1565 AND 1566.
Renewal of the archduke's proposal.--Disappointment of
Leicester.--Anecdote concerning him.--Disgrace of the earl of
Arundel.--Situation of the duke of Norfolk.--Leicester his secret
enemy.--Notice of the earl of Sussex.--Proclamation respecting fencing
schools.--Marriage of lady Mary Grey.--Sir H. Sidney deputy of
Ireland.--Queen's letter to him.--Prince of Scotland born.--Melvil sent
with the news to Elizabeth.--His account of his reception.--Motion in
the house of commons for naming a successor.--Discord between the house
and the queen on this ground.--She refuses a subsidy--dissolves
parliament--visits Oxford.--Particulars of her reception.
Whether or not it was with a view of impeding the marriage of the queen
of Scots that Elizabeth had originally encouraged the renewal of the
proposals of the archduke to herself, certain it is that the treaty was
still carried on, and even with increased earnestness, long after this
motive had ceased to operate.
It was subsequently to Mary's announcement of her approaching nuptials,
that to the instances of the imperial ambassador Elizabeth had replied,
that she desired to keep herself free till she had finally decided
on the answer to be given to the king of France, who had also offered
her his hand[55]. After breaking off this negotiation with Charles IX.,
she declared to the same ambassador, that she would never engage to
marry a person whom she had not seen;--an answer which seemed to hint to
the archduke that a visit would be well received. It was accordingly
reported with confidence that this prince would soon commence his
journey to England; and Cecil himself ventured to write to a friend,
that if he would accede to the national religion, and if his person
proved acceptable to her majesty, "except God should please to continue
his displeasure against us, we should see some success." But he thought
that the archduke would never explain himself on religion to any one
except the queen, and not to her until he should see hopes of speeding.
[Note 55: It is on the authority of Strype's "Annals" that this
offer of Charles IX. to Elizabeth is recorded. Hume, Camden, Rapin, are
all silent respecting it; but as it seems that Catherine dei Medici was
at the time desirous of the appearance of a closer connexion with
Elizabeth, it is not improbable that she might throw out some hint of
this nature without any real wish of bringing about an union in all
respects so unsuitable.]
The splendid dream of Leicester's ambition was dissipated for ever by
these negotiations; and a diminution of the queen's partiality towards
him, distinctly visible to the observant eyes of her courtiers, either
preceded or accompanied her entertaining so long, and with such an air
of serious deliberation, the proposals of a foreign prince. The enemies
of Leicester,--a large and formidable party, comprehending almost all
the highest names among the nobility and the greater part of the
ministers,--openly and zealously espoused the interest of the archduke.
Leicester at first with equal warmth and equal openness opposed his
pretensions; but he was soon admonished by the frowns of his royal
mistress, that if he would preserve or recover his influence, he must
now be content to take a humbler tone, and disguise a disappointment
which there was arrogance in avowing.
The disposition of Elizabeth partook so much more of the haughty than
the tender, that the slightest appearances of presumption would always
provoke her to take a pleasure in mortifying the most distinguished of
her favorites; and it might be no improbable guess, that almost the
whole of the encouragement given by her to the addresses of the archduke
was prompted by the desire of humbling the pride of Leicester, and
showing him that his ascendency over her was not so complete or so
secure as he imagined.
A circumstance is related which we may conjecture to have occurred about
this time, and which sets in a strong light this part of the character
of Elizabeth. "Bowyer, a gentleman of the Black Rod, being charged by
her express command to look precisely into all admissions into the
privy-chamber, one day stayed a very gay captain, and a follower of my
lord of Leicester's, from entrance; for that he was neither well known,
nor a sworn servant to the queen: at which repulse, the gentleman,
bearing high on my lord's favor, told him, he might perchance procure
him a discharge. Leicester coming into the contestation, said publicly
(which was none of his wont) that he was a knave, and should not
continue long in his office; and so turning about to go in to the queen,
Bowyer, who was a bold gentleman and well beloved, stepped before him
and fell at her majesty's feet, related the story, and humbly craves her
grace's pleasure; and whether my lord of Leicester was king, or her
majesty queen? Whereunto she replied with her wonted oath, 'God's death,
my lord, I have wished you well; but my favor is not so locked up for
you, that others shall not partake thereof; for I have many servants, to
whom I have, and will at my pleasure, bequeath my favor, and likewise
resume the same: and if you think to rule here, I will take a course to
see you forthcoming. I will have here but one mistress, and no master;
and look that no ill happen to him, lest it be required at your hands.'
Which words so quelled my lord of Leicester, that his feigned humility
was long after one of his best virtues[56]."
[Note 56: Naunton's "Fragmenta Regalia."]
It might be some consolation to Leicester, under his own mortifications,
to behold his ancient rival the earl of Arundel subjected to far severer
ones. This nobleman had resigned in disgust his office of
lord-chamberlain; subsequently, the queen, on some ground of displeasure
now unknown, had commanded him to confine himself to his own house; and
at the end of several months passed under this kind of restraint, she
still denied him for a further term the consolation and privilege of
approaching her royal presence. Disgraces so public and so lasting
determined him to throw up the desperate game on which he had hazarded
so deep a stake: he obtained leave to travel, and hastened to conceal or
forget in foreign lands the bitterness of his disappointment and the
embarrassment of his circumstances.
It is probable that from this time Elizabeth found no more serious
suitors amongst her courtiers, though they flattered her by continuing,
almost to the end of her life, to address her in the language of love,
or rather of gallantry. With all her coquetry, her head was clear, her
passions were cool; and men began to perceive that there was little
chance of prevailing with her to gratify her heart or her fancy at the
expense of that independence on which her lofty temper led her to set so
high a value. Some were still uncharitable, unjust enough to believe
that Leicester was, or had been, a fortunate lover; but few now expected
to see him her husband, and none found encouragement sufficient to renew
the experiment in which he had failed. Notwithstanding her short and
capricious fits of pride and anger, it was manifest that Leicester still
exercised over her mind an influence superior on the whole to that of
any other person; and the high distinction with which she continued to
treat him, both in public and private, alarmed the jealousy and provoked
the hostility of all who thought themselves entitled by rank, by
relationship, or by merit, to a larger share of her esteem and favor, or
a more intimate participation in her councils.
One nobleman there was, who had peculiar pretensions to supersede
Leicester in his popular appellation of "Heart of the Court," and on
whom he had already fixed in secret the watchful eye of a rival. This
was Thomas duke of Norfolk. Inheriting through several channels the
blood of the Plantagenets,--nearly related to the queen by her maternal
ancestry, and connected by descent or alliance with the whole body of
the ancient nobility; endeared also to the people by many shining
qualities, and still more by his unfeigned zeal for reformed
religion,--his grace stood first amongst the peers of England, not in
degree alone or in wealth, but in power, in influence, and in public
estimation.
He was in the prime of manhood and lately a widower; and when, in the
parliament of 1566, certain members did not scruple to maintain that the
queen ought to be compelled to marry for the good of her country, the
duke was named by some, as the earl of Pembroke was by others and the
earl of Leicester by a third party, as the person whom she ought to
accept as a husband. It does not however appear that the duke himself
had aspired, openly at least, to these august but unattainable nuptials.
Elizabeth seems to have entertained for him at this period a real
regard: he could be to her no object of distrust or danger, and the
example which she was ever careful to set of a scrupulous observance of
the gradations of rank, led her on all occasions to prefer him to the
post of honor. Thus, after the peace with France in 1564, when Charles
IX. in return for the Garter, which the queen of England had sent him,
offered to confer the order of St. Michael on two English nobles of her
appointment, she named without hesitation the duke of Norfolk and the
earl of Leicester.
The arrogance of Dudley seldom escaped from the control of policy; and
as he had the sagacity to perceive that the duke was a competitor over
whom treachery alone could render him finally triumphant, he cautiously
avoided with him any open collision of interests, any offensive rivalry
in matters of place and dignity. He even went further; he compelled
himself, by a feigned deference, to administer food to that exaggerated
self-consequence,--the cherished foible of the house of Howard in
general and of this duke in particular,--out of which he perhaps already
hoped that matter would arise to work his ruin. The chronicles of the
year 1565 give a striking instance of this part of his behaviour, in the
information, that the duke of Norfolk, going to keep his Christmas in
his own county, was attended out of London by the earls of Leicester and
Warwick, the lord-chamberlain and other lords and gentlemen, who brought
him on his journey, "doing him all the honor in their power."
The duke was not gifted with any great degree of penetration, and the
generosity of his disposition combined with his vanity to render him
generally the dupe of outward homage and fair professions. He repaid the
insidious complaisance of Leicester with good will and even with
confidence; and it was not till all was lost that he appears to have
recognised this fatal and irreparable error.
Thomas earl of Sussex was an antagonist of a different nature,--an enemy
rather than a rival,--and one who sought the overthrow of Leicester
with as much zeal and industry as Leicester himself sought his, or that
of the duke; but by means as open and courageous as those of his
opponent were ever secret, base, and cowardly. This nobleman, the third
earl of the surname of Radcliffe, and son of him who had interfered with
effect to procure more humane and respectful treatment of Elizabeth
during the period of her adversity, had been first known by the title of
lord Fitzwalter, which he derived from a powerful line of barons well
known in English history from the days of Henry I. By his mother, a
daughter of Thomas second duke of Norfolk, he was first-cousin to queen
Anne Boleyn; and friendship, still more than the ties of blood, closely
connected him with the head of the Howards. Several circumstances render
it probable that he was not a zealous protestant, though it is no where
hinted that he was even secretly attached to the catholic party. During
the reign of Mary, his high character and approved loyalty had caused
him to be employed, first in an embassy to the emperor Charles V. to
settle the queen's marriage-articles; and afterwards in the arduous post
of lord-deputy of Ireland. Elizabeth continued him for some time in this
situation; but wishing to avail herself of his counsels and service at
home, she recalled him in 1565, conferred upon him the high dignity of
lord-chamberlain, vacant by the resignation of the earl of Arundel, and
appointed as his successor in Ireland his excellent second in office sir
Henry Sidney, who stood in the same relation, that of brother-in-law, to
Sussex and to Leicester, and whose singular merit and good fortune it
was to preserve to the end the esteem and friendship of both.
The ostensible cause of quarrel between these two earls seems to have
been their difference of opinion respecting the Austrian match; but this
was rather the pretext than the motive of an animosity deeply rooted in
the natures and situation of each, and probably called into action by
particular provocations now unknown. The disposition of Sussex was
courageous and sincere; his spirit high, his judgement clear and strong,
his whole character honorable and upright. In the arts of a courtier,
which he despised, he was confessedly inferior to his wily adversary; in
all the qualifications of a statesman and a soldier he vastly excelled
him.
Sussex was endowed with penetration sufficient to detect, beneath the
thick folds of hypocrisy and artifice in which he had involved them, the
monstrous vices of Leicester's disposition; and he could not without
indignation and disgust behold a princess whose blood he shared, whose
character he honored, and whose service he had himself embraced with
pure devotion, the dupe of an impostor so despicable and so pernicious.
That influence which he saw Leicester abuse to the dishonor of the queen
and the detriment of the country, he undertook to overthrow by fair and
public means, and, so far as appears, without motives of personal
interest or ambition:--thus far all was well, and for the effort,
whether successful or not, he merited the public thanks. But there
mingled in the bosom of the high-born Sussex an illiberal disdain of
the origin of Dudley, with a just abhorrence of his character and
conduct.
He was wont to say of him, that two ancestors were all that he could
number, his father and grandfather; both traitors and enemies to their
country. His sarcasms roused in Leicester an animosity which he did not
attempt to disguise: with the exception of Cecil and his friends, who
stood neuter, the whole court divided into factions upon the quarrel of
these two powerful peers; and to such extremity were matters carried,
that for some time neither of them would stir abroad without a numerous
train armed, according to the fashion of the day, with daggers and
spiked bucklers.
Scarcely could the queen herself restrain these "angry opposites" from
breaking out into acts of violence: at length however, summoning them
both into her presence, she forced them to a reconciliation neither more
nor less sincere than such pacifications by authority have usually
proved.
The open and unmeasured enmity of Sussex seems to have been productive
in the end of more injury to his own friends than to Leicester. The
storm under which the favorite had bowed for an instant was quickly
overpast, and he once more reared his head erect and lofty as before. To
revenge himself by the ruin or disgrace of Sussex was however beyond his
power: the well-founded confidence of Elizabeth in his abilities and his
attachment to her person, he found to be immovable; but against his
friends and adherents, against the duke of Norfolk himself, his
malignant arts succeeded but too well; and it seems not improbable that
Leicester, for the purpose of carrying on without molestation his
practices against them, concurred in procuring for his adversary an
honorable exile in the shape of an embassy to the imperial court, on
which he departed in the year 1567.
After his return from this mission the queen named the earl of Sussex
lord-president of the North, an appointment which equally removed him
from the immediate theatre of court intrigue. Not long after, the hand
of death put a final close to his honorable career, and to an enmity
destined to know no other termination. As he lay upon his death-bed,
this eminent person is recorded to have thus addressed his surrounding
friends: "I am now passing into another world, and must leave you to
your fortunes and to the queen's grace and goodness; but beware of the
_Gipsy_ (meaning Leicester), for he will be too hard for you all; you
know not the beast so well as I do[57]."
[Note 57: Naunton's "Fragmenta Regalia."]
This earl left no children, and his widow became the munificent
foundress of Sidney Sussex college, Cambridge. Of his negotiations with
the court of Vienna respecting the royal marriage which he had so much
at heart, particulars will be given in due time; but the miscellaneous
transactions of two or three preceding years claim a priority of
narration.
By a proclamation of February 1566, the queen revived some former
sumptuary laws respecting apparel; chiefly, it should appear, from an
apprehension that a dangerous confusion of ranks would be the
consequence of indulging to her subjects the liberty of private
judgement in a matter so important. The following clause concerning
fencing schools is appended to this instrument.
"Because it is daily seen what disorders do grow and are likely to
increase in the realm, by the increase of numbers of persons taking upon
them to teach the multitude of common people to play at all kind of
weapons; and for that purpose set up schools called schools of fence, in
places inconvenient; tending to the great disorder of such people as
properly ought to apply to their labours and handy works: Therefore her
majesty ordereth and commandeth, that no teacher of fence shall keep any
school or common place of resort in any place of the realm, but within
the liberties of some city of the realm. Where also they shall be
obedient to such orders as the governors of the cities shall appoint to
them, for the better keeping of the peace, and for prohibition of resort
of such people to the same schools as are not mete for that purpose."
&c.
On these restrictions, which would seem to imply an unworthy jealousy of
putting arms and the skill to use them into the hands of the common
people, it is equitable to remark, that the custom of constantly wearing
weapons, at this time almost universal, though prohibited by the laws of
some of our early kings, had been found productive of those frequent
acts of violence and outrage which have uniformly resulted from this
truly barbarous practice in all the countries where it has been suffered
to prevail.
From the description of England prefixed to Holinshed's Chronicles, we
learn several particulars on this subject. Few men, even of the gravest
and most pacific characters, such as ancient burgesses and city
magistrates, went without a dagger at their side or back. The nobility
commonly wore swords or rapiers as well as daggers, as did every common
serving-man following his master. Some "desperate cutters" carried two
daggers, or two rapiers in a sheath, always about them, with which in
every drunken fray they worked much mischief; their swords and daggers
also were of an extraordinary length (an abuse which was provided
against by a clause of the proclamation above quoted); some "suspicious
fellows" also would carry on the highways staves of twelve or thirteen
feet long, with pikes of twelve inches at the end, wherefore the honest
traveller was compelled to ride with a case of _dags_ (pistols) at his
saddle-bow, and none travelled without sword, or dagger, or hanger.
About this time occurred what a contemporary reporter called "an unhappy
chance and monstrous;" the marriage of lady Mary Grey to the
serjeant-porter: a circumstance thus recorded by Fuller, with his
accustomed quaintness. "Mary Grey... frighted with the infelicity of her
two elder sisters, Jane and this Catherine, forgot her honor to remember
her safety, and married one whom she could love and none need fear,
Martin Kays, of Kent esquire, who was a judge at court, (but only of
doubtful casts at dice, being serjeant-porter,) and died without issue
the 20th of April 1578[58]."
[Note 58: "Worthies in Leicestershire."]
The queen, according to her usual practice in similar cases, sent both
husband and wife to prison. What became further of the husband I do not
find; but respecting the wife, sir Thomas Gresham the eminent merchant,
in a letter to lord Burleigh dated in April 1572, mentions, that the
lady Mary Grey had been kept in his house nearly three years, and begs
of his lordship that he will make interest for her removal. Thus it
should appear that this unfortunate lady did not sufficiently "remember
her safety" in forming this connexion, obscure and humble as it was; for
all matrimony had now become offensive to the austerity or the secret
envy of the maiden queen.
Sir Henry Sidney, on arriving to take the government of Ireland, found
that unhappy country in a state of more than ordinary turbulence,
distraction, and misery. Petty insurrections of perpetual recurrence
harassed the English pale; and the native chieftains, disdaining to
accept the laws of a foreign sovereign as the umpire of their disputes,
were waging innumerable private wars, which at once impoverished,
afflicted, and barbarized their country. The most important of these
feuds was one between the earls of Ormond and Desmond, which so
disquieted the queen that, in addition to all official instructions, she
deemed it necessary to address her deputy on the subject in a private
letter written with her own hand. This document, printed in the Sidney
papers, is too valuable, as a specimen of her extraordinary style and
her manner of thinking, to be omitted. It is without date, but must have
been written in 1565.
* * * * *
"Letter of Queen Elizabeth to Sir Henry Sidney, on the Quarrel between
Thomas Earl of Ormond and the Earl of Desmond, _anno_ 1565.
"HARRY,
"If our partial slender managing of the contentious quarrel between the
two Irish earls did not make the way to cause these lines to pass my
hand, this gibberish should hardly have cumbered your eyes; but warned
by my former fault, and dreading worser hap to come, I rede you take
good heed that the good subjects lost state be so revenged that I hear
not the rest be won to a right bye way to breed more traitor's stocks,
and so the goal is gone. Make some difference between tried, just, and
false friend. Let the good service of well-deservers be never rewarded
with loss. Let their thank be such as may encourage no strivers for the
like. Suffer not that Desmond's denying deeds, far wide from promised
works, make you to trust to other pledge than either himself or John for
gage: he hath so well performed his English vows, that I warn you trust
him no longer than you see one of them. Prometheus let me be,
_Epimetheus_[59] hath been mine too long. I pray God your old strange
sheep late (as you say) returned into the fold, wore not her wooly
garment upon her wolvy back. You know a kingdom knows no kindred, _si
violandum jus regnandi causa_. A strength to harm is perilous in the
hand of an ambitious head. Where might is mixed with wit, there is too
good an accord in a government. Essays be oft dangerous, specially when
the cup-bearer hath received such a preservative as, what might so ever
betide the drinker's draught, the carrier takes no bane thereby.
[Note 59: In the original, "and Prometheus," but evidently by a mere
slip of the pen.]
"Believe not, though they swear, that they can be full sound, whose
parents sought the rule that they full fain would have. I warrant you
they will never be accused of bastardy; you were to blame to lay it to
their charge, they will trace the steps that others have passed before.
If I had not espied, though very late, legerdemain, used in these cases,
I had never played my part. No, if I did not see the balances held awry,
I had never myself come into the weigh house. I hope I shall have so
good a customer of you, that all other officers shall do their duty
among you. If aught have been amiss at home, I will patch though I
cannot whole it. Let us not, nor no more do you, consult so long as till
advice come too late to the givers: where then shall we wish the deeds
while all was spent in words; a fool too late bewares when all the peril
is past. If we still advise, we shall never do, thus are we still
knitting a knot never tied; yea, and if our _web_[60] be framed with
rotten hurdles, when our _loom_ is welny done, our work is new to
begin. God send the weaver true prentices again, and let them be
denizens I pray you if they be not citizens; and such too as your
ancientest aldermen, that have or now dwell in your official place, have
had best cause to commend their good behaviour.
[Note 60: The words _web_ and _loom_ in this sentence ought
certainly to be transposed.]
"Let this memorial be only committed to Vulcan's base keeping, without
any longer abode than the reading thereof, yea, and with no mention made
thereof to any other wight. I charge you as I may command you. Seem not
to have had but secretary's letter from me.
"Your loving mistress
"ELIZABETH R."
* * * * *
In the month of June 1566, the queen of Scots was delivered of a son.
James Melvil was immediately dispatched with the happy intelligence to
her good sister of England: and he has fortunately left us a narrative
of this mission, which equals in vivacity the relation of his former
visit. "By twelve of the clock I took horse, and was that night at
Berwick. The fourth day after, I was at London, and did first meet with
my brother sir Robert (then ambassador to England), who that same night
sent and advertised secretary Cecil of my arrival, and of the birth of
the prince, desiring him to keep it quiet till my coming to court to
show it myself unto her majesty, who was for the time at Greenwich,
where her majesty was in great mirth, dancing after supper. But so soon
as the secretary Cecil whispered in her ear the news of the prince's
birth, all her mirth was laid aside for that night. All present
marvelling whence proceeded such a change; for the queen did sit down,
putting her hand under her cheek, bursting out to some of her ladies,
that the queen of Scots was mother of a fair son, while she was but a
barren stock.
"The next morning was appointed for me to get audience, at what time my
brother and I went by water to Greenwich, and were met by some friends
who told us how sorrowful her majesty was at my news, but that she had
been advised to show a glad and cheerful countenance; which she did in
her best apparel, saying, that the joyful news of the queen her sister's
delivery of a fair son, which I had sent her by secretary Cecil, had
recovered her out of a heavy sickness which she had lain under for
fifteen days. Therefore she welcomed me with a merry volt, and thanked
me for the diligence I had used in hasting to give her that welcome
intelligence." &c. "The next day her majesty sent unto me her letter,
with the present of a fair chain."
Resolved to perform with a good grace the part which she had assumed,
Elizabeth accepted with alacrity the office of sponsor to the prince of
Scotland, sending thither as her proxies the earl of Bedford, Mr. Carey
son of lord Hunsdon, and other knights and gentlemen; who met with so
cordial a reception from Mary,--now at open variance with her husband,
and therefore desirous of support from England,--as to provoke the
jealousy of the French ambassadors. The present of the royal godmother
was a font of pure gold worth above one thousand pounds; in return for
which, rings, rich chains of diamond and pearl, and other jewels were
liberally bestowed upon her substitutes.
The birth of her son lent a vast accession of strength to the party of
the queen of Scots in England; and Melvil was commissioned to convey
back to her from several of the principal personages of the court, warm
professions of an attachment to her person and interests, which the
jealousy of their mistress compelled them to dissemble. Elizabeth, on
her part, was more than ever disturbed by suspicions on this head, which
were kept in constant activity by the secret informations of the armies
of spies whom it was her self-tormenting policy to set over the words
and actions of the Scottish queen and her English partisans. The more
she learned of the influence privately acquired by Mary amongst her
subjects, the more, of course, she feared and hated her, and the
stronger became her determination never to give her additional
consequence by an open recognition of her right of succession. At the
same time she was fully sensible that no other person could be thought
of as the inheritrix of her crown; and she resolved, perhaps wisely, to
maintain on this subject an inflexible silence: this policy, however,
connected with her perseverance in a state of celibacy, began to awaken
in her people an anxiety respecting their future destinies, which, being
artfully fomented by Scottish emissaries, produced, in 1566, the first
symptoms of discord between the queen and her faithful commons.
A motion was made in the lower house for reviving the suit to her
majesty touching the naming of a successor in case of her death without
posterity; and in spite of the strenuous opposition of the court party,
and the efforts of the ministers to procure a delay by declaring "that
the queen was moved to marriage and inclined to prosecute the same," it
was carried, and a committee appointed to confer with the lords. The
business was not very agreeable to the upper house: a committee however
was named, and the queen soon after required some members of both houses
to wait upon her respecting this matter; when the lord-keeper explained
their sentiments in a long speech, to which her majesty was pleased to
reply after her darkest and most ambiguous manner. "As to her marriage,"
she said, "a silent thought might serve. She thought it had been so
desired that none other trees blossom should have been minded or ever
any hope of fruit had been denied them. But that if any doubted that she
was by vow or determination never bent to trade in that kind of life,
she bade them put out that kind of heresy, for their belief was therein
awry. And though she could think it best for a private woman, yet she
strove with herself to think it not meet for a prince. As to the
succession, she bade them not think that they had needed this desire, if
she had seen a time so fit; and it so ripe to be denounced. That the
greatness of the cause, and the need of their return, made her say that
a short time for so long a continuance ought not to pass by rote. That
as cause by conference with the learned should show her matter worth
utterance for their behoof, so she would more gladly pursue their good
after her days, than with all her prayers while she lived be a means to
linger out her living thread. That for their comfort, she had good
record in that place that other means than they mentioned had been
thought of perchance for their good, as much as for her own surety:
which, if they could have been presently or conveniently executed, it
had not been now deferred or over-slipped. That she hoped to die in
quiet with _Nunc dimittis_, which could not be without she saw some
glimpse of their following surety after her graved bones."
These vague sentences tended little to the satisfaction of the house;
and a motion was made, and strongly supported by the speeches of several
members, for reiteration of the suit. At this her majesty was so
incensed, that she communicated by sir Francis Knowles her positive
command to the house to proceed no further in this business, satisfying
themselves with the promise of marriage which she had made on the word
of a prince. But that truly independent member Paul Wentworth could not
be brought to acquiesce with tameness in this prohibition, and he moved
the house on the question, whether the late command of her majesty was
not a breach of its privileges? The queen hereupon issued an injunction
that there should be no debates on this point; but the spirit of
resistance rose so high in the house of commons against this her
arbitrary interference, that she found it expedient, a few days after,
to rescind both orders, making a great favor however of her compliance,
and insisting on the condition, that the subject should not at this time
be further pursued.
In her speech on adjourning parliament she did not omit to acquaint both
houses with her extreme displeasure at their interference touching the
naming of a successor; a matter which she always chose to regard as
belonging exclusively to her prerogative;--and she ended by telling
them, "that though perhaps they might have after her one better learned
or wiser, yet she assured them none more careful over them. And
therefore henceforth she bade them beware how they proved their prince's
patience as they had now done hers. And notwithstanding, not meaning,
she said, to make a Lent of Christmas, the most part of them might
assure themselves that they departed in their prince's grace[61]."
[Note 61: Strype's "Annals."]
She utterly refused an extraordinary subsidy which the commons had
offered on condition of her naming her successor, and even of the
ordinary supplies which she accepted, she remitted a fourth, popularly
observing, that it was as well for her to have money in the coffers of
her subjects as in her own. By such an alternation of menaces and
flatteries did Elizabeth contrive to preserve her ascendency over the
hearts and minds of her people!
The earl of Leicester had lately been elected chancellor of the
university of Oxford, and in the autumn of 1566 the queen consented to
honor with her presence this seat of learning, long ambitious of such a
distinction. She was received with the same ceremonies as at Cambridge:
learned exhibitions of the same nature awaited her; and she made a
similar parade of her bashfulness, and a still greater of her erudition;
addressing this university not in Latin, but in Greek.
Of the dramatic exhibitions prepared for her recreation, an elegant
writer has recorded the following particulars[62]. "In the magnificent
hall of Christ-church, she was entertained with a Latin comedy called
Marcus Geminus, the Latin tragedy of Progne, and an English comedy on
the story of Palamon and Arcite, (by Richard Edwards gentleman of the
queen's chapel, and master of the choristers,) all acted by the students
of the university. When the last play was over, the queen summoned the
poet into her presence, whom she loaded with thanks and compliments: and
at the same time, turning to her levee, remarked, that Palamon was so
justly drawn as a lover, that he must have been in love indeed; that
Arcite was a right martial knight, having a swart and manly countenance,
yet with the aspect of a Venus clad in armour: that the lovely Emilia
was a virgin of uncorrupted purity and unblemished simplicity; and that
though she sung so sweetly, and gathered flowers alone in the garden,
she preserved her chastity undeflowered. The part of Emilia, the only
female part in the play, was acted by a boy of fourteen, whose
performance so captivated her majesty, that she made him a present of
eight guineas[63]. During the exhibition, a cry of hounds belonging to
Theseus was counterfeited without in the great square of the college;
the young students thought it a real chase, and were seized with a
sudden transport to join the hunters: at which the queen cried out from
her box, "O excellent! these boys, in very troth, are ready to leap out
of the windows to follow the hounds!"
[Note 62: Warton's "History of English Poetry."]
[Note 63: Mr. Warton apparently forgets that _guineas_ were first
coined by Charles II.]
Dr. Lawrence Humphreys, who had lately been distinguished by his
strenuous opposition to the injunctions of the queen and archbishop
Parker respecting the habits and ceremonies, was at this time
vice-chancellor of Oxford; and when he came forth in procession to meet
the queen, she could not forbear saying with a smile, as she gave him
her hand to kiss--"That loose gown, Mr. Doctor, becomes you mighty well;
I wonder your notions should be so narrow."