the mysteries of history. James being at Falkland, and spending much time in hunting, was about to mount his horse and start for the chase on the 5th of August, when he was accosted by Alexander Gowrie, the brother of the Earl of Gowrie. This Alexander Gowrie and his brother, the earl, were the sons of the Earl of Gowrie, who was beheaded, in 1584, for seizing and detaining James at his castle of Ruthven in what was called the Raid of Ruthven. They were also the grandsons of that old Ruthven who figured prominently in the murder of Rizzio. The present Gowries had always had the reputation of belonging to what was called the English party, or those who favoured the plans of Elizabeth, and were generally in her pay. It may be supposed that James would look with suspicion on this Alexander, who suddenly appeared before him; but the business on which he announced himself, and the man's manner, if we are to credit James's own account of the affair, were still more suspicious. He drew the king apart, and informed him—but with his eyes fixed on the ground—that the day before he had discovered a large pot of money—gold pieces of a large size—which a man near Perth had concealed under a wide cloak; that he had apprehended the man, and now entreated the king to go with him and see the man, and decide upon the gold. A more improbable story could scarcely have been invented; but whoever did invent it knew well James's unfailing cupidity.
James, who was one of the most timid of mortals, says that he at first refused to accompany the man; but the pot of gold running in his head as he rode to the chase, he called the man and told him that as soon as they had run down the buck he would go with him. The chase ended about eleven o'clock, and then James kept his word and rode off towards Perth with Gowrie, followed at a little distance by some of his attendants. As he went along, fears and suspicions came across his mind, and he began to suspect some treasonable device. The wonder is that, under the circumstances, he went on; but the gold was a strong bait. On approaching the house of the Earl of Gowrie, he was met by the earl, attended by about eighty armed followers, James's attendants being only fifteen, and unarmed. This added to James's terror. He was assured that the earl had only just been apprised of the honour of the king's visit, and had risen suddenly from the dinner-table to meet him. In consequence, James and his retainers had to wait an hour before dinner was served to them, and then it was of a very meagre kind.
During dinner, James's alarm increased from suspicious circumstances in the conduct of the earl; and after it James and Alexander proceeded to the man who was said to have the pot of gold. James observed that Gowrie carefully locked every door behind them till they came into a little closet, where stood a man with a dagger at his girdle. No sooner was the door shut and looked than Alexander Gowrie altered his whole demeanour—clapped on his hat, and, drawing the dagger from the man's girdle, pointed it at the king's breast, declaring the king to be in his power, and that he was sure his conscience was troubled with the murder of the earl his father. James exclaimed against the monstrous crime the man was meditating, and assured him that if he spared his life he would forgive him, and not a creature should know. On this Gowrie appeared to relent, and said the king's life should be safe, but he must go and speak to the earl. He left the king locked up with the man, who trembled from head to foot, and protested that he had no idea what he had been placed there for. Alexander Gowrie soon returned, declaring now that the king must die, and that the earl had sent away his servants on the assurance that the king had ridden away from the postern. He seized James, and tried to tie his hands with a garter; but James says that he snatched away his hands, laid one on the sword which Gowrie was already drawing, and with the other seized the villain by the throat. They thus struggled, James managing to drag the man towards an open window, where he shouted with all his might "Murder!" His servants happened to be passing at the moment, and, rushing up-stairs, found James still struggling with the ruffian, whom they dispatched, and also the earl. The news of this strange incident was received with great incredulity by James's subjects. The clergy would not even read from the pulpits the order of Council, giving an account of "The unnatural and vile conspiracy." But there appears no great reason to doubt the fact. James had incurred the resentment of the Gowries by the death of their father. The clergy were vexed at their death, for they were stanch supporters of the Presbyterian cause; and that party being in close alliance with the English Government, there were sufficient reasons why there should be means used to divert James from any participation in Essex's schemes at that moment. It was probably the intention of the Gowries to keep James in durance for a time, and that his terrors made him imagine that they intended to kill him. That this was the real meaning of the plot was confirmed by the man with the dagger, who turned out to be Andrew Henderson, the steward of the Earl of Gowrie, who on examination repeated that he had been placed in the closet, for what he did not know. It was, moreover, ascertained that the Earl of Gowrie had been in Paris, and in communication with Sir Henry Neville, the Queen of England's ambassador; and it was remembered that an English ship had for some months been cruising in the mouth of the Frith of Forth. Still further confirmation was given by the two younger brothers of the Gowries fleeing into England after the affair at the earl's house, where they remained under protection of Elizabeth. From the constant employment of such intrigues by the Government of Elizabeth, there appears nothing incredible or improbable in this view of the matter.
When James's ambassadors arrived in London they found the conspiracy of Essex at an end, and the earl and his accomplices in the Tower. James, therefore, contemplated some difficulty in business with the Court, but they were ordered to congratulate Her Majesty on her escape from so daring a plot. It must have required all the assurance of tried diplomatists to offer these felicitations, knowing the real position of James in the affair; but that did not deter them from making them, and from pressing on the English Government; and to their agreeable surprise they encountered no obstacle at all. Cecil, who saw dearly that the queen's health was declining, was only anxious to secure the good-will of James, who must to a certainty, ere long, become master of the English throne. The only thing was to open and conduct an understanding with him without detection by Elizabeth, which would cost him his head. But Cecil, who was as cunning as he was selfish, contrived to manage the matter with James's ambassadors in the deepest secrecy. He let James know by them that he had a warm friend in him, who was watching to serve him and to guard the succession from all intruders for him. He promised an increase of £2,000 to James's pension; and Lord Henry Howard was taken into the secret. It was planned that the necessary correspondence should be carried on in his name, and not in that of Cecil, with Bruce and Mar in Scotland. James was delighted with the turn affairs had taken, and was so confident of the sincerity and zeal of Cecil, for he knew that all his interests were engaged in the scheme, that, though urged in the following year to send a special ambassador to Elizabeth, he refused, saying nobody could serve him so thoroughly as Cecil was doing. At the same time Raleigh and Cobham, not being let into the secret, failed to make good their interest with the heir-expectant, and being evidently secretly hated by Cecil and Howard, who called them "those wicked villains," they were set down by James as his enemies, and remembered duly when he came into power. Meantime Cecil continued to serve Elizabeth with his usual hollow flatteries, and to appear more inclined to the claims of Arabella Stuart than of James. Elizabeth was so little aware at this time of Cecil's treason, that she often amused herself with ridiculing his pigmy person. One day, observing the young Lady Darby wearing something about her neck suspended by a cord, she snatched it from her, and found it a miniature of Cecil. She then, to make fun of the lovers, tied the portrait on her own shoe, and walked about with it there; and then she removed it and pinned it to her elbow, and wore it there some time.
Lord Mountjoy, the friend of Essex, though advanced to the deputyship of Ireland, knew that Elizabeth had become aware of his offer to attempt a release of Essex from his confinement before his last rash outbreak, and he was prepared to escape to the Continent on the first symptom of an attempt to arrest him; but to his agreeable surprise he received a very gracious letter from Elizabeth, in which she stated that the defection and death of Essex had caused her deep grief, but his, Mountjoy's, loyalty and success in Ireland had been a comfort to her. This had been done at the suggestion of Cecil, who represented to her that Mountjoy's loyalty might be secured by not seeming to doubt it, and it was of great consequence to have so able a general in Ireland, as the Spaniards were now meditating a descent on the coast of that island. In September, indeed, 4,000 Spaniards landed at Kinsale, under Don Juan D'Aguilar, fortified the town, and called on the people to join them against the heretic and excommunicated Queen of England, their oppressor. Whilst Mountjoy marched his forces to Kinsale and shut up the Spaniards within their own lines, Elizabeth in England summoned her last Parliament. She opened it in person on the 27th of October, but she was now so enfeebled that she was actually sinking under the weight of the robes of State, when the nobleman who stood nearest to her caught her in his arms and supported her. Notwithstanding this exhibition of her weakness, her determined will enabled her to rally and to go through the ceremony. The session was a very stormy one. The great object of calling it together was to obtain money. Money the House of Commons expressed its willingness to grant, but at the same time called for the abolition of a number of monopolies which were sapping the very vitals of the nation. These monopolies were patents granted to her courtiers, for the exclusive sale of some article of commerce. It was a custom which had commenced in the seventeenth year of her reign, and by the greediness of her favourites had grown into a monstrous abuse. Scarcely a man about her but had one or more of these monopolies in his hand, by which the price of all sorts of the necessities of life was doubled, or more than doubled. Sometimes the patentee exorcised the monopoly himself, sometimes he farmed it out to others, whose only object was to screw as much as possible out of it.
The members for counties and boroughs had been repeatedly called on by their constituents to demand the abolition of these detestable abuses; but they had been as often silenced by the ministers, on the ground that such things wore matters of prerogative, and that the queen would highly resent any touch of her prerogatives.
On the 18th of November a motion to this effect was made, which received the regular ministerial answer, with the addition that, it was useless to proceed by bill to endeavour to tie the Royal hands, because, even if it were done by both Houses, the queen could loose them at her pleasure. Cecil said that the speaker was very much to blame to admit of such a motion at the commencement of a session, knowing that it was contrary to the Royal command. But, nothing daunted, the members of the Commons replied that they had found, however useless it was to petition for the removal of these grievances, that the remedy lay in their own hands, and the patentees were such blood-suckers of the commonwealth, that the people would no longer bear the burden of them. When the list of the monopolies was read over, a member asked if bread were not amongst them. The House appeared amazed at the question. "Nay," said he, "if no remedy be found for these, bread will be there before next Parliament." Bacon and Cecil still talked loudly of prerogative, but the House went on with so much resolution, that the favourites began to tremble, and Raleigh, who had a monopoly of tar and various other commodities, saw such a storm brewing that he offered to give them all up. For four days the debate continued with such an agitation as had not been witnessed through the whole reign; and Cecil found it necessary to seem to give way, not meaning to give way an inch. On the 25th, therefore, the queen sent for the speaker, and addressed him, in the presence of the Council, in one of those grandiloquent speeches which were put into her mouth on all such occasions, full of high-sounding professions of her love of her people, and her determination to spend her heart's blood sooner than anybody should hurt them. A hundred and forty members attended with the speaker, and the queen said that she would redress all their grievances, and was most thankful that they had brought to her knowledge "the harpies and horse-leeches" which infested her beloved people—as if she had not known and heard of them again and again for years! "I had rather," she said, "that my heart and hand should perish than that either heart or hand should allow such privileges to monopolists as may be prejudicial to my people. The splendour of regal majesty hath not so blinded my eyes that licentious power should prevail with me more than justice. The glory of the name of a king may deceive those powers that know not how to rule, as gilded pills may deceive a sick patient; but I am none of those princes, for I know that the commonwealth is to be governed for the good and advantage of those that are committed to me, not of myself, to whom it is entrusted, and that an account is one day to be given before another judgment-seat. I think myself most happy that, by God's assistance, I have hitherto so prosperously governed the common-wealth in all respects, and that I have such subjects that for their good I should willingly lose both kingdom and life."
Yet after all the like impositions which had been practised upon them, the Commons were willing to be deceived once more: though the populace pursued the carriage of Cecil with curses and menaces whenever he appeared abroad, so great were their sufferings, yet the members of the Lower House returned the most adulatory thanks to the queen for her most gracious promises, and voted her the unexampled grant of four subsidies, and eight tenths and fifteenths. The Parliament once dismissed, not a further thought was given to the redress of the evils complained of: nay, Elizabeth, in dismissing them, could not refrain from exercising a little irony at the expense of the leaders of this agitation, and Cecil regarded it as a feat worthy of his highest self-estimation to have cajoled the representatives of the people, and conceded to them nothing.
Whilst these events had been taking place in Parliament, Mountjoy had defeated the queen's enemies in Ireland. He had united his forces with those of the President of Munster, and kept the Spaniards shut up in Kinsale. On Christmas Eve the Earl of Tyrone advanced to the assistance of the besieged, with 6,000 Irish and 200 fresh Spaniards, who had landed at Castlehaven under the command of Ocampo. His plan was to surprise the English before daylight, and to have a second division of his army ready with a supply of provisions to throw into the town. But Mountjoy was already aware of his approach, which was delayed by the fears of Ocampo—only too well founded—of the fatal want of discipline amongst the natives, and by his endeavours to bring them into some regularity. Mountjoy surprised these wild hordes as they were crossing a stream, and thoroughly routed them. The Spaniards, left on the field alone, surrendered, and Tyrone retreated northwards with the remnant of his army. About 500 Irish were killed.
The Spaniards in Kinsale yielded the place on this defeat of their allies, on condition of being allowed to return home with their arms and ammunition. Tyrone was then pursued by Mountjoy with great vigour, and after a number of defeats, retired still more northward. Munster was reduced, and Tyrone offered to submit on favourable terms; but Mountjoy could obtain no such terms from the queen; she insisted on unconditional surrender. Her ministers strongly advised her to concede and settle the state of Ireland, which was now costing her £300,000 a year to defend it against the natives. Sometimes she appeared disposed to comply, and then again was as obstinate as ever; and matters remained in this position till 1603, when Mountjoy, hearing that the queen was not likely to live long, agreed to receive Tyrone's submission, to grant him and his followers a full pardon, and restore the whole of his territories, with some few exceptions. Tyrone then accompanied Mountjoy to Dublin, where they heard of the death of Elizabeth; and Tyrone burst into tears and regretted his too hasty surrender. The deed, however, was done, and tranquillity ensured to Ireland for a short time.
The last warlike demonstration of the reign of Elizabeth was an expedition to the coast of Spain to prevent the passage of fresh fleets to Ireland. Admirals Levison and Monson proceeded thither with a fleet; but, tempted by a carrac of immense value in the harbour of Sesimbria, they seized it and returned home. This was such a desertion of their duty in compliance with their greed of prize-money, that in Elizabeth's days of vigour would have cost the commanders dearly. Whilst they were guarding their treasure homewards the Spanish fleet might have made sail. No time was lost in sending back the fleet under Monson, who found six Spanish galleys out, and stealing along the French coast. Before he could pursue them they were met by a squadron of Dutch and English ships, and after some hard fighting three of them were sunk, and three escaped into Sluys.
The reign of Queen Elizabeth was now drawing to a close. She was approaching her seventieth year, and till lately had still listened to the voice of flattery as if she were yet in the glory of her youth. But nature had begun to give her stern warnings, and the failing of her strength brought deep melancholy. However in the pride of her strength and the terrible energy of her will she had intrigued for the disturbance of foreign thrones, or imprisoned and put to death such as she chose at home, when the shadows of life's evening began to close around her, and the judgment of that Power which knows no partiality, and calls for a just account from prince as well as private individual, grew over her like a gigantic gloom, then her conscience rose above the flatteries of her courtiers and the colourings of her own passions, and she grew moody, restless, and miserable. At one time she affected an unnatural gaiety; at another she withdrew into solitude, and was often found in tears. One of her household says in a letter—"She sleepeth not so much by day as she used, neither taketh rest by night. Her delight is to sit in the dark, and sometimes with shedding tears to bewail Essex."
Yet she still strove against the advancing infirmities of age. She would insist to the last on making her annual progress and on hunting. Only five months before her death Lord Henry Howard wrote to the Earl of Mar—"The queen our sovereign was never so gallant many years, nor so set upon jollity." The Earl of Worcester wrote also—"We are frolic here in Court: much dancing in the Privy Chamber of country dances before the queen's majesty, who is exceedingly pleased therewith." She had a now favourite also—the young Earl of Clanricarde—as if on the brink of the grave she was in a mood for alliance with young men. He was said to resemble the Earl of Essex, and the courtiers all paid much attention to him because they thought it would please the queen; but she affected not to like him because he reminded her of Essex, and renewed her sorrow. But we may well suppose that there were deeper sorrows than the death of Essex. A strange story is told of her calling for a true looking-glass, saying for twenty years she had not seen one; and on beholding her withered and wrinkled face, she fell to cursing her flatterers so fiercely that they dare not come into her presence. The fact was that the courtiers had rudely stripped away the delusions with which they had so long mocked her. The time which she had always had a terror of—that in which they should quit her to pay court to the rising sun—had arrived. The confessions of Essex had revealed to her the fact that her very chief minister, who still continued one of a very small number who paid her the same daily attentions, was sworn to her successor, and was in close correspondence with him. A letter of April 7th, 1602, says—"The queen walks often on Richmond Green with greater show of ability than can well stand with her years. Mr. Secretary sways all of importance, albeit of late much absent from the Court and about London, but not omitting in his absence daily to present Her Majesty with some jewel or toy that maybe acceptable. The other of the Council or nobility estrange themselves from Court by all occasions, so as, besides the master of the horse, vice-chamberlain, and comptroller, few of account appear there."
When Cecil was present it required all his art to conceal his correspondence with the King of Scotland. One day a packet was delivered to him from James in the queen's presence. She ordered him instantly to open it, and show its contents to her. It was a critical moment, and none but a long-practised diplomatist could have escaped the exposure which it would probably occasion; but recollecting her excessive dislike of bad smells and terror of contagion, he observed as he was cutting the string that "it had a strange and evil smell," and hinted that it might have been in contact with infected persons or goods. Elizabeth immediately ordered the cunning minister to take it away and have it purified, which no doubt he did of any dangerous contents before displaying them to Her Majesty.
Meantime, not only Cecil and Howard, but another clique, was busy paying court to James. These were Raleigh, Cobham, and the Earl of Northumberland. They met at Durham House, and kept up a warm correspondence with James; but they were as zealously counteracted by Cecil and Howard, who warned James of all things not to trust to them, Howard declaring that as for Raleigh and Cobham, "hell did never spew up such a couple when it cast up Cerberus and Phlegethon."
While these self-seeking courtiers were thus anxiously labouring to stand first with the heir, Elizabeth was sinking fast into a most pitiable condition. She was weighed down by a complication of complaints, and her mind was affrighted by strange spectres. She told some of her ladies that "she saw one night her own body, exceeding lean and fearful, in a light of fire." This was at Whitehall, and as her astrologer, Dr. Dee, had bade her beware of Whitehall, she determined to remove to Richmond, which she did on a very wild and stormy day, the 14th of January, 1603. She had a severe cold before setting out, and no doubt increased it. Her melancholy rapidly increased, and she spent the whole of her time in sighs and tears, or in talking of the treason and execution of Essex, the proposed marriage of Arabella Stuart with the grandson of the Earl of Hertford, or the rebellion of Tyrone. On the 10th of March the physicians gave her up, and strong guards were posted about the palace, to prevent any attempt to interrupt the accession of the King of Scots, all suspicious-looking persons being taken up and committed to prison, or shipped off to Holland.
To what a condition this great queen was now reduced we may imagine from what that condition was more than a year before. In October of 1601, Sir John Harrington says she was wonderfully altered in her features, and reduced to a skeleton. Her food was nothing but manchet bread and succory pottage. She had not changed her clothes for many days. Nothing could please her; she was the torment of the ladies who waited on her. She stamped with her feet and swore violently at the objects of her anger. For her protection she had ordered a sword to be placed by her table, which she often took in her hand, and thrust with violence into the tapestry of her chamber.
Now she was so terrified at apparitions that she refused to go to bed, and remained sitting on the floor on the scarlet cushions taken from the throne, for four days and nights. No one could persuade her to take any sustenance or go to bed. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Cecil, and the lord admiral endeavoured to persuade her, but in vain. When the lord admiral urged her to go to bed, she said, "None; there were spirits there that troubled her;" and added, that, "if he were in the habit of seeing such things in his bed as she did in hers, ho would not try to persuade her to go there." Cecil hearing this, asked if Her Majesty had seen any spirits. At this she cast one of her old lightning flashes at him, and said, "I shall not answer you such a question." Cecil then said she must go to bed to content the people. "Must," she said, smiling scornfully, "must is a word not to be used to princes;" adding, "Little man! little man! if your father had lived you durst not have said so much, but you know I must die, and that makes you so presumptuous." She now saw that man's real character, and ordering him and all the rest except the lord admiral out of her chamber, she said, "My lord, I am tied with a chain of iron round my neck." He endeavoured to dissipate the idea, but she only said, "I am tied! I am tied! and the case is altered with me."
"The queen," says Lady Southwell, "kept her bed fifteen days, besides the three days she sat upon a stool, and one day, when, being pulled up by force, she obstinately stood upon her feet for fifteen hours." What a most miserable scene was the death-bed of this extraordinary woman! Surely nothing was ever more melancholy and terrible in its mixture of mental decay, dark remorse, and stubborn, indomitable hardiness and self-will. At the same time around her bed were men urging her to take broth, to name her successor, and to hear prayers. The kings of France and Scotland were named to her, but without eliciting the slightest notice; but when they named Beauchamp, the son of the Earl of Hertford and Lady Katherine Grey, one of Elizabeth's victims, she fired up and exclaimed—"I will have no rascal's son in my nest, but one worthy to be a king!"
At length they persuaded her to listen to a prayer by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and when he had once begun she appeared unwilling to let him leave off; half hour after half hour she kept the primate on his knees. She then sunk into a state of insensibility, and died at three o'clock in the morning of the 24th of March, 1603,in the seventieth year of her age and the forty-fourth of her reign. Robert Carey, afterwards Earl of Monmouth, was anxiously waiting under the window of Elizabeth's room at Richmond Palace, for the first news of her death, which Lady Scrope, his sister, communicated to him by silently letting fall, as a signal, a sapphire ring, afterwards celebrated as "the blue ring," which he caught, and the moment after was galloping off towards Scotland to be the first herald of the mighty event to the expecting James. Three hours later, that is, at six in the morning, Cecil, the lord keeper, and the lord admiral were with the Council in London, and it was resolved to proclaim James VI. of Scotland, James I. of England.
An Irish Trooper. From an old Manuscript.
The character of Elizabeth has, till of late, been taken on trust from the extravagant eulogies of the corrupt writers of her time. She had had a traditionary reputation as "the glorious Queen Bess," "the good Queen Bess;" but the researches into the actual records of her reign, as preserved in the State Paper Office, in our day, oblige us to modify greatly the gorgeous portraiture of her own courtiers and dependants. To judge her strictly by the purer and higher moral code of to-day would be evidently unjust. All monarchs that preceded, and most of those contemporary with her, had so much of the same character, that a very low, corrupt, and dishonest scale of conduct was deemed admissible, and almost inseparable from royalty. Crimes were permitted to them which would now excite horror and execration through every civilised nation. Nevertheless, virtue is virtue, and justice is justice in all times; the nature of truth is immutable and eternal; and judged by that, the character of Elizabeth, with all concessions to the general character and maxims of the time, must be admitted to be of a very mixed texture, and far below that assigned her in, and long after, her time. In a few plain words, she was a bold, clever, successful, bad woman. That she maintained Protestantism and defended England against a host of enemies is a great fact, for which we owe her much; though neither her maintenance of the one nor the defence of the other was conducted on principles which any moralist would now undertake to defend. With a high and defiant bearing, she condescended to arts in weakening foreign nations, which she continually and energetically condemned in her own professions, and which when applied to herself, she characterised in true terms, as dastardly, unroyal, and sometimes devilish. Her support of Protestantism, both in England, Scotland, and on the Continent, was by every means which Protestantism now abhors and denounces—by the utter suppression of religious liberty, by setting subjects against their rulers, and in the case of Mary Queen of Scots, by the violation of the Christian principle of doing as you would be done by, of hospitality, common faith, and regard to the just rights, the liberty, and the life of an independent sovereign.
Much allowance must be made for her in all these cases, however, from the fact that the statesmen who surrounded her were of a class in whom cunning, intrigue, and contempt of honour and justice usurped the place of elevated genius and exalted principle. There are no arts, however contemptible or scandalous, by which pettifoggers and swindlers now-a-days reach their object, which were not then practised on a national scale as the most golden rules of diplomacy. Even when the queen's conscience and sense of right rose above her conventional notions of rule or the hurricane sweep of her passions, these men cajoled her by flattery, or terrified her by assertion of plots against her life or her kingdom into their dark and sinister measures.
The Death of Queen Elizabeth. (See page 564.)
As to freedom under Elizabeth, there was little or none. She had all the overweening notions of the Tudors of divine right. She constantly told her parliaments, like her father, that she had no occasion for them, but called them together not as a matter of right, but of courtesy; and as to the lives of her subjects, she held them as so many balls in her hands, which she tossed away at pleasure. The heads of the Dukes of Northumberland and Norfolk, of the Earls of Arundel and Essex, and of Mary of Scotland, besides those of numbers of lesser men, and the hundreds of people who perished at Tyburn and other places for their religion, testify to the lawless nature of her Royal will. Of the foibles of her character we say little. Her vanity, her irresolution, her belief in astrology, her thousand dresses which were discovered at her decease in her wardrobes, her being painted up in her old face, neck, and arms, her numerous heads of false hair, or even her cursing, swearing, and beating with her own lusty fists her maids of honour and her very ministers, may be passed over. But we will quote two paragraphs from the historian Lingard in proof that we have taken no singular view of the real character of Elizabeth and her reign:—"The historians who celebrate the golden days of Elizabeth have described with a glowing pencil the happiness of the people under her sway. To them might be opposed the dismal picture of national misery drawn by the Catholic writers of the same period. But both have taken too contracted a view of the subject. Religious dissension had divided the nation into opposite parties of almost equal numbers—the oppressors and the oppressed. Under the operation of the penal statutes many ancient and honourable families had been ground to the dust; new families had sprung up in their places; and these, as they shared the plunder, naturally eulogised the system to which they owed their wealth and their ascendancy. But their prosperity was not the prosperity of the nation, it was that of one half obtained at the expense of the other.
"It is evident that neither Elizabeth nor her ministers understood the benefits of civil, and religious liberty. The prerogatives which she so highly prized have long since withered away. The bloody code which she enacted against the rights of conscience has ceased to stain the pages of the statute-book; and the result has proved that the abolition of despotism and intolerance adds no less to the stability of the throne than to the happiness of the people."
Autograph of Queen Elizabeth.