1560.
Successful campaign in Scotland.--Embassy of viscount Montacute to
Spain--of sir T. Chaloner to the Emperor.--Account of Chaloner.--Letter
of his respecting Dudley and the queen.--Dudley loses his
wife.--Mysterious manner of her death.--Suspicion cast upon her
husband.--Dudley and several other courtiers aspire to the hand of their
sovereign.--Tournaments in her honor.--Impresses.--Sir W.
Pickering.--Rivalry of Arundel and Dudley.
The accession of Francis II., husband to the queen of Scots, to the
French throne had renewed the dangers of Elizabeth from the hostility of
France and of Scotland; and in the politic resolution of removing from
her own territory to that of her enemies the seat of a war which she saw
to be inevitable, she levied a strong army and sent it under the command
of the duke of Norfolk and lord Grey de Wilton to the frontiers of
Scotland. She also entered into a close connexion with the protestant
party in that country, who were already in arms against the queen-regent
and her French auxiliaries. Success attended this well-planned
expedition, and at the end of a single campaign Elizabeth was able to
terminate the war by the treaty of Edinburgh; a convention the terms of
which were such as effectually to secure her from all fear of future
molestation in this quarter.
During the period of these hostilities, however, her situation was an
anxious one. It was greatly to be feared that the emperor and the king
of Spain, forgetting in their zeal for the catholic church the habitual
enmity of the house of Austria against that of Bourbon, would make
common cause with France against a sovereign who now stood forth the
avowed protectress of protestantism; and such a combination of the great
powers of Europe, seconded by a large catholic party at home, England
was by no means in a condition to withstand. By skilful negotiation it
seemed possible to avert these evils; and Elizabeth, by her selection of
diplomatic agents on this important occasion, gave striking evidence of
her superior judgement.
To plead her cause with the king of Spain, she dispatched Anthony Browne
viscount Montacute; a nobleman who, to the general recommendation of
wisdom and experience in public affairs, added the peculiar one, for
this service, of a zealous attachment to the Romish faith, proved by his
determined opposition in the house of lords to the bill of uniformity
lately carried by a great majority. The explanations and arguments of
the viscount prevailed so far with Philip, that he ordered his
ambassador at Rome to oppose the endeavours of the French court to
prevail on the pope to fulminate his ecclesiastical censures against
Elizabeth. It was found impracticable, however, to bring him to terms of
cordial amity with a heretic sovereign whose principles he both detested
and dreaded; and by returning, some time after, the decorations of the
order of the garter, he distinctly intimated to the queen, that motives
of policy alone restrained him from becoming her open enemy.
For ambassador to the emperor she made choice, at the recommendation
probably of Cecil, of his relation and beloved friend sir Thomas
Chaloner the elder, a statesman, a soldier, and a man of letters; and in
these three characters, so rarely united, one of the distinguished
ornaments of his age. He was born in 1515 of a good family in Wales,
and, being early sent to Cambridge, became known as a very elegant Latin
poet, and generally as a young man of the most promising talents. After
a short residence at court, his merit caused him to be selected to
attend into Germany sir Henry Knevet the English ambassador, with a view
to his qualifying himself for future diplomatic employment. At the court
of Charles V. he was received with extraordinary favor; and after
waiting upon that monarch, in several of his journeys, he was at length
induced, by admiration of his character, to accompany him as a volunteer
in his rash expedition against Algiers. He was shipwrecked in the storm
which almost destroyed the fleet, and only escaped drowning by catching
in his mouth, as he was struggling with the waves, a cable, by which he
was drawn up into a ship with the loss of several of his teeth.
Returning home, he was made clerk of the council, which office he held
during the remainder of Henry's reign. Early in the next he was
distinguished by the protector, and, having signalized his valor in the
battle of Pinkey, was knighted by him on the field. The fall of his
patron put a stop to his advancement; but he solaced himself under this
reverse by the cultivation of literature, and of friendship with such
men as Cook, Smith, Cheke, and Cecil. The strictness of his protestant
principles rendered his situation under the reign of Mary both
disagreeable and hazardous, and he generously added to its perils by his
strenuous exertions in behalf of the unfortunate Cheke; but the services
which he had rendered in Edward's time to many of the oppressed
catholics now interested their gratitude in his protection, and were
thus the means of preserving him unhurt for better times.
Soon after his return from his embassy to the emperor Ferdinand, we find
him engaged in a very perplexing and disagreeable mission to the
unfriendly court of Philip II., where the mortifications which he
encountered, joined to the insalubrity of the climate, so impaired his
health that he found himself obliged to solicit his recall, which he did
in an Ovidian elegy addressed to the queen. The petition of the poet was
granted, but too late; he sunk under a lingering malady in October 1565,
a few months after his return.
The poignant grief of Cecil for his loss found its best alleviation in
the exemplary performance of all the duties of surviving friendship. He
officiated as chief mourner at his funeral, and superintended with
solicitude truly paternal the education of his son, Thomas Chaloner the
younger, afterwards a distinguished character. By his encouragement, the
Latin poems of his friend, chiefly consisting of epitaphs and panegyrics
on his most celebrated contemporaries, were collected and published;
and it was under his patronage, and prefaced by a Latin poem from his
pen in praise of the author, that a new and complete edition appeared of
the principal work of this accomplished person;--a tractate "on the
right ordering of the English republic," also in Latin.
Sir Thomas Chaloner was the first ambassador named by Elizabeth; a
distinction of which he proved himself highly deserving. Wisdom and
integrity he was already known to possess; and in his negotiations with
the imperial court, where it was his business to draw the bonds of amity
as close as should be found practicable without pledging his mistress to
the acceptance of the hand of the archduke Charles, he also manifested a
degree of skill and dexterity which drew forth the warmest commendations
from Elizabeth herself. His conduct, she said, had far exceeded all her
expectations of his prudence and abilities.
This testimony may be allowed to give additional weight to his opinion
on a point of great delicacy in the personal conduct of her majesty, as
well as on some more general questions of policy, expressed in a
postscript to one of his official letters to secretary Cecil. The
letter, it should be observed, was written near the close of the year
1559, when the favor of the queen to Dudley had first become a subject
of general remark, and before all hopes were lost of her finally closing
with the proposals of the archduke.
"I assure you, sir, these folks are broad-mouthed where I spake of one
too much in favor, as they esteem. I think ye guess whom they named; if
ye do not, I will upon my next letters write further. To tell you what
I conceive; as I count the slander most false, so a young princess
cannot be too wary what countenance or familiar demonstration she
maketh, more to one than another. I judge no man's service in the realm
worth the entertainment with such a tale of obloquy, or occasion of
speech to such men as of evil will are ready to find faults. This delay
of ripe time for marriage, besides the loss of the realm (for without
posterity of her highness what hope is left unto us?) ministereth matter
to these leud tongues to descant upon, and breedeth contempt. I would I
had but one hour's talk with you. Think if I trusted not your good
nature, I would not write thus much; which nevertheless I humbly pray
you to reserve as written to yourself.
"Consider how ye deal now in the emperor's matter: much dependeth on it.
Here they hang in expectation as men desirous it should go forward, but
yet they have small hope: In mine opinion (be it said to you only) the
affinity is great and honorable: The amity necessary to stop and cool
many enterprises. Ye need not fear his greatness should overrule you; he
is not a Philip, but better for us than a Philip. Let the time work for
Scotland as God will, for sure the French, I believe, shall never long
enjoy them: and when we be stronger and more ready, we may proceed with
that, that is yet unripe. The time itself will work, when our great
neighbours fall out next. In the mean time settle we things begun; and
let us arm and fortify our frontiers." &c.[46]
[Note 46: "Burleigh Papers," by Haynes, p. 212.]
Sufficient evidence remains that the sentiments of Cecil respecting the
queen's behaviour to Dudley coincided with those of his friend, and that
fears for her reputation gave additional urgency about this period to
those pleadings in favor of matrimony which her council were doomed to
press upon her attention so often and so much in vain. But a
circumstance occurred soon after which totally changed the nature of
their apprehensions respecting her future conduct, and rendered her
anticipated choice of a husband no longer an object of hope and joy, but
of general dissatisfaction and alarm.
Just when the whispered scandal of the court had apprized him how
obvious to all beholders the partiality of his sovereign had
become,--just when her rejection of the proposals of so many foreign
princes had confirmed the suspicion that her heart had given itself at
home,--just, in short, when every thing conspired to sanction hopes
which under any other circumstances would have appeared no less
visionary than presumptuous,--at the very juncture most favorable to his
ambition, but most perilous to his reputation, lord Robert Dudley lost
his wife, and by a fate equally sudden and mysterious.
This unfortunate lady had been sent by her husband, under the conduct of
sir Richard Verney, one of his retainers,--but for what reason or under
what pretext does not appear,--to Cumnor House in Berkshire, a solitary
mansion inhabited by Anthony Foster, also a dependent of Dudley's and
bound to him by particular obligations. Here she soon after met with her
death; and Verney and Foster, who appear to have been alone in the
house with her, gave out that it happened by an accidental fall down
stairs. But this account, from various causes, gained so little credit
in the neighbourhood, that reports of the most sinister import were
quickly propagated. These discourses soon reached the ears of Thomas
Lever, a prebendary of Coventry and a very conscientious person, who
immediately addressed to the secretaries of state an earnest letter,
still extant, beseeching them to cause strict inquiry to be made into
the case, as it was commonly believed that the lady had been murdered:
but he mentioned no particular grounds of this belief, and it cannot now
be ascertained whether any steps were taken in consequence of his
application. If there were, they certainly produced no satisfactory
explanation of the circumstance; for not only the popular voice, which
was ever hostile to Dudley, continued to accuse him as the contriver of
her fate, but Cecil himself, in a memorandum drawn up some years after
of reasons against the queen's making him her husband, mentions among
other objections, "that he is infamed by the death of his wife."
Whether the thorough investigation of this matter was evaded by the
artifices of Dudley, or whether his enemies, finding it impracticable to
bring the crime home to him, found it more advisable voluntarily to drop
the inquiry, certain it is, that the queen was never brought in any
manner to take cognisance of the affair, and that the credit of Dudley
continued as high with her as ever. But in the opinion of the country
the favorite passed ever after for a dark designer, capable of
perpetrating any secret villainy in furtherance of his designs, and
skilful enough to conceal his atrocity under a cloak of artifice and
hypocrisy impervious to the partial eyes of his royal mistress, though
penetrated by all the world besides. This idea of his character caused
him afterwards to be accused of practising against the lives of several
other persons who were observed to perish opportunely for his purposes.
Each of these charges will be particularly examined in its proper place;
but it ought here to be observed, that not one of them appears to be
supported by so many circumstances of probability as the first; and even
in support of this, no direct evidence has ever been adduced.
Under all the circumstances of his situation, Dudley could not venture
as yet openly to declare himself the suitor of his sovereign; but she
doubtless knew how to interpret both the vehemence of his opposition to
the pretensions of the archduke, and the equal vehemence with which
those pretensions were supported by an opposite party in her council, of
which the earl of Sussex was the head.
Few could yet be persuaded that the avowed determination of the queen in
favor of the single state would prove unalterable: most therefore who
observed her averseness to a foreign connexion believed that she was
secretly meditating to honor with her hand some subject of her own, who
could never have a separate interest from that of his country, and whose
gratitude for the splendid distinction would secure to her the
possession of his lasting attachment.
This idea long served to animate the assiduities of her nobles and
courtiers, and two or three besides Dudley were bold enough to publish
their pretensions. Secret hopes or wishes were cherished in the bosoms
of others; and it thus became a fashion to accost her in language where
the passionate homage of the lover mingled with the base adulation of
the menial. Her personal vanity, triumphant over her good sense and her
perceptions of regal dignity, forbade her to discourage a style of
address equally disgraceful to those who employed and to her who
permitted it; and it was this unfortunate habit of receiving, and at
length requiring, a species of flattery which became every year more
grossly preposterous, which depraved by degrees her taste, infected her
whole disposition, and frequently lent to the wisest sovereign of Europe
the disgusting affectation of a heroine of French romance.
Tilts and tournaments were still the favorite amusements of all the
courts of Europe; and it was in these splendid exhibitions that the
rival courtiers of Elizabeth found the happiest occasions of displaying
their magnificence, giving proof of their courage and agility, and at
the same time insinuating, by a variety of ingenious devices, their
hopes and fears, their amorous pains, and their profound devotedness to
her service.
In the purer ages of chivalry, no other cognisances on shields were
adopted, either in war or in these games which were its image, than the
armorial bearings which each warrior had derived from his ancestors, or
solemnly received at the hands of the heralds before he entered on his
first campaign. But as the spirit of the original institution declined,
and the French fashion of gallantry began to be engrafted upon it, an
innovation had taken place in this matter, which is thus commemorated
and deplored by the worthy Camden, Clarencieux king-at-arms, who treats
the subject with a minuteness and solemnity truly professional.
"Whoever," says he, "would note the manners of our progenitors,--in
wearing their coat-armour over their harness, and bearing their arms in
their shields, their banners and pennons, and in what formal manner they
were made bannerets, and had license to rear their banner of arms, which
they presented rolled up, unto the prince, who unfolded and re-delivered
it with happy wishes; I doubt not but he will judge that our ancestors
were as valiant and gallant as they have been since they left off their
arms and used the colors and curtains of their mistress' bed instead of
them." The same author afterwards observes, that these fopperies, as
well as the adoption of _impresses_, first prevailed in the expedition
of Charles VIII. against Naples in 1494, and that it was about the
beginning of the reign of Henry VIII. that the English wits first
thought of imitating the French and Italians in the invention of these
devices.
An _impress_, it seems, was an emblematical device assumed at the will
of the bearer, and illustrated by a suitable motto; whereas the coat of
arms had either no motto, or none appropriate. Of this nature therefore
was the representation of an English archer, with the words "Cui adhaereo
praeest" (He prevails to whom I adhere), used by Henry VIII. at his
meeting with Charles and Francis.
Elizabeth delighted in these whimsical inventions. Camden says that she
"used upon different occasions so many heroical devices as would require
a volume," but most commonly a sieve without a word. Her favorite mottos
were "Video taceo" (I see and am silent), and "Semper eadem" (Always the
same). Thus patronized, the use of impresses became general. Scarcely a
public character of that age, whether statesman, courtier, scholar, or
soldier, was unprovided with some distinction of this nature; and at
tournaments in particular, the combatants all vied with each other in
the invention of occasional devices, sometimes quaintly, sometimes
elegantly, expressive of their situation or sentiments, and for the most
part conveying some allusion at once gallant and loyal.
It may be worth while to cite a few of the most remarkable of these out
of a considerable number preserved by Camden. The prevalence amongst
them of astronomical emblems is worthy of observation, as indicative of
that general belief of the age in the delusions of judicial astrology,
which rendered its terms familiar alike to the learned, the great, and
the fair.
A dial with the sun setting, "Occasu desines esse" (Thy being ceases
with its setting). The sun shining on a bush, "Si deseris pereo"
(Forsake me, and I perish). The sun reflecting his rays from the bearer,
"Quousque avertes" (How long wilt thou avert thy face)? Venus in a
cloud, "Salva me, Domina" (Mistress, save me). The letter I, "Omnia ex
uno" (All things from one). A fallow field, "At quando messis" (When
will be the harvest)? The full moon in heaven, "Quid sine te coelum"
(What is heaven without thee)? Cynthia, it should be observed, was a
favorite fancy-name of the queen's; she was also designated occasionally
by that of Astraea, whence the following devices. A man hovering in the
air, "Feror ad Astraeam" (I am borne to Astraea). The zodiac with Virgo
rising, "Jam redit et Virgo" (The Maid returns); and a zodiac with no
characters but those of Leo and Virgo, "His ego praesidiis" (With these
to friend). A star, "Mihi vita Spica Virginis" (My life is in Spica
Virginis)--a star in the left hand of Virgo so called: here the allusion
was probably double; to the queen, and to the horoscope of the bearer.
The twelve houses of heaven with neither sign nor planet therein,
"Dispone" (Dispose). A white shield, "Fatum inscribat Eliza" (Eliza
writes my fate). An eye in a heart, "Vulnus alo" (I feed the wound). A
ship sinking and the rainbow appearing, "Quid tu si pereo" (To what
avail if I perish)? As the rainbow is an emblem seen in several
portraits of the queen, this device probably reproaches some tardy and
ineffectual token of her favor. The sun shining on a withered tree which
blooms again, "His radiis rediviva viresco" (These rays revive me). A
pair of scales, fire in one, smoke in the other, "Ponderare errare" (To
weigh is to err).
At one tilt were borne all the following devices, which Camden
particularly recommends to the notice and interpretation of the reader.
Many flies about a candle, "Sic splendidiora petuntur" ("Thus brighter
things are sought). Drops falling into a fire, "Tamen non extinguenda"
(Yet not to be extinguished). The sun, partly clouded over, casting its
rays upon a star, "Tantum quantum" (As much as is vouchsafed). A folded
letter, "Lege et relege"[47] (Read and reread).
[Note 47: See Camden's "Remains."]
It would have increased our interest in these very significant
impresses, if our author could have informed us who were the respective
bearers. Perhaps conjecture would not err in ascribing one of the most
expressive to sir William Pickering, a gentleman whose name has been
handed down to posterity as an avowed pretender to the royal marriage.
That a person illustrious neither by rank nor ancestry, and so little
known to fame that no other mention of him occurs in the history of the
age, should ever have been named amongst the suitors of his sovereign,
is a circumstance which must excite more curiosity than the scanty
biographical records of the time will be found capable of satisfying. A
single paragraph of Camden's Annals seems to contain nearly all that can
now be learned of a man once so remarkable.
"Nor were lovers wanting at home, who deluded themselves with vain hopes
of obtaining her in marriage. Namely sir William Pickering, a man of
good family though little wealth, and who had obtained reputation by the
cultivation of letters, by the elegance of his manners, and by his
embassies to France and Germany." &c.
Rapin speaks of him as one who was encouraged to hope by some
distinguished mark of the queen's favor, which he does not however
particularize. Lloyd in his "Worthies" adds nothing to Camden's
information but the epithet "comely" applied to his person, the vague
statement that "his embassies in France and Germany were so well
managed, that in king Edward's days he was by the council pitched upon
as the oracle whereby our agents were to be guided abroad," and a hint
that he soon retired from the court of Elizabeth to devote himself to
his studies.
The earl of Arundel might be the bearer of another of these devices. We
have already seen with what magnificence of homage this nobleman had
endeavoured to bespeak the favorable sentiments of his youthful
sovereign; and if illustrious ancestry, vast possessions, established
consequence in the state, and long experience in public affairs, might
have sufficed to recommend a subject to her choice, none could have
advanced fairer pretensions than the representative of the ancient house
of Fitzalan. The advanced age of the earl was indeed an objection of
considerable and daily increasing weight; he persevered however in his
suit, notwithstanding the queen's visible preference of Dudley and every
other circumstance of discouragement, till the year 1566. Losing then
all hopes of success, and becoming sensible at length of pecuniary
difficulties from the vast expense which he had lavished on this
splendid courtship, he solicited the permission of his royal mistress to
retire for a time into Italy.
While it lasted, however, the rivalry of Arundel and Dudley, or rather,
in the heraldic phraseology of the day, that of the White Horse and the
Bear, divided the court, inflamed the passions of the numerous retainers
of the respective candidates, and but for the impartial vigilance of
Cecil might have ended in deeds of blood.
In the Burleigh Papers is a confession of one Guntor, a servant or
retainer of the earl of Arundel, who was punished for certain rash
speeches relative to this competition, from which we learn some curious
particulars. He says, that he once fell in talk with a gentleman named
Cotton, who told him, that the queen, having supped one evening at lord
Robert Dudley's, it was dark before she could get away; and some
servants of the house were sent with torches to light her home. That by
the way her highness was pleased to enter into conversation with the
torch-bearers, and was reported to have said, that she would make their
lord the best that ever was of his name. As the father of lord Robert
was a duke, this promise was understood to imply nothing less than her
design of marrying him. On this Guntor answered, that he prayed all men
might take it well, and that no trouble might arise thereof; afterwards
he said, that he thought if a parliament were held, some men would
recommend lord Robert, and some his own master to the queen for a
husband; and so it might fortune there would rise trouble among the
noblemen, adding, "I trust the White Horse will be in quiet, and so
shall we be out of trouble; it is well known _his_ blood as yet was
never attaint, nor was he ever man of war, wherefore it is likely that
we shall sit still; but if he should stomach it, he were able to make a
great power." In his zeal for the cause of his lord, he also wished that
his rival had been put to death with his father, "or that some ruffian
would have dispatched him by the way as he hath gone, with some dag
(pistol) or gun."
So high did words run on occasion of this great contest.