belonging to Chatelherault, and the estates and houses of all his friends and kinsmen, were so completely destroyed that the house of Hamilton was reduced to the verge of ruin.
This excessive fury so roused the indignation of all parties in Scotland, and such loud remonstrances were made by Maitland, the Bishop of Ross, and the French ambassador, that Elizabeth began to fear that she had gone too far, and, instead of ruining Mary's party, had created her one out of her old enemies. She wrote to Sussex commanding him to stop the siege of Dumbarton, and to Randolph, ordering him to proceed again from Berwick to Edinburgh, and to inform the two parties that, having reasonably chastised her rebels, she had listened to the request of Mary's ambassador, the Bishop of Ross, and was about to arrange at Chatsworth for the liberation and restoration of the Queen of Scots. On this Sussex retired with his forces, and the commissioners for the adjustment of the terms with Mary proceeded to the Peak. Cecil and Mildmay were then the agents of Elizabeth; the Bishop of Ross, that of Mary. The Scottish queen, who had been removed about four months to this palace of the Peak, then one of the houses of the Earl of Shrewsbury, her keeper, during these negotiations showed herself a complete match for the deep and practical diplomatists of Elizabeth; but, of course, she was under the necessity of complying with many things which she would never have listened to at liberty. Elizabeth expressed herself quite satisfied; still, the assent of the two parties in Scotland had to be obtained, and that was not at all likely, so that Elizabeth's offer could appear fair, and even liberal, with perfect safety. Morton, the head of the opponents to Mary, advocated the right of subjects to depose their sovereigns where they infringed the rights of the community—a doctrine which was abominable to the ears of Elizabeth, and called forth her unqualified censure. On the other hand, the guarantees to be given by and on account of the Queen of Scots wore such as never could be settled, from Elizabeth's fears of the resentment of Mary if once she became free. Thus the discussion was prolonged till Cecil found a way out of it without the liberation of the Scottish Queen. He represented that if Elizabeth were to marry a French prince, she would almost entirely annihilate any hopes of the English crown in Mary: for, if she had issue, her claims would be superseded; if she had not, then the French would be directly interested in keeping Elizabeth firm on her throne. The Duke of Anjou was the prince this time proposed, and Elizabeth appeared, as she generally did at first, to listen with pleasure to the proposal. No sooner was this scheme entertained than she caused the commissioners on the part of the King of Scotland to be dismissed for the present, on pretence that they were not furnished with sufficient credentials, by which she left herself at liberty to renew the treaty if necessary, or to take no further notice of it, if she came to an arrangement with the French prince.
No sooner had the Scottish commissioners withdrawn than Elizabeth summoned a Parliament, in which she proceeded to the enactment of severities against both Romanists and Protestants. Pope Pius V. had had the folly to cause a bull of excommunication against Elizabeth to be published. This now effete instrument of Papal vengeance could only serve to enrage the heretic queen, and to cause her wrath to fall heavily on some zealous unfortunate. The lawyers being amongst those who clung the longest to the old faith, a search was made in the inns of court for copies of the offensive paper. One was found in the chambers of a poor student, who, being stretched on the rack to force a confession from him of the party from whom he had received it, to save himself from torture, confessed that it was given to him by John Felton, a gentleman living near Southwark. Felton was seized, and confessed to the fact of delivering the bull to the student; and to force a revelation of his accomplices from him he was tortured, but to no purpose—he would confess nothing more. He was committed to the Tower on the 23th of May, and kept till the 4th of August, when he was tried at Guildhall on a charge of high treason, condemned, and executed with the disgusting cruelties of being cut down alive, and then embowelled and quartered, in St. Paul's Churchyard, before the gates of the palace of the Bishop of London. Felton displayed a spirit and a magnanimity in his death which might have shamed his haughty persecutor. His wife had been maid of honour to Mary, and a friend of Elizabeth's; and, though thus cruelly treated, Felton drew from his finger, at the place of execution, a diamond ring worth £400, and sent it to the queen as a token that he bore no resentment. A number of gentlemen of Norfolk, friends of the imprisoned duke, resenting his treatment, had formed a plan to seize on Leicester, Cecil, and Bacon, by inviting them to a dinner. They intended to demand not only the release of the duke, but the expulsion of the numerous French, Flemish, and Dutch Protestants who had recently sought refuge in this country, and who were considered to injure the trade of English Romanists here. This design being discovered, they were hanged, drawn, and quartered. The victims were John Throckmorton of Norwich, Thomas Brook of Rolesby, and George Redman of Cringleford. In their proclamation they had denounced the profligacy of the Court and the domineering spirit of the newly-risen courtiers.
On the 2nd of April, 1571, Parliament met at Westminster. A subsidy of two shillings and eightpence in the pound was granted by the Commons, and of five shillings in the pound by the clergy, towards defraying the charges of suppressing the rebellion in the North, and of pursuing the rebels and their abettors into Scotland. This obtained, a bill was introduced to make it high treason for any one to claim a right to the succession of the crown during the lifetime of the queen, or to say that it belonged to any other person than the queen. It went on to say that it was high treason to call the queen a heretic, a schismatic, a tyrant, or a usurper, or to deny that Parliament had a right to determine the succession. What is extraordinary was that it enacted that any one, by writing or printing, mentioning any heir to the queen, except the natural issue of her body, should suffer a year's imprisonment, and for the second offence incur the penalty of premunire. This phrase, the "natural issue," excited much ridicule and comment, as it implied that the queen either had, or was likely to have, natural issue, which she contemplated making her heir; and this was the more noticed because, in the negotiation for the restoration of the Queen of Scots, the like phrase had been introduced,
