1567 AND 1568.
Terms on which Elizabeth offers to acknowledge Mary as her
successor,--rejected by the Scots.--Death of Darnley.--Conduct of
Elizabeth towards his mother.--Letter of Cecil.--Letter of Elizabeth to
Mary.--Mary marries Bothwell--is defeated at Langside--committed to Loch
Leven castle.--Interference of Elizabeth in her behalf.--Earl of Sussex
ambassador to Vienna.--Letters from him to Elizabeth respecting the
archduke.--Causes of the failure of the marriage treaty with this
prince.--Notice of lord Buckhurst.--Visit of the queen to Fotheringay
castle.--Mary escapes from prison--raises an army--is defeated--flies
into England.--Conduct of Elizabeth.--Mary submits her cause to
her--is detained prisoner.--Russian embassy.--Chancellor's voyage
to Archangel.--Trade opened with Russia.--Treaty with the
Czar.--Negotiations between Elizabeth and the French court.--Marriage
proposed with the duke of Anjou.--Privy-council hostile to
France.--Queen on bad terms with Spain.
Notwithstanding the uniform success and general applause which had
hitherto crowned her administration, at no point perhaps of her whole
reign was the path of Elizabeth more beset with perplexities and
difficulties than at the commencement of the year 1567.
The prevalence of the Scottish faction had compelled her to give a
pledge to her parliament respecting matrimony, which must either be
redeemed by the sacrifice of her darling independence, or forfeited
with the loss of her credit and popularity. Her favorite
state-mystery,--the choice of a successor,--had also been invaded by
rude and daring hands; and to such extremity was she reduced on this
point, that she had found it necessary to empower the commissioners whom
she sent into Scotland for the baptism of the prince, distinctly to
propound the following offer. That on a simple ratification by Mary of
only so much of the treaty of Edinburgh as engaged her to advance no
claim upon the English crown during the lifetime of Elizabeth or any
posterity of hers, a solemn recognition of her right of succession
should be made by the queen and parliament of England.
The Scottish ministry, instead of closing instantly with so advantageous
a proposal, were imprudent enough to insist upon a previous examination
of the will of Henry VIII., which they fondly believed that they could
show to be a forgery: and the delay which the refusal of Elizabeth
occasioned, gave time for the interposition of circumstances which
ruined for ever the character and authority of Mary, and rescued her
sister-queen from this dilemma.
On February the 9th 1567, lord Darnley, then called king of Scots,
perished by a violent and mysterious death. Bothwell, the queen's new
favorite, was universally accused of the murder; and the open discord
which had subsisted, even before the assassination of Rizzio, between
the royal pair, gave strong ground of suspicion that Mary herself was a
participator in the crime.
Elizabeth behaved on this tragical occurrence with the utmost decorum
and moderation; she expressed no opinion hostile to the fame of the
queen of Scots, and took no immediate measures of a public nature
respecting it. It can scarcely be doubted however, that, in common with
all Europe, she secretly believed in the guilt of Mary; and even though
at the bottom of her heart she may have desired rather to see her
condemned than acquitted in the general verdict, such a feeling ought
not, under all the circumstances, to be imputed to her as indicative of
any extraordinary malignity of disposition. To announce to the countess
of Lenox, still her prisoner, the frightful catastrophe which had closed
the history of her rash misguided son, was the first step taken by
Elizabeth: it was a proper, and even an indispensable one; but the
respectful and considerate manner of the communication, contrasted with
former harsh treatment, might be designed to intimate to the house of
Lenox that it should now find in her a protectress, and perhaps an
avenger.
We possess a letter addressed by Cecil to sir Henry Norris ambassador in
France, in which are found some particulars on this subject, oddly
prefaced by a commission on which it is amusing to a modern reader to
contemplate a prime minister at such a time, and with so much gravity,
engaged. But the division of labor in public offices seems to have been
in this age very imperfect: Elizabeth employed her secretary of state to
procure her a mantua-maker; James I. occupied his in transcribing
sonnets of his own composition.
* * * * *
"Sir William Cecil to sir Henry Norris. February 20th 1566-7.
"...The queen's majesty would fain have a taylor that had skill to make
her apparel both after the French and Italian manner; and she thinketh
that you might use some means to obtain some one such there as serveth
that queen, without mentioning any manner of request in the queen's
majesty's name. First, to cause my lady your wife to use some such means
to get one as thereof knowledge might not come to the queen mother's
ears, of whom the queen's majesty thinketh thus: That if she did
understand it were a matter wherein her majesty might be pleasured, she
would offer to send one to the queen's majesty. Nevertheless, if it
cannot be so obtained by this indirect means, then her majesty would
have you devise some other good means to obtain one that were skilful.
"I have stayed your son from going hence now these two days, upon the
queen's commandment, for that she would have him to have as much of the
truth of the circumstances of the murder of the king of Scots as might
be; and hitherto the same is hard to come by, other than in a
generality.... The queen's majesty sent yesterday my lady Howard and my
wife to the lady Lenox to the Tower, to open this matter unto her, who
could not by any means be kept from such passions of mind as the
horribleness of the fact did require. And this last night were with her
the said lady, the dean of Westminster, and Dr. Huick, and I hope her
majesty will show some favorable compassion of the said lady, whom any
humane nature must needs pity[64]."
[Note 64: "Scrinia Ceciliana."]
* * * * *
The liberation of the countess followed; and the earl her husband soon
after gratified Elizabeth's desire to interfere, by invoking her
assistance to procure, by representations to Mary, some extension of the
unusually short time within which he was required to bring forward his
proofs against Bothwell, whom he had accused of the assassination of his
son.
This petition produced a very earnest letter from one queen to the
other; in which Elizabeth plainly represented to her royal sister, that
the refusal of such a request to the father of her husband would bring
her into greater suspicion than, as she hoped, she was aware, or would
be willing to hear; adding, "For the love of God, madam, use such
sincerity and prudence in this case, which touches you so nearly, that
all the world may have reason to judge you innocent of so enormous a
crime; a thing which unless you do, you will be worthily blotted out
from the rank of princesses, and rendered, not undeservedly, the
opprobrium of the vulgar; rather than which fate should befal you, I
should wish you an honorable sepulture instead of a stained life[65]."
[Note 65: See the French original in Robertson's "Hist. of
Scotland," vol. iii. Append. xix.]
But to these and all other representations which could be made to her,
this criminal and infatuated woman replied by marrying Bothwell three
months after the death of her husband. She now attempted by the most
artful sophistries to justify her conduct to the courts of France and
England: but vain was the endeavour to excuse or explain away facts
which the common sense and common feelings of mankind told them could
admit of neither explanation nor apology. The nobles conspired, the
people rose in arms against her; and within a single month after her
ill-omened nuptials, she saw her guilty partner compelled to tear
himself from her arms and seek his safety in flight, and herself reduced
to surrender her person into the power of her rebellious subjects.
The battle of Langside put all the power of the country into the hands
of the insurgent nobles; but they were much divided in opinion as to the
use to be made of their victory. Some wished to restore Mary to regal
authority under certain limitations;--others wanted to depose her and
proclaim her infant son in her place;--some proposed to detain her in
perpetual imprisonment;--others threatened to bring her to trial and
capital punishment as an accessary to the death of the king. Meantime
she was detained a prisoner in Loch Leven castle, subjected to various
indignities, and a prey to the most frightful apprehensions. But there
was an eye which watched over her for her safety; and it was that of
Elizabeth.
Fears and rivalries, ancient offences and recent provocations,--all the
imprudence which she had censured, and all the guilt which she had
imputed, vanished from the thought of this princess the moment that she
beheld a woman, a kinswoman, and, what was much more, a sister-queen,
reduced to this extremity of distress, and exposed to the menaces and
insults of her own subjects. For a short time the cause of Mary seemed
to her as her own; she interposed in her behalf in a tone of such
imperative earnestness, that the Scotch nobles, who feared her power and
sought her friendship, did not dare to withstand her; and in all
probability Mary at this juncture owed no less than her life to the good
offices of her who was destined finally to bring her, with more
injustice and after many years of sorrow, to an ignominious death.
It was not however within the power, if indeed it were the wish, of
Elizabeth to restore the queen of Scots to the enjoyment either of
authority or of freedom. All Scotland seemed at this period united
against her; she was compelled to sign a deed of abdication in favor of
her son, who was crowned king in July 1567. The earl of Murray was
declared regent: and a parliament assembled about the close of the year
confirmed all these acts of the confederate lords, and sanctioned the
detention of the deposed queen in a captivity of which none could then
foresee the termination. Elizabeth ordered her ambassador to abstain
from countenancing by his presence the coronation of the king of Scots,
and she continued to negotiate for the restoration of Mary: but her
ministers strongly represented to her the danger of driving the lords,
by a further display of her indignation at their proceedings, into a
confederacy with France; and Throgmorton, her ambassador in Scotland,
urged her to treat with them to deliver their young king into her
hands, in order to his being educated in England.
Some proposal of this nature she accordingly made: but the lords, whom
former experience had rendered suspicious of her dealings, absolutely
refused to give up their prince without the pledge of a recognition of
his right of succession to the English throne; and Elizabeth, reluctant
as ever to come to a declaration on this point, reluctant also to desert
entirely the interests of Mary, with whose remaining adherents she still
maintained a secret intercourse, seems to have abstained for some time
from any very active interference in the perplexed affairs of the
neighbour kingdom.
The recent occurrences in Scotland had procured Elizabeth some respite
from the importunities of her subjects relative to the succession; but
it was not the less necessary for her to take some steps in discharge of
her promise respecting marriage. Accordingly the earl of Sussex, in this
cause a negotiator no less zealous than able, was dispatched in solemn
embassy to Vienna, to congratulate the emperor Maximilian on his
coronation, and at the same time to treat with his brother the archduke
Charles respecting his long agitated marriage with the queen. Two
obstacles were to be surmounted,--the attachment of the archduke to the
catholic faith, and the repugnance of Elizabeth to enter into
engagements with a prince whose person was unknown to her. Both are
attempted to be obviated in two extant letters from the ambassador to
the queen, which at the same time so well display the manly spirit of
the writer, and present details so interesting, that it would be an
injury to give their more important passages in other language than his
own.
In the first (dated Vienna, October 1567,) the earl of Sussex acquaints
her majesty with the arrival of the archduke in that city, and his
admission to a first audience, which was one of ceremony only; after
which he thus proceeds:--
"On Michaelmas day in the afternoon, the emperor rode in his coach to
see the archduke run at the ring; who commanded me to run at his side,
and my lord North, Mr. Cobham, and Mr. Powel on the other side: And
after the running was done, he rode on a courser of Naples: and surely
his highness, in the order of his running, the managing of his horse and
the manner of his seat, governed himself exceedingly well, and so as, in
my judgement, it was not to be amended. Since which time I have had
diverse conferences with the emperor, and with his highness apart, as
well in times of appointed audience as in several huntings; wherein I
have viewed, observed, and considered of his person and qualities as
much as by any means I might; and have also by good diligence enquired
of his state; and so have thought fit to advertise your majesty what I
conceive of myself, or understand by others, which I trust your majesty
shall find to be true in all respects.
"His highness is of a person higher surely a good deal than my lord
marquis; his hair and beard of a light auburn; his face well
proportioned, amiable, and of a good complexion, without show of
redness, or over paleness; his countenance and speech cheerful, very
courteous, and not without some state; his body well shaped, without
deformity or blemish: his hands very good and fair; his legs clean, well
proportioned, and of sufficient bigness for his stature; his foot as
good as may be.
"So as, upon my duty to your majesty, I find not one deformity,
mis-shape, or any thing to be noted worthy disliking in his whole
person; but contrariwise, I find his whole shape to be good, worthy
commendation and liking in all respects, and such as is rarely to be
found in such a prince.
"His highness, besides his natural language of Dutch, speaketh very well
Spanish and Italian, and, as I hear, Latin. His dealings with me be very
wise; his conversation such as much contenteth me; and, as I hear, none
returneth discontented from his company. He is greatly beloved here of
all men: the chiefest gallants of these parts be his men, and follow his
court; the most of them have travelled other countries, speak many
languages, and behave themselves thereafter; and truly we cannot be so
glad there to have him come to us, as they will be sad here to have him
go from them. He is reported to be wise, liberal, valiant, and of great
courage, which in the last wars he well showed, in defending all his
countries free from the Turk with his own force only, and giving them
divers overthrows when they attempted any thing against his rules; and
he is universally (which I most weigh) noted to be of such virtue as he
was never spotted or touched with any notable vice of crime, which is
much in a prince of his years, endued with such qualities. He
delighteth much in hunting, riding, hawking, exercise of feats of arms,
and hearing of music, whereof he hath very good. He hath, as I hear,
some understanding in astronomy and cosmography, and taketh pleasure in
clocks that set forth the course of the planets.
"He hath for his portion the countries of Styria, Carinthia, Friola,
Treiste, and Histria, and hath the government of that is left in
Croatia, wherein, as I hear, he may ride without entering into any other
man's territories, near three hundred miles... surely he is a great
prince in subjects, territories, and revenues; and liveth in great honor
and state, with such a court as he that seeth it will say is fit for a
great prince." &c. On October 26th he writes thus:--"Since the writing
of my other letters, upon the resolution of the emperor and the
archduke, I took occasion to go to the archduke, meaning to sound him to
the bottom in all causes, and to feel whether such matter as he had
uttered to me before (contained in my other letters) proceeded from him
_bona fide_, or were but words of form.... After some ordinary speech,
used to minister occasion, I began after this sort. 'Sir, I see it is a
great matter to deal in the marriage of princes; and therefore it is
convenient for me, that by the queen my mistress' order intermeddle in
this negotiation, to foresee that I neither deceive you, be deceived
myself, nor, by my ignorance, be the cause that she be deceived; in
respect whereof, I beseech your highness to give me leave to treat as
frankly with you in all things, now I am here, as it pleased her
majesty to give me leave to deal with her before my coming from thence;
whereby I may be as well assured of your disposition, upon your assured
word, as I was of hers upon her word, and so proceed in all things
thereafter:' Whereunto his highness answered me that he thanked me for
that kind of dealing, and he would truly utter to me what he thought and
meant in all things that I should demand; which upon his word he willed
me to credit, and I should not be abused myself, nor abuse your majesty.
I then said that (your licence granted) I was bold humbly to beseech
your majesty to let me understand your inward disposition in this cause;
and whether you meant a lingering entertaining of the matter, or a
direct proceeding to bring it to a good end, with a determination to
consummate the marriage if conveniently you might; whereupon your
majesty not only used such speeches to me as did satisfy me of your
plain and good meaning to proceed in this matter without delay, if by
convenient means you might, but also gave me in commission to affirm,
upon your word, to the emperor, that ye had resolved to marry. Ye were
free to marry where God should put it in your heart to like; and you had
given no grateful ear to any motion of marriage but to this, although
you had received sundry great offers from others; and therefore your
majesty by your letters, and I by your commandment, had desired of his
majesty some determinate resolution whereby the matter might one ways or
another grow to an end with both your honors; the like whereof I had
also said to his highness before, and did now repeat it. And for that
his highness had given me the like licence. I would be as bold with him
as I had been with your majesty; and therefore beseeched him to let me,
upon his honor, understand whether he earnestly desired, for love of
your person, the good success and end of this cause, and had determined
in his heart upon this marriage; or else, to satisfy others that
procured him thereto, was content to entertain the matter, and cared not
what became thereof; that I also might deal thereafter; for in the one I
would serve your majesty and him truly, and in the other, I was no
person of quality to be a convenient minister.
"His highness answered, 'Count, I have heard by the emperor of the order
of your dealing with him, and I have had dealings with you myself,
wherewith he and I rest very well contented; but truly I never rested
more contented of any thing than I do of this dealing, wherein, besides
your duty to her that hath trusted you, you show what you be yourself,
for the which I honor you as you be worthy;' (pardon me, I beseech your
majesty, in writing the words he spake of myself, for they serve to
utter his natural disposition and inclination.) 'and although I have
always had a good hope of the queen's honorable dealing in this matter,
yet I have heard so much of her not meaning to marry, as might give me
cause to suspect the worst; but understanding by the emperor of your
manner of dealing with him, perceiving that I do presently by your
words, I think myself bound' (wherewith he put off his cap) 'to honor,
love, and serve her majesty while I live, and will firmly credit that
you on her majesty's behalf have said: and therefore, so I might hope
her majesty would bear with me for my conscience, I know not that thing
in the world that I would refuse to do at her commandment: And surely I
have from the beginning of this matter settled my heart upon her, and
never thought of other wife, if she would think me worthy to be her
husband; and therefore be bold to inform her majesty truly herein, for I
will not fail of my part in any thing, as I trust sufficiently appeareth
to you by that I have heretofore said.'
"I thanked his highness of his frank dealing, wherein I would believe
him and deal thereafter, 'And now I am satisfied in this, I beseech your
highness satisfy me also in another matter, and bear with me though I be
somewhat busy, for I mean it for the best. I have many times heard of
men of good judgement and friends to this cause, that as the emperor's
majesty, being in disposition of the Augustan confession, hath been
forced in these great wars of the Turk to temporise in respect of
Christendom; so your highness, being of his mind inwardly, hath also
upon good policy forborne to discover yourself until you might see some
end of your own causes; and expecting, by marriage or other means, a
settling of yourself in further advancement of state than your own
patrimony, you temporise until you see on which side your lot will fall;
and if you find you shall settle in this marriage, ye will, when ye are
sure thereof, discover what ye be. If this be true, trust me, sir, I
beseech you, and I will not betray you, and let me know the secret of
your heart, whereby you may grow to a shorter end of your desire; and as
I will upon my oath assure you, I will never utter your counsel to any
person living but to the queen my mistress, so do I deliver unto you her
promise upon her honor not to utter it to any person without your
consent; and if you will not trust me herein, commit it to her majesty's
trust by your own letters or messenger of trust, and she will not
deceive you.'
"'Surely,' said his highness, 'whoever hath said this of me to the
queen's majesty, or to you, or to any other, hath said more than he
knoweth, God grant he meant well therein. My ancestors have always
holden this religion that I hold, and I never knew other, and therefore
I never could have mind hitherto to change; and I trust, when her
majesty shall consider my case well, my determination herein shall not
hurt me towards her in this cause. For, count,' said he, 'how could you
with reason give me counsel to be the first of my race that so suddenly
should change the religion that all my ancestors have so long holden
when I know no other; or how can the queen like of me in any other
thing, that should be so light in changing of my conscience? Where on
the other side, in knowing my duty constantly to God for conscience, I
have great hope that her majesty, with good reason, will conceive that I
will be the more faithful and constant to her in all that honor and
conscience bindeth. And therefore I will myself crave of her majesty, by
my letters, her granting of this my only request; and I pray you with
all my heart to further it in all you may; and shrink not to assure her
majesty, that if she satisfy me in this, I will never slack to serve and
satisfy her, while I live, in all the rest.'
"In such like talk, to this effect, his highness spent almost two hours
with me, which I thought my duty to advertise your majesty; and hereupon
I gather that reputation ruleth him much for the present in this case of
religion, and that if God couple you together in liking, you shall have
of him a true husband, a loving companion, a wise counsellor and a
faithful servant; and we shall have as virtuous a prince as ever ruled:
God grant (though you be worthy a great deal better than he, if he were
to be found) that our wickedness be not such as we be unworthy of him,
or of such as he is.[66]" &c.
[Note 66: Lodge's "Illustrations," vol. i.]
It may be matter as much of surprise as regret to the reader of these
letters, that a negotiation should have failed of success, which the
manly plainness of the envoy on one hand and the honourable unreserve of
the prince on the other had so quickly freed from the customary
intricacies of diplomatic transactions. Religion furnished, to
appearance, the only objection which could be urged against the union;
and on this head the archduke would have been satisfied with terms the
least favorable to himself that could be devised. He only stipulated for
the performance of Catholic worship in a private room of the palace, at
which none but himself and such servants of his own persuasion as he
should bring with him should have permission to attend. He consented
regularly to accompany the queen to the services of the church of
England, and for a time to intermit the exercise of his own religion
should any disputes arise; and he engaged that neither he nor his
attendants should in any manner contravene, or give countenance to such
as contravened, the established religion of the country. In short, he
asked no greater indulgence on this head than what was granted without
scruple to the ambassadors of Catholic powers. But even this, it was
affirmed, was more than the queen could with safety concede; and on this
ground the treaty was finally closed.
There is great room, however, to suspect that the real and the
ostensible reasons of the failure of this marriage were by no means the
same. It could scarcely have been expected or hoped that a prince of the
house of Austria would consent to desert the religion of his ancestors,
which he must have regarded himself as pledged by the honor of his birth
to maintain; and without deserting it he could not go beyond the terms
which Charles actually offered. This religion, as a system of faith and
worship, was by no means regarded by Elizabeth with such abhorrence as
would render it irksome to her to grant it toleration in a husband,
though on political grounds she forbade under heavy penalties its
exercise to her subjects. It is true that to the puritans the smallest
degree of indulgence to its idolatrous rites appeared a heinous sin, and
from them the Austrian match would have had to encounter all the
opposition that could prudently be made by a sect itself obnoxious to
the rod of persecution. The duke of Norfolk is said to have given great
offence to this party, with which he was usually disposed to act, by the
cordial approbation which he was induced, probably by his friendship for
the earl of Sussex, to bestow on this measure. Leicester is believed to
have thwarted the negotiations by means of one of his creatures, for
whom he had procured the second rank in the embassy of the earl of
Sussex; he also labored in person to fill the mind of the queen with
fears and scruples respecting it. But it is probable that, after all,
the chief difficulty lay in Elizabeth's settled aversion to the married
state; and notwithstanding all her professions to her ambassador, the
known dissimulation of her character permits us to believe, not only
that small obstacles were found sufficient to divert her from
accomplishing the union which she pretended to have at heart; but that
from the very beginning she was insincere, and that not even the total
sacrifice of his religion would have exempted her suitor from final
disappointment.
The decease of sir Richard Sackville in 1566 called his son, the
accomplished poet, to the inheritance of a noble fortune, and opened to
him the career of public life. At the time of his father's death he was
pursuing his travels through France and Italy, and had been subjected to
a short imprisonment in Rome, "which trouble," says his eulogist, "was
brought upon him by some who hated him for his love to religion and his
duty to his sovereign."
Immediately on his return to his native country the duke of Norfolk, by
the queen's command, conferred upon him the honor of knighthood, and on
the same day he was advanced by her to the degree of a baron by the
style of lord Buckhurst. The new peer immediately shone forth one of the
brightest ornaments of the court: but carried away by the ardor of his
imagination, he plunged so deeply into the expensive pleasures of the
age as seriously to injure his fortune, and in part his credit: timely
reflection however, added, it is said, to the counsels of his royal
kinswoman, cured him of the foible of profusion, and he lived not only
to retrieve, but to augment his patrimony to a vast amount.
Amid the factions of the court, lord Buckhurst, almost alone, preserved
a dignified neutrality, resting his claims to consideration and
influence not on the arts of intrigue, but on his talents, his merit,
his extensive possessions, and his interest in his royal kinswoman.
Leicester was jealous of his approach, as of that of every man of honor
who affected an independence on his support; but it was not till many
years afterwards, and on an occasion in which his own reputation and
safety were at stake, that the wily favorite ventured a direct attack
upon the credit of lord Buckhurst. At present they preserved towards
each other those exteriors of consideration and respect which in the
world, and especially at courts, are found so perfectly compatible with
fear, hatred, or contempt.
It was about this time, that in one of her majesty's summer progresses
an incident occurred which the painter or the poet might seize and
embellish.
Passing through Northamptonshire, she stopped to visit her royal castle
of Fotheringay, then, or soon after, committed by her to the keeping of
sir William Fitzwilliam several times lord-deputy of Ireland. The castle
was at this time entire and magnificent, and must have been viewed by
Elizabeth with sentiments of family pride. It was erected by her remote
progenitor Edmund of Langley, son of king Edward III. and founder of the
house of York. By his directions the keep was built in the likeness of a
fetter-lock, the well known cognisance of that line, and in the windows
the same symbol with its attendant falcon was repeatedly and
conspicuously emblazoned. From Edmund of Langley it descended to his son
Edward duke of York, slain in the field of Agincourt, and next to the
son of his unfortunate brother the decapitated earl of Cambridge; to
that Richard who fell at Wakefield in the attempt to assert his title to
the crown, which the victorious arms of his son Edward IV. afterwards
vindicated to himself and his posterity.
In a collegiate church adjoining were deposited the remains of Edward
and Richard dukes of York, and of Cecily wife to the latter, who
survived to behold so many bloody deeds of which her children were the
perpetrators or the victims. Elizabeth, attended by all the pomp of
royalty, proceeded to visit the spot of her ancestors' interment: but
what was her indignation and surprise on discovering, that the splendid
tombs which had once risen to their memory, had been involved in the
same destruction with the college itself, of which the rapacious
Northumberland had obtained a grant from Edward VI., and that scarcely
a stone remained to protect the dust of these descendants and
progenitors of kings! She instantly gave orders for the erection of
suitable monuments to their honor: but her commands were ill obeyed, and
a few miserable plaster figures were all that the illustrious dead
obtained at last from her pride or her piety. These monuments however,
such as they are, remain to posterity, whilst of the magnificent castle,
the only adequate commemoration of the power and greatness of its
possessors, one stone is not left upon another:--it was levelled with
the ground by order of James I., that not a vestige might remain of the
last prison of his unhappy mother, the fatal scene of her trial,
condemnation, and ignominious death.
The close of the year 1567 had left the queen of Scots a prisoner in
Lochleven-castle, her infant son declared king, and the regent
Murray,--a man of vigor, prudence, and in the main of virtue,--holding
the reins with a firm hand. For the peace and welfare of Scotland, for
the security of reformed religion, and for the ends of that moral
retribution from which the crimes and vices of the rulers of mankind
ought least of all to be exempt, nothing could be more desirable than
that such a state of things should become permanent, by the acquiescence
of the potentates of Europe, and of that powerful aristocracy which in
Scotland was unhappily superior to the whole force of the laws and the
constitution. But for its destruction many interests, many passions and
prejudices conspired. It was rather against Bothwell than against the
queen that many of the nobles had taken arms; and more favorable terms
would at first have been granted her, could she have been brought to
consent as a preliminary to divorce and banish him for ever from her
presence. The flight of Bothwell and the prolongation of her own
captivity had subdued her obstinacy on this point: it was understood
that she was now willing that her marriage should be dissolved, and this
concession alone sufficed to bring her many partisans. Sentiments of
pity began to arise in favor of an unfortunate queen and beauty, and to
cause her crimes to be extenuated or forgotten. All the catholics in
Scotland were her earnest friends, and the foreign princes of the same
persuasion were unceasingly stimulating them to act openly in her
behalf. With these Elizabeth, either by her zeal for the common cause of
sovereigns, or by some treacherous designs of her own, was brought into
most preposterous conjunction, and she had actually proposed to the
court of France that they should by joint consent cut off all
communication with Scotland till the queen should be reinstated. The
haughty and unconciliating temper of Murray had embittered the animosity
entertained against him by several nobles of the blood-royal, each of
whom regarded himself as the person best entitled to the office of
regent; and an insurrection against his authority was already in
contemplation, when Mary, having by her promises and blandishments
bribed an unthinking youth to effect her liberation, suddenly reappeared
in readiness to put herself at the head of such of her countrymen as
still owned her allegiance.
Several leading nobles flocked hastily to her standard; a bond was
entered into for her defence, and in a few days she saw herself at the
head of six thousand men. Elizabeth made her an immediate offer of
troops and succour, stipulating however, from a prudent jealousy of the
French, that no foreign forces should be admitted into Scotland; and
further, that all disputes between Mary and her subjects should be
submitted to her arbitration.
Fortunately for Scotland, though disastrously for the future days of
Mary and the fame of Elizabeth, this formidable rising in favor of the
deposed sovereign was crushed at a single blow. Murray, with inferior
forces, marched courageously against the queen, gained a complete and
easy victory, and compelled her to a hasty flight.
Accompanied only by a few attendants, the defeated princess reached the
English border. What should she do? Behind her was the hostile army,
acting in the name of her son to whom she had signed an abdication of
the throne, in virtue of which her late attempt to reinstate herself
might lawfully be visited with the rigors of perpetual imprisonment, or
even with death itself.
Before her lay the dominions of a princess whose titles she had once
usurped, and whose government she had never ceased to molest by her
intrigues,--of one who had hated her as a competitor in power and in
beauty,--as an enemy in religion, and most of all as the heiress of her
crown. But this very princess had interfered, generously interfered, to
save her life; she had shown herself touched by her situation; she had
offered her, under certain conditions, succours and protection. Perhaps
she would no longer remember in the suppliant who embraced her knees,
the haughty rival who had laid claim to her crown;--perhaps she would
show herself a real friend. The English people too,--could they behold
unmoved "a queen, a beauty," hurled from her throne, chased from her
country by the rude hands of her rebellious subjects, and driven to
implore their aid? No surely,--ten thousand swords would spring from
their scabbards to avenge her injuries;--so she hoped, so she reasoned;
for merited misfortune had not yet impaired her courage or abated her
confidence, nor had the sense of guilt impressed upon her mind one
lesson of humility. Her situation, also, admitted of no other
alternative than to confide herself to Elizabeth or surrender to
Murray,--a step not to be thought of. Time pressed; fear urged; and
resolved to throw herself at the feet of her kinswoman, she crossed,
never to return, the Rubicon of her destiny. A common fishing-boat, the
only vessel that could be procured, landed her on May 16th 1568, with
about twenty attendants, at Workington in Cumberland, whence she was
conducted with every mark of respect to Carlisle-castle; and from this
asylum she instantly addressed to Elizabeth a long letter, relating her
fresh reverse of fortune, complaining of the injuries which she had
received at the hands of her subjects, and earnestly imploring her favor
and protection.
With what feelings this important letter was received it would be
deeply interesting to inquire, were there any possibility of arriving at
the knowledge of a thing so secret. If indeed the professions of
friendship and offers of effectual aid lavished by Elizabeth upon Mary
during the period of her captivity, were nothing else than a series of
stratagems by which she sought to draw an unwary victim within her
toils, and to wreak on her the vengeance of an envious temper and
unpitying heart, we might now imagine her exulting in the success of her
wiles, and smiling over the atrocious perfidy which she was about to
commit. If, on the other hand, we judge these demonstrations to have
been at the time sincere, and believe that Elizabeth, though profoundly
sensible of Mary's misconduct, was yet anxious to save her from the
severe retribution which her exasperated subjects had taken upon them to
exact, we must imagine her whole soul agitated at this crisis by a crowd
of conflicting thoughts and adverse passions.
In the first moments, sympathy for an unhappy queen, and the intuitive
sense of generosity and honor, would urge her to fulfil every promise,
to satisfy or surpass every hope which her conduct had excited. But soon
the mingled suggestions of female honor, of policy, of caution, uniting
with the sentiment of habitual enmity, would arise, first to moderate,
then to extinguish, her ardor in the cause of her supplicant. Further
reflection, enforced perhaps by the reasonings of her most trusted
counsellors, would serve to display in tempting colors the advantages to
be taken of the now defenceless condition of a competitor once
formidable and always odious; and gradually, but not easily, not without
reluctance and shame and secret pangs of compunction, she would suffer
the temptation,--one, it must be confessed, of no common force and aided
by pleas of public utility not a little plausible,--to become victorious
over her first thoughts, her better feelings, her more virtuous
resolves. For the honor of human nature, it may be believed that the
latter state of feeling must have been that experienced by a princess
whose life had been as yet unsullied by any considerable violations of
faith, justice, or humanity: but it must not escape remark, that the
first steps taken by her in this business were strong, decided in their
character, and almost irretrievable.
Lady Scrope, sister of the duke of Norfolk, was indeed sent to attend
the illustrious stranger at Carlisle, and lord Scrope warden of the west
marches and sir Francis Knolles the vice-chamberlain were soon after
dispatched thither with letters for her of kind condolence: but when
Mary applied to these persons for permission to visit their queen, they
replied, that, until she should have cleared herself of the shocking
imputation of her husband's murder, public decorum and her own
reputation must preclude a princess so nearly related to the late king
of Scots from receiving her into her presence. That it was however with
regret that their mistress admitted this delay; and as soon as the queen
of Scots should have vindicated herself on this point, they were
empowered to promise her a reception suited at once to a sovereign and a
kinswoman in distress.
Had not Elizabeth previously committed herself in some degree by
interference in behalf of Mary, and by promises to her of support, no
one could reasonably have blamed the caution or the coldness of this
reply to a request, which, under all the circumstances, might justly be
taxed with effrontery. But in the judgement of Mary and her friends, and
perhaps even of more impartial judges, the part already taken by
Elizabeth had deprived her of the right of recurring to former events as
a plea for the exclusion of the queen of Scots from her presence and
favor.
Tears of grief and anger burst from the eyes of Mary on this unexpected
check, which struck her heart with the most melancholy forebodings; but
aware of the necessity of disguising fears which would pass for an
evidence of guilt, she hastily replied, that she was willing to submit
her whole conduct to the judgement of the queen her sister, and did not
doubt of being able to produce such proofs of her innocence as would
satisfy her and confound her enemies.
This was enough for Elizabeth: she was now constituted umpire between
the queen of Scots and her subjects, and the future fate of both might
be said to lie in her hands; in the mean time she had gained a pretext
for treating as a culprit the party who had appealed to her tribunal. We
learn that lord Scrope and sir Francis Knolles had from the first
received secret instructions not only to watch the motions of Mary, but
to prevent her departure; her person had also been surrounded with
sentinels under the semblance of a guard of honor. But hitherto these
measures of precaution had probably remained concealed from their
object; they were now gradually replaced by others of a more open and
decided character, and it was not much longer permitted to the hapless
fugitive to doubt the dismal truth, that she was once more a prisoner.
Alarmed at her situation, and secretly conscious how ill her conduct
would stand the test of judicial inquiry, Mary no sooner learned that
Elizabeth had actually named commissioners to hear the pleadings on both
sides, and written to summon the regent to produce before them whatever
he could bring in justification of his conduct towards his sovereign,
than she hastened to retract her former unwary concession.
In a letter full of impotent indignation, assumed majesty and real
dismay, she now sought to explain away or evade her late appeal. She
repeated her demand of admission to the presence of Elizabeth, refused
to compromise her royal dignity by submitting to a trial in which her
own subjects were to appear as parties against her, and ended by
requiring that the queen would either furnish her with that assistance
which it behoved her more than any one to grant, or would suffer her to
seek the aid of other princes whose delicacy on this head would be less,
or their resentment of her wrongs greater. This last proposal might have
suggested to Elizabeth the safest, easiest, and most honorable mode of
extricating herself from the dilemma in which, by further intermeddling
in the concerns of Scotland, she was likely to become involved. Happy
would it have been for her credit and her peace of mind, had she
suffered her perplexing guest to depart and seek for partisans and
avengers elsewhere! But her pride of superiority and love of sway were
flattered by the idea of arbitrating in so great a cause; her secret
malignity enjoyed the humiliation of her enemy; and her characteristic
caution represented to her in formidable colors the danger of restoring
to liberty one whom she had already offended beyond forgiveness. She
laid Mary's letter before her privy-council; and these confidential
advisers, after wisely and uprightly deciding that it would be
inconsistent with the honor and safety of the queen and her government
to undertake the restoration of the queen of Scots, were induced to add,
that it would also be unsafe to permit her departure out of the kingdom,
and that the inquiry into her conduct ought to be pursued.
In spite of her remonstrances, Mary was immediately removed to
Bolton-castle in Yorkshire, a seat of lord Scrope's; her communications
with her own country were cut off; her confinement was rendered more
strict; and by secret promises from Elizabeth of finally causing her to
be restored to her throne under certain limitations, she was led to
renew her consent to the trial of her cause in England, and to engage
herself to name commissioners to confer with those of the regent and of
Elizabeth at York.
It would be foreign from the purpose of the present work to engage in a
regular narrative of the celebrated proceedings begun soon after at the
city last mentioned, and ended at Westminster: some remarkable
circumstances illustrative of the character of the English princess, or
connected with the fate of her principal noble, will however be related
hereafter, as well as their final result;--at present other subjects
claim attention.
An embassy arrived in London in 1567, from Ivan Basilowitz czar of
Muscovy, the second which had been addressed to an English sovereign
from that country, plunged as yet in barbarous ignorance, and far from
anticipating the day when it should assume a distinguished station in
the system of civilized Europe.
It was by a bold and extraordinary enterprise that the barrier of the
Frozen Sea had been burst, and a channel of communication opened between
this country and Russia by means of which an intercourse highly
beneficial to both nations was now begun: the leading circumstances were
the following.
During the reign of Henry VII., just after the unparalleled achievement
of Columbus had rendered voyages of discovery the ruling passion of
Europe, a Venetian pilot, named Cabot, who had resided long in Bristol,
obtained from this monarch for himself and his sons a patent for making
discoveries and conquests in unknown regions. By this navigator and his
son Sebastian, Newfoundland was soon after discovered; and by Sebastian
after his father's death a long series of maritime enterprises were
subsequently undertaken with various success. For many years he was in
the service of Spain; but returning to England at the close of Henry the
eighth's reign, he was received with merited favor at court. Young king
Edward listened with eagerness to the relations of the aged navigator;
and touched by the unquenchable ardor of discovery which still burned in
the bosom of this contemporary and rival of Columbus, granted with
alacrity his royal license for the fitting out of three ships to explore
a north passage to the East Indies. The instructions for this voyage
were drawn up in a masterly manner by Cabot himself, and the command of
the expedition was given to sir Hugh Willoughby, and under him to
Richard Chancellor, a gentleman who had long been attached to the
service of the excellent sir Henry Sidney, by whom he was recommended to
this appointment in the warmest terms of affection and esteem.
The ships were separated by a tempest off the Norwegian coast; and
Willoughby, having encountered much foul weather and judging the season
too far advanced to proceed on so hazardous a voyage, laid up his vessel
in a bay on the shore of Lapland, with the purpose of awaiting the
return of spring. But such was the rigor of the season on this bleak and
inhospitable coast, that the admiral and his whole crew were frozen to
death in their cabin. Chancellor in the mean time, by dint of superior
sailing, was enabled to surmount the perils of the way. He doubled the
North Cape, a limit never passed by English keel before, and still
proceeding eastward, found entrance into an unknown gulf, which proved
to be the White Sea, and dropped anchor at length in the port of
Archangel.
The rude natives were surprised and terrified by the appearance of a
strange vessel much superior in size to any which they had before
beheld; but after a time, venturing on an intercourse with the
navigators, they acquainted them, that they were subjects of the czar of
Muscovy, and that they had sent to apprize him of so extraordinary an
arrival. On the return of the messenger, Chancellor received an
invitation to visit the court of Moscow. The czar, barbarian as he was
in manners and habits, possessed however strong sense and an inquiring
mind; he had formed great projects for the improvement of his empire,
and he was immediately and fully aware of the advantages to be derived
from a direct communication by sea with a people capable of supplying
his country with most of the commodities which it now received from the
southern nations of Europe by a tedious and expensive land-carriage. He
accordingly welcomed the Englishmen with distinguished honors; returned
a favorable answer to the letter from king Edward of which they were the
bearers, and expressed his willingness to enter into commercial
relations with their country, and to receive an ambassador from their
sovereign. Edward did not live to learn the prosperous success of this
part of the expedition, but fortunately his successor extended equal
encouragement to the enterprise. A Russia company was formed, of which
the veteran Sebastian Cabot was made governor, and Chancellor was
dispatched on a second voyage, charged with further instructions for the
settlement of a commercial treaty. His voyage was again safe and
prosperous, and he was accompanied on his return by a Russian
ambassador; but off the coast of Scotland the ship was unhappily
wrecked, and Chancellor with several other persons was drowned; the
ambassador himself reaching the land with much difficulty. The vessel
was plundered of her whole cargo by the neighbouring peasantry; but the
ambassador and his train were hospitably entertained by the queen-regent
of Scotland, and forwarded on their way to London, where their grotesque
figures and the barbaric pomp of their dress and equipage astonished the
court and city.
The present embassy, which reached its destination without accident, was
one of greater importance, and appeared with superior dignity. It
conveyed to the queen, besides all verbal assurances of the friendship
of the czar, a magnificent present of the richest furs, and other
articles of great rarity; and the ambassadors had it in charge to
conclude a treaty of amity and commerce, of which the terms proved
highly advantageous for England. They were accompanied by an Englishman
named Jenkinson, who had been sent out several years before, by the
Russia company, to explore the southern and eastern limits of that vast
empire, and to endeavour to open an overland trade with Persia. By the
assistance of the czar he had succeeded in this object, and was the
first Englishman who ever sailed upon the Caspian, or travelled over the
wild region which lies beyond. In return for all favors, he had now
undertaken on behalf of the czar to propose to his own sovereign certain
secret articles in which this prince was more deeply interested than in
any commercial matters, and which he deemed it unsafe to commit to the
fidelity or discretion of his own ambassadors.
Ivan, partly by a marked preference shown to foreigners, which his own
barbarians could not forgive, partly by his many acts of violence and
cruelty, had highly incensed his subjects against him. In the preceding
year, a violent insurrection had nearly hurled him from the throne; and
still apprehensive of some impending disaster, he now proposed to the
queen of England a league offensive and defensive, of which he was
anxious to make it an article, that she should bind herself by oath to
grant a kind and honorable reception in her dominions to himself, his
wife and children, should any untoward event compel them to quit their
country. But that never-failing caution which, in all the complication
and diversity of her connexions with foreign powers, withheld Elizabeth
from ever, in a single instance, committing herself beyond the power of
retreat, caused her to waive compliance with the extraordinary proposal
of Ivan. She entertained his ambassadors however with the utmost
cordiality, gratified his wishes in every point where prudence would
permit, and finally succeeded, by the adroitness of her management, in
securing for her country, without sacrifice or hazard on her own part,
every real benefit which an intercourse with such a people and such a
sovereign appeared capable of affording. To have come off with advantage
in a trial of diplomatic skill with a barbarous czar of Muscovy, was
however an exploit of which a civilized politician would be ashamed to
boast,--on him no glory could be won,--and we may imagine Elizabeth
turning from him with a kind of disdain to an antagonist more worthy of
her talents.
The king and court of France were at this time subjected to the guidance
of the execrable Catherine dei Medici. To this woman the religious
differences which then agitated Europe were in themselves perfectly
indifferent, and on more than one occasion she had allowed it to be
perceived that they were so: but a close and dispassionate study of the
state of parties in her son's kingdom, had at length convinced her that
it was necessary to the establishment of his authority and her own
consequence, that the Hugonot faction should be crushed, and she stood
secretly prepared and resolved to procure the accomplishment of this
object by measures of perfidy and atrocity from which bigotry itself, in
a mind not totally depraved, must have revolted.
By the secret league of Bayonne, the courts of France and Spain had
pledged themselves to pursue in concert the great work of the
extirpation of heresy; and while Catherine was laying hidden trains for
the destruction of the Hugonots, Philip II., by measures of open force
and relentless cruelty, was striving to annihilate the protestants of
the Low Countries, and to impose upon those devoted provinces the
detested yoke of the inquisition.
Elizabeth was aware of all that was going on; and she well knew that
when once these worthy associates had succeeded in crushing the
reformation in their own dominions, Scotland and England would become
the immediate theatre of their operations. Already were the catholics of
the two countries privately encouraged to rely on them for support, and
incited to aid the common cause by giving all the disturbance in their
power to their respective governments.
Considerations of policy therefore, no less than of religion, moved her
to afford such succours, first to the French protestants and afterwards
to the Flemings, as might enable them to prolong at least the contest;
but her caution and her frugality conspired to restrain her from
involving herself in actual warfare for the defence of either. At the
very time therefore that she was secretly supplying the Hugonots with
money and giving them assurances of her support, she was more than ever
attentive to preserve all the exteriors of friendship with the court of
France.
It suited the views of the queen-mother to receive with complacency and
encouragement the dissembling professions of Elizabeth; by which she was
not herself deceived, but which served to deceive and to alarm her
enemies the protestants, and in some measure to mask her designs against
them. We have seen what high civilities had passed between the courts on
occasion of the admission of the French king into the order of the
garter,--but this is little to what followed.
In 1568, after the remonstrances and intercession of Elizabeth, the
succours lent by the German protestants, and the strenuous resistance
made by the Hugonots themselves, had procured for this persecuted sect a
short and treacherous peace, Catherine, in proof and confirmation of her
entire friendship with the queen of England, began to drop hints to her
ambassador of a marriage between his mistress and her third son the
duke of Anjou, then only seventeen years of age. Elizabeth was assuredly
not so much of a dupe as to believe the queen-mother sincere in this
strange proposal; yet it was entertained by her with the utmost apparent
seriousness. She even thought proper to give it a certain degree of
cautious encouragement, which Catherine was doubtless well able rightly
to interpret; and with this extraordinary kind of mutual understanding,
these two ingenious females continued for months, nay years, to amuse
themselves and one another with the representation of carrying on of
negotiations for a treaty of marriage. Elizabeth, with the most candid
and natural air in the world, remarked that difference of religion would
present the most serious obstacle to so desirable an union: Catherine,
with equal plausibility, hoped that on this point terms of agreement
might be found satisfactory to both parties; and warming as they
proceeded, one began to imagine the conditions to which a catholic
prince could with honor accede, and the other to invent the objections
which ought to be made to them by a protestant princess.
The philosophical inquirer, who has learned from the study of history
how much more the high destinies of nations are governed by the
permanent circumstances of geographical position and relative force, and
the great moral causes which act upon whole ages and peoples, than by
negotiations, intrigues, schemes of politicians and tricks of state,
will be apt to regard as equally futile and base the petty manoeuvres
of dissimulation and artifice employed by each queen to incline in her
own favor the political balance. But in justice to the memories of
Catherine and Elizabeth,--women whom neither their own nor any
after-times have taxed with folly,--it ought at least to be observed,
that in mistaking the excess of falsehood for the perfection of address,
the triumphs of cunning for the masterpieces of public wisdom, they did
but partake the error of the ablest male politicians of that age of
statesmen. The same narrow views of the interest of princes and of
states governed them all: they seem to have believed that the right and
the expedient were constantly opposed to each other; in the intercourses
of public men they thought that nothing was more carefully to be shunned
than plain speaking and direct dealings, and in these functionaries they
regarded the use of every kind of "indirection" as allowable, because
absolutely essential to the great end of serving their country.
Amongst the wiser and better part of Elizabeth's council however, such a
profound abhorrence of the measures of the French court at this time
prevailed, and such an honest eagerness to join heart and hand with the
oppressed Hugonots for the redress of their intolerable grievances, that
it required all her vigilance and address to keep them within the limits
of that temporizing moderation which she herself was bent on preserving.
In the correspondence of Cecil with sir Henry Norris, then ambassador in
France, the bitterness of his feelings is perpetually breaking out, and
he cannot refrain from relating with extreme complacency such words of
displeasure as her majesty was at any time moved to let fall against
her high allies. In November 1567, when civil war had again broken out
in France, he acquaints the ambassador that the queen dislikes to give
assistance to Conde and his party against their sovereign, but
recommends it to him to do it occasionally notwithstanding, as the
council are their friends.
In September 1568 he writes thus: "The French ambassador has sent his
nephew to require audience, and that it might be ordered to have her
majesty's council present at the bishop's missado. Her majesty's answer
was, that they forgot themselves, in coming from a king that was but
young, to think her not able to conceive an answer without her council:
and although she could use the advice of her council, as was meet, yet
she saw no cause why they should thus deal with her, being of full
years, and governing her realm in better sort than France was. So the
audience, being demanded on Saturday, was put off till Tuesday,
wherewith I think they are not contented." Again: "Monsieur de
Montausier... was brought to the queen's presence to report the victory
which God had given the French king by a battle, as he termed it,
wherein was slain the prince of Conde; whereunto, as I could conceive,
her majesty answered, that of any good fortune happening to the king she
was glad; but that she thought it also to be condoled with the king,
that it should be counted a victory to have a prince of his blood slain;
and so with like speech, not fully to their contentation[67]."
[Note 67: Scrinia Ceciliana.]
With the Spanish court the queen was on the worst possible terms short
of open hostilities. Her ambassador at Madrid had been banished from the
city to a little village in the neighbourhood; the Spanish ambassador at
London had been placed under guard for dispersing libels against her
person and government; and in consequence of her adroit seizure of a sum
of money belonging to some Genoese merchants designed as a loan to the
duke of Alva, to enable him to carry on the war against the protestants
in Flanders, the king of Spain had ordered all commerce to be broken off
between those provinces and England.
In the midst of these menaces of foreign war, cabals were forming
against Elizabeth in her own kingdom and court which threatened her with
nearer dangers. Of all these plots, the Scottish queen was, directly or
indirectly, the cause or the pretext; and in order to place them in a
clear light, it will now be necessary to return to the conferences at
York.