REIGN OF ELIZABETH (_continued_).
Affairs of Ireland: Shane O'Neil's Rebellion--Plantation of
Ulster--Spanish Descent on Ireland--Desmond's Rebellion--Religious
Conformity--Campian and Parsons--The Anabaptists--Affairs
of Scotland--Death of Morton--Success of the Catholics in
Scotland--The Raid of Ruthven--Elizabeth's Position--Throgmorton's
Plot--Association to Protect Elizabeth--Mary removed
to Tutbury--Support of the Protestant Cause on the
Continent--Leicester in the Netherlands--Babington's Plot--Trial
of Mary--Her Condemnation--Hesitation of Elizabeth--Execution of
Mary.
It is now necessary to trace the course of events in Ireland during the
years we have just passed over. A great work had been going on in that
country, the object of which was to reduce the turbulent native chiefs to
obedience, and to establish English settlers in the lands of those who
were driven out or exterminated.
The most distinguished of those chiefs was Shane O'Neil, the Earl
of Tyrone. Henry VIII. had granted the succession to Matthew, an
illegitimate son of the old earl's; but Shane, the eldest legitimate
son, would not submit to this arrangement. He was supported in his
claims by the people, and vindicated his rights. By the persuasion of
the Earl of Sussex, at that time governor, he was induced to appear
at the Court of Elizabeth in 1562. He laid his claims before her, and
excited a great sensation by appearing in his native costume, attended
by a guard armed with battle-axes, and clad in saffron-coloured vests.
Elizabeth did not grant all his requests, but expressed herself highly
pleased with his presence, and made him great promises. But Shane was too
sensitive and independent in his feelings and ideas to be a very orderly
subject. Frequently he did essential service as the ally of the English
Government, but more frequently was compelled to seek vengeance for
injuries and encroachments. In 1565, three years after his appearance at
the English Court, he was driven into open rebellion; and after a severe
struggle, was compelled to seek refuge in the wilds of Ulster amongst the
Scots. There, at the instigation of Piers, an English officer, he was
assassinated (1567), his estates were confiscated, with those of all his
followers, comprising one-half of Ulster, and the name and dignity of
O'Neil were abolished for ever.
That which was done in Ulster had to be done in every other province of
Ireland. Whenever insurrection broke out and was suppressed, the lands
were forfeited to the Crown. But so long as the Crown held nominally
these lands, the natives continued to hold them really. To remedy this,
and to ensure a certain forfeiture by the rebels, and a reward to the
English conquerors, Sir Thomas Smith proposed that these lands should
be granted in various portions to English settlers, who, in prosecution
of their own claims, would drive out the rebel natives and cultivate
the soil. It needs no reflection to perceive that this system must be
fruitful beyond conception in crimes, murders, and miseries. Lands were
granted to a bastard son of the projector's, and to numerous other
adventurers. They drove out the Irish, and these came back in infuriated
numbers, with fire and desolation. Under this frightful system the
country soon became a desert. To put an end to these sanguinary scenes,
Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, represented that it needed only a
sufficient force on the part of the English. He offered to bring under
subjection, and to colonise, the district of Clandeboy in Ulster. His
proposals were that the queen and himself should furnish equal shares
of the charge, and the colony, being organised, should be divided
equally between them. The courtiers who had envied him his favour with
Elizabeth pretended to promote his design till he had embarked all his
fortune in it, when they threw all possible obstacles in his way. Through
these hindrances, it was late in the summer of 1573 before he arrived
in Ireland, and then only to find that the Lord-deputy Fitzwilliam
questioned his powers; and on proceeding to the lands of Clandeboy,
Phelim O'Neil and his adherents contended with him for its possession
fort by fort. He maintained his ground, however, through the winter,
though grievously suffering from the bad quality of the provisions
furnished by the queen's contractors, and from the ill-armed condition
of his troops--for the evils which mowed down our army in the Crimea
were among the most ancient evils of the English Government. Essex is
said to have invited Phelim O'Neil to a banquet, and there assassinated
him and his attendants; but this did not mend his position. The Lords
Dacre and Rich, and many gentlemen, abandoned the enterprise and returned
home. Though deserted and unable to conquer his own allotted territory,
he assisted the Lord-Deputy to suppress the rebels in other parts of the
island. He returned to England in 1575, and was appointed Earl Marshal of
Ireland, but with no adequate force; and ultimately died, September 22nd,
1576, at Dublin.
After the death of Essex, the system of planting Ireland, as it was
called, still went on. The destruction of the O'Neils all the other clans
regarded as only preliminary to their own. They therefore appealed to
the Kings of Spain and France for assistance; and on their declaring
themselves unable, from their own dangers and insurrections at home, to
assist them, they implored the protection of the Pope, Gregory XIII.
His holiness launched a bull at the heretic queen, declaring Ireland
forfeited, as previous bulls had declared England and Wales forfeited.
Under his encouragement two adventurers, Thomas Stukely and James
Fitzmaurice, set out to proclaim the bull, and to carry the arms of his
holiness all over Ireland. Stukely, however, having obtained a ship of
war, 600 soldiers, and 3,000 stand of arms, carried them to the service
of the King of Portugal, and died fighting in his wars against the Moors.
Fitzmaurice, a brother of the Earl of Desmond, and a deadly enemy of
the English invaders, was more faithful; and after suffering shipwreck
on the coast of Galicia, landed at Smerwick, in Kerry, in June, 1579.
He had with him, however, only eighty Spanish soldiers, and a few Irish
and English refugees; and his expedition proved an utter failure, for
the inhabitants had no faith in so insignificant a knot of adventurers.
Fitzmaurice being killed in a private quarrel, his followers fled into
the territories of his brother, the Earl of Desmond.
The Earl of Desmond professed himself a loyal subject; but he was
suspected of favouring the insurgents, and the English marched into his
demesnes, and plundered them. Another detachment from the Pope, however,
landed at Smerwick, the port which Fitzmaurice had made. It consisted
of several hundred men, having a large sum of money, and 5,000 stand
of arms, under the command of San Giuseppe, an Italian. Lord Grey de
Wilton, the new Lord-Deputy, had recently suffered a defeat in the vale
of Glandaclough; but he managed to besiege this foreign force in their
newly-erected fort, while Admiral Winter blockaded them on the sea side.
After three days' resistance, the handful of Italians and Spaniards put
out a flag of truce, and offered to surrender on condition that their
lives were spared. Foreign writers all assert that this was granted them;
but Sir Richard Bingham, who was present, says that they surrendered one
night at the pleasure of the Lord-Deputy, to have mercy or not, as he
willed. Sir Walter Raleigh and Spenser, the poet, were in Grey's army,
and their conduct reflects no honour upon them. Sir Walter entered the
fort to receive their arms, and then ordered them all to be massacred
(1580); and this proceeding Spenser endeavours to vindicate. He was
Lord Grey's secretary; and while he styles him "a most gentle, affable,
loving, and temperate lord," he gives this account of his act:--"The
enemy begged that they might be allowed to depart with their lives and
arms according to the law of nations. He asked to see their commission
from the Pope or the King of Spain. They had none: they were the allies
of the Irish. 'But the Irish,' replied Grey, 'are traitors, and you must
suffer as traitors. I will make no terms with you; you may submit or
not.' They yielded, craving only mercy, which it not being thought good
to show them, for danger of them, if being saved, they should afterwards
join the Irish, who were much emboldened by those foreign successes, and
also put in hope of more ere long. There was no other way but to make
that short end of them as was made."
This was a fatal precedent to the French and Spaniards, against whom
our own countrymen were fighting in the very same manner by the orders
of Elizabeth, in France, in the Netherlands, and in South America; and
whilst we denounce the savage slaughter of English adventurers in the
trans-Atlantic lands of Spain wherever they were found without mercy or
quarter, we are bound to remember that we thus set the Spaniards the
example, and furnished them with warrant.
After this butchery Grey and his myrmidons combined to chase Desmond from
spot to spot in his mountain fastnesses. Three years later (1583) a party
of the English, attracted by a light, entered a hut, where they found a
venerable old man lying on the hearth before the fire, quite alone. On
their demanding who he was, he replied, "The Earl of Desmond," when Kelly
of Moriarty instantly struck off his head, which he sent as a grateful
present to Elizabeth, by whom it was fixed on London Bridge. With Desmond
fell for some time the resistance of the hunted natives in Ireland. From
the forfeited lands of these immolated Irish, Sir Walter Raleigh received
42,000 acres, other gentlemen from 5,000 to 18,000, and Spenser the poet
3,000 and a castle of the unfortunate Desmond's--Kilcolman--which the
exasperated natives burnt over his head, and with it one of his children.
Spenser's concern in this bloody affair proved, in fact, his ruin.
[Illustration: MURDER OF THE EARL OF DESMOND. (_See p._ 296.)]
Returning to England, we find that Elizabeth during this period had
been persecuting every form of Christianity which did not agree with
her own. There were three parties against whom she felt herself
aggrieved--the Puritans, the Papists, and the Anabaptists; and she set
to work resolutely to squeeze them into the mould of her orthodoxy, or
to crush them. Many of the Puritans who had imbibed the sternest spirit
of Geneva had got into the pulpits of the State Church and refused to
wear the robes, to perform the rites, or to preach the exact doctrines
as prescribed by law. If they did not accord with that Church, they
certainly had no business there, and had no right to complain that
Elizabeth turned them out. The time to complain was when she had
expelled them, and they set up a Church of their own, which she would
not allow. Their freedom was their birthright; but the queen would
not suffer them to exercise it. She had but one word in her religious
vocabulary--conform; and this rigid conformity was carried out ruthlessly
by the very ministers and clergy who had so manfully complained of
compulsion in the last reign. They purged one diocese after another by
expelling Puritan clergy. These acts of arbitrary power were loudly
denounced in the House of Commons, where there was a strong Puritan
party, and numerous bills were brought in to advance the Reformation. Out
of doors, Parker, the old Archbishop of Canterbury, faithfully executed
the will of the sovereign; and opinion, suppressed in the Church and
in Parliament, where the queen even sent personal and most dictatorial
messages stopping all religious discussion, now burst forth through the
press. Pamphlets of a most inflammatory nature and abusive style issued
in shoals; and one Burchell, a student of the Middle Temple, became so
inflamed by zeal that he murdered Hawkins, an officer, mistaking him for
Hatton, the queen's new favourite. In prison he also killed his keeper
under the delusion that he was Hatton; and though palpably insane, he was
hanged for murder.
Parker died in 1575 and was succeeded by Grindal, who, Elizabeth soon
discovered, was too much of a Puritan himself to persecute them severely,
and she suspended him, and harassed him to such a degree that he died in
1583. To him succeeded Whitgift, a man after Elizabeth's own heart, who
framed a test of orthodoxy, which he put to all clergymen or others whom
he suspected, which consisted of these three notable dogmas--the queen's
supremacy, the perfection of the Ordinal and Book of Common Prayer, and
the complete accordance of the Thirty-nine Articles with the Scriptures.
All those clergymen who refused to subscribe to this he expelled; and
in defiance of clamour and intrigue in Council or Convocation, he held
on his way immovably. Nor did the queen long satisfy herself with
mere expulsion. Thacker and Copping, two Brownists, were indicted for
objecting to the Book of Common Prayer, which was treated as an attack
on the royal supremacy, and were put to death. The persecution of the
Catholics was still more severe than that of the Puritans.
The fury of persecution in England stimulated the Roman Catholics abroad
to a corresponding enthusiasm of martyrdom. Gregory XIII. followed
the example of William Allen--who had founded an English seminary at
Douay--and established a second English seminary in the hospital of
Santo Spirito, in Rome, from which emissaries were despatched into
the heretical kingdom. First and foremost the general of the Jesuits
selected in 1580 two Englishmen of distinguished abilities, and sent
them from this college. Robert Parsons and Edmund Campian arrived with
a reputation, and with rumours of the dark conspiracy in which they
were engaged, which roused all the alarm and the vigilance of the
Government. Rewards were offered for their discovery, and menaces of
punishment issued for remissness in tracing them out. The queen sent
forth a proclamation, calling on every person who had children, wards,
or relatives gone abroad for education to make a return of their names
to the ordinary, and to recall them within three months; and all persons
whatsoever who knew of any Jesuit or seminarist in the kingdom, and
failed to give information, were to be punished as abettors of treason.
As soon as Parliament met in January of 1581, still more stringent laws
were passed for the punishment of Roman Catholics. It was made high
treason merely to possess the power of absolution, or to receive any
person into the church of Rome. The fines for hearing or saying Mass were
re-enacted. Absence from church was made punishable at the rate of twenty
pounds per month, and, if prolonged to a whole year, besides the penalty,
the offender must produce two securities for his good behaviour of £200
each. The concealment of Roman Catholic tutors, schoolmasters, or priests
entailed a year's imprisonment, a priest or tutor being also amenable to
the same punishment, and the employer of them to a fine of ten pounds per
month. There was but one step possible beyond this outrageous despotism,
and that was to the stake, as in Mary's time; but the very fury of legal
punishment defeated its own object.
Parsons and Campian put into the hands of their friends written
statements of their objects in coming into the country, which they
declared to be solely to exercise their spiritual functions as priests,
not to interfere with any worldly concerns or affairs of State; but they
declared that all the Jesuits in the world had entered into a league to
maintain the Catholic religion at the risk of imprisonment, torture, or
death. This announcement excited the greatest alarm, and the most fiery
persecution burst forth on the whole body of the Romanists, whilst every
means was exerted to discover and secure these missionaries. The names
of all the recusants in the kingdom, amounting to 50,000, were returned
to Government, and no man included in that number had any longer the
least security or privacy in his own house. The doors were broken open
without notice given, and the pursuivants, rushing in, spread themselves
all over the dwelling. Cabinets, cupboards, drawers, closets were forced
and ransacked, beds torn open, tapestry or wainscot was dragged down, and
every imaginable place explored, for the purpose of obtaining evidence
by vessels, vestments, books, or crosses, of heretical worship. The
inmates were put under strict watch, till they had been searched and
interrogated; and many were driven nearly or wholly out of their senses
by the rudeness and the insults which they received from brutal officers.
Lady Neville was frightened to death in Holborn, and Mrs. Vavasour was
deprived of her reason at York.
In July, Campian was taken at Lyfford, in Berkshire, and was committed
to the Tower; and Parsons, seeing no prospect of long escaping pursuit,
contrived to get over again to the Continent. Campian was repeatedly
racked, and under the force of torture and the promises that no injury
should be done to his entertainers, he related the whole course of his
peregrinations in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Denbigh, Northampton, Warwick,
Bedford, Buckingham, and elsewhere, and the names of those who had given
him hospitality. No sooner, however, had the Council the names than they
summoned all those who had harboured him, and fined some and imprisoned
others.
In November, Campian and twelve other priests and a layman were put upon
their trial, and were charged with a horrible conspiracy to murder the
queen and to overturn Church and State. Rome and Rheims were declared to
be the places where this direful plot had been hatched. The astonishment
of the prisoners, several of whom had never been out of England, was
extreme. Not an atom of evidence was produced to authenticate these
charges, yet the whole were pronounced guilty. One of them was saved by
an _alibi_ established by Lancaster, a Protestant barrister; the rest
were executed as traitors, except those who were still kept prisoners. On
the scaffold (December 1, 1581), Campian lamented that the weakness of
the flesh on the rack had forced him to disclose the names of some of his
entertainers, by which they had been brought into trouble.
The Anabaptists, who had created great scandals and disturbance in
Germany, made repeated visits to London under pretence of belonging to
the Dutch Church. They denied the propriety of infant baptism; they also
denied that Christ assumed the flesh of the Virgin; they believed it
wrong to take an oath, or to accept the office of a magistrate. In some
of these tenets they resembled the Society of Friends which afterwards
rose, and their creed did not interfere with the quiet of the State;
yet numbers of them were imprisoned, ten of them were sent out of the
kingdom, and two, Peters and Turwert, were burnt in Smithfield in July,
1575. Again, in 1579, Matthew Hammond, a ploughman, was burnt at Norwich.
In no quarter had Elizabeth for a long time any security except in
Scotland. There Morton was her faithful ally, inasmuch as she held fast
the King of Scots, and so guaranteed the chief means of his own tranquil
enjoyment of power. But Morton's rule was not such as any country would
long tolerate. He was essentially a base and selfish man, and his
severity and rapacity alienated the public from him more and more. He
debased the coin, multiplied forfeitures to enrich himself, appropriated
the estates of the Church, and at the same time was so subservient to
Elizabeth, that the national pride resented it. In 1578, Athole and
Argyll made their way to the presence of the young king, who was now
approaching thirteen years of age, and assured him that it was now quite
time that he freed himself from the tutelage of Morton and ruled the
country himself. James readily listened to them, and sent Morton an order
to resign, and to attend a council at Stirling, where the friends of
Athole and Argyll were summoned.
Morton, though taken by surprise, appeared to obey with perfect
acquiescence; but he lost no time in intriguing with the Erskines, and
in three months had again possessed himself of the person of the king,
and resumed his authority in the State. Athole and Argyll mustered their
friends to force the reins from the hands of Morton, who boldly met them
in the field, when the ambassador of England appeared as a mediator,
and persuaded them to a reconciliation. But it was not in the nature of
Morton to forget the opponents of his power, although they now appeared
as nominal friends. He invited Athole, the chief actor in his late fall,
to a banquet, from which he retired, as Mar had done, to die. Like Mar,
he was poisoned. Secure as he now seemed, Morton let loose his vengeance
on his enemies; and the Hamiltons, the friends of Mary, were compelled,
in spite of the treaty of Perth, to fly to England for security; and
being freed from their restraint he indulged freely his insatiable
avarice at the expense of the country.
But justice reached this minister of evil when it was least expected.
Esmé Stuart, the Lord of Aubigny, a son of the younger brother of the
Earl of Lennox, who had become naturalised in France, returned to
Scotland. With a handsome person and French accomplishments, he soon
captivated the young monarch, who could not live at any period of his
life without a favourite. He created Aubigny captain of the guard, first
lord of the bed-chamber, and finally Duke of Lennox, being the nephew
of the late earl, and cousin of Darnley. Associated with Lennox was
another and far more deep and designing Stuart--James, commonly called
Captain Stuart, the second son of Lord Ochiltree. He was also related
to the king, and lent essential aid to Lennox, not only from his genius
for intrigue, but because Lennox was suspected of being an emissary of
the Duke of Guise. Lennox and his friend Stuart, who was now created by
James Earl of Arran, instilled every possible suspicion into the king's
mind against Morton, who, they averred, intended to convey him to England
and give him up to Elizabeth. To seize Morton, and arraign him for the
multitude of illegal acts which he had perpetrated in his position of
Regent, might not succeed, for the wily offender had taken care to
procure bills of indemnity for whatever he had done. They determined,
therefore, to accuse him of Darnley's murder, of which he was notoriously
guilty in common with others.
[Illustration: THE EARL OF ARRAN ACCUSING MORTON OF THE MURDER OF
DARNLEY. (_See p._ 300.)]
One morning, therefore, Captain Stuart, now Earl of Arran, fell on his
knees in the Council, and charged Morton to the king with the murder of
his (the king's) father. Morton, thunderstruck at this bold and sudden
act, stoutly denied the charge, but he was ordered to be guarded in his
own house, and soon after sent off to the Castle of Dumbarton. Morton
despatched a messenger to his trusty friend the Queen of England, who
forthwith despatched Randolph to intercede with the king, the Council,
and the Parliament for the precious life of this vile murderer.
Elizabeth, as she had not been ashamed to countenance and support him, so
neither was she now ashamed to plead for him, and to beg that he might
be set at liberty as a special favour to her, in recompence of the many
services she had rendered Scotland. She accused Lennox of being in league
with the French Government for the invasion of England, and Randolph
produced documents to prove it. On examining these papers, the Council
pronounced them forgeries, and the trial was ordered to proceed. On
perceiving his failure with the king and Council, Randolph had recourse
to his old arts of endeavouring to stir up sedition, and did his utmost
to rouse Mar and the Earl of Angus to rise in arms for Morton's rescue.
This becoming known, Randolph, who had been twice sent out of the country
for his traitorous meddling, was now glad to flee for his life.
To save this execrable villain, but very useful tool, Elizabeth induced
the Prince of Orange and the King of Navarre to support the exertions
of her ambassador on his behalf, but all in vain. James was firm in
following out the advice given him. Elizabeth ordered a body of troops
to march to the Border, as if she were resolved to invade Scotland for
the rescue of Morton; but James, far from being intimidated, called
all his subjects to arms, ordered Angus to retire beyond the Spey, Mar
to surrender the charge of Stirling Castle, and demanded of Elizabeth
whether she meant peace or war.
[Illustration: DUMBARTON ROCK, WITH VIEW OF CASTLE.]
This bold attitude put an end to her efforts. Randolph suddenly found
out that Morton was accused of murder with a fair show of proof, and
Elizabeth then pretended to think that if it were so it did not become
her any longer to defend him. Deserted by his great patron Elizabeth, the
hoary criminal was brought to trial, and charged not only with the murder
of Darnley, but that of Athole. Besides verbal and personal evidence of
his guilt, his bond of manrent, or guarantee of indemnity for the murder,
given to Bothwell, was exhibited, together with a paper purporting to be
a confession of Bothwell made on his death-bed in Denmark, in which he
accused Morton as a principal contriver of the murder, and exonerated
the Queen of Scots. Whether this paper were genuine or not, there was
abundant proof without it; he was condemned by the unanimous verdict of
the peers, and executed (June 3, 1581).
The fall of Morton and the display of independence in the young King
James opened up the most extravagant hopes in the minds of the friends
of Queen Mary, and of the Papists in general. They were ready to believe
that James would soon show his regard for his mother, and a deep sense
of her wrongs. Morton had been the stern adherent of Protestantism,
scandalous as he was; but who should say that Aubigny, educated in
France, and with many friends and relatives there, would not incline to
favour the Papists, and that James, under his guidance, though educated
by the disciples of Knox, might not, young as he was, return to the
religion of his ancestors? Parsons, the Jesuit, was enthusiastic in
this behalf, and he despatched Waytes, an English Popish clergyman,
to Holyrood, and soon afterwards Creighton, a Scottish Jesuit. These
emissaries returned with the most flattering accounts of their reception
by James and his ministers. Probably, in prospect of no very friendly
relations with Elizabeth, the advisers of James might adopt the policy
of conciliating the Romanists, and thus securing the ancient support of
France, and also of Spain. Be that as it may, James professed to feel
deeply the wrongs of his mother, and to cherish great filial affection
for her. He assured them that he would always receive with favour such
persons as came with an introduction from her, and he consented to
receive an Italian Catholic into his Court as his tutor in that language.
Elated by these tidings, Parsons and Creighton hastened to Paris in
May of 1582. There happened to be present an extraordinary number of
persons interested in the cause of Popery--the Duke of Guise; Castelli,
the Papal nuncio; Tassis, the Spanish ambassador; Beaton, Archbishop of
Glasgow; Matthieu, the Provincial of the French Jesuits; and Dr. Allen,
the provost of the seminary of Douay. They all agreed that Mary ought
to be restored without deposing James; that they should reign jointly;
and Parsons was sent to Spain to solicit assistance, and Creighton to
the Pope for the same object. Both missions were successful: Philip gave
12,000 crowns to relieve the necessities of James, and the Pope engaged
to pay the expenses of his body-guard for twelve months. Both Mary and
James assented to this proposal, Mary offering to leave all the exercise
of power in James's hands.
Successful as this scheme appeared, every movement in it had been watched
by the Court of England, and a counterplot of a most startling kind was
set on foot. In August, 1581, the Earl of Gowrie, the son of the murderer
Ruthven, was induced to invite the king to his castle of Ruthven, when
he made him prisoner. The government was then seized by the Earl of Mar,
the Master of Glamis, the Lord Oliphant, and others. Lennox, the king's
chief minister, escaped to France, but died soon after, as was suspected,
from poison. Arran, the successful destroyer of Morton, was thrown into
prison. The pulpit was set to work to proclaim that there had been a
plot to restore "the limb of Satan," the lewd Queen Mary, with all the
ceremonial of the Mass; and that Lennox was at the bottom of it, though
he died professing himself a staunch Protestant.
But the position of affairs in Scotland was calculated to excite the
utmost vigilance of both France and England. Henry III. saw with terror
the young King of Scotland in the hands of the English faction, and
sent thither La Motte Fenelon and Maigneville to encourage James to
call together the Estates, to insist by their means on his liberty,
and on the liberation of his mother to govern with him. The English
Court, on the other hand, instructed its agents, Bowes and Davidson, to
demand the dismissal of the French envoys, and to show him the danger
of the measures which they proposed. James appeared to listen to both
parties; and ostensibly in order to consult on their advice, he summoned
a council of the nobility to meet at the castle of St. Andrews. Once in
their midst, James felt his freedom; and to prevent any contest on the
question, published a pardon to all who had been concerned in the Raid of
Ruthven, as it was called, or the conspiracy of Gowrie. This bold stroke
of the young king so took the English Court by surprise that Walsingham
was sent, notwithstanding his age and important duties at home, to
the Scottish Court. Walsingham must have been amazed at the small
success which attended his mission, for James received him with little
consideration, appeared to regard his communications with indifference,
and dismissed him with a paltry present on his departure. Elizabeth could
not help complaining of the palpable slight to her ambassador, and the
friends of Queen Mary drew fresh hope from the circumstance.
But little solid hope could be entertained of Mary's enfranchisement
by any one who considered the real situation of affairs. The King of
France was far from sincere in his wish for her release. So long as she
was in the hands of Elizabeth, he was secure from any further meddling
of Elizabeth in the internal affairs of France. At any moment he could
alarm her by rumours of designs to set the Scottish queen free, at the
same time that James, as a young man, was open to influence from France
against England. For these reasons a fresh conference in Paris on Mary's
behalf came to nothing. The Duke of Guise, Castelli, the Archbishop of
Glasgow, and Matthieu met again, this time with the addition of Morgan,
a Welsh gentleman, one of the commissioners of her dower in France. They
proposed that Guise should land in the south of England with an army,
while James should simultaneously enter it at the north. James at once
assented to the project; but Mary, who knew very well that her life would
be sacrificed at once if there were a formidable attempt at her rescue,
resorted to the hopeless course of endeavouring to persuade Elizabeth to
treat with France for her release on safe terms. Elizabeth appeared to
listen; but the rumours of the invasion speedily caused her to abandon
any such negotiation, on the plea that, once at liberty, Mary could not
be trusted. Revenge might induce her to ally herself with France and
Spain, to the great peril of England.
No situation in the world could be conceived more miserable than that
of Elizabeth. The captive queen had become to her a source of perpetual
alarms--alarm of invasion from France and from Scotland--alarm at
insurrections among the Papists, whom persecutions kept in a state of
the deepest disaffection. For two years the prisons had been crowded
with Catholics, and the scaffolds drenched with their blood. They had
been persecuted and insulted till they must have been more than mortal
to have felt no desire for revenge. Therefore the country swarmed with
spies and informers; and Walsingham, as a skilful unraveller of plots,
was kept hard at work to trace, by his secret emissaries, every concealed
movement of sedition. Both at home and abroad he had a host of agents
under a multitude of disguises. The Jesuits never had a more expert and
fearless general, nor a more varied army of informers. They presented
themselves in the shape of travelling noblemen, of physicians, of
students in Popish seminaries. They swarmed in sea-ports lying between
England and the different Continental routes. There was scarcely a Roman
Catholic gentleman or nobleman into whose house they had not found their
way. To those whom they suspected of a leaning towards the Queen of Scots
they professed to be confidential agents of her or of her adherents,
and presented forged letters by which they might entrap the unwary into
compromising answers.
At length the chief of the conspirators was brought to justice in the
person of Thomas Throgmorton, the son of Sir John Throgmorton, Chief
Justice of Chester. Walsingham intercepted letters, and by his spies
made his way into every abode and company. He received from his trusty
emissaries the information that Charles Paget, one of the commissioners
of the Queen of Scots' dower--Morgan, just mentioned, being the
other--had landed on the coast of Sussex under the name of Mope. A letter
of Morgan's was also intercepted, and from something in its contents the
two sons of Sir John Throgmorton, Thomas and George, were immediately
arrested and committed to the Tower. The Earl of Northumberland, with
his son the Earl of Arundel, his countess, uncle, and brothers, were
summoned before the Privy Council and repeatedly questioned. The Lord
Paget, brother of Charles Paget, and Charles Arundel, escaped to the
Continent, but sent a declaration that they had fled, not from any sense
of guilt, but from the utter hopelessness of acquittal where Leicester
had any influence. Northumberland and Lord Arundel, with their wives
and relatives, stoutly denied all concern with plots or any species of
disloyalty, and no proof could be brought against them. Meanwhile it
was asserted that the Duke of Guise was proceeding with his scheme of
invasion, and that many English noblemen and gentlemen were co-operating
in it; that a letter had been intercepted from the Scottish Court to
Mary, informing her that James was quite ready to perform his part
of the scheme by invading the kingdom from the north, having had the
promise of 20,000 crowns; but that he was desirous to know who were
the influential persons in England that might be calculated upon for
support. All this was soon wonderfully corroborated by the confession
of Thomas Throgmorton, in whose trunks were found two catalogues, one
of the chief ports, and the other of the principal Romanists in the
kingdom. He admitted that these were for the use of Mendoza, the Spanish
minister, and that he had devised a plan with that ambassador to raise
troops in the name of the queen through the Catholics, who were then to
call on her to tolerate Catholicism, or to depose her. This was a strong
case indeed against the prisoners and the fugitives; and Burleigh, with
Throgmorton's confession in his hand, charged the Spanish ambassador with
his breach of all the laws of nations and of his office. Mendoza had
the impudence to deny the charges; but he was ordered to withdraw from
England, and Throgmorton was hanged (1583). From that hour war with Spain
was inevitable.
The patriotism of England was now awake. An association was formed,
under the influence of the Government, by which all the members bound
themselves to pursue and kill every person who should attempt the
life of the queen, and every person for whose advantage it should be
attempted. This palpably pointed at the Scottish Queen. The bond of
association was shown to Mary as a means of intimidating her. At the
first glance she perceived that it was aimed at her life; but, after a
moment of astonishment, she proposed to sign the bond herself so far as
she was concerned, which, of course, was not permitted, as it would have
neutralised the whole intention, but it was industriously circulated for
signature amongst those who dared not well do otherwise.
The same object was pursued in the Parliament, which met on the 23rd
of November. After the clergy had granted an aid of six shillings in
the pound to be paid in three years, and the Commons a subsidy and
two-fifteenths, an Act was passed condemning as traitors any one who
had been declared by a court of twenty-four commissioners cognisant of
any treasonable designs against the queen; and Mary and her issue were
excluded from the succession in case of the queen coming to a violent
death. The Roman Catholics were also treated with increased severity,
in consequence of the alleged plots. No Popish clergyman was to be
allowed to remain in the kingdom; if found there after forty days he was
pronounced guilty of high treason; any one knowing of his being in the
country, and not giving information within twelve days, was to be fined
and imprisoned during the queen's pleasure; and any one receiving or
relieving him was guilty of felony. All students in Popish seminaries
were called on to return to their native country within six months after
proclamation; parents sending their children to such seminaries without
licence were to forfeit for every such offence a hundred pounds; and the
students themselves forfeited all right to the property of their parents.
To avoid, if possible, the fate which the bill of this Session prepared
for them, the Roman Catholics drew up an earnest and loyal memorial to
the queen, declaring it as their settled and solemn conviction that she
was their sovereign _de jure_ and _de facto_; that neither Pope nor
priest had power to license any one to lift their hand against her, nor
to absolve them were such a crime committed, and that they renounced and
abominated any one who held a contrary doctrine.
All these transactions only tended to aggravate the situation of
the Queen of Scots. She was now taken out of the hands of the Earl
of Shrewsbury, and consigned to the custody of Sir Amyas Paulet, a
dependent of Leicester's, a man of a rigid, gaoler-like disposition,
but not destitute of honour. She was removed from Sheffield Park to the
ruinous stronghold of Tutbury. Finding that all appeals to Elizabeth
and all protestations of her innocence of any participation in, and
even ignorance of, the plots charged on different persons were alike
disregarded, she turned to her son, but only to receive from that quarter
a disregard still harder to bear. James coldly announced to her that he
had nothing to do with her concerns, nor she with his: he was now, in
fact, in the pay of Elizabeth. He bade her remember that she was only
the queen-mother, and enjoyed no authority in Scotland, though she bore
the empty title of queen. Abandoning all hope of assistance from him,
Mary now demanded of Elizabeth to liberate her on any conditions she
pleased--she asked only liberty and life. But her requests were unheeded.
Meanwhile Elizabeth was supporting Protestantism abroad. Henry of Navarre
had become the next in succession to the crown of France, by the death of
the Duke of Anjou in 1584. Being well known as a Protestant, the Roman
Catholics in France, with the Duke of Guise at their head, reorganised
their league, and compelled the French King to subscribe to it. The King
of Spain, a member of the league, promised it all his support. On the
other hand, Elizabeth, anxious to see a Protestant prince on the throne
of France, sent Henry large remittances, and invited him to make England
his home in case his enemies should compel him to retreat for a time,
when he could wait the turn of events. In all this there was nothing to
complain of. Henry had a clear right to the throne of France, and justice
as well as the Reformed faith called upon her to support it; but not so
honourable were her proceedings in the Netherlands. There she secretly
urged to insurrection the subjects of a power with whom she was at peace,
and maintained them by repeated supplies of money.
Sympathising as she did with the oppressed Protestants of the
Netherlands, her course was quite obvious. She could call on Philip to
give to them free exercise of their religion, and if he refused, she had
a fair plea to break with him and to support the cause of the common
religion. But Elizabeth had too much politic regard for the rights of
kings openly to support against them the rights of the people; and, what
was still more embarrassing, she was practising the very intolerance and
persecution against her Roman Catholic subjects that Philip was against
his Protestant ones.
The Primate, when appealed to, stated broadly this fact, and declared
that Philip had as much right to send forces to aid the English Roman
Catholics as Elizabeth had to support the Belgian Protestants. When,
therefore, in June of 1585 the deputies of the revolted provinces of the
Netherlands besought Elizabeth to annex them to her own dominions, she
declined; but in September she signed a treaty with them, engaging to
send them 6,000 men, and received in pledge of their payment the towns
of Brielle and Flushing, and the strong fortress of Rammekens. This
was making war on Philip without any declaration of it; but she still
persisted that she was not assisting the Flemings to throw off their
allegiance to their lawful prince, but was only helping them to recover
undoubted privileges of which they had been deprived.
[Illustration: THE EARL OF LEICESTER.
(_From the Portrait in the Possession of the Marquis of Salisbury._)]
But the fact was, that Elizabeth had long been warring on Spain, and it
was the fault of Spain that it had not declared open war in return. In
1570 she had sent out the celebrated Admiral Drake, to scour the coasts
of the West Indies and South America, on the plea that Spain had no
right to shut up the ports of those countries, and to exclude all other
flags from those seas. Under her commission, Drake and other captains
had ravaged the settlements of Spain in the New World, had plundered
Carthagena, St. Iago, and St. Domingo, and almost every town on the
coasts of Chili and Peru. They had intercepted the Spanish galleons,
or treasure vessels, and carried off immense booty of silver and other
precious articles. But as Drake had received special marks of royal
favour--the queen had dined on board his vessel, the _Golden Hind_, when
it lay at Deptford, and had knighted him (1581) for his services,--and as
there was no declaration of war, all these were clear cases of piracy;
but Philip was too much engaged at home to defend these trans-Atlantic
possessions from the daring sea captains of Elizabeth, and if he did
declare war he at once sanctioned her interference both in the Spanish
seas and in the Netherlands.
To conduct her campaign in the Netherlands, Elizabeth had appointed the
Earl of Leicester. The way in which he conducted himself there was not
calculated to increase his reputation for honesty or military talent. No
sooner did he arrive, than, without consulting the queen, he induced the
States to nominate him governor-general of the United Provinces, with the
title of Excellency, and with supreme power over the army, the State, and
the executive. In fact, his ambition rested with nothing short of being
a king: with nothing but possessing all the title and authority enjoyed
by the Duke of Anjou. When this news reached Elizabeth she flew into a
terrible rage, charged him with presumption and vanity, with contempt of
her authority, and "swore great oaths that she would have no more Courts
under her abeyance than one;" desired him to remember the dust from which
she had raised him, and let him know if he were not obedient to her every
word, she would beat him to the ground as quickly as she had raised him.
The unfortunate States, who thought they were gratifying the Queen of
England when they were honouring her favourite, were confounded at this
discovery; but Leicester, as if he really thought that he could render
himself independent of his royal patroness, remained lofty, insolent, and
silent. Trusting to the position into which he had thus stepped, he left
it to the ministers at home to pacify the queen. He had so long ruled
her that he appeared to think he could still do as he pleased. The great
Burleigh and the cunning Walsingham were at their wits' end to satisfy
Elizabeth: the only letter which they got from Leicester being one to
Hatton, so insolent and arrogant that they dared not present it till they
had remodelled it. Meanwhile, Elizabeth continued to write to the new
captain-general the most bitter reproaches and menaces, and to heap upon
his friends fierce epithets which could not reach him and produced no
effect on him. With all the airs of a great monarch, Leicester progressed
from one city to another, receiving solemn deputations, and giving grand
entertainments in return.
In the field his conduct was as contemptible as in the government. He
had an accomplished general, Alexander Farnese, the Prince of Parma, to
contend with, and never did an English general present so pitiable a
spectacle in a campaign as did Leicester. His great object appeared to
be to avoid a battle, and the only conflict which he engaged in, which
has left a name, is the attack upon Zutphen, on September 22, 1586,
because there fell the gallant and gifted Sir Philip Sidney, in the
thirty-second year of his age.
As autumn approached Leicester marched back his forces to the Hague, and
was greatly disgusted and astonished to be called to account by what he
pleased to name an assembly of shopkeepers and artisans. Not the less
loudly, however, did the merchants and shopkeepers of the Netherlands
upbraid him with the utter failure of the campaign, with the waste of
their money, the violation of their privileges, the ruin of their trade,
and the extorting of the people's money in a manner equally arbitrary and
irritating. In a fit of ineffable disgust he broke up the assembly: the
assembly continued to sit. He next resorted to entreaties and promises;
it regarded these as little. He announced his intention of returning to
England, and in his absence nominated one of his staff to exercise the
supreme government. The assembly insisted on his resigning that charge to
them; he complied, yet, by a private deed, reserved it to himself; and
thus did this proud, empty, inefficient upstart dishonour the queen who
had raised him, the country which had tolerated him, and which had long
impatiently witnessed his arrogance, and his abuse of the queen's favour.
At length, on the approach of winter, he obeyed the call of his sovereign
and returned home. Scarcely had he quitted the Netherlands when the
officers whom he had left in command surrendered the places of strength
to the Prince of Parma, and went over to the Spaniards. The campaign was,
from first to last, a scandal and a disgrace to the English name and
government.
Mary had now been removed, in the early part of this year, to Chartley
Castle, in Staffordshire, under the care of Sir Amyas Paulet; and the
gentlemen in England whom the foreign adherents of the Queen of Scots
had pitched upon to carry out their plan, were a young enthusiastic
Papist--Anthony Babington, of Dethick, near Matlock, in Derbyshire--and
his friends and companions, all men of fortune, family, and education.
Babington had long been an ardent admirer of the Queen of Scots, had
corresponded with her whilst she was at Sheffield Park, and was ready to
devote himself to the death in her cause. At the same time he had such
an idea of the peril of meddling with the government of Elizabeth, that
he despaired of accomplishing Mary's enfranchisement during Elizabeth's
life. Ballard, a Jesuit, assured him that Elizabeth would be taken
off, by command of the Pope; that Savage, an officer who had served in
Flanders, and was exasperated at the death of Throgmorton, had determined
to do it; and that the Prince of Parma would land simultaneously with
that event, and set Mary at liberty. The plan was made known to Mary, and
received her sanction. "When all is ready," she wrote, "the six gentlemen
must be set to work."
Walsingham, who had long been on the watch, was now in possession of all
the evidence that he was likely to get, for Babington soon discovered
that he had been betrayed by somebody, whom he could not tell; and
though he remained in London as though there were no danger, he made
preparations for the escape of Ballard to the Continent, by procuring him
a passport under a feigned name. Every moment might throw fresh light on
the deception, and allow the escape of the victims. On the 4th of August,
therefore, Babington found his house entered by the pursuivants of
Walsingham, and Ballard, who had not got off, was there seized. Babington
escaped for the moment, but was arrested on the 7th, and was taken to the
country house of Walsingham, but escaped from the servants into whose
charge he was given. With his friends and accomplices, Gage, Charnock,
Barnewell, and Donne, he concealed himself in St. John's Wood, till
they were compelled by hunger to make their way to the house of their
common friend Bellamy, at Harrow, who concealed them in his outhouses and
gardens. But the cunning Walsingham had his agents on their trail the
whole time, and on the 15th they walked into the premises of Bellamy,
secured the concealed conspirators, together with their host, his wife
and brother, and conveyed them, amid the shouts and execrations of the
populace, and the universal ringing of bells, to the Tower, whither also
were soon brought Abingdon, Tichbourne, Tilney, Travers; the only one of
the friends of Babington that escaped being Edward Windsor, the brother
of Lord Windsor.
On the 13th of September, Babington, Ballard, Savage, Donne, Barnewell,
and Tichbourne were put upon their trial, charged with a conspiracy
to murder Elizabeth, and raise a rebellion in favour of the Queen of
Scots. They pleaded guilty to one or other of the charges, and seven
others pleaded not guilty; but all were alike convicted, and condemned
to the death of traitors. The greater part of them appear to have taken
no part in the blacker part of the conspiracy, the design to murder
Elizabeth; and some of them, as Tichbourne and Jones, declared that they
had taken no part whatever, but merely kept the secret for the sake of
their friends. Bellamy was condemned for affording them an asylum; his
wife escaped through a flaw in the indictment. Pooley, the decoy, was
imprisoned as a blind, and then liberated; and Gifford was already in
prison in Paris, where, three years later, he died. On the 20th and 21st
of September, 1586, they were executed in Lincoln's Inn Fields, because
they used there to hold their meetings.
Though no mention was made on the trial of any participation of the Queen
of Scots in this conspiracy, nothing was farther from the intention of
Elizabeth and her ministers than her escape. They had already prepared
for her death by the bill passed empowering twenty-four or more of the
Lords of the Council and other peers to sit in judgment on any one
concerned in attempts to raise rebellion, or to injure the queen's
person. To procure every possible evidence for this end the following
stratagem was used:--The Queen of Scots was kept in total ignorance
of the seizure of the conspirators, and on the copy of her letter to
Babington being laid before the Council, an order was sent down to Sir
Amyas Paulet to seize all her papers and keep her in more rigorous
confinement. Accordingly, one morning, Mary took a drive in her carriage,
accompanied, as was her custom, by Paulet, but with a larger attendance.
When Mary desired to return, Paulet told her that he had orders to convey
her to Tixall, a house belonging to Sir Walter Aston, about three miles
distant. Astonished and alarmed, Mary refused to go, and declared that
if they took her there it should be by force. She must have suspected
the design of searching her cabinets during her absence; but, in spite
of her protestations and her tears, she was compelled to proceed. There
she was confined to two rooms only, was guarded in the strictest manner,
and debarred the use of pen, ink, and paper. Meanwhile Sir William
Wade arrived at Chartley, and proceeded to break open the cabinets and
take possession of all her letters and papers, as well as those of her
secretaries. A large chest was filled with these papers, amongst which
were Mary's own minute of the answer to Babington, and other damning
proofs. It was determined to bring her to a public trial.
Mary was now removed to Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire, in
preparation for her trial. It was first proposed to convey her to the
Tower, but they feared her friends in the City; then the castle of
Hertford was suggested, but that also was thought too near the capital;
and Grafton, Woodstock, Coventry, Northampton, and Huntingdon were all
proposed and rejected, showing that her enemies were well aware of the
seriousness of the business they contemplated.
On the 5th of October a commission was issued to forty-six persons,
peers, privy councillors, and judges, constituting a court competent to
inquire into and determine all offences committed against the statute
of the 27th of the Queen, either by Mary, daughter and heiress of James
V., late of Scotland, or by any other person whomsoever. The moment this
was known, Chasteauneuf, the French ambassador, demanded in the name
of his sovereign that Mary should be allowed counsel, according to the
universal practice of civilised nations. But Elizabeth sent him a message
by Hatton, that "she did not require the advice or schooling of foreign
powers to instruct her how she ought to act."
On the 12th the commissioners arrived at the castle. They were the Lord
Chancellor Bromley, the Lord Treasurer Burleigh, and many other magnates.
On the 14th the Court assembled in the great hall of Fotheringay, at the
upper end of which was placed a chair of State with a canopy, as for
the queen of England; and below it, at some distance, a chair without
a canopy, for the Queen of Scots. The Chancellor, Bromley, opened the
Court by informing Mary that the Queen of England, having heard that she
had conspired against her state and person, had deputed them to inquire
into the fact. Upon this Mary, who had at first refused to plead at all,
entered her solemn protest against their authority, declaring that she
had come as a friendly sovereign to seek aid from her cousin, the Queen
of England, and had been unjustly detained by her as a prisoner; on that
ground she denied their authority to try her. It was permitted to record
her protest, together with the Chancellor's reply.
The charges against her were two: first, that she had conspired with
traitors and foreigners to invade the realm, and secondly, to compass the
death of the queen. As to the first charge Mary pleaded guilty to it, and
justified it. They grounded this charge on a host of letters intercepted
or found in her cabinets, to and from Mendoza, Paget, Morgan, and others.
From these it appeared that she had sanctioned an invasion on her
behalf, had offered to raise her friends to support it, and had requested
that those in Scotland should make themselves master of the person of her
son, and prevent any aid from being sent to the Government of England.
When they came to the second charge, the conspiracy to murder Elizabeth,
she denied any participation in it totally, indignantly, and with tears.
She called God to witness the truth of her assertion, and prayed Him,
if she were guilty of such a crime, to grant her no mercy. The proofs
produced to establish her approval of this design were--first, the copy
of the letter of Babington, in which was this passage:--"For the dispatch
of the usurper, from the obedience of whom, by the excommunication of
her, we are made free, there be six noble gentlemen, all my private
friends, who, for the zeal they bear to the Catholic cause and your
majesty's service, will undertake the tragical execution." Next there
was a copy of seven points, which were professedly derived from her
answer to Babington, the sixth of which was, "By what means do the six
gentlemen deliberate to proceed?" After these came the confessions of
Mary's secretaries, and, finally, reported admissions in her letters to
her foreign correspondents of having received these intimations of their
intention to assassinate the queen, and of having given them cautions and
instructions on this point.
Mary at first denied any correspondence with Babington, but she soon
saw enough to convince her that they had the correspondence in their
possession, and admitted having written the note of the 18th, but not
any such answer to Babington on the 17th of July, as they asserted. She
demanded the production of the original letters, and the production of
her secretaries Nau and Curle face to face with her, for that Nau was
timid and simple, and Curle so accustomed to obey Nau, that he would
not do otherwise; but she was sure that in her presence they would not
venture to speak falsely. But neither of these things, no doubt for the
strongest of reasons, was consented to. As to her letters, she said it
was not the first time that they had been garbled and interpolated. It
was easy for one man to imitate the writing and ciphers of another; and
she greatly feared that Walsingham had done it in this instance, to
practise against the lives of both herself and her son. In fact, her
defence was most ingenious but quite unconvincing.
[Illustration: TRIAL OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS IN FOTHERINGAY CASTLE. (_See
p._ 308.)]
On this the commissioners adjourned their sitting to the 15th of October,
and from Fotheringay to the Star Chamber at Westminster. There the
secretaries were re-examined, and finally the commissioners unanimously
signed Mary's condemnation, the sentence running as follows:--"For that
since the conclusion of the session of Parliament, namely, since the
first day of June, in the twenty-seventh year of her Majesty's reign and
before the date of the commission, divers matters have been compassed and
imagined within this realm of England by Anthony Babington and others,
with the privity of the said Mary, pretending a title to the Crown of
this realm of England, tending to the hurt, death, and destruction of
the royal person of our lady the queen; and also for that the aforesaid
Mary, pretending a title to the Crown, hath herself compassed and
imagined within this realm divers matters tending to the hurt, death, and
destruction to the royal person of our sovereign lady the queen, contrary
to the form of the statute in the commission aforesaid specified." Nau
and Curle were declared abettors, so that it was a sentence of death to
all the three. To this a provision was added that the sentence should
in no way derogate from the right or dignity of her son, James King of
Scotland.
On the 29th of October--that is, four days after the passing of this
sentence--Elizabeth assembled her Parliament. She had summoned it for
the 15th, anticipating quicker work at Fotheringay, but prorogued it to
this date. The proceedings of the trial were laid before each house, and
both Lords and Commons petitioned Elizabeth to enforce the execution of
the Queen of Scots without delay. Serjeant Puckering, the Speaker of the
Commons, in communicating the prayer of the House, reminded Elizabeth of
the wrath of God against persons who neglected to execute His judgments,
as in the case of Saul, who had spared Agag, and Ahab, who had spared
Benhadad. Elizabeth replied with perfect serenity that she was unwilling
to shed the blood of that wicked woman, the Queen of Scots, though she
had so often sought her life, for the preservation of which she expressed
her deep gratitude to Almighty God. She wished that she and Mary were
two milkmaids, with pails upon their arms, and then she would forgive
her all her wrongs. As for her own life, she had no desire on her own
account to preserve it; she had nothing left worth living for; but for
her people she could endure much. Still, the call of her Council, her
Parliament, and her people to execute justice on her own kinswoman, had
brought her into a great strait and struggle of mind. But then, she said,
she would confide to them a secret: that certain persons had sworn an
oath within these few days to take her life or be hanged themselves. She
had written proof of this, and she must, therefore, remind them of their
own oath of association for the defence of her person. "She thought it
requisite," she said, "with earnest prayer to beseech the Divine Majesty
so to illuminate her understanding, and to inspire her with His grace,
that she might see clearly to do and determine that which would serve to
the establishment of His Church, the preservation of their estates, and
the prosperity of the commonwealth."
She sent a message to the two Houses, expressing the great conflict which
she had had in her own mind, and begging to know whether they could not
devise some means of sparing the life of her relative. Both Houses, on
the 25th, returned answer that this was impossible. To this declaration
of Parliament she returned to them one of her enigmatical answers, "If I
should say that I meant not to grant your petition, by my faith, I should
say unto you more perhaps than I mean. And if I should say that I mean to
grant it, I should tell you more than it is fit for you to know. Thus I
must deliver to you an answer answerless."
On the 6th of December proclamation of the judgment of the commissioners
against the Queen of Scots was made through London by sound of trumpet,
whereupon the populace made great rejoicings, kindled large bonfires, and
rang the bells all day as if some joyful event had occurred. They were
so fully persuaded that the Queen of Scots was at the bottom of all the
alleged and real plots for the overturn of the Government, the bringing
in of the King of Spain, and the Roman Catholic religion, that their
exultation was boundless.
Meanwhile, in spite of the eagerness of the nation, Elizabeth hesitated
to put Mary to death. Her conduct was tortuous, for she was devising to
escape the opprobrium. At length Lord Howard of Effingham persuaded her
that she could delay no longer. She went about continually muttering
to herself, "_Aut fer aut feri: ne feriare feri_" ("Either endure or
strike: strike lest thou be stricken"). Instead of proceeding to sign
the death-warrant and let the execution take its course, she had it
again debated in the Council whether it were not better to take her
off by poison. Walsingham, who saw that the responsibility would be
certainly thrown on somebody near the queen, got away from Court; and the
warrant, drawn up by Burleigh, was handed by him to Davison, the queen's
secretary, to get it engrossed and presented to the queen for signature.
When he did this, she bade him keep it awhile, and it lay in his hands
for five or six weeks. But both Leicester and Burleigh were impatient for
its execution; and directly after the departure of James's ambassadors
in February, he was ordered to present it; and then Elizabeth signed it,
bidding him take it to the Great Seal, "and trouble her no more with
it." Then, as if suddenly recollecting herself, she said, "Surely Paulet
and Drury might ease me of this burden. Do you and Walsingham sound
their dispositions." Burleigh and Leicester, to whom Davison showed the
warrant, urged him to send it to Fotheringay without a moment's delay;
but Davison had a feeling that he certainly should get into trouble if
he did so. He therefore went on to Walsingham, and after showing him
the warrant, they then and there made a rough draft of a letter to Sir
Amyas Paulet and Sir Drew Drury, Mary's additional keeper, proposing
that they should act on their own authority, as the queen requested.
While Walsingham made a fair copy, Davison went to the Lord Chancellor
and got the great seal affixed to the warrant. Davison the next day
had confirmation doubly strong that Elizabeth was watching to entrap
him in the matter. She asked him if the warrant had passed the Great
Seal. He said it had; on which she immediately said, "Why such haste?"
He inquired whether, then, she did not wish the affair to proceed. She
replied, certainly; but that she thought it might be better managed, as
the execution of the warrant threw the whole burden upon her. Davison
said he did not know who else could bear it, as her laws made it murder
to destroy the meanest subject without her warrant. At this her patience
appeared exhausted, and she uttered a wish that she had but two such
subjects as Morton and Archibald Douglas.
Davison was terrified at the gulf on the edge of which he saw himself
standing, with the queen ready and longing to drag him in. He went to
Hatton, and told him that though he had her orders to send off the
warrant to Fotheringay at once, he would not do it of himself. They
therefore went together to Burleigh, who coincided with them in the
demand for caution. He therefore summoned the Council the next morning,
and it was there unanimously agreed, as the queen had discharged her
duty, to do theirs, and to proceed on joint responsibility. The warrant
was therefore issued.
On the 7th of February the order for Mary's death reached Fotheringay.
The Earl of Shrewsbury, who had guarded her so many years, as Earl
Marshal, had now the painful office of carrying into effect her
execution. There had been for some time a growing feeling at Fotheringay
that the last day of Mary was at hand, for there had been a remarkable
coming and going of strangers. When Shrewsbury was announced, his office
proclaimed the fatal secret. The Scottish queen rose from her bed, and
was dressed to receive him, having seated herself at a small table
with her servants disposed around her. The Earl of Shrewsbury entered,
followed by the Earls of Kent, Cumberland, and Derby, as well as by the
sheriff and several gentlemen of the county. Beale, the clerk of the
Council, read the order for the execution, to which Mary listened with
the utmost apparent equanimity. When it was finished she crossed herself,
bade them welcome, and assured them that she had long waited for the day
which had now arrived; that twenty years of miserable imprisonment had
made her a burden to herself and useless to others; and that she could
conceive no close of life so happy or so honourable as that of shedding
her blood for her religion. She recited her injuries and the frauds and
perjuries of her enemies, and then laying her hand on the Testament upon
her table, called God to witness that she had never imagined, much less
attempted, anything against the life of the Queen of England. A long
conversation followed, and Mary asked whether the foreign powers had
made no efforts in her behalf, and whether her only son had forgotten
her; and finally, when she was to suffer. The Earl of Shrewsbury replied
with much emotion, "To-morrow morning, at eight o'clock." Mary received
this announcement with a calm dignity which awed and even affected
the beholders. And on the scaffold, which was erected in the hall of
Fotheringay, she played her part with the same perfection of acting,
posing as a religious martyr and wholly ignoring the political crimes of
which she had been guilty (February 8, 1587).
The Earl of Shrewsbury sent his son with the intelligence of the
execution of Mary, which reached Court the next day. Burleigh, who
received the letter, immediately sent for Davison and several of the
Privy Council, and it was resolved to keep the fact from the queen for a
short time. But such a fact, though it might be officially, could not be
otherwise concealed. The news flew abroad, and the Protestant population
gave the reins to their joy by the ringing of bells and kindling of
bonfires. Elizabeth neither could nor did remain ignorant of the cause of
this noisy exultation. She inquired why the bells rang so merrily, and
was told, says Davison, "for the execution of the Queen of Scots;" but
she took no notice of it, having not been officially informed. Far from
displaying any emotion of any kind, she took her usual airing, and on her
return appeared to be enjoying herself in the company of Don Antonio,
the pretender to the Crown of Portugal. But in the morning, being then
officially informed, she flew into very well-acted paroxysms of rage and
grief. She declared that she had never contemplated or sanctioned such a
thing; that Davison had betrayed her, whom she had charged not to let the
warrant go out of his hands; and that the whole Privy Council had acted
most unjustifiably.
[Illustration: MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS RECEIVING INTIMATION OF HER DOOM.
(_See p._ 311.)]
Davison, who fondly hoped that he had secured himself under the shield of
the Privy Council, made his appearance at Court; but the councillors, who
saw there must be a victim, advised him to keep out of sight for a few
days; and the consequence was, that his amiable friends of the Council
most likely made him their scapegoat, for he was immediately arrested and
committed to the Tower. But the ministers themselves did not escape their
share of the storm. For four days the matter was before the Council, and
they received the severest and most unmeasured upbraidings from their
royal mistress, the burden being naturally thrown on poor Davison, who
was actually dismissed from the public service and condemned to pay a
large fine.
[Illustration: _By permission, from the Painting in the City of
Manchester Art Gallery._
THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA, 1588.
By ALBERT GOODWIN, R.W.S.]