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Title: The Great Lord Burghley - A study in Elizabethan statecraft
Author: Hume, Martin A. S. (Martin Andrew Sharp)
Language: English
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THE GREAT LORD BURGHLEY
[Illustration: _Walker & Boutall, photo._ _McQueen, Sc._]
THE GREAT
LORD BURGHLEY
A STUDY IN ELIZABETHAN
STATECRAFT BY
MARTIN A. S. HUME
AUTHOR OF “THE COURTSHIPS OF QUEEN
ELIZABETH,” EDITOR OF THE CALENDARS OF SPANISH
STATE PAPERS (PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE)
“_He can never be a good statesman who
respecteth not the public more than his own
private advantage._”—LORD BURGHLEY
London
JAMES NISBET & CO., LIMITED
21 BERNERS STREET
1898
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
At the Ballantyne Press
TO THE MOST HONOURABLE
_Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, K.G._
THIRD MARQUIS OF SALISBURY
PRIME MINISTER OF QUEEN VICTORIA,
THIS ATTEMPT AT A POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY OF
HIS ILLUSTRIOUS ANCESTOR, THE PRIME
MINISTER OF QUEEN ELIZABETH,
_is respectfully dedicated by_
MARTIN A. S. HUME.
INTRODUCTION
For nearly half a century William Cecil, Lord Burghley, exercised greater
influence over the future fortunes of England than ever fell to the share
of a statesman before or since. It was a period when Mediæval Europe was
in the melting-pot, from which, in due season, some of her peoples were
to arise bright and shining, with fresh faiths, higher ideals, and nobler
aspirations, to start on a new career of civilisation; whilst others were
still to cling a while longer to the garb of dross which remained of the
old order, and was to hamper them in the times to come.
How England should emerge from the welter of the old tides and the new,
depended to some extent upon providential circumstances, but more largely
still upon the personal characteristics of those who guided her national
policy and that of her competitors. Never was nation more favoured in
this respect than was England at this crisis of the world’s history. The
conditions of the Queen’s birth compelled her to embrace the cause of
religious freedom, whilst her intellect, her sex, and her versatility
enabled her during a long course of years successfully to play off one
continental rival against another, until she was strong enough openly to
grasp and hold the balance. But withal, her vanity, her fickleness, the
folly and greed of her favourites, or the machinations of her enemies,
would inevitably have dragged her to ruin again and again, but for the
fact that she always had near her, in moments of weakness or danger, a
fixed point to which she could turn, a councillor whose gaze was never
diverted from the ultimate goal, a man whom flattery did not move, whom
bribery did not buy—wise, steady William Cecil, who, to her honour and
his, remained her prime adviser from the moment of her accession to the
day of his death.
It has happened that most of the historians who have dealt in detail
with Elizabethan politics, and especially with Cecil’s share in them,
have dwelt mainly upon the religious and ecclesiastical aspect of the
subject, and have usually approached it with a strong doctrinal bias on
one side or the other. It is true that Cecil’s life was coeval with the
rise and triumph of the great religious schism in the Christian faith
in England, that in his boyhood there was hardly a whisper of revolt
against the papal supremacy, and that ere he died the Protestant Church
of England was firmly established, and the country freed from the fears
of Rome. Upon this text most of his biographers have founded their
discourse, and have regarded the great minister as first and foremost
a religious reformer. That he was at heart, at all events in his later
years, sincerely attached to the Protestant faith, there is no reason
to doubt; but before all things, he was a statesman who sought to raise
and strengthen England by political means, and used religion, as he used
other instrumentalities, to attain the object he had in view. He was far
too prudent to say so, but he probably regarded religious dogma in as
broad a spirit as Catharine de Medici, Henry IV., and Elizabeth herself.
His youthful training and early circumstances had associated him with
an advanced school of thinkers, who had naturally adopted the cause of
religious reform, condemned by their opponents. The current of events
and the blindness of the other side identified that party with the cause
of national independence and prosperity; and for political aims, Cecil
made the most of the support to be obtained from those who demanded a
simpler and less rigid form of Christian doctrine than that imposed by
Rome. But in the party of reform Cecil was always the most conservative
element. Other councillors might be, and were, driven hither and thither
by bribery, by passion, by a desire to flatter the Queen’s caprice, by
religious zeal or mere ineptitude, but Cecil was judicious, well-nigh
incorruptible, prudent, patriotic, and clear-headed; and though he was
often obliged to dissemble and give way, he always returned to his point.
Protestant zeal must not hurry the Government too far, or too fast,
against the sworn enemies of Protestantism. England must be kept free
from entanglements with Rome, but she must also avoid as long as possible
national warfare with Rome’s principal supporter; for Spain was England’s
buckler against French aggression, and the possessor of the rich harbours
of the Netherlands where English commerce found its main outlet.
Throughout a long life of ceaseless activity, in which he had to deal
with ever-varying circumstances and problems; hampered by bitter rivals
at home and sleepless enemies abroad, Cecil’s methods shifted so
frequently, and apparently so contradictorily, as to have bewildered most
of those who have essayed to unravel his devious diplomacy. But shift as
he might, there was ever the one stable and changeless principle which
underlay all his policy, and guided all his actions. He had been brought
up in the traditional school of English policy which regarded the House
of Burgundy as a friend, and France as the natural enemy whose designs in
Scotland and Flanders must be frustrated, or England must be politically
and commercially ruined. For centuries England’s standing danger had been
her liability to invasion by the French over the Scottish border, and
for the first forty years of Cecil’s life the main object of English
statecraft was to break permanently the secular connection between
Scotland and France, and to weaken the latter country by favouring her
great rival in Flanders.
When Spain, under rigid Philip, assumed the championship of extreme
Catholicism, and pledged herself to root out the reformed doctrines
throughout Europe, whilst France, on the other hand, was often ruled by
Huguenot counsels, it will be seen that Cecil’s task in endeavouring
to carry out the traditional policy, was a most difficult one, and he
alone of Elizabeth’s ministers was able to preserve his equilibrium in
the face of it. Some of them went too far; drifted into Spanish pay, or
became open Catholics and rebels; others, moved by opposite religious
zeal, lost sight of the political principle, and were for fighting Spain
at all times and at any cost. But Cecil, though sorely perplexed at
times, never lost his judgment. The first article in his political creed
was distrust of the French, and it remained so to the day of his death,
though France was ruled by the ex-champion of the Huguenots, and Spain
and England were still at daggers drawn. In the first year of Elizabeth’s
reign Cecil wrote:[1] “France, being an ancient enemy of England, seeketh
always to make Scotland an instrument to exercise thereby their malice
upon England, and to make a footstool thereof to look over England as
they may;” and forty years afterwards, when the great minister was on the
brink of the grave, De Beaumont, the French ambassador, spoke of him as
still leading “all the old councillors of the Queen who have true English
hearts; that is to say, who are enemies of the welfare and repose of
France.”[2]
To allow the French to become dominant in Scotland would have made
England weak, to have stood by idly whilst they overcame the Netherlands
would have made her poor, and to these national reasons for distrust
of French aims, was added, in Cecil’s case, the personal suspicion and
dislike bred of early associations and tradition. The Queen, on the
other hand, could not be expected to look upon the French in the same
light as her minister. She was as determined as he was that the French
should gain no footing in Flanders or Scotland; but through the critical
times of her girlhood France had always stood her friend, as Spain had
naturally been her enemy. Her mother’s sympathies had, of course, been
entirely French, and her own legitimacy and right to rule were as eagerly
recognised by France as they were sullenly questioned by Spain. But when
passion or persuasion led her into a dangerous course, as they frequently
did, she knew that Cecil, sagacious, and steady as a rock, would advise
her honestly; and sooner or later she would be brought back to his
policy of upholding Protestantism, whilst endeavouring to evade an open
war with the deadly enemy of Protestantism, which could only result in
strengthening France.
The present work will accordingly aim mainly at presenting a panorama of
Cecil’s career as a statesman, whose active life was not only coincident
with the triumph of the Reformation, but also with the making of Modern
England, and with the establishment of her naval supremacy. In the
space available it will be impossible to relate in detail the whole of
the complicated political transactions of the long and important reign
of Elizabeth, and no attempt will be made to do so. But Cecil, to his
lasting glory, did more than any other man to guide the nation into the
groove of future greatness; and the primary object of this book is to
trace his personal and political influence over the events of his time:
to show the effects produced by his clear head and steady hand on the
councils of the able and fortunate sovereign, who transformed England
from a feeble and distracted, to a powerful and united, nation.
The task of writing the life of Lord Burghley has been attempted more
than once, but in every case with but indifferent success. The failure
has certainly not been caused by lack of material, for no English
statesman was ever so indefatigable a correspondent and draftsman as
Cecil, and the stupendous masses of manuscript left behind by him
frightened even the indefatigable Camden from the work of writing an
account of Cecil’s ministry three centuries ago. “But,” he writes, “at
my very first entrance upon the task, an intricate difficulty did in a
manner wholly discourage me, for I lighted upon great files and heaps
of papers and writings of all sorts, … in searching and turning over
whereof, whilst I laboured till I sweat again, covered all over with
dust, to gather fit matter together, … that noble lord died, and my
industry began to flag and wax cold.” Strype also, who has reproduced
so many important documents relating to Cecil in his “Annals of the
Reformation,” and “Ecclesiastical Memorials,” was preparing materials for
a life of the statesman, when death stopped his labour. Besides several
less pretentious works by various authors, and the curious contemporary
memoirs published in Peck’s _Desiderata Curiosa_, a spirited attempt
was made seventy years ago by Dr. Nares, Regius Professor of History at
Oxford, to produce a book worthy of the subject. After many years of
laborious plodding through countless thousands of documents, the worthy
professor produced one of the most ponderous and unreadable books in
the English language, of which Lord Macaulay made merciless sport in
his famous essay on Burghley. “Compared,” he says, “with the labour
of reading through these volumes, all other labour, of thieves on the
treadmill, of children in factories, of negroes on sugar-plantations, is
an agreeable recreation.… Guicciardini, although certainly not the most
amusing of writers, is a Herodotus or a Froissart when compared with Dr.
Nares.”
The embarrassment of riches in the way of material is, indeed, the rock
upon which most of the serious biographers of Cecil have foundered. In
the Lansdowne MSS., at the British Museum alone, there are 122 folio
volumes of Burghley manuscripts, which descended through the minister’s
secretary, Sir Michael Hicks, besides large numbers in the Cotton
and Harley collections. The Burghley Papers at the Record Office are
almost innumerable, the foreign documents subsequent to 1577 being
still uncalendared, whilst the priceless collection in the possession
of Lord Salisbury at Hatfield consists of over 30,000 documents,
bound in 210 large volumes. From comparatively early times many of
the more interesting of these papers have been in print. The _Scrinia
Ceciliana_ in the third edition of Cabala, “The Compleat Ambassador,”
the “Sadler State Papers,” Haynes’ and Murdin’s selections from the
Hatfield archives, Forbes’ “Public Transactions,” Birch’s “Memoirs of
Elizabeth,” Burgon’s “Sir Thomas Gresham,” Nicholas’ “Sir Christopher
Hatton,” Burnet, Collier, Lodge, Strype, Foxe, Ellis, the Harleian
Miscellany, and Tytler contain a great number of original documents from
Cecil’s collections. Above all—since the excellent sketch of Cecil in
the “Dictionary of National Biography” was written—the Historical MSS.
Commission have completed the six volumes of Calendars of the Hatfield
Papers to 1597, and the Calendars of Spanish State Papers of Elizabeth
have been published by the Record Office. By the aid of these, and the
Domestic and Foreign Calendars of State Papers, it is now, for the first
time, possible to obtain a comprehensive view in an accessible form of
thousands of documents which have hitherto been difficult or impossible
to reach; and obstacles which have marred the success of previous labours
in the same field, may, it is hoped, now be more easily surmountable. The
sources above mentioned have all been placed under contribution for the
production of the present summary account of Cecil’s political life, as
well as some uncalendared manuscripts kindly placed at my disposal by the
Marquis of Salisbury.
I cannot hope to have succeeded entirely where others have failed, but I
have not spared time or labour in the attempt; and I have endeavoured, at
least, to prevent my view of the events themselves from being obstructed
by the documents which relate to them; and, so far as is possible in a
short readable book, to present a general view of the policy of the reign
of Elizabeth, especially with relation to the influence exerted upon it
by her principal minister.
I have written with no preconceived theory to prove, no religious or
political aim to serve, or doctrine to establish. My only desire has
been to follow facts whithersoever they may lead me, and to pourtray a
lofty personality who has left an enduring impress on the history of his
country. I have not sought to present Cecil as a demigod—or even as a
genius of the first class—as most of his biographers have done. The ways
and methods of Elizabethan statesmen need not be concealed or apologised
for because they do not square with the ethics of to-day. At a time when
the bulk of the English people cheerfully changed their faith four times
in a generation to please their rulers, it would be absurd to hold up to
especial obloquy a minister for having persecuted at one time a religion
which at another time he professed. The final triumph of England in that
struggle of giants was won by statesmen who, like their mistress, owed
as much to what we should now call their failings as they did to their
virtues. Their vacillation and tergiversation in the face of rigid and
stolid opponents were main elements of their success. Cecil was by far
the most honest and patriotic of them; but he, too, was a man of his age,
and must be judged from its standpoint—not from that of to-day. If I have
succeeded in presenting more clearly than some of my predecessors a view
of the process by which England was made great, the man who, above all
others, was instrumental under God in making it so, may well be judged
by the splendid results of his lifelong labour; and his reputation for
religious constancy, moral generosity, and political scrupulousness,
placed in the opposite scale, will hardly stir the balance.
MARTIN A. S. HUME
LONDON, _September 1898_.
THE GREAT LORD BURGHLEY
CHAPTER I
1520-1549
It may be stated as an historical truism that great organic changes in
the relationship of human beings towards each other are usually preceded
by periods of quiescence and apparent stability, during which unsuspected
forces of preparation are at work. When the moment of crisis comes, the
unthinking marvel that men are ready, as if by magic, to accept, and,
if need be, to fight and die for, the new order of ideas. Although the
outward manifestation of it may be unexpected, yet, in reality, no vast,
far-reaching revolution in human institutions is sudden: only that the
short-sightedness of all but the very wisest fails to see the signs until
the forces are openly arrayed and the battle set.
The period of the struggle for religious reform in Europe was preceded by
such a process of unconscious preparation as this. Over a century elapsed
from the martyrdom of John Huss before the bold professor of Wittemberg
dared to denounce the Pope’s indulgences. It is true that during that
century, and before, satirists and moralists had often pointed the finger
of contumely at the corruption of the clergy and the lax discipline of
the Church, but no word had been raised against her doctrines. In the
meanwhile, the subterranean process which was sapping the foundations
of the meek submission of old, was progressing apace with the spread of
printed books and the revival of the study of Greek and Hebrew. By the
time that Luther first made his daring stand, the learning of cultivated
laymen, thanks to Erasmus and others, had far outstripped the cramped
erudition of the friars; and when at last a churchman thundered from the
Saxon pulpit his startling doctrine of papal fallibility, there were
thousands of men throughout Europe who were able to do without monkish
commentators, and could read the Scriptures in the original tongues,
forming their own judgment of right and wrong by the unobscured light of
the inspired Word itself.
Thus it happened that the cry for radical religious reform in 1517 found
a world waiting for it, and in an incredibly few years the champions of
the old and the new had taken sides ready for the struggle which was to
decide the fate of civilisation for centuries to come. By an apparently
providential concurrence of circumstances, the personal characters and
national ambitions of rulers at the same period were such as to enlist
the hardiest and most tenacious of the European peoples on the side of
freedom from spiritual and intellectual trammels; and eventually to ally
the idea of political emancipation and personal liberty with that of
religious reform, to the immense strengthening of both. The fight was to
be a long and varied one; it can hardly, indeed, be looked upon as ended
even now. Many of the combatants have fainted by the way, and both sides
have belied their principles again and again; but looking back over the
field, we can see the ground that has been won, and are assured that
in the long-run the powers of progress must prevail, as we hope and
believe, to the greater glory of God and the greater happiness of men.
The year 1520 saw the first open marshalling of the powers for the great
struggle, partly religious and partly political, which was to lead to the
triumph of the Anglo-Saxon race. In England, as yet, there was no whisper
of revolt against the authority of the papacy. The King had just written
his book against the new doctrines of Luther, which was to gain for him
the title of Defender of the Faith; Catharine, the Spanish Queen-Consort,
an obedient child of the Church, as became the daughter of Isabel the
Catholic, lived in yet unruffled happiness with her husband; whilst the
all-ruling Wolsey was plotting and intriguing for the reversion of the
triple tiara of St. Peter when Pope Leo should die. The first step to
the political rise of England was the election (June 1519) of young King
Charles of Spain to the imperial crown of Germany, in succession to his
grandfather, Maximilian of Hapsburg. The marriage of the new Emperor’s
father, Philip of Hapsburg, the heir of Burgundy, with Jane the Mad, the
heiress of Spain, had joined to her heritage Flanders, Holland, and the
Franche Comté, and had already upset the balance of power. Francis I. had
sought to redress matters by securing his own election to the empire,
but he had been frustrated, and he saw a Spanish prince in possession
of territory on every side of France, shutting her in. Naples had been
filched by greedy Ferdinand, and was now firmly Spanish, as Sicily had
been for centuries; the Emperor asserted suzerainty over most of Italy,
and, above all, over Milan, which Francis himself claimed and occupied.
It was clear that the expansion of France was at an end, and her national
decline must commence, unless the iron bands braced around her by the
Hispano-Germanic Empire could be broken through. It was then that the
importance of England as the potential balancing power between the
two great rivals became evident. Henry VIII. was rich in money, able,
ambitious, and popular. He had devoted all his great energy to improving
the resources of his country, and to reconstructing his navy; besides
which he held Calais, the key to the frontier battle-ground of Flanders
and France, and was as fully conscious of his rising importance as he was
determined to carry it to the best market.
It had been for many years the main point of English foreign policy to
counteract the unification of France by maintaining a close connection
with the House of Burgundy, as possessors of Flanders and Holland, the
principal markets for the English wool and cloth. This policy had drawn
England and Spain together when the inheritances of Spain and Burgundy
were united, and it had also led to the marriage of Catharine of Aragon
in England. But Henry’s desire to hold the balance, and Wolsey’s greed
and ambition, had made them willing to listen to the blandishments of
Francis, and to consent to the distrustful and pompous comedy of the
Field of the Cloth of Gold. Charles, the new Emperor, had shown his
appreciation of the threatened friendship between France and England,
by his Quixotic rush over to England to see Henry earlier in the year
(1520). His stay was a short one, only four days, but it was sufficient
for his purpose. He could promise more to Wolsey than Francis could, and
Henry’s vanity was flattered at the young Emperor’s chivalrous trust in
him. When Charles sailed from Dover, he knew full well that, however
splendid and friendly might be the interviews of the Field of the Cloth
of Gold, Francis would not have the King of England on his side in the
inevitable coming war, even if he did not fight against him.
This was the condition of English politics at home and abroad when
William Cecil first saw the light at Bourne, in Lincolnshire, on the 13th
September 1520. He came into the world at the opening of a new epoch both
for his country and for the general advancement of civilisation, and
before he left it the modern dispensation was firmly planted, in England
at least, owing in no small measure to his sagacity and statecraft.
In his after life, when he had become famous, Cecil drew up in his
own hand a private journal (now in the British Museum), in which he
endeavoured to set down in chronological order the principal events of
his life. It will be seen, by the specimen line reproduced under the
portrait, that he was in some confusion as to the year of his birth and
other events of his earlier years. The entry relating to his birth, as
first made, is against the year 1521, and reads, “13ᵒ Sep. Ego Gulielm.
Cecill natˢ sū, apud Burne in Com̄ Lincoln̄i;” but afterwards the date
was crossed out and entered above the line, so as to correspond with the
year 1520, whilst the blank against the year 1521 is filled in with the
mention of the arrival of the Emperor Charles V. in London on the 5th
June of that year. This also is a mistake, as the Emperor’s second visit
was in June 1522. The entry with regard to Cecil’s becoming a student
at Gray’s Inn in 1541 mentions that he was at that time twenty-one
years of age, so that it may be concluded that the year of his birth
was really 1520, although 1521 has usually been given by his earlier
biographers. There is at Hatfield a little book which appears not to
have been noticed or calendared, but which is, nevertheless, interesting
for purposes of comparison, as I conclude it to have been the foundation
or rough draft of the journal. It is a small perpetual calendar bound
up with a custom-house tariff: “Imprinted at London at the Longe Shop
adjoining St. Mildred’s Church in the Pultrie, London, by John Alde,
anno 1562.” In this calendar the entry relating to his birth runs thus:
“13ᵗʰ Sep. 1521. Ego Gul. Cecill natus sū: 13 Sept. 1521, between 3 and
4 P.M.;” whilst his entering Gray’s Inn is stated as follows: “6ᵗʰ May,
33 Henry VIII. Gul. Cecill veni ad Graye’s Inn.” No age is given in this
case, so that it may probably be concluded that on copying the entries
into his permanent journal he recollected the age at which he became a
law student, and then saw that he was born a year earlier than he had
originally thought, and at once corrected the statement he had written.
The question of his remote ancestry is of no great importance to the
purpose of the present book, although Cecil himself, who throughout
his life was a diligent student of heraldry and genealogy, devoted
considerable attention to it; and Camden was at the pains to trace
his descent to a Robert Sitsilt, a gentleman of Wales in the time of
William Rufus (1091). It may be sufficient for our purpose to adhere
to a written pedigree at Hatfield House annotated and continued by
William Cecil, which proves, so far as such documents can, that the
statements made by his opponents to the end of his life that he was of
“base origin,” were entirely untrue. This pedigree traces the descent
of the statesman’s great-grandfather Richard Sitsilt, who died in 1508
possessing considerable estates in Monmouthshire and Herefordshire, to
the ancient Welsh family of Sitsilt; but its interest and trustworthiness
really commences with Cecil’s own continuation of the pedigree from his
great-grandfather to himself. At the end of the engrossed genealogy he
has written, “Here endeth ye old Roole in parchmᵗ,” and “The contynuance
of ye line in ye heyres males untill this yere 1565.” This continuation
shows that his grandfather David, the third son of Richard Sitsilt,
came across England and settled at Stamford,[3] whilst his elder
brothers remained in possession of the ancestral acres at Alterennes,
Herefordshire. In the perpetual calendar at Hatfield, this David’s
death is recorded by his grandson as follows: “David Cecill avus meus
obiit Oct. 27 Hen. VIII.”[4] (1535). He was an alderman of Stamford,
and appears to have possessed a good estate in Lincolnshire, which he
purchased in 1507; and was appointed in 1512 Water-bailiff of Wittlesea
Mere, in Huntingdonshire, and Keeper of the Swans throughout all the fen
country.
Soon after the accession of Henry VIII., David Cecil, the substantial
Lincolnshire squire, became a courtier, and was made one of the King’s
serjeants-at-arms. Thenceforward royal grants and offices came to him
plentifully, stewardships of crown lands, the escheatorship of Lincoln,
the shrievalty of Northampton, and the like, which must have added
greatly both to his wealth and his importance. No indication has ever
been given of the reasons for his court favour, but it may be conjectured
to have arisen from the friendship of his powerful neighbour Lord
Willoughby d’Eresby of Grimsthorpe, who married Maria de Sarmiento,
Queen Catharine’s dearest friend and inseparable companion; as the
connection between Lady Willoughby’s daughter, the Duchess of Suffolk,
and William Cecil, remained almost on a sisterly footing throughout the
lady’s life. In any case, David’s influence at court was sufficient
to obtain for his son Richard, the statesman’s father, a succession of
lucrative offices. He was one of the King’s pages, and is said to have
attended the sovereign to the Field of the Cloth of Gold a few months
before William Cecil was born, and he subsequently became Groom of the
Wardrobe, and Yeoman of the Robes. He, like the rest of the King’s
favourites, fattened on the spoils of the monasteries, and stewardships
of royal manors showered upon him. He was Constable of Warwick Castle,
Bailiff of Wittlesea Mere, and Keeper of the Swans, like his father, and
Sheriff of Rutland; and to add to his prosperity, he married the heiress
of William Heckington of Bourne, who brought to him the fine property of
Burghley adjoining his own estates at Stamford. When, therefore, William
Cecil was born in the house of his maternal grandfather at Bourne, he was
prospective heir to broad acres in a half-dozen counties, with almost the
certainty of advancement through court influence in whatever career he
might choose.
Little is known, or need be told, of Cecil’s early youth. He went to
school successively at Grantham and Stamford, and in May 1535, when he
was fifteen years of age, entered St. John’s College, Cambridge, to
embark upon deeper studies. His anonymous biographer, who lived in his
household in his later years, and can only have spoken by hearsay of
his college days, says[5] that he was so “diligent and paineful as he
hired a bell-ringer to call him up at foure of the clock every morninge;
with which early rising and late watchinge, and continuall sitting,
there fell abundance of humours into his leggs, then very hardly cured,
which was thought one of the original causes of his gowt.” It is, at
all events, certain that he threw himself with avidity into the studies
which were then especially claiming the attention of scholars, and in
a very short time became remarkable for his wide knowledge of Greek
especially, and for his extraordinary general aptitude and application.
It is said, indeed, that he gratuitously read the Greek lecture at St.
John’s before he was nineteen years of age. By good fortune it happened
that the University was at the time of his residence the centre of a
new intellectual movement, the young leaders of which at once became
Cecil’s chosen friends. Already the new learning had taken fast hold of
the brighter spirits, and although Luther’s works were openly forbidden,
they were secretly read by a little company of students who met for the
purpose at a tavern in Cambridge called the White Horse; Erasmus had
left memories of his teaching behind him at Queen’s, and Melancthon’s
books were eagerly studied. A brilliant young King’s scholar, named
Thomas Smith, read the Greek lectures at Queen’s College, and assembled
under him a band of scholars, such as have rarely been united at one
time. Cheke, Ascham, Matthew Parker, Nicholas Bacon, Bill, Watson, and
Haddon, amongst many others, who afterwards achieved fame, were Cecil’s
intimate companions; and Cheke especially, who belonged to the same
college, and was somewhat older, systematically helped him, doubtless for
a consideration. Cheke’s capacity was almost as remarkable as that of his
fellow King’s scholar, Smith. He was poor, but of ancient family, the son
of a college-beadle whose widow on his death had to maintain her children
by keeping a wine-shop in the town; although he subsequently became the
Regius Professor of Greek, and tutor to Edward VI., and, by the aid of
Smith, reformed the vicious pronunciation of Latin and Greek upon which
the Churchmen had insisted. Humble John Cheke was Cecil’s bosom friend,
and to his mother’s wine-shop the rich courtier’s son must often have
been a welcome visitor.
Details of his daily life are wanting, but he must have been a
well-conducted youth, for the amount of study he got through was
prodigious. Catharine de Medici, years afterwards (1563), spitefully told
Smith—then Sir Thomas, and an ambassador—that Cecil had had a son at the
age of fifteen or sixteen,[6] to which Smith, who must have known whether
it was true or not, made no reply; but she probably spoke at random, and
referred to Cecil’s early marriage. He left the University after six
years’ residence, without taking his degree. Whether his father withdrew
him because of his close intimacy with the family of the wine-shop
keeper, is not known, but is probable. In his own hand he states that he
was entered a student of Gray’s Inn, in May 1541, and that on the 8th
August of the same year he married Mary Cheke, of Cambridge, the sister
of his friend.[7] The next entry in the diary records, under date of 5th
May 1542, the birth of his eldest son, Thomas Cecil, his own age at the
time being twenty-two (Natus est mihi Thomas Cecil filius; cum essem
natus annos xxii.). In the Perpetual Calendar at Hatfield it is mentioned
that the child was born at Cambridge, so that it may be assumed that
Cecil’s wife still lived with her own people. The next entry to that
relating the birth of the future Lord Exeter, records the death of his
young mother thus: “22 Feb. 1543, Maria uxor mortua est in Domine, hora
2ᵃ nocte,”[8] and with this bare statement the story of Cecil’s first
marriage ends, though he never lost touch with or interest in the Cheke
family, who appear to have been equally attached to him.
It may be questioned whether Cecil went deeply into the study of law at
Gray’s Inn. It was usual to enter young gentlemen at one of the inns of
court to give them some definite standing or pursuit in London, rather
than with a view of their becoming practising lawyers. It is almost
certain from a statement of his household biographer,[9] that such was
the case with Cecil. “He alwaies praised the study of the common law
above all other learning: saying ‘that if he shoulde begyene againe he
would follow that studie.’” He probably passed much of his time about the
court; and his domestic tells a story of him in this connection, which
may well be true, but which rests upon his authority alone. He was, he
says, in the presence-chamber, where he met two chaplains of O’Neil, who
was then (1542) on a visit to the King; “and talking long with them in
Lattin, he fell in disputation with the priests, wherein he showed so
great learning and witt, as he proved the poore priests to have neither,
who weare so putt down as they had not a word to saie, but flung away no
less discontented than ashamed to be foiled in such a place by so younge
a berdless yewth.”[10] The chronicler goes on to say that the King being
told of this, Cecil was summoned to the royal presence, and delighted
Henry with his answers; Richard Cecil, the father, being directed by the
King to seek out some office or favour which might be bestowed upon his
clever son. The Yeoman of the Robes, we may be sure, was nothing loath,
and petitioned in William Cecil’s name for the reversion of the office of
_custos brevium_ in the Court of Common Pleas, which was duly granted,
and was the first of the future great statesman’s many offices of profit
received from the Crown.
At about the same time, or shortly afterwards (1544), Cecil’s connection
with the court was made closer by the appointment of his brother-in-law,
John Cheke, to be tutor to the young Prince Edward, and of his friend,
Roger Ascham, to a similar position to the Princess Elizabeth. A general
supervision over the studies of Prince Edward was entrusted to his
governor, Sir Anthony Cooke, who was one of the pioneers of the new
learning, and a member of the Protestant party in Henry’s court led by
Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, Prince Edward’s uncle. The secular
educational movement, which was now in full swing, had spread to the
training of girls of the upper classes. The working of tapestry and the
cares of a household were no longer regarded as the sole ends and aims of
a lady’s life, and it was a fashion at court for Greek and Latin, as well
as modern languages, to be imparted to the daughters of gentlemen of the
newer school. Amongst the first of the ladies to be thus highly educated
were the four daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke, who were afterwards to be
celebrated as the most learned women in England, at a time when education
had become a feminine fad under the learned Elizabeth. To the eldest of
these paragons of learning, Mildred Cooke, aged twenty, William Cecil was
married on the 21st December 1545, and thus bound himself by another
link to the rising progressive party at court.[11]
Already the struggle of the Reformation on the Continent had begun. The
Emperor, alarmed at the firm stand made by the Protestant princes of
the empire, had hastily made peace with Francis I., and had left his
ally the King of England in the lurch. The spectre of Lutheranism had
drawn together the lifelong rivals with the secret object of crushing
religious dissent, which struck at the root of their temporal authority.
The ambition of Maurice of Saxony, and disunion in the Protestant ranks,
enabled Charles to destroy the Smalkaldic league, and in April 1547,
after the battle of Muhlberg, to impose his will upon the empire. Henry
VIII. had deeply resented the desertion of his ally Charles V., when
in December 1544 he had been left to fight Francis alone, and during
the closing years of his life the Protestant influence in his Councils
grew stronger than ever. The old King died on the 28th January 1547.
Parliament was sitting at the time, but the King’s death was kept secret
for nearly three days, and it was Monday, 31st January, before Lord
Chancellor Wriothesley, his voice broken by sobs, informed the Houses
of Parliament that King Edward VI. had ascended the throne, under the
regency, during his minority, of the Council nominated in King Henry’s
will. The star of Seymour and the Protestants had risen, and soon
those papistically inclined, like Wriothesley, and Gardiner, Bishop of
Winchester, shed tears indeed for the master they had lost, schismatic
though he was.
With such friends in the dominant party as Cooke, Cheke, Cranmer, and
Seymour, it is not surprising that William Cecil’s career emerged from
obscurity and uncertainty almost as soon as the new Government was
established. For a young man of twenty-seven he had already not done
badly. His father was still alive, but in the first year of Edward VI.
the office of _custos brevium_, of which the old King had given him the
reversion five years before, fell in, and this brought him, in salary and
fees, £240 per annum (£6, 13s. 4d. salary and rest fees at the four law
terms), and in addition to this, according to his household biographer,
the Lord Protector appointed him his Master of Requests soon after
assuming power. That he held some such office from the summer of 1547 is
certain, as from that date forward great numbers of letters exist written
to him in relation to suits and petitions addressed to the Protector.
The office, as then constituted, appears to have been an innovation, as
being attached to Somerset’s personal household,[12] and intended to
relieve him from the trouble of himself examining petitions and suits. In
any case Cecil’s assiduity and patience appear thus early to have been
acknowledged, to judge by the tone of most of his correspondents, many
of whom belonged to a much more exalted social position than himself.
In June 1547 Sir Thomas Darcy informs him[13] that (evidently by order)
he had inquired into the love affair between “Mistress Dorothy” and the
young Earl of Oxford—who was a ward—and desires to know whether the
Protector wishes the match to be prevented or not; and in the following
month Lady Browne wrote to him in terms of intimate friendship, begging
him to use his influence with Somerset to appoint her brother to the
coming expedition to Scotland.[14]
The master and fellows of his old college, St. John’s, too, were
anxious to propitiate the rising official and to bespeak his interest
in favour of their foundation,[15] and the widowed Duchess of Suffolk
(Lady Willoughby) consulted him in all her difficulties. The war with
France was suspended, though the English forces holding Boulogne were
closely beleaguered, and Somerset’s greed was diverting the money which
should have been spent in war preparations; but in pursuance of the
traditional policy of England, it became a question almost of national
existence when it was seen that the French intrigues for the marriage of
the child Queen of Scots and the final suppression of the rising reform
party in Scotland were likely to succeed. Arran had signed the treaty
with Henry for the marriage of Edward and Mary; but he, and especially
the Queen-mother, Mary of Lorraine, had resisted the deportation of the
infant Queen to England. It is possible that some arrangement might
have been arrived at had not the ill-advised murder of Cardinal Beaton
and the subsequent anarchy given to the new King of France, Henry II.,
an excuse for armed interference in protection of the Catholic party.
Then it became incumbent upon the Protector to fight the Scots at all
hazards, or French influence over the Border threatened to become
permanent; a double danger, now that the religious question tended to
alienate England from her secular alliance with the House of Burgundy.
When Somerset made his rapid march upon Scotland with an army of 18,000
men, supported by a powerful fleet, in September 1547, his trusted
Cecil attended him in the capacity apparently of provost-marshal, in
conjunction with the chronicler of the campaign, William Patten.[16] The
decisive battle of Pinkie was fought on the 10th September 1547, and was
in a great measure won by the dash, at a critical moment, of the Spanish
and Italian auxiliaries whom Somerset had enlisted. According to the
“household” historian so often quoted,[17] Cecil narrowly escaped death
from a cannon shot at Pinkie, but no other mention of the fact is to be
found. It has been doubted whether at this time he held still the office
of Master of Requests, in which he is said to have been succeeded by his
old college friend Sir Thomas Smith,[18] but there was no break in his
close connection in some capacity with the Protector. About five months
after Pinkie, in a letter to Lord Cobham, Somerset calls him “my servant
William Cecill,”[19] and refers to letters written to him on his behalf;
and in June 1548 the powerful Earl of Warwick, who was soon to supplant
Somerset, writes to Cecil, almost humbly thanking him for forwarding some
request of his to the Protector.[20]
Cecil’s position, however, shortly after this becomes clearly defined,
and his personality emerges into full daylight. Against the year 1548 in
his journal, the only entry is as follows: “Mes. Sep. _co-optatus sū in
ofᵐ Secretarij_.” This has often given rise to confusion as to the date
of his first appointment as Secretary of State, but there is now no room
for doubt that the office to which this entry refers is that of Secretary
to Somerset; and the appointment, like that of Master of Requests, was
part of the Protector’s system of surrounding himself with a household as
near as possible modelled on that of the King.
Thenceforward everything that did not strictly appertain to the
official Secretaries of State went through the hands of Cecil, who in
the meanwhile was imbibing the traditions of statecraft which were to
guide him through life. Already the cabal against Somerset had been in
progress before he went to Scotland, and had caused him to hurry back
before he gained the full fruits of his victory at Pinkie. Mary of
Lorraine and the Scottish nobles had almost unanimously rallied now to
the French side, and had agreed to give the young Queen in marriage to
the Dauphin, whilst strong reinforcements were sent to Scotland from
France. Bound though he was to the extreme Protestant party, Somerset
was therefore obliged to turn to the arch-enemy of Protestantism, the
Emperor, for support and assistance. Charles had his hands full with his
vast new projects of universal domination for his son, and was postponing
the inevitable war with France as long as possible, and consequently
turned a deaf ear to Somerset’s approaches. Public discontent, artfully
encouraged by the Protector’s enemies, grew daily more dangerous. His
brother, the Lord Admiral, had sought to depose him, and fell a victim
to his own foolishness and ambition (20th March 1549). The attempt to
interfere with the religious service in the house of the Princess Mary
made Somerset even more unpopular, alienated the Emperor still further,
and enraged those who yet clung to the remnants of the old faith. Then
came the great rising in the West, the revolt of the commons throughout
Eastern and Central England against the enclosures carried out by the
land-grabbing crew that surrounded Somerset. In April 1549 Cecil was
trying to obtain a grant of the rectory and manor of Wimbledon, in which
he eventually succeeded, and he appears to have purchased at the same
time some fen lands near Spalding; but although he was in the midst of
affairs, and must have been the Protector’s right hand in most things, he
was sagacious enough at so dangerous a time to keep to the routine work
of his office, and avoided all responsibility on his own account.
When Warwick came back from his ruthless campaign against the peasants
of Norfolk, flushed with an easy victory, the idol of a discontented and
partly foreign soldiery, the time was ripe for him to strike his blow.
Gardiner and Bonner were in the Tower, the Catholic party were being
harried and persecuted throughout the country, the French and Scots in
Scotland were now strong and invincible, the French fleet dominated the
Channel, the town of Boulogne was known to be untenable; and, above
all, an unpaid victorious soldiery looked to Warwick as their champion.
Warwick himself laid the blame for all troubles and shortcomings upon
the Protector, and summoning the officers of his army to Ely Place,
constituted himself their spokesman for obtaining their pay. Through
Wriothesley—now Southampton—Somerset’s enemy, he persuaded the Catholics
that he disapproved of the religious pressure that was being exercised.
The first step taken openly for the overthrow of the Protector appears to
be a letter written by Warwick to Cecil,[21] on the 14th September 1549,
which shows, amongst other things, the high esteem in which the secretary
was held. “To my very loving friend, Mr Cecille,” it runs,—“These shall
be to desire you to be an intercessor to my Lord’s Grace that this
bearer, Thomas Drury, captain of nine-score footmen, serving the King’s
Majesty in Norfolk, should receive for them his pay for the space of two
months.” Warwick knew full well that no money would be forthcoming for
these men’s pay, and that the Protector was already being deserted by the
councillors, who were finding excuses for meeting with Warwick at Ely
Place rather than with Somerset at Hampton Court. At length the Protector
could shut his eyes no longer to the desertion. The only councillors
who were at Hampton Court with him were Cranmer, Sir William Paget, Sir
William Petre, and Sir Thomas Smith, Secretaries of State, and his own
secretary, William Cecil. The meetings at Ely Place and the growing storm
against him found Somerset unprotected and unprepared. On the 1st October
he issued a proclamation calling upon the lieges to muster and defend
the King; but most of his advisers near him deprecated the use of force,
which they knew would be fruitless against Warwick and the troops, and
his divided councils only resulted in the dissemination of anonymous
handbills and circulars stating that the King’s person was in danger from
Warwick, and the summoning of such nobles as were thought most likely
to be favourable to the Protector’s cause. Secretary Petre, who had
advocated an agreement, was on the 7th October sent to London to confer
with Warwick, but he betrayed his trust and returned no more. The King
and the Protector had in the meanwhile removed to Windsor for greater
security; but Warwick had gained the Tower and had conciliated the city
of London, and it was clear to all now, that Somerset’s power was gone.
All fell away from him, except only Sir Thomas Smith. The two principal
generals in arms, Lords Russell and Herbert, rallied to Warwick. Cranmer
and Paget, it is true, remained by the side of the Protector, but,
like Petre, they played him false. No word or sign is given of Cecil,
though he too remained with his master; but it is significant that all
the letters to Warwick at the time are in the handwriting of Sir Thomas
Smith, and at this moment of difficulty and danger sagacious Cecil
recedes into the position of a private secretary, sheltered behind the
responsibility of his master.
In vain Somerset, at the prompting of Cranmer and Paget, sought to
make terms with Warwick. Finding that Petre did not return to Windsor,
but that the Lords in London demanded unconditional submission, the
Protector, in the name of the King, sent Sir Philip Hoby on the 8th
October with an appeal _ad misericordiam_ to Warwick. “Marry,” says the
letter, “to put himself simply into your hands, having heard as he and
we have, without knowing upon what conditions, is not reasonable. Life
is sweet, my Lords, and they say you do seek his blood and his death.…
Wherefore, good my Lords, we beseech you again and again, if you have
conceived any such determination, to put it out of your heads, and
incline your hearts to kindness and humanity, remembering that he hath
never been cruel to any of you, and why should you be cruelly minded to
him.”[22]
This appeal was supported by a passionate prayer from Smith to Petre
for clemency to the Protector. But Hoby also played false, and delayed
his return until Warwick had secured the formal adhesion of Russell and
Herbert. He then returned to Windsor with Warwick’s secret ultimatum to
Cranmer, Smith, and Paget, warning them to desert the Protector, or be
prepared to share his fate. Cranmer and Paget gave way, and washed their
hands of the betrayal; Smith stood firm, and faced the consequence;
whilst Cecil discreetly retired into the background, and apparently did
nothing, though he was certainly present when Hoby delivered his official
message, solemnly promising that no harm was intended, or would be done,
to Somerset or his friends; “upon this all the aforenamed there present
wept for joy, and prayed for the Lords. Mr. Comptroller (Paget) fell down
on his knees, and clasped the Duke about the knees, and weeping said,
‘O! my Lord, ye see now what my Lords be.’” Paget’s crocodile tears were
hardly dry before he sent a servant post-haste to London, saying that the
Protector was now off his guard, and might easily be seized. The next
day Somerset was a prisoner, and three days afterwards was in the Tower.
Smith, Cecil, Thynne, and Stanhope were placed under arrest in their own
apartments, whilst Cranmer, Paget, and Petre reaped the reward of their
apostasy.[23]
When the Protector was sent to the Tower, all of his friends were made
his fellow-prisoners except Cecil. Smith was dismissed from his offices,
and threatened with the extreme penalty for treason; but Cecil, the
Protector’s right hand, through whom all his patronage had passed,
escaped punishment at the time[24] (13th October 1549). Warwick was
apparently an old friend of his father,[25] and had unquestionably a
great opinion of Cecil’s own application and sagacity. This may have
inclined him to leniency in his case, but for some reason not disclosed
he was certainly a prisoner in the Tower in the following month. In a
letter from his friend the Duchess of Suffolk, dated 16th November 1549
(Lansdowne MSS., 2, 24), she condoles with him for “the loss of his
place in _the Duke of Somerset’s family_,”[26] but says nothing to lead
to the idea that he is in prison. But in the holograph journal already
quoted, there is an entry—although, curiously enough, out of its proper
position, and opposite the year 1547, saying, “_Mēse Novēb aₒ 3ᵒ E vi.
fui in Turre_;” and his household biographer also records the fact as
follows: “In the _second_ year of K. Edward VI. he (Cecil) was committed
to the Tower about the Duke of Somerset’s first calling in question,
remaining there a quarter of a year, and was then enlarged;” but, as
has already been explained, this life was written in the minister’s old
age, and as he certainly was not in the Tower as a prisoner twice, the
imprisonment referred to must have been that of November 1549 (3rd Edward
VI.). There is, in any case, a gap in all known records with regard to
Cecil for several months after Somerset’s disgrace, and he evidently
had no share in public affairs for nearly a year after Warwick’s (now
Northumberland’s) rise, during which time Sir William Petre and Dr.
Wotton—who succeeded Smith—were joint Secretaries of State.
CHAPTER II
1550-1553
The Catholic party soon found that Northumberland had used them only as
a cat’s-paw to satisfy his ambition; and that where mild Somerset had
scourged them with whips, he would scourge them with scorpions. Gardiner
and Bonner were made closer prisoners than ever. Princess Mary, who had
practically defied Somerset about her Mass, was more sternly dealt with
by Northumberland, her chaplains imprisoned, and her household placed
under strict observation;[27] Latin service was strictly forbidden
throughout the realm, altars were abolished, and uniformity enforced;
whilst Southampton, who had been largely instrumental in the overthrow
of Somerset, found, to his dismay, that he had laboured in vain so
far as he and his co-religionists were concerned. There is no reason
to doubt that, even thus early, Northumberland’s ambitious plans were
already formed. For their success two things were absolutely necessary:
first, the unanimous support of the Protestant party; and next, a close
understanding with France, which meant a reversal of the traditional
foreign policy of this country. The attempt to supersede Mary on the
death of the King, who was seen to be of short life, would be certain to
meet with opposition on the part of the Emperor, and would necessitate
the support of France to be successful. Much as Northumberland had
denounced the idea of the surrender of Boulogne in the time of Somerset,
he lost no time in concluding a peace by which the town was given up, the
necessity for doing so being still laid to the charge of his predecessor;
and the alliance between France and England, which included Scotland, was
nominally made the closer by the betrothal of Elizabeth,[28] the eldest
daughter of the King of France to Edward VI. Soon Somerset, who still
had many friends amongst Protestants, was released from prison, and in
more humble guise readmitted to the Council. On every hand Northumberland
courted popularity from all but the extreme Catholics, from whom he had
nothing but opposition to expect.
Under the circumstances it was necessary to have by his side an
experienced Secretary of State of Protestant leanings, as well as of
assiduity and ability. Petre and Wotton were known to be more than
doubtful with regard to religion; Smith had made himself impossible by
the active part he took against Northumberland at the time of Somerset’s
imprisonment. No man was more fitted to the post than Cecil, and on the
5th September 1550 he was made for the first time Secretary of State. In
the “perpetual calendar” at Hatfield the entry runs, “5 Sep. 4 Ed. VI.,
apud Oatlands Guil. Cecill admisus secr̄ in loco D. Wotton,” and the
Privy Council book confirms this, though the King in his journal gives
the date of the appointment as the 6th September. Again William Cecil
emerges from obscurity, and henceforward his position is unequivocal.
As before, everything seemed to pass through his hands. No matter was
too small or too large to claim his attention. His household biographer
says of him that he worked incessantly, except at meal times, when he
unbent and chatted wittily to his friends, but never of business. He
could, he says, never play any sort of game, took no interest in sport
or pastimes, his only exercise being riding round his garden walks on a
little mule. “He was rather meanly statured, but well proportioned, very
straight and upright, active and hardy, until crippled by constant gout.”
His hair and beard were brown, before they became silver-white, as they
did early in life; and his carriage and conversation were always grave
and circumspect.
If his own conduct was ruled—as some of his actions certainly were—by the
maxims which in middle age he laid down for his favourite son, he must
have been a marvel of prudence and wisdom. Like the usual recommendations
of age to youth, many of these precepts simply inculcate moderation,
religion, virtue, and other obviously good qualities; but here and there
Cecil’s own philosophy of life peeps out, and some of the reasons of
his success are exhibited. “Let thy hospitality be moderate, … rather
plentiful than sparing, for I never knew any man grow poor by keeping
an orderly table.… Beware thou spendest not more than three of four
parts of thy revenue, and not above a third part of that in thy house.”
“That gentleman who sells an acre of land sells an ounce of credit, for
gentility is nothing else but ancient riches.” “Suffer not thy sons to
cross the Alps, for they shall learn nothing there but pride, blasphemy,
and atheism; and if by travel they get a few broken languages, they
shall profit them nothing more than to have one meat served up in divers
dishes. Neither train them up in wars, for he that sets up to live by
that profession can hardly be an honest man or a good Christian.” “Beware
of being surety for thy best friends; he that payeth another man’s debts
seeketh his own decay.” “Be sure to keep some great man thy friend,
but trouble him not with trifles; compliment him often with many, yet
small, gifts.” “Towards thy superiors be humble, yet generous; with
thine equals familiar, yet respectful; towards thine inferiors show much
humanity, and some familiarity, as to bow the body, stretch forth the
hand, and to uncover the head.” “Trust not any man with thy life, credit,
or estate, for it is mere folly for a man to enthral himself to his
friend.” Such maxims as these evidently enshrine much of his own temper,
and throughout his career he rarely seems to have violated them. His was
a selfish and ungenerous gospel, but a prudent and circumspect one.
From the first days of his appointment as Secretary of State, the
Duchess of Suffolk was again his constant correspondent. As she was one
of the first to condole with him on his misfortune, she was early to
congratulate him on “the good exchanges he had made, and on having come
to a good market”;[29] and thenceforward all the Lincolnshire gossip
from Grimsthorpe and Tattershall reached the Secretary regularly, with
many Lincolnshire petitions, and much business in the buying and leasing
of land by Cecil in the county, although his father lived until the
following year, 1552.[30] His erudite wife, of whom he always speaks
with tender regard, seems to have kept up a correspondence in Greek with
their friend, Sir Thomas Morysine, the English Ambassador to the Emperor,
and with the learned Joannes Sturmius, to which several references are
made in Morysine’s eccentric and affected letters to Cecil in the State
Papers, Foreign.
The letters of Morysine and Mason, the Ambassador to France, to Cecil
are of more importance as giving a just idea of Northumberland’s policy
abroad than are their despatches to the Council. The Protestant princes
were already recovering their spirits after the defeat of Muhlberg,
and the Emperor was again faced by persistent opposition in the Diet.
Henry II., having now made sure of Northumberland’s necessary adhesion
to him, once more launched against the empire the forces of the Turks
in the Mediterranean, whilst French armies invaded Italy and threatened
Flanders. To the old-fashioned English diplomatists, this driving of the
Emperor into a corner was a subject of alarm. Wotton, in a letter to
Cecil (2nd January 1551), expresses the opinion that an attack upon the
English at Calais would be the next move of the French King, and that
Frenchmen generally are not to be trusted;[31] and Mason, the Ambassador
in France (November 1550) writes also to Cecil: “The French profess
much, but I doubt their sincerity; I fear they know too well our estate,
and thereby think to ride upon our backs.”[32] But, withal, though as
yet they knew it not, Northumberland’s plans depended upon a close
understanding with France, and during the rest of his rule this was his
guiding principle. Mason had to be withdrawn from France, and Pickering,
another friend of Cecil’s, more favourable to the French interest,
was appointed; whilst Wotton was sent to calm the susceptibilities of
the Emperor, who was growing fractious at the close alliance between
Northumberland and the French, which was being cemented by one of the
most splendid embassies that ever left England (March 1551). Prudent
Cecil through it all gives in his correspondence no inkling of his own
feeling towards Northumberland’s new departure in foreign policy, though
the letters of his many friends to him are a sure indication that they
knew he was not really in favour of it.
In home affairs he was just as discreet. His view of the duty of a
Secretary of State was to carry out the orders of the Council without
seeking to impose his own opinion unduly, and to the last days of his
life his methods were conciliatory and diplomatic rather than forcible.
He bent before insistence; but he usually had his way, if indirectly, in
the end, as will be seen in the course of his career. For instance, one
of the first measures which he had to carry out under Northumberland was
the debasement of the coinage,[33] though it was one of his favourite
maxims that “the realm cannot be rich whose coin is base,”[34] and his
persistent efforts to reform the coinage under Elizabeth contributed much
to the renewed prosperity of England. It would appear to have been his
system to make his opinion known frankly in the Council, but when it was
overborne by a majority, to carry out the opposite policy loyally. As
will be seen, this mode of proceeding probably saved his head on the fall
of Northumberland.
He was, indeed, not of the stuff from which martyrs are made, and when
his first patron and friend, Somerset, finally fell, to the sorrow of all
England, and lost his head on Tower Hill, Cecil’s own position remained
unassailed. This is not the place to enter fully upon the vexed question
of the guilt of Somerset in the alleged plan to murder Warwick and his
friends, but a glance at Cecil’s attitude at the time will be useful.
According to the young King’s journal, the first revelation of the
conspiracy was made on the 7th October 1551 by Sir Thomas Palmer, who
on the following days amplified his information and implicated many of
Somerset’s friends. On the 14th, Somerset had got wind of the affair, and
sent for his friend Secretary Cecil to tell him he was afraid there was
some mischief brewing. Cecil answered coldly, “that if he were not guilty
he might be of good courage; if he were, he had nothing to say but to
lament him.”[35] In two days Somerset and his friends were in the Tower,
and thenceforward through all the shameful trial, until the sacrifice was
finally consummated, Cecil appeared to be prudently wrapped up in foreign
affairs;[36] for to him had been referred the appeal of the Protestant
princes brought by his friend A’Lasco, for help against their suzerain
the Emperor, and to others fell the main task of removing the King’s
uncle from the path of Northumberland.
Cecil’s position as a Protestant Secretary of State was one that
required all his tact and discretion. Somerset was his first friend
and “master”; and although it is not well established that the Duke
personally was guilty of the particular crime for which he suffered, it
is unquestionable that he had been for several months coquetting with
the Catholic party, had agitated for the release of Gardiner from the
Tower, and that his friends were busy, almost certainly with his own
connivance, to obtain for him in the coming Parliament the renewal of his
office of Protector. Light is thrown upon Cecil’s share in bringing about
the Duke’s downfall, by the letters to him of his friend Whalley,[37]
who had been officiously pushing Somerset’s interests early in 1551,
and had been imprisoned for it. In June he had been released, and was
apparently made use of by Cecil to convey letters from the latter in
London to Northumberland in the country, complaining of Somerset’s
efforts in favour of Gardiner, and his intrigues with the Catholics.
That Cecil should resent, as Secretary of State, any movement that
threatened Northumberland and the Protestant cause at the time was
natural. It will be recollected that he did not become Northumberland’s
Secretary of State until the former had thrown over the Catholics—but
it was perhaps an ungenerous excess of zeal to be the first to denounce
his former patron. At all events, Northumberland was delighted with the
Secretary’s action in the matter, and told Whalley so—“He declared in
the end his good opinion of you in such sort, as I may well say he is
your very singular good lord, and resolved that he would write at length
his opinion unto you … for he plainly said ye had shown yourself therein
such a faithful servant, and by that, most witty councillor unto the
King’s Majesty and his proceedings, as was scarce the like within his
realm.” Whalley concludes his letter by urging Cecil to remonstrate with
Somerset. Whether he did so or not is unknown; but certainly for the next
three months there is no hint of any serious renewal of the quarrel:
the interminable proceedings against Gardiner continued, under Cecil’s
direction, without a word from Somerset, and the measures against the
Princess Mary’s mass continued unchecked.
The French alliance was now in full flush. All through the autumn the
stately embassy from Henry II. confirming the treaty, and bringing the
Order of St. Michael to Edward, was splendidly entertained at court;
the Emperor’s troubles were closing in around him; Northumberland could
afford to flout his remonstrance about the treatment of the Princess
Mary; and by the beginning of October, Northumberland’s power was at its
height. On the 4th October he assumed his dukedom, Dorset was made Duke
of Suffolk, the Earl of Wiltshire was created Marquis of Winchester, and
Cheke and Cecil were dubbed knights (although several of the latter’s
friends had insisted upon calling him Sir William months before).[38]
Then it was that the blow fell upon Somerset. We have seen how Cecil
bore himself to his former master at the first hint of danger on the
14th October; and though we have no letters of his own to indicate his
subsequent attitude, a few words in the confidential letters of his
correspondents allow us to surmise what it was.
Somerset was imprisoned on the 16th October (1551). On the 27th,
Pickering, the Ambassador in Paris, writes that “he is glad Cecil
is found to be undefiled with the folly of this unfortunate Duke of
Somerset.” But Morysine, Cecil’s old Lincolnshire friend, the Ambassador
in Germany, reflects, evidently with exactitude, the tone which Cecil
must have adopted. He speaks of Somerset as the Secretary’s old friend,
and congratulates Cecil that he has not been dragged down with him. “For
it were a way to make an end of amity, if, when men fall, their friends
should forthwith therefore be troubled.” He plainly sees, he says, that
the mark Cecil shoots at is their master’s service; “A God’s blessing!
let the Duke bear his own burden, or cast it where he can.”[39] Morysine
might have saved his wisdom; Cecil would certainly bear no other man’s
burden if he could help it.
Through all this critical time Sir William was indefatigable. His wife
lived usually retired from the court, at their home at Wimbledon; but
Cecil’s town house at Cannon Row, Westminster, was the scene of ceaseless
business, for Petre, the joint-Secretary, was ill disposed, and did
little. The Duchess of Suffolk, Lord Clinton, and all the Lincolnshire
folk used Cecil unsparingly in all their suits and troubles, and they
had many. Cecil’s own properties were now very extensive, and were
constantly augmented by purchases and grants. He had been appointed
Recorder of Boston in the previous year (May 1551). Northumberland
consulted and deferred to him at every point; Cranmer sent to him the
host of Protestant refugees from Germany and France: no matter what
business was in hand, or whose it was, it inevitably found its way
into Sir William Cecil’s study, and by him was dealt with moderately,
patiently, and wisely.
In the war of faiths he was the universal arbitrator, and his task was
not an easy one. The clergy had sunk to the lowest depth of degradation,
and cures of souls had been given by patrons to domestic servants, and
often to persons unable to read. The returned refugees from Switzerland
had many of them brought back Calvinistic methods and beliefs, and
between their rigidity and the English Catholicism of Henry VIII. all
grades of ritual were practised. Cranmer was at the head of a commission
to settle a form of liturgy and the Articles for the Church, Cecil, of
course, being a member. After immense labour, forty-two Articles were
agreed upon—reduced to thirty-nine ten years afterwards—but before
finally submitting them to Parliament and Convocation for adoption,
Cranmer referred them absolutely to Cecil and Cheke, “the two great
patrons of the Reformation at court.”[40]
In foreign affairs, also, Cecil arranged everything but the main line
of policy which Northumberland’s plans dictated. We have seen how the
question of aid to the Protestant princes of Germany was referred to his
consideration, and the help refused. The subject was shortly made a much
larger one by the utter defeat of the Emperor by his former henchman,
Maurice of Saxony, and the invasion of Luxembourg by the French (July
1552). The tables were now turned indeed. By the peace of Passau the
Protestant princes extorted the religious liberty they had in vain
prayed for, and it was seen that for a time Charles’s power was broken.
A considerable party in England, faithful to old traditions, were in a
fever of alarm at the growth of the power of France, and Stukeley told
the King that Henry II. had confided to him his intention to capture
Calais.[41]
The Emperor, ready to snatch at any straw, sent an ambassador to
England in September 1552 to claim the aid to which, under the treaty
of 1542, he was entitled from England if France invaded his territory.
The whole question was referred to Cecil; and, as a specimen of his
patient, judicial style, his report, as given in the King’s Journal, is
reproduced here. It will be seen that he affects impartially to weigh
both sides, but his fear of French aggression is made as clear as was
prudent, considering Northumberland’s leanings.[42] Throughout the
whole of his official life this was the way in which he dealt with all
really important questions referred to him, and his leading principle
was to strike a middle course, which would allow England to remain
openly friendly with the House of Burgundy without breaking with France,
and to keep the latter power out of Flanders, while still defending
Protestantism, which the ruler of Flanders was pledged to destroy.
How his actions usually squared with his axioms is seen, amongst other
things, from his constant efforts to extend the commerce and wealth
of England. Amongst the apophthegms which he most affected are the
following:[43] “A realm can never be rich that hath not an intercourse
and trade of merchandise with other nations,” and “A realm must needs be
poor that carryeth not out more (merchandise) than it bringeth in.” In
consequence of the privileges granted to the Hanse merchants, nearly the
whole of the export trade of England had been concentrated into the hands
of foreigners, and in the year that Cecil was appointed Secretary of
State, the Steelyard Corporation is said to have exported 44,000 lengths
of English cloth, whereas all the other London merchants together had not
shipped more than 1100 lengths.[44] Cecil was in favour of establishing
privileged cloth markets at Southampton and Hull, and of placing
impediments on the exportation of cloths first-hand by foreigners, until
the new markets had succeeded in attracting customers from abroad, so
that the merchants’ profits would remain in England as well as the
money spent here by the foreign buyers. Although this particular project
ultimately fell through, owing to the King’s death and other causes,
Cecil throughout his life laboured incessantly to increase English trade
and navigation, by favouring the establishment of foreign weavers in
various parts of the country, by laws for the protection of fisheries, by
the promotion of trading corporations, like the Russian Company, of which
he was one of the founders, by the rehabilitation of the coinage, and
by a host of other measures, to some of which reference will be made in
their chronological order.
The position of affairs during the last months of Edward’s life was
broadly this: Protestant uniformity was being imposed upon the country
with a severity unknown under the rule of Somerset; Northumberland’s
plans for the elevation of Jane Grey to the throne were maturing;
Southampton, Paget, Arundel, Beaumont, and the Catholics were in disgrace
or exile; and De Noailles, the new French Ambassador, was working his
hardest to help Northumberland, when the time should come, to exclude
from the throne the half-Spanish Princess Mary. But though Sir William
Cecil was the channel through which most of the business passed, he
avoided as much as possible personal identification with Northumberland’s
plans. It must have needed all his tact, for Northumberland consulted
and deferred to him in everything, and as the time approached for him
to act, was evidently apprehensive, and stayed away from the Council.
This was resented by his colleagues, as will be seen from his letter to
Cecil of 3rd January 1553[45] from Chelsea, saying that “he has never
absented himself from the King’s service but through ill-health. The
Italian proverb is true: a faithful servant will become a perpetual ass.
He wishes to retire and end his days in tranquillity, as he fears he is
going to be very ill.” When it came to illness, diplomatic or otherwise,
Cecil was a match for his master. He had been, according to his diary, in
imminent danger of death in the previous year, at his house at Wimbledon;
and in the spring of 1553 he again fell seriously sick. During May,
Secretary Petre constantly wrote to him hoping he would soon recover and
be back again at court. Lord Audley comforted him by sending several
curious remedies for his malady, amongst which is “a stewed sowe pygge of
ix dayes olde”;[46] and the Marquis of Winchester was equally solicitous
to see the Secretary back to the Council again. Northumberland evidently
tried to keep him satisfied by grants and favours, for he conferred
upon him a lease of Combe Park, Surrey, part of Somerset’s lands; the
lands in Northampton held for life by Richard Cecil, his father, were
regranted to Sir William on his death, and during the Secretary’s illness
and absence from court he received the office of Chancellor of the Order
of the Garter, with an income of 100 marks a year and fees.[47] But
Cecil’s illness, real or feigned,[48] made him in no hurry to return
and take a prominent part in Northumberland’s dangerous game, which was
now patent. During his absence his brother-in-law, Sir John Cheke, was
appointed as an additional Secretary of State to help Petre (June 1553),
and his fervent Protestantism and weakness of will made him a less wary
instrument than Sir William in the final stages of the intrigue.
It was during Cecil’s absence from court in May that Lady Jane Grey was
married to Northumberland’s son Guildford Dudley;[49] but by the time
the plot was ready for consummation, Sir William could stay away no
longer, and was at work again in his office. The letter, dated 11th June
1553, addressed to the Lord Chief-Justice and other judges, summoning
them to the royal presence, was signed by Cecil, as well as by Cheke
and Petre. When the young King handed to the Chief-Justice a memorandum
of his intention to set aside King Henry’s will, and leave the crown
to the descendants of Henry’s youngest sister Mary, to the deprivation
of his daughters, the Chief-Justice told him that such a settlement
would be illegal. The King insisted that a new deed of settlement must
be drawn up. The next day at Ely Place, when Northumberland threatened
Chief-Justice Montagu as a traitor, Petre was present, but not Cecil;
but he must have been at the remarkable Council meeting on the 14th
June, when the Chief-Justice and the other judges with tears in their
eyes were hectored into drawing up the fateful will disinheriting Mary
and Elizabeth; for upon Northumberland insisting that every one present
should sign the document, he, Cecil, like the rest of them—with the
honourable exception of Sir John Hales—dared not refuse, and appended his
name to it. He was probably sorry that his illness did not delay him a
little longer at Wimbledon, for shortly before he had, in a conversation
with Roger Alford, one of the confidential members of his household,
expressed an intention to be no party to a change in the order of the
succession. Alford relates the story.[50] He was walking in Greenwich
Park with Cecil, when the latter told him that he knew some such plan was
in contemplation, “but that he would never be a partaker in that device.”
If Alford is to be believed, Northumberland was from the first suspicious
of Cecil’s absence. He says that the Secretary feared assassination,
and went armed, against his usual practice, visiting London secretly at
night only, and concealed his valuables. His household biographer also
says that he incurred the particular displeasure of Northumberland “for
mislyking or not consenting to the Duke’s purpose touching the Lady
Jane.”[51] And Alford, in his testimony in Cecil’s favour, asserted
that the latter told him that he had refused to sign the settlement
as a Councillor, but only did so as a witness, which the paper itself
disproves. The position of Cecil was indeed a most difficult one. He
was not a brave or heroic man, he hated extreme courses, and this was a
juncture where his usual non-committal _via media_ was of no avail. Of
the two evils he chose the lesser, and not only signed the settlement
like the rest of the Councillors, but also the instrument by which
certain members pledged themselves on oath to carry it out. But though
he, like others, was terrorised into bending to Northumberland’s will,
it is certain that he disliked the business, made no secret of his
unwillingness to acquiesce in it, and separated himself from it at the
earliest possible moment that he could do so with safety. There is in the
Lansdowne MSS.[52] a paper in Cecil’s hand, written after the accession
of Mary, in which is contained his exculpation. As it throws much light
on the matter, and upon Cecil’s own character, it will be useful to quote
it at length. It is headed “A briefe note of my submission and of my
doings.
“1. My submission with all lowliness that any heart can
conceive.
“2. My misliking of the matter when I heard it secretly;
whereupon I made conveyance away of my lands, part of my goods,
my leases, and my raiment.
“3. I determined to suffer for saving my conscience; whereof
the witnesses, Sir Anthony Cooke, Nicholas Bacon, Esq.,
Laurence D’Eresby of Louth; two of my suite, Roger Alford and
William Cawood.
“4. Of my purpose to stand against the matter, be also witness
Mr. Petre and Mr. Cheke.
“5. I did refuse to subscribe the book when none of the Council
did refuse: in what peril I refer it to be considered by them
who know the Duke.
“6. I refused to make a proclamation, and turned the labour
to Mr. Throckmorton, whose conscience, I saw, was troubled
therewith, misliking the matter.
“7. I eschewed writing the Queen’s highness bastard, and
therefore the Duke wrote the letter himself, which was sent
abroad in the realm.[53]
“8. I eschewed to be at the drawing of the proclamation for the
publishing of the usurper’s title, being specially appointed
thereto.
“9. I avoided the answer of the Queen’s highness’ letter.
“10. I avoided also the writing of all the public letters of
the realm.
“11. I wrote no letter to Lord La Warr as I was commanded.
“12. I dissembled the taking of my horse and the raising of
Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire, and avowed the pardonable
lie where it was suspected to my danger.
“13. I practised with the Lord Treasurer to win the Lord Privy
Seal, that I might by Lord Russell’s means cause Windsor Castle
to serve the Queen, and they two to levy the west parts for the
Queen’s service. I have the Lord Treasurer’s letter to Lord
St. John for to keep me safe if I could not prevail in the
enterprise of Windsor Castle, and my name was feigned to be
Harding.
“14. I did open myself to the Earl of Arundel, whom I found
thereto disposed; and likewise I did the like to Lord Darcy,
who heard me with good contentation, whereof I did immediately
tell Mr. Petre, for both our comfort.
“15. I did also determine to flee from them if the consultation
had not taken effect, as Mr. Petre can tell, who meant the
like.
“16. I purposed to have stolen down to the Queen’s highness, as
Mr. Gosnold can tell, who offered to lead me thither, as I knew
not the way.
“17. I had my horses ready at Lambeth for the purpose.
“18. I procured a letter from the Lords that the Queen’s
tenants of Wimbledon should not go with Sir Thomas Caverden;
and yet I never gave one man warning so much as to be in
readiness, and yet they sent to me for the purpose, and I
willed them to be quiet. I might as steward there make for the
Queen’s service a hundred men to serve.
“19. When I sent into Lincolnshire for my horses, I sent but
for five horses and eight servants, and charged that none of my
tenants should be stirred.
“20. I caused my horses, being indeed but four, to be taken up
in Northamptonshire; and the next day following I countermanded
them again by my letters, remaining in the country and
notoriously there known.
“21. When this conspiracy was first opened to me, I did fully
set me to flee the realm, and was dissuaded by Mr. Cheke, who
willed me for my satisfaction to read a dialogue of Plato where
Socrates, being in prison, was offered to escape and flee, and
yet he would not. I read the dialogue, whose reasons, indeed,
did stay me.
“Finally, I beseech her Highness that in her grace I may feel
some difference from others that have more plainly offended
and yet be partakers of her Highness’ bountifulness and grace;
if difference may be made I do differ from them whom I served,
and also them that had liberty after their enforcement to
depart, by means whereof they did, both like noblemen and true
subjects, show their duties to their sovereign lady. The like
whereof was my devotion to have done if I might have had the
like liberty, as knoweth God, the searcher of all hearts,
whose indignation I call upon me if it be not true.
“‘Justus adjutorius meus Dominus qui salvos facit rectos
corde’—‘God save the Queen in all felicity,’
“W. CECILL.”[54]
The document shows us the real William Cecil. It is probably quite
true: he had taken care, whilst remaining a member of Northumberland’s
Council, and openly acquiescing in his acts, to make himself safe in
either case. Throgmorton and Cheke might be made scapegoats—as Davison
was years afterwards—but Jane or Mary, Protestant or Catholic, the first
consideration for William Cecil was not unnaturally William Cecil’s own
head. He was probably not worse than the other members of the Council,
for most of them acted in a similar manner, and when at length they
turned against Northumberland, and openly declared for Mary, Sir William
was safe to choose the winning side.
King Edward died at Greenwich on the 6th July 1553, and on the 10th, Lady
Jane was proclaimed Queen by virtue of his settlement by patent.[55] Two
days afterwards the Council in the Tower learnt that the Lady Mary was
rallying powerful friends about her in Kenninghall Castle, Norfolk, and
it was agreed that Queen Jane’s father, the Duke of Suffolk, should lead
a force to capture and bring her to London. But the girl Queen begged so
hard that her father might remain by her side that her tears prevailed;
“whereupon the Councell perswaded the Duke of Northumberland to take that
voyage upon him, saying that no man was so fit therefor, because he had
atchieved the victorie in Norfolk once already, … besides that, he was
the best man of war in the realm.… ‘Well,’ quoth the Duke then, ‘since ye
think it good I and mine will goe, not doubting of your fidelity to the
Quene’s Majesty, which I leave in your custody.’”[56]
Northumberland hurriedly completed his preparations at Durham Place,
and urged the Council to send powers and directions after him to reach
him at Newmarket. He insisted upon having the warrant of the Council
for every step he took in order to pledge them all; but at the farewell
dinner-party with them it is clear that his mind was ill at ease, and his
heart already sinking. He appealed humbly to his colleagues not to betray
him. “If,” he said, “we thought you wolde through malice, conspiracie, or
discentyon, leave us your frendes in the breers (briars) and betray us,
we could as well sondery (sundry) ways foresee and provide for our own
safeguards as any of you by betraying us can do for yours.” He reminds
them of their oath of allegiance to Queen Jane, made freely to her, “who
by your and our enticement is rather of force placed therein than by hir
owne seking;” again points out that they are as deeply pledged on each
point as he himself. “But if ye meane deceat, though not furthwith, God
will revenge the same. I can say no more, but in this troblesome tyme
wishe you to use constaunte hartes, abandoning all malice, envy, and
privat affections.” Some of the Council protested their good faith. “I
pray God yt be so,” quod the Duke; “let us go to dyner.”[57]
Cecil must have been present at this scene, and when Northumberland left
London on his way to Cambridge, “none,” as he himself remarked, “not
one, saying God spede us,” Sir William must have known as well, or
better, than any of them that the house of cards was falling, and that
Northumberland was a doomed man. The moment he was gone, Cecil, like the
rest of them, strove to betray him. The ships on the east coast declared
for Mary, the people of London were almost in revolt already, the nobles
in the country flocked to the rightful Queen. On the 19th July, Mary was
proclaimed by the Council at Baynard’s Castle, and the joy was general:
“the Earle of Pembroke threwe awaye his cape full of angeletes. I saw
money throwne out at windowes for joy, and the bonfires weare without
nomber,” says an eye-witness.[58] Sir John Cheke was present at this
stirring scene, upon which he must have looked with a wry face; but, as
we have seen by his submission, Cecil had already been busy trimming and
facing both ways. He first sent his wife’s sister, Lady Bacon, to meet
the new Queen, whom she knew, and as soon as might be himself started for
the eastern counties, to greet the rising sun.[59] Lady Bacon had paved
the way, and, to make quite sure, Cecil sent his henchman Alford ahead to
see her at Ipswich, and learn what sort of reception her brother-in-law
might expect. Her message was “that the Queen thought well of her brother
Cecil, and said he was a very honest man.” Then Sir William went on, and
met Mary at Newhall, Essex, where he explained matters as best he could.
When he was reproached with arming his four horsemen to oppose Queen
Mary, he explained, as we have seen, that he himself had secretly caused
them to be detained. No doubt the sardonic disillusioned Queen must have
smiled grimly as she read the shifty, ungenerous “submission,” already
quoted in full; and however “honest” she may have considered Lady Bacon’s
brother-in-law, she knew he was not a bold man or a thorough partisan of
hers, and when her ministry was formed, Cecil was no longer Secretary—but
he did not, like poor Sir John Cheke, find himself a prisoner in the
Tower.
Sir William’s entry in his journal on the occasion of the King’s death
is a curious one,[60] and seems to indicate his general dislike of his
position under Northumberland, whose home and foreign policy, as we have
seen, were both diametrically opposite to those dictated by the training
and character of Cecil.[61] The only point upon which there could
have been a real community of aims between them was that of religion,
and on that point Northumberland, who subsequently avowed himself a
Catholic,[62] was false to his own convictions.
During the whole of the reign of Edward, Cecil had continued to enrich
himself by grants, stewardships, reversions, and offices; not of course
to the same extent as Somerset, Northumberland, Clinton, or Winchester,
for he was a moderate man and loved safety, but on the accession of
Mary he must have been very rich. During his mother’s life, which was
a long one, he always looked upon Burghley House as hers, although he
spent large sums of his own money upon buildings and improvements;
but he inherited from his father large estates in Northamptonshire,
Rutland, Lincolnshire, and elsewhere. We have already noticed that he
obtained the Crown manor of Wimbledon and other grants; but, in addition
to those already noted, he obtained, in October 1551, the period of
Somerset’s sacrifice, grants of the manor of Berchamstow and Deeping, in
Lincolnshire; the manor and hall of Thetford, in the same county; the
reversion of the manor of Wrangdike, Rutland; the manor of Liddington,
Rutland, and a moiety of the rectory of Godstow. He was a large purchaser
of land also in the county of Lincoln; so that although his household
historian asserts that his lands never brought him in more than £4000
a year, his expenses were on a very lavish scale, and he had, as his
friend the Duchess of Suffolk says in one of her letters to him, brought
his wares to a good market. By his embroiderer’s account, already
quoted, we see that at this period of his life he maintained thirty-six
servitors wearing his badge and livery; but in the time of Elizabeth his
establishments were on a truly princely footing. He had eighty servants
wearing his livery, and we are told that the best gentlemen in England
competed to enter his service; “I have nombered in his howse attending at
table twenty gentlemen of his retayners of £1000 per annum a peece, in
possession or reversion, and of his ordinarie men, as many more, some
worth £1000, some worth 3, 5, 10, yea, £20,000, daily attending his
service.”
But though acquisitive and fond of surrounding himself with the
accessories of wealth and great standing, he had few of the tastes of
the territorial aristocracy, whom he imitated. Arms, sport, athletic
exercises, did not appeal to him. From his youth he dressed gravely and
soberly; and at a time, subsequently, when splendour and extravagance in
attire were the rule, he still kept to his fur-trimmed gown and staid
raiment. He was an insatiable book buyer and collector of heraldic and
genealogical manuscripts. Sir William Pickering in Paris, and Sir John
Mason, had orders to buy for him all the attractive new books published
in France; and Chamberlain in Brussels had a similar commission. The
former mentions in one letter (15th Dec. 1551, State Papers, Foreign)
having purchased Euclid with the figures, Machiavelli, Le Long, the New
Testament in Greek, _L’Horloge des Princes_, _Discours de la Guerre_,
Notes on Aristotle in Italian, and others; and the Hatfield Papers
contain very numerous memoranda of books and genealogies bought by
Cecil, or sent to him as presents from his friends and suitors. Wotton,
for instance, when he was abroad and wished to oblige his friend, says:
“If I knew anye kind of bookes heere (Poissy) which yow like, I wold
bye them for yow, and bring them home with some of myne owne. Here is
_Clemens Alexandrinus_ and _Theodoretus in Epistolas Pauli_, turned into
Latin. But because I heere that yow have _Clemens Alexandrinus_ in Greek
already, I suppose yow care not for him in Latin.”[63]
His love of study, too, extended to interest in others. He was a constant
benefactor to Cambridge University, and St. John’s particularly, and
influenced the King[64] to bequeath £100 per annum to the foundation
in his will. Shortly before the young King’s death, also, he appears to
have granted to Cecil’s own town of Stamford—almost certainly at his
instance—funds for the foundation of a grammar school there, of which Sir
William was to be the life governor, and there is ample evidence that the
establishment of the large number of educational benefactions with which
the young King signalised his reign—primarily at the instance of Bishop
Hooper—was powerfully promoted by Cecil; who seems also, on his own
account, to have always maintained a certain number of scholars,[65] and
to have been the universal resource of students, teachers, and colleges,
in their troubles and difficulties. The accession of Mary, which threw
Cecil out of office, or, as he puts it, gave him his liberty, did not
deprive him of his large means, or limit his enlightened activity in
other directions. But for a time after the death of Edward, he remained,
so far as so prominent and able a man could do so, simply a private
citizen. His household biographer asserts “that Mary had a good liking
for him as a Councillor, and would have appointed him if he had changed
his religion.” Although he puts a grandiloquent speech in Cecil’s mouth,
refusing office, saying much about preferring God’s service before that
of the Queen, it is extremely doubtful whether Mary ever offered to call
him to her Council. Towards the end of her reign, when Elizabeth’s early
accession was inevitable, however, the Council itself was desirous of
conciliating him. Lloyd (“State Worthies”) says of him: “When he was out
of place he was not out of service in Queen Mary’s days, his abilities
being as necessary in those times as his inclinations, and that Queen’s
Council being as ready to advance him _at last_ as they were to _use_ him
all her reign.”
CHAPTER III
1553-1558
During the trial and execution of Northumberland and his accomplices,
Cecil remained prudently in the background. Gardiner, Norfolk, Courtney,
Bonner, and the other prisoners in the Tower were released. Home and
foreign policy changed, the Catholics were buoyed with hope, and the
Emperor’s Ambassador was in full favour, whilst the Protestants were
timorous and apprehensive, and the French Ambassador ill at ease, for his
King was at war with the Emperor, and had from the first endeavoured to
minimise the claims of Mary.[66]
On the 3rd August the new Queen entered London with her sister near her,
and preparations were at once set afoot for her coronation (1st October).
Cecil was no longer in office, and was commanded by the Queen to send
her the seals and register of the Garter on the 21st September;[67] but
he appears to have gone to the expense of new liveries for his servants
in honour of the occasion. Twelve of his servants were given garments
of the best cloth with badges, eleven received one and a quarter yards
of the best cloth each, with second-class cognisances, and nine more
had cloth of second quality, one coat being left with Lady Cecil to
bestow as she pleased.[68] On the same document Sir William himself has
made numerous notes as to the price of these materials, which, if we
did not already know it by many other testimonies, would prove that,
though his expenditure was great, he was careful of the items of it. His
father, the Yeoman of the Robes, had died in the previous year (1552),
and apparently the office had remained in abeyance, being temporarily
administered by Sir William. His neighbour Sir Edward Dymoke, of
Scrivelsby, Lincolnshire, had, in accordance with his tenure, to act as
champion at the Queen’s coronation, and was entitled to his equipment out
of the office of robes. A few days before the coronation ceremony Dymoke
applied for his outfit. Some of the articles were not on hand and had to
be bought of one Lenthal; and the champion begged Cecil to vouch for the
purchase, consisting of “a shrowd, a girdle, a scabbard of velvett, two
gilt partizans, a pole axe, a chasing staff and a pair of gilt spurs, the
value in all being £6, 2s. 8d.” Apparently Cecil took no notice of the
application, and in an amusing letter at Hatfield, the champion complains
bitterly, nearly two months after the coronation, that he could never
get his outfit. Cecil insisted upon a warrant from the Queen; but, said
Dymoke, he had received all his equipment without warrant at the previous
coronation, and he prays Cecil not to be “more straytor” than his father
was. He had his cup of gold, his horse, and trappings, and crimson satin,
without warrant then, and why, he asks, should one be required now. “I do
not pass so much of the value of the allowance as I do for the precedent
to hinder those who do come after me, if I do lose it this time.”
Cecil does not seem to have absented himself from court, though he
passed more of his time than hitherto at Wimbledon. Wyatt rose and fell;
Elizabeth and Courtney suffered under the Queen’s displeasure; Cheke
and Cooke went to exile; Cecil’s old friend the Duchess of Suffolk and
her husband Mr. Bertie fled to Germany; Carews, Staffords, Tremaynes,
Killigrews, Fitzwilliams, the ex-Ambassador Pickering, and hundreds
like them, took refuge abroad from the country over which a Spanish
King, with his half-Spanish Queen, were soon to be supreme. Cranmer,
Cecil’s friend from boyhood, and other Protestant Churchmen, filled
the rooms in the Tower vacated by those whom Cecil had been active in
prosecuting, but Cecil himself lived rich and influential, if no longer
politically powerful, and no hand was raised against him. That he was
a conforming Catholic is certain, quite apart from Father Persons’
spiteful description of his exaggerated devotion; “frequenting masses,
said litanies with the priest, laboured a pair of great beads which
he continually carried, preached to his parishioners in Stamford, and
asked pardon for his errors in King Edward’s time.” This statement of
itself would not suffice were it not supported by better evidence; but
although there is a dearth of such evidence at the beginning of Mary’s
reign, there is abundance of it later. At the Record Office, among
other papers of the same sort, there exists the Easter book for 1556,
headed, “The names of them that dwelleth in the pariche of Vembletoun
that was confessed and received the Sacrament of the altar;” the first
entry being, “My master Sir Wilyem Cecell, and my lady Myldread his
wyff;”[69] and Cecil’s accounts for this period contain many entries of
the cost of his oblations and gifts to the altar. He retained, moreover,
the benefices of Putney and Mortlake, of which he kept strict account;
and in August 1557 the Dean and Chapter of Worcester addressed a letter
of thanks to him for his annual contribution to his two churches, and
assured him of their willingness to accede to his wishes and increase the
stipends of the curates there.[70] There is therefore no doubt that, like
Princess Elizabeth and most of those who afterwards became her ministers,
Cecil was quite ready, in outward seeming at least, to adopt the ritual
decreed by the Court and Parliament.
Renard, the Emperor’s Ambassador, had broached the idea of a marriage
between Mary and Philip, the Prince of Spain, less than a week after
the Queen’s entry into London; and thenceforward the arrangements for
the match went forward apace. The people generally were in an agony of
fear; Gardiner himself, the Queen’s Chancellor, and most of her wisest
Councillors, looked coldly upon the idea; they would rather she had
married Courtney, and formed a close political alliance with the House
of Spain. But the Queen was a daughter of Catharine of Aragon, and the
exalted religious ideas of her race had caused her to look upon herself
as the divinely-appointed being who was to bring to pass the salvation of
her people, and this she knew could only be done by the power and money
that Spain could bring to her. The connection would enable her, too, to
be revenged upon France, which had befriended her mother’s supplanter,
and was still subsidising revolution against her. Those who were
Catholics first and Englishmen afterwards, applauded her determination
to wed her Spanish cousin; and the priests in Rome watched, from the
moment of her advent, for the possibility of the restoration of England
to the faith, and the disgorging of the plunder of the Church by those
who had swallowed it. Most of these saw in the Spanish match the probable
realisation of their hopes.
Immediately after Mary’s accession the Pope had appointed Cardinal Pole
to negotiate with these ends. He was an Englishman of the blood royal,
who had no special Spanish ends to serve: his one wish was to bring back
England into the fold of the Church. But before he started on his journey
to England, Charles V. took fright. His views were quite different. He
and his son wanted to get political control over England for their own
dynastic interests. So long as the religious element helped them in this,
they were glad to use it; but if the priests went too fast and too far,
and caused disgust and reaction in England, their plans would fail. So,
as usual when it was a choice between religion and politics by statesmen
of that age, they chose politics. The difficulty was that the Churchmen
had expected that the return of England to the fold would necessarily
mean the restitution of all ecclesiastical property. Pole himself was
full of this idea, and his first powers from the Pope gave him little
or no discretion to abate the claim for entire and unconditional
surrender of the Church plunder. But at the instance of the Emperor,
the Pope was induced to grant to Pole full discretionary powers. Then
he was persuaded to send the Legate to France and Brussels on his way
to England, with the ostensible purpose of mediating a peace between
France and the Emperor, but really in order that he might be influenced
in the Spanish interest, and his departure for England was thus delayed
until it was considered prudent to let him go. It was not until he had
promised that he would only act in accordance with the advice of the new
King-consort, Philip, that he was permitted to proceed on his mission,
with the certainty now, that the restitution of the Church property
would go no further than was dictated by the political interests which
the Emperor had nearest his heart. This happened in November 1554, four
months after the Queen’s marriage, and the somewhat curious choice of
Paget (Lord Privy Seal), Sir Edward Hastings, and Sir William Cecil, was
made to go and meet the Legate at Brussels, and bring him to England.
Their instructions,[71] evidently inspired by Philip, who was still in
England, entirely confirm the above view of the subject. The envoys are
to seek the Cardinal, and “to declare that the greatest, and almost the
only, means to procure the agreement of the noblemen and others of our
Council (to the re-entry of England into the Church) was our promise
that the Pope would, at our suit, dispense with all possessors of any
lands or goods of monasteries, colleges, or other ecclesiastical houses,
to hold and enjoy quietly the same, without trouble or scruple.” Herein
the influence of the politicians is clearly visible; and the Churchmen
for fifty years afterwards attributed the failure of Catholic attempts
in England to God’s anger at this paltering with the plunder of His
property.[72] Cecil’s voyage was a short one. The entry in his journal
runs thus: “_1554. viᵒ Novembris (ii. Mariæ) capi iter cum Domino Paget
et Magistro Hastings versus Casarem pro reducendo Cardinale_;” but in the
little Perpetual Calendar at Hatfield the voyage is noted in English.
The journal continues: “_Venimus Bruxelles 11 Novēbris_;” and then,
“_Redivimus 24ᵒ Westmonsterij cū Card. Polo_.”
No more is said of the events of the journey, or of Cecil’s negotiations
with the Cardinal; but it may be surmised that Pole at first would not
look very favourably upon Sir William, as during the correspondence with
Somerset, in which Pole exhorted the Protector to desist from troubling
Catholics, a somewhat rude communication was sent to him, which in his
reply he attributed, not to the Protector himself, but to Cecil. It is
probable that Cecil was chosen, because, though outwardly a Catholic,
his views were known to be extremely moderate, and at the moment it was
these views which were most in accordance with the interests of England
and Spain from the point of view of the Emperor and his son. It may
be assumed that a similar reason accounts for Cecil’s appointment in
the following May, 1555, to accompany the Cardinal to Calais, for the
purpose of negotiating for a peace between France and the Emperor. Pole
had offered the mediation of England to Noailles some months before, but
the lukewarmness of the Emperor, the delay in the appointment of his
envoys, and the French military successes in Piedmont, had dragged the
matter out whilst an infinity of questions of procedure and personality
were being slowly settled. The French Ambassador protested against the
appointment of the Earl of Pembroke or the Earl of Arundel, especially
the latter, a vain, giddy man, and a friend of Spain, to accompany the
embassy. Gardiner, he said, would be sufficient to represent English
interests, with Pole as Papal Legate; and the addition of either of the
Earls or of Paget was looked upon as an indication of a desire rather to
pick a fresh quarrel with France than to negotiate a peace.
Cecil would appear to have occupied quite a secondary position in the
embassy, as he is never mentioned in the correspondence between the
French envoys Constable Montmorenci and Cardinal Lorraine and Noailles
describing the meetings. In any case, the negotiations, which took place
at Marcq, equidistant from Calais, Ardres, and Gravelines, speedily fell
through, and by the 26th June the attempt was abandoned; in consequence
mainly of the insistence of the Emperor in the restoration of the Duke
of Savoy to his dominions then occupied by the French. The apprehensions
of the French Ambassador had not been entirely unfounded. It had been
Philip’s intention to ask the Parliament of 1554 for England’s armed aid
in favour of the Emperor, but the indiscreet zeal of the Churchmen had
already brought about reaction, and the Parliament was hastily dissolved.
In the new Parliament of 1555, Cecil was elected, as he insinuates not by
his own desire, Knight of the Shire for Lincoln. In the previous year
(February 1554) he had requested the aldermen of the borough of Grantham
to elect a nominee of his their member. What would, no doubt, have been
a command when he was Secretary of State in the previous reign, could be
disregarded under Mary, and the aldermen politely informed him that they
had already made other arrangements.[73] It is quite understandable that
to so prudent a man as Cecil it would have been much more agreeable to
have been represented by a nominee than to have sat personally in the
Parliament of 1555.
The Queen’s pregnancy had turned out a delusion. It was seen by the
Spaniards now that the Queen herself was but a puppet in the hands of the
Council, and that Philip would never be allowed to rule England, as had
been intended, solely for the benefit of Spanish interests. The imperial
plot had failed; and on the 26th August 1555, the King-consort took leave
of his heartbroken wife, and went to his duties elsewhere. As soon as he
had gone, as Renard had wisely foretold, all barriers of prudence which
had hitherto, to some extent, restrained the persecution of Protestants,
were broken down. Philip left with the Queen strict instructions for the
administration of affairs, and notes of all Council meetings were sent
to him, in order that he might still keep some control. But Cranmer was
arraigned, Ridley and Latimer were martyred, the restitution of alienated
tithes, first-fruits, and tenths was proposed, the Protestant exiles
abroad were recalled, under pain of confiscation of their property, the
bishops were deprived, and throughout England the flames of persecution
soon spread unchecked.
What King Philip wanted were English arms and money, to aid his father
in the war, not the fires of Smithfield, or the blind zeal of the
priests to set men’s hearts against the cause of Rome, which was his
main instrument. But the Parliament of 1555 and the Queen’s Council were
determined to withhold aid to the Emperor’s war as long as they could.
Money there was none, the English ships were rotting and unmanned in
port, men-at-arms were sulky at the idea of fighting for the Spaniard;
but burning Protestants and confiscating recusants’ property cost
nothing, and so the game went on in despite of absent Philip. Amongst the
threatened exiles in Germany were many of Cecil’s friends, especially
the Duchess of Suffolk and Sir Anthony Cooke, who kept up a close
correspondence with his son-in-law, but refused to conform and return
to England. Whether it was the enactment against these friends,[74] or
some other of the confiscatory or extreme measures of the Government,
that Cecil opposed in the Parliament of 1555, is not quite certain; but
an entry in his diary shows that he was in extreme peril as a result of
his action.[75] The entry is, as usual, in Latin. “On the 21st October,
Parliament was celebrated at Westminster, in which, although with danger
to myself, I performed my duty; for although I did not wish it, yet being
elected a Knight of the Shire for Lincoln, I spoke my opinion freely, and
brought upon me some odium thereby; but it is better to obey God than
man.” The household biographer gives a fuller account of what probably is
the same matter: “In this Parliament (1555) Sir William Cecil was Knight
for the County of Lincoln. In the House of Commons little was done to the
liking of the court. The Lords passed a bill for confiscating the estates
of such as had fled for religion. In the Lower House it was rejected with
great indignation. Warm speeches were made on this, and other occasions,
particularly in relation to a money bill, in all of which Sir William
Cecil delivered himself frankly.”[76] One day, especially, a measure
was before the House which the Queen wished to pass, and Sir William
Courtney, Sir John Pollard, Sir Anthony Kingston, with other men from the
west, opposed. Sir William Cecil sided with them and spoke effectively,
and after the House rose they came to him and invited themselves to dine
with them. He told them they would be welcome “so long as they did not
speak of any matter of Parliament.” Some, however, did so, and their host
reminded them of the condition. The matter was conveyed to the Council,
and the whole of the company was sent for and committed to custody. Sir
William himself was brought before his late colleagues and friends, Lord
Paget and Sir William Petre. He said he desired they would not do with
him as with the rest, which was somewhat hard, namely, to commit him
first, and then hear him afterwards, but prayed them first to hear him,
and then commit him if he were guilty; whereupon Paget replied, “You
spake like a man of experience;” and Cecil, as usual, cleared himself
from blame.[77]
During this period Cecil divided his time between Cannon Row, Wimbledon,
and Burghley, occupying himself much whilst in the country with farming
and horticulture. His accounts are very voluminous, and are frequently
annotated in his own hand. Every payment is stated under its proper
head—kitchen, cellar, buttery, garden, and so forth; and the whole of the
household supplies, whether, as was usual, taken from his own farm, or
purchased, are duly accounted for at current prices. The dinner-hour of
the family was 11 A.M., before which prayer was read in the chapel, and
the supper was served at 6 P.M.; these rules being observed at all his
houses, whether he was in residence or not. His charities were always
large, and in his later years reached an average of £500 a year; and
wherever he had property there was a regular system of distribution of
relief to the needy in the neighbourhood. His most intimate friends were
still some of the first people in England. As a moderate man he had now
commended himself to Pole; Lord Admiral Clinton, a great Lincolnshire
magnate, was evidently by his letters on terms of familiarity with him;
the Earl of Sussex, the Viceroy of Ireland, expressed himself anxious to
do him service;[78] Sir Philip Hoby and Lord Cobham vied with each other
in inducing him and Lady Cecil to visit them at their respective Kentish
seats; and Lord John Grey, on the occasion of his wife being delivered
of a “gholly boye,” begs Cecil to stand godfather to the infant.[79]
Cecil’s wife had already given birth to a daughter, and in the Calendar
Diary at Hatfield an entry against 5th December 1556 records, “Natus
est Anna Cecil,” which event somewhat disappointed both Cecil and his
father-in-law, Cooke, in his exile, as they had earnestly looked for
a son. Cecil must have been a devoted husband, though probably an
undemonstrative one, as the letters of Sir Anthony Cooke always praise
him for his goodness, both to his daughter and to himself in his poverty
and banishment. Sir Philip Hoby, in one of his hearty letters during Lady
Cecil’s confinement, expresses sorrow that Sir William cannot visit him.
“You should have been welcome if my Lady might have spared you, to whom
you have been as good a nurse as you would have her be to you;”[80] and
seven weeks later he writes again (21st February), advising Cecil “to
come abroad, and not tarry so long with my Lady, and in such a stinking
city, the filthiest of the world.” Sir Nicholas Bacon and his wife, Lady
Cecil’s sister, were also frequent and kindly correspondents; and the
Countess of Bedford, who with her children were left by her husband to
Cecil’s care on the Earl’s departure in command of the English contingent
to aid the Emperor, referred all her business to him.[81] Cecil’s life,
indeed, at this period was that of a noble of great wealth and influence,
surrounded by friends, occupied with the details of large estates and
with studious pursuits, in great request as trustee and intermediary
for other people’s affairs, openly conforming in religion, but of
acknowledged moderate views, and keeping on fairly good terms with
the party in power, as did Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Thomas Smith, Roger
Ascham, and others in similar case.
But there was one element of Cecil’s activity to which no undue
prominence was given, although it was great and continuous—namely, his
communications with the Princess Elizabeth and his prudent efforts in
her favour. From his first official employment at court, he had been
appealed to by the Princess in questions requiring discretion. When he
was Secretary to the Protector (25th September 1549), Parry, the cofferer
and factotum of Elizabeth, wrote to him the letter which has often been
quoted,[82] in which he gives an account of the visit of the Venetian
Ambassador to Ashridge: “Hereof her Grace hath, with all haste, commanded
me to send unto you, and to advertise you, to the intent forthwith it may
please you, at her earnest request, either to move my Lord’s Grace, and
to declare unto him yourself, or else forthwith to send word in writing,
that her Grace may know thereby, whether she shall herself write thereof
… and in case ye shall advise her Grace to write, then so forthwith to
advertise her Grace.… Herein she desires you to use her trust as in
the rest.” It will be seen by this that Cecil was then considered by
Elizabeth as her friend. Another letter from Parry (September 1551)[83]
is still more cordial: “I have enclosed herein her Grace’s letters, for
so is her Grace’s commandment, which she desires you, according to her
trust, to deliver from her unto my Lord’s Grace, taking such opportunity
therein by your wisdom as thereby she may … hear from his Grace.… Her
Grace commanded me to write this. ‘Write my commendations in your letters
to Mr. Cecil that I am well assured, though I send not daily to him, that
he doth not, for all that, daily forget me; say, indeed, I assure myself
thereof.’… I had forgotten to say to you that her Grace commanded me to
say to you for the excuse of her hand, that it is not now as good as
she trusts it shall be; her Grace’s unhealth hath made it weaker and so
unsteady, and that this is the cause.”
Elizabeth, in common with most other people, was also very anxious to put
her business affairs into Cecil’s hands, and in such matters as leases,
sales of timber of her manors, and the like, Sir William’s services and
advice were often requisitioned by her. In April 1553 she had serious
complaints to make of extortion and malversation on the part of the
steward (Keys) of certain of her manors which had been dedicated to
the support of the hospital of Ewelme; and she appointed Cecil as the
principal member of a committee to examine closely into the whole matter,
“as her Grace is determined to remove the violence and oppression,
and to have the poor thoroughly considered.”[84] At the time that
Northumberland was casting about for a foreign husband for Elizabeth,
some prince who, though of Protestant leanings, should not be powerful
enough to force her claims to the crown, Cecil seems to have suggested
the Duke of Ferrara’s son Francesco, but the proposal came to nothing.
It may, however, be accepted as certain that the intrigues of Noailles
on the one hand to pledge Elizabeth to marry Courtney, as proposed by
Paget, and the persistent attempts of the Spanish party to pledge her to
Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, found no support from Cecil, since
one marriage would have played into the hands of France, and the other
would have rendered the Catholics permanently supreme in England; and, as
has already been seen, Cecil’s great principle was to keep his country
as far as possible free, both from Rome and from France. The consummate
dexterity exhibited by Elizabeth during the troubled reign of Mary was
exactly of a piece with Cecil’s own management of his affairs at the
same period; and although there is no proof that he in any way guided
her action, it is in evidence that she kept up communication with him on
many subjects, and it is in the highest degree probable that she asked
his advice on the vital points, upon which on several occasions her very
life depended. Camden expressly says that she did so, and he is confirmed
by Cecil’s household biographer; but if it be true, it must have been
done with great caution and care, for Cecil to have escaped, as he did,
all suspicion when Elizabeth herself was deeply suspected after Wyatt’s
rising. Cecil’s advice to the Princess, if given at all, was probably to
do as he himself endeavoured to do; namely, to conform as much as might
be necessary for her safety, and to avoid entanglements or engagements
of every description. This at all events was the course they both
successfully followed.
Philip had at last dragged England into war against the wish of the whole
of the Council except Paget, though the King had reluctantly to come and
exert his personal influence on his wife before it could be done. At the
beginning of July 1557 he left her for the last time, and in a month
the victory of St. Quentin gave him the great chance of his life. He
hesitated, dallied, and missed it; the English contingent sulky, unpaid,
and discontented—the Spaniards said cowardly—clamoured to go home, and
Philip, not daring to add to his unpopularity in England, let them go.
Calais and Guînes fell before the vigour of Francis of Guise (January
1558), for the fortresses had been neglected both by Northumberland
and Mary. When it was already too late, the King had urged the English
Council to send reinforcements; but his envoy, Feria, crossed the Channel
at the same time as the news that the last foothold of England on the
Continent had gone.
Thenceforward it was evident that Mary’s days were numbered, and eyes
were already looking towards her successor. The war, never popular in
England, became perfectly hateful. The people growled that waggon-loads
of English money were being sent to Philip, and the Council, almost to
a man, resisted as much and as long as they dared, Philip’s constant
requests for English aid. When Parliament and the Council had been
cajoled and squeezed to the utmost, Feria left in July 1558 to join
his master; but before doing so, he thought it prudent to pay a visit
to Madame Elizabeth at Hatfield, with many significant hints of favour
from his King in the time to come; none of which the Princess affected
to understand. A few weeks before the Queen died, peace negotiations
were opened between England, France, and Spain; the foolish Earl of
Arundel, Dr. Thirlby (Bishop of Ely), and Cecil’s friend Dr. Wotton being
sent to represent England. On the 7th November the Queen was known to
be dying, and the Council prevailed upon her to send a message to her
sister confirming her right to succeed. Feria arrived a few days before
unhappy Mary breathed her last, and already he found that “the people
were beginning to act disrespectfully towards the images and religious
persons.”[85] From the 7th November until the Queen died, on the 17th,
matters were in the utmost confusion. All the bonds were breaking, and no
man knew what would come next. The Council had for months been drifting
away from Philip, and during the Queen’s last days were openly turning
to her Protestant successor.
But their duty kept them mostly at court; whereas Cecil, being free from
office, went backwards and forwards between Cannon Row and Hatfield,
making arrangements for the formation of a new Government when the
sovereign should die. Feria writes that on the day the new Queen was
proclaimed (17th November 1558), the Council decided that Archbishop
Heath, Lord Admiral Clinton, the Earls of Shrewsbury, Pembroke, and
Derby, and Lord William Howard should proceed to Hatfield, whilst the
rest stayed behind; “but every one wanted to be the first to get out.”
When they arrived at the residence of the young Queen, Cecil was already
there and the appointments decided upon. Cecil was the first Councillor
sworn, and was appointed Secretary of State;[86] the others mentioned
above, with Paget and Bedford, being subsequently admitted; and the
faithful Parry, her cofferer, elevated to the post of Controller of the
Household; whilst Lord Robert Dudley, the son of Northumberland, Cecil’s
former patron, was made Master of the Horse.
The Catholics, and especially the Spanish party, were in dismay. Changes
met them at every turn. The Councillors who had fattened on Philip’s
bribes, turned against him openly, although some few, like Lord William
Howard (the Lord Chamberlain), Clinton, and Paget, secretly offered
their services for a renewed consideration. But it soon became evident
that the two men who would have the predominant influence were Cecil and
Parry, and they had never yet been bought by Spanish money. Only a week
after the Queen’s accession, Feria wrote to Philip:[87] “The kingdom is
entirely in the hands of young folks, heretics and traitors, and the
Queen does not favour a single man … who served her sister.… The old
people and the Catholics are dissatisfied, but dare not open their lips.
She seems to me incomparably more feared than her sister, and gives her
orders, and has her way, as absolutely as her father did. Her present
Controller, Parry, and Secretary Cecil, govern the kingdom, and they tell
me the Earl of Bedford has a good deal to say.”
Before entering London from Hatfield, the Queen stayed for a day or
two at the Charterhouse, then in the occupation of Lord North. All
London turned out to do her honour, and she immediately made it clear
to onlookers that she meant to bid for popularity and to depend upon
the good-will of her subjects. On the 26th or 27th November the Spanish
Ambassador went to the Charterhouse to salute her. He had been under Mary
practically the master of the Council; but the new Queen promptly made
him understand that everything was changed. Instead of, as before, having
right of access to the sovereign when he pleased, he found that in future
he and his affairs would be relegated to two members of the Council, and
when he asked which two, the Queen replied, Parry and Cecil. Feria did
his best to conciliate her—gave her some jewels he had belonging to the
late Queen, and so forth; but when he mentioned that a suspension of
hostilities had been arranged between the French and Spanish, she thought
it was a trap to isolate her, and she dismissed the Ambassador coldly.
When she had retired, Feria called Cecil and asked him to go in at once
and explain matters to her, “as he is the man who does everything.” The
effects of Cecil’s diplomacy were soon evident. The Queen smiled and
chatted with Feria, took with avidity all the jewels he could give her,
coyly looked down when marriage was mentioned, but would pledge herself
to nothing. “She was full of fine words, however, and told me that when
people said she was ‘French,’ I was not to believe it;”[88] but when the
Ambassador treated such a notion as absurd, and endeavoured to lead her
on to say that her sympathies were with Spain and against France, she
cleverly changed the subject. Her sister, she said, had been at war with
France, but she was not.
As has already been said, when the deputation of the Council arrived
at Hatfield, Cecil was there before them, and had conveyed the news of
her accession to the Queen. Naunton[89] says that when she heard it she
fell on her knees and uttered the words, “_A Domino factum est illud, et
est mirabile in oculis nostris_.” But whether this be true or not, it
is certain that the intelligence did not come upon her as a surprise;
for Cecil had already drawn up for her guidance a document which still
exists,[90] providing for the minutest details of her accession. Some of
these provisions were rendered unnecessary by the universal and peaceful
acceptance of the new sovereign; but they exhibit the care and foresight
which we always associate with the writer. The note runs as follows: 1.
To consider the proclamation and to proclaim it, and to send the same
to all manner of places and sheriffs with speed, and to print it. 2. To
prepare the Tower and to appoint the custody thereof to trusty persons,
and to write to all the keepers of forts and castles in the Queen’s name.
3. To consider for the removing to the Tower, and the Queen there to
settle her officers and Council. 4. To make a stay of passages to all the
ports until a certain day, and to consider the situation of all places
dangerous towards France and Scotland, especially in this change. 5. To
send special messengers to the Pope, Emperor, Kings of Spain and Denmark,
and the State of Venice. 6. To send new commissioners (commissions?) to
the Earl of Arundel and Bishop of Ely (the peace envoys), and to send one
into Ireland with a new commission; the letters under the Queen’s hand
to all ambassadors with foreign princes to authorise them therein. 7. To
appoint commissioners for the interment of the late Queen. 8. To appoint
commissioners for the coronation and the day. 9. To make continuance
of the term with patents to the Chief-Justice, Justices of each Bench,
Barons, and Masters of the Rolls, with inhibition. _Quod non conferant
aliquod officium._ 10. To appoint new sheriffs under the Great Seal.
11. To inhibit by proclamation the making over of any money by exchange
without knowledge of the Queen’s Majesty, and to charge all manner of
persons that have made, or been privy to any exchange made, by the space
of one month before the 17th of this month. 12. To consider the preacher
of St. Paul’s Cross, that no occasion be given by him to stir any dispute
touching the governance of the realm.
It will be seen that every necessary measure for carrying on peaceably
the government and business of the country is here provided for. Within
a week of the Queen’s accession the religious persecutions all over the
country had ceased, and a few days later all persons who were in prison
in London as offenders against religion had been released on their own
recognisances. The Queen had already foreshadowed her dislike to the
harrying of Protestants by refusing her countenance to Bonner, the Bishop
of London, when, with the other bishops, he met her on her approach to
London. The English refugees were flocking back home from Germany and
Switzerland; and though, for the most part, the religious services were
continued without marked change,[91] the Catholics saw that the day of
their tribulation was coming, and were filled with indignation and fear.
The measures suggested by Cecil as to the appointment of the preacher
at Paul’s Cross were doubtless adopted,[92] for there was no violent
ecclesiastical pronouncement against the tendency of the new Government
until the funeral of the late Queen, on the 13th December. White, Bishop
of Winchester, preached the sermon, in which he attacked the Protestants
in the most inflammatory language, quoting the words of Trajan: “If my
commands are just, use this sword for me; if unjust, use it against me.”
It was not Elizabeth’s or prudent Cecil’s line, however, to adopt extreme
measures at first, and the prelate was only kept secluded for a month in
his own house. This is a fair specimen of the cautious policy adopted
by Elizabeth. All of Mary’s Council had been Catholics, many of them
bigoted Catholics, and yet eleven of them were admitted to the Council
of the new Queen; the principal change being the addition to them of
seven known Protestants, who had, like Cecil, conformed in the previous
reign—namely, Parr (Marquis of Northampton), Cecil’s friend the Earl
of Bedford, Sir Thomas Parry, Edward Rogers, Sir Ambrose Cave, Francis
Knollys (the Queen’s cousin), and Sir William Cecil; Sir Nicholas Bacon,
Cecil’s brother-in-law, another Protestant conformer, being shortly
afterwards also appointed a Councillor and Lord Keeper, but not yet
Chancellor, in the place of Heath, Archbishop of York.
CHAPTER IV
1559-1560
We are told by his household biographer that two of Cecil’s favourite
aphorisms were: “That war is the curse, and peace the blessing of God
upon a nation,” and “That a realm gaineth more by one year’s peace than
by ten years’ war.” He and his mistress plainly saw that the first task
for them to perform was to put an end to the disastrous and inglorious
war into which for his own ends Philip had dragged England. Here, on the
very threshold of Elizabeth’s reign, Cecil’s influence upon her policy
was apparent and eminently successful. Cecil came from the Charterhouse
to see Feria at Durham Place on the 24th November, saying that the Queen
was sending Lord Cobham to inform Philip in Flanders officially of Queen
Mary’s death; but two days afterwards, one of Feria’s spies at court,
probably Lord William Howard, sent him word that this was not Cobham’s
only mission. He was to turn aside to Cercamp, on the French frontier,
where the peace commissioners were assembled, except Arundel, who had
hurried back as soon as he learnt of the Queen’s death, in order to take
fresh commissions from Elizabeth to Dr. Thirlby, Arundel, and Wotton.
Feria, on this news, sent post-haste to Philip’s Secretary of State,
telling him to advise the Spanish “commissioners to keep their eyes on
these Englishmen, in case this should be some trick to our detriment,
as I was told nothing about his going to Cercamp till he (Cobham) had
gone.”[93]
But no trick was meant which should divide England from the House of
Burgundy. The instructions carried by Cobham[94] were drafted by Cecil,
and made the restitution of Calais the main point of the English demand;
and Wotton was instructed to accompany Cobham to Philip, to persuade
the latter to support the English in their demand. The commissioners,
moreover, were instructed to insert in the treaty an article reserving
all former treaties between England and the House of Burgundy. Before
these instructions reached the hands of the commissioners, the suspension
of hostilities for two months, which had so much disquieted the Queen
when Feria told her of it, had been arranged. There is no doubt that the
willingness of the French to agree to this suspension had been occasioned
by their desire to enter into separate negotiations with the new Queen
and her ministers, with the object of causing distrust between Spain and
England; and here it was that Cecil had his first opportunity of proving
his ability. Lord Grey had been captured by the French at Guînes, and
early in January 1559 was allowed to return to England on parole, for
the purpose, ostensibly, of arranging an exchange. He brought with him
a message from the Dukes of Guise and Montpessart, proposing a secret
arrangement between England and France. This was not the first intimation
of such a desire; for some weeks before, a similar but less authoritative
message was brought by the Protestant Florentine, Guido Cavalcanti, from
the Vidame de Chartres; and Cavalcanti had gone back to France with kind
but vague expressions of good-will from Elizabeth. When Lord Grey’s
message arrived, Cecil considered it in all its bearings, and drew up one
of his judicial reports[95] in which Grey’s answer to Guise is dictated.
With much circumlocution the Queen’s willingness to make peace is
expressed, “if all things done in her sister’s time be revoked”; or, in
other words, that Calais should be restored. But what Grey was not told
was Cecil’s recommendation to the Queen: “It seemeth necessary to allow
this overture of peace, so as neither so to lyke of it, nor so to follow
it, as thereby any jelusy shall arise in the hart of the King of Spain,
but that principally that that amyty be preserved and this not refused.”
At the same time Dr. Wotton was to be instructed to go to Philip, and
assure him emphatically, that the Queen was determined to remain friendly
with him, and to let the whole world see it. She had had some hints that
the French would like to approach her separately, but Philip “shal be
most assured that nothyng shal be doone that maye in any respect either
directly or indirectly prejudice this amyté betwixt their two Majesties,
or anything doone but that his Majesty shal be made privy thereto; and
thereof his Majesty shal be as well assured as he was of his late wyffe’s
proceedings here.” Guido Cavalcanti arrived in France before Lord Grey’s
answer to Guise, and the Florentine came posting back to England with an
affectionate letter from the King of France to Elizabeth.[96] Cecil’s
draft answer to this is just as judicious as the previous one. The King
of France suggested that French and English commissioners might be
mutually appointed to meet. This would never do, said Cecil; secrecy was
of the first importance, and a meeting of Englishmen and Frenchmen of
rank would be noticed immediately. The negotiations had better be carried
on directly by correspondence, and this was the course accepted by the
French. Whilst the matter was thus being drawn out, the disposition
of Philip was being sounded. Later in the reign, Elizabeth and Cecil
had taken his measure, and could foresee his action, but in these first
negotiations they were groping their way. Elizabeth had practically
refused Philip’s own suggestion of marriage made by Feria, and was now
fencing with the proposals of his cousins the Archdukes; but she was
careful not to drive Philip too far away. Reassuring letters came from
Wotton. Much, he said, as Philip wished for peace, he did not believe he
would make it alone, and leave both England and Scotland at the mercy of
France, as “what woulde ensew thereof, a blynde manne can see.”[97]
It was well that Cecil’s caution disarmed Philip about the French
advances; for Cavalcanti’s movements and mission were soon conveyed to
the Spanish King by his spies, and when, at the expiration of the two
months’ truce, the peace commissioners again met at Cateau-Cambresis,
the King did his best to support the English commissioners in their
demand for the restitution of Calais. His own agreement with France was
easily made, for Henry II. was seriously alarmed now at the growth of
the reform party, and gave way to Philip on nearly every point; whilst
Philip himself was in great want of money, he hated war, and, above
all, was burning to get back to the Spain he loved so much. But when,
week after week, he saw that the English commissioners stood firm about
Calais, he was obliged to speak out and assure Elizabeth that he could
not plunge his country into war again for the purpose of restoring to
England a fortress she had lost by her own laxity. At length, after
infinite discussion, the English were forced to conclude a peace based
upon the restitution of Calais in eight years, the demolition of the
fortifications of Eyemouth, and a truce, to be followed by a peace,
between England and Scotland.
In the meanwhile, before the peace of Cateau-Cambresis was signed,
matters were growing more acrimonious in tone between England and Spain,
owing to the ecclesiastical measures to which reference will be made
presently, and also to the haughtiness and want of tact displayed by
Feria in England. When, therefore, news came hither that amongst the
conditions of the general peace was one providing for the marriage of
Philip with Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of the French King, and the
establishment of a close community of interests between France and
Spain, a gust of apprehension passed over the English that they had been
outwitted, and would have to face a combination of the two great rivals.
Paget—a thorough Spanish partisan and a Catholic—had foretold such a
possibility as this in February, and had entreated Cecil to cling closely
to Spain and continue the war with France.[98] But Cecil was wiser
than Paget. He knew that by fighting for Calais we should lose both
friendships, and he accepted the best terms of peace he could get. But
when it was a question of the brotherhood between Spain and France, and
whispers came from French reformers of the secret international league to
crush Protestantism, then the only course to pursue was to disarm Philip
and sow discord between Spain and France. When Feria saw the Queen on
the 7th April 1559, the day on which the news of the signing of peace
arrived in London, he found her pouting and coquettish that Philip should
have married any one but her. “Your Majesty, she said, could not have
been so much in love with her as I had represented, if you could not
wait four months for her.” But in the antechamber the Ambassador had
a conversation with Cecil, “who is a pestilent knave, as your Majesty
knows. He told me they had heard that your Majesty was very shortly going
to Spain, and, amongst other things, he said that if your Majesty wished
to keep up the war with France, they for their part would be glad of it.
I told him he could tell that to people who did not understand the state
of affairs in England so well as I did. What they wanted was something
very different from that. They were blind to their own advantage, and
would now begin to understand that I had advised what was best for the
interests of the Queen and the welfare of the country; and I left them
that day as bitter as gall.”[99]
Paget wailed that the country was ruined; Alba, Ruy Gomez, and young De
Granvelle tried to impress upon the English peace commissioners that
England’s only chance of salvation now lay in Philip’s countenance.[100]
Feria tried to frighten the Queen by assuring her that her religious
policy was hurrying her and her country to perdition, and complained that
certain comedies insulting to Philip which had been acted at court, had
been suggested by Cecil, her chief minister. But she outwitted him at
every point. “She was,” he said, “a daughter of the devil, and her chief
ministers the greatest scoundrels and heretics in the land.” She disarmed
him and his master by pretending that she would marry one of the Austrian
Archdukes, who would depend entirely upon Spain; and Spanish agents were
still fain to be civil to her, in hope of bringing that about; though
hot-headed Feria soon found his place intolerable, and relinquished it to
a more smooth-tongued successor. The reason why Feria was so especially
bitter against Cecil, was that to him was attributed the principal blame
for forcing through Parliament, at the same time as the conclusion of
the treaty of peace, the Act of Supremacy, recognising the Queen as
Governor of the Anglican Church, and the Act of Uniformity, imposing the
second prayer-book of Edward VI., but with some alterations of importance
for the purpose of conciliating the Catholics. The oath of supremacy,
however, was only compulsory on servants of the Crown; and the general
tendency of the Council, and especially of the Queen, was to avoid
offending unnecessarily the Catholic majority in the country. The Queen
personally preferred a ceremonious worship, and several times assured
the Spanish Ambassador that her opinions were similar to those of her
father—that she was practically a Catholic, except for her acknowledgment
of the papal supremacy.
Cecil’s interests at this period were somewhat different from those
of the Queen. Her great object was to consolidate her position by
gaining the good-will of as many of her subjects as possible, apart
from the question of religion. It was necessary for her to pass the
Act of Supremacy, in order to establish the legality of her right to
reign, and some sort of uniformity was necessary in the interests of
peace and good government; but beyond that she was not anxious to push
religious reform, for she disliked the Calvinists much more than she
did the Catholics. But Cecil saw that if the Protestant Church were not
established legally and strongly before Elizabeth died—and of course she
might die at any time—the accession of Catholic Mary Stuart with French
power at her back would mean the end of his ministry, and probably of
his life. He and Sir Nicholas Bacon, his brother-in-law, with Bedford,
were consequently regarded by the Spaniards as the principal promoters
of religious changes. They tried hard to divert him, and in the list
of Councillors who were to receive pensions from Spain he is down for
a thousand crowns;[101] but though he treated the Spaniards with great
courtesy and conciliation, they do not appear to have influenced his
policy by a hair’s-breadth. Parry, the Controller, now Treasurer of the
Household, was a man of inferior talent, and was apparently jealous of
Cecil. Feria, despairing of moving Cecil, consequently endeavoured to
influence the Queen by fear through Parry. On the 6th March, during the
passage of the ecclesiastical bills through Parliament, the Ambassador,
with the Queen’s knowledge, arranged to meet Parry in St. James’s
Park; but at the instance of Elizabeth, who did not desire the rest of
her Council to see her confidential man in conference with Feria, the
meeting-place was changed to Hyde Park, “near the execution place.” The
Ambassador urged upon Parry that the proposed religious measures would
certainly bring about the Queen’s downfall. Parry promised that the Queen
would not assume the title of Supreme Head of the Church, but would call
herself Governor. But this was all Feria could get; for a week after,
when he saw the Queen, he “found her resolved about what was passed in
Parliament yesterday, which Cecil and Vice-Chamberlain Knollys and their
followers have managed to bring about for their own ends.” The Queen
was excited and hysterical. She was a heretic, she said, and could not
marry a Catholic like Philip. Feria endeavoured to calm and flatter her;
but he assured her that if she gave her consent to the bills she would
be utterly ruined. She promised him that she would not assume the title
of Supreme Head; but she said that so much money was taken out of the
country for the Pope that she must put an end to it, and the bishops were
lazy poltroons, whereupon Feria retorted angrily, and Knollys purposely
put an end to the conversation by announcing supper. Parry’s influence
was small and decreasing. “Although,” says Feria, “he is a favourite of
the Queen, he is not at all discreet, nor is he a good Catholic, but,
still, he behaves better than the others. Cecil is very clever, but a
mischievous man, and a heretic, and governs the Queen in spite of the
Treasurer (Parry);[102] for they are not at all good friends, and I have
done what I can to make them worse.”[103] Cecil, of course, had his way,
and the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity received the royal assent within
a few weeks of this time (April 1559).
In the meanwhile both Cecil and the Queen worked hard to divert or
mollify the irritation of the Spaniards caused by the religious measures.
The pretence of a desire on the part of the Queen to marry an Austrian
Archduke was elaborately carried on. Envoys from the Emperor went
backwards and forwards. The sly, silky old Bishop of Aquila, the new
Spanish Ambassador, tried to draw the Queen into a position from which
she could not recede. She was coy, interesting, unsophisticated, and
cunning by turns, but never compromised herself too far. The object was
simply to keep the Spaniards from breaking away whilst pursuing her own
course, and this object was effected.
The treaty of Cateau-Cambresis was ratified with great ceremony in London
at the end of May: François de Montmorenci and a splendid French embassy
were entertained at Elizabeth’s court,[104] the Emperor’s envoy being
present at the same time to push the Archduke’s suit. It was Cecil’s cue
to pretend to the Spaniards that the French were now very affectionate,
and one day after some vicarious love-making with the Queen on behalf
of the Archduke, the Bishop had a long conversation with the Secretary.
The latter hinted that a French match had been offered to the Queen, and
asked his opinion of it. If it had not been for the dispensatory power
of the Pope being necessary, the Queen, said Cecil, would have married
Philip; “but the proposal involved religious questions which it would be
fruitless now to discuss, as the matter had fallen through.” The object
of this, of course, was to attract the Spaniards, first by jealousy
of the French, and next by a show of sympathy with Spain. For reasons
already set forth with regard to English succession, Philip was just as
anxious as Cecil to avoid a quarrel. “I was glad,” writes the Bishop, “to
have the opportunity of talking over these matters with him, to dissipate
the suspicion which I think he and his friends entertain, that they have
incurred your Majesty’s anger by their change of religion. I therefore
answered him without any reproach or complaint, and only said that what
had been done in the kingdom certainly seemed to me very grave, severe,
and ill-timed, but that I hoped in God; and if He would some day give us
a council of bishops, or a good Pope, who would reform the customs of the
clergy, and the abuses of the court of Rome, which had scandalised the
provinces, all the evil would be remedied; and God would not allow so
noble and Christian a nation as this to be separated in faith from the
rest of Christendom.”[105] Thus the Catholic Bishop met the Protestant
Cecil more than half-way; and no more triumphant instance can be found
than this of the policy of the first few months of Elizabeth’s reign. The
faith of England had been revolutionised in six months without serious
discontent in the country itself. Instead of hectoring Feria flouting
and threatening, the bland Churchman sought to minimise differences of
religion to the “pestilent knave” who had been principally instrumental
in making the great change. From master of England, Philip had changed
to an equal anxious to avoid its enmity. The altered position had been
brought about partly by Philip’s dread of half-French Mary Stuart
succeeding to the English throne if Elizabeth should disappear, partly
by the studious moderation of the English ecclesiastical measures, and
partly by the care taken by Cecil and the Queen to keep alive the idea
that the French were courting their friendship, whilst they themselves
preferred the old connection with the House of Burgundy.
How vital it was for England to conciliate Philip at this juncture was
evident to those who, like Cecil, were behind the scenes, although the
extreme Protestants in the country were somewhat restive about it. Before
the treaty of peace with France was negotiated, at the very beginning
of the year 1559, Cecil drew up an important state paper for the
consideration of the Council, discussing the probability of an immediate
French attack upon England over the Scottish border in the interests of
Mary Stuart. The religious disturbances in Scotland had necessitated the
sending of a considerable French force to the aid of the Queen Regent,
and Cecil says that a large army of French and German mercenaries was
already collected, which it was doubtful whether the English could
resist. The questions he propounded to the Council were whether it would
be better to seize the Scottish ports at once before the French fleet
arrived, or to place England in a state of defence and await events. The
latter course was adopted, conjointly with endeavours to draw Philip
to the side of England, and the sending of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton to
France to remonstrate with the King.[106] The occasion given for this
alarm is stated in Cecil’s diary as follows: “January 16th, 1559. The
Dolphin of France and his wife Queen of Scotts, did, by style of King and
Queen of Scotland, England, and Ireland, graunt unto the Lord Fleming
certain things.”
Throgmorton arrived in Paris on the 23rd May, and on the 7th June wrote
to Cecil that the Guises and Mary Stuart were bribing and pensioning
Englishmen there, and that Cardinal Lorraine was busy intriguing for the
sending of a force to Scotland, and for promoting his niece’s claim to
the English crown. He was “inquisitive to know of such Englishmen as he
hath offered to interteigne, how many shippes the Queen’s Majesty hath
in redeness, and whether the same be layed up in dock at Gillingham, and
how many of them be on the narrow seas, and whether the new great ships
be already made and furnished with takling and ordnance.”[107] On the
21st of the same month the news was still more alarming. Throgmorton
informed Cecil that a suggestion had been made to him for a marriage
between Queen Elizabeth and Guise’s brother, the Duke de Nemours, to
which he had replied that he could not say anything about it unless the
King of France or his Council officially mentioned it. Throgmorton now
heard that Constable Montmorenci had reproached Nemours for making such
a suggestion, “adding further these words, ‘What! do yow not know that
the Queen Dauphin hath right and title to England.’”[108] They only
waited for an opportunity, said Throgmorton, to say, “Have at you.”
Great preparations were being made in Paris for the celebration of the
peace with Spain, and the betrothal of the King’s daughter to King
Philip by proxy, and watchful Throgmorton soon discovered that on all
escutcheons, banners, and trophies in which the Dauphin’s and his wife’s
arms were represented, the arms of England were quartered, and almost
daily thereafter in his letters to Cecil the Ambassador sounds the alarm.
Cecil himself in his diary thus marks the progress of events, 28th June
1559: “the justs at Paris, wherein the King-Dolphin’s two heralds were
apparelled with the arms of England.”[109] On the 29th June, at the
great tournament to celebrate his child’s betrothal to Philip, Henry II.
was accidentally thrust in the eye by Montgomerie, and in a moment the
political crisis became acute.
Mary Stuart was now Queen Consort of France. Her clever, ambitious
uncles, Guise and the Cardinal, were practically rulers of France,
and she herself, as Throgmorton says, “took everything upon her,” and
according to Cecil’s diary (16th July), “the ushers going before the
Queen of Scotts (now French Queen) to Chappell cry, ‘Place pour la
Reine d’Angleterre.’” As soon as the pretensions of Mary were known,
Cecil’s counter move was to send help to the reform party in Scotland,
and to revive the talk of a marriage between Elizabeth and the Earl of
Arran, the heir-apparent to the Scottish crown. Arran was in France;
and on the first suspicion against him of intriguing with the English,
the King had ordered his capture, dead or alive. Randolph and Killigrew
were successively sent by Cecil to Throgmorton with orders to aid the
Earl, and, at any risk, smuggle him to England.[110] In disguise he was
conveyed by Randolph to Zurich, and thence to England, and subsequently
into Scotland,[111] to head the Protestant party against the French,
from his father’s castles of Hamilton and Dumbarton. Whilst Arran was
in hiding in England, Cecil was apparently the only minister who saw
him, and when he left, it was with full instructions and pecuniary help
from the Secretary. Cecil was a man of peace; but the main point of his
policy was the keeping of the French out of Flanders and Scotland. Now
that Guise ambition openly struck at England through the northern kingdom
active measures were needed, and they were taken.
As usual, Cecil’s report on the whole question[112] to the Queen
judiciously summed up all the possibilities. The document sets forth
the desirability of an enduring peace between Scotland and England,
and the impossibility of it whilst the former country is governed by a
foreign nation like the French in the absence of its native sovereign;
that the land should be “freed from idolatry like as England”; and that
the nobility should be banded together with the next heir to the crown
(Arran) to remedy all abuses. “If the Queen (Mary) shall be unwilling to
this, as is likely, … then it is apparent that Almighty God is pleased
to transfer from her the rule of the kingdom for the weale of it. And
in this time great circumspection is to be used to avoid the deceits
and trumperies of the French.” Sir William’s decision, after infinite
discussion, is that the cheapest and only possible way will be at once
to send strong reinforcements to the Scottish reformers, and at the same
time that Sadler and Crofts on the Border should be sleepless, as they
were, in their efforts in favour of the Protestant Scots.
There was no matter which concerned Cecil so much as this, as will be
seen by his many interesting letters about it to Sir Ralph Sadler in the
Sadler Papers. He had gone to Burghley in September 1559, and thence
wrote to Sadler his anxiety to hear of Arran’s[113] safe arrival in
Scotland. “Th’erle of Arrayn borrowed of me at his being at London 200
crowns, which he promised should be paid to you, Mr. Sadler, for me.
After some tyme passed, I praye you aske it of hym.” The next day Cecil
wrote that he had ordered Sadler “to lende the Protestants money, as of
your selve, taking secretly the bonds of them to rendre the same; so as
the Quene should not be partie thereto.” Thenceforward money was secretly
sent in plenty by Sir William to maintain the Scottish reformers who were
besieging Leith, but Knox and the rigid Calvinists, with their republican
and anti-feminine ideas, were hated by the Queen, and made matters
difficult. “Knox’s name,” says Cecil, “is the most odious here. I wish no
mention of it hither.” “Surely I like not Knox’s audacitie.… His writings
do no good here, and therefore I do rather suppress them.”[114]
But it became evident that the Lords of the Congregation would be unable
much longer to hold their own without powerful armed assistance from
England. This would of course mean a renewal of the war with France, and
before it could be undertaken it was necessary to make quite sure of the
attitude of Philip, who was about to marry the French Princess. On this
occasion, for the first time, Cecil was met and hampered in his action by
a counter intrigue within the English court, such as for the next twenty
years continually faced him.
When the Queen rode through the city from the Charterhouse to the Tower
on her white jennet, she was followed closely by a handsome young man
of her own age, who attracted general attention. She had appointed Lord
Robert Dudley, the son of Cecil’s old patron, Northumberland, Master
of the Horse at Hatfield on the day that Mary died. In less than six
months the tongue of scandal was busy with the doings of the Queen and
her favourite, and the Spanish agents were calculating the chances of
his being made an instrument for their ends. Gradually the English
competitors for the Queen’s hand sank into the background, whilst
Dudley, a married man, grew in favour daily.[115] He was made a Knight
of the Garter, to the openly expressed annoyance of other older and
worthier nobles; money grants and favours of all sorts were showered
upon him, and the Queen would hardly let him out of her sight. So long
as the talk of the match with the Archduke Charles only dragged on its
interminable length, Dudley was mildly approving and claiming rewards
and bribes from the Spaniards in consequence; for he knew perfectly
well that the negotiation was a feint, and that the religious obstacles
were unsurmountable. But when, as has been seen, national interests led
Cecil to play his master-move and checkmate Mary Stuart and the French
connection in Scotland with Arran and the English marriage, Dudley saw
that the affair was serious, and at once set about frustrating Cecil’s
national policy for his personal advantage. In order to obstruct the
marriage with Arran, the first step was for Dudley to profess himself
hotly in favour of the Austrian match.
His sister, Lady Sidney, was sent to the Bishop of Aquila, with the
assurance that the Queen would consent to marry the Archduke at once if
she were asked (September 1559). Dudley and Parry both came and assured
the Bishop of their devotion, body and soul, to Spanish interests.[116]
There was, they said, a plot to kill the Queen, and she had now made up
her mind to concede the religious points at issue and marry the Archduke
at once. The Queen herself avoided going so far as that in words, but
by looks and hints she confirmed what Lady Sidney and Dudley had said.
Between them they hoodwinked the Churchman, and he urged upon Philip
and the Emperor the coming of the bridegroom. After his long talk at
Whitehall with the Queen at the end of September, the Bishop saw Cecil,
who by this time was fully aware of what was going on, and adroitly
turned it to the advantage of his policy. War with the French in Scotland
was practically adopted, if Philip could be depended upon to stand aloof.
When, accordingly, the Bishop approached Cecil, the latter, although he
avoided pledging himself to the Queen’s marrying the Archduke, spoke
sympathetically about it. But his tone was different from Dudley’s. “I
saw,” says the Bishop, “that he was beating about the bush, and begged
that we might speak plainly to one another. I was not blind or deaf,
and could easily perceive that the Queen was not taking this step to
refuse her consent after all. He swore he did not know, and could not
assure me.” But then Cecil shot _his_ bolt. The French, he said, were
striving to impede the Archduke’s match, and had offered great things to
the Swedes if they could bring about the marriage of Elizabeth with the
Prince of Sweden. “They (the English) well understood that this was only
to alienate the Queen from her connection and friendship with Philip,
and thus to enable the French to invade this country more easily.”[117]
Cecil then consented, but vaguely, to help forward “our affair,” and was
promised all Philip’s favour if he did so. All Cecil asked for and wanted
was an assurance of the help or neutrality of Spain, in the event of a
French invasion, and this he unhesitatingly got—“if the Queen will marry
the Archduke,” a condition which Cecil, at least, must have known would
not be fulfilled.
For the next week or two the Queen surpassed herself in vivacity, in
pretended anticipation of the coming of her Imperial lover. She became
outwardly more Catholic than ever. Candles and crucifixes were again
put up on the altars of her chapels, priests wore their vestments, and
the Spanish Bishop was in the best of spirits. All this was going too
far for Cecil, and was forcing his hand. He wanted to ensure Philip’s
countenance by arousing jealousy of the French, whilst keeping the
Archduke’s marriage gently simmering. But if Dudley and the Queen carried
it too far, it would either end in mortally offending Philip, or in
introducing a strong Catholic influence in England, which would have
been the end of Cecil as a minister. Feria, in Flanders, saw this clearly
enough, and wrote to the Bishop to tell Dudley that Cecil would really be
against the Archduke’s business.[118] Dudley’s intrigue to prevent the
Scottish match, not only hampered Cecil, but set the whole court by the
ears. The Duke of Norfolk and the thorough-going Spanish Catholic party
formed a plot to kill Dudley, as they knew he was not sincere, and would
prevent the marriage with the Archduke, perhaps, at the last moment;
whilst Cecil’s own Protestant friends, Bedford especially, who did not
understand his cautious manner of dealing with difficulties, quarrelled
with him about his apparent acquiescence in fresh Popish innovations.
Dudley’s bubble soon burst of itself. The Emperor, not under the sway of
Elizabeth’s charm, was cool. The Bishop, as a feeler, fostered the idea
that the Archduke was already on the way, and then the Queen, Dudley, and
Lady Sidney took fright and began to cry off; and the Bishop saw he had
been deceived (November 1559). But Arran’s suit had still to be combated,
and Dudley warmly took up the Swedish match; whilst the gossips whispered
that he had decided to poison his wife, and marry the Queen himself.
Matters had reached this stage, when the Bishop’s agents began plotting
with the Duke of Norfolk for the open coming of the Archduke, his
marriage with Catharine Grey, and the murder of Elizabeth and Dudley; but
this required bolder hands than Norfolk or Philip, and nothing came of
it but open quarrels between Dudley and those who he knew were planning
his ruin. Gradually prudent Cecil worked the Archduke’s negotiations
back again into the stage in which they had been when Dudley interfered.
The Bishop was courted, an envoy was sent to Vienna, care was taken to
keep alive Philip’s jealousy of the French—more than ever to be feared
by the Spanish King, now that his own Netherlands were seething with
disaffection; and then, at last, Cecil was able to accede to the prayer
of the Scottish reformers,[119] and send an English force to their aid.
On the 23rd December 1559, Cecil could write to Sadler, saying that the
Duke of Norfolk and Lord Grey were on their way north to take command of
the army. “Our shippes be on the sea, God spede them! William Winter is
appointed, as he commeth nigh, to learn of you the state of the French
navy within the Firth. And it is thought good that ye should cause some
small vessell to goo to hym with your intelligence before he come very
nigh that towne, lest by tarryeng for your answer his voyage be hindered.
The French are much amased at this our sodden going to sea, so as the
Marq d’Elbœuf being come to Callise is retorned to Parriss in great hast.
We lack intelligence from you and be ignorant of what ye do in Scotland.
We be afrayd of the loss of Edinburgh Castle. God gyve ye both good
night, for I am almost a slepe. At Westminster, hora 12ᵃ nocte 23 Dec.
1559.”[120]
The fleet of thirty-two sail, with 8000 infantry and 2000 cavalry, sailed
up the Forth exactly a month after this letter was written, to the dismay
of the French and the Queen Regent, who shortly afterwards learnt that
Elbœuf and his army had been storm-beaten back to France. The French
and Catholic Scots were now cooped up in Leith, with no possibility of
receiving aid from France; whilst the English on the Border, and the
Lords of the Congregation, were organising a strong land force to invade
Scotland.
There was nothing more to be dreaded by Philip—as Cecil well knew—than a
war between England and France for the cause of the Scottish Protestants.
The Spanish alliance with France had aroused the distrust of the powerful
reform party in the latter country; and on the accession of Francis II.
and the Guises to power, the Queen-mother, Catharine de Medici, whose
chance had at last come after years of insult and neglect, at once
threw her influence into the scale of their opponents, the Montmorencis
and the reformers. Throgmorton had been sent to France to form a union
between the Protestant and anti-Guisan elements in France and Elizabeth,
and in this he had been entirely successful, to the unfeigned dismay
of Philip and his agents.[121] This combination of Protestants in
England, Scotland, and France, and probably also in Germany, was a most
threatening one for Philip’s objects, especially in view of the condition
of his own Netherlands; and yet his hands were tied. He dared not raise
a hand to make French Mary Stuart Queen of Great Britain, although
the triumph of reform in Scotland and this combination of Protestants
struck at the very root of his objects and his policy. To the cautious
planning of Cecil almost exclusively was owing the fact that in one year
Philip had been disarmed, and rendered impotent to injure a Protestant
England. The Spanish Bishop’s only remedy for it all was to plot with
the extreme English Catholics to kill Elizabeth, Dudley, and Cecil, and
place Catharine Grey or Darnley on the throne under Spanish tutelage;
and he conspired ceaselessly with that object. But his master knew
better than he. The French, he was aware, would fight to prevent such a
result, as well as the English, and neither he nor his coffers were in a
mood for fighting them then; so he had to stoop to peaceful diplomacy,
and tried to beat Cecil at his own game. The Secretary had continued to
answer firmly all the Bishop’s remonstrances and veiled threats, for he
knew Philip could not move; and when it was decided to send a special
Flemish envoy to England to dissuade the Queen from aiding the Scottish
Protestants, the Bishop almost scornfully told Feria that, if talking had
been of any good, he would have done it already. “They would do more harm
than good if they were only coming to talk, for the English Catholics
expect much more than that.” “Cecil,” he says, “is the heart of the
business, and is determined to carry it through, until they are ruined,
as they will be.”[122] In the meanwhile (April 1560) the siege of Leith
went on, notwithstanding the attempts of the French to settle terms of
peace in London. Elizabeth would have nothing to do with any peace that
left a French man-at-arms in Scotland.
Philip’s Flemish envoy, De Glajon, arrived in London on the 5th April
1560, and was very coolly received by Elizabeth.[123] In Philip’s name
he exhorted her to abstain from helping the Scottish rebels, and then
threatened that if she did not come to terms with the French, Spanish
troops would be sent to reinforce the latter. She was dignified, but
alarmed at this, and sent Cecil on the following day to discuss the
question with De Glajon.[124] After a conference, lasting five hours,
in which Cecil recited all the English complaints against France, and
pointed out the danger to Philip that would ensue upon the French
becoming masters of Scotland, he positively assured the envoy that the
English troops would not be withdrawn from Scotland until their objects
were attained. The French Ambassador tried hard to draw Philip’s envoy
into a joint hostile protest[125] to Elizabeth; but the Spaniards
knew that their master really did not mean to fight, and declined to
compromise him. They, indeed, assured Cecil privately, that if Philip
helped the French, it would only be in the interests of Elizabeth herself.
Through all the negotiation Cecil’s management was most masterly. He had
taken Philip’s measure now, and knew the powerless position in which
English diplomacy, aided by circumstances, had placed him. The Guises
had taken his measure too. As week followed week, and hope of help from
him disappeared, they saw that they must make such terms as they might
with Elizabeth. The French in Leith were heroically holding out, though
starving and hopeless; no reinforcements could be sent from France, for
England held the sea, and the Queen-mother and the reform party would
give no help to purely Guisan objects. So at last, in May, Monluc, the
Bishop of Valence, came humbly to London and sued Elizabeth for peace,
and Cecil and Wotton, with Sir Henry Percy, Sir Ralph Sadler, and Peter
Carew, travelled to Scotland to meet the French commissioners and settle
the terms. Cecil started on the 30th May, and at the different stages of
his journey he wrote letters to Sir William Petre.[126] On the 31st he
writes from Royston: “in no apparent doubt of health, yet by foulness of
weather afraid to ride to Huntingdon till to-morrow.” On the 2nd June his
letter comes from his own house at Burghley, “rubbing on between health
and sickness, yet my heart serveth me to get the mastery.”
His energy, his command of detail, and his foresight are remarkably shown
in these letters. He spurs Petre to do as evidently he himself would
have done—to expedite everything necessary for the prosecution of the
war, though peace was in prospect; “to quicken the Lord Treasurer for
money,” and so forth. From Stamford he went to Doncaster, Boroughbridge,
Northallerton, Newcastle, and so to Scotland, always vigilant, observant,
suggestive; but in nearly every letter expressing deep distrust of the
French, whom he suspected of treachery at every point. When they met
in Edinburgh his complaints are constant of their “cavilations” and
hairsplitting. “They may contend, however, about a word,” he says, “but I
mean to have the victory.” Before the negotiations commenced, the Queen
Regent, Mary of Lorraine, died (11th June), and this, by perplexing the
French, somewhat facilitated an arrangement. The most difficult point was
the use of the English arms by Mary Stuart, and, on the 1st July, Cecil
wrote to the Queen that the negotiations had been broken off on that
point alone. After this was written, but before it was despatched, Cecil
proposed a “device,”[127] by the insertion of a “few fair words”; and
an arrangement was the result, which stands a triumphant vindication of
Cecil’s policy.
The French troops were all to be withdrawn, Leith and Dunbar to be
razed, Mary abandoned her claim to the English crown, and acknowledged
Elizabeth; and, above all, Mary granted a constitution to her subjects,
which well-nigh annihilated the prerogative of her throne. A Parliament
was to be forthwith summoned, which should have the power to declare or
veto war or peace; during the sovereign’s absence the country was to be
governed by a council of twelve persons to be chosen out of twenty-four
elected by Parliament, seven of the twelve being chosen by the Queen,
and five by Parliament; no foreigner was to hold any place of trust, nor
was an ecclesiastic to control the revenues; a complete indemnity was
given for all past acts, civil and ecclesiastical, and the question of
religious toleration was to be finally decided by Parliament.
Thus the Scottish-French question, which had been a standing menace to
England for centuries, was settled by the statesmanship of Cecil; and
perhaps through the whole of his great career no achievement shows more
clearly than this the consummate tact, patience, firmness, moderation,
and foresight that characterised his policy. Less than two years before
England under the patronage of Philip was forced to accept a humiliating
peace from France, and Spanish and French agents had intrigued against
each other as to which of their two sovereigns should use prostrate,
exhausted England for his own objects. In two short years of dexterous
statesmanship England had turned the tables. Not only had she with
comparative ease effected a vast domestic revolution, but she was
conscious of the fact that both of the great Continental rivals were
impotent to injure her, out of jealousy of each other, whilst her own
power for offence and defence had enormously increased, and the knitting
together of the reformers throughout Europe had placed her at the head of
a confederacy which she could use as a balance against her enemies.
CHAPTER V
1560-1561
The results achieved in so short a time after Elizabeth’s accession
were due in a large measure to the moderation and prudence of Cecil’s
methods. The changes which had been made attacked many interests, and
ran counter to many prejudices; and the policy of Elizabeth in retaining
most of her sister’s Councillors had surrounded her with men who still
clung to the old faith and the traditions of the past. From the first
the Spanish and French Ambassadors had begun to bribe the Councillors,
and had respectively formed their parties amongst those who immediately
surrounded the Queen. Elizabeth herself was fickle and unstable, yet
obstinate in the opinion of the moment. Her vanity often led her into
false and dangerous positions, and already scandal was busy with her
doings. She was easily swayed by the opinions of others, yet fiercely
resented any attempt at dictation. Her feelings, moreover, towards the
French were by no means so antagonistic as those of Cecil, and the cost
of the war in Scotland had caused her great annoyance. It will be seen,
therefore, that the task of her principal minister in carrying out with
safety a consistent national policy was an extremely difficult one. More
than once during the Scotch war the French-Guisan party in Elizabeth’s
court had, to Cecil’s dismay, nearly persuaded the Queen to suspend
hostilities, whilst Philip’s paid agents in her Council were for ever
whispering distrust of Cecil and his religious reforms. Whilst the
Howards, Arundel, Paget, Mason, and the rest of the Philipians—as the
puritan Lord John Grey called them—were denouncing the minister for his
Protestant measures, the hot zealots who had hurried back from Germany
and Switzerland, dreaming of the violent establishment of an Anglican
Church on the Genevan pattern, were discontented at the slowness and
tentative character of the religious reforms adopted; and Cecil’s own
friends, like the Earl of Bedford, the Duchess of Suffolk, and the Lord
Admiral Clinton, were often impatient at his moderation. To this must
be added the unprincipled influence of Dudley, who was ready to swear
allegiance to any cause, to serve his purpose of dominating the Queen, a
purpose which was naturally opposed by Cecil as being dangerous to the
national welfare. It will thus be seen that the patient, strong minister
was surrounded by difficulties on every side; and but for the fact that
none of his rivals were comparable with him in ability and energy, Cecil
must have shared the usual fate of ministers, and have fallen before the
attacks of his enemies.
He returned from Scotland at the end of July, after an absence
of sixty-three days[128] and from a letter of the Lord Treasurer
(Winchester) to him soon afterwards (24th August 1560), it is evident
that his detractors had been at work in his absence.[129] The old Marquis
loved to stand well with all men, but his tendencies we know now to have
been “Philipian,” and he wrote to the Secretary: “In the meantime all
good Councillors shall have labor and dolor without reward; wherein your
part is most of all mens; for your charge and paynes be farre above all
oder mens, and your thanks and rewards least and worst considered, and
specially for that you spend wholly of yourself, without your ordinary
fee, land, patent, gift, or ony thing, which must nedes discomfort you.
And yett when your counsell is most for her Majesties honour and profitt,
the same hath got hinderance by her weke creditt of you, and by back
councells; and so long as that matter shall continue it must needs be
dangerous service and unthankful.”
Less than three weeks after this letter was written, the Bishop of Aquila
went to Greenwich about the Austrian match, which still dragged on, when,
to his surprise, the Queen told him flatly she had altered her mind,
and would not marry at all. The Bishop then sought out Cecil, who, he
knew, was now in semi-disgrace, owing to the efforts of Dudley in his
absence. The Secretary was not in the habit of wearing his heart upon his
sleeve, and if he did so on this occasion to Philip’s minister, it may be
concluded that it was from motives of policy, which are not very far to
seek. “After exacting many pledges of strict secrecy, he said that the
Queen was conducting herself in such a way that he thought of retiring.
He said it was a bad sailor who did not enter port if he could when he
saw a storm coming on, and he clearly foresaw the ruin of the realm
through Robert’s intimacy with the Queen, who surrendered all affairs to
him and meant to marry him. He said he did not know how the country put
up with it, and he should ask leave to go home, though he thought they
would cast him into the Tower first. He ended by begging me in God’s
name to point out to the Queen the effect of her misconduct, and persuade
her not to abandon business entirely, but to look to her realm; and then
he repeated to me twice over that Lord Robert would be better in Paradise
than here.”[130] After this Cecil told the Ambassador that Dudley “was
thinking of killing his wife,” which on the following day the Queen
partly confirmed by mentioning to the Bishop that she was “dead or nearly
so.” The Bishop’s comment upon this is, that “Cecil’s disgrace must have
great effect, as he has many companions in discontent, especially the
Duke of Norfolk.… Their quarrels cannot injure public business, as nobody
worse than Cecil can be at the head of affairs, but the outcome of it all
might be the imprisonment of the Queen, and the proclamation of the Earl
of Huntingdon[131] as King. He is a great heretic, and the French forces
might be used for him. Cecil says he is the real heir of England, and all
the heretics want him. I do not like Cecil’s great friendship with the
Bishop of Valence.”
Shortly after this was written, the tragic fate of Amy Robsart was
announced. For months past there had been rumours of the intention of
Dudley to have his wife killed, in order that he might marry the Queen,
and as the date of Cecil’s conversation with the Bishop is not quite
certain, it is possible that he may have spoken with the knowledge that
she was already dead. In any case, however, it is certain that, at this
time, Cecil feared that the Queen’s passion for Dudley would bring about
the downfall of the edifice he had so laboriously built, and he sought if
possible to lay the foundation for his future action. The friendship with
the Guisan Bishop, Monluc, was clearly a feint, as was also the idea that
the French would help Huntingdon to the detriment of their own Queen Mary
Stuart, but it would serve to arouse the jealousy of the Spaniards, and
would incline them to Cecil’s side to prevent it. Dudley had in Cecil’s
absence gained most of the advanced Protestant party to his side by his
open championship of their ideas, and the Secretary, finding himself
distrusted by his friends, was obliged to endeavour to discredit Dudley,
to gain the sympathy of the Spanish Bishop, and, through him, of the
“Philipians,” who were already opposed to Dudley as an upstart and a
friend of France. Regarded in this light, Cecil’s unwonted frankness to
the Spanish Ambassador is intelligible enough. If things went well with
the Queen, the “Philipians” could keep him in office, and if disaster
befell her, he dissociated himself from her before the catastrophe, and
made common cause with the party which in such case would certainly be
uppermost.
The danger, however, soon blew over, for Amy Robsart’s death caused so
much scandal as to cover Dudley with obloquy, and render him powerless
for a time, during which Cecil regained his influence. How completely
he did so is seen in Dudley’s enigmatical letter to him at the time
when he was first feeling the effect of the odium of his wife’s death.
The real meaning of the letter is not intelligible. Dudley had retired
from court, probably to Wanstead, and had been visited by Cecil, who was
having close inquiry made into the death of Lady Robert. He appears to
have made some friendly promise to Dudley, who is effusively grateful.
“The great frendshipp you have shewyd towards me I shall not forgett. I
pray you lett me hear from you what you think best for me to doe; if you
doubt, I pray you ask the question (of the Queen?), for the sooner you
can advyse me the more I shall thank you. I am sorry so sodden a chaunce
shuld brede me so great a change, for methinks I am here all this while
as it were in a dream.”[132] Dudley’s retirement and pretended disgrace,
to save appearances, did not last long; and when he came back to court he
found Cecil in full favour again.[133] Whilst Lord Robert was away Cecil
had extracted a positive assurance from the Queen direct, that she would
not marry Dudley. Cecil had thereupon made another attempt to revive
the Archduke’s negotiation,[134] and at the same time had sounded the
Spanish Ambassador about marrying Catharine Grey to a nominee of Philip;
this being a prudent attempt to obtain a second connecting link with
Spain, now that the negotiations with the Archduke had been worn nearly
threadbare.
But the Spanish-Austrian family were not responsive. They had been fooled
more than once, and were determined that Elizabeth should not lead them
into a position compromising to their dignity; but it was necessary for
those who had the welfare of England at heart to take some steps which
should render Dudley’s hopes unrealisable. The Protestant party in the
Council, with Cecil’s acquiescence, again brought up the proposal of
the new King of Sweden, Eric XIV. He was an eager suitor, and had been
trying to gain a hearing at intervals since before Mary’s death; and in
answer to private messages from England, intimated his intention of
coming himself to win his bride. The Protestants were overjoyed; for
this would have been an ideal solution for them, especially now that the
situation had been unexpectedly changed by the death of the young King
of France, Mary Stuart’s husband (5th December 1560). This event, which
took away much of the Guises’ power, and weakened Mary’s connection with
France, now governed by her mother-in-law, Catharine de Medici, who hated
her, banished in a large measure Philip’s dread of her accession to the
English throne; and the Catholics in England thought they saw daylight
ahead, if the Queen died childless.
It was natural, therefore, that the Protestants should make a counter
move, and actively revive the idea of the Swedish match. It was equally
to be expected that when Dudley thus found himself without any party at
all but his personal friends, he should seek support in a fresh quarter.
He was without shame, scruple, or conscience. He had betrayed, or was
ready to betray, every person or cause that trusted him; his sole object
was to force or cajole the Queen into marrying him, and he grasped at any
aid towards it. In January 1561 his brother-in-law, Sir Henry Sidney,
a Catholic, and a friend of Spain, came to the Bishop of Aquila, and
assured him that Dudley was innocent of his wife’s death, though public
opinion was universally against him. Sidney then went on to say that, as
Elizabeth’s desire to marry Dudley was evident, it was surprising that
the Spanish party had not helped him in his object, and thus gained his
gratitude, in return for which “he would hereafter serve and obey your
Majesty like one of your own vassals.” The Bishop was not eager, for
he had been tricked before when the Sidneys were the intermediaries;
but when Sidney promised that if Dudley were aided to marry the Queen,
he would restore the Catholic religion in England, the Churchman
listened. He could be no party, of course, he said, to a bargain about
religion; but if Dudley really wished to repent in this way, he should be
delighted. The Queen acquiesced in the intrigue, and eagerly listened to
the Spaniard’s advocacy of Dudley’s suit, though doubtless she did not
know that her English suitor had promised, in the event of his marriage,
to hand over the whole government to the King of Spain, and fully restore
the Catholic faith.[135]
As some earnest of the Queen’s and Dudley’s chastened hearts, the Bishop
had urged that English plenipotentiaries should be sent to the Council
of Trent, and the English bishops released who were imprisoned for
refusing the oath of supremacy. Dudley was willing to promise that or
anything else; but in so important a matter of State as the recognition
of the Pope’s Council, the co-operation of Cecil was needed. He was, of
course, opposed to Dudley’s suit, but had not interfered openly to stop
these negotiations, the Bishop says, in consequence of his having been
bribed by the grant of some emoluments enjoyed by Parry, who had recently
died, but more probably because he may really have been at the bottom
of these negotiations, and he knew that he could checkmate Dudley more
effectually, if necessary, at a later stage.[136] As we have seen, his
opposition to strong forces was rarely direct. He knew in this case that
the Queen would resent open thwarting from him; and that it would also
have the effect of offending the Catholics, and renewing the quarrel with
Dudley and his friends. So when he was consulted, he feigned to welcome
the project of sending English representatives to the Council of Trent,
and at once proceeded to kill it with kindness.
The situation in England was an extremely critical one. Much public
dissatisfaction existed at the Queen’s questionable behaviour, and the
Catholics, especially, were greatly disturbed in consequence of the
attitude of Mary Stuart. The treaty of Edinburgh, the result of so much
thought and labour, had not been ratified by Mary and her husband when
the latter died; and in answer to requests on the part of the English
Government, through Throgmorton and Sir Peter Mewtys, that she would
ratify it, Mary declined until she had by her side some of her Scottish
Councillors. The Scottish Parliament had been summoned in accordance
with the treaty, before the latter had been accepted by the sovereign,
and consequently her refusal to ratify the treaty raised a host of
difficulties on all sides. It was felt universally that Mary might well
expect now the countenance of Philip in her pretensions to the English
crown, whilst all that was Catholic in France looked to her uncles,
the Guises, as leaders. The combination was too strong for Cecil to
face directly, in addition to the Queen’s caprice and the factions
of the English court, and his method of dealing with the matter was
characteristically prudent. During the progress of Dudley’s negotiations
with the Spaniard to bring back England to Catholicism, the puritan Earl
of Bedford was sent to France, ostensibly to ask Mary again to ratify the
treaty of Edinburgh, and to condole with her for the loss of her husband;
but his real object was to bring about an understanding with the Duke
of Vendôme,[137] Coligny, and the French Protestants. At the same time
Randolph was entrusted with an important message to the Protestant nobles
of Scotland. He was to tell them that the Protestant princes of Germany
were firmly united; that the French reformers were now the stronger
party; that the Queen of England would stand by the Scots; and to exhort
them to be true to the Protestant faith, no matter what efforts might be
made to move them. Randolph was also to approach even Scottish Catholics,
and point out what a favourable opportunity now occurred, the Queen of
Scots being free of her French connection, to form a close union between
England and Scotland.[138]
But whilst this seed was germinating it was necessary for Cecil to dally
with the Catholics and “Philipians” in England. He accordingly went
(March 1561) to the Spanish Ambassador with a message—secretly purporting
to come from the Queen, but ostensibly from himself—to the effect that
it would be a great favour to the Queen “and a help to this business” if
Philip would write her a letter as soon as possible, “urging her, in the
interests of her country, to marry at once; and, as she is disinclined
to marry a foreigner, he advises her to choose one of her own subjects,
who, in such case, would receive Philip’s friendship and support.” Cecil
affected to urge this course very warmly upon the Bishop, who, however,
was wary, and insisted upon knowing definitely whether the Queen herself
had sent the message. The only answer that Cecil would give was that it
was not fair to drive a modest maiden like the Queen up in a corner, and
make her personally responsible for steps leading to her own marriage.
But he told the Bishop that the reason Philip’s letter was necessary, was
that the Queen should submit it to a packed deputation of both Houses of
Parliament, so that her marriage with Dudley might, in appearance, have
the sanction of her people. No course so likely as this to frustrate the
match could have been devised, as Dudley himself saw, for he fell ill
of vexation; but, as the Bishop says, he was faint-hearted, and lacked
ability and courage to break through the snares that Cecil had spread
for him. The Bishop divined the plan very soon. “The deputation is being
arranged,” he says, “to suit him and the heretics, who have entire
control of the Queen.… She dares not go against Cecil’s advice, because
she thinks that both sides would then rise up against her.”
Cecil, “who,” he says, “is entirely pledged to these unhappy heresies,
and is the leader of the business,” tried on more than one occasion to
draw the Spanish Bishop into religious controversy—the Bishop thought,
with the object of discovering whether Dudley or the Queen had gone
further in their pledges than he had been told. He suggested that the
Pope should send theologians to England to discuss religion with English
divines, but the Bishop would not hear of it. Then he proposed that the
Bishop himself should secretly meet the Archbishop of Canterbury (Parker)
and endeavour to bring about a religious _modus vivendi_; to which the
Spaniard replied, that if they were sincere in their desire to agree,
they had better begin with the main points of difference, instead of
discussing secondary points of dogma.[139]
Cecil assured him that the Queen would send representatives to the
Pope’s Council, on condition that it was held in a place satisfactory
to other princes; that the Pope or his legate should preside over the
Council, not so as to infer that he was the ruler of it, but only the
president of its deliberations; that questions of faith might be decided
by Holy Scripture, the consensus of divines, and the decisions of
early councils; that the English bishops should be recognised as equals
of the rest; and other conditions of the same sort, which obviously
frustrated—as they were meant to do—all hope of the religious compact,
upon which Dudley’s hopes were ostensibly built. In the court, we are
told, Cecil went about saying that the Queen wished to send her envoys
to the Council, but that a Council could not judge questions of faith,
nor could the Pope, as of right, claim to preside.[140] On the one hand,
he reprehended the Bishop of Winchester (Horn) for preaching against
the authority of the Councils, and caused a meeting of bishops to be
called at Lambeth, to settle a profession of faith to be sent to the
Council; whilst, on the other, he told the Spaniard that if when the
Pope wrote to the Queen he did not give her her full titles of Queen of
England and Defender of the Faith, she would not receive his letters.
Well might Quadra say: “I do not know what to think of it all: these
people are in such a confusion that they confound me as well. Cecil
is a very great heretic, but he is neither foolish nor false, and he
professes to treat me very frankly. He has conceded to me these three
points, which I consider of the utmost importance, however much he may
twist them to the other side.” Whoever else may have been confused, we
may be certain that Cecil knew what he was about, for he completely
hoodwinked and conciliated the Spanish Bishop and the Catholics until his
new combination was consolidated.[141] The English Catholics were more
leniently treated; and the Queen and court were almost inconveniently
friendly with Quadra, who was obliged to whisper to his friends that it
was all make-believe. He said more truly than he thought at the time. At
the end of April, Cecil’s arrangements were complete, and the mask could
be dropped safely.
At the instance of Randolph the Scottish Lords of the Congregation had
commissioned James Stuart, Mary’s natural brother, afterwards Earl of
Murray, who was already in English pay, to visit his sister in France,
and influence her to return to Scotland pledged to the treaty of
Edinburgh, and to place herself in the hands of the Protestant party.
For the moment the Guises in France were in disgrace, and plotting for
their own advancement, so that it suited them to appear to acquiesce in
an arrangement which promised that their niece should take possession
of her kingdom without disturbance. James Stuart, carefully coached
by Throgmorton, went back to London with the assurance that all was
well.[142] Mundt, in Germany, had drawn the league closer between England
and the Princes; Bedford in France had completed a cordial arrangement
with Vendôme, Coligny, and the Protestants; Philip’s Netherlands were
in seething discontent, his coffers were empty and he was in a death
grapple with the Turk for the mastery of the Mediterranean. There was
nothing for England to fear, therefore. Circumstances and Cecil’s
diplomacy had placed once more all the cards into his hands, and again he
could go forward on a straight course.
The pretext for a change was given by the secret presence of a papal
nuncio in Ireland. English Catholics were suddenly proceeded against all
over the country for attending mass. Sir Edward Waldegrave and other
ex-members of Mary’s Council were thrown into the Tower; the Pope’s
legate, who was hurrying with all sorts of concessions, and an invitation
to Elizabeth to send envoys to the Council of Trent, was refused
admittance into England; and the old Bishop of Aquila found once more
that Cecil had outwitted him. There were no more conciliatory religious
discussions or amiable attentions; on the contrary, the Ambassador, to
his intense indignation, was accused of taking part in plots against
the Queen, and found himself slighted on all sides. A great outcry took
place that a conspiracy of Catholics had been discovered to poison the
Queen, the rumour in all probability being part of the general plan to
weaken and discredit the Catholic party; and Cecil himself drew up a
paper, still extant,[143] urging her Majesty not to place any apparel
next her skin until it had been carefully examined, that no perfume
should be inhaled by her which came from a stranger, that no food should
be consumed by her unless it was dressed by her own cooks, that twice a
week she should take some _contra pestum_, that the back doors of her
apartments should be strictly guarded, and so forth. Whether Cecil was
really apprehensive of danger to the Queen at the time is uncertain;
but this general change of attitude towards the Catholics in less than
four months suspiciously coincided with the successful consolidation of
the Protestants throughout Europe, and the paralysation for harm both of
Spain and France in the matter of Mary Stuart.
How far Dudley was sincere in his approaches to the Catholics on this
occasion may be doubted. He would have been willing, of course, to
have paid any price—or rather have made his country pay any price—for
his marriage with the Queen; but there are circumstances which tend to
the belief that he and Cecil, for once, had joined their forces, Cecil
probably promising his support to Dudley’s suit in exchange for this
clever “entertaining” of Spain and the Catholics until the Protestant
coalition was formed. In any case, Dudley was in nowise cast down at the
rupture of the negotiations, but remained on excellent terms with Cecil,
and flirted with the Queen more furiously than ever. In the meanwhile
the King of Sweden had made all preparations for visiting England. The
extreme Protestant party had continued to encourage him during the
time that the Queen, Cecil, and Dudley were lulling the Catholics; but
now that the Catholic mask had been dropped, Eric’s visit was very
inconvenient to the Queen. Mary Stuart was a widow, and every court in
Europe was intriguing for her marriage.[144] Elizabeth knew that if
she was forced into a marriage with the King of Sweden, Mary would
immediately be wedded to a nominee of Philip, for which object Cardinal
Lorraine was already planning. Eric was therefore refused a passport into
England;[145] the Lord Mayor was ordered to suppress the prints which had
been scattered by the Protestants, representing Elizabeth and Eric XIV.
together (July 1561),[146] and the embarrassment of the Swede’s advances
was postponed until a more convenient season.
The English Catholics were naturally losing heart. They had looked in
vain for help from Philip ever since the Queen’s accession. The war party
in the Spanish King’s councils had ceaselessly urged him to overturn
Elizabeth and the “heretics” before their power was consolidated.
Feria and his successor the Bishop had done their best to keep alive
the hopes of Elizabeth’s enemies in England; but as year followed year
and leaden-footed Philip moved not the English Catholics began to cast
their eyes elsewhere. Mary Stuart arrived in Scotland (19th August
1561) surrounded by her Lorraine kinsmen. Elizabeth now thoroughly
distrusted her, for she saw that she was her match in dissimulation, at
all events, and made some show of intercepting her on the voyage;[147]
but her Scottish subjects of all faiths were ready to welcome the
young half-foreign Queen from whom they hoped so much. The country was
practically in a condition of anarchy; but the administration, such as
it was, was in the hands of the reform party under Maitland and James
Stuart. Although herself devoutly following the Catholic faith—to the
disgust of the predominant party—the Queen soon after her arrival
confirmed the free exercise of the Protestant worship, and for a time
both she and her ministers were popular. To the north, therefore, the
English Catholic party now cast their eyes. Catharine Grey had recently
contracted a doubtful marriage with the eldest son (Hertford) of the
Protector Somerset, and was out of the question as a Catholic candidate;
but Mary Stuart’s claim to the English throne was in many respects better
than that of Elizabeth herself. Lady Margaret Lennox, too, was busy in
the north of England, where the population was mainly Catholic, plotting
for the marriage of her son and the subsequent raising of the country in
the interests of Mary and a Catholic England.
In the meanwhile Elizabeth was somewhat roughly demanding to know why
Mary delayed the ratification of the treaty of Edinburgh, and jealously
watching for any signs of matrimonial negotiations to her detriment.
The Earl of Arran, Elizabeth’s candidate for Mary Stuart’s hand, was
extremely unpopular with the Scottish people, and soon became impossible
as a consort for the Queen; and the carefully laid plans of Elizabeth and
Cecil in Scotland were seen to be at the mercy of a secret matrimonial
intrigue, which might be sprung upon them at any moment. Maitland of
Lethington, Mary’s Secretary of State, ostensibly a Protestant, went
to London[148] and saw Cecil in September, in the hope of arranging
matters. He professed to be sanguine about the Arran marriage; but
though bound to the English interest, he protested more than once on his
return, in letters to Cecil, upon the pressure exerted upon his mistress
to renounce her English birthright, and even begged the Secretary to
furnish him with a draft of a reply for Mary to send which he thought
might satisfy Elizabeth. Whilst Lord James, Maitland, and Cecil were
trying to conciliate and calm matters, the zealot Knox and his like
were clamouring for extreme measures and embittering spirits on both
sides. Cecil in vain counselled Knox to be moderate; the reply reproaches
him for “swimming betwixt two waters,” and throws all the blame for
the troubles on moderate statesmen like Lord James and Lethington,
“whose mistaken forbearance and gentleness” he denounces. The young
Queen, he says, will never be of “our opinion, and in very deed her
whole proceedings do declare that the Cardinal’s lessons are so deeply
imprinted on her heart, that they … are like to perish together.… In
communication with her I espied such craft as I have not found in such
age.”
This opinion must only be accepted as that of a bitterly severe man on
one whose position was as difficult as can well be conceived. English
Catholics, Mary knew, now looked to her as their only hope. She was a
daughter of kings, brought up in a deep school of statecraft, and was
determined to resist the demanded renunciation of her birthright in
England at the bidding of a rival. Her letter to Elizabeth (5th January
1562)[149] explains why she declined to ratify the treaty of Edinburgh,
pathetically pleads that the clause in the treaty renouncing her rights
to the English succession was agreed to without her authority, and she
appeals to the generosity of so near a cousin not to make her a stranger
to her own blood. She will, she says, make a new treaty on Elizabeth’s
own terms, if her rights to succeed, failing Elizabeth’s issue, are not
prejudiced. But on this point Elizabeth would never give way. As we have
seen, it was the keynote of Cecil’s policy all his life to secure England
from the presence of a probable enemy on the Scottish border, and this
question of Mary’s claim to the English succession, especially with her
marriage still undecided, touched the heart of the whole matter. It
was evident, moreover, that at this juncture the great trial of arms
between the Catholics and Protestants throughout Europe was at hand.
The war of religion was already looming near in France and Flanders,
papal emissaries had incited armed revolt in Ireland against the Queen’s
Protestant measures, and English Catholics were in a dangerous state of
ferment.[150] It was therefore of the most vital interest, not only to
England and Elizabeth, but to the reform party throughout Europe, that no
advantage should be given in Scotland to vigilant enemies, who, by the
control of that country, would have been enabled to ruin the acknowledged
head of the Protestant confederacy. It is the fashion to accuse Elizabeth
and Cecil of unprincipled rancour against Mary Stuart. Generosity and
magnanimity, it may be conceded, were not conspicuous characteristics of
either of them. But before judging too harshly, it should be considered
that their lives, the freedom and independence of England, and the fate
of the reformed religion depended almost inevitably upon the course of
events in Scotland, and both Elizabeth and her minister would have been
false to their trust if they had not availed themselves of all the means
which circumstances and the feeling of the times placed in their hands to
prevent Mary Stuart and her country from precipitating their downfall.
Cecil’s position in London also was surrounded with difficulties. The
Catholics, even those about the Queen, were busy, and reports of plans
for poisoning Elizabeth continued without cessation. Everything, great
and small, had to be done by Cecil. “He has,” writes the Bishop of
Aquila, “absolutely taken possession of the Queen and Council, but he
is so perplexed and unpopular that I do not know how he will be able
to stand if there are any disturbances.”[151] The Queen, moreover,
fell ill: “she is falling away and is extremely thin, and the colour
of a corpse.” The sorely tried Secretary, bearing upon his shoulders
everybody’s burden, frequently sick himself,[152] but working early
and late, endeavouring to keep a middle course whilst holding to his
policy, naturally aroused no enthusiasm. Extreme men of all parties
cavilled at his methods; only the Queen grew in her trust of him, for
she at least understood, as perhaps no other person did, that he was
almost the only person near her who was not bribed. The city and the
trading classes, however, by this time had seen the good results of his
commercial and fiscal policy. From the first days of the reign he had
set about reforming the currency, and he enters in his diary for 29th
May of this year (1561) a statement which shows that his labours at last
bore fruit. “Base monies decried and fine silver coined,” he writes;
and in November a proclamation was issued that Spanish gold and silver
money, which during the debasement of English coin had been a favourite
form of currency, should no longer be allowed, but should be taken to
the Queen’s mint for exchange into English coin. “The Queen,” grumbles
the Spanish Ambassador, “makes a profit on it, as she did with the other
money she called in.” No doubt she did, but the new pure coinage placed
English merchants at an immense advantage in trading abroad, and they
thanked Cecil for it.[153] “There hath,” says Camden, “been better and
purer money in England than was seen in two hundred years before, or hath
been elsewhere in use throughout Europe.” Nor was this all. Shipbuilding
under subsidy had progressed very rapidly, and English commerce was
penetrating into regions hitherto unapproached.[154] The Hawkinses had
already shown the way to the West Coast of Africa, but the Portuguese
had so far successfully resisted the establishment of a regular trade.
English ships, however, now found their way down to Elmina, on the Gold
Coast, with frequency distressing to the Portuguese; whilst English and
Scotch privateers, and pirates who called themselves such, preyed almost
unchecked upon Spanish and Flemish small craft about the Channel. Against
both of these grievances the Spanish and Portuguese ministers complained
often and bitterly. Throughout his life Cecil set his face against piracy
in all its forms, as being inimical to legitimate trade, and at his
instance five of the Queen’s ships were fitted out (1561) for the purpose
of suppressing the corsairs; but to the other complaint he turned a very
different face.
A syndicate had been formed, in which Dudley, Wynter (Master of the
Ordnance), Gonson (Controller of the Navy), Sir William Garrard, and
probably the Queen herself, had shares, to send out a strong expedition
to establish a permanent trading-station on the Gold Coast.[155] There
were to be at least four ships, one of which, the _Mignon_, belonged to
the Queen. Protests and remonstrances from Portuguese and Spaniards were
freely made to Cecil, who replied they could not prevent merchants from
going to trade where they thought fit. When the Bishop of Aquila pressed
him further, he answered, “that the Pope had no right to partition the
world and to give and take kingdoms.… This idea is the real reason
which moved them to oppose the legality of our denunciation of these
expeditions much more than any profit they expect to get.… They think
this navigation business will be a good pretext for breaking the peace,
as your Majesty must needs uphold the Pope’s authority, against which,
both here and in Germany, all will join. I feigned not to understand
Cecil’s meaning, and treated the matter as concerning the King of
Portugal only” (27th November 1561).[156] A draft reply in Cecil’s hand
to similar remonstrances from the Portuguese Ambassador in April of the
same year, is still more dignified: “The Queen does not acknowledge the
right of the King of Portugal to forbid the subjects of another prince
from trading where they like, and she will take care that her subjects
are not worse treated in the King of Portugal’s dominions than his are in
hers.”[157]
Amidst his manifold public anxieties Cecil had to bear his share of
private trouble. His notes in the Perpetual Calendar at Hatfield record
the successive births and deaths of two infant William Cecils, one at
Cannon Row in 1559, and the other at Wimbledon in 1561; but at this
period he had a daughter and a son living, by his second wife. Thomas,
his only son by his first marriage with Mary Cheke, was now a young man
of twenty, and in order that he might receive the polish fitting to the
heir of a great personage, his father consulted Sir Nicholas Throgmorton,
the Ambassador in Paris, in the spring of 1561, with regard to sending
him thither. Cecil’s own idea was to place him in the household of
Coligny, the Admiral of France, now one of the acknowledged leaders
of the Protestant party; but Throgmorton, who foresaw, doubtless, the
rapidly approaching civil war, dissuaded him from this. “Though you
have made the best choice of any man in France, yet for some respects
I think the matter should be deferred.” His advice was that lodgings
should be taken for young Cecil near the embassy, where he might share
the Ambassador’s table. The youth, he thought, should be “taught to ride,
play the lute, dance, play tennis, and use such exercises as are noted
ornaments of courtiers.”[158] A subsequent recommendation of Thomas
Windebank, the young man’s governor, to the effect that it would be well
to accept Throgmorton’s offer, although Sir William Cecil was loth to
trespass on his friend’s hospitality, in order that the youth “might
learn to behave himself, not only at table, but otherwise, according
to his estate,”[159] leads us to the conclusion that Thomas Cecil had
thitherto not been an apt scholar. Some of the details of Thomas’s
journey are curious. In addition to Windebank he was accompanied by two
servants, and three geldings, which, Throgmorton thought, might as well
be sold, as he could obtain others in Paris. The lodgings in Paris for
the party and horses would cost about ten sun-crowns a month, and in
addition to the money they brought they should have a letter of credit
for three hundred crowns. Young Thomas had been to France before by way
of Calais,[160] and on this occasion, that he might see fresh country, he
went by Rye, Dieppe, and Rouen; and the intention was that he should stay
in or near Paris for a year, and then proceed to Italy. Windebank appears
to have been unequal to his task, and to have had no control over Thomas.
In vain Sir William pressed both his son and Windebank to send him an
account of their expenses, and from the first it is seen that the father
was misgiving and anxious. Cecil was a reserved man, full of public
affairs; but this correspondence[161] proves that he was also a man of
deep family affection, and, above all, that he regarded with horror the
idea that any scandal should attach to his honoured name. In his first
letter to his son, 14th July 1561, after the arrival of the latter in
Paris, he strikes the note of distrust. “He wishes him God’s blessing,
but how he inclines himself to deserve it he knows not.” None of his
son’s three letters, he complains, makes any mention of the expense he
is incurring. He urges him at once to begin to translate French; and
then says, “Fare ye well. Write every time somewhat to my wife.” To
Windebank the anxious father is more outspoken. How are they spending
their time, he asks, and heartily prays that Thomas may serve God with
fear and reverence. But Thomas seems to have done nothing of the sort;
for, in nearly every letter, Windebank urges Sir William to repeat his
injunctions about prayer to his son. But the scapegrace paid little heed.
As soon as they arrived in Paris, Thomas sold his horse for forty crowns,
and kept the money for his own spending. Throgmorton was soon tired of
him, and advised that he should be sent to Orleans or elsewhere, away
from the heat and distractions of Paris; but Thomas was well satisfied
where he was. “Of study there is little or nothing yet,” he coolly writes
to his father, after he had been in Paris for a month. They were still
sight-seeing, and he grows almost eloquent in his description of a fight
he had seen at court between a lion and three dogs, in which the latter
were victorious. They lodged in the house of a gentleman, “a courtier
and learned, but of indifferent good religion,” to whom they paid three
hundred crowns a month for board and lodging; but this was not by any
means all the expense. The heir spent £20 for his winter clothes; he must
have a fashionable footcloth for his riding nag. The horses, too, were
expensive, and Sir William complained. All gentlemen of estimation here
ride, writes Windebank, and if he follow not the manner of the country,
he will be less considered: “if all gentlemen ride, it is not meet for
Mr. Thomas to go afoot.”
The father was accompanying the Queen during the autumn on her progress
through Essex, and writes from various country-houses to his son and
Windebank, begging the former to study, to pray, to avoid ill company,
to take heed of surfeits, late suppers, prodigality, and the like; but
apparently to no effect. Thomas wrote rarely and badly, his French did
not improve, and he still failed to write to his learned step-mother,
greatly to his father’s anger. At length he fell seriously ill, and
promised amendment, which for a time seemed hopeful.
Through all the father’s anxiety his master passions for books,
heraldry, and gardening are discernible, as well as his pride of race.
He constantly orders Windebank to send him stated books, and to keep
on the look-out for new plants, or good gardeners, that may be sent to
England. In September he requests that some booksellers’ catalogues may
be forwarded, that he may select some books to “garnish” his library.
He was anxious that his son should study the genealogy and alliances of
noble French families, and prays that a herald may be engaged to instruct
him. But Thomas soon relapsed, and rumour of his ill-behaviour reached
Sir William, not at first from Windebank. In March 1562 an angry and
indignant letter went from Cecil to his son, reproaching him for his bad
conduct. There was no amendment, he said, and all who came from Paris
gave him the character of “a dissolute, slothful, negligent, and careless
young man,” and the letter is signed, “Your father of an unworthy son.” A
week later, 2nd April, Cecil wrote a characteristic and affecting letter
to Windebank, which deserves to be quoted nearly in full, for it shows us
the man more clearly than reams of State papers. “Windebank,” it runs,
“I am here used to pains and troubles, but none creep so near my heart
as doth this of my lewd son. I am perplexed what to think. The shame
that I shall receive to have so unruled a son grieveth me more than if
I had lost him in honest death. Good Windebank, consult my dear friend
Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, to whom I have referred the whole. I could be
best content that he would commit him secretly to some sharp prison.
If this shall not seem good, yet would I rather have him sent away to
Strasburg if possible, or to Lorraine, for my grief will grow double to
see him before some sort of amends. If none of these will serve, then
bring him home and I shall receive that which it pleaseth God to lay on
my shoulders; that is, in the midst of my business, for comfort a daily
torment. If ye shall come home with him, to cover the shame, let it
appear to be by reason of the troubles there.[162] I rather desire to
have this summer spent, though it were but to be absent from my sight. I
am so troubled as well, what to write I know not.”
Windebank had been protesting for some time his own unfitness—which was
obvious—and sending hints of the ill-conduct of his charge, who had
borrowed money on the credit of others, and scandalised his friends by
his dissoluteness; but at last the long-suffering tutor rebelled, and
wrote, 26th April, to Cecil, “I have forborne to write plainly, but now
I am clean out of hope, and am forced to do so. Sir, I see that Mr.
Thomas has utterly no mind nor disposition to apply to any learning;
being carried away by other affections that rule him, so that it maketh
him forget his duty in all things;” and with this Windebank resigns his
charge, for Thomas had openly defied him; advocates his immediate recall
if the war in France will allow him to come, or otherwise that he should
be sent to Flanders. But Windebank himself had had enough of Thomas
Cecil, and refused to accompany him further.
This instructive correspondence helps us to see that, beyond even his
wounded paternal affection, Sir William Cecil’s deepest feeling was
sensitiveness to the opinion of the world about him. That his son should
be unworthy touched him to the quick; but that the world should see
any shame or reproach resting upon the heir of his house and name, was
unendurable agony to one whose main social aims were to trace an ancient
ancestry and head a noble posterity.
CHAPTER VI
1562-1564
The abortive conspiracy of the Hamiltons in the spring of 1562, and
Arran’s madness, finally proved the hopelessness of his suit for Mary’s
hand, and Lord James and Maitland had now abandoned him. Both of those
statesmen, in union with Cecil, still strove to hold the balance evenly,
and to avoid religious strife in the country, in the hope that if the
Scottish Queen married a nominee of England, Elizabeth would eventually
recognise her as the heiress to the English throne. But the agitation
of the English Catholics, and the attempts of Darnley’s mother to force
matters, had rendered the position extremely difficult, and Cecil was
busy unravelling plots real and imaginary. The visit of a Swedish
Ambassador to Scotland on a matrimonial mission had caused a sudden
scare in London; but Mary’s prompt dismissal of him, and her continued
amiable letters to Elizabeth, had somewhat disarmed suspicion against her
personally. Her uncle the Marquis d’Elbœuf was splendidly entertained
in the English court on his way home to France, and negotiations were
set on foot for a visit of Mary to the north of England in the summer,
for the purpose of an interview with the English Queen. But withal
Cecil was ill at ease, for the Guises and the Catholics of France were
now in arms,[163] and it was impossible to see how the great struggle
of the faith would end. If the Guises finally captured the government
of France, then England must accept Philip’s terms for a Spanish
alliance, or be inevitably ruined. But for the present it was the
policy of Elizabeth and Cecil to keep a tight rein on the Catholics in
England,[164] and encourage Condé and Coligny in France.[165]
The Bishop of Aquila had been growing more and more discontented in his
palace in the Strand (Durham Place). He had no counsels to give to his
master now but those of violence, for he had been outwitted too often
to believe in the interested professions of any party in Elizabeth’s
court. But the emissaries of the discontented Catholics, the servants
of turbulent Lady Margaret Lennox, Shan O’Neil, and his train of wild
gallowglasses—all those who hated Elizabeth and Protestantism—found
in the old Bishop an eager listener to their whispered treason. Cecil
knew all this, for his spies were everywhere. That the Bishop was up to
mischief was clear; but yet Cecil did not know whether he was hatching
any plot in connection with Mary Stuart’s marriage; and that was the
main point of danger for the present. The Queen of Scots, it is true,
had more than once expressed to Randolph, the English Ambassador, her
disapproval of the attitude of her uncles in France. If she wished to
keep friendly with her own ministers and the English Queen, indeed, it
was necessary for her to do so; but her powers of dissimulation were
known; the religious struggle had drawn the Guises nearer to Philip;
and the Queen-mother, herself alarmed at the rising power and warlike
attitude of princes of the blood, like Navarre and Condé, was once more
turning to her Spanish son-in-law and the Catholics. A Catholic plot
combining the Guises, Philip, Mary Stuart, and Catharine de Medici, would
be threatening indeed, and it behoved Cecil to be watchful.[166]
As Durham House had only been lent to the Spanish Ambassador by the
Queen, Cecil had appointed the English gatekeeper at the gate in the
Strand, and from him learnt of those who went in and out, even by the
river stairs. But this was not enough. At the end of April he contrived
to buy over an Italian secretary of the Bishop, a man named Borghese
Venturini, from whom he obtained particulars of the Ambassador’s
letters.[167] They abounded with treasonable suggestions, dark hints at
conspiracy, and vituperation of the Queen and Cecil, but they disclosed
no deep-laid plot of Spain. Cecil nevertheless was not satisfied, and
kept on the watch.
The Prince of Condé and the Protestants were now in array against the
Guises, and Catharine de Medici was in the power of the latter. Both
sides had striven to obtain the help of the German Protestant princes,
but, in a great measure due to Cecil’s foresight, their sympathies
were on the side of Condé. Cecil laboured incessantly, but against many
difficulties, for the Queen was anxious to avoid the cost and risk of
pledging herself too deeply. In an important letter to Throgmorton, 16th
July 1562, he thus lays bare his plans and his obstacles: “Our thynges
here depend so upon those matters ther (_i.e._ in France) that yow shall
well ynough judg thereof without advertisement. This _hardness_ here will
indanger all, I feare. Sir Thomas Wroth, I trust, shall into Germany with
spede: my device is to sollicite them, and to offer a contribution for an
army to enter France.… Good Mr. Throgmorton, omitt not now to advertise
us from time to time, for this Bishop of Aquila letteth not weekly to
forge new devices.… Continue your wryting to putt the Quene’s Majesty in
remembrance of her peril if the Guisans prosper. And so, being overweryed
with care, I end.”[168]
There is another document of the same period in Cecil’s hand, which also
shows how earnestly he tried to combat the peril, and make the Queen
and Council understand it. It is a memorial setting forth “the perills
growing uppon the overthrow of the Prince of Condé’s cause,”[169] and
points out that if Condé be allowed to fall, the Guises would be supreme
in France, “and to maynteane their faction they will pleasure the King
of Spayne all that they maye. Hereupon shall follow a complott betwixt
them twoo … the King of Spayne to unhable the house of Navarre for ever
clayming the Kingdom of Navarre; and the house of Guise to promote their
niece the Queen of Scotts to the crown of England. For doing thereof twoo
thyngs principally will be attempted: the marriage of the sayd Queen with
the Prince of Spayne, and the realme of Ireland to be given in a paye to
the King of Spayne.” All English Catholics, he continues, will be told to
make ready, and at a given moment rise; the Council of Trent will condemn
all Protestants; the Guises, Spain, and the Pope will unite England and
Scotland under Mary, and Protestantism will be undone. It will be, he
says, too late then to withstand it, “for it shall be lyke a great rock
of stone that is fallyng downe from the topp of a mountayn, which when it
is comming no force can stey.”
Cecil’s own efforts were unwearied and ubiquitous. Randolph in Scotland,
Throgmorton in France, Mundt with the German princes, and Sir Peter
Mewtys, and afterwards Throgmorton with Condé, seconded him manfully.
Spies, and secret agents paid by him, were in every court and every camp;
the prisons were crammed with recusants; the Earl of Lennox, Darnley’s
father, was in the Tower; his wife, Lady Margaret, was in durance at
Shene; whilst her questionable words and treasonable practices were
being slowly unravelled by informers,[170] the English Catholic nobles
were closely watched, and for a month every line the Spanish Ambassador
wrote was secretly conveyed to Cecil by Borghese. Once, early in May,
the Bishop’s courier, with important letters for the Duchess of Parma,
was stopped two miles beyond Gravesend by pretended highwaymen, who were
really gentlemen (the brothers Cobham) in Cecil’s pay, and the man was
detained whilst the letters were sent to the Secretary to be deciphered
and copied. At last things came to a crisis, the old Ambassador
discovered that Borghese was the traitor,[171] and the latter in fear
of his life, having fought with a fellow-servant, fled to Cecil. The
Bishop was in a towering rage, and complained bitterly to the Queen. She
told him that if she suspected that anything was being written in her
country to her detriment, she should stop posts and examine what she
pleased; and when he pleaded privilege, she retorted, that he was not
privileged to plot injury to her in her own realm. In vain the Bishop
protested that he had not plotted, and railed against Cecil. He only
had Dudley on his side, and Dudley did not count for much in a great
emergency like this.[172] The next day (23rd May) Cecil wrote a dignified
letter to the Ambassador. He honours him as the King’s Ambassador, he
says, reverences him as a bishop, and esteems him as a nobleman; and he
wishes to know in which capacity he complains of his acts. He, Cecil, is
ready, as a son of no mean ancestry, to justify himself to the Bishop
in either character; but if the Bishop has “any evil opinion of him, he
will thank him to address him personally, and not complain to others.”
The Bishop’s reply was equally stiff. He cannot approve of his, Cecil’s,
advice on public matters, which has great weight with the Queen, but that
does not diminish his respect for him in his private capacity.[173] In
vain the Bishop prayed his master to recall him if he could not protect
him against the insults to which he was exposed; in vain he tried to
move Elizabeth, by alternate flattery and threats, to restore Borghese
to him; in vain he endeavoured to bribe his servant back again, or to
have him killed; Cecil was ready for him at every turn, and he could do
no more than plot and pray for vengeance in his private rooms at Durham
Place, whilst Cecil was examining informers against him and the Queen was
threatening him with expulsion.
In the meanwhile Mary Stuart was still on her good behaviour, in the
hope that the statesmen’s plan for an agreement with Elizabeth on the
basis of the recognition by the latter of Mary’s claim to the English
succession might eventually be adopted. Secretary Maitland of Lethington
was in London in the summer in the interests of this plan, and for the
purpose of arranging the much talked-of meeting between the Queens.
Mary was eager for the interview, from which she expected much, and
Elizabeth, supported by Dudley, was also in favour of it. But Cecil from
the first looked coldly upon it, although, as usual, his opposition to
it was indirect and covert. The whole of his policy at present turned
upon supporting the French Huguenots in arms, and ruining the Guises; and
it is obvious that too close a friendship between the Queens would have
paralysed him in this direction. The matter of the interview was dragged
out and talked about until the season became too late for it to be held
that year, and, greatly to Mary’s disappointment, it was postponed
nominally until the following summer. The intrigue to marry Mary to
Darnley had unquestionably gone far. It was warmly supported by Catharine
de Medici, who was, of course, against a Spanish marriage; by Lord James,
as offering the best prospect of peace and the English succession to
his sister; and by Dudley, because it might furnish a precedent for his
own marriage with Elizabeth. The latter affected to approve of it for a
time; but she dreaded the union of the two strongest claimants to her
succession, and was never really in favour of it.
Slowly, but surely, Cecil’s policy gained ground. To cripple the
Catholic party in France and destroy the influence of the Guises, would
render impossible that which of all things he dreaded most, namely, a
French domination of Scotland in the interest of Catholicism. With the
ostensible object of suppressing piracy in the Channel, a considerable
fleet was fitted out in the mouth of the Humber, but with the real aim
of carrying aid to the Huguenots when an opportune moment arrived.
Protestant Germans and Switzers had flocked to Condé, Dandelot and
Coligny. Montgomerie held Rouen against the Guises, and the Vidame de
Chartres seized Havre de Grace. An emissary came from the Vidame in July,
to offer this important port to the Queen of England as a base from which
to help the reformers. The offer was a tempting one, for it might enable
her to insist later upon the restoration of Calais; but Elizabeth was
distrustful.[174]
Philip’s sister, the Governess of the Netherlands, sent a remonstrance,
shocked at the very idea that a Queen should send aid to rebels against
their sovereign; Catharine de Medici despatched Marshal Vielleville to
threaten Elizabeth with a national war both with France and Spain if
she sent assistance to Condé and those who were in arms against the
Government. But Philip’s Netherlands were now in almost open revolt, and
though he made a show of sending troops to help the French Catholics, it
was evident that he could not do much, and for the present Elizabeth and
Cecil could disregard him, knowing that if the worst came to the worst,
he would never allow the French influence in England to become dominant.
On the 20th September, Elizabeth signed the treaty by which she agreed to
send a large sum of money and 6000 troops to France to aid Condé; 3000
of which were to hold Havre, and the rest to reinforce the Huguenots in
Dieppe and Rouen. Elizabeth, in a proclamation drawn up by Cecil, swore
that she took this step for the defence of the French King,[175] and
sent all sorts of reassuring messages to Catharine and her son; but the
pregnant fact still remained, that civil war in France was to be promoted
by an English army, and that the Queen of England had for the first time
openly assumed the position of leader of the Protestant faith throughout
the world, in defiance of the Governments both of France and Spain.
How great was the Queen’s hesitation to the last at assuming this vast
responsibility is seen in a letter from Cecil to his old friend, Sir
Thomas Smith, who was sent to replace Throgmorton as Ambassador to France
(Sir Nicholas remaining with Condé) only a week before the English
force actually sailed (22nd September 1562). “When our men shall goo,”
he writes, “or whether they shall goo or not, I cannot mak certain.
I mean to send yow as soon as the fact is enterprised.… We begyn to
hear of towardness to accord, and then we shall lose much labour.” The
troops sailed under Sir Adrian Poynings on the 27th September, and
were subsequently commanded by the Earl of Warwick, Dudley’s brother.
Suddenly, a few days afterwards, the Queen fell ill of smallpox at
Hampton Court, and for a time was like to die. The confusion of the
court was great, for the succession was still undecided. Dudley and a
considerable party of his friends were openly, almost violently, in
favour of the Earl of Huntingdon; whilst others headed by Cecil were
strongly desirous of following the will of Henry VIII., and adopting
Catharine Grey. The Catholics were divided, and advised the examination
of the question from a legal point of view; but whilst the dissensions
were in progress, the Queen unexpectedly rallied and the danger passed.
During her peril she had expressed the most extravagant affection for
Dudley, and begged the Council to appoint him Protector; but with her
recovery affairs assumed their normal course, the only outcome of the
illness being the great strengthening of Dudley’s influence, and his
appointment to the Council with the Duke of Norfolk. The effect of
Dudley’s rise, which meant the temporary decline of Cecil, was soon seen.
The fall of Rouen and Dieppe to the King caused the English contingent
to be concentrated at Havre, where a reinforcement of 2000 more men was
reported to be required to hold the place. The Queen began to look with
alarm at her responsibility, and the Council was prompt in throwing the
blame upon Cecil, who absented himself from the meetings on the pretext
of illness. Secret attempts were made also to bring about a pacification
between Condé, the Guises, the Queen-mother and England, greatly to the
disgust of Throgmorton, who dreaded a close friendship with the French as
much as Cecil himself.
The negotiations with Catharine de Medici were conducted by Smith, and
were based upon the restoration of Calais to Elizabeth, the toleration
of Protestantism in France, and the assurance of the Guises that they
would not interfere in Scotland;[176] but whilst they were in progress
the war followed its course. The King of Navarre fell fighting before
Rouen against his former friends, the Protestants; at the great battle of
Dreux (19th December 1562), Condé, the Protestant chief, and Constable
Montmorenci on the Catholic side, were taken prisoners, and Coligny, with
a mere remnant of his Protestants, alone kept the field. At the siege of
Orleans (18th February 1563), Guise was assassinated, and a pacification
then became possible. Condé, away from honest Coligny and La Noue, was
but a weak vessel, as his brother Navarre had been, and Catharine well
knew how to manage such men. All of Cecil’s distrust of the French was
justified, and the shameful treaty of Amboise was signed (19th March),
leaving Elizabeth and the English in the lurch. The moment that English
policy escaped from the capable hands of Cecil, to pass temporarily
under the lamentable influence of Dudley, disaster and failure were the
inevitable result.
The Queen could do no more than rail at Condé’s envoy, Briquemault,
and call his master a lying scamp; pestilence and famine decimated the
English garrison at Havre, closely beleaguered by the French; and in the
autumn of 1563 the force had to be withdrawn without glory or material
satisfaction. Before this happened, however, cautious Cecil was gradually
working affairs into his own groove again. Dudley had continued to send
amiable messages to the Spanish Ambassador, whilst promoting an agreement
with the French Government, and had exercised his influence in favour of
the release of Lennox from the Tower; the object being in both cases to
curry favour with the Catholics, and so to diminish Cecil’s power. As
usual the Secretary’s opposition was an indirect one. His spies had kept
him informed of the old Spanish Bishop’s continued correspondence with
Shan O’Neil; of his having received and encouraged foolish Arthur Pole
in his treason, and having allowed English people, against the law, to
attend the embassy mass; and he watched and waited for an opportunity to
demonstrate to the Catholics the powerlessness of both the Bishop and
his master. He had not to wait long. One evening at the beginning of
January 1563, as the light was failing, a knot of idle hangers-on of
the Bishop’s household were lounging at the great gate of Durham Place
opening to the Strand. An Italian Protestant captain, in the service
of the Vidame de Chartres, swaggered down the street on his way to
Whitehall, and from the Bishop’s gateway a lad shot a harquebuss at him,
and missed him. The captain whipped out his long rapier and pursued the
would-be murderer to the outer courtyard. The Bishop’s servants closed
the gates against the pursuers, and the assassin ran up shouting to the
door of the chamber where the Ambassador was playing cards with the
French Ambassador and a Guisan hostage, Nantouillet, Provost of Paris. A
few hurried words of explanation at the door—for the Guisan had paid the
boy to do the act—and the assassin was hurried down to the water gate,
where a boat was in waiting, and he was allowed to escape, whilst his
pursuers were thundering at the solid gates of the inner court.
This was enough for Cecil. New locks were put on the house gates, and the
keys held by the “heretic English gatekeeper.” The Bishop could obtain no
interview with the Queen, but was obliged to see Cecil instead. Send me
to jail, he indignantly pleaded, if I have offended; but if nothing is
proved against me, as nothing can be, at least let me have free ingress
and egress from my own house. Cecil’s reply was a long indictment of the
Bishop’s whole proceedings. The Ambassador, he said, was by the Queen’s
kindness living in one of her houses, which had been turned into a hotbed
of conspiracies against her and a refuge for malefactors. The law of the
land had been openly defied, and the Queen desired the Ambassador to quit
her house. In vain the Bishop protested. One indignity after another was
placed upon him. The folks going to mass in the embassy were haled off
to prison as they came out; all the most private conversations between
the Ambassador and the English rebels were repeated to him by Cecil;
he was confronted with the text of his most secret despatches; he was
turned out of Durham House with ignominy, and all he could do was to weep
tears of rage, and pray Philip to avenge him.[177] But Philip’s hands
were more than full in the Netherlands now, as Cecil knew, for before
the writing-table in the Secretary’s room in Cecil House[178] there
stood a portrait of Count Egmont,[179] and Gresham’s agents in Antwerp,
Bruges, and Brussels left no event unreported. The blow to the Spanish
Ambassador was cleverly planned by Cecil. That the former had been
futilely plotting, was known, and it served as a good pretext for his
disgrace; but the real reason for it was the need to prove to Dudley and
his friends, and to the discontented Catholics, that they were leaning
on a broken reed when they depended upon Spain to help them against the
Secretary. The bankrupt, heartbroken old Bishop was a good object-lesson.
If his master could not pay his debts or defend him from deliberate
indignity, much less could he help discontented Englishmen who only had
their own ends to serve.
Almost simultaneously with the Bishop’s disgrace, and also partly
explaining it, another important move was made. The second Parliament
of Elizabeth was opened on the 12th January 1563 by the Queen herself,
in great state. The speech of Lord Keeper Bacon dwelt at length on the
want of order and discipline in the Anglican Church, the incompetency of
many of the ministers, and the want of uniformity in the services.[180]
Cecil himself was offered and refused the Speakership, but to him
has been attributed the authorship of the harangue which the Speaker
(Williams) addressed to the Queen.[181] The decay of schools and the
poverty of benefices through lay impropriations is dwelt on at length in
this speech, and the completion of the reform of religion and learning
in the Queen’s dominions advocated. Cecil followed this with a speech
denouncing the Queen’s enemies, the Guises and the Catholics, supported
by the countenance of Spain. The penalties for refusing the oath of
supremacy were greatly increased, the oath was rendered obligatory upon
every person holding any sort of office, and other acts for insuring the
progress of Protestantism were made,[182] as well as large subsidies
granted. The Catholic lords, even the Lord Treasurer (Winchester),
were uneasy and apprehensive; but they dared not move, for Cecil and
the Protestants had now a firm grasp of affairs, and the Secretary
was vehement in Parliament in favour of the proposed ecclesiastical
measures. The Queen’s embarrassments, he said, arose entirely from her
determination to resist the authority of the Pope, who had bribed Spain,
the Austrian and German princes. She now stood alone, with the Catholic
world against her, but he exhorted all faithful subjects to defend her
with laws, life, and property.[183] At the same time, as the Parliament
was sitting, Convocation assembled to settle the ritual and doctrine of
the Church. The articles were reformed and altered to thirty-nine, the
catechism and the homilies were adopted, and other measures tending to
uniformity of doctrine were agreed upon, but in a way which, although it
did not satisfy the Puritan minority, was intended to include as large a
number as possible of those who were not irreconcilably pledged to the
Roman faith.
Cecil’s hand can be traced clearly in all these activities, for they
struck indirectly at his enemies; but a bolder step in the same direction
taken by Parliament itself can only be surmised as being prompted by
him. Dudley had for months been gaining friends for the candidature of
the Earl of Huntingdon as heir to the crown, whilst the Catholics were
divided on the claims of Mary Stuart and Darnley. Cecil was determined,
if possible, to prevent the success of either of them, and desired to
adhere to the Parliamentary title of Lady Catharine[184] (Countess of
Hertford). The House of Commons was mainly Protestant, and under the
influence of Cecil; and it was agreed that deputations of both Houses
should petition the Queen either to fix the succession or else to marry,
the latter alternative being probably added out of politeness. The Queen
received the deputations very ungraciously. She turned her back on the
Commons, and for a long time sent no answer at all. On an address being
presented to the Council begging them to remind her, she sent an answer
by Cecil and Rogers to the effect that “she doubted not the grave heads
of this House did right well consider that she forgot not the suit of
this House for the succession, the matter being so weighty; nor could
forget it; but she willed the young heads to take example of their
elders.” To the Lords she was more outspoken. She asked them whether they
thought what they saw on her face were wrinkles. They were nothing of the
sort, but pockmarks, and she was not so old yet that she had lost hope
of having children of her own to succeed her.[185] This was a rebuff to
Cecil’s policy; but only what might have been expected from the Queen,
whose principal care was to sustain herself without concerning herself
greatly as to what came after her; whereas the Secretary was doubtless
thinking of what would become of himself and the Protestant party if she
died. For Mary Stuart, and even her Protestant Councillors, he knew,
were busy intriguing for the succession, and her claims were powerfully
supported, even in England.
Maitland of Lethington came to London during the sitting of Parliament to
forward his mistress’s claims. He found Cecil now against the solution
which he had formerly favoured, namely, the abandonment of Mary’s
present claims in exchange for the reversion, failing Elizabeth and her
descendants. Cecil was more distrustful of the French than ever; for the
defection of Condé had turned all arms against the English in Havre, and
he knew that Cardinal Lorraine was still untiring in his planning of the
Austrian match for Mary, whilst the Protestants of France and Germany
watched unmoved the isolation and embarrassment of England. Maitland
therefore soon persuaded himself that his mistress had not much more
to hope for now from the dominant party in England than from Elizabeth
herself. Mary was convinced that both Catharine de Medici and the English
Queen wished to force her into an unworthy Protestant marriage with a
subject, in order to injure her prestige with English Catholics and
decrease the power of the Guises.[186] Maitland consequently cast his
eyes to another quarter. Mary was determined to fight for the English
succession, if she could not get it by fair means; and with this end
she wanted a consort strong enough to force her claims, which her
uncle’s candidate, the Archduke Charles, could not do. She and Maitland
accordingly threw over the Guises, who did not wish their niece to marry
a prince strong enough to exclude _them_, and boldly proposed a marriage
with Philip’s heir, Don Carlos. Maitland went one night secretly to the
Bishop of Aquila in London, and cautiously opened the negotiation. The
Queen of Scots, he said, was determined never to marry a Protestant,
even if he owned half the world, nor would she accept a husband from the
hands of the Queen of England. The French and English Queens were almost
equally against her, the Duke of Guise was dead, the Archduke Charles was
not strong enough to help her; would Philip consent to a marriage with
his son?
Whilst this matter was being discussed by Maitland and the Bishop and
the Spanish partisans in England, the news of the untoward adventure of
Mary Stuart with Chastelard arrived in London. Mary said it was a plot
of the Queen-mother to discredit her; but the old Bishop was no less
anxious than before to urge his master to seize such an opportunity as
that offered by the proposed marriage. But Philip was slow. His hands
were full and his coffers were empty as usual, and whilst he was asking
for pledges and guarantees from the Scots and the English Catholics, the
opportunity passed. Philip, in appearance at all events, accepted the
suggestion, in alarm lest a refusal might lead to a marriage between
Mary and the boy-King of France; for, as he says, “I well bear in mind
the anxiety I underwent from King Francis when he was married to this
Queen, and I am sure that if he had lived we could not have avoided war,
on the ground of my protection of the Queen of England, whose country he
would have invaded.”[187] But whilst Philip was pondering—and it must be
conceded that this time he had much reason for hesitation—others were
acting. When Lethington came back from France, on his way through London
to Scotland, he saw the Spanish Bishop again. He found that matters had
not progressed, and was disheartened. Elizabeth threatened his mistress
with her undying enmity if she married a member of the House of Austria,
and Cecil persuaded him that the Queen might yet appoint Mary her heir if
she married to her liking. Lady Margaret, also, was now ostentatiously
favoured by the Queen, and Maitland returned to Scotland convinced that
it would be unsafe to look elsewhere than to England for support, and
that, after all, the best solution of his country’s difficulties would
be the marriage of Mary and Darnley under Elizabeth’s patronage. This
certainly was the impression that the English Government wished him to
convey, for whilst it lasted it would check more ambitious schemes which
would be dangerous to England.
So far Cecil’s policy, though often thwarted by the Queen’s waywardness
and Dudley’s ambition, had been in the main successful. The French had
been kept out of Scotland, the Catholics in England had been divided and
discouraged, whilst waverers were conciliated; the Anglican Church was
more firmly established, and Philip had been kept more or less friendly,
out of fear of a league of Protestants on the one hand and of French
influence in England on the other. Nor was the indefatigable Secretary’s
effort confined to foreign affairs. The strengthening of the Queen’s
navy and the building of merchantmen continued without intermission.
Camden says that in consequence of this activity there were now (1562)
20,000 fighting men ready for sea service alone. All the fortresses
were put into order for defence, and the shortcomings of material and
system demonstrated in the Scottish campaign were remedied. The ample
correspondence on these points in the Hatfield Papers are all endorsed,
annotated, or drafted in Sir William Cecil’s own hand, and no detail
seems to have escaped him.[188]
Notwithstanding his frequent illness, as recorded in his journals, his
work must have been incessant. In addition to his vast administrative
duties, he had, on Sir Thomas Parry’s death, been appointed to the
important post of Master of the Court of Wards, which assumed the
guardianship of the estates of minors; and Camden speaks of him as
“managing this place, as he did all his others, very providentially for
the service of his prince and the wards, for his own profit moderately,
and for the benefit of his followers and retainers, yet without offence,
and with great commendations for his integrity.” His interest, too, in
the universities, and particularly that of Cambridge, was constant. He
had been appointed Chancellor of the University in the first year of
Elizabeth’s reign, and had worked manfully to introduce order and reform
into the institution.[189] In June 1562, Cecil endeavoured to resign his
Chancellorship, his pretexts being his unfitness for the post, his want
of leisure, and the serious contentions which existed in the University;
but the real reason was that which he cited last, namely, the tendency
to laxity with regard to uniform worship manifested by a large number of
the masters and students. “Lastly,” he says, “which most of all I lament,
I cannot find such care in the heads of houses there to supply my lack
as I hoped for, to the ruling of inordinate youth, to the observation
of good order, and increase of learning and knowledge of God. For I
see that if the wiser sort that have authority will not join earnestly
together to overrule the licentious part of youth in breaking orders, and
the stubbornness of others that malign and deprave the ecclesiastical
orders established by law in this realm, I shall shortly hear no good or
comfortable report from thence. And to keep an office of authority by
which these disorders may be remedied, and not to use it, is to betray
the safety of the same, whereof I have some conscience.… And so I end,
praying you all to accept this, my perplexed writing and complaint,
to proceed of a careful mind that I bear to that honourable and dear
University; whereof, although I was once but a simple, small, unlearned,
low member, I love,” &c., &c. Only on the promise of complete amendment
on the part of heads of houses, and at the intercession of Archbishop
Parker, Sir William withdrew his resignation and continued his labours in
favour of the University.[190]
In the autumn of the following year (1564) the Queen in her progress
was splendidly entertained at the University. Upon Cecil as Chancellor,
as well as Secretary of State, fell the responsibility of making the
arrangements; and the letters which relate to the visit, as usual exhibit
his perfect mastery of detail. From the avoidance of contagion of plague
(which had devastated London in the previous year) to the supply of
lodgings for the visitors, everything seems to have been settled with
him. He was specially anxious, he said, that the University he loved
should make a good figure before the Queen; he himself would lodge “with
my olde nurse in St. John’s College,” but the rest of the University
was to be turned inside out for the entertainment of the court. The
choristers’ school was made into a buttery, the pantry and ewery were at
King’s, Gonville and Caius was sacred to the Maids of Honour, rushes
strewed the roadways, the houses were hung with arras; the scholars
were drilled to kneel as the Queen passed and cry _Vivat Regina_, “and
after that quietly and orderly to depart home to their colleges, and in
no wise to come to the court.” Sir William Cecil with his wife arrived
the day before the Queen (4th August 1564). “I am in great anxiety,” he
wrote a few days previously, “for the well-doing of things there; and
I find myself much troubled with other business, and with an unhappy
grief in my foote.” But notwithstanding his gout, he was received with
great ceremony and a Latin oration, and was presented with two pairs of
gloves, a marchpain, and two sugar loaves. His great anxiety, expressed
to the authorities, was that “uniformity should be shown in apparel and
religion, and especially in the setting of the communion table.”
Of the endless orations, the presents, and pedantry with which the
Queen was received, of her own coyness about her Latin, of the solemn
disputations and entertainments, this is no place to speak; but the
official accounts[191] represent the Queen as being agreeably surprised
at her reception. After the first service at King’s she “thanked God
that had sent her to this University, where she, altogether against her
expectation, was so received that she thought could not be better.”
This was the first day; but a Catholic friend of the new Spanish
Ambassador[192] told him that the Queen’s commendations had so elated the
authorities that they besought her to witness one more entertainment.
As she was unable to delay her departure, the actors followed her to
the first stopping-place, where the proposed comedy was represented
before her. “The actors came in,” writes Guzman, “dressed as some of the
imprisoned bishops. First came the Bishop of London (_i.e._ Bonner),
carrying a lamb in his hands as if he were eating it, … and then others
with different devices, one being in the figure of a dog with the
Host in his mouth. They write that the Queen was so angry that she at
once entered her chamber, using strong language, and the men who held
the torches, it being night, left them in the dark, and so ended this
thoughtless and scandalous representation.”[193]
Amongst the long list of honorary Masters of Arts made on the occasion,
Sir William Cecil was one, and on the journey to Cambridge he was
honoured for the first of many times with a visit from the Queen to his
house at Waltham, Theobalds,[194] which at this time was a small house he
had recently built as a country retreat, not so remote as Burghley, or so
near town as Wimbledon. It was his intention, even then, to leave this
estate to his younger son; but, as will be shown later, it was not meant
to be the magnificent place it afterwards became. The Queen’s frequent
visits, says his household biographer, forced him “to enlarge it, rather
for the Queen and her great train, and to set the poor in order, than
for pomp or glory, for he ever said it would be too big for the small
living he could leave his son. He greatly delighted in making gardens,
fountains, and walks; which at Theobalds were perfected most costly,
beautifully, and pleasantly, where one might walk two miles in the walk
before he came to the end.”[195] We are told that throughout the year at
Theobalds, even in his absence, Cecil kept an establishment of twenty-six
to thirty persons, at a cost of £12 a week. Every day twenty to thirty
poor people were relieved at the gates, and “the weekly charge of setting
the poor to work there, weeding, labouring in the gardens, &c., was £10”;
whilst for many years 20s. every week was paid to the Vicar of Cheshunt,
in which parish Theobalds stands, for the succour of the distressed
parishioners.
Cecil was simple and sober in his own living and attire, but by his
every act he demonstrates his ambition to be well regarded by the world,
and his determination to fulfil what he considered decorous in a great
personage who owed a duty to his ancestry, to his position, and to
those who should inherit his honours. His letter of advice to the Earl
of Bedford when the latter was appointed governor of Berwick (1564)
sets forth in a few words his ideal of a _grand seigneur_, which might
represent a portrait of himself. “Think of some great nobleman whom you
can take as your pattern.… Weigh well what comes before you. Let your
household be an example of order. Allow no excess of apparel, no disputes
on Princes’ affairs at table. Be hospitable, but avoid excess. Be
impartial and easy of access. Do not favour lawyers without honesty.… Try
to make country gentlemen agree: take their sons as your servants, and
train them in warlike and manly exercises, such as artillery, wrestling,
&c.”
The picture which Cecil presents of his own mind in his writings is
consistently that of a judicious, cautious, acquisitive, and intensely
proud and self-conscious man; a man eminently fair, especially to his
inferiors, to whom it would be undignified to be otherwise; not wanting
in courage, but by temperament more inclined to reduce an enemy’s
stronghold by sap and mine than by a storming attack; determined that
he would stand, no matter who might fall, and yet not greedy or selfish
for personal gratification; his mind monopolised by two main ideas, the
greatness and prosperity of England, and the decorous dignity of his own
house.
To attribute to him modern ideas with regard to liberty, as we now
understand it, would be absurd. He was a man of great enlightenment, a
lover of learning; but he was a statesman of his own age, not of ours.
That England should be governed by nobles, and that he should help the
Queen to guide the governors, was in the divine order of things. He would
do, and did, according to his lights, the best he could for all men; but
that the ordinary citizen should claim a voice in deciding what was best
for himself would have appeared to Cecil Utopian nonsense to be punished
as treason. He would be rigidly just, charitable, and forbearing to
all; but if any but those on the same plane as himself should dream of
claiming rights of equality, then impious blasphemy could hardly be too
strong a term to apply to such insolence. With opinions such as those
he undoubtedly held respecting the exclusive right of an aristocracy
to govern, his own position would have been inconsistent if he had not
claimed, as he did with almost suspicious vehemence, to belong by birth
and descent to an ancient and noble race.
CHAPTER VII
1564-1566
The efforts that had been made by the English Council to benefit native
commerce had caused much apprehension amongst the Flemish merchants, who
had for many years practically monopolised the English export trade.
The English Company of Merchant-Adventurers had agitated and petitioned
the Queen and Council to discountenance the foreign merchants; and as a
result, a series of enactments was passed which gave considerable trade
advantages to Englishmen. Differential duties, compulsory priority given
to English bottoms for the export trade, the imposition of harassing
disabilities and penalties on foreign merchants established in London,
together with the great increase of piracy owing to the extensive
shipbuilding of recent years in England, had greatly disorganised Flemish
trade. During 1563 and early in 1564, several envoys had been sent from
Spanish Flanders to endeavour to obtain a reversal of the new commercial
policy, but without effect. This caused reprisals on the part of the
Spanish Government, which prohibited the introduction of English cloth
into Flanders and the exportation of raw material from Flanders to
England, as well as the employment of English ships for Flemish exports.
In retaliation, a more stringent order was issued in England forbidding
trade with Flanders altogether, and the establishment of a new staple at
Embden. The seizure of English goods and subjects in Spain itself was
the answer to this. Naturally, people on both sides suffered severely
by this commercial warfare.[196] Emissaries went backwards and forwards
between Flanders and England, partial relaxations were temporarily
arranged, conferences were held; but the main difficulty continued until
Antwerp was well-nigh ruined, and the Spaniards were obliged to humble
themselves in order to prevent a commercial catastrophe. The day, indeed,
had gone by now for hectoring England. The old Bishop of Aquila had died
bankrupt, abandoned, and broken-hearted—Cecil’s object-lesson of the
impotence of Spain—and a very different Ambassador had been sent, whose
main duty it was to keep Elizabeth friendly, and to end, at almost any
cost, the commercial war which was ruining Flanders.
Guzman de Silva arrived in London in June 1564. He was amiable and
courtly, flattered the Queen to the top of her bent, and was soon a prime
favourite. At his first interview at Richmond she showed off her Latin
and Italian, coyly led the talk to her personal appearance, blushingly
hinted at love and marriage in general, Cecil being all the while close
to her side.[197] As soon as the compliments and embraces were ended
and Guzman was alone, a great friend of Dudley’s sought him out with
a message from the favourite, informing him “of the great enmity that
exists between Cecil and Lord Robert, even before this book about the
succession was published; but now very much more, as he believes Cecil
to be the author of the book; and the Queen is extremely angry about it,
although she signifies that there are so many accomplices in the offence
that they must overlook it, and has begun to slacken in the matter.[198]
The person has asked me with great secrecy to take an opportunity of
speaking to the Queen (or to make such an opportunity), to urge her
without fail to adopt strong measures in this business; because if Cecil
were out of the way, the affairs of your Majesty would be more favourably
dealt with, and religious questions as well; for this Cecil and his
friends are those who persecute the Catholics and dislike your Majesty,
whereas the other man (_i.e._ Dudley) is looked upon as faithful, and
the rest of the Catholics so consider him, and have adopted him as
their weapon. If the Queen would consent to disgrace Cecil, it would
be a great good to them, and this man tried to persuade me to make use
of Robert.”[199] Guzman was cautious, for he knew what had happened to
his predecessor; but this will show that Dudley was determined to stick
at nothing to destroy, if possible, the man who, almost alone, was the
obstacle to his ambition. He was liberal in his professions and promises
to the Spaniard, whom he urged to ask for audience as much as possible
through him, instead of through Cecil. His friends assured Guzman that
he still expected to marry the Queen, and had an understanding with the
Pope; that the Catholic religion would be restored in England if the
marriage were brought about, and much more to the same effect.[200]
The reason for this new move on the part of Dudley is not very far
to seek. The defection of Condé and the collapse of the Protestants
in France had been seized upon by Cardinal Lorraine and the dominant
Catholics to force Catharine de Medici into a renewal of the negotiations
for a league with Philip to extirpate Protestantism. Already the meeting
had been arranged between Catharine and her daughter, the Queen of Spain,
at Bayonne, which was to cement the close alliance. Catholicism was
everywhere in the ascendant, and the clouds appeared to be gathering over
England; for there was no combination so threatening for her as this.
Hitherto Cecil had always counted upon the jealousy between France and
Spain to prevent the domination of England by either power; but with the
French Protestants prostrate and a close union between a Guisan France
and Catholic Spain, all safeguards would disappear, and Mary Stuart would
be able to count upon the support of the whole Catholic world, in which
case the position of Elizabeth and the Anglican Church was, indeed, a
critical one.
As we have seen, Dudley cared nothing for all this, even if he was able
to appreciate its gravity. If he could only force or cajole the Queen
to marry him, the religion of England might be anything his supporters
chose. He knew well that Cecil, with his broad and moderate views,
would try to conjure away the danger and disarm Catholic Spain, whilst
safeguarding religion, by again bringing forward the Archduke with some
sort of compact founded on the Lutheran compromise in Germany. But Spain
and the Catholics, though they might have accepted such a solution,
were not enthusiastic about it; and Dudley, by going the whole length
and promising Spain everything, thought to outbid Cecil and spoil the
Archduke’s chance, whilst diverting Spanish support from Mary Stuart to
himself.
In the autumn of 1563 the Duke of Wurtemburg, at the prompting of the
English agent, had approached the Emperor to propose a renewal of the
Archduke’s negotiation. Ferdinand was cool: nominally the first monarch
in Christendom, and a son of the proud House of Austria, he did not
relish being taken up and dropped again as often as suited English
politics, and he demanded all sorts of assurances before he would act.
The Duke of Wurtemburg secretly sent an agent to see Cecil early in 1564
without the Emperor’s knowledge, and satisfied himself that Elizabeth was
neither a Calvinist nor a Zwinglian, and would accept the confession of
Augsburg. This was satisfactory; but before anything more could be done,
Ferdinand died (July 1564). When he conveyed the news to Cecil, Mundt,
the English agent, proposed that he should be allowed to reopen the
question of marriage with the new Emperor Maximilian, through the Duke of
Wurtemburg. “He” (Mundt) “knows,” he says, “that the Queen is so modest
and virtuous that she will not do anything that shall seem like seeking
a husband. But as the matter is most vital to the whole Christian world,
he thinks that Cecil should not be restrained by any narrow and untimely
modesty; for he, holding the administration of the kingdom, ought to
strive to preserve the tranquillity thereof by insuring a perpetual
succession.”
Cecil and Mundt understood each other thoroughly; but the Secretary’s
answer was intended for the eyes of others, and was cautious. “With
regard to her Majesty’s inclinations on the subject of her marriage,
he can with certainty say nothing; than that he perceives that she
would rather marry a foreign than a native prince, and that the more
distinguished the suitor is by birth, power, and personal attractions,
the better hope he will have of success. Moreover, he cannot deny that
the nobleman who, with them, excites considerable expectation, to wit
Lord Robert, is worthy to become the husband of the Queen. The fact of
his being her Majesty’s subject, however, will prove a serious objection
to him in her estimation. Nevertheless, his virtues and his excellent and
heroic gifts of mind and body have so endeared him to the Queen, that
she could not regard her own brother with greater affection. From which
they who do not know the Queen intimately, conjecture that he will be
her future husband. He, however, sees and understands that she merely
takes delight in his virtues and rare qualities, and that nothing is more
discussed in their conversation than that which is most consistent with
virtue, and furthest removed from all unworthy sentiments.” It is not
surprising that Cecil has endorsed the draft of this letter, “written to
Mr. Mundt by the Queen’s command.”
Mundt worked hard, but there were many obstacles in the way. Wurtemburg
was in no hurry. The mourning for the late Emperor, and the plague which
raged in Germany, delayed matters for months. Once in the interval Cecil
wrote to ask Mundt whether it was true that the Archduke’s neck was awry.
Mundt could not deny the impeachment, but softened it like a courtier.
“Alexander the Great had his neck bent towards the left side; would
that our man may be his imitator in magnanimity and bravery. His body
is elegant and middle size, more well grown and robust than the Spanish
Prince.”[201]
In the autumn Elizabeth sent an envoy to condole with the new Emperor
on the death of his father, and simultaneously lost no opportunity of
drawing closer to Spain. She coquetted with Guzman, ostentatiously in
the face of the French Ambassador. She spoke sentimentally of old times,
when her brother-in-law Philip was in England. She was curious to know
whether Don Carlos was grown, and manly; and then apparently to force
the Ambassador’s hand, she sighed that every one disdained her, and that
she heard Don Carlos was to marry the Queen of Scots. Guzman earnestly
said that the Prince had been ill, and that such a thing was quite out
of the question; which was perfectly true. The Queen’s real object then
came out. “Why,” she said, “the gossips in London were saying that the
Ambassador had been sent by the King of Spain to offer his son Don Carlos
to me!” All this rather undignified courting of Spain succeeded very soon
in arousing the jealousy of France, as it was intended to do.
De Foix, the French Ambassador, had kept Catharine de Medici well
informed of affairs in England. Catharine was already getting alarmed at
being bound hand and foot to the Guises, the Catholics, and Philip. The
plan of marrying Mary Stuart to Don Carlos, or his cousin, the Archduke,
and the rallying of Leicester to Spain and the Catholics, threatened
to dwarf the influence of France, and make Spain irresistible. So the
Queen-mother began to hint to Sir Thomas Smith, the Ambassador, that a
marriage would be desirable between her son Charles IX., aged fifteen,
and Queen Elizabeth, aged thirty-one. Some such suggestion had been made
by Condé to Smith during the negotiations which preceded the evacuation
of Havre, but it had not been regarded seriously. It was probably no more
serious now, but it was the trump card of both Queens, and it served its
purpose.
In the meanwhile the plot of Leicester and the Catholics against Cecil
went on. The English Catholics came to Guzman, and represented to
him that it would be better not to come to any arrangement with the
Government about the commercial question, in order that public discontent
in England might ripen and an overturn of the present regime be made
the easier. But the Flemings were suffering even more than the English
from the interruption of trade, and Guzman had strict orders to obtain
a settlement of the dispute. So he told the Catholics that the Queen
had been obliged to hold her hand, and refrain from punishing Cecil and
Bacon, until she had come to an understanding with Philip, and with the
English Catholics, through him. She would cling to Cecil and his gang,
said Guzman, so long as she thought she had anything to fear from Spain.
“All people think that the only remedy for the religious trouble is to
get these people turned out of power, as they are the mainstay of the
heretics, Lord Robert having the Catholics all on his side.”[202] Dudley
was flattered and encouraged with messages and promises from Philip, and
laboured incessantly to get rid of Cecil, even for a short time.
In order, apparently, to forward Dudley’s chances of success as a suitor
for the hand of Mary Stuart, for which at this time Elizabeth pretended
to be anxious, she created him Earl of Leicester and Baron Denbeigh, on
Michaelmas day 1564. De Foix, the French Ambassador, intimated two days
previously his intention of being present at the splendid festivities
which accompanied the ceremony. This was a good opportunity for Cecil
to arouse suspicion of the new Earl, and distrust of the French. On
the 28th September, accordingly, the Secretary called upon Guzman, and
telling him that the French Ambassador would be present at the feast,
hinted that Dudley was very friendly with the French; to which the
Spaniard replied, that he had always understood that such was the case,
and that Dudley’s father was known to be much attached to them. Then
“Cecil told me that the Queen had commanded him to visit the Emperor with
Throgmorton, and although he had done all in his power to excuse himself
from the journey, he had not succeeded. I understand that the artfulness
of his rivals has procured this commission for him, in order, in the
meantime, to put some one else in his place, which certainly would be a
good thing. His wife has petitioned the Queen to let her husband stay
at home, as he is weak and delicate. They tell me that this has made
the business doubtful, and I do not know for certain what will be done;
nor indeed is anything sure here from one hour to another, except the
hatching of falsehoods, which always goes on.” Needless to say, Cecil had
his way and did not go.
Before many days had passed Leicester sent to Guzman disclaiming any
particular friendship with the French, “and said, after his own Queen,
there was no prince in the world whom he was so greatly obliged to serve
as your Majesty, whose servant he had been, and to whom he owed his life
and all he had.” De Foix, he said, had only been present at his feast,
because he brought him the Order of St. Michael from the King of France,
which he (Leicester) did not wish to accept. Guzman was rather tart about
the business, and reminded Leicester’s friend (Spinola) that on the same
day that the Queen had invited him (Guzman) to supper, De Foix had dined
with her; and when Spinola hinted that Philip might send Leicester the
Golden Fleece, Guzman was quite scandalised at the idea of conferring
the order on any one not a “publicly professed Catholic.” Altogether
it is clear that the Queen’s and Cecil’s clever management was already
setting the French and Spanish by the ears; and when they could do that
and make them rivals for England’s favour, she was safe.
The next day Guzman was entertained at dinner by Leicester, the Earl
of Warwick, Cecil, and others being present; and the Secretary in the
course of conversation assured the Spaniard that he was taking vigorous
measures to suppress the depredations on shipping, and to restore as
much as possible of the merchandise stolen. Already, indeed, Cecil’s
diplomacy was righting matters. An active correspondence was going on
about the Archduke’s match; the Queen assured Guzman that she had to
conceal her real feelings about religion, but that God knew her heart;
and even Cecil tried to soften the asperity of the Catholics towards
him. “Cecil,” writes Guzman to his King, “tells these heretical bishops
to look after their clergy, as the Queen is determined to reform them
in their customs, and even in their dress, as the diversity that exists
in everything cannot be tolerated.[203] He directs that they should be
careful how they treat those of the old faith: to avoid calumniating them
or persecuting or harrying them.” The result of this action was that
in October 1564, Guzman could write: “I have advised previously that
Cecil’s favour had been wavering, but he knows how to please, and avoids
saying things the Queen does not wish to hear; and, above all, as I am
told, can flatter her, so he has kept his place, and things are now in
the same condition as formerly. Robert makes the best of it. The outward
demonstrations are fair, but the inner feelings the same as before. I do
not know how long they will last. They dissemble; but Cecil has more wit
than all of them. Their envy of him is very great.”[204]
Sir James Melvil, a Scotsman brought up in France, was directed to go
to London in the autumn of 1564, to watch his mistress’s interests. To
him Elizabeth again suggested a marriage between Dudley and “her good
sister”; and in reply to his remark that Mary thought that a conference
between English and Scottish statesmen should discuss the question first,
at which conference the Earl of Bedford and Lord Robert could represent
England, Elizabeth told Melvil that he seemed to make a small account
of Lord Robert. He should, she said, see him made a far greater Earl
than Bedford before he left court. When Dudley was on his knees, shortly
afterwards, receiving the investiture of his Earldom, the Queen tickled
his neck, and asked Melvil what he thought of him. Melvil gave a courtly
answer, whereupon the Queen retorted that he liked that “long lad”
(Darnley) better. Melvil scoffed at such an idea, but his main object in
coming to England was to intrigue for the “long lad’s” permission to go
to Scotland. A few days after this, Leicester took Melvil in his barge
from Hampton Court to London, and on the way asked him what Mary thought
of the marriage with him, which Randolph had proposed to her. Melvil
answered coldly, as his mistress had instructed him to do. “Then he began
to purge himself of so proud a pretence as to marry so great a Queen,
declaring he did not esteem himself worthy to wipe her shoes; declaring
that the invention of that proposition of marriage proceeded from Mr.
Cecil, his secret enemy. For if I, says he, should have appeared desirous
of that marriage, I should have offended both the Queens and lost their
favour.”[205]
Melvil went back to Scotland with all manner of kind messages for his
mistress; and Cecil especially was gracious to him, placing a fine gold
chain around his neck as he bade him farewell. But when Mary asked her
envoy if he thought Elizabeth “meant truly towards her inwardly in
her heart, as she appeared to do outwardly in her speech,” he replied
that in his judgment “there was neither plain dealing nor upright
meaning; but great dissimulation, emulation, envy, and fear lest her
princely qualities should chase her from the kingdom, as having already
hindered her marriage with the Archduke. It appeared likewise to me,
by her offering unto her, with great apparent earnestness, my Lord of
Leicester.” Melvil says that Leicester’s humble and artful letters to
Mary, and the consequent kindness of the latter, aroused Elizabeth’s
fear that after all Mary might marry her favourite, and caused her to
consent to Darnley’s visit to Scotland.[206] “Which licence,” he says,
“was procured by means of Secretary Cecil, not that he was minded that
any of the marriages should take effect, but with such shifts to hold
the Queen (Mary) unmarried as long as he could, persuading himself
that Lord Darnley durst not proceed in the marriage without consent of
the Queen of England first obtained.”[207] Cecil’s task was again an
extremely difficult one. He had to keep up an appearance of leaning
to the Catholics and the House of Austria, and encourage the idea of
Elizabeth’s marriage with the Archduke, in order to prevent the alliance
of Mary Stuart with so powerful an interest; he was obliged to keep his
own restive Protestant friends in hand; to counteract at every step the
intrigues of Leicester against him, and to be ready at any moment to
cause a diversion if Leicester’s suit to the Queen looked too serious to
be safe.
The replies and recommendations of the bishops to the Council’s circular,
referred to in a previous note (page 160), had caused much apprehension
amongst Catholics; and the Queen herself, as well as Cecil, assured
Guzman that the bishops should do the Catholics no harm; whilst, on the
other hand, Cecil’s Protestant friends were urging him to adopt strong
measures to prevent the growth of the “Papists.” Cecil’s reply to one
such recommendation shows that he was just as ready to wound Leicester
underhand as Leicester was him. “He replied that he was doing what he
could, but he did not know who was at the Queen’s ear to soften her so,
and render her less zealous in this than she ought to be.”[208]
Cecil’s greatest difficulty, indeed, at this time, was from Leicester,
who had now quite enlisted Sir Nicholas Throgmorton against his former
friend. In order to enable Leicester with some decency to accept the
Order of St. Michael, Throgmorton suggested that the Queen might ask for
another Cross of the Order to be given to the Duke of Norfolk. When Cecil
learned this, he was obliged to remonstrate with the Queen, and point out
how undesirable it was in the present state of affairs to place two of
her most powerful nobles under an obligation to France. At a time when
Cecil was straining every nerve to keep on good terms with the House
of Austria, and conciliating the Catholics, in order to checkmate Mary
Stuart, Leicester had agents running backwards and forwards to France,
in the hope of bringing forward in an official form the farcical offer
of Charles IX.’s hand for the Queen, which offer he knew would come to
nothing, whilst rendering abortive the Archduke’s suit, upon which Cecil
depended to so great an extent.
The dexterity and cleverness of Cecil under these circumstances is shown
very markedly in the manner in which he changed in a very few months
the opinion of the Spanish Ambassador about him, as soon as his policy
rendered it necessary to gain his good opinion. “When I first arrived
here,” writes Guzman, January 2, 1565, “I imagined Secretary Cecil … to
be very different from what I have found him in your Majesty’s affairs.
He is well disposed towards them, truthful, lucid, modest, and just; and
although he is zealous in serving his Queen, which is one of his best
traits, yet he is amenable to reason. He knows the French, and, like an
Englishman, is their enemy. He assured me on his oath … that the French
have always made great efforts to attract to their country the Flanders
trade (_i.e._ with England). With regard to his religion I say nothing,
except that I wish he were a Catholic … but he is straightforward, and
shows himself well affected towards your Majesty … for he alone it is who
makes or mars business here.”[209]
Having thus gained the good-will of the Spaniard, Cecil was soon able
to persuade him that the Queen would never really marry Leicester, and
the relations between the latter and the Spaniards became cooler. The
Queen herself could not do enough to show her kindness to Guzman, and at
joust, tournament, and ball, chatted with him in preference to the French
Ambassador. By January 1565, Leicester, seeing that Cecil’s diplomacy had
gained the good-will of Spain, and that the Catholics were turning to the
side of the Archduke, unblushingly veered round to the French interest.
Guzman was obliged then to write that he was not at all satisfied with
him. He wished, he said, to please everybody; but was getting very
friendly with the French, who were making much of him. But there was more
even than this. The Queen and Cecil were trying their best to please
the Catholics. The Queen openly and rudely rebuked Dean Nowell at his
sermon on Ash Wednesday for attacking Catholic practices; whilst Cecil
was pushing the Vestments Order to the very verge of safety. Some of
the bishops invited him to a conference, and remonstrated with him on
the severity of the new regulations, which they openly stigmatised as
papistical. He told them sternly that the Queen’s order must be obeyed,
or worse would befall them. The churchmen of the Geneva school railed and
resisted, as far as they might,[210] what they called the Secretary’s
backsliding; whilst Leicester, ever willing to change sides, if he could
only checkmate Cecil, vigorously took the part of the Puritans, and did
his best to hamper the execution of the Vestments Order, and to prevent
the use of the cross on the altars.[211]
In February 1565, De Foix, the French Ambassador, shot the bolt that
had long been forging. He saw Elizabeth in her presence-chamber, and,
after much exaggerated compliment, read a letter of Catharine de Medici,
saying she would be the happiest of mothers if her dearly beloved sister
Queen Elizabeth would marry her son, and become a daughter to her. “She
would find in the young King,” she said, “both bodily and mentally, that
which would please her.” This was very sweet incense to Elizabeth, and
she sentimentally deplored that she was not ten years younger. De Foix
flattered her, and tranquillised her fears that she would be neglected or
abandoned, and the Queen agreed with him to keep the matter secret for
the present, and promised him a speedy reply.[212] As usual, Cecil drew
up for the Queen’s guidance a judicial examination of the advantages and
disadvantages which might be expected from the marriage. He is careful in
this lucid document not to commit himself to an individual opinion,[213]
but the formidable list of objections far outweigh the advantages; and
when the Queen the next day repeated Cecil’s arguments as her own, De
Foix lost patience, hinted that his mistress had been deceived, and would
withdraw the offer.[214] Elizabeth petted the ruffled diplomatist into a
good humour again, and said she would send Cecil to talk the matter over
with him.
Leicester had been bribed heavily by the French, and pretended to be
strongly in favour of the match, which he knew would never take place,
but might choke off the Archduke. But with Cecil it was very different.
He had no objection to the French suit being talked about: that might
make Spain and the Austrians more tractable; but if it was allowed to go
too far, the Emperor would take umbrage, and the Spaniards would balance
matters by marrying Mary Stuart to some nominee of their own. When,
consequently, Cecil saw De Foix, he was cool and argumentative, talked
much of the difficulties of the match; and on De Foix suggesting that
such a union with France would preserve England from danger, he replied
that England could defend herself, and had nothing to fear. By these
tactics he avoided a direct negative, delayed and procrastinated, whilst
his agents were busy in Germany smoothing the way for the Archduke. The
French matter was a strict secret, but the Queen could not avoid giving
some very broad hints about it to her friend Guzman. When he objected
that the young King would be a very little husband for her, she angled
dexterously but ineffectually to extort an offer of marriage from Don
Carlos. Catharine de Medici was just as eager as Elizabeth[215] that the
negotiations for the marriage with Charles IX. should not be dropped,
for she was getting seriously afraid now of the Catholic combination into
which she had been drawn, and industriously plied Smith with arguments
in favour of the match. But Smith knew as well as Cecil himself that the
whole matter was a feint, and dexterously avoided giving a favourable
opinion. The Huguenots, however, were in deadly earnest about it, and
Elizabeth and Catharine contrived to carry on the farce intermittently
until eventually Charles IX. was betrothed to a daughter of the Emperor.
Elizabeth was barely off with the old love than Adam Swetkowitz, Baron
Mitterburg, came on behalf of the new. Ostensibly his mission was to
return the late Emperor’s insignia of the Garter, but really every step
to be taken by him had been previously agreed upon through Throgmorton,
Roger Le Strange, Baron Preyner, Mundt, and the Duke of Wurtemburg. The
Spanish Ambassador, however, had been studiously kept in the dark until
shortly before Swetkowitz’s arrival, and was not in a hurry to pledge
his master in the Archduke’s favour, until he learned what arrangements
had been made about religion. On the contrary, he first approached
Leicester, who was ill in consequence of an accident, and secretly urged
him to press his suit before the Emperor’s envoy appeared. Leicester was
doubtful, but still not quite without hope. When Swetkowitz actually
arrived, Leicester understood that the current was too powerful for him
to oppose at first, and he became strongly and ostentatiously in favour
of the Austrian match. Swetkowitz first saw the Queen at the beginning of
June. Her people, she said, were urging her to marry, and she was anxious
to hear whether the King of Spain would favour the Archduke’s suit for
her hand. This Swetkowitz could not tell her; and he was referred to
Cecil for further discussion of details.
The conditions as laid down by Cecil[216] were prudent and moderate, but
certainly not likely to commend themselves to the King of Spain, or even
to the Emperor; for no power was to be given to the Consort, and the
question of religion was jealously safeguarded. It is evident that the
German thought that Leicester might be made instrumental in modifying
these conditions. He writes to the Emperor, “Since the principal promoter
of this transaction will be the illustrious Earl of Leicester, who is
most devoted to the Archduke, and is loved by the Queen with a sincere
and most chaste and honest love, I think your Majesty and the Archduke
would aid the business by addressing fraternal letters to the Earl.”[217]
But Leicester’s momentary adhesion to the policy of Cecil, Sussex,
and Norfolk, was only for the purpose of deceiving the Secretary, and
putting him off his guard. Whilst Cecil was proceeding in good faith
with Swetkowitz, and the latter, a Lutheran, was just as earnest in his
efforts to bring about the marriage, both the Queen and Leicester were
playing a double game. Probably Elizabeth’s marriage with her favourite
was never nearer than at this juncture, when she was carrying on a
serious negotiation with the Austrian, and was still making an appearance
of dallying with De Foix. The circumstances, indeed, were for the moment
all in favour of Leicester. Guzman was very cool about the Archduke and
the Lutheran envoy. The Queen was for ever trying to ascertain Philip’s
feeling about the Archduke, and at the same time dragging Leicester’s
name into her complicated conversational puzzles with the Spaniard. The
latter on one occasion, disbelieving her sincerity about the Archduke,
urged her to marry his friend Leicester, if she married a subject; and
only a day or two afterwards De Foix, who had by this time lost all hope
of success for Charles IX., and wished to checkmate the Austrian, also
went and pleaded Leicester’s suit. The Earl, thus having the good word
both of the Spanish and French Ambassadors, could afford to grow cool on
the Austrian match.[218] Cecil, and Sussex particularly, were scandalised
and apprehensive at this new instance of Leicester’s falseness, and
laboured desperately to bring the Archduke to England to force the
Queen’s hand. But the Emperor was slow and doubtful about the religious
conditions, and would not risk a loss of dignity.
Matters thus dragged on month after month, whilst Leicester’s chances
looked brighter and brighter. Among the principal reasons for the rising
hopes of Leicester were the events which had happened in Scotland during
the previous few months. After much apparent hesitation, Elizabeth
had in February granted to Darnley permission to join his father in
Scotland for three months. A few weeks later a messenger came from Mary
Stuart to the Spanish Ambassador in London, asking him whether he had
any reply to send to her. Guzman was cautious, for he did not quite know
the meaning of this; but said he would speak to Maitland of Lethington,
who was then on the way to London from the Border. Simultaneously with
this, Lady Margaret Lennox also approached Guzman. “She told me the kind
treatment her son had received at the hands of the Queen of Scots, and
that the French Ambassador had sent to her secretly offering all his
support for the marriage of her son. But she knows the French way of
dealing … and repeats that she and her children have no other refuge
but your Majesty (Philip), and begs me to address your Majesty in their
favour, in case the Queen of Scotland should choose to negotiate about
her son, Darnley, or in the event of the death of this Queen, that they
may look to your Majesty.” When Maitland arrived in London in April,
he saw Guzman in secret, and after some fencing and feigned ignorance,
offered his mistress’s adhesion and submission to Spain. His mistress,
he said, had waited for Philip’s answer about Don Carlos for two years,
but had now listened to some proposals for a marriage with Darnley, as
neither Elizabeth nor her own subjects wished her to marry a foreigner.
But before concluding the affair she wished to know if there was still
any hope of her obtaining Don Carlos, in which case she still preferred
that alliance. Guzman replied that, as Cardinal Lorraine had gone so far
in his negotiations for the marriage with the Archduke Charles, Philip
had abandoned all idea of opposing him by bringing forward his own son
Carlos. Maitland assured him that the negotiations of Cardinal Lorraine
were carried on against Mary’s wish, and in the interests of France;
but Guzman knew now that the match with Don Carlos was hopeless, and
said so. Maitland then spoke of the Darnley marriage, which, however, he
feared would be very dangerous if Elizabeth took it badly. All would be
well, he said, if the King of Spain would take Mary and Darnley under
his protection; but beyond bland banalities he could get nothing from
Guzman.[219]
Darnley’s demeanour in Scotland, and Mary’s behaviour towards him,
together with the rising hopes of the Catholics there, had alarmed Murray
and his friends; and Elizabeth and her Council were now also alive to
their danger. Cecil drew up one of his pro and contra reports with regard
to the influence that such a marriage would have on England,[220] which
was submitted to the Council, and a unanimous condemnation of the match
was adopted, and Throgmorton was sent in May post-haste to Scotland to
dissuade Mary from taking a step so threatening to Elizabeth. Randolph’s
letters to Cecil at the time showed that the danger was a real one.
Darnley, he says, is a furious fool, and Mary was infatuated with him.
To the Pope, to Philip, to Cardinal de Granvelle, and to Guzman, Mary
made no secret that her object was to unite the Catholics and claim the
crown of England; and Lady Margaret had from the first admitted that this
was her aim in promoting the marriage of her son. When Elizabeth’s eyes
were opened to the imminence of the peril, she did what she could to
stay the match. She, De Foix, and Throgmorton again pressed Leicester’s
marriage with Mary, Murray and his Protestant friends were encouraged to
resist, Lady Margaret was placed under arrest in the Tower, Darnley was
ordered to return to England, and the Queen promised Maitland that if
his mistress would marry to her liking she would acknowledge her right
of succession to the English crown. Meanwhile rumours came thickly from
Scotland that Mary was already married, Philip promised all his support
to Mary and Darnley if they would be his faithful servants, Murray and
Lethington were thrust into the background, Rizzio was ever at Mary’s
side, and her foolish young English lover, hated and contemned for his
arrogance, urged his infatuated bride to the religious intolerance that
led to her ruin.[221]
The remonstrances of Throgmorton and Randolph, and the letters of
the Queen and Cecil, were as powerless to move Mary now as was the
threatening attitude of her nobles and people, for she had decided to
depend entirely upon Philip, and to defy the Queen of England. In July, a
few days before her marriage, she sent a special messenger to Guzman with
letters for Philip, “begging for help and favour against the Queen of
England, who has raised her subjects against her, to force her to forsake
the Catholic religion.”[222] Murray, Argyll, and the Hamiltons, she says,
are in revolt, and if aid do not come from Spain she will be lost.
When Mary’s marriage was known for certain in London, the Archduke’s
suit was being laboriously discussed; but almost immediately afterwards,
the renewed hopes of Leicester already referred to were noticed. It was
felt that, now that Mary’s marriage to a subject had taken place, one of
Elizabeth’s principal reasons for contracting an alliance with a son of
the House of Austria disappeared, and a precedent had been set for her
marriage with a man not belonging to a sovereign house.
Swetkowitz therefore found that he had to encounter all manner of new
conditions and demands from the Queen, which drove him to despair, and
Guzman looked upon the Austrian’s chance as a very poor one indeed. The
Earl of Sussex and Cecil did their best to keep the matter afoot, whilst
Leicester and Throgmorton openly proclaimed the hollowness of the whole
negotiation. The old Earl of Arundel asked Guzman to dinner at Nonsuch
early in August, apparently for the purpose of dissociating the English
Catholics from the intrigues of both parties. He assured the Spaniard
“that the men who surrounded the Queen did not wish her to marry. I said
it was quite possible that some of them who thought they might get the
prize for themselves might wish to hinder it; but as for Secretary Cecil,
I thought that his disagreement with Robert (Leicester) might well lead
him to support the Archduke, if it were not for the question of religion.
He (Arundel) told me not to believe that Cecil wanted the Queen to marry.
He was ambitious and fond of ruling, and liked everything to pass through
his hands, and if the Queen had a husband he would have to obey him.”
This view of the matter is not improbable; but it is certain that Cecil,
in any case, would resist to the last the marriage of the Queen with
Leicester, under the patronage of either France or Spain. Such a marriage
would have imperilled the results of his strenuous labour, and would
have thrown England back into the slough from which the Queen and he had
rescued it.
When Leicester’s star was seen to be in the ascendant, and the Archduke’s
chance waned, Cecil and his friends once more revived the suit of the
King of Sweden. Splendid presents of sables and valuable plate came to
the Queen and her court; and Eric’s romantic sister Cecilia, Margravine
of Baden, again made ready for her much-desired visit to England, where
she arrived early in September. At the water-gate of Durham House, where
she lodged as the Queen’s guest, Leicester’s opponents were assembled in
force to bid her welcome. The Countess of Sussex, Lady Bacon, Lady Cecil,
and Cecil himself, all did honour to the Swedish King’s sister, and
Elizabeth was overwhelming in her cordiality for the first royal visitor
she had entertained since her accession; but the Princess wore out her
welcome, and nothing came of her visit, though it served its purpose of
again spoiling the appearance of Leicester’s chances for a time.
In the meanwhile, English money and men were supporting Murray and the
Protestant Lords against Mary and Darnley, who were sending emissaries
to the Pope, to Cardinal Lorraine, to Flanders, and to Philip, begging
for help for the faith. When Elizabeth was remonstrated with by Guzman,
De Foix, and Mauvissière, for helping rebels against their Queen, and
for her harsh treatment of Lady Margaret, she replied that she had been
shamefully deceived, but what she was doing was to endeavour to rescue
Mary from the hands of her enemies, into which she had fallen, and she
blamed Darnley and his Catholic friends more than Mary. The same excuse,
said Guzman, which she used when she helped the French rebel Huguenots.
At the end of September a special meeting of the full Council was held,
at which Cecil set forth the position with regard to Scotland, and the
policy it was proposed to adopt. He pointed out the many reasons that
existed for distrusting the French, who were very busy in Scottish
affairs since Mary’s marriage;[223] and he told the Council that Mary had
sent Darnley’s secretary, Yaxley,[224] to beg aid of Philip, in addition
to the letters sent through Guzman, and to the Pope. The interference of
the Catholic powers in Scotland, he said, was a menace to England; and it
was decided that all preparations should be made for war upon the Border,
as a measure of precaution, whilst an embassy was sent from England to
endeavour to effect a reconciliation between Mary and the Protestant
Lords.
Before any decided steps could be taken, however, Murray retired into
England, and arrived in London on the 22nd October. The Queen affected
anger, and received him sternly in the presence of her Council and of
the French Ambassador. Murray was dressed in deep mourning, and entered
humbly. Kneeling, he addressed the Queen in Scots. She told him to speak
in French, which he said he understood but imperfectly. Notwithstanding
this, she addressed to him a long harangue in French, for the edification
of De Foix and Mauvissière. “God preserve her,” she said, “from helping
rebels, especially against one whom she had regarded as a sister.” She
understood that their rising was in consequence of the Queen’s marriage
without the consent of Parliament, and of fear that their religious
liberty would be infringed. But if she thought he, Murray, had planned
anything against his sovereign, she would at once arrest and punish him.
Murray justified himself, and threw himself upon her generosity, and
Elizabeth replied that she would refer the whole matter to her Council.
All this scene was for the purpose of putting herself right with France
and Spain, and had been arranged on the previous night, when Murray was
closeted with the Queen and Cecil. Cecil’s own minute of the interview
agrees closely with that of Guzman, just quoted. “Her Majesty asked him
(Murray), in the presence of several persons, if he had ever undertaken
anything against the person of his Queen. He denied it firmly and
solemnly, saying, if it might be proved that he was either consenting
or privy to any such intent, he besought her Majesty to cause his head
to be struck off and sent to Scotland … he testified before God that in
all his counsels he had no other meaning but principally the honour of
Almighty God, by conserving the state of His religion in Scotland.… And,
to conclude, her Majesty spoke very roundly to him … that she would by
her actions let it appear that she would not for the price of a world
maintain any subject in disobedience against his prince.”[225]
Cecil’s characteristic policy is plainly seen in the Queen’s treatment
of Murray. He invariably endeavoured to keep Elizabeth legally in the
right, and usually with success. But still Murray and the Scottish
Protestants were now his main instruments for preventing the danger
approaching England over the Scottish Border. The old national lines of
division had grown fainter with the international league of Catholics
facing a league of Protestants. Mary Stuart had definitely thrown in her
lot with the former, in the hope of satisfying her ambition;[226] and the
Scottish spectre was perhaps more threatening to England at this moment
than ever it had been before. The obvious course was that which Cecil
followed—namely, to avoid an excuse for a national war or for foreign
interference, and to encourage the Scottish Protestants to stand for the
liberties they had won; whilst assuming as indisputable that they were
not in arms against their sovereign, but against their enemies and hers,
who had interposed between the Queen and her loving subjects.
CHAPTER VIII
1566-1567
Through the spring of 1566 the unfortunate Mary Stuart hurried to her
destruction. Her dislike of her husband increased as Bothwell obtained
more influence over her; all prudence with regard to the overt favouring
of Catholicism was cast aside, Murray and the “rebels” were sternly
forbidden to return to Scotland, and the breach between Mary and “her
good sister” grew wider every day. Nor is this to be wondered at.
Randolph was busy in supporting the Protestants, and had been warned away
from Mary’s court. His letters to Cecil are full of dread foreboding
of disaster to come, foreboding which most historians interpret as
foreknowledge. Cecil’s enemies have sought industriously to connect him
with the sanguinary scenes which were shortly afterwards enacted in
Scotland; but they have always reasoned from the information contained
in Randolph’s letters to him, which in no case can be considered as
evidence against him. That he was aware before Rizzio’s murder that some
sort of plot existed,[227] and that Murray and his friends were parties
to it, is certain; but that he himself had any share in its concoction,
so far as the killing of Rizzio is concerned, has never been proved, and
is most improbable.[228] As has been seen, his remedy for the Scottish
danger was not murder; for so far-seeing a man must have known that the
killing of a favourite secretary could not divert Mary from the league of
Catholic sovereigns, or alter her policy towards England whilst Huntly,
Bothwell, and Athol were at her side, and papal emissaries in her close
confidence. The killing of Rizzio satisfied Darnley’s spite, and served
Murray’s and Argyll’s personal ends, but was more likely to injure than
benefit English national objects.
What Cecil was personally doing during the first three months of 1566
was to strengthen the Protestant party in Scotland by money and promises
of support,[229] whilst dividing the Catholic sovereigns upon whom Mary
Stuart depended, by working desperately to bring the Archduke’s match to
a successful issue. With him now, in addition to the Earl of Sussex, were
the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Arundel, and many others who usually
leant to the Catholic side; for Leicester was openly under French
influence, always suspicious in the eyes of old-fashioned Englishmen, and
now more than ever distrusted, for Cardinal Lorraine’s agents were around
Mary, and the Guisan Rambouillet was carrying the Order of St. Michael to
Darnley, with loving messages to the Queen of Scots.
On the last day of January 1566, Cecil and other Councillors went to
Guzman’s house to discuss the eternal question of the trade regulations
and the suppression of piracy. When their conference was finished, Cecil
took the Ambassador aside and urgently besought him to use his great
influence with the Queen in favour of the Archduke’s suit. The next day
the request was pressed even more warmly by Sussex, who told Guzman that
the majority of the Council had decided to address a joint note on the
subject to the Queen. The Spaniard was not enthusiastic, for he did not
wish to break entirely with Leicester in view of possibilities; but on
the 2nd February he broached the subject to the Queen and discussed it
at length. She was, as usual, diplomatic and shifty; but whenever she
was uncomfortably pressed, began to talk of her marriage with Leicester
as a possibility; and two days afterwards Guzman saw her walking in the
gallery at Whitehall with Leicester, who, she said, was just persuading
her to marry him, “as she would do if he were a king’s son.” People
thought, she continued, that it was Leicester’s fault she was unmarried,
and it had made him so unpopular that he would have to leave court.
Almost daily Cecil or Sussex urged the Ambassador to favour the Archduke
with the Queen, and were untiring in their attempts to induce the
Archduke himself to come to England, in the hope of forcing the Queen’s
hand. As a means to the same end they continued to sow jealousy between
the Catholic sovereigns. “Cecil tells me,” writes Guzman (2nd March),
“that so great and constant are the attempts of the French to hinder
this marriage, and to perturb the peace and friendship between your
Majesty and this country, that they leave no stone unturned with that
object. They are gaining over Lord Robert with gifts and favours, and
are even doing the same with Throgmorton. It is true that Cecil is not
friendly with them, but I think he tells me the truth with regard to
it.”[230] Again, when Sir Robert Melvil, who had come from Mary to pray
Elizabeth to release Lady Margaret, was leaving London on his return,
Cecil begged him to see Guzman before his departure, “as no person had
done so much as he had to bring about concord between the two Queens,
and he (Cecil) thought that if the differences could be referred to him
(Guzman) for arbitration, they might easily be settled.” Guzman thought
so too, and wrote by Melvil to Mary to that effect, advising her to
abandon arrogant pretensions, and accept such honourable terms as should
satisfy Elizabeth;[231] and, as a preliminary, he exhorted her to live
on good terms with her husband. Before Melvil left Cecil, the latter
told him that they had news of Rizzio’s murder (this was written on the
18th March), and at the same time there came a messenger from Murray,
saying that he had returned into Scotland (from Newcastle) on a letter
of assurance from Darnley. The Earl of Murray had entered Edinburgh in
triumph the day after the murder, and the Queen and Darnley had together
started for Dunbar.
Another opportunity for Cecil to breed dissensions between Spain and
France came when the news arrived of Pero Melendez’s massacre of the
French settlement in Florida, on the ground that the territory belonged
to the King of Spain. The Queen professed herself to Guzman delighted at
such good news; but was surprised that Florida was claimed by Spain, as
she always thought that the Frenchman Ribault had discovered it; indeed
she had seriously thought of conquering it herself. Guzman saw Cecil
when he left the Queen (30th March), and the Secretary had nothing but
reprobation for Coligny, who had sent out the French Florida expedition.
“He said your Majesty should proclaim your rights with regard to Florida,
that they might be known everywhere.” Cecil, shortly before this, whilst
discussing the question of Hawkins’ voyages to Guinea and South America,
said that he himself had been offered a share in the enterprise, but
that he did not care to have anything to do with such adventures. By
all this it will be seen that Cecil’s strenuous efforts to combat the
Catholic league, which might lend to Mary Stuart a united support against
England, took the traditional form of drawing the House of Austria to the
side of England, and causing jealousy between France and Spain. He knew
that in the long-run national antipathies were stronger than religious
affinities, and that the Catholic league, which had been ineffectual
after the peace of Cateau-Cambresis (1559), could with time and industry
be broken again.[232]
But while Cecil approached Spain in order to divide her from France, he
never forgot that Philip was the champion of the Catholics throughout the
world, and kept his eyes on every movement which might forebode ill to
England. His spies in Flanders were daily sending reports of the rumours
there of King Philip’s attitude towards the resistance of the Flemish
nobles to the Inquisition; indeed, as Guzman writes to his master (29th
April): “These people have intelligence from everywhere, and are watching
religious affairs closely; but it is difficult to understand what they
are about, and with whom they correspond, as Cecil does it all himself,
and does not trust even his own secretary.”[233]
Cecil might well be vigilant, for Mary Stuart’s plots went on
unceasingly.[234] Sir Robert Melvil arrived in London in May, again
to discuss the question of the succession, and to ask Elizabeth to
stand sponsor for Mary’s expected child; but, greatly to Elizabeth’s
indignation, he brought amiable letters from the Scottish Queen to the
Earl of Northumberland and other English Catholic nobles; and whilst he
was in London, an emissary from Mary Stuart to the Pope passed through on
his return to Scotland with 20,000 crowns from the Pontiff, and a promise
of 4000 crowns a month to pay a thousand soldiers for her (Mary’s)
defence. An envoy, too, of the rebel Shan O’Neil was at the same time
lurking in Edinburgh, conferring with the Queen.
All this was known to Cecil and Elizabeth, and drove them ever nearer
to Spain and to the Archduke’s match, Leicester himself, probably out
of jealousy of Ormonde, who was vigorously flirting with the Queen, now
openly siding with the Austrian. Even Throgmorton was reconciled with
Cecil by the Earls of Pembroke and Leicester, who promised the Secretary
that Throgmorton should no longer thwart his policy.
On the 23rd June, Sir James Melvil arrived with breakneck speed in London
from Edinburgh, with news of the birth of Mary Stuart’s heir.[235] It was
late, but Sir Robert Melvil, the Ambassador, lost no time in conveying
the tidings to Cecil, whose own entry of the event in the Perpetual
Calendar at Hatfield runs thus: “1566, 19 June, was borne James at
Edinburgh inter horæ 10 et 11 matutino.” Cecil promised to keep the
news secret from the court until Mary’s own messenger could convey it
officially to the Queen. Elizabeth was at Greenwich at the time, and
when Cecil arrived she was “in great mirth dancing after supper.” Cecil
approached the Queen and whispered in her ear, and in a moment the
secret was out and all joy vanished. With a burst of envy, Elizabeth,
almost in tears, told her ladies that the Queen of Scots was mother of
a fair boy, whilst she, Elizabeth, was but a “barren stock.”[236] When
the Melvils saw her the next day she had recovered her composure, and
promised to send Cecil to Scotland to be present at the christening,
which embassy the Secretary with some difficulty evaded, “as there were
so many suspicions on both sides.”[237]
The Queen had suffered a serious illness early in the summer, which, with
the anxiety of her position, had reduced her to a very low condition.
It was decided that a progress should be undertaken for her health, in
which the University of Oxford could be visited, and Cecil be specially
honoured by a stay of the Queen at his house of Burghley. She left London
in July, and underwent an ordeal at Oxford similar to that which she had
experienced two years before at Cambridge. The vestments controversy was
raging with great bitterness, clergymen were deprived and punished for
contumacy, pulpit and press were silenced, and the Protestants resentful.
Cecil was firm, but diplomatic, and the Queen indignant that her laws
should be called into question. Under the circumstances it required great
tact on both sides to avoid any untoward event during the Queen’s visit
to Oxford, where the Puritan party was very strong. Leicester and Cecil
were both with the Queen, the former strongly favouring the Puritans, the
latter taking his stand on the Queen’s order for the discipline of the
Church. On the Queen’s reception, the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Humphreys,
one of the leaders of the anti-vestment party, approached to kiss the
Queen’s hand. “Mr. Doctor,” said the Queen, smiling, “that loose gown
becomes you mighty well; I wonder your notions should be so narrow.”
Once, during the speech of the public orator, tender ground was touched,
but the visit passed over without further embittering an already bitter
controversy, and Leicester and Cecil, Puritan Knollys, Catholic Howard
of Effingham, and many others received the honorary degree of Master of
Arts.[238]
Cecil’s own entries in his journal of the period are meagre enough:—
“1566. June. Fulsharst, a foole, was suborned to speak slanderously of
me at Greenwich to the Queen’s Majesty; for which he was committed to
Bridewell.
“June 16. A discord inter Com. Sussex et Leicester at Greenwych, ther
appeased by Her Majesty.
“August 3. The Queen’s Majesty was at Colly Weston, in Northamptonshire.
“August 5. The Queen’s Majesty at my house in Stamford.
“August 31. The Queen in progress went from Woodstock to Oxford.”
During the progress a disagreement between Cecil and Leicester took
place, as well as that mentioned between the latter and Sussex. The
communications between the Earl and the French were constant, and had
caused much heart-burning. The existence of a strong and active party
in the English court ostentatiously leaning to the French side, at a
time when Cecil’s whole policy depended upon keeping the good-will of
Spain, hampered him at every turn, and he wrote a letter to Sir Thomas
Hoby, privately instructing him to give out in France that Leicester’s
influence over the Queen had decreased, and that the French need not
court him so much as they did. When the letter arrived, Hoby, the
Ambassador, was dead, and it fell into other hands. Leicester heard of
it, and taxed Cecil, who retorted angrily.
Even in Cecil’s own house the intrigues against his policy continued. He
had sent Danett to the Emperor with the draft clauses of the proposed
marriage treaty with the Archduke, and the news from Vienna seemed to
confirm the best hopes of those who favoured the Austrian match. This,
of course, did not suit Leicester. Vulcob, the nephew of the new French
Ambassador, Bôchetel de la Forest, went to Stamford to carry his uncle’s
excuses for not coming earlier to see the Queen. As he was entering the
presence-chamber at Burghley, Leicester stopped him, and began talking
about the marriage. He hardly knew what to think, he said, but he was
sure that if the Queen ever did marry, she would choose no one but
himself for a husband. The Frenchman, no doubt, understood him. The
Archduke’s match was getting too promising, and must be checked by the
usual French move. So Vulcob took care when he saw the Queen to dwell
mainly upon the attractive physical qualities of the young King Charles
IX. Elizabeth was never tired of such a subject, and very soon the French
Ambassador was warmly intriguing to bring forward his master’s suit
again, as a counterpoise to the Austrian hopes, but really in Leicester’s
interests, whilst presents and loving messages came thick and fast from
France to Leicester and Throgmorton. The Emperor’s reply by Danett was,
after all, not so encouraging as Cecil and Sussex had been led to expect,
and Leicester’s hopes rose higher than ever. During the Queen’s progress
he arranged with his friends a scheme which seemed as if it would stop
the Archduke’s chances for ever. Parliament was to meet in October,
and the plan was to influence both Houses to press the Queen on the
questions of the succession and her marriage, “so that by this means the
Archduke’s business may be upset … and then he (Leicester) may treat of
his own affair at his leisure.” It was clear that any attempt on the part
of the Puritans and Leicester to force the Queen’s hands with regard to
the marriage whilst the delicate religious question was under discussion
with the Emperor, would put an end to the negotiations, and Cecil and
his friends strove their utmost to avoid such a result. They urged
Guzman again to persuade the Queen to the match; the Duke of Norfolk
came purposely to court with the same object, and for once Cecil himself
was willing, in appearance, to place the religious question in the
background. “Cecil,” writes Guzman, “desires this business so greatly,
that he does not speak about the religious point; but this may be deceit,
as his wife is of a contrary opinion, and thinks that great trouble may
be caused to the peace of the country through it. She has great influence
with her husband, and no doubt discusses the matter with him; but she
appears a much more furious heretic than he is.” Well might the Queen and
Cecil be apparently more anxious to sink religious differences than Lady
Cecil, for they probably knew how imminent the danger was better than she.
The Protestants in Flanders and Holland were in open revolt; and slow
Philip was collecting in Spain and Italy an overwhelming force by land
and sea, with which he himself was to come as the avenger of his injured
kingship, and crush the rising spirit of religious reform. If such an
army as his swept over and desolated his Netherlands, whither next might
it turn? For six years Elizabeth had kept Spain from harming her, out
of jealousy of France; but France was now more than half Guisan, and in
favour of Mary Stuart, and the Huguenots themselves had deserted England
when she was fighting their battle at Havre. No help, then, could be
expected from France if Spain attacked Elizabeth for her “heresy”; and
the Queen and her wise minister were fain to conciliate a foe they
were not powerful enough to face in the open. Elizabeth went beyond
the Spaniard himself in her violent denunciation of the insurgents in
the Netherlands. Their only aim, she said, was liberty against God and
princes. They had neither reason, virtue, nor religion. She excused
herself for having helped the French Huguenots, which she only did, she
said, to recover Calais. If the Netherlands rebels came to her for help,
she would show them how dearly she held the interests of her good brother
King Philip; “and she cursed subjects who did not recognise the mercy
that God had shown them in sending them a prince so clement and humane
as your Majesty.”[239] Cecil was not quite so extravagant as this, but
he missed no opportunity at so critical a juncture of drawing nearer to
Spain, and was even more compliant than ever before on the vexed subject
of the English right to trade in the Spanish Indies. “Cecil is well
disposed in this matter,” writes Guzman, “and I am not surprised that
the others are not, as they are interested. Cecil assures me that he has
always stood aloof from similar enterprises.”
In the meanwhile Leicester’s persistent efforts to hamper Cecil’s policy
were bearing fruit. With great difficulty Cecil persuaded the House of
Commons to vote the supplies before the question of the succession was
dealt with, but a free fight on the floor of the House preceded the vote.
The Queen was irritated beyond measure at the inopportune activity of the
extreme party about the succession. Sussex, the Spanish Ambassador, and
others of Catholic leanings, pointed out to her that if she married the
Archduke there would be an end of the trouble, and she need not then
think of any successor other than her own children. At length a joint
meeting of the two Houses adopted an address to the Queen, urging her
to appoint a successor if she did not intend to marry. When the address
was presented, her rage passed all decency.[240] The Duke of Norfolk,
her own kinsman, and the first subject of the realm, was insulted with
vulgar abuse, which well-nigh reduced him to tears. Leicester, Pembroke,
Northampton, and Howard were railed at and scolded in turn; only once did
she soften somewhat towards Leicester. She had thought, she said, that
if all the world had abandoned her, he would never do so. What do the
devils want? she asked Guzman. Oh! your Majesty, replied the Ambassador,
what they want is liberty, and if monarchs do not combine against it,
it is easy to see how it will all end. She would send the ungrateful
fellow Leicester away, she said, and the Archduke might now be without
suspicion. Gradually, as she calmed, her diplomacy asserted itself, and
cleverly, by alternations of threats and cajolery, she reduced Parliament
to the required condition of invertebrate dependence upon her will.[241]
All this, we may be sure, did not decrease the ill-feeling in the court,
which for the next six months became a hotbed of intrigue. On the one
side were Norfolk, Sussex, the Conservatives, and the Catholics, aided
by Guzman, and cautiously supported by Cecil and Bacon; whilst on the
other, Leicester, Throgmorton, Pembroke, Knollys, and the Puritans,
backed by the French Ambassador, ceaselessly endeavoured to check the
Austrian-Spanish friendship, and if possible, above all, to ruin Sussex
and prevent his embassy to the Emperor. That Leicester would stick at no
inconsistency is seen by the curious fact that, whilst he was nominally
heading the Puritan party, he, according to Melvil, was strenuously
favouring the claims of the Queen of Scots to the succession. He assured
Elizabeth that this would be her best safeguard, or “Cecil would undo
all,” the reason for this being that Cecil was known to be in favour of
Catharine Grey.
On the 14th February 1567, Cecil sent word to his friend Guzman that he
had just received secret advice of the murder of Darnley, of which he
gave some hasty particulars. The intelligence could hardly have come
as a surprise to the Spaniard, for a month previously he had informed
Philip that some such act was contemplated. Within a few hours of the
reception of the news in London, Leicester sent his brother, the Earl of
Warwick, to Catharine Grey’s husband, to offer him his services in the
matter of the succession. Five days afterwards Sir James Melvil came with
full particulars of the foul deed at Kirk o’ Field, and at once rumour
was busy with the name of Mary Stuart as an accomplice in her husband’s
death. Elizabeth expressed sorrow and compassion on the day she heard
the news, but rather doubtfully told Guzman “that she could not believe
that the Queen of Scots could be to blame for so dreadful a thing,
notwithstanding the murmurs of the people.” When Guzman, however, pointed
out to her how dangerous it would be for the opposite party (Catharine
Grey’s friends) to make capital out of the accusation, the Queen agreed
that it would be wise to discountenance it, and to keep friendly with
Mary Stuart, in order to prevent her from falling under French influence
again.
In a letter from Cecil to Norris (20th February) he says: “The Queen
sent yesterday my Lady Howard and my wife to Lady Lennox, in the Tower,
to open this matter to her, who could not by any means be kept from such
passions of mind as the horribleness of the fact did require.… I hope
her Majesty will show some favourable compassion of the said lady, whom
any humane nature must needs pity.… The most suspicion that I can hear
is of Earl Bothwell, yet I would not be thought the author of any such
report.”[242] Lady Margaret, in her agony of grief, made no scruple at
first in accusing her daughter-in-law of complicity in the murder; but
the bereaved mother left the Tower on the following day, doubtless warned
of the unwisdom of saying what she thought. At least, when she saw Sir
James Melvil she told him, “She did not believe that Mary had been a
party to the death of her son, but she could not help complaining of her
bad treatment of him.” But whatever she might say, the spirits of the
Catholic party in England sank to zero at the black cloud which hovered
over their candidate. “Every day it becomes clearer that the Queen of
Scotland must take some step to prove that she had no hand in the death
of her husband if she is to prosper in her claims to the succession
here,”[243] wrote Guzman. Fortunately this book is not the place in
which to discuss the vexed question of Mary’s complicity in Darnley’s
death, but her contemporaries both in England and Scotland, as well as
abroad, certainly thought her guilty. Cecil, writing to Sir Henry Norris
in March, mentions the suspicions against Bothwell, Balfour, &c., and
says, “There are words added, which I am loth to report, that touch the
Queen of Scots, which I hold best to be suppressed. Further, such persons
anointed are not to be thought ill of without manifest proof.”[244]
And again, a few days afterwards, he says, “The Queen of Scots is not
well spoken of.” The entry of the event in Cecil’s journal makes no
mention of Mary. It runs thus: “Feb. 9. The L. Darnley, K. of Scots, was
killed and murdered near Edenburgh;” and on the following day the news
is amplified thus: “Feb. 10. _Hora secunda post mediam noctem Hen. Rex
Scotiæ interfectus fuit, per Jac Co. Bothwell, Jac Ormeston de Ormeston,
Hob Ormeston patrem dicti Jac Ormeston, Tho Hepbourn._”
Morette, the Duke of Savoy’s special envoy to Scotland, had left
Edinburgh the day after the murder, and on his way through London saw
Guzman. The Queen of Scots had assured Morette that she would avenge
her husband’s death, and punish the murderers, but he made no secret of
his belief that she had prior knowledge of the plan. Whilst Morette was
dining with Guzman and the French Ambassador, a French messenger named
Clerivault arrived at the house, bringing a letter from Mary to the
Queen of England, claiming her pity, and similar letters for Catharine
de Medici, the Archbishop of Glasgow, and others,[245] denouncing
the crime.[246] Mary, indeed, lost no time in endeavouring to put
herself right before the world. She offered rewards for the discovery
of the murderers; but when all fingers are pointed at Bothwell and his
creatures, when public placards were posted in the capital accusing them
and hinting at the Queen’s complicity, Mary still kept the principals
at her side, and made no move against their subaltern instruments. In
vain, for a time, the bereaved father Lennox demanded vengeance; in vain
Elizabeth, by Killigrew, sent indignant letters to Mary; in vain the
Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow exhorted her to prove her own innocence by
pursuing the offenders without mercy. Bothwell stood ever by her side,
and his clansmen cowed the murmuring citizens who looked with aversion
now upon their beautiful young Queen. At length, goaded to take some
action by the danger of losing the Catholic support, upon which alone
she had depended, she held the sham trial in the Edinburgh Tolbooth two
months after the crime. Lennox refused to attend the travesty of justice,
and Bothwell was unanimously acquitted. Murray had left the court before
the murder, and fled to France when the result of the trial was known.
Bothwell, loaded with favours, insolent with success, seemed to hold
Scotland and the Queen in the hollow of his hand. The nobles were mostly
bought or threatened into shameful compliance, and only the “preachers”
and the townsfolk kept alive the growing horror of the Queen. No longer,
even, did the humble peasant women hesitate, before Mary’s face, to make
their loyal blessing conditional upon her innocence.[247] What was
horrified doubt before became indignant reprobation when, only three
months after Darnley’s death, Mary married the hastily divorced Bothwell.
Then came the hurried flight in disguise towards Dunbar, the gathering of
the nobles, the flight of Bothwell at Carbery Hill, and the conveyance of
the disgraced Queen to Edinburgh. When nothing but vows of defiance and
vengeance against Bothwell’s enemies could be obtained from her, and it
was clear that the unfortunate woman was deaf to reason and decency, came
the crowning degradation of Lochleven, and Mary Stuart’s sun set to rise
no more.
To a short life of turbulent pleasure succeeded twenty years of plotting
against the peace and independence of England and the cause of religious
liberty. During that twenty years Cecil and his mistress were pitted
against one of the cleverest women in Europe, supported by all that was
discontented in England and Scotland, and all that was distinctively
Catholic abroad. In the critical position caused by the rising of the
Protestant Lords against Bothwell and the Queen, Cecil’s view diverged
somewhat from that of Elizabeth. The latter was naturally first concerned
at the want of respect shown on all sides to an anointed sovereign, which
subject was always a tender one with her; whereas the Secretary was still
anxious, before all else, to exclude French influence from Scotland.
Writing to Norris in France (26th June), he conveys the news of Mary’s
restraint, and at the same time encloses letters from Scotland recalling
Murray (then at Lyons), “the sending of which letters requireth great
haste, whereof you must not make the Scottish Ambassador privy.[248]… The
best part of the (Scots) nobility hath confederated themselves to follow,
by way of justice, the condemnation of Bothwell and his complices in the
murder of the King. Bothwell defends himself by the Queen’s maintenance
and the Hamiltons, so he hath some party, though it be not great. The
15th of this month he brought the Queen into the field with her power,
which was so small, as he escaped himself without fighting and left
the Queen in the field; and she yielded herself to the Lords, flatly
denying to grant justice against Bothwell, so as they have restrained
her in Lochleven until they come unto the end of their pursuit against
Bothwell.… Murray’s return into Scotland is much desired by them, and for
the weal both of England and Scotland I wish he were here. For his manner
of returning and safety, I pray require Mr. Stewart to have good care.…
The French Ambassador, and Villeroy, who is there (in Scotland), pretend
favour to the Lords, with great offers; and it may be that they may do
as much on the other side” (_i.e._ in France).[249] It was this last
possibility which so much disturbed Cecil, and it was to avert it that
Murray’s return was so ardently desired, for he was known always to be
opposed to the French influence in his country. In August, after Murray
had returned to Scotland (visiting Elizabeth at Windsor on his way home
at the end of July), Cecil wrote again to Norris: “You shall perceive
by the Queen’s letter to you herewith how earnestly she is bent in the
favour of the Queen of Scots; and truly since the beginning she hath been
greatly offended with the Lords in this action;[250] yet no counsel
can stay her Majesty from manifesting of her misliking of them; _so as,
indeed, I think thereby the French may, and will, easily catch them_,
and make their present profit of them, to the damage of England. In this
behalf her Majesty had no small misliking of that book which you sent me
written in French, whose (author’s) name yet I know not; but, howsoever,
I think him of great wit and acquaintance in the affairs of the world. It
is not in my power to procure any reward, and therefore you must so use
the matter as he neither be discouraged nor think unkindness in me.”[251]
How much Cecil dreaded renewed French interference in Scotland is seen at
this time by his ever-growing cordiality towards Spain. An acrimonious
discussion was going on, both in London and in Paris, with regard to
the restoration of Calais to England, which was now due by the treaty
of Cateau-Cambresis. Cecil and the Queen were both emphatic in their
condemnation of the Protestant risings in the Spanish Netherlands, though
French agents kept whispering to Guzman that help was being sent thither
by England. The union between Cecil and the Spaniard was nevertheless
closer than ever. The latter, in March, secretly told Cecil that the King
of France was sending De Croc to Scotland,[252] and that there seemed to
be some mystery brewing in that quarter. The Secretary replied that he
knew it; they had a plot to steal the Prince of Scotland and take him to
France, but that steps had been taken to prevent such a thing. Guzman
thereupon urged the Queen of England to have the infant Prince brought to
England, Mary having told Killigrew that she was willing that this should
be done.[253] Indeed, at this time Cecil’s perseverance had quite won
Spanish sympathy, and had widened the rift in the Catholic league, as was
necessary for England’s safety, Guzman being if anything more eager than
Cecil to checkmate the intrigues of the French in Scotland.
The efforts on the other side were just as incessant to divide Spain from
England, and more than once at this period caused temporary estrangement
between them. In June a somewhat unexpected embassy came from the
Emperor, with the object of asking Elizabeth for monetary aid against
the Turk. The principal Ambassador, Stolberg, was a Protestant, and the
Queen immediately jumped at the incorrect conclusion that he had come
to arrange for the wedding of the Archduke. Before even he arrived in
London, Stolberg had been persuaded that a great Catholic league had
been formed, including his own sovereign the Emperor, with the object
of crushing Elizabeth and rooting out Protestantism from Europe; and
when, at his formal reception at Richmond,[254] the Queen gave Stolberg
an unfavourable reply to his request for aid against the Turk, Cecil
took Guzman, who accompanied him, aside and told him that the Queen and
Council had learned the particulars of a league of the Catholic powers
against Elizabeth and the Protestants,[255] in favour of the Queen of
Scots. The better to effect the object, he said, the Emperor had made
a disadvantageous truce with the Turk, whereat the English Council was
much scandalised, and was determined to make all necessary preparations,
this being the reason why the Queen had answered the Ambassador so
unfavourably.[256] Guzman was shocked that so sensible a person as Cecil
should believe such nonsense. Probably Cecil knew as well as Guzman
that the league was dead, so far as united action against England was
concerned; but such attempts as this, to serve French ends by arousing
jealousy between Spain and England, were constant, and occasionally, as
in this instance, aroused some distrust on one side or the other.[257]
As soon as the detention of Mary Stuart was known by the French
Government an attempt was made to gain Murray to the side of France, in
order to obtain possession of the infant Prince. Murray delayed pledging
himself until he received the letters from the Lords and from Cecil,
already referred to. He then started with all haste for Scotland, taking
London on the way. Whilst in London at the end of July he saw Guzman,
and told him as a secret that he had not even communicated to Elizabeth,
that a letter existed which proved conclusively the guilt of his sister
in the murder of her husband.[258] It was evident thus early that Murray,
whilst expressing sympathy for his sister, and deprecating generally
any derogation of the dignity of a sovereign, was determined that Mary
Stuart should do no more harm to Protestantism or the relationship
between Scotland and England, if he could help it. “He said he would do
his best to find some means by which she should remain Queen, but without
sufficient liberty to do them any harm, or marry against the will of her
Council and Parliament.”[259] It is evident, from a letter from Cecil to
Norris, that Murray arranged with the former when in England to assume
the Regency of Scotland on his arrival, although not without misgiving on
the part of Elizabeth, even if she personally was a consenting party to
the arrangement. Murray, writing a friendly letter to Cecil early in 1568
(Hatfield Papers), mentions that a report had reached him that Cecil had
been told that he (Murray) was offended because Sir William in his first
letter had not addressed him as Regent. Murray assures him that this was
not the case, and begs him not to allow any such thought to disturb their
friendship, “the amity of the two countries being the great object of
both … although the Queen, your mistress, outwardly seems not altogether
to allow the present state here, yet I doubt not but her Highness in
heart liketh it well enough.” Elizabeth was at the time divided between
two feelings: that of indignation at any restraint being placed upon a
sovereign by subjects, and the knowledge that the imprisonment of Mary
meant the disablement of the only individual whom England had to fear.
Cecil was fully alive to the latter fact, whilst the former was to him
of quite secondary importance when compared with the national issues
involved.
When the news came of Mary’s renunciation and the crowning of the infant
James, the Lords wrote to Elizabeth, saying that either she must protect
them, or they must accept a French alliance; and she was then obliged
to prefer the interests of England to her reverence for the sacredness
of a sovereign. Guzman thus tells the story: “The Queen told me she did
not know what was best to be done, and asked my opinion, pointing out to
me the inexpediency of showing favour to so bad an example, and, on the
other hand, the danger to her of a new alliance of these people with the
French … I think I see more inclination on her part to aid them (the
Scots) than the case at present demands, as I gave her many reasons for
delay, whilst she still insisted that it was necessary to act at once.”
The next day (August 9) the tone of the Queen had somewhat changed. She
would, she said, recall Throgmorton from Scotland, as it was beneath her
dignity to have an Ambassador accredited to a sovereign in duress,[260]
and she would refuse her protection and aid to the Lords. The reason
for this perhaps was that “the letter she writes to Throgmorton is very
short. I have seen it, though I could not read it. It was in the hands
of Lord Robert (_i.e._ Leicester), who dictated it, and he carried it to
the Queen for signature in my presence, _Cecil not being present_.”[261]
Cecil, indeed, at this juncture had to proceed with great caution, and,
as usual, by indirect and devious ways. Leicester, Pembroke, and their
friends had now (August), as Guzman says, “no rivals, as Secretary Cecil
proceeds respectfully, and the rest who might support him are absent. He
knows well, however, that he is more diligent than they, and so keeps his
footing.”
In the meanwhile the Catholics in England were allowed almost perfect
immunity, whilst, on the other hand, strong land and sea forces were
mustered, as a counterbalance to the great army to be led into Flanders
by Alba. The closest friendship existed between the Spaniards and Cecil,
who was never tired of assuring Guzman that Hawkins’ great expedition,
then on the coast bound for Guinea, should under no circumstances do
anything prejudicial in any of the territories of the King of Spain;
notwithstanding which, and the fact that Philip’s Flemish fleet had just
been effusively welcomed at Dover, John Hawkins himself, when the same
fleet put into Plymouth, fired a few cannon shots at the flagship, and
banged away until the Spanish flag was hauled down, to the unspeakable
indignation of the Flemish admiral.
Things were in this condition in the autumn of 1567, all Europe being on
the alert watching the gathering of the storm over the Netherlands. So
long as there was any danger of French interference in Scotland, or of
the Catholic powers taking up the cause of Mary Stuart, Elizabeth, and
more especially Cecil, drew closer to Spain and the Catholic party in
England. But events moved quickly, and the whole aspect changed within a
few weeks. Almost simultaneously, in September 1567, came from different
quarters two preliminary thunderclaps that announced the tempest. The
advent of Alba in the Netherlands on his mission of vengeance had sent
affrighted fugitives flying in swarms across the narrow seas to England;
but when, on the 9th September, after the treacherous dinner-party in
Brussels, the two highest heads in Flanders, Egmont and Horn, were struck
at, and the bearers lodged in jail, all the world knew that the great
struggle had begun between liberty and Protestantism on the one side,
and tyranny and Catholicism on the other. Thanks mainly to Elizabeth
and Cecil, it was not to be fought out on British soil. Only a few weeks
afterwards came the news of Condé’s attempt to seize the young King of
France and his mother, and to rescue them from the influence of Cardinal
Lorraine. The attempt failed, but soon all France was ablaze with civil
war, for the Protestant worm at last had turned. Betrayed, as they had
been before, and face to face now with foreign mercenaries hurried into
France to suppress them, the convinced Huguenots decided to stand by
their faith, and fight to the death for liberty to exercise it, let
the “politicians” do what they might. The two events happening almost
together, whilst Mary Stuart was in prison under a cloud, and the rebel
Shan O’Neil in Ireland had finally fallen, at once relieved England of
all danger from without, unless the Catholic party was irresistibly
triumphant both in France and Flanders. The best way to prevent that was
to support those who were in arms against it, and the policy of Elizabeth
and Cecil was again cautiously changed accordingly.
As soon as the Queen received from Norris news of Condé’s rising, she
sent for Bôchetel, the French Ambassador, and ostentatiously condoled
with him for the disrespect shown to his sovereign. She rather overdid
the pity, and suggested that she should arbitrate between the King
and the Huguenots, but would take care that no help was given to the
latter from England. Bôchetel dryly thanked her for the assurance that
she would not help rebels _again_, but said that his King was quite
able to deal with his subjects without her assistance. Here, as in the
case of Mary Stuart, Elizabeth’s first feeling was indignation at any
disrespect being shown to a sovereign; but Cecil’s letter to Norris at
the time (November 3, 1567) shows that he and his friends looked at the
matter from another point of view,[262] which Elizabeth herself shortly
afterwards adopted, as she had done in the case of the Queen of Scots. In
the meanwhile the Council became daily more outspoken in favour of the
Huguenots. Messages of encouragement went speeding across the Channel
to Coligny, to Montgomerie, and the rest of the Huguenot leaders. Cecil
himself took Archbishop Parker to task for his leniency to Bishop Thirlby
and Dr. Boxall, who were in his custody for recusancy; and at the end of
November the official blindness as to people attending mass in London
came to an end. The English people who had worshipped undisturbed in the
Spanish Ambassador’s chapel were suddenly arrested, and many of them
sent to prison.[263] On the same day Cecil complained to Guzman that he
had promoted the breaking of the law by persuading Englishmen to attend
mass, and repeated other sinister reports about him. The Spaniard denied
the charges, and warned Cecil that, although his present attitude might
be prompted by patriotic motives, it was a dangerous one, “and that
some people were casting the responsibility upon him (Cecil), for the
purpose of making him unpopular.” Cecil, apparently, was not afraid of
this, for he had strained the loyalty of his friends almost to breaking
limits lately by the severity exercised against the anti-vestment divines
and his approaches to Spain, and doubtless welcomed the change in the
political position which allowed him to enforce uniformity upon Catholics
as well as upon his own co-religionists. There was a talk of expelling
all Catholics from the Queen’s household, and Bacon, the Chancellor,
made a speech in the Star Chamber directing the judges and officials
to put into renewed force and press vigorously, the laws against the
possession of books attacking the Protestant faith. “What most troubles
the Catholics, however,” writes Guzman, “is to see that Leicester has
become much more confirmed in his heresy, and is followed by the Earl of
Pembroke, who had been considered a Catholic. There is nobody now on the
Catholic side in the Council.”
The hollow negotiations, too, for the Archduke’s marriage, carried on
by honest Sussex in Vienna, were politely shelved; and the political
pretence which Elizabeth and Cecil had kept up for so long, of a leaning
towards the Catholic side, could safely be discarded until the renewed
liability of England to attack from without might again call for its
resumption. So far the Queen and her minister had dissembled to good
purpose, for the great struggle for the faith had been diverted from
England to the Continent, and the monarchs of France and Spain were both
busy in suppressing the religious revolts of their own subjects.
CHAPTER IX
1568-1569
Norris in France, and Cecil’s agents in Spain and Flanders, continued
to send home alarming news of the intentions of Philip and the Guises
against England. The stories were untrue, but coming from so many
quarters at the same time, were evidently not invented by the senders.
They were in fact set afloat by Philip, as a means of keeping England
in a state of apprehension, and so preventing her from sending overt
aid to the Protestants in Flanders and France. To some extent they were
successful in frightening Elizabeth, evidently to Cecil’s annoyance, for
the Secretary at least had taken Philip’s measure, and knew that his
hands were full. In a letter to Lord Cobham, written in April 1568, Cecil
gives expression to this feeling in the figurative language which he was
in the habit of employing. Cobham, as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports,
had forwarded a secret proposal of some Frenchmen in Calais to seize
that citadel and deliver it to the Huguenots to be held for Elizabeth.
The Queen was alarmed at the boldness of the plan, but promised that she
would consider it if the King of France refused her offered mediation
between him and the Huguenots. Cecil writes thereupon: “It grieveth me
to hold and follow the plough where the owner of the ground forbears
to cast in the seed in seasonable time, and I am all the more grieved
that your Lordship is in like manner discouraged. ‘_Moremus sepe sed
nihil promoremus._’ But besides the plough your Lordship follows, we
are occupied with another, meaning to join both together for surety, but
still I despair of seed.”[264]
In the meanwhile, though Elizabeth herself was still overshadowed by
the traditional might of Spain, the English Catholics were feeling, by
the increased severity exercised towards them, the changed political
situation. The English minister, and in her stronger moments the English
Queen, were speaking more firmly now than ever they had dared to do since
Elizabeth’s accession. For the first time the position was becoming
defined. It was no longer France or Spain nationally that was the enemy
of England: it was Catholic against Protestant the world over. Philip
was as nervously anxious to avoid war as Elizabeth herself, and his need
to do so much greater than hers; but if Protestantism was allowed to
become strong, then his great empire must crumble, and the basis of his
system disappear. His own slow stolidity had been in a great measure the
cause of his finding himself in so unfavourable a tactical position, for
he had allowed the champions of the autonomous rights of his Flemish
dominions—rights which at first he might easily have conciliated with his
own sovereignty—to obtain for their cause the immense added impetus of
religious reform. It was this fact which had changed the situation; and
it was accentuated in England by the activity of the Pope (Pius V.) in
establishing English seminaries abroad, and by means of money and busy
agents in England itself, raising the spirits of those who clung to the
old faith.[265]
The answer to the effervescence thus caused amongst the Catholics was the
renewed harshness against them by the English ministers and the rising
aggressiveness of the Protestants. Late in February 1568, Cecil sent word
to Guzman, with whom he was still ostensibly on friendly terms, to say
that the Queen had learnt casually that the English Ambassador in Madrid
(Dr. Man) was not allowed to hold Protestant service in the embassy.
She was surprised at this, and had sent to the Ambassador orders to
demand the same rights as were accorded to Guzman in England; if these
were denied she would recall him. Cecil himself was more outspoken and
indignant than usual, and much more so than the Queen. “They think, no
doubt, that the present troubles in France and elsewhere,” writes Guzman,
“give them a good opportunity of gaining ground, their own affairs being
favourable; so they have begun to look out more keenly, and to trouble
the Catholics, summoning some and arresting others, and warning them to
obey the present laws … they (the Council) soon change her (the Queen),
and all their efforts are directed at making her shy of me.”[266]
Guzman’s messenger to Madrid travelled more quickly than Cecil’s, and
before Dr. Man could demand his right to enjoy Protestant service, he was
unceremoniously hustled out of Madrid, without obtaining audience of the
King, the pretext being that he had in public conversation at his own
table insulted the Catholic faith.[267] Though Philip took this strong
course, he was as anxious as ever to avoid an open quarrel with England
about that or anything else, and sent all sorts of conciliatory messages
to the Queen. Dr. Man, he said, had behaved himself so outrageously that
his further stay in Spain was impossible; but if another Ambassador were
sent who would act as English Ambassadors always had done, he should be
received with open arms.
The news arrived in London at a bad time. A Portuguese Ambassador had
just come (May 1568) to complain—“brawling,” as Cecil calls it—of the
Hawkins expeditions to Guinea. He went to the audience with Guzman, and
found the Queen in a towering rage about a scurrilous letter referring
to her, written by the Cardinal Prince Dom Henrique. Cecil had obtained
possession of the letter somehow, and produced it, saying that the
presumption of the Portuguese was insufferable and made them hated by
all nations. The matter of the letter quite overshadowed the grievance
about trade, as it no doubt was intended to do, and the Portuguese got no
redress. On the contrary, Cecil called to him some Spanish residents in
London who accompanied the Ambassador to Whitehall, and warned them that
they might not attend mass at the embassy. What! not foreigners? asked
Antonio de Guaras. No, retorted Cecil, and turned his back upon them to
rejoin the Queen. The next day when Cecil saw Guzman, he complained of
Alba’s severity in Flanders, and of some insulting reference to Elizabeth
in the “Pontifical History” of Dr. Illescas, so that when Dr. Man’s
letter arrived immediately afterwards announcing his practical expulsion
from Spain, everything was prepared for an explosion. The Queen received
the news with some alarm as to what it might portend, and was at first
inclined to be conciliatory; but when Guzman visited Cecil in the Strand
two or three days afterwards, he found the Secretary in a fit of anger
unusual with him. Such treatment of an Ambassador, he said, was an
unheard-of insult to his mistress, unless it was meant as a provocation
to war. After storming for some time, he stopped for want of breath;
and it needed all Guzman’s suavity to calm him. “I waited a little for
him to recover from his rage, and then went up to him, laughing, and
embraced him, saying that I was amused to see him fly into such a passion
over what I had told him, because I knew that he understood differently.
The affair, I said, might be made good or bad as the Queen liked to
make it.”[268] But Cecil was not easily appeased. He told Guzman that
the Council regarded him with suspicion, that Englishmen were treated
harshly in Spain, and much more to the same effect, all of which was very
surprising to the Spaniard, who was unused to such plain speaking from
him. But in the ten years that Elizabeth had sat upon the throne, things
had radically changed. Cecil could afford to speak boldly to Spain now;
for whilst England had grown enormously in wealth, commerce, industry,
and shipping, under a prudent, patriotic Government, both the great
rivals she formerly feared were rent by the religious schism which the
folly or ambition of their rulers had precipitated upon them, and England
at any given moment could paralyse either of them for harm by smiling
upon their Protestant subjects.
Whilst Mary was in Lochleven Castle, Murray’s enemies, the Hamiltons
and the Catholics, were busy. Murray had tried his best by severity to
reduce the country to something approaching order, and the turbulent
chiefs who profited by anarchy resented it. The compromising papers
which implicated the ruling powers in the late deeds of murder and
violence were burnt, though not those that implicated the Queen,[269]
and the whole of the responsibility was cast upon the Queen and Bothwell.
Religious uniformity was passed by Parliament, and the exercise of
Catholic worship abolished. All this violent action, too rapid and too
partial to be readily assimilated by a country so profoundly divided as
Scotland was, naturally caused reaction in favour of Mary, and when after
one unsuccessful attempt she escaped from prison (2nd May), there were
friends in plenty to flock to her banner. The day before her flight she
had written the fervent prayer to Elizabeth, swearing unchanging fidelity
to her if she would send her help[270]—help for which she had besought
Catharine de Medici in vain; for France wanted the alliance of Scotland,
not that of Mary Stuart personally. The day after, when Mary, surrounded
by Hamiltons, was free again, the possibilities were all changed. Mary
Stuart turned in a few hours from the humble suppliant to the haughty
sovereign. Her abdication was revoked, Murray’s regency declared illegal,
and all his acts annulled. Beton was sent off post-haste to London and
Paris to demand for his mistress a thousand harquebussiers and a sum of
money. Beton’s instructions were to tell the English Government that if
they would not send the help, he was to demand it from the French. Cecil
writes to Norris,[271] 16th May, that under these circumstances the Queen
had promised all that Mary demanded; but he was to keep his eye on Beton,
and if he asked for French aid, Catharine was to be told the message he
brought from Mary to London. Before Beton left London he went to see
Guzman with a verbal message from Mary. Now that she was free, she said,
she would show the world how innocent she was, and begged for the advice
and help of Guzman and his master. She was a firmer Catholic than ever,
she averred; nearly all the people and nobles of Scotland were on her
side; but she complained that she was in the field without proper garb or
adornments, and begged Guzman to send a request to the Duke of Alba to
seize her jewels and restore them to her, if Murray sent them to Flanders
for sale.[272]
This was on the 11th May. Two days afterwards the result of the battle
of Langside once more cast the unhappy Mary Stuart into the chasm of
irredeemable misfortune, and on the 16th she fled across the Solway a
fugitive to England, to see her country no more in life. Such a step
as this was tempting fate. It is true that Elizabeth had constantly
professed sympathy for her in her captivity; but whilst the English
Queen’s words were fair, the acts of her Government, dictated not by
personal motives, such as the friends of Mary have absurdly tried to fix
upon Cecil, but by high national policy, had been uniformly in favour
of Murray and the Protestants. Mary’s attitude, moreover, had from the
first, and not unnaturally, been favourable to the French alliance, upon
which for centuries Scotland had depended for the preservation of its
independence; and to place herself thus unconditionally at the mercy of
the English, whose policy she had opposed and whose interests she sought
to subvert, was little short of an act of madness. Mary had no excuse for
trusting to a Quixotic generosity, of which Elizabeth had never given her
the slightest indication beyond conventional fine words, such as would
hardly deceive Mary. It was not so much that she overrated her generosity
as she underrated her boldness.
Drury in Berwick had kept Cecil informed almost from hour to hour of
the course of events in Scotland;[273] and a few hours only after Mary
landed at Workington she wrote her famous and oft-quoted letter to the
English Queen. In it she recites her sorrows, and begs Elizabeth to aid
her in her just quarrel; but, above all, to send for her as soon as
possible, “for I am in a pitiable condition, not only for a Queen but
a gentlewoman.”[274] The position was a difficult one for the English
Queen and Council. Guzman says they were much perplexed, “as the Queen
has always shown good-will to the Queen of Scots, and the majority of
the Council has been opposed to her, and favourable to the Regent and
his government. If this Queen has her way, they will have to treat Mary
as a sovereign, which will offend those who forced her to abdicate; so
that although these folks are glad enough to have her in their hands,
they have many things to consider … if she remain free, and able to
communicate with her friends, great suspicions will arise. In any case it
is certain that the two women will not agree very long together.”[275]
When Mary had arrived at Carlisle a few days afterwards, she sent Lord
Herries to London with a letter for Cecil, which may be given in full.
Mary’s letters were always clever, unless she lost her temper, as she
did sometimes, and here it will be seen that she appeals to positively
the only feeling which it was probable would move Cecil to favour her,
namely, her kinship to his mistress and her regal status. “Mester
Ceciles,” runs the letter, “L’équité, dont vous avvez le nom d’estre
amateur, et la fidelle et sincère servitude que portez a la Royne,
Madame ma bonne sœur, et par consequent a toutes celles qui sont de son
sang, et en pareille dignité, me fayt en ma juste querele, par sur tous
autres m’adresser a vous en ce temps de mon trouble pour etre avancée
par votre bon conseille, que j’ai commandé Lord Heris, presant porteur
vous fayre entandre au long.… De Karlile ce xxviii Mey. Votre bien bonne
amye Marie R.”[276] With this letter Herries brought others for the
Pope and Guzman. He demanded aid for his mistress on a pledge sent to
her by Elizabeth through Throgmorton in the form of a ring, and when
some hesitation was shown, he imprudently blurted out that if Elizabeth
did not keep her word his mistress would appeal to France, Spain, the
Emperor, and the Pope. “The Pope!” exclaimed puritan Bedford, shocked
at the idea. “Yes, the Pope,” replied Herries, “or the Grand Turk, or
the Sophi, or any one else who will help her.” This sort of talk was
sufficient to decide Mary’s removal to Bolton as a measure of precaution.
Before this took place, however, Lord Scrope and Sir Francis Knollys had
been deputed by Elizabeth to visit and confer with Mary at Carlisle.
Herries on that occasion had said that if the English would not help
his Queen, she wished to go to France; “whereupon,” writes Knollys, we
“answered that your Highness could in no wise lyke hyr sekyng aide in
France, therbie to bring Frenchmen into Skotland;” and, continued the
envoys, the Queen of England could not receive her personally until she
was satisfied of her innocence in the murder of her husband. Mary was
just as imprudent as Herries in her interview with the English envoys;
but what frightened Knollys most was the large number of her English
sympathisers in the north of England. In his letter to Elizabeth he
points out the danger of the situation, and suggests that Mary should
have the choice of freely returning to Scotland, if she chose, or of
remaining in England; but not of going to France, as she evidently wished
to do. “She was so agile and spirited,” says Knollys, that she could only
be kept a prisoner so near the Border by very rigorous means, such as
“devices of towels and toyes at her chamber window”; whereas to carry her
farther inland might cause “serious sedition.”
Elizabeth and her Council decided to run the latter risk rather than
that Mary should go to France to be a permanent thorn in the flesh of
England, and the Queen of Scots’ long imprisonment commenced.[277] Even
in the first few weeks of her stay she was busy endeavouring to subvert
English ends; appointing Chatelherault, Argyll, and Huntly to the supreme
government of the kingdom against Murray; Chatelherault being strongly
in the French interest, and daily clamouring through his brother in
Paris for French armed support. All this was known to the Queen and
Cecil; and Mary’s intemperate letters of protest against her removal
from Carlisle, and her constant threats to appeal to France and Spain
if Elizabeth would not help her,[278] made it altogether inconsistent
with prudence to allow the misguided woman her liberty. The investigation
into Mary’s guilt or innocence seems to have originated with Cecil.[279]
Left to herself, Elizabeth, as we have seen, was mainly influenced by the
personal feeling of reverence for a sovereign: Cecil could not oppose
this, and as usual took an indirect means of reaching his end. When Mary
complained to Knollys at Carlisle of the subjects who had dethroned
her, he had told her that as it was lawful for subjects to depose mad
sovereigns, it was also lawful for them to depose those who had lost
their wits to the extent of conniving at murder. Mary wept at this,
and Knollys softened the blow; but Knollys had certainly seen Cecil’s
report, and took the line suggested by it. If Mary could be shown to have
connived at Darnley’s death—and Cecil must have known of the damning
proofs against her when he proposed the negotiation—the regal immunity
fell from her like a loosened garment, and Elizabeth’s personal desire
to consider the sacredness of the monarch before the interests of the
country lost its principal resting point.
In the meanwhile the state of civil war in Scotland continued, and
news came daily of French armaments preparing to aid Mary’s party.
Cecil ceaselessly urged an armistice, and at last (1st September) was
successful, though imprudent Herries continued to threaten that if
Elizabeth did not restore the Queen of Scots to the throne in two months,
she and her friends would appeal only to France for armed aid. Elizabeth
clearly could not force Mary upon the Scottish people, and for her
interference to be effective she must be recognised as a mediator, not
by Mary alone, but also by Murray and his party. This was difficult; for
Murray knew that if the final result was to restore Mary with any power
at all, he and his party sooner or later were doomed. Thanks mainly to
the efforts of Cecil, Murray at last gave way, and the commissions of
Scotch and English Councillors were sent to York, ostensibly to mediate
between the Queen of Scots and her subjects. But Mary found herself no
longer, as she had hoped to be, the accuser of Murray, but practically on
her own trial for murder. By a remark in a letter from Cecil to Norris
at the time, he seems again with some difficulty to have avoided being
appointed a commissioner himself.
Whilst the intricate and obscure proceedings in York[280] were
progressing, Cecil’s hands were full in London. Protestant zeal was
fairly aflame now at Alba’s proceedings in the Netherlands. All eastern
England swarmed with Flemish fugitives, many of whom found their way back
home again well armed with weapons bought in England, and even more with
messages of indignant sympathy from English Protestants. Guzman protested
to Cecil again and again, but could get no more than vague half promises,
and once a proclamation, which the Spaniards described as a “compliment
rather than a remedy.”
In September the mild and diplomatic Guzman was withdrawn, much to
Elizabeth’s apprehension, and Cecil’s regret, and an Ambassador of very
different calibre was sent. For many years the warlike party in Philip’s
councils, led by Alba, had been urging him to active hostility towards
England, but the peace party of Ruy Gomez had prevented the advice
from being adopted. Now that Alba was supreme in the Netherlands, and
reported that the Protestant revolt was mainly fed from England, Philip
seems to have decided to alarm Elizabeth into neutrality by sending
a rough-tongued representative. He had felt his ground first by his
contemptuous treatment of Dr. Man, and seeing that Elizabeth had taken
it quietly, he sent as his new Ambassador a turbulent bigoted Catalan,
named Gerau de Spes, to endeavour by truculence to do what the suavity
of Guzman had failed to effect. Dutch, Huguenot, and English privateers
were preying upon Spanish shipping, to an extent which well-nigh cut
off communication by sea between Spain and northern Europe. Money and
arms, unchecked, found their way from England to the brave “beggars” in
Holland; and though Philip did not wish to fight England, it was vital
for him to paralyse her for harm. Mary Stuart had written to Philip from
Carlisle, begging him for help against Elizabeth, and the chance seemed
to Philip a good one to disturb England for his own ends, without war.
He accordingly wrote cautiously to Alba (15th September), saying that
he was willing to help Mary, but desired Alba to report upon what might
be done to that end, whilst sending reassuring promises to the Queen of
Scots.[281] From the first hour that De Spes set foot in England, he went
beyond his instructions and conspired actively against the Government to
which he was accredited.
There was more even than this untoward change to occupy the thoughts
and hands of Elizabeth’s first minister. The war had raged in France
between the Huguenots and the Catholics from September 1567 till the
clever management of Catharine had beguiled the Protestants to accept the
hollow peace of Longjumeau (March 1568). Hans Casimir and his mercenary
Germans went home; the Huguenots laid down their arms; and then again the
Catholic pulpits thundered forth that it was godly to break faith with
heretics, and that the blood shed of unbelievers sent up sweet incense
to heaven. Nearly 10,000 Huguenots were treacherously slain in three
months, and no punishment could be obtained against the murderers. Condé
and Coligny fled to the stronghold of La Rochelle, there to be joined by
the Queen of Navarre with 4000 men-at-arms, and all that was strong and
warlike on the side of the Huguenots. Elizabeth in the autumn was making
a progress through the valley of the Thames when she heard that Cardinal
Chatillon[282] had escaped from Tréport, and had arrived in England and
desired an audience. Lord Cobham, Warden of the Cinque Ports, made much
of him when he landed; Gresham entertained him; the French Ambassador,
himself inclined to be a Huguenot, honoured him as if he were a prince;
and as soon as the Queen’s answer was received, Chatillon hurried down
to Newbury to prefer his request to the Queen. He looked little of a
cardinal or a churchman, for he dressed in cape, hat, and sword, and
his wife joined him, but that perhaps made him all the more welcome.
Throgmorton voices the general idea in a letter to Cecil. “I think,” he
says, “with you, that it is a special favour of God to preserve this
realm from calamities by their neighbours’ troubles.… If her Majesty
suffer the Low Countries and France to be weeded of the members of the
Church whereof England is also a portion, I see no other thing can happen
but a more grievous accident to us than to those whom we have suffered to
be destroyed.”[283]
But it is quite clear that neither the Queen nor Cecil intended to
allow the Huguenots to be destroyed. The Cardinal was received with
open arms, munitions were brought from the Tower in hot haste, and a
strong fleet was fitted out to carry aid to Huguenots in Rochelle. The
French Ambassador might be half a Huguenot, but his brother the Bishop
of Rennes was not, and he came and protested strongly in the name of
Catharine against Chatillon’s reception in England. Cecil tells Norris
in Paris that he got a very short answer. “I told him,” says Cecil, “we
had more cause to favour him (Chatillon) and all such, because the said
Cardinal Lorraine was known to be an open enemy of our sovereign. So he
departed with no small misliking, and I well contented to utter some
round speeches.”[284] But, prudent as usual, Cecil was a stickler for
legality, and took care that appearances were kept up. The Cardinal, he
insisted, was a faithful subject of his King; it was the Guises who were
the enemies. Norris is directed to tell Catharine that the fleet is “to
protect our Burdeaux fleet from pyrats”; and if any complaint is made
about money and munitions of war being provided for Chatillon, he is
to say that the Queen would never do anything against the French King,
but if English merchants made bargains with the Huguenots, he (Cecil)
knew of no way to stop it. He certainly made no attempt to do so; for
with a great civil war on hand it was clear that France could not resort
to arms for the cause of Mary Stuart; and whilst mediatory proceedings
were dragging on in England, the Protestant cause in Scotland was being
consolidated.
The unhappy Queen of Scots herself, persuaded that no help could just now
reach her from her French kinsmen, seems to have depended almost entirely
upon the aid to be given by the King of Spain and Alba to the Scottish
Catholics. No messenger came from her to London without beseeching
secret letters in cipher to the Spanish Ambassador; and whilst the trial
dragged on, she left no stone unturned to arouse indignation against
Murray and the English. They wished to kill her child, she said, and
force the reformed faith upon her and Scotland. In an intercepted letter
to one of the Hamiltons, which fell into Cecil’s hands,[285] she says
that Dumbarton, with Murray’s consent, was to be seized by the English.
Elizabeth had, she averred, promised to sustain Murray, to recognise his
legitimacy, and raise him to the throne as her vassal; both of these
being accusations which were likely to move the Hamiltons to fury. But,
above all, she accused Cecil of a deeper plot still. He had arranged,
she said, to marry one of his daughters to the Earl of Hertford, father
of Catharine Grey’s young heir, and thus, by mutual support, Hertford’s
son and Murray might occupy respectively the English and Scottish thrones
under Cecil’s tutelage. “So they will both be bent on my son’s death.”
There was no truth in it; but it was an excellent invention to arouse the
ire of the Scottish Catholics. Before even this was written (December),
Cecil knew how bitter was Mary’s feeling against him. When Beton came to
London from Mary in October, with secret messages for De Spes, suggesting
her escape, “which will not be difficult, or even to raise a revolt
against this Queen,” Cecil guessed his real errand, and, says De Spes,
“Cecil is so much against the Queen of Scotland, and so jealous in the
matter, that as soon as he saw Beton he asked him whether he had been
with his complaints to the Spanish Ambassador, and whether he came to see
me often; to which Beton replied that he had no dealings whatever with
me.”[286]
But Cecil’s spies were everywhere, and he knew that De Spes was working
ceaselessly in Mary’s interests to bring disaster upon England, in union
with his chief, the Duke of Alba, in Flanders. The great difficulty
in the way of the Spaniards was the extreme penury of the treasury.
Spain was in the very depths of poverty, its commerce well-nigh killed
by unwise fiscal arrangements and the depredations of the privateers,
against whom De Spes inveighed to Cecil constantly, but in vain, though
the Secretary was strongly against piracy on principle. Flanders
desolated with war, Holland and Zeeland in revolt, were no longer the
milch-cows for the Spaniards that they had been, and Alba, with an
unpaid and rebellious soldiery, was in despair of subduing Orange, much
less of crushing England, unless large sums of money were forthcoming.
Philip made a great effort in the autumn of 1568, and borrowed a large
sum of money from the Genoese bankers to supply Alba with the sinews of
war. The money was to be conveyed by sea to Flanders at the risk of the
bankers. Three of the vessels duly arrived in Antwerp, after having been
chased by Huguenot privateers; but several others put into Southampton,
Plymouth, and Falmouth, to escape from their pursuers. The representative
in England of the bankers was the Genoese Benedict Spinola, who requested
De Spes to ask the Queen to allow the money to be discharged and brought
overland to Dover, where it could be transhipped under convoy for the
Duke of Alba. De Spes saw the Queen on the 29th November, and she
consented to this course being adopted.
In the meanwhile the privateers, in crowds, were clustered outside the
harbours where the rich treasure lay, and nearly every Spanish ship that
entered the Channel fell into their hands. De Spes had not been sent by
Philip to provoke war, but in the few months that he had been in England
his violence, insolence, and bigotry had brought war nearer than ever
it had been before. Norris in Paris had just been warned, and had sent
the warning to Cecil, that a plot was formed to kill the Queen, and that
the papal banker Ridolfi, De Spes, and the English Catholic nobility,
headed by the Earl of Arundel, had agreed to place Mary Stuart on the
English throne. De Spes was closeted day and night with Mary’s agents.
“The Bishop of Ross came at midnight to offer me the good-will of his
mistress and many gentlemen of this country.… The Queen of Scotland told
my servant to convey to me the following words: ‘Tell the Ambassador that
if his master will help me I shall be Queen of England in three months,
and mass shall be said all over the country.’”[287]
Condé’s agents, too, were for ever telling the Queen and Cecil of the
plans against England of the Guises and Alba, as soon as the Protestants
in France and Flanders had been subjugated; and Knollys wrote almost
despairingly from Bolton of Mary’s haughty disbelief in Elizabeth’s
power to harm her.[288] There need, therefore, be no surprise that the
English Council began to question the wisdom of allowing the treasure
that had fallen into their power to be used against the tranquillity and
independence of their own country. When De Spes asked Cecil for the safe
conducts for the money, he was put off with vague evasions, whilst the
main question was being discussed. After much pressing, Cecil gave the
safe conducts, and sent orders to Plymouth and Falmouth (13th December,
N.S.) that the shore authorities were to defend the treasure-ships,
which were being threatened by pirates, even in port. “These orders are
now being sent off,” writes De Spes, “but in all things Cecil showed
himself an enemy to the Catholic cause, and desirous on every opportunity
of opposing the interests of your Majesty.… He has to be dealt with by
prayers and gentle threats.” “The Council is sitting night and day about
the Queen of Scotland’s affairs. Cecil and the Chancellor (Bacon) would
like to see her dead, as they have a King of their own choosing, one of
Hertford’s children.”[289]
After deliberation, Cecil had sent for Bernard Spinola, and ascertained
from him that the money was being conveyed at the bankers’ risk, and
could not legally be called King Philip’s property.[290] This seems to
have decided the question. The money on the cutter in Southampton harbour
was discharged, on the pretext of protecting it from pirates;[291] and
as soon as De Spes got the news, on the 20th December, he went to the
Queen in a violent rage to demand its return. He only saw Cecil, who said
the money was safe, but hinted that it did not belong to the King. De
Spes then gave the bad advice to Alba to retaliate by seizing all English
property in the Netherlands, which was done, and Cecil was provided with
a pretext which gave him what he always needed, a good legal position to
justify his acts. The Queen had not hitherto plainly said that she would
keep the money; but as soon as she heard that Alba had seized English
property, it gave her the required excuse for doing so. Her credit was
as good as Philip’s, she said, and she would borrow it herself. Not only
400,000 crowns in gold, but every scrap of Spanish property in England
was seized, enormously in excess of all English property in Flanders. In
vain De Spes hectored and stormed, in vain Alba alternately threatened
and implored, in vain Philip made seizures of Englishmen and goods
in Spain; the Queen was in an unassailable position. Alba had openly
declared the seizures of English property first, and all Elizabeth had
done was to adopt reprisals afterwards. But it crippled Alba and Philip
almost to exhaustion, and well-nigh ruined Spanish commerce and killed
Spanish credit.
For years open and secret negotiations went on to obtain some restoration
of the enormous amount of Spanish property seized. Cajolery, bribery,
and appeals to English honour were resorted to without effect; private
negotiations were opened by the owners of the property to get partial
restitution on any terms; envoy after envoy was sent, and returned home
empty-handed. The Queen refused to acknowledge Alba or his agents in any
form, and Cecil was immovable in his determination that no arrangement
should be made that did not bring into account all the confiscations
and persecutions that had ever been suffered by English in Spain at the
hands of the Inquisition, which he knew was impossible. In the meanwhile
the property dwindled and was jobbed away, and little, if any, ever
eventually reached its proper owners.
Early in January the Queen refused to receive De Spes, and sent Cecil
and the Lord Admiral, attended by a large train, and the aldermen of the
city, to see him at his house. Cecil, as usual, was the spokesman. He was
angry and severe: upbraided the Ambassador for his bad offices; condemned
the cruelty of the Duke of Alba, and his insolence in seizing English
property; and ended by placing De Spes and all his household under
arrest, in the custody of Henry Knollys, Arthur Carew, and Sir Henry
Knyvett. The reason of this was that a violent letter from De Spes to
Alba had been intercepted by Cecil’s orders. To make matters worse, the
foolish Ambassador, whilst under arrest, wrote an insolent letter to Alba
complaining of his treatment, and sent it open to the Council. In it he
says that “Cecil is harsh and arrogant; that he vapoured about religion,
dragged up the matter of John Man and about Bishop Quadra’s affairs,
and, in short, did and said a thousand impertinent things. He thinks he
is dealing with Englishmen, who all tremble before him.… The question
of the money does not suit him. I beg your Excellency not to refrain on
my account from doing everything that the interests and dignity of the
King demand; for whilst Cecil rules, I do not believe there will ever be
lasting peace. It is a pity so excellent a Queen should give credit to
so scandalous a person as this. God send a remedy; for in this country,
people great and small are discontented with the Government.… Cecil is
having a proclamation drawn up, from which he leaves out what is most
important, and misstates the case. He refused to return my packet, and is
getting one Somers to decipher my letters. If he succeeds I will pardon
him.”[292] The transmission of this insolent letter, open to the Council,
to be sent to Alba, produced the effect that might have been expected.
De Spes was asked to explain what he meant by such offensive expressions
against the Government, and by some scurrilous references employed in
another intercepted letter towards the Queen. He tried to attenuate his
insolence towards the Queen, and the Council as a whole, but not that
towards Cecil personally.
And so affairs drifted from bad to worse. Every letter from De Spes to
Alba and the King was full of abuse of Cecil, and statements of the
determination of the English Catholics to shake off his tyranny and raise
Mary Stuart to the throne. The people are all discontented, he says,
and the slightest show of countenance from Philip will enable Elizabeth
and the detested Cecil to be overthrown. Philip did not know what to
think of it, and sent to Alba orders to inquire independently whether
De Spes’ representations were true. If it is so easy, he says, he is
willing to give the aid required, as after his duty to maintain the holy
faith in his own dominions, it is incumbent upon him to re-establish it
in England. “If you think the chance will be lost by again waiting to
consult me, you may at once take the steps you consider advisable.”[293]
Alba soon undeceived the King. He had his hands full in the Netherlands;
he was almost without money; rash and foolish De Spes, he knew, was not
to be depended upon, and he told Philip plainly that he must temporise
and make friends with Elizabeth, leaving vengeance until later. De
Spes, he thought, was being deceived, perhaps betrayed, by Ridolfi and
the Catholics, and open war with England must be avoided at any cost.
Cecil, indeed, had accurately gauged the situation, and knew far better
than De Spes that Philip dared not fight, now that the Prince of Orange
was holding Holland and Zeeland against him. England’s traditional
alliance was not with the House of Spain, but with the possessor of the
Netherlands, and in the same proportion as Spain lost control over the
Low Countries, the need for a close union with her shifted.
Late in February the Duke of Norfolk, and his father-in-law, the Earl of
Arundel, to whom the changed situation was not so clear as to Cecil, sent
Ridolfi to De Spes with a cipher communication to tell him that the money
and Spanish property should be returned.[294] “They had only consented
to my detention and Cecil’s other impertinences, because they were not
yet strong enough to resist him. But they were gathering friends, and
were letting the public know what was going on, in the hope and belief
that they will be able to turn out the present accursed Government and
raise up another Catholic one, bringing the Queen to consent thereto.
They think your Excellency (Alba) will support them in this, and that
the country will not lose the friendship of our King. They say they will
return to the Catholic religion, and they think a better opportunity
never existed than now. Although Cecil thinks he has them all under his
heel, he will find few or none of them stand by him. I have encouraged
them.… In the meanwhile Cecil is bravely harrying the Catholics,
imprisoning many, for nearly all the prisons are full. The Spaniards
(_i.e._ from the arrested ships) are in Bridewell to the number of over
150, and a minister is sent to preach to them.” This gives us a clue to
the real origin of the plot against Cecil, which his domestic biographer
absurdly ascribes to a noble member of the Council having seen upon his
table a book attacking aristocracy.[295] Rapin is nearer in guessing the
cause of the conspiracy in ascribing it to Norfolk, Winchester, Pembroke,
Leicester, Northumberland, Westmoreland, and Arundel, in favour of Mary
Stuart’s claim, at least to the succession, in opposition to Cecil’s
candidate, Catharine Grey’s son, Lord Beauchamp. Camden records that
Throgmorton, Leicester’s henchman, advocated the lodging of Cecil in
the Tower first. “If he were once shut up, men would open their mouths
to speak freely against him.”[296] As will be seen, however, Cecil was
more than a match for his jealous enemies, who were also the enemies of
England; and the Queen, to her honour, stood bravely up for her great
minister.[297] The plan agreed upon was for Norfolk, a cat’s-paw of
Leicester, to denounce Cecil for his supposed intention of forcing the
succession of Beauchamp, and provoking war with Spain by advocating the
seizure of Philip’s treasure; but Leicester, too unstable, even, to keep
the counsel of his own plot, dropped a hint to the Queen, who warned
Cecil, and the whole nefarious conspiracy was unveiled. The excuse given
by Norfolk and Arundel to De Spes for their failure was that so many
Councillors were interested in the plunder that they could not get them
to move against Cecil. “For my part,” says De Spes, “I believe that they
have very little courage, and in the usual English way wish things to be
so far advanced that they can with but little trouble win your Majesty’s
rewards and favours.”
On the strength of their intentions against Cecil, Arundel, with his
sons-in-law, Norfolk and Lumley, tried their hardest to get some
money from De Spes, but without effect until the northern rebellion
was in preparation. Their intermediary was a Florentine banker, whose
brother-in-law, Cavalcanti, was one of Cecil’s agents, and through him
every step was known to the Secretary. Spies were everywhere. Whilst
Cecil’s most confidential private secretary, Allington, carried all his
secrets to De Spes for a consideration,[298] no visitor went to the
Spanish Embassy whose name and business was not at once reported to
Cecil, who, says De Spes, was suspicious even of the birds of the air.
Though Mary was in captivity, she contrived to write constant cipher
letters through De Spes to the Pope, to Alba, and to Philip. The Bishop
of Ross, her indefatigable but imprudent agent, took no step in Mary’s
cause without consultation with the Spaniard. She would, he said, have
been released already but for Cecil, her great enemy in the Council.[299]
If he could be got rid of, all would be well. The Bishop of Ross went so
far as to solicit another husband for Mary to be chosen by Philip, and
offered her abject submission both for England and Scotland, in return
for aid to the coming rising in her favour. It will be seen by this that
a more dangerous and widespread plot even than that against Cecil was
being planned by the Catholic nobility.
At what period the first suggestion was made for a marriage between the
Duke of Norfolk and Mary Stuart is not certain, but the Bishop of Ross
afterwards deposed[300] that the Duke had sent his offer to the Queen
before the meeting of the Commission of York (October 1568), of which
he was president; and as Lady Scrope, in whose husband’s house, Bolton
Castle, Mary was kept, was Norfolk’s sister, it is probable that the plan
was hatched during her stay at Bolton. From Murray’s statement[301] it
appears that Norfolk had a private conference with him during the sitting
of the Commission at York, when the Duke proposed to suppress the papers
which incriminated Mary, in order to save the scandal of a conviction.
Murray placed the evidence before the English Commissioners, and agreed
to abide by Elizabeth’s decision, and Norfolk at once wrote a private
letter to Cecil conveying his strong impression of the Queen’s guilt, but
advocating the suppression of the evidence. Norfolk’s conference with
Murray, and probably Cecil’s knowledge of the marriage plan, appears to
have been the reason for the removal of the Commission to London, and
the employment of Norfolk elsewhere, as well as of the removal of Mary to
Tutbury. When Norfolk returned to court, Elizabeth received him coldly,
for the talk about his marriage with Mary was now public, and the Duke
assured the Queen of the untruth of the rumours. After Murray, with real
or pretended reluctance, had laid the whole of his evidence against Mary
before the Commission, and the sittings had come to an end with the sole
result of leaving the cloud over her head, Norfolk’s plan for a time was
shelved;[302] but the conspiracy of the nobles against Cecil in favour of
Mary again revived the idea of the marriage; and Guzman in June 1569 says
that the new Lord Dacre had mentioned the matter to him, and professed
his willingness to hold in readiness 15,000 men in the north, to rise in
favour of Mary if he were assured of Philip’s support. De Spes asserts
that Cecil had proposed to marry his widowed sister-in-law, Lady Hoby, to
the Duke, a proposal which the Duke had rejected with scorn, “as his eyes
were fixed upon the Queen of Scots.”
By this time matters had so far advanced that a large sum of money (6000
crowns) was sent by Alba to the Catholic nobles, through Lumley and
Arundel, as well as 10,000 to Mary, and the rising in the north was in
principle decided upon; but Alba, whilst ready to supply money secretly,
strictly enjoined De Spes to turn a deaf ear to any suggestions for
overt aid against the Queen’s Government.[303] His great care for the
moment was to repair the effects of his mistake, and obtain some sort
of restitution of the Spanish property seized in England. Agents were
sent backwards and forwards, supple cosmopolitan Florentines mostly.
Ridolfi, Fiesco, the Cavalcantis, and several others tried by bribery and
other means to induce Cecil to consent to an arrangement. It suited him
to pretend a willingness to do so. Ridolfi dined and conferred with him
more than once on the subject at Cecil House. De Spes was released from
his captivity in Paget House (on the site of the present Essex Street,
Strand), and allowed to take the Bishop of Winchester’s house instead;
but on various pretexts, invented, as he says, by Cecil, the interminable
negotiations about the restitution dragged on without much result, as
Cecil evidently intended them to do. “We must have patience,” De Spes
writes to Alba, “but the affair is greatly injured by Cecil’s having
again got the upper hand in the government, without fear now that the
other members may overthrow him, for he knows that they could not agree
together for the purpose.”[304]
Whilst Cecil was temporising about the restitution, and dallying with
the Spanish agents, he kept his hand on the pulse of the Catholic Lords.
Arundel and his party had arranged that De Spes should once more be
admitted to the Queen’s presence at Guildford, and then go to a meeting
of the conspirators at Nonsuch; but Cecil raised difficulties, and
himself came to town specially to tell De Spes that the Queen could not
receive him until he obtained fresh credentials direct from Spain. Cecil
had apparently by this time (August 1569) won over the Earl of Pembroke;
and Leicester himself had taken fright at the probable result of his
plotting. His accomplices had gone beyond him. The rise of Norfolk and
Mary under a Catholic regime would of course have meant extinction for
Leicester, and though he was ready enough to ruin Cecil, he had no wish
to be dragged down in his fall. “The Duke’s party,” writes De Spes, “and
those who favour the Queen of Scotland, are incomparably the greater
number.… I believe there will be some great event soon, as the people are
much dissatisfied and distressed by want of trade, and these gentlemen of
Nonsuch have some new imaginations in their heads.”
A few days after this was written, Norfolk received the ominous warning
from the Queen at Titchfield, to “beware on what pillow he rested his
head.” The Duke was a poor, weak creature, and instead of accompanying
the Queen to Windsor, he fled into Norfolk, and from there wrote an
apology to the Queen. Elizabeth’s answer was a peremptory summons for
him to come to court, ill or well. He delayed, and the Queen, in a rage,
sent and arrested him, confining him first at Burnham, near Windsor, and
shortly afterwards in the Tower. How wise and moderate Cecil was under
the circumstances, may be seen in his own letters. He knew better than
any one that the conspiracy was primarily directed against him, as one
of the conditions imposed upon Mary was stated to be that nothing should
be done against Elizabeth;[305] yet this is how he wrote to the Queen
just before Norfolk was sent to the Tower[306] (9th October): “If the
Duke shall be charged with the crime of treason, and shall not thereof
be convicted, he shall not only save his credit, but increase it. And
surely, without the facts may appear manifest within the compass of
treason (which I cannot see how they can), he shall be acquitted of that
charge; and better it were in the beginning to foresee the matter, than
attempt it with discredit, and not without suspicion of evil will and
malice. Wherefore I am bold to wish that your Majesty would show your
intention only to inquire of the facts and circumstances, and not by any
speech to note the same as treason. And if your Majesty would yourself
consider the words of the statute evidencing treasons, I think you would
so consider it.”
In a letter written by Cecil to Norris a few days before this,[307] he
says that he had answered to the Queen, who was very angry with Norfolk,
for the latter’s return; and he gives an account of the Duke’s plight and
reported willingness to obey the Queen’s summons: “whereof I am glad;
first, for the respect of the State, and next for the Duke himself, whom
of all subjects I honoured and loved above the rest, and surely found in
him always matter so deserving. Whilst this matter hath been passing,
you must not think but that the Queen of Scots was nearer looked to than
before; and though evil willers of our State would gladly have seen some
troublesome issue of this matter, yet, God be thanked, I trust they
shall be deceived. The Queen hath willed Lord Arundel and Lord Pembroke
to keep their lodgings here, for that they were privy to this marriage
intended, and did not reveal it to her Majesty; but I think none of them
did so with any evil meaning.[308] Of Lord Pembroke’s intent herein,
I can witness that he meant nothing but well to the Queen’s Majesty.
Lord Lumley is also restrained, and the Queen hath also been grievously
offended with Lord Leicester, but considering that he hath revealed all
that he sayeth he knoweth of himself, her Majesty spareth her displeasure
more towards him. Some disquiets must arise, but I trust not hurtful, for
that her Majesty sayeth she will know the truth, so as every one shall
see his own fault, and so stay.” But for all Cecil’s diplomatic pleading,
Norfolk went to the Tower, where, with feigned submission and lying
protestations, he continued to plot with Mary Stuart and the enemies of
England. The Catholics and Norfolk’s friends, of course, threw the whole
blame upon Cecil.[309]
Shortly before Norfolk’s arrest, De Spes, who was still in close
communication with the northern Lords and the Duke’s friends, wrote to
the King, anticipating a favourable result of the movement; “although, on
the other hand, I observe that Cecil and his fellow-Protestants on the
Council are still very much deluding themselves. Even now, with the peril
before them, they will not come to reason, so firmly persuaded are they
that their religion will prevail.” As soon as Arundel and his friends
were placed under arrest, De Spes says that “every one cast the blame
on Secretary Cecil, who conducts these affairs with great astuteness.”
All would be lost, he said, by the Duke’s cowardice, and the Queen of
Scots had sent to urge him to behave valiantly. But valour was no part
of wretched Norfolk’s nature. A few days before the Duke was lodged in
the Tower, an envoy of the northern Earls, headed by Northumberland, came
to De Spes, promising to raise and capture the north country, release
Mary, restore the Catholic religion, and return unconditionally all the
Spanish property seized. They only asked in return that a few Spanish
harquebussiers should be sent; and they dropped Norfolk out of their
programme, looking to the Spaniards to provide a fit husband for Mary.
“Whilst Cecil governs here, no good course can be expected, and the
Duke of Norfolk says that he wished to get him out of the government
and change the guard of the Queen of Scotland before taking up arms. It
is thought they will not dare to take the Duke to the Tower, though in
this they may be deceived, because they who now rule are Protestants,
and most of them creatures of Cecil.” The Secretary’s attitude in this
matter has been treated somewhat at length, because it happens that
material exists which shows conclusively how bitter and unjust were his
enemies towards him, and how impossible it is to accept, without full
examination, statements to his detriment, made even by men who were in
daily communication with him.
In the middle of October the Catholic ferment in the north reached its
height. The Queen had summoned Northumberland and Westmoreland, and they
refused to obey. Without waiting for the Spanish aid for which they
had stipulated, they entered Durham with 5000 foot and 1000 horse, and
proclaimed the restoration of the Catholic faith. Cecil himself, giving
an account of the rising to Norris,[310] says, “They have in their
company priests of their faction, who, to please the people thereabouts,
give them masses, and some such trash as the spoils and wastes where they
have been.” Smashing communion-tables and devastating Protestant houses
as they went, they advanced to Doncaster; but the Government had long
foreseen the affair, and were ready to cope with it. Mary was hurried
off, strongly guarded, to Coventry, out of the reach of the rebels. Lord
Darcy repulsed one band; the Earl of Sussex, president of the north,
held York against the main body; the wardens of the marches were well
prepared and provided by Cecil’s foresight, and the country people in the
great towns of the north were intimidated into quietude. On the 24th
December, Cecil could write: “Thank God, our northern rebellion is fallen
flat to the ground and scattered away.[311] The Earls are fled into
Northumberland, seeking all ways to escape, but they are roundly pursued,
by Sir John Forster and Sir Henry Percy in one company, and Lord Sussex
in another. The 16th December they broke up their sorry army, the 18th
entered Northumberland, the 19th into the mountains; they scattered all
their footmen, willing them to shift for themselves; and of a thousand
horsemen there are left but five hundred. By this time they must be
fewer, and, I trust, either taken or fled into Scotland, where the Earl
of Murray is in good readiness to chase them to their ruin.”[312]
So ended, ignominiously, the only important armed revolt against
Elizabeth in England, but the first of a long series of plots against
the peace and independence of the nation, by which Mary Stuart from her
captivity, English Catholics who prized their faith more than their
country, and Spain and the Guises, for their own national or dynastic
ends, sought to bend the neck of England once again to the yoke which the
statecraft of Elizabeth and her great minister had enabled her to shake
off.
CHAPTER X
1570-1572
At no time since her accession had Elizabeth and her government been in
so much danger as immediately after the suppression of the rebellion of
the north. Cecil had known that the Catholic English and Scottish nobles
and Mary were in constant communication with Spain and the Pope, but
even he was not aware how widespread was the conspiracy.[313] Orange in
the Netherlands, and Coligny in France, had for a time been crushed;
Condé had been killed in battle; and everywhere the Catholic cause was
triumphant. This was the eventuality which alone England had to fear;
and although Spanish aid to the English Catholics was neither so active
nor so abundant as has usually been assumed, unquestionably the hopes
and promises held out both by Philip and the Pope had raised the spirits
of the Catholics in England and Scotland higher than they had been for
many years. Spanish money and support under papal auspices kept Ireland
in a state of discord, as we have seen; Mary appealed to King Philip
as a vassal to her suzerain; the Guisan agents were busy plotting with
the Hamiltons and Murray’s enemies on the Border, and the whole north
of England was riddled with religious discontent. Cecil wrote at the
beginning of 1570 to Norris: “We have discovered some tokens, and we hear
of some words uttered by the Earl of Northumberland, that maketh us think
this rebellion had more branches, both of our own and strangers, than did
appear, and I trust the same will be found out, though perchance when all
are known in secret manner, all may not be notified.”
The truth of Cecil’s forebodings came soon afterwards. On the 22nd
February 1570, Murray was shot by a Hamilton in the streets of
Linlithgow, and in the anarchy which followed, the friends of Mary
Stuart on the Scottish Border invaded England. Maitland of Lethington
and others who had hitherto stood firmly by Murray, now turned to the
side of the Hamiltons and the French party; whilst a special French
Guisan envoy boldly demanded of Elizabeth, in the name of the King of
France, Mary Stuart’s release, permission for himself to pass into
Scotland, and a pledge from the English Queen that in future she would
refrain from supporting the Huguenots. Papal emissaries whispered at
first that the Pope had excommunicated “the flagitious pretended Queen
of England”; and then one Catholic, bolder than the rest (Felton), dared
publicly to post the bull on the Bishop of London’s door. The Bishop
of Ross was tireless in spreading the view of Mary’s innocence and
unmerited sufferings,[314] and many Englishmen who were opposed to her
in everything were scandalised at her continued captivity. So strong a
Protestant as Sir Henry Norris, the English Ambassador in Paris—for ever
the butt of French remonstrance against Mary’s imprisonment—advised Cecil
to have her released. But Sir William knew better the risk of such a step
now, and replied, “Surely few here amongst us conceive it feasible with
surety,” and he was right. Stories, too, came from Flanders of plans to
assassinate Elizabeth; but she was never so strong or wise as when the
circumstances were difficult and dangerous. “I know not,” writes Cecil,
“by what means, but her Majesty is not much troubled with the opinion
of danger; nevertheless I and others cannot be but greatly fearful for
her, and do, and will do, all that in us may lie to understand by God’s
assistance the attempts.”
It was not long before Cecil had once more triumphed over his enemies
on the Council and in England: the danger that then threatened was from
without. Again, the policy of disabling the foreign Catholics by aiding
the Protestants was resorted to. Killigrew was kept busy in Germany
arranging with Hans Casimir and other mercenary leaders, to raise large
forces for the purpose of entering France and enabling the Huguenots to
avenge their disasters.[315] Cardinal Chatillon was still a welcome
guest at the English court. The privateers in the Channel were stronger
and bolder than ever, and had practically swept Spanish shipping from
the narrow seas. The Flemings were encouraged with promises of help and
support when Orange had once more organised a force to cope with Alba.
Sussex and Hunsdon in the meanwhile did not let the grass grow under
their feet, but harried both sides of the Border, stamping out the last
embers of rebellion, and striking terror into the Catholic fugitives,
whilst Morton and the Protestant party were consolidating their position,
momentarily shaken by the murder of Murray.[316] De Spes was ceaselessly
clamouring to the King and Alba for armed intervention in England before
it was too late. Mary might be captured by a _coup de main_, as she
herself suggested, and carried to Spain; a few troops sent to Scotland
now, said the Bishop of Ross, might overturn the new Regency; a small
force in Ireland would easily expel the heretics; “and the whole nation
will rise as soon as they see your Majesty’s standard floating over ships
on their coast.”
But Alba distrusted both French and English, Protestants and Catholics
alike. He knew that the conflagration in the Netherlands was still all
aglow beneath the surface, and he dared not plunge into war with England.
His slow master pondered and plotted, beset with cares and poverty, and
unable to wreak his vengeance upon England until he had the certainty of
Mary Stuart’s exclusive devotion to his interests. But the extent and
complexity of Philip’s difficulties were only known to himself, and the
danger appeared to Cecil even greater than it was.
The plague had raged in London for the whole of the summer of 1569, and a
recrudescence of it in the following June gave Cecil a good opportunity
for advocating Norfolk’s partial enlargement. The Duke made a most
solemn renunciation of his proposed marriage with Mary, and craved
Elizabeth’s forgiveness; and at length in August was allowed to retire
to his own house. That he owed his liberation to Cecil is clear from
his letters. At the beginning of July, apparently, some person—probably
Leicester—had told the Duke that Cecil was against him, and the Secretary
showed him how false this was, and proposed to take action against his
slanderers. The Duke in reply thanked him for his friendly dealing and
his frank explanation, “which have sufficiently purged him (Cecil) and
laid the fault on those who deserved it.” But he begged him to refrain
from further action, as it might cause mischief.[317] When Norfolk at
length was “rid of yonder pestylent infectyous hows” (the Tower), he
unhesitatingly attributed his release to Cecil. How busy the slanderers
of the Secretary were, and how deeply he felt the wounds they dealt him,
may be seen in another statement in his own hand of the same period[318]
(July 1570), which contains an indignant denial of the reports that
had been spread with regard to his alleged dishonest dealing with the
property of his ward the Earl of Oxford.
During the whole of Norfolk’s stay in the Tower and afterwards, the
love-letters between him and Mary continued, the Queen signing her
letters “your own faithful to death,” and using many similar terms of
endearment;[319] and Cecil could hardly have been entirely ignorant
of the Duke’s bad faith. But for political reasons it was considered
necessary, not only to conciliate him, but Mary and the Spaniards as
well. Concurrently, therefore, with the negotiations for Norfolk’s
release, a show of willingness was made to come to terms with Mary.
Her presence in England was an embarrassment and a danger, and now
that Murray was dead, the principal personal obstacle to her return
had disappeared. If she could be so tied down as to be used as a means
for pacifying Scotland, whilst depending for the future entirely
upon England, her return to her country would relieve Elizabeth of a
difficulty. The first basis of negotiation was the surrender of the
English rebel Lords in exchange for her, and the delivery to England of
four or six of the principal Scottish nobles and the young Prince as
hostages. But these terms were by no means acceptable to Mary’s agents or
to herself. She feared that the Scots would kill her, and the English her
son, and so secure the joint kingdoms to a nominee of Elizabeth or Cecil.
The main reason for Elizabeth’s change of attitude must be sought in the
panic which seized upon England in the early summer of 1570. A powerful
Spanish fleet was in the Channel, ostensibly to convey Philip’s fourth
wife, Anne of Austria, from Flanders to Spain; but rumours came that
the dreaded Duke of Alba was ready now for the invasion of England. The
Guises in Normandy, too, were said to have an army of harquebussiers
waiting to embark for Scotland; the Irish rebels were being helped both
by Philip and the Guises. The Pope’s bull absolving Englishmen from their
oaths of allegiance was the talk everywhere, and English merchants in
despair cried that at last they and their country were to pay for the
depredations of the pirates. The French were demanding haughtily that the
English troops should evacuate the Border Scottish fortresses held by
them, and the Protestants in France and Flanders were not yet prepared to
furnish the diversion upon which the English usually depended for their
own safety.
The position was very grave in appearance, though not so great in
reality, and it alarmed Elizabeth out of her equanimity. De Guaras says
that she shut herself up for three days, and railed against Cecil for
bringing her to such a pass; and the same observer reports that when
Cecil one day in the middle of July left the Queen and retired to his
own apartment, he cried to his wife in deep distress, “O wife! if God do
not help us we shall be lost and undone. Get together all the jewels and
money you can, that you may follow me when the time comes; for surely
trouble is in store for us.”[320] This may or may not be true in detail,
and also Guaras’ assertion that Cecil had sent large private funds to
Germany, whither he would retire in case of trouble; but it is certain
that panic reigned supreme for a few weeks in the summer, accentuated,
doubtless, by the plague which was devastating the country. But fright
did not paralyse the minister for long, if at all. Twenty-five ships
were hastily armed, two fresh armies were raised of five thousand men
each, ostensibly for Scotland. Mary was prompted to send Livingston to
Scotland to negotiate an arrangement with the Regent Lennox, and Cecil
himself, with Sir Walter Mildmay, was induced to go and confer with
Mary at Chatsworth; but, says De Spes, “all these things are simply
tricks of Cecil’s, who thinks thereby to cheat every one, in which to a
certain extent he succeeds.” The Secretary had by this time discovered
that in any case neither Philip nor Alba would raise a finger to avenge
a slight upon De Spes, for he had imprisoned him and distressed him in
a thousand ways already without retaliation. At the same time, a blow
at such a notorious conspirator as he was could not fail to produce
a great effect upon the English Catholics who plotted with him and
looked to Spain alone for support. Cecil therefore sent Fitzwilliams
to Flanders about the seizures, and instructed him to complain to
Alba of De Spes’ communications with the rebels. “His object,” wrote
the Ambassador, “is to expel me, now that they think I understand the
affairs of this country; and Cecil thinks that I, with others, might
make such representations to the Queen as would diminish his great
authority.… Cecil is a crafty fox, a mortal enemy of the Catholics and
to our King, and it is necessary to watch his designs very closely,
because he proceeds with the greatest caution and dissimulation. There
is nothing in his power he does not attempt to injure us. The Queen’s
own opinion is of little importance, and that of Leicester less; so that
Cecil unrestrainedly and arrogantly governs all.… Your worship may be
certain that if Cecil is allowed to have his way he will disturb the
Netherlands.”[321] De Spes’ information was correct on the latter point,
as well it might be, for in addition to Cecil’s own secretary, Allington,
he had in his pay Sir James Crofts, a member of the Council, and the
Secretary of the Council, Bernard Hampton, who between them brought him
news of everything that passed in the Council or in Cecil House.
The Secretary’s efforts to get rid of so troublesome a guest as De Spes,
and to offer an object-lesson to the English Catholics at the same time,
were persistent, and in the end successful. De Spes was refused the
treatment of an ambassador, threatened with the Tower, flouted, slighted,
and insulted at every turn; but he could only futilely storm and fret,
for neither his King nor Alba was pleased with the difficult position
which his violence had created for them in England. It was all the fault
of Cecil personally, insisted De Spes. He wished to afflict the Catholic
cause without witnesses, and would stick at nothing, even poison, to get
rid of the Spaniard.
Cecil would have liked to avoid his mission to Mary Stuart, for he
was almost crippled with constant gout, and he was fully aware of
the hollowness of the negotiations in hand. The interviews with Mary
could hardly have been agreeable, although they were carried out with
great formality and politeness on both sides. Cecil charged her with
a knowledge of the northern rebellion, which she only partly denied,
saying, however, that she did not encourage it. Mary seems to have been
alternately passionate and tearful; but her bad adviser, the Bishop of
Ross, was by her side, and though she argued her case shrewdly, she
could not refrain from unwisely and unnecessarily wounding Elizabeth at
the outset.[322] In the second article of the proposed treaty, where
Elizabeth’s issue were to be preferred in the succession, Mary altered
the words to “lawful issue,” to which Elizabeth, although acceding to it,
replied that Mary “measured other folk’s disposition by her own actions.”
After some acrimony on the subject of other alterations on behalf of
Mary, an arrangement was arrived at, which, however, was afterwards
vetoed by the Scottish Government,[323] at the instance of Morton, who
was the Commissioner in London.
Whilst the negotiations with Mary had been progressing, peace had been
signed between the Huguenots and Charles IX. at St. Germains (August
1570), and the fears of Elizabeth and Cecil were consequently aggravated
at the plans which were known to be promoted by Cardinal Lorraine for
the marriage of the Duke of Anjou, next brother to the French King, with
the Queen of Scots. Now that the Montmorencis and the “politicians” had
reconciled parties in France, the danger of such a match became serious
both to England and the sincere Huguenots. Anjou posed as the figurehead
of the extreme Catholic party, but was known to be vaguely ambitious and
unstable. Cardinal Chatillon therefore thought it would be a good move
to disarm him by yoking him under Huguenot auspices to Elizabeth. The
first approach was made by the Vidame de Chartres to Cecil, who privately
discussed it with the Queen. They must have regarded it with favour, for
it was exactly the instrument they needed for splitting the league, and
arousing jealousy between France and Spain. The Emperor had just given a
severe rebuff to attempts to revive the Archduke’s match with Elizabeth,
but the negotiation for making a French Catholic prince King-consort of
England under Huguenot control was a master-stroke which sufficed to
overturn all international combinations, set France and Spain by the
ears, turned the Guises, as relatives of Mary Stuart, against their
principal supporter in France, and reduced the Queen of Scots herself to
quite a secondary element in the problem. The idea was just as welcome
to Catharine de Medici, who hated Mary Stuart as much as she dreaded the
Guises. Both she and the young King would have been glad to be quit of
the ambitious Anjou, who always threw in his weight on the Catholic side,
and made it more difficult for the Queen-mother to hold the balance. So,
very soon Guido Cavalcanti was speeding backwards and forwards between
England and France, secretly preparing the way for the more formal
negotiations between the official Ambassadors.
So far as the Queen of England was concerned, the negotiation was purely
political and insincere, for the reasons just stated, but the comedy
was well played by all parties. Leicester of course was favourable, for
it meant bribes to him, and there was no danger. La Mothe Fénélon, the
Ambassador, gently broached the matter to the Queen at Hampton Court
in January 1571. As usual she was coy and coquettish. She was too old
for Anjou, she objected, but still she said the princes of the House
of France had the reputation of being good husbands.[324] Cardinal
Chatillon shortly afterwards was blunter than the Ambassador. Would the
Queen marry Anjou if he proposed? he asked, to which Elizabeth replied,
that on certain conditions she would; and the next day she submitted the
subject to her Council, who, as in duty bound, threw the whole of the
responsibility on to the Queen.
Walsingham had just replaced Norris as Ambassador to France. He was a
friend of Leicester, a strict Protestant, who had been indoctrinated in
the political methods of Cecil, with whom and with Leicester he kept up
a close confidential correspondence.[325] One of his first letters to
Leicester gives a personal description of the young Prince, in which a
desire to tell the truth struggles with his duty not to say anything
which may hamper the negotiation. The Guises and the Spanish party in
Paris exhorted Anjou to avoid being drawn into the net, and the Duke
himself at one time openly used insulting expressions towards Elizabeth;
but such was the position in England that it was absolutely necessary
that an appearance of reality should be given to the affair. Prudent
Cecil, as usual, avoided pledging himself personally more than necessary,
and wrote from Greenwich to Walsingham on the 3rd March, that he had
wished the Queen herself to write her instructions, but as she had
declined to do so, he merely repeated her words in a postscript—namely,
that if he (Walsingham) were approached on the matter of the marriage, he
might say that before he left England he had heard “that the Queen, upon
consideration of the benefit of her realm, and to content her subjects,
had resolved to marry if she should find a fit husband, who must be
of princely rank.” To this Cecil himself adds as his private opinion,
to be told to no one, “I am not able to discern what is best, but
surely I see no continuance of her quietness without a marriage.”[326]
Matters were indeed critical at this juncture, and Cecil, Leicester,
and even Walsingham, repeatedly, and apparently with sincerity, stated
their opinion that Elizabeth would be forced to wed Anjou, or he would
marry Mary Stuart, as it was necessary for Catharine de Medici and the
Huguenots to get rid of this fanatical figurehead of the extreme Catholic
party.[327]
In his letter to Walsingham of 1st March, Cecil signs his name thus, “By
your assured (as I was wont) William Cecil;” and then underneath, “And as
I am now ordered to write, William Burleigh.”[328] That the title was not
of his own seeking is almost certain. The Spanish Ambassador, De Spes,
says that the Queen ennobled him in order that he might be more useful
in Parliament and in the matter of the Queen of Scots; and the new Lord
himself, in a letter to Nicholas White, speaks thus slightingly of his
new honour: “My style is Lord of Burghley if you mean to know it for your
writing, and if you list to write truly, the poorest Lord in England.
Yours, not changed in friendship, though in name, William Burghley.” To
Walsingham again he wrote on the 25th March, “My style of my poor degree
is Lord of Burghley;” and on the 14th April in a letter to the same
correspondent he signs, “William Cecill—I forgot my new word, William
Burleigh.”
At the time of his elevation the new Lord was suffering from one of his
constantly recurring fits of gout, and his letters are mostly written,
with pain and difficulty, which he frequently mentions, “from my bed
in my house at Westminster.” And yet, withal, the amount of work he
got through at the time was nothing short of marvellous. Every matter,
great and small, seemed to be dealt with by him. He was a Member of
Parliament for the two counties of Lincoln and Northampton;[329] as
Chancellor of the University of Cambridge he was deeply interested in
the interminable disputes there with regard to ritual, vestments, and
scholastic questions; as President of the Court of Wards he attended
personally to an immense number of estates and private interests;[330]
and acquaintances, high and low, from Greys, Howards, Clintons, and
Dudleys, down to poor students or alien refugees, still by common accord
addressed their petitions for aid and advice to him. To judge by their
grateful acknowledgments, they seem rarely to have appealed to him in
vain, and it is evident by the hundreds of such letters at Hatfield, that
even when petitions could not be granted, they were assured of impartial
and just consideration from Lord Burghley. His own great establishments,
too, at Burghley, Theobalds, and London, must have claimed much of his
attention, for all accounts passed under his own eyes, and in such small
matters as the rotation of crops, the sale of produce, the breeding
of stock, and the replenishment of gardens, nothing was done without
consultation with the master. His hospitality was very great; for we are
told by his domestic biographer that “he kept open house everywhere,
and his steward kept a standing table for gentlemen, besides two other
long tables, often twice set out, one for the clerk of the kitchen, and
the other for yeomen.” He personally can have had but little enjoyment
from his splendid houses and stately living. He must have been almost
constantly at court, or hard at work at his house in Cannon Row,
Westminster, handy for Whitehall, rather than at his new palace in the
Strand, where his wife and family lodged. He seems to have had no hobby
but books and gardens, and to have taken no exercise except on his rare
visits to Theobalds or Burghley, when he would jog round his garden paths
on an ambling mule.
This was the man, vigilant, prudent, moderate, cautious and untiring in
his industry, who in the spring and summer of 1571 by his consummate
statecraft once more brought England out of the coil of perils which
surrounded her on all sides. His counter-move to Spanish support to the
rebels in England and Ireland, and to Guisan plots in Scotland, was to
supply arms, munitions, and money to the Protestants of Rochelle and the
Dutch privateers, and to fit out a strong English fleet. The pacification
of France and the crushing of reform in Flanders were answered by
remittances of money to Germany to raise mercenaries for Orange, and the
welcoming of Louis of Nassau and Cardinal Chatillon in England; whilst
the marriage of Charles IX. to an Austrian Princess, and the closer
relations between France and the Catholic league, were counteracted by
the marriage negotiations between Elizabeth and Anjou, and the treaty
with Mary Stuart for her restoration.
But as the effect of Cecil’s diplomacy gradually became apparent, the
more reckless of his opponents resorted to desperate devices to frustrate
him. Already, by February 1571, Mary Stuart had convinced herself that
the treaty for her liberation was fallacious, and she wrote an important
letter to the Bishop of Ross, from which great events sprang.[331] She
refers to plans for her escape, and announces her decision to go to
Spain, throwing herself in future entirely upon Philip as her protector;
and she urges that Ridolfi should be sent to Spain and Rome to explain
her situation and resolve, and to beg for help. Norfolk was to be asked
to pledge himself finally to become a Catholic; doubt as to his religion,
she says, having been the principal reason for Philip’s lukewarmness.
The Bishop sent a copy of the letter to Norfolk, who was still nominally
under arrest. The Duke gave his consent, and Ridolfi started from England
at the end of March. It has been frequently denied that Norfolk connived
at this proposal for the invasion of England by a foreign power; but,
in addition to the depositions of Ross and Barker,[332] the following
letter from De Spes introducing Ridolfi to Philip appears to settle the
question against the Duke:[333] “The Queen of Scots, and the Duke of
Norfolk on behalf of many other lords and gentlemen who are attached to
your Majesty’s interests, and the promotion of the Catholic religion, are
sending Rodolfo Ridolfi, a Florentine gentleman, to offer their services
to your Majesty, and to represent to you that the time is now ripe to
take a step of great benefit to Christianity, as in detail Ridolfi will
set forth to your Majesty. The letter of credence from the Duke of
Norfolk is written in the cipher that I have sent to Zayas, for fear it
should be taken. London, 25th March, 1571.” The exact proposal to be made
verbally by Ridolfi is not stated, but De Spes refers to it in his next
letter as “the real remedy” for Lord Burghley’s activity. It is probable
that not only the support of Mary and Norfolk was intended, but also the
assassination of Elizabeth and her minister.[334] Cecil had been put
upon the alert by the kidnapping in Flanders and bringing to England of
the notorious Dr. Storey, who, under torture in the Tower, had divulged
the dealings of the northern Lords with Alba through Ridolfi and the
Bishop of Ross. This caused Cecil to keep a watch upon the doings of
both the agents; and Lord Cobham, in Dover, was instructed to intercept
any cipher letters which might be brought by a Flemish secretary of the
Bishop of Ross, one Charles Bailly, who was with Ridolfi in Flanders.
The man was stopped and his papers captured, with some copies of the
Bishop of Ross’s book in favour of Mary’s claims. The Cobhams were never
to be trusted; and Thomas Cobham surreptitiously obtained the cipher
keys, and had them conveyed to De Spes, substituting for them a dummy
packet, which was sent to Cecil. But Bailly himself, who had written
the papers at Ridolfi’s dictation, was promptly put on the rack in the
Tower, and confessed that the letters were written to two persons,
designated by numbers, under cover to the Bishop, and conveyed the Duke
of Alba’s approval of the plan for invading England, and his readiness,
if authorised by his King, to co-operate with the persons indicated.
Letters sent by the Bishop to Bailly after his arrest, urging him to
firmness, threatening the traitor who had betrayed him, and in a hundred
ways proving his own complicity, were all intercepted and read. The
tortured wretch swore to the Bishop that he would tell nothing, even if
they tore him into a hundred pieces; begged that his trunk containing
drafts of letters from Mary to Cardinal Lorraine and Hamilton might be
rescued from his lodging. But Burghley forestalled them all. The whole
of the letters were taken, and every day, in the Tower, fresh rackings,
and threats to cut off his ears or his head, were used by Burghley
to the frightened lad, to force him to give a key of the cipher. One
morning at five o’clock he was carried by the Lieutenant of the Tower
to Lord Burghley, and was told that, unless he immediately confessed
all, he would be racked till the truth was torn from him. The lad, half
distraught, day by day unfolded as much as he knew, notwithstanding the
Bishop’s frantic assurances that Burghley would not dare to harm him
much, as he was a foreigner and a servant of the Queen of Scots.[335]
And so, piece by piece, the whole conspiracy was unravelled so far as
regarded the main object, and the complicity of Alba, the Spaniards and
the Bishop of Ross proved beyond doubt; but still the persons indicated
by the cipher numbers “30” and “40” could only be surmised, for Bailly
himself did not know them. Gradually the names of Mary Stuart and Norfolk
crept into the depositions of those examined, but without sufficient
definiteness yet for open proceedings against them to be commenced.
Whilst Lord Burghley, with inexhaustible patience, was tracking the
plot to its source, the most elaborate pretence of agreement with the
French on the subject of the Anjou match was kept up both in Paris and
London; though more sincere on the part of the former than the latter,
for Catharine and Charles IX. were in mortal fear of the Guises, the
League, and the heir-presumptive to the crown. Cavalcanti and officers of
the King’s household ran backwards and forwards to England with loving
messages; and the Huguenots worked their best to bring the matter to
a successful issue, or, in default of it, for a close alliance. Henry
Cobham was sent to Madrid ostensibly to treat on the matter of the
seizures, but really to learn, if possible, how far Philip was pledged to
the plans against England; but the Spaniards were forewarned and ready
for him, and he learned nothing.
Lord Burghley had, however, a better plan than this. Fitzwilliam, a
relative of the English Duchess of Feria, had been sent to Spain by him
for the purpose of negotiating for the release of the men and hostages
who had been captured from Hawkins at San Juan de Ulloa. He professed
in Spain to be strongly Catholic and in favour of Mary Stuart, and came
back to England in 1571, with presents, pledges, and promises to the
captive Queen and her friends. Hawkins lay with a strong auxiliary fleet
at the mouth of the Channel, and it was agreed with Lord Burghley that
Fitzwilliam and Hawkins should hoodwink the Spaniards, obtain a good haul
for themselves, and at the same time trace the ramifications of the great
international plot against England. De Spes jumped at the bait, with but
a mere qualm of misgiving, when Fitzwilliam went and offered, on behalf
of Hawkins, to desert with all his fleet to Spain, and take part, if
necessary, in an attack upon England. When he wrote to the King he said,
“My only fear is lest Burghley himself may have set the matter afoot to
discover your Majesty’s feelings, though I have seen nothing to make me
think this.”
But it was exactly the case, nevertheless, and the ruse succeeded beyond
expectation. By the end of August all Hawkins’ men had been released in
Spain and sent back to England, with ten dollars each in their pockets,
and Hawkins himself was the better off by £40,000 of Spanish money. But
more than this: Burghley had obtained through Fitzwilliam full knowledge
of the aims of the Ridolfi conspiracy. It was clear now to demonstration
that the Pope,[336] Philip, and the Catholic party in France were pledged
to a vast crusade against England, for crushing Protestantism, destroying
Elizabeth,[337] and raising Mary Stuart to the thrones of Great
Britain. Burghley and the Queen had practically known it for months,
as we have seen, and already the diplomatic measures they had taken to
counteract it were producing their effects. But now that the evidence was
sufficient, the blow against the conspirators could be struck openly. All
unsuspecting still, De Spes was comforting himself with the reflection
that the capture of Bailly was an unimportant incident; he urged Alba
and the King to immediate action, fumed at the instructions he received
to hold back Philip’s letters to Mary and Norfolk until he had orders to
deliver them, and sneered at the timid delay. “As all of Lord Burghley’s
jests have turned out well for him hitherto, he is ready to undertake
anything, and has no fear of danger. They and the French together make
great fun of our meekness.” “It is a pity to lose time, for Lord Burghley
is continuing to oppress the Catholics. If the opportunity is lost this
year, I fear the false religion will prevail in this island in a way
which will make it a harsh neighbour for the Netherlands.”
The opportunity, though he did not know it, had been lost already, for
all the threads were now in Burghley’s hands, and he was master of
the situation. In August was intercepted the bag of money (£600) with
a cipher letter[338] being sent secretly to Herries and Kirkaldy of
Grange, Mary’s friends in Scotland, by the Duke of Norfolk’s secretary,
and in a day or two the net swept into the Tower the Duke and all the
underlings who had served as intermediaries. Burghley lost no time now.
Almost every day, threats or the rack wrung some fresh admission from
the instruments—secretaries, messengers, and the like. Norfolk at first,
with extreme effrontery, denied everything;[339] but he was a weak man,
and soon broke down. Even then De Spes did not see that all was lost.
“The Catholics,” he said, “are many, though their leaders be few, and
Lord Burghley, with his terrible fury, has greatly harassed and dismayed
them, for they are afraid even of speaking to each other. The whole
affair depends upon getting weapons into their hands, and giving them
some one to direct them.”[340] It was too late. Mary Stuart’s prison
was made closer; her correspondence was intercepted and read; there was
no more concealment necessary or possible. One Catholic noble after the
other was isolated and imprisoned; Dr. Storey’s dreadful fate was held
up as a warning to traitors, and London and the country was flooded with
broadsheets calculated to arouse English and Protestant sentiment to
fever heat at the dastardly conspiracy which was laid bare.
On the 14th December a message reached De Spes summoning him to the
Council at Whitehall. When he arrived there he found them awaiting
him, with Lord Burghley as spokesman. There was no mincing matters.
The Ambassador was told that he had plotted with traitors against the
Queen’s life and the peace of the country, and he would be expelled, as
Dr. Man had been from Spain with far less reason.[341] De Spes tried to
brazen it out, but ineffectually. Burghley was on firm ground: no delay,
he said, could be allowed, excepting the time absolutely necessary for
the preparations for the voyage, which time was to be passed out of
London.[342] Speechless, almost, with indignation, in pretended fear that
Burghley would have him killed, De Spes was hustled out of the country he
had sought to ruin, and a week afterwards (16th January 1572) the Duke of
Norfolk was tried by his peers and found guilty of the capital crime of
high treason.
De Spes left England with bitter resentment at the triumph of Burghley’s
diplomacy. “They will now,” he says, “make themselves masters of the
Channel, and with one blow, with their practices in Flanders, will
plunge that country into a dreadful war. It is of no use now to speak of
our lost opportunities. They have gone; but … steps may still be taken
to make these people weep in their own country.” When he arrived in
Flanders he made a long report of his embassy, containing the following
interesting appreciation of Burghley as he appeared to his greatest
enemy: “The principal person in the Council is William Cecil, now Lord
Burghley, a Knight of the Garter. He is a man of mean sort, but very
astute, false, lying, and full of artifice. He is a great heretic, and
such a clownish Englishman as to believe that all the Christian princes
joined together are not able to injure the sovereign of his country,
and he therefore treats their ministers with great arrogance. This man
manages the bulk of the business, and by means of his vigilance and
craftiness, together with his utter unscrupulousness of word and deed,
thinks to outwit the ministers of other princes, which to some extent he
has hitherto succeeded in doing.”
Before De Spes was expelled, the efforts of Burghley, Walsingham, and
De Foix had been successful in arranging the terms of a close political
alliance between France and England. Elizabeth swore to Cavalcanti that
she would never trust Spaniards again, and he might see how little she
cared for the King of Spain by the way she had treated his Ambassador.
She could, indeed, afford now to slight the most powerful monarch in the
world; for one of the counter-strokes to the Spanish-Papal plot had been
the concentration in the Channel of a great fleet of Flemish and Huguenot
privateers under the Count de la Mark, and during the winter a plan had
been perfected for the seizure by the “beggars” of Brille, the key to
Zeeland. The imposition in Flanders of the tax which ruined Spain had
been the last straw,[343] and the whole country was ripe for revolt. For
some time an arrangement had been in progress with Louis of Nassau, by
which the Huguenots should invade Flanders over the French frontier, in
the interest of the Flemish Protestants. However friendly Elizabeth might
be with France, this was a proceeding which was sure to be looked upon
by English statesmen with profound distrust; and Walsingham, writing to
Cecil on the last day of 1571,[344] says that he has been asked whether,
in the event of the French entering Flanders, the Queen of England will
take Zeeland, as the Flemings fear that the French may not be contented
with Flanders. Some time before this, in September, Walsingham had urged
Cecil to promote this invasion of Flanders by the French, as a means of
keeping the Huguenots in power, as well as embarrassing Spain. “If not,”
he says, “the Guises will bear sway, who will be so forward in preferring
the conquest of Ireland, and the advancement of their niece to the crown
of England, as the other side (_i.e._ the Huguenots) is contrariwise
bent to prefer the conquest of Flanders.” When the immediate danger from
the Guises was over, however, the idea of a French invasion of Flanders
could not be calmly endured without some corresponding move in English
interests, and joint action in the Netherlands was suggested. It is
assumed by Motley and most other historians that the capture of Brille by
the “beggars” under La Mark early in April was quite unpremeditated, but
De Spes warned Alba that the affair was being planned in England at least
six months before;[345] and the sending away from Dover of La Mark’s
fleet did not, as Motley surmises, arise alone from Elizabeth’s fear of
offending Spain—for that she had already done—but from the complaints
of the Easterling merchants that their trade with England had become
impossible whilst these freebooters of the seas lay off the coast. In any
case, the surprise and seizure of Brille by the “beggars” once more gave
Alba plenty to think about on his own side of the Straits; and England
might, for the present, breathe freely again.
It had been as necessary for Catharine de Medici as for Elizabeth to
provide against the complete domination of England and Scotland by a
Spanish-Papal conspiracy in favour of Mary Stuart, and she had seconded
Walsingham strenuously in endeavouring to overcome Anjou’s religious
scruples against marrying Elizabeth. Anjou shifted like the wind, as
he fell under the influence of the Guises and his mother alternately.
Sometimes the match looked certain, and Catharine was effusive in
her thanks to Burghley; the next week it appeared hopeless. But the
intrigue served its purpose, and kept the French Government friendly
with Elizabeth during the critical time of the Spanish-Guisan conspiracy
against her—a conspiracy which also threatened Catharine’s influence
in France. Burghley himself seems to have been at a loss to understand
Elizabeth’s real intentions at the time; but it would appear that both he
and Walsingham were in earnest in wishing for the Anjou match, of course
with the safeguards laid down in Cecil’s several minutes on the matter;
but “the conferences,” wrote the Secretary, “have as many variations as
there are days.”
When at length it was seen that Anjou would no longer act as a party to
the game, but was looking to the possibility of a marriage with Mary
Stuart or with a Polish princess, the idea of the marriage of Elizabeth
with his youngest brother, the Duke of Alençon, was again very cautiously
brought up by Sir Thomas Smith and Killigrew, who were acting as English
Ambassadors in France during Walsingham’s illness. Alençon was only a lad
as yet, and could be used without loss of dignity as a stalking-horse
until the treaty of close alliance was finally agreed upon between the
two countries. The inevitable Guido Cavalcanti broached the matter
to Burghley in January, as he was coming away from an interview with
Elizabeth, and after some conference Burghley himself discussed the
matter with the Queen. She was thirty-nine, and the suggested bridegroom
was barely seventeen; but she was full of curiosity as to the looks
of the suitor, and distrustful about their respective ages. She asked
Burghley how tall Alençon was. “About as tall as I am,” replied the
Secretary. “About as tall as your grandson, you mean,” snapped her
Majesty,[346] and so the colloquy ended for a time. On the 19th April
1572 the draft treaty between England and France was signed at Blois.
It provided that aid was to be given unofficially by both nations to
the revolted Hollanders; the fleet of Protestant privateers was to be
sheltered and encouraged, and Huguenot Henry of Navarre was to marry the
King’s sister Margaret. The Protestants and politicians of France had
thus for the moment triumphed all along the line; the connection between
England and France was closer than it had been for many years, and
Elizabeth and Burghley could look back upon a great peril to their nation
and their faith manfully met and astutely overcome.
The Catholic party in England was now utterly prostrate. The Duke of
Norfolk, condemned to death for treason, was respited again and again
by the Queen, whilst he abjectly prevaricated, and threw the blame upon
others. The Bishop of Ross and Barker, he said, had forsworn him: he
never meant to bring a foreign force to England to depose the Queen,
and so forth. From the first, Burghley, who had always been Norfolk’s
friend, urged the Queen to let the law take its course.[347] He has been
bitterly blamed for doing so; but seeing the danger to which Norfolk’s
treason had reduced the realm, he would have failed in his duty as a
First Minister if he had allowed any weakness or personal consideration
to stand in the way of the just punishment for a great crime. Norfolk,
though he was the most popular man and greatest noble in the realm, and
still has many apologists, had plotted with the enemies of England to
bring the country again under foreign tutelage for his own ambition, and
it was right that he should suffer.
That Burghley did not flinch in the case of a man with so many friends,
is a proof of his rectitude and his courage. Though Norfolk himself
must have known what his attitude was, his esteem for him was evidently
not lessened. In the first letter he wrote to the Queen after his
condemnation, 21st January 1572, he prays for “her Majesty’s forgiveness
for his manifold offences, that he may leave this vale of misery with
a lighter heart and quieter conscience. He desires that Lord Burghley
should act as guardian to his poor orphans,” and he signs his letter,
“Written by the woeful hand of a dead man, your Majesty’s unworthy
subject, Thomas Howard”;[348] and when this prayer was granted, he again
wrote to the Queen expressing “his comfort at hearing of her Majesty’s
intended goodness to his unfortunate brats, and that she had christened
them with such an adopted father as Lord Burghley.”[349] At length, when
Parliament had added its pressure to that of her minister’s, the Queen’s
real or pretended reluctance to execute her near kinsman was overcome,
and the Duke’s head fell on Tower Hill, 2nd June, before the lamentations
of a great populace, who loved him above any subject of the Queen.
Less than a week afterwards Marshal Montmorenci, Paul de Foix, and
a splendid embassy arrived in England for the purpose of formally
ratifying the treaty of alliance between England and France, a
corresponding embassy from England under Lord Lincoln being in France
for a similar purpose. The courts vied with each other in their splendid
entertainments. The Frenchmen with forty followers were lodged in
Somerset House. At Whitehall, at Windsor (where Montmorenci received the
Garter), at Leicester House, and at Cecil House, sumptuous banquets were
given, followed by masques, balls, and tourneys. There was much talk
about the Duke of Alençon, but no decided answer given by Elizabeth to
the hints of marriage, which, indeed, was not now so pressing a matter
for her as it had been. When the Frenchmen had taken leave, Burghley sent
to Walsingham an interesting letter giving some account of the embassy,
by which it is clear that the Queen still desired to keep up the talk
of the marriage, in view of a possible need to draw still closer to the
French. “I am willed,” he writes, “to require you to use all good means
to understand what you can of the Duke of Alençon, his age in certainty,
of his stature, his conditions, his inclination in religion, his devotion
this way, his followers and servitors: hereof her Majesty seeketh
speedily to be advertised, that she may resolve before the month.” He
says, that for his part, he can see no great dislike of the idea, except
in the matter of age, and hints at getting Calais as the young Prince’s
dower. “If somewhat be not advised to recompense the opinion that her
Majesty conceiveth, as that she should be misliked to make choice of
so young a prince, I doubt the end.”[350] When, however, Lincoln came
back from France loaded with plate and jewels, and full of praise of the
gallantry of Alençon, the Queen became somewhat warmer, and Walsingham
for weeks to come was bombarded with minute questions as to the personal
qualities, and particularly as to the pock-marked visage, of the suitor.
There was but one more of the great conspirators against England to
deal with. Norfolk had deservedly died the death of a traitor, and
those who had supported him were either dead or lingering sufferers in
prison, the disloyal Catholics were despairing, Spain had received its
answer by the expulsion of De Spes and the renewal of the war in the
Netherlands, whilst Coligny and the Huguenots rode rough-shod over the
Guises and their friends. But the very spring-head of the conspiracy
remained untouched. A commission was appointed in June to formulate
charges against Mary Stuart herself,[351] and in Parliament it was
resolved that she was unworthy to succeed to the English crown. But
Elizabeth again allowed her personal feeling to stand in the way of her
patriotic duty, or, as some would prefer to say, desired to fix upon
others the responsibility of a grave act against her own order and kin.
Burghley, in his letter already quoted, written at the end of June to
Walsingham, says: “Now for Parliament: I cannot write patiently: all
that we laboured for, and with full consent brought to fashion, I mean
a law to make the Scottish Queen unable and unworthy of succession of
the crown, was by her Majesty neither assented to nor rejected, but
deferred until the feast of All Saints; but what all other good and wise
men think thereof, you may guess. Some here have, as it seemeth, abused
their favour about her Majesty, to make herself her most enemy. God amend
them.”[352]
A fortnight after this letter was written Burghley was made Lord
Treasurer of England in place of the Marquis of Winchester, who had
recently died. The work and strain of the Secretaryship had gravely
affected Burghley’s health, and early in the previous April he had been
so ill that his life was despaired of. De Guaras, the merchant who
acted informally as Spanish agent, says that the Queen and most of the
Councillors visited him, in the belief that his state was desperate.[353]
For some time he had been begging for permission to rest, but until the
great matters in hand were settled, this was impossible. The sky over
England had once more become cleared, and the great minister could hand
over to his old friend Sir Thomas Smith the Secretaryship, in which he
had done such signal service to the State.
The day after the elevation of Burghley to the Treasurership, the Queen
started on one of the stately progresses which caused so much delight and
enthusiasm to all her subjects but those who had to entertain her, except
perhaps Burghley and his rival Leicester, who were both honoured during
this summer with a visit from the sovereign. Burghley’s entry of the
great event comes curtly enough in his diary after the memorandum of his
new appointment, thus:—
“1572. July 15. Lord Burghley made Lord Treasurer of England.”
“July 22. The Queen’s Majesty at Theobalds.”[354]
Elizabeth had visited Theobalds in 1564 and 1571. On this occasion her
stay extended over three days, and the domestic biographer of Burghley
thus refers to this amongst other visits: “His Lordship’s extraordinary
chardg in enterteynment of the Quene was greater to him than to anie of
her subjects, for he enterteyned her at his house twelve several tymes,
which cost him two or three thousand pounds each tyme.… But his love for
his Sovereign, and joy to enterteyn her and her traine, was so greate, as
he thought no troble, care, nor cost too much, and all too little.”
Whilst Elizabeth slowly made her way from one great house to another,
by Gorhambury,[355] Dunstable, Woburn,[356] and so to Kenilworth, the
correspondence on the negotiations for the Alençon match became warmer
and warmer. Agents and messengers speeded backwards and forwards with
portraits and amiable trifles, particularly from the side of England.
There was a good reason for this. Before even the treaty of alliance
was signed, Burghley had deplored that Charles IX. and his mother were
cooling in the agreement for France and England jointly to aid the
Flemish rebels. The Pope and the Emperor were trying their hardest to
withdraw Charles and his mother from the compromise into which he had
entered with Elizabeth; and already the young King and Catharine de
Medici were discovering that Coligny and the Huguenots, when they had
the upper hand, could be as domineering and tyrannical as the Guises
themselves. Paris was in seething discontent that the beloved Guises were
in disgrace, and Charles found his throne tottering. To add to his fears
from the Catholics, the Huguenot force that had entered Flanders under
Genlis had been routed and destroyed by the Spaniards (19th July), and
it was clear to Catharine and her son, that if they did not promptly cut
themselves free from Elizabeth’s attack on Spanish interests, they would
be dragged down when the Huguenots fell. The very day that the news of
Genlis’ defeat arrived in Paris, a young noble named La Mole was sent
flying to England, ostensibly to confer with the Queen on the Alençon
match. There was no particular reason for roughly breaking off that,
and so offending Elizabeth; but the sending of a mere schoolboy like La
Mole with only vague instructions about the proposed joint action in
Flanders would show that Charles IX. did not intend to take any further
responsibility in that direction.
La Mole arrived in London on 27th July, and had a long midnight
interview with Burghley at the French Embassy. He ostensibly only came
from Alençon—not from the King—and when, a few days afterwards, he saw
the Queen privately at Kenilworth, though he was full of fine lovelorn
compliments from Alençon, he could only say from the King that the latter
could not openly declare himself in the matter of Flanders. He suggested
prudence, and fears of a league of Catholic powers against him. He talked
about the strength of Portugal and Savoy, and generally cried off from
his bargain. This was ill news for Elizabeth, for there were hundreds of
Englishmen in arms in Holland, and brave Sir Humphrey Gilbert and his
band were besieging Ter Goes. But the English Queen made the best of it,
and sought to redress matters by pushing the Alençon match more warmly
than ever, and petting and caressing La Mole, who accompanied her on her
progress towards Windsor. Burghley and the experienced Smith seem to have
been as firmly convinced as young La Mole himself, that the Queen was in
earnest, and would really, at last, make up her mind to marry Alençon.
In her conversations with La Mole and Fénélon she smoothed away all
difficulties. Walsingham had made a great mistake, she said, in declaring
that Alençon’s youth was an insuperable difficulty; and much more to
the same effect. But it is curious that all this artless prattle, all
this coy coquetry of the Queen, so spontaneous in appearance, had in
substance been carefully previously drafted by Burghley, and the drafts
are still at Hatfield. Whilst Charles IX. was hesitating and looking
askance at the dominant Huguenots, the latter were assuring Burghley and
Walsingham that all would be well directly. Henry of Navarre was to be
married to the Princess Margaret, and this would give them a pretext for
gathering so strong a force of their party that they could make the King
do as they pleased.[357]
But Elizabeth and the Huguenots had no monopoly of cunning, and whilst
the billing and cooing with La Mole went on, the massacre of St.
Bartholomew was being secretly planned, and every effort was being made
by the French King to draw England into a position of overt hostility
to Spain, whilst he remained unpledged. The Ambassador, Fénélon, and
young La Mole, left the Queen, and returned to London on the 27th
August. On the same day there arrived at Rye two couriers from Paris,
one from Walsingham to the Queen and Burghley, the other to the French
Ambassador. The French courier was detained, and his papers sent forward
with Walsingham’s despatches to the Queen. The news of the great crime
of St. Bartholomew fell upon Elizabeth and her court like a death-knell;
for it seemed that at last the threatened crusade against Protestantism
had begun, and that England was struck at as well as the Huguenots. All
rejoicings were stopped, mourning garb was assumed, and the gay devices
of masques and mummeries gave way to anxious conferences and plans for
defence. Affrighted Protestants by the thousand came flying across the
Channel in any craft that would sail; from mouth to mouth in England
ran the dreadful story of unprovoked and wanton slaughter, and on
every side the old English feeling of hatred and distrust of the false
Frenchmen came uppermost again. On the 7th September, La Mothe Fénélon
was received by the Queen at Woodstock in dead silence, and surrounded
by all the signs of mourning. He made the best of a bad matter: talked
of a plot of Coligny and the Huguenots to seize the Louvre, urged that
the massacre was unpremeditated, and hoped that the friendship between
France and England would continue uninterrupted. But Elizabeth knew that
such a friendship could only be a snare for her whilst the Guises were
paramount, and she dismissed the Ambassador with a plain indication of
her opinion.
Two days afterwards Burghley penned a long letter from the Council to
Walsingham, dictating the steps to be taken for the protection of English
interests; and he accompanied it by a private note, in which the Lord
Treasurer’s own view is frankly set forth. “I see,” he says, “the devil
is suffered by Almighty God for our sins to be strong in following the
persecution of Christ’s members, and therefore we are not only vigilant
of our own defence against such trayterous attempts as lately have been
put in use there in France, but also to call ourselves to repentance.…
The King assures her Majesty that the navy prepared by Strozzi shall not
in any way endamage her Majestie; but we have great cause in these times
to doubt all fair speeches, and therefore we do presently put all the
sea-coasts in defence, and mean to send her Majesty’s navy to sea with
speed, and so to continue until we see further whereunto to trust.”[358]
Not many days after the massacre, Catharine de Medici saw the mistake
she had made in allowing the Guises a free hand, and she and the King
did their best by protestations to Walsingham, and through Fénélon and
Castelnau de la Mauvissière, to draw closer to Elizabeth again. Alençon
did much more. He went to Walsingham, swore vengeance upon the murderers,
and expressed his intention of escaping from court and secretly flying
to England. By an emissary of his own he sent an extravagant love-letter
to the Queen, and ostentatiously took the Huguenot side, whilst Anjou
was on the side of the League. Elizabeth did not wish to break with
France, for her safety once more depended upon avoiding isolation; but
she was still deeply distrustful. Smith, in sending the Queen’s answer to
Walsingham, quaintly defines her attitude towards the French: “You may
perceive by her Majesty’s answer, that she will not refuse the interview
nor marriage, but yet she cometh near to them _tam timido et suspenso
pede_, that they may have good cause to doubt. The answer to De la Mothe
is _addulced_ so much as may, for she would have it so. You have a
busie piece of work to decypher that which in words is designed to the
extremitie, in deeds is more than manifest; neither you shall open the
one, nor shall they cloak the other. The best is, thank God, we stand
upon our guard, nor I trust shall be taken and killed asleep, as Coligny
was. The greatest matter for her Majestie, and our safety and defence, is
earnestly of us attempted, nor yet achieved, nor utterly in despair, but
rather in hope.”[359]
For the next few months this firm attitude of watchfulness was
maintained, whilst the outward demonstrations of friendship between
Catharine and Elizabeth became gradually more cordial, thanks largely
to the influence in the English court of the special envoy Castelnau
de la Mauvissière. Elizabeth consented to act as sponsor for the French
King’s infant daughter; Alençon’s envoy, Maisonfleur, with the knowledge
of Burghley, sent to his master a plan for his escape to England with
Navarre and Condé, and assured him that the Queen would marry him if
he came. But all this diplomatic finesse did not for a moment stay the
grim determination of the Queen and her Council to provide against
treachery, from whatever quarter it might come. All along the coast the
country stood on guard. Portsmouth, Plymouth, the Thames, and Harwich
were swarming with shipping, armed to the teeth for the succour of stern
Protestant Rochelle against the Catholics, and to aid the Netherlanders
in their struggle.[360] The Huguenots of Guienne, Languedoc, and Gascony
had recovered somewhat from the shock of St. Bartholomew, and were
arming for their defence; and to them also went English money, arms, and
encouragement. At Elizabeth’s court the Vidame de Chartres and the Count
de Montgomerie were honoured guests and busy agents, whilst in France
the young Princes of Navarre and Condé were daily being pledged deeper
to the cause of Protestantism and England. The German princes, too, as
profoundly shocked at the treacherous massacre as Elizabeth herself, drew
nearer to the Queen, who was now regarded throughout Europe as the head
of the Protestant confederacy.
It was soon seen that, though St. Bartholomew had given more power to the
Guises, it had also strengthened and consolidated the reformers rather
than destroyed them. Month after month Anjou, at the head of the Catholic
royal army, cast his men fruitlessly against the impregnable walls of
Rochelle, well supplied as the town was with stores by Montgomerie’s
fleet from England, until at last in the spring of 1573 it was seen by
Catharine and her sons that they had failed to crush the reformers of
France, and they were glad to make terms with the heroic Rochellais,
where the besiegers, plague-stricken, starving, and disheartened, were in
far worse case than the beleaguered. Anjou, to his brothers’ and mother’s
delight, was elected to the vacant throne of Poland, and a full amnesty
was signed for the Huguenots (June 1573); complete religious liberty
being accorded in the towns of Rochelle, Montauban, and Nismes, whilst
private Protestant worship was allowed throughout France.
CHAPTER XI
1572-1576
One of the first effects of the massacre of St. Bartholomew was an
approach on the part of Burghley to the Spanish agent in England. The
object probably was to keep in touch and to learn what was going on,
whilst arousing the jealousy of the French, and, above all, to reopen
English trade with Flanders and Spain. In any case, the cordiality of
so great a personage as the Lord Treasurer quite turned the head of
simple-minded, vain Antonio de Guaras, who suddenly found himself treated
as an important diplomatist, and for the rest of his life tried, but
disastrously, to live up to the character.[361] Soon after the expulsion
of De Spes, one of Burghley’s agents had opened up communications with De
Guaras, which resulted in an interview between the latter and the Lord
Treasurer. The minister was graciousness itself, and quite dazzled the
merchant. There was nothing, he assured him, that he desired more than an
agreement with Spain on all points; and though it all came to nothing at
the time, and shortly afterwards the Flemish Commissioners were curtly
dismissed, a letter was handed to Guaras late in August 1572 to be sent
to Alba, making professions of willingness to negotiate for a reopening
of trade, and to withdraw the English troops from Flanders. Before the
reply came in October the massacre of St. Bartholomew had taken place,
and when De Guaras went to Burghley at Hampton Court with a letter from
Alba he found him all smiles. “The Queen was only remarking yesterday,”
said he, “that she wondered Antonio de Guaras did not come to court with
a reply to the message offering to withdraw the Englishmen who were
helping the rebels.” They were only sent there, said Burghley, to prevent
Frenchmen from gaining a footing. He was overjoyed to receive Alba’s
kind letter, and took it to the Queen at once, though she had already
sickened with the smallpox, which a day or two afterwards declared
itself. He hoped, he said, that God would pardon those who had caused the
dissension between the two countries; and the Queen was most willing to
come to terms. He expressed delight at the reported successes of Alba.
He compared Spaniards with Frenchmen, greatly to the disadvantage of the
latter, and “he said more against the French than I did, speaking with
great reverence of our King, and of so courageous a Prince, which were
the words he applied to your Excellency” (Alba).
The delighted merchant was pressed to stay to supper to meet such great
personages as the Earl of Sussex, the Lord Chamberlain, and others; and
the next day he was in conference with Burghley for hours, with the
result that the latter consented to draw up a new draft treaty for the
reopening of trade, one of the clauses of which was to touch upon the
tender subject of the treatment extended by the Inquisition to English
merchants and mariners in Spain. Burghley hinted to De Guaras that some
of the Council were against an accord, but he persuaded him that his own
feelings were all in favour of a renewal of the close understanding with
the House of Burgundy. De Guaras was backwards and forwards to court for
weeks, more charmed than ever with the Lord Treasurer’s amiability. “It
is,” he says, “undoubted that a great amount of dissension exists in
the Council, some being friendly to our side, and others to the French;
but the best Councillor of all of them is Lord Burghley, as he follows
the tendency of the Queen, which is towards concord. As he is supreme in
the country and in the Queen’s estimation, in all the important Councils
which were held during the days that I was at court, he, with his great
eloquence, having right on his side, was able to persuade those who were
opposed to him. He assured me privately that he had gained over the great
majority of his opponents, and especially the Earl of Leicester, who
has always been on the side of the French.”[362] Burghley could be very
persuasive and talkative when it suited him, as it very rarely did. The
French, he said, were most anxious for a close alliance, but the Queen
and himself set but small store on “these noisy French and Italians.”
A Spanish spy in London, unknown to De Guaras, scornfully wrote to Alba
that Lord Burghley was playing with De Guaras; and before many weeks had
passed, the latter himself had begun to doubt. Burghley passed him in
his ante-room three times without so much as noticing him. “Some great
plot against the Spaniards in Flanders” was hatching, he was sure; “and
in one moment they decided that their false news was of more importance
than our friendship.” “Whilst this Government exists, no good arrangement
will be made, as the Queen only desires it from fear, and the rest will
oppose it on religious grounds.” When De Guaras saw the Lord Treasurer
later in November (1572), grave doubts were expressed about the _bona
fides_ of Philip, much to the Spaniard’s indignation. Burghley said he
was still strongly in favour of an arrangement, because the French, who
wished the English wool trade to go to France instead of Flanders, were
so shifty, and could not be trusted. The Queen would be glad, too, to
mediate between Spain and the Prince of Orange. Thus Burghley played on
the hopes and fears of Spain; but through the whole negotiation it was
clear that the objects were—first, if possible, to reopen the ports for
English trade on profitable terms;[363] and, secondly, to keep Spain in
hand, pending the development of events in France, and the strengthening
of Orange for his forthcoming campaign.
In the meanwhile Sir Humphrey Gilbert and his 800 Englishmen were
recalled from Flanders, and the elaborate pretence made that he was in
disgrace for having gone thither at all against the Queen’s wish; and
other demonstrations were made, especially by Burghley, of a desire to
agree on friendly conditions with Spain. As weeks passed without any
reply coming from Alba to the draft treaty, Burghley grew distrustful,
and, as De Guaras complains, coldly passed him without recognising him.
At last, late in December, he sent for the Spaniard and made a speech,
which, De Guaras says, sounded as if it had been studied. “He hoped,” he
said, “that the good-will of himself and his friends would be recognised.
Some of the Councillors thought that De Guaras had been playing them
false,[364] and his (Burghley’s) party was much annoyed that no answer
had come, especially about the simultaneous opening of the ports.” All
the while the vigorous support of Orange’s preparations went on; money,
men, and arms flowed over in abundance (early in 1573); and the Dutch
agents were in England urging Elizabeth openly to take Holland and
Zeeland under her protection, and to lend national countenance to the
struggle against Spain. She was not prepared for this yet, for France
was under the influence of the Guises, and their intrigues in Scotland
left her no rest. But Alba was afraid of the bare possibility of a
great Protestant league of English, Germans, and Huguenots, in favour
of Orange; and his pride was humbled more by this than by professions
of friendship. The result of Burghley’s negotiations through De Guaras,
and the aiding of Orange, was that in the summer of 1573 the Flemish
and Spanish ports were once more opened to English trade, on terms
immensely favourable to England,[365] since she obtained a free market
for her cloth, whilst she kept the great bulk of the enormous amount
of Spanish property which Elizabeth had seized five years previously.
This was a greater exemplification of the impotence of Philip, even
than the expulsion of De Spes. All the world could see now that, much
as his Inquisition might harry individual Englishmen, the King could
neither defend nor avenge the injuries done to himself; and was obliged
to overlook the presence of armed English regiments on the side of his
rebellious subjects, for the sake of retaining the profit brought to his
dominions by English commerce. Burghley had at all events established one
fact, namely, that, for the present, Philip alone could do no harm.
The struggles between the Protestants and Catholics in Scotland had
continued almost without interruption since the death of Murray. Mary’s
friends were still numerous and strong amongst the aristocratic and
landed classes, and were supported, as we have seen, by Spanish and papal
money, as well as by Guisan intrigue. The Regent Lennox had been murdered
by the Hamiltons (September 1571), and his successor (Mar) had died of
poison or a broken heart (November 1572); but with the advent of Morton,
a man of stronger fibre, the Protestant cause became more aggressive, and
the English influence over Scotland more decided. Shortly before this
happened, when the effects of St. Bartholomew were still weighing on the
English court, and it was known that Catharine de Medici and her son were
as busy with the Archbishop of Glasgow in supporting the Hamiltons and
Gordons as was Cardinal Lorraine himself, secret instructions were given
to Killigrew, the English Ambassador in Scotland, to take a step which
under any other circumstances would have been inexcusable. The secret
instructions are drafted in Burghley’s hand, and more obloquy has been
piled upon his memory in consequence of them than for any other action
in his career; even his thick-and-thin apologist, Dr. Nares, confessing
that he could only look upon Killigrew’s orders “with feelings of disgust
and horror.” Killigrew’s open mission was to reconcile the King’s party
with those who championed the cause of his mother, and especially with
Kirkaldy of Grange and Lethington, who still held Edinburgh Castle; but
his secret instructions were to a different effect. He was to warn
the Protestants that a second St. Bartholomew might be intended in
Scotland—not by any means an improbable suggestion, considering who were
the promoters of the original massacre. “But you are also chosen to deal
in a third matter of far greater moment.” The continuance of the Queen of
Scots in England, he is told, is considered dangerous, and it is deemed
desirable that she should be sent to Scotland and delivered to the Regent
(Mar), “if it might be wrought that they themselves should secretly
require it, with good assurance to deal with her by way of justice, that
she should receive that which she hath deserved, whereby no further peril
should ensue from her escaping, or by setting her up again. Otherwise the
Council of England will never assent to deliver her out of the realm; and
for assurance, none can suffice but hostages of good value—that is, some
children of the Regent and the Earl of Morton.”[366] The suggestion was
not a chivalrous or a generous one. It meant nothing less than handing
over the unfortunate Mary to her enemies to be executed, and so to rid
Elizabeth of her troublesome guest without responsibility. Killigrew was
Burghley’s brother-in-law, and the two, with Leicester and the Queen,
were the only persons acquainted with the intention.
On his arrival in Edinburgh the new envoy found the Protestants
profoundly moved by the news of the massacre in Paris; Knox, paralysed
and on the brink of the grave, used his last remaining spark of life
to denounce the Guises and the Papists who had forged the murder plot
against the people of God. Killigrew found Morton ready and eager to
help in the sacrifice of Mary, but Mar held back; and Burghley and
Leicester wrote, urging speed in the matter.[367] When the terms of
the Scots at last were sent to Burghley, it was seen that, though they
were willing to have Mary killed, they would not relieve Elizabeth of
the responsibility.[368] The death of Mar put an end for a time to the
negotiation, which was never seriously undertaken again, as it was clear
that the Scots would drive too hard a bargain to suit Elizabeth.
It is my province to explain facts rather than to apologise for them, and
the explanation of the plan to cause Mary to be judicially murdered in
Scotland must be sought in the panic which seized upon the Protestants
after St. Bartholomew. The massacre was generally believed to be only a
part of a plan for the universal extirpation of the reformers, in which
it was known that Mary Stuart’s friends and relatives were the prime
movers, and one of the main objects was represented to be the raising of
Mary to the throne of a Catholic Great Britain. So long as this belief
existed, no step was inexcusable that aimed at frustrating so diabolical
and widespread a conspiracy. That Burghley himself was not sensible of
any turpitude in the matter may be seen from a letter written by him
to Walsingham on the 14th January 1573, begging him to discover the
author of a book printed in Paris, in which he and Bacon are scurrilously
accused of plans against Norfolk and Mary. “God amend his spirit,” he
says, referring to the author, “and confound his malice. As for my part,
if I have any such malicious or malignant spirit, God presently so
confound my body to ashes and my soul to perpetual torment in hell.”[369]
How soon Catharine de Medici and her son regretted the false step of
St. Bartholomew is seen by their attitude towards England early in the
following year (1573). The Archbishop of Glasgow was plainly told that
no more help could be given to his mistress, Cardinal Lorraine failed
ignominiously to draw France into renewed activity on behalf of the
League, and Charles IX. considered it necessary to apologise to Elizabeth
for the presence in his court of the special papal envoy already referred
to. It was seen also that the blood and iron policy of Alba had ended in
failure: the revolt in the Netherlands was stronger than ever, Holland
was entirely in the hands of Orange, and most of the Catholic provinces
of Flanders even had broken from their Spanish allegiance. Under these
circumstances it seemed possible that the secular dream of Frenchmen
might eventually come to pass, and the fine harbours and busy towns of
Belgium might fall to the share of France. But this could only be if
she had a close understanding and made common cause with England. So
once more the Alençon marriage was vigorously pushed to the front by
Catharine. In February the French Ambassador saw Elizabeth, and formally
prayed her to give an answer whether she would marry the Prince or
not. If she would only let them know her pleasure now, the King and
Queen-mother would trouble her no more. It was a good opportunity, and
Elizabeth made the most of it. Fair terms must be given to the Huguenots
in Rochelle, she said, and on condition that this was done, she would
give an answer about Alençon through Lord Burghley. On the 18th February
the Lord Treasurer made his formal speech. The Queen would never marry a
man she had never seen. If the Prince liked to come over, even secretly,
he would be welcome; but in any case an interview had better precede
the discussion of religion, because if the lovers did not fancy each
other, the question of conscience would be a convenient pretext for
breaking off the negotiation; but still no public exercise of Catholic
worship must be expected. When Burghley sent to Walsingham a copy of his
speech, he added for his private information: “I see the imminent perils
to this State, and … the success (_i.e._ the succession) of the crown
manifestly uncertain, or rather so manifestly prejudicial to the state
of religion, that I cannot but still persist in seeking marriage for
her Majesty, and finding no way that is liking to her but this of the
Duke, I do force myself to pursue it with desire, and do fancy myself
with imaginations that if he do come hither her Majesty would not refuse
him.… If I am deceived, yet for the time it easeth me to imagine that
such a sequel may follow.”[370] This was uncertain enough; but Walsingham
was even less encouraging. He was sick of the whole hollow business;
profoundly distrustful of the French; and, moreover, was a friend of
Leicester, who constantly plied him with letters deprecating the match.
This, then, is how he managed cleverly to stand in with Burghley whilst
serving Leicester. “Touching my private opinion of the marriage, the
great impediment that I find in the same is the contentment of the eye.
The gentleman, sure, is void of any good favour, besides the blemish
of the small pocks. Now, when I weigh the same with the delicateness of
her Majesty’s eye, and considering also that there are some about her
in credit, who in respect of their particular interests, have neither
regard for her Majesty, nor to the preservation of our country from
ruine, and will rather increase the misliking by defacing him than by
dutifully laying before her the necessity of marriage … I hardly think
there will ever grow any liking.… Whether this marriage be sincerely
meant here or not is a hard point to judge … in my opinion I think rather
no than yea.”[371] This was almost the last letter written by Walsingham
as Ambassador. He was recalled, to be shortly afterwards appointed
joint-Secretary of State with Sir Thomas Smith, with the intention of
still further relieving Burghley from routine labour; and Dr. Dale, as
Ambassador in Paris, kept alive the ridiculous, and frequently insincere,
discussion of the marriage of Elizabeth and Alençon.[372]
Burghley’s labours and anxieties were not confined to foreign affairs.
His interest in the uniformity and discipline of the Anglican Church
was unceasing, and especially in connection with his Chancellorship of
Cambridge University, gave him endless anxiety. The vestments controversy
had now widened and deepened. The famous tract called “An Admonition to
Parliament” had been presented to the Parliament of 1572 by Cartwright;
and its violence in a Puritan direction had provoked a controversy,
which, at the period now under consideration (1573), had developed on
one side into a bitter antagonism to prelacy, and even sacerdotalism in
all its forms. Both parties appealed to Burghley. He made a speech in
the Star Chamber which left no doubt as to his attitude, if any such
ever existed, on the point. The Queen, he said, was determined to have
the laws obeyed. No innovation of ritual or practice would be permitted.
If any of the “novelists” were under the impression that departures from
the rules laid down would remain unpunished, he disabused their minds.
A Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, named Chark, violently attacked the
hierarchy from the University pulpits, and was admonished. He persisted,
and was ejected from his Fellowship. Another Cambridge man, Edward
Dering, Lecturer at St. Paul’s Cathedral, acted similarly, and was
summoned before the Privy Council, and was suspended from his preferment.
At the instance of Bishop Sandys[373] he was restored, but again brought
before the Star Chamber when he addressed a long letter to Burghley
advocating his views. Whilst Leicester always favoured the Puritans,
the Lord Treasurer was thus on the side of the law and the prelates;
and though he was constantly chosen as arbiter, even by those with whom
he disagreed, he never wavered in his insistence on the maintenance of
uniformity, and obedience to the prescriptions laid down by Parliament
and the rulers of the Church.[374]
Notwithstanding the appointment of two Secretaries of State, which
somewhat relieved him from writing despatches, almost every matter, great
and small, was still referred to Burghley. We have given instances of his
activity in foreign and ecclesiastical affairs; but, as Ellis[375] truly
says, “from a question of peace or war, down to a regulation for the
lining of slop hose; from quarrels at court to the bickering between a
schoolmaster and his scholar; from the arrest of a peer to the punishment
of a cutpurse—all was reported to him, and by all parties in turn his
favour was craved.”
It must have been difficult for him to keep clear of court factions
and scandal; but though it was notorious that Leicester always opposed
him, they still remained outwardly friendly, and their letters to each
other are full of civil expressions. Sussex and Hatton were for ever at
feud with Leicester. Alençon’s amorous agents scandalised all beholders
by their open flirting with the Queen, to which Leicester retorted by
making violent love to two sisters, Lady Sheffield and Frances Howard;
and the light-hearted and light-heeled young Earl of Oxford, Burghley’s
son-in-law at this time (1573), had danced himself into the good graces
of the erotic Queen, which he soon lost by his folly. Stern Lady Burghley
openly and imprudently condemned this philandering, and the Queen
fell into a rage with her; yet “my Lord Treasurer, even after his old
manner, dealeth with matters of the State only, and beareth himself very
uprightly.… At all these love matters my Lord Treasurer winketh, and will
not meddle any way.”[376]
Burghley’s private correspondence with his steward, Kemp, at Burghley, at
this period, shows that his care for detail in his household management
was as unwearied as ever. One letter written in June 1573 by Kemp is very
curious. Burghley’s mother was still alive, but, of course, very aged.
She appears to have become unduly penurious as to her garb, and her son
had ordered a dress for the old lady. The steward writes: “Mr. Thomas
Cecil came home well, and my mistress, your mother, came to Burghley two
hours before him. The gown that you would make, it must be for every
day, and yet because it comes from you (except you write to her to the
contrary) she will make it her holiday gown; whereof she hath great store
already, both of silk and cloth. But I think, sir, if you make her one
of cloth, with some velvet on it, with your letter to desire her for
your sake to wear it daily, she would accustom herself to it; so as she
would forget to go any longer in such base apparel as she hath used to
have a delight in, which is too mean for one of a lower estate than she
is.” The old lady also desired a chaplain for service twice a day; and by
Burghley’s endorsement on the letter, it is evident that the gown and the
chaplain were sent to her.
During the Queen’s great progress through Kent and Sussex in the autumn,
Burghley attended her; and whilst the court was at Eridge, the Treasurer,
not without difficulty, persuaded the Queen to accede to Mary Stuart’s
request, through the Earl of Shrewsbury, that she should be allowed to
visit the baths of Buxton, whither shortly afterwards Burghley himself
went for his own malady,[377] and saw the unhappy Queen, whom on this
occasion, at all events, he impressed not unfavourably.[378] During the
Queen’s progress, which was on a more lavish scale even than usual,[379]
a determined attempt was made—and, according to one of Mary Stuart’s
letters from Buxton, not quite unsuccessfully—to arouse Elizabeth’s
distrust of Burghley. Simultaneously there were sent to the Queen, to
Burghley, to Bacon, and the principal courtiers and ecclesiastics,
another violent book printed in France against Burghley and the Lord
Keeper. A copy was sent to the Queen by Lord Windsor, a refugee on the
Continent, with great professions of attachment, and hints evidently
directed against Burghley, “although for my part, in mine opinion, I
suppose he is too wise to be overtaken in many of those things which he
is touched withal.”[380] Burghley received his copy from an unknown hand
in Canterbury Cathedral precincts, where he was lodged, and it appears
quite to have upset his equanimity. He wrote (11th September 1573) to
the Archbishop (Parker) bitterly resenting the attack at such a time “by
some domestic hidden scorpion.” “If God and our consciences were not our
defence and consolation against these pestilential darts, we might well
be weary of our lives.” Parker returned “the mad book, so outrageously
penned that malice hath made him blind. I judge it not worth an answer.”
Bacon was less disturbed with the matter than his brother-in-law, and
summarises the contents of the book as follows: “It consisteth of three
points. Chiefly it is to change the religion that now is; 2nd, to
establish the Scottish Queen’s party; and, 3rd, is an invective against
us two. I like the conjunction of the matter, though I mislike the
impudent lies of the author to maintain it.”
The accession of Morton to the Regency of Scotland had been followed by
the complete collapse of Mary’s cause there. Killigrew was ready with
English bribes, and the Hamiltons and the Gordons were induced to abandon
a hopeless struggle and lay down their arms. Only Kirkaldy of Grange
held out, hoping against hope that the promised Guisan help would reach
him in Edinburgh Castle. Once a large sum of French money for him was
withheld by the treachery of Sir James Balfour, corrupt almost to the
point of grotesqueness; and thenceforward Kirkaldy, Lord Hume, and the
rest of the party simply held out in the castle to save their lives.
But when Drury with English troops crossed the Border and reinforced
Morton, Kirkaldy surrendered to the English general, on promise of fair
treatment. Morton insisted upon the prisoners being delivered to him,
for whilst they lived, he said, there would be no safety for him or the
State; and though Drury held out, Elizabeth at last gave way to Morton’s
importunity, and brave Kirkaldy and the rest of Mary’s staunch friends
lost their heads. Thenceforward Mary Stuart’s cause was dead, so far as
the Scottish people themselves were concerned. Morton nearly obtained the
Bishop of Ross, too, from Elizabeth, but he was after all a sovereign’s
Ambassador, and her Council dissuaded her from surrendering him. On his
abject submission and solemn promise never again to take part in public
affairs,[381] he was allowed to go to France, to break his pledge at
once, and become thenceforward an untiring agent for the furtherance
of Spanish aims in England. Thus Scotland for a time, under so firm an
English ally as Morton, ceased to cause active anxiety to Elizabeth and
her minister.
Alba, sick of his sanguinary failure, was replaced in Flanders by a
more diplomatic Governor (Requesens) late in 1573. Though De Guaras in
London continued humbly to imitate De Spes, and immersed himself in
intrigues, such as that of the English captains who proposed to betray
Flushing, the plans of those who offered to kill the Prince of Orange,
to kidnap the young King of Scotland, and the like, many of these plans
were merely traps set by Burghley to learn how far the Spaniards were
willing to go; and they came to nothing, for of all things Philip needed
peace the most. Alba and the war party in Spain were in disgrace, the
commerce of the country was almost destroyed by the privateers, and
friendly relations with England were once more the great object of
Philip’s policy. Burghley also renewed his efforts to draw the countries
closer together, for reasons which will presently be stated. A great
delivery of Catholics from prison was made mainly at his instance, and
drew upon him remonstrances and attacks, both on the part of some of the
Bishops themselves, in a guarded fashion, and more violently from the
Puritans, now openly patronised by Leicester. Arising out of this, a
great conspiracy was said to have been discovered against the lives of
Archbishop Parker and Lord Burghley, on the part of one Undertree. The
depositions of the accused, which are in the Hatfield Papers, are, as
usual in such cases, full to the extent of diffuseness; but though Parker
was much alarmed, and the affair gave Burghley an infinity of trouble,
there does not appear to have been much importance really attached to it.
The key to Burghley’s milder attitude towards the Catholics—apart from
the disappearance of Mary Stuart’s party in Scotland—was the position
of affairs in France. The talk of Elizabeth’s marriage with Alençon had
continued uninterruptedly, drawn out with a thousand banalities as to
the possibility of secret meetings between the lovers, the depth and
number of pock holes on the suitor’s face, his personal qualities, his
religious elasticity, and the like. His brother, Charles IX., was only
twenty-four, but it was known that he could not live long; the heir,
Anjou, now King of Poland, was a furious and fanatical Catholic. With
the knowledge of Elizabeth and her minister, all France was enveloped
in a vast conspiracy, in which the Montmorencis and the “politicians”
were making common cause with the Huguenots, of which combination
Alençon was the figurehead. But Catharine de Medici was fully aware of
the fact, and was determined to frustrate it. With Anjou for King she
might still be supreme in France; whereas the rise of Alençon, under
the tutelage of the Huguenots and the Queen of England, would have
meant extinction for her. Several times before Charles died, Alençon
and the Princes of Navarre and Condé had tried to escape to England,
but Catharine held them tight, and never left them. Montgomerie was
waiting for the signal, with a strong fleet in the Channel, to swoop
down upon Normandy, and all the Protestants and anti-Guisans in France
were under arms. The mine was to burst in April, the Princes were to be
rescued forcibly from Catharine, and St. Bartholomew was to be avenged.
But the Queen-mother was on the alert. Just before the day fixed she
hurried away from St. Germains to Catholic Paris, clapped Alençon and
Navarre, Montmorenci, De Cossé, and all the chiefs into prison, and then
crushed the Protestant armies piecemeal, for they were leaderless and
far apart. When, therefore, Charles IX. died (30th May 1574), Catharine
was mistress of the situation, and held France in her hand until the new
King, Henry III., arrived, to take possession of the throne. With such
a sovereign as this in France, led by Catharine, who had her grudge to
satisfy against Elizabeth for the encouragement she had given to the
Princes, it was natural that Burghley should again smile somewhat upon
the Catholics, and say civil words to Spain; especially as panic-stricken
rumours came—though they were untrue—that Philip was fitting out a
great navy to send with a powerful force to Flanders.[382] Catholic
Flanders, moreover, had mostly been brought back to Spanish allegiance
by the mildness of Requesens; and Elizabeth was growing less willing to
continue to provide large sums of money to uphold Orange in what now
appeared to be a well-nigh desperate cause, if it had to be supported
entirely from England. So when Requesens’ envoys came to see her about
the regulation of trade, and the exclusion of the privateers from her
ports, she was all smiles; and although upon being appealed to, to allow
English mercenaries to serve the Spaniards in Flanders as they served
Orange, she refused, though not very firmly, she expressed her desire
to bring Orange to submit to the King of Spain. Once more, therefore, an
unrestrained Catholic regime in France inevitably drew England and Spain
closer together. It was only when the Huguenots were paramount, who would
not join Philip against England, or help the Catholics of Scotland, that
Elizabeth and Burghley could afford to disregard the friendship of the
King of Spain.
The behaviour of the young sovereign of France—no longer a king,
but a besotted monk, sunk into the deepest abyss of debauchery
and superstition—kept alive the discontent of the Huguenots and
“politicians,” who had regarded his accession with horror. Alençon and
the King held rival courts in Paris, the one surrounded by reformers, the
other by all that was retrograde and vicious. Cardinal Lorraine was dead,
and the King’s advisers were no longer statesmen, but mendicant friars
and the Italian time-servers of the Queen-mother: Henry of Guise was just
entering into the arena, and was already a popular idol; and all seemed
to portend a renewal of French activity in favour of Mary Stuart.[383]
Elizabeth therefore went out of her way to dazzle poor foolish De Guaras
again. Seeing him walking in Richmond Park, she called him to her, and
exerted all her witchery upon him (March 1575). “You understand,” she
said, “full well, old wine, old bread, and old friends should be prized
the most, and if only for the sake of showing these Frenchmen who are
wrangling as to whether our friendship is firm or not, there is good
reason to prove outwardly the kind feeling which inwardly exists.”[384]
She accused the poor man, quite coquettishly, of having received a token
from the Queen of Scots—which he had not—but ended by quite winning him
over by her prattle. Almost simultaneously with this, strict orders were
given to the Warden of the Cinque Ports “to prevent the landing of the
Prince of Orange, or any of his aiders or abettors in the conspiracy
against the King of Spain, and also to prevent their receiving any aid,
succour, or relief, in men, armour, or victuals.”[385]
Considering that the revolt in Holland had been mainly kept up from
England, this was indeed a complete change of policy; but more was behind
it even than appeared. Many of the Catholic refugees on the Continent
were spies in the service of Lord Burghley, to whom nearly all of them
appealed as their only hope and protector, and one of them particularly,
named Woodshaw,[386] who was deep in the confidence of La Motte, the
Spanish Governor of Gravelines. The latter suggested that, as war
between France and England was in the air, it would be a good plan for
the English to seize Calais or Boulogne, with the aid of the Spaniards,
and come to terms with Philip to prevent any aid or food reaching the
French from Flanders or Artois. This was conveyed to Burghley, and soon
Sir William Drury, Colonel Chester, and several of the officers who
had come from Holland, were in close conference daily with him and the
other Councillors remaining in London when the Queen went upon her summer
progress. De Guaras, whilst reporting their movements, was in the dark
as to their object. “During the last three days,” he says, “at night or
at unsuspected hours, they have taken from the Tower sixty waggons and
gun carriages, which have been shipped to Dover.” Guns, battery-trains,
culverins, fieldpieces, and ammunition were being shipped on four of
the Queen’s ships at Rochester. Mariners were being pressed, commanders
were leaving secretly for the coast, Burghley’s son-in-law the Earl of
Oxford, with Ralph Hopton and young Montmorenci, hurried off to Germany,
and the Huguenot agents were closeted with Burghley almost day and night.
We know now what it all meant, by a letter from the Earl of Sussex to
Lord Burghley,[387] in which he deplores the projected war with Catholic
France, which, he says, is only brought about by those who wish to
prevent the Queen’s marriage with Alençon. “It will bring her into war
with all Europe, and she and the realm will smart for the pleasing of
these men’s humours.” The cost of the war, he says, was to be defrayed
equally by the King of Navarre (Henry), the German princes, and the
Queen; “but he fears her Majesty in the end must pay for all, or let all
fall when she hath put her foot in.”
Wilkes, the Clerk of the Council, was sent with a large sum of money to
young Montmorenci (Meru) in Strasbourg, and then over the Rhine to the
Duke Hans Casimir, the great mercenary; and Meru was able to write to
Burghley in October, “Thanks to the Queen’s favour by your means, we are
now on the point of succeeding. One of the finest armies that for twenty
years hath issued from Germany, ready to march, is coming just in time
to succour the King’s brother.”[388] All through the summer De Guaras was
at fault as to the meaning of the preparations, which he thought might be
a joint expedition against the Spaniards in Flanders. As we have seen,
the very opposite really was the case. Some of the principal English
officers, indeed, who had been with Orange were full of plots with De
Guaras for poisoning the Prince, for betraying Flushing into Spanish
hands, and so forth. For the moment there were certainly no smiles from
Elizabeth for the Netherlanders; for Orange had taken a masterly step,
such as she herself might have conceived. When he saw that English help
was slackening, he boldly made approaches to France for help. So long as
it was Huguenot help under her control, Elizabeth did not mind; but when
it was a question of marrying Orange’s daughter to Alençon or some other
French prince, and obtaining French national patronage, it was quite
another matter—that Elizabeth would never allow. So England and Spain
grew closer and closer. Sir Henry Cobham was sent as an envoy to Philip,
ostensibly on the question of the English prisoners of the Inquisition,
but really to propose a friendship between the two countries, and inform
the King of the Prince of Orange’s intrigues with the French.[389] A
Spanish flotilla on its way to the Netherlands, under Don Pedro de
Valdés, was, moreover, welcomed in the English ports, and an envoy from
Requesens took part, as the Queen’s guest, in the memorable festivities
at Kenilworth.
A renewed appeal was made to the Council by Orange in August, through
Colonel Chester. He offered the island of Zeeland to Elizabeth, if she
would hold it, and begged permission to raise two thousand fresh men
in England. The reply given by Burghley was to the effect that “if the
Queen allowed such a thing, the King of Spain would have a good cause for
introducing schism and fire into her country through Ireland. If Orange
carried out his threat to hand over the territory to the French, the
Queen would oppose it.” Every day some fresh proof of friendship with
Spain was given. Frobisher proposed to place his fleet at the disposal
of the King of Spain, proclamations were issued forbidding all British
subjects from taking service with Orange, and offers of mediation were
frequent. In September 1575, Alençon managed to escape the vigilance of
his brother and his mother, fled to Dreux, adopted the Huguenot cause,
and headed the revolt with Henry of Navarre. This was the eventuality
in which the English preparations were to have been employed. But,
again, Catharine de Medici was too clever to be caught. She suddenly
released Montmorenci and the rest of the “politicians” from the Bastile,
attached them to the King’s cause, and through them patched up a six
months’ truce between the two brothers (November). The terms were hard
for Henry. Alençon was bribed with 100,000 livres, and the three rich
duchies of Anjou, Berri, and Touraine; Hans Casimir got 300,000 crowns,
and a pension of 40,000 livres; the German mercenaries were handsomely
paid to go home; Condé was promised the governorship of Picardy; the
Montmorencis, De Cossé, the Chatillons, and the rest of the malcontents
were bought; the crown jewels of France were pawned, and the country
plunged deeply in debt to pay for the famous truce.
Then Elizabeth and her advisers found themselves confronted with
increased difficulties, as they usually did when the Catholics in
France had a free hand. Catharine and the King saw that France was
not big enough to hold at the same time the sovereign and the heir
presumptive, and cast about for means to get rid of him profitably. The
best suggestion for them came from the Walloon nobles in favour of Spain.
Why should not Alençon marry a daughter of the Spanish King and be made
Viceroy of Spanish Flanders? The mere whisper of such an arrangement
drove Elizabeth into a new course. She might hint, as she did pretty
broadly many times, at the marriage of the young Prince with herself, but
Alençon thought he saw more advantage elsewhere. For the next three years
he was held tightly in the leading-strings of his mother and brother—no
longer a Huguenot, but an ostentatiously devout Catholic, hating the King
and his surroundings bitterly; jealous, vengeful, and turbulent, but
looking for his future to the Catholics and the League rather than to
the Queen of England, with whom he kept up just a sufficient pretence of
love-making to prevent her from opposing him in Flanders. It was doubly
necessary now for Elizabeth to be friendly with Spain; but she could
not afford to see Orange utterly crushed, for with the Huguenots and
Protestant Holland both subdued, there was no barrier between her and
Catholic vengeance. The position was a perplexing one for her. Orange
sent over prayers almost daily for help, or he must abandon the struggle.
At one time, in December, when the Queen learned that a great deputation
of Dutch Protestant nobles were on the way to offer her Holland and
Zeeland in exchange for English support,[390] “she entered her chamber
alone, slamming the door after her, and crying out that they were ruining
her over this business. She declared loudly that she would have no
forces sent openly to Holland. She was in such grief that her ladies
threatened to burst her door open if she would not admit them, as they
could not bear her to be alone in such trouble.”[391] But loudly as she
might protest, especially in the hearing of the friends of Spain, and
roughly as she might use St. Aldegonde, Paul Buiz, and the rest of the
Netherlanders who prayed for aid, she took care, with Burghley’s help, to
look fixedly in another direction when men and arms, munitions and money,
were sent over to Orange in violation of her own orders.
What Lord Burghley’s action in the matter was is seen by his letters.
Beale, one of the clerks of the Council, was sent over to Zeeland to
report on Orange’s position, and to insist upon the suppression of
piracy. Burghley thus writes to Walsingham (16th April 1576): “I have
perused all the letters and memorandum of Mr. Beale’s concerning his
voyage into Zeeland, and so well allow of the whole course therein
taken by the Lords, that both with heart and hand I sign them.”[392]
The Flushing pirates appear to have offered some insult to the Earl
of Oxford, Burghley’s son-in-law, on his way to England, at which the
Treasurer was extremely angry,[393] an unusual thing with him. In
the same letter he writes: “I find it hard to make a good distinction
between anger and judgment for Lord Oxford’s misusage, and especially
when I look into the universal barbarism of the Prince’s (Orange) force
of Flushingers, who are only a rabble of common pirates, or worse, who
make no difference whom they outrage, I mistrust any good issue of the
cause, though of itself it should be favoured.” He almost violently urges
that Beale should ask the Prince of Orange to avenge such an insult “by
hanging some of the principals.” “Such an outrage cannot be condoned
without five or six of such thieves being hanged. If the Prince were rid
of a hundred of them it would be better for the cause. You see my anger
leadeth my judgment. But I am not truly more moved hereto for particular
causes than for the public.”[394] The same day a very strong remonstrance
from the English Council was written to Orange, saying that the piracy of
the Flushing men was rendering his cause odious to all Christendom, and
would ruin his enterprise.
The Netherlanders, especially Paul Buiz, who lodged with Burghley’s
servant, Herll, in Redcross Street, did their best to excuse the
Flushingers, and begged that “these rough men be not roughly dealt with.”
It is evident that they looked upon Leicester and the Puritans as their
champions rather than moderate Burghley, whose approaches to Spain at
the time were, of course, well known. Herll writes (14th March 1576):
“It is given out by those of good sort who profess the religion, that
your Lordship has been the only obstacle to this Holland service, by
dissuading her Majesty from the enterprise, when the Earl of Leicester
and several earnest friends were furtherers thereof. They complain that
these poor men who were sent to the Queen have been, contrary to promise,
kept by indirect dealing so long here, to their utter undoing at home and
abroad. They say that Sir F. Walsingham dealt honestly with them from
the first. He said they would get nothing, and lose their time. They say
these unworthy proceedings with foreign nations make the English the most
hated men in the world, and to be contemned for mere abusers, as those
who put on religion and piety and justice for a cloak to serve humours
withal. Your Lordship’s enemies, however, are compelled to say that you
are more subject to evil judgment for your good service than for evil
itself.” When Herll spoke to Paul Buiz about Burghley’s anger at the
outrage on Lord Oxford, the Netherlander “struck his breast, and said
your Lordship was the only man who had dealt sincerely with them, and
truly favoured their cause, and yet was forced to give them hard words,
according to the alterations of the time, parties, and occasion, which
kind of free proceeding he preferred of all others.”[395]
A few months later (August) Herll was made the means of conveying
to Colonel Chester, then with Orange, Lord Burghley’s view of the
situation. “Her Majesty,” he says, “is so moved by those insolent
delinges of the Prynce and his Zeelanders, as none dare move her to ani
consideratyon towards theme, butt all is sett uppon revenge of their
lewd acts and worse speche, and to extermynate them owt of the world,
rather than endure it ani longer. And where the Prynce pretends aid
owt of France, he dawnceth in a nett. If he se not that, her Majesty
knows the contrary, and that herein he is greatly abused, or seeketh to
abuse others, with small credit to hymselfe and less assurans to his
estate when this maske is taken away.”[396] The great indignation about
the pirates may or may not have been sincere; but it is unquestionable
that it was the fear expressed of an arrangement between Orange and the
French that really caused the disquietude.[397] The remedy to be proposed
to Orange by Chester was simply that he, Orange, should prevent any
repetition of the piratical outrages of the Flushing men, and apologise
for them, and his friends in England will move the Queen “to help him
underhand; but to say that her Majesty will be _forced_ to do anything,
maugre her will, is a great absurdity.” But if Orange will open his
eyes and see things as they are, “somewhat (yea, some round portion)
will be voluntarily given to the assistance of the cause, and to aid
both Zeeland and Holland, especially the latter, to which country the
Queen and her Council are greatly inclined.” Orange was a diplomatist as
keen as Burghley himself, and he well knew that, as a last resource, he
could always force the hands of the English Government by negotiating
for aid from France. Elizabeth might swear at his envoys, make friends
with his enemies the Spaniards, threaten to expend the last man and the
last shilling she had to turn the French out of Flanders, if ever they
entered; but she always ended in sending aid “underhand” to Orange to
prevent his union with the French; unless, as happened later, the French
were Huguenots disowned by their own King, and going as her humble
servants.
Leicester was for ever clamouring for open help to be sent to Orange; the
Puritans, who took their cue from him, were more aggressive than ever in
the country;[398] but ready as the Queen might be to dally Leicester,
she took care to make no serious move in the knotty question of the
Netherlands without the advice of her “spirit,” as she nicknamed the
great Lord Treasurer.[399] In spite of his almost continual illness, she
summoned him to her, wherever she might be; and at about the period when
the letters just quoted were written, the Earl of Sussex writes saying
that the Queen has just received intelligence from beyond the seas which
she must discuss with him at once. When Burghley had seen the Queen,
either on that occasion or soon after, and returned home, Sussex writes
thus: “Her Majesty spoke honourably of your Lordship’s deserts, and of
her affection for you, and of your sound, deep judgment and counsel;
using these words, ‘that no prince in Europe had such a councillor as she
had of him.’ If your Lordship had heard her speeches, they must needs
have been to your great contentment. The end of her Majesty’s speeches
was that she prayed your Lordship to come to Nonsuch, as soon as you
conveniently might.”
Burghley, indeed, was the only one of her ministers whom she treated
with anything approaching respect, for he always respected himself.
Walsingham, especially, was the object of her vulgar abuse. “Scurvy
knave” and “rogue” were the terms she frequently applied to him; and
it was apparently not at all an uncommon thing for her, in moments of
impatience with him, to pluck off her high-heeled shoe and fling it
in his face. Leicester she alternately petted and insulted. After a
squabble he used to sulk at Wanstead for a few days, till she softened
and commanded him to return, and then the comedy recommenced. Hatton
and Heneage were treated in similar fashion, but with even less
consideration. Only towards the Lord Treasurer, except for occasional
fits of distrust caused by his enemies, the Queen usually behaved with
decorum. How careful he was to avoid all cause for doubt is seen by his
answer to Lord Shrewsbury’s offer of his son as a husband for one of
Burghley’s daughters.[400] It will be recollected that Lord Shrewsbury
had the custody of the Queen of Scots, and that Burghley had fallen into
semi-disgrace shortly before, because he had visited Buxton at the same
time as Mary and her keeper. The match proposed was a good one, and the
Lord Treasurer—a new noble—was flattered and pleased at the offer, but
declined it, mainly because his enemies had put into the Queen’s head
that he had gone to Buxton at the instance of the Shrewsburys, to plot in
favour of Mary; “and hereof at my return to her Majesty’s presence, I had
very sharp reproofs … with plain charging of me for favouring the Queen
of Scots, and that in so earnest sort, as I never looked for, knowing my
integrity to her Majesty, but specially knowing how contrariously the
Queen of Scots conceived of me for many things.” He continues his letter
with an evidently sincere protest of his loyalty and disinterestedness,
and the absence in him of any personal feeling against Mary, but declares
his determination to do his best, at all costs, to frustrate any
attempted injury against his mistress or her realm.
Notwithstanding this small cloud, Burghley went again to Buxton in 1577.
A somewhat curious letter from Leicester, who went to Buxton before him
in June, shows that the Lord Treasurer’s mode of life was not always
prudent. Leicester says that he and his brother are benefiting greatly
from the water. “We observe our physician’s orders diligently, and
find great pleasure both in drinking and bathing in the water. I think
it would be good for your Lordship, but not if you do as we hear your
Lordship did last time: taking great journeys abroad ten or twelve miles
a day, and using liberal diet with company dinners and suppers. We take
another way, dining two or three together, having but one dish of meat
at most, and taking the air afoot or on horseback moderately.”[401] In
July (1577) Burghley started from Theobalds for his Lincolnshire estates,
and thence to Buxton. Leicester wrote to him there that the Queen was
desirous of receiving a “tun of Buxton water in hogsheads;” but when
in due time the water arrived, “her Majesty seemeth not to make any
great account of it. And yet she more than twice or thrice commanded me
earnestly to write to you for it, and … asked me sundry times whether
I had remembered it or not: but it seems her Majesty doth mistrust it
will not be of the goodness here it is there; besides, somebody told her
there was some bruit of it about, as though her Majesty had had some sore
leg. Such like devices made her half angry with me now for sending to
you for it.”[402] This hint of her sore leg was enough to make Elizabeth
sacrifice a river of Buxton water if necessary. She, like her father
before her, really had an issue in one of her legs, and there was no
point upon which she was more sensitive.
CHAPTER XII
1576-1580
We have seen that from the accession of Henry III. of France in the
autumn of 1574 it suited English policy to draw closer to Spain. An
event happened, however, late in 1576 which once more changed the entire
position. Requesens, the Spanish Viceroy of Flanders, had died in March
1576, before his mission of pacification was complete. It is true that
Catholic Flanders and Brabant had been won back again, but Holland
and Zeeland still stood out. The fierce Spanish infantry cared for no
distinction between Fleming and Hollander, Catholic or Protestant, and
were openly discontented at the conciliatory policy which Philip’s
penury rendered needful. They were unpaid, for there was no money in the
treasury to pay them, and soon mutiny, pillage, and murder became the
order of the day. Philip was in despair, and ordered his brother Don Juan
to hurry to Flanders from Italy to pacify and withdraw the troops, and to
conciliate the indignant Catholic Flemings at any cost. Don Juan scorned
and hated the task—which he said a woman could do better than a soldier.
He was full of a secret plan to dash over to England with the Spanish
infantry from Flanders; and instead of obeying orders and going direct to
his new government, he hurried to Spain for the purpose of persuading his
brother to allow him to have his way.
The time thus wasted was fatal. Peace with England was absolutely
necessary for Philip, and he refused to countenance Don Juan’s plans.
But Orange had spies everywhere; Burghley’s secretary, Herll, was in
Flanders, and long before Don Juan arrived on the Flemish frontier the
hopes of the murderous rabble of soldiery that the young Prince would
lead them to England were well known to the Lord Treasurer and his
mistress. Early in November 1576 the Spanish fury burst upon Antwerp.
The Council of Regency consisted mostly of Flemish Catholic nobles, and
they fought as well as they might against the blood lust of the King’s
soldiers. When all hope was gone, and the fairest cities of Flanders had
been devastated and ruined, and their populations massacred, without
distinction of age, sex, or creed, then Catholic Flanders turned against
the wreckers of their homes, and shoulder to shoulder with Orange and
his Protestants, stood at bay. When Don Juan arrived at Luxemburg he was
informed that the States would only allow him to take up his governorship
on terms to be dictated by them in union with Orange; the first condition
of which was that the Spanish troops must leave the Netherlands
forthwith, _and by land_, in order that they might not invade England.
Don Juan was mad with fury and disappointment; but chafe as he might,
he had to give way, and in the end was forced to enter Brussels only as
Governor on sufferance of the States in the spring of 1577.
To England there came now to beg for aid and support, not rough
Zeelanders alone, not beggars of the sea, not boorish burghers, but the
very nobles who had often come before as Philip’s representatives—De
Croys, Montmorencis, De Granvelles, Zweveghems, and the like; Catholics
of bluest blood, but ready to claim any help against the Spanish
oppressor. Dr. Wilson was sent as English envoy to the States, and
Sir John Smith went to Madrid with a formal offer from Elizabeth to
mediate.[403] Philip’s only course was to accept any terms which left
him even a nominal sovereignty of his Netherlands dominions, and this he
did, rather than allow Elizabeth to pose as mediatrix between him and
his subjects. But the altered position in Flanders completely changed
the attitude of England towards Spain, especially when in the summer of
1577 Don Juan lost patience, broke faith with the Flemings, threw himself
into the fortress of Namur, and defied the States. England’s traditional
alliance had not been with the crown of Spain, but with the House of
Burgundy as possessor of the Netherlands; and now that Flanders and
Brabant were at one with Holland and Zeeland in upholding their rights
against Spain, England was naturally on their side against the foreigner,
quite independently of the question of creed. There was no longer any
concealment about it.[404] The Duke of Arschot’s brother was at the
English court in September with the acquiescence of Orange, planning an
arrangement which seemed to offer a means by which all parties might be
satisfied. The young Austrian Archduke Mathias, Philip’s nephew, was
suddenly spirited away from Vienna and installed by the Flemings as
sovereign of Flanders, with Orange as his guide and mentor. An English
army under Leicester or his brother was to be raised to support him
against Don Juan, who was rallying a Catholic force, crying to the Duke
of Guise for help, and making a last appeal to his brother to save his
honour, if not his sovereignty. The outbreak of the Protestants in Ghent,
encouraged by the proximity of Orange, the capture and imprisonment of
Arschot and the Catholic nobles, and the desecration of Catholic shrines
(end of October), forced Philip’s hands. The Archduke Mathias as a
tributary sovereign, with the Catholic Flemings paramount over Orange,
might have been tolerated; but if the Protestants and Orange were going
to predominate, Spain must fight to the end. So with a heavy heart Philip
bent to the inevitable, and sent Alexander Farnese and a Spanish army
from Italy once more to reconquer the Netherlands.
The invariable excuse given by Elizabeth for her help to the States
was, that it was to keep the French out of Flanders; Don Juan’s appeal
to the Guises being especially distasteful to her. “The present support
desired of her,” she declared, “is only in consideration of the extreme
necessity of the States by reason of the great preparations in France and
elsewhere to overrun them, and bring utter ruin upon them; and it not
disagreeing with the ancient treaties between the crown of England and
the House of Burgundy … the purpose of the States being no other than
by these succours to keep themselves in due obedience to the King their
sovereign, her Majesty is content to grant the aid desired.”[405] The
plausible reasons advanced, however, made no difference to Philip. It was
only evident to him that the Queen of England was subsidising rebellion
against him, and that her subjects held fortresses in his dominions as a
pledge for the money she had advanced. He could not afford to declare war
with England at the time, but he did what he could. The Irish malcontents
were encouraged with the aid of Papal money; and Catholic plots, with
Spanish and Guisan aid, for the rescue of Mary Stuart, the assassination
of Elizabeth, and the like, kept the English court in alarm,[406] and
pointed the moral for ever on the lips of Philip’s many paid agents and
friends in Elizabeth’s counsels.
During most of the period when the arrangements with the States were
being concluded in 1577, Burghley was absent from court, and it may be
fairly assumed that the less cautious attitude adopted towards Spain was
owing to the unchecked influence of Leicester; but with Burghley’s return
late in the autumn the astute balancing diplomacy of the master-hand
becomes once more apparent, both in the declaration quoted above, and the
letter drafted by the Treasurer taken by Wilkes, Clerk of the Council,
to Madrid. In it Elizabeth prays Philip to have compassion upon his
Flemish subjects and to grant their just demands, and again explains her
support of them. Moderate and deferential, however, as the tone of the
letter was, it did not alter prior facts, and Philip was indignant and
wrathful at what he called an attempt of Elizabeth to lay down the law
for him. “Send this man off,” he says, “before his fortnight is up, and
before he commits some impertinence which will oblige us to burn him.”
Philip might well be angry, for he was impotent: he had to reconquer his
own Flemings, Catholics and Protestants too, thanks to the aid they had
obtained from Elizabeth. To make matters more galling, Antonio de Guaras
had suddenly been arrested at dead of night, all his papers captured, his
property sequestrated, and the poor man himself accused of consorting and
plotting with the Queen’s enemies.[407] Lord Burghley, his former friend,
was daily threatening him with the rack in the Tower; and for eighteen
months he was treated with calculating contumely and harshness, only
at last to be released, old, broken, and penniless, and sent to Spain
scornfully to die.
In January 1578, Don Juan and Farnese defeated the States troops at
Gemblours, and it seemed as if once more Flanders and Brabant would fall
a prey to Spanish soldiery. Elizabeth’s aid had become less liberal
with the return of Burghley, who had no objection at all to Spanish
predominance in Catholic Flanders; his only interest there was to keep
the French out.[408] But the Flemings naturally regarded the position
from another point of view. What they wanted was to preserve their
autonomous rights against Spain. Mathias had turned out a broken reed: he
had no money, no followers, no friends, and no ability; and the really
dominant man in the Government was Protestant Orange. This did not
please the Catholic nobles, and they cast about for another prince with
a greater following than Mathias, who should at once be a Catholic and
yet acceptable to Orange and the Protestants. Catharine had for some time
past anticipated the position, and had been busy, but secretly, pushing
the claims of her son Alençon; but for her purpose it was necessary to
manage warily, in order to avoid giving Philip open offence. Alençon,
however, was bound by no such considerations. Nothing would have suited
him better than to draw France into war with Spain. He was under arrest
and strictly guarded, but he contrived, on the 14th February 1578, to
escape out of a second-floor window in the Louvre. All France was in a
turmoil. Huguenots and malcontents flocked to the Flemish frontier, and
Catharine raced half over France to beg her errant son to return. Henry
III. assured Mendoza, the new Spanish Ambassador on his way to England,
that his brother was obedient, and he was sure he would do nothing
against Philip in Flanders. But all the world knew that he would if he
could; and that whatever he might do with a French force there would
be against English as well as Spanish interests. Once more, therefore,
it was necessary for Elizabeth to change her policy somewhat, and Lord
Burghley resumed his favourite character of a friend to the ancient
Spanish alliance.
The new Spanish Ambassador saw Elizabeth on the 16th March 1578, and
gave her all sorts of reassuring messages from Philip. He was the most
clement of sovereigns. A successor to Don Juan should be appointed who
should please everybody, and all would soon be settled. A few days
afterwards Mendoza had a long conversation with Burghley, in the presence
of other Councillors. As Philip had, said the Treasurer, practically
accepted the various concessions to the Flemings recommended by the
Queen; “if the terms offered were not accepted by the States, she herself
would take up arms against them.” This was probably too strong for
Leicester and Walsingham, Puritans both, and Mendoza says they seemed to
be urging something upon Burghley very forcibly, which he thought was the
question of the withdrawal of the Spanish troops from Flanders; but it
ended in Burghley again pointedly offering the Queen’s mediation.
A few days later the Duke of Arschot’s brother, the Marquis d’Havrey,
Leicester’s great friend, arrived in England to counteract Mendoza’s
efforts, and to beg that the troops that had been promised should be sent
to the States. He was made much of by the English nobles and the Queen,
who was now greatly influenced by Leicester, and Burghley at the moment
seems to have stood almost alone in his resistance of open aid being sent
to the States.[409] It did not take Mendoza many days to discover how
things really lay. “I have found the Queen,” he writes, “much opposed to
your Majesty’s interests, and most of her ministers are quite alienated
from us, particularly those who are most important, as although there are
seventeen Councillors … the bulk of the business really depends upon the
Queen, Leicester, Walsingham, and Cecil, the latter of whom, although by
virtue of his office he takes part in the resolutions, absents himself
from the Council on many occasions, as he is opposed to the Queen’s
helping the rebels so effectively, and thus weakening her own position.
He does not wish, however, to break with Leicester and Walsingham on
the matter, they being very much wedded to the States and extremely
self-seeking. I am assured that they are keeping the interest of the
money lent to the States, besides the presents they have received out of
the principal. They urge the business under the cloak of religion, which
Cecil cannot well oppose.”[410]
This, indeed, was one of the periods when Burghley’s moderating influence
was overborne by Leicester, Walsingham, and the Puritans. The Lord
Treasurer still did his best—constantly ill though he was—to stem the
violence of the tide, befriending the bishops who were being bitterly
attacked,[411] and counselling caution in aiding the Flemings against
Spain; but, as we have seen, he was somewhat in the background, and
absented himself from court as much as possible. It is curious, however,
to see, even under these circumstances, how he was still appealed to
by all parties. He was very ill in April at Theobalds, and the Queen
happened to be suffering from toothache. Of course Hatton must write to
the Lord Treasurer, begging him to come to court and give his advice as
to what should be done. The reply is very characteristic. Notwithstanding
his own pain he would come up at once, he wrote, if by so doing he could
relieve the Queen; but as the physicians advised that the tooth should
be extracted, though they dared not tell the Queen so, all he could do
would be to urge her Majesty to have it done.[412] Hatton did not care
to incur the responsibility of saying so himself, and simply showed
the Queen Burghley’s letter. Doubtless Elizabeth took the good advice
tendered; for it was only a day or two afterwards that young Gilbert
Talbot, Lord Shrewsbury’s son, was walking in the Tilt Yard, Whitehall,
one morning, under the Queen’s windows, when her maiden Majesty herself
came to the casement in her night-dress, in full view of Talbot, who
wrote: “My eye fell towards her, and she showed to be greatly ashamed
thereof, for that she was unready and in her night-stuff; so when she saw
me after dinner as she went to walk, she gave me a great fillip on the
forehead, and told the Lord Chamberlain how I had seen her that morning,
and how ashamed she was.” Talbot, in writing this to his father (1st May
1578) ends his letter by saying that the Queen was that week to stay
three or four days with Burghley at Theobalds. It is plain to see that
the renewed severity against the Catholics in England, and the almost
ostentatious aiding of the States against Spain, did not meet with the
approval of Burghley. He was much more concerned for the moment at the
large levies of French troops being collected on the Flemish frontier;
and his ordinary policy would have been either to side with the Spaniards
against them, or to have disarmed their figurehead Alençon (or Anjou as
he was now called) by holding out hopes of his marriage with the Queen,
if the earnest attempts of the English to mediate between the States
and Don Juan were fruitless. But he had to reckon with Leicester and
Walsingham, and the Queen’s policy wavered almost daily between her two
sets of counsellors.[413]
To the Queen’s visit to Theobalds is doubtless due the entry in
Burghley’s diary of 15th May, recording the despatch of Edward Stafford
to inspect and report upon the French forces on the Flemish frontier.
Alençon himself used every effort to convince the Queen of his desire to
look to her, rather than to his brother, as his guide and support. On
the 19th May he sent her a letter by one of his friends, informing her
of his intention of relieving the Netherlands; “of which intention,” he
says, “she already knows so much that he will not tire her by explaining
it further.” On the 7th July he crossed the frontier, and threw himself
into Mons for the purpose, as he declared, “of helping this oppressed
people, and humiliating the pride of Spain;” and at the same time he sent
his chamberlain to offer marriage to Elizabeth, and assure her of his
complete dependence upon her. It was unwelcome news for Elizabeth, for
she could never trust the French. Alençon, after all, was a Catholic, and
she was uncertain whether Henry III. was not really behind his brother.
Gondi, one of the leaders of Catharine’s counsels, had recently come to
England with a request to be allowed to see Mary Stuart;[414] Catholic
intrigues in Scotland had succeeded in putting an end to Morton’s regency
(March 1578); and on all sides there were indications that, if Elizabeth
could only be dragged into open hostility to Spain, and so rendered
powerless, an attempt would be made on the part of France to recover
its lost influence over Scotland. Mendoza carefully fanned the flame of
Elizabeth’s distrust against the French; and the effect of Walsingham’s
absence in Flanders, whilst Leicester was away at Buxton, is noticeable
at once. “The Queen,” writes Mendoza (19th July), “is now turning her
eyes more to your Majesty; and her ministers have begun to get friendly
with me. If your Majesty wishes to retain them, I see a way of doing
it.”[415]
Alençon’s agents in the meanwhile were not idle. One after the other came
to assure her of their master’s desire to marry her, and look to her
alone for guidance. He had quarrelled with his brother, he said, and had
no other mistress than the Queen of England. They quite convinced Sussex,
apparently, for he entered warmly into their marriage plans, which gave
him another chance of revenge upon Leicester. Elizabeth’s desire to be
amiable to Alençon’s envoys at Long Melford during her progress (August)
led her to insult Sussex, as Lord Steward, about the amount of plate
on the sideboard. This gave an opportunity for Lord North, a creature
of Leicester, to give Sussex the lie, and led to a further feud which
continued for months.[416]
But though Elizabeth was somewhat tranquillised with regard to the French
King’s connivance in Alençon’s proceedings, she was cool about the
marriage business. “If the Prince liked to come, she told De Bacqueville,
he might do so; but he must not take offence if she did not like him
when she saw him;” whereupon Burghley told the envoy that if he were
in his place he would not bring his master over on such a message. All
the charming of Alençon’s attractive agents was unsuccessful in opening
the Queen’s money bags, and the loan of 300,000 crowns they prayed for
was refused. If he wanted her aid or affection, she said, he must first
obey her and retire from Flanders, and she would then consider what she
should do. Pressure was put upon Alençon by his brother, by the Pope
and the Catholics, on the other hand, to desist from his enterprise.
Splendid Catholic alliances were proposed to him, and dire threats of
punishment held out if he did not retire. When the Protestant Hollanders
discovered that Alençon could count neither upon England nor France to
support him, they began to cry off. The only temptation they had in
welcoming a Catholic prince was the hope of national aid. If he did not
bring that, he was as useless to them as poor Mathias had been. And so
all through the autumn of 1578 the fate of Flanders hung on Elizabeth’s
caprice. Henry III. was anxious to get his brother married to Elizabeth,
and a fresh national alliance concluded; but he wished to avoid pledging
himself against Spain, so as to be able to hold the balance. Elizabeth’s
aim was similar, and she would promise nothing; but she swore both to
Flemings and Spaniards that for every Frenchman that set foot in Flanders
there should be an Englishman. Fresh German mercenaries were raised
at her expense to aid the States; renewed attempts, backed by threats,
were made to persuade Don Juan to ratify the pacification of Ghent; but
Alençon, in the meanwhile, with a dwindling force and no money, was
falling to the ground between the two stools of France and England,
Huguenot or Catholic. At the end of the year ominous news came that the
Huguenots had been won over by the Queen-mother;[417] that the King of
France had entered into a great Catholic league against Elizabeth, and
was raising a force of mercenaries in Germany to help Alençon to keep a
footing in Flanders, in spite of England; whilst a Scottish nobleman, a
Douglas, was at the French court carrying on some secret intrigue with
Henry III.
Elizabeth was alarmed at this, and at once became warm in the Alençon
marriage, thanks partly also to the arrival of the Prince’s agent Simier,
who very soon established a complete influence over the Queen, to the
infinite scandal of all Europe. Against this influence Mendoza, able,
bold, and crafty, battled ceaselessly: for ever pointing at the intrigues
of the French in Scotland, their old jealousy of England, the approaching
marriageable age of the King of Scots, which would give an opportunity
for recovering French influence in his country, and much more to the
same effect. After one conversation of this sort with the Queen, late in
January 1579, Mendoza drove his points home one by one to Burghley and
Sussex, showing them how much more profitable was an alliance with Spain
than with France, and the danger of England herself being attacked if she
took the Netherlands rebels under her protection. Amongst other things
Burghley replied that “he had told M. Simier that one of the principal
arguments in favour of the marriage, namely, that Alençon might become
King of France, had turned him (Cecil) against it, as he considered that
it would be a disadvantage to England, whereupon Simier had complained
of him to the Queen. For his own part his desire had always been to see
the Queen married to a prince of the House of Austria, with which it was
well to be in alliance; but since old friends cast them off, and your
Majesty refused to confirm the treaties, or receive a minister at your
court,[418] they must seek new friends.”
The current of affairs and the Queen’s fickleness evidently displeased
the Lord Treasurer. In September (1578) he had unsuccessfully begged
leave of absence to visit Burghley,[419] where the rebuilding of the
mansion was still progressing, under the care of Sir Thomas Cecil. He
was not allowed to go; but the plague raged in London all the autumn,
and Burghley retreated to Theobalds, where he was within easy reach of
the Council. He found, moreover, Leicester’s enmity towards him more
active than ever,[420] and Hatton, now his chief henchman, for Sussex was
unstable, was of inferior rank, influence, and ability. But though his
political influence for a time was under a cloud, there was no abatement
of the appeals to his judgment and for his intercession with the Queen.
Imprisoned Catholics, deprived Puritans, old friends, like the Duchess
of Suffolk, Lord Lincoln, or the Earl of Bedford, claimed his advice in
their affairs; suitors at law besought his good word; miners or explorers
prayed for his patronage; bishops bespoke his aid to govern their clergy;
the clergy appealed to him against the bishops. High and humble, friend
and stranger, rich and poor alike, looked to Burghley for guidance, and
found at least patient consideration for their causes.[421]
By the beginning of 1579, however, the aspect of European politics had
become so threatening that the practised hand of the Lord Treasurer was
needed at the helm, and thenceforward his influence was again in the
ascendant. Simier was making violent vicarious love to the Queen, and
letters of the most extravagant description were exchanged between the
young Prince and Elizabeth, whilst really sincere and earnest efforts
were being made in favour of the match by Henry III. and Catharine de
Medici. Commissioners and ambassadors went backwards and forwards, and
the conditions, not only of the Queen’s marriage, but of a national
offensive and defensive alliance between France and England, were under
discussion. Henry III. was ready, he said, to submit to any conditions
desired by Elizabeth, and Alençon was almost blasphemous in his praising
of the charms of his elderly flame. There were two main reasons for
this drawing together of England and France. Don Juan was dead, and
the military genius and diplomacy of Alexander Farnese had once more
separated Catholic Belgium from Protestant Holland (Treaty of Arras,
January 1579). Orange himself still clung to the hope of consolidating
a united Flemish nation, including north and south, and desired to use
Alençon, with the Queen of England’s support, for that purpose but
there was no enthusiasm in Holland for the idea; and in the meanwhile
Alençon was isolated in Catholic Flanders, with his own brother raging
at the compromising position in which he placed him, and ordering him to
return to France. It was evident to Henry that the only way in which his
turbulent brother could be established in Flanders, without causing both
Spanish and English arms to be used against him, was to let him depend
solely upon Elizabeth and Orange, whilst France stood aloof. This was one
of the reasons for the closer relations desired by Catharine and her son.
The other was more important still. The young King of Portugal had fallen
in battle in Morocco, and the new King was an aged, childless Cardinal.
Philip of Spain was already intriguing for the succession, which he
claimed. The possession of the fine harbours and Atlantic seaboard of
Portugal by Spain would enormously increase her maritime potency, to the
detriment of England and France; and it was felt that these powers must
unite to resist the common danger. That Lord Burghley was early alive to
its importance is proved by a genealogical statement of his relating to
the Portuguese succession immediately after the death of the King Don
Sebastian[422] (August 1578), and several memoranda of subsequent date on
the subject.
Under these circumstances the Alençon approaches again became to all
appearance serious. The Prince, ceding to the pressure placed upon him,
consented to retire from Flanders early in the year, and was reconciled
to his brother; and then the arrangements for effective action in the
Netherlands and a visit of Alençon to England were actively proceeded
with. How busy Lord Burghley was in the matter will be seen by the very
voluminous minutes in his own hand of the discussions in Council on the
subject (Hatfield Papers). In all probability the Queen was not even now
sincere in the matter of the marriage, especially as Leicester and Hatton
pretended to be warmly in favour of it, until they became personally
jealous of Simier; but Burghley was evidently doubtful. In his balancing
papers he gives much more space to the “perils” than to the advantages
of the match, and his own final judgment is, that “except that her
Majesty would of her own mind incline to marriage he would never advise
thereto.” In the meanwhile, all England was in a veritable panic at the
idea of the marriage of the Queen to a Papist. Puritan pulpits rang with
denunciations; Stubbs’ famous book, “The Discovery of a Gaping Gulph,”
which cost the author his right hand and deeply offended the Queen, was
read widely; and the Queen herself was obliged to warn her eager suitor
of the hatred of her people to the idea of his proposed visit. But the
preparations went on, and the court was ordered to make itself as fine
as money would make it, Leicester alone sending to Flanders for twelve
hundred pounds’ worth of silks, velvets, and cloth of gold. Simier in the
meanwhile was daily becoming more clamorous for a definite answer to his
master’s proposal. Large bribes were paid by the French Ambassador and
Mendoza respectively to the Councillors to forward or impede the match,
and the probabilities shifted from day to day.[423]
When the Queen seemed really bent upon the match, Burghley did not
attempt to oppose her; he simply placed before her the arguments for and
against it, and left the decision to her. This is exactly what Elizabeth
did not wish. Simier and her own imprudence had drawn her into an
extremely dangerous position, and she wished her Council to assume the
responsibility of extricating her from it. Her first object in resuming
the negotiations had been to get Alençon and the French out of Flanders,
whilst preventing the despair and collapse of Orange; her present aim
was to secure the King of France to her side, and weaken Spain without
herself being drawn into open hostility. The talk of marriage helped her
in this; but if once she fell into the trap, and was married indeed, her
power of balance would be gone. Driven into a corner, late in April she
took Simier and the French Ambassador, with Burghley, Leicester, Sussex,
and Walsingham, to Wanstead, where she desired the Councillors to give
her in writing their individual opinions, in order that she might show
them to the Frenchmen. They refused to do so, and once more laid before
her the “perils and advantages” of each course, leaving her to decide.
The Councillors mentioned sat in conference almost day and night during
their three days’ stay at Wanstead, but, after all, returned as they
came. Simier was furious, and threatened to go back to France; and a full
Council sat at Whitehall on the 3rd May, from two o’clock in the day till
two the next morning, finally to discuss the question. It was found that
the only man really in favour of the marriage was Sussex, and Simier was
called in and informed that his master’s conditions were unacceptable.
The envoy roared out that he had been played with, and flung out of
the room to make his complaint to the Queen. She was all sympathy. She
wanted to get married—she must get married. It was all the fault of her
Councillors, and so forth, until her ruffled “ape,” as she called him,
was pacified. Alençon was not lightly put off. He announced his intention
of coming to see his goddess, no matter what the consequences might be.
The Queen was for refusing him leave, but Lord Burghley pointed out to
her the danger of this open affront to a French prince. She had gone too
far to refuse, and she was obliged to give a passport. Simier rarely
left the Queen’s side now, and she seems quite to have lost her head.
Mendoza worked hard to spread the sinister murmurs of her behaviour
through the country. Leicester grew violently jealous, and twice hired
an assassin to kill Simier, which he nearly did once in the Queen’s own
barge. The Queen was beside herself with rage, and Simier, to revenge
himself upon Leicester, told the Queen, as no one else had dared to do,
of the marriage of Leicester with Lady Essex. It was a master-stroke. The
Queen’s fury was boundless, and she swore like a trooper at Leicester and
the she-wolf he had married. For a time Leicester’s influence was gone,
and Simier lived in the palace of Greenwich, to the open disgust of the
English people. In August, Alençon rushed over to England in disguise.
His coming was an open secret, but the Queen kept him hid in the palace
of Greenwich.[424] She posed before him, showed off all her charms, dined
and supped with him in private, fell desperately in love with him, or
pretended to do so, and sent him off after a week’s stay as secretly as
he came, with expressions of affection on both sides, even too fervid to
be sincere, and long afterwards continued by correspondence.
Whatever might be the final result of the marriage negotiations—and
Burghley himself was as much in the dark as any one on that point—a close
alliance between France and England was of growing importance to both
countries. The English Council under Burghley sat at Greenwich almost
continuously from the 2nd to the 8th October discussing, weighing, and
reporting upon the whole question of alliance and marriage. The final
result was that the marriage would be undesirable, Burghley and Sussex
being the only Councillors who were not strongly opposed to it.[425]
The message to the Queen was delivered by Burghley. It was ambiguous
and moderate, begged the Queen to tell the Council her own mind, and
so on; but there was no doubt of the meaning of it to the Queen. The
Council was against the match, unless some guarantee could be found that
the Protestant religion should not be imperilled. Burghley’s minute
sets forth the Queen’s answer. “She shed many tears to find that her
Councillors, by their long disputations, should make it doubtful whether
it would be safe for her to marry and have a child.” She was a simpleton,
she said, to have referred the question to them. She expected they would
have unanimously begged her to marry, instead of raising doubts about
it. When they saw her again later in the day she was more angry still.
She railed at those who would think of “surety” before her happiness,
“and that any should think so slenderly of her” as to doubt that she
would take care that religion was properly safeguarded if she married.
She managed, as usual, to reduce the Council to a state of confusion
with her tears and reproaches; and a hasty meeting was called, at which
a resolution was passed to the effect, that as the Queen seemed so much
bent upon the marriage, the Councillors all offered their services to
promote it. When this message was taken to her, Lord Burghley records
that “her Majesty’s answers were very sharp in reprehending all such
as she thought would make arguments against her marriage, and though
she thought it not meet to declare to them whether she would marry with
Monsieur or no, yet she looked from their hands that they should with one
accord have made a special suit to her for the same.”[426]
No wonder that with such a change on the part of the Queen from morning
to afternoon, the Councillors were at their wits’ end to know what she
really meant; but it is evident that she intended to have her own way,
whatever it was, and lay the responsibility upon others. Burghley and
Sussex had avoided open opposition, and were favourably regarded by the
Queen in consequence; whilst Leicester, Walsingham, Knollys, and even her
poor “sheep” Hatton, came in for a share of her vituperation and abuse;
and the Puritans who were leading the outcry against the match received
harder measure than ever.
Early in November she summoned the Council again, and told them that she
had decided to marry. It was only for them now to consider the means.
Let them, she said, individually put their opinions in writing. It was
evident that this course would again bring forward the dissensions on the
subject, and render it more difficult, which was perhaps her intention.
Simier went and told her so, whereupon she asked him angrily how he knew
what orders she had given to her Council. He replied that Lord Burghley
had told him. “Surely,” she cried, “it is possible for my Councillors to
keep a secret. I will see to this.” Then she sent orders to the Council
to write a letter to Alençon, asking him to come to England quickly,
which they refused to do. He was, they said, coming to marry her, not
them, and she ought to write herself. They openly quarrelled with Simier,
who was finding England too hot for him, and who left late in November,
taking with him a hastily patched draft agreement for the marriage,
in which the Queen characteristically introduced at the last hour an
additional loophole of escape, by stipulating that the articles should
remain in suspense for two months, “during which time the Queen hopes to
have brought her people to consent. If before that time she did not write
consenting to receive ambassadors for the conclusion of the treaty, the
whole of the conditions would be void.”[427]
The year 1580 opened full of anxiety for Elizabeth. The ostentatious
fitting out of the Spanish fleet, and the active support by Spain
and the Pope of the Desmond rebellion, the success of Parma, and the
desperate attempts of Orange to reunite Flanders with Holland under
Alençon in the national cause, were all so many dangers to England. If
Elizabeth offended France or alienated Alençon himself, Flemish affairs
might be settled without her participation, and to her detriment, and
she would have to face Spain alone. This was the more to be feared, as
religious affairs in England were in a worse condition than before,
and for the first time since her accession the Queen herself was
unpopular. Her light conduct with Simier, and, above all, her seeming
determination in favour of the Alençon marriage, had aroused all the old
hatred against the French, and had embittered the widespread Puritan
distrust of the “Papists.” The country was being flooded with seminary
priests, specially trained for the propaganda to which they devoted
their lives,[428] and the great Catholic party in England, having
recovered somewhat from the blow of the Norfolk conspiracy, were once
more holding up their heads. Elizabeth had allowed Leicester and her own
passions to lead her too far, and she struggled to free herself from the
toils. When she tried in January to withdraw gently from the Alençon
negotiations, and suggested to Henry III. that some fresh conditions
were necessary, she found it difficult. The King was determined to throw
the responsibility of breaking upon her, and it still suited him to
keep up an appearance of friendship. She could, he replied, make her
own stipulations; he would accept them. As for religion, that was his
brother’s affair. Alençon himself also said that he would come over
at once to England and leave everything to her. He hoped she was not
reviving the religious question for the purpose of deceiving him again,
as some people said; but he would risk everything for his love. He went
so far as to beg her to forgive Leicester for his sake, and blamed Simier
for quarrelling with the Earl.
But Leicester, Hatton, and Walsingham were quite determined now to stop
the marriage, which looked too serious to please them; and a cloud of
questions about religion, rank of ambassadors, &c., soon threw the
matter into obscurity again. How completely affairs had changed in this
respect in a few weeks is seen in the long draft of a letter to the
Queen at Hatfield, dated at end of January 1580, in the handwriting of
Sir Thomas Cecil, although it can hardly have been really written by
him to the Queen, but certainly represents the views of his father.
Burghley had struggled during all his ministry, and often against
great difficulties, to preserve peace with Spain, whilst holding high
England’s honour and prosperity; but now that Leicester and the extreme
Protestant party, together with Philip’s seizure of Portugal, had forced
the Queen into a position which sooner or later must end in hostility to
Spain, and perhaps with France also, Burghley urged the need for a close
understanding with France, on the safest terms possible for his country.
The course now taken by the Queen seemed to render inevitable that which
Burghley had all his life endeavoured to avoid, namely, the isolation
of England with both of the great powers against her. The address above
referred to lays down that, so long as the Queen was favourable to the
Alençon marriage, the writer was willing to sacrifice his life for it.
He still maintains that it is the only safe course, and one which should
enable the Queen to “rule the sternes of the shippes of Europe with
more fame than ever came to any Quene of the Worelld.” But finding her
Majesty utterly against it, he proposes such remedies as are necessary,
at least for comparative safety. He points out that she cannot expect
that France and Alençon will sit down patiently under the slight, though
they may dissemble for a time; and he suggests that Alençon should be
diverted from allying himself with Spain, by encouraging his enterprise
in the Netherlands, dangerous though such a course was to England.
All Papists should be dismissed from positions of trust; the army,
navy, and fortifications should be placed on a war-footing; mercenary
Germans should be bespoken; fresh vents for English commerce should be
sought;[429] the Irish should be conciliated, and their just grievances
remedied, and “certain private disorders in Ireland winked at.” The
Queen of Scots should be brought to a safer place farther south, and
repressive precautions taken against her friends in England. Whoever may
have given this remarkable state paper to Elizabeth,[430] it is certain
that the advice contained in it was followed. Orders were given to
bring Mary Stuart to Ashby-de-la-Zouch,[431] the mild and lenient Lord
Shrewsbury being reinforced in his guard by Sir Ralph Sadler and two
other known Protestants;[432] a general muster of militia was summoned,
90,000 men in all; London was called upon for 4000 armed men; the
Queen’s navy, seventeen ships, was mobilised;[433] and negotiations were
opened for Condé and a Huguenot force, with a number of mercenary German
Protestants, to enter Flanders.[434] It was considered rightly that if a
large body of Huguenots depending entirely upon England were by Alençon’s
side, it would not only prevent his brother from supporting him, but
would render his enterprise in Flanders less dangerous to England.
Concurrently with these precautions, the Queen renewed her extravagant
love correspondence with Alençon. There is no more remarkable instance
than this of the consummate statesmanship of Burghley. The country
had been driven out of the straight course in which he had held it so
long, and was rapidly nearing the breakers. The document now under
consideration laid before the Queen the only course which could avert
destruction, and this course, as we see, she wisely took. If Burghley
had openly opposed Leicester and Walsingham from the first, he would
probably have fallen into disgrace, and have lost his influence entirely;
but by holding aloof and tempering their policy only, he was able,
when catastrophe impended, to lead the ship of state into a harbour of
comparative safety. Under the influence of fear and Burghley, the Queen
at the same time became most amiable to the Spaniards again. She assured
Mendoza (20th February) that “she would never make war upon your Majesty,
unless you began it first, which she could not believe by any means you
would do.” She was, she said, a sister to Philip. “She had always done
her best for the tranquillity of the Netherlands, and to prevent the
French from getting a footing there.” Mendoza spoke some hard truths to
her, but she was very humble.
A few days afterwards, when the French Ambassador had been driving her
into a corner about Alençon, and threatening that the Prince would
publish her letters, she was closeted in her chamber at Whitehall with
Burghley and Archbishop Sandys. “Here am I,” she cried, “between Scylla
and Charybdis. Alençon has agreed to all my conditions, and wants to know
when he is to come and marry me. If I fail he will probably quarrel with
me, and if I marry him I shall not be able to govern the country. What
shall I do?” Sandys gave a courtier-like reply, and Burghley was silent.
The Queen was impatient at this, and roughly told him he was purposely
absenting himself from the Council. What was his advice? Thus pressed,
the Lord Treasurer replied that if it was her pleasure to marry she
should do so, as Alençon had accepted the terms which rendered her safe.
“That,” said the Queen, “is not the opinion of the rest of the Council,
but that I should keep him in play.” Burghley was aware of this already,
and dryly told the Queen that those who tried to trick princes generally
ended by being caught themselves. But Elizabeth knew her profound powers
of dissimulation better even than Burghley did, and went on her way. The
Lord Treasurer stood almost alone among the councillors in his mild and
cautious policy. Sussex, in deep dudgeon, was generally at his mansion
at Newhall; and, as we have seen, Burghley himself avoided as much as
possible incurring responsibility for the present action of the Queen,
except so far as to advise her how to render her policy as little harmful
as possible. But it is evident that Elizabeth, in moments of difficulty
like this, always turned away from Leicester, and sought the sounder aid
of the Lord Treasurer.
Leicester, in March, pretended to fall ill, and during his absence from
court completely turned round. Now that Lord Burghley was urging for a
close friendship with France, since Leicester’s policy had alienated
Spain, the Earl, with characteristic instability, suddenly professed to
Mendoza a desire to “serve the King of Spain.” His enemies, he said,
were plotting this French alliance and marriage only to spite him, and
he would bring the Queen to a close friendship to Spain. The Queen was,
doubtless, aware of Leicester’s change; because when Castelnau, the
French Ambassador, addressed Elizabeth with an important message from
Catharine, proposing that a joint effort should be made to prevent the
domination of Portugal by Philip (17th April 1580), he was referred to
Burghley alone, and only after the decision had been adopted not to
commence hostilities, as suggested, was Leicester let into the secret.
Dangerous as it was to England that Philip should dominate Portugal, it
was of more importance to France; and it was determined to cast upon the
latter power, if possible, the responsibility of preventing it.
The prospect of a serious cause for dissension between France and Spain
was, indeed, a welcome one for Elizabeth, and she made the most of it.
The star of Morton in Scotland was waning fast, and D’Aubigny, Earl
of Lennox, had already gained a complete command of the young King’s
affection. Mary Stuart from her captivity was taking the grave step of
laying herself, her country, and her child at the feet of the King of
Spain, with the acquiescence this time of the Duke of Guise. The English
Government, however, was not yet aware of this, and looked upon France
as more likely than Spain to influence Scotland under D’Aubigny.[435]
Division in France was consequently promoted by Leicester and his party.
Alençon was warned not to be too pliant in agreeing with his brother;
and when Condé and Navarre once again raised the Huguenot standard, the
former rushed over to England to beseech for funds (June 1580), and
was received several times in secret by the Queen and Leicester. He
immediately sent a message to his adherents in France that all was well,
and that assistance would be given to him.
After some days the Queen sent word to Castelnau, the French Ambassador,
saying that she had heard that Condé was in England, but she would not
receive him except in the Ambassador’s presence. Burghley, writing to
Sussex, says that on arriving at Nonsuch from Theobalds, “I came hither
about five o’clock, and repairing towards the Privy Chamber to see her
Majesty, I found the door at the upper end shut, and understood that the
French Ambassador and the Prince of Condé had been a long time there with
her Majesty, with none others of the Council but my Lord of Leicester
and Mr. Vice-Chamberlain Hatton.” After the audience Castelnau went to
Burghley and complained of Condé for raising disturbances in France. “He
augmenteth his suspicions upon the sight of the great favours shown to
the Prince of Condé by certain Councillors here, whom he understandeth
have been many times with him (Condé) at the banqueting-house where he is
lodged.” The Queen told Burghley that Condé had asked for a contribution
of one-third of the cost of a Huguenot rising, the King of Navarre
and the German Protestants paying the other two-thirds; but the Lord
Treasurer’s opinion of it is sufficiently expressed in the following
words, which probably decided the question, for Condé did not get the aid
he sought notwithstanding Leicester’s efforts: “I wish her Majesty may
spend some portion to solicit them for peace … but to enter into war and
therewith to break the marriage, and so to be left alone as subject to
the burden of such a war, I think no good counsellor can allow.”[436]
The fact that he had not been personally consulted earlier did not
apparently ruffle Lord Burghley. In his quiet, prudent way he brought
things round to his view, without caring for the personal aspect. Not
so, irritable, hot-tempered Sussex. He replied in boiling indignation
against Leicester—“I have never heard word from my Lord Leicester, Mr.
Vice-Chamberlain, or Mr. Secretary Walsingham, of the coming of the
Prince of Condé, or of his expectations, or to seek to know what I
thought fit to do in his cause; whereby I see either they seek to keep
the whole from me, or else care little for my opinion … perhaps at my
coming some of them will mislike I am made such a stranger … I can give
as good a sound opinion as the best of them … I am very loath to see
my sovereign lady to be violently drawn into war.”[437] In any case,
Burghley’s unaided efforts were sufficient to prevent the Queen from
giving money to Condé, and thus setting the King of France against her
as well as the King of Spain. She was, indeed, in a month, so completely
turned by Lord Burghley’s influence as to exert herself to bring about
some sort of accord between Henry III. and the Huguenots.[438]
During the rest of the year the haggling between Elizabeth and Alençon
went on. The deputies of the States, after much discussion, offered
the sovereignty to the French Prince, whose letters to the Queen grew
more preposterous than ever. It was evident that if he went too far
in the Protestant direction to please Elizabeth he would be useless
as a means for attracting the Catholic Flemings to cordial union with
Orange; whereas an uncompromising Catholic attitude, or any appearance
of depending upon his brother for armed aid, would have been fiercely
resisted both by the English and the Hollanders. Many points therefore
had to be reconciled, and the Queen kept the affair mainly in her own
hands, playing upon the hopes, fears, and ambitions of Alençon with the
dexterity of a juggler.
Burghley’s main efforts in the meanwhile were directed to preventing her
from drifting into war, either with France or Spain. When the envoys
came from the Portuguese pretender, Don Antonio, they brought bribes and
presents in plenty for Leicester, who entertained them splendidly, and
urged their suit for assistance for their master; but again Lord Burghley
pointed out to the Queen the expense she would incur and the risks she
would run in a war with Spain, and one Ambassador after another went back
discomfited, whilst Leicester pocketed their bribes, and alternately
raged and sulked when his advice was not followed.
There were others besides Leicester whose recklessness or greed was
dragging England to the brink of a war with Spain, in spite of Burghley’s
efforts. Strong as was the great statesman’s interest in increasing the
legitimate trade of the country, we have seen that from the beginning
of Hawkins’ voyages to the West Coast of Africa, and thence to South
America with slaves, Burghley had refused any participation in the
syndicates that financed them. He had, it is true, on more than one
occasion repudiated the claim of the Spaniards, and especially of the
Portuguese, to exclusive dominion of the western world by virtue of the
Pope’s bull, but he had always frowned upon the filibustering attempts
of the syndicates, under the auspices of some of the aldermen of London,
to establish posts in territory occupied by other Christian powers, or
to force trade upon established settlements against the will of the
authorities. He had honestly done his best to check robbery in the
Channel by those who called themselves privateers, and almost alone of
the Councillors, he had no share or interest in the piratical ventures
under the English flag which had committed such destructive depredations
upon shipping.
The attack upon Hawkins’ fleet at San Juan de Ulloa, 1568, had aroused
fierce and not unnatural indignation amongst sailors and merchants in
England; but the expedition was in defiance of the Spanish law, in a
port belonging to and occupied by Spain, and it is more than doubtful
whether Burghley advised the seizure of the specie belonging to Philip,
in December 1568, in reprisal for the attack. There were ample reasons,
and an excellent legal pretext, for the seizure of the money without
that. In fact it was a master-stroke of policy which the foolish rashness
of De Spes had put into Burghley’s power, and the latter and Elizabeth
naturally welcomed the opportunity of crippling Alba. But when it became
a question of revenging San Juan de Ulloa by the despatch of a strong
armed expedition against Spanish colonies, Lord Burghley looked askance
at what might well be made a _casus belli_ by Spain, and could only
enrich the mariners and shareholders who took part in it.
Drake’s raid upon Nombre-de-Dios, 1573, had been robbery pure and simple,
carried out swiftly and secretly, so that the authorities at home had no
opportunity, even if they had the will, to prevent it; and Drake kept
out of the way for nearly three years afterwards, to escape punishment.
But in 1577 he was introduced by Walsingham or Hatton to the Queen,[439]
who told him that she wished to be revenged upon the King of Spain, and
that he, Drake, was the man to do it. When Drake explained his plan for
a great piratical raid into the Pacific, the Queen swore by her crown
that she would have any man’s head who informed the King of Spain of it;
and, says Drake, “her Majesty gave me special commandment that of all
men my Lord Treasurer should not know it.” But the preparations for the
voyage could not be kept secret entirely from Burghley, who was well
served by spies, and had many means of winning men. He could not prohibit
the expedition, of course; but, as usual, he sought to render it as
innocuous as possible. Thomas Doughty, presumably a barrister, certainly
a man of questionable character, had become Hatton’s secretary, and was
deep with Drake in the plans for the expedition. The whole business is
somewhat obscure, but Lord Burghley appears to have bought this man to
his interests, and, according to Doughty himself, to have offered him the
post of his private secretary, which, however, is unlikely. In any case,
he learned from him all that there was to know about Drake’s intentions,
and when, in November 1577, Drake’s expedition sailed, Doughty
accompanied it as Burghley’s secret agent, and, it may charitably be
surmised, for the express purpose of moderating if not frustrating its
action. First he tried to desert with his ship, and was duly chased and
brought back by Drake. Then he was accused of attempting to sow discord,
discouragement, and mutiny amongst the men, and Drake hanged him with
his own hands on the coast of Patagonia.[440] Winter, the other captain,
drifted back to England again from Tierra del Fuego, whilst Drake in the
little _Pelican_ went on his great voyage of plunder round the world.
All Europe rang with the news of his ravages in the South Seas, and the
shareholders, says Mendoza, “are beside themselves with joy.” But the
feelings of peaceful English merchants, and of Burghley himself, were far
different. They saw that Spain had been attacked wantonly, her mariners
hanged, her treasure stolen without legal excuse, her sacred edifices
ransacked, and it was felt that a war of retaliation was inevitable, in
which all England would suffer for the dishonest profit of a few.
One day towards the end of September 1580, after an absence of nearly
three years, when most people had given up Drake for lost, the _Pelican_
sailed quietly into Plymouth Sound, bringing in her hold plundered
riches incalculable. Drake posted up to London, hoping doubtless that
Elizabeth’s greed would overcome her fears of war. He was closeted for
six hours with the Queen; but when he was summoned to the Council not
one of his own backers was there, but only Burghley, Sussex, Crofts—a
Spanish agent—and Secretary Wilson. They ordered all his treasure to be
brought to the Tower, and a precise inventory made of it, preliminary
to its restitution. When the order was taken to Leicester, Walsingham,
and Hatton, they refused to sign, and exerted their influence with the
Queen to get it suspended. Mendoza raged and threatened. The Queen was
in mortal fear of war, and had promised that Drake should be punished if
he came back. But she loved money, and was not blind to the injury that
had been done to her probable foe by Drake’s boldness. So she temporised
as usual, accepted Drake’s presents graciously, and gradually came round
to making a hero of the great seaman, in spite of Mendoza’s talk of war
and vengeance. She must have proofs against Drake before she punished
him, she said. Besides, what were the Spanish troops doing in Ireland?
When the last Spanish-Papal soldier was withdrawn, she would talk about
the restitution of Drake’s plunder—not before.[441] At present she was
the aggrieved party. Gifts and bribes showered from Drake upon the
Councillors; but when Burghley was offered 3000 crowns’ worth of fine
gold, he refused it, saying he could not receive a present from a man who
had stolen all he had,[442] and Sussex also declined any portion of the
booty. Once more it was Burghley’s task to avert or provide against the
war with Spain, which the ineptitude and cupidity of others had brought
within measurable distance.
CHAPTER XIII
1581-1584
Alençon had nominally accepted the sovereignty of Flanders offered to him
by the States of Ghent in the autumn of 1580; but whilst the Huguenots
were in arms against his brother, he had no force of men to enable him to
enter and assume the government of his new dominion. He had industriously
striven to draw Elizabeth into a marriage, or into aiding him in Flanders
as a price for her jilting him; but she had always been too clever for
him, and kept on the right side of a positive compromise. When the
fears of war with Spain engendered in England by Drake’s depredations
became acute, and the Spanish aid to the Irish rebels could no longer
be concealed, it was necessary once more for England to draw close to
France. A request was accordingly sent for a special French embassy to
come to England empowered to settle the details of the Alençon marriage
and a national alliance. Elizabeth’s letters to Alençon became more
affectionate than ever: she promised him 200,000 crowns of Drake’s
plunder to pay German mercenaries to support him in Flanders, she sent
the lovelorn Prince a wedding-ring, she petted and bribed his agent until
her own courtiers were all jealous; and under the influence of Burghley
and Sussex, once more the marriage negotiations assumed a serious aspect,
whilst Leicester and Hatton chafed in the background.
The activity of the seminary priests and missionaries, in conjunction
with the Papal invasion of Ireland, had been answered in England by
fresh severity against the Catholics. The gaols were all full to
overflowing with English recusants; fresh proclamations were issued
against harbouring priests; and spies at home and abroad were following
the ubiquitous movements of the zealous young members of the Society of
Jesus, who yearned for the crown of martyrdom. There is no doubt that
to some extent the new persecution of the Catholics was for the purpose
of reconciling the Puritans to the Alençon match, but it was still more
owing to the genuine alarm of a war against Spain and the Pope.
Parliament opened on the 16th January 1581, after twenty-four
prorogations, this only being its third session, although it was elected
in 1572. We have already seen that the Puritan party was strong in
the House of Commons, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Walter
Mildmay, in his speech, voiced the general feeling of the country at
the dangers that seemed impending. “Our enemies sleep not,” he said,
“and it behoveth us not to be careless, as though all were past; but
rather to think that there is but a piece of the storm over, and that
the greater part of the tempest remaineth behind, and is like to fall
upon us by the malice of the Pope, the most capital enemy of the Queen
and this State.”[443] He denounced the “absolutions, dispensations,
reconciliations, and such other things of Rome. You see how lately he
(the Pope) hath sent hither a sort of hypocrites, naming themselves
Jesuits, a rabble of vagrant friars, newly sprung up, running through
the world to trouble the Church of God.” The aim of the oration, of
course, was to lead the House to vote liberal supplies for the defence
of the country, and in this it was successful; though, when the Puritan
majority endeavoured to appoint days of fasting and humiliation by
Parliamentary vote, they were rapped over the knuckles by the Queen,
as they had been in the previous session, for interfering with her
prerogative.[444]
The country, in fact, was now thoroughly alive to the danger into which
it had drifted, and Lord Burghley’s hand once more took the tiller,
to remedy, so far as he might, the evils which had resulted from the
temporary abandonment of his cautious policy.[445] His task was not an
easy one to settle the preliminaries of the pompous embassy which was
to come from France. There were a host of questions to be considered.
The Queen would insist upon the Ambassadors being of the highest rank,
and having full powers. Leicester and Hatton objected to their coming at
all; Alençon insisted that they should be only empowered to negotiate a
marriage, and not an alliance; whilst Cobham, the English Ambassador,
endeavoured ineffectually to draw Henry III. into a pledge to break
with Spain about Portugal before the embassy left France. At last all
was arranged, and in April the Ambassadors, with a suite of two hundred
persons, arrived in London.[446] Drake’s silver was drawn upon liberally
for presents; a new gallery was built at Whitehall for the entertainment
of the envoys; Philip Sidney wrote a masque, and played the fool for once
for their delectation; and joust and tourney, ball and banquet, succeeded
each other hourly, to the exclusion of more serious business.
Leicester had done his best to stop the embassy, but without effect,
and wrote to Lord Shrewsbury that he “was greatly troubled at these
great lords coming.”[447] He tried to work upon the Queen’s weak side,
by assuring her that the one object of the Frenchmen was to lead her
into heavy expenditure, and so to enfeeble her, that she might the more
easily be conquered.[448] This, at all events, caused some restriction in
the expenditure; for the Queen suddenly discovered that it would not be
dignified for her to entertain the Ambassadors or pay for horses until
they actually arrived in London. Burghley may be presumed to have been
delighted at their coming, for he made no effort to limit the cost of
his banquet to them at Cecil House, in the Strand, which was one of the
most splendid entertainments offered to them. There is in the Lansdowne
MSS. a full relation of this splendid feast of the 30th April, with the
bills of fare, accounts of expenses, &c., which gives some notion of the
splendour and extent of Burghley’s household. There were consumed two
stags, 40s.; two bucks, 20s.; six kids, 24s.; six pigs, 10s.; six shins
of beef, 24s.; four gammons of bacon, 16s.; one swan, 10s.; three cranes,
20s.; twenty-four curlews, 24s.; fifteen pheasants, 30s.; fifty-four
herons, £8, 15s.; eight partridges, 8s., and vast quantities of meat
of all sorts; and sturgeon, conger, salmon, trout, lampreys, lobsters,
prawns, gurnards, oysters, and many sorts of fresh-water fish. Herbs
and salads cost no less than 36s., and cream, 27s. There were consumed
3300 eggs, 360 lbs. of butter, 42 lbs. of spices, and three gallons of
rose-water. £11, 7s. 3d. was paid for the hire of extra vessels and
glass; flowers and rushes cost £5, 7s. 10d., and Turkey carpets, £11.
This Gargantuan feast was served by forty-nine gentlemen and thirty-four
servants, and was washed down with £75 worth of beer as well as Gascon,
sack, hippocras, and other wine costing £21; the entire expenditure on
the afternoon’s feeding being £649, 1s. 5d.
Though Burghley and Sussex had brought over the embassy in hopes of a
marriage, or at least an alliance, the Queen changed from hour to hour.
When Leicester complained to her, she silenced him by saying that she
could avoid a marriage whenever she liked by bringing Alençon over
whilst the embassy was in England, and then setting the Frenchmen at
loggerheads, and by subsidising the Prince’s attempts in Flanders. At the
same time she certainly led Sussex, and probably Burghley, to believe
that she might be in earnest at last.
After some weeks the elder Ambassadors got tired of trifling, and begged
the Queen to appoint a committee of the Council to negotiate with them.
The great banquet at Burghley House was the preliminary meeting, and a
paper at Hatfield, endorsed by Burghley, lays down, in the usual precise
manner of the time, every aspect of the matter. The propositions are
three: 1st, if the Queen should remain unmarried; 2nd, if she should
marry Alençon; and 3rd, if she should enter into some strait league with
the French. In the first eventuality the Queen must strengthen herself
and weaken her opponents; Scotland must be reduced to the same friendship
that existed before the advent of D’Aubigny; James’s marriage to a
Catholic must be prevented; Mary Stuart must be held tightly; Ireland
must be subdued; the entire domination of Spain over the Netherlands
must be avoided, and an alliance concluded either with France or the
German Protestants. In the second eventuality, that the Queen should
marry Alençon, the writer urges that the wedding should take place
without delay, but always on condition that religion in England must be
safeguarded, and Henry III. pledged to provide most of the means for
Alençon’s enterprise in Flanders. On the other hand, if the marriage is
not to take place, care must be taken that no offence is given to the
suitor. “Since the treaty with Simier many accidents have happened to
make this marriage hateful to the people, as the invasion of Ireland by
the Pope, the determination of the Pope to stir up rebellion in this
realm by sending in a number of English Jesuits, who have by books,
challenges, and secret instructions and seductions, procured a great
defection of many people to relinquish their obedience to her Majesty.
Likewise there is a manifest practice in Scotland, by D’Aubigny, to
alienate the young King of Scotland, both from favouring the Protestant
religion and from amity to her Majesty and her realm, notwithstanding
that he hath only been conserved in his crown at her Majesty’s
charges.”[449]
Although this paper has usually been treated as emanating from Burghley,
I consider it much more likely to have been the work of Walsingham. There
is at Hatfield, of similar date (2nd May 1581), a note, all in the Lord
Treasurer’s hand, for his speech to the Ambassadors, and this is preceded
by a private remark that, before a definite answer can be given, “it is
necessary to know her Majesty’s own mind, to what end she will have this
treaty tend, either to a marriage or no marriage, amity or no amity.”
As Burghley seems not to have possessed this information, it is not
surprising that the draft of his speech simply tends to delay. The Queen
has written to Alençon, he says, and must have a reply before she can say
anything definite about the marriage; but as there has been some talk on
both sides of a close alliance, the Queen expects the Ambassadors to be
empowered to deal with that also.[450]
The Ambassadors themselves give an account of a speech of Burghley’s,
either on this or another occasion, in which he declared that, although
he was formerly against the marriage, he now personally thought it
desirable. Brisson replied in a similar strain, and then the strong
Protestantism of Walsingham asserted itself. He said that the hope of the
marriage had caused the Pope to flood England with Jesuits and invade
Ireland, the Catholics in England were already in high feather about it,
and Alençon had broken faith, and had entered into negotiations with the
States General, since Simier took the draft treaty. Besides, he said,
look at the danger of child-bearing to the Queen at her age. The marriage
would probably drag England into war at least, and until the Queen
received a reply to her letters the negotiations for the marriage must
stand over.[451]
It is quite evident that the Queen desired an alliance without a
marriage, and to draw France into open hostility to Spain, whilst she
remained unpledged. But Secretary Pinart was almost as clever as
Burghley, and played his cards well, and no progress was made. Let
them marry first, said Pinart, it would be easy to make an alliance
afterwards. Affairs were thus at a deadlock. Alençon was on the frontier
with a body of men ready to enter Flanders to relieve Cambray, when his
brother’s forces dispersed them. It was then clear to the Prince that he
must depend upon the Queen of England alone; and ceding to the pressure
of his agent in England, he suddenly rushed over to London (2nd June), to
the confusion of the Ambassadors, who shut themselves up to avoid meeting
him. The Queen was all smiles, for she was satisfied now that Alençon was
obliged to look to her only for aid, marriage or no marriage. Alençon
went back after a few days as secretly as he had come, but every one
saw that the Queen had won the trick; and the pompous embassy went back
loaded with presents, but only taking with it a draft marriage treaty,
accompanied by a letter from Elizabeth, saying that she might alter her
mind if she liked, in which case the treaty was to be considered as
annulled.[452]
In the meanwhile Mendoza was watching closely the attempts of Leicester
to persuade the Queen to aid Don Antonio in Portugal, as well as to
provide means for Alençon in Flanders. Walsingham had laid a trap for
Mendoza, who was induced to pay a large sum of money to some Hollanders
who promised to betray Flushing to the Spaniards, but really did just the
opposite. The Hollanders left with the Spanish Ambassador the child son
of one of them as a hostage. By orders of Walsingham the embassy was
violated and the boy taken away; and this amongst many other grievances
was the source of endless squabbling with the Queen, who invariably
retorted to all Mendoza’s complaints that Philip had connived at the
invasion of Ireland. After one of his interviews with the Queen (24th
June) he writes: “It is impossible for me to express the insincerity with
which she and her ministers proceed.… She contradicts me every moment in
my version of the negotiations.… I understood from her and Cecil, who is
one of the few ministers who show any signs of straightforwardness, that
they understood that your Majesty intended to write to the Queen assuring
her that the succour had not been sent to Ireland on your behalf. I told
them that the matter referred to the Pope alone, but Cecil said they
wished to see a letter from your Majesty;” whereupon Mendoza angrily told
him that the word of an Ambassador was sufficient.
On the same day that this conversation took place, Burghley’s task of
keeping the peace was rendered still more difficult by the arrival in
England of the fugitive Portuguese Pretender, Don Antonio, who was at
once taken up by Leicester and Hatton. The Spanish Ambassador was told
by Hatton that if he wanted his passports he could have them, and the
Queen almost insultingly refused him audience. Mendoza then wrote her a
letter, which he thought the Queen would be obliged to show to the whole
Council, “where I was sure some of the members would point out to her
the danger she was running in refusing to receive me and thus irritating
your Majesty. Cecil, particularly, who is the person upon whom the
Queen depends in matters of importance, had seen me a few days before,
and said how sorry he was that these things should occur, and that he
should be unable to remedy them, as he was sure I could not avoid being
offended.”[453]
A few weeks afterwards Mendoza made another attempt to see the Queen,
who was then in the country. She said that as Philip had not written
any excuse about the Spanish expedition to Ireland, she did not see her
way to receive the Ambassador. If he had anything to say he might tell
it to two Councillors. Burghley was known to be the most favourable of
them, and had expressed to Mendoza his ignorance that the audience had
been refused. “He did not think it wise to refuse me; and as he is the
most important of the ministers I thought best to inform him of the
reply I had received, and to say I should like to see him.” Burghley
was ill of gout at Theobalds at the time, but shortly afterwards he
came to town and asked Mendoza to see him at Leicester House, “his gout
preventing him from coming further.” Mendoza found him with Leicester
together, and in reply to the stereotyped complaints of the Ambassador
about Drake’s plunder, the aid to the Portuguese, and the refusal of
audience, the Treasurer firmly told him that the Queen thought he had
been remiss in not obtaining a letter from the King disclaiming the Irish
expedition. This Mendoza haughtily refused to do, and the conference
ended unsatisfactorily.[454]
It is evident that at this period (August 1581) Burghley was in despair
of keeping on friendly relations with Spain. The Queen and Leicester
had determined to subsidise Alençon in Flanders, and to countenance
Don Antonio’s attempts on Portugal. This coming after the retention
of Drake’s plunder, and refusal of audience to the Ambassador, seemed
to make the continuance of peace between the two countries impossible,
and Burghley was once more obliged to turn to the necessary, but to him
distasteful, alternative—a close union with France.
The great French embassy had gone back defeated, for they saw that
Elizabeth was befooling Alençon, and that the national alliance would
only be made on terms advantageous to English interests in Flanders.
But it was necessary for Henry III. and his mother to cling to England
if they were effectually to oppose Philip in Portugal. The Guises were
becoming more overbearing and powerful than ever under the popular Duke
Henry; they were known to be turning towards Spain, and their ambitions
were high both for themselves and for their cousin Mary Stuart. To avoid
the complete subjugation of France to their ends, the King was therefore
obliged to court Elizabeth, and suffer her to have her way with Alençon
and Flanders. Henry III. consequently asked Elizabeth, through Somers,
to name a day for the marriage, simultaneously with which an offensive
and defensive alliance would be concluded, and a secret agreement entered
into with regard to the establishment of Alençon in Flanders. This, of
course, was understood to be merely fencing, and Walsingham himself was
sent to France to conclude a treaty. He was instructed to say that the
French were mistaken in supposing that the marriage was settled. The
Queen could not consent to the marriage now, for, as Alençon was already
in arms against the King of Spain, it would “bring us and our realme into
war, which in no respect our realme and subjects can accept.” But if the
King will accept her secret aid to Alençon’s plan in Flanders, and the
opposition to Spain in Portugal, she will be willing to conclude an
offensive and defensive alliance with him. In any case, the marriage was
to be abandoned. Walsingham saw Alençon in Picardy before going to Paris,
and, as may be supposed, the young Prince was in despair at the Queen’s
fickleness. He was certain his brother would not make an alliance without
the marriage, as he feared the Queen would slip out of it, leaving
France alone face to face with Spain.[455] If, said Catharine, who was
with her son, the Queen of England broke her word about the marriage for
fear of her people, she might break an alliance for a similar reason.
But Walsingham made it clear to both of them that Elizabeth would not
allow herself to be dragged into war with Spain, though covert aid
should be given to her late suitor. Poor Alençon wept and stormed, but
in vain. Anything short of marriage was useless to him, he said. His
brother neither had helped nor would help him against Spain, unless the
marriage took place. He himself would come to England for an answer
from the Queen’s lips as soon as he had raised the siege of Cambray.
Elizabeth complained of Walsingham’s management of the interview; he
could rarely content her. He had, she said, been too abrupt in breaking
off the marriage. Burghley pointed out to her that she could not have all
her own way. She wanted, he said, to keep the marriage afoot, and yet
not to marry; to aid Alençon secretly, whilst France aided him openly;
to conclude an alliance by which she gained everything, and France
nothing.[456]
Elizabeth, in a rage, swore that Leicester and the Puritans were dragging
her into all sorts of expense and trouble,[457] from which she could not
extricate herself without war. Walsingham was soon disgusted with his
task, for he could make but little progress in Paris, and the Queen found
fault with him constantly. He answered boldly, almost rudely, to all her
strictures. He told her that with all this hesitation about the marriage
“you lose the benefit of time, which, if years be considered, is not the
least thing to be weighed. If you mean it (the marriage) not, then assure
yourself it is one of the worst remedies you can use.… When your Majesty
doth see in what doubtful terms you stand with foreign princes, then you
do wish with great affection that opportunities offered had not been
overslipped; but when they are offered you, if they be accompanied by
charges, they are altogether neglected. The respect of charges hath lost
Scotland, and I would to God I had no cause to think it might not put
your Highness into peril of losing England.”[458]
Even Burghley, with all his influence, was in despair at getting the
Queen to spend any money. Walsingham had told the Queen that if she lent
Alençon 100,000 ducats secretly he might be appeased. Burghley pointed
out to her that her niggardliness was ruining the chance of effectually
weakening Spain. “In no wise,” writes Burghley, “would she have the
enterprise of the Low Countries lost, but she will not particularly
warrant you to offer aid. She allegeth that now the King (of France)
hath gone so far he will not abandon it.… Her Majesty is also very
cold in the cause of Don Antonio, alleging that she liketh it only by
opportunity [importunity?] of her Council; and now that all things are
ready, ships, victuals, and men, the charges whereof come to £12,000, she
hath been moved to find £2000 more needful for the full furniture of the
voyage, wherewith she is greatly offended with Mr. Hawkins and Drake,
as the charges are greater than was said to her … hereupon her Majesty
is content not to give a penny more; and now after Drake and Hawkins
have made shift for the £2000, she will not let them depart until she be
assured by you that the French will aid Don Antonio, for she feareth to
be left alone.… All these things do marvellously stay her Majesty … yet
she loseth all the charges spent in vain, and the poor King (Antonio) is
utterly lost.”[459]
But Burghley might reason and remonstrate, Walsingham might tell her, as
he did, that the penuriousness would bring her to ruin, Elizabeth would
not open her purse strings until it was almost too late. Alençon had made
a dash into Flanders soon after seeing Walsingham in August, and relieved
Cambray, and then being absolutely penniless, his brother, in a fright at
his boldness, refusing any aid, the Queen was obliged to send him £20,000
to prevent the abandonment of the whole business, and a union with the
Guises which he threatened. He returned to France after a few weeks, and
then again announced his intention of coming to England to exert his
personal influence on the Queen. To stave off the visit several other
sums of money were sent to him. Leicester, too, strove his hardest to
stop it; but Alençon’s agents and Alençon’s lovelorn epistles were more
flattering to the Queen even than Leicester, and the lover came early in
November.
Although Walsingham had almost arranged a draft treaty of alliance
without marriage when he was in Paris, it fell through on the eternal
question of the Queen’s “charges” and responsibility, and when Alençon
arrived in England the whole matter was as far from settlement as
ever. Of the extraordinary cajolery by which the Queen alternately
raised Alençon to the pinnacle of hope and plunged him to the depths
of despair during his stay with her at Richmond and Whitehall, a full
description will be found elsewhere.[460] By her dexterity she bound
him personally to her, and made it appear that the only obstacles to
the match were those raised by the King of France. From the coming of
Alençon it is clear that Leicester alone understood the Queen’s game.
The earl was radiant and joyous, which made Sussex distrust the result,
notwithstanding appearances. So far as he could Lord Burghley held aloof,
although when the Prince came to London he waited upon him with other
Councillors formally every morning at nine. When the famous scene was
enacted (22nd November) in the gallery at Whitehall, where the Queen
boldly kissed her suitor on the lips and publicly pledged herself to
marry him,[461] Burghley was confined to his bed with an attack of gout.
The Queen sent him an account of what had passed. Mendoza reports that he
thereupon exclaimed, “Blessed be the Lord that this business has at last
reached a point where the Queen, on her part, has done all she can; it is
for the country now alone to carry it out.” The deduction which Mendoza
drew from this exclamation was probably the correct one. To him it proved
that the whole plan was insincere on the part of Elizabeth, and that the
intention was to cause conditions to be imposed by Parliament which the
King of France could not accept, and then to throw the responsibility of
the breach upon the latter.
This was all very well, but it was a reverse for Burghley’s policy.
Leicester and Walsingham had drawn the Queen into a position of almost
open hostility to Spain; and yet a close union with France was rendered
difficult by Elizabeth’s fickleness and dread of responsibility, and by
Leicester’s jealousy. As usual in such circumstances, Burghley cautiously
endeavoured to redress the balance. When the treaty with France seemed
assured, Mendoza had been refused audience, and on remonstrating with
Burghley he had found him far less willing to be friendly than before.
Leicester quite openly talked about turning the Spanish Ambassador out of
England, and even Burghley had replied, to an application for audience
on behalf of Mendoza to deliver a letter from Philip to the Queen, who
was at Nonsuch, that the Queen was alone and unattended by Councillors,
“and as Don Bernardino is to bring letters to the Queen from so great an
enemy to her as his master, it is meet that he should be received as the
minister of such a one.” When the Spaniard did see the Queen (October),
his threats and complaints about Don Antonio and Alençon were met with
anger and indignation by her. All the old complaints on both sides were
repeated, and both then and later Mendoza was certain by the attitude of
Leicester, Hatton, and Walsingham, that they were determined to have war
with Spain, and that Burghley, for once, would not stand in their way.
But a change came in the attitude of the latter in December. It seemed
then impossible for the Queen to withdraw her pledges to Alençon without
a breach with France, whilst she could hardly help him without a war
with Spain. Scottish affairs, moreover, were a subject of deep anxiety.
D’Aubigny was now master, and Morton, to Elizabeth’s indignation, had
been executed. Catholic priests and Jesuits were known to be flitting
backwards and forwards; and worst of all, Mary Stuart had, for the
first time since her flight, opened up friendly negotiations with her
son’s Government, and had formally joined James with herself in her
sovereignty. She had moreover written confidently asking for many fresh
concessions which Elizabeth was loath to grant her.[462]
Any appearance of an approach of the French and Scots always drew England
and Spain together, and with the added dangers already cited, this was
quite sufficient to change Lord Burghley’s tone. Mendoza accordingly
reports (25th December 1581) that, at a meeting of the Council held to
consider the situation, Burghley suggested that an alliance should be
made with Spain, and an agreement arrived at with regard to the Low
Countries. This was approved of by the Lord Chancellor (Bromley), the
Lord Admiral (Lincoln), and Crofts. Sussex held aloof, wavering between
his enmity to France and Leicester, and his attachment to Protestantism;
whilst Leicester, Walsingham, Hatton, and Knollys were strenuously
opposed to any approach to Spain, as they were, even more violently, to
Burghley’s proposal that Drake’s plunder, or what was left of it, should
be restored. A few days afterwards Burghley had some business with a
Spanish merchant established in London, and to him he expressed a desire
that negotiations should be opened for an agreement between the two
countries. When the merchant carried the message to Mendoza, the latter
attributed the suggestion entirely to the fear which he had aroused by
his firmness, and he made no response. Mendoza himself, indeed, one of
the warlike Alba school, had now no hope or desire for peace. The rise of
D’Aubigny in Scotland and the coming of the Jesuits had quite altered the
position during the last year, and Mendoza had in his hands a plot that
seemed to promise the triumph of the Catholics.
As early as April 1581, Mary Stuart had renewed her approaches to Spain
through the Archbishop of Glasgow in Paris. “Things were now,” she
said, “better disposed than ever in Scotland for a return to its former
condition … and English affairs could be dealt with subsequently. The
King, her son, was quite determined to return to the Catholic religion,
and much inclined to an open rupture with the Queen of England.” She
begged for armed aid from Philip, to be landed first in Ireland, and to
enter Scotland at a given signal after the alliance between Scotland
and Spain had been signed. Nothing came of this at the time; and after
several other attempts on the part of Mary to get into touch with the
Spaniards, she became distrustful of her Ambassador (Archbishop Beton)
and other intermediaries, and contrived in November to communicate with
Mendoza direct. She had heard that all the priests who flocked into
Scotland and England looked to him for guidance, and that through them
he had sent a message to the Scottish Catholics, saying that everything
now depended upon Scotland’s reverting to the old faith. The English
Catholic nobles then at liberty had, at Mendoza’s instance, formed a
society with this object, and secretly sent two priests to sound James
and D’Aubigny, and to promise that they would raise the north of England,
release Mary, and secure the English succession to James. They brought
back a favourable reply, which the ambassador at once conveyed to Allen
and Persons on the continent. This was late in the autumn of 1581, and
Mendoza looked coldly upon Burghley’s new advances, for he was now the
centre of the plot to overthrow Elizabeth by means of the Scottish
Catholics, a plot in which, against his will, he was obliged to make
use of the Jesuit missionaries, who themselves at first had no idea of
the Spanish political aims that underlay the conversion of Scotland to
Catholicism.
Side by side with the Jesuits, Creighton, Persons, and Holt, who were
employed in the political movement, were others who had been sent to
England and were intended purely for spiritual work. They had been
extremely successful in their propaganda, and had once more infused
spirit into the English Catholic party. This could not be done without
the printing and dissemination of books, as well as preaching, and the
spies of the Council were directed to track to earth the priests who were
at the bottom of the movement. Nearly every writer upon the subject has
taken for granted that Lord Burghley was at the bottom of the persecution
which followed. Such, however, does not appear to have been the case. As
we have seen, the Lord Treasurer insisted upon some uniformity in the
practice of the Anglican Church, but he must have known that many of his
closest friends, and the colleagues upon whom he depended in the Council,
were Catholics, and his lifelong tendency was to a political union
with Spain, the champion of Catholic Christendom. He was determined,
it is true, to crush treason to the Queen and the institutions of the
country, no matter who suffered; and when Catholicism meant revolution he
harried it fiercely; but he was no persecutor for the sake of religion
itself,[463] and the cruel torture and execution of Campion, Sherwin,
and Briant,[464] during Alençon’s visit to England (1st December 1581),
for denying the Queen’s supremacy, were almost certainly prompted in the
main by Walsingham, Knollys, and the Puritans, who were in a fever of
apprehension lest the marriage with Alençon would lead to toleration of
the Catholic faith. The men actually executed were not in fact employed
in the political portion of the propaganda at all, but were honest
religious missionaries; but they, and the scores of other Catholics
who were swept into prison at the time, were useful object lessons for
Walsingham and Leicester, whose aims, as we have seen, were in direct
opposition to those of Burghley.[465] The latter, indeed, was at the
very time of the execution approaching Mendoza with suggestions for an
alliance with Spain, which were coldly received for the reasons already
explained.
During Alençon’s stay in England, the Queen, who was playing her own
game, which was to reduce the Prince to utter dependence upon her and to
distrust of his brother, had been constantly thwarted by the jealousy
of Leicester and Hatton. They were for granting enormous sums to the
suitor to get rid of him at any cost, which was no part of the Queen’s
plan. Lord Burghley alone of the Councillors never displeased her in the
matter; whenever it was a question of large expenditure, he always had
a convenient attack of gout, and thus never openly thwarted the Queen.
The difficulty was to get Alençon out of the country without ruinous
expense or further pledges, and when it was found that all the Queen’s
persuasions were unavailing she had to employ Burghley’s diplomacy.
He began by inflaming the young Prince’s ambition, and enlarging upon
the splendid destiny awaiting him in his new sovereignty, which was
now clamouring for his presence. Promises were made never meant to be
literally fulfilled, of the vast sums the Queen would contribute to his
support, and at last, after infinite trouble, he was induced to promise
to sail for Flanders. He wished to stay until the new year; but when
Burghley pointed out to him the large amount of money he would have to
spend in presents he seemed to give way, for money he had none. But when
the time came he still stayed on. The Queen told Burghley after supper
on Christmas night that she would not marry the lad to be empress of the
world, and that he must get rid of him somehow. Catharine de Medici,
the Prince of Orange, the German princes, and the French Ambassador all
added their pressure to that of the Queen and Burghley to get Alençon
out of England. Leicester and Hatton fumed and threatened. Burghley at
last frankly told the Queen that the only way to get rid of her suitor
was to provide a sum of ready money for him, and promise that he should
come back to England as soon as he was crowned. The Queen did not like
the alternative, and said she must wait for the King of France’s answer
to her last demands. This time Catharine de Medici beat her with her own
weapons. The answer was a full acceptance of everything required by the
English; and to make it more complete, Alençon said he was willing to
become a Protestant.
This was indeed alarming, and the Queen sent hurriedly to Burghley to
get her out of the scrape. His suggestion this time was that she should
demand Calais and Havre as security for the fulfilment of the King’s
promises, which was a device after her own heart. But still Alençon
would not go, and the Queen became seriously alarmed. She promised him
£60,000; but Burghley was opposed to any such sum as that being paid, or
indeed more than was necessary for the Prince’s voyage. The Queen said
that she did not mean to pay it, but only to promise it, which was quite
another matter. It is evident that Burghley was now quite undeceived,
and against both the pretence of marriage and any large support being
given to Alençon. He dreaded the revenge of France for the insult put
upon it; and of Spain, for aiding the Frenchman’s usurpation of Philip’s
sovereignty under English protection. His remedy, as usual, was a
friendship with Spain. Walsingham, on the other hand, was all in favour
of vigorous help to Orange and a war with Spain. The Queen usually leant
to the side of Burghley, but was swayed hither and thither by her fears
of France, by Pinart’s threats, Alençon’s tears, Leicester’s jealousy,
and her own greed and vanity.
At last after infinite trouble Alençon sailed with fifteen ships,
attended by Leicester (sorely against his will), Hunsdon, Sidney,
Willoughby, Howard, and Norris, to take upon himself the sovereignty of
Holland and Flanders. The Queen after all had to provide a large sum
of money, but it was sent to the States, and not entrusted to Alençon,
except a personal present of £25,000 from the Queen. Leicester escaped
from the new sovereign’s side on the very day he was crowned, and hurried
back to his mistress’s side. He reported that Alençon and the French were
hated by the Protestant Dutchmen, who had only admitted him because the
Queen of England was behind him. The English Ambassador in Paris at the
same time sent word that Henry III. had repudiated his brother’s action,
and had denounced as traitors all those who aided him.
This was exactly what Elizabeth feared. She had offended both the great
powers, and was alone. She swore at Leicester for sanctioning, by his
presence, the investiture of Alençon; she railed at Walsingham as a knave
for dragging her into such a business; and she insisted upon Burghley,
who was ill with fever in London, getting up and coming to Windsor to
tell her what to do. When he appeared, she asked him whether it would
not be better for her at once to become friendly with Spain. Thus, though
the sagacious Lord Treasurer had let her go her own way, she had at last
been brought by circumstances to propose his policy again. “He replied
that nothing would suit her better, especially if peace could be arranged
in the Netherlands by the concession of liberty of conscience.”[466]
Sussex was of the same opinion, but distrusted both the Queen and
Burghley, who, he said, had spoken coolly on the subject on the Council.
There is, however, no reason to doubt that the Treasurer was sincere in
his desire for such an arrangement, which indeed was the only one which
seemed to promise peace to England.
In the meanwhile the Spanish and Jesuit plot in Scotland was progressing.
Guise had drifted further and further away from Henry III. and his
mother, from whom he saw he could get no aid for Mary Stuart or his
own ambitious plans. When, therefore, the Queen of Scots had offered
her submission and the sending of her son to Spain, he had separated
himself from French interests, and tendered his own humble services
to Philip. This made all the difference. If the Holy League and this
undertaking made the Guises Catholics and Spaniards before they were
Frenchmen, Philip need have no hesitation in helping their niece to the
crowns of Scotland and England; and the Jesuits were set to work to
secure James and D’Aubigny, whilst Mary Stuart’s spirits rose high. The
Scottish Catholic nobles were ready to rise, and even, if necessary, to
kill or deport the King if he would not be a Catholic. All they asked
was a force of two thousand foreign troops. D’Aubigny entered eagerly
into the affair, and by the spring of 1582 all was arranged, when the
Jesuit emissaries and D’Aubigny between them mismanaged it. Guise was
foolishly brought into the plan by D’Aubigny, and he wanted to invade
the south of England with his troops at the same time. D’Aubigny made
exaggerated claims for himself, and the Scottish Catholic nobles followed
suit. Philip recognised that Guise was still playing for his own hand,
though not for France. If Mary was to be Queen of Great Britain and his
humble servant, she must owe her crown to him, and not to Guise. Philip
therefore grew cool, and the raid of Ruthven and the banishment of
D’Aubigny, by which young James fell into the hands of the Protestants
(August 1582), effectually put an end to the projects of invasion for a
time.
On the 18th March 1582, Alençon in Antwerp was giving an entertainment
on the occasion of his birthday, when the Prince of Orange was stabbed,
it was thought mortally, by a young Spaniard hired by those greater than
himself. The one cry, both in Holland and in England, was, that Alençon
and his false Frenchmen were at the bottom of the crime, and, but for the
fortitude of Orange, every Frenchman in the Netherlands would have been
massacred. Elizabeth was beside herself with fear. Her first impulse was
to get Alençon out of Flanders, even if she brought him to England; but
Walsingham gravely warned her that if the Prince came again she would
certainly have to marry him.
Whilst Orange lay between life and death, Leicester, Hatton, Knollys,
and Walsingham were for ever urging the Queen boldly to take Flanders
and Holland under her own protection, whilst Burghley, aided by Sussex
and Crofts, again advocated an arrangement with Spain. But the latter
were in a minority; the Protestant feeling of the country was thoroughly
aroused at the attempted murder of Orange, and Burghley was obliged to
be cautious. Mendoza was instructed by Philip, March 1582, to use his
influence with the Council to prevent aid being given to Alençon. “I
have,” writes Mendoza, “tried every artifice to get on good terms with
some of them, but they all turn their faces against me, particularly
the Lord Treasurer, whom I formerly used to see, the rest of them being
openly inimical. Only lately I sought an opportunity of approaching him
again, and asked him to see me. He replied that his colleagues looked
upon him as being very Spanish in his sympathies, and therefore he could
not venture to see me alone, except by the Queen’s orders. I had, he
said, better communicate my business through Secretary Walsingham, in the
ordinary course.”[467]
Walsingham, on the other hand, lost no opportunity of widening the
breach, in order to force the Queen to more vigorous action in favour of
the Dutch Protestants. In May he sent an insulting message to Mendoza, to
the effect that the Queen would not receive him until some satisfaction
was given about Ireland. The Ambassador at once complained to Burghley.
War, he said, might well result from this treatment of him. Burghley
endeavoured to minimise the slight. It was a mistake of the messenger,
he said, and Mendoza had better write to the Queen. He did so, but with
no result but to confirm Walsingham’s message, though Elizabeth softened
it somewhat by saying, “God forbid that she should ever break with your
Majesty, to whom she bore nothing but good-will.”[468] When, in July,
Alençon demanded more money, Walsingham, Leicester, and Hatton were for
sending him £50,000 at once—anything to prevent his coming to England
again—but Cecil opposed it vigorously. There was but £80,000 in the
Treasury, he said, and so only £30,000 was sent to Flanders.
By the death of Bacon, the fatal illness of Sussex, and the defection
of Hatton, Lord Burghley was at this time almost alone in the Council;
for Crofts, the Controller, a regular pensioner of Spain and a Catholic,
was a man of no influence; and, according to Mendoza, the Lord Treasurer
in November told the Queen plainly that she must appoint two more
Councillors of his way of thinking, “to oppose Leicester and his gang.”
It was probably in pursuance of this policy that Burghley cast about for
some counterbalancing influence to be used against Leicester.
At the end of 1581 a young captain named Walter Ralegh, whose company in
Ireland had been disbanded on the suppression of the Desmond rebellion,
had been sent over to England with despatches. He was clever and
brilliant, and full of schemes for governing Ireland more cheaply than
the Viceroy, Lord Grey, had done. Grey rebuked him for his presumption,
and sent him home in semi-disgrace. Leicester was a bitter enemy of
Grey’s, and was glad to welcome the young captain who impeached his
government, and that of Leicester’s rival Ormond.[469] Ralegh was
invited to the Council-table to explain his plans to Lord Burghley. His
recommendations were approved, and submitted to the Queen, who gave him
audience. Before many weeks passed (May 1582), favours began to shower
upon him; and by the autumn, Leicester and Hatton had taken fright, and
were bitterly jealous of him, whilst the Lord Treasurer had cleverly
enlisted the new favourite under his banner. He was never a member of the
Council, but he had the Queen’s ear, and kept it for years; for Leicester
was elderly and scorbutic, and Hatton was an affected fribble, whilst
Ralegh was young, handsome, and manly, and as wise as he was ambitious.
During the autumn of 1582 the plague raged in London, and Burghley took
refuge at Theobalds, where, in November, his recently married young
son-in-law, the eldest son of Lord Wentworth died. The letters written
on this occasion from Walsingham[470] and Hatton[471] prove that the
political opposition in the Council did not degenerate into personal
enmity; indeed, nothing is more remarkable than the affectionate regard,
and even reverence, which are constantly expressed by Lord Burghley’s
correspondents towards him. An especially kind thought seems to have
occurred to Walsingham. He suggests to Hatton that “it would be some
comfort to his lady (_i.e._ Elizabeth Wentworth), if it might please you
so to work with her Majesty, as his (Burghley’s) other son-in-law (Lord
Oxford), who hath long dwelt in her Majesty’s displeasure, might be
restored to her Highness’s good favour.”[472]
The Earl of Oxford had constantly been a source of trouble to Lord
Burghley. He was extravagant, eccentric, and quarrelsome, and only by
the exercise of great forbearance on the part of his father-in-law had
any semblance of friendship been kept up. If on this occasion, as is
probable, Hatton acceded to Walsingham’s suggestion, and persuaded the
Queen once more to receive Oxford at court, it was not long before the
intractable Earl again misbehaved himself; for on May of the following
year (1583) his long-suffering father-in-law appealed to the new
favourite, Ralegh, to exert his influence with the Queen to forgive him
again. Ralegh’s answer,[473] giving a long account of his efforts to move
the Queen, shows that Oxford had injured him also. “I am content,” he
writes, “for your sake to lay the serpent before the fire, as much as in
me lieth, that having recovered strength, myself may be most in danger of
his poison and sting.”
As we have seen, Mary Stuart had never ceased, since the triumph of
D’Aubigny, to negotiate through Mendoza for her release and restoration,
and the subsequent invasion of England over the Scottish Border. The raid
of Ruthven and the fall of D’Aubigny did not at first discourage her.
She still believed that the expected arrival of foreign troops, and her
son’s secret favour of the Catholics, would enable the plot to be carried
through,[474] and under this belief it was that she wrote her violent
letter of denunciation and complaint to Elizabeth (8th November).[475]
Almost simultaneously with the receipt of this letter in London there
arrived the Guisan, La Mothe Fénélon, on his way to Scotland, for the
purpose of inquiring into the treatment of D’Aubigny by the Protestant
lords, uniting Mary and her son on the throne, and, if possible, to
mediate with Elizabeth in favour of the captive Queen; whilst, at the
same time, another envoy (De Maineville) was sent by sea with secret
instructions to plan a fresh rising of the Catholic nobles in union
with James. Castelnau, the regular Ambassador, might protest untruly
to Elizabeth, as he did, that it was “une chose du tout contraire à la
verité de dire que le Sieur De Maineville eut une seconde et particulière
secrete instruction;” but the embassy was quite terrifying enough to
Elizabeth, coming after the plots that she knew had been hatching between
the Spaniards, the Jesuits, and D’Aubigny. Walsingham hurried from his
country house to court the moment he heard of La Mothe Fénélon’s arrival,
for all the official French plans for helping James and D’Aubigny had
purposely been allowed to leak out. We know now that they were merely
a trick of the Queen-mother’s to frighten Elizabeth into helping poor
Alençon in the Netherlands, the only really serious part of them being
De Maineville’s secret mission, which depended entirely upon Guise.[476]
The Queen kept La Mothe dallying for weeks before she would give him a
passport, whilst she tried to dazzle him anew with the talk of marrying
Alençon and supporting him in Flanders. Before he left for Scotland,
D’Aubigny had passed through London on his way to France, where he died
shortly afterwards; and when La Mothe proceeded on his mission it was
already too late, if ever it was intended to be effectual.
It is one of the standing reproaches to Lord Burghley’s memory that he
was the constant enemy of Mary. In former chapters I have shown that
this was not the case. That he was inflexible in tracing and punishing
treason against his mistress and her Government is obvious, for it was
his first duty as a minister; but how far he was from any personal enmity
against the unfortunate Mary, may be seen in his many letters to Lord
Shrewsbury at Hatfield and elsewhere. On the receipt of Mary’s imprudent
letter to the Queen and the arrival of La Mothe in England, a Council was
called to consider the removal of the Queen of Scots from the care of
Shrewsbury. Mendoza says that “the Treasurer was greatly opposed to her
being removed from the Earl’s house, where she had remained for fifteen
years, especially as Shrewsbury had not failed fully to carry out his
instructions. He said her removal would scandalise the country.”[477]
Burghley’s relative William Davison, in conjunction with Robert Bowes,
was sent to Scotland at the same the time as La Mothe, to dissuade
James from acceding to French suggestion of associating his mother with
himself in his sovereignty; and Walsingham’s brother-in-law, Beale, was
deputed to proceed to Sheffield for the purpose of negotiating with
Mary with regard to her future.[478] Mary from the first had seen that
the interference of Henry III. and his mother was a feint in favour of
Alençon, and sent Fontenay to Mendoza whilst Beale was with her, to
ask for his guidance in the negotiation.[479] Elizabeth had secretly
authorised Beale, under certain circumstances, to offer Mary her release.
This, Mendoza understood, was unfavourable to Spanish ends, because she
would almost infallibly fall in such case into the hands of the French,
or be compelled, if she stayed in England, to make such renunciations
and compromises as would render her useless as an instrument with which
to raise the Catholics. The Spaniard therefore naturally advised her to
stay where she was, and the unhappy woman followed his interested advice.
She gave Beale a somewhat unyielding answer, and her last chance of
liberation fled.[480]
In the meanwhile Alençon continued to clamour for money, and repeated his
vows of everlasting love and slavish submission; anything if Elizabeth
would only send money to save him from becoming the laughing-stock of
Europe. The Protestant Dutchmen were tired of him; Orange saw that he
was a useless burden, and prayed Elizabeth to take her bad bargain back
again. Seeing that he could expect but little from England, he obtained
the help of his mother. Marshal Biron crossed the frontier into Flanders,
and in January 1583 the false Valois endeavoured to seize and garrison
with Frenchmen the strong places of the Netherlands. The affair failed,
and Alençon fled from Antwerp detested and distrusted. The States
disowned him, and Norris, the English general, refused to obey him; and
though Elizabeth pretended to be angry with Sir John Norris and the
Englishmen, she thought better of it when Alençon asked her to withdraw
them and let his Frenchmen deal with the Flemings, for it was now clear
that she could never trust him in Flanders alone.
With the invidious position into which Elizabeth’s tortuous policy had
led her; almost hopeless as she was now of conciliating Spain, and
conscious of having insulted France beyond forgiveness by her treatment
of Alençon; with Orange discontented, and Scotland in a ferment, it is
not strange that division existed in the Queen’s counsels. Burghley
himself at this time was tired of the struggle. The fresh Councillors
had not been appointed, and he had to contend with infinite diplomacy
for every point that he carried. The general tendency of the Queen’s
policy was opposed to his view of what was wise; he was now old and
almost constantly ill, and either the Queen’s obduracy with regard to his
unworthy son-in-law Oxford, or the opposition he constantly met with,
led him to seek release from his offices, and to desire to pass the rest
of his life in retirement. His complaint would rather seem to have been
against the Queen herself, to judge from her very curious letter turning
his desire to ridicule. On the 8th May 1583 she wrote:—
“Sir Spirit,[481] I doubt I do nickname you, for those of your
kind, they say, have no sense. But I have of late seen an
‘_Ecce Signum_,’ that if an ass kick you, you feel it so soon.
I will recant you from being a spirit if ever I perceive you
disdain not such a feeling. Serve God, fear the King, and be
a good fellow to the rest. Let never care appear in you for
such a rumour; but let them well know that you rather desire
the righting of such a wrong by making known their error, than
you be so silly a soul as to foreslow that you ought to do, or
not freely deliver what you think meetest, and pass of no man
so much, as not to regard her trust who putteth it in you. God
bless you, and long may you last _omnino_.
“E. R.”[482]
The duplicity of the young King of Scots and the intrigues of the Guisan
envoy were successful in June in withdrawing James from the power of the
lords of the English faction, and once more the Scottish Catholics held
up their heads.[483] Thus encouraged, Mary at once informed Elizabeth
that the conditional promises she had made to Beale and Mildmay in the
negotiations for her release, were to be considered void unless she were
at once liberated,[484] her attitude being no doubt to some extent the
result of the strenuous efforts of the Spaniards through Mendoza to keep
her in England, and to prevent her from entering into any compromise as
to religion.
This new phase of affairs profoundly disquieted Elizabeth.[485] Her
Ambassador in France, Henry Cobham, continued to send alarming news of
Guise’s designs,[486] and it is certain that Walsingham, at all events,
was aware of the constant communications between Mary and Mendoza. It
was therefore decided to send Walsingham himself to Edinburgh, to obtain
from James some assurance that English interests should not suffer by
his change of ministers, and to offer him a subsidy in consideration
of his acceptance of the terms proposed by Elizabeth. That the mission
was an unwelcome one to Walsingham, who foresaw its failure, is proved
by Mendoza’s statement (19th August): “He strenuously refused to go,
and went so far as to throw himself at the Queen’s feet, and pronounce
the following terrible blasphemy: he swore by the soul, body, and
blood of God, that he would not go to Scotland, even if she ordered
him to be hanged for it, as he would rather be hanged in England than
elsewhere.… Walsingham says that he saw that no good could come of the
mission, and that the Queen would lay upon his shoulders the whole of
the responsibility for the evils that would occur. He said she was very
stingy already, and the Scots more greedy than ever, quite disillusioned
now as to the promises made to them; so that it was impossible that any
good should be done.”[487] But Walsingham went nevertheless, and came
home safely, though, as he foretold, his embassy was fruitless, for the
Catholics had entirely captured James.
Alençon, in despair of obtaining sufficient help from Elizabeth, now
that he had shown his falseness, had retired to France, leaving his
forces under Marshal Biron. Lovelorn epistles and frantic protestations
continued to pass between him and Elizabeth; but it was acknowledged now
that his cause was hopeless, and he fell henceforward entirely under the
influence of his mother. The States and Orange again and again urged
Elizabeth to take the provinces into her own hands and carry on the war
openly. Leicester, Walsingham, Bedford, Knollys, and the Puritans urged
her seriously to do so; but she refused on the advice of Burghley, “who
told her that she had not sufficient strength to struggle with your
Majesty, particularly with so small a contribution as that offered by the
States. Leicester and the rest of them are trying to persuade her to send
five or six thousand men thither.”[488]
Events were irresistibly nearing a crisis which made it necessary for
Elizabeth to take an open course on one side or the other; and Lord
Burghley had again been overborne by the zealous Protestants in the
Council until a breach with Spain had become unavoidable sooner or later.
Walsingham had never lost touch of Mary Stuart’s proceedings,[489]
or of her French cousin’s various plans for the murder of Elizabeth,
and the invasion of England. Guise had submitted to Philip in 1583 a
regular proposal for the Queen’s assassination, and in the autumn had
sent his pensioner Charles Paget (Mopo) to England to negotiate for the
rising of the English Catholics. One of the results of this was that
young Francis Throgmorton, a correspondent of Mary Stuart, and one of
her intermediaries with Mendoza, was arrested with others and charged
with a plot to assassinate the Queen. How far this accusation was true
it is at this moment difficult to say, but there is no doubt that the
Throgmortons, with the Earl of Northumberland, who was imprisoned, Lord
Paget, who fled, and many other Catholics, were in league with Charles
Paget for a rising, in conjunction with Guise.
It is to be noted that Lord Burghley took no part in the prosecution of
Throgmorton, which was mainly forwarded by Leicester, who was always
suspected of having poisoned Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, the uncle of the
accused man. The apprehension of the conspirators and the consequent
expulsion of Mendoza (January 1584) certainly served the purposes of the
strong Protestant majority led by Leicester[490] and Walsingham in the
Council, and aided them in forcing the hands of the Queen and Burghley.
The death of Alençon in June, and the murder of Orange by an agent of
the Spaniards in July, still further acted in the same direction. It was
no longer possible for England to hold a non-committal position. Either
Spain must be permitted to crush Protestantism in the Netherlands, or the
head of the Protestant confederacy must cast aside the mask and boldly
fight the Catholic powers. There were reasons why this course might now
be taken with much more safety than previously. The Queen-mother of
France was frantic with rage against Spain for the loss of her favourite
son. The King was childless, and the Guises were already plotting to
grasp the crown, or partition France on Henry’s death, rather than he
should be succeeded by the Huguenot Henry of Navarre. Elizabeth had
therefore the certainty, for the first time since her accession, that
France nationally would not coalesce with Spain against her, and that
any attempt of Guise to injure her would be counteracted by Catharine,
Navarre and the Huguenots.
The question of the future policy to be pursued by England under
the changed circumstances was, as usual, submitted to the judicial
examination of Lord Burghley, whose minutes[491] set forth the whole
case _pro_ and _contra_. The question propounded was, “Shall the Queen
defend and help the Low Countries to recover from the tyranny of Spain
and the Inquisition; and if not, what shall she do to protect England
when he shall have subdued Holland?” After stating the advantages and
disadvantages of each course, it is evident that the judgment is in
favour of aiding the States, on certain conditions of security, which
Burghley himself notes in the margin. The aid is to cost as little as
possible; some of the best noblemen of Zeeland are to be held as hostages
in the hands of the English; the chief military commands to be held
by English officers; the King of Scots to be secured to the English
interest; the King of Navarre to embarrass Spain on her frontiers, and
a Parliament to be called in England for the purpose of sanctioning the
course proposed. But, continues the document, if it is decided that
England shall not help the States, then she must be put into a condition
of defence, the navy increased, a large sum of money collected, some
German mercenaries engaged to watch the Scottish Border, and the English
Catholics “put in surety.” “Finally, that ought to be Alpha and Omega,
to cause her people to be better taught to serve God, and to see justice
duly administered, whereby they may serve God, and love her Majesty; and
that if it may be concluded, _Si Deus nobiscum, quis contra nos?_”
Lord Burghley was thus, after a quarter of a century of striving to keep
on friendly relations with Spain, forced by the policy of Leicester,
Walsingham, and the strong Protestants, into the contest which he
had hoped to avoid. Circumstances had been stronger than individual
predilections, and Mary Stuart’s ceaseless designs against the crown and
faith of England, and especially her submission to Spain, had given the
Protestant party an impetus which swept aside the cautious moderation of
Burghley’s policy, and proved even to him the necessity for war.
CHAPTER XIV
1584-1587
The militant Protestants were now paramount in Elizabeth’s Council, and
soon made their influence felt, not only in foreign relations, but in
home affairs as well. They were in favour of an aggressive policy in
aid of Protestantism abroad, and doubtless thought that the best way
to strengthen their hands would be to strike at Prelacy at home, and
to discredit the last vestiges of the old faith, against the foreign
champions of which they were ready to do national battle.
The appointment of Whitgift to the Archbishopric of Canterbury had been
avowedly made by the Queen (September 1583) for the purpose of repairing
the effects of Grindal’s leniency, and bringing the Nonconformists to
obedience; “to hold a strait rein, to press the discipline of his Church,
and recover his province to uniformity.” He had set about his work with a
thoroughness which brought upon him a storm of reproach from ministers,
and greatly embittered the controversies within the Church.[492] Burghley
felt strongly on the question of uniformity, as involving obedience
to the law; but Whitgift’s methods were too severe even for him, and
produced from him more than one rebuke. He was the referee of all
parties—Puritans, Churchmen, and Catholics appealed to him as their
friend—and he strove to hold the balance fairly, whilst deprecating
extreme views on each side. Leicester and Knollys were ceaseless in the
attacks upon the prelates, and Whitgift’s violence made it difficult for
Burghley to defend him. In one of his letters to the Archbishop he says,
“I am sorry to trouble your Grace, but I am more troubled myself, not
only with many private petitions of ministers recommended by persons of
credit as being peaceable persons in their ministry, but yet more with
complaints to your Grace and colleagues, greatly troubled; but also I am
now daily charged by Councillors and public persons to neglect my duty
in not staying your Grace’s proceedings, so vehement and general against
ministers and preachers, as the Papists are thereby encouraged, and
ill-disposed subjects animated, and her Majesty’s safety endangered.”
Now that the Puritan party had the upper hand, Burghley’s proverbial
middle course was not strong enough for his colleagues, and they
determined to deal with Prelacy and Papacy at the same time. The first
thing was to pack the new Parliament, and in this Leicester laboured
unblushingly. Sir Simon D’Ewes’ Journal sets forth the great number of
blank proxies sent to the Earl; and if his letter to the electors of
Andover is typical, this is not to be wondered at. He boldly asks them to
send him “your election in blank, and I will put in the names.” Another
letter from the Privy Council to Lord Cobham[493] directs him to obtain
the nomination of all the members for the Cinque Ports. Parliament
met at the end of November, and a formal complaint of the Puritan and
Nonconformist ministers was presented to the House of Commons, which,
after reducing the number of its articles from thirty-four to sixteen, it
adopted and laid before the House of Lords. Whitgift and his colleagues
fought hard, cautiously aided by Burghley and the Queen, who, when
she afterwards dismissed Parliament, roundly scolded the members for
interfering with her religious prerogative; and the only effect of the
complaints was to enable Burghley to exert pressure upon the prelates to
allay their zeal.
The attack of the militant Protestants against the Catholics, however,
was more effectual, although even that was somewhat palliated by Lord
Burghley’s moderation. It was evident now that the Catholic League
abroad and its instruments would stick at nothing. Father Creighton,
the priest who had played so prominent a part in the abortive plans of
D’Aubigny, Mendoza, and the Jesuits, had been captured with some of his
brother seminarists, and the rack had torn from them confirmation of the
desperate plans of which the Throgmorton conspiracy had given an inkling.
Leicester and his party had aroused Protestant horror of such projects to
fever heat. At his instance an association had been formed, pledged by
oath to defend the Queen’s life or to avenge it, and to exclude for ever
from the throne any person who might benefit by the Queen’s removal. Mary
Stuart somewhat naturally regarded the last clause as directed against
herself, and endeavoured to take the sting from it by offering her own
qualified adhesion to the association, which, however, was declined.
When the association was legalised by a bill in Parliament, the Queen
(Elizabeth), under Burghley’s influence, sent a message to the House,
abating some of the objectionable features, and reconciling it with the
rules of English equity. No penalties were to accrue before the persons
accused had been found guilty by a regular commission, and Mary and her
heirs were excused from forfeiture, unless Elizabeth were assassinated.
The new bill against Catholics was easily passed, under feelings such
as those prevailing in the House and the country, and the enactment was
regarded as a natural retort to the promulgation of the Papal bulls in
favour of revolution in England. All native Jesuits and seminarists
found in England after forty days were to be treated as traitors, and
it was felony to shelter or harbour them. English students or priests
abroad were to be forced to return within six months and take the oath
of supremacy, or incur the penalty for high treason; and many similar
provisions were made, by which the world could see that the militant
Protestants of England had picked up the gage thrown down by Philip and
the Pope. Henceforward it was to be war to the knife until one side or
the other was vanquished, and Lord Burghley’s astute policy of balance
and compromise was cast into the background after a quarter of a century
of almost unbroken success.[494]
Almost the only dissenting voice in the House of Commons against the
penal bill was that of Dr. William Parry, member for Queenborough. In
a violent and abusive speech, he said that the House was so evidently
biassed that it was useless to give it the special reasons he had for
opposing the bill, but would state them to the Queen alone. This was
considered insulting to the House, and he was committed to the charge
of the sergeant-at-arms, but was released by the Queen and Council the
following day. The events which followed form one of the unsolved riddles
of history. Parry was a man of bad character, who for years had been one
of Burghley’s many spies upon the English refugees on the Continent. He
appears, however, to have been esteemed more highly by the Treasurer than
such instruments usually are.
When young Anthony Bacon was sent on his travels to France, his uncle,
Burghley, specially instructed him to cultivate the acquaintance of Dr.
Parry. Leicester complained to the Queen of this, and the Lord Treasurer
undertook that his nephew should not be shaken either in loyalty or
religion by his acquaintanceship with Parry.[495] After the latter
returned to England in 1583 he was elected member of the Parliament of
the following year, after having persistently but unsuccessfully begged
a sinecure office from Burghley. From his first arrival he had been full
of real or pretended plots for the assassination of the Queen, which he
professed to have discovered on the Continent. He was, like all men of
his profession, an unprincipled scamp, and made these secret disclosures
the ground for ceaseless demands for reward. He was disappointed and
discontented, as well as vain and boastful, and overshot the mark. In one
of his interviews with the Queen he produced a somewhat doubtfully worded
letter of approval from the Papal Secretary of State, Cardinal Como,[496]
which, he said, referred to a pretended project undertaken by him (Parry)
for the murder of the Queen. He talked loosely to Charles Neville and
other Catholics of this plot as a real one, and six weeks after his
escapade in Parliament was arrested and lodged in jail. At first he would
admit nothing, but the fear of the rack, or some other motive, produced
from him a full and complete confession of a regular plan—once, he said,
nearly executed—for killing Elizabeth; but before sentence he vehemently
retracted, and appealed to the knowledge of the Queen, Burghley, and
Walsingham that he was innocent. But if they possessed this knowledge
they never revealed it, and Parry died the revolting death of a traitor,
clamouring to the last that Elizabeth herself was responsible for his
sacrifice.
It cannot be doubted that Parry was an _agent provocateur_, and great
question arises as to the reality of the crime for which he was punished.
I have found no trace in the Spanish correspondence of his having been a
tool of Mendoza or Philip, such as exists in the cases of Throgmorton,
Babington, and others; and I consider that the evidence generally favours
the idea that he was deliberately caught in his own lure, and sacrificed
in order to aggravate the anti-Catholic fervour in the country, and
secure the passage of the penal enactments. In one particular I dissent
from nearly every historian who has written on the subject. All fingers
point at Lord Burghley as the author of the plan. I look upon it as being
the work of Leicester, Knollys, and Walsingham. It was they, and not
Burghley, who were anxious to strengthen the fervent Protestant party.
It was they, and not Burghley, who were forcing the penal enactments
through the Parliament they had packed. The Treasurer could hardly have
been blind to what was going on, but he could not afford to champion
Parry. The latter, a venal scoundrel known to be in Burghley’s pay, but
discontented with his patron, was doubtless bought by Leicester to play
his part in Parliament, and afterwards to confess the Catholic plot on
the assurance of pardon, with the object of blackening the Catholics, and
perhaps, by implication, Burghley as well.
That Leicester’s friends were at the time seeking to represent the
Lord Treasurer as against the Protestant cause is clear from several
indignant letters written by Burghley himself. “If they cannot,” he says,
“prove all their lies, let them make use of any _one_ proof wherewith
to prove me guilty of falsehood, injustice, bribery or dissimulation
or double-dealing in Council, either with her Majesty or with her
Councillors. Let them charge me on _any_ point that I have not dealt as
earnestly with the Queen to aid the afflicted in the Low Countries to
withstand the increasing power of the King of Spain, the assurance of
the King of Scots to be tied to her Majesty with reward, yea, with the
greatest pension that any other hath. If in any of these I am proved to
be behind or slower than any in a discreet manner, I will yield myself
worthy of perpetual reproach as though I were guilty of all they use
to bluster against me. They that say in rash and malicious mockery
that England is become _Regnum Cecilianum_ may use their own cankered
humour.” In July of the same year he writes in similar strain to Sir
Thomas Edmunds:[497] “If you knew how earnest a course I hold with her
Majesty, both privately and openly, for her to retain the King of Scots
with friendship and liberality, yea, and to retain the Master of Gray and
Justice-Clerk, with rewards to continue their offices, which indeed are
well known to me to be very good, you would think there could be no more
shameful lies made by Satan himself than these be; and finding myself
thus maliciously bitten with the tongues and pens of courtiers here, if
God did not comfort me, I had cause to fear murdering hands or poisoning
points; but God is my keeper.”
The more or less hollow negotiations for the liberation of Mary, and for
the association of her son with herself in her sovereign rights, had
dragged on intermittently for years. Burghley himself has set forth the
reasons for the successive failures;[498] in each case the discovery of
some fresh plot in her favour. The serious set of conspiracies brought to
light in 1584 had caused her removal from the mild custody of Burghley’s
friend, Lord Shrewsbury, to that of the rigid Puritan, Sir Amyas Paulet,
at Tutbury. In her troubles the captive Queen, like every one else,
appealed to Burghley, and especially in the matter of the reckless
accusations of immorality brought by the Countess of Shrewsbury and her
Cavendish sons against her husband and Mary.[499]
Burghley’s kindness in this matter, and his attempts to soften the
fresh severity of the Queen’s captivity, had not only persuaded Mary’s
agents that he was her friend,[500] but had given to Leicester and his
party an excuse for spreading rumours to the Treasurer’s detriment. At
an inopportune time, Nau, Mary’s French secretary, had gone to London
with new plans of associated sovereignty; but almost simultaneously the
Master of Gray had arrived as James’s Ambassador. He was easily bought
by the English Government, as we have seen, with the full approval
of Burghley;[501] and on his return to Scotland promptly caused the
rejection by the Lords of Nau’s project in favour of Mary. It was never
on the question of securing the Scots by bribery to the English interest
that Burghley was remiss. It was open war with Spain that he always
opposed.
In the meanwhile the toils were closing round the unhappy Mary. She
had now thrown herself entirely into the arms of Spain; and the Guises
were being gradually but steadily forced into the background by Philip,
as being likely to frustrate his plans, by claiming for their kinsman,
James Stuart, the succession of England after his mother. Every letter
to and from Tutbury was intercepted by Paulet. Morgan, Charles Paget,
Robert Bruce, and others, in their communications with Mary, laid bare
her hopes and their intrigues.[502] If any doubts had previously existed
as to the intentions of Spain and the Queen of Scots, they could exist
no longer. The only question for England was how best to withstand the
combination against her. Here, as usual, Burghley was at issue with the
now dominant party of militant Protestants; and equally, as usual, his
opposition was cautious and indirect. Leicester and his friends were for
open operations against Spain both in the Netherlands and on the high
seas, and for helping Henry III. to withstand the Guises; whilst the
Treasurer preferred to stand on the defensive, and keep as much money in
hand as possible.[503] Elizabeth rarely required urging to parsimony, and
by appealing to her weakness Burghley was able for a time to moderate the
plans of the other party.
But events were too strong for him. Mainly by his influence Leicester had
been restrained since 1580 from subsidising a great expedition against
Philip in favour of the Portuguese Pretender, Don Antonio; but in the
spring of 1585 the treacherous seizure of English ships in Spain had
aroused the English to fury. Drake’s great expedition of twenty-nine
ships was fitted out, and general reprisals authorised. Never was an
expedition more popular than this, for the English sailors were aching
for a fight with foes they knew they could beat, and Burghley’s cautions
were scouted. Drake’s fleet sailed in September, doubtful to the last
moment whether the Queen would not be prevailed upon to stay it;[504]
and by sacking Santo Domingo and ravaging Santiago and Cartagena almost
without hindrance, demonstrated the ineffective clumsiness of Philip’s
methods. Leicester and the war-party were now almost unrestrained; for
the Lord Treasurer made the best of it, and confined his efforts to
minimising the cost of the new policy as much as possible, and suggesting
caution to the Queen.
The Commissioners from the States continued to urge the Queen to
assume the sovereignty of the Netherlands, and to govern the country,
either directly or through a nominee; but this was a responsibility
which neither she nor Burghley cared to accept. At length, after much
hesitation on the part of the Queen, Sir John Norris was sent with an
English force of 5000 men to take possession of the strong cautionary
places offered by the Hollanders, and Leicester was designated to follow
as Lieutenant-General of the Queen’s forces (September 1585).
Elizabeth approached the business with fear and trembling. It was a
departure from Burghley’s safe and tried policy, and was involving her in
large expenditure. She distrusted rebels and popular governments; she did
not like to send away her best troops in a time of danger, and she railed
often and loudly at Leicester and Walsingham for dragging her into such a
pass. Only a day after Leicester’s appointment she changed her mind and
bade him suspend his preparations. “Her pleasure is,” wrote Walsingham,
“that you proceed no further until you speak with her. How this cometh
about I know not. The matter is to be kept secret. These changes here
may work some such changes in the Low Countries as may prove irreparable.
God give her Majesty another mind, … or it will work both hers and her
best affected subjects’ ruin.”[505] To this Leicester wrote one letter
of submission to be shown to the Queen, and the other for Walsingham’s
own eye, full of indignation. “This,” he says, “is the strangest dealing
in the world.… What must be thought of such an alteration? I am weary of
life and all.”
Elizabeth had, however, gone too far now to retire, and Leicester’s
journey went forward. But it is plain to see that whilst he was making
his preparations to act as sovereign on his own account, the Queen,
influenced by Burghley, was drafting his instructions in a way that
strictly limited his power for harm, and minimised her responsibility
towards Spain. Leicester was directed to “let the States understand that
whereby their Commissioners made offer unto her Majesty, first of the
sovereignty of those countries, which for sundry respects she did not
accept; secondly, under her protection to be governed absolutely by such
as her Majesty would appoint and send over as her Lieutenant. That her
Majesty, although she would not take so much upon her as to command them
in such absolute sort, yet unless they should show themselves forward to
use the advice of her Majesty … she would think her favours unworthily
bestowed upon them.”
This must have been gall and wormwood for Leicester, for in his own
notes he lays down as his guiding principles, “First, that he have as
much authoryte as the Prince of Orange had; or any other Captain-General
hath had heretofore: second, that there be as much allowance by the
States for the said Governor as the Prince had, with all offices
apportenaunt.”[506] He had infinite trouble in getting money from the
Queen, and went so far as to offer to pledge his own lands to her
as security; but at last, in December, all was ready, and Leicester
foolishly went to Holland with his vague ambitions, leaving Burghley in
possession at home. It is plain from his beseeching letter of farewell to
the Lord Treasurer that he recognised the danger. He prays him earnestly
not to have any change made in the plans agreed upon, and to provide
sufficient resources for the sake of the cause involved and for the
Queen’s honour. “Hir Majesty, I se, my lord, often tymes doth fall into
myslyke of this cause, and sondry opinions yt may brede in hir withal,
but I trust in the Lord, seeing hir Highness hath thus far resolved, and
gone also to this far executyon as she hath, and that myne and other
menne’s poor lives are adventured for hir sake, that she will fortify
and mainteyn her own action to the full performance that she hath agreed
on.”[507] Burghley was very ill at the time, unable to rise from his
couch, but in answer to the Earl’s appeal he assured him that he would
consider himself “accursed in the sight of God” if he did not strive
earnestly to promote the success of the expedition.
The Lord Treasurer was, of course, sincere in his desire to prevent the
collapse of the Protestant cause in the Netherlands, for he had never
ceased for years to insist that the quietude of England mainly depended
upon it. Where he differed from Leicester was in his determination, if
possible, to avoid such action as would lead to an open breach with
Spain. Before even Leicester landed at Flushing he had begun to quarrel
with the Dutchmen, and in a fortnight was intriguing to obtain an offer
of the sovereignty of the States for himself. The offer was made, and
modestly refused at first; but on further pressure Leicester accepted
the sovereignty, as he had intended to do from the first (January 1586).
The rage of Elizabeth knew no bounds. This would make her infamous, she
said, to all the world. Leicester was timid at the consequences of the
step he had taken, and made matters worse by delaying for weeks to write
explanations to the angry Queen. Walsingham and Hatton did their best,
but very ineffectually, to appease her. Burghley in a letter to Leicester
(7th February) assured him that he too had done so, and that he himself
approved of his action, and hoped to “move her Majesty to alter her hard
opinion.” As we have seen, Burghley’s opposition was seldom direct, and
it may be accepted as probable that he mildly deprecated the Queen’s
anger against her favourite; but a remark in a letter (17th February)
from Davison, who was sent by Leicester to explain and extenuate his act
to the Queen,[508] seems to show that the Lord Treasurer’s advocacy had
not been so earnest as he would have had Leicester to believe.
The Queen had ordered Heneage to go to Holland post-haste, to command
Leicester openly to abandon his new title; but from the 7th February
till the 14th, whilst Heneage’s harsh instructions were being drafted,
Burghley was diplomatically absent from court, and the pleading of
Walsingham and Hatton had no softening effect upon the Queen. On the
13th February, Davison at length arrived with Leicester’s excuses. The
Queen railed and stormed until he was reduced to tears. She refused at
first to receive Leicester’s letter or to delay Heneage’s departure.
Burghley arrived the next day, and Davison writes on the 17th that he
“_had successfully exerted himself to convince the Lord Treasurer that
the measures adopted were necessary_, and that his Lordship had urged the
Queen on the subject.”
The only effect of Burghley’s persuasion, however, was to obtain for
Heneage discretion to withhold, if he considered necessary, the Queen’s
letter to the States, and to save Leicester from the degradation of
a public renunciation. Burghley had thus done his best to preserve
Leicester’s friendship and gratitude; but, after all, it was his policy,
and not that of Leicester, that was triumphant. Heneage was a friend
of the Earl’s, and on his arrival in Holland delayed action; but the
Queen was not to be appeased. She had, she said, been slighted, and her
commission exceeded, and would send no money till her instructions were
fulfilled. Confusion and danger naturally resulted, and Leicester’s
friends redoubled their efforts to save him. Burghley himself assured
Leicester (31st March) that he had threatened to resign his office unless
she changed her course. “I used boldly such language in this matter, as
I found her doubtful whether to charge me with presumption, which partly
she did, or with some astonishment of my round speech, which truly was no
other than my conscience did move me, even in _amaritudine anima_. And
then her Majesty began to be more calm than before, and, as I conceived,
readier to qualify her displeasure.”[509]
When the Queen saw that Heneage and Leicester were construing her
leniency into acquiescence of the Earl’s action, she blazed out again;
and when Burghley begged her to allow Heneage to return and explain the
circumstances, “she grew so passionate in the matter that she forbade me
to argue more;” and herself wrote a letter to Heneage containing these
words: “Do as you are bidden, and leave your considerations for your own
affairs; for in some things you had clear commandment, which you did
not do, and in others none, which you did.” At the urgent prayer of the
States, however, representing the danger to the cause which a public
deposition of Leicester would bring about, the Queen finally allowed
matters to rest until they could devise some harmless way out of the
difficulty.
Throughout the whole business Burghley almost ostentatiously acted the
part of Leicester’s friend. It was a safe course for him to take, for
the Queen was so angry that he could keep the good-will of Leicester
and the Protestants, and yet be certain of the ultimate failure of his
opponent. As soon as the States understood Leicester’s position, and had
realised his incompetence, they were only too anxious to be rid of him;
and throughout his inglorious government Burghley could well speak in
his favour, for it must have been evident that the Earl was working his
own ruin, and that his position was untenable. One curious feature in
the matter is that both Burghley and Walsingham hinted to Leicester that
the Queen was being influenced by some one underhand. “Surely,” writes
the Secretary, “there is some treachery amongst ourselves, for I cannot
think she would do this out of her own head;” and the gossip of the court
pointed at Ralegh, who wrote to Leicester[510] vigorously protesting
against the calumny.
There were, however, wheels within wheels in Elizabeth’s court. Two of
her Councillors were Spanish spies, Ralegh was Burghley’s partisan, the
Conservative party in favour of friendship with the House of Burgundy
was not dead, and, notwithstanding all that has been written, it may
be fairly assumed that the decadence of Leicester and the militant
Protestant party during the Earl’s absence in Holland did not take place
without some secret prompting from Lord Burghley.
In the meanwhile the plans for the invasion of England were gradually
maturing in Philip’s slow mind. The raid of Drake’s fleet upon his
colonies, and Leicester’s assumption of the sovereignty of the
Netherlands, had at last convinced Philip, after nearly thirty years of
hesitancy, that England must be coerced into Catholicism, or Spain must
descend from its high estate. So long as the elevation of Mary Stuart
meant a Guisan domination of England, with shifty James as his mother’s
heir, it had not suited Philip to squander his much needed resources upon
the overthrow of Elizabeth; but by this time Guise was pledged to vast
ambitions in France, which could only be realised by Philip’s help. The
Jesuits and English Catholics had persuaded the Spaniard that he would be
welcomed in England, whilst a Scot or a Frenchman would be resisted to
the death. Most of Mary’s agents, too, had been bribed to the same side,
and Mendoza in Paris was her prime adviser and mainstay. Various attempts
were made by the Scottish Catholics and Guise’s friends to manage the
subjugation of England over the Scottish Border; but though Philip
affected to listen to their approaches, and used them as a diversion, his
plan was already fixed—England must be won by Spaniards in Mary’s name,
and be held thenceforward in Spanish hands. Mary was ready to agree to
anything, and at the prompting of Philip’s agents she disinherited her
son (June 1586) in favour of the King of Spain. Morgan, Paget, and others
had at last succeeded in reopening communication with Mary, who had
now lost all hope of release except by force. A close alliance between
England and James VI. had been agreed to: she knew that no help would
come from her son or his Government; and her many letters to Charles
Paget, to Mendoza, and to Philip himself, leave no doubt whatever that
she was fully cognisant of the plans for the overthrow, and perhaps
murder, of Elizabeth, in order that she, Mary, might be raised by Spanish
pikes to the English throne.[511]
In May 1586 the priest Ballard had seen Mendoza in Paris, and had sought
the countenance of Spain for the assassination of Elizabeth; and in
August the matter had so far progressed as to enable Gifford to give to
Mendoza full particulars of the vile plan. There was, according to his
account, hardly a Catholic or schismatic gentleman in England who was not
in favour of the plot; and though Philip always distrusted a conspiracy
known to many, he promised armed help from Flanders if the Queen were
killed. Mendoza, when he saw Gifford, recommended that Don Antonio,
Burghley, Walsingham, Hunsdon, Knollys, and Beale should be killed; but
the King wrote on the margin of the letter, “It does not matter so much
about Cecil, although he is a great heretic, but he is very old, and it
was he who advised the understandings with the Prince of Parma, and he
has done no harm. It would be advisable to do as he [_i.e._ Mendoza] says
with the others.”[512]
The folly of Babington and his friends almost passes belief. They seem to
have been prodigal of their confidences, and to have had no apprehension
of treachery. Babington’s own letter to Mary setting forth in full
all the plans in favour of “his dear sovereign” (6th July) was handed
immediately by the false agent Gifford to Walsingham. No move was made
by Walsingham, except to send the clever clerk Phillips to Chartley to
decipher all intercepted letters on the spot, and so to avoid delay in
their delivery, which might arouse the suspicion of the conspirators.
Surrounded by spies and traitors, but in fancied security, the unhappy
Queen involved herself daily deeper in the traps laid for her; approved
of Babington’s wild plans, and made provision for her own release, whilst
Walsingham watched and waited. When the proofs were incontestable, and
all in the Secretary’s hands, the blow fell. On the 4th August Ballard
was arrested, Babington and the intended murderer Savage a day or so
afterwards, and Mary Stuart’s doom was sealed. She was hurried off
temporarily to Tixhall; Nau and Curll were placed under arrest, the
Queen’s papers seized, and her rooms closely examined. Amias Paulet was
a faithful jailer, and he did his work well. “Amyas, my most faithful,
careful servant,” wrote Elizabeth, “God reward thee treblefold for the
most troublesome charge so well discharged. If you knew, my Amyas, how
kindly, besides most dutifully, my grateful heart accepts and prizes
your spotless endeavours and faultless actions, your wise orders and safe
regard, performed in so dangerous and crafty a charge, it would ease your
travail and rejoice your heart.… Let your wicked murderess know how with
hearty sorrow her vile deserts compel these orders, and bid her from me
ask God’s forgiveness for her treacherous dealing.” Elizabeth and her
ministers rightly appreciated the great peril which she had escaped, and
from the first it was recognised by most of them that Mary had forfeited
all claim to consideration at their hands.[513]
It is usually assumed by a certain class of writers that Mary was
unjustly hounded to her death, mainly by the personal enmity of Lord
Burghley. Nothing, in reality, is more distant from the truth. A most
dangerous conspiracy against the government and religion of England had
been discovered, in which she was a prime mover. Her accomplices rightly
suffered the penalty of their crime,[514] and it was due to justice and
to the safety of the country that the mainspring of the conspiracy should
be disabled for further harm. But still the matter was a delicate and
dangerous one, for Catholics were numerous in England, and the great
Catholic confederacy abroad was ready to take any advantage which a
false step on the part of Elizabeth might give them. As we have seen,
moreover, the feelings of the Queen of England herself with regard to
the sacredness of anointed sovereigns was strong, and no more difficult
problem had ever faced the Government than how to dispose of their
troublesome guest in a way that should in future safeguard England
from her machinations, whilst respecting the many susceptibilities
involved. As usual in moments of difficulty, Elizabeth turned to her aged
minister,[515] and as a result of a long private conference with him
the question was submitted to the Privy Council. The Catholic members
advocated only a further stringency in Mary’s imprisonment. Leicester
was in favour of solving the difficulty by the aid of poison,[516]
whilst Burghley, followed by Walsingham and others, proposed a regular
judicial inquiry, which was now legally possible by virtue of the Act of
Association passed by Parliament in the previous year. A commission was
consequently issued on the 6th October for the trial of Mary, containing
the names of forty-six of the principal peers and judges, and all the
Councillors, but only after some bickering between the Queen and Burghley
with regard to the style to be given to Mary and other details.[517]
Before this point had been reached, however, measures had been taken to
test the feeling of foreign powers on the subject. Diplomatic relations
had ceased between Spain and England; but as soon as the Babington
conspiracy was discovered, Walsingham impressed upon Chateauneuf, the
French Ambassador, that the Spaniards were at the bottom of it, and that
it was directed almost as much against the King of France as against
Elizabeth herself. The Ambassador himself was a strong Guisan,[518] and
personally was an object of odium and suspicion to the excited Londoners;
but his master’s hatred of the Guises and dread of their objects was
growing daily, and when Madame de Montpensier prayed Henry to intercede
for the protection of Mary, she obtained but a cold answer;[519] and no
official step by the French was taken in her favour at the time, except
as a matter of justice Elizabeth was requested that she might have the
assistance of counsel. It was clear, therefore, that Henry III. would not
go to war for the sake of his sister-in-law.
Mary was removed to Fotheringay for trial on the 6th October, and on the
following day Paulet and Mildmay delivered to her Elizabeth’s letter,
informing her of the charges against her, and the tribunal to which she
was to be submitted. She indignantly refused to acknowledge Elizabeth’s
right to place her, an anointed sovereign, upon her trial; but she
denied all knowledge and complicity in the murder plot. This was the
safest attitude she could have assumed, although the proofs against
her already in the hands of Elizabeth were overwhelming;[520] and the
arguments of Burghley and Lord Chancellor Bromley failed to alter Mary’s
determination. This was embarrassing, and in the face of it Elizabeth
wrote to Burghley[521] instructing him that, although the examination
might proceed, no judgment was to be delivered until she had conferred
with him. At the same time she wrote to Mary a letter of mingled threats
and hope, with the object of changing her attitude towards the tribunal.
This, added to the persuasions of Hatton, succeeded in the object,[522]
and Mary, unfortunately for her, retreated from her unassailable position.
On the 14th, two days afterwards, the tribunal sat in the great hall of
Fotheringay Castle, and Mary, almost crippled with rheumatism, painfully
hobbled to her place, supported by her Steward, Sir Andrew Melvil. On
the right of the Lord Chancellor sat Lord Burghley. That the proceedings
against Mary, in which he had from the first taken an active part, were
in his opinion necessary for the safety of England, is clear from his
many letters upon the subject; but it is equally evident that if he could
decently have avoided personal identification with them he would have
been better pleased. His letters to Popham, the Attorney-General, show
that he wished to be absent from the trial; but as he wrote at the time
to Sir Edward Stafford, the English Ambassador in France, “I was never
more toiled than I have been of late, and yet am, with services that here
do multiply daily; and whosoever scapeth I am never spared. God give me
grace.”
Much of the obloquy that has been unjustly cast upon him in the matter
of Mary Stuart arises from his inveterate habit of putting everything in
writing, which other men did not do. For instance, the draft of the whole
case, or, as he puts it, “the indignities and wrongs done and offered
by the Queen of Scots to the Queen,” is in his handwriting,[523] and the
letters to the Queen detailing the progress of events at Fotheringay are
sent from him, whilst Elizabeth’s instructions through Davison are all
addressed to Walsingham and Burghley. But it must be remembered that
he was the Queen’s most trusted and experienced Councillor, and the
existence of records written by or to him does not show that he was more
eager than the rest for the sacrifice of the Scottish Queen.
Mary defended herself with consummate ability before a tribunal almost
entirely prejudiced against her. She was deprived of legal aid, without
her papers, and in ill health; and, according to modern notions, the
procedure against her was unjust in the extreme. Once she turned upon
Walsingham and denounced him as the contriver of her ruin, but soon
regained her composure; and in her argument with Burghley, with respect
to the avowals of Babington and her Secretaries, reached a point of
touching eloquence which might have moved the hearts, though it did not
convince the intellects, of her august judges.[524] But her condemnation
was a foregone conclusion; and although the sentence was not pronounced
until the return of the Commission to Westminster (October 25), Mary left
the hall of Fotheringay practically a condemned felon on the 15th.
But it was one thing to condemn and another thing to execute. Here
Elizabeth’s scruples again assailed her. The two Houses of Parliament
addressed her on the 12th November, begging that for the sake of the
realm and her own safety the sentence might be carried into effect. At no
point of her career was the profound duplicity of Elizabeth more resorted
to than now. She had evidently determined that Mary must die, which is of
itself not surprising; but she was equally determined that, if she could
help it, no blame should personally attach to her for having disregarded
the privileges of a crowned head. After much pretended sorrow and
repudiation of any desire for revenge, but at the same time setting forth
a careful recapitulation of Mary’s offences, she complained of Parliament
for passing the Act which made it necessary for her to pronounce sentence
of death on a kinswoman, and said she must take time for prayer and
contemplation before she could give an answer to the petition. A few
days afterwards she besought the Houses to consider again whether some
other course could not be adopted instead of executing Mary, but she
was assured by them that there was “no other sound and assured means”
than that which they had formerly recommended (18th November). Her next
address to the Houses was still more hypocritical. After infinite talk
of her mercy, her goodness, and her hatred of bloodshed, even for her
own safety, she ended enigmatically: “Therefore if I should say I would
not do what you request, it might be peradventure more than I thought,
and to say I would do it might perhaps breed peril of what you labour to
preserve, being more than in your own wisdoms and discretions would seem
convenient.”[525]
Several days before this, Mary’s sentence had been communicated to her by
Lord Buckhurst and Beale. She was dignified and courageous, rejoiced that
she was to die, as she said, for the Catholic faith, and again affirmed
that she had taken no part in the plot for the murder of Elizabeth,
which was doubtless true so far as active participation or direction was
concerned. Her letters written immediately afterwards to Mendoza[526]
and the Duke of Guise[527] are conceived in the same spirit, and appear
to entertain no expectation of mercy. The Spaniards, however, were more
hopeful, and ascribed to Burghley a deep scheme for selling Mary’s life
to France, in exchange for concessions to English interests.
The arrangements for the invasion of England by a great fleet from
Spain were now so far advanced as to be impossible of concealment, and
the English Government were actively adopting measures of defence and
reprisal. Under the transparent pretext of aiding Don Antonio, English
armed ships were hounding Spanish commerce from the seas and harrying
Spanish settlements; the English troops under Leicester, and the Scots
under the Master of Gray, were fighting Spaniards in Holland, and the
English militant Protestant party had now supplanted Burghley’s policy on
all sides. But still the cautious old statesman patiently worked in his
own way to minimise the dangers with which his political opponents had
already surrounded the Queen. There were two things only that he could
do, namely, once more to endeavour to disarm Spain by making a show of
friendship, and to sow discord between France and Spain; and both these
things he did. One of Ralegh’s privateers had captured Philip’s governor
of Patagonia, the famous explorer and navigator, Sarmiento; and almost
simultaneously with the passing of Mary’s sentence, Ralegh was invited to
bring his prisoner to Cecil House for a private conference. Sarmiento was
flattered and made much of, and received his free release on condition
of his taking to Spain messages from Burghley and Ralegh suggesting a
friendly arrangement between the countries. Ralegh, indeed, went so far
as to offer—whether sincerely or not does not affect the question—two of
his ships for Philip’s service, and for many weeks sympathetic messages
found their way secretly from the Lord Treasurer and Sir Walter to Spain
and Flanders.[528]
At the same time Sir Henry Wotton was sent to Paris with certified copies
of Mary’s will in favour of Philip, and of her correspondence with
Mendoza. “He is instructed to point out how much she depended upon your
Majesty, and how shy she was of France.”[529] This was exactly the course
most likely to alienate Henry III. from Spain and his sister-in-law;
and although he tardily sent Pomponne de Bellièvre to remonstrate with
Elizabeth, the Spaniards and Guisans, at all events, never believed
in the sincerity of his protests.[530] Mendoza writes: “Elizabeth has
given orders that directly Bellièvre arrives in England the rumour is
to be spread that the Queen of Scots is killed, in order to discover
how he takes it. Bellièvre, however, is forewarned of it, and has his
instructions what to say when he hears it. It is a plan of Cecil’s
arising out of a desire (as I wrote to your Majesty) to sell to the
French on the best terms they can what they do not dream of carrying out.
The English and French will have no difficulty in agreeing on the point,
because the King and his mother are very well pleased that the Queen of
Scots should be kept alive, though a prisoner, in order to prevent the
succession of your Majesty to the English throne; whilst the English see
plainly that the many advantages accruing to them from keeping the Queen
of Scots a prisoner would change into as many dangers if they made away
with her.”[531]
On the 6th December public proclamation of Mary’s sentence was made in
London amidst signs of extravagant rejoicing on the part of the populace.
The next day Bellièvre delivered a long speech to the Queen, in which
he made no attempt to deny Mary’s guilt, but appealed to Elizabeth’s
magnanimity, and proposed guarantees from France to insure Mary’s future
harmlessness. The Queen repeated bitterly her grievances against Mary,
and replied that the life of Mary was incompatible with her own safety;
and Lord Burghley, in a subsequent interview with the Frenchman, repeated
more emphatically the same idea. Shortly afterwards, at the renewed
request of Bellièvre and Chateauneuf, Elizabeth ungraciously consented
to grant a respite of twelve days to Mary to enable the Ambassadors
to communicate with their master. But Henry III. himself was now in a
hopeless condition. “Such is the confusion of the court, the vacillation
of the King, and the jealousy, hatred, and suspicion of the courtiers,
that decisions are adopted and abandoned at random.… The King is trying
to draw closer to the Queen of England, which is the principal object
of Bellièvre’s mission.”[532] The only reply, therefore, sent to
Bellièvre and Chateauneuf from France was a pedantic and wordy appeal
to Elizabeth’s mercy, which must have convinced her that she need fear
nothing from the French.[533]
Notwithstanding the first movement of indignation on the part of James
also, it soon became clear that selfish reasons would confine his action
to protest. This is not altogether to be wondered at. He had been
informed that Mary had disinherited him, and told De Courcelles, the
French Ambassador, that he knew “she had no more good-will towards him
than towards the Queen of England.” The Master of Gray, at his side, too,
was the humble servant of England, and the traitor, Archibald Douglas,
represented him in the English court. On pressure from France, however,
James sent Sir William Keith, another English partisan, to intercede for
his mother, or at least to induce Elizabeth to delay the execution until
a fitting embassy from him might be sent. Elizabeth hectored and stormed
at James’s threatening letters; but when she became calmer she granted
the twelve days’ respite already referred to. The Master of Gray and
Sir Robert Melvil subsequently arrived at the English court and were
equally unsuccessful.[534] Melvil undoubtedly did his best, and Elizabeth
threatened his life in consequence; but the Master of Gray’s advocacy
went no further than he knew would please the English Government.
It is certain that Elizabeth herself had decided that Mary should
die, if the execution could be carried out without uniting France
and Spain against her, and especially if she herself could manage to
escape personal opprobrium. Of Lord Burghley’s personal opinion on the
matter it is extremely difficult to judge. He is generally represented
by historians as being the prime enemy and persecutor of the unhappy
woman, which he certainly was not. He was a cautious man and took his
stand behind legal forms; but the slightest slackness on his part was
represented by Leicester and his friends as a desire to curry favour
with Mary. He, the Howards, Crofts, and the other conservatives were,
as usual, desirous of staving off the rupture with Spain, but dared not
appear for a moment to favour so unpopular a cause as that of Mary. The
truth of this view is partly shown by the revelations of Sir Edward
Stafford, the English Ambassador in Paris, a great friend of Burghley’s
and a paid agent of Spain. Stafford told Charles Arundell in January that
Burghley had written that Bellièvre had not acted so cleverly as they had
expected, and if that he (Burghley) had not prompted him he would have
done worse still. “He was advised to ask for private audience without
Chateauneuf, and was closeted with the Queen, who was accompanied by
only four persons. What passed at the interview was consequently not
known; but that he (Cecil) could assure him (Stafford) that the Queen of
Scotland’s life would be spared, although she would be kept so close that
she would not be able to carry on her plots as hitherto. This is what I
have always assured your Majesty was desired by the Queen of England,
as well as the King of France. Cecil also says that, although he has
constantly shown himself openly against the Queen of Scots, Leicester
and Walsingham, his enemies, had tried to set the Queen against him by
saying that he was more devoted to the Queen of Scotland than any one.
But she (Elizabeth) had seen certain papers in her (Mary’s) coffers
that told greatly against Leicester, and the Queen had told the latter
and Walsingham that they were a pair of knaves, and she saw plainly
now that, owing to her not having taken the advice of certain good and
loyal subjects of hers, she was in peril of losing her throne and her
life, by burdening herself with a war which she was unable to carry on.
She said if she had done her duty as Queen she would have had them both
hanged.”[535]
By this and several similar pronouncements it would appear that Burghley,
true to his invariable method, was still by indirect and cautious steps
endeavouring to lead the Queen back to the moderate path from which
Leicester, Walsingham, and the militant Protestants had diverted her; and
that, very far from being the mortal enemy of Mary, he would probably
have saved her if he could have done it with perfect harmlessness
to himself, and have insured the future security of the Queen and
Government. But whilst the Queen was very slowly being influenced by the
Catholics and Conservatives near her, events were precipitated and Mary
paid the last penalty. There is no space in this work to tell in detail
the obscure and much debated story of the issue of the warrant for Mary’s
execution;[536] but a summary glance at Burghley’s share in it cannot be
excluded in any biography of the statesman. Soon after the proclamation
of the sentence (6th December 1586) Elizabeth herself directed Burghley
to draft the warrant for the execution. He did so, and sent for Secretary
Davison—Walsingham being absent from illness—and informed him that as
he, Burghley, was returning to London, the court then being at Richmond,
he would leave the draft with Davison that it might be engrossed and
presented to the Queen for signature. When Davison laid the document
before the Queen she told him to keep it back for the present. Six weeks
passed without anything more being done, and Leicester in the interval
complained to Davison, in Burghley’s presence, of his remissness in not
again laying the document before the Queen.
The Master of Gray left London at the end of January, and on the
1st February Lord Admiral Howard told the Queen that there was much
disquieting talk in the country with regard to attempts to be made for
the rescue of Mary, &c.[537] Elizabeth then requested Howard to send for
Davison and direct him to lay the warrant before her for signature. The
Secretary accordingly carried the warrant to the Queen, who was full of
smiles and amiability, and asked him what he had there. Davison told her,
and she signed the warrant, explaining to him whilst doing so, that she
had hitherto delayed it for the sake of her own reputation. Then, with
a joke, she handed the signed warrant back to him, and, according to
Davison, bade him carry it at once to the Lord Chancellor, have it sealed
with the great seal as privately as possible, and send it away to the
Commissioners, so that she should hear no more about it.
Elizabeth afterwards, however, swore that she had given him no such
instructions. As he was leaving, Elizabeth directed him to call on
Walsingham, who was confined to his house by illness, and to tell him
what had been done. She then spoke bitterly of Amias Paulet for not
having made the warrant unnecessary, and hinted to Davison that he
might write to Paulet again suggesting the poisoning of Mary. This
Davison demurred at doing, as he knew that it would be fruitless, and
he did not relish the task, but promised to mention it to Walsingham.
The Secretary’s story is that he went straight to Lord Burghley and
showed him and Leicester the warrant, repeating the Queen’s directions.
He then proceeded to Walsingham House; and the result of his visit is
seen in a memorandum (dated the next day, 2nd February) in Walsingham’s
hand, annotated by Lord Burghley, laying down the steps to be taken for
immediately carrying the warrant into effect.[538] The fullest details,
even for the burial, are set forth, and at the end it is directed that
“the Lords and court are to give out that there will be no execution.”
Thus far Davison’s statement has been followed; but there is at Hatfield
(part iii., No. 472) a rough draft in Lord Burghley’s handwriting, which,
in view of the date upon it, 2nd February, throws rather a new light
upon the matter, and proves that, unknown to Davison, Lord Burghley and
the rest of the Council were accomplices of the Queen in her intention
of subsequently repudiating her orders and ruining her Secretary, and
that the tragi-comedy was not played by Elizabeth alone, but by her grave
Councillors as well. The draft document is in the name of the Council,
and sets forth the reasons that had moved them to despatch the warrant
without further consulting the Queen; “_and yet we are now at this time
most sorry to understand that your Majesty is so greatly grieved with
this kind of proceeding, and do most humbly beseech your Majesty_,” &c.
This, be it remembered, is dated the 2nd February, before the warrant had
been sent off or the Queen even knew it had been sealed.
Early in the morning of the 2nd the Queen sent Killigrew to Davison,
directing him not to go to the Lord Chancellor until he had seen her.
When he entered her presence she asked him, to his surprise, whether
he had had the warrant sealed, and he informed her that he had. Why so
much haste? she asked; to which he replied that she had told him to use
despatch. He then inquired if she wished the warrant executed. Yes,
she said; but she did not like the form of it, for it threw all the
responsibility upon her, and again suggested poison as the best way out
of her difficulty.
All this made Davison suspicious, and he went to Hatton and told him
that he feared the intention was subsequently to disavow him. He would,
he said, take no more responsibility, but would go at once to Lord
Burghley. This he did, and the latter summoned the Privy Council for
next day; whilst he, Burghley, busied himself in drafting the letters to
the Commissioners, the Earls of Kent and Shrewsbury. The next morning
(3rd February) the Council met in Lord Burghley’s room, and the Lord
Treasurer laid the whole matter before them, repeating Davison’s story,
and recommending that the warrant should be despatched without further
reference to the Queen. This was agreed to, and the instructions
and warrant were sent the same night (Friday, 3rd February) to the
Commissioners, Burghley himself handing the document to Beale to carry
down into the country.
The next morning when Davison entered the Queen’s room at Greenwich
she was chatting with Ralegh, and told the Secretary that she had
dreamed the previous night that the Queen of Scots was executed, which
made her very angry. It was a good thing, she said, that Davison was
not near her at the time. This frightened Davison, and he asked her
whether she really did not wish the warrant executed. With an oath
she said she did, but again repeated what she had said the previous
day about the responsibility, and “another way of doing it.” A day or
so afterwards, Davison informed the Queen that Paulet had indignantly
refused Walsingham’s suggestion to poison Mary, whereupon she broke into
complaints of the “daintiness of these precise fellows,” and violently
denounced people who professed to love and defend her, but threw all
responsibility upon her.
On the 8th February the tragedy of Fotheringay was consummated, and in
the afternoon of the 9th young Talbot brought the news to London. Lord
Burghley at once summoned Davison, and after consulting with Hatton and
others, it was decided not to tell the Queen suddenly. When she learnt
it later in the day the well-prepared blow fell upon Davison. The Queen
pretended to be infuriated, swore that she had never intended to have the
warrant divulged, and whilst blaming all the Councillors,[539] threw
most of the onus upon Davison. The Council advised him to retire from
court, and he was soon afterwards cast into the Tower and degraded from
his office. After a long and tedious trial and a painful imprisonment, he
was condemned to a fine sufficient to ruin him, and thenceforward lived
in poverty and obscurity. The Earl of Essex fought manfully in his favour
whilst he lived, but Lord Burghley and the rest of the Councillors were
too strong for him, and the man they had ruined was never allowed to
raise his head again.[540]
That Burghley and the other principal Councillors were parties to the
plot, and that the Queen’s anger with them was assumed, is also seen
by a memorandum in Burghley’s handwriting at Hatfield,[541] dated 17th
February, headed “The State of the Cause _as it ought to be conceived
and reported_ concerning the Execution done upon the Queen of Scots,”
in which the Queen’s version is adopted, and all the blame thrown upon
Davison and the Council. Even before this was written the affair was
so reported to Burghley’s friend Stafford in Paris, in order that this
version might be spread on the Continent. Charles Arundell, in conveying
the news from Stafford to Mendoza, says that Burghley was absent through
illness,[542] and that the execution was carried through by Davison, “who
is a terrible heretic,” and the rest of Mary’s enemies. This is perhaps
the blackest stain that rests upon Burghley’s name. We have seen before
that he was not generous or magnanimous in his treatment of others when
his own interests were at stake; and the sacrifice of Davison would
probably appear to him a very small price to pay for helping Elizabeth
out of a difficult position, and maintaining his own favour.
Although we have seen that the Lord Treasurer from motives of policy had
been forced to take a prominent part in the condemnation and execution
of Mary, it cannot be supposed that the position of affairs at the time
was agreeable to him. The wars in Flanders, the persecution of English
Protestants in Spain, the reprisals of Drake and the privateers, and the
Catholic plots in the interests of Mary had aroused a strong Protestant
war feeling in the country. Leicester and his friends had the popular
voice on their side, and Burghley and the Conservatives could only very
cautiously and tentatively endeavour to stay the impetus with which
the country was rushing towards a national war with the strongest
power in Christendom. The great Armada was in full preparation, and
the ports of Italy, Flanders, Spain, and Portugal rang with the sound
of arms. Don Antonio once more was welcomed in England, to be used as
a stalking-horse, this being Lord Burghley’s last hope of levying war
without national responsibility.
But though there was much talk about Don Antonio, and Spanish spies in
England continued to report that the great fleet under Drake was to be
employed in his interests, its real object was to render impossible, at
least for that year, the junction of Philip’s naval forces in Lisbon.
Thanks to the efforts of Burghley and his party, an elaborate pretence
was kept up of the expedition being a private one; but it was really
controlled and organised by government officers, and the second in
command, Borough, was a Queen’s admiral, sent avowedly to place a check
upon Drake, and to prevent him from going too far in his open attack upon
Spain. Drake’s instructions were “to prevent or withstand any enterprise
as might be attempted against her Highness’s dominions, and especially
by preventing the concentration of Philip’s squadrons;” and he was to
distress the ships as much as possible, both in the havens themselves
and on the high seas. Drake arrived in Plymouth from the Thames on the
23rd March, and in a week of incessant energy had everything ready. The
secret of his intentions was well kept, and Mendoza’s many spies could
only tardily report the loose gossip of the streets. Sir Edward Stafford
assured his Spanish paymaster that no living soul but the Queen and the
Lord Treasurer knew what the design was to be.
Leicester was now at Buxton (April 1587), shortly to start on another
visit to Flanders, and in his absence Burghley’s influence, both Ralegh
and Hatton being on his side, as well as Crofts and the Catholics,
overshadowed that of Walsingham and Knollys. Drake seems to have feared
the consequence of this, and hurried his departure from Plymouth (2nd
April). He was only just in time, for as soon as he had gone a courier
came in hot haste with orders from the Council, which now meant Burghley,
strictly limiting Drake’s action:[543] “You shall forbear to enter
forcibly into any of the said King’s ports or havens, or to offer any
violence to any of his towns or shipping within harbour, or to do any act
of hostility on land.”
This was exactly what Drake had foreseen. The ship sent after him
with the orders failed to reach him, and the great seaman went on his
way. But, as usual with Drake, the official drag on the wheel had to
be overcome. Off Cape St. Vincent, Borough recited to the Admiral the
conditions under which the Queen’s ships accompanied him, evidently
expecting that he would not confine his operations to preventing the
concentration of the Spanish squadrons. But Drake was on his own
element now, and sailed straight to Cadiz, as some people had shrewdly
expected he meant to do from the first.[544] Borough warned him not to
exceed the Queen’s orders, and was placed under arrest for his pains;
and unopposed, Drake sailed into Cadiz harbour, to the dismay of the
astounded Spaniards. He plundered, burned, and sank all the ships in
port, destroyed the stores, and then quietly sailed out again unmolested.
He did damage to the extent of a million ducats (though Philip wrote
that he felt the insolence of the act more than the material damage),
and if he had cared to disobey the Queen’s orders further he might have
stopped the Armada for good by burning the ships in Lisbon, for they had
neither guns nor men on board to protect them. But he knew now that the
peace party in the Council were busy arranging with Parma’s envoy for the
meeting of a conference, and doubtless thought he had gone far enough in
his brilliant disobedience.
The indispensable Andrea de Looe had arrived in London from the
Prince of Parma immediately after Drake sailed, and was soon deep in
negotiation with Burghley with the object of arranging a meeting of Peace
Commissioners. When he had returned to Brussels with the proposals, news
came of Drake’s daring raid. De Looe then wrote a long letter to Burghley
(11th July), pointing out how much the cause of peace was injured by such
acts of aggression. Burghley’s answer[545] (28th July) perfectly defines
his position towards Drake’s action. After professing the Queen’s desire
for peace, and readiness to send her Commissioners to Flanders if the
Duke of Parma will suspend hostilities (before the Sluys), he says: “True
it is, and I avow it upon my faith, her Majesty did send a ship expressly
with a message by letters charging him (Drake) not to show any act of
hostility before he went to Cadiz, which messenger, by contrary winds,
could never come to the place where he was, but was constrained to come
home, and hearing of Sir Fras. Drake’s actions, her Majesty commanded
the party that returned to be punished, but he acquitted himself by oath
of himself and all his company. And so unwitting, yea unwilling, to her
Majesty those actions were committed by Sir Fras. Drake, for the which
her Majesty is greatly offended with him; and now also for bringing home
of a rich ship that came out of the East Indies.”[546] And then, as some
counterbalance to these enormities, Lord Burghley sets forth once more
the various grievances of England against Spain.
Whilst the elaborate and frequently insincere negotiations for peace were
being laboriously pursued for many months, Lord Burghley’s other standing
policy was not neglected, namely, that of causing jealousy between France
and Spain. Henry III. was now in mortal fear of Guise, and was ready to
listen to English and Huguenot suggestions that Philip’s conquest of
England would be followed by a Guisan dynasty under Spanish patronage in
France. All the French influence at the Vatican was exercised to procure
the conversion of James Stuart and the opposition of Spanish aims, and
before the end of the year Lord Burghley had the satisfaction of seeing
that Henry III. and his clever mother in no case would aid Philip to
subjugate England.
Elizabeth, in the meanwhile, was assailed by doubts and fears, and
periodical fits of penuriousness in the midst of her danger, which drove
her Councillors to despair. Stafford told Mendoza that “Cecil writes that
the Queen is so peevish and discontented that it was feared she would
not live long. Her temper is so bad that no Councillor dares to mention
business to her, and when even he (Cecil) did so, she had told him that
she had been strong enough to lift him out of the dirt, and was able
to cast him down again. He (Cecil) was of opinion that the Councillors
might be divided into three classes—those who wished to come to terms
with Spain, those who desired a close friendship with France, and those
who wanted to stand aloof from both, whilst enriching themselves with
plunder. He (Cecil) was neither a Spaniard nor a Frenchman, but wished
the Queen to be friendly with both powers. King Henry, under whom the
country was powerful and tranquil, thought he was doing a great thing
when he was able to make war with France when he had an alliance with
Spain; and now it happened that the French were as desirous of being
friendly as the English were, and he urges the Ambassador to hasten the
conclusion of an agreement.”[547]
But whilst he was writing amiably for the French, he took care, on the
other hand, to make the most of the peace negotiations with Spain, and
thus to cause Henry to be the more anxious for England’s friendship. The
old statesman was thus cautiously and slowly going on his traditional
way, hopeless though he must have been of the final result as regarded
keeping peace with Spain. The long-continued preparations of the Armada
were rapidly approaching completion; the Pope had been cajoled into
promising funds unwillingly to aid Philip’s aims; the English Catholic
refugees were eagerly awaiting the harvest of their efforts; the great,
cumbrous machine for crushing England was already in motion, and no
efforts of diplomacy could stop it.
But yet Burghley did his best. The war and plunder party, as usual,
checked him at every turn; but early and late, through constant pain and
sickness, family trouble[548] and public disappointment, he struggled
on in the way he had marked out for himself so many years before—to
divide England’s possible enemies, and keep the peace with Spain so long
as was humanly possible. The Queen was full of qualms and misgivings;
swaying now to one side, now to another, and abusing in turn both the
party of peace and the advocates of war. “The Queen has been scolding
the Lord Treasurer greatly for the last few days, for having neglected
to disburse money for the fleet,” wrote a Spanish spy in November; and a
few days afterwards, when she was alarmed at the delay in Parma’s reply,
she flew into a tremendous rage with Burghley, “upon whom she heaped a
thousand insults,” for having induced her to negotiate for peace whilst
the enemy completed his preparations. “She told the Treasurer he was old
and doting; to which he replied that he knew he was old, and would gladly
retire to a church to pray for her.” But the old minister gave the Queen
as good as she brought, and in vigorous words pointed out in detail that
her present dangers arose entirely from her neglect of his advice and the
imprudence of his opponents in the Council.[549] But the next day came
Parma’s answer, and the Queen was all smiles again towards Burghley and
the peacemakers.
CHAPTER XV
1588-1593
Whilst the tedious negotiations with Parma were dragging on, no slackness
was visible in the preparations for resisting the attack on England.
Drake was sent to the mouth of the Channel with a fine squadron of ships,
whilst the Lord Admiral’s fleet was being put in readiness in the Thames
with all haste; and Ralegh in Devonshire, Hunsdon in the north, and Lord
Grey and Sir John Norris in the home counties, were busily organising
the land forces. As usual, upon Lord Burghley rested much of the labour
and responsibility, and to him matters great and small were referred for
decision.[550] The English preparations met with many difficulties. The
Queen was fractious and fickle, one day hectoring and threatening, and
the next cursing Walsingham and his gang, who had drawn her into this
strait, and were for ever pestering her for money, which she doled out as
sparingly as possible. There was, moreover, no great alacrity shown at
first by the people at large in providing special funds to meet the great
national emergency, and the trading classes were grumbling at Leicester
and the greedy gentlemen whose piracy was largely responsible for the
coming war.
The sending of Peace Commissioners to Parma was, as usual, the subject
of division in the Council, Burghley naturally advocating the pacific
policy, and Leicester, Walsingham, and Paulet violently opposing the
negotiations except on impossible terms. The Queen wavered constantly,
but was more frequently on the side of peace. Soon after Leicester
returned from Holland (January 1588) he opposed in the Council the
sending of Commissioners. A comedy was played the same night before the
Queen and court, and as the company rose, Elizabeth turned upon Leicester
in a great rage and told him she _must_ make peace with Spain at any
cost. “If my ships are lost,” she said, “nothing can save me.” Leicester
tried to tranquillise her by talking about Drake; but she replied that
all he did was to irritate the enemy to her detriment.[551]
The instructions to the Peace Commissioners, as drafted by Burghley,[552]
seem to be an honest attempt to come to terms. England was to pledge
herself not to send aid of any sort, to the prejudice of Philip, to
any of the dominions he had inherited (thus excluding Portugal), and
Philip was asked, at least, to bind himself to prevent the molestation
by the Inquisition of English mariners on board their ships in Spanish
ports. But side by side with this there is reason to believe that Lord
Burghley, probably through Crofts, endeavoured to gain the Duke of Parma
personally to the side of peace.[553] He had been badly treated by Philip
in the matter of Portugal, and was still in the dark as to the King’s
real intentions. He was liable to dismissal at any moment; he was short
of money, and chafing at the inexplicable delay of the Armada. It was
suggested that a condition of the peace might be to give him fixity of
tenure of his government of Flanders for life. How far these approaches
may have influenced him it is at present difficult to say, but he
certainly appealed to Philip earnestly and solemnly to allow him to make
peace,[554] and when the Armada finally appeared in the Channel he did
nothing to falsify his own prediction of the disaster which awaited it.
The English Commissioners[555] embarked for Ostend (a town in
English-Dutch occupation) in March, but one of them, Crofts, a Spanish
agent, made no hesitation of landing in Philip’s town of Dunkirk and
proceeding overland to Ostend. After infinite bickering as to the place
of meeting, the preliminary conferences were held in a tent between
Ostend and Nieuport; but on questions of procedure and powers the
negotiations were delayed until the Armada had sailed from Lisbon, and
Philip’s pretence could be kept up no longer, when the Commissioners
hurriedly returned. Crofts’ desire to serve his Spanish paymasters,
and to obtain peace at any price, caused him to go beyond his public
instructions in making concessions, and at the instance of Leicester he
was cast into the Tower on his return; but the rest of the Commissioners
acknowledged that they had been tricked, and that Philip had never
intended peace. Many persons had thought so from the first, though the
delay had been advantageous for England. The Lord Admiral, writing to
Walsingham before the Commissioners left England, says: “There never
was since England was England such a stratagem and mask made to deceive
England, withal, as this is of the treaty of peace. I pray God we have
not cause to remember one thing that was made of the Scots by the
Englishmen; that we do not curse for this a long grey beard with a white
head, witless, that will make all the world think us heartless. You know
whom I mean.”[556]
Though Burghley had struggled for thirty years to maintain peace with
Spain, when war was inevitable he took far more than his share of the
labour of organising it. As usual, he worked early and late, sometimes
almost in despair at the Queen’s penuriousness and irritability, and
himself suffering incessantly. Whilst he was still striving for peace
(10th April) he thus writes to Walsingham: “I cannot express my pain,
newly increased in all my left arm. My spirits are even now so extenuated
as I have no mind towards anything but to groan with my pain.… Surely,
sir, as God will be best pleased with peace, so in nothing can her
Majesty content her realm better than in procuring it.… So forced
with pain, even from my arm to my heart, I end.”[557] In the midst of
the preparations, when Howard, Winter, Drake, and Hawkins were daily
writing reports or requests to the over-burdened Lord Treasurer, his
favourite but unfortunate daughter, Lady Oxford, died. In his diary he
simply records the fact in the words, “Anna Comitissa Oxoniæ, filia mia
charissima, obiit in Do. Greenwici et 25, Sepult. Westminster;”[558] but
the bereaved father was in a few days hard at work again, though still
confined to his bed.[559]
At length, on the 30th July (N.S.), the long looked for Armada appeared
in the Channel. The story of how the sceptre of the sea passed to England
during the next week has often been told elsewhere, and need not be
here repeated; but Burghley’s share of the glory at least must not go
unrecorded. We have seen how the details of organisation were largely
left in his hands; but, in addition to this, like other great nobles,
he raised a special force, clothed in his colours, and maintained at
his expense,[560] and visited the army encamped at Tilbury, “where,”
says Leicester, “I made a fair show for my Lord Treasurer, who came
from London to see us.” It is usually asserted also that his two sons,
Sir Thomas and Sir Robert, joined the English fleet, like so many other
gentlemen of rank; and although this may be true, for certainly Sir
Robert was at Dover,[561] and might perhaps have gone on board one of the
ships, it is questionable, and their names do not appear in any of the
records as being present.
It was hardly to be supposed that the Spaniards would so readily submit
to defeat as not to renew the attack, for Englishmen had not yet gauged
the paralysing effect of Philip’s system upon his subjects, and, like the
rest of the world, took Spain largely on trust; but Burghley was right in
his forecast that the Armada itself was so broken and weak that it would
run round Ireland and return no more. When the heroics in England were
over and matters were settling down, there was still no cessation in the
work of the Lord Treasurer. There were intricate victualling accounts to
be laboriously calculated in perplexing Roman numerals;[562] there were
wages to be paid; captains and admirals to be brought to book for every
item of their expenditure, for the Queen would have no slackness in that
respect, even though the country and herself had been rescued from a
great peril; there were prisoners to interrogate, and plans to be made
for future defence, and, as usual, Puritans and prelates to be appeased
and reconciled. The lion’s share of all this fell to the gouty, crippled
old man with the bright eyes, the grave face, and the snowy hair—to Lord
Treasurer Burghley.
Shortly after the disappearance of the Armada, Leicester died (4th
September), on his way to Kenilworth, and Burghley lost the political
rival who had continued to thwart him for nearly thirty years. Nothing
proves more clearly Burghley’s consummate prudence and tact than the
fact that, to the very last, his relations with the Earl were always
outwardly polite, and even friendly.[563] That this was not owing to the
forbearance of Leicester is seen by his violent quarrels with Sussex,
Arundel, Ormonde, Heneage, Ralegh, and others who crossed his path.
The death of Leicester, together with that of Sir Walter Mildmay, which
happened shortly afterwards, changed the balance of Elizabeth’s Council.
The old ministers were dropping off one by one and giving place to
younger men, who could not expect to exercise over the experienced and
mature ruler the same influence as that of her earlier advisers. In
order to strengthen his party Lord Burghley had patronised Ralegh; but
Leicester had retorted by bringing forward his young stepson Essex, whom
his dying father had left as a solemn charge to Burghley. Essex was a
mere lad of twenty-two when Leicester died, and as yet too young to head
a party against the aged minister; but he had absorbed all the traditions
of the dead favourite, and henceforward thwarted the Cecils to the best
of his power with all the persistence of Leicester, but with a haughty
incautiousness which belonged to himself alone, and ultimately led him to
his tragic death.
Notwithstanding the crushing blow that Spanish power had received,
English public feeling continued apprehensive and nervous. Spies abroad
still sent alarmist reports of Philip’s future plans, and few Englishmen
had yet realised how completely their foe was disabled. When Parliament
met, therefore, in February (1589), the largest subsidies ever voted were
granted for the defence of the country, and the Houses petitioned her
Majesty “to denounce open war against the King of Spain.”
There were, however, other ways of crippling the foe more acceptable both
to the Queen and her principal minister. Since 1581 Elizabeth had been
playing fast and loose with Don Antonio, the claimant to the crown of
Portugal. Leicester and Walsingham had more than once encouraged him to
spend large sums of money in England—raised on the sale or security of
his jewels—in fitting out naval expeditions in his favour, but nothing
effectual had been done for his cause. Catharine de Medici, on the other
hand, had countenanced the despatch of two fine expeditions from France
to the Azores, both of which had been disastrously defeated; and in
the Armada year Antonio again came to England to seek for aid against
the common enemy. He was sanguine, and ready to promise anything for
immediate aid. Just before the Armada arrived, the plan of diverting
Philip’s forces by an attack on Portugal had been broached by the Lord
Admiral in a letter to Walsingham, but the Queen would not then hear of
any of her ships being sent away.
In September, however, circumstances had changed. It was useless to
ask the Queen to accept the whole expense and responsibility of an
expedition; but in September 1588, Antonio saw Lord Burghley, who wrote
down the plans and offers he made. If, said the pretender, he could once
land in Portugal with a sufficient force, all the country would rise in
his favour; and his suggestion, supported by Sir John Norris and Sir
Francis Drake, was to form a joint-stock undertaking with the countenance
and help of the Queen and the Dutch, for the purpose of invading and
capturing Portugal in his interest. In exchange he promised to pay the
soldiers, and handsomely; to allow them to loot Spanish property in
Lisbon; and, above all, to burn Philip’s ships in Lisbon and Seville, and
recoup the adventurers their expenditure with a large bonus.[564] If war
were to be made at all, this was a method of making it likely to find
favour in the eyes of the Queen and Burghley; and in February 1589[565] a
warrant was issued authorising the expedition, and appointing rules for
its government. Drake was to command at sea, and Norris by land, and the
objects are carefully set forth in Burghley’s words: “first, to distress
the King of Spain’s ships; second, to obtain possession of the Azores in
order to intercept the treasure ships; and third, to assist Don Antonio
to recover the kingdom of Portugal if it shall be found that the public
voice be favourable to him.”
The Queen contributed £20,000 and seven ships of the navy, and strict
conditions were made that her money should not be wasted. But the
affair was mismanaged from the first. Most of the men who went were
idle vagabonds, the scum of the towns and the sweepings of the jails.
The Dutch contingent fell away, the promises of support in England were
not kept, money ran short, and the victuals went bad. The Queen lost
her temper and began to frown upon the expedition when Drake’s constant
demands for further help became too pressing; but finally, after weeks
of galling delay, through bad weather and other causes, the expedition
put to sea (13th April), nearly 200 sail of all sorts, with 20,000
men. Shortly before it left, the Earl of Essex, with his brother and
other gentlemen, had fled to Plymouth in disguise, shipped on board the
_Swiftsure_ and put to sea.[566] The Queen had specially refused him
permission to accompany the expedition; and when she found that her
favourite had disobeyed her, her fury knew no bounds.
From that hour the expedition and commanders got nothing but ill words
from her. Not content simply to burn the few ships in Coruña, the
commanders lost a precious fortnight, in direct violation to orders, in
besieging the place and burning the lower town. Wine was found in plenty,
and excess incapacitated the greater part of the Englishmen; pestilence
and desertion worked havoc in their ranks, and subsequently, as a
crowning disaster, Norris, persuaded by Antonio against Drake’s advice,
marched overland from Peniche to Lisbon, instead of forcing the Tagus.
But Antonio had been deceived. None but a few country people joined him;
the Portuguese in Lisbon were utterly cowed by the firmness and severity
of the Archduke Albert and his few Spaniards, and Norris had no siege
artillery. After a few days of useless heroism, in which young Essex
showed himself the brave, rash, generous lad he was, the attempt was
abandoned; and harassed by enemies in flank and rear, beset by famine,
sickness, and panic, Norris, and what was left of his army, beat a
retreat to Cascaes, where Drake and the ships awaited them. The Azores
were never approached, and the ships in Lisbon and Seville were not
burned, and the inglorious expedition slunk back again to England with a
loss of two-thirds of its number of men.
Although Burghley had drawn up the conditions of the Queen’s aid to
the expedition, he took no active part in its subsequent organisation,
for a great sorrow was impending, which fell upon him ten days before
the expedition sailed. He had lived in harmony and affection with
his wife for forty-three years, and her death on the 4th April cast
him for a time into the deepest sorrow.[567] But even in the midst of
his grief, his passion for placing everything on record led him to
write a most interesting series of meditations on his loss, which is
still extant.[568] Commencing by a reflection on the fruitlessness of
wishing his “dear wife alive again in her mortal body,” he proceeds at
great length to lay down the direction his thoughts should take for
consolation, such as gratitude to God for “His favour in permitting her
to have lived so many years together with me, and to have given her grace
to have the true knowledge of her salvation.” But most of the curious
document is occupied by a statement of the liberal anonymous charities
of Lady Burghley, which during her life she had kept inviolably secret,
even from her husband; and as some indication of the reality of Lord
Burghley’s grief, it may be mentioned that he signs the paper “April 9,
1588.[569] Written at Colling’s Lodge by me in sorrow.”
Through the whole course of his life we have seen William Cecil pursuing
the traditional policy of suspicion of France and Scotland, and a desire
to draw closer to the rulers of the Netherlands. But in his old age a
series of circumstances which were impossible to have been foreseen,
entirely revolutionised the political balance of Europe, and for a time
led even Lord Burghley to reverse his main policy. The heavy yoke of the
Guises, doubly heavy now that they had the power of Spain behind them,
had at last galled to desperation the vicious Valois who ruled France.
The long-foretold and carefully-planned blow which had murdered the Duke
of Guise and his brother, and rid Henry of his hard taskmaster, had been
followed by a combination of all French Catholicism against the royal
murderer. The subjects were declared to be absolved from their allegiance
to the King, Paris flew to arms, the Church thundered denunciations,
and the erstwhile royal bigot and monk, the figurehead of the Catholic
League, the sleepless persecutor of Protestants, found himself driven
into the arms of the only subjects he had who were not ready to tear him
to pieces, namely, the Huguenots and excommunicated Henry of Navarre,
the legitimate heir to the throne. Together they advanced upon Paris to
crush the Guisan Catholics, and wreak vengeance upon the citizens who had
deposed their sovereign. Henry of Navarre had often sought and obtained
Elizabeth’s help against the Catholics, and looked to her again in this
supreme struggle which was to decide, as it seemed, the fate of France.
For the first time, however, on this occasion English aid took the form
of supporting the sovereign against rebels, instead of the reverse.
In Scotland also the Catholic nobles had been busy intriguing for the
landing of a Spanish force, which should coerce or depose James, and
finally crush Protestantism there.[570] The plan had been discovered,
and Elizabeth, who had again made sure of James, had urged him to
severity, and offered him support if necessary against his Catholic
nobles. So that in Scotland, as in France, it was Catholicism that
represented rebellion, and Protestantism in both countries looked to
England to uphold legality. That the position struck Lord Burghley as
curious is seen in a letter from him to Lord Shrewsbury[571] (16th June).
“The world,” he says, “is become very strange! We Englishmen now daily
desire the prosperity of a King of France and a King of Scots. We were
wont to aid the subjects oppressed against both these Kings; now we are
moved to aid both these Kings against their rebellious subjects; and
though these are contrary effects, yet on our part they proceed from
one cause, for that we do is to weaken our enemies.” In another letter
he says, “Seeing both Kings are enemies to our enemies we have cause to
join with them.” In fact, once more for a time religious union had become
stronger than national divisions. It was the Protestantism of England,
France, Scotland, and Holland, led by Elizabeth, against militant
Catholicism everywhere, championed by the Spanish King.
Six weeks after the above letter was written the changed position towards
France was further accentuated by the murder of Henry III. at the hands
of a fanatic monk in the interests of the Catholics. With the Huguenot
Henry of Navarre as King of France, and with Spain as the power behind
the League, England and France were pledged to the same cause. The main
sources of distrust in England against France always had been the fear
that the latter power might dominate Flanders or gain a footing in
Scotland. James’s adhesion to the Protestant party, his alliance with
England, and his growing hopes of the English succession, had made
the latter contingency one which might now be disregarded, whilst the
possession of strong places in the Netherlands in English hands, the
religion of the new King of France, and his need to depend upon England
for support, rendered it in the highest degree improbable that he would
dream of conquering and holding Spanish Flanders against the wish of
Elizabeth.
For the last three years Elizabeth had continued to supply Henry of
Navarre with large sums of money to pay mercenaries; but if Henry was to
reign over France he must now fight the League and Spain; and to enable
him to do this, England would have to subscribe more handsomely than
ever. Henry accordingly sent Beauvoir la Nocle to London to push his
master’s cause. Great quantities of ammunition were shipped to the coast
of Normandy, whither Henry had retired with his army; but men were wanted
too, and on the 17th August Beauvoir dined with the Lord Treasurer at
Cecil House, and concluded an arrangement by which Elizabeth was to lend
300,000 crowns to pay for German reiters in the spring, and to make a
cash advance to Henry of 70,000 crowns.
By a letter from Beauvoir in the following year (16th June 1590) it is
clear that Burghley’s old distrust of the French had not been overcome
without difficulty. “At last,” he says, “I have conquered the Lord
Treasurer! Now it must be borne in mind that if the Queen says ‘Do this,’
and Burghley says ‘Do it not,’ it is he who will be obeyed. Still I find
him easier and more tractable than he was; these are humours that come
and go, like the wind blows. Nevertheless he does well, though he is not
one of those who act up to the proverb ‘Quis cito dat, bis dat.’” In the
same despatch Beauvoir fervently urges the King to keep his promise with
regard to the payment for the ammunition, &c., supplied to him. He says
that the failure to meet such engagements is called in England “to play
the Vidame.”[572] “For God’s sake,” he continues, “make provision for
payment, or abandon all hope of getting anything else here except on good
security.”[573]
Henry’s first attack on Paris failed, and he was forced to retire
(November 1589); but he sent the gallant old hero La Noue to Picardy
to withstand the League there. When young Essex heard of his proximity
he was anxious to join him.[574] From the first he had been trying to
persuade the Queen to send national forces under his command to aid the
Huguenots, but cautious Burghley was always at hand to hint at expense
and responsibility, and the auxiliary English troops under Willoughby,
now in Henry’s service, were complaining bitterly of the hardships and
penury they were undergoing. A great fleet also was being fitted out in
Spain, the destination of which was kept secret, but rumours ran that it
was coming to England, or what was almost as bad, to capture a French
port in the Channel as a naval base from which the invasion of England
could be effected. Brittany was held by the Duke de Mercœur for the
League by Spanish aid, and already (January) overtures had been made by
him to Philip to occupy a port on the coast.
But whether England was to be attacked direct or a Brittany port first
taken possession of, it behoved Elizabeth to stand on her guard, and on
the 15th March a great plan for the muster and mobilisation of troops all
over England was issued by the Lord Treasurer.[575] On the day before
the order was made in England the Huguenot King had gained the great
battle of Ivry, crushing Mayenne’s army and rapidly beleaguering Paris
again. For the moment, therefore, Henry was able to hold his own, and
the apprehension of the English Government was mainly directed towards
Brittany, where a Spanish force of 4000 men were supporting the Duke de
Mercœur; and the claim of Philip’s daughter to the duchy, if not to the
crown of France, was being advanced.
Burghley’s age was now telling upon him greatly. He had become very deaf,
and almost constant gout kept him crippled; but still he remained, as
ever, the resource of every one with an appeal to make, a question to
be decided, or an end to be served.[576] The recent death of Walsingham
(April 1590) left him the only one of the Queen’s early Councillors,
except Crofts, who died soon afterwards, and Sir Francis Knollys, whose
fanatical Puritanism and anti-Prelatism still gave much trouble to the
Treasurer. The latter had evidently marked out his brilliant younger
son Robert Cecil for Walsingham’s successor; and certainly no better
choice could have been made, for he had for some time past relieved
his father of some of his most laborious work, and had imbibed much of
his policy and method. The mere hint of such an intention, however,
was sufficient to arouse the opposition of Essex, who, either out of
generosity or in a mere spirit of contradiction of “the Cecils,” took up
the cause of Davison, and endeavoured to bring him back to office.[577]
The Lord Treasurer was powerful enough to prevent that; but did not
push the matter to extremes by obtaining the appointment of his own son
until some years afterwards, although Robert Cecil was knighted (May
1591) and was sworn a Member of the Privy Council shortly afterwards
(August 1591), and thereafter practically discharged much of the duty of
Secretary of State.[578] Burghley has frequently been blamed for a want
of generosity towards Davison at this juncture. He was, as we have had
occasion to notice more than once, not a generous man; but this was a
crucial trial of strength between him and young Essex, and if Davison
had been reappointed Secretary of State the influence of Burghley would
have suffered irreparably. It was obvious now that Essex was determined,
if possible, to force Elizabeth into an aggressive policy, especially
against Spain, and it was exactly this policy which Burghley still
devoted his life to opposing. But it is clear that the Treasurer did not
gain his point with regard to Davison without some little trouble. Whilst
the matter was in dispute he pleaded his age and infirmities as a reason
for his complete retirement from office;[579] and such a hint always
brought the Queen to her bearings.
He, however, absented himself from court and stayed in dudgeon at
Theobalds, where the Queen, to pacify him, paid him a stately visit in
May, and the notes at Hatfield in the Lord Treasurer’s writing show that
on this occasion, as usual, the smallest details of the Queen’s reception
were arranged by him. Whilst there the Queen appears to have written the
extraordinary jocose letter to “The disconsolate and retired spryte,
the hermite of Tyboll,” in which, with tedious and affected jocularity,
Hatton, in her name, exhorts him to return to the world and his duty. He
must have done so promptly, for he was with the court at Greenwich again
as busy as ever in a fortnight, writing to Mr. Grimstone, the agent in
France, a letter (June), which shows that already the old distrust of
French methods was reasserting itself. “In truth, her Majesty findeth
some lack that the King doth not advertise her more frequently of his
actions and intentions; and especially she findeth it strange that there
is no more care had for the state of Brittany, in that the King sendeth
no greater forces thither to encounter the Spaniards’ new descents, or to
recover such port towns as be of most moment. And her Majesty is truly
comforted with certain successes that have happened in Brittany since
the arrival (there) of Sir John Norreys.”[580] The letter ends with an
emphatic reminder of Henry’s obligations to Elizabeth, and a somewhat
doubting hope that he will be properly grateful.
Henry naturally was for winning Paris, the headquarters of the League and
the capital of his realm, and he was already giving pause to Elizabeth
and Burghley by his willingness to “receive instruction” from priests,
with a view to his conversion. What from the English point of view was
most to be feared was that he might at last be forced or cajoled into
consenting to a partition of France, in which the Infanta’s claim to the
Duchy of Brittany, which was a very strong one, should be acknowledged.
This would have brought the Spaniards into the Channel opposite England,
and have completely altered the balance of power. Already Don Juan
del Aguila had a firm grip upon the port of Blavet, and Elizabeth’s
Government were pressing Henry to direct his attention to the north of
France, where the League had occupied most of the principal ports,
except Dieppe. Henry himself was reducing Chartres and other places near
Paris, whilst his officers in the north, with inadequate forces, were
doing their best to recover the coast towns.
At the urgent desire of Elizabeth, Henry promised to come to
Normandy,[581] and Essex prevailed upon the Queen to give him command
of a considerable English force to besiege Rouen[582] (July). The young
Earl was in semi-disgrace in consequence of his recent marriage with
Walsingham’s daughter (Sir Philip Sidney’s widow), but the Queen gave
him strict orders not to expose himself to danger. Henry, however, did
not keep his word to meet Essex on the coast, and as soon as Essex
landed, made an attempt to utilise the English force elsewhere. Essex was
indignant, and rushed off to Noyon to remonstrate with Henry.[583] When,
however, Rouen was at last besieged, he violated the Queen’s commands and
took an active part in the siege.[584]
At length Elizabeth declared that she would be played with no longer
by him, and he was forced to return to his infuriated mistress,[585]
whilst the siege of Rouen dragged on for months longer, sometimes in the
presence of Henry himself, until the arrival of Parma and Mayenne caused
it to be abandoned (May 1592). The anger of the Queen with Essex and the
war-party was increased by the ill success in the autumn (1591) of the
attempt to intercept the Spanish treasure fleet off the Azores;[586] and
for a time “the Cecils” had their way, which was to administer just so
much aid, and no more, as should prevent Maurice of Nassau in Holland and
Henry of Navarre in France from succumbing to the power of Spain, whilst
the Queen in the meanwhile railed at Navarre for his shiftiness, and at
Essex for his disobedience. Her Englishmen, she said, had been badly
treated and exposed to undue hardships, her advances were unpaid, nobody
was grateful to her; and in future she declared, that though Henry might
have her prayers he should have no more of her money.
The determined efforts of Essex and his party, and more especially of
the two Bacons, Francis and Antony, to wound and discredit the Cecils,
stopped at no inconsistency. From their earliest childhood the Earl and
the Bacons had been attached to the Puritan party, and still posed as its
champions; and yet they were the first to endeavour to cast upon Burghley
the odium of the severe proclamation and fresh persecution of the
seminary priests that had been considered necessary.[587] From the action
of Allen, Persons, and their friends at the time of the Armada, from the
letters intercepted by Burghley disclosing the Jesuit plot in Scotland,
and from the continued bitter writings of Person’s directed against
Elizabeth and her minister, it was beyond question now, that whatever may
have been the case at the beginning of their propaganda, the aim of the
seminarists was simply to undermine and overturn the political government
of the country.[588] And yet the Bacons, nephews of Burghley and sons of
a fiercely Puritan mother, prompted by the double spy Standen and men of
the same evil class, almost violently took up the cause of the persecuted
Catholics when they thought it would injure the kinsman to whom they owed
so much, and his son, of whom they were jealous.[589]
The renewed severity against the seminarists at this time was certainly
not without justification. The shifty James Stuart was again listening
to the charming of his Catholic nobles and the agents of Spain, though
doubtless with the intention of outwitting them, and from all sides came
the news of a powerful fleet being prepared in the Spanish ports either
for England, Scotland, or Ireland. For a time in the autumn of 1592,
whilst Lord Burghley was accompanying Elizabeth through the southern
counties,[590] a perfect panic of apprehension fell upon the people;
partly, it must be confessed, caused by the fear of reprisals for the
ceaseless ravages of the English upon Spanish shipping. Burghley himself
had always been opposed to these ravages,[591] and had steadily refused
to accept any share in the profits of them; but when the prizes were
brought back he took care that the Queen’s share was not forgotten. A
good instance of this occurred in 1592. Ralegh and the Earl of Cumberland
with some associates fitted out a powerful expedition to intercept
the treasure galleons, and, if possible, to raid some of the Spanish
settlements. When the squadron had sailed, Ralegh was suddenly recalled
by the angry Queen and thrown into the Tower (May) for having married.
The _Roebuck_, Ralegh’s own ship, captured off Flores amongst other
prizes the great carrack _Madre de Dios_, which reached Dartmouth on
the 8th September. The riches she contained were beyond calculation;
pearls, amber, musk, and precious stones, tapestries, silks, spices, and
gold formed her cargo. Plunder began long before she reached England,
and when the news came of the capture the great road to the west was
crowded by Jew dealers, London tradesmen and fine ladies and gentlemen
on their way to buy bargains. Ralegh’s sailors were already sulky at the
imprisonment of their beloved master, and when attempts were made by the
shore authorities to recover some of the plunder and prevent further
peculation, they became unmanageable. Sir John Hawkins wrote to Lord
Burghley that Ralegh was the only man who could bring them to order.[592]
But Ralegh was in the Tower, “the Queen’s poor prisoner”; and it needed
all the Lord Treasurer’s influence, working on Elizabeth’s greed, to
obtain permission for Sir Walter, still under guard, to go down to
Devonshire and set matters straight.[593] Preceding him by a few hours on
the same errand went Sir Robert Cecil, whose letters to his father on his
journey, detailing the measures he had adopted on the way to intercept
the plunder, are extremely graphic and interesting.[594]
Such depredations upon Spanish shipping as this—and they were of constant
occurrence—although they might enrich the adventurers, and to some extent
even the Queen, were a means of keeping the English people generally
in a constant state of apprehension, and rendering legitimate commerce
dangerous and difficult. As we have seen, Lord Burghley had steadily set
his face against piracy of all sorts, and Sir Robert Cecil followed his
lead. Ralegh had from his first appearance at court been a friend of the
Cecils, as against Leicester and Essex, and he still remained on their
side; but he was greedy and unscrupulous, and certainly from the time of
the capture of the great carrack the cordiality between the Cecil party
and himself diminished.[595] The talk of the court generally was that
Burghley was jealous of the rise of all men who might compete with his
beloved son Robert; and Ralegh’s friend Spenser puts the thought in verse
(“The Ruins of Time”) thus:—
“O grief of griefs! O gall of all good hearts!
To see that virtue should despisèd be
Of him that first was raised for virtuous parts,
And now broad spreading like an agèd tree,
Lets none shoot up that nigh him planted be.”
That Lord Burghley in his failing age should desire to continue his
policy through his son was perfectly natural, especially as in his case
the son was in every way worthy to succeed him; and it is not fair to
blame him for mean filial jealousy to the detriment of Ralegh, as Spenser
does, for Ralegh, although nominally his adherent, was in the matter
of the Puritans and aggressive action against Spain, acting rather on
the side of Essex. It is to this fact that Ralegh owed his lifelong
disappointment at being excluded from the Privy Council.
That Essex and his party were sleepless in their attempts to undermine
the influence of the Cecils there is abundant evidence to prove.
Amongst many others, an interesting letter from Ralph Lane to Lord
Burghley (March 1592) may be quoted.[596] Sir Thomas Cecil and his
more brilliant younger brother had quarrelled whilst their father was
staying in retirement at Theobalds, sick and sorry. “The world speaks
of your Lordship’s grief,” writes Lane, “and thinks it proceeds from
the differences between your two sons. The matter is not great, but
the humours short. That which grieves your well-wishers, who are the
true well-wishers of her Majesty and the State, is that it has been
misrepresented to her Majesty so as to injure you for credit and wisdom,
and that these hard constructions made against you to her are the
principal cause of your own grief. Good men moan that her Majesty is
sought to be deprived in this dangerous time of so wise and approved
a Councillor. I hope that no envy will make her Majesty disconceit a
personage the choice of whom in the beginning of her reign prognosticated
her future greatness.”
But Elizabeth, though she might listen to the youngsters who sought to
contemn her aged Councillor, knew his worth better than they, and much
as he desired rest, when it came to the pinch, she always refused to let
him go. Only a few days after the above letter was written, indeed, Lord
Burghley received a life-grant of Rockingham Forest, part of the lands of
the deceased Lord Chancellor Bromley, as if in answer to the detractions
of his enemies. Another instance of the dependence of the Queen upon him
and of his devotion to his duty happened in June. He had gone to Bath to
seek alleviation from the gout which had afflicted him all the spring,
and writes from there to the Queen, who was on her progress, enclosing
her an important letter from her Ambassador in France. “I would,” he
says, “have attended your Majesty myself with it, but I am in the midst
of my cure and may not break off without special harm and frustrating my
recovery, which is promised in a few days. But still I will risk all, and
come if your Majesty desires it.”[597]
The persistent attacks upon Burghley and his policy were not confined to
Essex and the Puritans. The Spanish Jesuit party in Flanders, which in
former years had often looked upon him with sympathy and sometimes with
hope, now cast upon him the responsibility of everything that happened
in England, even when the policy was dictated by Burghley’s opponents.
In all the plots of Holt, Yorke, Archer, Cahill, and the rest of the
desperadoes in Flanders, Burghley was one of the principal objects of
attack. “He was but a blood-sucker,” said Yorke; and the latter swore
he would lay a poisoned glowing coal in his way and kill him.[598]
Burghley, he said, had poisoned the young Earl of Derby in order to marry
his grand-daughter to the Earl’s brother. “England was governed by the
Machivellian policy of those who would be kings, and whom it is time were
cut off;”[599] and much more of the same sort. These grosser calumnies
and accusations of corruption[600] were in most cases obviously false,
and could hardly have caused Lord Burghley very deep concern; but the
most artful of his enemies, Father Persons, well knew the weak point
in his armour, and wounded him to the quick in his books, in which he
pretended to show that the Lord Treasurer was of base origin, his father
a tavern-keeper, and he himself a bell-ringer.[601] We have seen in a
former similar case that attacks upon his ancestry almost alone aroused
Lord Burghley’s anger; and an anti-Spanish Catholic writing at the time
(January 1593) records how deeply he was pained by the books of Persons
and Verstegen just published, “which,” he says, “will do the Catholics no
good.”
The division, indeed, between the two parties of Catholics was now
well defined. Those who adhered to Spain and the Jesuits were of
course bitterly inimical to moderate statesmen like the Cecils, whose
efforts would naturally tend to bring about a compromise with James
or Arabella Stuart for the Queen’s successor, peace with Spain, and
toleration for Catholics. The Vatican, the French, the Venetians, and
many of the English and Scottish Catholics abroad were in favour of this
solution;[602] and the English Catholic secular clergy were enlisted
almost entirely on the same side. The extreme parties, however, were
naturally violently opposed to compromise of any sort; so that the
Cecils, as leaders of the peaceful and moderate party, were the target
for envenomed attacks at the same time both of Spanish Jesuits, who
wished for a purely Catholic England under Spanish auspices, and the
militant Protestant party led by Essex, who aimed at a purely Protestant
England and an aggressive war with Spain.
The bitterness of party feeling was promptly demonstrated at the meeting
of Parliament in February. Intelligence of continued armaments in Spain,
and the recent revelations of informers as to the anti-English plots
hatched in Flanders, had rendered necessary the employment of large sums
for the national defence. A statement of the apprehensions entertained
was made in the House of Lords by the Lord Keeper Puckering, and in
the Commons by Sir Robert Cecil, the substance of both speeches having
been previously drafted by Lord Burghley. The patriotism of the members
was appealed to in fervent terms to provide funds for maintaining the
national independence. The Puritan party, aided by Ralegh, fanned the
flame and sought to pledge the Houses to an offensive war; and with but
little dissent a treble subsidy was voted, payable in four years. Francis
Bacon[603] struck a discordant note by asking that the payments should
extend over six years. The people were poor, he said, and hard pressed;
do not arouse their discontent “and set an evil precedent against
ourselves and our posterity.” Sir Robert Cecil somewhat indignantly
answered his cousin’s speech, and the Queen and Lord Treasurer soon made
their displeasure felt, and Francis Bacon could only protest his loyalty
and sorrow for his offence. If only he could wound the Cecils and bring
himself into the good graces of Essex, he seemed to care but little.
The House of Commons, as usual, had a strongly Puritan leaven, and the
indefatigable Peter Wentworth once more incurred the Queen’s anger by
bringing forward the succession question. Whilst the Puritan leaders in
the Commons were being sent to the Tower and the Fleet,[604] the bishops
were preparing a blow which should demolish for good all attempts at
attacks against the Establishment. A new extreme sect called Independents
or Brownists had gained considerable popularity. Other Nonconformists
resisted the orders of the Church, and opposed the authority of
prelates, but the Brownists were for disestablishment altogether. Their
leaders, Barrow and Greenwood, and several others, were in prison; but
their followers were many, and growing in number, and the prelates
were determined to stamp out this new danger to the Church, come what
might. Several Brownists were arraigned for sedition, on the ground
that attacks upon the Establishment were attacks upon the Queen. Barrow
and Greenwood were found guilty, and condemned to death. During the
prosecution the prelates in the Lords had passed a severe bill against
recusancy, designed to press more hardly against Brownists than even
against Catholics. On the 31st March the condemned men were dragged to
Tyburn, with all the hideous formalities usual in executions for felony;
and when the ropes were already around their necks, a reprieve suddenly
arrived. Lord Burghley himself, though seriously ill, had insisted upon
a suspension of the sentence. “No Papist,” he said, “had suffered for
religion, and Protestants’ blood should not be the first shed, at least
before an attempt was made to convince them.” We are told also that he
spoke sharply to the Archbishop (Whitgift). The recusants bill went
to the lower House on the 4th April, and Ralegh amongst others made
a vigorous speech against it. The opposition in the Commons, we are
told,[605] hardened the prelates’ hearts, and both Barrow and Greenwood
suffered the last penalty two days afterwards, to be followed in their
martyrdom for Protestant Nonconformity by many others all over the
country.
This case has been stated here somewhat at length, because it has become
usual to cast upon Lord Burghley the odium for cruel persecution both
of Catholics and Protestants, in disregard of the fact that there were
in England two extreme parties struggling with each other, he being, so
far as religion was concerned, a moderator between the two. He was, of
course, the most prominent man in the Government, but he only maintained
his influence by avoiding the extremes of both parties, and in order
to do this he was obliged to refrain from running strongly counter to
either. It may be said that in this case of the Brownists, as well as
that of the Catholics, he might have firmly put his foot down and have
prevented the sacrifice; but in that event he would not have been William
Cecil, Lord Burghley, and he would not have held the tiller of the State
for forty years.
In the summer, Essex received a strange and powerful coadjutor in his
policy of aggressive war against Spain. He and his friends the Bacons,
much to the Puritan Lady Bacon’s concern, were already deep in confidence
with Standen, and other double spies and professed Catholics, the object
apparently being to organise, for the benefit of Essex, a separate spy
system, independent of the universal network controlled by the Cecils.
The new recruit to Essex was a man of a very different calibre to the
other instruments. Antonio Perez, the former all-powerful minister of
Philip II., was at deadly feud with his master, and had been welcomed at
the court of France as the bitterest enemy of his native country. He was
one of the most brilliant and fascinating scoundrels that ever lived,
and soon won the good graces of the jolly Béarnais, who was already
meditating what he called the “mortal leap” of going to Mass, and turning
the Huguenot Navarre into the Catholic King of France, eldest son of the
Church. He had depended much upon Elizabeth’s help; although of late that
had been slackening as Essex’s influence waned, and he knew that the step
he was about to take would turn her full fury upon him. Who could so
plausibly plead his cause and inflame the hearts in England against Spain
as this mordant foe of Philip, who knew every weakness, every secret,
of his former master? So in June, Perez went to England with Henry’s
blessing, and with the cold permission of Elizabeth, for she had no love
for traitors, and Burghley knew Perez’s errand.
When he arrived he found Elizabeth already fuming at Henry’s apostasy,
and complaining bitterly to Beauvoir de Nocle of his master’s
ingratitude.[606] She refused absolutely to receive the “Spanish
traitor,” and the cautious Cecils gave him a wide berth. Essex in some
notes to Phillips, soon after Perez’s arrival, directs him to set
informers to work to discover the real reason of the Spaniard’s coming.
Lord Burghley, he says, has seen him once, and the Earl of Essex twice.
“Burghley only wished to compare his judgment with his own experience;
but he (Essex) wished to found upon Perez some action, for all his plots
are to make war offensive rather than defensive.”[607] Essex soon got
over his doubts, and plausible Perez stood with Bacon[608] ever at his
right hand, living at his cost, writing his biting gibes, weaving his
plots against Philip, and with his matchless ability and experience
advising the young Earl how best to drag England into war with Spain,
even though Henry was a Catholic, and so to outwit the watchful Cecils.
It was not long, too, before he flattered and wormed himself into the
good graces of the Queen, who gave him a handsome pension; and so
gradually the war-party gained ground in Elizabeth’s councils, for in
this Ralegh too was on the side of Essex, and the ceaseless talk of the
intrigues of the Jesuits kept the English war feeling at fever heat.
Most of the routine work formerly falling upon Lord Burghley was
now undertaken by his son. Letters from all quarters, and upon all
subjects, came to Sir Robert, whose diligence must have been almost
as indefatigable as that of his father; but apparently only those of
special importance and touching foreign affairs were submitted to the
Lord Treasurer. But though Sir Robert might be diligent, he certainly
lacked the high sense of dignity which had always been characteristic of
his father. At a time when courtiers vied with each other in addressing
almost blasphemous flattery to the Queen, when all the firmament was
ransacked to provide comparisons favourable to her Majesty’s beauty and
wisdom, Lord Burghley, although always respectful and deferential to the
Queen, never sacrificed his dignity to please her.
That his son was more of a supple courtier than he, is seen by the
address penned by him to be delivered to the Queen by a man dressed as
a hermit on her entrance to Theobalds, where she passed some days on
a visit to the Lord Treasurer, in October. For turgid affectation and
grovelling humility this production could hardly be excelled by the
egregious Simier, or Hatton himself. The subject evidently has reference
to the Queen’s previous visit to the house when Lord Burghley was in
deep trouble and living in retirement. On that occasion there was much
affected verbosity about the Lord Treasurer as a hermit, and in October
1593, when the pretended hermit addressed her Majesty, he reminded her
that the last time she came, “his founder, upon a strange conceit to
feed his own humour, had placed the hermit, contrary to his profession,
in his house, whilst he (Burghley) had retired to the hermit’s poor
cell.” Whilst his founder (Burghley) lived he was assured that he would
not again dispossess him (as he never turned out tenants) “Only this
perplexeth my soul, and causeth cold blood in every vein, to see the life
of my founder so often in peril, nay, his desire as hasty as his age to
inherit his tomb. But this I hear (which is his greatest comfort), that
when his body, being laden with years, oppressed with sickness, having
spent his strength in the public service, desireth to be rid of worldly
cares, even when he is grievously sick and lowest brought, what holds
him back and ransometh him, is the fear that my young master may wish to
use my cell. And therefore, hearing of all the country folks I meet, that
your Majesty doth use him in your service, as in former time you have
done his father, my founder, and that though his experience and judgment
be not comparable, yet as report goeth he hath something in him like the
child of such a parent,” he (the hermit) begs the Queen, whose will is
law, to bid Robert Cecil to continue in active life, and leave to the
hermit the cell granted to him by his father.[609]
This was doubtless considered at the time a highly ingenious device for
asking the Queen for a reversion of the fathers’ offices for the son,
and is certainly not lacking in the worldly wisdom which looks ahead;
but surely never was any man’s coming death talked about so much in his
lifetime, and with so little constraint, as that of Lord Burghley.[610]
CHAPTER XVI
1594-1598
All through the year 1593 Lord Burghley’s agents in Spain had sent news
of the powerful naval preparations being made at Pasages, Coruña, and
elsewhere, and the war-party at home and abroad had strained every nerve
to induce the Queen to assume the offensive. Raleigh,[611] Drake, and
Hawkins supported Essex in his efforts; but the caution of “the Cecils,”
the Queen, and the Lord Admiral restrained, as well as might be, the
ardour of the forward party.
There were, indeed, many elements of danger near home which amply
justified a cautious policy. James Stuart’s extraordinary lenity to the
Catholic lords who had rebelled against him, and his known dallying with
Spain and Rome, again suggested the possibility of a Spanish invasion
of England over the Border, simultaneously with a rising of Catholics
in England. The almost complete control of the coast of Brittany by the
Spaniards, their recent seizure and fortification of a strong position
in Brest harbour, and their continued intrigues in Ireland, all pointed
to the aggressive policy against this country which Philip’s newly
reorganised fleet enabled him to adopt. What would have caused but
modified alarm to England a few years before, became much more terrible
now that Henry IV. had become a Catholic and was making peace with the
League. Elizabeth and her trusted advisers, therefore, kept Drake and
Hawkins at home, and with the exception of sending Frobisher and Norris
in the autumn of 1594 to oust the Spaniards from Brest harbour,[612]
stood on the defensive.
Essex, often in temporary disgrace with the Queen, headstrong and
inexperienced, was no match in diplomacy for Robert Cecil, fortified by
the experience and sagacity of his father; but he had enlisted in his
service some of the cleverest and most unscrupulous spies and agents to
aid him. Wherever the Queen had an ambassador, or the Cecils an agent,
Essex also had a man to represent his interest. Every envoy that came
from James Stuart or Henry IV. to ask for aid which the Cecils considered
it imprudent to give under the circumstances, was received by Essex
and his friends with open arms; and counter intrigues were carried on
through them against the policy of Lord Burghley. In Scotland, Holland,
and France, it was Essex who posed as the friend at the expense of the
Cecils.[613]
It had been to a considerable extent owing to the diplomacy of Antonio
Perez that Henry IV. had decided to come to terms with the League, in
order that the united forces of France might be opposed to the Spaniards.
It was now Perez’s secret mission from the French King, with the aid of
Essex, to exacerbate English feeling against Spain nationally, and to
pledge Elizabeth to help him against the common enemy, independently of
the question of religion. This would have been a distinct departure from
the traditional policy of England, which had usually been to stand aloof
whilst the two great rivals were fighting; and only the attachment of
the King of France to the Protestant cause had for a time altered this
policy. Elizabeth’s interests in France, now that Henry was a Catholic,
were limited to preventing the permanent establishment of the Spanish
power on the north coast opposite England, and to that end the Cecils
directed their efforts. This, however, did not satisfy Essex and the
war-party; and the persistent plots of the English Jesuits in Spain and
Flanders[614] added constant fuel to the flame, which Perez so artfully
fanned from Essex House.[615]
An opportunity occurred late in 1593 by which some of the instruments of
the Cecils might be discredited, and a fresh blow dealt at the policy
of cautious moderation. Many of the Portuguese gentlemen who surrounded
the pretender, Don Antonio, had for years sold themselves both to
Philip and to England—and played false to both. It has been seen that
Lord Burghley’s network of secret intelligence, under the management of
Phillips, was extremely extensive; and, amongst others, several of these
Portuguese were employed.[616] The most popular physician in London at
the time was Dr. Ruy Lopez, a Portuguese Jew, the Queen’s physician, who
was frequently employed by Burghley as an intermediary with the spies,
in order to avert suspicion from them. On several occasions suggestions
had been made to Philip by these spies of plans to kill the pretender,
and Lopez’s name had been mentioned to the Spanish Government as one who
would be willing to undertake the task of poisoning him.
In 1590 one Andrada had been discovered in an act of treachery against
Don Antonio, and arrested in England, and a letter of his to Mendoza had
been intercepted, in which he said that he had won over Lopez to the
cause of Spain. In another letter, not intercepted, he gave particulars
of a proposal of Lopez to bring about peace between England and Spain, if
a sum of money was paid to him. Through the influence of Lopez, however,
Andrada was liberated, and sent abroad as a spy in the interests of
England. Thenceforward for three years secret correspondence was known,
by Lord Burghley, to be passing between Spanish agents in Flanders and
Spain, and Dr. Lopez, through Andrada and others. The intermediaries
were all double spies and scoundrels who would have stuck at nothing,
and were so regarded by Lord Burghley; but Lopez was thought to be above
suspicion, and to be acting solely in English interests. He had, however,
made an enemy of Essex; and Perez artfully wheedled some admissions
from him that he was in communication with Spanish agents about some
great plan. In October 1593, Gama, one of the agents, was, at Essex’s
suggestion, arrested in Lopez’s house and searched. The letters found
upon him were enigmatical, but suspicious. Then another agent named
Tinoco, with similar communications and bills of exchange in his pocket
from Spanish ministers, was laid by the heels. Essex, prompted by
Perez, was indefatigable in the examination of the men. They lied and
prevaricated—for it is certain that they were paid by both sides; but
one of them mentioned Dr. Lopez as being interested in some compromising
papers found upon him, and suddenly on the 30th January the Queen’s
physician was arrested. He was immediately carried to Cecil House in the
Strand, and there examined by the Lord Treasurer, Sir Robert Cecil, and
Essex.[617]
His answers seemed satisfactory to the Cecils, whose agent Lopez was,
but did not please Essex. The Earl, however, was forestalled by Robert
Cecil, who posted off to Hampton Court and assured Elizabeth of the
physician’s innocence. Whilst he was assuring her that the only ground
for the accusation—which had now assumed the form of a plot to murder
the Queen—arose from the Earl’s hatred of Lopez, Essex was endeavouring
to strengthen the proofs against the accused. When the Earl appeared
at court the Queen burst out in a fury against him, called him a rash
and temerarious youth to bring this ruinous accusation of high treason
against her trusty servant from sheer malice, and told him that she
knew Lopez was innocent, and her honour was at stake in seeing justice
done. Gradually, however, the nets closed around the doctor. The Cecils
did as much as they dared in his favour, but the presumptive evidence
against him was too strong. The underlings competed with each other
in the fulness of their confessions against Lopez, in hope of favour
for themselves; and at length some sort of confession was said to have
been wrung from Lopez himself,[618] Robert Cecil, with horror, was
forced to admit his belief that he was guilty,[619] and Lopez and his
fellow-criminals were executed at Tyburn early in June.[620] This,
together with the simultaneous declaration of other Spanish Jesuit plots
against the Queen, and the activity of Perez’s venomous pen, aroused a
feeling of perfect fury against Philip and his country.
All eyes looked to Drake and the sailors again to punish Spain upon
the sea. Talk of great expeditions to America, to the Azores, to Spain
itself, ran from mouth to mouth. What had been done with impunity
before, might, said the Englishmen, be done again, even though the King
of France had become a Papist and was unworthy of English help. But
the Queen was in one of her timid moods, and the Cecils held the reins
tightly. Essex remained sulking or in disgrace for the greater part of
the summer, and, we learn from a letter from Sir Thomas Cecil to his
brother, only became ostensibly reconciled with the Lord Treasurer in
August.
Little of the routine business passed through Lord Burghley’s hands now,
thanks to the activity of his son, but we get a glance occasionally at
the aged minister from friends and foes who visited him. In the latter
category we may place the spy Standen, a place-hunter and double traitor,
who had fastened himself upon Essex, and yet was for ever pestering
Burghley for an appointment. Sometimes the Lord Treasurer pretended to
forget who he was, sometimes he gravely and politely expressed his regret
at his inability to help him; but on one occasion, at least, he let him
know that as he had joined Essex he must expect nothing from him. Standen
was hanging about Hampton Court in the spring, and when the Queen had
left, thinking the Lord Treasurer would be less busy than usual, “he
stepped into his Lordship’s bedchamber, and found him alone sitting by
the fire.” After some compliments, the place-hunter, for the hundredth
time, set forth his claims. Burghley replied as before, that Standen was
in England for a long time after his return from abroad without even
coming to salute him. Standen said he had been ill with ague; “but,”
said the minister, “you have been about the court all the winter and
must have had some good days. And,” he asked, “how is it I have not seen
the statement the Queen told you to draw up about Spain and to hand to
me?” Standen hemmed and ha’d, but at last had to confess that he had
given the statement to Essex for the Queen six months before. “Then my
Lord began to start in his chair, and to alter his voice and countenance
from a kind of crossing and wayward manner which he hath, into a tune
of choler,”[621] and told the spy that since he had begun with the
Earl of Essex he had better go on with him, and hoped him well of it.
Then angrily telling him some home-truths about his conduct, the Lord
Treasurer dismissed the spy; though for the rest of the great minister’s
life he was not free from his importunities.
It was not often that Lord Burghley thus exhibited anger, even to a man
like Standen. We seem to know the aged statesman better in the following
pathetic little word-picture contained in a letter from his faithful
secretary, Sir Michael Hicks, to Sir Robert Cecil[622] (27th September):
“My Lord called me to him this evening, and willed me to write to you
in mine own name, to signify to you that the Judge of the Admiralty
came hither to him a little before supper time, to let him understand
that he was not furnished with sufficient matter to meet the French
Ambassador, and required five or six days’ further respite … wherewith
he (Burghley) was well contented … for at the time of his coming to him
he found himself ill, and not fit to hear and deal in suits, and he doth
so continue. And truly, methinks, he is nothing sprighted, but lying on
his couch he museth or slumbereth. And being a little before supper at
the fire, I offered him some letters and other papers, but he was soon
weary of them, and told me he was unfit to hear suits. But I hope a good
night’s rest will make him better to-morrow.”[623]
But though the great statesman was nearing his end, his mind was as
keen as ever, and his influence was strong enough to prevent Essex from
dragging England into an offensive war with Spain for the benefit of
Henry IV. The Béarnais had still to cope with rebellion in various parts
of his realm, and the Spaniards had secured a firm footing in Picardy
and Brittany; his finances were in the utmost disorder, and against the
advice of Sully he declared a national war against Philip in January. He
had clamoured and cajoled in vain for more aid from Elizabeth, and in his
pressing need had appealed with more success to the Hollanders.
This was the last straw. All the old distrust of the Burghley school
against the French revived. The Queen was furious that these ingrate
Dutchmen, whom she alone had rescued from the Spanish tyranny, should now
curry favour with France. They owed her vast sums of money and eternal
gratitude, they had offered her the sovereignty of their States, and yet
instead of paying their debts and releasing some of her forces occupied
in their service, they must needs seek fresh friends. If possible she was
more indignant still with Henry; for, as we have seen, one of the two
pivots upon which English policy turned was to exclude French influence
in the Low Countries. Thomas Bodley was sent back to the States with
reproaches for their ingratitude, and a peremptory demand that they
should pay her what they owed her. Before he left England, however, he
also was gained by Essex, and notwithstanding Burghley’s and the Queen’s
strict instructions, was far more careful to provide excuses for the
States than to press them.[624] Henry IV., too, never ceased to declare
that unless much more English help was sent to him, the north of France
would slip from his grasp whilst he was busy in the south; and in the
autumn, point was given to his warning by the treacherous surrender of
Cambray to the Spaniards. This was a direct danger to England, and Henry
made the most of it by sending a special envoy to demand fresh English
aid. But still Burghley was against violent measures, for a great Spanish
fleet was being fitted out in Galicia, and Tyrone’s rebellion in Ireland
was being actively promoted by Philip. Defence, as usual, was the first
thought of the Lord Treasurer; and disabled as he was, he drew up in
the autumn a complete scheme for the protection of the country against
invasion.[625]
But though Elizabeth would not commence offensive warfare against Spain,
she was induced to listen at last to Drake’s oft-rejected prayer for
permission to raise a powerful privateer squadron to capture prizes
and raid Panama. This was what people wanted. Drake’s name had not
lost its magic, and volunteers joined in thousands, eager for fighting
and loot under the great admiral. The ports of Spain and Portugal were
panic-stricken at the mere prospect of a visit, and if the fleet had
sailed promptly in the spring, Philip might have been crippled again. But
the Queen and Burghley were still apprehensive, and loath to let Drake
sail too far away. Suddenly on 23rd July four Spanish pinnaces landed
600 soldiers on the Cornish coast, and without resistance they ravaged
and burnt the country round Penzance. It was a mere predatory raid from
the Brittany coast; but it seemed to justify all Elizabeth’s fears, and,
to Drake’s despair, she forbade him to go direct to Panama. He was,
she said, to cruise about the Channel and Ireland for a month, then to
intercept any fleet from Spain that might threaten, and finally to lay in
wait for the Spanish treasure flotilla before he crossed the Atlantic.
The orders doubtless originated from Howard, who was as cautious as
Burghley himself; but Drake and his officers flatly refused to obey them.
They had, they said, on the Queen’s commission fitted out at vast expense
a private fleet for a certain purpose, and it was utterly inappropriate
to the service now demanded of it. The Queen was angry, and, as usual,
called upon Burghley to refute the strategical arguments of the sailors,
which he did in a learned minute. But it was never sent, for Drake was
obviously in the right, and the Queen was obliged to give way. She made
Drake pledge his honour to be back in England again in the following
May to fight the new Armada, and, on the 28th August, Drake and Hawkins
sailed out of Plymouth to failure and death.
All through the year, with but short intervals of comparative ease, Lord
Burghley remained ill, but manfully determined to perform his duty. His
letters to his son, written, of course, with greater freedom than to
others, disclose more of his private feelings than we have been able
to see at any earlier period of his career. Both in these letters and
those of his secretaries the note touched is intense devotion to the
public service at any cost to his own repose. Maynard writes to Sir
Robert Cecil (23rd December 1594) that the sharp weather had increased
the Lord Treasurer’s pain. “But for your coming hither his Lordship
says you shall not need, although you shall hear his amendment is grown
backward.” A few months later at Theobalds, Clapham sends to Sir Robert
very unfavourable news of the invalid, and in the following month of
May we find him confined to his bed at Cecil House in London, suffering
greatly, and fretting at his inability to go to court. In the autumn he
tells his son that he is obliged to sign his letters with a stamp, “for
want of a right hand”; but even then he concludes his letter thus—“And
if by your speech with her Majesty she will not mislike to have so bold
a person to lodge in her house, I will come as I am (in body not half a
man, but in mind passable) to the muster of the rest of my good Lords,
her Majesty’s Councillors, my good friends.… Upon your answer I will make
no unnecessary delay, by God’s permission.”[626] In the midst of his
pain his letters are full of directions upon State matters. In a letter
to Cecil in October, urging the Queen to send prompt reinforcements to
Ireland, which apparently she was inclined to neglect, he says, “My
aching pains so increase that I am all night sleepless, though not idle
in mind.”[627]
That the Lord Treasurer’s bodily weakness and overpowering
political influence were recognised elsewhere than in England as a
powerful factor in the international situation, is evident from the
correspondence—amongst many others—of the Venetian Ambassador in France.
Henry had gone north, and was besieging La Fère, in Picardy, in the
late autumn, after the fall of Cambray, and had sent his agent Lomenie
to England to support the efforts of Essex in his favour. But the Earl
was in semi-disgrace, and the French agent went back with but small
promises of aid. Henry was about to send a stronger envoy, Sancy, but
Essex told him it would be useless, and the clever Béarnais, knowing
best how to arouse Elizabeth’s jealousy, despatched Sancy to Holland.
Thereupon the Venetian Ambassador writes to the Doge: “If Sancy went to
England just now he would not find the Queen well disposed towards the
policy of his Majesty (Henry IV.), not only on the grounds I have so
often explained, but also because she does not approve of the conduct of
the French ministers. The chief reason, however, is that there reigns a
division in the councils of the Queen, and her two principal ministers
are secretly in disaccord. One of these ministers, the Lord Treasurer, is
very ill-disposed towards the crown of France, and uses all his influence
to prevent the Queen from taking an active part in this direction. There
is a strong suspicion that he has been bought by Spanish gold. The other
nobleman, a prime favourite with the Queen, is of the contrary opinion,
urging that every effort should be made to quench the fire in one’s
neighbour’s house to prevent one’s own from being burnt. The Queen is in
the greatest perplexity. The Lord Treasurer, in addition to his other
arguments, urges the plea of economy, to which women are naturally more
inclined than men. All the same, no efforts are being spared to dispose
her mind, so that should Sancy go to England he may easily obtain all he
asks for.”[628]
When it became evident that Henry was again appealing to the States,
Elizabeth was forced to make a counter-move, and decided to send Sir
Henry Unton to offer further English help, if certain French towns,
especially Calais, were placed in her hands as security. It was clear
that Henry neither could nor would agree to such terms, and probably
the Queen and Burghley were quite aware of the fact; but upon Unton’s
embassy Essex founded a regular conspiracy for the purpose of outwitting
the Cecils and dragging England into war. Antonio Perez had already been
sent back to France in July 1595, self-pitying and lachrymose at leaving
the luxury of Essex House to follow a camp; but to be received in France
almost with royal consideration, and to be welcomed once more as the
bosom friend of the King. He betrayed everybody; but his real mission was
to send alarming news to Essex as to Henry’s intentions, in order that
Elizabeth might be frightened into an alliance with him to prevent his
joining her enemies against her. Perez thought more of his own discomfort
than of his English patron’s policy, and had to be brought to book more
than once. The Earl sent Sir Roger Williams to upbraid him for not making
matters more lively. “I am doing,” says the Earl, “what I can to push on
war in England; but you! you! Antonio, what are you doing on that side?”
But when Unton went on his mission early in January 1596, a stronger ally
than Perez was gained. He was entirely in Essex’s interests, and received
secret instructions from the Earl.[629] Perez and Unton were to work
together, of course without the knowledge of Sir Thomas Edmonds, the
regular Ambassador, who was a “Cecil man.” Henry IV. was to be prompted
to feign anger and indignation with England, and threaten to make friends
with Spain. “He must so use the matter as Unton may send us thundering
letters, whereby he must drive us to propound and to offer.” Perez, too,
was to keep the game alive by assuring Essex that a treaty was on foot
between France and Spain, and to reproach Essex for allowing Unton to be
sent on such an errand as would mortally offend the King.
But the Cecils were too clever for Essex and Perez combined. One of
Perez’s secretaries played him false, for which he was afterwards
imprisoned in the Clink by Essex; and it is probable that the threads of
the intrigue, all through, were in the hands of Burghley. In any case,
there was no great change in Elizabeth’s policy,[630] and Unton himself
died in France before his mission was complete (23rd March 1596). Only a
few days afterwards news reached London that the Spaniards were marching
on Calais. This, at all events, was calculated to arouse Elizabeth to
action; and on Easter Sunday 1596 all the church doors in London were
suddenly closed during service, and there and then a number of the
men-worshippers pressed for service. They were hurriedly armed and on the
same night marched to Dover for embarkation under Essex. No sooner were
the men on board and ready to sail than a counter order came from London.
Essex was frantic, and wrote rash and foolish letters to the Queen and
the Lord Admiral. He writes to Sir Robert Cecil on the same day: “O! pray
get the order altered. I have written to the Queen in a passion. Pray
plead for me, that I may not be disgraced by any one else commanding
the succour whilst I have done the work. Pray do not show the Queen my
letter to the Admiral; it is too passionate.”[631] Almost in sight of
Essex, the day after this was written (14th), the citadel of Calais fell
into the hands of the Spaniards, and Elizabeth found she had overreached
herself.[632] When Unton had asked for Calais as the price of her help,
the Béarnais had said, with his usual oath, that he would see it in the
hands of the Spaniards first; and for once he had told the truth.
The blow to Elizabeth’s policy was undoubtedly a severe one, and a
counter-stroke had to be delivered. The old project which on several
occasions had been submitted by Howard to the Council for an attack upon
the shipping in Cadiz harbour, was revived. Essex was all aflame in the
business from the first; but the Queen changed her mind from day to day.
“The Queen,” wrote Reynolds in May,[633] “is daily changing her humour
about my Lord’s voyage, and was yesterday almost resolute to stay it,
using very hard words of my Lord’s wilfulness.” Lord Burghley appears
to have been very ill at the time of the preparations;[634] but he was
sufficiently well to secure the appointment of the aged Lord Admiral to
the joint command of the fleet, to the discontent, and almost despair, of
Essex; and to pen an order from the Queen strictly limiting the objects
of the expedition to the destruction of the Spanish ships manifestly
intended for the invasion of England. The great fleet of 96 sail, with
a contingent of 24 sail of Hollanders, left Plymouth on the 5th June,
and on the 20th appeared before the astounded eyes of the citizens of
Cadiz. The divided command, and the small experience of actual fighting
at sea of Howard and Essex, was nearly bringing about a disaster to the
English; but at a critical moment Ralegh’s advice was taken. The fleet
sailed boldly into the harbour, and destroyed the shipping first, and
then captured and sacked the city.
It was the greatest blow that had ever been dealt to the power of Spain;
and it proved that Philip’s system was rotten, and that the Spanish
pretensions were incapable of being sustained by force of arms. When
Essex came back he found that Sir Robert Cecil had been appointed
Secretary of State (July) in his absence.[635] The Queen was fractious,
and offended that her orders had been exceeded, and above all, that she
had not received so much booty as she expected; and for a time Essex
was kept at arm’s length. But now that Cecil had obtained the coveted
post of Secretary, he wisely endeavoured to make friends with Essex, who
had so bitterly opposed him;[636] and, greatly to the Queen’s delight,
a new appearance of cordiality between them was the result. Sir Robert
even brought Ralegh into the circle of grace. He had been for five years
under the Queen’s frown, but Cadiz had made him friendly with Essex,
and now Cecil and Essex together brought about a reconciliation with
the Queen. On the 2nd June 1597 Ralegh once more knelt before his royal
mistress, and donned his long-neglected silver armour as captain of the
guard.
The sacking of Cadiz had irretrievably ruined Philip’s prestige; but
it had not deprived him of all material resources, heavy and ceaseless
as had been the drain upon his treasury for the war in France. The
Irish chiefs left him no peace from their importunities, and assured
him again and again that with the aid of a few men the island might be
his, and Elizabeth and the heretics at his mercy. Promises, sums of
money, and slight succour were sent from time to time; but the insult of
Cadiz and the exhortations of the Church, at length prevailed upon the
King to attempt one great effort in Ireland to crush his enemy before
swift approaching death struck him down. We understand now that such a
system as his foredoomed to failure any attempt to organise promptly an
efficient naval armament; for penury, peculation, delay, and ineptitude
were the natural result of the minutest details being jealously retained
in the hands of an overworked hermit hundreds of miles away from the
centre of activity. But in England the news of his intentions caused far
greater apprehension than we now know that they deserved; and Essex was
again all eagerness to take out another fleet, and repeat elsewhere the
_coup_ of Cadiz.
This time he found no obstacles raised by the Cecils. In a biography of
Lord Burghley, it is not necessary to probe the vexed question of the
sincerity of Sir Robert Cecil’s reconciliation with Essex. Most inquirers
of late years have assumed, with some show of justification, that it
was from the first a deep-laid plot of Cecil, perhaps with Ralegh’s
co-operation, to ruin the Earl, as in its results it certainly did. But
without admitting this, or at least implicating Burghley himself in such
a plan,[637] it may fairly be assumed that when Cecil saw how smoothly
things went for him, and how soon he obtained the Secretaryship when
Essex was absent, he may have welcomed any opportunity of again getting
rid of so turbulent and quarrelsome a colleague.[638] The earl’s pride
and jealousy had also taken from him much of the Queen’s regard, and she
was determined to humble or to break him. The first project had been to
raise a small expedition under Ralegh and Lord Thomas Howard to intercept
the Spanish treasure fleets; but when it became known that the Adelantado
of Castile was making ready a fleet of 100 ships and a powerful army in
the Galician ports, Essex proposed a great enlargement of the plan. He
was authorised to raise a force of 120 ships, the Dutchmen were induced
to send a strong contingent, and with infinite labour Essex and Ralegh
induced the Queen to consent to their plan for burning the Spanish fleet,
in port or wherever they could find it, and then to intercept and capture
the homeward-bound flotillas from the East and West Indies.
Lord Burghley’s attitude is seen by a cordial letter he wrote to Essex
early in May (State Papers, Domestic). “I thank you,” he says, “for not
reproving my objections for the resolutions for conference. I hope to
see you at Court to-morrow, if God by over-great pains do not countermand
me. _I like so well to attempt something against our Spanish enemy that I
hope God will prosper the purpose._”
The fleets gathered in Plymouth Sound early in July, and sailed in three
fine squadrons under Essex, Thomas Howard, and Ralegh respectively.[639]
On the day he sailed unsuspecting Essex in the fulness of his heart wrote
a fervent letter of thanks to Cecil.[640] He would, he said, never forget
his kindness whilst he lived; “and if I live to return, I will make you
think your friendship well professed.” Unfortunately he returned sooner
than he expected, for the fleets were caught in a storm and driven back
with much suffering and danger. Famine and sickness broke out, and for a
whole month the fleets were wind-bound in the Channel, whilst the Queen
began to waver about allowing her ships and men to be exposed again so
late in the season. Once more the aged Lord Treasurer wrote to Essex on
his return (July 23), “It is not right that I should condole with you
for your late torment at sea, for I am sure that would but increase your
sorrow, and be no relief to me. I am but as a monoculus, by reason of
a flux falling into my left eye; and you see the impediment by my evil
writing and short letter.… In the time of this disaster I did by common
usage of my morning prayer on the 23rd of every month, in the 107th
Psalm, read these nine verses proper for you to repeat, and especially
six of them, which I send to you. This letter savours more of divinity.
As for humanity, I refer you to the joint-letter from the Lord Admiral,
myself, and my son.”[641]
Essex and Ralegh posted to London early in August and prayed the Queen
to let them resume their voyage. “Only,” said Essex, “allow me to take
half the ships and to do as I please where I like, and I will perform
a worthy service.” But the Queen would not hear of such a thing, nor
should they with her permission enter any Spanish port at all. At last,
as a compromise, she consented to Ralegh’s sending a few fire-ships
into Ferrol, on condition that Essex was to keep quite away from the
enterprise; and to be sure she should be obeyed, she insisted upon the
soldiers being left at home. At length, on the 17th August, the truncated
expedition again sailed. Disaster, jealousy and division dogged it from
the first. Another great storm drove the squadrons asunder. The winds
prevented them from approaching Ferrol. Ralegh, under a misunderstanding,
attacked Fayal, in the Azores, in the absence of Essex, and the
sycophants around the Earl bred evil blood between them. The main body
of the flotillas from the Indies escaped them; and eventually Essex,
with his ships battered and disabled, crept into Plymouth at the end
of October, bringing with them hardly sufficient plunder to pay their
expenses. Fortunately in their absence the Spanish fleet for the invasion
of Ireland had also been driven back and practically destroyed by a
storm, and all present danger from that quarter had disappeared.
Essex found that in his absence the Lord Admiral had been made Earl of
Nottingham, which, in conjunction with his office, gave him precedence,
and that Secretary Cecil had been made Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster. The Earl was furious, and sulked at Wanstead instead of going
to court; but the old Lord Treasurer was once more amiability itself—as
well he might be, for his son was winning all along the line. On the 9th
November he wrote to the Earl, “My writing manifests my sickness. Some of
your friends say that the cause of your absence is sickness, so I send my
servant to ascertain your health. I wish I could remedy any other cause
of your absence; but writing will do no good. It requires another manner
of remedy, in which you may command my service.”[642] And again, ten days
later, “I hoped you would have come to court for the fortieth anniversary
of her Majesty’s coronation. I hear, to my sorrow, that you have been
really sick, but hope you will soon be back at court, where you shall
find a harvest of business, needful for many heads, wits, and hands.”[643]
Although the young Earl obstinately absented himself from court, he
seems to have sent a letter of thanks and friendship to Lord Burghley;
for the latter on the 30th November writes expressing his joy at the
Earl’s contentment, but chiding him for his continued absence, which he
says is exposing him to “diversity of censures.” “I find,” he says, “her
Majesty sharp to such as advise her to that which it were meet for her
to do, and for you to receive. My good Lord, overcome her with yielding
without disparagement of your honour, and plead your own cause with your
presence; whereto I will be as serviceable as any friend you have, to
my power—which is not to run, for lack of good feet, nor to fight, for
lack of good hands, but ready with my heart to command my tongue to do
you due honour.”[644] At length, probably at the suggestion of Burghley,
the angry Queen made Essex Earl-Marshal, which gave him precedence over
Howard, and he came back to court sulky and quarrelsome, galled that
cooler heads and keener wits than his could work their will in spite of
him.
In the meanwhile the war between France and Spain was wearing itself out.
Since the conversion of Henry IV. matters were gradually working back
into their natural groove of nationalities instead of faiths. Philip
was bankrupt in purse, broken in spirit, and already on the brink of
the grave; but the awful sacrifices his ruined country had made had at
least prevented France from becoming a Protestant country. He was leaving
Flanders to his beloved daughter Isabel, and wished to bequeath to her
peace as well. By Henry’s treaty with England and the United Provinces
two years before he had bound himself to make common cause with them
against the King of Spain; but the main cause of his own quarrel with
Spain had nearly disappeared, for the Leaguers were now mostly on his
side, and for a year past the Pope (Clement VIII.) had been busy trying
to bring about a reconciliation between the two great Catholic powers.
The pontiff assured Henry that he was not bound to keep faith with
heretics, and might break the treaty with Elizabeth and Holland. “I
have,” replied the Béarnais, “pledged my faith to the Queen of England
and the United Provinces. How could I treat to their detriment, or even
fail in a single point, without betraying my duty, my honour, and my own
interests? No pretext would excuse such baseness and perfidy, and if it
could, sooner than avail myself of it I would lose my life.”
But when, in the autumn of 1597, the Spaniards were finally routed
at Amiens, it was evident that Spain could fight no longer, and that
the moment for peace had come. The Archduke, who was to marry the new
sovereign of Flanders, was especially anxious for peace before the
Spanish King died, and at his instance advances to Henry were made.
This was the last great international question in which Burghley was
personally interested, and by a curious coincidence it brought once
more to the front the traditional English policy, of which he was the
representative; a policy which had for many years past been broken and
interrupted by the religious position on the Continent. The growing power
and ambition of the Dutch United Provinces, and their aid sent to Henry
IV. against Spain, together with Henry’s conversion to Catholicism, had
once more aroused the fear of England that by an arrangement between them
the French might dominate Spanish Flanders. The project of making the
Infanta and her husband practically independent sovereigns of the Belgic
provinces was therefore eminently favourable to English interests, and
drew England once more irresistibly to the side of Spain, as against the
Dutchmen and Henry IV.; for the possession of Flanders by the French (or
now even by the strong pushing young Republic under French influence) was
one of the two eventualities against which for centuries the traditional
policy of England had been directed. Coincident, therefore, with Henry’s
negotiations, secret approaches were made by England to the Archduke, and
once more, after a half-century of fighting, England was smiling as of
old on a “Duke of Burgundy,” as against a French King.[645]
In November Henry sent envoys to the States and to England to demand
further aid, but with the alternative of a peace conference. The Dutchmen
thought they had been betrayed, and indignantly said so; refusing
absolutely to make peace with ruined, defeated Spain, except on their
own terms, and in their own time. Elizabeth had far greater reason
than they for indignation with her ally, and had to be approached more
gently and with greater diplomacy. De Maisse, Henry’s envoy, arrived in
London on the 2nd, and was received by the Queen on the 8th December. He
found the Cecils absolute masters of the Council; for all of Burghley’s
predictions of the falsity of Frenchmen had come true, and his objection
to the treaty of alliance (May 1596) had been more than justified. Essex,
only just returned to court from his sulky fit at Wanstead, took in
earnest Henry’s demands for reinforcements against Spain, and was all
for fighting again, whilst Burghley of course understood them to be only
a mask for the peace suggestion. The Queen and Burghley were determined
to assume indignation and grievance in order that, in the coming peace,
they might get the best possible terms for England; indignant, however,
as they might pretend to be, there was nothing they desired more than
a pacification that should open all ports to English trade and leave
Flanders in the hands of a modest, moderate sovereign under the guarantee
of Spain. But withal it behoved them to walk warily, for Spain had
outwitted them in the peace negotiations of 1588, and Protestant Holland
could not be abandoned.
On the 8th December De Maisse was received in State by Elizabeth at
Whitehall,[646] whither Lord Burghley was brought in a litter, but Essex
was still absent. The Queen was enigmatical but polite, and referred
the envoy to Lord Burghley, with whom he conferred on the 10th, when it
became evident that the object of the English was to gain time whilst
other negotiations were proceeding. The Queen exerted all her wiles and
ancient coquetry on De Maisse to delay matters, and not without success;
whilst she inflamed Caron, the envoy of the Dutch States, with hints of
Henry’s desertion and perfidy, in order to embitter French relations with
them.
At length Henry IV. got tired of this buckler play, and De Maisse plainly
told Elizabeth that the King considered that her delay in giving him
a definite answer released him from his pledges under the treaty of
alliance. Again he was referred to Burghley, whom he saw again early in
January. The Queen could not treat with the Archduke, said the Treasurer.
If her envoys were to attend a peace conference, it could only be with
the representatives of the King of Spain; besides, he said, the Queen
must settle with States before she entered into any negotiations at all.
It was well known to Henry and his minister at this time that brisk
secret negotiations were being conducted between Elizabeth and the
Archduke; and in a final interview with Burghley on 10th January, De
Maisse gave him an ultimatum. His master must make peace or be supported
in war. Essex was present at the interview; and although the Lord
Treasurer invited him to speak he remained obstinately silent, except to
say that he did not see how religious dissensions would allow of peace
being made with Spain.
At length Burghley announced that the Queen would send an embassy to
France to settle with Henry the whole question of peace or war, in
conjunction with an embassy from the States. The embassy consisted of Sir
Robert Cecil, Sir Thomas Wilkes, and Dr. Herbert; and the instructions
taken by them are contained in the last of the important State papers
written by the failing hand of the great statesman. The document is a
long and sagacious one, laying down as an absolute condition of any peace
with Spain that the United Provinces should be secured from all fear of
future attempts to subdue them. An earnest desire for peace breathes all
through the document, but it must be a real peace, which acknowledged
accomplished facts, abandoned inflated claims, and recognised the rights
of Protestantism to equal treatment.
Cecil and his companions embarked from Dover on the 17th February,
and on the death of Wilkes in Rouen, the whole burden of the embassy
fell upon the Secretary. It was not until they reached Angers on the
21st that Cecil saw the King. In effect the Béarnais had already made
peace secretly with the Archduke; the States were determined that they
would give up no tittle of their hard-won independence, and haughtily
refused even a truce if their rights were not recognised. England dared
not abandon them, so that Cecil on his interview with Henry could only
reproach him for his desertion of the ally to whom he owed so much. Henry
replied that his position was such that he could not do otherwise. “I
am,” he said, “like a man clothed in velvet that hath no meat to put in
his mouth.”[647]
On the 28th March Cecil received a letter from his father dated the
1st, which caused him deep alarm. “The bearer,” it said, “will report
to you my great weakness. But do not take any conceit thereby to hinder
your service; but I must send you a message delivered to me in writing
by Mr. Windebanke. I make no comment, not knowing out of what shop the
text is come, but in my opinion _non sunt ponendi rumores ante salutem_.
God bless you in earth and me in heaven, the place of my present
pilgrimage.”[648] Cecil unwillingly followed Henry to Nantes on his
hollow errand; but this letter disturbed him, and at the earliest moment
he took leave of France and returned, although on the way somewhat better
news reached him. “Mr. Secretary returned the 1st of the month” (May),
says Chamberlain, “somewhat crazed with his posting journey, the report
of his father’s dangerous state gave him wings; but for aught I can learn
the old man’s case is not so desperate but he may hold out another year
well enough.”[649]
Before Cecil had left on his mission, greatly against his inclination,
he had received a promise from Essex that during his absence he would
not cause any alteration to be made either in policy or court affairs.
The Earl had been as good as his word, and for a few days after Cecil’s
return they were friendly; but when the Peace of Vervins was actually
signed between Henry and Philip the old feud between the policies of
peace and war broke out again. This was one of those junctures when
France and Spain being friendly, it had always been the Burghley policy
to draw closer to the latter power, whilst at the same time fortifying
those who were opposing her; and this was the course adopted by the
Cecils on the present occasion. Francis Vere was sent to Holland with
promises and encouragement for the States to stand firm; whilst the
Archduke in Flanders was secretly informed that the Queen desired peace,
and would enter into negotiations if she were assured that her desires
were reciprocated. This policy soon alienated Essex and the war-party,
and after one stormy interview on the subject with the dying Lord
Treasurer, the latter handed to the Earl a book of Psalms and silently
pointed with his finger to the line, “Bloodthirsty men shall not live
out half their days;” a last prophecy which the Earl’s pride and folly
hastened to fulfil.[650]
All the summer the aged minister lingered sick unto death in his palace
in the Strand, sometimes taking the air in a coach or litter, and on two
occasions going as far as Theobalds. During the time his great yearning
was to bring about a peace before he died between his mistress and
the old enemy, who, in the bitterness of defeat, was dying too in the
frowning mountains of the Guadarrama far away. For forty years these two
men had striven as none ever strove before to maintain peace between
England and Spain; and their efforts had been unavailing, for religious
differences had for a time obliterated national lines of policy. But
Burghley had had the supreme wisdom of bending before superior force
and adapting his varying means to his unvarying objects. England thus
had gained, whilst Philip, buoyed up with the fatuous belief in his
divine power and inspiration, scorning to give way to considerations
of expediency, had been ruined by war and had failed in most of his
aims. And yet through the welter of wrong and slaughter, Providence had
decreed that the objects that both men aimed at should not be utterly
defeated. The alliance between the countries was needed both by Spain
and England in order that Flanders should not fall into the hands of the
French, and this at least had been attained. By England it was required
to counterbalance a possible French domination of Scotland, and this had
ceased to be a danger. On the side of Philip had been gained the point
that France was still a Catholic country; whilst to England it was to be
credited that Protestantism was now a great force which demanded equality
with the older form of belief, and, above all, that England was no longer
in the leading strings of France or Spain, but had, in the forty years of
dexterous balance under Elizabeth and Burghley, attained full maturity
and independence, with the consciousness of coming imperial greatness.
To say that this was all owing to the management of the Queen and her
minister would be untrue. Circumstances and the faults and shortcomings
of their rivals—nay, their own shortcomings and weaknesses as well—aided
them powerfully to attain the brilliant success that attended them; but
it may safely be asserted that without a man of Burghley’s peculiar gifts
at her side Elizabeth would at an early period of her reign have lost the
nice balance upon which her safety alone depended.
It was curious that the last hours of Burghley should have been occupied
in striving still to bring about peace with Spain, which had been his
object through life, though he had attained for England already most of
the political advantages which a peace with Spain might bring; but old
prejudices against France were still as strong as they had been in his
youth, for, as he had truly foretold, the Béarnais had played them false,
and thenceforward no Frenchman should ever be trusted again. Spain, in
any case, would keep the false Frenchmen out of Flanders; so Spain was
England’s friend.
For twelve days the Lord Treasurer lay in his bed at Cecil House
before he died, suffering but slightly, and resigned, almost eager
for his coming release. On the evening of the 3rd August he fell into
convulsions, and when the fit had passed, “Now,” quoth he, “the Lord be
praised, the time is come;” and calling his children, he blessed them
and took his leave, commanding them “to love and fear God, and love one
another.”[651] Then he prayed for the Queen, handed his will to his
steward Bellot, turned his face to the wall, and died in the early hours
of the next morning; decorous, self-controlled, and dignified to the last.
His death, though long expected, was a blow which the aged Queen felt for
the rest of her life. She wept, and withdrew herself from all company,
we are told, when she was informed of her loss;[652] and two years
afterwards Robert Sidney, writing to Sir John Harrington, says, “I do see
the Queen often; she doth wax weak since last troubles, and Burghley’s
death doth often draw tears from her goodly cheeks.”
Even Essex, who had wrought so much against him, felt the loss the
country had sustained. At the splendid funeral in Westminster Abbey[653]
on the 29th August, we are told by an eye-witness that “my Lord of
Essex to my judgment did more than ceremoniously show sorrow”;[654] and
Chamberlain, writing on the next day, says, “The Lord Treasurer’s funeral
was performed yesterday with all the rites that belonged to so great a
personage. The number of mourners were above 500, whereof there were many
noblemen, and among the rest the Earl of Essex, who (whether it were
upon consideration of the present occasion or for his own disfavours),
methought, carried the heaviest countenance of the company.”[655]
Throughout Europe the death of the Lord Treasurer was looked upon as a
loss to the cause of peace. Essex, it was thought, would now hold sway
and launch England upon a policy of warlike adventure. But Essex was
himself hurrying to his doom; and Robert Cecil held firmly in his hand
the strings of his great father’s policy—a policy which was on the death
of the Queen to bring a Scottish king to the English throne, and unite
England and Spain again in a friendly alliance. The baseness and trickery
that accompanied the reunion of the countries belong to the history of
the reign of James, and formed no part of the plan of Lord Burghley or
his mistress. There was no truckling in their relations with foreign
nations, however powerful they might be, and the servile meanness of the
Stuarts in carrying out Lord Burghley’s traditions must be ascribed to
their degeneracy rather than to the policy itself.
Of Lord Burghley’s place amongst great statesmen it may be sufficient
to say that his gifts and qualities were exactly what were needed by
the circumstances of his times. He was called upon to rule in a time of
radical change, when vehement partisans on one side and the other were
fiercely struggling for the mastery of their opinions. It is precisely
in such times as these that the moderate, tactful, cautious man must in
the end be called upon to decide between the extremes, and to prevent
catastrophe by steering a middle course. This throughout his life was the
function of William Cecil. His gifts were not of the highest, for he was
not a constructive statesman or a pioneer of great causes. He often stood
by and saw injustice done by extreme men on one or the other side rather
than lose his influence by appearing to favour the opposite extreme;
and, as we have seen in his own words, he was quite ready to carry out
as a minister a policy of which as a Councillor he had expressed his
disapproval. This may not have been high-minded statesmanship, but at
least it enabled him to keep his hand upon the helm, and sooner or later
to bring the ship of State back to his course again. He was a man whose
objects and ideals were much higher than his methods, because the latter
belonged to his own age, whereas the former were based upon broad truths
and great principles, which are eternal. But it may safely be asserted
that the rectitude of his mind and his great sense of personal dignity
would prevent him from adopting any course for which warrant could not
be found, either in the law of the land or what he would regard as
overpowering national expediency. The first cause he served was that of
the State; the second was William Cecil and his house. Through a long
life of ceaseless toil and rigid self-control these were the mainsprings
of his activity and devotion. If he was austere in a frivolous court, if
bribes failed to buy him in an age of universal corruption, if he was
cool and judicious amidst general vehemence, it was because the qualities
of his mind and his strict self-schooling enabled him to understand that
his country might thus be most effectively served, and that it would be
unworthy of William Cecil to act otherwise. The gifts which made him a
great minister at a period when moderation was the highest statesmanship,
would have made him a great judge at any period, and it is in its
judicial aspect that the finest qualities of his mind are discovered.
It was to the keen casuist who weighed to a scruple every element of a
question and saw it on every side; it was to the calm, imperturbable
judge, that from the first hour of her reign Elizabeth looked to save her
against herself; and whatever may be said of Cecil’s statesmanship in
its personal aspect, it had the supreme merit of having kept the great
Queen upon the straight path up which she led England from weakness,
distraction, and dependence, to unity and strength.
FOOTNOTES
[1] “Sadler State Papers,” vol. i. p. 375.
[2] _Memoires sur les affaires d’Angleterre MS._ Bibliothèque Nationale.
Colbert, 35.
[3] Naunton, in _Fragmenta Regalia_, says that he was personally
acquainted with the senior branch of Cecil’s family in Herefordshire,
which was of no mean antiquity: but he speaks of David Cecil, the
statesman’s grandfather, as “being exposed, and sent to the city, as
poor gentlemen used to do their sons, became to be a rich man on London
Bridge, and purchased (an estate) in Lincolnshire, where this man (_i.e._
Sir William) was born.” Cecil’s enemies in his lifetime, especially
Father Persons, spoke of David Cecil as having been an innkeeper at
Stamford; but this is very improbable, though he may well have owned inns
in the town, of which he was an alderman.
[4] The date of his death in the “journal” at Hatfield is given as 1536,
and Collins states it to have happened in 1541, his will being proved in
that year.
[5] Peck, _Desiderata Curiosa_.
[6] “Courtships of Queen Elizabeth.”
[7] That Cecil’s father was much displeased at his marriage is seen by a
letter from Alford, his steward, at Burghley, after the death of Richard
Cecil. Mrs. Cecil, the widow (to whom Burghley belonged), appears to
have been an extremely self-willed old lady, and refused to exhibit her
husband’s will to her son’s agents. In conversation with one of them, she
said she knew that her husband had made a will (besides the one in her
possession) touching his goods, when he went to Boulogne (_i.e._ 1544).
Alford says: “Thinking this might have been about the time he conceived
displeasure against you for your first marriage, I rode off immediately
to the attorney who, according to Mrs. Cecil, held it, in order, if
possible, to learn the contents of the will in your (Cecil’s) interests”
(Alford to Cecil, 9th April 1553; Hatfield Papers).
[8] Perpetual Calendar MS., Hatfield.
[9] _Desiderata Curiosa._ This is confirmed by a letter at Hatfield from
Griffin, the Queen’s attorney (27th April 1557), saying, “I am sorry
that you never were of Gray’s Inne nor can skill of no lawe,” by which
it is clear that Cecil was never called to the bar, and probably never
seriously studied law.
[10] _Ibid._
[11] Roger Ascham, writing to Sturmius (August 1550), says: “But there
are two English ladies whom I cannot omit to mention.… One is Jane Grey …
the other Mildred Cooke, who understands and speaks Greek like English,
so that it may be doubted whether she is most happy in the possession
of this surpassing degree of knowledge, or in having for her preceptor
and father Sir Anthony Cooke, whose singular erudition caused him to be
joined with John Cheke in the office of tutor to the King; or finally,
in having become the wife of William Cecil, lately appointed Secretary
of State: a young man, indeed, but mature in wisdom, and so deeply
skilled, both in letters and affairs, and endued with such moderation
in the exercise of public offices, that to him would be awarded, by
the consenting voice of Englishmen, the fourfold praise attributed to
Pericles by his rival Thucydides: ‘To know all that is fitting, to be
able to apply what he knows, to be a lover of his country, and superior
to money.’”
[12] _Desiderata Curiosa_, and Camden.
[13] State Papers, Dom., 1547-80.
[14] _Ibid._, and Tytler.
[15] December 1547, Lansdowne MSS., 2, 16.
[16] _Diarium Expeditionis Scoticæ._
[17] _Desiderata Curiosa._
[18] This is the assertion made by Nares, but it is very questionably
correct, as a letter dated 1st July 1548 from Sir Thomas Smith in
Brussels (State Papers, Foreign) is addressed to Mr. Cecil, Master of
Requests to the Lord Protector’s Grace, and a similar letter from Fisher
at Stamford on the 27th July 1548 bears the same superscripture (State
Papers, Dom.).
[19] Harl. MSS., 284.
[20] State Papers, Dom.
[21] State Papers, Dom., and also in Tytler.
[22] State Papers, Dom.
[23] The correspondence will be found in Ellis’s original letters, and
State Papers, Dom., and also in Strype’s “Memorials.”
[24] Burnet.
[25] State Papers, Dom.: Northumberland to Cecil, 31st May 1552.
[26] This disposes of the suggestion that Cecil was Secretary of State at
this time.
[27] See Correspondence, Lady Mary and the Council. “Foxe’s Acts and
Monuments.”
[28] She afterwards became the third wife of Philip II. of Spain, 1560.
[29] State Papers, Dom.: Duchess of Suffolk to Cecil, 2nd October 1550.
[30] Or 1553, according to the Perpetual Calendar at Hatfield.
[31] Hatfield Papers.
[32] State Papers, Foreign.
[33] Hatfield Papers, part i., p. 88.
[34] _Desiderata Curiosa._
[35] King Edward’s Journal, printed in Burnet.
[36] There is, however, a memorandum in the Cotton MSS., Titus B 11,
(printed in Ellis’s original letters) which proves that, though Cecil
may not have been publicly prominent in the condemnation of Somerset,
his acumen and diligence were, as usual, made use of to that end. The
document is entirely written by Cecil, and is a list of fifteen questions
to be put to Somerset in the Tower, all of them of a leading character
and calculated to compromise the prisoner. In Cotton, Vesp. 171, will
be found the minutes of the Council which discussed the execution of
Somerset. Cecil has written thereon, as if to exonerate himself from all
responsibility, that the minutes are in the King’s hand.
[37] State Papers, Dom.
[38] State Papers, Foreign.
[39] _Ibid._
[40] Strype.
[41] King Edward’s Journal (Burnet).
[42] In Sir William Cecil’s handwriting.
“_Question_:—
[Sidenote: 1552 Windsor. 23d Sep., 6ᵒ Ed. VI.]
“1. Whether the K. Mt̅i̅e̅ shall enter into the ayd of the Emperor.
“_Answer._ HE SHALL.
[Sidenote: _a pacto_]
“1. The Kyng is bound by the treaty, and if he will be helped by that
treaty he must do the reciproque.
[Sidenote: _a periculo vitando_]
“2. If he do not ayde, the Emperor is like to ruyne and consequently the
House of Burgundy come to the French possession, which is perilous to
England, and herein the greatness of the French King is dreadfull.
[Sidenote: _Religio Chr̅i̅s̅ana_]
“3. The F. King bringeth the Turke into Chre̅n̅dome and therefore that
exploit be stayed.
[Sidenote: _periculum violati pacti_]
“4. If the Emperor for extremitie should agree now with the F. the said
perill were dooble grettur. First th’ Emperor’s offence for lacke of
ayde. 2. The F. King’s enterprises towards us; and in this peace the
bishop of Rome’s devotion towards us.
[Sidenote: _pro Republica et patria_]
“5. Merchants be so evill used that both for the losse of goods and
honour some remedy must be sought.
[Sidenote: _pericula consequentia_]
“6. The F. Kynge’s procedings be suspisiose to the realm by breaking and
burning of our shippes, which be the old strength of this isle.
“_Answer._ HE SHALL NOT.
[Sidenote: _difficile quasi impossibile_]
“1. The ayde is too chargeable for the cost, and almost impossible to be
executed.
[Sidenote: _solitudo in periculis_]
“2. If the Emperor should dye in this confederacy we should be left alone
in the warr.
[Sidenote: _amicorum suspitio vitanda_]
“3. It may be the German Protestants might be more offended with this
conjunction with the Emperor, doubting their owne cause.
[Sidenote: _sperandum bene ab amicis_]
“4. The amytie with France is to be hooped will amende and continue and
the commissioner’s coming may perchance restore.
“COROLLARIUM OF A MEANE WAY.
[Sidenote: _judicium_]
“1. So to helpe the Emperor as we maye also joine with other Christian
princes and conspyre against the F. King as a common enemy to chr̅e̅dome.
“REASONS FOR COMMON CONJUNCTION.
[Sidenote: _auxilia communa_]
“1. The cause is common and therefore there will be more parties to it.
[Sidenote: _sumptus vitandi_]
“2. It shall avoyd the chargeable entry into ayde with the Emperor
accordyng to the treaties.
[Sidenote: _amicorum copia_]
“3. If the Emperor should dye or breake off, yet it is most likely some
of the princes will remayne so as the K. Mā shall not be alone.
[Sidenote: _dignitas causæ_]
“4. This friendship shall much advance the King’s other causes in
Chre̅n̅dome.
[Sidenote: _pro fide et religione_]
“5. It shal be more honourable to breake with the F. Kyng for this common
quarrel of Chre̅n̅dome.
“REASONS AGAINST THIS CONJUNCTION.
[Sidenote: _inter multos nihil secretum_]
“1. The treaty must be with so many parties that it can nether be spedely
nor secretly concluded.
[Sidenote: _amiciæ irritatæ_]
“2. If the matter be revealed and nothing concluded then consider the F.
Kyng’s offence, and so may he at his leisure be provoked to practice the
like conjunction agaynste England with all the papists.
“The above is in Cecil’s handwriting. To it the young King himself has
added in his own boyish hand.
“CONCLUSION.
1. “The treaty to be made wᵗʰ the Emperor and by the Emperor’s meanes wᵗʰ
other princes.
“2. The Emperor’s acceptation to be understood before we treat anything
against the F. King.”
After long reasoning it was determined to send to Mr. Morysine willing
him to declare to the Emperor that “i haveing pitee as al other Christian
princes should have on the envasion of Christendome by the Turkes would
willingly joine with the Emperor and other states of the Empire if the
Emp. could bring it to passe in some league against the Turke and his
confederates but not to be knowen by the F. King … Morysine to say he
hath no more commission but if the Emperor will send a man to England
he shall know more. This was done on intent to get some friends. The
reasonings be in my deske.”
[43] _Desiderata Curiosa._
[44] Nares.
[45] State Papers, Dom.
[46] Another remedy was a hedgehog stewed in rose-water.
[47] The office at first entailed considerable expense to him. In his
diary there is an entry on 12th April, “Paid the embroiderer for xxxvi.
schutchyns for my servants coats at iiˢ each. iiiˡ xiiˢ;” and in a letter
(State Papers, Dom.) from Petre to Cecil he tells him that the “fashion
of his robes” will be decided when _Garter_ comes to court.
[48] Strype regards the illness as being a diplomatic one, and I am
inclined to side with him; but it is only fair to say that Cecil’s old
friend Dr. Wotton, Ambassador in France, attributed it to overwork. He
writes (State Papers, Foreign), 21st June: “Yow perceive yow must needes
moderate your labour, your complexion being not strong ynough to continue
as yow begone; and my Lords, I doubt not, will not be so unreasonable as
to requyre more of yow than yow be able to do. A good parte of the labour
which was wont to lye on the Clerkes of the Counsell’s hands is now
turned to yow, whereof I suppose yow may easily disburden yourself. It is
better to do so betimes than to repent the not doinge of it after, when
it shalle be too late.”
[49] The ceremony took place at Durham House, in the Strand, which had
been granted by Somerset as a town residence for the Princess Elizabeth,
but which Northumberland had, much to Elizabeth’s indignation, exchanged,
without her acquiescence, for Somerset’s unfinished palace in the Strand.
In answer to her remonstrances, Northumberland humbly protested that
he had no desire to offend her Grace, but he made no alteration in his
arrangements.
[50] Strype’s “Annals,” vol. iv. Alford’s deposition was made at Cecil’s
request twenty years afterwards, and doubtless echoes what Cecil desired
to be said.
[51] This statement also must be taken for what it is worth. It was
written in Cecil’s extreme old age—or soon after his death—and of course
reflected his own version of affairs. It was natural that after the fall
of Jane, and particularly when he was Elizabeth’s minister, he should be
anxious to dissociate himself from an act which deprived the Queen of her
birthright.
[52] B. M. Lans. MSS., 2, 102.
[53] Notwithstanding this protest, there is in Lansdowne MSS., 1236,
No. 15, a draft or copy, _in Cecil’s own handwriting_, of the document
referred to, addressed to the Lords-Lieutenant of counties, in which they
are begged “to disturbe, repell, and resyste the fayned and untrue clayme
of the Lady Mary, basterd daughter of … Henry VIII.” The date of this is
the 10th July; but the Duke of Northumberland’s draft of the same letter
is endorsed by Cecil, 12th July. This would seem to suggest that at all
events Cecil had helped the Duke in the composition of the first draft of
the document. On the dorse of Northumberland’s copy (Lansdowne MSS., 3,
34), Cecil has written: “First copy of a l’re to be wrytte from ye Lady
Jane … wrytte by ye Duk of Northūblā.” But, as stated above, the date of
his own copy is two days earlier.
[54] This interesting document is also printed in Tytler’s “Edward VI.
and Mary.”
[55] An early copy of this document is in Harl. MSS., 35, and the
original draft or “devise” is in Petyt Papers, Inner Temple Library. See
also Strype and Burnet.
[56] “Queen Jane and Queen Mary,” Camden Society.
[57] Harl. MSS., 194. Also Hollingshead and “Queen Jane and Queen Mary.”
[58] Harl. MSS., 353.
[59] It is not quite clear whether Cecil preceded or followed Arundel
and Paget in their journey to meet the Queen. It is nearly certain that
Cecil started after them. They were certainly present at the proclamation
at Baynard’s Castle on the 19th July, whereas Cecil does not appear to
have been there. The letter, moreover, written the same morning from the
Tower by the Council to Lord Rich, exhorting him to stand firm for Jane
(Lansdowne MSS., 3) which Cecil said was written by Cheke, is signed
by all the Councillors in London, including Arundel, Paget, Petre, and
Cheke, _but not by Cecil_. The letter to Mary from the Council, carried
by Arundel and Paget, appears to have borne no signatures (Strype’s
“Cranmer”); but the letter to Northumberland shortly afterwards ordering
him to obey the Queen bears Cecil’s signature. Probably, therefore,
Cecil found some excuse for absenting himself on the critical 19th
July, and when Mary’s triumph was assured, signed the denunciation of
Northumberland, and at once started to greet the Queen.
[60] 7 Julii Libertatem adeptus sū morte regis et ex misere aulico factus
libertas mei juris.
[61] An interesting letter from Northumberland to the Council and
Secretaries of State, written during his illness (27th November 1552,
State Papers, Foreign) shows how much Cecil and his colleagues distrusted
Northumberland’s new departure in foreign policy. The French Ambassador’s
secretary had desired audience of the Duke alone, to convey a private
message from Henry II. to him. Northumberland knew that this would be
resented by the Council, and wrote: “I have availed myself of my sickness
to direct the Secretary, who was very importunate, to communicate what
he had to say, to one of the Secretaries of State or to the Council. And
thus I trust within a while, although I may be thought affectionate to
the French, as some have reported me, yet I doubt not this way which I
intend to use with them to continue but a little while in their graces,
which I never desired in all my life but for the service of my master, as
knoweth the Lord.”
[62] Dalby’s letter in Harl. MSS., 353.
[63] Hatfield Papers.
[64] Strype.
[65] In Lansdowne MSS., 2, will be found many letters on these subjects
to and from Cecil, showing the deep interest he took in educational
matters.
[66] _Ambassades de Noailles_, vol. ii., and Hatfield Papers, part i. 25.
[67] Hatfield Papers, part i., and Haynes.
[68] Hatfield Papers.
[69] Reproduced by Tytler.
[70] Lansdowne MSS., 3.
[71] State Papers, Foreign.
[72] “Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth,” vol. iv. 629.
[73] Lansdowne MSS., 3.
[74] See an account of the pursuit of these exiles in the narrative of
John Brett (“Transactions Royal Hist. Soc.,” vol. xi.), and also Foxe’s
“Acts and Monuments.”
[75] A few months afterwards his brother-in-law, Sir John Cheke, wrote
from abroad (February 1556), evidently in fear that Cecil was going too
far in his conformity. “He hoped,” he said, “that he would not suffer
his judgment to be corrupted in these evil times by what a multitude of
ignorance might approve” (Lansdowne MSS., 3). Cheke’s evil fate fell upon
him very shortly, as if in judgment for his own pharisaism. In the same
spring he was lured by promise of pardon into Philip’s Flemish dominions
with Sir Peter Carew. He was treacherously seized, bound, and kidnapped
on board a vessel at Antwerp (much as Dr. Story was in the reign of
Elizabeth), brought to England, and lodged in the Tower. Threatened with
the stake, he allowed Dr. Feckenham to persuade him to recant. Mary’s
Government made him publicly drink the cup of degradation to the dregs,
and the unhappy man—pitied by his friends, and betrayed and scoffed at
by his enemies—died of a broken heart the following year (September
1557). See Strype’s “Memorials.” Archbishop Parker’s remark, written
on the margin of one of Cheke’s recantations, is the most merciful and
appropriate to the case, “_Homines Sumus_.”
[76] _Desiderata Curiosa._
[77] _Desiderata Curiosa._
[78] Sir Thomas Cornwallis to Cecil: Hatfield Papers, part i.
[79] Hatfield Papers, part i.
[80] Hatfield Papers, part i.
[81] The powerful Earl of Bedford was a prime favourite of Philip—though
afterwards so strong a Protestant—and had been sent to Spain to accompany
the Queen’s consort to England. He appears to have been on close terms
of friendship with Cecil, who managed his affairs in his absence, and to
whom he wrote an interesting account of the great victory of St. Quentin
(Hatfield Papers). The friendship of such men as Bedford, Clinton, and
Paget would of itself almost account for Cecil’s immunity and favour
under Philip and Mary.
[82] State Papers, Dom.
[83] _Ibid._
[84] Cecil seems to have been greatly in request for commissions
involving a knowledge of rural dilapidations and the management of landed
estates. In March 1557 the Lords of Queen Mary’s Council commissioned him
to examine the damage done to Brigstock Park, Northamptonshire, and to
place Sir Nicholas Throgmorton there as keeper (Lansdowne MSS., 3). He
was also steward of Colly Weston and other manors belonging to Princess
Elizabeth.
[85] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth.
[86] Feria had visited Elizabeth at Hatfield a few days before the Queen
died, and had then written to Philip: “I am told for certain that Cecil,
who was Secretary to King Edward, will be her Secretary also. He is
considered to be a prudent, virtuous man, although a heretic.”
[87] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth.
[88] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth.
[89] _Fragmenta Regalia._
[90] Cotton MSS., Titus cx.
[91] A proclamation was issued on the 27th December, that no alterations
should be made in the rites and ceremonies of the Church, and that no
unauthorised person should preach; but a few days afterwards orders were
given that the Litany, Epistle, and Gospel should be read in English, as
in the Queen’s chapel, which was done on the following day, 1st January,
Sunday (Hayward).
[92] Hayward’s reference to this point would seem to prove that the
sermons at Paul’s Cross were discontinued altogether for some months. He
says preachers had been warned—in accordance with Cecil’s note—to avoid
treating of controversial points, and to the raising of any “dispute
touching government eyther for altering or retayning the present form.
Hereupon no sermon was preached at Paules Crosse until the Rehearsall
sermon was made upon the Sunday after Easter; at which tyme, when the
preacher was ready to mount the Pulpit, the keye could not be found; and
when by commandment of the Lord Mayor it was opened by the smyth, the
place was very filthy and uncleane” (Hayward’s “Annals,” Camden Society).
[93] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth.
[94] Original draft in Cotton MSS., Cal. E. V.
[95] State Papers, Foreign; also printed _in extenso_ in Forbes.
[96] Cotton MSS., Cal. E. V.; printed in Forbes.
[97] It must not be forgotten that Mary Stuart, the young Queen of
Scots, was married to Francis, the heir to the French throne, and that
the disappearance of Elizabeth from the throne would almost inevitably
have meant the complete dominion of both Scotland and England by the
French. This would have rendered the position of Spain in the Netherlands
untenable, and would have destroyed the Spanish commerce, and the fact
explains Philip’s forbearance with Elizabeth in the earlier years of her
reign. Both Cecil and the Queen were fully cognisant of the advantage
they derived from the situation.
[98] Hatfield Papers, part i. p. 151.
[99] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth.
[100] _Ibid._
[101] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i. p. 11.
[102] Parry had just been made Treasurer of the Household _vice_ Sir
Thomas Cheynes.
[103] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[104] The treaty was ratified simultaneously by the French King at Notre
Dame, the English special Ambassador being the Lord Chamberlain, Lord
Howard of Effingham. The correspondence on, and descriptions of, the
ceremonies in France, will be found printed _in extenso_ in Forbes.
An account of the festivities in England will be found in Nichols’
“Progresses of Queen Elizabeth,” and in the Calendar of Venetian State
Papers.
[105] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[106] Strype.
[107] A great impetus had been given to the building of warships on
the accession of Elizabeth, and a programme of naval construction was
presented, providing for the building of twenty-eight ships during the
ensuing five years; an enormous increase when it is considered that the
whole navy when Mary died consisted of only twenty-two sail. The first
measure of Elizabeth was to turn a large number of the merchantmen,
which had been built under subsidy, into warships. These were probably
the ships referred to by Cardinal Lorraine. On the 3rd July, shortly
afterwards, the Queen was present at the launch of a fine new warship at
Woolwich, which she christened the _Elizabeth_.
[108] State Papers, Foreign; _in extenso_ in Forbes.
[109] See also Throgmorton to Cecil, 1st July. _Ibid._
[110] The Queen to Throgmorton, 17th and 19th July (State Papers,
Foreign).
[111] Sadler to Cecil, 16th September 1559 (Sadler Papers, vol. i.).
[112] Printed _in extenso_ in Sadler Papers, vol. i.
[113] Arran travelled as a Frenchman under the name of De Beaufort.
[114] Sadler Papers, vol. i.
[115] The scandalous gossip sent by all the foreign agents in England,
especially by Feria and his successor, caused much heart-burning.
Challoner had been sent to the Emperor in connection with the Archduke’s
match, and in the Imperial court found scandal rife about his mistress
and Lord Robert. He writes to Cecil a cautious, confidential letter (6th
December 1559), saying that “folks there are broad-mouthed” about it. Of
course, he says, it is a false slander; “but a Princess cannot be too
wary what countenance of familiar demonstration she maketh more to one
than another. No man’s service in the realm is worthy the entertaining
with such a tale of obloquy” (Hatfield Papers, part i.).
[116] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[117] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[118] Feria to the Bishop of Aquila, 1st October 1559 (Spanish Calendar,
Elizabeth, vol. i.).
[119] The original of the address of the Lords of the Congregation to
Elizabeth will be found in the Cotton MSS., Caligula B x. (printed by
Burnet). In November the famous William Maitland of Lethington was
sent by the Lords to England for the purpose of pressing the cause of
the Scottish reformers. He was secretly received by Sir James Crofts
in the castle of Berwick, and there, by Cecil’s instructions, Crofts
gave him a draft written by Cecil of the best form in which to make his
representation to the English Queen and Council. This is a good example
of Cecil’s foresight and thoroughness. He knew that Dudley and other
French partisans would oppose in the Council the sending of an army to
Scotland, and in order to strengthen Maitland’s hands and avoid the
introduction of anything upon which his opponent could seize, he himself
drafted the address of the Scottish Protestants to the Queen and Council.
It is needless to say that Maitland adopted his suggestions. The original
Scotch draft is in the Cotton MSS., Caligula B ix., and extracts of it
have been printed by Dr. Robertson and Dr. Nares. See also Sadler Papers,
vol. i. p. 602.
[120] Sadler State Papers, vol. i.
[121] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i. 121.
[122] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[123] The drafts of De Glajon’s letters to the Duchess of Parma,
describing his mission to England, are in B. M. Add. MSS. 28, 173_a_,
printed in Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[124] Although I can find no hint of such a thing in De Glajon’s letters
to the Duchess of Parma, an entry in Cecil’s diary seems to prove that
Philip’s jealousy of France was now so keen as to have led him secretly
to approve of the English attack in Scotland. The entry in Cecil’s own
hand runs: “April 10, M. de Glason came and joined with the Bishop of
Aquila to move the revocation of the army out of Scotland, _but Glason
privately to my Lord Admiral and me the Secretary counselled us to the
contrary_.” There is in the Record Office (printed _in extenso_ by
Forbes) a long Latin document in Cecil’s hand, being his reply or speech
to the official representations of De Glajon and the Bishop of Aquila.
[125] The French protest is printed by Forbes.
[126] All in Hatfield Papers, part i.
[127] The “device” proposed by Cecil would appear to have been the clause
that if the article relative to the abandonment of the royal arms of
England by Mary and her husband was rejected by them, the point was to
be submitted to the arbitration of the King of Spain. Cecil’s own draft
of the clause is at Hatfield (Papers, part i.). There is no doubt that
Cecil was safe in making this condition, as he must have known from his
interview with De Glajon what Philip’s real sentiments were.
[128] Cecil was paid during his absence £4 per diem—£252; and for postage
with twenty two horses from London to Edinburgh and back, £117.
[129] That this would be the case was foreseen before he started from
London in May. Killigrew writes to Throgmorton (in France) on the day
before Cecil’s departure, “who (Cecil), for his country’s sake, hath been
contented to take the matter in hand. The worst hath been cast of his
absens from hence by his frendes, but at length jugged (judged) for the
best.… I know none love their country better; I wold the Quene’s Majesty
could love it so well” (Throgmorton Papers, _in extenso_ in Forbes).
[130] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[131] The twentieth Earl of Huntingdon (Hastings) was the son of
Catharine Pole by the nineteenth Earl. He was consequently the
grandson of Henry, Lord Montacute, the eldest of the Poles, and
great-great-grandson of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, the younger
brother of Edward IV. His claim to the crown could only be made good by
the failure or invalidation of those of all the descendants of Henry VII.
and Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV.
[132] Hatfield Papers, _in extenso_ in Haynes.
[133] Bedford writes to Throgmorton, 16th March 1561, “Cecil is now more
than any other in special credit, and does all” (Foreign Calendar). The
Spanish Ambassador says the same.
[134] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i. 177.
[135] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[136] Cecil appears at this time to have satisfied himself that the Queen
did not mean to marry Dudley. He writes to Throgmorton, 4th April, saying
that the Queen was making the Swedish envoy Guldenstern very welcome. “I
see no small declensions from former dealings (_i.e._ with Dudley); at
least I find in her Majesty by divers speeches a determination not to
marry one of her subjects” (State Papers, Foreign).
[137] Anthony de Bourbon, titular King-Consort of Navarre, husband of
Jeanne d’Albret, and father of Henry IV. of France.
[138] Hatfield Papers, part i.
[139] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, i.
[140] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[141] Throgmorton, a zealous Protestant, who was in France, and, of
course, not behind the scenes in London, appears to have been seriously
alarmed, and to have thought that Cecil was really about to change his
religion. He wrote (29th April) almost vehemently exhorting him not to
ruin the country by doing so (Foreign Calendar).
[142] When Throgmorton first heard that James Stuart was on his way to
France he was in great alarm. He was sure that he would be bought over by
Mary and the Catholic party, who intended to obtain for him a Cardinal’s
hat. Throgmorton thought that no prominent or powerful Scotsman should
come to France for fear of his falling under the influence of the
anti-English party. But Cecil saw young Stuart on his way and satisfied
himself that he might be trusted; and when Stuart returned to Paris from
Rheims on his way home, Throgmorton was almost extravagant in his praise
of him, and regarded him as firmly wedded to English interests, as indeed
he was. Mary, on the advice of Cardinal Lorraine, refused to ratify the
treaty of Edinburgh until she arrived in Scotland; but she consented to
hand over the government of her realm to James and his friends until
her return. She promised to send after him patents under her great seal
constituting him Regent, but this she failed to do. Nevertheless he
went back to Scotland with practically a free hand, pending the Queen’s
arrival in her realm. (Foreign Calendar.)
[143] Hatfield State Papers, _in extenso_ in Haynes.
[144] For months Throgmorton’s spectre was that Mary might marry Philip’s
only son, Don Carlos, which, he pointed out to Cecil, would inevitably
ruin England and Protestantism. It may be doubted whether Cardinal
Lorraine had reached this point yet; though, as will be told, it was
broached later from another quarter. It is more likely that at this
time—the early summer of 1561—the Cardinal’s view was to marry his niece
to the Archduke Charles, Elizabeth’s former suitor, which would have
greatly strengthened the Catholics of Germany and the House of Lorraine.
The English Catholics at the same time, at the instigation of the
Countess of Lennox, were anxiously advocating a marriage between her son,
Lord Darnley, and his cousin, Mary Stuart.
[145] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[146] Hatfield Papers, part i.
[147] Throgmorton to Elizabeth, 26th July, in Cabala.
[148] For Maitland’s interviews with the Queen, see Hayward (Camden
Society).
[149] Hatfield Papers, part i.
[150] Lady Margaret, and the Earls of Westmoreland and Northumberland,
with the Duke of Norfolk, were summoned to London, whilst the Earl of
Arundel was obliged to absent himself from court (November 1561), and the
students of the University were in a condition of revolt at the attempt
to reform the worship in the college chapels. “The whole place,” said the
Mayor of Oxford, “was of the same opinion (_i.e._ Catholic), and there
were not three houses in it that were not filled with papists,” “whereat
the Council were far from pleased, and told the Mayor to take care not to
say such things elsewhere” (Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.).
[151] Quadra to the King, 13th September 1561 (Spanish Calendar,
Elizabeth).
[152] The Perpetual Calendar at Hatfield frequently mentions attacks of
illness about this time, “fitts of ague,” or gout, fever, and so on.
[153] At first the difficulty of obtaining the new coins caused some
inconvenience, and several of Elizabeth’s Councillors were in favour
(1562) of a fresh debasement of the coinage. By Cecil’s and Paget’s
efforts, however, this was avoided, as it was feared that such a measure
would cause disturbance. For the first year or two the demand was so
great for the new money that the supply was quite inadequate to the
demand, but the people greatly resented the idea of a fresh debasement.
[154] As early as 1555, in the reign of Mary, Cecil had been one of the
original promoters and shareholders of the Russia Company, but he always
steadily refused to share in privateering.
[155] The expedition and its object had first been suggested to
Throgmorton in Paris by an old Portuguese pilot, named Captain Melchior,
who had formerly lived for many years on the Sus coast and other parts of
West Africa. He had been a pensioner of Francis I. and Henry II., but on
the death of the latter, lost his pension. The King of Navarre (Anthony
de Bourbon) supported him for a time, and then sent him with his scheme
to Throgmorton, who referred him to Cecil. The expedition itself was
unsuccessful, but was followed by others under the younger Hawkins, which
established a lucrative trade in slaves and produce between Africa, the
Spanish Indies, and England. There is an interesting paper in the Record
Office, dated 27th May of the following year, 1562, when a Portuguese
Ambassador was in England remonstrating against the despatch of a new
expedition to Guinea. It is a full description of the coast by Martin
Frobisher, who had been for nine months a prisoner of the Portuguese
at Elmina. He shows that the Portuguese on the coast exercised no
control outside of their forts, and were so detested by the natives that
Frobisher and other Englishmen were employed as intermediaries.
[156] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[157] Foreign State Papers.
[158] Foreign State Papers.
[159] Foreign State Papers.
[160] In 1559 Throgmorton speaks of the youth at that period as being of
great promise—unfortunately unfulfilled.
[161] Foreign Calendar.
[162] The first war of religion in France.
[163] The massacre of Vassy, which began the civil war, took place on the
1st March 1562.
[164] See Grindall’s long list of recusants in prison, in hiding, and in
exile at the end of 1561 (Domestic Calendar).
[165] See Sidney and Throgmorton’s letters to Cecil (Foreign Calendar,
May 1562).
[166] Almost every letter from Throgmorton to Cecil at this juncture
sounds the note of alarm at the possibility of such a combination. A
Portuguese Ambassador had recently been sent to England, once more to
remonstrate about the English trade with Guinea (as fruitlessly as in
the previous year). He lodged with the Bishop of Aquila at Durham Place,
and Throgmorton was confident that the real object of his mission was to
perfect the arrangement of a Catholic rising in England in conjunction
with Mary Stuart, the Guises, and Philip. The fears, however, were
perfectly groundless as yet so far as regarded Philip. He was in no hurry
to help the Guises until he had them pledged body and soul, and had
crushed reform in his own Netherlands. But of course Cecil was unable to
penetrate Philip’s policy so well as we can, with all his most private
correspondence before us. It is worthy of mention that D’Antas, the
Portuguese Ambassador above referred to, offered Cecil a regular pension
from his sovereign if he would look favourably upon his interests.
Cecil’s reply is not forthcoming; but the offer cannot have been
accepted, for the Secretary never varied in his assertion of the right of
English merchants to trade on the West African and Brazilian coasts.
[167] See statements of Borghese Venturini (State Papers, Foreign).
[168] Throgmorton Papers; _in extenso_ in Forbes.
[169] State Papers, Foreign; _in extenso_ in Forbes.
[170] See the examinations in State Papers, Foreign, 1562.
[171] Sir Henry Sidney divulged it to the Bishop.
[172] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[173] Bitter as the Bishop was against Cecil’s policy, which checkmated
him on every side, it is only fair to say that he usually speaks of his
character with great respect.
[174] Dudley wrote to Throgmorton (May 1562) that the Queen was
favourable to Condé and the Huguenots, “but her Majestie seemeth very
wareful in too much open show towards them” (State Papers, Foreign).
[175] _In extenso_ in Forbes.
[176] Smith sent a message to Throgmorton (21st November 1562) assuring
him that his peace negotiations with the Queen-mother and his friendship
with the Cardinal were not sincere, but only to “discover their minds.”
It is hardly probable that this was the case; although Smith, as a
zealous Protestant, certainly did not anticipate the abandonment of the
cause of the reformers. Much less did he intend for England to be thrown
over by both sides as she was. In a letter to Cecil (17th December) he
relates his indignant remonstrance to the Queen-mother when he heard
that the Guisans in Paris had issued a proclamation of war against Queen
Elizabeth as an enemy of the faith. (Letters _in extenso_ in Forbes.)
[177] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[178] Cecil had built for himself (1560) a splendid mansion in the
Strand, on the site of the present Exeter Hall, the grounds extending
back to Covent Garden. It was joined on the west by the Earl of Bedford’s
estate, for which in a subsequent generation it was exchanged. Cecil
appears to have continued in the possession of his house at Westminster,
adjoining Whitehall, no doubt for business purposes.
[179] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[180] Sir Simon D’Ewes’ Journal.
[181] Strype.
[182] The Bishop of Aquila, in giving an account of these measures,
says, that it would seem as if they were designed to mimic the Spanish
Inquisition.
[183] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[184] The marriage of the unfortunate Lady Catharine Grey with Lord
Hertford—the eldest son of Somerset—was contracted secretly, and when the
birth of a son made the matter public, the Queen was intensely indignant,
and refused to acknowledge the union, both Lord and Lady Hertford
being committed to the Tower. Guzman says that Cecil brought about the
marriage; but there is no evidence whatever of this. Lord Hertford was in
Paris with Cecil’s son, Thomas, when the affair was discovered, and was
recalled in haste by the Queen. As soon as Cecil heard of it, he warned
his son not to associate with Hertford. Cecil wrote to his friend Smith
at the same time, “I pray that God may by this chance give her Majesty a
disposition to consider hereof (_i.e._ the succession), that either by
her marriage or by some common order we her poor subjects may know where
to lean and adventure our lives with content to our consciences.” Greatly
to Cecil’s annoyance the question of Catharine’s guilt was referred to
him for examination and report. He assured Smith in a letter that he
would judge impartially, and he did so; for Parker, the Archbishop, on
his report, pronounced against the marriage, but Cecil continued on close
terms of intimacy with the Grey family, who all called him cousin (Lady
Cecil’s brother married Catharine Grey’s cousin), and certainly favoured
Lady Catharine’s claims under the will of Henry VIII. Cecil cautiously
did his best to soften the punishment, and finally obtained the removal
of both husband and wife from the Tower into private custody. Many
letters on the subject from the Greys to Cecil will be found in Lansdowne
MSS. 2.
[185] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[186] She was probably correct in this. When Elizabeth saw Maitland in
London she suggested Dudley as a suitable husband to Mary; and when
the Scotsman hinted that his mistress was not so selfish as to deprive
Elizabeth of a person so much cherished by herself, the English Queen,
greatly to Maitland’s confusion, hinted at the Earl of Warwick, Dudley’s
brother. Maitland cleverly silenced the Queen by suggesting that, as
Elizabeth was so much older than Mary, she should marry Dudley first
herself, and when she died, leave to the Scottish Queen both her widower
and her kingdom.
[187] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[188] Cecil was also much interested in the promotion of mineralogy. A
patent was granted in 1563 to a German named Schutz who was skilled in
the discovery of calamine and the manufacture of brass therewith. For the
working of this patent a company was afterwards formed, Cecil, Bacon,
Norfolk, Pembroke, Leicester, and others being shareholders, and a great
impetus was given in consequence to the founding of brass cannon. Much
encouragement was also given by Cecil at this and later periods to German
mineralogists for the working of English mines.
[189] In a letter to the Vice-Chancellor (Dr. Perne) in April 1560, Cecil
conveyed the pleasant news of the Queen’s intention to grant a number
of prebends and exhibitions to those divinity students that shall be
recommended “as fittest to receive the same promotions and exhibitions.”
The object of this was to encourage the divinity students to embrace the
Protestant form of worship, which they were loth to do. (Harl. MSS.,
7037, 265-66).
[190] There is in the Domestic State Papers of 1565 a draft letter of the
Council, written by Cecil to the Vice-Chancellor, forbidding and ordering
the suppression in Cambridge of all shows, booths, gaming-houses, &c., as
being unseemly and dangerous.
[191] Full account of the visit, with the speeches, &c., will be found in
Nichol’s “Progresses of Queen Elizabeth.”
[192] The old Bishop of Aquila had died, probably of the plague, in the
previous autumn at Langley, near Windsor. He had been succeeded by Don
Diego Guzman de Silva.
[193] The official account makes no mention of this. It says only that
great preparations had been made to represent Sophocles’ tragedy of Ajax
Flagellifer. “But her Highness, as it were, tyred with going about the
colleges and hearing disputations, and overwatched with former plays, …
could not, as otherwise no doubt she would, … hear the said tragedy, to
the great sorrow not only of the players but of the whole University.”
If the scene as described by the Spaniard took place, it must have been
at the house of Sir Henry Cromwell, the great Oliver’s grandfather, at
Hinchinbrook, where the Queen slept on the night of the day she left
Cambridge.
[194] The Queen had, however, supped with him at his yet unfinished
mansion in London—Cecil House—in 1560, and had there stood godmother to
his infant daughter Elizabeth (6th July 1564).
[195] This splendid place, to which further reference will be made, was
visited on his first voyage south by James I., who was so enamoured of
it that he obtained it from the first Earl of Salisbury, Cecil’s younger
son, in exchange for Hatfield. It was at Theobalds that King James died.
[196] The details of, and correspondence with relation to this
commercial war, with the various negotiations, and especially
those of the conference of Bruges, will be found in the Hatfield
Papers, correspondence of the Merchant-Adventurers, Foreign Papers,
correspondence of Valentine Dale, Sheres, &c., and in the B. M. Add.
MSS., 28,173, correspondence of Dassonleville and other Flemish agents,
as well as in Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[197] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[198] The book in question was that written by John Hales, Clerk of the
Hanaper, in favour of the succession of Lady Catharine Grey and her
children. He had been indicted in January 1564 for “presumptuously and
contemptuously discussing, both by words and in writing, the question of
the succession to the imperial crown of England, in case the Queen should
die without issue;” and thenceforward for months interrogatories and
depositions with regard to his sayings and doings, and those of Catharine
Grey and her husband, Lord Hertford, continued before Cecil without
intermission. (The papers in the case are all at Hatfield, and are mostly
published _in extenso_ by Haynes.) Hales himself was the scapegoat, and
was in the Fleet prison for six months; but in all probability, as Dudley
said, Cecil and his brother-in-law, Bacon, had a great share in drawing
up the book. Cecil was probably too powerful and useful to touch; but
Bacon was reprimanded, and Lord John Grey of Pyrgo, an old friend of
Cecil’s, was kept under arrest until his death, a few months later.
[199] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[200] Philip s reply, partly in his own hand, to his Ambassador’s
reports of Dudley’s offers is characteristic: “I am pleased to see what
Lord Robert says, and will tell you my will on the point. I am much
dissatisfied with Cecil, as he is such a heretic; and if you give such
encouragement to Robert as will enable him to put his foot on Cecil and
turn him out of office, I shall be very glad. But you must do it with
such tact and delicacy, that if it fails, none shall know that you had a
hand in it” (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.).
[201] Hatfield Papers, part i.
[202] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[203] This refers to the order issued shortly before, called
“Advertisements for the due order of the administration of the Holy
Sacrament, and for the apparel of all persons ecclesiastical”; which
commenced the bitter “vestments controversy.”
An interesting series of returns from the bishops, of this date (October
1564) is at Hatfield. Their lordships had been directed to make reports
of the persons of note in their respective dioceses, classified under the
heads of “favourers of true religion,” “adversaries of true religion,”
and “neutrals.” To the reports the bishops append their recommendations
for reform. The Bishop of Hereford says that all his canons residentiary
“ar but dissemblers and rancke papists.” He suggests that all those who
will not conform should be expelled; and most of his episcopal brethren
advocate even stronger measures than these. Another paper of this time
(1564) addressed to Cecil, and printed by Strype in his “Life of Parker,”
shows the remarkable diversity of the service in English churches. As
will be seen later, Cecil’s attitude on the great vestment question
divided him from many of his Protestant friends.
[204] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[205] Memoirs of Sir James Melvil of Hallhill.
[206] Bedford and Maitland subsequently met at Berwick to discuss the
proposed match. It suited Mary to pretend some willingness to take
Leicester in order to obtain leave for Darnley to come to Scotland.
She was probably right in supposing that finally Elizabeth did not
mean to allow Leicester to marry the Scottish Queen. Cecil was of the
same opinion. Writing to his friend Smith at the end of December 1564
(Lansdowne MSS., 102), he says, “I see her Majesty very desyroose to have
my L. of Leicester placed in this high degree to be the Scottish Queen’s
husband, but when it cometh to the conditions which are demanded I see
her then remiss of her earnestness.”
[207] Melvil’s Memoirs.
[208] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[209] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[210] Humphrey and Sampson, both eminent divines and friends of Cecil,
amongst others, stood out. The former, after much hesitation, was
forced into obedience; but the latter was dismissed from his deanery
of Christ Church (Strype’s “Annals”). The students and masters of
Cecil’s own College of St. John gave him as Chancellor much trouble by
refusing to wear their surplices and hoods. After much correspondence
and remonstrance with them, the Chancellor became really angry, and the
students assumed a humbler attitude.
[211] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[212] _Dépêches de De Foix, Bibliothèque Nationale._
[213] Foreign State Papers.
[214] _Dépêches de De Foix, Bibliothèque Nationale._
[215] Castelnau de la Mauvissière was in London in May 1565 on his way
to France from Scotland, and gives, in a letter to the Queen-mother, a
most entertaining account of a conversation with Elizabeth at a night
garden-party given by Leicester in his honour (the letter itself is
in a private collection, but is printed in Chéruel’s _Marie Stuart
et Catharine de Medici_). She said how much more popular in England
Frenchmen were than Spaniards; praised the young King as “the greatest
and most virtuous prince on earth.” She asked Castelnau whether he would
be vexed if she married the King. “Although she had nothing,” she said,
“worthy of so great a match: nothing but a little realm, her goodness and
her chastity, on which point at least she could hold her own against any
maiden in the world,” and much more to the same effect. Castelnau says
he never saw her look so pretty as she did. Catharine took the hint, and
her industrious approaches to Smith were largely prompted by Elizabeth’s
coquetry to Castelnau on this occasion.
[216] Hatfield Papers, _in extenso_ in Haynes.
[217] Cecil writes to Smith, 3rd June 1565 (Lansdowne MSS., 102). “My
Lord of Lecester furdereth the Quene’s Majesty with all good reasons to
take one of these great princes, wherein surely perceaving his own course
not sperable, he doth honourably and wisely. I see few noblemen devoted
to France; but I being _Mancipum Reginæ_, and lackyng witt for to expend
so great a matter, will follow with service where hir Majesty will goo
before.” This attitude is very characteristic of the writer.
[218] There is an enigmatical entry in Cecil’s journal at this period,
August 1565, saying, “The Queene’s Majestie seemed to be much offended
with the Earle of Leicester, and so she wrote an obscure sentence in a
book at Windsor.” Strype, who has been followed by most other historians,
thought that this referred to Leicester’s opposition to the Archduke’s
suit. The real reason for the Queen’s squabble with Leicester is given by
Guzman (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.). August 27: “I wrote to
your Majesty that the Queen was showing favour to one Heneage, who serves
in her chamber. Lord Robert and he have had words, and as a consequence
Robert spoke to the Queen about it. She was apparently much annoyed at
the conversation.… Heneage at once left the court, and Robert did not
see the Queen for three days, until she sent for him. They say now that
Heneage will come back at the instance of Lord Robert, to avoid gossip.”
[219] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[220] Harl. MSS., 6990.
[221] Randolph to Cecil, 3rd June. Harl. MSS., 4645.
[222] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[223] The action of the French representatives was extremely perplexing.
On the one hand, they offered help to Elizabeth against Scotland, and
urged Mary to make terms with Murray; whilst on the other, they continued
to intercede with Elizabeth for Lady Margaret and Mary, and conveyed the
kindest messages to the Queen and Darnley. (See Randolph’s letters.)
[224] Yaxley was sent back from Madrid with glowing promises and
encouragement from Philip to Mary and Darnley, and 20,000 crowns in
money. The ship, however, in which he sailed from Flanders was wrecked,
and Yaxley’s lifeless body was washed up on the coast of Northumberland,
with the money and despatches attached to it. The money, of course,
never reached Mary, but formed the subject of a long squabble as to the
respective claims for it, of the Crown and the Earl of Northumberland.
(Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.).
[225] State Papers, Scotland.
[226] Randolph’s letter, 6th February 1566, gives particulars of Mary’s
adhesion to the League of Bayonne (Harl. MSS. 4645); but she does not
appear actually to have signed the “bond” sent to her, as she was urged
to do by the Bishop of Dunblane and other papal emissaries. There is
not the slightest doubt, however, that she looked at this time to the
Catholic league alone for help in her claims, and had decided to defy
England and the Protestant party.
[227] Randolph to Cecil, 1st March; and Randolph and Bedford to Cecil,
6th March (Scottish State Papers).
[228] Randolph wrote to Leicester on the 13th February 1566, telling
him of a plot to kill Rizzio, and probably the Queen, in order that
Lennox and his son Darnley might seize the crown. He says he thinks it
better _not_ to tell Cecil, but to keep the secret between the writer
and Leicester. On the 1st March, Randolph sent to Cecil copies of the
two “Conventions,” signed by the Earls—namely, that of Darnley, Morton,
and Ruthven, to kill Rizzio; and that of Murray, Argyll, Rothes, &c.,
to uphold Darnley in all his quarrels. Bedford, writing to Cecil on the
6th March, begged him earnestly to keep the whole matter secret, except
from Leicester and the Queen. It will thus be seen that, far from being
a promoter of the Darnley plot to kill Rizzio, Cecil did not know of it
in time to stop its perpetration, if he had been inclined to do so, as
the murder was committed on the 9th March. Against this, however, must
be placed, for what it is worth, Guzman’s statement that Cecil had told
Lady Margaret of Rizzio’s murder as having taken place the day before it
really occurred.
[229] From a statement of Guzman (28th January 1566) it would appear
that Cecil, probably in union with Murray, had some idea of bringing
Darnley round to the English interest. The Queen (Elizabeth), he says,
had refused Rambouillet’s suggestion that when he arrived in Scotland he
might bring about a reconciliation between the two Queens. “Afterwards,
however, Cecil went to his (Rambouillet’s) lodgings, and told him that
when the King of Scotland, bearing in mind that he had been an English
subject, should write modestly to the Queen, saying that he was sorry
for her anger, and greatly wished that it should disappear, he (Cecil)
believed that everything would be settled, if at the same time the Queen
of Scotland would send an Ambassador hither to treat of Lady Margaret’s
affairs” (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.).
[230] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[231] Only two days before this Guzman gave the same advice to
Elizabeth. Both she and Cecil then assured him of their desire for such
a settlement, which would have checked French designs in Scotland, and
disarmed Spain.
[232] We do not often hear of Lady Cecil’s action in politics, but on
this occasion she seems to have seconded her husband. Guzman writes (22nd
April 1566): “Cecil’s wife tells me that the French Ambassador says that
if the Archduke comes hither, he will cause discord in the country, as
he will endeavour to uphold his religion, and will have many to follow
him. She thinks the Queen will never marry Lord Robert, or, indeed, any
one else, unless it be the Archduke, which is the match Cecil desires.
Certainly, if any one has information on the matter, it is Cecil’s wife,
as she is clever and greatly influences him.”
A few days after the above was written, Guzman visited Cecil, who
was ill, and mentioned how annoyed the French were when they saw the
Archduke’s suit prospering. “They then at once bring forward their
own King to embarrass the Queen. When this trick has hindered the
negotiations, they take up with Leicester again, and think we do not see
through them.” “Yes,” replied Cecil, “they are very full of fine words
and promises, as usual, and they think when they have Lord Robert on
their side their business is as good as done, but their great object is
to embroil the Emperor with the King of Spain.” (Spanish State Papers,
Elizabeth, vol. i.)
[233] When news came of Brederode’s “protest” in the Netherlands and
the rising of the “beggars,” Guzman tried hard to discover from Cecil
whether any connection existed between the rebels and the English. He
concluded that there was none, although the eastern counties’ ports were
full already of Flemish Protestant fugitives. The Queen was very emphatic
in her condemnation of the “beggars” at first. “Fine Christianity, she
said, was this, which led subjects to defy their sovereign. It had begun
in Germany and in France, and then extended to Scotland, and now to
Flanders, and perhaps some day will happen here, as things are going now.
Some rogues, she said, even wanted to make out that _she_ knew something
about the affairs in Flanders. Only let me get them into my hands, she
exclaimed, and I will soon make them understand the interest I feel in
all that concerns my brother, the King” (_i.e._ Philip). (Spanish State
Papers, Elizabeth.)
[234] See the letters of Cecil’s spy, Ruxby (or Rooksby), _in extenso_
in Haynes. This man had fled from England to Scotland for debt. He was
known to Cecil, who, when he heard that he was dealing with Mary Stuart
in Edinburgh, warned him. Ruxby then offered his services as a spy, and
sent Cecil very compromising information about Mary’s plans. Melvil
discovered this, and Ruxby was seized by the Scots and put in prison,
Killigrew’s attempts, at the instance of Cecil, to convey him to England
as an escaped recusant, being thus frustrated. (Hatfield Papers.)
[235] He started from Edinburgh a few hours after James’s birth, and
reached London in four days (Melvil Memoirs).
[236] Melvil Memoirs.
[237] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i. On the 20th July, Cecil
writes to Lord Cobham, “I trust I shall not be troubled with the Scottish
journey” (Hatfield Papers).
[238] Nichol’s “Progresses of Queen Elizabeth.”
[239] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[240] Although Cecil was a member of the Commons deputation, he was,
of course, known to be against the measure, and escaped the Queen’s
vituperation. Cecil himself in his notes thus refers to the matter:
“1566. October 17. Certen Lords, viz., Erle of Pembroke and Lecester,
wer excluded the presence-chamber, for furdering the proposition of the
succession to be declared in Parliament without the Queen’s allowance.”
[241] The Parliament was dissolved on 2nd January 1567. The principal
measure adopted in it was that which gave Parliamentary confirmation to
the consecration of the bishops and archbishops, in order to counteract
the attacks promoted by Bonner against the Protestant consecration. The
measure was principally urged by the bishops themselves, and in the Lords
was carried to a great extent by their votes, there being twenty-eight
bishops present, and thirty-two lay peers. The House of Commons was
strongly Protestant, and was dissolved instead of being prorogued, as was
expected. Although the measure referred to was passed, the Government
refrained from proceeding further against the Catholic bishops who had
refused the oath of supremacy. (See Strype’s “Annals,” &c.)
[242] _Scrinia Ceciliana._
[243] Spanish State Papers: Guzman to Philip, 1st March.
[244] _Scrinia Ceciliana._
[245] These letters will be found in Labanoff, vol. ii.
[246] Catharine de Medici’s attitude when she heard the news was
characteristic. She thus wrote to Montmorenci: “Gossip: my son the King
is sending you this courier to give you the news he has received from
Scotland. You see that the young fool (Darnley) has not been King very
long. If he had been wiser he would have been alive still. It is a great
piece of luck for the Queen, my daughter, to be rid of him.” (MSS.
Bibliothèque Nationale, Bethune.)
[247] Drury to Cecil, April 1567 (State Papers, Scotland).
[248] _Scrinia Ceciliana._
[249] _Scrinia Ceciliana._
[250] Again, on the 3rd September, Cecil writes to Norris: “The Queen’s
Majesty, our sovereign, remaineth still offended with the Lords (of
Scotland) for the Queen: the example moveth her.” Later in the month
(27th September) a French envoy came through England on a mission to
Scotland, and proposed to Elizabeth that joint action should be taken to
secure Mary’s liberation. The envoy was persuaded in London to refrain
from continuing his journey, and we see that Cecil’s feeling in favour
of the Protestant party was gradually gaining ground in Elizabeth’s
counsels. He writes: “Surely if either the French King or the (English)
Queen should appear to make any force against them of Scotland for the
Queen (of Scots’) cause, we find it credible that it were the next way to
make an end of her; and for that cause her Majesty is loth to take that
way.” As an instance of the divergence of the Queen and Cecil during the
summer, Guzman, detailing a private conversation he had with the Queen
in July, during which he warned her again against French interference in
Scotland, writes: “Certain things passed in the conversation which she
begged me not to communicate _even to Cecil_.”
[251] _Scrinia Ceciliana._
[252] The object of the French was to retain their alliance with Scotland
in any case, which, indeed, was their great safeguard against England and
Spain. De Croc was sent as Ambassador in 1566 for this especial purpose.
Villeroy and Lignerolles were subsequently despatched respectively to
conciliate Murray and Bothwell. When Murray assumed the Regency, the
French were just as anxious to recognise him as they had been to welcome
other régimes, and Charles IX. himself assured Murray of his continued
friendship. (See letters and instructions in Chéruel.)
[253] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[254] Cecil writes to Lord Cobham (27th May): “Lady Clinton hath procured
my wife to make a supper to-morrow, where a greater person will covertly
be, as she is wont. The Queen hath made asseverations to persuade the
Duke (of Norfolk) of her effectual dealing to marry, and to deal plainly
in this embassy” (Hatfield Papers). The object of the supper was to
enable the Queen privately to meet the Emperor’s Ambassadors before their
public reception. She seems to have been much disappointed that they had
nothing to say about the marriage, and as a result decided at last to
send the Earl of Sussex to the Emperor.
[255] Guzman expressed his disbelief in any such intelligence having
been received, whereupon Cecil showed him the paper. The document had
reached Cecil in German from one of his agents, and is still in the
Burghley Papers. Guzman pointed out to Cecil the undiplomatic form in
which the articles of the alleged treaty were drawn up and their inherent
improbability, which Cecil admitted. The particulars are now known to
have been a fabrication, although the main object of the league was
unquestionably to suppress Protestantism by extermination.
[256] The answer, which Guzman calls a very impertinent one, will be
found in State Papers, Foreign, June 1567, and the original draft, in
Cecil’s hand, at Hatfield.
[257] Guzman writes (5th July): “Everything that can be done to arouse
the suspicion of the Queen against your Majesty is being done by certain
people, and I am trying all I can to banish such feeling and keep her
in a good humour, without saying anything offensive of the King of
France … I think I have satisfied and tranquillised her; although when
they see your Majesty so strongly armed, suspicion is aroused, and not
here alone.” On the 21st July, he says, “With all the demonstrations
of friendship and the friendly offers I make to the Queen from your
Majesty, I find her rather anxious about the coming of the Duke of Alba
to Flanders.”
[258] Murray very closely describes the contents of the “first” casket
letter, of which so much has been written. The arguments of Mary’s
defenders, founded on the long delay in the production of the letters,
therefore fall to the ground, as Murray had evidently seen a copy, or the
originals, before the end of July. To those who accuse Murray himself
of having caused the letters to be forged, it may be replied that, on
the 12th July, De Croc, on his way from Scotland to France, mentioned
to Guzman in London the existence of the letters. As Dalgleish, with
the letters, was captured in Edinburgh on the 20th June, there was no
time in the interval for Morton in Scotland and Murray in Lyons to have
concocted an elaborate forgery such as this. Murray, at all events, must
be acquitted, as De Croc, leaving Scotland at the end of June, had copies
of the letters in his possession.
[259] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[260] How wavering Elizabeth’s policy was at the time, according as
Leicester or Cecil was near her, may clearly be seen. By Throgmorton’s
instructions of 30th June (State Papers, Scotland; _in extenso_ in
Keith), it is evident that his mission was to blame both Mary and the
Lords, making Elizabeth the arbiter between them, and to negotiate the
restoration of Mary to liberty, but without political power. The Lords
would not allow this, and Throgmorton failed. On the other hand, Melvil
was sent back to Scotland shortly before Throgmorton, taking a message
from Elizabeth to the Lords, in reply to their secret intimation that
they intended to depose Mary, and a promise to the effect that she
would aid them “in their honourable enterprise” (Melvil to Cecil, 1st
July—State Papers, Scotland; _in extenso_ in Tytler).
[261] Guzman to Philip, August 9, 1567, Spanish State Papers. Guzman
at this time had a conversation with a French envoy, Lignerolles, who
was returning from Scotland. He told him that Leicester’s henchman
Throgmorton, on his embassy to Scotland, had acted earnestly and
vigorously in favour of Mary. “Which,” writes Guzman, “I quite believe,
as he has always been attached to her. He is also a great friend of Lord
Robert’s, and an enemy of Cecil, whom the Queen does not consider to be
in favour of the Queen of Scots, but a partisan of Catharine” (Grey).
[262] “Her Majesty much dislikes of the Prince of Condé and the French
Lords. The (English) Council do all they can to cover the same. Her
Majesty, being a Prince herself, is doubtful to give comfort to subjects.
You (Norris), nevertheless, shall do well to comfort them as occasion
shall serve” (_Scrinia Ceciliana_). The day before this was written,
Guzman writes to Philip, speaking of the suspicion that exists that the
Queen is helping the Huguenots, of which, however, he cannot find any
confirmation: “But still I notice that when news comes favourable to the
heretics, these Councillors are more pleased than otherwise, whilst they
grieve if the heretics fail” (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth).
[263] Guzman’s comment upon this is curious: “These heretics are so blind
as to marvel why your Majesty does not allow full liberty to all in your
dominions to enjoy their own opinions and schisms against the Catholic
religion, and yet they themselves refuse to let people live freely in
the ancient religion which for so many years they have followed without
molestation.”
[264] This second “plough” was probably an arrangement to subsidise
Murray to send a privateer naval force to intercept some of Philip’s
vessels conveying a number of Flemish nobles to Spain, amongst others
Count de Buren, the young son of the Prince of Orange.
[265] Dr. Allen had recently established the English seminary at Douai,
and a Dr. Wilson was apprehended in March 1568 for collecting money
from English Catholics for the seminary at Louvain. Cecil himself, in
his essay on the “Execution of Justice,” mentions the large number of
papal emissaries in England at this time. Thomas Heath, brother of the
Archbishop, and Faithful Cummin, a Dominican monk, were both arrested
during this spring for carrying on a Catholic propaganda under the guise
of Puritan Nonconformists. (See Strype’s Parker, &c.).
[266] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[267] He was said to have called the Pope a “canting little monk.”
Amongst those who testified against him was Gresham’s agent Huggins, who
afterwards became one of Cecil’s spies in Spain, and betrayed both sides.
[268] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. ii.
[269] Drury to Cecil, 28th November 1567 (State Papers, Scotland).
[270] In Labanoff, vol. ii. Copy in Hatfield Papers, part i., and Haynes.
[271] _Scrinia Ceciliana._
[272] It is possible that these jewels may be those referred to in a
memorandum at Hatfield, of the date 17th May, in Cecil’s writing, as
having been bought from one Felton.
[273] Drury to Cecil, 15th May, describing Langside (Cotton MSS.,
Caligula, c. i.)., &c.
[274] Mary to Elizabeth (_ibid._).
[275] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[276] Cotton MSS., Caligula, c. i.
[277] See Cecil’s letters to Norris of this period, detailing the
discussions which this gave rise to in the Council. Cecil’s whole efforts
were directed against preventing French troops being sent to Scotland at
any cost. In Cecil’s own memoranda (Harl. MSS., 4653), when Mary first
entered England, this is the main point dwelt upon. No person was to see
Mary without permission of the English guard, all the known accomplices
of Darnley’s murder were to be arrested, all interference of the French
was to be prevented, and if it was decided to restore Mary, it was only
to be on conditions which insured the exclusion of the French. The
summing up of the document consists of a statement of the dangers that
would ensue to England if Mary were to be allowed to return to France, or
if, on the other hand, she remained in England. At this time Cecil was in
favour of Mary’s restoration under the strict tutelage of England.
[278] See letters 21st June, &c., Hatfield Papers (_in extenso_ in
Haynes), and 13th June and 5th July, Cotton MSS., Caligula, c. i.
[279] See Cecil’s report and recommendations, Harl. MSS., 4653.
[280] A journal of the proceedings made by the English president, the
Duke of Norfolk, is at Hatfield, part i. (No. 1200), and many letters
on the subject _in extenso_ in Haynes. In November the sittings were
transferred to Westminster. On the 30th October a Council was held at
Hampton Court, at which the “casket letters” were considered, and it was
decided that Mary’s representatives, the Bishop of Ross and Lord Herries,
should first have audience of Elizabeth. They were to be so questioned as
to “move them to confess their general authority to answer all charges.”
The representatives of the Lords, Maitland and MacGill, were then to be
introduced and asked what answer they could give to Mary’s accusations,
and why, in face of the letters they produced, they refrained from
charging the Queen openly with murder. It was decided in the Council
to remove Mary from Bolton to Tutbury. (See Minutes in Cecil’s hand,
Hatfield Papers, part i. 1203-1205; _in extenso_ in Haynes.)
[281] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[282] Odet de Coligny, brother of the Admiral of France.
[283] Hatfield State Papers, 18th September 1568.
[284] 28th October (_Scrinia Ceciliana_).
[285] Hatfield Papers, part i. 1237.
[286] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[287] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. ii.
[288] Hatfield Papers, part i. No. 1243.
[289] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[290] Spinola had been concerned in John Hawkins’ ventures, and it has
usually been assumed that he had already received from his correspondents
in Spain news of the attack on Hawkins’ fleet at St. Juan de Ulloa two
months before. It is asserted that the seizure of the treasure was urged
upon Cecil as a reprisal for this. I am of opinion that such was not the
case, as the seizure of the money was under consideration before it was
possible for the affair of St. Juan de Ulloa to be known.
[291] The safe conduct for the money sent to the ports by De Spes was
closely followed by contrary orders from the Council to Sir William
Horsey at Southampton, and Champernoun at Plymouth, and the treasure was
landed in accordance therewith. On the 13th December, William Hawkins
wrote to Cecil from Plymouth with rumours of the attack on John Hawkins
at St. Juan de Ulloa, but the seizure must have been decided upon before
Cecil received the letter.
[292] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[293] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[294] The seizure of Spanish property had greatly alarmed the English
merchants and bankers, and was the pretext seized upon by Cecil’s enemies
to ruin him.
[295] _Desiderata Curiosa._
[296] Fuller’s “Holy State.”
[297] How moderate and cautious Cecil was in his triumph, after he had
discovered and apprised the Queen of the plot to ruin him, and had barely
escaped the dagger of the hired assassin who was to kill him, is seen
in his subsequent demeanour towards the conspirators. Instead of trying
to disgrace or punish them, he continued to work loyally with them.
The real prime mover in the plot was Leicester, with whom outwardly
Cecil was always friendly. Cecil, writing to a friend at the time, thus
expresses himself: “I am in quietness of mind, as feeling the nearness
and readiness of God’s favour to assist me with His grace, to have a
disposition to serve Him before the world; and therein have I lately
proved His mere goodness to preserve me from some clouds or mists, in
the midst whereof I trust mine honest actions are proved to have been
lightsome and clear. And to make this rule more proper, I find the
Queen’s Majesty, my gracious lady, without change of her old good meaning
towards me, and so I trust by God’s goodness to observe a continuance.
I also am moved to believe that all my Lords, from the greatest to the
meanest, think my actions honest and painful, and do profess inwardly
to bear me as much good-will as ever they did.” That this was the case,
at least with one of the conspirators, is proved by the fact that
Lord Pembroke, who died at the end of the year, left Cecil one of his
executors, jointly with Leicester and Throgmorton.
[298] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[299] Although in all her letters Mary designates Cecil as her enemy,
she could, when not carried away by anger, perceive his good qualities.
In February 1569 she was removed to Tutbury, and was extremely angry and
alarmed at this. In conversation with Henry Knollys, who repeated the
conversation to a correspondent of Cecil’s (Hatfield Papers, part i.
1279), “she spared not to give forth that the Secretary was her enemy,
and that she mistrusted by this removing he would cause her to be made
away.” But when her passion was over, she said that though the Secretary
were not her friend, he was an expert, wise man, wishing it might be her
luck to get the friendship of so wise a man.
[300] Hatfield Papers; _in extenso_ in Haynes.
[301] Denied afterwards by Norfolk, but confirmed by Melvil. (See State
Trials, and Melvil’s Memoirs).
[302] The Bishop of Ross deposed afterwards that Norfolk was so much
exasperated at Murray’s having finally brought forward the whole of
the evidence to convict Mary of murder, that he formed a plot for his
assassination. Melvil says, however, that before Murray returned to
Scotland, Throgmorton had fully gained his acquiescence in the projected
marriage, and had reconciled the Regent and the Duke.
[303] Alba was very angry with De Spes for the way in which he was
compromising Spain. He wrote again to him in July, saying that he “was
informed from France that the Queen of Scotland was being utterly ruined
by the plotting of her servants with you, as they never enter your house
without being watched. This might cost the Queen her life, and I am not
sure that yours would be safe.” The evidence given afterwards at the Duke
of Norfolk’s trial, and the examinations of Bailly and the Bishop of
Ross, proved that Cecil had information of everything that occurred.
[304] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth. Alba, writing to Philip soon
afterwards (8th August), says, “I have written several times to Don
Gerau, telling him to suspend negotiations, as I plainly see they are
tricking him, so as to get all they can from him, and then say they have
negotiated without authority. He is zealous … but he is inexperienced;
he allows himself to be led away, and is ruining the negotiation.” It
will be seen that it was comparatively easy for Cecil to outwit such an
instrument as this.
[305] Mary consented to the condition; and the whole arrangement was,
according to Norfolk and the Bishop of Ross, acquiesced in by Leicester
and the majority of the Council. How far sincere Mary was in accepting
the condition, may be seen by her message to De Spes. “She says if she
were at liberty, or could get such help as would enable her to bring her
country to submission, she would deliver herself and her son entirely
into your Majesty’s hands, but now she will be obliged to sail with the
wind” (De Spes to Philip, 27th August). This, no doubt, referred to her
having consented to the marriage with Norfolk, and to the proposals
submitted by the English Government to Murray and the Parliament of Perth
for Mary’s return to Scotland. Murray was opposed to his sister’s return
in any form, and neither of the Queen’s propositions, nor Mary’s petition
for a divorce from Bothwell, was granted. That Cecil was at this time
(the spring and summer of 1569) desirous of getting rid of Mary from
England, without allowing her to go to France, where the Catholics had
just beaten the Huguenots, is certain, and also that he did not wish her
to be ill used in Scotland. See his minute sent to Murray by Henry Carey,
demanding to know what hostages would be given for her safety if she was
returned. (Hatfield Papers, Haynes; also Strype’s Annals, and Rapin.)
[306] Harl. MSS., 6353.
[307] _Scrinia Ceciliana_, 3rd October.
[308] In a postscript to a letter from the Earl of Huntingdon to Cecil
from Coventry, where he was in joint charge of Mary Stuart, 9th December
1569, he mentions “the speech that passeth amongst many, how earnest a
dealer you were for this marriage for which the Duke and others do suffer
her Majesty’s displeasure: yea, it is reported from the mouth of some
of the sufferers that, in persuasion, you (Cecil) yielded such reasons
for it as he (the Duke), by them, was most moved to consent.” Cecil can
hardly have been so forward in the matter as is here suggested, or it
surely would have been mentioned in the rigorous examinations of those
implicated. (Hatfield Papers, part i.)
[309] De Spes went so far as to say that it was Cecil who was urging that
Norfolk should be sent to the Tower—the very reverse, as we now know,
being the case. Cecil afterwards thought it worth while to defend himself
against this charge in a note of his still existing in the Cotton MSS.
It runs: “Whoso sayeth that I have in any wise directly or indirectly
hindered or altered her Majesty’s disposition in the delivery of the
Duke of Norfolk out of the Tower, I do affirm the same is untrue, and he
that sayeth so doth speak an untruth. If any man will affirm the same to
be true against this, my assertion, the same doth therein maintain an
untruth and a lye. W. Cecil, xii. Julii, 1570.”
[310] 2nd November (_Scrinia Ceciliana_).
[311] Full details of the operations against the rebels will be found
in the Sadler Papers; Sir Ralph Sadler being the Warden of the East and
Middle Marches, and Paymaster-general of the army.
[312] The Earl of Westmoreland succeeded in escaping to Flanders,
and thence to Spain. He remained a pensioner of Philip’s for years
afterwards, plotting against England, and beseeching payment of the
grudging dole which the Spanish King had assigned to him. Northumberland
was captured by Murray and imprisoned in Lochleven; and at the time of
the Regent’s assassination, Elizabeth’s special envoys from the Border
were negotiating for Northumberland’s surrender. He was delivered to the
English Government in 1572 by the Regent Morton, and beheaded at York.
[313] On the pretext of negotiating once more for the return of the
Spanish property seized, Alba sent to England, in October, the famous
Italian general, Ciapino Vitello, and in his letters to Sadler, Cecil
expresses great anxiety as to the probability of an attack being made by
Alba on Hartlepool at the time. English writers have always assumed that
Ciapino came to England in order to take command of a force to be sent
by Alba to England, but there is no trace of such a project in Alba’s
or Guzman’s letters. Ciapino was forced, however, to leave his large
retinue at Dover, and considerable delay took place before even he was
received. Alba states to Philip that Cecil and Leicester had been, or
were to be, bribed by the bankers Spinola and Fiesco, to allow Ciapino
to come to England (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth), but Leicester sent
word to Ciapino, as soon as the rising in the north was known, that his
stay in England was considered very suspicious. He was then hurried
away as soon as possible. There was really, however, not the slightest
ground at the time to fear an armed invasion by Alba in favour of Mary.
He wrote to Philip, 11th December, that he expected the rising “would
all end in smoke,” and he would not move a step without Philip’s precise
instructions.
[314] See _inter alia_ the Bishop of Ross’s letter to Philip, 4th
November 1569 (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth). His mistress, he says,
had ordered him to remonstrate with Elizabeth against her imprisonment at
Tutbury, and to demand either her restoration to her throne, or that she
should be allowed to go over to France or Spanish Flanders. He can get no
answer from Elizabeth, he says, and therefore in Mary’s name fervently
begs for Philip’s aid.
[315] Very large sums were granted by Elizabeth for this purpose. To
Count Mansfield alone she promised 100,000 crowns payable in three
months, and a like sum in two years. In February the Prince of Orange
sent an envoy to England to beg for similar aid, which was to be largely
supplemented by the Flemings in England. The envoy was secretly lodged in
Cecil House.
[316] There is an interesting memorandum of this period in Cecil’s hand
(Hatfield Papers, part i., Nos. 1452 and 1455), entitled, “Extract of ye
booke of ye state of ye realme,” in which the various dangers set forth
in this page and the remedies therefor are described. The dangers are—the
conspiracy of the Pope and the Kings of France and Spain against England;
that of Mary Queen of Scots; the decay of civil obedience and of martial
power in the country; the interruption of trade with Flanders, and the
shortcomings in England’s treaties with foreign princes.
[317] Hatfield Papers, part i.
[318] _Ibid._
[319] See her letters in Labanoff, iii., and also Banister’s Confessions
(Hatfield).
[320] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[321] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[322] The whole of the documents are at Hatfield; most of them _in
extenso_ in Haynes.
[323] See Morton to Cecil, 9th February 1571 (Hatfield Papers, part i.,
1541); and Elizabeth to Shrewsbury, 24th March (_ibid._, 1546).
[324] _Correspondance de la Mothe Fénélon._
[325] Walsingham Papers. Most of the letters _in extenso_ in “The
Compleat Ambassador.”
[326] There are in the Foreign State Papers of the year several of
Cecil’s balancing considerations of the advantages and disadvantages of
the match. From them it is clear that the Secretary himself was uncertain
of the Queen’s intentions. In one important letter to her (31st August),
Cecil suggests a way by which she may extricate herself, if she pleases,
from the agreement she had made on the matter with Catharine’s special
envoy, De Foix, at Knebworth. But he warns her very seriously of the
dangerous position in which she stands unless she does marry. “It will,”
he says, “also be necessary to seek by your Majesty’s best council the
means to preserve yourself, as in the most dangerous and desperate
sicknesses, the help of the best physicians; and surely how your Majesty
shall obtain remedies for your perils, I think, is only in the knowledge
of Almighty God.”
[327] Norris to the Queen (Foreign State Papers), 31st August 1570; also
Warcop’s communications from Walsingham to Cecil, 16th July 1571, &c.
[328] Walsingham Papers.
[329] His eldest son Thomas, afterwards Lord Exeter, also sat in this
Parliament as representative of the borough of Stamford. He had ended the
sowing of his wild oats, to which reference has been made, by running
away with a nun from a French convent; and was now married to Dorothy
Nevil, a daughter of the last Lord Latimer, whose sister had married Sir
Henry Percy, brother of the rebel Earl of Northumberland. Lord Burghley,
in the little Perpetual Calendar at Hatfield, duly records the birth of
all of Thomas’s children, three of whom had been born by this time.
[330] The young Earl of Rutland, one of his wards, especially at this
time seems to have occupied much of his attention. He was sent with
Lord Buckhurst’s embassy to France to congratulate Charles IX. on his
marriage with Elizabeth of Austria, and at every stage of the journey a
correspondence was kept up between them, the Secretary being solicitous
for the lad’s welfare and good treatment even to the smallest detail.
In the State Papers, Domestic, of 20th January 1571, there is a curious
document in Cecil’s handwriting, headed “Directions for a Traveller,”
laying down for Lord Rutland’s guidance strict rules for his conduct
whilst abroad.
[331] Mary to the Bishop, 8th February 1571 (Cotton MSS., Caligula, c.
xi.).
[332] Hatfield Papers and State Trials.
[333] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[334] That this possibility was ever present to the minds of Elizabeth’s
advisers, is seen by the constant warnings on the subject by Cecil’s
agents in Flanders, and by Walsingham. In one of Cecil’s statements as
to the advantages and disadvantages of the Queen’s marriage with Anjou
(Foreign State Papers, 14th January 1571), he enters on the contra
side the possibility that, in the case of there being no issue, the
King-consort might shorten the Queen’s life and marry Mary Stuart. The
confessions of the men who were to murder Burghley in connection with the
Ridolfi plot are at Hatfield.
[335] Details of all the examinations and the letters are at Hatfield.
Burghley alleged that Bailly was a Scotchman. His claim to be considered
a servant of the Queen of Scots was merely a technical one, although on
his tomb in a church in a suburb of Brussels he is called a secretary of
the Queen, which he certainly was not, and there is a bas-relief of her
execution. This has led on several occasions to the incorrect assertion
that Charles Bailly was present at the scene represented. He lived for
many years in Flanders in the pay of Spain; and, at least on one occasion
(1586), he took part in a Spanish attempt to foment a Catholic invasion
and revolution in Scotland.
[336] The Pope had sent by Beton, early in the year, as much as 140,000
crowns to Mary Stuart, which she received through Ridolfi. (Examination
of Ross: Hatfield.)
[337] The conspiracy included also a design to assassinate Burghley
himself. (See the confessions of Edmund Mather, the proposed murderer,
and Kenelm Berney, January 1572. Hatfield State Papers, part ii.).
[338] The cipher letter from Hickford will be found in Harl. MSS., 290.
[339] Examination of the Duke (Hatfield; _in extenso_ in Murdin).
[340] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[341] The English draft of Burghley’s speech is in Foreign State Papers;
De Spes’ version in the Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[342] It added to De Spes’ rage that the time he was thus contemned
Burghley was celebrating with great magnificence the marriage of his
eldest daughter, Elizabeth, with the young Earl of Oxford, a connection
which in after years brought him much trouble and anxiety. During the
wedding festivities the open slight to Spain was made the most of.
Cavalcanti was flattered and caressed, the Guises were denounced as
“Hispaniolised traitors,” and the Queen’s connection with the Protestants
of Germany and Flanders boasted of; whilst De Spes and his master
were scornfully held up as an object-lesson of England’s boldness and
strength. De Spes, in his last letter to Alba before his embarkation,
says that “Burghley has received certain threatening letters, and had
informed the Queen that if I stay here during the trial of the prisoners
the country will rise up in arms; and he, timid, contemptible fellow that
he is, commits so many absurdities that people are quite astonished.”
[343] The alcabala or tenth penny—ten per cent. on every sale.
[344] Foreign State Papers.
[345] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[346] _Correspondance de la Mothe Fénélon._
[347] Burghley writes to Walsingham, 11th February 1572, an account
of the Queen’s vacillation about Norfolk’s fate: “Suddenly on Sunday,
late at night the Queen’s Majesty sent for me, and entered into a great
misliking that the Duke should die next day, and said she was, and should
be, disquieted; and said she would have a new warrant made that night to
the sheriffs to forbear, until they should hear further. God’s will be
fulfilled, and aid her Majesty to do herself good.” (Walsingham Papers:
Complete Ambassador). In another letter from Burghley to Walsingham a
few weeks earlier than this, he complains of the Queen’s clemency: “The
Queen’s Majesty has always been a merciful lady, and by mercy she hath
taken more harm than by justice, and yet she thinks she is more beloved
in doing herself harm.” And again: “Here is no small expectation whether
the Duke shall die or continue prisoner. I know not how to write, for I
am here in my chamber subject to reports which are contrariwise.”
[348] Hatfield Papers, part ii.
[349] Hatfield Papers, part ii.
[350] Walsingham Papers.
[351] A copy of the charges with Lord Burghley’s signature erased is in
Hatfield Papers, part ii.
[352] There was in the Parliament in question a strong Puritan element.
An attempt was made by it to alter the rites of the Established Church in
the Genevan direction, which Elizabeth regarded as an interference with
her prerogative; and the pressure put upon her to consent to the trial of
Mary Stuart led her to dismiss the Parliament, which did not meet again
till 1575. When Parliament did meet again, the clemency of the Queen
towards Mary was made a source of complaint by the Puritan Wentworth, who
was imprisoned for his undutiful speech. For the consultation and report
of the joint committee of the two Houses in 1572 respecting Mary Stuart,
see D’Ewes’ “Compleat Journal.”
[353] It is probable that on this occasion the Queen made the celebrated
remark to Burghley’s servant. He told her Majesty, who wore a very high
head-dress, that it would be necessary to stoop to enter the door of the
chamber where the sick man lay. “For your master only will I stoop,”
said the Queen, “but not for the King of Spain.” It may be worth while
to repeat De Guaras’ remark when giving an account of this sickness of
Burghley. The latter had been showing an inclination to come to terms
with Spain about the seizures (it was shortly before the French alliance
was signed), and his illness had interrupted the negotiations. “If this
man dies,” writes De Guaras, “it will be very unfortunate for the purpose
which he declared to me.… It is true that hitherto he has undoubtedly
been the enemy of peace and tranquillity, for his own bad ends; but I am
convinced that he is now well disposed, which means that the Queen and
Council are so, for he, and no one else, rules the whole affairs of the
State. God grant that if it be for His service he may live.” (Spanish
State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. ii.)
[354] These are the dates in the diary, but they do not quite agree with
the entries in the little Perpetual Calendar at Hatfield, which run thus:—
“19 July 1572. W. Cecill admiss. Thesaurus Angl.
“19 July 1572. Quene’s Majestie at Theobalds, 5 to 6.”
[355] A curious letter from Sir Nicholas Bacon to Burghley respecting
this visit is in Lansdowne MSS., 14 (printed by Ellis), in which he prays
for advice and guidance, “ffor in very deede no man is more rawe in such
a matter than myself” (12th July 1572. Gorhambury).
[356] There is another letter in the same collection from the Earl of
Bedford to Burghley, begging him to arrange that the Queen should not
stay at Woburn longer than two nights and a day. “I pray god the Rowmes
and Lodgings there may be to her Majesty’s contentation for the tyme.…
They should be better than they be” (16th July 1572. Russell House).
[357] Spanish State Papers, 22nd July 1572, a month before St.
Bartholomew. If this be true, it to some extent confirms the subsequent
allegations of the Catholics as to a plot of the Huguenots.
[358] Foreign State Papers; _in extenso_ in Digges.
[359] Smith to Walsingham, 27th September (Foreign State Papers; _in
extenso_ in Digges).
[360] When Orange entered Brabant in September he sent an envoy to
England to ask for aid. An agent at once started from London with £16,000
in money, and a few days afterwards £30,000 in bills on Hamburg were
sent, for which the Prince wrote thanking Burghley. Large quantities
of stores were also shipped from England, and a force of 12,000 men
collected at the ports in case of emergency.
[361] See his letters in Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth; and also
“Antonio de Guaras,” by Richard Garnett, LLD.
[362] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[363] How deeply interested Burghley was in the question of trade is seen
in the active efforts he was making at this time to establish the Flemish
fugitives in various parts of England, to exercise the handicrafts in
which they excelled. During the negotiations with De Guaras, he was
establishing a community of cloth-workers in his own town of Stamford,
lodging them at first in a house of his own, giving them a church and
aiding them with money. (Dr. Cunningham’s “Alien Emigrants in England”;
State Papers, Domestic; and Strype’s Parker.)
[364] Burghley, on a previous occasion, had frightened De Guaras out of
his wits by charging him with conspiring against the Queen. Throughout
the whole negotiation the Spaniards were alternately flattered and
threatened. De Guaras himself was one day overjoyed with Burghley’s
amiability and admiration for all things and men Spanish; and the next
day cast into the depths of gloom, by haughty indifference, or hints at
punishment for treason, of which the poor man was as yet quite innocent;
or, again, by talk of the diversion of all English trade to France or
Hamburg, the abundant aid being sent to Orange, or the welcoming of the
Dutch privateers into English ports. The negotiation and its result are a
good specimen of Lord Burghley’s diplomatic methods.
[365] The documents relating to the protracted negotiations with regard
to the seizures, and the resumption of trade, will be found in the Cotton
MSS., Galba ciii., civ., cv., cvi., and Vesp. cxiii.
[366] Hatfield Papers; _in extenso_ in Murdin; also State Papers,
Scotland.
[367] See letters in Cotton MSS., Caligula, ciii.
[368] The terms were—that the hostages should be delivered within four
hours of the surrender of Mary; that James should be taken under the
protection of Elizabeth, and his rights remain intact, and be recognised
by the English Parliament; that a defensive alliance should be concluded
between the two countries; that the Earls of Bedford, Huntingdon,
and Essex should be present at the Queen’s execution with a force of
3000 men, and immediately afterwards join the King’s troops to reduce
Edinburgh Castle, which should then be delivered to the Regent; and,
finally, that all arrears of pay owing to the Scottish army should be
paid by England. The Spanish agents attributed the failure of Killigrew’s
mission to the efforts of De Croc, the French Ambassador in Scotland.
Elizabeth told the latter, when she saw him in London in October, that
she was well aware of all his plots in Scotland. Her uneasiness at the
time was increased by the news of the arrival in Paris of Cardinal
Orsini, a papal envoy with a fresh plan for the release of Mary.
[369] State Papers, Foreign. See also Burghley’s letters to Copley.
Roxburghe Club.
[370] Foreign State Papers; _in extenso_ in Digges.
[371] Foreign State Papers; _in extenso_ in Digges.
[372] The progress of each stage in the complicated business is related
in the author’s “Courtships of Queen Elizabeth.”
[373] The Bishop of London’s letter to Burghley is at Hatfield, part
ii.; _in extenso_ in Murdin. “These be dangerous days,” he says, “full
of itching ears mislying their minds, and ready to forget all obedience
and duty.… A soft plaister is better than a sharp corosy to apply to this
sore.… If Mr. Deryng be somewhat spared, yet wal scoled, the others,
being manifest offenders, may be dealt withal according to their deserts”
(3rd June 1573).
[374] In one case his love of justice had an unfortunate termination.
A crazy Puritan named Birchett stabbed Sir John Hawkins in the Strand,
under the belief that he was Sir Christopher Hatton, the declared rival
of Leicester in the Queen’s affection; and it was surmised also, his
opponent in his Puritan leanings. The Queen issued a commission for
Birchett’s summary trial and punishment by martial law, but was persuaded
by Burghley to remand him to safe custody for further inquiries. He was
imprisoned in the Lollard’s Tower, and a few days afterwards killed his
keeper. He was clearly a maniac, but the affair brought great odium upon
Puritanism, and led to the arrest of Mr. Cartwright, the leader of the
party. It is to be noticed that Burghley provided suitable preferment
for all the eminent Puritan nonconformists who were dismissed from their
positions in the Church; Cartwright, Lever, and Sampson being made
respectively “masters” of charitable foundations where their opinions on
ritual were of little importance.
[375] Original letters, Ellis.
[376] Gilbert Talbot to the Earl of Shrewsbury, 9th May 1573 (Lodge’s
Illustrations).
[377] The number and variety of remedies sent to Burghley from all parts
of the world for the cure of the gout are truly marvellous. We have
already mentioned some in an earlier page, but they became much more
frequent after this year (1573), when a Mr. Dyon sent one which Burghley
endorses as “Recipe pro podagra,” as well as Lady Harrington. Dr. Nuñes,
the Queen’s Portuguese physician, sent quite a collection of nostrums
in Latin, and a German doctor recommended certain medicated slippers; a
tincture of gold was advocated by a Nicholas Gybberd, and the Earl of
Shrewsbury was loud in his praises of “oyle of stagg’s blood.” Most of
the recipes mentioned will be found in the Lansdowne MSS., 18, 21, 27,
29, 39, and 42.
[378] See letters from Mary, in Labanoff, vol. iv. Elizabeth showed some
amount of jealous suspicion at Burghley’s interview with Mary, of which
Leicester and the Treasurer’s enemies made the most during his absence.
[379] Burghley, as Lord Treasurer, seems to have been seriously concerned
at the heavy cost of these progresses. In the Lansdowne MSS., 16, there
is a document, altered and corrected by Lord Burghley himself, of this
date (1573), showing how the royal household expenses had been increased
by this particular progress. It is to be deduced from the document that
extra expenditure entailed was £1034, 0s. 6d.
[380] See a curious letter from Lord Windsor to Burghley, 10th January
1574, exculpating himself for this letter (Hatfield Papers, part ii., No.
181).
[381] Hatfield Papers; _in extenso_ in Murdin.
[382] As a matter of fact he was straining every nerve at the time
to hold back his half-brother, Don John of Austria, who, with papal
support, was full of all manner of grand plans for the founding of a
great Christian Empire in Africa or the East, with himself as Emperor;
or else for invading England from Flanders, marrying Mary Stuart, and
reigning over a Catholic Great Britain. Don John and Gregory XIII. were
very serious in their plans; but Philip was determined that nothing of
the sort should be done with Spanish forces. He was absolutely bankrupt
at the time, and had recently been obliged to repudiate the interest
upon the vast sums he had borrowed. This had caused wholesale financial
disaster in Italy and Flanders, and Philip’s credit was at its lowest ebb.
[383] Mary’s own hopes were high for a short time after the accession
of her favourite brother-in-law. But she soon found out her mistake.
Catharine’s aim was not to benefit Mary Stuart, but to prevent the
extinction of French influence in Scotland. Her first act after Henry
III. ascended the throne was to project an embassy to Scotland,
accredited, not as all previous French embassies had been, to Mary
Stuart’s party alone, but to both parties. Mary indignantly protested
at this proposed recognition of the “usurpers,” and the embassy was
abandoned. La Chatre was sent to London in March 1575, to confirm the
treaty of Blois (in which Elizabeth and the Huguenots were comprised),
but he did not say a word in favour of the liberation of the Queen of
Scots. The withdrawal soon afterwards of the Guisan La Mothe Fénélon from
England, and the appointment, as Ambassador, of Castelnau, a great friend
of the English alliance, quite convinced Mary that she had nothing to
hope for from Henry III., who, sunk in sloth and vice, left everything to
his mother.
[384] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[385] 16th April 1575 (Hatfield Papers).
[386] Woodshaw’s interesting letters of this period to Burghley are in
Hatfield Papers. See also “Copley’s Correspondence,” Roxburghe Club.
[387] Hatfield Papers, part ii.
[388] Hatfield Papers, part ii.
[389] See Philip’s minute of his conversation with Cobham, October 1575
(Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth), and also Lord Burghley’s Diary.
[390] Burghley, in his Diary, refers to this embassy, giving the names
of the envoys. He says they based their offer of Holland, &c., to the
Queen upon her descent from Philippa of Hainault and Holland, who married
Edward III.
[391] Gerald Talbot writes: “Her Majesty is troubled with these causes,
which maketh her very melancholy, and she seemeth to be greatly out of
quiet. What shall be done in these matters is at present unknown; but
here are ambassadors on all sides, who labour greatly, one against the
other. Her Majesty hath put upon her to deal betwixt the King of Spain
and the Low Country; the King of France and his brother. Her Majesty may
deal as pleaseth her, for I think they both be weary of war, especially
Flanders, which, as report goeth, is utterly wanting of money, munition,
&c.” Hampton Court, 4th January 1576.
[392] Burghley was at the time unable to attend the Council in
consequence of an attack of his old enemy the gout.
[393] A few days later Burghley had reason to be still more angry with
Oxford himself, though with his reverence for rank he appears to have
treated him with inexhaustible patience and forbearance. Oxford had been
very extravagant and got into difficulties. During his absence abroad
he had made some complaint to Burghley about his steward or agent, but
nothing apparently of consequence. In March, Lord Burghley wrote to
him in Paris, saying that his wife was pregnant; and the Earl’s answer
was most cordial, full of rejoicing at the news, and announcing his
immediate return. The Treasurer’s eldest son, Sir Thomas Cecil (he had
been knighted the previous year at Kenilworth), travelled to Dover to
meet his brother-in-law. All went well until they arrived in London, when
Oxford declined to meet his wife or hold any communication with her.
Burghley reasoned, remonstrated, and besought in vain. Oxford was sulky
and intractable. His wife, he said, had been influenced by her parents
against him, and he would have no more to do with her. The whole of the
documents in the quarrel are in Hatfield Papers. As some indication of
the state in which noblemen of the period travelled even short distances,
two entries in the uncalendared household account-book at Hatfield may
be quoted: “Saturday, December 1576. My Lord and Lady Oxford came from
London to Theobalds; 28 servants with them.” And again, “Monday, 14th
January 1577. My Lord and my Lady of Oxford and 28 persons came from
London.”
[394] State Papers, Foreign.
[395] State Papers, Foreign.
[396] Hatfield Papers, part ii.
[397] How true this is may be seen by the account of an important
conversation De Guaras had with Burghley on the 30th January 1576
(Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth). De Guaras had prayed Burghley to
prevent the Queen from accepting the offer of Orange’s envoys for her to
take Holland and Zeeland. The Treasurer replied that, if the offer were
accepted, it would only be in the interests of Spain, and to prevent the
French from obtaining a footing. The Spaniard derided such a possibility,
and Burghley said that England, in pursuance of its ancient policy, would
defend the rights of the House of Burgundy, but that “foreign intruders”
had misgoverned the States to an extent which endangered England itself.
“Foreign intruders” indeed, retorted De Guaras; “your Lordship cannot
call Spaniards ‘foreign intruders’ in Flanders.” Burghley got angry at
this, and said, “You people are of such sort that wherever you set foot
no grass grows, and you are hated everywhere.” Hollanders, he continued,
were fighting for their privileges, and would be successful in upholding
them. The end of the colloquy was a renewal of the Queen’s wish to
mediate between Orange and Spain. The great object was to prevent the
French from obtaining influence in Flanders, and here Spanish and English
aims were identical.
[398] A violent attack against the hierarchy, and even against the Queen,
was made in Parliament (February 1576) by Paul Wentworth, member for
Tregony, a strong Puritan, who declared against the powers given to the
bishops to regulate ritual without the intervention of Parliament, and
complained of the rejection by the Queen of the bills against the Queen
of Scots in the previous session of 1572. Wentworth was imprisoned in the
Tower for a few days for his boldness. (D’Ewes’ Journal.)
[399] As Sussex for once was on the side of Leicester and the Puritans,
Burghley seems to have depended as an ally at this time principally upon
Hatton. A letter from the latter to the Treasurer (26th August 1576,
Lansdowne MSS., 22) shows that Burghley was urging him to return to court
from the country, where he was lying ill, and apparently unhappy. His
recent unjust extortion of the lease of Ely Place, Holborn, from the
Bishop of Ely (Cox), had rendered him very unpopular.
[400] A similar but more flattering offer was made in 1573 by the
unfortunate Earl of Essex, who proposed that his eldest son, then
only about six years old, should be betrothed to Burghley’s daughter
(Lansdowne MSS., 17). A few hours before he died (21st September 1576)
the Earl wrote a most pathetic letter to Lord Burghley, praying him to
take the same son into his household, and beseeching him to be good
to him for the sake of his father, “who lived and died your true and
unfeigned friend” (Hatfield Papers). It is sad to consider that the
son grew up to be the enemy of his father’s friend; to succeed, in his
enmity of Burghley, the vile Leicester, who dishonoured his mother and
deliberately ruined his father.
[401] Hatfield Papers.
[402] _Ibid._
[403] Philip’s reception of Smith was cold, more so even than had been
his treatment of Sir Henry Cobham. Smith writes to Burghley (5th February
1577) saying that he “has had special care to make known the Queen’s
noble nature and the great love and obedience of her subjects; in which
he has not detracted any title of honour that your Lordship is worthy of.
Yea, even the Duke of Alba himself gives you the honour to be one of the
most sufficient men in Christendom in all politic government.” Smith’s
reports of the extremity of Philip’s financial exhaustion caused great
surprise amongst the friends of Spain in Elizabeth’s court, many of whom
disbelieved them. When Smith returned and begged the Queen for a reward
for his services, she refused to accord him anything except to take his
bills payable in twelve months for £2000 instead of a mortgage she had
on his lands. (See letter 21st September 1578, Hatton to Burghley: State
Papers, Domestic.)
[404] A sum of no less than 400,000 crowns was openly provided by
Elizabeth for the States at the request of the Catholic Flemish nobles.
[405] Hatfield Papers.
[406] See the extraordinary Italian letter of this period from Baptista
de Trento to the Queen, in which nearly the whole of her nobility
(including Leicester and Sussex) are accused (Hatfield Papers), and also
a letter written by Burghley to Lord Shrewsbury, after his return from
Buxton, warning him to keep his eyes on Mary, who was, he said, suspected
of suborning some of Shrewsbury’s servants. The persecuting Bishop of
London (Aylmer) also wrote at the same time to Burghley urging him to
“use more severity than hath hitherto been used; or else we shall smart
for it. For as sure as God liveth they look for an invasion, or else they
(the Catholics) would not fall away as they do” (Strype’s Aylmer).
[407] According to his own statement the case against him was divulged
to Burghley by some of the Catholic Flemish nobles who were aware of his
former practices; but there are many indications in his letters up to
the time of his arrest, that he was a party to plots then in progress,
especially one with Colonel Chester and others.
[408] An interesting minute on the subject, in Burghley’s writing, is
in Hatfield Papers (part ii., No. 531). Two personages were to be sent
from England to bring about peace: one to the States, and the other to
Don Juan. The States were to be reminded that they owed gratitude to
Elizabeth for risking war with Spain on their behalf, and aiding them
with £85,000; and the envoy was to point out to them the danger of their
receiving French help. The French, they are to be told, may either turn
and side with the enemy, or try to keep the country for themselves. As a
last resort, the English envoy is to be authorised to offer English aid
if the States will desist from dealing with the French.
Don Juan, on the other hand, is to be told that if he does not make terms
with the States, the French will conquer the country, in which case the
Queen will send such aid to the States as will enable them to hold their
own against everybody. As usual with Burghley’s minutes, there is at the
end a carefully-balanced summary of possibilities, and courses to be
pursued, all tending to the same end—the exclusion of the French from
Flanders. The mission in question was that of June 1578, the envoys being
Lord Cobham and Walsingham.
[409] For a wonder, on this occasion Sussex sided with his enemy
Leicester, although, as will be seen, only for a short time.
[410] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[411] Grindall, Archbishop of Canterbury, had been deprived by the Queen
for neglecting to suppress the “prophesying”; and Sandys, Archbishop of
York, was also in disgrace; but, as Strype says, “his good friend Lord
Burghley stood up for him.” He certainly did so in the case of Grindall,
who kept up a constant correspondence with the “good Lord Treasurer.”
[412] Add. MSS., 15,891; 21st April 1578.
[413] To such an extent was this so, that whilst, according to Mendoza,
money and men were constantly being sent to Flanders, and Leicester and
Walsingham were planning the murder of Don Juan and the expulsion of
Mendoza from England, “I can assure your Majesty that the Earl of Sussex
is sincerely attached to your Majesty’s interests, and Cecil also, though
not so openly. But if he and Sussex are properly treated they will both
be favourable, and their good disposition will be much strengthened when
they see it rewarded.” His suggestion was that Burghley and Sussex should
be granted large pensions. It will be observed that Sussex had already
broken free from Leicester.
[414] Elizabeth appears to have been very angry about Gondi’s mission.
“She told him,” says Mendoza, “loudly in the audience chamber, that she
knew very well he had come to disturb her country, and to act in favour
of the worst woman in the world, whose head should have been struck off
long ago. She was sure he had not come with the knowledge of his King,
but only of some of those who surrounded him. Gondi replied that the
Queen of Scots was a sovereign, as she was, and her own kinswoman, and
it was not surprising that efforts should be made on her behalf. The
Queen answered him angrily, that she should never be free as long as she
lived, even if it cost her (Elizabeth) her realm and her own liberty. The
Queen-mother, she said, must surely know what Mary had attempted against
her.” (5th May 1578; Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.)
[415] Mendoza dilates much upon the venality of the English Council, and
says, “I am told by a person in the palace, that, even in the matter of
giving me audience readily, the Queen has been considerably influenced by
the gloves and perfumes I gave her when I arrived.”
[416] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, and also a letter from Sussex
to Burghley in November, printed by Lodge, vol. ii.; also Sussex to
Burghley, Hatfield Papers, part ii., where he mentions that “Burghley
also had been ill-used by lewd speech. I will on all occasions stick as
near to you as your shirt is to your back.” (5th November 1578.)
[417] This was true. The treaty of Nerac was signed in February 1579 by
Henry of Navarre, now the acknowledged leader.
[418] Cobham, Wilkes, and Smith had all been sent back with a short
answer.
[419] Sir Thomas Cecil to Burghley, and Lord Lincoln to the same
(Hatfield Papers).
[420] Hatton to Burghley, 28th September 1578 (Hatfield Papers).
[421] There are many hundreds of such letters as these at Hatfield and in
the Lansdowne MSS.
[422] Hatfield State Papers, part ii.
[423] Mendoza, writing on 8th April, says, “Lord Burghley is not so much
opposed to the match as formerly; but I cannot discover whether he and
Sussex have changed their minds because they think that they may thus
bring about the fall of Leicester, and avenge themselves upon him for old
grievances, and for his having advanced to the office of Chancellor an
enemy of theirs” (_i.e._ Bromley). On another occasion, when the Queen
learned of the Papal-Spanish expedition to Ireland to aid the Desmonds in
Munster, she was so much alarmed that she dropped the French negotiations
for some days and refused to see Simier.
[424] It has not been noticed by Burghley’s biographers that, true to his
cautious character, he found an excuse for going into Northamptonshire
shortly before Alençon arrived in London. He writes an interesting
letter to Hatton from Althorpe, dated 9th August (Nicholas’s “Life of
Hatton”), in reply to the advices respecting the fortifying of the Papal
force at Dingle, in Kerry. The ships must be sent against them, he says,
double-manned, “as there is no good access by land.” He is very jealous
of foreigners setting foot in Ireland, for fear any “discontentation
grow betwixt France and us upon a breach of this interview (_i.e._
with Alençon), or if the King of Spain shall be free from his troubles
in the Low Country.” He approves of the agreement of Cologne and the
pacification of Ghent, whereby Holland and Zeeland were to remain
Protestant, and Flanders Catholic, rather than the war should go on.
“On Tuesday morning we will be at Northampton, where after noon we mean
to hear the babbling matters of the town for the causes of religion,
wishing that we may accord them all in mind and action; at least we will
draw them to follow one line by the rule of the laws, or else make the
contrariant feel the sharpness of the same law.” On the same day Burghley
wrote a vigorous letter to Walsingham directing energetic action in
Ireland.
[425] Burghley’s minutes of the deliberations are in Hatfield Papers,
part ii.
[426] Hatfield Papers, part ii.
[427] The original draft of the protocol in Simier’s handwriting is
in the Hatfield Papers. A most valuable digest or “time-table,” in
Burghley’s handwriting, of the whole of the negotiations for the Queen’s
marriage up to the period of Simier’s departure, will be found in the
Hatfield Papers, part ii.
[428] Allen’s famous English seminary had been transferred to Rheims
under the patronage of the Guises, and a great number of young priests
were continually sent into England, especially after 1579, the first
members of the Jesuit mission, Persons and Campion, arriving in 1580.
[429] Mendoza at this period writes to the King of the enormous number of
ships being built. “This,” he says, “makes the English almost masters of
the commerce … as they have a monopoly of shipping, whereby they profit
by all the freights.” Burghley was an untiring promoter of extension of
legitimate trade, as he was a constant enemy to piracy. He was at this
time promoting Humphrey Gilbert’s colonisation schemes in North America,
the enterprises of Frobisher and his friends in Hudson’s Bay, the trade
of the Muscovy Company, the overland route to the Caspian by the White
Sea and the Volga, and other similar adventures; but, as we shall have
occasion to see later, he disapproved entirely of Drake’s proceedings in
the Pacific, and other expeditions of a wantonly aggressive character.
[430] Hatfield Papers, part ii.
[431] Sadler State Papers.
[432] The intention, however, was not carried out. In the summer Lord
Shrewsbury wrote to Lady Burghley asking her to prevail upon her husband
to obtain the Queen’s permission for Mary Stuart to go to Buxton and
Chatsworth. Lady Burghley in her reply suggests that the Queen was angry
and refused. Mary, however, did go to Buxton later, but not to Chatsworth.
[433] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth. Burghley’s interest in naval
affairs was great. He had, when danger threatened from Alba, in the
summer of 1578, elaborated a scheme for the mobilisation of the navy,
and had put fourteen ships into commission. The Council appear to have
addressed to him most of their minutes respecting naval organisation,
instead of to the Lord Admiral.
[434] The Duke Hans Casimir was in England at the time (January 1580),
and took a large sum of money back with him for the purpose in question.
[435] This was actually the case at the time so far as Scotland itself
as apart from Mary was concerned. There is in the Hatfield Papers of
this date (1580) a fervent appeal from James VI. to the King of France,
begging for assistance in force to release his mother, and support him
against his heretic subjects. Mendoza also reports (4th September 1580)
that Guise had just recognised James’s title of King for the first time,
and that intimate relations were being formed between the courts of
Scotland and France. This probably arose from the long delay of the reply
from Spain to Mary, Guise, and the Archbishop of Glasgow, relative to
their offer of complete submission to Philip. The whole matter, however,
was changed in the following year, and thenceforward Mary and her friends
depended upon Spain alone.
[436] In Strype’s “Annals,” _in extenso_.
[437] Hatfield Papers. Another letter of this period (June 1580) from
Sussex to Lord Burghley (Hatfield Papers) shows forcibly the affection
and veneration he felt for him. “I do love, honour, and reverence you
as a father, and do you all the service we can as far as any child you
have, with heart and hand.… The true fear of God which your actions have
always shown to be in your heart, the great and deep care you have had
for the honour and safety of the Queen … and the continual trouble you
have of long time taken for the benefit of the commonwealth, and the
upright course you have always taken respecting the matter, and not the
person, in all causes … have tied me to your Lordship in that knot which
no worldly frailty can break.”
[438] See her letter to Henry III. (Hatfield State Papers, 27th July
1580).
[439] According to Drake’s statement given in Cooke’s narrative in Vaux,
Drake was presented to the Queen by Walsingham; but Doughty, of whom we
shall speak presently, asserted when he was on his trial that he, who was
a great friend of Drake, and private secretary to Hatton, had interested
the latter in the project, and that it was he who persuaded the Queen to
countenance Drake.
[440] 20th June 1578. Doughty confessed that he had given Burghley a plan
of the voyage. It was this, unquestionably, that sealed Doughty’s fate.
[441] Mendoza writes to the King (23rd October 1580): “Sussex, Burghley,
Crofts, the Admiral, and others insist that the Queen should retain the
treasure in her own hands in the Tower, and if your Majesty will give
them the satisfaction they desire about Ireland, the treasure may be
restored, after reimbursing the adventurers for their outlay.… Leicester
and Hatton advocate that Drake should not be personally punished, nor
made to restore the plunder if the business is carried before the
tribunals. The fine excuse they give is that there is nothing in the
treaties between the countries which prohibits Englishmen from going to
the Indies.”
[442] Spanish State Papers.
[443] D’Ewes’ Journal.
[444] Sir Walter Mildmay introduced a bill in this Parliament by which
reconciliation to Rome should be punishable as high treason, the saying
of mass by a fine of 200 marks and a year’s imprisonment, and the hearing
of mass half that penalty. Absence from church was to be punished by a
fine of £20 a month, and unlicensed schoolmasters were to be imprisoned
for a year. The bill met with much opposition by the Lords and by
Burghley’s party, and was somewhat lessened in severity before it became
law.
[445] How entirely Elizabeth herself depended upon the Burghley policy
now, is proved by a remark reported by Mendoza (27th February). D’Aubigny
was quite paramount in Scotland, and Morton was in prison, his doom
practically sealed. Mendoza reports that the Earl of Huntingdon,
Leicester’s brother-in-law, Warden of the Marches, had connived at a
raid of Borderers into England as far as Carlisle, where some Englishmen
were killed, in order that he might have an excuse for crossing into
Scotland and attacking Morton’s enemies. When the Queen heard of this
she was extremely angry. “What is this I hear about Scotland?” she asked
Walsingham. “Did I order anything of this sort to be done?” Walsingham
minimised the affair. The answer was, “You Puritan! you will never be
content until you drive me into war on all sides, and bring the King of
Spain on to me.” (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.)
[446] It consisted of two very young princes of the blood sent for
appearance’ sake, Francis de Bourbon, Dauphin d’Auvergne, and Charles de
Bourbon, Count de Soissons; Marshal de Cossé, Pinart, La Mothe Fénélon,
Brisson, and a great number of courtiers of rank. So desirous was
Elizabeth that they should be impressed with the splendour of her court,
that she ordered that the London mercers should sell their fine stuffs
at a reduction of 25 per cent. in order that the courtiers might be
handsomely dressed.
[447] Lodge, vol. ii.
[448] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[449] Hatfield Papers, part ii.
[450] Hatfield Papers, part ii.
[451] Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris: _Fonds français_, 3308.
[452] In addition to the letter of the Queen, there is another document
signed by the Ambassadors and by the English Council, saying that the
terms shall not be considered binding upon the Queen, unless within six
weeks she and Alençon report in writing to the King of France that they
have arranged certain personal questions to their mutual satisfaction.
Both documents are printed _in extenso_ in Digges.
[453] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth.
[454] The real reason for the Queen’s ostentatious slighting of Mendoza
at the time was to draw the King of France on, and make him believe that
she was willing to break with Spain.
[455] Walsingham to the Queen: “fearing lest when he should be embarqued
your Majesty would slip the collar” (Walsingham Papers). See also
Walsingham’s letters to Burghley, in the same.
[456] Burghley to Walsingham; _in extenso_ in Digges.
[457] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[458] Hatfield State Papers, part ii.
[459] Burghley to Walsingham; _in extenso_ in Digges.
[460] “Courtships of Queen Elizabeth,” by the present writer.
[461] See Camden; _Memoires de Nevers_; Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth;
and “Courtships of Queen Elizabeth.”
[462] Wilkes, Clerk of the Council, was sent to confer with Mary upon the
subject. His report in full is in State Papers, Scotland, and at Hatfield.
[463] See his own book, “Treatise on the Execution of Justice,” written
in 1583 in answer to Allen’s attacks.
[464] See Simpson’s Life of Campion, Spanish State Papers, Camden’s
Elizabeth, and Allen’s _De Persecutione Anglicana_.
[465] Burghley, writing to Lord Shrewsbury (Lansdowne MSS., 982) in
August 1581, telling him of the trial and execution for treason of the
priest Everard Duckett, who had denied the Queen’s authority, says in
reference to Campion and his companions, “If they shall do the like,
the law is like to correct them. For their actions are not matters of
religion, but merely of state, tending directly to the deprivation of her
Majesty’s crown.” Campion, he says, had been brought before Leicester and
Bromley, but had not confessed anything of importance. It appears to have
been the result of the admissions wrung from Campion and others about
this time as to the houses in which they had lodged that led to the great
number of Catholic arrests all over England.
[466] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[467] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[468] _Ibid._
[469] Ralegh was certainly known to Leicester before this. He was
attached to his suite when he accompanied Alençon to Antwerp in February;
and always professed to be specially attached to him personally, even
when he was lending his aid to his political opponents.
[470] B. M. Add. MSS., 15,891: Walsingham to Hatton.
[471] B. M. Lansdowne MSS., 36: Hatton to Burghley.
[472] The probable cause of the Queen’s displeasure with Oxford on this
occasion was an affray between him and Sir Thomas Knyvett, one of the
Queen’s Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, in March 1582. Nicholas Faunt
writes to Anthony Bacon (Bacon Papers, vol. i.): “There has been a fray
between my Lord of Oxford and Knyvett, who are both hurt, but Lord Oxford
more dangerously. You know,” he adds, “Master Knyvett is not meanly
beloved at court, and therefore is not likely to speed ill, whatsoever
the quarrel be.” There is also a most interesting letter from Burghley
to Hatton (12th March 1582, B. M. MSS., Add. 91), in which he begs him
to intercede with the Queen for Oxford, and recites the whole of the
accusations against him.
[473] State Papers, Domestic.
[474] Mary to Beton, 18th November 1582 (Spanish State Papers).
[475] Harl. MSS., 5397.
[476] Full particulars of De Maineville’s and La Mothe Fénélon’s missions
in M. Chéruel’s _Marie Stuart et Catherine de Medicis_, drawn from the
correspondence of La Mothe Fénélon and the archives of the D’Esneval
family.
[477] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[478] See Beale’s instructions, Harl. MSS., 4663; also Beale’s report of
his proceedings in Lord Calthorpe’s MSS.
[479] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[480] This is according to Beale’s official report. But on the following
day (17th April 1583) Beale wrote to Lord Burghley (Harl. MSS., 4663),
saying that she had abandoned all ambition, she was old and ill, and was
ready to swear to anything for her liberation. This, however, was before
she received Mendoza’s letter (6th May?) advising her on no account to
accept her release (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth).
[481] The Queen had nicknames for most of her friends; Burghley was the
Leviathan or the Spirit, Hatton was Bellwether or Lyddes, Walsingham was
Moon, Alençon was Frog, Simier was Ape, Ralegh was Water, Leicester was
Sweet Robin, and so forth.
[482] Printed in Dr. Nares’ Life of Burghley.
[483] See letter from a Scottish gentleman to De Maineville, 13th July
(Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth), and Mary to Mendoza, of same date
(_ibid._).
[484] See letter of Castelnau to Henry III., 1st July; _in extenso_ in
Chéruel’s _Marie Stuart_. How completely Mary distrusted the French and
Castelnau at the time, notwithstanding her cordial letters to them, may
be seen by a paragraph in her letter to Mendoza of 13th July (Spanish
State Papers). The recognition of James as King by La Mothe’s embassy had
confirmed Mary’s determination to depend only upon the Spaniards.
[485] One of Elizabeth’s movements as soon as she heard the news was
to summon Lord Arbroath, the eldest of the Hamiltons, from France, to
proceed to Scotland in her pay. See letter, Mary to Castelnau, September
(Hatfield Papers), and Mendoza to the King, 19th August (Spanish State
Papers).
[486] Guise sent Persons (alias Melino) to the Pope in August, giving
him an account of his plans. Four thousand Spaniards were to land at
Dalton-in-Furness, Lancashire, whilst Guise made a descent on Sussex,
simultaneously with a rising of Catholics in the North of England and on
the Scottish Border (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, 22nd August).
[487] Walsingham’s disinclination to undertake the mission is quite
comprehensible. He was at the time engaged in a complicated intrigue with
the triple traitor Archibald Douglas, by which he learnt the secrets of
Mary Stuart; and at the same time he and Leicester were making approaches
to Mary Stuart and James, for a marriage between the latter and Lady
Dorothy Devereux, the step-daughter of Leicester, on condition of James
being declared the heir of England. See letters from Mary to Castelnau,
September 1583 (Hatfield Papers, part iii.), and Mendoza to the King,
13th March 1583 (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth); also Castelnau to
Henry, 1st January 1584 (Harl. MSS., 1582), and the same to Mary (Harl.
MSS., 387). The heads of Walsingham’s instructions are in Hatfield
Papers, part iii.
[488] Mendoza to the King, 19th August (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth).
[489] Many of her compromising letters to Mendoza were intercepted and
read. Mary herself, writing to Elizabeth from Tutbury (29th September
1584), thanking her for her change of lodging, protests against the
stoppage of her correspondence with the French Ambassador Castelnau. “All
that I write,” she says, “passes through the hands of your people, who
see, read, examine, and keep back in order to point out to me any fault
if they find in it anything offensive or injurious to you” (Harl. MSS.,
4651). This was more true than Mary thought when she wrote it, for she
had no idea that some of her more compromising letters to the Spaniards
were read. A letter from Mary to Sir Francis Englefield, Philip’s English
Secretary (9th October 1584), contains the following dangerous words: “Of
the treaty between the Queen of England and me I may neither hope nor
look for good issue. Whatsoever shall come of me, by whatsoever change of
my state and condition, let the execution of the great plot go forward
without any respect of peril or danger to me.” And she continues by
saying that the plan (_i.e._ the rising and invasion) must take place at
latest next spring or the cause will be ruined.
[490] There are several reasons for believing that the prosecution
of Somerville, the Ardens, Throgmorton, and others, was not entirely
honest on the part of Leicester. Somerville was obviously a madman,
and was strangled in his cell; the estates of Arden, whose wife was a
Throgmorton, went to enrich a creature of Leicester; and the priest,
Hall, on whose evidence the prisoners were condemned, was quietly
smuggled out of the country by Leicester’s favour. Although it is
possible that Throgmorton may have participated in Guise’s murder plot—he
certainly did in the invasion plot—there is no satisfactory evidence to
prove it.
[491] Hatfield State Papers, part iii.
[492] How keenly Whitgift felt the attacks upon him for doing what
he conceived to be his duty, may be seen by his letters in Strype’s
Whitgift. In a letter to Anthony Bacon (Birch’s Elizabeth) he writes: “I
am, thank God, exercised with like calumnies at home also; but I comfort
myself that lies and false rumours cannot long prevail. In matters of
religion I remain the same, and so intend to do by God’s grace during
life; wherein I am daily more and more confirmed by the uncharitable and
indirect practices, as well by the common adversary the Papist, as also
of some of our wayward, unquiet, and discontented brethren.”
[493] Hatfield State Papers, part iii.
[494] Even whilst the bill was passing through Parliament, however, the
effects of his moderation were seen. In March twenty Catholic priests and
one layman, either convicted or accused of treason, were released from
prison and sent to France. Father Howard himself told Mendoza that he was
at a loss to account for this leniency.
[495] He certainly was not benefited in purse; for one of the first
things Parry did was to borrow fifty crowns of the young man, which he
never returned (Birch’s Elizabeth). In the correspondence of Sir Thomas
Copley with Burghley at this period (1579-80), Parry is presented in a
more favourable light than that in which he is usually regarded, and so
far as can be judged by his letters he retained the Lord Treasurer’s
esteem almost to the time of his arrest.
[496] Mendoza, writing to Philip from Paris at the time, says that this
letter was forged (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth), but in any case the
letter did not necessarily imply approval of murder.
[497] Hatfield Papers, part iii.
[498] Harl. MSS., 4651.
[499] Hatfield Papers, part iii.
[500] See letter (Nau?) to Mary (Hatfield Papers, part iii. p. 125).
[501] See letter from Burghley’s nephew Hoby, at Berwick, to the
Treasurer (Hatfield Papers, part iii. p. 71).
[502] Hatfield State Papers, part iii.
[503] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, part iii. p. 536; and Hatfield
Papers, part iii. p. 99.
[504] Carliell to Walsingham, 4th October 1585 (State Papers, Domestic).
[505] Cotton, Galba, cviii. (Leycester Correspondence).
[506] Harl. MSS., 285 (Leycester Correspondence).
[507] Harl. MSS., 6993 (Leycester Correspondence).
[508] The unfortunate Davison, born apparently to be made a scapegoat,
had to bear Leicester’s reproaches for the Queen’s anger, which the Earl
said was owing to Davison’s ineffective or insincere advocacy—Davison
being a distant connection both of Burghley’s and Leicester’s. The latter
even had the meanness to allege that it was mainly owing to Davison’s
persuasion that he accepted the sovereignty, and Davison was disgraced
and banished from court for a time in consequence. See Sir Philip
Sidney’s letters to Davison (Harl. MSS., 285).
[509] Cotton, Galba, cx. (Leycester Correspondence).
[510] Harl. MSS., 6994 (Edwards’ “Letters of Ralegh”).
[511] Amongst many other proofs may be mentioned her letter to Charles
Paget, 27th July 1586 (Hatfield Papers, part iii.), in which she says:
“Upon Ballard’s return the principal Catholics who had despatched him
oversea imparted to her their intentions;” but she advises that “nothing
is to be stirred on this side until they have full assurance and promise
from the Pope and Spain.” In another letter of the same date to Mendoza
she says that although she had turned a deaf ear for six months to
the various overtures made to her by the Catholics, now that she had
heard of the intentions of the King of Spain, she had consented thereto
(Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, part iii.). Again, on the same day, she
instructed the French Ambassador to ask Burghley to be careful in the
choice of a new guardian for her, “so that whatever happen, whether it be
the death of the Queen of England, or a rebellion in the country, my life
may be safe” (Labanoff).
[512] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. iii. The reference to Parma
applies to certain negotiations for peace which had been attempted by
Andrea de Looe, Agostino Graffini, and William Bodenham. In a statement
furnished by an English agent to Philip in November, it is also asserted
that these negotiations were initiated by Burghley “who was always
against the war.”
[513] Mendoza wrote to Philip (8th November): “When Cecil saw the papers
(taken in Mary’s rooms) he told the Queen that now that she had so great
an advantage, if she did not proceed with all rigour at once against the
Queen of Scotland, he himself would seek her friendship. These words are
worthy of so clever a man as he is, and were intended to lead the other
Councillors to follow him in holding the Queen of England back.” It is
evident from this that Mendoza did not consider Cecil to be Mary’s enemy.
[514] Babington, Savage, Ballard, Barnewell, Tylney, Tichbourne, and
Abingdon were executed at St. Giles-in-the-Fields on the 20th September.
Mendoza says that as Babington’s heart was being torn out he was
distinctly heard to pronounce the word “Jesus” thrice.
[515] State Papers, Domestic.
[516] Camden.
[517] Davison, who had just been appointed an additional Secretary of
State, wrote to Burghley from Windsor (5th October) that the Queen did
not like the wording, “Tam per Maria filiam et hæredem Jacobi quinti
nuper Scotorū Regis ac communiter vocatam Scotorū Regis et dotare
Franciæ.” She wished it to be, “Tam per Maria filiam &c. … Scotorū Regis
et dotare Franciæ _communiter vocata Regina Scotorū_.” Thus it is seen
that, although Elizabeth made no difficulty about acknowledging Mary as
Queen Dowager of France, she would not recognise her as of right Queen of
Scots. Davison adds that she was sending a special messenger to Burghley
to discuss the matter with him.
[518] He was the secret means of communication between Mendoza and his
spies in England.
[519] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[520] Nau and Curll, the two Secretaries, had been closely examined
by Burghley in London, and at first had denied everything, but
subsequently when confronted with their own handwriting, were obliged
to acknowledge—especially Nau—Mary’s cognisance of Babington’s plans.
Nau afterwards (1605) endeavoured to minimise his admissions, but Mary’s
letter to Mendoza (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, 23rd November) which
was not delivered or opened until long after Mary’s death, leaves no
doubt whatever that Mary considered he had betrayed her. Curll lived
for the rest of his life on a handsome pension from Spain, but Nau
got nothing. Mary’s first answer to her accusers, that she was a free
princess and not subject to Elizabeth’s tribunal, had been foreseen by
Beale (see his opinion, Harl. MSS., 4646).
[521] Queen to Burghley, 12th October (Cotton, Caligula, cix.).
[522] Camden Annals, and Life of Sir Thomas Egerton.
[523] Hatfield Papers, part iii.
[524] Howell’s State Trials. Burghley writes to Davison (15th October,
Cotton, Caligula): “She has only denied the accusations. Her intention
was to move pity by long artificial speeches, to lay all blame upon the
Queen’s Majesty, or rather upon the Council, that all the troubles past
did ensue from them, avowing her reasonable offers and our refusals. And
in these speeches I did so encounter her with reasons out of my knowledge
and experience, as she hath not the advantage she looked for. And, as
I am assured, the auditory did find her case not pitiable, and her
allegations untrue.”
[525] Hollingshead.
[526] Mary to Mendoza, 24th November (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth,
part iii.).
[527] Paris Archives; _in extenso_ in Von Raumer.
[528] Philip’s secret agent in London wrote at the time urging that “a
message should be sent from Spain to the Lord Treasurer, who is the
ruling spirit in all this business, and is desirous of peace, to let him
know that your Majesty wished for his friendship” (Spanish State Papers,
Elizabeth, part iii.).
[529] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, part iii.
[530] Bellièvre did not arrive in England until 1st December. An account
of his embassy will be found printed in Labanoff. The regular Ambassador,
Chateauneuf, did his best, for he was a Guisan, but Elizabeth flatly
told him she believed he was exceeding his instructions. His own doubts
as to his master’s real wishes are expressed in a letter to D’Esneval in
Paris (20th October): “Je vous prie me mander privément, ou ouvertement,
l’intention de Sa Majesté sur les choses de deça; car il me semble que
l’on se soucie fort peu de par dela du fait de la Reine d’Ecosse.”
Davison wrote to Burghley at Fotheringay (8th October), telling him of
the “presumption” of Chateauneuf’s first remonstrance, and the rebuke
sent to him by the Queen “for attempting to school her in her actions.”
[531] Mendoza to Philip, 7th December (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth,
part iii.).
[532] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, part iii. In a marginal note to
another letter, Philip himself expresses an opinion that Bellièvre has
gone, not to save Mary’s life, but for another purpose.
[533] See Lord Burghley’s notes of this appeal for his reply thereto
(Hatfield State Papers, part iii.); and also Elizabeth’s own most
interesting letter to Henry III. (Harl. MSS., 4647). She ends by a hit
at Henry’s helpless position: “I beg you, therefore, rather to think of
the means of preserving than of diminishing my friendship. Your States,
my good brother, cannot bear many enemies; do not for God’s sake give
the rein to wild horses, lest they throw you from your seat.” Another
characteristic step taken in England at the same time was to concoct
a bogus plot to murder Elizabeth, in which it was pretended that the
Ambassador Chateauneuf was concerned. This gave an opportunity for
much anger and complaint on the part of Elizabeth, especially against
the Guises; and in Lord Burghley’s memoranda giving reasons for Mary’s
execution, this so-called plot of Stafford, Moody, and Destrappes is
gravely set forth as a contributing factor.
[534] Gray’s own feelings in the matter may be seen by his copious
correspondence with Archibald Douglas, at Hatfield. He had, when he was
in Flanders, proposed that Mary might be put out of the way by poison,
and was hated by Mary’s friends in consequence. “If she die,” he said, “I
shall be blamed, and if she live I shall be ruined;” but he was forced
against his will to accept the embassy and acted in a similar way to
Bellièvre—pleaded with strong words but weak arguments, in order that his
own position might be saved whether Mary lived or died.
[535] Mendoza to Philip, 24th January 1587 (Spanish State Papers,
Elizabeth, vol. iv.).
[536] The matter is fully discussed in Nicolas’s Life of Davison.
[537] It is curious that the warning should come from Howard, a Catholic
and a Conservative, several of whose relatives were Spanish pensioners.
[538] Hatfield Papers, part iii. There is no mention of the poison letter
to Paulet, but it was written, and is printed in Nicolas’s Life of
Davison, with Paulet’s reply.
[539] The Queen kept up a pretence of anger against the Councillors for
some time, and especially against Burghley, who on the 13th February
wrote her a submissive letter praying for her favour. He was excluded
from her presence, and complains that she “doth utter more heavy, hard,
bitter, and minatory speeches against me than against any other,” which
he ascribes to the calumnies of his many enemies, and to the fact that
he alone was not allowed to justify his action personally to her. “I
have,” he says, “confusedly uttered my griefs, being glad that the night
of my age is so near by service and sickness as I shall not long wake to
see the miseries that I fear others shall see that are like to overwatch
me.” When at length he obtained audience of the Queen, she treated him
so harshly that he again retired, and was only induced to return again
by the intercession of Hatton. Elizabeth’s special anger with Burghley
may have been an elaborate pretence agreed upon between them, or, what is
more probable, the result of some calumnies of Leicester.
[540] An interesting statement of Burghley’s treatment of Davison in
later years will be found in Harl. MSS., 290. Part of his unrelenting
attitude to him is commonly attributed to Burghley’s desire to secure
the Secretaryship of State for his son, Sir Robert Cecil. It is evident,
however, that Davison was adopted by Essex as one of his instruments to
oppose Burghley’s policy, and the restoration of Davison would thereafter
have meant a defeat for the Cecils. This, it appears to me, amply
explains the Lord Treasurer’s attitude.
[541] Hatfield Papers, part iii. 223.
[542] That Lord Burghley was desirous of dissociating himself personally
from the execution, and of remaining on good terms with the Catholic
party, is further seen by a remark made in a letter from Mendoza to
Philip (26th March 1587): “Cecil, the Lord Treasurer, said publicly that
he was opposed to the execution, and on this and all other points feeling
was running very high in the Council; Cecil and Leicester being open
opponents” (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth).
[543] Walsingham, conveying this news to Leicester in Flanders (17th
April), says: “There are letters written from certain of my Lords, by her
Majesty’s effectual command, to inhibit him (Drake) to attempt anything
by land or within the ports of Spain.” On the 11th he wrote: “This
resolution proceedeth altogether upon a hope of peace, which I fear may
do much harm.”
[544] The first hint to this effect reached Philip too late to be useful.
It was conveyed by Mendoza from Stafford in Paris on the 19th April, the
day that Drake reached Cadiz.
[545] Foreign Office Records, Flanders, 32.
[546] This was the great galleon _San Felipe_, one of the richest prizes
ever brought to England.
[547] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[548] His mother, the owner of Burghley, had just died, aged eighty-five;
and his unmanageable son-in-law, the Earl of Oxford, still caused
him endless trouble. His only family consolation at the time was the
promise of his favourite son, Sir Robert Cecil, whose great talents
and application were already remarkable. How incessant and varied Lord
Burghley’s labours still were may be seen by the great number of letters
addressed to him, entreating him for help, influence, or advice. The
Catholic Earl of Arundel from the Tower, the Earl of Huntingdon, Lord
Buckhurst, Lord Cobham, and a host of other nobles appealed to him to
forward their suits; Puritan divines like Hammond, Cartwright, Humphreys,
and Travers; prelates like Whitgift, Aylmer, Herbert, and Sandys, by
common accord chose him as the arbiter of their constant disputes. The
Court of Wards, too, entailed a large correspondence and much personal
attention; whilst at this period Burghley was also deeply concerned
in checking the tendency of Cambridge students to indulge in “satin
doublets, silk and velvet overstocks, great fine ruffs, and costly
facings to their gowns.”
[549] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[550] As instances see letters—Ralegh to Burghley, 27th December 1587
(State Papers, Domestic, ccvi. 40); Howard to Burghley, 22nd December
(State Papers, Domestic, ccvi. 42); same to same (Harl. MSS., 6994,
102); Burghley’s own holograph list of ships and their destinations,
5th January 1588; Hawkins to Burghley, 18th January 1588 (both in State
Papers, Domestic, cviii.); and many similar papers of this period in
State Papers, Domestic, cviii., and Harl. MSS., 6994.
[551] Stafford told Mendoza (25th February) that Burghley had written to
him saying, that he would do his best to prevent Drake from sailing, as
his voyages were only profitable to himself and his companions, but an
injury to the Queen and an irritation to foreign princes; and in May,
Burghley told Stafford that if he had remained out of town two days
longer, his colleagues would have let Drake go.
[552] Hatfield Papers, part iii.
[553] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[554] This mission was said to have been entrusted originally to Paulet,
and afterwards to Herbert; but as they did not go to Flanders, it is more
likely to have been left to Crofts. I can, however, find no record of it
except in Spanish account.
[555] The Commissioners were the Earl of Derby, Lord Cobham, Sir James
Crofts, with Valentine Dale and Rogers. Burghley’s son, Sir Robert Cecil,
was also attached. The whole correspondence of the Commissioners, mostly
directed to Lord Burghley, will be found in Cotton, Vesp., cviii.
[556] Motley thought that Burghley was referred to, but surely Howard
would not call him witless. Probably Crofts is meant.
[557] State Papers, Domestic, ccix.
[558] Howard, writing on the 13th June to Walsingham, says: “I forbear to
write unto my Lord Treasurer because I am sure he is a very heavy man for
my lady his daughter, for which I am most heartily sorry.”
[559] Writing to Walsingham, “from my house near the Savoy,” 17th July,
he says: “I am at present by last night’s torment weakened in spirits, as
I am not able to rise out of my bed; which is my grief the more, because
I cannot come thither where both my mind and duty do require;” and yet on
the same day he (Burghley) sent a long minute corrected with his own hand
to Darrell, giving directions for the victualling of the navy.
[560] In September, when the news came of the flight of the Armada, grand
reviews of these forces were held previous to their being disbanded.
Lord Chancellor Hatton entertained the Queen at dinner in Holborn, and
his hundred men-at-arms in red and yellow paraded before her Majesty.
The next day (20th August) a similar ceremony took place at Cecil House,
and shortly afterwards Leicester’s troop was reviewed. But they were all
thrown into the shade by Essex’s splendid force of sixty musketeers and
sixty mounted harquebussiers, in orange-tawny, with white silk facings,
and two hundred light horsemen, in orange velvet and silver.
[561] See his letter, 30th July (O.S.), to his father, giving him an
account from hearsay of what had happened off Calais (State Papers,
Domestic, ccxiii.).
[562] The ordinary Arabic numbers were never used by Burghley, even in
calculations.
[563] One of the last letters that Leicester wrote was to Burghley, from
Maidenhead, two days only before his death, asking for some favour for
a friend, Sir Robert Jermyn, and apologising for leaving court without
taking leave of the Lord Treasurer; and in November the widowed Countess
of Leicester—the mother of Essex—wrote begging Burghley to use his
influence with the Queen to buy a vessel belonging to her late husband.
[564] Lord Burghley’s memoranda (State Papers, Domestic). For particulars
of the expedition see “The Year after the Armada,” by the present writer.
[565] Don Antonio had been deceived so often in England, that although
preparations for the expedition were being made for some months
previously, he was not convinced that it was really intended for him
until the end of the year 1588.
[566] On the eve of his flight Essex thus explained his action in a
letter to Heneage (Hatfield Papers, part iii. 966): “What my courses have
been I need not repeat, for no man knoweth them better than yourself.
What my state now is I will tell you. My revenue is no greater than when
I sued my livery, my debts at least two or three and twenty thousand
pounds. Her Majesty’s goodness has been so great I could not ask her for
more; no way left to repair myself but mine own adventure, which I had
much rather undertake than offend her Majesty with suits, as I have done.
If I speed well, I will adventure to be rich; if not, I will not live to
see the end of my poverty.”
[567] His entry in his diary recording the fact runs thus: “1589. April
4 _Die Veneris inter hor 3 et 4 mane obdormit in Domino, Mildreda Domina
Burgley_.” She is interred at Westminster Abbey, with her daughter the
Countess of Oxford; a very long Latin inscription is on the tomb, written
by Burghley, recording their many virtues and the writer’s grief at their
loss. There is at Hatfield (part iii. 973) a note of the mourners and
arrangements for the funeral in Lord Burghley’s handwriting.
[568] MSS. Lansdowne, ciii. 51.
[569] This is a not unnatural mistake under the circumstances for 9th
April 1589. The year then began on the 1st April, and in his sorrow Lord
Burghley had overlooked the change of year. More than a month after this
he wrote a letter, full of grief still, to his old friend the Earl of
Shrewsbury, by which we see that he was still living in retirement in one
of the lodges of his park at Theobalds, as it is signed “From my poore
lodge neare my howss at Theobalds, 27 Maii 1589. _P.S._ The Queene is at
Barn Elms, but this night I will attend on her at Westminster, for I am
no man mete for feastings.”
[570] For the particulars of the Catholic plots of Huntly, Crawford,
Errol, Claud Hamilton, and Bothwell (Stuart), see Spanish State Papers,
Elizabeth.
[571] State Papers, Domestic.
[572] The Vidame de Chartres was the Huguenot agent in Elizabeth’s
court for some years, and was constantly craving aid for the cause. His
promises of repayment were very rarely kept, as the Huguenots had most of
the wealth of France against them. Hence the saying quoted.
[573] Egerton MSS., 359.
[574] “November 30. I have heard a rumour that you have arrived at
Calais, and that if the enemy comes to attack that place you will be
there with troops to defend it. If this news be true I pray you let me
hear it from yourself, and advertise me by the ordinary courier what the
enemy is doing and what you think of these designs. For I shall be very
happy to see some opportunity by which we could together win honour and
serve the common weal. I am idle here, and have nothing to do but to
hearken for such opportunities.” (Essex to La Noue; Hatfield Papers, part
iii.)
[575] Hatfield Papers, part iv.
[576] A letter from Sir John Smith to Burghley, 28th January 1590,
expresses sorrow “to hear that you were very dangerously sick, being
next unto her Majesty, in my opinion, the pillar and upholder of the
Commonwealth. Howbeit, I am now very glad to hear you have recovered your
health;” to which the Lord Treasurer appends the note “relatio falsæ”
(Hatfield Papers, part iv.). Later in the year, however (October), the
Clerk of the Privy Seal, writing to Lord Talbot, says, “I never knew my
Lord Treasurer more lusty or fresh in hue than at this hour.” How heavily
business still pressed upon the Lord Treasurer is seen by a remark of
his in a letter to Mr. Grimstone (January 1591): “The cause” (of his not
having written) “is partly for that I have not leisure, being, as it
were, roundly besieged with affairs to be answered from north, south,
east, and west; whereof I hope shortly to be delivered by supply of some
to take charge as her Majesty’s principal secretary” (Bacon Papers,
Birch).
[577] Soon afterwards, Essex was at issue with Robert Cecil about the
appointment of a successor to one of Heneage’s offices (Essex to Sir
Henry Unton; Hatfield Papers, part iv.). How bitter Essex was against the
Cecils is shown by a letter from him to Sir Henry Unton in Paris (June
1591): “Things do remain in the same state as they did. They who are most
in appetite are not yet satisfied, whereof there is great discontentment.
If it stand at this stay awhile longer they will despair, _for their
chief hour-glass hath little sand left in it, and doth run out still_.”
[578] In one of the letters suggested by the secret intelligence
secretary, Phillips, to be written to English Catholics abroad (31st
August 1591), Robert Cecil’s appointment to the Council is noted; “but
the Queen seems determined against Robert Cecil for the Secretaryship;
but my Lord being sick, the whole management of the Secretary’s place
is in his (Robert’s) hands, and as he is already a Councillor, any
employment of him between the Queen and his father will be the means of
installing him in the place” (State Papers, Domestic).
[579] He expressed this wish as soon as Essex’s opposition to Robert
Cecil’s appointment became manifest. A letter (State Papers, Domestic)
from Hatton, 15th July 1590, thus refers to the matter: “We can
well witness your endless travails, which in her Majesty’s princely
consideration she should relieve you of; but it is true the affairs
are in good hands, as we all know, and thereby her Majesty is the more
sure, and we her poor servants the better satisfied. God send you help
and happiness to your better contentment.” Nearly all through 1590 and
1591 repeated reference is made in his correspondence to Burghley’s
infirmities. This, added to the everlasting disputes between the
Prelatists and the Puritans, in which he was between two fires, and the
galling opposition of Essex to his son’s appointment, might well have
excused his desire to be relieved of his heavy burden.
[580] Bacon Papers, Birch. Sir John Norris had recently gone to Brittany
with a small English auxiliary force, and had captured Guingamp. There
were also 600 Englishmen in Normandy and an English squadron on the
Brittany coast. Burghley holds out hopes also of sending 600 more men to
Brittany.
[581] Henry wrote one of his clever characteristic letters to Elizabeth
(5th August), expressing in fervent terms his delight at hearing of her
intention of coming to Portsmouth during his visit to Normandy. He swears
eternal gratitude, and begs her to allow him to run across the Channel;
“et baiser les mains comme Roi de Navarre, et etre aupres d’elle deux
heures, a fin que j’aie ce bien d’avoir veu, au moins une fois, en ma
vie, celle a qui j’ai consacré et corps et tant ce que j’aurai jamais;
et que j’aime et révère plus que chose que soit au monde.” Referring
to Essex’s force, he says: “Le secours que qu’il vous a pleu à présent
m’accorder m’est en singulière grace, pour la qualité de celluy auquel
vous avez donné la principale charge, et pour la belle force dont il est
composé.” (Hatfield Papers, part iv.)
[582] The Earl’s brother, Walter Devereux, was killed in the siege.
[583] Essex seems to have quarrelled with every one in France, and the
Council in England condemned his proceedings from the first. In a letter
to the Council (September) he says the whole purport of their letters
is “to rip up all my actions and to reprove them” (Hatfield Papers,
part iv.). The Queen also wrote him a very angry letter (4th October)
consenting on strict conditions that the English shall only be allowed to
remain a month longer in France.
[584] From a long letter from Burghley (22nd October), Essex appears to
have again left his command and run over to England. He begged Burghley
to ask the Queen’s permission for him to join Biron at the siege of
Caudebec. The Lord Treasurer says he had not done so, as he was sure the
Queen would refuse. Her strict orders were that neither Essex nor his men
should risk themselves at the siege of Havre or elsewhere except by her
orders. Essex appears to have disobeyed, and returned to France at once
without seeing the Queen. During his absence the Englishmen had deserted
wholesale. Burghley says there were not 2000 of them remaining—they
were unpaid and mutinous, and, according to Biron and Leighton, were
committing outrages on all sides. Beauvoir de Nocle wrote to Essex as
soon as he had gone back to France (22nd October), “Les courroux de la
reine redoublent.”
[585] See the Queen’s very angry letter peremptorily recalling him (24th
December 1591), (Hatfield Papers, part iv.).
[586] The heroic but unprofitable result of the expedition was the famous
fight of the _Revenge_ and the death of Sir Richard Grenville, who
quite needlessly, and out of sheer obstinacy, engaged the whole Spanish
squadron. The great difficulty of getting the expedition together is seen
by the large number of towns which addressed Lord Burghley personally or
the Council, begging on the score of poverty to be excused from fitting
the ships, as they had been commanded to do. Southampton, Hull, Yarmouth,
Newcastle, and other towns professed to be so decayed as to be quite
unable to contribute ships (Hatfield Papers, part iv.).
[587] The reports of spies of plots in Flanders at the time amply
justified the precautionary measures taken. Burghley was still appealed
to by both religious parties, and he appears at this time to have been
claimed by both. In March 1591 one of the spy-letters suggested by
Phillips to be sent abroad mentions Burghley’s feud with Archbishop
Whitgift and his favour to the Puritans. The Catholic spy in Flanders,
Snowdon, in June of the same year, says that the _anti-Spanish_ English
Catholic refugees there, Lord Vaux, Sir T. Tresham, Mr. Talbot, and Mr.
Owen were opposed to the plots then in progress. “It is said amongst
them that if occasion be offered they will requite the relaxation now
afforded them by his Lordship’s (Burghley’s) moderation, for it is noted
that since the cause of the Catholics came to his arbitrament things have
gone on with wonderful suavity” (State Papers, Dom.). On the other hand,
Phillips (in July) tells another spy, St. Mains, of the extravagances of
the fanatics, Hacket, Coppinger, and Ardington, and speaks of Burghley as
being on the side of the Puritans.
[588] In a spirited reply (Hatfield Papers) to a remonstrance of Antony
Standen, Lord Burghley insists that Catholics who were punished by death
in England are “only those who profess themselves by obedience to the
Pope to be no subjects of the Queen; and though their outward pretence
be to be sent from the seminaries to convert people to their religion,
yet without reconciling them from their obedience to the Queen they never
give them absolution.” Those, he says, who still retain their allegiance
to the Queen, but simply absent themselves from churches, are only fined
in accordance with the law. The same contention is more elaborately
stated in Lord Burghley’s essay on “The Execution of Justice.” The
examinations of various spies, giving alarming accounts of the plots
in Flanders at this time to kill the Queen and Burghley (State Papers,
Domestic), afford ample proof that Lord Burghley’s contention as to the
aims of the Spanish seminarists was correct.
[589] Francis Bacon frankly confessed that he adhered to Burghley’s
enemies because he thought it would be for his own personal advantage
as well as for that of the State; and his brother Antony writes (Bacon
Papers): “On the one side, I found nothing but fair words, which make
fools fain, and yet even in those no offer or hopeful assistance of real
kindness, which I thought I might justly expect at the Lord Treasurer’s
hands, who had inned my ten years’ harvest into his own barn.”
[590] It was during this progress at Oxford that the circumstance thus
related by Sir J. Harrington happened: “I may not forget how the Queen in
the midst of her oration casting her eye aside, and seeing the old Lord
Treasurer standing on his lame feet for want of a stool, she called in
all haste for a stool for him; nor would she proceed in her speech till
she saw him provided. Then she fell to it again as if there had been no
interruption.” Harrington says that some one (probably Essex) twitted her
for doing this on purpose to show off her Latin.
[591] Writing to Archibald Douglas advising him how to excuse as well
as he might the depredations of Scotsmen on Danish shipping, he says in
a postscript, “I write not this in favour of piracies, for I hate all
pirates mortally” (Hatfield Papers, part iv.).
[592] Lansdowne MSS., lxx.
[593] Lansdowne MSS., lxx., and Hatfield Papers, part iv.
[594] Through the whole of the autumn and winter Lord Burghley was
busy in the liquidation and division of the vast plunder brought in
the carrack. Ralegh had risked every penny he possessed, and came out
a loser. The Queen got the lion’s share, and the adventurers, with the
exception of Ralegh, received large bonuses.
[595] One of Thomas Phillips’ suggested spy-letters to be sent abroad
(22nd March 1591) says that although the Puritan party is the weaker,
Essex has made Ralegh join him in their favour. Ralegh’s Puritan birth
and breeding naturally gave him sympathy for Essex’s party, whilst his
active temperament and his greed made him in favour of war, especially
with Spain. His only tie with the Cecils was his early political
connection. Though he was usually in personal enmity with Essex, his
natural bent was therefore more in sympathy with Essex’s party than with
that to which he was supposed to be attached.
[596] State Papers, Domestic.
[597] Numerous similar instances of this devotion occur in the letters
of Burghley to his son and others. In April 1594 he writes to Sir
Robert from Cecil House, that as her Majesty desires to have him there
(Greenwich) to-day, he will go, if it be her pleasure that he should
leave his other engagements. He then recounts his various duties for
the day, including sitting all the morning in the Court of Wards, “with
small ease and much pain,” and again in the afternoon; the next day he
had to preside in the Exchequer Chamber, the Star Chamber, &c.; “but if
her Majesty wishes I will leave all. I live in pain, yet spare not to
occupy myself for her Majesty.” In July he writes to his son, “I can
affirm nothing of my amendment, but if my attendance shall be earnestly
required I will wear out my time at court as well as where I am” (State
Papers, Domestic). How great and generally recognised his influence still
was is seen by the depositions of what disaffected persons said of him.
Prestall (Kinnersley’s deposition, State Papers, Domestic, 1591) said
“the Lord Treasurer was the wizard of England, a worldling wishing to
fill his own purse, and good for nobody; so hated that he would not live
long if anything happened to the Queen.” “The Treasurer led the Queen and
Council, and only cared about enriching himself.”
[598] Declarations of Kinnersley, Young, and Walpole (1594), State
Papers, Domestic.
[599] _Ibid._
[600] In accordance with the practice of the time Burghley doubtless
received presents from suitors for office and others (see State Papers,
Domestic); but it is on record that he frequently refused such offerings
when they assumed the form of bribes to influence judicial decisions
or questions of account. Above all, there is no proof that he accepted
any bribes from Spain, even when almost every other Councillor of the
Queen was paid by one side or the other. Several mentions are made in
the Spanish State Papers of the advisability of paying him heavily, and
even sums were allotted for the purpose; but I have not found a single
statement of his having accepted such payments; although in after years
his son certainly did so.
[601] Francis Bacon answered the book in an able pamphlet published the
same year (1592), called “Observations upon a Libel published in the
Present Year,” in which Lord Burghley and Sir Robert Cecil are very
highly lauded.
[602] One of the loyal English Catholics, St. Mains, writing (January
1593) to Fitzherbert, says that “the Lord Treasurer has been dangerously
ill, but is now well recovered, thanks be to God; for the whole state of
the realm depends upon him. If he go, there is not one about the Queen
able to wield the State as it stands.” The principal Catholic refugees
against Spain at this period were Charles Paget, William Gifford, the
Treshams, Hugh Griffith, Dr. Lewis, Bishop of Cassano, the Scottish
Carthusian Bishop of Dunblane, Thomas Morgan, Thomas Hesketh, Nicholas
Fitzherbert, &c.
[603] Francis was member for Middlesex, whilst his brother Antony sat for
Wallingford. The Queen remained angry with Francis for many months. It
was only in September that Essex with the greatest difficulty obtained
permission for him to appear at court (Bacon Papers, Birch).
[604] Morice was sent to Tutbury Castle and kept there in prison for
some years for making a speech in this Parliament complaining of the
grievances of the Puritans. Wentworth was sent to the Tower, and Stevens
and Walsh to the Fleet. Puckering, the Lord Keeper, told the House that
the Queen had not called it together to make new laws; there were more
than enough already. “It is, therefore, her Majesty’s pleasure that no
time be spent therein” (D’Ewes).
[605] Phillips’ suggestions to Sterrell (State Papers, Domestic).
[606] Elizabeth seems to have received the first hint of his intention
in May, and Lord Burghley sends an indignant letter to his son about it
(26th May). He ends by saying, “If I may not have some leisure to cure my
head, I shall shortly ease it in my grave; and yet if her Majesty mislike
my absence, I will come thither” (Hatfield Papers, part iv.). See also
letters of Sir Thomas Edmunds (State Papers, France, Record Office); and
Elizabeth’s curious letters to Henry (July), signed, “Votre tres assurée
sœur si ce soit à la vielle mode: avec la nouvelle je n’ay qui faire, E.
R.” (Hatfield Papers).
[607] State Papers, Domestic.
[608] How deeply Lady Bacon resented her son’s friendship with Perez is
seen in a letter of hers to Francis Bacon: “I pity your brother; but yet
so long as he pities not himself, but keepeth that bloody Perez, yea,
a court companion and a bed companion—a proud, profane, costly fellow,
whose being about him I verily believe the Lord God doth mislike, and
doth the less bless your brother in credit and in health. Such wretches
as he is never loved your brother, but for his credit, living upon him”
(Bacon Papers, Birch).
[609] Nichols’ Progresses, vol. iii.
[610] Burghley appears to have been very dangerously ill a few weeks
afterwards at Windsor. Essex’s spy Standen wrote to his friend Antony
Bacon (6th November) that he had gone up to the Lord Treasurer’s lodging
to inquire after his health; but was refused admittance by the servants,
who told him, however, that his Lordship had rested better than on the
previous night. Whilst Standen “was going down the stairs, the Queen was
at my back, who, unknown to me, had been visiting my Lord, so I stayed
among the rest to see her Majesty pass. A little while after I met Mr.
Cooke, who told me, that true it was that my Lord had somewhat rested the
night past; but that this morning his Lordship had a very rigorous fit of
pain, and dangerous” (Bacon Papers, Birch). We hear from the same source
of similar attacks in December and January following.
[611] “I hope you will remember,” wrote Raleigh to Howard, “that it is
the Queen’s honour and safety to assail rather than to defend” (Hatfield
Papers).
[612] Frobisher was mortally wounded in the assault.
[613] See the extraordinary letters of Foulis, Cockburn, and other
Scottish agents, to Bacon, &c., in the Bacon Papers (Birch). “Mr Bowes,
the English Ambassador here (in Scotland), is very much scandalised at
the behaviour of Crato (_i.e._ Burghley) and his son towards me, and
assures me he will remonstrate with the Queen at his return,” writes
Foulis to Bacon (Bacon Papers); and similar expressions in the letters
of other French and Scotch agents show clearly that Essex took care to
cultivate the idea that it was only the Cecils who prevented the adoption
of a generous policy towards them.
[614] See the many confessions and declarations of spies and informers
(1594) as to alleged plots for the murder of the Queen, Burghley, &c., at
this time (State Papers, Domestic).
[615] It was here, and at Eton College, where he was lodged when the
court was at Windsor, that he wrote his bitter “Relaciones” against
Philip. He alleged that men were sent to London to assassinate him, and
with indefatigable zeal of tongue and pen kept up and increased the
ill-feeling in the court against Spain. His copious correspondence with
Henry IV. leaves no doubt whatever either as to the real object of his
mission or the utter baseness with which he executed it.
[616] See Burghley’s correspondence with Andrada, Da Vega, and others
(State Papers, Domestic), and Mendoza’s references to the same men in the
Spanish State Papers.
[617] On the way from this examination Sir Robert Cecil and Essex
rode together in a coach. The former—surely to annoy Essex—reverted
to a subject which had caused intense acrimony between the Earl and
the Cecils for months past, namely, the appointment to the vacant
Attorney-Generalship which Essex was violently urging for Francis
Bacon; an appointment to which neither the Queen nor Lord Burghley
would consent, although the latter was willing for him to have the
Solicitor-Generalship. The abuse and insult heaped upon the Cecils behind
their backs on this account by the Earl, by the scoundrel Standen, and
by the Bacons themselves, may be seen in the Bacon Papers (Birch). On
this occasion the violent rashness and want of tact on the part of
Essex is very clear. Cecil asked him, as if the subject was new, who he
thought would be the best man for the Attorney-Generalship. The Earl was
astonished, and replied that he knew very well, as he, Cecil, was the
principal reason why Bacon had not already been appointed. Cecil then
expressed his surprise that Essex should waste his influence in seeking
the appointment of a raw youth. Essex flew in a rage, and told Cecil that
_he_ was younger than Francis, and yet he aspired to a much higher post
than the Attorney-Generalship, _i.e._ the Secretaryship of State, and
then, quite losing control of himself, swore that he _would_ have the
appointment for Francis, and would “spend all my power, might, authority,
and amity, and with tooth and nail procure the same against whomsoever.”
The hot-headed Earl foolishly ended by an undisguised threat against
Cecil and his father (Bacon Papers), which we may be sure the former,
at least, did not forget, although Essex had quite changed his tone and
wrote quite humbly to Cecil on the matter in the following May (Hatfield
Papers). It is hardly necessary to say that Bacon was disappointed of the
Attorney-Generalship.
[618] See the extensive correspondence and proceedings in the case (State
Papers, Domestic, and Hatfield Papers).
[619] Cecil to Windebanke (State Papers, Domestic).
[620] Great obscurity still surrounds the case. Apart from his own
alleged confession, Lopez’s condemnation depended upon the declarations
of the double spies who were his accomplices, and he solemnly asserted
his innocence on the scaffold. I have carefully examined all the
evidence—much of it hitherto unknown—and although there is no space to
enter into the matter here, I am personally convinced that the service
that Lopez was to render was to poison Don Antonio—not the Queen—and
bring about some sort of _modus vivendi_ between England and Spain.
[621] Bacon Papers, Birch.
[622] _Ibid._
[623] Hatfield Papers, part iv.
[624] Correspondence with Burghley, in the Hatfield Papers, part v., and
State Papers, Flanders (Record Office); and with Essex, in Bacon Papers
(Birch). Burghley, apparently to occupy his mind during his illness,
wrote a most elaborate minute, “to be shown to her Majesty when she is
disposed to be merry, to see how I am occupied in logic and neglect
physic;” proving that her demands upon the States to be made by Bodley
are founded upon the maxims of civil law. “If,” he says, “my hand and
arm did not pain me as it doth in distempering my spirits, I would
send longer argument” (Hatfield Papers, part v.). Thanks to Burghley’s
persistence, terms were made with the States.
[625] Printed in Strype’s “Annals.”
[626] The Queen at this time appears to have been desirous of saving
Burghley trouble. When the court was at Nonsuch (September 1595), the
Council was held in his room, the Queen being present. (Bacon Papers.)
[627] That he was not idle in mind even in his greatest pain is shown by
the fact that during this autumn, whilst he was almost entirely disabled,
he not only continued his close attendance to State affairs, but gave a
great amount of attention to the new question which was disturbing the
Church, and especially setting the University of Cambridge by the ears.
A Mr. Barrett, of Gonville and Caius, had preached a sermon in which
the doctrine of free grace was enunciated. This was thought by many to
be “Popish,” and Burghley, as Vice-Chancellor, ordered him to recant.
The doctrine was eloquently defended by Burghley’s protegé, Professor
Baro. Curiously enough, Whitgift, a prelate of prelates, then came
out with a series of articles (called the Lambeth articles) enforcing
the extreme Calvinistic doctrine of absolute predestination. Burghley
was passionately appealed to by both parties, and while supporting
the authority of Whitgift, expressed his dissent from the doctrine
of predestination. The Queen, annoyed at the question being raised,
instructed Sir Robert Cecil to stop the dispute, which had caused much
trouble both to her and Burghley.
[628] Venetian State Papers.
[629] _In extenso_ in Bacon Papers (Birch).
[630] Burghley did not prevail with the Queen at this juncture without
trouble when Essex was near. In March 1596, Essex arrived at the court
at Richmond, and Standen says: “The old man upon some pet would needs
away against her will on Thursday last, saying that her business was
ended, and he would for ten days go take physic. When she saw it booted
not to stay him she said he was a froward old fool” (Bacon Papers). The
following dignified letter written soon afterwards by Burghley to his
son evidently refers to this incident: “My loving son, Sir Robert Cecil,
knt., I do hold, and will always, this course in such matters as I differ
in opinion from her Majesty. As long as I may be allowed to give advice
I will not change my opinion by affirming the contrary, for that were
to offend God, to whom I am sworn first; but as a servant I will obey
her Majesty’s command and no wise contrary the same; presuming that she
being God’s chief minister here, it shall be God’s will to have her
commandments obeyed—after that I have performed my duty as a Councillor,
and shall in my heart wish her commandments to have such good success as
she intendeth. You see I am a mixture of divinity and policy; preferring
in policy her Majesty before all others on earth, and in divinity the
King of Heaven above all.” This letter seems to enshrine Burghley’s
lifelong rule of conduct as a minister.
[631] Hatfield Papers, part v.
[632] Lord Burghley must be absolved from all blame for the hesitation
to succour Calais. The delay and failure were entirely the fault of the
Queen. Whilst Burghley held back and resisted attempts to drag England
into war with Spain unnecessarily; when English interests were really at
stake, as in the case of Calais, he could be as active as any one. On the
6th April, as soon as the news arrived, his secretary wrote to Robert
Cecil—the Lord Treasurer being “freshly pinned” with the gout and unable
to write—approving of Essex’s plan to relieve Calais; and on the 10th he
writes himself, after the town had surrendered, but whilst the citadel
held out: “I am heartily sorry to perceive her Majesty’s resolution
to stay this voyage, being so far forward as it is; and surely I am
of opinion that the citadel being relieved the town will be regained,
and if for want of her Majesty’s succour it shall be lost, by judgment
of the world the blame will be imputed to her.… These so many changes
breed hard opinions of counsell.” Sancy and the Duke de Bouillon came to
Elizabeth at Greenwich to remonstrate with her, in Henry’s name, on the
effect which her demand for Calais in return for her aid had produced.
Sancy had a long conversation with Burghley on the 23rd April, and the
latter frankly told him that the conversion of Henry had entirely changed
the situation. The only common interests now, he said, between the two
countries was their vicinity. Sancy says the Lord Treasurer praised the
Spaniards to the skies, to the detriment of the French. The French envoy
was endeavouring to secure an offensive and defensive alliance with
England, which Burghley steadily opposed. How could Henry help Elizabeth?
the Treasurer asked; and what more could Elizabeth do for him than she
was doing? In one of their interviews Burghley flatly told Sancy that the
Queen did not intend to strengthen Henry in order that he might make an
advantageous peace over her head. Sancy was shocked at such an imputation
on his master’s honour, and gave a written pledge of Henry that he would
never treat without England, and this was embodied in the treaty (26th
May 1596). Burghley made as good terms as he could, but he never was in
favour of the treaty. His letter quoted above (page 479) and his quarrel
with the Queen evidently had reference to this subject.
[633] Bacon Papers.
[634] Writing from Theobalds to Robert Cecil soon after the expedition
sailed from Plymouth, he says, “I came here rather to satisfy my mind by
change of place, and to be less pressed by suitors, than with any hope of
ease or relief.”
[635] Essex had lately, and most intemperately, been trying to force
Bodley into the Secretaryship. His importunity was so great as to offend
the Queen, and predisposed her against his protegés. How jealous Antony
Bacon was may be seen in his letter. “_Elphas peperit_; so that now the
old man may say, with the rich man in the gospel, ‘_requiescat anima
mea_.’” Bacon Papers.
[636] That the reconciliation was not easy will be seen in Essex’s
letters in the Bacon Papers. The Earl writes in September to Lady
Russell, “Yesterday the Lord Treasurer and Sir Robert Cecil did, before
the Queen, contest with me, … and this day I was more braved by your
little cousin (Cecil) than ever I was by any man in my life. But I was,
and am, not angry, which is all the advantage I have of him.” In the
following April Essex entertained Cecil and Ralegh at dinner, “and a
treaty of peace was confirmed.” During the Earl’s disgrace with the Queen
shortly afterwards, Cecil appears to have behaved in a friendly manner
towards him.
[637] It is curious that in the previous year, when Essex was going
on the Cadiz expedition, Bellièvre, the French minister, expressed an
opinion that “his appointment is a suggestion of the Lord Treasurer, in
order to divert the Queen from sending aid to his Majesty (Henry IV.),
and to get rid of the Earl of Essex on the pretext of this honourable
appointment, which would leave him (Burghley) master of the Council.” It
is fair to say that the Venetian ambassador who transmits this opinion,
expresses his disbelief in it. Venetian State Papers.
[638] That the sagacious Bacon saw and foretold the consequences of
Essex’s willingness to absent himself in risky enterprises, is evident
from his letters to the Earl in October 1596 (Bacon’s Works, ed. Montagu,
vol. 9).
[639] There were about 120 ships, English and Dutch, and a force of some
6000 men, including 1000 English veterans from the Low Countries, led by
the gallant Sir Francis Vere.
[640] State Papers, Domestic.
[641] State Papers, Domestic.
[642] State Papers, Domestic.
[643] _Ibid._
[644] _Ibid._
[645] De Maisse, the French peace envoy to England, wrote, “These people
are still dwelling on their imagination of the house of Burgundy, … but
it does not please them to have so powerful a neighbour as the King of
Spain.”
[646] Full particulars of his embassy will be found in his Journal, in
the Archives de la Ministère des affaires étrangères, Paris, partly
reproduced in Prévost-Paradol’s “Elizabeth et Henry IV.”
[647] For Cecil’s account of his embassy see Bacon Papers, Birch. There
are also a great number of papers and letters on the subject of the
mission in Cotton Vesp., cviii., and B.M. MSS. Add. 25,416.
[648] State Papers, Domestic.
[649] Chamberlain Letters, Camden Society.
[650] The Venetian Ambassador in France writes at this time (24th July):
“The States are sending three representatives to England to urge the
Queen to continue the war, as in her councils there are not wanting
those who recommend this course, chiefly the Earl of Essex; but the Lord
Treasurer is opposed, and, more important still, the Queen herself is
inclined to peace.”
[651] _Desiderata Curiosa._
[652] A superficial observer, Dudley Carlton, writes a few days after
Burghley’s death: “There is so much business to be thought of on the
Lord Treasurer’s death. The Queen was so prepared for it by the small
hopes of recovery that she takes it not over heavily, and gives ears to
her suitors. The great places are in a manner passed before his death.”
(State Papers, Dom.)
[653] The full arrangements for the funeral will be found in the State
Papers, Domestic, of the 29th August (Record Office). After the funeral
at Westminster, the body was carried with great state to Stamford and
buried at St. Martin’s Church, in accordance with the will. Dr. Nares
appears to be in doubt as to whether the interment was at Westminster or
Stamford, but the State Papers seem to admit of no question on the point.
[654] Lytton to Carlton (State Papers, Domestic).
[655] Chamberlain Letters.
INDEX
A’Lasco, his visit to England, 29
Alba, Duke of, 77, 204, 219, 223-224, 227, 245, 249, 258, 265, 282, 288
Alençon, Duke of, his relations with the Flemings, 319, 323, 328, 335,
344, 349, 354-356, 358-359, 360-362, 363-370, 372-373, 379, 382
Alençon, Duke of, suggestions of marriage with Elizabeth, 266-267, 269,
274-275, 288-290, 303, 324-327, 328-341, 344, 349, 353-354, 358-359,
362-370, 379;
death of, 384
Alford, Roger, 39
Allington, 232, 249
Alterennes, seat of the Cecil family, 7
Amboise, Treaty of, 136
Andrada, a spy in the Lopez plot, 468
Anglican Church, uniformity in, 78, 139, 144, 160, 163, 166, 290-291,
367, 387
Anjou, Duke of (Henry III.), proposed marriage with Elizabeth, 252-253,
266, 279
Antonio, Don, Portuguese Pretender, 344, 356, 358, 361, 395, 403, 411,
422, 435, 467
Aquila, Bishop of, Spanish Ambassador, 80, 81, 88, 93, 100, 109, 111,
127-128, 130, 136-137, 142;
death of, 147
Archduke, the, suggested marriage with Elizabeth, 77, 80, 88, 103,
155-157, 160, 168-170, 173-174, 181, 188, 199, 207
Armada, the, 402, 411, 423, 427, 431, 433-434
Arran, Earl of, 85-86, 88, 114, 126
Arundel, Earl of, 36, 65, 72, 99, 174, 180, 225, 230, 238
Arundell, Charles, 415
Ascham, Roger, 9;
appointed tutor to Princess Elizabeth, 12, 13, 62
Audley, Lord, his remedies for gout, 37
Babington plot, 402-405
Bacon, Antony, 450, 458
Bacon, Francis, 450, 458;
his attempts to obtain the Attorney-Generalship, 469
Bacon, Lady, 45, 61, 460
Bacon, Sir Nicholas, 9, 61, 71, 79, 138, 192, 273, 294, 373
Baden, Margravine of, Cecilia of Sweden, 174
Bailly, Charles, 258-259
Balfour, Sir James, 295
Ballard, agent in the Babington plot, 403-404
Barker, 257
Barrow, a Brownist leader, 459
Beale, Clerk of the Council, 378, 381, 403, 411, 420
Beaton, 213
Beaton, Cardinal, 15
Beaumont, 36
Beauvoir de Nocle, envoy from Henry of Navarre, 442-444, 461
Bedford, Countess of, 61
Bedford, Earl of, 19, 61, 66-67, 71, 79, 99, 106, 110, 327, 382
Bellièvre Pomponne de, sent to England about Mary Stuart’s
condemnation, 412-413, 415
Berchamstow granted to Cecil, 47
Bertie, Francis, 51
Bill, Dr., 9
Biron, Marshal de, 379, 382
Bôchetel de la Forest, French Ambassador, 188, 205, 221-222
Bodley, Sir Thomas, sent to the States, 473
Bonner, Bishop, 18, 23, 50
Borough, Sir John, 423-424
Boston, W. Cecil appointed Recorder of, 32
Bothwell, Earl of, 179, 180, 193-196
Boulogne, 15, 18, 24
Bourne, Lincolnshire, birthplace of Lord Burghley, 6, 8
Bowes, Robert, 378
Boxall, Dr., 206, 223, 224
Briant, Father, 367
Brille, capture of, 264-265
Briquemault, Condé’s envoy to Elizabeth, 136
Brisson, French envoy, 355
Brittany, Spaniards in, 444, 447, 465, 466, 473
Bromley, Lord Chancellor, 365, 408, 419
Brownists, 459
Bruce, Robert, 395
Buckhurst, Lord, 411
Buiz, Paul, 305, 306, 307
Burghley, Lady, 50, 61, 189, 292;
death of, 438
Burghley, Lord, birth of, 5;
pedigree, 6;
education, 8;
at Cambridge, 9;
first marriage, 10;
his first recommendation to Henry VIII., 11, 12;
_custos brevium_, 14;
Master of Requests to Somerset, 14;
present at the battle of Pinkie, 16;
secretary to Somerset, 16;
grants to, 18;
his attitude on the downfall of the Protector, 19-22, 28-31;
sent to the Tower, 22;
appointed Secretary of State, 24;
his character, 25;
his attitude towards Northumberland’s foreign policy, 27;
knighted, 31;
Recorder of Boston, 32;
his report upon the Emperor’s demand for help, 33;
his care for English commerce, 35;
illness of, in the last days of Edward VI., 37;
grant of Combe Park, 37;
made Chancellor of the Garter, 37;
his attitude towards Queen Mary’s succession, 38-43;
his justification to Mary, 40-46;
grants to him during Edward’s reign, 47;
splendour of his household, 47;
his love of books, 48;
patronage of learning, 49;
his liveries, 50;
conforms to Catholicism, 52;
brings Pole to England, 55;
accompanies him to Calais, 56;
represents Lincolnshire in Parliament, 57;
his action in favour of the Protestants, 58-59;
his habits, 60;
his devotion to his wife, 61;
his connections with Princess Elizabeth, 62-63;
his position on the succession of Elizabeth, 66-67;
his first arrangements for Elizabeth’s government, 69;
his foreign policy on the accession, 72-73, 76-77;
his action in passing the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, 78;
Spanish plan to bribe him, 79;
his approaches to Spain, 81;
his Scottish policy, 82, 85, 86, 88;
war with Scotland, 91-94;
arranges the terms of peace in Edinburgh, 95-96;
court intrigue against him, 99;
checkmates Dudley, 103, 105;
the suggestion as to the Council of Trent, 107-109;
proceedings against Catholics, 111;
his counsel to Knox, 115;
his attitude towards Mary Stuart, 116;
his numerous activities, 117;
against piracy, 118;
his assertion of English right to trade, 119;
distress at his son’s conduct, 120-125;
his attitude towards the Huguenots, 128-129, 132-133;
his relations with the Bishop of Aquila, 130-131, 136-138;
distrust of the French, 142;
his activity in defensive measures, 144;
his interest in mineralogy, 144;
appointed Master of the Court of Wards, 145;
his action as Chancellor of Cambridge University, 145-146;
his character, 150;
Dudley’s intrigues against him, 152-153;
renewed approaches to Spain, 154-157;
continued intrigues of Dudley, 158, 160, 164-165;
his conditions for the Archduke’s match, 169, 174;
his distrust of Catholic interference in Scotland, 175;
his support of Murray, 176-177;
his connection with the murder of Rizzio, &c., 179-180;
urges the Archduke’s match, 181-182;
again approaches the Spaniards, 183;
with the Queen at Oxford, 186;
visited by the Queen at Burghley, 187;
dispute with Leicester, 187;
urges the Archduke’s match, 189, 190;
opposes the Netherlands revolt, 190;
his reception of the news of Darnley’s murder, 192-194, 197;
again approaches Spain, 198;
his attitude towards Murray, 201-202;
again leans to the Protestants, 206-207;
renewed severity towards Catholics, 210-212;
letter from Mary Stuart to him, 216;
his treatment of her, 218;
aids the Huguenots, 221-222;
his rebuke to De Spes, 228;
Leicester’s plot against him, 231;
magnanimous treatment of his enemies, 238;
his despair, 248;
visits Mary at Chatsworth, 248;
made a peer, 254;
his activities, 255;
his mode of life, 255-256;
Ridolfi plot and expulsion of De Spes, 256-263;
execution of Norfolk, 268;
entertains the French envoys, 269;
urges the measures in Parliament against Mary, 271;
serious illness of, 271;
action after St. Bartholomew, 278-279;
approaches Spain again, 280;
negotiations with De Guaras, 280-283;
suggests sending Mary to Scotland, 285-286;
his conditions for the Alençon match, 289;
religious anxieties, 290-291;
his household, 292-293;
interview with Mary at Buxton, 294;
book against him, 294-295;
renewed approaches to Spain, 296-305;
his anger at the Flushing pirates, 305-306;
visit to Buxton, 311-312;
his moderating influence, 320-321;
in semi-retirement, 327;
his attitude towards the Alençon match, 330-335;
his foreign policy as an alternative of the Alençon match, 336-340;
efforts in favour of peace, 343-344;
opposes the retention of Drake’s plunder, 346-348;
approaches to France, 351-352;
entertains the embassy, 352;
details of the feast, 353;
his review of the political situation, 353-354;
his attitude towards Alençon, 363;
renewed approach to Spain, 365;
his treatment of the Jesuits, 367-368;
fresh predominance of the Protestant party, 372-373;
demands new Councillors of his party, 374;
wishes to retire, 379-380;
his attitude towards the Throgmorton plot, 384;
his review of foreign policy, 385;
his attitude towards the religious controversy, 387-390;
his relations with Dr. Parry, 391-392;
slandered by the Leicester party, 393;
his kindness to Mary Stuart, 394;
his relations with Leicester in the Netherlands, 396-401;
his conduct towards Mary Stuart after the Babington plot, 404-409;
fresh approach to Spain, 411-412;
intrigues against him, 416;
his conduct towards Davison, 417-422;
his attitude towards Drake’s Cadiz expedition, 424-426;
negotiations for peace with Spain, 425, 427-428, 429-432;
organises the defence of England, 429, 432-434;
visits the camp at Tilbury, 433;
his troop of soldiers, 433 _note_;
his share in the Lisbon expedition, 436-438;
death of his wife and his meditations thereon, 438-439;
change of policy, 440-442;
opposition of Essex, 445-446, 450;
Spenser’s accusation of jealousy, 454;
grant of Rockingham Forest, 455;
his devotion to duty, 455;
persistent attacks upon him, 456-457;
his influence on the religious controversy, 459;
his son to succeed him, 463-464;
his cautious influence on the war-party, 465-466;
his attitude in the Lopez plot, 468-470;
description of him by Standen, 471;
by Sir Michael Hicks, 472;
renewed distrust of the French, 473;
a scheme of national defence, 474;
continued illness, 475;
ill-disposed towards France, 477;
Essex’s attempt to force his hands, 478-479;
his disagreement with the Queen, 479;
his attitude towards Essex’s attempt to relieve Calais, 480;
towards “the islands voyage,” 484-486;
his negotiations with De Maisse, 490-491;
strives for peace with Spain to the last, 494-495;
results of his national policy, 494;
funeral, 496;
appreciation of his character, 497-498
Burghley, Lord, his diary, 5, 22, 24, 37, 55, 59, 61, 83, 185, 187,
194, 272, 432, 439
Burghley House, 47, 188-189, 327
Cadiz, Drake’s attack upon, 423-424
Calais, loss of, 64, 72-73, 75-76
Calais, restitution of, claimed, 198, 208, 369, 478
Calais, capture of, by the Spaniards, 479-480
Cambridge University, 9, 15, 145-146, 290
Campion, Father, 367
Cannon Row, Burghley’s house at, 31, 60, 66, 120, 256
Carbery Hill, 196
Carew, Arthur, 228
Carew, Sir Peter, 95
Carrack, the great (_Madre de Dios_), 452-453
Cartwright, leader of the Puritans, 290
Castelnau de la Mauvissière, 175, 277, 341-343
Cateau-Cambresis, peace of, 76, 80
Catharine de Medici, 10, 92, 128, 133, 142, 154, 157, 166, 213,
221-222, 251, 266, 273, 297, 326, 341, 369, 384, 413
Catharine of Aragon, 3, 4, 7
Catholic plots against Elizabeth and Burghley, 225, 244, 256-259, 270,
317, 364-366, 371, 376, 383-384, 389, 390-392, 402-405, 422, 450,
456, 470
Cavalcanti, Guido, 73, 75, 232, 251, 267
Cave, Sir Ambrose, 71
Cecil, David, grandfather of Burghley, 7
Cecil, Mrs., 293, 427
Cecil, Richard, Burghley’s great-grandfather, 6
Cecil, Richard, Burghley’s father, 7, 8, 37
Cecil, Sir Robert, 433, 437-438, 445, 450, 453-454, 454 _note_,
457-458, 461-464, 466-470, 475, 479-480, 482-483, 486;
his mission to France, 491-493
Cecil, Thomas, birth of, 10;
his journey to Paris, 120-122;
his bad conduct, 122-125, 327, 336, 433;
quarrel with his brother, 454
Cecil (or Burghley) House, in the Strand, 269;
grand banquet at, to the French envoys, 352-353, 411, 442, 476;
Burghley’s last days there, 494-495
Chark, a preacher at Cambridge, 291
Charles V., 3, 4, 13, 27, 32, 33, 53
Charles IX., King of France, 157, 166-168, 188, 205, 250, 273, 297;
death of, 298
Chartres, Vidame of, 73, 133, 137, 251, 279
Chastelard, 143
Chateauneuf de l’Aubespine, French Ambassador, 407, 413, 416
Chatillon, Cardinal, 221, 244, 251
Cheke, Mary, marriage with W. Cecil, 10;
her death, 11
Cheke, Sir John, 9;
appointed tutor to Edward VI., 12, 14, 31, 32, 38, 45;
exiled, 51;
lured to England, conforms and dies, 58
Chester, Colonel, 301, 302, 307
Clerivault, a messenger of Mary Stuart, 194
Clinton, Lord Admiral, 31, 47, 66, 99, 269, 327, 365
Cobham, Lord, 16, 60, 208, 221, 258
Cobham, Sir Henry, sent to Spain, 302;
sent to France, 381
Cobham, Thomas, 258
Coinage, Burghley’s care of, 28, 117
Coligny, 106, 110, 133, 136, 183, 206, 221, 242, 270
Combe Park granted to Cecil, 37
Commerce, Burghley’s care of, 35, 118, 151, 183, 211, 283, 338, 345
Commercial war with Spain, 151-153, 158, 227, 280-283
Condé, Prince of, 127-128, 133, 136, 154, 157, 204, 221, 225;
killed, 242
Condé, Prince of, the younger, 278, 297, 342-343
Cooke, Sir Anthony, W. Cecil’s father-in-law, 12, 14;
exiled by Mary, 51, 58, 61
Cooke, Mildred, married to W. Cecil, 12
Cornwall, Spaniards land in, 474
Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, 50-51
Courtney, Sir William, 59
Cranmer, 14, 19-21, 32, 53, 57
Creighton, Father, 366, 389
Crofts, Sir James, 347, 365, 372, 374, 424, 430-431, 444
Curll, Mary Stuart’s secretary, 404
Dacre, Lord, 234
Dale, Dr., English Ambassador in France, 290
Danett, Thomas, sent to Vienna, 188-189
Darcy, Lord, 240
Darcy, Sir Thomas, 14
Darnley, 93, 130, 144, 161, 163, 171-72, 173, 179-180, 181-182, 192-193
D’Aubigny (Lennox), 341, 354, 364-366, 371, 376
Davison, William, 378, 399;
his connection with the execution of Mary Stuart, 417-422;
Essex proposes him for Secretary of State, 445
De Cossé, Marshal, 298, 303
De Maineville, Guisan envoy to Scotland, 376-377
De Maisse, Henry IV.’s envoy to Elizabeth, proposes peace with Spain,
489-491
Deeping granted to Cecil, 47
Dering, Edward, Lecturer at St. Paul’s, 291
Doughty, Lord Burghley’s agent with Drake, 346-347
Douglas, Archibald, 414
Drake, Sir Francis, his voyage round the world, 346-348;
the question of his plunder, 358, 365;
his expeditions to aid Don Antonio, &c., 361, 422, 436-438;
his expedition to Santo Domingo, &c., 395-396, 402;
his attack upon Cadiz, 423-425;
urges reprisals against Spain, 465;
his last expedition, 470, 474-475
Dreux, battle of, 135
Drury, Sir William, 215, 295, 300
Drury, Thomas, 19
Dudley, Guildford, 38
Dudley, Lady Robert, 101
Dudley, Lord Robert. _See_ Leicester
Durham Place, 38, 44, 128, 137;
the Spanish Ambassador expelled, 138;
Cecilia of Sweden lodged there, 174
Dymoke, Sir Edward, champion, 51
Edmunds, Sir Thomas, 393, 479
Edward VI., 12-13;
his appeal for Somerset, 20;
betrothed to Elizabeth of Valois, 24;
his journal, 33;
his will, 38;
death of, 43;
his educational foundations prompted by Cecil, 49
Egmont, Count, 138, 204
Elizabeth, Princess, 12, 49;
enters London with Mary, 50, 51, 52, 62, 63;
proposals for marriage of, 63-64, 65;
her accession, 66
Elizabeth, Queen, her accession, 66-68;
suggestions for marriage, 75, 76-77;
her first religious measures, 78, 79, 80;
proposal for marriage to Nemours, 84;
with Arran, 85;
with the Archduke, 80, 88;
with the Prince of Sweden, 89-90;
war with Scotland, 91-96;
talk of marriage with Dudley, 100-103;
her religious intrigues with Spain, 104-105, 111;
fears of plots to poison, 111;
her distrust of Mary Stuart, 113;
illness of, 117;
her attitude towards the Darnley match, 132;
aids the Huguenots, 133;
falls ill of smallpox, 134;
anger at Condé’s defection, 136;
her anger with Parliament on the succession question, 141;
visits Cambridge University, 147;
renewed approaches to Spain, 157;
suggested marriage with Charles IX., 157, 166-168;
approaches to the Catholics, 165;
her attitude towards the Darnley match, 172-173;
her reception of Murray, 176-177;
renewed approach to Leicester, 181;
her reception of the news of James Stuart’s birth, 185-186;
illness of, 186;
visits Oxford, 186-187;
renewal at Burghley House of negotiations for marriage with Charles
IX., 188-189;
her anger with Parliament respecting the succession, 191;
her reception of the news of Darnley’s murder, 192-193;
condemns the rising in the Netherlands, 198;
her attitude towards Murray, 202;
towards the Catholics, 209;
removes Mary from Carlisle, 217;
aids the Huguenots, 221-222;
seizure of the Spanish treasure, 227;
her treatment of Norfolk, 231-241, 246;
her danger, 242, 247-248;
suggestions for marriage with Anjou, 251-253;
Ridolfi plot, 256-263;
alliance with France, 264-267;
in favour of Mary Stuart, 270-271;
receives the news of St. Bartholomew, 275;
progress in Kent, 293;
approaches to Spain, 299-300;
projected war with Henry III., 301;
refuses aid to Orange, 303-305;
rejects the sovereignty of Holland, 304;
her treatment of Burghley, 310;
her reception of Mendoza, 320;
her difficulty with Alençon, 330-332;
interview with Condé, 342;
danger of war, 350;
her relations with France and Alençon, 353-362;
her parsimony, 361-362;
pledges herself to Alençon, 363;
her trouble to get rid of him, 368-370;
negotiations with Mary Stuart, 378;
letter to Burghley, 380;
assumes the Protectorship of the Netherlands, 396;
her rage at Leicester’s conduct there, 399-401;
her treatment of Mary after the Babington plot, 404-408;
her answers to Parliament, 410;
her reception of French and Scotch remonstrances, 412-415;
her conduct in the execution of Mary Stuart, 417-422;
her perplexity, 426-429;
anger with Essex for going to Lisbon, 437-438;
her aid to Henry of Navarre, 442-444;
anger with Essex, 448-450;
dangerous position, 451-452;
anger at Henry IV.’s conversion, 461;
fears of attack from Spain, 465-466;
anger with Essex about Lopez, 470;
her anger with the Hollanders, 473;
Drake’s last voyage, 474;
her policy towards Henry of Navarre, 478;
her hesitation to relieve Calais, 479-480;
her fickleness about Essex’s Cadiz voyage, 481;
about “the islands voyage,” 484-486;
her anger with Essex, 486-487;
her indignation at Henry IV. for entering into peace negotiations
with Spain, 489-493;
urges the States to stand firm, 493;
grief at the death of Burghley, 495-496
Elizabeth of Valois marries Philip II., 76, 84
English Jesuit party in favour of Spain, 456-457, 467, 470
English troops in France against the League, 443-444, 466
Erasmus at Cambridge, 9
Essex, Earl of (Robert Devereux), 421, 435, 443, 445, 448, 449,
450-451, 454, 457-458, 460-462, 466-467, 472-473, 477;
his plan to force war with Spain, 478-480;
his attempt to relieve Calais, 480;
his expedition to Cadiz, 482-483;
“the islands voyage,” 484-486;
retires from court, 486-487;
urges war with Spain, 493;
attends Burghley’s funeral, 496
Essex, Lady, marriage with Leicester, 332
Farnese, Alexander, 316, 318, 328;
peace negotiations with England, 425-432
Felton, 243
Fère, La, siege of, 477
Feria, Duke of, Spanish Ambassador, 65-67, 72-73, 76-77
Fitzwilliam sent to Spain, 260
Flanders, revolt against the Spaniards in, 133, 184, 189, 204, 209,
219, 224, 229, 242, 245, 264-265, 273, 283-285, 303-307, 313-319,
320-321, 325, 328, 335, 359, 370-373, 379, 382-385, 395-401, 411,
422, 488-489
Foix, De, French Ambassador, 157, 158, 166, 169-170, 175, 265, 269
Foreign policy of England, 4, 26, 33, 46, 64, 72-73, 74, 80-81, 85, 88,
91-92, 112-114, 128-129, 136-138, 154-155, 166-168, 175-176, 182,
198-200, 205, 211, 219, 223-224, 228-229, 256-263, 269, 273-279,
280-283, 300-303, 308, 322, 328-329, 336-337, 353-354, 370, 379,
383-384, 385, 395-396, 407, 411-412, 426, 440-444, 473, 488-493
France, civil wars in, 126, 133-136, 205, 221, 242, 251, 273, 276-279,
297, 300-303, 319, 342-343;
wars of the League, 442-444, 447, 461-480
Francis I., 13
Francis II., King of France, 92;
death of, 106
French embassy to England (1581), 351-359
French influence in Scotland, 15, 82, 91-92, 94-96, 107, 132, 144,
175, 198, 213, 217, 243, 285, 326, 365, 378
Frobisher, death of, 466
Gama, a spy in the Lopez plot, 468
Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, 14, 23, 29-30, 50
Garrard, Sir William, 118
Gemblours, battle of, 318
German mercenaries, 301-302
Gifford, agent in the Babington plot, 403-404
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 283
Glajon, De, his mission from Philip to Elizabeth, 93
Glasgow, Archbishop of, exhorts Mary to clear herself, 195, 285, 367
Gondi, 323
Gonson, Controller of the Navy, 118
Gout, curious remedies for, 37, 293 _note_
Granvelle, De, 77, 172
Gray, Master of, 394, 411, 414, 417
Gray’s Inn, Burghley a student at, 11
Greenwood, a Brownist leader, 459
Grenville, Sir Richard, 449 _note_
Gresham, Sir Thomas, 221
Grey, Catharine, 93, 134, 140, 192
Grey, Lady Jane, 36, 38, 43, 44
Grey, Lord, 73, 374, 429
Grey, Lord John, 60, 91, 99
Grimstone, Mr., 447
Grindall, Archbishop, 387
Guaras, Antonio de, Spanish agent, 248, 271, 280-283, 296, 299, 302,
308, 318
Guise, Francis, Duke of, 126
Guise, Henry, Duke of, 299, 341, 359, 371, 381, 383-384, 411;
murder of, 440
Guzman de Silva, Spanish Ambassador, 152, 158, 165, 170-171, 174-175,
181-182, 190, 192-194, 199, 201, 210-212, 219
Haddon, Dr., 9
Hales, Sir John, 39
Hampton Court, 19, 469, 471
Hatfield, 5, 6, 51, 65-66, 120, 255
Hatton, Sir Christopher, 292, 321, 329, 334, 336, 347, 364-365,
369-370, 372, 374, 399, 408, 419, 424
Havre de Grace, 133-134, 142, 190
Hawkins, John, 204, 344-345, 361, 452, 465, 475;
lays a trap for Philip, 260-261
Heath, Archbishop of York, 66, 71
Heckington, William, grandfather of Burghley, 8
Heneage, Sir Thomas, 399-401
Henry II. of France, 27, 75;
death of, 84
Henry III. of France, 297-298, 303, 313, 325, 328, 359, 370-371, 379,
384-385;
his attitude towards Mary Stuart’s trial and execution, 407, 412-414,
416;
his fear of the Guises, 426, 440;
rallies to the Huguenots, 440;
murder of, 441
Henry of Navarre, 278, 297, 301, 303, 342, 385, 440-444, 447-449, 461,
465-466, 473, 477-480, 488;
makes peace with Spain, 488-493
Henry VIII., 4;
favours W. Cecil, 11-12;
his death, 13
Herbert, Lord, 19
Herll, 306-307, 314
Herries, Lord, 215, 262
Hertford, Earl of, 140, 192
Hertford, Earl of. _See_ Somerset
Hoby, Lady, 234
Hoby, Sir Philip, betrays Somerset, 20;
friendly with Cecil, 60
Hoby, Sir Thomas, English Ambassador in France, 187
Holt, Father, 366, 456
Horn, Bishop of Winchester, 109
Horn, Count, 204
Howard, Lady, 193
Howard, Lord Thomas, 484, 485
Howard, Lord William, 66, 72, 99
Howard of Effingham, 187, 370, 417, 429, 465, 475, 480-481;
Earl of Nottingham, 486
Huguenots. _See_ France, civil wars in
Hume, Lord, 295
Humphreys, Dr. Laurence, 186-187
Hunsdon, Lord, 245, 370, 403, 429
Huntingdon, Earl of, 101-102, 134, 140
Huntly, Earl of, 180
Ireland, Papal intrigues in, 111, 243, 247, 317, 335, 348, 355,
357-358, 374, 474
Ivry, battle of, 444
James VI., his birth, 185;
coronation, 202;
Catholic plans to kidnap him, 296;
English mission to, 378, 380-382;
sends the Master of Gray to England, 394;
alliance with England, 403;
his remonstrance with Elizabeth at Mary’s condemnation, 414;
attempts of Catholics to convert him, 426;
his alliance with England, 441;
again listens to the Catholics, 451, 465;
Essex’s attitude towards him, 466
Juan, Don, 313-316, 318
Keith, Sir William, 414
Kent, Earl of (Reginald Grey), 419
Killigrew, 199, 285, 286, 419
Kingston, Sir Anthony, 59
Kirkaldy of Grange, 262, 285, 295
Knollys, Henry, 228
Knollys, Sir Francis, 71, 79, 187, 192, 217, 218, 334, 365, 367, 372,
382, 388, 392, 403
Knox, John, 86, 114-115, 287
Knyvett, Sir Henry, 228
La Mark, capture of Brille by, 264-265
La Mole, French envoy, 274-275
La Mothe Fénélon, French Ambassador, 252, 275-277, 376-377
La Motte, Spanish Governor of Gravelines, 300
La Noue, Huguenot leader, 136, 443
Langside, battle of, 214
Latimer, 57
League, the Catholic, 154, 157, 199-200, 205, 251, 265, 273, 277, 288,
326, 371, 442-444, 447, 461-466
Leicester, Earl of, 70, 87, 90, 99, 100, 112, 132, 135-136, 138, 152,
157-158, 159, 161, 163-164, 165, 167-170, 174, 181, 186-187,
191-192, 231, 249, 252, 282, 286, 291-292, 296, 307-309, 311,
317, 320, 322, 324, 327, 329, 330-332, 334, 336, 340, 342-343,
347, 352, 356, 359, 363-364, 365, 368-370, 372-374, 382-384, 386,
388, 392-393, 395-401, 406, 411, 416, 418, 423, 429-430, 433;
death of, 434-435
Leith, siege of, 93-96
Lennox, Lady Margaret, 114, 127, 130, 143, 171, 175, 182, 193
Lennox, the Regent, 130, 195, 248, 285
Lincoln, Lord. _See_ Clinton
Lisbon, the English expedition to, 436-438
Liturgy, Cecil aids Cranmer in settling, 32
Livingston sent to Scotland, 248
Lochleven, 196
Longjumeau, peace of, 221
Lopez, Dr. Ruy, 467-470
Lorraine, Cardinal, 83, 113, 154, 171, 178, 205, 222, 251, 285, 288
Lumley, Lord, 232, 234
Maitland of Lethington, 113-114, 126, 132, 141-144, 171, 285
Man, Dr. English, Ambassador in Spain, 210, 263
Mary, Queen, 17, 23, 30, 36;
her succession, 38-43, 46, 50;
coronation of, 51;
her marriage, 53;
her reign, 53-65;
her death, 66
Mary of Lorraine, 15, 17;
death of, 95
Mary Queen of Scots, 15;
to marry Edward VI., 15;
to marry the Dauphin, 17, 75, 78, 82-83, 85-86, 92-93;
refuses to ratify the peace of Edinburgh, 106;
intrigues for her marriage, 112-113;
arrives in Scotland, 113-115;
her approaches to Elizabeth, 131-132;
her claims to the succession, 140-142;
proposal to marry Don Carlos, 142-143;
suggested marriage with Leicester, 162;
with Darnley, 170-171;
her approaches to Spain, 171-173, 175, 184;
suspicions of her complicity in the murder of Darnley, 193-198;
Lochleven, 196;
the casket letters, 201;
appeals to Elizabeth and France, 213;
escapes to England, 214;
her interview with Knollys, 216-217;
removed from Carlisle, 217;
the Commission at York, 219;
her approaches to Spain, 223;
English plots in her favour, 225-246;
Elizabeth negotiates for her release, 247-250;
leans entirely on Spain, 256-257;
her connection with the Ridolfi plot, 261;
suggestion to send her to Scotland, 286;
goes to Buxton, 293;
adheres entirely to Spain, 341;
approaches to D’Aubigny’s government, 364-366;
Spanish-Jesuit plot in her favour, 371, 376;
her negotiations with Elizabeth, 378, 381;
sent to Tutbury, 394;
sends Nau to Elizabeth, 394;
her letters intercepted, 395;
disinherits James in favour of Philip, 402;
her connection with the Babington plot, 404;
removed to Tixhall, 404;
to Fotheringay, 407;
her trial, 408-409;
condemned and sentenced, 409-410;
executed, 417, 420
Mason, Sir John, 26, 27, 99;
Mathias, Archduke, 315, 318
Maurice of Saxony, 13, 32
Mayenne, Duke of, 444
Maynard, Sir Thomas, 475
Melancthon, 9
Melvil, Sir Andrew, 408
Melvil, Sir James, 161-162, 185, 192
Melvil, Sir Robert, 182, 184, 415
Mendoza, Spanish Ambassador, 319, 324, 326-327, 339, 348, 356, 363-364,
366, 372-373, 376, 378, 381-382, 402-404, 411, 423
Mercœur, Duke of, 443
Mewtys, Sir Peter, 106, 130
Mildmay, Sir Walter, 248, 350, 381, 407, 435
Monluc, Bishop of Valence, 95
Montagu, Chief-Justice, 38
Montgomerie, Count de, 84, 133, 206, 278-279, 297
Montmorenci, Constable, 81, 84, 269, 299, 303
Morette, the Duke of Savoy’s agent, 194
Morgan, Thomas, 395, 402
Morice, a Puritan Parliament man, 459
Morton, Earl of, Regent, 285, 295, 324, 341;
execution of, 364
Morysine, Thomas, 26, 31
Muhlberg, battle of, 13, 27
Mundt, Dr., 155
Murray, Earl of, 110, 113-114, 126, 132, 175-176, 177-180, 182, 197,
201, 212, 218-219, 223;
murder of, 243
Nantouillet, Provost of Paris, a hostage in England, 137
Nau, Mary’s secretary, 394, 404
Navarre, King of (Anthony de Bourbon), 106, 110, 127;
death of, 135
Navy, English, 144, 248, 338
Noailles, De, French Ambassador, 36
Norfolk, Duke of, 50
Norfolk, Thomas Howard, fourth Duke of, 90, 101, 165, 169, 180, 191,
192, 231-241, 246-257;
condemned to death, 267;
executed, 268
Norris, Sir Henry, English Ambassador in France, 193, 201, 205, 208,
213, 222, 225, 237, 244, 252
Norris, Sir John, 379, 396, 429, 436-438, 447, 466
Northampton, Marquis of, 71, 191
Northern Lords, rising of, 240-241
Northumberland, Duke of, 16, 18-25;
his foreign policy, 27;
his religious policy, 36;
his action as to the succession, 38-39;
leads the forces against Mary, 43-44;
his betrayal by the Council, 45-46;
his execution, 50
Northumberland, Earl of, 185, 239
Nowell, Dean of St. Paul’s, 165
O’Neil, Shan, 127, 136, 185
Orange, Prince of, 242, 283-284, 288, 296, 302, 304, 307, 316, 328,
335, 372, 379, 382;
murder of, 384
Oxford, Countess of (Anne Cecil), 61, 263 _note_, 292, 305-306 _note_;
death of, 432
Oxford, Earl of, 263 _note_, 292, 301, 305, 375-376
Paget, Charles (Mopo), 383, 395
Paget, Sir William, 19-21, 36;
Lord Paget, 59, 64, 66, 76-77, 99
Palmer, Sir Thomas, divulges Somerset’s alleged plot against
Northumberland, 28
Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, 108, 140, 206, 296
Parry, Dr. William, 390-392
Parry, Sir Thomas, 62, 66-67, 71;
is jealous of Cecil, 79-80
Passau, peace of, 33
Patten, William, his description of the Scotch campaign, 16
Paulet, Sir Amias, 394-395, 404-405, 407;
his refusal to poison Mary Stuart, 418, 420, 430
Peace negotiations with France (1555), Cecil present at, 56;
(1558-1559), 65, 72-76, 80
Pembroke, Earl of, 45, 66, 191-192, 238
Percy, Sir Henry, 95;
Earl of Northumberland, 384
Perez, Antonio, 461-462, 466-467, 478-479
Persons, Father, 366;
his books against Burghley, 456-457
Petre, Sir William, 19-22, 24, 59, 95
Philip II., 53, 57, 64-65, 74-75, 84, 89, 92, 113, 133, 190, 208, 220,
225, 249, 314-315, 318, 364, 372, 402-403, 443, 483;
death of, 495
Philip II. and Mary Stuart, 142-143, 171-172, 223, 245, 256-259, 266,
341, 371-372, 378, 381-382, 395, 402-403
Phillips, T., cipher secretary, 404, 467
Pickering, Sir William, 27, 31;
flight under Mary, 52
Pinart, Secretary, French envoy, 356
Pinkie, battle of, 16, 17
Plague in London, 246, 375
Pole, Cardinal, 53;
brought to England by Cecil, 55;
accompanies him to Calais, 56
Pollard, Sir John, 59
Popham, Attorney-General, 408
Portugal, 211;
succession to the crown of, 329, 341
Poynings, Sir Adrian, 134
Privateers, 220, 224-225, 298
Protestant exiles under Mary, 51, 57-59
Puckering, Lord Keeper, 458
Ralegh, Sir Walter, 374, 376, 401, 411, 421, 424, 429, 435, 452-453,
458, 465, 482-483, 484-486
Rambouillet, 181
Randolph sent to Scotland, 107, 110, 127, 130, 162, 172-173, 179
Reformation, birth of, 2-3, 13
Religious matters, Cecil’s participation in them, 32, 53-54, 70, 99,
104-106, 107-109, 139, 144, 160, 163, 186, 203, 206-207, 209, 270,
290-291, 296, 322, 327, 350, 367, 387-390, 450, 457-460
Renard, Imperial Ambassador, 53, 57
Rennes, Bishop of, 222
Requesens, Spanish Governor of Flanders, 296, 298
Ridley, 57
Ridolfi plot, 225, 229-230, 235, 257-259
Rizzio, 173, 179, 182
Rogers, Edward, 71, 141
Ross, 257
Ross, Bishop of, 225, 232, 243, 250, 256-259, 295
Rouen, siege of, 448-449
Russell, Lord. _See_ Bedford
Russian Company, Cecil one of the founders of, 36
Ruthven, raid of, 376
Ruy Gomez, 77
Sadler, Sir Ralph, 86, 91, 95
St. Aldegonde, 305
St. Bartholomew, 275-276, 288
St. John’s College, Cambridge, 9, 15, 146
St. Quentin, battle of, 64
Sandys, Archbishop, 339
Sarmiento de Gamboa, 411
Savage one of the Babington conspirators, 404
Savoy, Duke of, 63
Scotland, anarchy in, 15;
war with, 16;
invasion of, by Somerset, 16;
battle of Pinkie, 16;
French forces in, 82;
war with England, 91;
peace of Edinburgh, 95-96;
English support of Protestants in, 107, 110;
Mary and the Protestants, 113-114;
Mary refuses to ratify the peace of Edinburgh, 115;
marriage with Darnley, 173;
revolt of Murray, 173, 175;
murder of Rizzio, 182;
murder of Darnley, 192-193;
French plots in, 197-199;
Murray as Regent, 212;
Langside, 214;
civil war, 218;
murder of Murray, 243;
Catholic influence dominant, 243;
Morton Regent, 285;
rise of the Protestant party, 295;
rise of D’Aubigny, 341, 354, 364;
Spanish Jesuit plot in, 371;
Master of Gray sent to England, 394
Scrope, Lady, 232
Scrope, Lord, 216
Seminary priests in England, 209, 336, 349, 354, 366, 389-390, 402,
450-451
Seymour, Lord Admiral, 17
Sherwin, Father, 367
Shrewsbury, Countess of, her accusations against her husband and Mary
Stuart, 394
Shrewsbury, Earl of, 66, 293, 310-311, 352, 378, 394
Sidney, Lady, 88, 90
Sidney, Sir Henry, 104
Simier, 326, 328-329, 330-332, 334-335, 336, 354
Smalkaldic league, 13
Smith, Sir John, sent to Madrid, 314
Smith, Sir Thomas, 9, 16, 19-22, 24, 62, 134, 157, 266, 274, 290
Somers, English envoy to France, 359
Somerset, Duke of, 12-14;
his invasion of Scotland, 16;
Cabal against him, 17;
his downfall, 19-25;
execution of, 28;
Burghley’s behaviour towards him, 28-31
Southampton, Earl of. _See_ Wriothesley
Spain, English relations with, 33, 72-73, 76-77, 80-82, 88, 92-94,
103-106, 129-130, 136-139, 152, 154, 158-160, 181-183, 187, 189,
210-211, 219, 227-229, 232-241, 248, 257-263, 280-283, 296, 300-308,
313-316, 319-320, 326-327, 336-337, 346-347, 356-359, 385-386,
411-412, 422, 453, 457-458, 465, 474
Spalding, 18
Spanish fury in Antwerp, 314
Spes, Gerau de, Spanish Ambassador, 220, 223-224, 225, 227-228,
232-239, 245-248;
expelled from England, 263
Spinola, 159, 224
Stafford, Sir Edward, English Ambassador in France, 415, 423
Stamford Grammar School, 49
Standen, Anthony, 460, 464 _note_, 471
Stanhope arrested on Somerset’s downfall, 21
Stolberg, Count, 199
Storey, Dr., 262
Stuart, Arabella, 457
Stubbs’ book against the French match, 330
Succession to the crown of England, 140, 191, 231, 402, 413, 419,
457-458
Suffolk, Duchess of (Lady Willoughby), 7, 15, 26, 31;
flight under Mary, 51, 58, 99, 327
Suffolk, Duke of (Grey), 31, 43
Supremacy, Act of, 78
Sussex, Earl of, 60, 169-170, 174, 181, 190, 192, 240, 245, 292, 301,
324, 326, 331, 333-334, 340, 343, 347, 353, 365, 372
Swetkowitz, Adam, an envoy of the Emperor, 168-170, 174
Sweden, King of (Eric XIV.), 89-90, 103, 112, 113, 174
Talbot, Gilbert, 322, 420
Theobalds, Burghley’s house, 255;
the Queen visits, 272, 321-323, 327, 358, 375, 446, 463, 476;
Burghley’s last visits, 494
Thetford granted to Cecil, 47
Thirlby, Bishop of Ely, 65, 72, 206
Throgmorton, Francis, his plot, 383
Throgmorton, Sir Nicholas, 83-84, 92, 106, 110, 120-124, 128-129, 130,
134, 172-173, 174, 192, 203, 221, 230
Thynne arrested on Somerset’s downfall, 21
Tinoco, a spy in the Lopez plot, 468
Trent Council, 105, 108-109, 111
Tyrone’s rebellion, 474
Unton, Sir Henry, his mission to France, 478-479
Valdés, Pedro de, 302
Venturini, Borghese, 128, 130
Verstegen, his book against Burghley, 457
Vervins, peace of, 493
Vielleville, Marshal, 133
Waldegrave, Sir Edward, in the Tower, 111
Walsingham, Sir Francis, 252, 264-265, 275-277, 290, 310, 320, 322,
331, 336, 347, 354-355, 356, 359-360, 363, 365, 367, 372-373, 378,
381-382, 386, 392, 396, 399-401, 403, 416, 418, 429
Warwick, Earl of. _See_ Northumberland
Warwick, Earl of (Ambrose Dudley), 134, 159
Watson, Dr., 9
Wentworth, Mrs. (Elizabeth Cecil), 375
Wentworth, Peter, 458-459
West, rising of the, 17
Westmoreland, Earl of, 240
Whalley, 29
White, Bishop of Winchester, 70
White, Nicholas, 254
Whitgift, Archbishop, 387-389, 460
Wilkes, Clerk of the Council, 301, 317
Williams, Sir Roger, 478
Williams, Speaker of the House of Commons, 139
Willoughby D’Eresby, Lord, 7
Willoughby D’Eresby, Lord (Peregrine Bertie), 370, 443
Wilson, Dr., sent to the States, 314;
Secretary, 347
Wimbledon, 18, 31, 37, 47, 51, 60
Winchester, Marquis of, 31, 37, 47, 99, 139;
death of, 271
Windebank, 121-124
Wolsey, 3
Wotton, Dr., Secretary of State, 22;
succeeded by Burghley, 24, 65, 72, 74, 95
Wotton, Sir Henry, sent to France respecting Mary Stuart’s
condemnation, 412
Wrangdike granted to Cecil, 47
Wriothesley, Lord Chancellor, 13, 18, 36
Wroth, Sir Thomas, 129
Wurtemburg, Duke of, 155, 168
Wyatt’s Rebellion, 51
Wynter, 118
Yaxley, an envoy of Mary Stuart to Spain, 176
Yeoman of the Robes. _See_ Cecil, Richard
THE END
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