Agnes Strickland, born in London on August 19, 1796, with her
sister Elizabeth began in 1840 the publication of the immense
series of historical biographies of which the "Lives of the
Queens of England" formed the first and most important group.
In that group the "Elizabeth" is recognised as holding the
highest rank. It is an essentially feminine study of one of
the most remarkable of women; not a history, for historical
events are treated as of infinitely less importance than
picturesque personal details and miscellaneous gossip, but
presenting altogether an admirable picture of the outward
seeming of those spacious days, and a discriminating and
judicious portrait of the maiden queen herself. The author's
views, however, would not always be endorsed by a masculine
critic. Agnes Strickland died on July 13, 1874. The literature
relating to the life and times of Queen Elizabeth would form a
library of contemporary records. Many volumes of state papers
have been published: Camden's "Annals of Elizabeth" is the
classical account of her. Creighton's "Queen Elizabeth" and
volumes VII. to XII. of Froude's "History of England" are the
leading modern works; and no one who wishes to know anything
of the great queen can afford to neglect Hume's "Courtships of
Queen Elizabeth," which will also be found in these pages (see
Hume).
_I.--The Lady Elizabeth_
Queen Elizabeth first saw the light at Greenwich Palace, where, says
Heywood, "she was born on the eve of the Virgin's nativity, and died on
the eve of the Virgin's annunciation." The christening ceremony was
gorgeous and elaborate, but, with the downfall of her mother, Anne
Boleyn, she ceased to be treated as a princess. She seems to have owed
much to the judicious training of Lady Margaret Bryan, in whose charge
she was. Later, she was associated with Prince Edward, four years her
junior; both displayed an extraordinary precocity and capacity for
learning.
On Henry's death, she resided with his widow, Catharine Parr, who
married the Lord Admiral, Thomas Seymour. That ambitious nobleman,
brother of the Protector, certainly designed, when Catharine died, to
marry Elizabeth; an intention which was among the causes of his
execution under attainder. His relations with her had already been
unduly familiar, but there was no warrant for the scandalous stories
that were repeated; and although Elizabeth all her life was naturally
disposed to an excessive freedom of manners, she now became a pattern of
decorum. But she was probably more in love with Seymour, as a girl of
fifteen, than with anyone else in after life; though, on his death, she
called him "a man of much wit and very little judgement."
Ascham is full of praises of her learning and her wide reading, both in
Greek and Latin, which is displayed somewhat pedantically in her
letters; her propriety and simplicity of apparel in these days is in
curious contrast to the extravagances of her wardrobe in later life.
Mary treated her conspicuously as a sister; she refused, however, to
abjure her Protestantism. Her position became extremely difficult, as
the French, the Spaniards, and the Protestant party each sought to
involve her in plots for their own ends. These culminated in Wyat's
rebellion. The inevitable suspicions attaching to her caused her to be
lodged in the Tower; but, in spite of the machinations of the Spanish
party and the distrust of Mary, the evidence produced failed to warrant
her condemnation.
Yet she was kept in rigorous confinement, her life continuing to be in
danger for a month after Wyat himself had been executed. She was then
removed to Richmond, but refused to purchase liberty at the price of
marriage to a foreign prince, Philibert of Savoy--a scheme intended as a
cover for Mary's determination to marry Philip, the Prince of Spain.
Finally, she was transferred to Woodstock, where she was held a close
prisoner.
Policy now led her to profess acceptance of the Roman religion, but in
very ambiguous fashion. Probably it was through the intercession of
Philip--now her brother-in-law, whose policy at this time was to
conciliate the English people--that she was set at liberty and
readmitted to court at Christmas.
At the end of the next year Elizabeth was at Hatfield, under the gentle
surveillance of Sir Thomas Pope. She continued to be involved in grave
dangers by perpetual plots, in which she was far too shrewd to let
herself be implicated; and she guarded herself by a continued profession
of Romanism to the hour of her accession on her sister's death.
As the hour of Mary's death approached, there was no doubt of
Elizabeth's succession, though there was alarm as to possible
complications. On November 17, 1558, the Chancellor announced to
Parliament that Mary was dead, and Elizabeth queen. She held her first
council at Hatfield two days later, when William Cecil took his place as
her chief counsellor; on her entry into London, the position which was
to be occupied by Lord Robert Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester, was
already conspicuous.
The coronation, which took place in January, was a magnificent pageant,
in which Elizabeth openly courted the favour and affection of her
subjects; and it became at once apparent that the breach with Rome was
reopened. The supremacy of the crown was reasserted, the all but empty
bench of bishops was filled up with reformers; and, in answer to the
Commons, Elizabeth very clearly implied her intention of reigning a
virgin queen. She had already declined Philip of Spain's offer of his
widowed hand; and now the fact that Mary Stuart stood next in the
succession--with a better title than Elizabeth's own, if her legitimacy
were challenged--became of immense importance.
Accordingly, an express declaration of her legitimate right to the
throne was procured from Parliament. For some time pageants and popular
displays were the order of the day. But, in spite of Elizabeth's own
declarations, all her council were convinced that the safety of the
realm demanded her marriage; and suitors began to abound. Arran
appears--who now stood very near the throne of Scotland. Pickering,
Arundel, Dudley, all seemed possible aspirants. The Austrian Archduke
Charles, cousin of Philip of Spain, and Eric of Norway, were candidates.
She played with them all, and the play was made more grim by the tragic
death of Dudley's wife, Amy Robsart.
_II.--Mary Stuart and Saint Bartholomew_
The proposals for Elizabeth's own hand were now diversified by her
interest in those for the hand of the Queen of Scots; for it was of
immense importance to the Queen of England that Mary should not wed a
foreign prince who might support her claim to the English throne. Mary
professed willingness to be guided by her "sister," but was insulted by
Elizabeth's offer of her own favourite, Dudley, who was made Earl of
Leicester. Melville, the courtly Scots ambassador, had much ado to
answer Elizabeth's questions about his mistress's beauty and
accomplishments in a manner agreeable to the English queen. Mary solved
her own problem, only to create a new one, by marrying her cousin, Lord
Darnley. Elizabeth was bitterly aggrieved when a son--afterwards James
I.--was born to them. She herself continued to agitate Cecil and the
council by the favours she lavished on Leicester. But the renewed
entreaties of Parliament, that steps might be taken to secure the
succession, led to what threatened to be a serious quarrel.
Amongst these high matters, the records of her majesty's wardrobe, and
the interests of Cecil in capturing for her service a tailor employed by
Catherine de Medici, form an entertaining interlude. But tragedy was at
hand; the murder of Darnley, Mary's marriage to the murderer Bothwell,
her imprisonment at Loch Leven, Elizabeth's perturbation--for she was
sincere in her fear of encouraging subjects to control monarchs by force
of arms--was diversified by a last negotiation for her marriage with the
Archduke Charles, which broke down over his refusal to abjure his
religion.
Then came a turn of the wheel; Mary escaped from Loch Leven, her
followers were dispersed at Langside, and she fled across the Solway to
throw herself on Elizabeth's protection and find herself Elizabeth's
prisoner.
The Scottish queen was consigned to Bolton; an investigation was held at
York, when Mary's accusers were allowed to produce, and Mary's friends
were not allowed to test, their evidence of her complicity in Darnley's
murder. At that stage the investigations were stopped; but the Duke of
Norfolk, the head of the commission, was not deterred from pressing the
design of marrying Mary himself. Mary was placed in the charge of
Shrewsbury and his termagant spouse, Bess of Hardwick.
From this time for fifteen years, Elizabeth was perpetually playing at
proposals for her own marriage with one or other of the French King's
brothers, to keep the French court from a _rapprochement_ with Spain.
Suspicions of Norfolk's intentions led to his arrest, and this
precipitated the rising in favour of Mary under the Catholic northern
earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland; an insurrection promptly and
cruelly crushed. In the spring of 1570 the Pope issued a bull of
deposition; and the plots on behalf of Mary as Catholic claimant to the
throne thickened.
In 1571 it appeared that Elizabeth was set on the marriage with Henry of
Anjou, nineteen years her junior, the brother who stood next in
succession to the throne of Charles IX. of France--a marriage not at all
approved by her council, and very little to Henry's own taste. It was at
this time that the conduct of negotiations in Paris was entrusted to
Francis Walsingham.
The relations between the queen and the Commons were exemplified by her
attempt to exclude an obnoxious member, Strickland, met by the
successful assertion of their privileges on the part of the House.
In this year the plot known as Ridolfi's was discovered, and it is to be
noted that Elizabeth herself ordered the rack to be used to extort
information. The result was condemnation of Norfolk to the block. The
recalcitrance of Henry of Anjou led to his definitely withdrawing from
his courtship, while the young Alençon became the new subject of
matrimonial negotiation.
Elizabeth played with the new proposal, as usual, relying always on her
ability to back out of the negotiations, as in previous cases, by
demanding of her suitor a more uncompromising acceptance of
Protestantism than could be admitted. The whole affair, however, was
apparently brought to a check by the massacre of St. Bartholomew, with
the perpetration of which it seemed impossible for the most powerful of
Protestant monarchs to associate herself.
Cecil--now Lord Burleigh--would have used the occasion for the
destruction of Mary Stuart; but the device for doing so irreproachably
by handing her over to her own rebels, was frustrated--though Elizabeth
concurred--by the refusal of the Scots lords to play the part which was
assigned to them. The Alençon affair was soon in full swing again, the
young prince writing love-letters to the lady whom he had not seen.
_III.--The Hour of Mary's Doom_
Elizabeth's fondness for pageantry--partly out of a personal delight in
it, partly from a politic appreciation of its value in making her
popular--especially pageantry at some one else's expense, was
illustrated in the gorgeous doings at Kenilworth, depicted (with sundry
anachronisms) in Scott's novel.
These gaieties were the embroidery on more serious matters, for the
Netherlands had for some time been engaged in their apparently desperate
struggle with the power of Spain, and now actually invited the Queen of
England to assume sovereignty over them--an offer which she was too
acute to accept.
Yet we cannot pass over a highly characteristic incident. When the
queen's majesty had a bad toothache, the protestations of her whole
council failed to persuade her to face the extraction of the tooth, till
the Bishop of London invited the surgeon to operate first on him in her
presence, with satisfactory results. We must also record how the ugly
little Alençon, or Anjou as he was now called, arrived unexpectedly to
woo her in person, charmed her by his chivalrous audacity in doing so,
and won from her the appropriate name of "Little Frog."
Whether she really wished to marry her "frog" is extremely doubtful. She
made all the more parade of her desire to do so, since the extreme
antipathy of the council and the nation to the project would secure her
a retreat to the last. The expectation of the marriage caused the
Netherlanders to offer Anjou the sovereignty which she had rejected;
with the idea of thus securing the united support of England and France.
But when matters reached the point of negotiation for an Anglo-French
league, with the marriage as one of the articles, Elizabeth, of course,
could not be brought to a definite answer, and after long delay Anjou
found himself obliged to return to the Netherlands, neither accepted nor
rejected. His subsequent death put an end to this, her last, matrimonial
comedy.
At last an English force was actually sent to help the Netherlanders,
under the command of Leicester. His conduct there led to his recall.
Another favourite stood high in the queen's good graces--Walter Raleigh.
Probably it was with a view to ousting this rival that Leicester brought
his stepson Essex into the queen's notice.
But now the hour of Mary's doom was approaching. A plot was set on foot
for the assassination of Elizabeth, into which Anthony Babington, whose
name it bears, was drawn. Walsingham, possessed of complete information
from the beginning, through his spies, nursed the plot carefully;
letters from Mary were systematically intercepted and copied till the
moment came for striking; the conspirators were arrested, and suffered
the extreme penalty of the treason laws; and Elizabeth consented to have
Mary herself at last brought to trial. She was refused counsel; the
commission condemned her. Parliament demanded the execution of the death
sentence. Elizabeth had her own misgivings.
She was afraid of the responsibility. Leicester suggested poison, but
Burleigh and Walsingham stood by the law. A special embassy of
remonstrance came from France; Mary wrote a dignified letter, not an
appeal for her life, which moved the queen to tears; protests from the
King of Scotland only aroused indignation; Elizabeth was frightened by
rumours of fresh plots and of a French invasion.
At last she signed the death warrant, brought to her by Secretary
Davison; the Chancellor's seal was attached, and the council, fearing
some evasion on Elizabeth's part, issued the commission for Mary's
execution without further reference to the queen; she was kept in
ignorance of the fact till the tragedy was completed. She was furious
with the council, but powerless against their unanimity. She could
venture to make a scapegoat of Davison, and made a vain attempt to clear
herself of responsibility in a letter to James, which failed to soothe
the burst of indignation with which the news was received in Scotland.
But the one thing she feared--a coalition of France, Spain, and
Scotland--was made impossible by the antagonisms of the former and the
weakness of the last.
Another crisis was at hand. Philip of Spain, claiming the throne of
England as a descendant of John of Gaunt, was preparing the great
Armada; Pope Sixtus V. was proclaiming a crusade against the heretic
queen. Drake sailed into Cadiz harbour, and "singed the don's whiskers,"
but the vast preparations went on. A lofty spirit animated the queen and
the people. London undertook to provide double the number of ships and
men demanded from her. The militia was gathered at Tilbury, under
Leicester. Howard of Effingham was Lord Admiral, with Drake as
vice-admiral; in the enthusiasm of the moment, Elizabeth bestowed
knighthood on a valorous lady, Mary, the wife of Sir Hugh Cholmondeley.
A report that the Armada had been destroyed by a gale, which actually
drove it into Corunna for repairs, caused Elizabeth, with her usual
parsimony, to order four great vessels to be dismantled; Howard retained
them instead, at his own charges. On July 19, 1588, the Armada was
sighted off the Lizard, and for eighteen days the naval heroes were
grappling with that "invincible" fleet. Elizabeth herself visited the
camp at Tilbury, rode through the lines, wearing a corselet and a
farthingale of amazing dimensions, while a page bore her helmet, and
addressed her soldiers in stirring words.
The victory was celebrated by medals bearing the device of a fleet in
full sail, with the words _Venit, vidit, fugit_ ("it came, it saw, it
fled"), and of the dispersal by fireships with the words, _Dux femina
facti_ ("a woman led the movement").
_IV.--Elizabeth's Closing Years_
The defeat of the Armada was followed by an expedition to Lisbon, to
wrest Portugal from Spain; owing to inadequate equipment it failed,
after a promising beginning, the Portuguese lending no help. Essex
managed to escape from court and join the expedition, messengers
ordering him to return being too late. For this he was forgiven; but
when he secretly married the widow of Sidney, and daughter of
Walsingham, Elizabeth was furiously angry.
Not Essex, but Norris was sent to command a force dispatched to the aid
of Henry of Navarre, who was now fighting for the crown of France.
Essex, however, was subsequently sent, at Henry's own request. His
absence was utilised by Burleigh to secure the advancement of his own
astute son, Robert Cecil, who secured the royal favour by the ingenuity
of his flattery.
When Essex finally returned from France, he was received with the utmost
favour; but in the interval he had been transformed into an intriguing
politician. Parliament, which had not been called for four years, met in
1593, and there was an immediate collision with the Crown. Elizabeth's
tone was much more despotic than of old. Petitions for the settlement of
the succession were met by the arbitrary imprisonment of Wentworth and
other members.
Essex favoured the popular party, but had not the courage to head it; he
was moved not by patriotism, but by jealousy of the Cecil ascendancy.
The queen, when she had passed the age of sixty, was as determined as
ever to pose as a youthful beauty, and her courtiers had no reluctance
in assuming the tone of despairing lovers. No one played this part more
persistently than Raleigh, who, when relegated to the Tower for
marrying, proclaimed his misery, not at being separated from his bride,
but at being shut out of the radiant presence of the queen.
Essex and Raleigh were associated in two expeditions, one directed with
complete success against Cadiz, the other being a complete failure. The
Burleigh faction succeeded in getting for Raleigh whatever credit there
was in both cases, though Essex was better entitled to it.
But it was Ireland that wrought the ruin of Essex. A dispute in the
council on the subject caused the queen to box the favourite's ears,
which caused him to retire in resentment for many months. Soon after his
return to court, he brought upon himself his own appointment to the
lord-deputyship of Ireland. His conduct there displeased her; from her
scolding letters, he concluded that his enemies in the council were
undermining his position in his absence. He deserted his post, hurried
to London, and burst, travel-stained as he was, into Elizabeth's
chamber. For the moment she appeared disposed to forgive him, but was
not long in deciding that his insolence must be punished, and he was
placed in confinement.
So he continued for about a year, in spite of appeals to the queen. The
adverse party in the council had the predominance. At last, however, he
was granted a degree of liberty, and Francis Bacon tried to conciliate
Elizabeth towards her former favourite. But the unfortunate man allowed
his resentment to carry him into dangerous courses. His house became a
rendezvous of the discontented. Finally, a futile attempt on his part to
raise the citizens of London in his favour consummated his ruin. He was
soon a prisoner; his condemnation was now a foregone conclusion;
Elizabeth signed the warrant with fingers which did not tremble; and, to
the universal astonishment, the favourite was executed.
Elizabeth's meeting with her last parliament displays in a marked degree
the tact which never deserted her when she thought fit to employ it.
Their protest against the practice of monopolies, instead of rousing her
ire, brought from her a notably gracious promise to redress the
grievances complained of. This was in 1601. In the next year, when she
became sixty-nine, there was no relaxation in her gaieties; but under
the surface, Elizabeth was old and sad.
Her popularity had never been the same since the death of Essex; and the
memory of the man she had cherished and finally sent to his doom,
well-deserved as that was, was a perpetual source of grief to her. In
March 1603, she was stricken with her last fatal illness. Yet she would
not go to bed. At last she gave in; she knew herself dying long before
she admitted it.
It was uncertain whether even in her last moments she would acknowledge
the right of any successor to her throne, but a gesture was interpreted
as favouring the King of Scots. Finally, she sank into a sleep from
which she never awoke. So passed away England's Elizabeth.
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