The main object of this association was to cut off all prospect of the succession from any attempt in favour of the Queen of Scots: a great part of the nation pledged itself to reject a claim made good in this manner as exceptionable in every respect. The Parliament of 1585, many of whose members belonged to the association, not merely confirmed it formally: it now also expressly enacted, that persons in whose favour a rebellion should be attempted, and an attack on the Queen undertaken, should lose their right to the crown: if they themselves took part in any such plots, they were to forfeit their life. The Queen was empowered to appoint a commission of at least twenty-four members to judge of this offence.

These resolutions and unions were of a compass extending far beyond the present occasion, however weighty. How important the ecclesiastical contest had become in all questions concerning the supreme temporal power! That the deposition of Queen Elizabeth, pronounced by the Pope, had no effect was due to the Protestant tendencies of the country, and to the fact that her hereditary claim had been hitherto unassailed. But now it was a similar hereditary claim, made by Queen Mary, not, it is true, formally recognised, but also not rejected, on which the partisans of this princess based their chief hope. Mary herself, who always combined the most vivid dynastic feelings with her religious inclinations, in her letters and statements does not lay such stress on anything as on the unconditional validity of her claim to inherit the throne. When for instance her son rejected the joint government which she proposed to him, she remarked with striking acuteness that this involved an infringement of the maxims of hereditary right; since he rejected her authorisation to share in the government, and recognised as legitimate the refusal of obedience she had experienced from her rebellious subjects. Once she read in a pamphlet that people denied Queen Elizabeth the power to name a successor who was not of the Protestant faith: she wrote to her that the supreme power was of divine right, and raised high above all these considerations, and warned her against opinions of that kind which were avowed by some near her, and which might lead to the elective principle and become dangerous to herself. This could not fail to have an exactly opposite effect on Elizabeth. She was again threatened through the strict dynastic right that she also enjoyed: she needed some other additional support. Despite all inclination to the contrary, she decided to look for it in the Parliament. She likewise aimed at making Mary submit the validity of her claim to its previous decision. She could not but be thankful that her subjects pledged themselves not to recognise any right to the succession which was to be asserted by an attack on her life; she ratified the act by which Parliament gave these feelings a legal form. It is obvious how powerfully the rights of Parliament were thus advanced as against the absolute claim of the hereditary monarchy. In the course of the development of events this was to be the case in a still higher degree.

Mary rejected with horror the suspicion that she could take part in an attempt on Elizabeth's life: she wished to enrol herself in the Association for her security.[257] And who could have failed to believe at least that the threats against her own right and life, in case of a second attempt at assassination, would deter her partisans as well as herself from any thought of it! For they well understood the energy with which the Parliament knew how to vindicate its laws.

But it is vain to try to bridle men's passions by showing them their results. If the attempt on the Queen's life succeeded, this Parliament of course would be annihilated as well as the Queen herself, and another order of things begin.

In the seminary at Rheims the priests persuaded an English emigrant, called Savage, who had served in the army of the Prince of Parma, that he could not better secure himself eternal happiness than by ridding the world of the enemy of religion who was excommunicated by the holy father. Another English emigrant, Thomas Babington, a young man of education and ambition, in whom throbbed the pulse of chivalrous devotion to Mary, was informed of this design by a priest of the seminary, and was fired with a kind of emulation which has something highly fantastic about it. Thinking that so great an enterprise ought not to be confided to one man, he sought and found new confederates for it; when the murder was effected, and the Spanish troops landed, he was to be the man who with a hundred sturdy comrades would free his Catholic Queen from prison and lead her to her throne. Mendoza at that time (and indeed by Mary's recommendation, as she tells us) was Spanish ambassador in France: he was in communication with Babington and strengthened him in his purpose. Of all the distinguished men of the age Mendoza is perhaps the one who took up most heartily the idea of uniting the French and Spanish interests, and advocated it most fervently. King Philip II was also informed of the design. He now, as he had done fifteen years before, declared his intention, if it succeeded, of making the invasion simultaneously from Spain and Flanders. The Queen's murder, the rising of the Catholics, and at the same moment a twofold invasion with trained troops would have certainly been enough to produce a complete revolution. The League was still victorious in France: Henry III would have been forced to join it: the tendencies of the strictest Catholicism would have gained a complete triumph.

If we enquire whether Mary Stuart knew of these schemes, and had a full understanding with the conspirators, there can be no doubt at all of it. She was in correspondence with Babington, whom she designates as her greatest friend. The letter is still extant in which she strengthens him in his purpose of calling forth a rising of the Catholics in the different counties, and that an armed one, with reasons for it true and false, and tells him how he may liberate herself. She reckons on a fine army of horse and foot being able to assemble, and making itself master of some harbours in which to receive the help expected not merely from Flanders and Spain, but also from France. In the letter we even come upon one passage which betrays a knowledge of the plot against Elizabeth's life; there is not a word against it, rather an approbation of it, though an indirect one.[258]

And we have yet another proof of her temper and views at this time lying before us. As the zeal of the Catholics for her claim to the succession might be weakened by the fact that her son in Scotland, on whom it naturally devolved, after all the hopes cherished on his behalf, still remained Protestant, she reverted to an idea that had once before passed through her mind: she pledged herself to bring matters in Scotland to such a point that her son should be seized and delivered into the hands of the King of Spain: he was then to be instructed in the Catholic faith and embrace it; if James had not done so at the time of her death, her claim on England was to pass to Philip II. Day and night, so she said, she bewailed her son's being so stiffnecked in his false faith: she saw that his succession in England would be the ruin of the country.

So it stands written in her letters: it is undeniable: but was that really her last and well-considered word? Was it her real wish that Elizabeth should be killed, her son disinherited notwithstanding her dynastic feelings, and that Philip II should become King of England? Were the Catholic-Spanish tendencies of Elizabeth's predecessor, Queen Mary Tudor, so completely reproduced in her?

I think we can hardly maintain this with full historic certainty. Mary Stuart was not altogether animated by hot religious zeal: if she had been, how could she formerly have left the Protestant lords in possession of power so long as she did, and even have once thought of marrying Leicester with his Protestant views? Her son affirmed that he possessed letters from her, in which she approved of his religious views and confirmed him in them. It was not religious conviction and the abhorrence of any other faith, as in Mary Tudor, but her dynastic right and her self-confidence as sovereign that were the active and predominant motives in all the actions of Mary Stuart. And if there are contradictions in her utterances, we cannot hold her capable, like Catharine Medici, of taking up and secretly furthering two opposite plans at the same time; her different tendencies appear consecutively, not simultaneously, in exact accordance with her impulses. For Mary Stuart was never quiet an instant: even in her prison she shared in the movement of the world; her brain never ceased working; she was brooding over her circumstances, her distress and her hope, how to escape the one and realise the other: sometimes indeed there came a moment of resignation, but only soon to pass away again. She throws all her thoughts into her letters which, even if they are aiming at some object close at hand, are at the same time ebullitions of the moment, passionate effusions, productions of the imagination rather than of the understanding. Who could think such a letter possible as that in which she once sought to inform Elizabeth of the evil reports about her which the Countess of Shrewsbury made, and recounted a mass of scandalous anecdotes she had heard from her. The communication was meant to ruin the countess: Mary did not remark that it must also draw down the Queen's hatred on herself. No one would have dared even to lay the letter before the Queen. Mary's was a passionate nature, endowed with literary gifts: she let her pen run on without saying anything she did not really think at the instant, but without remembering in the least what lay beyond her momentary mood. Who will hold women of this character strictly to what stands in their letters? These are often as inconsiderate and contradictory as their words.

While Mary was writing the above-mentioned letters, she was completely taken up with the proposals made to her. She guarded herself from inserting anything that could hinder their being carried into effect: by the eventual transfer of her son's claims to the foreign King, all opposition on the part of zealous Catholics would be done away. Her hopes and wishes hurried her away with them, so that she lost sight of the danger in which she thus placed herself. And was she not a Queen, raised above the law? Who would take it on himself to attack her?

Mary Stuart was then under the charge of a strict Puritan, Sir Amyas Paulet, of whom she complained that he treated her as a criminal prisoner and not as a queen. The government now allowed a certain relaxation in the external circumstances of her custody, but not in the strictness of the superintendence. There hardly exists another instance of such a striking contrast between projects and facts. Mary composes these letters full of far-ranging and dangerous schemes in the deepest secrecy, as she thinks, and has them carefully re-written in cipher: she has no doubt that they reach her friends safely by a secret way: but arrangements are made so that every word she writes is laid before the man whose business it is to trace out conspiracies, Walsingham, the Secretary of State. He knows her ciphers, he even sees the letters that come for her before she does: while she reads them with haste and in hope of better fortune at hand, he is only waiting for her answer to use it against her as a decisive proof of her guilt.

Walsingham now found himself in possession of all the threads of the conspiracy; as soon as that letter to Babington was in his hands, he delayed no longer to arrest the guilty persons: they confessed, were condemned and executed. By further odious means—the prisoner being removed from her apartments on some pretence and the rooms then searched—possession was obtained of other papers which witnessed against her. Then the question could be laid before the Privy Council whether she should now be brought to trial and sentenced in due form.

Who had given the English Parliament any right to make laws which should be binding on a foreign queen, and in virtue of which, if she transgressed them, she could be punished with death? In fact these doubts were raised at the time.[259] Against them it was alleged that Mary, who had been forced to abdicate by her subjects and deprived of her dignity, could not be regarded any longer as a queen: while a deposed sovereign is bound by the laws of the land in which he resides. If she was still a queen, yet she was subject to the feudal supremacy of England, and because of her claim to its crown also subject to its sovereignty—two arguments that contradict each other, one of a feudal, the other of a popular character and closely connected with the idea of popular sovereignty. Whether the one or the other convinced any person, we do not hear; it was moreover not a matter for argument any longer.

For how could anything else be expected but that the judicial proceedings prepared several years before would now be put in force? A law had been passed calculated for this case, if it should occur. The case had occurred, and was proved by legal evidence. It was necessary for the satisfaction of the country and Parliament—and Walsingham laid particular stress on this—that the matter should be examined with full publicity.

The commission provided for in the Act of Parliament was named: it consisted of the chief statesmen and lawyers of the country. In Fotheringhay, whither the prisoner had now been brought, the splendid ancestral seat of the princes of the house of York, at which many of them were buried, they met together in the Hall on the 14th October. Mary let herself be induced to plead by the consideration that she would be held guilty, if she did not make any defence: it being understood that it was with the reserve that she did not by this give up any of the rights of a free sovereign. Most of the charges against her she gradually admitted to be true, but she denied having consented to a personal attempt on Elizabeth's life. The court decided that this made no essential difference. For the rebellion which Mary confessed to having favoured could not be conceived of apart from danger to the Queen of England's life as well as her government.[260] The court pronounced that Mary was guilty of the acts for which the punishment of death had been enacted in the Parliamentary statute.

We cannot regard this as a regular criminal procedure, for judicial forms were but little observed; it was the decision of a commission that the case had occurred in which the statute passed by Parliament found its application. Parliament itself, then just summoned, had the proceedings of the Commission laid before it and approved their sentence.

But this did not bring the affair to an end. Queen Elizabeth deferred the execution of the judgment. For in relation to such a matter she occupied quite a different position from that of Parliament.

From more than one quarter she was reminded that, by carrying out the sentence, she would violate the divine right of kings; since this implied that subjects could not judge, or lay their hands on, sovereigns. How unnatural if a queen like herself should set her hand to degrade the diadem.[261]

In the Privy Council some were of opinion that, as Mary could not be regarded as the author of the last plot, but only as privy to it, closer imprisonment would be a sufficient punishment for her. Elizabeth caught at this idea. The Parliament, she thought, might now formally annul Mary's claim to the English throne, declare it to be high treason to maintain it any longer, and high treason also to attempt to liberate her from prison: this would deter her partisans from an attempt then become hopeless, and also satisfy foreign nations. But it was urged in reply, that now to repudiate Mary Stuart's claim for the first time would be equivalent to recognising its original validity; and an English law would make no impression either on Mary or on her partisans. The remembrance of what had happened in Scotland revived again; of Darnley's murder, which men imputed to her without hesitation: she was compared to Johanna I of Naples who had taken part in her husband's murder: it was said, Mary has doubled her old guilt by attempts against the sacred person of the Queen; after she had been forgiven, she has relapsed into the same crime, she deserves death on many grounds.[262]

Spenser, in the great poem which has made him immortal, has depicted the conflict of accusations and excuses which this cause called forth. One of his allegorical figures, Zeal, accuses the fair and splendid lady, then on her trial, of the design of hurling the Queen from her throne, and of inciting noble knights to join in this purpose. The Kingdom's Care, Authority, Religion, Justice, take part with him. On the other side Pity, Regard for her high descent and her family, even Grief herself, raise their voices, and produce a contrary impression. But Zeal once more renews his accusation: he brings forward Adultery and Murder, Impiety and Sedition, against her. The Queen sitting upon the throne in judgment recognises the guilt of the accused, but shrinks from pronouncing the word: men see tears in her eyes; she covers her face with her purple robe.

Spenser appears here, as he usually does, an enthusiastic admirer of his Queen. But neither should we see hypocrisy in Elizabeth's scruples, which sprang much more from motives which touched her very nearly. She kept away from all company: she was heard to break her solitary meditation by uttering old proverbs that applied to the present case. More than once she spoke with the deputation of Parliament which pressed for a decision. What she mainly represented to them was, how hard it was for her, after she had pardoned so many rebellions, and passed over so much treason in silence, to let a princess be punished, who was her nearest blood-relation: men would accuse her, the Virgin Queen, of cruelty: she prayed them to supply her with another means, another expedient: nothing under the sun would be more welcome to her. The Parliament firmly insisted that there was no other expedient; it argued in detailed representations that the deliverance of the country depended on the execution of the sentence. The Queen's own security, the preservation of religion and of the state, made it absolutely necessary. Mary's life was the hope of all the discontented, whose plots were directed only to the object of enabling her to ascend the throne of England, to destroy the followers of the true religion, and expel the nobility of the land—that is the Protestant nobility. And must not satisfaction be given to the Association which was pledged to pursue a new attempt against the Queen's life even to death? 'Not to punish the enemy would be cruel to your faithful subjects: to spare her means ruin to us.'

Meanwhile they came upon the traces of a new attempt. In presence of the elder French ambassador, Aubespine, a partisan of the Guises, mention was made of the necessity of killing Elizabeth in order to save Mary at the last moment. One of his officers spoke with a person who was known in the palace, and who undertook to pile up a mass of gunpowder under Elizabeth's chamber sufficient to blow it into the air; he was led to hope for rewards from Guise and his brother Mayenne, whose interests would have been greatly promoted by such a deed.[263] But this time too Elizabeth was made acquainted with the design before it came to maturity. She ascribed her new danger to the silence, if not to the instigation, of the ambassador, the friend of the Guises: in its discovery she saw the hand of God. 'I nourish,' she exclaims, 'the viper that poisons me;—to save her they would have taken my life: am I to offer myself as a prey to every villain?'[264] At a moment when she was especially struck with the danger which threatened her from the very existence of her rival, after a conversation with the Lord Admiral, she had the long-prepared order for the execution brought to her, and signed it with quick and resolute strokes of the pen.

The observation of Parliament, that her safety and the peace of the country required her enemy's death, at last gained the upper hand with her as well. But this did not imply that her conflicting feelings were completely silenced. She was haunted in her dreams by the idea of the execution. She had once more recourse to the thought that some serviceable hand might spare her the last authorisation, by secretly executing the sentence of the judges—an act which seemed to be justified even by the words of the Association; the demand was made in due form to the Keeper of the prisoner, Sir Amyas Paulet; he rejected it—and how could anything else have been expected from the conscientious Puritan—with an expression of his astonishment and indignation. Elizabeth had commissioned Secretary Davison, when she signed the order, to have it sealed with the Great Seal. Her idea seems to have been that, when all the forms had been duly complied with, she might the more easily get a secret execution, or that at some critical moment it might be at once performed; but she still meant to keep the matter in her own hand: for the custom was, before the last step, to once more ask her approval. But Davison, who marked her hesitation, did not think it advisable at this moment. Through Hatton he acquainted Lord Burleigh with the matter, and Burleigh put the question to the other members of the Privy Council: they took it on themselves to despatch the order, signed and sealed as it now was, without further delay to Fotheringhay.[265]

On the 8th of February 1587 it was executed on Mary in the very hall where the sittings of the court had been held. As compared with Elizabeth's painful disquiet, who shrank from doing what she held to be necessary, and when she at last did it wished it again undone and thought she could still recall it, the composure and quiet of soul, with which Mary submitted to the fate now finally decided, impresses us very deeply The misfortune of her life was her claim to the English crown. This led her into a political labyrinth, and into those entanglements which were connected with her disastrous marriage, and then, through its combination with the religious idea, into all the guilt which is imputed to her more or less justly. It cost Mary her country and her life. Even on the scaffold she reminded men of her high rank which was not subject to the laws: she thought the sentence of heretics on her, a free queen, would be of service to the kingdom of God. She died in the royal and religious ideas in which she had lived.

It is undeniable that Elizabeth was taken by surprise at this news: she was heard sobbing as though a heavy misfortune had befallen herself. It may be that her grief was lightened by a secret satisfaction: who would absolutely deny it? But Davison had to atone for taking the power into his own hands by a long imprisonment: the indispensable Burleigh hardly obtained pardon. In the city on the other hand bells were rung and bonfires kindled. For the universal popular conviction agreed with the judgment of the court, that Mary had tried to deliver the kingdom into the hands of Spaniards.

NOTES:

[250] Consultation at Greenwich 1579, In Murdin 340. 'Pluck down presently the strengthe and government of all your papists and deliver all the strengthe and government of your realm into the hands of wise assured and trusty protestants.'

[251] Bishop Leslie's negociations, in Anderson iii. 235.

[252] 'De praesenti rerum statu in Anglia brevis annotatio,' in Theiner, Annales ecclesiastici iii. 480 (at the year 1583). As mention is made in this writing of the restoration of order in the States of the Church, 'per felicissima novi pontificis auspicia,' we must certainly attribute it to the first years of Sixtus V.

[253] 'Tam ad hos (haereticos) quam ad catholicos omnes ad nostras partes trahendos supra modum valebit, licet in carcere, reginae Scotiae opera. Nam illa novit omnes secretos fautores suos et hactenus habuit viam praemonendi illos atque semper ut speramus habitura est, ut cum venerit tempus expeditionis, praesto sint. Sperat etiam—per amicos—et per corruptionem custodum personam suam ex custodia liberare.' In Theiner, Annales ecclesiastici iii. 482.

[254] The means to assure Her Majesty of peace. Egerton Papers 79.

[255] 'Jus successionis judicio ordinum Angliae subjecturam.' Camden, i. 360. Compare Strype, Annals iii. i. 131.

[256] Association for the assecuration of the Queen, subscribed by the members of Lincoln's Inn (Egerton Papers 208). We may assume that this was the general idea.

[257] In a pamphlet of the time it is stated that she had subscribed and sworn to the Association.

[258] Tytler (History of Scotland viii. App) maintains that the passage was inserted by Mary's enemies, and brings forward some reasons for this view which are worth considering. But Mignet (ii. 348) has already remarked how many other improbable suppositions this necessitates. And what would have been the use of it, as the letter even without this addition would have sufficed to condemn her.

[259] 'Objections against bringing Maria Queen of Scots to trial, with answers thereunto.' In Strype, Annals iii. 2. 397.

[260] Evidence against the Queen of Scots. Hardwicke Papers i. 245. 'Invasion and destruction of Her Majesty are so linked together, that they cannot be single. For if the invader should prevail, no doubt they would not suffer Her Majesty to continue neither government nor her life: and in case of rebellion the same reason holdeth.'

[261] The French ambassador began, according to Camden 480, with the maxim 'regum interesse ne princeps libera atque absoluta morte afficiatur.' What Camden quotes from a letter of James makes a certain impression; the words are still more characteristic in the original: 'quho beingh supreme et immediate lieutenants of godd in heaven, cannot thairefoire be judget by thaire aequallis in earth, quat monstruous thing is it that souveraigne princes thaimeselfis shoulde be the exemple giveris of thaire own sacred diademes prophaining.' 27 Jan. 1586-7. In Nicolas, Life of Davison 70.

[262] Reasons gathered by certain appointed in Parliament. In Strype iii. 1, 534.

[263] According to the protocol of an interview with the ambassador (in Murdin, 579) there can be no doubt of the reality of the plot. The ambassador does not deny that he had been spoken to about it, he only excuses himself for not having had the Queen informed of it, but asserts that he had rejected it with abhorrence.

[264] To James I, Letters of Elizabeth and James 42.

[265] Arraignment of Mr. Davison in the Star Chamber, State Trials 1230. In Nicolas, Life of William Davison, are printed the statements and memoranda of Davison as to his share in this matter. They are not without reserve; but, in what they contain, they bear the stamp of truth.



CHAPTER VI.

THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA.

At this moment the war with the Spaniards—the resistance which the English auxiliaries offered to them in the Netherlands, as well as the attack now being made on their coasts—occupied men's minds all the more, as the success of both the one and the other was very doubtful, and a most dangerous counter-stroke was to be expected. The lion they wished to bind had only become exasperated. The naval war in particular provoked the extreme of peril.

Hostilities had been going on a long while, arising at first from the privateering which filled the whole of the Western Ocean. The English traders held it to be their right to avenge every injustice done them on their neighbours' coasts—for man has, they said, a natural desire of procuring himself satisfaction—and so turned themselves into freebooters. Through the counter operations of the Spaniards this private naval war became more and more extensive, and then also gradually developed more glorious impulses, as we see in Francis Drake, who at first only took part in the mere privateering of injured traders, and afterwards rose to the idea of a maritime rivalry between the nations. It was an important moment in the history of the world when Drake on the isthmus of Panama first caught sight of the Pacific, and prayed God for His grace that he might sail over this sea some day in an English ship—a grace since granted not merely to himself but also in the richest measure to his nation. Many companies were formed to resume the voyages of discovery already once begun and then again discontinued. And as the Spaniards based their exclusive right to the possession of the other hemisphere on the Pope's decision, Protestant ideas, which mocked at this supremacy of the Romish See over the world, now contributed also to impel men to occupy lands in these regions. This was always effected in the main by voluntary efforts of wealthy mercantile houses, or enterprising members of the court and state, to whom the Queen gave patents of authorisation. In this way Walter Ralegh, in his political and religious opposition to the Spaniards, founded an English colony on the transatlantic continent, in Wingandacoa: the Queen was so much pleased at it that she gave the district a name which was to preserve the remembrance of the quality she was perhaps proudest of: she called it Virginia.[266]

But at last she formally undertook the naval war; it was at the same time a motive for the league with the Hollanders, who could do excellent service in it: by attacking the West Indies she hoped to destroy the basis of the Spanish greatness.

Francis Drake was commissioned to open the war. When, in October 1585, he reached the Islas de Bayona on the Gallician coast, he informed the governor, Don Pedro Bermudez, that he came in his Queen's name to put an end to the grievances which the English had had to suffer from the Spaniards. Don Pedro answered, he knew nothing of any such grievances: but, if Drake wished to begin war, he was ready to meet him.

Francis Drake then directed his course at once to the West Indies. He surprised St. Domingo and Carthagena, occupied both one and the other for a short time, and levied heavy contributions on them. Then he brought back to England the colonists from Virginia, who were not yet able to hold their own against the natives. The next year he inflicted still more damage on the Spaniards. He made his way into the harbour of Cadiz, which was full of vessels that had either come from both the Indies or were proceeding thither: he sank or burnt them all. His privateers covered the sea.

Often already had the Spaniards planned an invasion of England. The most pressing motive of all lay in these maritime enterprises. The Spaniards remarked that the stability and power of their monarchy did not rest so much on the strong places they possessed in all parts of the world as on the moveable instruments of dominion by which the connexion with them was kept up; the interruption of the communication, caused by Francis Drake and his privateers, between just the most important points on the Spanish and the Netherlandish coasts, seemed to them unendurable: they desired to rid themselves of it at any price. And to this was now added the general cry of vengeance for the execution of the Queen of Scots, which was heard from the pulpit in the presence of the King himself. But this was not the only result of that event. The life of Queen Mary and her claim to the succession had always stood in the way of Spanish ambition: now Philip II could think of taking possession of the English throne himself. He concluded a treaty with Pope Sixtus V, under which he was to hold the crown of England as a fief of the Holy See, which would thus, and by the re-establishment of the Church's authority, have also attained to the revival of its old feudal supremacy over England.[267]

Once more the Spanish monarchy and the Papacy were closely united in their spiritual and political claims. Sixtus V excommunicated the Queen afresh, declared her deposed, and not merely released her subjects from their oath of allegiance, but called on every man to aid the King of Spain and his general the Duke of Parma against her.

Negociations for peace however were still being carried on in 1587 between Spanish and English plenipotentiaries. It was mainly the merchants of London and Antwerp that urged it; and as the Spaniards at that time had manifestly the best of the struggle, were masters of the lower Rhine and the Meuse, had invaded Friesland, had besieged and at last taken Sluys in despite of all resistance, we can understand how the English plenipotentiaries were moved to unexpected concessions. They would have consented to the restoration of the Spanish supremacy over the northern Netherlands, if Philip would have granted the inhabitants freedom of conscience. Alexander of Parma brought forward a proposal, to make, it is true, their return to Catholicism obligatory, but with the assurance that no Inquisition should be set over them, nor any one punished for his deviation from the faith. Even if the negociation was not meant to be completely in earnest, it is worth remarking on what rock it was wrecked. Philip II would neither grant such an assurance, which in its essence involved freedom of conscience, nor grant this itself completely in a better form. His strength lay precisely in his maintaining the Catholic system with unrelenting energy: by this he secured the attachment of the priests and the zealous laity. And how could he, at a moment when he was so closely united with the Pope, and could reckon on the millions heaped up in the castle of St. Angelo for his enterprise, so completely deviate from the strictness of exclusive belief. He thought he was within his right when he refused any religious concession, seeing that every other sovereign issued laws prescribing the religion of his own territories.[268]

If the war was to be continued, Alexander of Parma would have wished that all his efforts should be first directed against Vliessingen, where there was an English garrison; from the harbour there England itself could be attacked far more easily and safely. But it was replied in Spain that this enterprise was likewise very extensive and costly, while it would bring about no decisive result. And yet Alexander himself too held an invasion of England to be absolutely necessary; his reports largely contributed to strengthen the King in this idea; Philip decided to proceed without further delay to the enterprise that was needful at the moment and opened world-wide prospects for the future.

He took into consideration that the monarchy at this moment had nothing to fear from the Ottomans who were fully occupied with a Persian war, and above all that France was prevented from interfering by the civil strife that had broken out. This has been designated as the chief aim of Philip's alliance with the Guises, and it certainly may have formed one reason for it. Left alone, with only herself to rely on (so the Spaniards further judged), the Queen of England would no longer be an object of fear: she had no more than forty ships; once in an engagement off the Azores, in the Portuguese war, the English had been seen to give way for the first time: if it came to a sea-fight, the vastly superior Spanish Armada would without doubt prove victorious. But for a war on land also she was not prepared, she had no more than six thousand real soldiers in the country, with whom she could neither meet nor resist the veteran troops of Spain in the open field. They had only to march straight on London; seldom was a great city, which had remained long free from attack, able to hold out against a sudden assault: the Queen would either be forced to make a peace honourable to Spain, or would by a long resistance give the King an opportunity of forming out of the Spanish nobility, which would otherwise degenerate in indolence at home, a young troop of brave warriors. He would have the Catholics for him and with their help gain the upper hand, he would make himself master of the strong places, above all of the harbours; all the nations of the world could not take them from him again; he would become lord of the ocean, and thus lord and master of the continent.[269]

Philip II would have preferred to begin the work as early as the autumn of 1587. He hoped at that time that Scotland, where the Catholic lords and the people showed a lively sympathy with Queen Mary's fate, would be thrown open to him by her son, who was supposed to wish to avenge her death. But to others this seemed not so certain; in especial the experienced Admiral Santa Cruz called the King's attention to the perils the fleet might incur in those seas: they would have to contend with contrary winds, and the disadvantage of short days and thick mists. Santa Cruz did not wish to endanger his fame, the only thing he had earned during a long life, by an ill-timed or very venturous undertaking. He held an invasion of England to be more difficult than most other enterprises, and demanded such preparations as would make the victory certain. While they were being made he died, after having lost his sovereign's favour. His successor, the duke of Medina Sidonia, whom the King chose because he had distinguished himself at the last defence of Cadiz, did not make such very extensive demands; but the fleet, which was fitted out under him and by him, was nevertheless, though not in number of ships (about 130), yet in tonnage, size, and number of men on board (about 22,000) the most important that had ever been sent to sea by any European power. All the provinces of the Pyrenean peninsula had emulously contributed to it: the fleet was divided into a corresponding number of squadrons; the first was the Portuguese, then followed the squadrons of Castille, Andalusia, Biscay, Guipuzcoa, and then the Italian—for ships and men had come also in good number from Italy. The troops were divided like the squadrons; there was a 'Mass in time of war' for each province.

With not less zeal did men arm in the Netherlands; the drum beat everywhere in the Flemish and Walloon provinces, all roads were covered with military trains. In the Netherlands too there were a great number of Italians, Corsicans and inhabitants of the States of the Church and Neapolitans, in splendid accoutrements; there were the brothers of the grand duke of Tuscany and of the duke of Savoy: King Philip had even allowed the son of a Moorish prince to take part in the Catholic expedition. Infantry and cavalry also had come from Catholic Germany.

It was a joint enterprise of the Spanish monarchy and a great part of the Catholic world, headed by the Pope and the King, to overthrow the Queen who was regarded as the Head, and the State which was regarded as the main support, of Protestantism and the anti-Spanish policy.

We do not find any detailed and at the same time authentic information as to the plan of the invasion; a Spanish soldier and diplomatist however, much employed in the military and political affairs of the time, and favoured with the confidence of the highest persons, J. Baptista de Tassis, gives us an outline, which we may accept as quite trustworthy. We know that in Antwerp, Nieuport, and Dunkirk, with the advice of Hanseatic and Genoese master-builders, transports had been got ready for the whole force: from Nieuport (to which place also were brought the vessels built at Antwerp) 14,000 men were to be conveyed across to England, and from Dunkirk 12,000. But where were they to effect a junction with each other and with the Spaniards? Tassis assures us that they had selected for this purpose the roadstead of Margate on the coast of Kent, a safe and convenient harbour;[270] there immediately after the Spanish armada had arrived, or as nearly as possible at the same time with it, the fleet of transports from the Netherlands also was to make the shore, and Alexander of Parma was then to assume the command in chief of the whole force and march straight on London.

All that Philip II had ever thought or planned was thus concentrated as it were into one focus. The moment was come when he could subdue England, become master of the European world, and re-establish the Catholic faith in the form in which he professed it. When the fleet (on the 22nd July 1588) sailed out of Corunna, and the long-meditated, long-prepared, enterprise was now set in action, the King and the nation displayed deep religious emotion: in all the churches of the land prayers were offered up for forty days; in Madrid solemn processions were arranged to our Lady of Atocha, the patroness of Spain: Philip II spent two hours each day in prayer. He was in the state of silent excitement which an immense design and the expectation of a great turn in a man's fortune call forth. Scarcely any one dared to address a word to him.

It was in these very days that people in England first really became conscious of the danger that threatened them. A division of the fleet under Henry Seymour was watching, with Dutch assistance, the two harbours held by the prince of Parma: the other and larger division, just returned from Spain and on the point of being broken up, made ready at Plymouth, under the admiral, Howard of Effingham, to receive the enemy. Meanwhile the land forces assembled, on Leicester's advice,[271] in the neighbourhood of London. The old feudal organisation of the national force was once more called into full activity to face this danger. Men saw the gentry take the field at the head of their tenants and copyholders, and rejoiced at their holding together so well. It was without doubt an advantage, that the threatened attack could no longer be connected with a right of succession recognised in the country; it appeared in its true character, as a great invasion by a foreign power for the subjugation of England. Even the Catholic lords came forward, among them Viscount Montague (who had once, alone in the Upper House, opposed the Supremacy, and had also since not reconciled himself to the religious position of the Queen), with his sons and grandsons, and even his heir-presumptive who, though still a child, bestrode a war-horse; Lord Montague said, he would defend his Queen with his life, whoever might attack her, king or pope. No doubt that these armings left much to be desired, but they were animated by national and religious enthusiasm. Some days later the Queen visited the camp at Tilbury: with slight escort she rode from battalion to battalion. A tyrant, she said, might be afraid of his subjects: she had always sought her chief strength in their good will: with them she would live and die. She was everywhere received with shouts of joy: psalms were sung, and prayers offered up in which the Queen joined.

For, whatever may be men's belief, in great wars and dangers they naturally turn their eyes to the Eternal Power which guides our destiny, and on which all equally feel themselves dependent. The two nations and their two chiefs alike called on God to decide in their religious and political conflict. The fortune of mankind hung in the balance.

On the 31st July, a Sunday, the Armada, covering a wide extent of sea, came in sight of the English coast off the heights of Plymouth. On board the fleet itself it was thought most expedient to attempt a landing on the spot, since there were no preparations made there for defence and the English squadron was not fully manned. But this was not in the plan, and would, especially if it failed, have incurred a heavy responsibility. Medina Sidonia was only empowered and prepared to accept battle by sea if the English should offer it. His galleys, improved after the Venetian pattern, and especially his galleons (immense sailing ships which carried cannon on their different decks on all sides), were without doubt superior to the vessels of the English. When the latter, some sixty sail strong, came out of the harbour, he hung out the great standard from the fore-mast of his ship as a signal for all to prepare for battle. But the English admiral did not intend to let matters come to a regular naval fight. He was perfectly aware of the superiority of the Spanish equipment and had even forbidden boarding the enemies' vessels. His plan was to gain the weather-gauge of the Armada, and inflict damage on them in their course, and throw them into disorder. The English followed the track of the Armada in four squadrons, and left no advantage unimproved that might offer. They were thoroughly acquainted with this sea, and steered their handy vessels with perfect certainty and mastery: the Spaniards remarked with dissatisfaction that they could at pleasure advance, attack, and again break off the engagement. Medina Sidonia was anxious above all things to keep his Armada together: after a council of war he let a great ship which lagged behind fall into the hands of the enemy, as her loss would be less damaging than the breaking up of the line which would result from the attempt to save her: he sent round his sargentes mayores to the captains to tell them not to quit the line on pain of death.[272]

On the whole the Spaniards were not discontented with their voyage, when after a week of continuous skirmishing they, without having sustained any very considerable losses, had traversed the English channel, and on Saturday the 6th August passed Boulogne and arrived off Calais: it was the first point at which they had wished to touch. But now to cross to the neighbouring coast of England, as seems to have been the original plan, became exceedingly difficult, because the English fleet guarded it, and the Spanish galleons were less able in the straits than elsewhere to compete with those swift vessels, It was also being strengthened every moment; the young nobility emulously hastened on board. But neither could the admiral proceed to Dunkirk, as the harbour was then far too narrow to receive his large ships, and his pilots were afraid of being carried to the northward by the currents. He anchored in the roadstead east of Calais in the direction of Dunkirk.

He had already previously informed the Duke of Parma that he was on the way, and had then, immediately before his arrival at Calais, despatched a pilot to Dunkirk, to request that he would join him with a number of small vessels, that they might better encounter the English, and bring with him cannon balls of a certain calibre, of which he began to fall short.[273] It is clear that he still wished to undertake from thence, if supported according to his views, the great attempt at a disembarkation which he was commissioned to effect. But Alexander of Parma, whom the first message had found some days before at Bruges, had not yet arrived at Dunkirk when the second came: the preparations for embarking were only then just begun for the first time; and they could scarcely venture actually to embark, as English and Dutch ships of war were still ever cruising before the harbour.

Alexander Farnese's failure to effect a junction with Medina Sidonia has been always traced to personal motives; it was even said in England, at a later time, that Queen Elizabeth had offered him the hand of Lady Arabella Stuart, which might open the way to the English throne for himself. It is true that his enterprises in the Netherlands appeared to lie closest to his heart; even Tassis, who was about his person, remarks that he carried on his preparations more out of obedience than with any zeal of his own. But the chief cause why the two operations were not better combined lay in their very nature. The geographical relation of the Spanish monarchy to England would have required two separate invasions, the one from the Pyrenean peninsula, the other from the Netherlands. The wish to combine the forces of such distant countries in a single invasion made the enterprise, especially when the means of communication of the period were so inadequate, overpoweringly helpless. Wind and weather had been little considered in the scheme. In both those countries immense materials of war had been collected with extreme effort; they had been brought within a few miles of sea of each other, but combine they could not. Now for the first time came to light the full superiority which the English gained from their corsair-like and bold method of war, and their alliance with the Dutch. It was seen that a sudden attack would suffice to break the whole combination in pieces: Queen Elizabeth was said to have herself devised the plan and its arrangement.

The Armada was still lying at anchor in line of battle, waiting for news from Alexander Farnese, when in the night between Sunday and Monday (7th to 8th August) the English sent some fire-ships, about eight in number, against it. They were his worst vessels which Lord Howard gave up for this purpose, but their mere appearance produced a decisive result. Medina Sidonia could not refuse his ships permission to slip their anchors, that each might avoid the threatening danger: only he commanded them to afterwards resume their previous order. But things wore a completely different appearance the following morning. The tide had carried the vessels towards the land, a direction they did not want to take; now for the first time the attacks of the English proved destructive to them: part of the ships had become disabled: it was completely impossible to obey the admiral's orders that they should return to their old position. Instead of this, unfavourable winds drove the Armada against its will along the coast; in a short time the English too gave up the pursuit of the enemy, who without being quite beaten was yet in flight, and abandoned him to his fate. The wind drove the Spaniards on the shoals of Zealand: once they were in such shallow water that they were afraid of running aground: some of their galleons in fact fell into the hands of the Dutch. Fortunately for them the wind veered round first to the W.S.W., then to the S.S.W., but they could not even then regain the Channel, nor would they have wished it; only by the longest circuit, round the Orkney Islands, could they return to Spain.

A storm fraught with ruin had lowered over England: it was scattered before it discharged its thunder. So completely true is the expression on a Dutch commemorative medal, 'the breath of God has scattered them' (flavit et dissipati sunt).

Philip II saw the Armada, which he had hoped would give the dominion of the world into his hand, return home again in fragments without having, we do not say accomplished but even, attempted anything worth the trouble. He did not therefore renounce his design. He spoke of his wish to fit out lighter vessels, and entrust the whole conduct of the expedition to the Prince of Parma. The Cortes of Castille requested him not to put up with the disgrace incurred, but to chastise this woman: they offered him their whole property and all the children of the land for this purpose. But the very possibility of great enterprises belongs only to one moment: in the next it is already gone by.

First the Spanish forces were drawn into the complications existing in France. The great Catholic agitation, which had been long fermenting there, at last gained the upper hand, and was quite ready to prepare the way for Philip II's supremacy. But Queen Elizabeth thought that the day on which France fell into his hands would be the eve of her own ruin. She too therefore devoted her best resources to France, to uphold Philip II's opponent. When Henry IV, driven back to the verge of the coast of Normandy, was all but lost, he was by her help put in a position to maintain his cause. At the sieges of the great towns, in which he was still often threatened with failure, the English troops in several instances did excellent service. The Queen did not swerve from her policy even when Henry IV saw himself compelled, and found it compatible with his conscience, to go over to Catholicism. For he was clearly thus all the better enabled to re-establish a France that should be politically independent, in opposition to Spain and at war with it; and it was exactly on this opposition that the political freedom and independence of England herself rested. Yet as his change of religion had been disagreeable to the Queen, so was also the peace which he proceeded to make; she exerted her influence against its conclusion. But as by it the Spaniards gave up the places they occupied on the French coasts, which in their possession had menaced England as well, she could not in reality be fundamentally opposed to it.

These great conflicts on land were seconded by repeated attacks of the English and Dutch naval power, by which it sometimes seemed as if the Spanish monarchy would be shaken to its foundations. Elizabeth made an attempt to restore Don Antonio to the throne from which Philip II had driven him. But the minds of the Portuguese themselves were very far from being as yet sufficiently prepared for a revolt: the enterprise failed, in an attack on the suburbs of Lisbon. The war interested the English most deeply. Parliament agreed to larger and larger grants: from two-fifteenths and a single subsidy (about L30,000), which was its usual vote, it rose in 1593 to three subsidies and six-fifteenths; the towns gladly armed ships at their own expense, and sailors enough were found to man them: the national energy turned towards the sea. And they obtained some successes. In the harbour of Corunna they destroyed the collected stores, which were probably to have served for renewing the expedition. Once they took the harbour of Cadiz and occupied the city itself: more than once they alarmed and endangered the West Indies. But with all this nothing decisive was effected; the Spanish monarchy maintained an undoubted ascendancy in Europe, and the exclusive possession of the other hemisphere: it was the Great Power of the age. But over against it England also now took up a strong and formidable position.

Events in France exercised a strong counter-action on the Netherlands; under their influence the reconquest of the United Provinces became impossible for Spain. Elizabeth also contributed largely to the victories by which Prince Maurice of Orange secured a strong frontier. But these could not prevent a powerful Catholic government arising on the other side in the Belgian provinces: and though they were at first kept apart from Spain, yet it did not escape the Queen that this would not last for ever: she seems to have had a foreboding that these countries would become the battleground of a later age. However this might be, the antagonism of principle between the Catholic Netherlands (which were still ruled by the Austro-Spanish House) and the Protestant Netherlands (in which the Republic maintained itself), and the continued war between them, ensured the security of England, for the sake of which the Queen had broken with Spain. Burleigh's objects were in the main attained.

NOTES:

[266] Oldys, Life of Sir W. Raleigh 38.

[267] Spondanus, Continuatio Baronii ii. 847. The word 'dicitur,' which Spondan uses, is omitted in Timpesti, Vita di Sisto V, ii. 51.

[268] A letter of Philip's to the King of Denmark, in the Venetian Dispacci of this year, which in general would be of great value for a detailed account of the event.

[269] The reports are in Herrera, Historia del mundo iii. 60 seq. In 1860 Mr. Motley (History of the United Netherlands ii. ch. xviii.) communicated extracts from the letters exchanged at that time between Alex. Farnese and Philip II, which reveal the wishes of each successive moment.

[270] J. B. de Tassis Commentarii: 'eo consilio, ut cum adventasset classis et constitisset in Morgat, qui est prope Dormiram [I read Douvram, as the copy from which the printed text is taken is very defective] districtus maris quietus portumque efficit satis securum, trajiceret Parmensis cum navigiis.' Papendrecht, Analecta Belgica II. ii. 491. In Motley i. ch. viii we now see that Al. Farnese in his very first plan pointed out the coast between Dover and Margate as the most proper place for the landing. A junction of the whole transport fleet with the Armada before Calais has something too adventurous in it to have been contemplated from the beginning.

[271] The Earl of Leicester to the Queen. Hardwicke State Papers i. 580. The dates given above are New Style.

[272] Diario de los sucesos de armada Ilamada la invencible, in Salva, Collection de documentos ineditos xvi. 449: essentially the same report as that used by Barrow, Life of Sir Francis Drake.

[273] Diario 458: 'mandase salir 40 filipotes luego para juntarse con esta armada para poder con ellos trabarse con los enemigos, que a causa de ser nuestros baseles muy pesados en comparacion de la ligereza de los enemigos no era posible en ninguna maniera venir a las manos con ellos.'



CHAPTER VII.

THE LATER YEARS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.

Every great historic existence has a definite purport; the life of Queen Elizabeth lies in the transactions already recorded, and their results in the change of policy which she brought about.

The issue of the war between the hierarchy, which had once swayed every act and thought of the West, and those who had fallen off from it was not yet decided as long as England with its power vacillated between the two systems. Then this Queen came forward, attaching herself to the new view as by a predetermined destiny; she carried it out in a form answering to the historical institutions of her kingdom, and with an energy by which she at the same time upheld that kingdom's power. It was against her therefore that the hierarchy, when it could renew the contest, mainly directed its most energetic efforts: an author of the period makes those leagued with the Pope against the Queen say to each other, 'come let us kill her, and the inheritance shall be ours.' The chief among these was the mighty King who had himself once ruled England. She maintained a war with this league, in which it was at each moment a question of existence for her. She was assailed with all the weapons of war and of treason; but she adopted corresponding means of defence against every assault: she not only maintained herself, but created in the neighbouring countries a powerful representation of the principle which she had taken up, without pressing the adoption of a form for it exactly like her own. Without her help the church-reformation in Scotland, and at that time in France, would have been probably suppressed, and in the Netherlands it would have never taken actual shape. The Queen is the champion of West-European Protestantism and of all the political growth that was attached to the new faith. She herself expresses her astonishment at her success in this: 'more at the fact,' she says once, 'that I am still alive, than that my enemies would not have me to live.' That Philip effected so little against her, she believes to be due above all to God's justice; for the King attacked her in an unkingly manner while negociations were still going on: she sees in this a proof that an ill beginning leads to a disgraceful end, despite all power and endeavour. 'What was to ruin me, has turned to my glory.'[274]

It is surely the greatest happiness that can be granted to any human being, while defending his own interest, to be maintaining the interests of all. Then his personal existence expands into a central part of the world's history.

That personal and universal interest was likewise a thoroughly English one. Commerce grew amidst arms: the maintenance of internal peace filled the country with wellbeing and riches; palaces were seen rising where before only huts had stood: as the philosophic Bacon remarks, England now won her natural position in the world.

Elizabeth was one of those sovereigns who have beforehand formed an idea for themselves as to the duties of government. Four qualities, she says once, seemed to her necessary for it: justice and self-control, highmindedness and judgment; she might pride herself on the two first: never in a case of equal rights had she favoured one person more than another: never had she believed a first report, but waited for fuller knowledge: the two others she would not claim for herself, for they were men's virtues. But the world ascribed a high degree of these very virtues to her. Men descried her subtle judgment in the choice of her servants, and the directing them to the services for which they were best fitted. Her high heart was seen in her despising small advantages, and in her unshaken tranquillity in danger. While the storm was coming on from Spain, no cloud was seen on her brow: by her conduct she animated nobles and people, and inspirited her councillors. Men praised her for two things, for zealous participation in deliberation and for care in seeing that what was decided on was carried into effect.[275]

But we may not look for an ideal female ruler in Queen Elizabeth. No one can deny the severities which were practised under her government even with her knowledge. The systematic hypocrisy imputed to her may seem an invention of her enemies or of historians not thoroughly informed; she herself declares truthfulness a quality indispensable for a prince; but in her administration, as well as in that of most other rulers, reasonings appear which rather conceal the truth than express it; in each of her words, and in every step she took, we perceive a calculation of what is for her advantage; she displays striking foresight and even a natural subtlety. Elizabeth was very accessible to flattery, and as easily attracted by an agreeable exterior as repelled by slight accidental defects; she could break out at a word that reminded her of the transitory nature of human affairs or of her own frailty: vanity accompanied her from youth to those advancing years, which she did not wish to remark or to think were remarked. She liked to ascribe successes to herself, disasters to her ministers: they had to take on themselves the hatred felt against disagreeable or doubtful regulations, and if they did not do this quite in unison with her mood, they had to fear her blame and displeasure. She was not free from the fickleness of her family: but on the other hand she displayed also the amiable attention of a female ruler: as when once during a speech she was making in a learned language to the learned men of Oxford, on seeing the Lord Treasurer standing there with his lame foot, she suddenly broke off, ordered a chair to be brought him, and then continued; indeed it was said she at the same time wished to let it be remarked that no accident could discompose her. As Harrington, who knew her from personal acquaintance, expresses himself: her mind might be sometimes compared to a summer morning sky, beneficent and refreshing: then she won the hearts of all by her sweet and modest speech. But she was repellent in the same degree in her excited state, when she paced to and fro in her chamber, anger in every look, rejection in every word: men hastened out of her way. Among other correspondence we learn to know her from that with King James of Scotland,—one side of her political relations, to which we shall return:—how does every sentence express a mental and moral superiority as well as a political one! not a superfluous word is there: all is pith and substance. From care for him and intelligent advice she passes to harsh blame and most earnest warning: she is kind and sharp, friendly and rough, but almost ever more repellent and unsparing than mild. Never had any sovereign a higher idea of his dignity, of the independence belonging to him by the laws of God and man, of the duty of obedience binding on all subjects. She prides herself on no external consideration influencing her resolutions, threats or fear least of all; when once she longs for peace, she insists on its not being from apprehension of the enemy, but only from abhorrence of bloodshed. The action of life does not develop merely the intellectual powers: between success and failure, in conflict and effort and victory, the character moulds itself and acquires its ruling tone. Her immense good fortune fills her with unceasing self-confidence, which is at the same time sustained by trust in the unfailing protection of Providence.[276] That she, excommunicated by the Pope, maintains herself against the attacks of half the world, gives her whole action and nature a redoubled impress of personal energy. She does not like to mention her father or her mother: of a successor she will not hear a word. The feeling of absolute possession is predominant in her appearance. It is noticeable how on festivals she moves in procession through her palace: in front are nobles and knights in the costume of their order, with bared heads; next the bearers of the insignia of royalty, the sceptre, the sword, and the great seal: then the Queen herself in a dress covered with pearls and precious stones; behind her ladies, brilliant in their beauty and rich attire: to one or two, who are presented to her, she reaches out her hand to kiss as she goes by in token of favour, till she arrives at her chapel, where the assembled crowd hails her with a 'God save the Queen,' she returning them thanks with gracious words. Elizabeth received the whole reverence, once more unbounded, which men paid to the supreme power. The meats of which she was to eat were set on the table with bended knee, even when she was not present. It was on their knees that men were presented to her.[277]

Between a sovereign like this and her Parliament points of contention could not be wanting. The Commons claimed the privilege of absolute freedom of speech, and repeatedly attacked the abuses which still remained in the episcopal Church, and the injurious monopolies which profited certain favoured persons. The Queen had members of the Lower House imprisoned for speeches disagreeable to her: she warned them not to interfere in the affairs of the Church, and even not in those of the State, and declared it to be her prerogative to summon and dissolve Parliament at her pleasure, to accept or reject its measures. But with all this she still did not on the other hand conceal that, in reference to the most important affairs of State, she had to pay regard to the tone of the two Houses: however much she might be loved, yet men's minds are easily moved and not thoroughly trustworthy. In its forms Parliament studied to express the devotion which the Queen claimed as Queen and Lady, while she tried to make amends for acts by which the assembly had been previously offended: for statements of grievances, as in the instance of the monopolies, she even thanked them, as for a salutary reminder. A French ambassador remarks in 1596 that the Parliament in ages gone by had great authority, but now it did all the Queen wished. Another who arrived in 1597 is not merely astonished at its imposing exterior, but also at the extent of its rights. Here, says he, the great affairs are treated of, war and peace, laws, the needs of the community and the mode of satisfying them.[278] The one statement is perhaps as true as the other. The solution of the contradiction depends on this, that Queen and Parliament were united as to the general relations of the country and the world. The Queen, as is self-evident, could not have ruled without the Parliament: from the beginning of her government she supported herself by it in the weightiest affairs; but a simple consideration teaches us how much on the other hand Parliament owed precisely to that introduction into these great questions, which the Queen thought advisable. They avoided, and were still able to avoid, any enquiry into their respective rights and the boundaries of those rights. And besides Elizabeth guarded herself from troubling her Parliament too much by demands for money. She has been often blamed for her economy which sometimes became inconvenient in public affairs: as in most cases, nature and policy here also coincided. That she was sparing of money, and once was actually in a condition to decline a grant offered her, gave the administration an independence of any momentary moods of Parliament, which suited her whole nature, and without this might have been easily lost.

William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, her treasurer, as economical as herself, was likewise her first minister. He had assisted her with striking counsel even before her accession, and since lived and moved in her administration of the state. He was one of those ministers who find their calling in a boundless industry,—he needed little sleep, long banquets were not to his taste:[279] never was he seen inactive even for half an hour; he kept notes of everything great and small; business accompanied him even to his chamber, and to his retirement at S. Theobald's. His anxious thoughts were visible in his face, as he rode on his mule along the roads of the park; he only lost sight of them for a moment when he was sitting at table among his growing children: then his heavy eyebrows cleared up, light merriment even came from his lips. Every other charm of life lay far from him: for poetry and poets he had no taste, as Spenser was once made to feel: in literature he patronised only what was directly useful; he recommended no one except for his being serviceable. Magnanimous he was not; he was content with being able to say to himself, that he drew no advantage from any one's ill fortune. He was designated even then as the man who set the English state in motion: this he always denied, and sought his praise in the fact that he carried out the views of the Queen, as she adopted them after hearing the plans proposed or even after respectful remonstrances. He had to bear many a slander: most of the reproaches made against him he brought himself to endure quietly: but if, he said, it could be proved against him that he neglected the Queen's interest, the war against Spain, and the support of the Netherlands, then he was willing to become liable to eternal blame. He was especially effective also through a moral quality—he never lost heart. It was remarked that he worked with the greatest alacrity when others were most doubtful. For he too had an absolute confidence in the cause which he defended. When the enemies' fortune stood highest, he was heard to say with great tranquillity, 'they can do no more than God will allow.'[280]

By the side of this pilot of the state, Robert Dudley, who was promoted to be Earl of Leicester, drew all eyes on himself as the leading man at court. Burleigh was looked on as Somerset's creation, Dudley was the youngest son of the Earl of Northumberland: for it was of advantage to Elizabeth, especially at first, to unite around her important representatives of the two parties which had composed her brother's government. One motive for her attachment to Leicester is said to have been the fact that he was born on the same day, and at the very same hour with herself: who at that time would not have believed in the ruling influence of the stars? But, besides this, the Earl dazzled by a fine person, attractive manners, and an almost irresistible charm of disposition. The confidential intimacy which Elizabeth allowed him caused scandalous rumours, probably without ground; for if they had been true, Leicester, who had his father's ambition, would have played a very different part. Elizabeth heard of them; she once actually brought a foreign ambassador into her apartments, to convince him how utterly impossible it would be for her to see any one whatever without witnesses; she censured a foreign writer for letting himself be deceived by a groundless rumour, but she would not on this account dismiss the favourite from court. She liked to have him about her, and to receive his homage which had a tinge of chivalry in it: his devotion satisfied a need of her heart. He could not however take any power to himself which would infringe on her own supreme authority; once, when such a case occurred, she reminded him that he was not in exclusive possession of her favour: she could bestow it on whom she would, and again recall it; at court, she exclaimed, there should be no Master, but only a Mistress.[281] Neither did Leicester display great mental gifts: in the campaigns of the Netherlands he did not at all answer even the moderate expectations that had been formed of him. If the Queen nevertheless put him at the head of her troops when the Spanish danger threatened, this was because he possessed her absolute personal confidence.

With Leicester the Sidneys were most closely allied. Henry Sidney, his sister's husband, introduced civilisation and monarchic institutions into Wales, and was selected to extend them in Ireland. In his son Philip the English ideal of noble culture seemed to have realised itself; he combined a very remarkable literary power peculiar to himself, and talents suited for the society of men of the world (which well fitted him for the duties of an ambassador), with disinterested kindness to others, and a chivalrous courage in war, which gained him universal admiration both at home and in presence of the enemy.

Leicester's good word is also said to have opened an entrance to court for young Walter Ralegh and to have promoted his first successes. Ralegh combined in his own person the aspirations of the age in a most vivid manner. He was ambitious, fond of show, with high aims, deeply engaged in the factions of the court; but at the same time he had a spirit of noble enterprise, was ingenious and thoughtful. In everything new that was produced in the region of discoveries and inventions, of literature and art, he played the part of a fellow worker: he lived in the circle of universal knowledge, its problems and its progress. In his appearance he had something that announced a man of superior mind and nature.

Around Cecil were grouped the statesmen who had been promoted by him, and worked in sympathy with him: for instance Bacon the Keeper of the Seals, whom the Queen regarded as the oracle of the laws, and who also amused her by many a witty word; Mildmay, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who though adhering to the principles now adopted yet gladly favoured the claims of Parliament, and even the tendencies of the Puritans; Francis Walsingham, Secretary of State, who had once suffered exile for his Protestantism and now supported it after his return with all the resources of the administration; it is said of him that he heard in London what was whispered in the ear at Rome; he met the crafty Jesuits with a network of secret counter-action which extended over the world; there has never been a man who more vigilantly and unrelentingly hunted down religious and political conspiracies; to pay his agents, in choosing whom he was not too particular, he expended his own property. Cecil and Bacon had married two daughters of that Antony Cooke, who had once taken part in Edward VI's education: the other sisters, wedded to Hobby and Killigrew, men who were engaged in the most important embassies, extended the connexion of these statesmen. Walsingham was allied by marriage with Mildmay, and with Randolph the active ambassador in Scotland.

Once the Queen brought a man among them, who owed his rise only to her being pleased with his person and conversation, which likewise brought her much ill repute:[282] she promoted her vice-chamberlain Christopher Hatton to be Lord Chancellor of England. The lawyers made loud and bitter complaints of this disregard of their claims and their order. Hatton had however been long on good terms with the leading statesmen: in all the late questions of difficulty as to Mary Stuart's trial he had held firm to them. His nephew and heir soon after married a granddaughter of Burleigh.

The Queen's own relations on the mother's side had always some influence with her. Francis Knolles who had married into this family, and was appointed by the Queen treasurer of her household, won himself a good name with his contemporaries and with posterity by his religious zeal and openness of heart. A still more important figure in this circle is Thomas Sackville, who is also named with honour among the founders of English literature; the part of the 'Mirror for Magistrates' which was due to him witnesses to an original conception of the dark sides of man's existence, and to a creative imagination. But the poet likewise did excellent service to his sovereign: he makes his appearance when an important treaty is to be concluded, or the people are to be called on to defend the country, or even when any agitation is feared in the troubles at home. He was selected to inform the Queen of Scots that the sentence of death had been pronounced on her. He is the Lord Buckhurst from whom the dukes of Dorset are descended.

The distinguished family to which Anne Boleyn belonged, and which had such an important influence on her rise, that of the Howards, proved in its elder branch as little loyal to the daughter as it had once been to the mother. On the other hand Elizabeth had experienced the attachment of the younger line, that of Effingham, and had since repaid it with manifold favours. From this branch came the Admiral, who commanded the sea-force in the decisive attacks on the Spanish Armada. We know that he was not himself a great seaman; but he understood enough of the matter to enable him to avail himself of those who understood more than he did. The Queen looked on him as the man marked out by Providence for the defence of herself and of the country.

General Norris, who gained reputation for the English arms on the continent by the side of Henry IV, was also related to her though more distantly: besides this, she wished to repay him for the good treatment she had formerly received in her distress from his grandfather.

How predominantly the personal element once more manifests itself in this administration! As the Queen's own interest is also that of all, those who belong to her family or have won her favour and done her essential service, are the chiefs of the State and the leaders in war. The royal patronage extended this influence over the Church and the universities. But we find it no less in all other branches. Sir Thomas Gresham, the Queen's agent in money-matters, was the founder of the Exchange of London, to which she at his request gave the name of the Royal Exchange.

In literature also we see the traces of her taste and her influence. Owing to the tone of good society the classics were studied by every one. The higher education was directed to them, as indeed the Queen herself found in them refreshment and food for the mind: many classical authors were translated, and the forms of the old poets revived or imitated. The Italians and Spaniards, who had led the way in similar attempts, further awoke the emulation of the English. In Edmund Spenser, in whom the spirit of the age shows itself most vividly, we constantly meet with imitations of the Latin or Italian poets, which here and there aspire to be paraphrastic translations, and may be inferior to his originals, even to the modern ones, in delicacy of drawing, since he purposely selected their most successful passages: yet how thoroughly different a spirit do his works breathe in their total effect! What in the Italians is a play of fancy is in him a deep moral earnestness. The English nation has an inestimable possession in these works of a moral and religious grandeur, and a simple view of nature, which happily expressed in single stanzas stamp themselves on every man's memory. Spenser has assigned to allegory, as a style, a larger sphere than perhaps belongs to it, and one allegory is always interweaving itself with another; the heroes whom he takes from the old romances become to him representatives of the different virtues, but he possesses such an original power of vivid representation that even in this form he gains the reader's interest. But, if we ask what is the main thing which he celebrates, we find that it is precisely the course of the great war in which his nation is engaged against the Papacy and the Spaniards. The Faery Queen is his sovereign, whose figure under the manifold symbols of the qualities which she possessed, or which were ascribed to her, is always coming forward afresh in his verse. With wonderful power Elizabeth united around her all the aspiring minds and energies of the nation.

Not a few of the productions of the time have so strong an infusion of reverence for the Queen that we cannot help smiling: but it is true nevertheless that at her court the language formed itself, and all great aspirations found their central point. Elizabeth's statesmen, who had to deal with a Parliament that could not be led by mere authority, studied the rules of eloquence in the models of antiquity, and made their doctrines their own. On their table Quintilian lay by the side of the Statutes.

The Queen, who loved the theatre and declared it a national institution by a proclamation, made it possible for Shakespeare to develop himself; his roots lie deep in this epoch, he represents its manners and mode of life: but he spreads far out beyond it. We shall return to him in a more suitable place than this, in which we are treating of the Queen's influence.

It would contradict the nature of human affairs were we to expect that the general point of view, which swayed the State as a whole, could have induced every one who took part in its administration to move on to their common aim in one way. Of the great nobles of the court many rather supported the Puritans, as indeed the father of the Puritan Cartwright owed his position at Warwick to Leicester's protection; others inclined to favour the Catholics. The severity which the bishops thought themselves bound to exercise met with opposition among the leading statesmen: and to these again the soldiers were opposed. It was a society full of life, and highly gifted, but for that very reason in continual ferment and internal conflict.