CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY GOLDWIN SMITH HALL FROM THE FUND GIVEN BY GOLDWIN SMITH 1909 2- -ol S S: 1" 5h~ iCM 1^ io Ifl CO < Q BTt L iniM iii'^BIiat«V'-4l lim^ ,IS*.MAV " J..S» ai StA^ESTER BOOK Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014261725 Ctpelte CngU?]^ ^tatemctr QUEEN ELIZABETH .9- QUEEN ELIZABETH BT EDWARD SPENCER BEESLY Sine ira et studio, quorum causas procul habeo. Tacitus, AnD, 1. 1. SLontian MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited NEW TORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1906 AU rights reserved Q.S.U- First Edition printed February 1802. Kkprinted March IS'.il' ; 1S95 ; 18117; 1900; 1903; 1900 (twice) CONTENTS CHAPTER I FAOI Early Life, 1533-1558 .... . . l CHAPTEE II The Change of Religion, 1559 . . . , 6 CHAPTER III Foreign Relations, 1559-1563 ... .18 CHAPTER IV Elizabeth and Mary Stuart, 1559-1568 . . 38 CHAPTER V Aristocratic Plots, 1568-1572 78 CHAPTER VI Foreign Affairs, 1572-1583 101 vl CONTENTS CHAPTER VII PAOI The Papal Attack, 1570-1583 128 CHAPTER VIII Protectorate of the Netherlands, 1584-1586 . . 156 CHAPTER IX EXECDTION OF THE Qdeen OF ScoTS : 1584-1587 • . 174 CHAPTER X War with Spain, 1587-1603 188 CHAPTER XI Domestic Affairs, 1588-1601 211 CHAPTER XII Last Years and Death, 1601-1603 . . . .230 CONTENTS rii APPENDIX. PAGE A. — Sessions op Parliament in the Reign of Eliza- beth 243 B. — Pmucipal Howards Contemporaries of Elizabeth 244 0. — Principal Boleyn Relations op Elizabeth . . 245 CHAPTEE I EARLY LIFE : 1533-1558 I HAVE to deal, under strict limitations of space; with a long life, almost the whole of its adult period passed in the exercise of sovereignty — a life which is in effect the history of England during forty-five years, abounding at the same time in personal interest, and the subject, both in its public and private aspects, of fierce and probably interminable controversies. Evi- dently a bird's-eye view is all that can be attempted ; and the most important episodes alone can be selected for consideration. The daughter of Henry VIIL and Anne Boleyn was born on September 6, 1533. Anne was niece of Thomas, third Duke of Norfolk, and all the great Howard kinsmen attended at the baptism four days after- wards. Elizabeth was two years and eight months old when her mother was beheaded, and she herself was declared illegitimate by Act of Parliament. It is not recorded that in after years she expressed any opinion about her mother or ever mentioned her name. She never took any steps to get the Act of attainder repealed ; but perhaps she indirectly showed her belief A 2 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. in Anne's innocence by raising the son of Norris, her alleged paramour, to the peerage, and by the great favour she always showed to his family. During her father's life Elizabeth lived chiefly at Hatfield with her brother Edward, under a governess. Henry had been empowered by Parliament in 1536 to settle the succession by his will. In 1544 he caused an Act to be passed placing Mary and Elizabeth next in order of succession after Edward. By his will, made a few days before his death, he repeated the provisions of the Act of 1544, and placed next to Elizabeth the daughters of his younger sister, the Duchess of Suffolk, tacitly passing over his elder sister, the Queen of Scotland. After her father's death (Jan. 1547) Elizabeth, then a girl of thirteen, went to reside with the Queen Dowager Catherine, who had not been many weeks a widow before she married her old lover Thomas Seymour, the Lord Admiral, brother of the Protector Somerset, described as " fierce in courage, courtly in fashion, in personage stately, in voice magnificent, but somewhat empty of matter." The romping that soon began to go on between this dangerous man and Elizabeth was of such a nature that early in the next year Catherine found it necessary to send her away somewhat abruptly. From that time she resided chiefly at Hatfield. In August 1548 Catherine died, and the Admiral at once formed the project of marrying Elizabeth. This and other ambitious designs brought him to the scaff'old (March 1549). It does not appear that Elizabeth saw or directly corresponded with him after he was a I KARLY LIFE : 1533-1558 3 widower. But she listened to his messages, and dropped remarks of an encouraging kind which she meant to be repeated to him. She knew perfectly- well that the marriage would not be permitted. She was only flirting with a man old enough to be her father just as she afterwards flirted with men young enough to be her sons. We already get a glimpse of the utter absence both of delicacy and depth of feeling which characterised her through life. "When she heard of the Admiral's execution she simply remarked, " This •day died a man with much wit and very little judg- ment." With Elizabeth the heart never really spoke, and if the senses did, she had them under perfect control. And this was why she never loved or was loved, and never has been or will be regarded with enthusiasm by either man or woman. For some time after this scandal she was evidently somewhat under a cloud. She lived at her manor-houses of Ashridge, Enfield, and Hatfield, diligently pursuing her studies under the celebrated scholar Ascham. When Edward died (July 6, 1553) Elizabeth was nearly twenty. Although Mary's cause was her own, she remained carefully neutral during the short queen- ship of Jane. On its collapse she hastened to congratu- late her sister, and rode by her side when she made her entry into London. During the early part of Mary's reign her life hung by a thread. The slightest indiscretion would have been fatal to her. Wyatt's insurrection was made avowedly in her favour. But neither to that nor any other conspiracy did she extend the smallest encouragement. Her prudent and blame- less conduct gave her the more right in after years to 4 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. deal severely with Mary Stuart, whose behaviour under precisely similar circumstances was so very dififerent. Eenard, the Spanish ambassador, demanded her execution as the condition of the Spanish match, and Mary assured him that she would do her best to satisfy him. In the time of Henry VIII. such an intention on the part of the sovereign would have been equivalent to a sentence of death. But Mary was far from being as powerful as her father. The Council had to be reckoned with, and in the Council independent and even peremptory language was now to be heard. It was not without strong protests on the part of some of the Lords that Elizabeth was sent to the Tower. Sussex, a noble of the old blood, who was charged to conduct her there, took upon him to delay her departure, that she might appeal to the Queen for an interview. Mary was furious : " For their lives," she said, " they durst not have acted so in her father's time ; she wished he was alive and among them for a single month." But it was usless to storm. The absolute monarchy had seen its best days. Sussex, fearing foul play, warned the Lieutenant of the Tower to keep within his written instructions. Howard of Effingham, the Lord Admiral, had done more than any one else to place Mary on the throne. But he was Elizabeth's great-uncle, and he angrily insisted that her food in the Tower should be prepared by her own servants. A proposal in Parliament to give the Queen the power to nominate a successor was received with such disfavour that it had to be withdrawn. Finally the judges declared that there was no evidence to convict Eliza- beth. Sullenly therefore the Queen had to give way. r EARLY LIFE : 1533-1558 5 Elizabeth was sent to Woodstock, where she resided for about a year under guard. This was only reason- able. An heir to the throne, in whose favour there had been plots, could not expect complete freedom. In October 1555 she was allowed to go to Hatfield under the surveillance of Sir Thomas Pope. During the rest of the reign she escaped molestation by outward con- formity to the Catholic religion, and by taking no part whatever in politics. But as it became clear that her accession was at hand there can be no doubt that she was engaged in studying the problems with which she would have to deal. She was already in close intimacy with Cecil, and it is evident that she mounted the throne with a policy carefully thought out in its main lines. When Mary was known to be dying, the Spanish ambassador, Feria, called on Elizabeth, and told her that his master had exerted his influence with the Queen and Council on her behalf, and had secured hei succession. But she declined to be patronised, and told him that the people and nobility were on her side. CHAPTER II THE CHANGE OF RELIGION : 1559 Mary died on the 17th of November 1558. Pailia- ment was then sitting, and, in communicating the event to both Houses, Archbishop Heath frankly took the initiative in recognising Elizabeth, " of whose most lawful right and title in the succession of the Crown, thanks be to God, we need not to doubt." He was a staunch Catholic, and two months later refused to officiate at her coronation. But he was an Englishman, and even the most convinced Catholics, though looking forward with uneasiness to the religious policy of the new Queen, were sincerely glad that there was no danger of a disputed succession. Besides, it was by no means clear that Elizabeth would not accept the ecclesiastical constitution as established in the late reign. That there would be an end of burnings, and of the harassing tyranny of the bishops, every one felt certain ; but it seemed quite upon the cards that Elizabeth would continue to recognise the headship of the Pope in a formal way and maintain the Mass. It must be remembered that the religious changes had only begun some thirty years before. All middle-aged men could 11 THE CHANGE OF RELIGION : 1559 7 remember the time when the ecclesiastical fabric stood to all appearance unbroken, as it had stood for centuries. Only twenty-four years had passed since the Act of Supremacy had transferred the headship of the Church from the Pope to the King ; only eleven since the Protestant doctrine and worship had been forced on the country by the Protector Somerset, to the horror and disgust of the great majority of Eng- lishmen. The nation had sorrowed for the death of Edward VI., because it darkened the prospects of the succession, and seemed likely sooner or later to bring on a civil war. But apart from the hot Protestant minority, chiefly to be found in London, the mass of the nation was conservative, and welcomed the re- establishment of the old religion as a return to order and common sense after a short and bitter experience of revolutionary anarchy. There was a rooted ob- jection to restore the old meddlesome tyranny of the bishops, and the nobles and squires who had got hold of the abbey lands would not hear of giving them up. But the return to communion with the Catholic Church and the recognition of the Pope as its head gave satis- faction to three-fourths, perhaps to five-sixths, of the nation, and to a still larger proportion of its most influential class, the great landed proprietors. Mary's accession was the great and unique opportunity for the old Church. If Mary and Pole had been cool- headed politicians instead of excitable fanatics, if they had contented themselves with restoring the old worship, depriving the few Protestant clergy of their benefices, and punishing only outrageous attacks on the State religion, Elizabeth would not have had the S QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. power, it may be doubted whether she would have had the inclination, to undo her sister's work. This great opportunity was thrown away. Mary's bishops came back brooding over the long catalogue of humiliations and indignities which their Church had suffered, and thirsting to avenge their own wrongs. For six years they had their fling, and contrived to make the country forget the period of Protestant mis- government. England had never before known what it was to be governed by clergymen. It was a sort of rule as hateful to most Catholic laymen as to Protes- tants. Catholics therefore for the most part, as well as Protestants, hailed the accession of Elizabeth. At any rate there would be an end of the clerical tyranny. Nor were they without hope that she would maintain the old worship. She had conformed to it for the last five years, and Philip had given the word that she was to be supported. We are now accustomed to the Papal non possumus. No nation or Church can hope that the smallest devia- tion from Roman doctrine or discipline will be tolerated. But in 1558 the hard and fast line had not yet been drawn. France was still pressing for such changes as communion in both kinds, worship in the vulgar tongue, and marriage of priests. The Council of Trent, it is true, had already in 1545 decided that Catholic doctrine was contained in the Bible and tradition, and in 1551 had defined transubstantiation and the sacra- ments. But in 1552 the Council was prorogued, and it did not resume till 1562. Doctrine and discipline therefore might be, and were still considered to be, in the melting-pot, and no one could be certain what II THE CHANGE OF RELIGION : 1559 9 would come out. If Elizabeth had contented herself with the French programme, and had joined France in pressing it, the other sovereigns, who really cared for nothing but uniformity, would probably have forced the Pope to compromise. The Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation might have been tolerated. The Anglican formulae have been held by many to be com- patible with a belief in the Eeal Presence. The formal severance of England from Catholic unity might thus have been postponed — possibly avoided — in the same sense that it has been avoided in France. After the completion of the Council of Trent (1562-3) it was too late. Two years after her accession Elizabeth told the Spanish ambassador, De Quadra, that her belief was the belief of all the Catholics in the realm; and on his asking her how then she could have altered religion in 1559, she said she had been compelled to act as she did, and that, if he knew how she had been driven to it, she was sure he would excuse her. Seven years later she made the same statement to De Silva. Elizabeth was habitually so regardless of truth that her assertions can be allowed little weight when they are improbable. No' doubt, as a matter of taste and feeling, she preferred the Catholic worship. She was not pious. She was not troubled with a tender con- science or tormented by a sense of sin. She did not care to cultivate close personal relations with her God. A religion of form and ceremony suited her better. But her training had been such as to free her from all superstitious fear or prejudice, and her religious con- victions were determined by her sense of what was 10 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. most reasonable and convenient. There is not the least evidence that she was a reluctant agent in the adoption of Protestantism in 1559. Who was there to coerce her ? The Protestants could not have set up a Protestant competitor. The great nobles, though opposed to persecution and desirous of minimising the Pope's authority, would have preferred to leave wor- ship as it was. But upon one thing Elizabeth was determined. She would resume the full ecclesiastical supremacy which her father had annexed to the Crown. She judged, and she probably judged rightly, that the only way to assure this was to make the breach with the old religion complete. If she had placed herself in the hands of moderate Catholics like Paget, possessed with the belief that she could only maintain herself by the protection of Philip, they would have advised her to be content with the practical authority over the English Church which many an English king had known how to exercise. That was not enough for her. She desired a position free from all ambiguity and possibility of dispute, not one which would have to be defended with constant vigilance and at the cost of incessant bickering. From the point of view of her foreign relations the moment might seem to be a dangerous one for carrying out a religious revolution, and many a statesman with a deserved reputation for prudence would have counselled delay. But this disadvantage was more than counterbalanced by the unpopularity which the cruelties and disasters of Mary's last three years had brought upon the most active Catholics. Again, Eliza- beth no doubt recognised that the Catholics, though II THE CHANGE OF RELIGION : 1559 U at present the strongest, were the declining party. The future was with the Protestants. It was the young men who had fixed their hopes upon her in her sister's time, and who were ready to rally round her now. By her natural disposition, and by her culture, she belonged to the Renaissance rather than to the Eeformation. But obscurantist as Calvinism essentially was, the Calvinists, as a minority struggling for free- dom to think and teach what they believed, represented for a time the cause of light and intellectual emancipa- tion. Was she to put herself at the head of reaction or progress ] She did not love the Calvinists. They were too much in earnest for her. Their narrow creed was as tainted with superstition as that of Rome, and, at bottom, was less humane, less favourable to progress. But whom else had she to work with i The reason- able, secular-minded, tolerant sceptics are not always the best fighting material ; and at that time they were few in number and tending — in England at least — to be ground out of existence between the upper and nether millstones of the rival fanaticisms. If she broke with Catholicism she would be sure of the ardent and unwavering support of one-third of the nation ; so sure, that she would have no need to take any further pains to please them. As for the remain- ing two-thirds, she hoped to conciliate most of them by posing as their protector against the persecution which would have been pleasing to Protestant bigots. In the policy of a complete breach with Rome, Cecil was disposed to go as far as the Queen, and further. Cecil was at this time thirty-eight. For forty years he continued to be the confidential and faithful servant 12 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. of Elizabeth. One of those new men whom the Tudors most trusted, he was first employed by Henry VIII. Under Edward he rose to be Secretary of State, and was a pronounced Protestant. On the fall of his patron Somerset he was for a short time sent to the Tower, but was soon in office again — sooner, some thought, than was quite decent — under his patron's old enemy, Northumberland. He signed the letters- patent by which the crown was conferred on Lady Jane Grey ; but took an early opportunity of going over to Mary. During her reign he conformed to the old religion, and, though not holding any office, was consulted on public business, and was one of the three commissioners who went to fetch Cardinal Pole to England. Thoroughly capable in business, one of those to whom power naturally falls because they know how to use it, a shrewd balancer of probabilities, without a particle of fanaticism in his composition and detesting it in others, though ready to make use of it to serve his ends, entirely believing that " what- e'er is best administered is best," Cecil nevertheless had his religious predilections, and they were all on the side of the Protestants. Moreover he had a personal motive which, by the nature of the case, was not present to the Queen. She might die prematurely ; and if that event should take place before the Pro- testant ascendancy was firmly established his power would be at an end, and his very life would be in danger. A time came when he and his party had so strengthened themselves, if not in absolute numerical superiority, yet by the hold they had established on all departments of Government from the highest to II THE CHANGE OP RELIGION : 1559 13 the lowest, that they were in a condition to resist a Catholic claimant to the throne, if need were, sword in hand. But during the early years of the reign Cecil was working with the rope round his neck. Hence he could not regard the progress of events with the imperturbable sang-froid, which Elizabeth always displayed ; and all his influence was employed to push the religious revolution through as rapidly and completely as possible. The story that Elizabeth was influenced in her attitude to Eome by an arrogant reply from Pope Paul IV. to her ofiicial notification of her accession, though refuted by Lingard and Hallam in their later editions, has been repeated by recent historians. Her accession was notified to every friendly sovereign except the Pope. He was studiously ignored from the first. Equally unsupported by facts are all at- tempts to show that during the early weeks of her reign she had not made up her mind as to the course she would take about religion. All preaching, it is true, was suspended by proclamation; and it was ordered that the established worship should go on "until consultation might be had in Parliament by the Queen and the three Estates." In the meantime she had herself crowned according to the ancient ritual by the Catholic Bishop of Carlisle. But this is only what might have been expected from a strong ruler who was not disposed to let important alterations be initiated by popular commotion or the presumptuous forwardness of individual clergymen. The impending change was quite sufficiently marked from the first by the removal of the most bigoted Catholics from the 14 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. Council and by the appointment of Cecil and Bacon to the offices of Secretary and of Lord Keeper. The new Parliament, Protestant candidates for which had been recommended by the Government, met as soon as possible (Jan. 25, 1559). When it rose (May 8th) the great change had been legally and decisively accomplished. The government, worship, and doctrine of the Estab- lished Church are the most abiding marks left by Elizabeth on the national life of England. Logically it might have been expected that the settlement of doctrine would precede that of government and worship. It is characteristic of a State Church that the inverse order should have been followed. For the Queen the most important question was Church government ; for the people, worship. Both these matters were disposed of with great promptitude at the beginning of 1559. Doctrine might interest the clergy ; but it could wait. The Thirty-nine Articles were not adopted by Convocation till 1563, and were not sanctioned by Parliament till 1571. The government of tlie Church was settled by the Act of Supremacy (April 1559). It revived the Act of Henry viii., except that the Queen was styled Supreme Governor of the Church instead of Supreme Head, although the nature of the supremacy was pre- cisely the same. The penalties were relaxed. Henry's oath of supremacy might be tendered to any subject, and to decline it v^as high treason ; Elizabeth's oath was to be obligatory only on persons holding spiritual or temporal office under the Crown, and the penalty for declining was the loss of such office. Those who n THE CHANGE OF RELIGION : 1559 15 chose to attack the supremacy were still liable to the penalties of treason on the third offence. Worship was settled ^vith equal expedition by the Act of Uniformity (April 1559), which imposed the second or more Protestant Prayer-book of Edward VL, but with a few very important alterations. A de- precation in the Litany of " the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities," and a rubric which declared that by kneeling at the Com- munion no adoration was intended to any real and essential presence of Christ, were expunged. The words of administration in the present communion service consist of two sentences. The first sentence, implying real presence, belonged to Edward's first Prayer-book ; the second, implying mere commemora- tion, belonged to his second Prayer-book. The Prayer- book of 1559 simply pieced the two together, with a view to satisfy both Catholics and Protestants. Lastly, the vestments prescribed in Edward's first Prayer-book were retained tiU further notice. These alterations of Edward's second Prayer-book, all of them designed to propitiate the Catholics, were dictated by Elizabeth herself. In all this legislation Convocation was entirely ignored. Both its houses showed themselves strongly Catholic. But their opinion was not asked, and no notice was taken of their remonstrances. While determining that England should have a purely national Church, and for that reason casting in her lot with the Protestants, Elizabeth, as we have seen, made very considerable sacrifices of logic and consistency in order to induce Catholics to conform. Like a strong and wise statesman, she did not allow 16 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. herself to be driven into one concession after another, but went at once as far as she intended to go. At the same time the coercion applied to the Catholics, while sufficient to influence the worldly-minded ma- jority, was, during the early part of her reign, very mild for those times. She wished no one to be molested who did not go out of his way to invite it. Outward conformity was all she wanted. And of this mere attendance at church was accepted as sufficient evidence. The principal difficulty, of course, was with the clergy. From them more than a mere passive conformity had to be exacted. To sign de- clarations, take oaths, and officiate in church was a severer strain on the conscience. It is said that less than 200 out of 9400 sacrificed their benefices rather than conform, and that of these about 100 were dig- nitaries. The number must be under-stated ; for the chief difficulty of tlie new bishops, for a long time, was to find clergymen for the parish churches. But we cannot doubt that the large majority of the parish clergy stuck to their livings, remaining Catholics at heart, and avoiding, where they could, and as long as they could, compliance with the new regulations. It must not be supposed that the enactment of religious changes by Parliament was equivalent, as it would be at the present day, to their immediate enforcement throughout the country ; especially in the north where the great proprietors and justices of the peace did not carry out the law. A certain number of the ejected priests continued to celebrate the ancient rites privately in the houses of the more earnest Catholics ; for which they were not unfrequently punished by imprisonment n THE CHANGE OF RELIGION : 1559 17 Of course this was persecution. But according to the ideas of that day it was a very mild kind of persecu- tion ; and where it occurred it seems to have been due to the zeal of some of the bishops, and to private busybodies who set the law in motion, rather than to any systematic action on the part of the Government. CHAPTEE III FOREIGN RELATIONS : 1559-1563 The successful wars waged by Edward ill. and Henry V. are apt to cause an exaggerated estimate of the strength of England under the Tudors. The population — Wales included — was probably not much more than four millions. That of France was perhaps four times as large, and the superiority in wealth was even greater.^ Before the reign of Louis XI., France, weakened by feudal disunion, had been an easy prey to her smaller but better-organised neighbour. The work of concentration effected by the greatest of French kings towards the close of the fifteenth century, and the simultaneous rise of the great Spanish empire, caused England to fall at once into the rank of a second-rate power. Such she really was under Henry VIII., notwithstanding the rather showy figure he managed to make by adhering alternately to Charles V. and Francis I. Under the bad government of Edward and Mary the fighting strength of England declined not only relatively, but absolutely, until in the last • Mr. Motley oonieotures that the population of Spain and Portugal may have been 12,000,000. IS Ill FOREIGN RELATIONS : 1559-1563 19 year of Mary it touched the lowest point in our history. Although we were at war with France, there were no soldiers, no ofiScers, no arms, no fortresses that could resist artillery, few ships, a heavy debt, and deep discouragement. The loss of Calais, which had been held for 200 years, was the simple and natural consequence of this prostration. Justice will not be done to the great recovery under Elizabeth unless we understand how low the country had sunk when she came to the throne. During the early years of her reign, it was the universal opinion at home and abroad that without Spanish protection she could not preserve her throne against a French invasion in the interests of Mary Stuart. Henry ii. meant that, by the marriage of the Dauphin Francis with Mary, the kingdoms of England and Scotland should be united to one another and eventually to France. Philip would thus lose the command of the sea route to the Netherlands, and the hereditary duel with the House of Austria would be decided. This scheme could not seem fantastic in a century which had seen such immense agglomerations of territory eflfected by political marriages. Philip, on the other hand, made sure that the danger from France must necessarily throw Elizabeth and England into his arms. Notwithstanding the warnings he received from his ambassador Feria that Elizabeth was a heretic, he felt certain that she would not venture to alter religion at the risk "of offending him. The only question with him was whether he should marry her himself or bestow her on some sure friend of his house. That she would refuse both himself 20 'lUEEN ELIZABETH chap. and his nominee was a contingency he never contem- plated. Elizabeth, from the first, made up her mind that the cards in her hand could be played to more ad- vantage than Philip supposed. England, no doubt, needed his protection for the present. But could he please himself about granting it? Her bold calcula- tion was that his own interests would compel him, in any case, to prevent the execution of the Stuart- Valois scheme, and that consequently she might settle religion without reference to his wishes. The offer of marriage came in January 1559. In his letter to Feria, Philip spoke as if Elizabeth would of course jump at it. After dwelling on its many inconveniences, he said he had decided to make the sacrifice on condition that Elizabeth would uphold the Catholic religion ; but she must not expect him to remain long with her; he would visit England occa^ sionally. Feria foolishly allowed this letter to be seen, and the contents were reported to Elizabeth. She was as much amused as piqued. Their ages were not unsuitable. Philip was thirty-two, and Elizabeth was twenty-five. But she was as fastidious about men as her father was about women ; and for no poli- tical consideration would she have tied herself to her ugly, disagreeable, little brother-in-law. After some fencing, she replied that she did not mean to marry, and that she was not afraid of France. Before the death of Mary, negotiations for a peace between France, Spain, and England had already be- gun. Calais was almost the only difficulty remaining to be settled. Our nountrymeir\ have never been able in FOREIGN EELiiTIONS : 1559-1563 21 to understand how their possession of a fortress within the natural boiindaries of another country can be dis- agreeable to its inhabitants. Elizabeth shared the national feeling, and she wanted Philip to insist on the restitution of Calais. He would have done so if she had pleased him as to other matters. Even as it was, the presence of a French garrison in Calais was so inconvenient to the master of the Netherlands that he was ready to fight on if England would do her part. But Elizabeth would only promise to fight Scotland — a very indirect and, indeed, useless way of supporting PhUip. When once this point was made clear, peace was soon concluded between the three powers at Cateau, near Cambray (March 1559); ap- pearances being saved by a stipulation that Calais should be restored in eight years, or half a million of crowns be forffeited. In thus giving way Elizabeth showed her good sense. To have fought on would have meant deeper debt, terrible exhaustion, and, what was worse, depen- dence on Philip. Moreover, Calais could only have been recovered by reducing France to helplessness, which would have been fatal to the balance of power on which Elizabeth relied to make herself independent of both her great neighbours. The peace of Cateau Cambresis was attended with a secret compact be- tween Philip IL and Henry II., that each monarch should suppress heresy in his own dominions and not encourage it in those of his neighbour. By the acces- sion of Elizabeth, and the Scotch Eeformation which immediately followed, Protestantism reached its high- water mark in Europe. The long wars of Charles v. 22 Q0EEN EJJZABETH chap. with France had enabled it to spread. Francis I. had intrigued with the Protestant princes of the Empire, and Charles had been obliged to humour them. Pro- testantism was victorious in Britain, Scandinavia, North Germany, the Palatinate, and Swabia. It had spread widely in Poland, Hungary, the Netherlands, and France. This rapid growth was now about to be checked. In some of these countries the new religion was destined to succumb ; in some entirely to dis- appear. Men who could remember the first preachings of Luther lived to see not only the high-water, but the ebb, of the Protestant tide. The revolutionary tendencies inherent in Protestantism began to alarm the sovereigns ; and all the more because the Church in Catholic, hardly less than in Protestant, countries was becoming a department of the State. Kings had been jealous of the spiritual power when it belonged to the Popes. They became jealous for it when it was annexed to the throne. Notwithstanding its secret stipulations, the peace of Citeau Cambresis relieved England from the most pressing and immediate perils by which she was threatened. Neither French nor Spanish troops had made their appearance on our soil. A breathing-time at least had been gained, during which something might be done towards putting the country in a state of defence, and restoring the finances. But the danger from France was by no means at an end. In the treaty with England, the title of Elizabeth had been acknowledged. But in that with Spain, the Dauphin had styled himself " King of Scot- land, England, and Ireland." He and Mary had also Ill FOREIGN RELATIONS : 1559-1563 23 assumed the English arms. If a French army invaded England, it would come by way of Scotland. The English Catholics, who had for the most part frankly accepted the succession of Elizabeth, were disappointed and irritated by the change of religion. If Mary should go to Scotland with a French force, it was to be apprehended that a rebellion would immediately break out in the northern counties. Philip, no doubt, would land in the south to drive out the Dauphiness. But the remedy would be worse than the disease. For he was deeply discontented with the conduct of Elizabeth, and would probably take the opportunity of deposing her. To establish, therefore, her inde- pendence of both her powerful neighbours, Elizabeth had to begin by destroying French influence in Scot- land. The wisest heads in Scotland had long seen the advantage of uniting their country to England by marriage. The blundering and bullying policy of the Protector Somerset had driven the Scotch to renew their ancient alliance with France. But the attempts of the Eegent Mary of Guise to increase French in- fluence, and to establish a small standing army, in order at once to strengthen her authority, and to serve the designs of Henry n. against England, had again made the French connection unpopular, and caused a corresponding revival of friendly feeling to- wards England. Nowhere was the Church so wealthy, relatively to the other estates, as in Scotland. It was supposed to possess half the property of the country. Nowhere were the clergy so immoral Nowhere was supersti- 24 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. tion so gross. But the doctrines of the Reformation were spreading among the common people, and in 1557 some of the nobles, hungering for the wealth of the Church, put themselves at the head of the Pro- testant movement. They were known as the " Lords of the Congregation." The Scotch Eeformation began not from the Govern- ment, as in England, but from the people. Hence, while change of supremacy was the main question in England, change of doctrine and worship took the lead in Scotland. The two parties were about equal in numbers, the Protestants being strongest in the Lowlands. But, with the exception of the murder of Beaton in 1546, there had, as yet, been no appeal to force, nor any attempt to procure a public change of religion. The accession of Elizabeth emboldened the Protestants. At Perth they took possession of the churches and burnt a monastery. On the other hand, after the peace of Citeau Cambresis, Henry ii. directed the Eegent to put down Protestantism, both in pur- suance of the agreement with Philip, and in order to prepare for the Franco-Scottish invasion of England. The result was that the Protestants rose in open re- bellion (June 1559). The Lords of the Congregation occupied Perth, Stirling, and Edinburgh. All over the Lowlands abbeys were wrecked, monks harried, churches cleared of images, the Mass abolished, and King Edward's service established in its place. In England the various changes of religion in the last thirty years had always been effected legally by King and Parliament. In Scotland the Catholic Church was overthrown by a simultaneous popular outbreak. Ill FOREIGN RELATIONS : 1559-1563 25 The catastrophe came later than in England; but popular feeling was more prepared for it; and what was now cast down was never set up again. It seemed at first as if the Eegent and her handful of regular troops, commanded by d'Oysel, would be swept away. But d'Oysel had fortified Leith, and was even able to take the field. A French army was .jjxpected. The tumultuary forces of the needy Scotch nobles could not be kept together long, and it became clear that, unless supported by Elizabeth, the rebellion would be crushed as soon as the French reinforcements should arrive, if not sooner. Thus early did Elizabeth find herself confronted by the Scottish difficulty, which was to cause her so much anxiety throughout the greater part of her reign. The problem, though varying in minor details, was always essentially the same. There was a Protestant faction looking for support to England, and a Catholic faction looking to France. Two or three of the Protestant leaders — Moray, Grlencairn, Kirkaldy — did really care something about a religious reformation. The rest thought more of getting hold of Church lands and pursuing old family feuds. In the experience of Elizabeth, they were a needy, greedy, treacherous crew, always sponging on her treasury, and giving her very little service in return for her money. Besides, the whole Scotch nation was so touchy in its patriotism, so jealous of foreign interference, that foreign soldiers present on its soil were sure to be regarded with an evil eye, no matter for what purpose they had come, or by whom they had been invited. The Lords of the Congregation invoked the pro- 26 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. tection of Elizabeth. They suggested that she should marry the Earl of Arran, and that he and she should be King and Queen of Great Britain. Arran was the eldest son of the Duke of Chatelherault, who, Mary being as yet childless, was heir-presumptive to the Scottish crown. There were many reasons why Eliza- beth should decline interference. It was throwing down the glove to France. Interference in Scotland, had always been disastrous. It might drive the Eng- lish Catholics to despair, as cutting off the hope of Mary's succession to the English crown. To make a Protestant match would irritate Philip. He might invade England to forestall the French. Almost all her Council — even Bacon — advised her to leave Scot- land alone, marry the Archduke Charles, and trust to the Spanish alliance for the defence of England. These were serious considerations ; and to them was to be joined another which with Elizabeth always had great weight — more, naturally, than it had with any of her advisers. She shrank from doing anything which might have the practical effect of weakening the common cause of monarchs. She felt instinctively that with Protestants reverence for the religious basis of kingship must tend to become weaker than with Catholics. She did not desire to encourage this ten- dency or to familiarise her own subjects with it. Knox's First Blast of the Trumpet against the Mon- strous Regimen of Women had been directed against Mary. The Blasts that were to follow had been dropped; but the first could not be treated as un- blown. And the arrogant preacher did not mend matters by writing to Elizabeth that she was to con- Ill FOREIGN RELATIONS : 1559-1563 27 sider her case as an exception "contrary to nature," allowed by God "for the comfort of His kirk," but that if she based her title on her birth or on law, " her felicity would be short." Nevertheless Elizabeth adopted the bolder course. The Lords of the Congregation were assured that Eng- land would not see them crushed by French arms. A small supply of money was sent to them. As to the marriage with Arran, no positive answer was given ; but he was sent for to be looked at. When he came, he was found to be even a poorer creature than his father ; at times, indeed, not quite right in his mind. It was hard upon the Hamiltons, among whom were so many able and daring men, that, with the crown almost in their grasp, their chiefs should be such in- capables. To Elizabeth it was no doubt a relief to find that Arran was an impossible husband. In the meantime 2000 French had arrived, and the Lords were urgent in their demands for help. But Elizabeth determined, and rightly, that they must do their own work if they could. She was willing to give them such pecuniary help as was necessary. But the demand for troops was unreasonable. Fighting men abounded in Scotland. Why should English troops be sent to do their fighting for them, with the certainty of earning black looks rather than thanks? If a large army was despatched from France, she would attack it with her fleet. If it lauded, she would send an English army. But if the Lords of the Congrega- tion did not beat the handful of Frenchmen at Leith it must be because they were either weak or treacher- ous. In either case Elizabeth might have to give up 28 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. the policy she preferred, leave Scotland alone, and fall back upon an alliance with Philip. In order therefore to preserve this second string to her bow, and to let the Scotch Anglophiles see that she possessed it, she reopened negotiations for the Austrian marriage. Charles, in his turn, was invited to come and be looked at. Much as she disliked the idea of marriage, she knew that political reasons might make it necessary. But, come what would, she would never marry a man who was not to her fancy as a man. She would take no one on the strength of his picture. She had heard that Charles was not over- wise, and that he had an extraordinarily big head, " bigger than the Earl of Bedford's." The Scotch Lords, finding that Elizabeth was de- termined to have some solid return for her money, went to work with more vigour. They proclaimed the deposition of the Regent, drove her from Edin- burgh, and besieged her and her French garrison in Leith. But this burst of energy was soon over. The Protestants were more ready to pull down images and harry monks than make campaigns. Leith was not to be taken. In three weeks their army dwindled away, and the little disciplined force of Frenchmen re-entered Edinburgh. The position had become very critical for Elizabeth. A French army of 15,000 men was daily expected at Leith. If once it landed, the Congregation would be crushed ; the Hamiltons would make their peace • and the disciplined army of d'Elboeuf, swelled by hordes of hungry Scotchmen, would pour over the Border, and proclaim Mary in the midst of the Catliolic popu- Hi FOREIGN RELATIONS : 1559-156o 29 lation which ten years later rose in rebellion under the northern Earls. In this difficulty the Spanish Ministers in the Netherlands were consulted. If Elizabeth expelled the garrison at Leith, and so brought upon herself a war with France, could she depend on Philip's assist- ance? The reply was menacing. Their master, for his own interest, could not allow the Queen of France and Scotland to enforce her title to the throne of England. But he would oppose it in his own way. If a French army entered England from the north, a Spanish army would land on the south coast. Turning to her own Council for advice, Elizabeth found no encouragement. They recommended her to take Philip's advice, and even to retrace some of her steps in the matter of religion in order to propitiate him. She made a personal appeal to the Duke of Norfolk to take the command of the forces on the Border. But he declined to be the instrument of a policy which he disapproved. "We need not wonder if Elizabeth hesitated for a while. Some of these councillors were not too well affected to her. But most of them were thoroughly loyal, and there was really much to be said for the more cautious policy. She herself was an eminently cautious politician, inclined by nature to shrink from risky courses. Never, therefore, in her whole career did she give greater proof of her large-minded com- prehension of the main lines of policy which it be- hoved her to foUow than when she determined to override the opinions of so many prudent advisers, and expel the French force from the northern kingdom. 30 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. England was not quite in the helpless, disabled position that it pleased the Spaniards to believe. Twelve months of careful and energetic administration had already done wonders. There had been wise economy and wise expenditure. Money had been scraped together, and, though there was still a heavy debt, the legacy of three wasteful reigns, the confidence of the Antwerp money-lenders had revived, and they were willing to advance considerable sums. A fleet had been equipped and manned ; shiploads of arms had been imported ; forces had been collected on the south coasts. The Border garrisons had been quietly raised in strength till they were able to furnish an expeditionary force at a moment's notice. The smallest energy on the part of the Congregation might have finished the war without the presence of an English force. Elizabeth had a right to be angry. The Scotch Protestants expected to have the hardest part of the work done for them, and to be paid for executing their own share of it. Lord James and a few of the leaders were in earnest, but others were selfish time-servers. As for the lower class, their Calvinism was still new. It had not yet bred that fierce spirit of independence which before long was to outweigh the force of nobles and gentry. But if the weakuess of the Anglophile party was disappointing, it had at all events shown that Elizabeth must depend upon herself to ward off danger on that side; and after some reasonable hesitation she decided to put through the work she had begun. It says much for the patriotism of Elizabeth's Coun- cil that when they found she had made up her mind Ill FOREIGN RELATIONS : 1659-1563 31 they did not stand sulkily aloof, but co-operated heartily and vigorously in carrying out the policy they had opposed. Norfolk himself accepted the command ol the Border army, and acted throughout the affair with fidelity and diligence. He was not a man distinguished by ability of any kind, and the actual fighting was to be done by Lord G-rey, a firm and experienced, though not brilliant, commander. But that the natural leader of the Conservative nobility should be seen at the head of Elizabeth's army was a useful lesson to traitors at home and enemies abroad, who were telling each other that her throne was insecure. An agreement between the English Queen and the Lords of the Congregation was drawn up (February 27), with scrupulous care to avoid the appearance of dictation and encroachment which had gathered all Scotland to Pinkie Cleugh eleven years before. It set forth that the English troops were entering Scotland for no other object than to assist the Duke of Chatel- herault, the heir-presumptive to the throne, and the other nobles, to drive out the foreign invaders. They would build no fortress. There was no intention to prejudice Mary's lawful authority. Cecil appears to have wanted to add something about "Christ's true religion ; " but Elizabeth struck it out. Circumstances might compel her to be the protector of foreign Protestants ; but neither then nor at any other time did she desire to pose in that character. A month later (March 28th) Lord Grey crossed the Border, and marched to Leith. The siege of that place proved to be tedious. The Lords of the Congregation gave very insuflScient assistance ; and, when an assault 32 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. had been repulsed with heavy loss, the citizens of Edinburgh would not receive the wounded into their houses. At last, when food was running short in the town, an envoy from France arrived with power to treat on behalf of the Queen of Scots. Her mother, the Eegent, had died during the siege. After much haggling a treaty was signed. No French troops were in future to be kept in Scotland. Offices of State were to be held only by natives. The government during Mary's absence was to be vested in a Council of twelve noblemen ; seven nominated by her and five by the Estates. Elizabeth's title to the kingdoms of England and Ireland was recognised (July 1560). Such was the Treaty of Edinburgh, or of Leith, as it is sometimes called, one o' the most successful achievements of a successful reign. It was gained by wise counsel and bold resolve ; and its fruits, though not completely fulfilling its promise, were solid and valuable. It was not ratified by Mary. But her non- ratification in the long-run injured no one but herself, besides putting her in the wrong, and giving Eliza- beth a standing excuse for treating her as an enemy. England was permanently free from the menace of a disciplined French army in the northern kingdom. Nothing was settled in the treaty about religion. But this was equivalent to a confirmation of the violent change that had recently taken place; in itself a guarantee of security to England. The moral effect of this success was even greater than its more tangible results. It had been very generally believed, at all events abroad, that Elizabeth was tottering on her throne ; that the large majority nt FOREIGN RELATIONS : 1659-1563 33 were on the point of rising to depose her; that, wriggle as she might, she would find she was a mere proUg4e of Philip, with no option but to follow his directions and square her policy to his. Whatever small basis of fact underlay this delusive estimate had been ridiculously exaggerated in the reports sent to Philip by his ambassador De Quadra, a man who evidently paid more attention to hole-and-corner tattle than to the broad forces of English politics. All these imaginings were now proved to be vain. Elizabeth had shown that she could protect herself by her own strength and in her own way. She had civUly ignored Philip's advice, or rather his injunctions. She had thrown down the glove to France, and France had not taken it up. She had placed in command of her armies the very man whom she was supposed to fear, and he had done her bidding, and done it well. England once more stood before Europe as an independent power, able to take care of itself, aid its friends, and annoy its enemies. It'is true that, as far as Elizabeth personally is con- cerned, her Scotch policy had not always in its execu- tion been as prompt and firm as could be desired. Those who follow it in greater detail than is possible here will find much in it that is irresolute and even vacillating. This defect appears throughout Elizabeth's career, though it will always be ignored, as it ought to be ignored, by those who reserve their attention for what is worth observing in the course of human affairs. In her intellectual grasp of European politics as a whole, and of the interests of her own kingdom, Eliza- beth was probably superior to any of her counsellors. 34 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. No one could better than she think out the general idea of a political campaign. But theoretical and practical qualifications are seldom, if ever, combined in equal excellence. Not only are the qualities them- selves naturally opposed, but the constant exercise of either increases the disparity. Her sex obliged Elizabeth to leave the large field of execution to others. Her practical gifts therefore, whatever they were, deteriorated rather than advanced as she grew older. In men, who every day and every hour of the day are engaged in action, the habit of prompt decision and persistence in a course once adopted, even if it be not quite the best, is naturally formed and strength- ened. It is a habit so valuable, so indispensable to continued success, that in practice it largely compen- sates for some inferiority in conception and design. Elizabeth's irresolution and vacillation were therefore a consequence of her position — that of an extremely able and well-informed woman called upon to conduct a government in which so much had to be decided by the sovereign at her own discretion. The abler she was, the more disposed to make her will felt, the less steadiness and consistency in action were to be expected from her. As the wife of a king, upon whom the final responsibility would have rested — her inferior per- haps in intellect and knowledge, but with the masculine habit of making up his mind once for all, and then steering a straight course — she would have been a wise and enlightened adviser, not afraid of consistently maintaining principles, when the time, mode, and degree of their application rested with another. As it was, Cecil and other able statesmen who served her HI FOREIGN RELATIONS : 1559-1563 35 had not only to take their general course of policy from their mistress — a wise course upon the whole, wiser sometimes than they would have selected for themselves — but they were embarrassed, in their loyal attempts to steer in the direction she had prescribed, by her nervous habit of catching at the rudder-lines whenever a new doubt occurred to her ingenious mind, or some private feeling of the woman perverted the clear insight of the sovereign. The rivalry between France and Spain had hitherto been the safety of England. Nothing but reasons of religion could bring those two powers to suspend their political quarrel. This danger seemed to be averted for the moment by the temporary ascendant of the Politiques after the death of Francis II. But the fanaticism of both Catholics and Huguenots was too bitter, and the nobles on both sides were too ambitious, to listen to the dictates of reason and patriotism. The immense majority of the nation, except in some districts of the south and south-west, was profoundly Catholic. The Huguenots, strongest amongst the aristocracy and the upper bourgeoisie, daring and intolerant like the Calvinists everywhere, had no sooner received some countenance from Catherine than they began to preach against the mass, to demand the spoliation of the Church, the suppression of monasteries, the destruc- tion of images, and the expulsion of the Guises. Where they were strong enough they began to carry out their programme. The Guises, on the other hand, forgetting the glory they had won in the wars against Spain, were soliciting the patronage of Philip, and urging him to put himself at the head of a crusade 36 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. against the heretics of all countries. To this appeal he replied by formally summoning Catherine to put down heresy in France. An accidential collision at Vassy, in which a number of Huguenots were slain, brought on the first of those wars of religion which were to desolate France for the next thirty years (March 1562). Both factions, equally dead to patriot- ism, opened their country to foreigners. The Guises called in the forces of Spain and the Pope. Cond6 applied to Elizabeth and the Protestant princes of Germany. It was necessary to give the Huguenots just so much help as would prevent them from being crushed. Aggressive in appearance, such interference was in reality legitimate self-defence. But unfortunately neither Elizabeth nor her Council had forgotten Calais, and they extorted from Cond6 the surrender of Havre as a pledge for its restoration. In the case of Scotland they had come, as we have seen, to recognise that to establish a permanent raw by holding fortified posts on the territory of another nation is poor statesman- ship. The possession of Calais was of little military value as against France. It is true that it would enable England to make sea communication between Spain and the Netherlands very insecure, and would thus give Philip a powerful motive for desiring to stand well with this country. But such a calculation had less weight with Englishmen at that moment than pure Jingoism — the longing to be again able to crow over their French enemy. The occupation of Havre (October 1562) gave to the Huguenot cause the minimum of assistance, and in f OREIGN RELATIONS : 1559-1563 37 brought upon it the maximum of odium. A hollow reconciliation was soon patched up between the rival factions (March 1563), and Elizabeth was summoned to evacuate Havre. She refused, loudly complaining of the Huguenots for deserting her. She " had come to the quiet possession of Havre without force or any other unlawful means, and she had good reason to keep it." Up to this time the fibtion of peace between the two nations had been maintained. It was now open war. It is only fair to Elizabeth to say that all her Council and the whole nation were even hotter than she was. The garrison of Havre, with their commander Warwick, were eager for the fray. They would " make the French cock cry Cuck," they would " spend the last drop of their blood before the French should fasten a foot in the town.'' The inhabitants were all expelled, and the siege began, Cond^ as well as the Catholics appearing in the Queen-mother's army. After a valiant defence the English, reduced to a handful of men by t3rphus, sailed away (July 28, 1563). Peace was concluded early in the next year (April 1564). Elizabeth did not repeat her mistake. Thenceforward to the end of her reign we shall find her carefully cultivating friendly relations with every ruler of France. CHAPTER IV ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 When Elizabeth mounted the throne, it was taken for granted that she was to marry, and marry with the least possible delay. This was expected of her, not merely because in the event of her dying without issue there would be a dispute whether the claim of Mary Stuart or that of Catherine Grey was to prevail, but for a more general reason. The rule of an unmarried woman, except provisionally during such short interval as might be necessary to provide her with a husband, was regarded as quite out of the question. It was the custom for the husbands of heiresses to step into the property of their wives and stand in the shoes, so to speak, of the last male proprietor, in order to perform those duties which could not be efficiently performed by a woman. Elizabeth's sister, while a subject, had no thought of marrying. But her accession was considered by herself and every one else to involve marriage. If the nobles of England could have foreseen that Eliza- beth would elude this obligation, she would probably never have been allowed to mount the throne. Her mar- riage was thought to be as much a matter of course, and as necessary, as her coronation. 3« IV ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 39 Accordingly the House of Commons, which met a month after her accession, immediately requested her to select a husband without delay. Her declaration that she had no desire to change her state was supposed to indicate only the real or affected coyness to be expected from a young lady. There was no lack of suitors, foreign or English. The Archduke Charles, son of the Emperor and cousin of Philip, would have been welcomed by all Catholics and acquiesced in by political Protestants like Cecil. The ardent Protes- tants were eager for Arran, and Cecil, till he saw it was useless, worked his best for him, regardless of the personal sacrifice his mistress must make in wedding a man who was not always quite sane and eventually became a confirmed lunatic. Not many months of the new reign had passed before it began to be suspected that Elizabeth's par- tiality for Lord Eobert Dudley had something to do with her evident distaste for all her suitors. To her Ministers and the public this partiality for a married man became a cause of great disquietude. They not unnaturally feared that with a young woman who had no relations to advise and keep watch over her, it might lead to some disastrous scandal incompatible with her continuance on the throne. Marriage with Dudley at this time was out of the question. But within four months of her accession, the Spanish ambassador mentions a report that Dudley's wife had a cancer, and that the Queen was only waiting for her death to marry him. About the humble extraction of Elizabeth's favourite much nonsense was talked in his lifetime by his ill- 40 QUEEN ELiIZABETH chap. wishers, and has been duly repeated since. He was as well born as most of the peerage of that time ; very few of whom could show nobility of any antiquity in the male line. The Duke of Norfolk being the only Duke at Elizabeth's accession, and in possession of an ancient title, was looked on as the head of his order. Yet it was only seventy-five years since a Howard had first reached the peerage in consequence of having had the good fortune to marry the heiress of the Mowbrays. Edmund Dudley, Minister of Henry VII. and father of Northumberland, was grandson of John, fourth Lord Dudley; and Northumberland, by his mother's side, was sole heir and representative of the ancient barony of De L'Isle, which title he bore before he received his earldom and dukedom. In point of wealth and in- fluence, indeed, the favourite might be called an upstart. The younger son of an attainted father, he had not an acre of land or a farthing of money which he did not owe either to his wife or to the generosity of Elizabeth. This it was that moved the sneers and ill-will of a people with whom nobility has always been a composite idea implying, not only birth and title, but territorial wealth. Moreover his grandfather, though of good extraction, was a simple esquire, and had risen by helping Henry vii, to trample on the old nobility. After his fall his son had climbed to power under Henry viii. and Edward VI. in the same way. Lord Robert Dudley, again, had to begin at the bottom of the ladder. No one will claim for Elizabeth's favourite that he was a man of distinguished ability or high character. He had a fine figure and a handsome face. He bore IV ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 41 himself well in manly exercises. His manners were attractive when he wished to please. To these qualities he first owed his favour with Elizabeth, who was never at any pains to conceal her liking for good-looking men and her dislike of ugly ones. Finding himself in favour, and inheriting to the full the pushing audacity of his father and grandfather, he professed for the Queen a love which he certainly did not feel, in order to serve his soaring ambition. Elizabeth, it is my firm conviction, never loved Dudley or any other man, in any sense of the word, high or low. She had neither a tender heart nor a sensual temperament. But she had a more than feminine appetite for admiration; and the more she was, unhappily for herself, a stranger to the emotion of love, the more restlessly did she desire to be thought capable of inspiring it. She was therefore easily taken in by Dudley's professions, and, though she did not care for him enough to marry him, she liked to have him as well as several other handsome men, dangling about her, "like her lap-dog," to use her own expression. Further she believed — and here came in the mischief — that his devotion to her person would make him a specially faithful servant. We know, though Elizabeth did not, that in 1561, Dudley was promising the Spanish ambassador to be Philip's humble vassal, and to do his best for Catholi- cism, if Philip would promote his marriage with the Queen; that, in the same year, he was oflfering his services to the French Huguenots for the same con- sideration ; that at one time he posed as the protector of the Puritans, while at another he was intriguing with the captive Queen of Scots ; whom, again, later 42 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. on, he had a chief share in bringing to the block. But we must remember that very few statesmen, English or foreign, in the sixteenth century could have shown a re- cord free from similar blots. Those who, like Elizabeth and Cecil, were undeniably actuated on the whole by public spirit, or by any principle more respectable than pure selfishness, never hesitated to lie or play a double game when it seemed to serve their turn. William of Orange is the only eminent statesman, as far as I know, against whom this charge cannot be made. When this was the standard of honour for consistent politicians and real patriots, what was to be expected of lower natures? Dudley's conduct on several occasions was bad and contemptible ; and he must be judged with the more severity, because he sinned not only against the code of duty binding on the ordinary man and citizen, but against his professions of a tender senti- ment by means of which he had acquired his special influence. I have said that he was not a man of great ability. But neither was he the empty-headed incapable trifler that some writers have depicted him. He was not so judged by his contemporaries. That Elizabeth, because she liked him, would have selected a man of notorious incapacity to command her armies, both in the Netherlands and when the Armada was expected, is one of those hypotheses that do not become more credible by being often repeated. Cecil himself, when it was not a question of the marriage — of which he was a determined opponent — regarded him as a useful servant of the Queen. I do not doubt that Elizabeth estimated his capacity at about its ri^ht value. What she over-estimated was his affection for IV ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 43 herself, and consequently his trustworthiness. Sove- reigns — and others — often place a near relative in an important post, not as being the most capable person they know, but as most likely to be true to them. Elizabeth had no near relatives. If we grant — as we must grant — that she believed in Dudley's love, we cannot wonder that she employed him in positions of trust. A female ruler will always be liable to make these mistakes, unless her Ministers and captains are to be of her own sex. On the 3rd of September 1560, two months after the Treaty of Leith, Elizabeth told De Quadra that she had made up her mind to marry the Archduke Charles. On the 8th, Lady Eobert Dudley died at Cumnor Hall. On the 11th, Elizabeth told De Quadra that she had changed her mind. Dudley neglected his wife, and never brought her to court. We cannot doubt that he fretted under a tie which stood in the way of his ambition. Her death had been predicted. It is not strange, therefore, that he should have been suspected of having caused it. Nevertheless, not a particle of evidence pointing in that direction has ever been produced, and it seems most probable that the poor deserted creature committed suicide. A coroner's jury investigated the case dUigently, and, it would seem, with some animus against Foster, the owner of Cumnor Hall, but returned a verdict of accidental death. Anyhow, Dudley was now free. The Scotch Estates were eagerly pressing Arran's suit, and the English Protestants were as eagerly backing them. The op- portunity was certainly unique. Though nothing was said about deposing Mary, yet nothing could be more 44 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. certain than that, if this marriage took place, the Queen of France would never reign in Scotland. At her wits' end how to escape a match so desirable for the Queen, so repulsive to the woman, Elizabeth had announced her willingness to espouse the Archduke in order to gain a short breathing-time. Vienna was at least further than Edinburgh, and difficulties were sure to arise when details began to be discussed. At this moment, by the sudden death of his wife, Dudley became marriageable. If Elizabeth had been free to marry or not, as she pleased, it seems to me in the highest degree improbable that she would ever have thought of taking Dudley. But believing that a hus- band was inevitable, and expecting that she would be forced to take some one who was either unknown to her or positively distasteful, it was most natural that she should ask herself whether it was not the least of evils to put this cruel persecution to an end by choosing a man whom at least she admired and liked, who loved her, as she thought, for her own sake, and would be as obedient " as her lap-dog." When nations are ruled by women, and marriageable women, feelings and motives which belong to the sphere of private life, and should be confined to it, are apt to invade the domain of politics. If Elizabeth's subjects expected their sovereign to suppress all personal feelings in choosing a consort, they ought to have established the Salic law. No woman, queen or not queen, can be expected voluntarily to make such a sacrifice. Her happiness is too deeply involved. In the autumn, then, of 1660, when Elizabeth had been not quite two years on the throne, she seriously rv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 46 thought of marrying Dudley. It is difficult to say how long she continued to think of it seriously. With him, as with other suitors, she went on coquetting when she had perfectly made up her mind that nothing was to come of it. Perhaps we shall be right in say- ing that, as long as there was any question of the Archduke Charles, she looked to Dudley as a possible refuge. This would be till about the beginning of 1568. It seems to be always assumed, as a matter of course, that Cecil played the part of Elizabeth's good genius in persistently dissuading her from marrying Dudley. I am not so sure of this. If she had been a wife and a mother many of her difficulties would have at once disappeared, and the weakest points in her character would have no longer been brought out. It ended in her not marrying at alL I am inclined to think that another enemy of Dudley, the Earl of Sussex, showed more good sense and truer patriotism when he wrote in October 1560 : — "I wish not her Majesty to linger this matter of so great importance, but to choose speedily; and therein to follow so much her own affection as [that], by the looking upon him whom she should choose, omnes ejus sensus titillarentur ; which shall be the readiest way, with the-help of God, to bring us a blessed prince which shall redeem us out of thraldom. If I knew that England had other rightful inheritors I would then advise otherwise, and seek to serve the time by a husband's choice [seek for an advantageous political alliance]. But seeing that she is vltimwm refugium, and that no riches, friendship, foreign alliance, or any other present commodity that might come by a husband, can serve our turn, without issue of her body, if the Queen will love anybody, let her love where and whom she lists, so much thirst I to see her love. . And whom- soever she shall love and choose, him wiU I love, honour, and serve to the uttermost. " 46 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. Perhaps I may be excused for expressing the opinion that the ideal husband for Elizabeth, if it had been possible, would have been Lord James Stuart, after- wards Earl of Moray. Of sufficient capacity, kindly heart, undaunted resolution, and unswerving rectitude of purpose, he would have supplied just those ele- ments that were wanting to correct her defects. King of Scotland he perhaps could not be. Eegent of Scotland he did become. If he could, at the same time, have been Elizabeth's husband, the two crowns might have, in the next generation, been worn by a Stuart of a nobler stock than the son of Mary and Darnley. When Mary Stuart, on the death of her husband Francis II., returned to her own kingdom (August 1561), she found the Scotch nobles sore at the re- jection of Arran's suit. Bent on giving a sovereign to England, in one way or another, they were now ready, Protestants as well as Catholics, to back Mary's demand that she should be recognised as Elizabeth's heir-presumptive. To this the English Queen could not consent, for the very sufficient reason, that not only would the Catholic party be encouraged to hold together and give trouble, but the more bigoted and desperate members of it would certainly attempt her life, lest she should disappoint Mary's hopes by marry- ing. " She was not so foolish," she said, " as to hang a winding-sheet before her eyes or make a funeral feast whilst she was alive," but she promised that she would neither do anything nor allow anything to be done by Parliament to prejudice Mary's title. To this undertaking she adhered long after Mary's hostile IV ELIZABETH AND MARY STUAKT: 1559-1568 47 conduct had given ample justification for treating her as an enemy. Openly Mary was claiming nothing but the succes- sion. In reality she cared little for a prospect so remote and uncertain. What she was scheming for was to hurl Elizabeth from her throne. This was an object for which she never ceased to work till her head was off her shoulders. Her aims were more sharply defined than those of Elizabeth, and she was remark- ably free from that indecision which too often marred the action of the English Queen. In ability and in- formation she was not at all inferior to Elizabeth ; in promptitude and energy she was her superior. These masculine qualities might have given her the victory in the bitter duel, but that, in the all-important do- main of feeling, her sex indomitably asserted itself, and weighted her too heavily to match the superb self- control of Elizabeth. She could love and she could hate ; Elizabeth had only likes and dislikes, and therefore played the cooler game. When Mary really loved, which was only once, all selfish calculations were flung to the winds ; she was ready to sacrifice everything, and not count the cost — body and soul, crown and life, interest and honour. When she hated, which was often, rancour was apt to get the better of prudence. And so at the fatal turning-point of her career, when mad hate and madder love possessed her soul, she went down before her great rival never to rise again. Here was a woman indeed. And if, for that reason, she lost the battle in life, for that reason too she still disputes it from the tomb. She has always had, and always will have, the ardent sympathy 48 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. of a host of champions, to whom the "fair vestal throned by the west " is a mere politician, sexless, cold- blooded, and repulsive. In 1564 Mary, as yet fancy-free, was seeking to match herself on purely political grounds. She was not so fastidious as Elizabeth, for she does not seem to have troubled herself at all about personal qualities, if a match seemed otherwise eligible. The Hamiltons pressed Arran upon her. But he was a Protestant. He was not heir to any throne but that of Scotland ; and, though a powerful family in Scotland, the HamU- tons could give her no help elsewhere. Philip, who, now that the Guises had become his proUgis, was less jealous of her designs, wished her to marry his cousin, the Archduke Charles of Austria. But this prince, whom Elizabeth professed to fiad too much of a Catholic, was, in the eyes of Mary and her more bigoted co-religionists, too nearly a Lutheran ; and she doubted whether Philip cared enough for him to risk a war for establishing him and herself upon the Eng- lish throne. For this reason the husband on whom she had set her heart was Don Carlos, Philip's own son, a sort of wild beast. But Philip received her overtures doubtfully ; the fact being that he could not trust Don Carlos, whom he eventually put to death. Catherine de' Medici loved Mary as little as she did the other Guises, but the prospect of the Spanish match filled her with such terror that she proposed to make the Scottish Queen her daughter-in-law a second time by a marriage with Charles IX., a lad under thirteen, if she would wait two years for him. On the other hand, Elizabeth impressed upon Mary IV ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 49 that, unless she married a member of some Eeformed Church, the English Parliament would certainly de- mand that her title to the succession, whatever it was, should be declared invalid. The House of Commons was strongly Protestant, and had with difficulty been prevented from addressing the Queen in favour of the succession of Lady Catherine Grey. Apart from re- ligion there was deep irritation against the whole Scotch nation. Sir Ralph Sadler, who had been much employed in Scotland, denounced them as " false, beg- garly, and perjured, whom the very stones in the English streets would rise against." When Elizabeth was dangerously ill in October 1562, the Council dis- cussed whom they should proclaim in the event of her death. Some were for the will of Henry VIII. and Catherine Grey. Others, sick of female rulers, were for taking the Earl of Huntingdon, a descendant of the Duke of Clarence. None were for Mary or Darnley. Mary's chief friends — Montagu, Northumberland, West- moreland, and Derby — were not on the Council. Parliament and the Council being against her, Mary could not afford to quarrel with the Queen. Elizabeth told her that she would regard a marriage with any Spanish, Austrian, or French prince as a declaration of war. Help from those quarters was far away, and at the mercy of winds and waves : the Border for- tresses were near, and their garrisons always ready to march. Besides, whichever of the two she might obtain — Charles IX. or the Archduke — she drove the other into the arms of Elizabeth. But there was another possible husband who had crossed her mind from time to time; not a prince D 60 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. indeed, yet of royal extraction in the female line, and, what was more, not without pretensions to that very succession which she coveted. Henry Lord Damley, son of Matthew Stuart, Earl of Lennox, was, by his father's side, of the royal family of Scotland, while his mother was the daughter of Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry viii., by her second husband, the Earl of Angus. Born and brought up in England, where his father had been long an exile, he was reckoned as an Englishman, which, in the opinion of many lawyers, was essential as a qualification for the crown. He was also a Catholic, and if Elizabeth had died at this time, it was perhaps Darnley, rather than Mary, whom the Catholics would have tried to place on the throne. Elizabeth had promised that, if Mary would marry an English nobleman, she would do her best to get Mary's title recognised by Parliament. To Elizabeth, therefore, Mary now turned, with the request that she would point out such a nobleman, not without a hope that she would name Darnley (March 1564). But, to Mary's mortification, she formally recommended Lord Robert Dudley. This recommendation has often been treated as if it was a sorry joke perpetrated by Elizabeth, who had never any intention of furthering, or even permitting, such a match. But nothing is more certain than that Elizabeth was most anxious to bring it about; and it affords a decisive proof that her feeling for Dudley, whatever name she herself may have put to it, was not what is usually called love. Cecil and all her most intimate advisers entertained no doubt that she was sincere. She undertook, if Mary would accept IV ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 SI Dudley, to make him a duke ; and, in the meantime, she created him Earl of Leicester. She regarded him, so she told Mary's envoy Melville, as her brother and her friend ; if he was Mary's husband she would have no suspicion or fear of any usurpation before her death, being assured that he was so loving and trusty that he would never permit anything to be attempted during her time. " But," she said, pointing to Darnley, who was present, " you like better yonder long lad." Her suspicion was correct. Melville had secret in- structions to procure permission for Darnley to go to Scotland. However, he answered discreetly that " no woman of spirit could choose such an one who more resembled a woman than a man.'' How was Elizabeth to be persuaded to let Darnley leave England ? There was only one way to disarm suspicion : Mary declared herself ready to marry Leices- ter (January 1565). Darnley immediately obtained leave of absence for three months ostensibly to recover the forfeited Lennox property. In Scotland the pur- pose of his coming was not mistaken, and it roused the Protestants to fury. The Queen's chapel, the only place in the Lowlands where mass was said, was beset. Her priests were mobbed and maltreated. Moray, who till lately had supported his sister with such loyalty and energy that Knox had quarrelled with him, prepared, with the other Lords of the Congrega- tion, for resistance. Elizabeth, and Cecil also, had been completely overreached. A prudent player some- times gets into difficulties by attributing equal pru- dence to a daring and reckless antagonist. Elizabeth, as a patriotic ruler, desired nothing but peace and 52 QUEEN ELIZABETH ohap. security for her own kingdom. If she could have that, she had no wish to meddle with Scotland. Mary, caring nothing for the interests of her subjects, was facing civil war with a light heart; and, for the chance of obtaining the more brilliant throne, was ready to risk her own. Undeterred by Elizabeth's threats, Mary married Darnley (July 29, 1565). Moray and Argyll, having obtained a promise of assistance from England, took arms ; but most of the Lords of the Congregation showed themselves even more powerless or perfidious than they had been five years before. Morton, Ruth- ven, and Lindsay, stoutest of Protestants, were related to Darnley, and were gratified by the elevation of their kinsman. Moray failed to elicit a spark of spirit out of the priest-baiting citizens of Edinburgh, and the Queen, riding steel cap on head and pistols at saddle-bow, chased him into England. Lord Bed- ford, who was in command at Berwick, could have stepped across the Border and scattered her undis- ciplined array without difficulty. He implored Elizar beth to let him do it ; ofiered to do it on his own responsibility, and be disavowed. But he found, to his mortification, that she had been playing a game of brag. She had hoped that a threatening attitude would stop the marriage. But as it was an accom- plished fact she was not going to draw the sword. This was shabby treatment of Moray and his friends, and to some of her councillors it seemed not only shameful but dangerous to show the white feather. But judging from the course of events, Elizabeth's policy was the safe one. The English IV ELIZABETH AND MAR Y STUART: 1559-1568 53 Catholics — some of them at all events, as will be explained presently — were becoming more discontented and dangerous. The northern earls were known to be disaffected. Mary believed that in every country in England the Catholics had their organisation and their leaders, and that, if she chose, she could march to London. No doubt she was much deceived. In reluctance to resort to violence and respect for con- stituted authority, England, even north of the Humber, was at least two centuries ahead of Scotland, and, if she had come attended by a horde of savage High- landers and Border rufiBans, " the very stones in the streets would have risen against them." It was Elizabeth's rule — and a very good rule too — never to engage in a war if she could avoid it. From this rule she could not be drawn to swerve either by passion or ambition, or that most fertile source of fighting, a regard for honour. All the old objec- tions to an invasion of Scotland still subsisted in full strength, and were reinforced by others. It was better to wait for an attack which might never come than go half-way to meet it. An invasion of Scotland nught drive the northern earls to declare for Mary, which, unless compelled to choose sides, they might never do. Some people are more perturbed by the expectation and uncertainty of danger than by its declared presence. Not so Elizabeth. Smouldering treason she could take coolly as long as it only smouldered. As for the betrayal of the Scotch refugees, Elizabeth never allowed the private interests of her own subjects, much less those of foreigners, to weigh against the interests of England. Moray 54 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. one of the most magnanimous and self-sacrificing of statesmen, evidently felt that Elizabeth's course waa ■wise, if not exactly chivalrous. He submitted to her public rebuke without publicly contradicting her, and waited patiently in exile till it should be convenient for her to help him and his cause. Mary, too, though elated by her success, and never abandoning her in- tention to push it further, found it best to halt for a while. Philip wrote to her that he would help her secretly with money if Elizabeth attacked her, but not otherwise, and warned her against any pre- mature clutch at the English crown. Elizabeth's seeming tameness could hardly have received a more complete justification. Mary had determined to espouse Darnley, before she had set eyes on him, for purely political reasons. There is no reason to suppose she ever cared for him. It is more likely, as Mr. Froude suggests, that for a great political purpose she was doing an act which in itself she loathed. A woman of twenty-two, already a widow, mature beyond her years, exceptionally able, absorbed in the great game of politics, and accustomed to admiration, was not likely to care for a raw lad of nineteen, foolish, ignorant, ill-conditioned, vicious, and without a single manly quality. One man we know she did love later on — loved passionately and devotedly, no slim girl-faced youngster, but the fierce, stout-limbed, dare-devil Bothwell ; and Bothwell gradually made his way to her heart by his readiness to undertake every desperate service she required of him. What Mary admired, nay envied, in the other sex was the stout heart and the strong arm. She loved herself to rough IV ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 55 it on the war-path. She surprised Bandolph by her spirit : — " Never thought I that stomach to be in her that I find. She repented nothing but, when the Lords and others came in the morning from the watches, that she was not a man, to know what life it was to lie all night in the fields or to walk upon the causeway with a jack and a knapscap, a Glasgow buckler and a, broadsword." "She desires much," says KnoUys, "to hear of hardiness and valiancy, commending by name all approved hardy men of her country, although they be her enemies ; and she con- cealeth no cowardice even in her friends.'' Valuable to Mary as a man of action, Bothwell was not worth much as an adviser. For advice she looked to the Italian Eizzio, in whom she confided because, with the detachment of a foreigner, he regarded Scotch ambitions, animosities, and intrigues only as so much material to be utilised for the purpose of the combined onslaught on Protestantism which the Pope was trying to organise. Bothwell was at this time thirty, and Eizzio, according to Lesley, fifty. In spite of all the prurient suggestions of writers who have fastened on the story of Mary's life as on a savoury morsel, there is no reason whatever for think- ing that she was a woman of a licentious disposition, and there is strong evidence to the contrary. There was uever anything to her discredit in France. Her .behaviour in the aifair of Ohastelard was irreproach- able. The charge of adultery with Eizzio is dismissed as unworthy of belief even by Mr. Froude, the severest of her judges. Bothwell indeed she loved, and, like many another woman who does not deserve to be 56 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. called licentious, she sacrificed her reputation to the man she loved. But the most conclusive proof that she was no slave to appetite is afforded by her nine- teen years' residence in England, which began when she was only twenty-five. During almost the whole of that time she was mixing freely in the society of the other sex, with the fullest opportunity for mis- conduct had she been so inclined. It is not to be supposed that she was fettered by any scruples of religion or morality. Yet no charge of unchastity is made against her. When Darnley found that his wife, though she conferred on him the title of King, did not procure for him the crown matrimonial or allow him the smallest authority, he gave free vent to his anger. No less angry were his kinsmen, Morton, Ruthven, and Lindsay. They had deserted the Congregation in the expectation that when Darnley was King they would be all-powerful. Instead of this they found themselves neglected; while the Queen's confidence was given to Catholics and to Bothwell, who, though nominally a Protestant, always acted with the Catho- lics. The Protestant seceders had in fact fallen between two stools. It was against Rizzio that their rage burnt fiercest. Bothwell was only a bull-headed, blundering swordsman. Rizzio was doubly detestable to them as the brain of the Queen's clique and as a low-born foreigner. Rizzio, therefore, they deter- mined to remove in the time-honoured Scottish fashion. Notice of the day fixed for the murder was sent to the banished noblemen in England, so that they might appear in Edinburgh immediately it was accomplished IV ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 57 Eandolph, the English ambassador, and Bedford, who commanded on the Border, were also taken into the secret, and they communicated it to Cecil and Leicester. It is unnecessary here to repeat the well-known story of the murder of Eizzio. It was part of a large scheme for bringing back the exiled Protestant lords, closing the split in the Protestant party, and securing the ascendancy of the Protestant religion. At first it appeared to have succeeded. Bedford wrote to Cecil that " everything would now go well." But Mary, by simulating a return of wifely fondness, managed to detach her weak husband from his confederates. By his aid she escaped from their hands. Bothwell and her Catholic friends gathered round her in arms. In a few days she re-entered Edinburgh in triumph, and Eizzio's murderers had to take refuge in England. But if the Protestant stroke had failed, Mary was obliged to recognise that her plan for re-establishing the Catholic ascendancy in Scotland could not be rushed in the high-handed way she had proposed as a mere preliminary to the more important subjugation of England. At the very moment when she seemed to stand victorious over all opposition, the ground had yawned under her feet, and, while she was dreaming of dethroning Elizabeth, she had found herself a helpless captive in the hands of her own subjects. The lesson was a valuable one, and if she could profit by it her prospects had never been so good. The barbarous outrage of which, in the sixth month of pregnancy, she had been the object could not but arouse wide- spread sympathy for her. She had extricated herself from her difliculties with splendid courage and clever- 58 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap, ness. The loss of such an adviser as Eizzio was reallj a stroke of luck for her. All she had to do wa?/ to abandon, or at all events postpone, her design of re- establishing the Catholic religion in Scotland, and to discontinue her intrigues against Elizabeth. Her prospects in England were still further improved when she gave birth to a son (June 19, 1566). Once more there was an heir-male to the old royal line, and, as Elizabeth continued to evade marriage, most people who were not fierce Protestants began to think it would be more reasonable and safe to abide by the rule of primogeniture than by the will of Henry VIII., sanctioned though it was by Act of Parliament. There can be no doubt that this was the opinion and intention of Elizabeth, though she strongly objected to having anything settled during her own lifetime. But she had herself gone a long way towards settling it by her treatment of Mary's only serious competitor. Catherine Grey had contracted a secret marriage with the Earl of Hertford, son of the Protector Somerset. Her pregnancy necessitated an avowal. The clergyman who had married them was not forthcoming, and Hertford's sister, the only witness, was dead. Eliza- beth chose to disbelieve their story, though she would not have been able to prove when, where, or by whom her own father and mother had been married. She had a right to be angry; but when she sent the unhappy couple to the Tower, and caused her tool. Archbishop Parker, to pronounce the union invalid and its ofTspring illegitimate, she was playing Mary's game. The House of Commons elected in 1663 was still undissolved. It was strongly Protestant, and it IV ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 59 favoured Catherine's title even after her disgrace. In its second session, in the autumn of 1566, it made a determined effort to compel Elizabeth to marry, and in the meanwhile to recognise Catherine as the heir- presumptive. The zealous Protestants knew well that the Peers were in favour of the Stuart title, and they feared that a new House of Commons might agree with the Peers. To get rid of their pertinacity Elizabeth dissolved Parliament, not without strong expressions of displeasure (Jan. 2, 1567). Cecil him- self earned the thanks of Mary for his attitude on this occasion. It cannot be doubted that he dreaded her succession ; but he saw which way the tide was running, and he thought it prudent to swim with it. It was at this moment that Mary flung away all her advantage, and entered on the fatal course which led to her ruin. Her loathing for Darnley, her fierce desire to avenge on him the insults and outrage she had suffered, left no room in heart or mind for considera- tions of policy. She would have been glad to obtain a divorce. But the^ Catholic Church does not grant divorce for miscondiict after marriage. Some pretext must be found for alleging that the marriage was null from the beginning. I This did not suit Mary. It would have made her son illegitimate, and would have placed her in exactly the position of Catherine Grey. A mere separation a toro would not have suited her any better, for it would not have enabled her to contract another marriage. When Mary's reliance on Bothwell grew into attach- ment, when her attachment warmed into love, it is impossible to fix with any exactness. Her infatuation 60 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. presented itself to him as a grand opening for his daring ambition. A notorious profligate, he loved her — if the word is to be so degraded — as much or as little as he had loved twenty other women. What, however, he desired in her case, was marriage. A more sensible man would have foreseen that marriage would mean certain ruin for himself and the Queen. But he was accustomed to despise all difficulties in his path, being intellectually incapable of measuring them, and believing in nothing but audacity and brute force. Husband of the Queen, why should he not be master of the kingdom 1 Why not King ? Wheii such an idea had once occurred to Bothwell, Darnley's expectancy of life would be much the same as that of a calf in the presence of the butcher. The wretched victim had alienated all his friends among the nobility. Some owed him a deadly grudge for his treachery. Others had been offended by his insolence. To all he was an encumbrance and a nuisance. Several, therefore, of the leading personages were more or less engaged in the compact for putting him out of the way. Moray, Argyll, and Maitland ofiered to assist in ridding Mary of her husband by way of a Protestant sentence of divorce, on condition that Morton and his friends in exile should be pardoned and recalled. The bargain was struck, and Mary assented to it. Nothing was said about murder. No one had any interest in murder except Mary and Bothwell, whose project of marriage was as yet unsuspected. At the same time, if Bothwell liked to kill Damley on his own responsibility, as no doubt he made it pretty plain that he would — why, so IV ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 61 much the better. It relieved the other lords of aU trouble. It was a simple, thorough, old-fashioned expedient, which had never been attended with any discredit in Scotland, and had only one inconvenience — that it usually saddled the murderer with a blood feud. In the present case Lennox was the only peer who would feel the least aggrieved ; and he was in no condition to wage blood-feuds. Anyhow, that was Bothwell's look-out. So obvious was all this that it was hardly worth while to observe secrecy except as to the exact occasion and mode of execution. Many persons were more or less aware of what was going to be done ; but none cared to interfere. Moray was an honourable and conscientious man, if judged by the standard of his environment — the only fair way of estimating char- acter. But Moray chose to leave Edinburgh the morning before the deed; and thought it sufficient to be able to say afterwards that " if any man said he was present when purposes [talk] were held in his audience tending to any unlawful or dishonourable end, he spoke wickedly and untruly." The inner circle of the plot consisted of Bothwell, Argyll, Huntly, Maitland, and Sir James Balfour. ■■•'.That Darnley was murdered by Bothwell is not disputed. That Mary was cognisant of the plot, and lured him to the shambles, has been doubted by few investigators at once competent and unbiassed. She lent herself to this part not without compunction. Bothwell bad the advantage over her that the loved has over the lover ; and he used it mercilessly for his headlong ambition, hardly taking the trouble to pre- 62 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. tend that he cared for the unhappy woman who was sacrificing everything for him. He in fact cared more for his lawful wife, whom he was preparing to divorce, and to whom he had been married only six months. Mary was tormented by jealousy of her after the divorce as well as before. The murder of Damley (Feb. 10, 1567) was uni- versally ascribed to Mary at the time by Catholics as well as Protestants at home and abroad, and it fatally damaged her cause in England and the rest of Europe. In Scotland itself — such was the backward and bar- barous state of the country — it would probably not have shaken her throne if she had followed it up with firm and prudent government. She might even have indulged her illicit passion for Bothwell, with little pretence of concealment, if she had not advanced him in place and power above his equals. There was probably not a noble in Scotland, from Moray down- wards, who would have scrupled to be her Minister. The Protestant commonalty indeed, who with all the national laxity as to the observance of the sixth commandment, were shocked by any trifling with the seventh, would no doubt have made their bark heard. But their bite had not yet become formidable ; and in any case they were not to be propitiated. What brought sudden and irretrievable ruin on Mary was not the murder of Darnley, but the in- fatuation which made her the passive instrument of Bothwell's presumptuous ambition. The lords, Catholic and Protestant alike, allowed the murder to pass uncondemned and unpunished ; but they were furious when they found that Darnley had tv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 63 only been removed to make room for Bothwell, and that they were to have for their master a noble of by no means the highest lineage, bankrupt in for- tune, and generally disliked for his arrogant and bullying demeanour. The project of marriage was not disclosed till ten weeks after the murder (April 19, 1567). Five days later, Bothwell, fearing lest he should be frustrated by public indignation or interference from England, carried ofif the Queen, as had been previously arranged between them. His idea was that, when Mary had been thus publicly outraged, it would be recognised as impossible that she should marry any one but the ravisher. In this coarse expedient, as in the clumsy means employed for disposing of Damley, we see the blundering fool- hardiness of the man. The marriage ceremony was performed as soon as Bothwell's divorce could be managed (May 15). Just a month later Mary sur- rendered to the insurgent lords at Carberry Hill, and Bothwell, flying for his life, disappears from history. The feelings with which Elizabeth had contem- plated the course of events in Scotland during the last six months were no doubt of a mixed nature. At the beginning of 1567, her seven-years' duel with Mary appeared to be ending in defeat. The last bold thrust, aimed in her interest if not by her hand — the murder of Eizzio — had not improved her posi- tion. It seemed that she would soon be obliged to make her choice between two equally dreaded alter- natives : she must either recognise Mary as her heir or take a husband. From this unpleasant dilemma she was released by the headlong descent of her 64 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. rival in the first six months of 1567. But all other feelings were soon swallowed up in alarm and indig- nation at the spectacle of subjects in revolt against their sovereign. As tidings came in rapid succes- sion of Mary's surrender at Carberry Hill, of her return to Edinburgh amidst the insults and threats of the Calvinist mob, of her imprisonment at Loch Leven, of the proposal to try and execute her, Eliza- beth's anger waxed hotter, and she told the Scotch lords in her most imperious tones that she could not, and would not, permit them to use force with their sovereign. If they deposed or punished her, she would revenge it upon them. If they could not prevail on her to do what was right, they must "remit themselves to Almighty God, in whose hands only princes' hearts remain." This language, addressed as it was to the only men in Scotland who were disposed to support the English interest, was imprudent. In her fellow-feel- ing for a sister sovereign, and her keen perception of the revolutionary tendencies of the time, Elizabeth spoilt an unique opportunity of placing her relations with Scotland on a footing of permanent security, of providing for the English succession in a way at once advantageous to the nation and free from risk to her own life, and lastly, of escaping from the con- stant worry about her own marriage. She had seen clearly enough what might be made of the situation. Throgmorton had been despatched to Scotland with instructions to do his best to get the infant Prince confided to her care. Once in England, she would virtually have adopted him. She would have IV ELIZABETH AND MAKY STUART : 1559-1568 65 possessed a son and heir without the inconvenience of marriage. To a Parliamentary recognition, indeed, of his title she would assuredly not have consented. It would have made him independent and dangerous. But if he behaved well to her, his succession would be more certain than any Act of Parliament could make it. Mary, if released and restored to power, would no longer be formidable. If she were de- posed or put to death, Elizabeth would indirectly govern Scotland, at all events, till James should be of age. This splendid opportunity Elizabeth lost by her peremptory and domineering language. The old Scotch pride took fire. The Anglophile lords, who would have been glad enough to send the young Prince to England, could not afford to appear less patriotic than the Francophiles. Throgmorton's attempt to get hold of James was as unsuccessful as that of the Protector Somerset to get hold of James's mother had been twenty years before. He was told that, before the Prince could be sent to England, his title to the English succession must be recognised; a condition which Elizabeth could not grant. Her claim that Mary should be restored without conditions was equally unacceptable to the Anglophile lords. They might have been induced to release her if she would have consented to give up Bothwell, or if they could have caught and hanged him. But such was her devotion to him, that no threats or promises availed to shake it. It was in vain that they offered to pro- duce letters of his to the divorced Lady Bothwell, in which he assured her that he regarded her still as E 66 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. his lawful wife, and Mary only as his concubine. The unhappy Queen had been aware even before her marriage — as a pathetic letter to Bothwell shows — that her passionate love was not returned. Two days after the marriage, his unkindness had driven her to think of suicide. But nothing they could say could shake her constancy. "She would not consent by any perstlasion to abandon the Lord Bothwell for her husband. She would live and die with hinL If it were put to her choice to relinquish her crown and kingdom or the Lord Bothwell, she would leave her kingdom and dignity to go as a simple damsel with him; and she will never consent that he shall fare worse or have more harm than herself. Let them put Bothwell and herself on board ship to go wherever fortune might carry them." This temper made it difficult for the Anglophile lords to know what to do with the prisoner of Loch Leven. They were disappointed and angry that Elizabeth, instead of approving their enterprise, and sending the money for which, as usual, they were begging, should treat them as rebels, and even secretly urge the Hamiltons to rescue Mary by force. The Hamil- tons were in arms at Dumbarton. They wanted either that the Prince should be proclaimed King, with the Duke of Chatelherault for Eegent, or that Mary should be divorced from Bothwell and married to Lord John Hamilton, the Duke's second son, and, in default of the crazy Arran, his destined successor. With Argyll, too, disgust at Mary's crime was tempered by a desire to marry her to his brother. Lady Douglas of Loch Leven herself, for whom Sir Walter Scott has invented IV ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 67 such magnificent tirades, desired nothing better than to be her mother-in-law. The prompt action of the confederate lords foiled these schemes. By the threat of a public trial on the charge of complicity in her husband's murder, or, as her advocates believe, by the fear of instant death, Mary was compelled to abdicate in favour of her son, and to nominate Moray Eegent (July 29, 1567). Elizabeth would not recognise him; partly from a natural fear lest she should be suspected of having been in collusion with him all along, partly from genuine abhorrence of such revolutionary proceedings. The French Government, on the other hand, casting principle and sentiment alike to the winds, courted his alliance. He might keep his, sister in prison, or put her to death, or send her to be immured in a French convent : only let him embrace the French interests, and an army should be sent to support him — a Huguenot army if he did not like Catholics. But Moray turned a deaf ear to these solicitations, and waited patiently till Elizabeth's ill-humour should give way to more statesmanlike considerations. The escape of Mary from Loch Leven (May 2, 1568), and the rising of the Hamiltons in her favour, were largely due to the unfriendly attitude assumed by Elizabeth to the Regent's government. After the defeat of Langside (May 13) it would perhaps have been difficult for the fugitive Queen to make her way to France or Spain. But it was not the difficulty which deterred her from making the attempt. Both Catherine and Philip, later on, were disposed to be- friend her, or, rather, to make use of her; but at B8 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. the time of her escape from Scotland, she had nothing to expect from them but severity. Elizabeth was the only sovereign who had tried to help her. Moreover, Mary had always laboured under the delusion that because most Englishmen regarded her as the next heir to the crown, and a great many preferred the old religion to the new, she had as good a party in England as Elizabeth herself, if not a better. During her prosperity, she had made repeated applications to be allowed to visit the southern kingdom. She was convinced that, if she once appeared on English ground, Elizabeth's throne would be shaken ; and Elizabeth's unwillingness to receive the visit had confirmed her in her belief. If she now crossed the Solway without waiting for the permission which she had requested by letter, it was not because she was hard pressed. The Eegent had gone to Edinburgh after the battle. At Dundrennan, among the Catholic Maxwells, Lord Herries guaranteed her safety for forty days; and, at an hour's notice, a boat would place her beyond pursuit. Her haste was rather prompted by the expectation that Elizabeth, alarmed by her application, would refuse to receive her. To Elizabeth the arrival of the Scottish Queen was, indeed, as unwelcome as it was unexpected. For ten years she had governed successfully, because she had managed to hold an even course between conflicting principles and parties, and to avoid taking up a de- cisive attitude on the most burning questions. The very indecision, which was the weak spot in her character, and which so fretted her Ministers, had, it must be confessed, contributed something to the result. IV ELIZABETH AND MARY STUAET : 1559-1568 69 Cecil might groan over a policy of letting things drift. But it may be doubted whether they had not often drifted better than Cecil would- have steered them if he might have had his way. To do nothing is not, indeed, the golden rule of statesmanship. But at that time, England's peculiar position between France and Spain, and between Calvinism and Catholicism, en- abled her ruler to play a waiting game. This was the general rule applicable to the situation. Elizabeth apprehended it more clearly than her Ministers did, and she fell back on it again and again, when they flattered themselves that they had committed her to a forward policy. It was safe. It was cheap. It re- quired coolness and intrepidity — qualities with which Elizabeth was well furnished by nature. But it was not spirited : it was not showy. Hence it has not found favour with historians, who insist that it ought to have ended in disaster. As a matter of fact, England was carried safely through unparalleled dif- ficulties; and, when all is said, Elizabeth is entitled to be judged by the general result of her long reign. Mary's arrival was unwelcome to Elizabeth, because it seemed likely to force her hand. To do nothing would be no longer possible. The Catholic nobles and gentry of the north flocked to Carlisle to pay court to the heiress of the English crown. It was not that they believed her innocent of her husband's murder. The suspicion of her complicity was at that time universal. But they supposed that it would never amount to more than a suspicion. They did not expect that the charge would ever be formally made. They were not aware that it cojild be sup- 70 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. ported by overwhelming evidence. Later on, when the proofs were produced, they had already committed themselves to her cause, and were bound not to be convinced. If the attitude of these Catholics be thought to in- dicate some moral callousness, it may be fairly argued that it was less cynical than that of Elizabeth herself, who, while not unwilling that Mary should be sus- pected, would not allow her to be convicted. Steady to her main purpose, though hesitating, and even vacillating, in the means she adopted, she still adhered, notwithstanding all that had lately taken place, to her intention that Mary, if her survivor, should be her successor. Like all the greatest statesmen of her time, she placed secular interests before religious opinions. She was persuaded that the maintenance of the prin- ciple of authority was all-important. Nothing else could hold society together or prevent the rival fana- ticisms from tearing each other to pieces. For authority there was no other basis left than the principle of hereditary succession by primogeniture. This principle must, therefore, be treated as something sacred — not to be set aside or tampered with in a short-sighted grasping at any seeming immediate utility. To allow it to be called in question was to shake her own title. Already, in France, the Jesuits were preaching that orthodoxy and the will of the people were the only legitimate foundation of sove- reignty. Few English Catholics had learned that doctrine; but they would not be slow to learn it ii the hereditary claim of Mary was to be set aside. If Mary had been content to claim what primo- IV ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 71 geniture gave her — the right to the succession — there would have been no quarrel between her and Eliza- beth. But it was notorious that she had all along been plotting to substitute herself for Elizabeth. Never had she cherished that dream with more con- fidence than when the Percys and Nevilles crowded round her at Carlisle. In her sanguine imagination, she already saw herself mistress of a finer kingdom than that which had just expelled her, and marching, at the head of her new subjects, to wreak vengeance on her old ones. She seemed likely to be no less dangerous as an exile in England than as a Queen in Scotland. Elizabeth had now reason to regret the unnecessary warmth with which she had espoused Mary's cause. To suppose that she had any sentimental feelings for one whom she knew to be her deadly enemy is, in my judgment, ridiculous. Elizabeth was not a generous woman — especially towards other women ; and in this case generosity would have been folly, and culpable folly. She did not hate Mary — she was too cool and self-reliant to hate an enemy — but she disliked her. She was jealous, with a small feminine jealousy, of her beauty and fascinations. The consciousness of this unworthy feeling made her all the more anxious not to betray it. And so, at a time when she did not expect to have Mary on her hands, she had been tempted to use language implying a pity, sympathy, and affection which assuredly she did not feel, and which it would not have been creditable to her to feel. Petty insincerities of this kind have usually to be paid for sooner or later. She had now to exchange 72 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. the language of sympathy for the language of business with what grace she could ; and she has not escaped the charge, certainly undeserved, of deliberate treachery. It was awkward, after such exaggerated professions of sympathy, to be obliged to hold the fugitive at arm's-length, and even to put restraint on her move- ments. But no other course was possible. No sovereign, at any time in history, has allowed a pre- tender to the crown to move about freely in his dominions and make a party among his subjects. Wince as she might, and did, under the reproach of treachery, Elizabeth was not going to allow her unwise words to tie her to unwise action. Only one arrangement appeared to her to be at once admissible in principle and prudent in practice. Mary must be restored to the Scottish throne ; but in such a way that she should thenceforth be powerless for mischief She must be content with the title of Queen. The real government must be in the hands of Moray. Thus the principle of legitimacy and the sacredness of royalty would be saved, and the English Catholics would be content to bide their time. Cecil, for his part, was also anxious to see Mary back in Scotland; but not as Queen. Though re- garded in Catholic circles as a desperate heretic, he was really a politique, a worldly-minded man — I mean the epithet to be laudatory — and he would probably have admitted in the abstract the wisdom of Eliza- beth's opinion — that it was of more importance to England to have a legitimate sovereign than a gospel religion. But he was not prepared to submit frankly to the application of this principle. His personal rv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 73 prospects were too deeply concerned. It was all very well for Elizabeth to lay- down a principle in which she might be said to have a life-interest. She was thirteen years his junior; but she might easily pre- decease him ; and, with Mary on the throne, his power would certainly go, and, not improbably, his head with it. It was not in human nature, there- fore, that he should cherish the principle of primo- geniture as his mistress did ; and, as far as his dread of her displeasure would allow him, he was always casting about for some means of defeating Mary's reversion. Her sudden plunge into crime was to him a turn of good fortune beyond his dreams. If he could have had his will she would have been promptly handed over to the Eegent on the understanding that she was to be consigned to perpetual imprisonment, or, still better, to the scaffold. In order to carry out her plan, Elizabeth called on Mary and the Regent to submit their respective cases to a Commission, consisting of the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of. Sussex, and Sir Ealph Sadler^ Mary was extremely reluctant, as she well might be, to face any investigation ; but she was told that, until her character was formally cleared, she could not be admitted to Elizabeth's presence; and she was at the same time privately assured that her restoration should, in any case, be managed without any- damage to her honour. Moray received an equally positive assurance that if his sister was proved guilty, she should not be restored. The two statements were not absolutely irreconcilable, because Elizabeth intended to prevent the worst charges from 74 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. being openly proved. Her sole object — and we can hardly blame her — was to obtain security for herself and her own kingdom. She did not wish the Queen of Scots to be proved a murderess in open court; but she did desire that the charge should be made, and also that the Commissioners should see the originals of the casket letters. Any public disclosure of the evidence might be prevented, and some sort of ambiguous acquittal pronounced, on grounds which all the world would see to be nugatory : such, for instance, as the culprit's own solemn denial of the charge ; which was, in fact, the only answer Mary in- tended to make. What was known to the Commis- sioners would come to be more or less known to all persons of influence in England, and would surely dis- credit Mary to such a degree that even her warmest partisans would cease to conspire in her favour. Mary herself (so Elizabeth hoped), when made aware that this terrible weapon was in reserve, and could at any moment be used against her, would be per- manently humbled and crippled, and would be glad to accept such terms as Elizabeth would impose. The Commissioners opened their court at York (October 1568). But they had not been sitting long before Elizabeth discovered that Norfolk was scheming to marry Mary, and that the project was approved by many of the English nobility. Their purpose was not, as yet, disloyal. They thought that, married to the head of the English peerage, and residing in England, Mary would have to give up her plots with France, while her presence would strengthen the Con- servative party, which desired to keep up the old IV d-LlZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 75 alliance with Spain, and looked for the re-establish- ment sooner or later of the old religion. This scheme, though not disloyal, was extremely alarming to Eliza- beth. Norfolk was nominally a Protestant. But she had placed him on the Commission as a representative of the Conservative party, believing that, while he would lend himself to hushing up Mary's guilt, his eyes would be opened to her real character. Yet here he was, like the Hamiltons, Campbells, and Douglases, ready to take her with her smirched reputation, simply for the chance of her two crowns. It was not a case of love, for he had never seen her. He seems to have been staggered for a moment by the sight of the casket letters, and to have doubted whether it was for his honour or even his safety to marry such a woman. But in the end, as we shall see, he swallowed his scruples. On discovering Norfolk's intrigue, Elizabeth hastily revoked the Commission, and ordered another investi- gation to be held by the most important peers and statesmen of England. The casket letters and the depositions were submitted to them. Mary's able and zealous advocate, the Bishop of Eoss, could say nothing except that his mistress had sent him on the supposi- tion that Moray was to be the defendant; let her appear in person before the Queen, and she would give reasons why Moray ought not to be allowed to advance any charges against her. To make no better answer than this was virtually to admit that the charges against her were unanswerable. It was thought that she was now suflSciently fright- ened to be ready to accept Elizabeth's terms, and they 78 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. were unofficially communicated to her. Her return to Scotland was no longer contemplated, for Moray- had absolutely declined to charge her openly with the murder or produce the letters unless she were detained in England. But in order to get rid of the revolution- ary proceedings at Loch Leven she herself, as it were of her own free will, and on the ground that she was weary of government, was to confer the crown on her son and the regency on Moray. James was to be educated in England. She herself was to reside in England as long as Elizabeth should find it convenient. It was not mentioned in the communication, but it was probably intended, that she should marry some Englishman of no political importance, in order to produce more children who would succeed James if, as was likely enough, he should die in his infancy. If she would accept these conditions the charges against her should be " committed to perpetual silence ; " if not, the trial must go on, and the verdict could not be doubtful (December 1568). A woman less daring and less keen-sighted than Mary would assuredly, at this point, have given up the game, and thankfully accepted the conditions offered. They would not have prevented her from ascending th We hear of thirty-three-pounders and even sixty-pounders in the Queen's ships. Whereas the Spanish admiral, sending to Parma for balls, asks for nothing heavier than ten pounds. 198 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. seen," says Sir "William Winter, " the simple service done by the merchants and coast ships, you would have said we had been little helped by them, other- wise than that they did make a show." The principal and final battle was fought off Grave- lines (^:f )• The Armada therefore did arrive at its destination, but only to show that the general plan of the invasion was an impracticable one. The superiority in tonnage and number of guns on the morning of that day, though not what it had been when the fighting began a week before, was still immense, if superiority in those particulars had been of any use. But with this battle the plan of Philip was finally shattered. So far from being in a condition to cover Parma's passage, the Spanish admiral was glad to escape as best he could from the English pursuit. During the eight days' fight, be it observed, the Armada had experienced no unfavourable weather or other stroke of ill-fortune. The wind had been mostly in the west, and not tempestuous. After the last battle, when the crippled Spanish ships were drifting upon the Dutch shoals, it opportunely shifted, and enabled them to escape into the North Sea. -» It would not be easy to find any great naval engage- ment in which the victors suffered so little. In the last battle, when they came to close quarters, they had about sixty killed. During the first seven days their loss seems to have been almost nil. One vessel only — not belonging to the Queen — became entangled among the enemy, and succumbed. Except the master of this vessel not one of the captains was killed from first to last. Many men of rank were serving in the fleet. It X WAR WITH SPAIN : 1587-1603 199 is not mentioned that one of them was so much as wounded. Looking at all these facts, we can surely come to only one conclusion. Philip's plan was hopeless from the first. Barring accidents, the English were bound to win. On no other occasion in our history was our country so well prepared to meet her enemies. Never was her safety from invasion so amply guaranteed. The defeat of the Great Armada was the deserved and crowning triumph of thirty years of good govern- ment at home and wise policy abroad ; of careful pro- vision for defence and sober abstinence from adventure and aggression. Of the land preparations it is impossible to speak with equal confidence, as they were never put to the test. If the Spaniards had landed, Leicester's militia would no doubt have experienced a bloody defeat. London might have been taken and plundered. But Parma himself never expected to become master of the country without the aid of a great Catholic rising. This, we may affirm with confidence, would not have taken place on even the smallest scale. Overwhelming forces would soon have gathered round the Spaniards. They would probably have retired to the coast, and there fortified some place from which it would have been difficult to dislodge them as long as they retained the command of the sea. Such seems to have been the utmost success which, in the most favourable event, could have attended the invasion. A great disaster, no doubt,. for England, and one for which Elizabeth would have been judged by history with more severity than justice ; for Englishmen 200 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. have always chosen to risk it, down to our own time.* No government which insisted on making adequate provision for the military defence of the country would have been tolerated then, or, to all appearance, would be tolerated now. We have always trusted to our navy. It were to be wished that our naval superiority were as assured now as when we defeated the Armada. The arrangements for feeding the soldiers and sailors were very defective. A praiseworthy system of control had been introduced to check waste and peculation in time of peace. Of course it did not easily adapt itself to the exigencies of war. Military operations are sure to suffer where a certain, or rather uncertain, amount of waste and peculation is not risked. We have not forgotten the "horrible and heart-rend- ing" sufferings of our army in the Crimea, which, like those of Elizabeth's fleet, had to be relieved by private effort. In the sixteenth century the lot of the soldier and sailor everywhere was want and disease, varied at intervals by plunder and excess. Philip's soldiers and sailors were worse off than Elizabeth's, though he grudged no money for purposes of war. Those who profess to be scandalised by the ap- pointment of Leicester to the command of the army should point out what fitter choice could have been made. He was the only great nobleman with any military experience ; and to suppose that any one 1 The Earl ot Sussex, after inspecting tlie preparations for defence in Hampshire towards the end of 1687, writes to the Council that he had found nothing ready. The "better sort" said, "We are much charged many ways, and when the enemy comes we will provide for him ; but he will not come yet. " » « WAR WITH SPAIN : 1587-1603 201 bttdt a great nobleman could have been appointed to sufih a command is to show a profound ignorance of them ideas of the time. He had Sir John Norris, a reaAUly able soldier, as his marshal of the camp. Aftjipr all, no one has alleged that he did not do his duty \with energy and intelligence. The story that the Queelju thought of making him her " Lieutenant in the goveimment of England and Ireland," but was dis- sus&ded from it by Burghley and Hatton, rests on no authority but that of Camden, who is fond of repeating Spiteful gossip about Leicester. No sensible person will believe that she meant to create a sort of Grand Vizier. She may have thought of making him what we i^should call " Commander-in-Chief." There would be m\|ich to say for such a concentration of authority whilel, the kingdom was threatened with invasion. The title of " Lieutenant " was a purely military one, and be^an to be applied under the Tudors to the commanders of the militia in each county. Leicester's title for the. time was " Lieutenant and Captain-General of the Queen's armies and companies." But we find him complaining to Walsingham that the patent of Hunsdon, the commander of the Midland army, gave him independent powers. " I shall have wrong if he absolutely command where my patent doth give me power. You may easily conceive what absurd dealings are likely to fall out if you allow two absolute com- manders" (28 July). Camden's story is probably a confused echo of this dispute. Writers who are loth to admit that the trust, the gratitude, the enthusiastic loyalty which Elizabeth in- spired were the first and most important cause of the 202 5UEEN ELIZABETH CHAf great victory, have sought to belittle the grande moment of her life by pointing out that the fame speech at Tilbury was made after the battle of Graf lines. But the dispersal of the Armada by the sto of August 5th was not yet known in England. Dra writing on the 8th and 10th, thinks that it is to Denmark to refit, and begs the Queen ncl diminish any of her forces. The occasion of the spl on the 10th seems to have been the arrival of a pd, on that day, while the Queen was at dinner il Leicester's tent, with a false alarm that Parma had embarked all his forces, and might be expected '•" England immediately.^ But the Lieutenant-General had reached the en«i of his career. Three weeks after the Tilbury revie'**^ he died of " a continued fever," at the age of fifty-S'x. He kept Elizabeth's regard to the last, becau'^e she believed — and during the latter part of his I'if^) no'' wrongly — in his fidelity and devotion. Th'^re is no sign that she at any time valued his judgment or suffered him to sway her policy, except 'SO far as he was the mouthpiece of abler advisers i nor did she ever allow his enmities, violent as they were, to prejudice her against any of her othe'f servants. His fortune was no doubt much above hi? deserts, and he has paid the usual penalty. There a-fe few personages in history about whom so much malicious nonsense has been written. We cannot help looking on Eng.'and as placed in a quite new position by the defeat of the Armada — a ' Sir Edward Radcliffe to the Earl of ^Jussex.— JJiiis, 2iid Serioa, vol. iii. p. 142. X WAR WITH SPAIN : 1587-1603 203 position of security and independence. In truth, what was changed was not so much the relative strength of England and Spain as the opinion of it held by Englishmen and Spaniards, and indeed by all Europe. The loss to Philip in mere ships, men, and treasure was no doubt considerable. But his inability to conquer England was demonstrated rather than caused by the destruction of the Armada. Philip himself talked loftily about "placing another fleet upon the seas." But his subjects began to see that defence, not conquest, was now their business — and had been for-, some time if they had only known it : Cervi, luporum prseda rapacium, Seotamur ultro quos opimus Fallere et effugere est triumphus. Elizabeth's attitude to Philip underwent a marked change. Till then she had been unwilling to abandon the hope of a peaceful settlement. She had dealt him not a few stinging blows, but always with a certain restraint and forbearance, because they were meant for the purpose of bringing him to reason. Thirty years of patience on his part had led her to believe that he would never carry retaliation beyond assassina- tion plots. At last, in his slow way, he had gathered up all his strength and essayed to crush her. Thence- forward she was a convert to Drake's doctrine that attack was the surest way of defence. She had still good reasons for devolving this work as much as possible on the private enterprise of her subjects. The burden fell on those who asked nothing better than to be allowed to bear it. Thus arose that system, or rather practice, of leaving national work to be 204 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. executed by private enterprise, which has had so much to do with the building up of the British Empire. Private gain has been the mainspring of action. National defence and aggrandisement have been almost incidental results. With Elizabeth herself national and private aims could not be dissevered. The nation and she had but one purse. She was cheaply defend- ing England, and she shared in the plunder. The favourite cruising-ground of the English adven- turers was off the Azores, where the Spanish treasure fleets always halted for fresh water and provisions, on their way to Europe. Some of these expeditions were on a large scale. But they were not so successful or profitable, in proportion to their size, as the smaller ventures of Drake and Hawkins earlier in the reign. The Spaniards were everywhere on the alert. The harbours of the New World, which formerly lay in careless security, were put into a state of defence. Treasure fleets made their voyages with more caution. " Not a grain of gold, silver, or pearl, but what must be got through the fire." The day of great pmes was gone by. Two of these expeditions are distinguished by their importance. The first was a joint-stock venture of Drake and Norris — the foremost sailor and the fore- most soldier among Englishmen of that day — in the year after the great Armada (April 1589). They and some private backers found most of the capital. The Queen contributed six royal ships and £20,000. This fleet carried no less than 11,000 soldiers, for the aim was to wrest Portugal from the Spaniard and set up Don Antonio, a representative of the dethroned dynasty. X WAK WITH SPAIN : 1587-1603 205 Stopping on their way at Corunna, they took the lower town, destroyed large stores, and defeated in the field a much superior force marching to the relief of the place. Norris mined and breached the walls of the upper town ; but the storming parties having been repulsed with great loss, the army re-embarked and pursued its voyage. Landing at Penich6, Norris marched fifty miles by Vimiero and Torres Vedras, names famous afterwards in the military annals of England, and on the seventh day arrived before Lisbon. But he had no battering train ; for Drake, who had brought the fleet round to the mouth of the Tagus, judged it dangerous to enter the river. Nor did the Portuguese rise, as had been hoped. The army there- fore, marching through the suburbs of Lisbon, rejoined the fleet at Cascaes, and proceeded to Vigo. That town was burnt, and the surrounding country plundered. This was the last exploit of the expedition. Great loss and dishonour had been inflicted on Spain ; but no less than half of the soldiers and sailors had perished by disease ; and the booty, though said to have been large, was a disappointment to the survivors. The other great expedition was in 1596. The capture of Calais in April of that year by the Spaniards, had renewed the alarm of invasion, and it was deter- mined to meet the danger at a distance from home. A great fleet, with 6000 soldiers on board, commanded by Essex and Howard of Efiingham sailed straight to Cadiz, the principal port and arsenal of Spain. The harbour was forced by the fleet, the town and castle stormed by the army, several men-of-war taken or destroyed, a large merchantrfleet burnt, together with 206 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. an immense quantity of stores and merchandise ; the total value being estimated at twenty millions of ducats. "This was by far the heaviest blow inflicted by England upon Spain during the reign, and was so regarded in Europe ; for though the great Armada had been signally defeated by the English fleet, its subsequent destruction was due to the winds and waves. Essex was vehe- mently desirous to hold Cadiz ; but Effingham and the Council of War appointed by the Queen would not hear of it. The expedition accordingly returned home, having effectually relieved England from the fear of invasion. The burning of Penzance by four Spanish galleys (1595) was not much to set against these great successes. One reason for the comparative impunity with which the English assailed the unwieldy empire of Philip was the insane pursuit of the French crown, to which he devoted all his resources after the murder of Henry III. In 1598, with one foot in the grave, and no longer able to conceal from himself that, with the exception of the conquest of Portugal, all the ambitious schemes of his life had failed, he was fain to conclude the peace of Vervins with Henry iv. Henry was ready to insist that England and the United Provinces should be com- prehended in the treaty. Philip offered terms which Elizabeth would have welcomed ten years earlier. He proposed that the whole of the Low Countries should be constituted a separate sovereignty under his son- in-law the Archduke Albert. The Dutch, who were prospering in war as well as in trade, scouted the offer. English feeling was divided. There was a war-party headed by Essex and Ealeigh, personally bitter enemies. X • '/ WAE, WITH SPAIN: 1587-1603 207 but bojh ■athirst for glory, conquest, and empire, beKev- ing ia-no-riglit but that of the strongest, greedy for wealth, aaid disdaining the slower, more laborious, and more-.-Iegitimate modes of acquiring it. They were tire«^ «f . oampaigning it in France and the Low CounttCes, ^rhere hard knocks and beggarly plunder wertf ^ that a soldier had to look to. They proposed to dkjFy «> great English army across the Atlantic, to occT^jif»pert|ianently the isthmus of Panama, and from thai ci\ntml position to wrestle with the Spaniard for the>lrad4 and plunder of the New World. The peace par^ kelA that these ambitious schemes would bring no 'profit except possibly to a few individuals; that th#-»-treasury would be exhausted and the country irritated "ty taxation and the pressing of soldiers; that to re-establish the old commercial intercourse with Spain would be more reputable and attended with more solid advantage to the nation at large ; and finally, that the English arms would be much better employed in a thorough conquest of Ireland. These were the views of Burghley; and they were strongly supported by Buckhurst, the best of the younger statesmen who now surrounded Elizabeth. Elizabeth always encouraged her ministers to speak their minds ; but, as Buckhurst said on this occasion, "when they have done their extreme duty she wills what she wUls." She determined to maintain the treaty of 1585 with the Dutch; but she took the op- portunity of getting it amended in such a way as to throw upon them a larger share of the expenses of the war, and to provide more definitely for the ultimate repayment of her advances. 208 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. We have seen that three years before] the 'jKinada Elizabeth had lost the French alliance, -wlikiki imi tUl then been the key-stone of her policy, i Since then, though aware that Henry iii. wished her ^i^, aad that he would thwart the Spanish faction as »ucb 9P he dared, she had not been able to count am hinu He might at any moment be pushed by Guise into sKi at- tack on England, either with or without thiwnciiWtence of Spain. The accession, therefore, of Henr Jiv. dBttded her great relief. In him she had a sure ^fy^r -it is true that, like her other allies the Dutch, )it ^wiW Ifcore in a condition to require help than to affMJt it. .But the more work she provided for Philip in^^and or France, the safer England would be. Tlift 4Mpte °^ the Holy League might be formidable to ^JMp^ tut as long as he could hold them at bay they were not dangerous to England. She had never quite got over her scruple about helping the Dutch against their lawful sovereign. But Henry IV. was the legitimate King of France, and she could heartily aid him to put down his rebels. From 2000 to 5000 English troops were therefore constantly serving in France down to the peace of Vervins. Philip, in defiance of the Salic law, claimed the crown of France for his daughter in right of her mother, who was a sister of Henry ill. To Brittany he alleged that she had a special claim, as being descended from Anne of Brittany, which the Bourbons were not. Brittany, therefore, he invaded at once by sea. Eliza- beth, alarmed by the proximity of this Spanish force, de- sired that her troops in France should be employed in expelling it, and that they should be vigorously supported X WAR WITH SPAIN : 1587-1603 209 by Henry iv. Henry, on the other hand, was always drawing away the English to serve his more pressing needs in other parts of France. This brought upon him many harsh rebukes and threats from the English Queen. But she had, for the first time, met her match. He judged, and rightly, that she would not desert him. So, with oft-repeated apologies, light promises, and well- turned compliments, he just went on doing what suited him best, getting all the fighting he could out of the English, and airily eluding Elizabeth's repeated de- mands for some coast town, which could be held, like Brill and Flushing, as a security for her heavy subsidies. When Henry was reconciled to the Catholic Church, Elizabeth went through the form of expressing surprise and regret at a step which she must have long ex- pected, and must have felt to be wise (1593). Her alliance with Henry was not shaken. It was drawn even closer by a new treaty, each sovereign engaging not to make peace without the consent of the other. This engagement did not prevent Henry from con- cluding the separate peace of Vervins five years later, when he judged that his interest required it (1598). Elizabeth's dissatisfaction was, this time, genuine enough. But Henry was no longer her prot6g6, a homeless, landless, penniless king, depending on English subsidies, roaming over the realm he called his own with a few thousands, or sometimes hundreds, of undisciplined cavaliers, who gathered and dispersed at their own pleasure. He was master of a re-united France, and could no longer be either patronised or threatened. Elizabeth might expostulate, and declare that " if there was such a sin as that against the Holy 210 QUEEN ELIZABETH ch. x Ghost it must needs be ingratitude : " gratitude was a sentiment to which she was as much a stranger as Henry. The only difference between them was the national one : the Englishwoman preached ; the French- man mocked. What made her so sore was that he had, so to speak, stolen her policy from her. His predecessor had always suspected her — and with good reason — of intending "to draw her neck out of the collar" if once she could induce him to undertake a joint war. The joint war had at length been under- taken by Henry IV., and it was he who had managed to slip out of it first, while Elizabeth, who longed for peace, was obliged to stand by the Dutch. The two sovereigns, however, knew their own interests too well to quarrel. Henry gave Elizabeth to understand that his designs against Spain had undergone no change ; he was only halting for breath ; he would help the Dutch underhand — just what she used to say to Henry in. She had now to deal with a French King as sagacious as herself, and a great deal more prompt and vigorous in action ; not the man to be made a cat's-paw by any one. She had to accept him as a partner, if not on her own terms, then on his. Both sovereigns were thoroughly veracious — in Carlyle's sense of the word. That is to say, their policy was determined not by passion, or vanity, or sentiment of any kind, but by enlightened self-interest, and was therefore calculable by those who knew how to cal- culate. CHAPTER XI DOMESTIC AFFAIRS: 1588-1601 Ir was a boast of Elizabeth that when once her ser- vants were chosen she did not lightly displace them. Difference of opinion from their mistress, or from one another, did not involve resignation or dismissal, because, though they were free to speak their minds, all had to carry out with iidelity and even zeal, what- ever policy the Queen prescribed. This condition they accepted ; not only the astute and compliant Burghley, but the more eager and opinionated Walsingham ; and therefore they had practically a life-fenure of office. Soon after the Armada the first generation of them began to disappear. Bacon, Sussex, and Bedford were already gone. Leicester died in 1588; his brother Warwick, and Mildmay in 1589; Walsingham and Eandolph in 1591 ; Hatton in 1592 ; Grey de Wilton in 1593; KnoUys and Hunsdon in 1596. Of the trusty servants with whom she began her reign, Burghley alone remained. The leading men of the new generation were Robert Cecil, the Treasurer's second son, trained to business under his father's eye, and of qualities similar^ though inferior; Nottingham 2H 212 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. (formerly Howard of Effingham), a straightforward man of no great ability, but acceptable to the Queen for his father's services and his own (and not the less so for his fine presence) ; the accomplished Buckhurst ; the brilliant Raleigh ; and, younger than the rest, Essex. The last was the son of a man much favoured by Elizabeth. Leicester was his step-father, KnoUys his grandfather, Hunsdon his great-uncle, Walsingham his father-in-law, Burghley his guardian. Ardent, impulsive, presumptuous, a warm friend, a rancorous enemy, profuse in expense, lawless in his amours, jealous of his equals, brooking no superior, impatient of all rule or order that delayed him from leaping at once to the highest place, — he was possessed with a most exaggerated notion of his own capacity, which appears to have been only moderate. As the ward of Burghley he had been much in the company of his future enemy, Robert Cecil, whose sly prim ways were most unlike his own. The contrast did him no harm with the public, to whom the younger man was a Tom Jones and the elder a Blifil. Two vastly abler men, Francis Bacon and Raleigh, less advantageously placed, but unhampered with any scruples, were busily trying to profit by the all-pervading animosity of Ceci' and Essex. Belonging, as Essex did by his connections, to the inner circle who stood closest to Elizabeth, it was natural that she should take an interest in him, and give him opportunities for turning his showy qualitieB to account. In 1586 he was sent to the Low Countries as general of cavalry under his step-father, Leicester. He distinguished himself by his fiery valour in the M DOMESTIC AFFAIRS : 1588-1601 213 expeditions to Spain, and as commander of the English army in France, though he does not seem to have had any real military talent. But Elizabeth's regard for him was soon shaken by his presumptuous and unruly behaviour. When he fought a duel with Sir Charles Blount because she had conferred some favour on the latter, she swore " by God's death it were fitting some one should take him down and teach him better manners, or there were no rule with him." He displeased her by his quarrels with Cecil and EflBng- ham, and his discontented grumbling. She was highly dissatisfied with his management of the Azores ex- pedition in 1597. In July 1598, at a meeting of the Council, she was provoked by his insolence to strike him; and though after three months he obtained his pardon, he never regained her favour. It was at this time that Burghley died (August 4), in his seventy-eighth year. Elizabeth, though she could call him "a froward old fool" about a trifling matter (March 1596), could not but feel that much was changed when she lost the able and faithful servant who had worked with her for forty years. "She seemeth to take it very grievously, shedding of tears and separating herself from all company." Buckhurst was the new Treasurer. Essex had for some time cast his eyes on Ireland as a field where glory and power might be won. There can be little doubt that he was already speculating on the advantage that the possession of an army might give him in any difficulty with his rivals or with the Queen herself. Cecil perfidiously advocated his ap- pointment to a post which had been the grave of so 214 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. many reputations. The Queen at length consented, though reluctantly. Essex was a popular favourite. He had managed — it is not very clear how — to win the confidence of both Puritans and Papists. The general belief was that, for the first time since she had mounted the throne, Elizabeth was afraid of one of her subjects. During the whole of the reign Ireland had been a cause of trouble and anxiety. Elizabeth's treatment of that unhappy country was not more creditable or successful than that of other English statesmen before and after her. There was the same absence of any systematic policy steadily carried out, the same weari- some and disreputable alternation between bursts of savage repression and intervals of pusillanimity, con- cession, and neglect. In the competition of the various departments of the public service for attention and expenditure, Ireland generally came last. All other needs had to be served first whether at home or abroad. In the early years of the reign the chief trouble lay in Ulster, then the most purely Celtic part of Ireland, and practically untouched by English conquest. Twice, in her weariness of the struggle with Shan O'Neill, Elizabeth conceded to him something like a sub- kingship of Ulster in return for his nominal sub- mission. In the end he was beaten, and his head was fixed on the walls of Dublin Castle (1566). But nothing further was done to anglicise Ulster. During the attempt of the Devonshire adventurers to colonise South Munster (1569-71), and the consequent re- bellion, the northern province remained an unconcerned Kl DOMESTIC AFFAIRS : 1588-1601 215 spectator. Nor did it join in the great Desmond rising (1579-83), which, with the insurrection of the Catholic lords of the Pale and the landing of the Pope's Italians at Smerwick, was the Irish branch of the threefold attack on Elizabeth directed by Gregory xiir. The attempt of the elder Essex to colonise Antrim (1573-75) was a disastrous failure, and Ulster still remained practically independent of the Dublin Govern- ment. The most successful Deputy of the reign was Perrot (1584-87), a valiant soldier and strict ruler, who, after long experience in the Irish wars, had come to the con- clusion that what Ireland most wanted was justice. The native chiefs, released from the constant dread of spoliation, and finding that English encroachment was repressed as inflexibly as Irish disorder, became quiet and friendly. But this system did not suit the domi- nant race. The Deputy was accused to the Queen of seeking to betray the country to the Irish and the Spaniard. Eecalled, and put upon his trial for treason, he was found guilty on suborned evidence, and sentenced to death. It is usually said that his real offence was some disrespectful language about the Queen, which he confessed. But it seems that she forbore to take his life precisely because she would not have it thought that she was influenced by personal resentment. His successor, Fitzwilliam, was a Deputy of the old sort — greedy, violent, careless of consequences, and always acting on the principle that, as against an Englishman, a Celt had no rights. The execution of MacMahon in Monaghan, and the confiscation of his 216 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. lands on a trivial pretext, alarmed the North. Ulster had not been bled white like the rest of Ireland. The O'Neills had a nephew of their old hero Shan for their chief, who had been brought up at the English Court and made Earl of Tyrone by Elizabeth. An educated and remarkably able man, he had none of his uncle's illusions. He clung to his ancestral rights and dignity, but he hoped to preserve them by zealously discharging his obligations as a vassal of the Queen. He served in the war against Desmond, and exerted himself to maintain order in Ulster. But he had no mind to sink into the position of a mere dignified land-owner like the English nobles; nor indeed, under such a Deputy as Fitzwilliam, was he likely to pre- serve even his lands if he lost his power. Rather than that, he determined to enter into what he knew was a most unequal struggle, on the off-chance of pulling through by help from Spain. It is clear that he was driven into rebellion against his inclination. But when he had once drawn the sword he maintained the struggle against one Deputy after another with wonder- ful tenacity and resource. For the first time in Irish history, the rebel forces were disciplined and armed like those of the crown, and stood up to them in equal numbers on equal terms. At length, in August 1598, Tyrone inflicted upon Sir Henry Bagnall near Armagh the severest defeat that the English had ever suffered in Ireland; slaying 1500 of his men, and capturing all his artillery and baggage. Insurrections at once broke out all over Ireland. This was the situation with which Essex undertook to deal. He had loudly blamed other Deputies for XI DOMESTIC AFFAIRS : 1588-1601 217 not vigorously attacking Tyrone in his own country. Vigour was the one military quality which he himself possessed. He went with the title of Lieutenant and Governor-General, and with extraordinary powers, at the head of 21,000 men — such an army as had never been sent to Ireland (April 1599). The Queen, who trembled at the expense, and did not wish to see any of her nobles, least of all Essex, permanently established in a great military command, enjoined him to push at once into Ulster, as he had himself pro- posed, and finish the war. Instead of doing this, he went south into districts that had been depopulated and desolated by the savage warfare of the last thirty years. Even here he met with discreditable reverses. When he got back to Dublin (July) his army was reduced by disease and desertion to less than 5000 men. Disregarding the Queen's express prohibition, he made his friend Southampton General of horse. When she censured his bad management, he replied with impertinent complaints about the favour she was showing to Cecil, Ealeigh, and Oobham, and began to consult with his friends about carrying selected troops over to England to remove them. Rumours of his intention to return reached the Queen. "We do charge you," she wrote, "as you tender our pleasure, that you adventure not to come out of that kingdom." He declared that he could not invade Ulster without reinforcements. They were sent, and at length he marched into Louth (September). There he was met by Tyrone, who, in an interview, completely twisted him round his finger, and obtained a cessation of arms and the promise of concessions amounting to what 218 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap would now be called Home Eule. A few days later, on receipt of an angry letter from the Queen forbidding him to grant any terms without her permission, he deserted his post and hurried to England. The first notice Elizabeth received of this astounding piece of insubordination was his still more astounding incur- sion into her bedroom, all muddy from his ride, before she was completely dressed (September 28, 1599). Elizabeth seems to have been so much taken aback by the Earl's unparalleled presumption, that she did not blaze out as might have been expected. She gave him audience an hour or two later, and heard what he had to say. Probably he adopted an injured tone as usual, and inveighed against "that knave Ealeigh" and " that sycophant Cobham." But his insubordina- tion had been gross, and no talking could make it anything else. It was more dangerous than Leicester's disobedience in 1586, because it came from a vastly more dangerous person. The same afternoon the Queen referred the matter to the Council. Essex was put under arrest, and never saw her again. The more she reflected, the more indignant and alarmed she became. " By God's son," she said to Harington, " I am no Queen ; this man is above me." After a delay of nine months, occasioned by his illness, the fallen favourite was brought before a special Commission on the charge of contempt and disobedience, and sentenced to be suspended from his offices and confined to his house during the Queen's pleasure (June 1600). In a few weeks he was released from arrest, but he could not obtain permission to appear at court, though he implored it in most abject letters. XT DOMESTIC AFFAIRS : 1588-1601 219 There are persons who consider themselves to be intolerahly wronged and persecuted if they cannot have precedence and power over their fellow-citizens. Essex was such a person. Instead of being thankful that he had escaped the punishment which under most sovereigns he would have suffered, he entered into criminal plots for coercing, if not overthrowing, che Queen. He urged the Scotch King to enforce the recognition of his title by arms. He tried to persuade Mountjoy, his successor in Ireland, to carry his army to Scotland to co-operate with James. These intrigues were not known to the Government. But it did not escape observation that he was collecting men of the sword in the neighbourhood of his house ; that he was holding consultations with suspected nobles and gentle- men (some of whom were afterwards engaged in the Gunpowder Plot); that the Puritan clergy were preach- ing and praying for his cause; and that there was a certain ferment in the city. Essex was therefore summoned to attend before the Council. Instead of obeying, he flew to arms, with Lords Southampton, Eutland, Sandys, Cromwell, and Monteagle, and about 300 gentlemen. But the citizens of London did not respond to his appeal, and the insurrection was easily suppressed, less than a dozen persons being slain on both sides (February 8, 1601). A more senseless and profligate attempt to overthrow a good government it would be difficult to find in history. It was not dignified by any semblance of principle, and it would sufficiently stamp the character of its author, even if it stood alone as an evidence of his vanity, egotism, and want of common sense. 220 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. The trial and execution of the principal malefactor followed as a matter of course and without delay (February 25). It would have been scandalous to spare him. Elizabeth had once been fond of him, and had no reason to be ashamed of it. To talk of her " passion " and her " amorous inclination," as Hume and others have done, is revolting and malignant nonsense. It is creditable to old age when it can take pleasure in the unfolding of bright and promising youth. But royal favour was not good for such a man as Essex. It developed the worst features in his showy but faulty character. As he steadily deterio- rated, her regard cooled ; but so much of it remained that she tried to amend him by chastisement, " ad corredionem," as she said, " non ad ruinam." She had long before warned him that, though she had put up with much disrespect to her person, he must not touch her sceptre, or he would be dealt with according to the law of England. She was as good as her word, and, though the memory of it was painful to her, there is not the smallest evidence that she ever repented of having allowed the law to take its course.^ Only three of the accomplices of Essex were punished capitally. The five peers, none of them powerful or formidable, experienced Elizabeth's accustomed clemency. It has been suggested by an admirer of Essex that he failed in Ireland because his " sensitively attuned nature " shrank from the systematic desolation and starvation afterwards employed by his successor. No ■• The story of the ring, said to have been intercepted by Lady Nottingham, has been shown to be unworthy of belief. See Ranke, History of England, vol. i. p. 352 ; trausl. H DOMESTIC AFFAIRS : 1588-1601 221 evidence is offered for this suggestion. In a letter to the Queen (June 25, 1599) he advocates "burning and spoiling the country in all places," which method " shall starve the rebels in one year." This course Mountjoy carried out. With means far inferioi* to those of Essex, and notwithstanding the landing of 3000 Spaniards at Kinsale (September 1601), he was the first Englishman who completely subdued Ireland. Tyrone surrendered a few days before the Queen's death. Little has been said in these pages about parlia- mentary proceedings. The real history of the reign does not lie there. The country was governed wholly by the Queen, with the advice of her Council, and not at all by Parliament. In the forty-five years of her reign there were only thirteen sessions of Parliament. The functions of Parliament were to vote grants of money when the ordinary revenues of the crown were insufficient, and to make laws. Its right in these matters was unquestioned. If the Queen had never wanted subsidies or penal laws against her political and religious opponents (of other laws she often said there were more than enough already), it would never have been summoned at all ; nor is there any reason to suppose that the country would have complained as long as it was governed with prudence and success. In fact, to do without Parliaments was distinctly popular, because it meant doing without subsidies. In the thirty years preceding the Armada — the sessions of Parliament being nine — Elizabeth applied for only eight subsidies, and of one of them a portion was remitted. By her economy she not only defrayed 222 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. the expanses of government out of the ordinary revenue, which, at the end of the reign was about £300,000 a year, but paid oflF old debts. It was not till the twenty-fourth year of her reign that she discharged the 'last of her father's debts, up to which time she had been paying interest on it. Subsequently she even accumulated a small reserve, which, as she told Parlia- ment, was a most necessary thing if she was not to be driven to borrow on sudden emergency. But this reserve vanished immediately she became involved in the great war with Spain ; and during the last fifteen years of her life, although she received twelve sub- sidies, she was always in difficulty for money. She had to sell crown lands to the value of £372,000. Par- liament, which had voted the usual single subsidies without complaint, grumbled and pretended poverty when she asked for three and even four.^ Bacon's famous outburst (1593) about gentlemen having to sell their plate and farmers their brass pots to pay the tax, was a piece of claptrap. The nation was, rela- tively to former times, rolling in wealth. But the old belief had still considerable strength — that govern- ment being the affair of the King, not of his subjects, he should provide for its expenses out of his hereditary income, just as they paid their private expenses out of their private incomes ; that he had no more claim to dip into their pockets than they had to dip into his ; and that a subsidy, as its name imports, was an occasional and extraordinary assistance furnished as a matter not of duty but of good-will. ' The increase was not so gi-eat as it appears. A subsidy with two tenths and fifteenths in the thirteenth year of the reign yielded £176,000 ; in the forty-third only £134,000. XI DOMESTIC AFFAIRS : 1588-1601 223 This might have been healthy doctrine when kings were campaigning on the Continent for personal or dynastic objects. It was out of place when a large expenditure was indispensable for the interests and safety of the country. The grumbling, therefore, about taxation towards the end of the reign was unreason- able and discreditable to the grumblers. The Queen met them with her usual good sense. She explained to them — though, as she correctly said, she was under no constitutional obligation to do so — how the money went, what she had spent on the Spanish war, on Ireland, and in loans to the Dutch and the French King. The plea was unanswerable. Her private ex- penditure was on a very modest scale. In particular she had never indulged in that besetting and costly sin of princes, palace-building ; and this at a time when the noble mansions which still testify to the wealth of the England of that day were rising in every county. Her only extravagance was dress. Some have carped at her collection of jewelry. But jewels, like the silver balustrades of Frederick William i., were a mode of hoarding, and in her later years she reconverted jewels into money to meet the expenses of the State. Modern writers, who so airily blame her for not subsidising more liberally her Scotch, Dutch, and French allies, would find it difficult, if they condescended to particu- lars, to explain how she was able to give them as much money as she did. It is common to make much of the debate on monopolies in the last Parliament of Elizabeth (1601), as showing the rise of a spirit of resistance to the royal prerogative. I do not think that the report of that 224 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. debate would convey such an impression to any one reading it without preconceived views. None of the speakers contested the prerogative. They only com- plained that it was being exercised in a way prejudicial to the public interest. If the monopolies had been unimportant, or if the patentees had used their privilege less greedily, there would evidently have been no complaint as to the principle involved. No course of action was decided on, because the Queen intervened by a message in which she stated that she had not been aware of the abuses prevailing, that she was as indignant at them as Parliament could be, and that she would put a stop, not to monopolies, but to such as were injurious. With this message the House of Commons was more than satisfied. As a matter of fact monopolies went on till dealt with by the declaratory statute in the twenty-first year of James I. If the last Tudor handed down the English Constitu- tion to the first Stuart as she had received it from her predecessors, unchanged either in theory or practice, it was far otherwise with the English Church. There are two conflicting views as to the historical position of the Church in this country. According to one it was, all through the Middle Age, National as well as Catholic. The changes which took place at the Eefor- mation made no difference in that respect, and involved no break in its continuity. It is not a Protestant Church. It is still National and still Catholic, resting on precisely the same foundations, and existing by the same title as it did in the days of Dunstan and Becket. According to the other view, the epithets National and Catholic are contradictory. A Church which undergoes XI DOMESTIC ATFAIRS : 1588-1601 225 radical changes of government, worship, and doctrine is no longer the same Church but a new one, and must be held to have been established by the authority which prescribed these changes, which, in this case, was the Queen and Parliament. The word "Protestant" was avoided in its formularies to make conformity easier for Catholics ; but it is a Protestant Church all the same. Whichever of these views is nearer to the truth, it cannot be denied that, by the legislation of Elizabeth the English Church became — what it was not in the Middle Age — a spiritual organisation en- tirely dependent on the State. This it remains still ; the supremacy having been virtually transferred from the crown to Parliament in the next century. I shall not venture to inquire how far this condition of dependence has affected its ability and inclination to perform the part of a true spiritual power. It is enough to say that no act of will on the part of any English statesman has had such important and lasting consequences, for good or for evil, as the decision of Elizabeth to make the Church of England what it is. We have seen that the government and worship of the Church were established by Act of Parliament in 1559, and its doctrines in 1571. But when once Elizabeth had placed her ecclesiastical powers beyond dispute, by obtaining statutory sanction for them, she allowed no further interference by Parliament. All its attempts, even at mere discussion of ecclesiastical matters, she peremptorily suppressed. She supplied any farther legislation that was needed by virtue of her supremacy, and she exercised her ecclesiastical government by the Court of High Commission. The 226 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. new Anglican model was acquiesced in by the majority of the nation. But it had, at first, no hearty support except from the Government. The earnest religion- ists were either Catholics or Puritans. The object of Elizabeth was to compel these two extreme parties to outward conformity of worship. What their real beliefs were she did not care. The large majority of the Catholics showed a loyal and patriotic spirit at the time of the Armada. But they were not treated with confidence by the Govern- ment. Great numbers of them were imprisoned or confined in the houses of Protestant gentlemen, by way of precaution, when the Armada was approaching. No Catholic, I believe, was intrusted with any command either by land or sea ; and after the danger was over, the persecution, in all its forms, became sharper than ever. There was the less reason for this, inasmuch as it was no secret that the secular priests and the great majority of the English Catholics had become bitterly hostile to the small Jesuitical faction whose treasonable conspiracies had brought so much trouble on their loyal co-religionists. The term "Puritan" is used loosely, though con- veniently, to designate several shades of belief. By far the larger number of those to whom it is applied were, and meant to remain, members of the Established Church. They objected to certain ceremonies and vestments. They hoped to procure the abolition of these, and, in the meantime, evadod them when they could. They were what would now be called the Evangelical or Low Church party. They held Calvin's distinctive doctrines on predestination, as indeed did M DOMESTIC AFFAIRS : 1588-1601 227 most of the bishops ; but though preferring his Presby- terian organisation, or something like it, they did not treat it as essential. They were broadly distinguished from the Brownists or Independents, then an insig- nificant minority, who held each congregation to be a church, and therefore protested against the establish- ment of any national church. Though Elizabeth persecuted the Catholics with a severity steadily increasing in proportion as they be- came less numerous and formidable, she remained to the last anxious to make conformity easy for them. This was her reason for so obstinately refusing the concessions in the matter of ritual and vestments — trifling as they appear to the modern mind — which would have satisfied almost the whole of the Puritan party. This policy (for policy it assuredly was rather than conviction), which drove the most earnest Pro- testants into an attitude of opposition destined in the next two reigns to have such serious consequences, has been severely censured. But there can be no question that it did answer the purpose she had in view, which for the moment was most important. It did induce great numbers of Catholics to conform. She avoided a civil war in her own time between Catholics and Anglicans at the price of a civil war later on between Anglicans and Puritans. Looking at the great drama as a whole, perhaps the Puritans of the Great Eebellion might congratulate themselves on the part that Elizabeth chose to play in its earlier acts. It cannot be doubted that a civil war in the sixteenth century between Catholics and Protestants would have been waged with far more ferocity than was displayed 228 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. by either Cavaliers or Roundheads, and would have been attended with the horrors of foreign invasion. To conciliate the earnest religionists on both sides was impossible. Elizabeth chose the via media, and the successful equilibrium which she maintained during nearly half a century proves that she hit upon what in her own day was the true centre of gravity. But while doing justice to Elizabeth's insight and prudence, we may not excuse her extreme severity to the nonconformists of either party. It was not neces- sary. It seems to have been even impolitic. It arose from her arbitrary temper — from a quality, that is to say, valuable in a ruler, but apt, in great rulers, to be somewhat in excess. I have condemned her persecution of the Catholics. Her persecution of the Protestant nonconformists was marked by even greater injustice. Against the Catholics it might at least be urged that their opinions logically led to disloyalty. But the Indepen- dents, Barrow, Greenwood, and Penry, were indisputably loyal men. They were put to death nominally for spreading writings which, contrary to common sense, were held to be seditious, but really for their religious opinions, which, in the case of the first two, were extracted from them by the interrogatories of Arch- bishop Whitgift, an Inquisitor as strenuous and merciless as Torquemada. Some of the Council, espe- cially Burghley and KnoUys, were strongly opposed to Whitgift's proceedings. It must therefore be assumed that he had the Queen's personal approval. She had committed herself to a struggle with intrepid and obstinate men. The crowded gaols were a visible demonstration that she could not compel them to n DOMESTIC AFFAIRS : 1588-1601 229 submit ; and to hang them all was out of the question. An Act was therefore passed in 1593, by which those who would not promise to attend church were to be banished the country. Thus most of the Independents were at last got rid of. The non-separatist Puritans, who aimed at less radical changes, and hoped to effect them, if not under their present sovereign, yet under her successor, kept on the windy side of the law, attending church once a month, and not entering till the service was nearly over. Thus, at the end of her reign, Elizabeth perhaps flattered herself that she was within measurable distance of religious uniformity. CHAPTER XII LAST YEARS AND DEATH : 1601-1603, The death of Mary Stuart did something to simplify parties in Scotland; and, if her son had possessed the qualities of a ruler, he would have had a better chance of reducing his kingdom to order than any of his predecessors, because a middle class was at length rising into importance. As far as knowledge and discernment went, he was an able politician, and on several occasions he showed not only skill in his combinations, but — what he is not generally credited with by those who study only his career in England — considerable energy and courage. But he was wanting in perseverance, and a slave to idle pleasures. He had always some favourite upon whom he lavished any money that came into his hands. What was needed in his own interest and that of his country was that he should exercise rigid economy, develop all the forces that made for order, ally himself with the burghs and lower barons, cultivate good relations with the Kirk, industriously attend to all the details of government, and seize every opportunity to humble the great nobles of whatever party or creed. Instead 230 CH. xii LAST YBAES AND DEATH : 1601-1603 231 of this, he tried to maintain himself by balancing rival parties, and employing one nobleman to execute his vengeance on another. Instead of honestly and zealously seconding the policy of Elizabeth, and so deserving her confidence and support, which would have been of the utmost value to him, he tried to levy blackmail on her by coquetting with Spain and the Catholics. Elizabeth is accused of deliberately encouraging Scottish factions in order to keep the northern king- dom weak. She certainly supported Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, a turbulent and unprincipled man, while he was the antagonist of the Catholic nobles who were inviting the Spaniard. But it is plain that she desired nothing so much as to see James crush all aristocratic disorder, and make himself master of his kingdom. Her exhortations to him on this subject are full of wisdom, and expressed in most stirring lan- guage. But they only produced petitions for money. Notwithstanding her own difficulties, she long allowed him £3000 a year, which, in 1600, was increased to £6000. But ten times that amount would have done him no good, because he would immediately have squandered it. As Elizabeth grew old, James naturally became absorbed in the prospect of his succession to the English crown. All Scotchmen shared his eagerness. In England, feeling was almost unanimous in his favour, though some of the Catholics continued to talk of the Infanta or Arabella Stuart the niece of Darnley. By teasing Elizabeth to recognise his title, intriguing with her courtiers, and calling on his own 232 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. subjects to furnish him with the means of asserting his rights, James irritated the English Queen. But she had always intended that he should succeed her, and she did nothing to prejudice his claim. The two leading men at the English court — Cecil and Ealeigh — who had been united in their hostility to Essex, were now secretly competing for the favour of James. Each warned the Scottish King against the other, and represented himself as the only trust- worthy adviser. Cecil, from his confidential relations with the Queen, had the most difficult game to play, and it was not till her health was evidently failing that he ventured to open private communications with James. Even then he did not dare to correspond with him directly, but it was understood that every- thing written by Lord Henry Howard (brother of the last Duke of Norfolk) was to be taken as written by CecU. To make up for his previous backwardness, he lent James £10,000 — a pledge of fidelity which it was out of his rival's power to emulate. The long career of Elizabeth was now drawing to its close. Her sun might seem to be going down in calm splendour. She had triumphed over all her enemies. She might say with Virgil's heroine — " Vixi, et quem dederat oursum fortuna, peregi ; Et nunc magna mei sub terras ibit imago." The mighty Philip had gone to his grave five years before her (1598), a beaten man, having failed in Holland, failed in France, failed against England. Of the three great champions who withstood him, Elizabeth, if not the most distinguished by high xn LAST YEARS AND DEATH : 1601-1603 233 qualities, had yet, perhaps, the largest share in saving Europe from the retrograde tyranny which menaced it. The glorious resistance of William of Orange covered only sixteen years (1568-84). That of Henry rv. can hardly be said to have had any European import- ance before his accession to the French throne, from which date to the peace of Vervins and the death of Philip is a period of nine years (1689-98). But the whole of Elizabeth's long reign was spent in abating the power of Spain. It was the persistent, never-relaxing pressure from an unassailable enemy which wore out Philip, as it afterwards wore out Bonaparte. Elizabeth had found England weak and distracted : she was leaving it united and powerful. Nor was she of those to whom their due meed of praise is denied during life, and accorded only by the tardy justice of posterity. Her wisdom and courage were the admiration not of her own people alone, but of all Europe. " Her very enemies," says a French historian, "proclaimed her the most glorious and fortunate of all women who ever wore a crown." From the point of view of public life, little or nothing was wanting — so Bacon thought — to fill up the full measure of her felicity. Yet it seems that the last months of her life were clouded by melancholy, and deformed by a querulous iU-temper. Some have suggested that she suffered from remorse for her severity to Essex; others that she felt herself out of sympathy with the Puritan tendencies of the time. It is not necessary to resort to these unfounded or far-fetched suppositions to account for her gloom. If we turn from her public 234 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. to her private life, what situation could be more profoundly pitiable t Honour and obedience, indeed, still surrounded her. But that which also should accompany old age, love and troops of friends, she might not look to have. Near relations she had none. Alone she had chosen to live, and alone she must die. As her time approached, she was haunted by the consciousness that, among all those who treated her with so much reverence, there was not one who had any reason to be attached to her or to care that her life should be prolonged. Those who have not loved when they were young must not expect to find love when they are old. While health and strength remained, she had tasted the satisfaction of living her own life and playing the great game of politics, for which she was exceptionally gifted. But to a woman who has passed through life without knowing what it is to love or be loved, who has no memory of even an unrequited affection to feed on, who has never shared a husband's joys and sorrows, never borne the sweet burden of maternity, never suckled babe or rocked cradle, who must finish her journey alone, sitting in the solemn twilight before the last dark hour uncared for and uncaring, without the cheer of children or the varied interests that gather round the family — to such a one, what avails it that she has tasted the excitement of public life, that she has borne a share in politics or business — what even that her aims have been high or that she has done the State some service, if she has renounced the crown of womanhood, and turned from their appointed use those numbered years within which the female heart an LAST YEARS AND DEATH: 160) -1603 235 can find present joy and lay up store of calm satis- faction for declining age 1 Elizabeth had always enjoyed good health, thanks to her " exact temperance both as to wine and diet, which, she used to say, was the noblest part of physic," and her active habits. In capacity for re- sisting bodily fatigue and freedom from nervous ailments, she was like a man. It was not till the beginning of 1602 that those about her noticed any signs of failing strength. She still went on hunting and dancing. In dancing she excelled, and she kept it up for exercise, as many an old man keeps up his skating or tennis without being exposed to ill-natured remarks. In December 1602 her godson Harington, an amusing person, whose company she enjoyed, found her " in most pitiable state," both in body and mind. " She held in her hand a golden cup which she often put to her lips; but in sooth her heart seemeth too full to lack more fiUing." He read her some verses he had written, "whereat she smiled once," but said, " When thou dost feel creeping Time at thy gate, these fooleries will please thee less. I am past my relish for such matters. Thou seest my bodily meat doth not suit me well. I have eaten but one ill- tasted cake since yesternight." Harington hastened to send a present to the King of Scots, with the in- scription, " Domine memento mei cum veneris in regnum." In the same month Kobert Carey, son of her cousin Lord Hunsdon, visited her, apd professed to think her looking well. " No, Eobin," she said, " I am not well," and then "discoursed of her indisposition, and that her heart had been sad and heavy for ten 236 QUEEN ELIZABETH ohap. or twelve days, and in her discourse she fetched not so few as forty or fifty great sighs. . . . Here- upon I wrote to the King of Scots." ^ Her melancholy was not caused by any weakening of her mind. A long letter to James, dated January 5, 1603, though hardly legible, is very vigorous and characteristic. At the beginning of March 1603 she became much worse. There was some disease of the throat, attended with swelling and a distressing formation of phlegm, which made speaking difficult. The only relatives about her were Eobert Carey and his sister Lady Scrope, watching keenly that they might be the first to inform James of her death. She could not be brought by any of her Council to take food or go to bed. When in bed she had been troubled by a visual illusion; "she saw her body exceedingly lean and fearful in a light of fire.'' At last Nottingham, the Admiral, who was mourning the recent death of his wife, was sent for. He was a second cousin of Anne Boleyn, and was the one person to whom the dying Queen seemed to cling with some trust. He induced luT to take some broth. "For any of the rest," says her maid-of-honour. Mistress Southwell, "she would not answer them to any question, but said softly to my Lord Admiral's earnest persuasions that if he knew what she had seen in her bed he would not persuade 1 Elizabeth made large use of the courage and fidelity of her kins- men on the BolejTi side, but she did little to advance them either in rank or wealth. Hunsdon had set his heart on regaining the Boleyn Earldom of Wiltshire. When he was dying, Elizabeth brought the patent and robes of au earl, and laid them on his bed ; but the choleric old man replied, " lladam, seeing you counted me not worthy of this honour while I was living, I count myself unworthy of it now I an: dying." XII LAST YEARS AND DEATH : 1601-1603 237 her as he did. And Secretary Cecil, overhearing her, asked if her Majesty had seen any spirits ; to which she said she scorned to answer him so idle a question. Then he told her how, to content the people, her Majesty must go to had. To which she smiled, wonder- fully contemning him, saying that the word must was not to be used to princes ; and thereupon said, ' Little man, little man, if your father had lived ye [he ?] durst not have said so much : but thou knowest I must die, and that maketh thee so presumptuous.' And presently commanding him and the rest to depart her chamber, willed my Lord Admiral to stay ; to whom she shook her head, and with a pitiful voice said, ' My Lord, I am tied with a chain of iron about my neck.' He alleging her wonted courage to her, she replied, ' I am tied, and the case is altered with me.'" At last, "what by fair means," says Carey, " what by force, he got her to bed." It was perfectly understood that she meant James to be her successor. The Admiral now told his colleagues that she had confided her intention to him just before her illness took a serious turn. Two years before, in conversation with Eosni, the minister of Henry iv., she had spoken of the approaching union of the Scotch and English crowns as a matter of course. But it was not till a few hours before her death that her councillors ventured to question her on the subject. They gave out that she indicated James by a sign ; and this is also asserted by Carey, who, however, does not seem to have been present, though probably hia sister was. Mistress Southwell seems to write as an eye-witness, but betrays a Catholic bias, which may cast some doubt on her testimony. " The Council sent 238 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap. to her the bishop of Canterbury and other of the prelates, upon sight of whom she was much offended, cholericly rating them, bidding them be packing, saying she was no atheist, but knew full well they were hedge- priests, and took it for an indignity that they should speak to her. Now being given over by all, and at the last gasp, keeping still her sense in everything and giving ever when she spoke apt answers, though she spake very seldom, having then a sore throat, she desired to wash it, that she might answer more freely to what the Council demanded ; which was to know whom she would have king ; but they, seeing her throat troubled her so much, desired her to hold up her finger when they named whom liked her. Whereupon they named the king of France, the king of Scotland, at which she never stirred. They named my lord Beauchamp,* whereto she said, ' I will have no rascal's son in my seat, but one worthy to be a king.' Here- upon instantly she died." (March 23, afternoon.) It is certain, however, that she lived several hours after this characteristic outburst. Carey says that at six o'clock in the evening he went into her room with the Archbishop ; that, though speechless, she showed by signs that she followed his prayers, and twice desired him to remain when he was going away. She died in the early hours of Thursday, March 24. There have been many greater statesmen than Elizabeth. She was far from being an admirable type of womanhood. She does not, in my opinion, stand first even among female sovereigns, for I should put ' Son of Catherine Grey by the Earl of Hertford. "Rascal'' at that time meant a person of low birth. xn LAST YEARS AND DEATH: 1601-1603 239 that able ruler and perfect woman, Isabella of Castile, above her. I admit, however, that such comparisons are apt to be unjust. Few rulers have had to contend with such formidable and complicated difficulties as the English Queen. Few have surmounted them so triumphantly. This is the criterion, and the sufficient criterion, which determines the judgment of practical men. Research, if applied with fairness and common sense, may perhaps modify, it can never set aside, the popular verdict. There are writers who have made the discovery that Elizabeth was a very poor ruler, selfish and wayward, shortsighted, easily duped, faint- hearted, rash, miserly, wasteful, and swayed by the pettiest impulses of vanity, spite, and personal inclina- tion. They have not explained, and never will, how it was that a woman with all these disqualifications for government should have ruled England with signal success for forty-four years. Statesmen are indebted to good luck occasionally, like other people. But when this explanation is offered again and again with dull regularity, we are compelled to say, with one who had at once the best opportunity and the highest capacity for estimating the greatness of Elizabeth : " It is not to closet penmen that we are to look for guidance in such a case ; for men of that order being keen in style, poor in judgment, and partial in feeling, are no faith- ful witnesses as to the real passages of business. It is for ministers and great officers to judge of these things, and those who have handled the helm of government and been acquainted with the difficulties and mysteries of State business." ^ I Bacon, Infd/icem memoriam EUmbeihcs, 240 QUEEN ELIZABETH chap, hi The judgment of those who have handled the helm of government is to be found in the words of her contemporary, the great Henry — " She was my other self : " and of a greater still in the next generation — " Queen Elizabeth of famous memory ; we need not be ashamed to call her so ! " ^ 1 Carlyle, Letters and Speeches if Oliver Cromwell, Speech v. APPENDIX 243 APPENDIX A. SESSIONS OP PARLIAMENT IN THE EFJGN OF ELIZABETH. Year Parlia- ment. Eliza- beth. Began. Prorogued. Dissolved, I. 1st 25 Jan. 155| 8 May 1559 11. 5th 12 Jan. 156f 10 April 1563 II. 1 8th 1 2nd \ and 30 Sep. 1566 30 Deo. 1566 2 Jan. 156? Sess. 1 9th J in. 13th 2 April 1571 29 May 1571 IV. 14th 8 May 1572 30 June 1572 IV. 1 2nd \ 18th 8 Feb. 157J 15 Mar. 157i Sis. 1 "^'•1 3rd \ 23rd 16 Jan. 168* 18 Mar. 158* 19 April 1583 Sess. J '' 27th 1 V.- and 28th Us Nov. 1584* 29 Mar. 1585 14 Sep. 1586 [ 28th 1 .,.{ and 29th l\5 Oct. 1586* 29 Oct. 1586 23 Mar. 158? VII. 31st 4 Feb. 158f 29 Mar. 1589 VIII. 35th 19 Feb. 159§ 10 April 1593 IX. 39th 24 Oct. 1597* 9 Feb. 1591 X. 43rd 27 Oct. 1601 19 Deo. 1601 * Adjourned over Christmas Vacation, o N H P5 ■ « pj b 03 o O h p5 — o ^ H H M b O ■*. ix § — P5 « s t> o g o ;z: a p OS • Q la c "PS o » S 1 1 •s "H s "S O k. M o o £• 5 & tf p "o ►••a •g cq ,o s *-* 3 3 = i en o .bta 1 s ■1 1 A ■«>. •s ■« . a s li ■a g^ S § ii| 1 a II 1 ■a ^■a "O TS a Ignis s ;3;5 e " " ° ::l s 5 s s ,2 ^! c3 "s H 'E 1 ■s ■2 nry viii. natural son tie forfeited. his mother 1 a 1 Sis^ .2 J3 t 5 Ij « H p-l m < 3 O CO o t-H H ^ >< o a t" PI o M QO ■«! s o » H O s ■«l 3 ^ m la -H - b s o w o Hi pa &: < m a M CC ^ >? « 5 O t< s _ia a I g b g o O 05 S o •a g I S'S a 3 fl ■« &i ■3 I g i .ft i ^ s ■a !3 = ■35 1 2 ^ 2 as m m n «e (:« 0* -w o a ^ •d s s s a !2i ffl 4^ O .; s >■ S s a 1 1 1 04 O ^ h o ■V "^ 1 1 « Q m s Printed by T. and A. Conmtable, Trinters to His Majesty, at the Edinburgh University Press ZvQclvc Enoltsb Statesmen, Edited by JOHN MORLEY. Crown 8vo, Ss. 6d. each. WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. By Edward A. Freeman, D.C.L., LL.D. Times. — ' Gives witli great picturest^ueness . . . the dramatic incidents of a memorable career far removed from our times and our manner of thinking.' ,NRY II. By Mrs. J. R. Green. rimes.^' It is delightfully real and readable, and in spite of severe compression has the charm of a mediaeval romance.* EDWARD I. ByT. F. Tout, M.A., Professor of History, the Owens College, Manchester. Speaker. — ' A truer or more life-Uke picture of the king, the conqutror, the over- lord, the duke, has never yet been drawn.' HENRY VII. By James Gairdner. Atheneeum. — ' The best account of Henry vii. that has yet appeared.' CARDINAL WOLSEY. By Bishop Creighton, D.D. Saturday Review.< — ' Is exactly what one of a series of short biographies of English Statesmen ought to be.' ELIZABETH. By E. S. Beesly. M.A. Manchester Guardian. — ' It may be recommended as the best and briefest and most trustworthy of the many books that in this generation have dealt with the life and deeds of that *' bright Occidental Star, Queen Elizabeth of happy memory." * OLIVER CROMWELL. By Frederic Harrison. Times. — ' Gives a wonderfully vivid picture of events.' WILLIAM III. By H. D. Traill. Spectator. — * Mr. Traill has done his work well in the limited space at his com- mand. The narrative portion is clear and vivacious, and Ms criticisms, although sometimes trenchant, are substantially just.* WALPOLE. By John Morley, St. James's Gazette. — * It deserves to be read, not only as a work of one of the most prominent politicians of the day, but for its intrinsic merits. It is a clever, thoughtful, and interesting biography.' PITT. By Lord Rosebery. Times. — ' Brilliant and fascinating. . . . The style is terse, masculine, nervous, articulate, and clear ; the grasp of circumstance and character is firm, penetrating, luminous, and unprejudiced ; the judgment is broad, generous, humane, and scrupu- iou-ily candid. . . . It is not only a luminous estimate of Pitt's character and policy, it is also a brilliant gallery of portraits. The portrait of Fox, for example, is a masterpiece.' PEEL. By J. R. Thursfield, M.A. Daily News. — 'A model of what such a book should be. We can give it no higher praise than to say that it is worthy to rank with Mr. John Morley's IVai^ole in the same series.' CHATHAM. By Frederic Harrison, MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd., LONDON. Englisb fIDcn of Hction* With Portraits. Crown 8uo, Cloth, 2a. 6d. each. NELSON. By John Knox Laughton. Saturday Review.— 'The obligation laid upon him to be brief^ and his own anxiety to leave untold nothing of first-rate importance, have combined to give us an almost ideal short life of Nelson.' WOLFE. By A. G. Bradley. Times. — ' It appears to us to be very well done. The narrative is easy, the facts have been mastered and well marshalled, and Mr. Bradley is excellent both in his geographical and in his biographical details.* COLIN CAMPBELL (Lord Clyde). By Archibald Forbes. Times. — 'A vigorous sketch of a great soldier, a fine character, and a noble career. . . . Mr. Forbes writes with a practised and lively pen, and his experience of warfare in many lands stands him in good stead in describing Lord Clyde's services and campaigns.* GENERAL GORDON. By Colonel Sir William Butler. Spectator. — 'This is beyond all question the best of the narratives of the career of General Gordon that have yet been published.' HENRY THE FIFTH. By Rev. A. ]. Church. Scotsman.— 'No page lacks interest; and_ whether the book is regarded as a biographical sketch or as a chapter in English military history it is equally attractive.' LIVINGSTONE. By Thomas Hughes. Spectator.— * The volume is an excellent instance of miniature biography. LORD LAWRENCE. By Sir Richard Temple. Leeds Mercury. — 'A lucid, temperate, and impressive summary.* WELLINGTON. By George Hooper. Scotsman. — ' The story of the great Duke's life is admirably told by Mr. Hooper.' DAMPIER. By W, Clark Russell. Atheneeum. — ' Mr. Clark Russell's practical knowledge of the sea enables him to discuss the seafaring life of two centuries ago with intelligence and vigour. As a commentary on Dampier's voyages this little book is among the best.' MONK. By Julian Corbett. Saturday Review.—^* Mr. Corbett indeed gives you the real man.' STRAFFORD. By H. D. Traill. Athenseum. — *A clear and accurate summary of Strafford's life, especially as regards his Irish government.' WARREN HASTINGS. By Sir Alfred Lyall. Daily News. — ' May be pronounced without hesitation as the final and decisive verdict of history on the conduct and career of Hastings.' PETERBOROUGH. By W. Stebbing. Saturday Review. — 'An excellent piece of work.' CAPTAIN COOK. By Sir Walter Besant, Scottish Leader. — 'It is simply the best and most readable account of the great navigator yet published.' SIR HENRY HAVELOCK. By Archibald Forbes. Speaker,—* There is no lack of good writing in this book, and the narrative is sympathetic as well as spirited.' CLlVE. By Colonel Sir Charles Wilson. Times.—' Sir Charles Wilson, whose literary skill is unquestionable, does ample justice to a great and congenial theme.' SIR CHARLES NAPIER. By Colonel Sir William Butler. Dail]^ News,—* The " English Men of Action" series contains no volume more fascinating, both in matter and in style.' WARWICK, THE KING-MAKER. C. W. C. Oman. Glasgo^v Herald. — 'One of the best and most discerning word-pictures of the Wars of the Two Roses to be found in the whole range of English literature.* DRAKE. By Julian Corbett. Scottish Leader.- 'Perhaps the most fascinating of all the fifteen that have so far appeared. . . . Written really with excellent judgment, inabreezy and buoyant style.' RODNEY, By David G. Hannay. Spectator. — 'An admirable contribution to an admirable series.' MONTROSE. By Mowbray Morris. Times.— * A singularly vivid and careful picture of one of the most romantic figures in Scottish history.' , DUNDONALD. By the Hon. John W. Fortescue. Daily News. — 'There are many excellent volumes in the "English Men of Action " Series ; but none better written or more interesting than this.' CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. By A. G. Bradley. SIR "WALTER RALEIGH. By Sir Rennell Rodd. MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd., LONDON.