[Sidenote: 1576 Attitude of the Nation]

With this message Cobham returned, to find that the revolted States were on their part offering the sovereignty of the Provinces to Elizabeth. Walsingham and his allies were supporting the proposal, and under present conditions Burghley too inclined to it. Elizabeth, confident that Spain would not declare war, was ready to carry what we can only call bluff to the extreme limit, though she scolded her Council with energy. The Spaniards took the opportunity to render the Council most effective support, by seizing the crew of another English ship. Elizabeth sent warnings or threats to Requescens; and in February (1576), Parliament was summoned to vote supplies; which it did without hesitation. If the action of Parliament was any sort of index to popular sentiment, the idea that there was any widespread or deep- rooted feeling in the country against a war of religion is certainly fallacious; while there can be no question that the entire sea-going population—which had attracted into its ranks all that was most adventurous, most daring, most energetic, and most capable in the country—was heart and soul hostile to Spain. How much of that feeling was due to enthusiastic Protestantism, and how much to the fact that men hankered after the Spanish El Dorado may be matter of debate; but that the feeling was there is patent. That the attitude of Parliament was not due to any subserviency is emphasised by the open attack in this session on the granting of Monopolies to the Queen's favourites, which sent Wentworth who made it to the Star-Chamber—and found for him early and popular pardon instead of severe punishment.

[Sidenote: The Queen evades war]

Evidently, the force which did really operate against war was the Queen herself. From beginning to end of her reign, she never entered upon any war at all, so long as any possible means could be found for evading it without surrendering some right or claim vital in her eyes either to the nation's interests or her own. On such points she was never prepared to yield: in the last resort she would fight, but at the same time make the most of her reluctance, and relieve her feelings by roundly rating her ministers. Yet repeatedly she went as far as it was possible to go without actually declaring war, relying securely on the certainty that the irrevocable step would not be taken by the other party, and that she could find some plausible though perhaps undignified excuse for not taking it herself.

So it was now. So long as France could be deterred from espousing the cause of Orange, she saw no necessity for her own intervention. If the Inquisition maltreated some of her sailors, others might be relied on to effect reprisals and to collect compensation, on their own responsibility, without her actually applying the grievance as a casus belli: it could always be employed to that end, if occasion should arise. Requescens died suddenly, a few days before the prorogation of the English Parliament in March. Elizabeth dismissed the States' envoys, refused all assistance, and threatened open hostility if they appealed to France. The Spanish arms were prospering again, and as the summer advanced, Orange was reduced to such straits that he seriously contemplated a wholesale emigration to the New World, from the two States which remained stubborn, Holland and Zeeland.

[Sidenote: 1575-76 The Huguenots and Alencon]

The involved state of French parties probably accounts for Elizabeth's action. Since the death of Charles IX., the middle party or Politiques had been revived, and with this, for some time, both Henry of Navarre and Alencon—now heir presumptive to the French throne—were associated. In the autumn of 1575 however Alencon betook himself to the Huguenots at Dreux. Being thus openly supported by the heir presumptive, the Huguenot position was considerably strengthened. Once more the English Queen resolved to employ matrimonial negotiations, as a means for keeping others inactive and evading action herself. The idea that she should marry Alencon was revived, and found favour at least with the Politiques. The French King approved. In May 1576, a peace was patched up which promised to give neither party undue ascendancy. The great danger of the winter months—that Alencon and the Huguenots would make common cause with the Netherlanders—had passed; and Elizabeth thought she could now afford to decline both the marriage and the entreaties of the revolted States.

[Sidenote: 1576 The States and Don John]

But the impending collapse of the Hollanders was averted. Before a successor to Requescens arrived, the Spanish troops, whose pay was heavily in arrear, mutinied, took the law into their own hands, pillaged in the States which had submitted, and finally perpetrated the sack of Antwerp, known as "the Spanish Fury," when some thousands of the inhabitants were wantonly slaughtered. The result was that the States General, meeting at Ghent, were so alarmed and angered that all the Provinces again united and by the Pacification of Ghent, resolved unanimously to demand the total withdrawal of the Spanish troops before they would admit the new Governor, Don John of Austria, Philip's illegitimate brother, the victor of Lepanto. Vehemently Catholic as were the Southern Provinces, they were even ready to demand freedom of worship for the Protestants, for the sake of political unity in the face of the Spaniard.

[Sidenote: Attitude of Elizabeth]

Don John's military reputation stood exceedingly high; he was known to entertain very ambitious ideas; his brother was gloomily jealous of him. It was more than suspected that in his own mind Don John wished to invade England, raise the Catholics, marry Mary, set her on the throne, and from that vantage ground secure the erection of the Netherlands into a separate kingdom for himself. It was Elizabeth's policy to retain the good-will of Philip, who would certainly hold Don John in check, unless she provoked him beyond endurance. Therefore, while she was ready to lend money but no troops to the States, it was on condition that they would yield on the question of religion; so that she could impress upon Philip that while she must support them in the demands which, after the recent outrages, were obviously reasonable, her influence was being exerted to make them in turn submit to what she did and some of them did not consider reasonable terms.

[Sidenote: The Political Kaleidoscope]

When the new year (1577) opened, Don John saw nothing for it but to accede to the bulk of the States' demands, reserving the question of freedom of worship for Philip. The Catholic Provinces accepted the compromise, and the others had to follow suit. The new Governor was admitted into the Netherlands. Elizabeth sent to Spain a new Ambassador, Sir John Smith, to demand again that the Inquisition should recognise the rights of English sailors. Sir John asserted himself with energy; forced his way into the presence of the Grand Inquisitor, when the two stormed at each other with picturesque vigour; carried his point with the King; and, so far as promises went, returned successful towards the end of the year. In the meantime, the Spanish troops were paid and withdrawn from the Netherlands: but letters to Spain from Escobeda, Don John's Secretary, were intercepted, which showed that the Governor meant after all to reconquer the Provinces, though desiring to postpone that operation to his schemes in England. Also in the meantime, Alencon had been won over to the Guises, and there was a danger of France reviving an aggressively Catholic policy. Once more, circumstances were forcing Elizabeth towards a Protestant alliance, to counteract the schemes not so much of Philip as of Don John.

[Sidenote 1: The Archduke Matthias] [Sidenote 2: 1577-78 Diverse Measures]

Yet fortune again enabled Elizabeth to put off the evil day. The discovery of Don John's intentions again set the whole of the Provinces against him, but they were divided on the question of leadership. The Catholics of the south, disliking the sovereignty of Elizabeth or the dictatorship of Orange, turned to the Catholic Archduke Matthias, brother of the Emperor Rudolf. The Archduke favoured the proposal; and though the English Queen began by promising help in men and money, before the year was out she had made up her mind that Matthias must look after his own affairs, and that she could afford to continue an interested spectator. Nor did her views change materially when, in January 1578, Don John—having reassembled a number of the recently withdrawn troops—moved suddenly against the forces of the Southern States and shattered them at Gemblours (January 29th). She did indeed send Orange some money, and promised to increase the loan, but declined to do more. Her public policy, however, had not prevented her from privately sanctioning, in November 1577, the departure of Francis Drake on that famous voyage, wherein he circumnavigated the globe, and incidentally wrought much detriment to Spain. Of that voyage, which reached its triumphant conclusion almost three years later, in September 1580, we shall hear more in another chapter.

[Sidenote: 1578 Mendoza]

Since the expulsion of Don Guerau de Espes there had been no regular Spanish Ambassador in England. Now, in accordance with the arrangements effected by Sir John Smith, the complete restoration of friendly relations was to be sealed by accrediting Don Bernardino de Mendoza to England. In March Mendoza arrived. The English Council was as usual much more inclined to war than its mistress. But the Ambassador's instructions were entirely conciliatory. As concerned the Netherlands, Philip could not give way on the point of allowing religious freedom—for which Elizabeth cared nothing —but he would concede all the political demands, even to the withdrawal of Don John in favour of a substitute less dangerous to England.

[Sidenote: Orange and Alencon]

Elizabeth would have been satisfied; but the Protestant provinces were as resolute as Philip on the religious question. The plan of calling in the Archduke had collapsed at Gemblours; but the sovereignty of the Netherlands was still a bait which would tempt Alencon from the Guise alliance; though no one could tell what he might ultimately do if he were received by the States, even that desperate remedy was preferable to submission. Nevertheless, Elizabeth still tried, in despite of her ministers, to force Orange's hand by the singular process of with-holding the bonds by which her last loan to him had been effected. Walsingham, who was sent to overcome Orange's scruples was so disgusted that he thought of giving up his position; naturally his negotiation was a failure. It was announced that Orange would wait no longer and that the arrangement with Alencon would be carried through. Also at this time Don John met with a defeat at Rymenant, mainly owing to the obstinate valour of a battalion of English volunteers commanded by Sir John Norreys. For a moment the Queen was carried away, but immediately reverted to her antagonistic attitude. All she could be induced to do was at last to issue the bonds. The old trick, which had so often served her purpose of suspending action, was to do duty once more. The matrimonial shadow was more alluring to Alencon than the Netherland bone.

[Sidenote: Sept. Death of Don John]

The persistence of happy accidents—of unforeseen events which saved Elizabeth from the disasters which her ministers anticipated, giving her tortuous policy an undeserved success and thereby in the eyes of some historians discrediting the more honourable and straightforward courses which Walsingham and Burghley habitually advocated—is one of the most remarkable features of Elizabeth's reign. Her good fortune did not desert her now. Don John died suddenly, not without the usual suspicions of foul play. The peculiar danger of his association with Mary Stewart, disappeared with his death. No wild schemes were likely to be conceived or encouraged by his successor Alexander of Parma, one of the ablest statesmen and probably the ablest soldier of the day. Moreover about the same time, King Sebastian of Portugal was killed—as was also the English adventurer Thomas Stukely who had been diverted from invading Ireland to take part in this affair—in an expedition against Morocco. Dying without issue, Sebastian was succeeded by his great-uncle Henry, a cardinal whose Orders precluded the possibility of his leaving an heir. Philip of Spain therefore was now, through his mother, claimant to the position of heir apparent. [Footnote Philip claimed as the son of Isabella, sister of Henry and of John III., Sebastian's grandfather. The prior right however really lay with the daughters of their younger brother Edward, of whom the elder, Katharine, was married to John of Braganza and the younger, Mary, to Alexander of Parma. Parma's title was invalidated by Braganza's, and Braganza did not push his own claim. Don Antonio of Crato who did come forward as a pretender was himself the illegitimate son of another brother, Luis. Thus when, later on, Philip claimed the English throne as the lineal descendant of John of Gaunt, his title, such as it was, was inferior to that of either Braganza or Parma.] The prospect of this further accession to his dominions, and increase of his power and resources, made it more than ever necessary for France to hold aloof from any alliance with him, in which she must play an entirely subordinate part, and to court the friendship of England. The stars in their courses seemed to fight for Elizabeth's policy.

Down to this point the course of events in Ireland does not appear as materially influencing English policy; and it has seemed better, for the sake of clearness to defer its history for consecutive treatment. To this we now turn in the chapter following; after which Irish affairs will be dealt with in the regular progress of the general narrative.



CHAPTER XX

ELIZABETH (v), 1558-78-IRISH AND ENGLISH

[Sidenote: 1549-58]

The Deputyship of Bellingham in Ireland, which terminated just before the fall of Somerset, left the Irish chiefs in a state of angry discontent. As inaugurating a system of severe but consistent government, Bellingham's rule might have been valuable; as matters stood, no doubt he gave the Irish what is commonly called a lesson— from which nothing was learnt. If the Geraldines—Kildare and Desmond— of the South, the O'Neills and O'Donnells of the North, the Burkes and O'Briens in the West, had possessed the slightest capacity for working in harmony, they might have raised such a revolt as the incapable and distracted governments of Edward VI. and Mary could not have coped with. Ormonde however served as a permanent check on the Geraldines, while the young Kildare had neither the inclination nor the opportunity to head rebellions: and the great septs were far too ready to turn on each other for any effective combination. Leix and Offally, the territories of O'More and O'Connor [Footnote: See p. 201, ante.] on the west of the Pale, were absorbed into it and partially colonised, becoming King's County and Queen's County; and when Elizabeth ascended the throne, the extent of the Pale corresponded roughly, though not accurately, to the Province of Leinster.

[Sidenote: 1558]

In matters ecclesiastical, religion officially swung with the pendulum in England. Church lands were distributed among the great men under Edward, and within the Pale the clergy generally conformed after a fashion, reverting again under Mary. Outside the Pale no great attention was paid to the orders of the Government. On Elizabeth's accession, the Act of Uniformity was enforced and some bishops resigned. But the new Queen had plenty to occupy her in England, and in Ireland was fain to take the least troublesome course, giving diplomatic sops to the chiefs and spending as little money as possible: Sussex, who was Deputy when Mary died, being continued in that office.

[Sidenote: Shan O'Neill]

The policy was destined to prove difficult. The two great chiefs of Ulster, O'Donnell of Tyrconnel in the West, and O'Neil, created Earl of Tyrone, in the East, had been more or less successfully conciliated by the policy of St. Leger. But Tyrone had a numerous progeny, and the laws of legitimacy were at a discount. The English elected to recognise as his heir a favourite son, Matthew, who certainly was not legitimate. But another legitimate son, Shan or Shane, a man of great if erratic abilities, declined to submit to this arrangement when he grew up. Matthew was killed in a brawl, leaving a young son to claim the succession. Thereupon Shan virtually deposed his father, and in accordance with ancient practice was elected "The O'Neill," head of the clan which claimed that their chiefs were the old-time Kings of Ulster: ignoring the choice of the English Government, and scorning the earldom bestowed by them. Next, no doubt with a view to alliance, Shan married O'Donnell's sister; but when he found that the minor chiefs were disposed to attach themselves rather to him than to O'Donnell, he decided to adopt the policy of breaking his rival in Ulster, as preferable to alliance with him; and his maltreatment of his wife very soon resulted in hostilities.

[Sidenote: The Scots of Antrim]

Now in Antrim there was a considerable colony of Scots from the Islands, whose chief was James M'Connell. Also, a sister of the Earl of Argyle, curiously referred to in the records as the Countess of Argyle, was the wife of O'Donnell. The Antrim Scots were supposed to be in alliance with O'Donnell; whom however Shan's proceedings were now causing to seek English friendship, whereas the Scots were antagonistic to Elizabeth, holding that their own Queen Mary had the better title to the English throne. So Shan got rid of his O'Donnell wife, and married the sister of James M'Connell by way of cementing a union with the Scots; but then proceeded to write to Argyle, suggesting that he should get rid of the M'Connell wife in turn, and that the Countess should be transferred from O'Donnell to himself, on the assumption that this would give him an equal hold on the Antrim Scots. Whereby he merely enraged the Scots and disgusted Argyle. However, a short time afterwards, Shan raided Tyrconnel's country, and carried off the chief and his wife; who seems to have been fascinated by her captor, and willingly became his consort, irregular as the conditions were. M'Connell was somehow outwardly pacified despite the insult to his sister; but the bad blood engendered took effect in due time.

[Sidenote: 1560-61 Shan and the Government]

Before the overthrow of Tyrconnel, O'Neill was already becoming a serious source of alarm to the English. It is the fact that a considerable number of farmers migrated from the Pale into Ulster, feeling greater security under the aegis of O'Neill than under English law; which did little to protect them, while the English soldiery, badly disciplined and badly maintained, were in effect a serious element of disorder. O'Neill, cited to appear in England, wrote a letter to Elizabeth in which he dwelt with some complacency on this testimony to his own superior government, besides arguing very conclusively in favour of his own claim to recognition as head of the O'Neills. But he evaded the journey to London, and made his raid on Tyrconnel instead.

That exploit made Shan more completely master of Ulster than ever. The result was that in the summer of 1561, Sussex marched into the Northern Province. Shan after some preliminary skirmishes surprised his rearguard, and would have cut his whole force to pieces but for a desperate rally. When Elizabeth learned what had happened, she made up her mind that it would be best to concede O'Neill's demands, and induce him to visit England, while Sussex was actually trying to drive a bargain for his murder. The plot fell through, but Sussex received some supplies and was allowed to make another less disastrous expedition before Kildare was sent to negotiate with O'Neill on the Queen's behalf. The chief stipulated for complete amnesty, a safe-conduct, and the payment of his expenses, as a condition of his paying the desired visit.

[Sidenote: 1561-2 Shan in England]

When Shan arrived in London, he made his formal submission, but was informed that though he had his safe-conduct for return the date when that return would be permitted lay with the Queen. He must wait for his rival, young Matthew, to have their claims tried. Meantime Shan, who seems to have adopted Henry VIII. as his matrimonial model, suggested that he should be given an English wife, and that he would manage the government of Ulster admirably in Elizabeth's interests, as soon as he went back—with the Earldom. But as time went on he learned that Matthew was being intentionally kept in Ireland. Then another of O'Neill's kinsmen, Tirlogh, succeeded in murdering Matthew, while Shan in England was vowing that his great desire was to be instructed in English ways by Dudley (not yet Earl of Leicester). Now he remarked on the necessity for his return to keep his kinsmen in order. There was a good deal of ground for believing that he was in fact the only person who could rule Ulster: and after four months (April 1562) he was allowed to return, with promises on his part to be a model ruler and on the Queen's part a concession of something not far short of sovereignty.

Before the end of the year it was evident enough that Shan's promises were not intended to be kept. His murder had been plotted; Sussex had certainly endeavoured to entrap him treacherously; his detention in England had been technically justified by a distinctly dishonourable trick. He did not mean to be tricked again, and if there was duplicity in his conduct the English had set the example. He entered into correspondence with the Queen's potential enemies on all hands, and proceeded to suppress every one in the North whose submission to himself was doubtful.

[Sidenote: 1563 Shan's supremacy recognised]

So in the spring, Sussex made another futile raid, after which Elizabeth thought it best once more to play at conciliation, and to adopt the scheme of formally constituting Ulster, Munster and Connaught into Provinces, with O'Neill as President in the north, Clanricarde (Burke) or O'Brien in the west, and Desmond or Kildare in the south. Shan was to be so completely supreme that he was even to be free to make his own Catholic nominee Archbishop of Armagh. An indubitable attempt to poison O'Neill gave him a moral advantage, though the English authorities indignantly repudiated the perpetrator. Shan was content to allow the affair to be hushed up, and established his own rule throughout Ulster with a combination of barbarity and real administrative ability which to students of Indian History recalls the methods and the ethics of Ranjit Singh or Abdurrhaman. Within the Pale, the exceedingly corrupt administration of recent years was overhauled by Sir Nicholas Arnold; who was no respecter of persons, but outside the Pale regarded the Irish—in his own words—as so many "bears and bandogs" who were best employed in ravaging and cutting each other's throats. And in the south, the Butlers and Geraldines carried out that policy with devastatory results. It is to be noted however that Cecil found Arnold's views very difficult to stomach. [Footnote: State Papers, Ireland, i., p. 252.]

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that in spite of Shan's peculiar views as to marriage and murder, Ulster under his sway was on the whole better off than any other part of Ireland.

[Sidenote: 1565]

In 1565 Mary Stewart married Darnley, in pursuit, as we have seen, of an aggressive policy towards England. In this year, O'Neill was hand in glove with Sir Thomas Stukely, a gentleman-adventurer of Devon, who made the harbours of the west coast his base for piratical cruises in search of treasure-ships. Englishmen at home were devising paper schemes for an ideal government in the sister island, but something very different was required if Shan was not to become strong enough to endanger the very existence of English dominion there. There was considerable risk that Argyle, in disgust at Elizabeth's double-dealing, would sink his differences with the Irish Chief, and give him the active support of the Antrim Scots. Meantime, though Shan himself was careful to render plausible explanations of his very obvious activity, Sir Henry Sidney, a man of very different calibre from Sussex, was appointed to succeed that nobleman in the Deputyship.

[Sidenote: 1566 Sir Henry Sidney Deputy]

Sidney had been in Ireland before and knew the conditions. He said plain terms that he would not accept office, unless he could have the troops and the money needed to compel the success of the military movements of which he foresaw the necessity if order was to be secured. He required in fact that the Government should possess actually the sanction of superior force. The experiment of constituting Munster a Presidency was to be tried, with Ormonde, Desmond, and the other southern lords as a Council. But before he arrived early in 1566, Argyle and O'Neill had already made their new pact, and a crisis seemed to be at hand.

Sidney found the Pale in a state of anarchy, Munster half devastated by the Ormonde and Desmond feud, and O'Neill supreme in the north. Summoned to meet Sidney in the Pale, Shan replied in effect that he knew too much about the traps previously laid for him to run any risks. Sidney employed Stukely to negotiate. Stukely reported that Shan was defiant. Sidney wrote urgently both to Leicester and to Cecil that he mush put O'Neill down and must have money to pay his troops and keep them paid. The Council were willing enough, but Elizabeth kept the purse-strings tight. Moreover she was pleased to rate Sidney for stoutly refusing to settle the Ormonde-Desmond dispute in favour of the former; the Deputy declaring that the questions between them involved complicated points of laws which could only be properly dealt with by lawyers. In April, she sent him half the money he demanded, and dispatched her kinsman, Knollys, to oversee Sidney. Knollys, who was given to speaking his mind, promptly told her that Sidney was entirely in the right and ought to have a free hand. An immediate aggressive campaign against Shan was necessary, especially as the chief was now in correspondence with Charles IX. of France. This was at the time when a general suspicion was prevalent that a universal Catholic League for the destruction of Protestantism was being formed; and Shan wrote as an enthusiastic Catholic.

[Sidenote: 1567 End of O'Neill]

Under extreme pressure then, Elizabeth at last increased the supplies. Unluckily for O'Neill, Argyle's friendship was cooling under pressure from Murray, and the Antrim M'Connells, in spite of recent marriages, did not forget the old feud: while Desmond, encouraged by Sidney's attitude, was deaf to his appeals. Sidney swept Ulster, establishing a strong garrison in a new and well-chosen fort which in course of time developed into Londonderry, and restored Tyrconnel in the north-west. Sidney himself was seriously hampered by constant reproofs from Elizabeth; but O'Neill was now grievously harassed by the O'Donnells on one side, the M'Connells on another, and by the garrison at Derry. Renewed attempts to obtain aid from the Guises, in February (1567), failed; and though Derry had to be abandoned owing to an outbreak of plague, the death of the commandant, and a fire which destroyed the buildings, O'Neill's fate was already sealed. He marched to meet an incursion of the O'Donnells, but was completely overthrown, and had to flee for his life to seek the ambiguous hospitality of the M'Connells of Antrim; who received him for the sake of subsisting relationships. But the situation was too volcanic. Insults passed over the wine-cup, knives were drawn, and O'Neill was slaughtered. So perished the most formidable challenger of the English rule who had appeared in Ireland; for his one predecessor of equal ability, the old Kildare, had never schemed for the creation of an independent Nation.

The death of O'Neill was followed by a brief period of rest from perpetual warfare: but the peace was not to last for long.

[Sidenote: Irish Catholicism in politics]

From the days of Elizabeth until now the antagonism of the Irish to protestantism has been one of the two great sources of disaffection. As the English power extended, efforts were made to carry out beyond the Pale the principles of the Act of Uniformity, and the cause of Rebellion became more and more identified with the cause of Catholicism. Before the fall of Shan, Queen and Deputies had been disposed to shut their eyes to the open disregard of the Act all over the country. Now, recalcitrant chiefs began to make the preservation of religion the ground of appeal for foreign assistance to cast off the yoke of England. Curiously, however, neither they nor the Catholic clergy grasped the political situation. Irish nationality, per se, was profoundly uninteresting to foreign potentates. In England, Scotland, and Ireland, the cause of Catholicism was the cause of Mary Stewart. Unless in support of her, it was impracticable for either France or Spain to move against Elizabeth. The murder of Darnley, three months before O'Neill's fall, destroyed the Queen of Scots' chances, but only for a time. Shan himself had been acute enough to seek Mary's friendship; but now the disaffected prelates and chiefs will be found hoping vainly to place themselves under the dominion of a foreign power, in preference even to a Catholicised English supremacy. Any such scheme would have destroyed the relations between the English Catholics and their friends abroad.

Of the second great disturbing factor, the Land, we have hitherto heard little; but now was about to commence the era of attempts at forcibly establishing an English landed proprietary, displacing the native owners; on the hypothesis that they would be able to keep the population in subjection.

[Sidenote: 1568 The Colonisation of Munster]

The first schemes would probably have been beneficial had they been practicable, as they involved nothing in the shape of forfeiture. But they would have been costly, while offering no temptations to Adventurers. In 1568 a scheme was devised which tempted the Adventurers, made little demand on the exchequer—Elizabeth always argued that Ireland ought to pay for itself—but involved forfeitures on a large scale.

Desmond, who had declined alliance with O'Neill, was summoned to answer charges of treason. He surrendered at once, and was sent to London. Then he tried to escape, and was only allowed to purchase freedom from close imprisonment or worse by surrendering all his lands to the Queen to receive back so much as she chose to grant. A group of Devonshire gentlemen proposed that the titles of other landowners in Munster should be investigated, and that all the lands held under unsatisfactory titles should be handed over to themselves. They would occupy and rule at their own charges, and compel complete submission by the strong hand; a process by which it is quite evident that they intended practical extermination of the Irish. The business was started on Desmond lands; but it was carried to a dangerous point when Sir Peter Carew took possession of Butler property—seeing that the loyalty of the Ormonde connexion was the one source of Irish support which had never been even suspected of failing. There were massacres and reprisals; but fortunately when the other Munster chiefs took the opportunity to petition Philip of Spain to come and take possession, the Butlers still stood firmly to their allegiance.

[Sidenote: 1569 Insurrection in Munster]

An insurrection was headed in 1569 by Fitzmaurice (Desmond's brother); some of the English households were wiped out. The O'Neills in Ulster and the Burkes in Connaught rose. Ormonde declared plainly that if the colonising policy were carried on it would be impossible for him to support the government. Sidney ravaged Munster, and left Sir Humphrey Gilbert in command behind him for a time: but the actual scheme was dropped. There is no evading the fact that the English, who could wax hot enough over the cruelties of Spaniards in America or in Holland, did without compunction or any sense of inconsistency regard the Irish not even as mere human savages but as wild beasts. And many of these were men who in any other circumstances were capable of displaying an admirable chivalry and a heroic valour. Gilbert was a man full of noble ideals, learned, pious, cultivated, valiant, kindly; but if there was a chance of killing an Irish man, woman, or child, he took it.

[Sidenote: Ireland and Philip II.]

In England, 1569 was the year of the Northern rebellion. France was viewing the Scots Queen's pretensions with increasing lukewarmness, and Philip was regarding her with corresponding favour. The Ridolfi plot was developing in 1570 and 1571. In brief, at this period Philip's disposition towards Elizabeth was becoming definitely, though not avowedly, hostile instead of—as hitherto on the whole—friendly. Yet he would not accept the Irish invitation to intervene. But he received at Madrid, and treated with great favour, the very remarkable adventurer Thomas Stukely, already mentioned as a piratical ally of Shan O'Neill's. Stukely had been sent over to England to answer for his miscellaneous misdeeds; but was—perhaps intentionally—allowed to escape to Spain; where he represented himself as an enthusiastic Catholic, and the most influential man in Ireland, and bragged hugely of the coming conquest of that country, of which he was to become in some sort the Prince, with the assistance of Spain. The entertainment of Stukely however summed up all that Philip was prepared to do for Ireland. By September 1572 he was again seeking Elizabeth's amity.

[Sidenote: Experimental Presidencies]

In the meantime, the experiment of constituting Connaught a Presidency had been tried and failed ignominiously. The curse of the English Government—a soldiery whose pay was permanently and hugely in arrear, who were constantly on the verge of mutiny, and lived virtually by pillage—remained unabated; and Sidney, having tried vigorous government first and then, lacking the means to maintain it properly, extirpation as an alternative, but still without success, clamoured to be recalled, and at last got his wish.

Desmond was still detained in England, but the Geraldines in Munster had not been crushed either by Sidney or by Gilbert. Despite the failure in Connaught, the Presidency plan was tried in the southern province, Sir John Perrot being appointed thereto. Perrot blew up strongholds, captured and hanged some hundreds of the population, but could not lay hold of the chiefs or bring the country into subjection. In 1572, Fitzmaurice made his way to Ulster, gathered a force of Scots, and came down the Shannon. The President got his chance of a fight, and shattered the force: but Elizabeth was dissatisfied with the results of an unwonted if still inadequate expenditure, and declared that the whole experiment was too costly. A general amnesty and the withdrawal of Perrot ended it.

[Sidenote: 1573 Essex (the elder) in Ulster]

Yet experiments continued to be the order of the day. The one expedient not attempted was a government supported by obviously efficient physical force, but aiming at the prosperity of the people, and not running violently counter to the customs and the prejudices of centuries. Another inefficient colony was started in Ulster, which only excited popular animosity; Desmond was at last in 1573 allowed to return to Munster with many promises on his part, from which, like O'Neill before him, he considered himself absolved by a breach of faith towards him. Finally Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, was allowed to try the biggest and perhaps the most disastrous of the whole series of experiments; being virtually granted authority to invade Ulster with a free hand to make laws and generally to do what seemed to him good there—all at his own cost—save only for some provisions safe-guarding the royal prerogative. He went with excellent intentions, romantic ideals, a respectable force, and a sublime ignorance of facts. The Irishmen, mindful of the Munster colonisation, tricked him with an apparently warm welcome at Carrickfergus, permitted him to congratulate himself on roseate prospects, and then at one swoop cleared the district of provisions. They professed to owe allegiance to the Queen, but repudiated the claims of a private adventurer. His own troops were volunteers, with no mind for hardships and no prospects of plunder. In three months he found his dreams hopelessly dissipated, and himself almost deserted, with no remotest chance of carrying out the Utopian projects with which he had started.

[Sidenote: 1574]

The volunteer method having failed thus ignominiously, Essex was made officially Governor of Ulster, and supplied with troops; for the O'Neills were now threatening, and the Deputy, Fitzwilliam, was inactive. Tirlogh O'Neill and his kinsman Sir Brian were very promptly brought to submission. In the south Desmond, between threats and promises, was persuaded to resume an air of loyalty. Essex however had learned to adopt the common view of the Irish in its extremest form. By a ruse which anywhere else he would have counted a piece of the blackest treachery, he seized Sir Brian and his wife and cut up their following when they were actually his own guests; and followed up the performance by a hideous and wanton massacre of women and children and decrepit men at Rathlin off the Antrim Coast; of which things he wrote with a perfect complacency, and for which he was highly applauded. Thereafter he returned to England.

[Sidenote: 1576 Sidney's second Deputyship]

Once more, Sidney was persuaded to accept the Deputyship. It is probable that his honest desire was to govern firmly and justly, although, when denied the means for steady rule he had fallen back on extirpation. At any rate the Irish themselves, genuinely or not, hailed his return with apparent enthusiasm. The chiefs hoped that after so many experiments had collapsed, the pristine plan of making them responsible for their own districts and leaving them alone might be tried again. But no English statesman could divest himself of the idea that no government was worth having unless it was conducted by English methods. Sidney insisted on reconstituting the Presidencies of Connaught and Munster, Malby taking charge of the former and Drury of the latter. Naturally enough, and with plenty of excuse, they set about hangings on an extensive scale, and where they met with resistance gave no quarter. English methods, as usual in Ireland, promptly degenerated into massacre and devastation. Sidney left the country again two years after he had returned to it—and left it as ripe for rebellion as it had ever been.

And the omens abroad were dangerous. For the Jesuit Sanders was seeking to stir up a Catholic crusade, Stukely was in high favour at Madrid, and the ablest of the Geraldines, James Fitzmaurice, was in Spain. Moreover Philip's indisposition to interfere was on the verge of being seriously disturbed by Drake's great expedition, which had sailed from England in 1577.



CHAPTER XXI

ELIZABETH (vi), 1578-83—THE PAPAL ATTACK

[Sidenote: Union of Utrecht 1579]

The presence of Alexander of Parma in the Netherlands soon resulted in a definite division between the seven northern and the ten southern States. The latter, Catholic themselves, were not inclined to hold out for religious liberty. The rest, being Protestant, and realising that, while William of Orange lived, two at least, Holland and Zealand, would hold out to the very death, resolved to stand together; combining, under the title of the United Provinces, in the Union of Utrecht at the beginning of 1579. Their strength lay in their command of the estuaries of the Scheldt and the Meuse.

[Sidenote: 1578 The Matrimonial juggle]

Elizabeth's great object now was to keep Alencon (otherwise known as Anjou, the title held by Henry III. before he ascended the throne; also very commonly as "Monsieur") dancing in obedience to her manipulation of the wires. In this, as in all the previous matrimonial negotiations, not one of her ministers seems ever to have grasped her policy; the policy, that is, which modern historians attribute to her: a policy of which the successful issue really depended on its never being suspected; which was possible only to one who was entire mistress of all arts of dissimulation; which did in fact succeed completely every time she applied it; a policy however of which no statesman could have dared to recommend the risk. This was, in brief, to make the whole world including her ministers believe that she really intended to marry, to keep that conviction alive over a protracted period of time, and yet to secure a loop-hole for escape at the last moment. She had played the farce for years with the Archduke Charles; she had played it with Henry of Anjou; she had already played it with Alencon once; yet every time she started it afresh, potentates and ambassadors, her own ministers, and the wooer she selected, took the thing seriously, played into her hands, and were cajoled by her boundless histrionic ingenuity. Either she treated the world to a series of successful impositions, carried through, unaided and unsuspected, with the supreme audacity and skill of a consummate comedienne; or she was a contemptibly capricious woman whose inordinate vacillations invariably took the turn which after-events proved to have been the luckiest possible in the circumstances. Of these two interpretations, the theory of a deliberate policy is the more acceptable, if only because it is inconceivable that the habitual indulgence of sheer wanton caprice should never once have involved her in some irrevocable blunder, some position from which she could not be extricated. Yet history affords no parallel to such repeatedly and universally successful dissimulation.

[Sidenote: Alencon's wooing]

The comedy had fairly begun three months before Don John's death. In response, as it would seem, to a private invitation, Alencon's envoys came over at the end of July to propose the marriage. Monsieur wanted the affair settled at once, as he must decide whether he was going to help Orange or Don John. After a little formal procrastination, Elizabeth had her answer ready. She was quite prepared to receive him as a suitor though somewhat hurt by his conduct before; still she could not promise to marry any man till they had met, and could really feel sure that they would be happily mated. He had better come over and see her.

Alencon did not want to come over and see her; but his alternative plan, of taking part with Don John, was opportunely spoilt by the Governor's death, coupled with the new Spanish prospects opened up by the death of the Portuguese King. An alliance with Parma under these conditions was not at all the same thing for the French prince as an alliance with the ambitious and somewhat Quixotic schemer who was now dead. Elizabeth, thus strengthened, added a new condition, that he must withdraw for the present from the Netherlands. He could hardly, under the circumstances, support Orange against her will, and he obeyed her behest. Then she consented to receive another representative on his behalf, but held to her declaration that she would settle nothing till she had met Monsieur himself in person.

[Sidenote: 1579 Popular hostility]

At the beginning of the year (1579) Alencon's emissary Simier arrived. In England however practically every one—except apparently the Queen herself—was opposed to the marriage. The traditional animosity to France was strong, and had been intensified by the Paris massacre. The French Huguenots, for whom there was some sympathy, had no confidence in Alencon. The more unpopular the marriage showed itself, the more the Queen seemed to incline to it—since the more reasonably she could also insist to him on the necessity of delay, that her people might first be reconciled to it. Yet however much the Council might dislike it, they now felt bound to advise that Monsieur should be allowed to pay his visit. In August he arrived, and she could no longer urge the plea that she had not seen him. Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, thought she would marry him, that a civil war would follow, and the end would be the return of England to Catholicism. On the whole Mendoza was not ill pleased.

[Sidenote: Loyalty to the Queen]

Now however capricious and apparently irrational the conduct of the Queen might be, however her ministers might resent it, condemn it, bewail it to each other, and remonstrate with her, they remained always obstinately loyal. We may cynically attribute the fact to their consciousness that if they deserted her their doom under her rival would be sealed. Were that the true interpretation—were they really guided merely by a more or less enlightened self-interest—it is rather natural to suppose that some of them would have played a double game and secured friends in the other camp, like the Whig and Tory statesmen of the early eighteenth century; that they would have managed their own affairs so that they could change sides. None of them ever did anything of the kind. Whatever the Queen did, they held to their own views, advocated them stubbornly, but obeyed their mistress, even when they thought her caprices were on the verge of bringing them all to ruin. And yet they never seem to have fully realised the extent to which their own loyalty was shared by the people at large. Men may surrender themselves to such a sentiment, without venturing to count upon its influence on others. But Elizabeth reckoned on it in ministers and people alike; and her calculation was invariably justified.

[Sidenote: Yea and Nay]

So it was in this instance. What might have happened if she really had married Alencon can only be guessed. Short of that, popular loyalty was equal to the strain. A passionate pamphlet against the marriage was issued by a lawyer named Stubbs. The Council, confident in the real strength of the country, urged her to take the bold attitude, place herself frankly at the head of European protestantism, and take measures at home to make a Catholic rising impossible. They could see no alternative but the marriage. She stormed at them, burst into tears, vowed that she had expected them all to declare that the marriage would be the fulfilment of all their hopes. They replied that since she would have it so they would do their best to make the marriage acceptable. She had Stubbs and his publisher pilloried, and their right hands struck off—on the strength of a most iniquitous misinterpretation of a law of Queen Mary's. The victims waved their caps with the hand that was left and cried "God save the Queen". The marriage treaty was drawn up (November) but a couple of months were to pass before its ratification, to quiet the public mind. When the two months were over it was still unratified, and the whole negotiation was treated as having lapsed. Burghley at the end of January (1580) was falling back on the leadership of Protestantism as the only alternative to adopt, since France must be regarded as hopelessly alienated.

[Sidenote: The Papal plan of Campaign]

In the meantime the Papal plan of campaign against England—a plan which appears to have been matured early in 1579—was well under way. The Pope himself could not, and Philip of Spain would not, prepare Armadas to bring the recusant island back to the Roman submission. But there were other means to be tried than Armadas. Setting aside schemes for assassination, there was trouble to be made for Elizabeth in Ireland, trouble in Scotland, and trouble in England itself. Ireland was ripe for rebellion; a Catholic faction might be reorganised in Scotland; missionary zeal and martyrs' crowns might still revolutionise sentiment in England. The triple attack was resolved on—war in Ireland, diplomacy in Scotland, in England Seminarists from Rheims (whither Allen's Douay college had migrated some years before) and Jesuits from Rome.

In Ireland we have already seen the scheme taking shape, but scotched for the time by Stukely's diversion to Morocco and his death there, in 1578. In the following summer however, an expedition landed in Kerry, with Sanders as Papal Nuncio, and half the island was soon in a blaze. There, for some little time, such of the wilder spirits of English youth as were not occupied with ventures on the high seas were to find ample employment: and though Philip would not make open war, Philip's subjects were not restrained from seeking to pay back the blows which Drake had been dealing to Spain on the other side of the ocean—the report whereof had already found its way to Europe. In Scotland, the autumn was not far advanced when young Esme Stewart, Count D'Aubigny, of the House of Lennox, James's cousin, arrived in Scotland to win his way into the boy-king's favour and plot the overthrow of Morton and of the Preachers. In the summer of 1580, Campian and Parsons began to deliver their message to the Catholics of England.

[Sidenote: 1580 Philip annexes Portugal]

In this same summer, the Cardinal-King of Portugal, Sebastian's successor, died. Philip's opportunity for annexation had arrived, and he seized it, expelling with little difficulty another claimant, Don Antonio, prior of Crato, the bastard son of the Cardinal's brother Luis; who however for the next ten years hovers through English politics as a pretender to be supported or dropped at convenience; used as a menace to Philip, much as the enemies of Henry VII. had used Perkin Warbeck. Then, in September, the great English seaman was back on English shores, in the ship that had sailed round the world—back with the spoils of Spain on board.

With this impression in our minds of the leading features of the year 1580, we can turn first to the detailed record of events in Ireland.

[Sidenote: Ireland: 1579 The Desmond rising]

The Expedition which landed in July at Dingle on the furthest south- west coast was small enough; but it brought with it Sanders the accredited representative of the Pope, and Fitzmaurice, cousin of Desmond. It appealed therefore at once to the Catholics at large and the Geraldine connexion in particular. There was no strong or united English force in the country; it was the custom of Elizabeth to provide her officers with the very minimum of equipment. Desmond at first hesitated; but his brother seized an early opportunity to commit him by treacherously murdering two English officers and their servants. Half Munster was up in arms at once, and the new arrivals made haste to fortify Smerwick, in the neighbourhood of Dingle where they had landed. It was expected and declared that reinforcements from Spain would soon be forth-coming. Malby, the President of Connaught, acted with promptitude and energy, marching south with his own troops and some of the Burkes who were at feud with the Geraldines. Fortune favoured them; Fitzmaurice was slain almost at the outset, and the Papal standard captured and sent off to Dublin. Desmond with his immediate following, who had not taken part in the engagement, fell back on Ashketyn, near Limerick; the rest of the insurgents retired on Smerwick. Drury however, advancing from Cork, was less fortunate, his troops being attacked by the Irish and very severely handled, so that he was forced to retreat. He died soon after.

The vigorous Malby assumed control of the Presidency, marched through Desmond's country dealing miscellaneous slaughter and destruction, burnt the town at Ashketyn since the castle could not be carried without cannon, and then went his way into Connaught. When Malby was gone, Desmond sallied forth, marched quietly south to Youghal where there was an English colony, sacked it, put the English to the sword, and burnt the place. Thence, with increasing musters, he marched upon Cork, which however he abstained from attacking. In January the insurgents were encouraged by the arrival of some military stores from abroad, with promises of further assistance in response to messages from Desmond to the King of Spain.

[Sidenote: 1580 Fire and Sword]

Meantime, neither Malby at Athlone nor Pelham in Dublin had sufficient troops to take the field in force. Ormonde, dispatched from England to take the chief command, had neither money nor material allowed him to take the offensive. It was not till March that the Queen was induced to send the urgently needed reinforcements, and Admiral Wynter with a squadron of ships arrived at the mouth of the Shannon. Ormonde from Kilkenny in the Butler country, and Pelham from Dublin, marched in two columns converging on Tralee, burning and slaughtering mercilessly along the route, sparing none. Then they turned on Carrickfoyle, impregnable without artillery, but easily breached by the heavy guns landed from Wynter's ships. The garrison was put to the sword. Desmond at Ashketyn, having no mind for a like fate, withdrew from it, blowing up the castle behind him. But Elizabeth stopped the supplies; the English were again forced to inaction, and parties of insurgents went marauding over Cork and Kerry, taking their turn of murdering. In June the purse-strings were loosened again; Pelham marched into Kerry, and only just failed to surprise Desmond and his people, with Sanders, in their beds. They escaped however, and Pelham went on to Dingle. Ormonde, making his way to the same point, added considerably to the tale of burnings and slaughterings. This loyal earl in 1580 accounted for "forty-six captains and leaders, with eight notorious traitors and male-factors, and four thousand other folk". [Footnote: Carew Papers.]

[Sidenote: Development of the Rebellion]

The people in despair were beginning to turn against Sanders and the Geraldines, though persistently loyal to Desmond himself. But a diversion was created by a rising of the Catholics of the Pale. Lord Grey de Wilton had just arrived in Dublin as Deputy. He marched against the rebels, but the greater part of his force was ambushed and cut to pieces in the Wicklow mountains. And on the top of this disaster, the long delayed foreign expedition landed at Dingle—Wynter having withdrawn—and Smerwick was re-occupied by a force mainly consisting of eight hundred Italian and Spanish adventurers. The rebellion seemed to be reviving everywhere. Ormonde, again marching into Kerry with four thousand men, accomplished nothing. But the murderous work of the summer had had effect, and the septs would not openly take the field without immediate cash inducements, which were lacking.

[Sidenote: Smerwick: and after]

In October Grey made a fresh start and marched down from Dublin to Kerry: in the first week of November, Wynter's fleet reappeared, having been held back by stress of weather with the exception of one vessel which had been lying off Smerwick for three weeks. The siege now was brief enough. On the 9th, the garrison, after a vain attempt to obtain terms, surrendered at discretion. The officers were put to ransom; the rest were slaughtered; even women were hanged. The dead numbered 600. Grey doubtless regarded the measure as a just return for the doings of the Inquisition, and the punishment of English sailors as pirates, for his retort to the garrison's overtures had been that their presence in Ireland was piracy. But the whole business illustrates the sheer ruthlessness which characterised both sides, at least where there was a technical excuse for denying belligerents' rights to the vanquished.

It was no longer possible for the rebellion to make head; but for the next two years a guerrilla warfare was kept up, in which English and Irish killed each other without compunction whenever anything in the shape of an excuse offered itself. Most of the English honestly believed that the only practicable policy was one of extermination, and the Irish retaliated in kind. There is nothing so ugly as this history in the annals of a people which, outside of Ireland, has shown a unique capacity for tempering conquest with justice. The very men whose blood boiled, honestly enough, over cruelties to the Indians, adopted to the Irish the precise attitude of mind which so horrified them in the Spaniards. Elizabeth herself, Burghley, Walsingham, and Ormonde, were opposed to the extermination policy; but the bloodshed went on, unsystematically instead of systematically. Sanders, wandering a hunted fugitive, died in a bog. It was not till 1583 that Desmond himself was surprised and slain in his bed. In the meantime, there had been no variation in the story. But the exhaustion of ceaseless slaughters and ceaseless famines had practically terminated the struggle. Sir John Perrot, who became Deputy in 1584, could adopt a conciliatory attitude, without fear that his leniency would be immediately abused—though it led to his recall and condemnation for treason [Footnote: This sentence however was not carried out. It is perhaps worth noting that Sir John was reputed to be a natural son of Henry VIII.] three years later.

[Sidenote: Scotland, 1579-81]

The diplomatic campaign in Scotland need not detain us long. Morton as Regent governed that country with a strong hand, and at least held down its normal turbulence: but while his forcefulness was recognised, he went his own way, quite regardless of the enemies he made. Despite his religious professions, he treated the preachers with scant courtesy, and was unpopular with all parties. D'Aubigny on his arrival promptly found his way into the young King's good graces, was made Duke of Lennox very shortly, and set himself to conciliate the Puritans by professing to have been converted from Popery by James's dialectical skill. In England, there was no doubt that he was an agent in the papal programme, and Walsingham would have had him removed in the usual lawless fashion, failing other means. But Elizabeth, as always, was confident of the practical impossibility of making Scotland united for any purpose except resistance of an English invasion. She made it evident that armed intervention from her need not be looked for; and in December (1580) Lennox (D'Aubigny) struck at Morton by accusing him of complicity in the murder of Darnley. The agent in this proceeding was another James Stewart, an adventurer, now Captain of the Guard, who was shortly after advanced to the Earldom of Arran. Morton was imprisoned, brought to trial in the following June (1581) and executed. The strong hand being gone, the usual chaos supervened. For the time the Papal party was uppermost, but Elizabeth's calculations were correct. The risk of French intervention was brought nearer, but it was counterbalanced partly by the bait of the Alencon marriage, which the Queen managed to keep dangling, partly by the fact that many of the men who had overthrown Morton were anti-papal, and preferred playing for their own hand to encouraging a French ascendancy. By the "Raid of Ruthven" in 1582 James was removed from the influence of Lennox, who had to leave the country; and in 1583 James Stewart Earl of Arran was carrying out a policy which was to make the King himself, with Arran at his elbow, the force predominating alike over preachers and nobles.

[Sidenote: England 1580]

We may now revert to England and Elizabeth in 1580. Throughout the earlier half of the year, it was as usual the Queen's first object to commit herself to nothing, but to persuade Orange that she might yet help him, and Alencon that she might yet marry him. But in July, Philip was master of Portugal, and the Jesuit campaign was beginning in England. In September, Orange's patience was worn out, and the crown of the Netherlands was definitely offered to Alencon; within a few days Drake and the Pelican were home, and Mendoza was demanding restitution; and again a few days later Spanish and Italian adventurers were fortifying themselves at Smerwick.

[Sidenote: The Jesuit Mission]

The Papal Bull of Deposition ten years before had stiffened the attitude of Government towards the English Catholics, but had neither broken down the loyalty of the latter nor led to any serious persecution. On this head, the mission of 1580 was the turning point of the reign. The moving spirit was Allen, of Douay and Rheims; a man of high ability and character who conceived that the recovery of his country for the true Church was the highest of all objects for a patriot, and one to which all other considerations should give way.

[Sidenote: Campian and Parsons]

It cannot be disputed that the aim of the Mission was to sow disloyalty as well as to gain converts, though the allegation that incitement to assassinate the Queen was part of the programme is not quite conclusively proved. Of the two chief missioners, Parsons and Campian, it is at least tolerably certain that the latter, an amiable enthusiast, was quite innocent of complicity in any such design. That certainty does not apply to Parsons. But the instructions were clearly treasonable in character. The Catholics were told that in spite of the Bull of Deposition they might profess loyalty to the Queen, but must assist in her overthrow if called upon. That is to say that if treason were brewing against the de facto Government, it was to be a point of conscience and a condition of the Church's approval for all Catholics that they should assist that treason. There is nothing about that instruction which can fairly be called hypocritical; but ipso facto, it converted every Catholic, willy nilly, into a potential traitor, who if treason arose could only remain loyal under censure of the Church. Moreover it was the business of the missioners not only to impress on those who were already Catholics this view of their duty; but also, by an active propaganda, to increase the number of such potential traitors; while it was quite certain that under such conditions, converts would be actuated by a zeal which would render them doubly dangerous.

For some months the emissaries travelled the country in various disguises, shifting their quarters secretly, but in favourable districts occasionally appearing quite openly, more or less winked at by the authorities. Their immunity made them the more sanguine, but it also alarmed the Protestants, and before the end of the year, there was a change.

[Sidenote: Walsingham]

Walsingham—a sincere Puritan, a man who never soiled his hands for private gain, who by his outspoken opposition to her political double- dealing provoked Elizabeth's anger more frequently than any other of her many outspoken advisers, of whom more than any other statesman of the day it might be said that he loved righteousness and hated iniquity—had yet the fault of the Puritan character, a certain remorselessness in dealing with the servants of the Scarlet Woman. He would have connived at the murder of D'Aubigny; his organisation of "Secret Service" was as unscrupulous as Burghley's; and he more than any one else approved and fostered the revival of the illegal application of torture as a means of extorting information from recalcitrant prisoners. In this iniquity, however, it is fair to recognise that the rack and the boot were not employed wantonly but, as it would seem, honestly: with the single intention of obtaining true information for the unravelment of plots which endangered the public weal, and only on persons who were known to possess that information.

[Sidenote: 1581 An anti-papal Parliament]

Walsingham then, at the close of 1580, appears to have undertaken the conduct of the operations against the emissaries, several of whom were promptly captured and put to the torture without result, though one or two made haste to change sides to save themselves. The rest showed that magnificent constancy which had characterised alike the Carthusians under Henry and the Protestants under Mary. In January (1581) parliament was called, and passed a very stringent act making it treason to proselytise, or to join the Church of Rome; imposing a heavy fine as well as imprisonment for celebrating Mass, and a fine of L20 per month for exemption from attendance at the Anglican ritual. Drastic as the measure was, and a complete departure from the comparative toleration hitherto prevalent in practice if not altogether in theory, the basis of it was quite manifestly the conviction that as a result of the mission every Catholic must now be suspect of treason, and every convert to Catholicism something more than suspect.

When the parliament had completed its business by voting supplies, it was prorogued. Through the spring and the summer the pursuit of the Emissaries and the oppression of the Catholics under the new Act went on. Campian himself was taken in July, and after some months' imprisonment, in the course of which he was racked, was executed for treason at the end of the year: his martyrdom, with others, producing the usual effect.

[Sidenote: Alencon again]

In the meantime, the acceptance in January of the lordship of the Netherlands by Alencon forced Elizabeth to redouble her pretence of desiring the furtherance of the Alencon marriage—a pretence through which Walsingham alone seems to have penetrated. The French King sent over a magnificent embassy in April, which was magnificently received. Then Elizabeth suggested that a League would serve every purpose. France replied that the League was what it wished for, but the marriage was a condition. Everything was discussed and agreed upon—but the Queen succeeded in retaining her saving clause; the agreement was subject to Alencon and herself being personally satisfied. She was still able to hold off, while she had brought France into such a position that if war should be declared between England and Spain, France must join England. Walsingham was sent off to Paris, with the task before him of evading the marriage, avoiding war while entangling France in it, and all with a full conviction that his instructions would vary from week to week. He believed, and he told her, that France would make the League without the marriage, if her sincerity were only guaranteed by something more substantial than promises; but that if neither the League nor the marriage were completed, she would have Spain, France, and Scotland—where Morton had just been executed—all turning their arms against her at once. But contrary to all reasonable expectation Elizabeth succeeded in avoiding a breach with France and in keeping Alencon still dangling: and however Mendoza—who had quite failed to obtain any compensation for Drake's expedition—might threaten, Philip still refused to declare war openly.

[Sidenote: His visit to England]

The story of the Alencon farce, if it were not unquestionable fact, would be almost incredible. Monsieur was some twenty years younger than the amorous Queen; in person he was offensive and contemptible; his character corresponded to his person, and his intelligence to his character. Elizabeth was eight and forty. Yet the man's amazing vanity made him a perpetual dupe, while it must have taken all her own vanity to persuade the lady that she could play Omphale to his Hercules. Yet she did it. In November she had him back in England. She kissed him before Walsingham and the French Ambassador, [Footnote: State Papers, Spanish, iii., p. 226.] and gave him the ring off her finger, declaring that she was going to marry him. But as soon as it came to business, she made one fresh demand after another. When concession was added to concession, she capped the list by requiring the restoration of Calais, an obvious absurdity. Burghley thought the whole thing was ended, and was for conciliating Spain by restoring Drake's booty. Walsingham would have handed those spoils over to Orange. The Queen did neither, but told Alencon that his presence in the Netherlands had now become quite necessary to his own honour—which was true—and that with a little patience unreasonable people would be pacified, and she would still marry him.

[Sidenote: Alencon in the Netherlands]

Thus this most unlucky dupe was once more got out of the country, in February (1582), a dupe still; and the United Provinces swore allegiance to him under the new title of Duke of Brabant—giving him to understand, however, that they accepted him simply as a surety for English support. When he was safely out of the country, Elizabeth became more emphatic than ever in her declarations that she would marry him. After all, however, she was reluctantly compelled to salve her lover's wounded feelings by cash subsidies, real and substantial though secret.

[Sidenote: Exit Alencon]

At the end of March an attempt was made to assassinate the strong man of Holland, William the Silent. He was in fact very dangerously wounded, and Elizabeth became alarmed lest a like danger were in store for her. Orange recovered, but Parma continued his course of gradual conquest, and Alencon bethought him of playing the traitor, seizing the principal towns, and handing them over to Spain as a peace-offering. In the following January he made the attempt; but the capture succeeded only here and there, and at Antwerp, where he himself lay, the coup failed ignominiously and disastrously. The city got wind of what was going to happen; the French troops were admitted, and, being in, found themselves in a trap and were cut to pieces. Alencon was deservedly and finally ruined, and no one in France or England could pretend any more that he was a possible husband. The year after he sank to a dishonoured grave, leaving the Huguenot Henry of Navarre heir presumptive to the throne of France.

[Sidenote: Scotland]

Before Alencon's disaster, Elizabeth's policy in Scotland had been justified by results: the raid of Ruthven had placed the King in the hands of the Protestant nobles again, and Lennox was out of the country for good. It is probable that from Elizabeth's point of view, it was not worth while to attempt to obtain the friendship of an Anglophil party, either by force or by bribery. Bribes would have told only just for so long as they were accepted as an earnest of more to follow; while force would have had its invariable result of uniting Scotland in determined resistance. The one thing which would have given reality to the overtures perpetually passing between Scotland and the Guises was an English attempt to grasp at domination. Elizabeth, with Mary a prisoner, had a permanent diplomatic asset in her hands, since she could hint a threat of either executing her, or liberating her, or surrendering her on terms as might seem most convenient at a given crisis. Intrigues which like the marriage projects were never intended to be consummated were more effective than either bribery or force—and cheaper.



CHAPTER XXII

ELIZABETH (vii), 1583-87—THE END OF QUEEN MARY

[Sidenote: 1583 The Throgmorton Conspiracy]

The collapse of Alencon was the precursor of a comprehensive conspiracy. Before the Raid of Ruthven (August 1582), the Guise faction in France had contemplated a descent on Scotland in conjunction with Lennox's friends there, with a view of course to raising England in favour of Mary. Alencon's relations with Elizabeth had not made the French King or his mother, neither of whom loved the Guises, particularly favourable to the scheme. The Raid destroyed the prospects of the definitely Catholic party in Scotland; on the other hand, the failure of Alencon affected, though only slightly, the objections on the part of King Henry. But any enterprise against England would have to take a somewhat different form. In May, Guise was planning a fresh scheme of assassination and invasion; [Footnote: State Papers, Spanish, iii., pp. 464, 479.] while as against the Guise intrigues still going on in Scotland, Elizabeth at the suggestion of the French ambassador was again proposing diplomatically to release Mary [Footnote: Ibid., p. 465.]—on terms.

[Sidenote: Sanguine Catholic forecast]

The English refugees and the Seminarists suffered from the same sanguine conviction that two-thirds of the country was thirsting to throw off the hated yoke of the existing Government, by which Jacobite agents were eternally possessed in the first half of the eighteenth century; and with a good deal less reason. For whereas the House of Hanover had no enthusiastic adherents, while the House of Stuart had many, and the Whig politicians were for the most part ready to transfer themselves to the other side if the other side should look like winning: at this time, the most energetic portion of the population, gentry and commons, including practically all who had practised the art of war by land or sea, in the Low Countries, in Ireland, on the Spanish Main and in Spanish waters, were fierily Protestant, and the Ministers, nearly all irrevocably bound to the Queen, were singularly prompt and alert men of action. Enthusiasts there were on the other side, but they were few. Yet in their prolific imaginations, the enthusiasts multiplied their own numbers pathetically, and believed passionately in phantom hosts only waiting for the word to draw the sword, or at least the dagger, in the sacred cause.

Neither the Spaniards nor the Guises appear ever to have allowed themselves to accept unreservedly the Churchmen's estimate of the state of feeling in England; but the Spanish Ambassadors, one after another, and Mendoza certainly not the least, gave more credence to these impressions than they deserved, placing far too high a value on the assurances of a very small number of the nobility. It is probable also that the Jesuits greatly exaggerated the exciting effect of the martyrdom of Campian and his associates; for these bore no sort of comparison with the burnings of Mary's reign, of which every man nearing forty years of age was old enough to have a tolerably vivid personal recollection. At any rate the advices of Mendoza went far to confirm the declarations of Allen that a determined Catholic rising might be relied on, in case of an invasion which should have for its object the substitution of Mary for Elizabeth and the restoration of the old Religion.

[Sidenote: Divided Counsels]

The counsels however of the plotters were divided. The priests would have kept the French out of the affair altogether. Philip was as reluctant as ever to take an English war upon his shoulders until he had completed the subjugation of the Netherlands. Mendoza, recognising that Guise was not France—for now as always, Spain could not afford to let France dominate England—was willing enough that Guise should head an expedition in which Frenchmen should otherwise play no more than an equal part; on the hypothesis that, when the revolution was accomplished, circumstances would compel the new regime to dependence on Spain. All the parties—Guise, Philip, Allen—were prepared to yield unofficial sanction to the simplification of the problem by assassination. Even when the different interests in the scheme had been compromised, prompt action was obviously essential if the English Government, with its vast network of spies and secret agents, was not to get wind of the plot. Promptitude however was the one thing of which Philip was constitutionally incapable, and Guise was obliged to consent to wait till the following spring.

[Sidenote: The plot discovered]

As a natural result, an active member of the conspiracy, Francis Throgmorton, was suddenly pounced upon in his house in London. He succeeded in conveying sundry important documents to Mendoza, but lists of the English conspirators and other conclusively incriminating documents were found. The rack did the rest. The unhappy man endured through the first application: the second conquered him. He told the whole story—possibly more than the truth, though that is hardly probable; but of course the persons incriminated denied complicity, and there was in some cases no other evidence against them, while the confessions of a victim under torture are—biased.

The main facts at any rate were indisputable—the plan of a Guise invasion, under Spanish auspices, with the complicity of a number of English Catholics, as well as of Mendoza. The presumption that Mary was cognisant of it was supported by Throgmorton's confession, but such presumptions and such evidence fall short of being absolutely conclusive. [Footnote: Mendoza's letters of this period (State Papers, Spanish, iii.) implicate Mary prima facie: but do not necessarily mean more than that her life was endangered by the discoveries.] Under such conditions however, grave and well founded suspicion was enough to justify the severest precautionary measures. Northumberland and Arundel [Footnote: Son of the late Duke of Norfolk. The title came through his mother.] were thrown into prison; several of the seminarists, already in ward, were executed; a number of arrests were made; known Catholics all over the country were placed under strict surveillance, and removed from any commands they might hold. Mendoza was ordered in uncompromising terms to leave the country; fleets were manned, and musters levied. The delay had proved fatal to the combined scheme.

The collapse of two assassination plots, not forming part of the Throgmorton conspiracy, may be mentioned. One was that of an apparently half-crazy person named Somerville, who betrayed himself by bragging; the other, the more curious affair of Parry, who got himself introduced into the Queen's presence several times, but "let I dare not wait upon I would" persistently, till he retired with nothing accomplished; to reappear presently.

[Sidenote: 1584 Death of Orange]

Elizabeth escaped; but death was soon to lay his hand on two personages of consequence. In May (1584) Alencon decayed out of a world in which accident only had allowed him for a time to occupy a very disproportionate share of the political stage. A month later, the most heroic figure of a time when heroes were rare among politicians was struck down by the hand of a fanatic. William of Orange, the head, hand, and heart of the great fight for freedom being waged in the Netherlands, was assassinated by a zealot. More than ever it seemed that the Hollanders must submit to Philip, unless the power of France or the power of England were devoted whole-heartedly to their cause. The death of Alencon made Henry of Navarre the actual heir presumptive to the throne of France. The King and his mother hated and feared Protestantism less than they hated and feared the Guises, and publicly acknowledged Navarre as next in succession.

As usual, Elizabeth's advisers would have had her play boldly for Protestantism; as usual, she herself was bent on evading the open collision with Spain. Her hope was to entangle France in the Netherlands war, and herself to strike in—if she must strike in at all—only when her intervention would enable her to make her own terms. The French King would not be inveigled. If he could have relied on her support, or if the Guises had been somewhat less dangerous, he would have been ready to strike; but his distrust of the English Queen was too justifiably complete. She was in fact saved from the absolute necessity of yielding to the persuasions of Burghley and Walsingham only by the dogged tenacity with which the Hollanders held out. And while they held out, she still held off.

[Sidenote: The "Association"]

In England however, one fact was more universally and vividly present in men's minds than any other. In the eyes of every Protestant, the supreme danger still lay in the death or deposition of Elizabeth and the elevation of Mary Stewart to the throne. Recent events had brought home the enormous risks of assassination; and an Association was formed for the defence of the Queen. A declaration was framed, the signatories whereof bound themselves by a solemn vow not only to pursue to the death all persons concerned in any plot against the Queen, but also any person in favour of whose succession to the throne any attempt should be made against her; to bar any such person absolutely from the succession; and to treat as perjured traitors any of the Association who failed to carry out this oath. It was sufficiently obvious that the declaration was aimed directly against Mary; but it may be said that the entire nation forthwith enrolled itself. And with the bulk of them, the enrolment was anything but an empty form.

[Sidenote: 1584-85 The Association ratified]

At the same time, it was difficult to see how the members of the Association could carry out their pledge without a breach of the law; stronger legal measures for the defence of the Queen and the frustration of assassination as a means to secure the inheritance in any particular quarter were required. Parliament was summoned at the end of November. Ministers wished to have definite provision made for carrying on the Government in case of the Queen's murder; but she would go with them no further than to sanction the Association, with the entirely laudable modification that the person for whose sake the deed was done should not be held ipso facto guilty of complicity. The differences of opinion were so strong that the session closed without the passing of any Act. In January however, an accomplice of that Parry already mentioned [Footnote: See p. 330] denounced him for intending to kill the Queen. Threatened with the rack, Parry made a full confession, and was hanged, drawn, and quartered. At the renewed Session in February, it was enacted that an invasion, rebellion, or attempt on the Queen's person, on behalf of any one with a claim to the succession, should disqualify such person from the succession absolutely, if complicity in the attempt should be proved after due enquiry. A commission was appointed to put the Act in execution in the event of assassination; and the Association was sanctioned subject to these provisions. Subsidies were then voted, and parliament prorogued, after an unusually gracious speech from the throne.

[Sidenote: 1585: France: the Holy League]

Meantime the United Provinces, despairing of an English overlordship, were again making overtures to France for a Protectorate, or even annexation if France should insist on that alternative. Relations between the King and Mendoza, now Ambassador at Paris, were so strained that war seemed all but inevitable; Henry seems to have been held back only by the well-founded fear that Elizabeth was intriguing to draw him into the war and frustrate him in carrying it on. But in that fear he declined the offer of the Provinces. In March the Guises produced a new development by the open announcement of the formation of the Holy League, for the exclusion of Navarre from the succession and the enforcement in France of the decrees of the Council of Trent.

But for the unconquerable mutual distrust of Henry and Elizabeth, Henry, relying on English support, would have bidden defiance to the League; but the memories of St. Bartholomew and Elizabeth's character as an intriguer made confidence on either side impossible. The great siege of Antwerp seemed to be on the verge of terminating in a catastrophe for the revolting States, which would enable Parma to co-operate actively with Guise; and Henry found himself threatened with excommunication. Before midsummer he capitulated, and declared for the League. On the other hand, Navarre was not the man to yield, and while Elizabeth again had the chance of playing a bold part and espousing his cause heartily, she judged rightly that he was strong enough unaided to keep the alliance of the League and the Court very thoroughly occupied for some time to come. As a factor in the Netherlands question. France was for the present at least a negligible quantity. So she left Navarre to fight his own battles in France, while she should dole out to the Netherlanders just so much or so little support as might suffice for her own ends.

While the French King was surrendering to the League, the Spanish King took a step which was intended to frighten England, and had as usual the precisely contrary result. He ordered the seizure of all English ships and crews on his coasts. The order was carried out; and England instead of being cowed was forthwith ablaze with defiance. The effect was promptly apparent.

[Sidenote: Agreement with the States]

The United Provinces were again offering themselves to England. In August an agreement was arrived at. The Queen was to hold Ostend and Sluys as well as Flushing and Brille, as security. She was to send over five thousand men with Leicester in command. Some Queen's troops and large numbers of volunteers were shipped off in a few days—too late however to save Antwerp. Still weeks and even months passed before pay or commanders were allowed to follow. But before the year was out, Sidney, Leicester, and others had taken up their commands, the last named representing the Queen of England.

[Sidenote: Drake's raid]

Already, however, an enterprise still more ominous to Spain was in hand—unofficial, like most other great enterprises of the reign. Letters of reprisal for the seizure of the English ships had been promptly issued, and numbers of privateers were quickly in Spanish waters. Among others, Francis Drake fitted out a flotilla, the Queen being an interested shareholder in his venture—though even under those conditions he put to sea before time, lest counter-orders should arrive. The adventurers sailed into Vigo, demanded the release of all English prisoners in the province, which was promised, captured some prizes, and betook themselves to the ocean, with a view to seizing the Spanish Plate Fleet, which was on its way from America. They just missed the Fleet, but proceeded to San Domingo (Hayti) which they held to ransom, went on to treat Cartagena in like manner, and then being attacked by Yellow Fever, came home with the spoils. Whatever fears of a Spanish war might be entertained by Elizabeth herself, the English seamen had no qualms as to their own immeasurable superiority, and desired nothing better than opportunities for demonstrating it.

[Sidenote 1: Elizabeth's intrigues] [Sidenote 2: 1586 Leicester in the Netherlands]

While Drake was thus congenially employed, Elizabeth was carrying on her system of inaction and double-dealing. She intrigued—behind the backs of her ministers—with Parma, for the surrender to him of the towns she held, on terms which from her point of view were quite good enough for the Provinces, namely the restitution of their old Constitutional Government without religious liberty; although in their own view, religious liberty was primarily essential. Leicester complicated matters for her by accepting, in flat contradiction to her orders, the formal Governorship of the United Provinces: finding in fact that if he was to stay in the Netherlands nothing short of that would prevail against the suspicions of the Queen's treachery. At home, Burghley himself threatened to resign if she would not take a straightforward course. Walsingham wrote to Leicester, with his usual bitterness, of the "peril to safety and honour" from her behaviour. If she had indeed contemplated the surrender of the cities to Parma, that plan was frustrated. Still she stormed at Burghley and Walsingham, flatly and with contumely refused to ratify Leicester's arrangement, and continued to keep back the pay of the troops. Parma, though he too was starved in men and money by Philip, continued inch by inch to absorb the revolted territory. All that Leicester succeeded in accomplishing by the month of September was the brilliant and entirely futile action of Zutphen where in one great hour Philip Sidney won death and immortality (September 22nd). Thereafter, inaction and short supplies continued to be the rule, on both sides. In November, Leicester was back in England, where a fresh situation was developing.

[Sidenote:1585-86 The trapping of Mary]

While the arrangements for armed intervention in the Netherlands were in progress, Walsingham had been busy preparing for the last act in the Tragedy of Mary Stewart. The Secretary was foremost among those who held not only that the captive Queen deserved death, but that her death was more necessary to the welfare of England than any other event. Yet it was quite certain that Elizabeth would not assent to her death, unless she thought she could convince herself and the world that Mary had been actively engaged in treasonous plots. Recently however at Tutbury under the charge of Sir Amyas Paulet, she had been guarded so strictly that no surreptitious correspondence had a chance of passing. Walsingham was confident that if the opportunity were given, a treasonous correspondence would be opened. It became his object therefore to give her the opportunity in appearance, while securing that the channel through which communications passed should be a treacherous one, and the whole of what was supposed to be secret should be betrayed to him. To this end, the Queen was removed in December 1585 to Chartley Manor, avowedly in response to her own demands for a less rigorously unpleasant residence than Tutbury. The instrument of the plot was a young man named Giffard, supposed to be in the inner counsels of the Jesuits, actually in Walsingham's service. Through Giffard, communications were opened between Mary and a devoted adherent of hers in France named Morgan: but every letter passing was deciphered and copied, and the copies placed in the Secretary's hands.

[Sidenote: 1586 Babington's plot]

In the late spring, the great Babington conspiracy was set on foot; whereof the main features were, that Elizabeth was to be assassinated by a group of half a dozen young men who had places at court and occasional access to her person. The two leading spirits were Anthony Babington and a Jesuit named Ballard. Of course a Catholic rising and a foreign invasion were part of the plan, and Mendoza at Paris was playing his own part. Much of the plot was confided to Giffard, who reported to Walsingham. The Secretary and his Queen were satisfied to let the plot develop while they gathered all the threads in their own hands before striking. The correspondence, as copied for Walsingham at Chartley, conveyed not details but general intelligence of what was on foot to Mary, and approval from Mary to the conspirators. In August, Walsingham's moment came: the conspirators were seized; under torture or threat of torture they made complete confession. The Scottish Queen's rooms at Chartley were ransacked, and all her papers impounded. Again, as after the Throgmorton conspiracy, fleets were manned and musters called out. In September, the conspirators were tried and executed, and a Commission was appointed to try Mary herself in October.

[Sidenote: Trial of Mary]

Mary, as before, denied the jurisdiction, professing readiness to answer only before Parliament. She ignored an invitation from the Queen to obtain pardon by a confession of guilt. She assented under protest to appear before the Court, and there avowed that she had consistently appealed to the Powers of Europe to aid her, as she was entitled to do, but flatly denied complicity in the Babington plot. The evidence against her was entirely that of letters—said to be copied from her correspondence, but quite possibly invented in whole or in part—and the confessions of the conspirators or of her secretaries, extorted under torture or the fear of it. Those letters might even have been concocted to suit Walsingham without his actual privity, by the man who had the task of deciphering and copying them. Having heard her denial, the Court was transferred from Fotheringay, where it first sat, to Westminster: and at Westminster, after further examination of the documents and of Mary's secretaries, it unanimously pronounced her guilty. The sentence was left for Parliament and the Queen to settle. The Parliament which had passed the recent Act for the Defence of the Queen was dissolved, and a new one was summoned. On its meeting in November, it petitioned for Mary's execution, in accordance with the terms of the "Association" which Mary herself had offered to join. The publication of the sentence was received with public acclamation: but whether the Queen would assent to it remained to be seen.

What then were the guiding considerations, whether of Ethics or of Expediency?

[Sidenote: The situation reviewed;]

For eighteen years, Mary had been in Elizabeth's power. Elizabeth had held her captive for the sufficient reason—amongst others—that were she outside of England and free from restraint, there was nothing to prevent her from actively agitating the Catholics of Europe to assert her claim to the English throne. No monarch having in his grip a claimant with an undeniably strong title to his throne would have allowed that claimant to escape from his clutches. Few would have hesitated to concoct some more or less plausible pretext for the claimant's death. Half England considered that a sufficient pretext was provided by Kirk o' Field; but even assuming that Mary's guilt in that matter was legally proved, which it assuredly was not, it is sufficiently obvious that the sovereign of England had no jurisdiction. Still any monarch situated like Elizabeth would have maintained, and probably have acted upon, the right to put the captive to death, if proved to be guilty of complicity in treason or subornation thereof. Throughout the eighteen years, Elizabeth had deliberately abstained from seeking to prove definitely that Mary was an accomplice in the various plots on her behalf, while she was no less careful to leave the imputation of complicity clinging to her. But now, if the Chartley correspondence were genuine, the case was decided. The Court, which cannot be said to have been packed, was satisfied. Again it does not appear that any monarch, regarding the captive's death as per se desirable, would have doubted the sufficiency of the ground for her execution.

But hitherto the English Queen had not regarded her rival's death as per se desirable. Conceivably there was an element of generosity in that view. Certainly there was the fact that Mary was an anointed Queen, and Elizabeth had a most profound respect for the sanctity of crowned heads. But apart from this, there was the purely political argument. Mary living, and in her power, was an asset. She might always be set at liberty on terms. Elizabeth hated parting with a political asset even at a high price, for good value. Hitherto she had reckoned the living Mary as worth more than Mary's death would be: for Mary might simply be replaced as a claimant by James, who was not, like his mother, in her power, and might very well think the crown of England worth a Mass.

[Sidenote: its recent developments]

Now however, a considerable change had come over the situation. Failing Mary the English Catholics were divided as to the succession. James could profess filial affection when it suited him; but for some time past he had dropped that attitude; he had just made a convenient compact with England; and his mother, making up her mind to his antagonism, had by will disinherited him and bequeathed her rights to Philip of Spain, who had a clear claim to the blood Royal of England as descending through his mother Isabella of Portugal from John of Gaunt. [Footnote: See Front. Philip's cousins, however, the duchesses of Braganza and Parma, daughters of Isabella's brother, had a better title—as they also had to the crown of Portugal. See p. 303. The exiled Westmorland had a better title still.] The accession of Philip would suit neither France, nor the Pope; the accession of James would be at best an uncertain gain to the Catholics; and so Mary's execution would leave no one claimant for the discontented to rally to. On the other hand, if Mary were allowed to live, her restoration by Elizabeth would be almost incredible. Her value as an asset had fallen, the security given by her death would be much more assured. Political expediency, therefore, entirely favoured her death, unless the execution would bring France or Scotland against Elizabeth in arms. France protested earnestly, but clearly intended nothing stronger than protests, and it very soon became equally clear that no serious trouble need be feared from James.

[Sidenote: 1587 The sentences carried out]

Still through December and January Elizabeth continued to vacillate. The sentiment as to the sanctity of an anointed Queen still influenced her; yet it is sufficiently clear that her real motive for hesitation was the desire, not to spare Mary, but herself to escape the odium of sanctioning the execution. At last however the warrant was signed, and received the Chancellor's seal. Yet she made the Secretary Davison write to Paulet and urge him to put Mary to death without waiting for the warrant. Paulet flatly refused. She used such terms to Davison that he feared on his own responsibility to forward the warrant to the appointed authorities Shrewsbury and Kent. He went to Burghley: Burghley summoned privately all members of the Council then in London. They agreed to share the responsibility for acting without further reference to the Queen. On February 4th, the letters were issued. On the 7th, in the afternoon, Kent and Shrewsbury presented themselves at Fotheringay and told Mary that on the following morning she must die.

[Sidenote: Death of Mary]

It was characteristic of her that during the few hours of life left to her, she forgot neither loyal servant nor victorious foe. Her last written words were to bid her friends remember both. When the morrow came, she mounted the low scaffold in the great hall with unfaltering step, far less moved outwardly than the six attendants whom she had chosen for her last moments, a splendid tragic figure; every word, every gesture those of a woman falsely charged and deeply wronged, majestic in her proud self-control. Was it merely a superb, an unparalleled piece of acting? [Footnote: See Appendix C. Mr. Froude is dramatically at his best in telling the story; but his partisan bias is correspondingly emphasized.] Was it the heroism of a martyr? The voice of England had doomed her; she appealed to a higher Tribunal than England. King or Queen never faced their end more triumphantly. Mary Stewart, royal in the fleeting moments of her prosperity, royal throughout the long years of her adversity, was never so supremely royal as in her last hour on earth.