Chapter XL: Elizabeth (2)

Notwithstanding this rebuke from the throne, the zeal of the commons still engaged them to continue the discussion of those other bills which regarded religion; but they were interrupted by a still more arbitrary proceeding of the queen, in which the lords condescended to be her instruments. This house sent a message to the commons, desiring that a committee might attend them. Some members were appointed for that purpose; and the upper house informed them, that the queen’s majesty, being informed of the articles of reformation which they had canvassed, approved of them, intended to publish them, and to make the bishops execute them by virtue of her royal authority, as supreme head of the church of England; but that she would not permit them to be treated of in parliament.[*] The house, though they did not entirely stop proceedings on account of this injunction, seem to have been nowise offended at such haughty treatment; and in the issue, all the bills came to nothing.

A motion made by Robert Bell, a Puritan, against an exclusive patent granted to a company of merchants in Bristol,[**] gave also occasion to several remarkable incidents. The queen, some days after the motion was made, sent orders, by the mouth of the speaker, commanding the house to spend little time in motions, and to avoid long speeches. All the members understood that she had been offended, because a matter had been moved which seemed to touch her prerogative.[***] Fleetwood accordingly spoke of this delicate subject. He observed, that the queen had a prerogative of granting patents; that to question the validity of any patent was to invade the royal prerogative; that all foreign trade was entirely subjected to the pleasure of the sovereign; that even the statute which gave liberty of commerce, admitted of all prohibitions from the crown; and that the prince, when he granted an exclusive patent, only employed the power vested in him, and prohibited all others from dealing in any particular branch of commerce. He quoted the clerk of the parliament’s book to prove, that no man might speak in parliament of the statute of wills, unless the king first gave license; because the royal prerogative in the wards was thereby touched. He showed, likewise, the statutes of Edward I., Edward III., and Henry IV., with a saving of the prerogative. And in Edward VI.’s time, the protector was applied to for his allowance to mention matters of prerogative.[****]

* D’Ewes, p. 180, 185.

** D’Ewes, p. 185.

*** D’Ewes, p. 159.

**** D’Ewes, p. 160.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the gallant and renowned sea adventurer, carried these topics still further. He endeavored to prove the motion made by Bell to be a vain device, and perilous to be treated of; since it tended to the derogation of the prerogative imperial, which whoever should attempt so much as in fancy, could not, he said, be otherwise accounted than an open enemy. For what difference is there between saying, that the queen is not to use the privilege of the crown and saying, that she is not queen? And though experience has shown so much clemency in her majesty, as might, perhaps, make subjects forget their duty, it is not good to sport or venture too much with princes. He reminded them of the fable of the hare, who, upon the proclamation that all horned beasts should depart the court, immediately fled, lest his ears should be construed to be horns; and by this apologue he seems to insinuate, that even those who heard or permitted such dangerous speeches, would not themselves be entirely free from danger. He desired them to beware, lest if they meddled further with these matters, the queen might look to her own power; and finding herself able to suppress their challenged liberty, and to exert an arbitrary authority, might imitate the example of Lewis XI. of France, who, as he termed it, delivered the crown from wardship.[*]

Though this speech gave some disgust, nobody, at the time, replied any thing, but that Sir Humphrey mistook the meaning of the house, and of the member who made the motion: they never had any other purpose, than to represent their grievances, in due and seemly form, unto her majesty. But in a subsequent debate, Peter Wentworth, a man of a superior free spirit, called that speech an insult on the house; noted Sir Humphrey’s disposition to flatter and fawn on the prince; compared him to the chameleon, which can change itself into all colors, except white; and recommended to the house a due care of liberty of speech, and of the privileges of parliament.[**]

* D’Ewes, p. 168.

** D’Ewes, p. 175.

It appears, on the whole, that the motion against the exclusive patent had no effect. Bell, the member who first introduced it, was sent for by the council, and was severely reprimanded for his temerity. He returned to the house with such an amazed countenance, that all the members, well informed of the reason, were struck with terror; and during some time no one durst rise to speak of any matter of importance, for fear of giving offence to the queen and council. Even after the fears of the commons were somewhat abated, the members spoke with extreme precaution; and by employing most of their discourse in preambles and apologies, they showed their conscious terror of the rod which hung over them. Wherever any delicate point was touched, though ever so gently; nay, seemed to be approached, though at ever so great a distance; the whisper ran about the house, “The queen will be offended; the council will be extremely displeased:” and by these surmises men were warned of the danger to which they exposed themselves. It is remarkable that the patent, which the queen defended with such imperious violence, was contrived for the profit of four courtiers, and was attended with the utter ruin of seven or eight thousand of her industrious subjects.[*]

Thus every thing which passed the two houses was extremely respectful and submissive; yet did the queen think it incumbent on her, at the conclusion of the session, to check and that with great severity, those feeble efforts of liberty which had appeared in the motions and speeches of some members. The lord keeper told the commons, in her majesty’s name, that though the majority of the lower house had shown themselves in their proceedings discreet and dutiful, yet a few of them had discovered a contrary character, and had justly merited the reproach of audacious, arrogant, and presumptuous: contrary to their duty, both as subjects and parliament men; nay, contrary to the express injunctions given them from the throne at the beginning of the session; injunctions which it might well become them to have better attended to; they had presumed to call in question her majesty’s grants and prerogatives. But her majesty warns them, that since they thus wilfully forget themselves, they are otherwise to be admonished: some other species of correction must be found for them; since neither the commands of her majesty, nor the example of their wiser brethren, can reclaim their audacious, arrogant, and presumptuous folly, by which they are thus led to meddle with what nowise belongs to them, and what lies beyond the compass of their understanding.[**]

* D’Ewes, p. 242.

** D’Ewes, p. 151

In all these transactions appears clearly the opinion which Elizabeth had entertained of the duty and authority of parliaments. They were not to canvass any matters of state; still less were they to meddle with the church. Questions of either kind were far above their reach, and were appropriated to the prince alone, or to those councils and ministers with whom he was pleased to intrust them. What then was the office of parliaments? They might give directions for the due tanning of leather, or milling of cloth; for the preservation of pheasants and partridges; for the reparation of bridges and highways; for the punishment of vagabonds or common beggars. Regulations concerning the police of the country came properly under their inspection; and the laws of this kind which they prescribed, had, if not a greater, yet a more durable authority, than those which were derived solely from the proclamations of the sovereign. Precedents or reports could fix a rule for decisions in private property, or the punishment of crimes; but no alteration or innovation in the municipal law could proceed from any other source than the parliament; nor would the courts of justice be induced to change their established practice by an order of council. But the most acceptable part of parliamentary proceedings was the granting of subsidies; the attainting and punishing of the obnoxious nobility, or any minister of state after his fall; the countenancing of such great efforts of power, as might be deemed somewhat exceptionable, when they proceeded entirely from the sovereign. The redress of grievances were sometimes promised to the people; but seldom could have place, while it was an established rule, that the prerogatives of the crown must not be abridged, or so much as questioned and examined in parliament. Even though monopolies and exclusive companies had already reached an enormous height, and were every day increasing to the destruction of all liberty, and extinction of all industry, it was criminal in a member to propose, in the most dutiful and regular manner, a parliamentary application against any of them.

These maxims of government were not kept secret by Elizabeth, nor smoothed over by any fair appearances or plausible pretences. They were openly avowed in her speeches and messages to parliament; and were accompanied with all the haughtiness, nay, sometimes bitterness of expression, which the meanest servant could look for from his offended master. Yet, notwithstanding this conduct, Elizabeth continued to be the most popular sovereign that ever swayed the sceptre of England; because the maxims of her reign were conformable to the principles of the times, and to the opinion generally entertained with regard to the constitution. The continued encroachments of popular assemblies on Elizabeth’s successors have so changed our ideas in these matters, that the passages above mentioned appear to us extremely curious, and even, at first, surprising; but they were so little remarked, during the time, that neither Camden, though a contemporary writer, nor any other historian, has taken any notice of them. So absolute, indeed, was the authority of the crown, that the precious spark of liberty had been kindled, and was preserved, by the Puritans alone; and it was to this sect, whose principles appear so frivolous, and habits so ridiculous, that the English owe the whole freedom of their constitution. Actuated by that zeal which belongs to innovators, and by the courage which enthusiasm inspires, they hazarded the utmost indignation of their sovereign, and employing all their industry to be elected into parliament,--a matter not difficult while a seat was rather regarded as a burden than an advantage--they first acquired a majority in that assembly, and then obtained an ascendent over the church and monarchy.

The following were the principal laws enacted this session. It was declared treason, during the lifetime of the queen, to affirm that she was not the lawful sovereign, or that any other possessed a preferable title, or that she was a heretic, schismatic, or infidel, or that the laws and statutes cannot limit and determine the right of the crown and the successor thereof: to maintain, in writing or printing, that any person, except the “natural issue” of her body, is, or ought to be, the queen’s heir or successor, subjected the person and all his abettors, for the first offence, to imprisonment during a year, and to the forfeiture of half their goods: the second offence subjected them to the penalty of a præmunire.[*] This law was plainly levelled against the queen of Scots and her partisans; and implied an avowal, that Elizabeth never intended to declare her successor. It may be noted, that the usual phrase of “lawful issue,” which the parliament thought indecent towards the queen, as if she could be supposed to have any other, was changed into that of “natural issue.” But this alteration was the source of pleasantry during the time; and some suspected a deeper design, as if Leicester intended, in case of the queen’s demise, to produce some bastard of his own, and affirm that he was her offspring.[**]

* 13 Eliz. c. I.

** Camden, p. 436.

It appeared this session, that a bribe of four pounds had
been given to a mayor for a seat in parliament. D’Ewes, p.
181. It is probable that the member had no other view than
the privilege of being free from arrests.

It was also enacted, that whosoever by bulls should publish absolutions or other rescripts of the pope, or should, by means of them, reconcile any man to the church of Rome, such offenders, as well as those who were so reconciled, should be guilty of treason. The penalty of a præmunire was imposed on every one who imported any Agnus Dei, crucifix, or such other implement of superstition, consecrated by the pope.[*] The former laws against usury were enforced by a new statute.[**] A supply of one subsidy and two fifteenths was granted by parliament. The queen, as she was determined to yield to them none of her power, was very cautious in asking them for any supply. She endeavored, either by a rigid frugality to make her ordinary revenues suffice for the necessities of the crown, or she employed her prerogative, and procured money by the granting of patents, monopolies, or by some such ruinous expedient.

* 13 Eliz. c. 2.

** 13 Eliz. c. 8.

Though Elizabeth possessed such uncontrolled authority over her parliaments, and such extensive influence over her people; though, during a course of thirteen years, she had maintained the public tranquillity, which was only interrupted by the hasty and ill-concerted insurrection in the north; she was still kept in great anxiety, and felt her throne perpetually totter under her. The violent commotions excited in France and the Low Countries, as well as in Scotland, seemed in one view to secure her against any disturbance; but they served, on more reflection, to instruct her in the danger of her situation, when she remarked that England, no less than these neighboring countries, contained the seeds of intestine discord; the differences of religious opinion, and the furious intolerance and animosity of the opposite sectaries.

The league, formed at Bayonne in 1566, for the extermination of the Protestants, had not been concluded so secretly but intelligence of it had reached Condé, Coligny, and the other leaders of the Hugonots; and finding that the measures of the court agreed with their suspicions, they determined to prevent the cruel perfidy of their enemies, and to strike a blow before the Catholics were aware of the danger. The Hugonots, though dispersed over the whole kingdom, formed a kind of separate empire; and being closely united, as well by their religious zeal as by the dangers to which they were perpetually exposed, they obeyed with entire submission the orders of their leaders, and were ready on every signal to fly to arms. The king and queen mother were living in great security at Monceaux, in Brie, when they found themselves surrounded by Protestant troops, which had secretly marched thither from all quarters; and had not a body of Swiss come speedily to their relief, and conducted them with great intrepidity to Paris, they must have fallen, without resistance, into the hands of the malecontents. A battle was afterwards fought in the plains of St. Denis; where, though the old constable, Montmorency, the general of the Catholics, was killed combating bravely at the head of his troops, the Hugonots were finally defeated. Condé, collecting his broken forces and receiving a strong reënforcement from the German Protestants, appeared again in the field; and laying siege to Chartres, a place of great importance, obliged the court to agree to a new accommodation.

So great was the mutual animosity of those religionists, that even had the leaders on both sides been ever so sincere in their intentions for peace, and reposed ever so much confidence in each other, it would have been difficult to retain the people in tranquillity; much more where such extreme jealousy prevailed, and where the court employed every pacification as a snare for their enemies. A plan was laid for seizing the person of the prince and admiral; who narrowly escaped to Rochelle, and summoned their partisans to their assistance.[*]

* Davila, lib. iv.

The civil wars were renewed with greater fury than ever, and the parties became still more exasperated against each other. The young duke of Anjou, brother to the king, commanded the forces of the Catholics; and fought in 1569, a great battle at Jarnac with the Hugonots, where the prince of Condé was killed, and his army defeated. This discomfiture, with the loss of so great a leader, reduced not the Hugonots to despair. The admiral still supported the cause; and having placed at the head of the Protestants the prince of Navarre, then sixteen years of age, and the young prince of Condé, he encouraged the party rather to perish bravely in the field, than ignominiously by the hands of the executioner. He collected such numbers, so determined to endure every extremity, that he was enabled to make head against the duke of Anjou; and being strengthened by a new reënforcement of Germans, he obliged that prince to retreat and to divide his forces.

Coligny then laid siege to Poietiers; and as the eyes of all France were fixed on this enterprise, the duke of Guise, emulous of the renown which his father had acquired by the defence of Metz, threw himself into the place, and so animated the garrison by his valor and conduct, that the admiral was obliged to raise the siege. Such was the commencement of that unrivalled fame and grandeur afterwards attained by this duke of Guise. The attachment which all the Catholics had borne to his father, was immediately transferred to the son; and men pleased themselves in comparing all the great and shining qualities which seemed, in a manner, hereditary in that family. Equal in affability, in munificence, in address, in eloquence, and in every quality which engages the affections of men; equal also in valor, in conduct, in enterprise, in capacity; there seemed only this difference between them, that the son, educated in more turbulent times, and finding a greater dissolution of all law and order, exceeded the father in ambition and temerity, and was engaged in enterprises still more destructive to the authority of his sovereign, and to the repose of his native country.

Elizabeth, who kept her attention fixed on the civil commotions of France, was nowise pleased with this new rise of her enemies, the Guises; and being anxious for the fate of the Protestants, whose interests were connected with her own,[*] she was engaged, notwithstanding her aversion from all rebellion, and from all opposition to the will of the sovereign, to give them secretly some assistance. Besides employing her authority with the German princes, she lent money to the queen of Navarre, and received some jewels as pledges for the loan. And she permitted Henry Champernon to levy, and transport over into France, a regiment of a hundred gentlemen volunteers; among whom Walter Raleigh, then a young man, began to distinguish himself, in that great school of military valor.[**]

* Haynes, p. 471.

** Camden, p. 423.

The admiral, constrained by the impatience of his troops, and by the difficulty of subsisting them, fought with the duke of Anjou the battle of Moncontour in Poictou, where he was wounded and defeated. The court of France, notwithstanding their frequent experience of the obstinacy of the Hugonots, and the vigor of Coligny, vainly flattered themselves that the force of the rebels was at last finally annihilated; and they neglected further preparations against a foe, who, they thought, could never more become dangerous. They were surprised to hear, that this leader had appeared, without dismay, in another quarter of the kingdom; had encouraged the young princes, whom he governed to like constancy; had assembled an army; had taken the field; and was even strong enough to threaten Paris. The public finances, diminished by the continued disorders of the kingdom, and wasted by so many fruitless military enterprises, could no longer bear the charge of a new armament, and the king, notwithstanding his extreme animosity against the Hugonots, was obliged, in 1570, to conclude an accommodation with them, to grant them a pardon for all past offences, and to renew the edicts for liberty of conscience.

Though a pacification was seemingly concluded, the mind of Charles was nowise reconciled to his rebellious subjects, and this accommodation, like all the foregoing, was nothing but a snare, by which the perfidious court had projected to destroy at once, without danger, all its formidable enemies. As the two young princes, the admiral, and the other leaders of the Hugonots, instructed by past experience, discovered an extreme distrust of the king’s intentions, and kept themselves in security at a distance, all possible artifices were employed to remove their apprehensions, and to convince them of the sincerity of the new counsels which seemed to be embraced. The terms of the peace were religiously observed to them; the toleration was strictly maintained; all attempts made by the zealous Catholics to infringe it were punished with severity; offices, and favors, and honors were bestowed on the principal nobility among the Protestants; and the king and council every where declared that, tired of civil disorders, and convinced of the impossibility of forcing men’s consciences, they were thenceforth determined to allow every one the free exercise of his religion.

Among the other artifices employed to lull the Protestants into a fatal security, Charles affected to enter into close connections with Elizabeth; and as it seemed not the interest of France to forward the union of the two kingdoms of Great Britain, that princess the more easily flattered herself that the French monarch would prefer her friendship to that of the queen of Scots. The better to deceive her, proposals of marriage were made her with the duke of Anjou; a prince whose youth, beauty, and reputation for valor might naturally be supposed to recommend him to a woman who had appeared not altogether insensible to these endowments. The queen immediately founded on this offer the project of deceiving the court of France; and being intent on that artifice, she laid herself the more open to be deceived. Negotiations were entered into with regard to the marriage; terms of the contract were proposed; difficulties started and removed; and the two courts, equally insincere, though not equally culpable, seemed to approach every day nearer to each other in their demands and concessions. The great obstacle seemed to lie in adjusting the difference of religion; because Elizabeth, who recommended toleration to Charles, was determined not to grant it in her own dominions, not even to her husband; and the duke of Anjou seemed unwilling to submit, for the sake of interest, to the dishonor of an apostasy.[*]

* Camden, p. 433. Davila, lib. v. Digger’s Complete
Ambassador p. 84, 110, 111

The artificial politics of Elizabeth never triumphed so much in any contrivances as in those which were conjoined with her coquetry; and as her character in this particular was generally known, the court of France thought that they might, without danger of forming any final conclusion, venture the further in their concessions and offers to her. The queen also had other motives for dissimulation. Besides the advantage of discouraging Mary’s partisans by the prospect of an alliance between France and England, her situation with Philip demanded her utmost vigilance and attention; and the violent authority established in the Low Countries made her desirous of fortifying herself even with the bare appearance of a new confederacy.

The theological controversies which had long agitated Europe, had from the beginning penetrated into the Low Countries; and as these provinces maintained an extensive commerce, they had early received, from every kingdom with which they corresponded, a tincture of religious innovation. An opinion at that time prevailed, which had been zealously propagated by priests, and implicitly received by sovereigns, that heresy was closely connected with rebellion, and that every great or violent alteration in the church involved a like revolution in the civil government. The forward zeal of the reformers would seldom allow them to wait the consent of the magistrate to their innovations: they became less dutiful when opposed and punished; and though their pretended spirit of reasoning and inquiry was in reality nothing but a new species of implicit faith, the prince took the alarm, as if so institutions could be secure from the temerity of their researches. The emperor Charles, who proposed to augment his authority under pretence of defending the Catholic faith, easily adopted these political principles; and notwithstanding the limited prerogative which he possessed in the Netherlands, he published the most arbitrary, severe, and tyrannical edicts against the Protestants; and he took care that the execution of them should be no less violent and sanguinary. He was neither cruel nor bigoted in his natural disposition; yet an historian, celebrated for moderation and caution, has computed, that in the several persecutions promoted by that monarch, no less than a hundred thousand persons perished by the hands of the executioner.[*] But these severe remedies; far from answering the purposes intended, had rather served to augment the numbers as well as zeal of the reformers; and the magistrates of the several towns, seeing no end of those barbarous executions, felt their humanity rebel against their principles, and declined any further persecution of the new doctrines.

* Grotii Annal. lib. i. Father Paul, another great
authority, computes, in a passage above cited, that fifty
thousand persons were put to death in the Low Countries
alone.

When Philip succeeded to his father’s dominions, the Flemings were justly alarmed with new apprehensions, lest their prince, observing the lenity of the magistrates, should take the execution of the edicts from such remiss hands, and should establish the inquisition in the Low Countries, accompanied with all the iniquities and barbarities which attended it in Spain. The severe and unrelenting character of the man, his professed attachment to Spanish manners, the inflexible bigotry of his principles; all these circumstances increased their terror; and when he departed the Netherlands, with a known intention never to return, the disgust of the inhabitants was extremely augmented, and their dread of those tyrannical orders which their sovereign, surrounded with Spanish ministers, would issue from his cabinet at Madrid. He left the duchess of Parma governess of the Low Countries, and the plain good sense and good temper of that princess, had she been intrusted with the sole power, would have preserved the submission of those opulent provinces, which were lost from that refinement of treacherous and barbarous politics on which Philip so highly valued himself. The Flemings found, that the name alone of regent remained with the duchess; that Cardinal Granville entirely possessed the king’s confidence; that attempts were every day made on their liberties; that a resolution was taken never more to assemble the states; that new bishoprics were arbitrarily erected, in order to enforce the execution of the persecuting edicts; and that, on the whole, they must expect to be reduced to the condition of a province under the Spanish monarchy. The discontents of the nobility gave countenance to the complaints of the gentry, which encouraged the mutiny of the populace; and all orders of men showed a strong disposition to revolt. Associations were formed, tumultuary petitions presented, names of distinction assumed, badges of party displayed; and the current of the people, impelled by religious zeal, and irritated by feeble resistance, rose to such a height, that in several towns, particularly in Antwerp, they made an open invasion on the established worship, pillaged the churches and monasteries, broke the images, and committed the most unwarrantable disorders.

The wiser part of the nobility, particularly the prince of Orange, and the counts Egmont and Horn, were alarmed at these excesses, to which their own discontents had at first given countenance; and seconding the wisdom of the governess, they suppressed the dangerous insurrections, punished the ringleaders, and reduced all the provinces to a state of order and submission. But Philip was not contented with the reëstablishment of his ancient authority: he considered that provinces so remote from the seat of government could not be ruled by a limited prerogative; and that a prince who must entreat rather than command, would necessarily, when he resided not among the people, feel every day a diminution of his power and influence. He determined, therefore, to lay hold of the late popular disorders as a pretence for entirely abolishing the privileges of the Low Country provinces, and for ruling them thenceforth with a military and arbitrary authority.

In the execution of this violent design, he employed a man who was a proper instrument in the hands of such a tyrant. Ferdinand of Toledo, duke of Alva, had been educated amidst arms; and having attained a consummate knowledge in the military art, his habits led him to transfer into all government the severe discipline of a camp, and to conceive no measures between prince and subject but those of rigid command and implicit obedience. This general, in 1568, conducted from Italy to the Low Countries a powerful body of veteran Spaniards; and his avowed animosity to the Flemings, with his known character, struck that whole people with terror and consternation. It belongs not to our subject to relate at length those violences which Alva’s natural barbarity, steeled by reflection and aggravated by insolence, exercised on those flourishing provinces. It suffices to say, that all their privileges, the gift of so many princes, and the inheritance of so many ages, were openly and expressly abolished by edict; arbitrary and sanguinary tribunals erected; the counts Egmont and Horn, in spite of their great merits and past services, brought to the scaffold; multitudes of all ranks thrown into confinement, and thence delivered over to the executioner; and notwithstanding the peaceable submission of all men, nothing was heard of but confiscation, imprisonment, exile, torture, and death.

Elizabeth was equally displeased to see the progress of that scheme laid for the extermination of the Protestants, and to observe the erection of so great a military power in a state situated in so near a neighborhood. She gave protection to all the Flemish exiles who took shelter in her dominions; and as many of these were the most industrious inhabitants of the Netherlands, and had rendered that country celebrated for its arts, she reaped the advantage of introducing into England some useful manufactures, which were formerly unknown in that kingdom. Foreseeing that the violent government of Alva could not long subsist without exciting some commotion, she ventured to commit an insult upon him, which she would have been cautious not to hazard against a more established authority. Some Genoese merchants had engaged, by contract with Philip, to transport into Flanders the sum of four hundred thousand crowns; and the vessels on which this money was embarked, had been attacked in the Channel by some privateers equipped by the French Hugonots, and had taken shelter in Plymouth and Southampton. The commanders of the ships pretended that the money belonged to the king of Spain; but the queen, finding upon inquiry that it was the property of Genoese merchants, took possession of it as a loan; and by that means deprived the duke of Alva of this resource in the time of his greatest necessity. Alva, in revenge, seized all the English merchants in the Low Countries, threw them into prison, and confiscated their effects. The queen retaliated by a like violence on the Flemish and Spanish merchants; and gave all the English liberty to make reprisals on the subjects of Philip.

These differences were afterwards accommodated by treaty, and mutual reparations were made to the merchants; but nothing could repair the loss which so well-timed a blow inflicted on the Spanish government in the Low Countries. Alva, in want of money, and dreading the immediate mutiny of his troops, to whom great arrears were due, imposed, by his arbitrary will, the most ruinous taxes on the people. He not only required the hundredth penny, and the twentieth of all immovable goods; he also demanded the tenth of all movable goods on every sale; an absurd tyranny, which would not only have destroyed all arts and commerce, but even have restrained the common intercourse of life. The people refused compliance; the duke had recourse to his usual expedient of the gibbet; and thus matters came still nearer the last, extremities between the Flemings and the Spaniards.[*]

All the enemies of Elizabeth, in order to revenge themselves for her insults, had naturally recourse to one policy, the supporting of the cause and pretensions of the queen of Scots; and Alva, whose measures were ever violent, soon opened a secret intercourse with that princess. There was one Rodolphi, a Florentine merchant, who had resided about fifteen years in London, and who, while he conducted his commerce in England, had managed all the correspondence of the court of Rome with the Catholic nobility and gentry.[**]

* Bentivoglio, part. i. lib. v. Camden, p. 416.

** Lesley, p. 123. State Trials, vol. i. p. 87.

He had been thrown into prison at the time when the duke of Norfolk’s intrigues with Mary had been discovered; but either no proof, was found against him, or the part which he had acted was not very criminal; and he soon after recovered his liberty. This man, zealous for the Catholic faith, had formed a scheme, in concert with the Spanish ambassador, for subverting the government, by a foreign invasion and a domestic insurrection; and when he communicated his project by letter to Mary, he found, that as she was now fully convinced of Elizabeth’s artifices, and despaired of ever recovering her authority, or even her liberty, by pacific measures, she willingly gave her concurrence. The great number of discontented Catholics were the chief source of their hopes on the side of England and they also observed that the kingdom was at that time full of indigent gentry, chiefly younger brothers, who, having at present, by the late decay of the church, and the yet languishing state of commerce, no prospect of a livelihood suitable to their birth, were ready to throw themselves into any desperate enterprise.[*] But in order to inspire life and courage into all these malecontents, it was requisite that some great nobleman should put himself at their head; and no one appeared to Rodolphi, and to the bishop of Ross, who entered into all these intrigues, so proper, both on account of his power and his popularity, as the duke of Norfolk.

This nobleman, when released from confinement in the Tower, had given his promise, that he would drop all intercourse with the queen of Scots;[**] but finding that he had lost, and, as he feared, beyond recovery, the confidence and favor of Elizabeth, and being still in some degree restrained from his liberty, he was tempted, by impatience and despair, to violate his word, and to open anew his correspondence with the captive princess.[***] A promise of marriage was renewed between them; the duke engaged to enter into all her interests; and as his remorses gradually diminished in the course of these transactions, he was pushed to give his consent to enterprises still more criminal. Rodolphi’s plan was, that the duke of Alva should, on some other pretence, assemble a great quantity of shipping in the Low Countries; should transport a body of six thousand foot and four thousand horse into England; should land them at Harwich, where the duke of Norfolk was to join them with all his friends; should thence march directly to London, and oblige the queen to submit to whatever terms the conspirators should please to impose upon her.[****] Norfolk expressed his assent to this plan; and three letters, in consequence of it, were written in his name by Rodolphi; one to Alva, another to the pope, and a third to the king of Spain; but the duke, apprehensive of the danger, refused to sign them.[v]

* Lesley, p. 123.

** Haynes, p. 571.

*** State Trials, vol. i. p. 102.

**** Lesley, p. 155., State Trials, vol. i. p. 86, 87.

v Lesley, p. 159., 161. Camden, p. 432.

He only sent to the Spanish ambassador a servant and confidant, named Barker, as well to notify his concurrence in the plan, as to vouch for the authenticity of these letters; and Rodolphi, having obtained a letter of credence from the ambassador, proceeded on his journey to Brussels and to Rome. The duke of Alva and the pope embraced the scheme with alacrity: Rodolphi informed Norfolk of their intentions;[*] and every thing seemed to concur in forwarding the undertaking.

Norfolk, notwithstanding these criminal enterprises, had never entirely forgotten his duty to his sovereign, his country, and his religion: and though he had laid the plan both of an invasion and an insurrection, he still flattered himself, that the innocence of his intentions would justify the violence of his measures, and that, as he aimed at nothing but the liberty of the queen of Scots, and the obtaining of Elizabeth’s consent to his marriage, he could not justly reproach himself as a rebel and a traitor.[**] It is certain, however, that, considering the queen’s vigor and spirit, the scheme, if successful, must finally have ended in dethroning her; and her authority was here exposed to the utmost danger.

The conspiracy hitherto had entirely escaped the vigilance of Elizabeth, and that of Secretary Cecil, who now bore the title of Lord Burleigh. It was from another attempt of Norfolk’s that they first obtained a hint, which, being diligently traced, led at last to a full discovery. Mary had intended to send a sum of money to Lord Herreis and her partisans in Scotland; and Norfolk undertook to have it delivered to Bannister, a servant of his, at that time in the north, who was to find some expedient for conveying it to Lord Herreis.[***] He intrusted the money to a servant who was not in the secret, and told him, that the bag contained a sum of money in silver, which he was to deliver to Bannister with a letter: but the servant, conjecturing from the weight and size of the bag that it was full of gold, carried the letter to Burleigh; who immediately ordered Bannister, Barker, and Hicford, the duke’s secretary, to be put under arrest, and to undergo a severe examination. Torture made them confess the whole truth; and as Hicford, though ordered to burn all papers, had carefully kept them concealed under the mats of the duke’s chamber, and under the tiles of the house, full evidence now appeared against his master.[****]

* State Trials, vol. i. p. 93.

** Lesley, p. 158.

*** Lesley, p. 169. State Trials, vol. i. p. 87. Camden, p.
434. Digges, p. 134, 137, 140. Strype, vol. ii. p. 82.

**** Lesley, p. 173.

Norfolk himself, who was entirely ignorant of the discoveries made by his servants, was brought before the council; and though exhorted to atone for his guilt by a full confession, he persisted in denying every crime with which he was charged. The queen always declared, that if he had given her this proof of his sincere repentance, she would have pardoned all his former offences;[*] but finding him obstinate, she committed him to the Tower, and ordered him to be brought to his trial. The bishop of Ross had, on some suspicion, been committed to custody before the discovery of Norfolk’s guilt; and every expedient was employed to make him reveal his share in the conspiracy. He at first insisted on his privilege: but he was told, that as his mistress was no longer a sovereign, he would not be regarded as an ambassador, and that, even if that character were allowed, it did not warrant him in conspiring against the sovereign at whose court he resided.[**] As he still refused to answer interrogatories, he was informed of the confession made by Norfolk’s servants; after which he no longer scrupled to make a full discovery; and his evidence put the guilt of that nobleman beyond all question.

{1572.} A jury of twenty-five peers unanimously passed sentence upon him. The trial was quite regular, even according to the strict rules observed at present in these matters; except that the witnesses gave not their evidence in court, and were not confronted with the prisoner; a laudable practice, which was not at that time observed in trials for high treason.

The queen still hesitated concerning Norfolk’s execution; whether that she was really moved by friendship and compassion towards a peer of that rank and merit, or that, affecting the praise of clemency, she only put on the appearance of these sentiments. Twice she signed a warrant for his execution, and twice revoked the fatal sentence;[***] and though her ministers and counsellors pushed her to rigor, she still appeared irresolute and undetermined.

* Lesley, p. 175.

** Lesley, p. 189. Spotswood.

*** Carte, p. 527, from Fenelon’s Despatches. Digges, p.
166. Strype, vol. ii. p. 83.

After four months’ hesitation, a parliament was assembled; and the commons addressed her in strong terms for the execution of the duke; a sanction which, when added to the greatness and certainty of his guilt, would, she thought, justify, in the eyes of all mankind, her severity against that nobleman. Norfolk died with calmness and constancy; and though he cleared himself of any disloyal intentions against the queen’s authority, he acknowledged the justice of the sentence by which he suffered.[*] That we may relate together affairs of a similar nature, we shall mention, that the earl of Northumberland, being delivered up to the queen by the regent of Scotland, was also, a few months after, brought to the scaffold for his rebellion.

The queen of Scots was either the occasion or the cause of all these disturbances; but as she was a sovereign princess and might reasonably, from the harsh treatment which she had met with, think herself entitled to use any expedient for her relief, Elizabeth durst not, as yet, form any resolution of proceeding to extremities against her. She only sent Lord Delawar, Sir Ralph Sadler, Sir Thomas Bromley, and Dr. Wilson, to expostulate with her, and to demand satisfaction for all those parts of her conduct, which, from the beginning of her life, had given displeasure to Elizabeth: her assuming the arms of England, refusing to ratify the treaty of Edinburgh, intending to marry Norfolk without the queen’s consent, concurring in the northern rebellion,[**] practising with Rodolphi to engage the king of Spain in an invasion of England,[***] procuring the pope’s bull of excommunication, and allowing her friends abroad to give her the title of queen of England. Mary justified herself from the several articles of the charge, either by denying the facts imputed to her, or by throwing the blame on others.[****] But the queen was little satisfied with her apology; and the parliament was so enraged against her, that the commons made a direct application for her immediate trial and execution. They employed some topics derived from practice, and reason, and the laws of nations; but the chief stress was laid on passages and examples from the Old Testament,[v] which, if considered as a general rule of conduct, (an intention which it is unreasonable to suppose,) would lead to consequences destructive of all principles of humanity and morality. Matters were here carried further than Elizabeth intended; and that princess, satisfied with showing Mary the disposition of the nation, sent to the house her express commands not to deal any further at present with the affair of the Scottish queen.[v*]

* Camden, p. 440. Strype, vol. ii. App. p. 23.

** Digges, p. 16, 107. Strype, vol. ii. p. 51, 52.

*** Digges, p. 194, 208, 209. Strype, vol. ii. p. 40, 51.

**** Camden, p. 442.

v D’Ewes, p. 207, 208, etc.

v* D’Ewes, p. 219, 241.

Nothing could be a stronger proof that the puritanical interest prevailed in the house, than the intemperate use of authorities derived from Scripture, especially from the Old Testament; and the queen was so little a lover of that sect, that she was not likely to make any concession merely in deference to their solicitation. She showed, this session, her disapprobation of their schemes in another remarkable instance. The commons had passed two bills for regulating ecclesiastical ceremonies; but she sent them a like imperious message with her former ones; and by the terror of her prerogative, she stopped all further proceeding in those matters[*]

But though Elizabeth would not carry matters to such extremities against Mary as were recommended by the parliament, she was alarmed at the great interest and the restless spirit of that princess, as well as her close connections with Spain; and she thought it necessary both to increase the rigor and strictness of her confinement, and to follow maxims different from those which she had hitherto pursued in her management of Scotland.[**] That kingdom remained still in a state of anarchy. The Castle of Edinburgh, commanded by Kirkaldy of Grange, had declared for Mary; and the lords of that party, encouraged by his countenance, had taken possession of the capital, and carried on a vigorous war against the regent. By a sudden and unexpected inroad, they seized that nobleman at Stirling; but finding that his friends, sallying from the castle, were likely to rescue him, they instantly put him to death. The earl of Marre was chosen regent in his room, and found the same difficulties in the government of that divided country. He was therefore glad to accept of the mediation offered by the French and English ambassadors; and to conclude, on equal terms, a truce with the queen’s party.[***] He was a man of free and generous spirit, and scorned to submit to any dependence on England; and for this reason Elizabeth, who had then formed intimate connections with France, yielded with less reluctance to the solicitations of that court, still maintained the appearance of neutrality between the parties, and allowed matters to remain on a balance in Scotland.[****]

* D’Ewes, p. 213, 238.

** Digges, p. 152.

*** Spotswood, p. 263.

**** Digges, p. 156, 165, 169.

But affairs soon after took a new turn: Marre died of melancholy, with which the distracted state of the country affected him: Morton was chosen regent; and as this nobleman had secretly taken all his measures with Elizabeth, who no longer relied on the friendship of the French court, she resolved to exert herself more effectually for the support of the party which she had always favored. She sent Sir Henry Killegrew ambassador to Scotland, who found Mary’s partisans so discouraged by the discovery and punishment of Norfolk’s conspiracy, that they were glad to submit to the king’s authority, and accept of an indemnity for all past offences.[*] The duke of Chatelrault and the earl of Huntley, with the most considerable of Mary’s friends, laid down their arms on these conditions. The garrison alone of the Castle of Edinburgh continued refractory. Kirkaldy’s fortunes were desperate; and he flattered himself with the hopes of receiving assistance from the kings of France and Spain, who encouraged his obstinacy, in the view of being able, from that quarter, to give disturbance to England. Elizabeth was alarmed with the danger; she no more apprehended making an entire breach with the queen of Scots, who, she found, would not any longer be amused by her artifices; she had an implicit reliance on Morton; and she saw, that by the submission of all the considerable nobility, the pacification of Scotland would be an easy, as well as a most important undertaking. She ordered, therefore, Sir William Drury, governor of Berwick, to march with some troops and artillery to Edinburgh, and to besiege the castle.[**]

* Spotswood, p. 268.

** Camden, p, 443.

The garrison surrendered at discretion: Kirkaldy was delivered into the hands of his countrymen, by whom he was tried, condemned, and executed; Secretary Lidington, who had taken part with him, died, soon after, a voluntary death, as is supposed; and Scotland submitting entirely to the regent, gave not, during a long time, any further inquietude to Elizabeth.

The events which happened in France were not so agreeable to the queen’s interests and inclinations. The fallacious pacifications, which had been so often made with the Hugonots, gave them reason to suspect the present intentions of the court; and after all the other leaders of that party were deceived into a dangerous credulity, the sagacious admiral still remained doubtful and uncertain. But his suspicions were at last overcome, partly by the profound dissimulation of Charles, partly by his own earnest desire to end the miseries of France, and return again to the performance of his duty towards his prince and country. He considered, besides, that as the former violent conduct of the court had ever met with such fatal success, it was not unlikely that a prince, who had newly come to years of discretion, and appeared not to be rivetted in any dangerous animosities or prejudices, would be induced to govern himself by more moderate maxims. And as Charles was young, was of a passionate, hasty temper, and addicted to pleasure,[*] such deep perfidy seemed either remote from his character, or difficult and almost impossible to be so uniformly supported by him. Moved by these considerations, the admiral, the queen of Navarre, and all the Hugonots, began to repose themselves in full security, and gave credit to the treacherous caresses and professions of the French court. Elizabeth herself, notwithstanding her great experience and penetration, entertained not the least distrust of Charles’s sincerity; and being pleased to find her enemies of the house of Guise removed from all authority, and to observe an animosity every day growing between the French and Spanish monarchs, she concluded a defensive league with the former,[**] and regarded this alliance as an invincible barrier to her throne. Walsingham, her ambassador, sent her over, by every courier, the most satisfactory accounts of the honor, and plain dealing, and fidelity of that perfidious prince.

* Digges, p. 8, 39.

** Camden, p. 443.

The better to blind the jealous Hugonots, and draw their leaders into the snare prepared for them, Charles offered his sister, Margaret, in marriage to the prince of Navarre; and the admiral, with all the considerable nobility of the party, had come to Paris, in order to assist at the celebration of these nuptials, which, it was hoped, would finally, if not compose the differences, at least appease the bloody animosity of the two religions. The queen of Navarre was poisoned by orders from the court; the admiral was dangerously wounded by an assassin: yet Charles, redoubling his dissimulation, was still able to retain the Hugonots in their security; till, on the evening of St. Bartholomew, a few days after the marriage, the signal was given for a general massacre of those religionists, and the king himself in person led the way to these assassinations. The hatred long entertained by the Parisians against the Protestants, made them second, without any preparation, the fury of the court; and persons of every condition, age, and sex, suspected of any propensity to that religion, were involved in an undistinguished ruin. The admiral, his son-in-law Teligni, Soubize, Rochefoucault, Pardaillon, Piles, Lavardin, men who, during the late wars, had signalized themselves by the most heroic actions, were miserably butchered without resistance; the streets of Paris flowed with blood; and the people, more enraged than satiated with their cruelty, as if repining that death had saved their victims from further insult, exercised on their dead bodies all the rage of the most licentious brutality. About five hundred gentlemen and men of rank perished in this massacre; and near ten thousand of inferior condition.[*] Orders were instantly despatched to all the provinces for a like general execution of the Protestants; and in Rouen, Lyons, and many other cities, the people emulated the fury of the capital. Even the murder of the king of Navarre, and prince of Condé, had been proposed by the duke of Guise; but Charles, softened by the amiable manners of the king of Navarre, and hoping that these young princes might easily be converted to the Catholic faith, determined to spare their lives, though he obliged them to purchase their safety by a seeming change of their religion.