1577 TO 1582.
Relations of the queen with France and Spain.--She sends succours to the
Dutch--is entertained by Leicester, and celebrated in verse by P.
Sidney.--Her visit to Norwich.--Letter of Topcliffe.--Notice of sir T.
Smith.--Magical practices against the queen.--Duke Casimir's visit to
England.--Duke of Anjou urges his suit with the queen.--Simier's
mission.--Leicester's marriage.--Behaviour of the queen.--A shot fired
at her barge.--Her memorable speech.--First visit of Anjou in
England.--Opinions of privy-councillors on the match.--Letter of Philip
Sidney.--Stubbs's book.--Punishment inflicted on him.--Notice of sir N.
Bacon.--Drake's return from his circumnavigation.--Jesuit
seminaries.--Arrival of a French embassy.--A triumph.--Notice of Fulk
Greville.--Marriage-treaty with Anjou.--His second visit.--His return
and death.
About the middle of the year 1576, Walsingham in a letter to sir Henry
Sidney thus writes: "Here at home we live in security as we were wont,
grounding our quietness upon other harms." The harms here alluded
to,--the religious wars of France, and the revolt of the Dutch provinces
from Spain,--had proved indeed, in more ways than one, the safeguard of
the peace of England. They furnished so much domestic occupation to the
two catholic sovereigns of Europe, most formidable by their power, their
bigotry, and their unprincipled ambition, as effectually to preclude
them from uniting their forces to put in execution against Elizabeth the
papal sentence of deprivation; and by the opportunity which they
afforded her of causing incalculable mischiefs to these princes through
the succours which she might afford to their rebellious subjects, they
long enabled her to restrain both Philip and Charles within the bounds
of respect and amity. But circumstances were now tending with increased
velocity towards a rupture with Spain, clearly become inevitable; and in
1577 the queen of England saw herself compelled to take steps in the
affairs of the Low Countries equally offensive to that power and to
France.
The states of Holland, after the rejection of their sovereignty by
Elizabeth, cast their eyes around in search of another protector: and
Charles IX., suffering his ambition and his rivalry with Philip II. to
overpower all the vehemence of his zeal for the catholic religion,
showed himself eager to become their patron. His brother the duke
d'Alencon, doubtless with his concurrence, offered on certain terms to
bring a French army for the expulsion of don John of Austria, governor
of the Low Countries; and this proposal he urged with so much
importunity, that the Hollanders, notwithstanding their utter antipathy
to the royal family of France, seemed likely to accede to it, as the
lightest of that variety of evils of which their present situation
offered them the choice. But Elizabeth could not view with indifference
the progress of a negotiation which might eventually procure to France
the annexation of these important provinces; and she encouraged the
states to refuse the offers of Alencon by immediately transmitting for
their service liberal supplies of arms and money to duke Casimir, son of
the Elector Palatine, then at the head of a large body of German
protestants in the Low Countries.
At the same time she endeavoured to repress the catholics in her own
dominions by a stricter enforcement of the penal laws, and two or three
persons in this year suffered capitally for their denial of the queen's
supremacy[81].
[Note 81: Dr. Whitgift, then bishop of Worcester and vice-president
of the marches of Wales under sir Henry Sidney, peculiarly distinguished
himself by his activity in detecting secret meetings of catholics for
the purpose of hearing mass and practising other rites of their
religion. The privy-council, in reward of his zeal, promised to direct
to him and to some of the Welsh bishops a special commission for the
trial of these delinquents. They further instructed him, in the case of
one Morice who had declined answering directly to certain
interrogatories tending to criminate himself in these matters, that if
he remained obstinate, and the commissioners saw cause, they might at
their discretion cause some kind of torture to be used upon him. The
same means he was also desired to take with others; in order to come to
a full knowledge of all reconcilements to the church of Rome, and other
practices of the papists in these parts. See Strype's "Whitgift," p.
83.]
These steps on the part of Elizabeth threatened to disconcert entirely
the plans of the French court; but it still seemed practicable, to the
king and to his brother, to produce a change in her measures; and two or
three successive embassies arrived in London during the spring and
summer of 1578, to renew with fresh earnestness the proposals of
marriage on the part of the duke d'Alencon. The earl of Sussex and his
party favored this match, Leicester and all the zealous protestants in
the court and the nation opposed it. The queen "sat arbitress," and
perhaps prolonged her deliberations on the question, for the pleasure of
receiving homage more than usually assiduous from both factions.
The favorite, anxious to secure his ascendency by fresh efforts of
gallantry and instances of devotedness, entreated to be indulged in the
privilege of entertaining her majesty for several days at his seat of
Wanstead-house; a recent and expensive purchase, which he had been
occupied in adorning with a magnificence suited to the ostentatious
prodigality of his disposition.
It was for the entertainment of her majesty on this occasion that Philip
Sidney condescended to task a genius worthy of better things with the
composition of a mask in celebration of her surpassing beauties and
royal virtues, entitled "The Lady of May." In defence of this public act
of adulation, the young poet had probably the particular request of his
uncle and patron to plead, as well as the common practice of the age;
but it must still be mortifying under any circumstances, to record the
abasement of such a spirit to a level with the vulgar herd of
Elizabethan flatterers.
Unsatiated with festivities and homage, the queen continued her progress
from Wanstead through the counties of Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk,
receiving the attendance of numerous troops of gentry, and making visits
in her way to all who felt themselves entitled, or called, to solicit
with due humility the costly honor of entertaining her. Her train was
numerous and brilliant, and the French ambassadors constantly attended
her motions. About the middle of August she arrived at Norwich.
This ancient city, then one of the most considerable in the kingdom,
yielded to none in a zealous attachment to protestant principles and to
the queen's person; and as its remote situation had rendered the arrival
of a royal visitant within its walls an extremely rare occurrence, the
magistrates resolved to spare nothing which could contribute to the
splendor of her reception.
At the furthest limits of the city she was met by the mayor, who
addressed her in a long and very abject Latin oration, in which he was
not ashamed to pronounce that the city enjoyed its charters and
privileges "by her only clemency." At the conclusion he produced a large
silver cup filled with gold pieces, saying, "Sunt hic centum librae puri
auri:" Welcome sounds, which failed not to reach the ear of her gracious
majesty, who, lifting up the cover with alacrity, said audibly to the
footman to whose care it was delivered, "Look to it, there is a hundred
pound." Pageants were set up in the principal streets, of which one had
at least the merit of appropriateness, since it accurately represented
the various processes employed in those woollen manufactures for which
Norwich was already famous.
Two days after her majesty's arrival, Mercury, in a blue satin doublet
lined with cloth of gold, with a hat of the same garnished with wings,
and wings at his feet, appeared under her chamber window in an
extraordinarily fine painted coach, and invited her to go abroad and
see more shows; and a kind of mask, in which Venus and Cupid with
Wantonness and Riot were discomfited by the Goddess of Chastity and her
attendants, was performed in the open air. A troop of nymphs and fairies
lay in ambush for her return from dining with the earl of Surry; and in
the midst of these Heathenish exhibitions, the minister of the Dutch
church watched his opportunity to offer to her the grateful homage of
his flock. To these deserving strangers, protestant refugees from
Spanish oppression, the policy of Elizabeth, in this instance equally
generous and discerning, had granted every privilege capable of inducing
them to make her kingdom their permanent abode. At Norwich, where the
greater number had settled, a church was given them for the performance
of public worship in their own tongue, and according to the form which
they preferred; and encouragement was held out to them to establish here
several branches of manufacture which they had previously carried on to
great advantage at home. This accession of skill and industry soon
raised the woollen fabrics of England to a pitch of excellence unknown
in former ages, and repaid with usury to the country this exercise of
public hospitality.
It appears that the inventing of masks, pageants and devices for the
recreation of the queen on her progresses had become a distinct
profession. George Ferrers, formerly commemorated as master of the
pastimes to Edward VI., one Goldingham, and Churchyard, author of "the
Worthiness of Wales," of some legends in the "Mirror for Magistrates,"
and of a prodigious quantity of verse on various subjects, were the
most celebrated proficients in this branch; all three are handed down to
posterity as contributors to "the princely pleasures of Kennelworth,"
and the two latter as managers of the Norwich entertainments. They vied
with each other in the gorgeousness, the pedantry and the surprisingness
of their devices; but the palm was surely due to him of the number who
had the glory of contriving a battle between certain allegorical
personages, in the midst of which, "legs and arms of men, well and
lively wrought, were to be let fall in numbers on the ground as bloody
as might be." The combat was to be exhibited in the open air; but the
skies were unpropitious, and a violent shower of rain unfortunately
deprived her majesty of the satisfaction of witnessing the effect of so
extraordinary and elegant a device.
Richard Topcliffe, a Lincolnshire gentleman employed by government to
collect informations against the papists, and so much distinguished in
the employment, that _Topcliffizare_ became the cant term of the day for
_hunting a recusant_, was at this time a follower of the court; and a
letter addressed by him to the earl of Shrewsbury contains some
particulars of this progress worth preserving.... "I did never see her
majesty better received by two counties in one journey than Suffolk and
Norfolk now; Suffolk of gentlemen and Norfolk of the meaner sort, with
exceeding joy to themselves and well liking to her majesty. Great
entertainment at the master of the Rolls'; greater at Kenninghall, and
exceeding of all sorts at Norwich.
"The next good news, (but in account the highest) her majesty hath
served God with great zeal and comfortable examples; for by her council
two notorious papists, young Rookwood (the master of Euston-hall, where
her majesty did lie upon Sunday now a fortnight) and one Downes, a
gentleman, were both committed, the one to the town prison at Norwich,
the other to the county prison there, for obstinate papistry; and seven
more gentlemen of worship were committed to several houses in Norwich as
prisoners....for badness of belief. This Rookwood is a papist of kind,
newly crept out of his late wardship. Her majesty, by some means I know
not, was lodged at his house, Euston, far unmeet for her highness, but
fitter for the black guard; nevertheless, (the gentleman brought into
her majesty's presence by like device) her excellent majesty gave to
Rookwood ordinary thanks for his bad house, and her fair hand to kiss;
after which it was braved at. But my lord chamberlain, nobly and
gravely, understanding that Rookwood was excommunicated for papistry,
called him before him; demanded of him how he durst to attempt her royal
presence, he, unfit to accompany any Christian person? Forthwith said he
was fitter for a pair of stocks; commanded him out of the court, and yet
to attend her council's pleasure, and at Norwich he was committed. And,
to decypher the gentleman to the full; a piece of plate being missed in
the court and searched for in his hay-house, in the hayrick such an
image of our lady was there found, as for greatness, for gayness, and
workmanship, I did never see a match; and after a sort of country
dances ended, in her majesty's sight the idol was set behind the people,
who avoided. She rather seemed a beast raised upon a sudden from hell by
conjuring, than the picture for whom it had been so often and so long
abused. Her majesty commanded it to the fire, which in her sight by the
country folks was quickly done, to her content, and unspeakable joy of
every one, but some one or two who had sucked of the idol's poisoned
milk.
"Shortly after, a great sort of good preachers, who had been commanded
to silence for a little niceness, were licensed, and again commanded to
preach; a greater and more universal joy to the counties, and the most
of the court, than the disgrace of the papists; and the gentlemen of
those parts, being great and hot protestants (almost before by policy
discredited and disgraced), were greatly countenanced." The letter
writer afterwards mentions in a splenetic style the envoy from Monsieur,
one Baqueville a Norman, "with four or five of Monsieur's youths," who
attended the queen and were "well entertained and regarded." After them,
he says, came M. Rambouillet from the French king, brother of the
cardinal, who had not long before written vilely against the queen, and
whose entertainment, it seemed to him, was not so good as that of the
others[82].
[Note 82: "Illustrations," by Lodge, vol. ii. p. 187.]
The queen was about this time deprived by death of an old and faithful
counsellor, in the person of sir Thomas Smith one of the principal
secretaries of state. This eminent person, the author of a work "on the
Commonwealth of England," still occasionally consulted, and in various
ways a great benefactor to letters in his day, was one of the few who
had passed at once with safety and credit through all the perils and
revolutions of the three preceding reigns. His early proficiency at
college obtained for Smith the patronage of Henry VIII., at whose
expense he was sent to complete his studies in Italy; and he took at
Padua the degree of Doctor of Laws. Resuming on his return his residence
at Cambridge, he united his efforts with those of Cheke for reforming
the pronunciation of the Greek language. Afterwards he furnished an
example of attachment to his mother-tongue which among classical
scholars has found too few imitators, by giving to the public a work on
English orthography and pronunciation; objects as yet almost totally
neglected by his countrymen, and respecting which, down to a much later
period, no approach to system or uniformity prevailed, but, on the
contrary, a vagueness, a rudeness and an ignorance disgraceful to a
lettered people.
Though educated in the civil law, Smith now took deacon's orders and
accepted a rectory, and the deanery of Carlisle. His principles secretly
began to incline towards the reformers, and he lent such protection as
he was able to those who in the latter years of Henry VIII. underwent
persecution for the avowal of similar sentiments.
Protector Somerset patronized him: under his administration he was
knighted notwithstanding his deacon's orders, and became the colleague
of Cecil as secretary of state. On the accession of Mary he was stripped
of the lucrative offices which he held, but a small pension was assigned
him on condition of his remaining in the kingdom; and he contrived to
pass away those days of horror in an unmolested obscurity.
He was among the first whom Mary's illustrious successor recalled to
public usefulness; being summoned to take his place at her earliest
privy-council. In the important measures of the beginning of the reign
for the settlement of religion, he took a distinguished part: afterwards
he was employed with advantage to his country in several difficult
embassies; he was then appointed assistant and finally successor to
Burleigh in the same high post which they had occupied together so many
years before under the reign of Edward, and in this station he died at
the age of sixty-three.
No statesman of the age bore a higher character than sir Thomas Smith
for rectitude and benevolence, and nothing of the wiliness and craft
conspicuous in most of his coadjutors is discernible in him. There was
one foible of his day, however, from which he was by no means exempt: on
certain points he was superstitious beyond the ordinary measure of
learned credulity in the sixteenth century. Of his faith in alchemical
experiments a striking instance has already occurred; he was likewise a
great astrologer, and gave himself much concern in conjecturing what
direful events might be portended by the appearance of a comet which
became visible in the last year of his life. During a temporary
retirement from court, he had also distinguished himself as a magistrate
by his extraordinary diligence in the prosecution of suspected witches.
But the date of these and similar delusions had not yet expired. Great
alarms were excited in the country during the year 1577 by the
prevalence of certain magical practices, which were supposed to strike
at the life of her majesty. There were found at Islington, concealed in
the house of a catholic priest who was a reputed sorcerer, three waxen
images, formed to represent the queen and two of her chief counsellors;
other dealings also of professors of the occult sciences were from time
to time discovered. "Whether it were the effect of this magic," says
Strype, who wrote in the beginning of the eighteenth century, "or
proceeded from some natural cause, but the queen was in some part of
this year under excessive anguish by pains of her teeth: Insomuch that
she took no rest for divers nights, and endured very great torment night
and day." In this extremity, a certain "outlandish" physician was
consulted, who composed on the case, with much solemnity of style, a
long Latin letter, in which, after observing with due humility that it
was a perilous attempt in a person of his slender abilities to prescribe
for a disease which had caused perplexity and diversity of opinion among
the skilful and eminent physicians ordinarily employed by her majesty,
he ventured however to suggest various applications as worthy of trial;
finally hinting at the expediency of having recourse to extraction on
the possible failure of all other means to afford relief. How this
weighty matter terminated we are not here informed; but it is upon
record that Aylmer bishop of London once submitted to have a tooth
drawn, in order to encourage her majesty to undergo that operation; and
as the promotion of the learned prelate was at this time recent, and his
gratitude, it may be presumed, still lively, we may perhaps be permitted
to conjecture that it was the bishop who on this occasion performed the
part of exorcist.
The efforts of duke Casimir for the defence of the United Provinces had
hitherto proved eminently unfortunate; and in the autumn of 1578 he
judged it necessary to come over to England to apologize in person to
Elizabeth for the ill success of his arms, and to make arrangements for
the future.
He was very honorably received by her majesty, who recollected perhaps
with some little complacency that he had formerly been her suitor.
Justings, tilts, and runnings at the ring were exhibited for his
entertainment, and he was engaged in hunting-parties, in which he
greatly delighted. Leicester loaded him with presents; the earl of
Pembroke also complimented him with a valuable jewel. The earl of
Huntingdon, a nobleman whose religious zeal, which had rendered him the
peculiar patron of the puritan divines, interested him also in the cause
of Holland, escorted him on his return as far as Gravesend; and sir
Henry Sidney attended him to Dover. The queen willingly bestowed on her
princely guest the cheap distinction of the garter; but her parting
present of two golden cups, worth three hundred pounds a-piece, was
extorted from her, after much murmuring and long reluctance, by the
urgency of Walsingham, who was anxious, with the rest of his party, that
towards this champion of the protestant cause, though unfortunate, no
mark of respect should be omitted.
The Spanish and French ambassadors repined at the favors heaped on
Casimir; but in the mean time the French faction was not inactive. The
earl of Sussex, whose generally sound judgement seems to have been
warped in this instance by his habitual contrariety to Leicester, wrote
in August 1578 a long letter to the queen, in which, after stating the
arguments for and against the French match, he summed up pretty
decidedly in its favor. What was of more avail, Monsieur sent over to
plead his cause an agent named Simier, a person of great dexterity, who
well knew how to ingratiate himself by a thousand amusing arts; by a
sprightly style of conversation peculiarly suited to the taste of the
queen; and by that ingenious flattery, the talent of his nation, which
is seldom entirely thrown away even upon the sternest and most
impenetrable natures. Elizabeth could not summon resolution to dismiss
abruptly a suit which was so agreeably urged, and in February 1579 lord
Talbot sends the following information to his father: "Her majesty
continueth her very good usage of M. Simier and all his company, and he
hath conference with her three or four times a week, and she is the best
disposed and pleasantest when she talketh with him (as by her gestures
appeareth) that is possible." He adds, "The opinion of Monsieur's
coming still holdeth, and yet it is secretly bruited that he cannot take
up so much money as he would on such a sudden, and therefore will not
come so soon[83]."
[Note 83: "Illustrations," &c. vol. ii.]
The influence of Simier over the queen became on a sudden so potent,
that Leicester and his party reported, and perhaps believed, that he had
employed philters and other unlawful means to inspire her with love for
his master. Simier on his side amply retaliated these hostilities by
carrying to her majesty the first tidings of the secret marriage of her
favorite with the countess of Essex;--a fact which none of her courtiers
had found courage to communicate to her, though it must have been by
this time widely known, as sir Francis Knowles, the countess's father,
had insisted, for the sake of his daughter's reputation, that the
celebration of the nuptials should take place in presence of a
considerable number of witnesses.
The rage of the queen on this disclosure transported her beyond all the
bounds of justice, reason, and decorum. It has been already remarked
that she was habitually, or systematically, an open enemy to matrimony
in general; and the higher any persons stood in her good graces and the
more intimate their access to her, the greater was her resentment at
detecting in them any aspirations after this state; because a kind of
jealousy was in these cases superadded to her malignity, and it offended
her pride that those who were honored with her favor should find
themselves at leisure to covet another kind of happiness of which she
was not the dispenser. But that Leicester, the dearest of her friends,
the first of her favorites, after all the devotedness to her charms
which he had so long professed, and which she had requited by a
preference so marked and benefits so signal,--that he,--her opinion
unconsulted, her sanction unimplored, should have formed,--and with her
own near relation,--this indissoluble tie, and having formed it should
have attempted to conceal the fact from her when known to so many
others,--appeared to her the acme of ingratitude, perfidy, and insult.
She felt the injury like a weak disappointed woman, she resented it like
a queen and a Tudor.
She instantly ordered Leicester into confinement in a small fort then
standing in Greenwich park, and she threw out the menace, nay actually
entertained the design, of sending him to the Tower. But the lofty and
honorable mind of the earl of Sussex revolted against proceedings so
violent, so lawless, and so disgraceful in every point of view to his
royal kinswoman. He plainly represented to her, that it was contrary to
all right and all decorum that any man should be punished for lawful
matrimony, which was held in honor by all; and his known hostility to
the favorite giving weight to his remonstrance, the queen curbed her
anger, gave up all thoughts of the Tower, and soon restored the earl to
liberty. In no long time afterwards, he was readmitted to her presence;
and so necessary had he made himself to her majesty, or so powerful in
the state, that she found it expedient insensibly to restore him to the
same place of trust and intimacy as before; though it is probable that
he never entirely regained her affections; and his countess, for whom
indeed she had never entertained any affection, remained the avowed
object of her utter antipathy even after the death of Leicester, and in
spite of all the intercessions in her behalf with which her son Essex,
in the meridian of his favor, never ceased to importune his sovereign.
The quarrel of Leicester against Simier proceeded to such extremity
after this affair, that the latter believed his life in danger from his
attempts. It was even said that the earl had actually hired one of the
queen's guard to assassinate the envoy, and that the design had only
miscarried by chance. However this might be, her majesty, on account of
the spirit of enmity displayed towards him by the people, to whom the
idea of the French match was ever odious, found it necessary, by a
proclamation, to take Simier under her special protection. It was about
this time that as the queen was taking the air on the Thames, attended
by this Frenchman and by several of her courtiers, a shot was fired into
her barge, by which one of the rowers was severely wounded. Some
supposed that it was aimed at Simier, others at the queen herself; but
the last opinion was immediately silenced by the wise and gracious
declaration of her majesty, "that she would believe nothing of her
subjects that parents would not believe of their children."
After due inquiry the shot was found to have been accidental, and the
person who had been the cause of the mischief, though condemned to
death, was pardoned. Such at least is the account of the affair
transmitted to us by contemporary writers; but it still remains a
mystery how the man came to be capitally condemned if innocent, or to be
pardoned if guilty.
Leicester, from all these circumstances, had incurred so much obloquy at
court, and found himself so coldly treated by the queen herself, that in
a letter to Burleigh he offered, or threatened, to banish himself; well
knowing, perhaps, that the proposal would not be accepted; while the
French prince, now created duke of Anjou, adroitly seized the moment of
the earl's disgrace to try the effect of personal solicitations on the
heart of Elizabeth. He arrived quite unexpectedly, and almost without
attendants, at the gate of her palace at Greenwich; experienced a very
gracious reception; and after several long conferences with the queen
alone, of which the particulars never transpired, took his leave and
returned home, re-committing his cause to the skilful management of his
own agent, and the discussion of his brother's ambassadors.
Long and frequent meetings of the privy-council were now held, by
command of her majesty, for the discussion of the question of marriage;
from the minutes of which some interesting details may be recovered.
The earl of Sussex was still, as ever, strongly in favor of the match;
and chiefly, as it appears, from an apprehension that France and Spain
might otherwise join to dethrone the queen and set up another in her
place. Lord Hunsdon was on the same side, as was also the lord-admiral
(the earl of Lincoln), but less warmly. Burleigh labored to find
arguments in support of the measure, but evidently against his judgement
and to please the queen. Leicester openly professed to have changed his
opinion, "for her majesty was to be followed." Sir Walter Mildmay
reasoned freely and forcibly against the measure, on the ground of the
too advanced age of the queen, and the religion, the previous public
conduct and the family connexions of Anjou. Sir Ralph Sadler subscribed
to most of the objections of Mildmay, and brought forward additional
ones. Sir Henry Sidney approved all these, and subjoined, "that the
marriage could not be made good by all the counsel between England and
Rome; a mass might not be suffered in the court;" meaning, probably,
that the marriage rite could not by any expedient be accommodated to the
consciences of both parties and the law of England.
On the whole, with the single exception perhaps of the earl of Sussex,
those counsellors who pronounced in favor of the marriage in this
debate, did so, almost avowedly, in compliance with the wishes of the
queen, whose inclination to the alliance had become very evident since
the visit of her youthful suitor; while such as opposed it were moved by
strong and earnest convictions of the gross impropriety and thorough
unsuitableness of the match, with respect to Elizabeth herself, and the
dreadful evils which it was likely to entail on the nation. How entirely
the real sentiments of this body were adverse to the step, became
further evident when the council, instead of immediately obeying her
majesty's command, that they should come to a formal decision on the
question and acquaint her with the same, hesitated, temporized, assured
her of their readiness to be entirely guided on a matter so personal to
herself, by her feelings and wishes; requested to be further informed
what these might be, and inquired whether, under all the circumstances,
she was desirous of their coming to a full determination. "This message
was reported to her majesty in the forenoon," (October 7th 1579) "and
she allowed very well of the dutiful offer of their services.
Nevertheless, she uttered many speeches, and that not without shedding
of many tears, that she should find in her councillors, by their long
disputations, any disposition to make it doubtful, whether there could
be any more surety for her and her realm than to have her marry and have
a child of her own body to inherit, and so to continue the line of king
Henry the eighth; and she said she condemned herself of simplicity in
committing this matter to be argued by them, for that she thought, to
have rather had an universal request made to her to proceed in this
marriage, than to have made doubt of it; and being much troubled
herewith she requested" the bearers of this message "to forbear her till
the afternoon."
On their return, she repeated her former expressions of displeasure;
then endeavoured at some length to refute the objections brought against
the match; and finally, her "great misliking" of all opposition, and her
earnest desire for the marriage, being reported to her faithful council,
they agreed, after long consultations, to offer her their services in
furtherance of it, should such really be her pleasure[84].
[Note 84: "Burleigh Papers," by Murdin, _passim._]
But the country possessed some men less obsequious than
privy-councillors, who could not endure to stand by in silence and
behold the great public interests here at stake surrendered in slavish
deference to the fond fancy of a romantic woman, caught by the image of
a passion which she was no longer of an age to inspire, and which she
ought to have felt it an indecorum to entertain. Of this number, to his
immortal honor, was Philip Sidney. This young gentleman bore at the time
the courtly office of cup-bearer to the queen, and was looking for
further advancement at her hands; and as on a former occasion he had not
scrupled to administer some food to her preposterous desire of personal
admiration, Elizabeth, when she applied to him for his opinion on her
marriage, assuredly did so in the hope and expectation of hearing from
him something more graceful to her ears than the language of truth and
wisdom. But Sidney had beheld with his own eyes the horrors of the Paris
massacre; he had imbibed with all the eagerness of a youthful and
generous mind the principles of his friend the excellent Hubert Languet,
one of the ablest advocates of the protestant cause; and he had since,
on his embassy to Germany and Holland, enjoyed the favor and
contemplated the illustrious virtues of William prince of Orange its
heroic champion.
To this sacred cause the purposed marriage must prove, as he well knew,
deeply injurious, and to the reputation of his sovereign fatal:--this
was enough to decide his judgement and his conduct; and magnanimously
disdaining the suggestions of a selfish and servile policy, he replied
to the demand of her majesty, by a letter of dissuasion, almost of
remonstrance, at once the most eloquent and the most courageous piece of
that nature which the age can boast. Every important view of the subject
is comprised in this letter, which is long, but at the same time so
condensed in style, and so skilfully compacted as to matter, that it
well deserves to be read entire, and must lose materially either by
abridgement or omission. Yet it may be permitted to detach from
political reasonings, foreign to the nature and object of this work, a
few sentences referring more immediately to the personal character of
Anjou, and displaying in a strong light the enormous unfitness of the
connexion; and also the animated and affectionate conclusion by which
the writer seems desirous to atone for the enunciation of so many
unwelcome truths.
"These," speaking of her majesty's protestant subjects... "These, how
will their hearts be galled, if not aliened, when they shall see you
take a husband, a Frenchman and a papist, in whom (howsoever fine wits
may find further dealings or painted excuses) the very common people
well know this, that he is the son of a Jezabel of our age; that his
brother made oblation of his own sister's marriage, the easier to make
massacres of our brethren in belief: That he himself, contrary to his
promise and all gratefulness, having his liberty and principal estate
by the Hugonots' means, did sack La Charite, and utterly spoil them with
fire and sword! This, I say, even at first sight, gives occasion to all
truly religious to abhor such a master, and consequently to diminish
much of the hopeful love they have long held to you."
"Now the agent party, which is Monsieur. Whether he be not apt to work
on the disadvantage of your estate, he is to be judged by his will and
power: his will to be as full of light ambition as is possible, besides
the French disposition and his own education, his inconstant temper
against his brother, his thrusting himself into the Low Country matters,
his sometimes seeking the king of Spain's daughter, sometimes your
majesty, are evident testimonies of his being carried away with every
wind of hope; taught to love greatness any way gotten; and having for
the motioners and ministers of the mind only such young men as have
showed they think evil contentment a ground of any rebellion; who have
seen no commonwealth but in faction, and divers of which have defiled
their hands in odious murders. With such fancies and favorites what is
to be hoped for? or that he will contain himself within the limits of
your conditions?"
...."Against contempt, if there be any, which I will never believe, let
your excellent virtues of piety, justice and liberality, daily, if it be
possible, more and more shine. Let such particular actions be found out
(which be easy, as I think, to be done) by which you may gratify all the
hearts of your people. Let those in whom you find trust, and to whom you
have committed trust, in your weighty affairs, be held up in the eyes
of your subjects: Lastly, doing as you do, you shall be as you be, the
example of princes, the ornament of this age, and the most excellent
fruit of your progenitors, and the perfect mirror of your posterity."
Such had ever been the devoted loyalty of Philip Sidney towards
Elizabeth, and so high was the place which he held in her esteem, that
she appears to have imputed the boldness of this letter to no motives
but good ones; and instead of resenting his interference in so delicate
a matter, she is thought to have been deeply moved by his eloquence, and
even to have been influenced by it in the formation of her final
resolve. But far other success attended the efforts of a different
character, who labored with equal zeal, equal reason, and probably not
inferior purity of intention, though for less courtliness of address, to
deter rather than dissuade her from the match, on grounds much more
offensive to her feelings, and by means of what was then accounted a
seditious appeal to the passions and prejudices of the nation.
The work alluded to was entitled "The discovery of a gaping gulf wherein
England is like to be swallowed by another French marriage, if the Lord
forbid not the banns by letting her see the sin and punishment thereof."
Its author was a gentleman named Stubbs, then of Lincoln's Inn, and
previously of Bene't College Cambridge, where we are told that his
intimacies had been formed among the more learned and ingenious class of
students, and where the poet Spenser had become his friend. He was
known as a zealous puritan, and had given his sister in marriage to the
celebrated Edmund Cartwright the leader of the sect. It is probable that
neither his religious principles nor this connexion were forgotten by
the queen in her estimate of his offence. A furious proclamation was
issued against the book, all the copies of which were ordered to be
seized and burned; and the author and publisher, being proceeded against
on a severe statute of Philip and Mary, which many lawyers held to be no
longer in force, were found guilty, and condemned to the barbarous
punishment of amputation of the right hand.
The words of Stubbs on being brought to the scaffold to undergo his
sentence have been preserved, and well merit transcription. "What a
grief it is to the body to lose one of his members you all know. I am
come hither to receive my punishment according to the law. I am sorry
for the loss of my hand, and more sorry to lose it by judgement; but
most of all with her majesty's indignation and evil opinion, whom I have
so highly displeased. Before I was condemned, I might speak for my
innocency; but now my mouth is stopped by judgement, to the which I
submit myself, and am content patiently to endure whatsoever it pleaseth
God, of his secret providence, to lay upon me, and take it justly
deserved for my sins; and I pray God it may be an example to you all,
that it being so dangerous to offend the laws, without an evil meaning,
as breedeth the loss of a hand, you may use your hands holily, and pray
to God for the long preservation of her majesty over you, whom God hath
used as an instrument for a long peace and many blessings over us; and
specially for his Gospel, whereby she hath made a way for us to rest and
quietness to our consciences. For the French I force not; but my
greatest grief is, in so many weeks and days of imprisonment, her
majesty hath not once thought me worthy of her mercy, which she hath
often times extended to divers persons in greater offences. For my hand,
I esteem it not so much, for I think I could have saved it, and might do
yet; but I will not have a guiltless heart and an infamous hand. I pray
you all to pray with me, that God will strengthen me to endure and abide
the pain that I am to suffer, and grant me this grace, that the loss of
my hand do not withdraw any part of my duty and affection toward her
majesty, and because, when so many veins of blood are opened, it is
uncertain how they may be stayed, and what wilt be the event
thereof.".... The hand ready on the block to be stricken off, he said
often to the people: "Pray for me now my calamity is at hand." And so,
with these words, it was smitten off, whereof he swoonded[85]."
[Note 85: "Nugae."]
In this speech, the language of which is so remarkably contrasted with
those abject submissions which fear extorted from the high-born victims
of the tyranny of Henry VIII., the attentive reader will discern
somewhat of the same spirit which combated popery and despotism under
the Stuarts, though tempered by that loyal attachment towards the
restorer and protectress of reformed religion which dwelt in the hearts
of all the protestant subjects of Elizabeth without exception.
After the execution of the more painful part of his sentence, Stubbs was
further punished by an imprisonment of several months in the Tower: but
under all these inflictions, his courage and his cheerfulness were
supported by a firm persuasion of the goodness of the cause in which he
suffered. He wrote many letters to his friends with the left hand,
signing them Scaevola; a surname which it was his pleasure to adopt in
memory of a circumstance by which he did not feel himself to be the
person dishonored. Such was the opinion entertained by Burleigh of the
theological learning of this eminent person and the soundness of his
principles, that he engaged him in 1587 to answer Cardinal Allen's
violent book entitled "The English Justice;" a task which he is said to
have performed with distinguished ability.
During the whole of the year 1580, the important question of the queen's
marriage remained in an undecided state. The court of France appears to
have suffered the treaty to languish, and Elizabeth, conscious no doubt
that her fond inclination could only be gratified at the expense of that
popularity which it had been the leading object of her policy to
cherish, sought not to revive it. Various circumstances occurred to
occupy public attention during the interval.
Sir Nicholas Bacon, who under the humbler title of lord keeper had
exercised from the beginning of the reign the office of lord high
chancellor, died generally regretted in 1579. No one is recorded to have
filled this important post with superior assiduity or a greater
reputation for uprightness and ability than sir Nicholas, and several
well-known traits afford a highly pleasing image of the general
character of his mind. Of this number are his motto, "_Mediocria
firma_," and his handsome reply to the remark of her majesty that his
house was too little for him;--"No, madam; but you have made me too big
for my house." Even when, upon this royal hint, he erected his elegant
mansion of Gorhambury, he was still careful not to lose sight of that
idea of lettered privacy in which he loved to indulge; and the
accomplishments of his mind were reflected in the decorations of his
home. In the gardens, on which his chief care and cost were bestowed,
arose a banqueting-house consecrated to the seven Sciences, whose
figures adorned the walls, each subscribed with a Latin distich and
surrounded with portraits of her most celebrated votaries; a temple in
which we may imagine the youthful mind of that illustrious son of his,
who "took all learning to be" his "province," receiving with delight its
earliest inspiration! In his second wife,--one of the learned daughters
of sir Anthony Cook, a woman of a keen and penetrating intellect, and
much distinguished by her zeal for reformed religion in its austerer
forms,--sir Nicholas found a partner capable of sharing his views and
appreciating his character. By her he became the father of two sons;
that remarkable man Anthony Bacon, and Francis, the light of science,
the interpreter of nature; the admiration of his own age, and the wonder
of succeeding ones; the splendid dawn of whose unrivalled genius his
father was happy enough to behold; more happy still in not surviving to
witness the calamitous eclipse which overshadowed his reputation at its
highest noon.
The lord keeper was esteemed the second pillar of that state of which
Burleigh was the prime support. In all public measures of importance
they acted together; and similar speculative opinions, with coinciding
views of national policy, united these two eminent statesmen in a
brotherhood dearer than that of alliance; but in their motives of
action, and in the character of their minds, a diversity was observable
which it may be useful to point out.
Of Burleigh it has formerly been remarked, that with his own interest he
considered also, and perhaps equally, that of his queen and his country:
but the patriotism of Bacon seems to have risen higher; and his
conformity with the wishes and sentiments of his sovereign was less
obsequiously exact. In the affair of lady Catherine Grey's title, he did
not hesitate to risk the favor of the queen and his own continuance in
office, for the sake of what appeared to him the cause of religion and
his country. On the whole, however, moderation and prudence were the
governing principles of his mind and actions. The intellect of Burleigh
was more versatile and acute, that of Bacon more profound; and their
parts in the great drama of public life were cast accordingly: Burleigh
had most of the alertness of observation, the fertility of expedient,
the rapid calculation of contingencies, required in the minister of
state; Bacon, of the gravity and steadfastness which clothe with
reverence and authority the counsellor and judge. "He was a plain man,"
says Francis Bacon of his father, "direct and constant, without all
finesse and doubleness, and one that was of a mind that a man in his
private proceedings and estate, and in the proceedings of state, should
rest upon the soundness and strength of his own courses, and not upon
practice to circumvent others."
After Elizabeth had forgiven his interference respecting the succession,
no one was held by her in greater honor and esteem than her lord keeper;
she visited him frequently, conversed with him familiarly; took pleasure
in the flashes of wit which often relieved the seriousness of his
wisdom; and flattered with kind condescension his parental feelings by
the extraordinary notice which she bestowed on his son Francis, whose
brightness and solidity of parts early manifested themselves to her
discerning eye, and caused her to predict that her "little lord keeper"
would one day prove an eminent man.
Great interest was excited by the arrival in Plymouth harbour, in
November 1580, of the celebrated Francis Drake from his circumnavigation
of the globe. National vanity was flattered by the idea that this
Englishman should have been the first commander-in-chief by whom this
great and novel enterprise had been successfully achieved; and both
himself and his ship became in an eminent degree the objects of public
curiosity and wonder. The courage, skill and perseverance of this great
navigator were deservedly extolled; the wealth which he had brought
home, from the plunder of the Spanish settlements, awakened the cupidity
which in that age was a constant attendant on the daring spirit of
maritime adventure, and half the youth of the country were on fire to
embark in expeditions of pillage and discovery.
But the court was not so easily induced to second the ardor of the
nation. Drake's captures from the Spaniards had been made, under some
vague notion of reprisals, whilst no open war was subsisting between the
nations; and the Spanish ambassador, not, it must be confessed, without
some reason, branded his proceedings with the reproach of piracy, and
loudly demanded restitution of the booty. Elizabeth wavered for some
time between admiration of the valiant Drake, mixed with a desire of
sharing in the profits of his expedition, and a dread of incensing the
king of Spain; but she at length decided on the part most acceptable to
her people,--that of giving a public sanction to his acts. During the
spring of 1581 she accepted of a banquet on board his ship off Deptford,
conferred on him the order of knighthood, and received him into favor.
Much anxiety and alarm was about this time occasioned to the queen and
her protestant subjects by the clandestine arrival in the country of a
considerable number of catholic priests, mostly English by birth, but
educated at the seminaries respectively founded at Douay, Rheims, and
Rome, by the king of Spain, cardinal Lorrain, and the pope, for the
express purpose of furnishing means for the disturbance of the queen's
government. Monks of the new order of Jesuits presided over these
establishments, who made it their business to inspire the pupils with
the most frightful excess of bigotry and fanaticism; and two of these
friars, fathers Parsons and Campion, coming over to England to guide and
regulate the efforts of their party, were detected in treasonable
practices; on account of which Campion, with some accomplices, underwent
capital punishment, or, in the language of his church, received the
crown of martyrdom.
In order to check the diffusion among the rising generation of doctrines
so destructive of the peace and good government of the country, a
proclamation was issued in June 1580, requiring that all persons who had
any children, wards, or kinsmen, in any parts beyond seas, should within
ten days give in their names to the ordinaries, and within four months
send for them home again.
Circular letters were also dispatched by the privy-council to the
bishops, setting forth, that whereas her majesty found daily
inconvenience to the realm by the education of numbers of young
gentlemen and others her subjects in parts beyond the seas;--where for
the most part they were "nourselled and nourished in papistry," with
such instructions as "made them to mislike the government of their
country, and thus tended to render them undutiful subjects;" &c. and
intending to "take some present order therein;" as well by prohibiting
that any but such as were known to be well affected in religion, and
would undertake for the good education of their children, should send
them abroad; and they not without her majesty's special license;--as
also, by recalling such as were at present, in Spain, France, or Italy,
without such license;--had commanded that the bishops should call before
them, in their respective dioceses, certain parents or guardians whose
names were annexed, and bind them in good sums of money for the recall
of their sons or wards within three months[86]. Many other indications
of a jealousy of the abode of English youth in catholic countries, which
at such a juncture will scarcely appear unreasonable, might be collected
from various sources.
[Note 86: Strype's "Whitgift."]
A friend of Anthony Bacon's sends him this warning to Bordeaux in 1583:
"I can no longer abstain from telling you plainly that the injury is
great, you do to yourself, and your best friends, in this your voluntary
banishment (for so it is already termed).... The times are not as
heretofore for the best disposed travellers: but in one word, sir,
believe me, they are not the best thought of where they would be that
take any delight to absent themselves in foreign parts, especially such
as are of quality, and known to have no other cause than their private
contentment; which also is not allowable, or to be for any long time, as
you will shortly hear further; touching these limitations. In the mean
time I could wish you looked well to yourself, and to think, that
whilst you live there, perhaps in no great security, you are within the
compass of some sinister conceits or hard speeches here, if not of that
jealousy which is now had even of the best, that in these doubtful days,
wherein our country hath need to be furnished of the soundest members
and truest hearts to God and prince, do yet take delight to live in
those parts where our utter ruin is threatened[87]: &c."
[Note 87: Birch's "Memoirs."]
"The old lord Burleigh," says a contemporary, "if any one came to the
lords of the council for a license to travel, would first examine him of
England. And if he found him ignorant, would bid him stay at home and
know his own country first[88]." A plausible evasion, doubtless, of
requests with which that cautious minister judged it inexpedient to
comply.
[Note 88: "Complete Gentleman," by H. Peacham.]
These machinations of the papists afforded a plea to the puritans in the
house of commons for the enactment of still severer laws against this
already persecuted sect; and Elizabeth judged it expedient to accord a
ready assent to these statutes, for the purpose of tranquillizing the
minds of her protestant subjects on the score of religion, previously to
the renewal of negotiations with the court of France.
Simier, who still remained in England, had been but too successful in
continuing or reviving the tender impressions created in the heart of
the queen by the personal attentions of his master; and the French
king, finding leisure to turn his attention once more to this object,
from which he had been apparently diverted by the civil wars which had
broken out afresh in his country, was encouraged to send in 1581 a
splendid embassy, headed by a prince of the blood, to settle the terms
of this august alliance, of which every one now expected to see the
completion. A magnificent reception was prepared by Elizabeth for these
noble strangers; but she had the weakness to choose to appear before
them in the borrowed character of a heroine of romance, rather than in
that of a great princess whose vigorous yet cautious politics had
rendered her for more than twenty years the admiration of all the
statesmen of Europe. She caused to be erected on the south side of her
palace of Whitehall, a vast banqueting-house framed of timber and
covered with painted canvass, which was decorated internally in a style
of the most fantastic gaudiness. Pendants of fruits of various kinds
(amongst which cucumbers and carrots are enumerated) were hung from
festoons of ivy, bay, rosemary, and different flowers, the whole
lavishly sprinkled with gold spangles: the ceiling was painted like a
sky, with stars, sunbeams, and clouds, intermixed with scutcheons of the
royal arms; and a profusion of glass lustres illuminated the whole. In
this enchanted palace the French ambassadors were entertained by the
maiden queen at several splendid banquets, while her ministers were
engaged by her command in drawing up the marriage articles. Meantime
several of her youthful courtiers, anxious to complete the gay illusion
in the imagination of their sovereign, prepared for the exhibition of
what was called _a triumph_,--of which the following was the plan.
The young earl of Arundel, lord Windsor, Philip Sidney, and Fulke
Greville, the four challengers, styled themselves the foster-children of
Desire, and to that end of the tilt-yard where her majesty was seated,
their adulation gave the name of the Castle of Perfect Beauty. This
castle the queen was summoned to surrender in a very courtly message
delivered by a boy dressed in red and white, the colours of Desire. On
her refusal, a mount placed on wheels was rolled into the tilt-yard, and
the four cavaliers rode in superbly armed and accoutred, and each at the
head of a splendid troop; and when they had passed in military order
before the queen, the boy who had delivered the former message thus
again addressed her:--
"If the message lately delivered unto you had been believed and
followed, O queen! in whom the whole story of virtue is written with the
language of beauty; nothing should this violence have needed in your
inviolate presence. Your eyes, which till now have been wont to discern
only the bowed knees of kneeling hearts, and, inwardly turned, found
always the heavenly peace of a sweet mind, should not now have their
fair beams reflected with the shining of armour, should not now be
driven to see the fury of desire, nor the fiery force of fury. But sith
so it is (alas that it is so!) that in the defence of obstinate refusal
there never groweth victory but by compassion, they are come:--what need
I say more? You see them, ready in heart as you know, and able with
hands, as they hope, not only to assailing, but to prevailing.
Perchance you despise the smallness of number. I say unto you, the force
of Desire goeth not by fulness of company. Nay, rather view with what
irresistible determination themselves approach, and how not only the
heavens send their invisible instruments to aid them, (_music within the
mount_) but also the very earth, the dullest of all the elements, which
with natural heaviness still strives to the sleepy centre, yet, for
advancing this enterprise, is content actively (as you shall see) to
move itself upon itself to rise up in height, that it may the better
command the high and high-minded fortresses.
"(_Here the mount rose up in height._) Many words, when deeds are in the
field, are tedious both unto the speaker and hearer. You see their
forces, but know not their fortunes: if you be resolved, it boots not,
and threats dread not. I have discharged my charge, which was even when
all things were ready for the assault, then to offer parley, a thing not
so much used as gracious in besiegers. You shall now be summoned to
yield, which if it be rejected, then look for the affectionate alarm to
be followed with desirous assault. The time approacheth for their
approaches, but no time shall stay me from wishing, that however this
succeed the world may long enjoy its chiefest ornament, which decks it
with herself, and herself with the love of goodness."
The rolling mount was now moved close to the queen, the music sounded,
and one of the boys accompanied with cornets sung a fresh summons to the
fortress.
When this was ended, another boy, turning to the challengers and their
retinue, sung an alarm, which ended, the two canons were shot off, 'the
one with sweet powder and the other with sweet water, very odoriferous
and pleasant, and the noise of the shooting was very excellent consent
of melody within the mount. And after that, was store of pretty
scaling-ladders, and the footmen threw flowers and such fancies against
the walls, with all such devices as might seem fit shot for Desire. All
which did continue till time the defendants came in.' These were above
twenty in number, and each accompanied by his servants, pages, and
trumpeters. Speeches were delivered to the queen on the part of these
knights, several of whom appeared in some assumed character; sir Thomas
Perrot and Anthony Cook thought proper to personate Adam and Eve; the
latter having 'hair hung all down his helmet.' The messenger sent on the
part of Thomas Ratcliff described his master as a forlorn knight, whom
despair of achieving the favor of his peerless and sunlike mistress had
driven out of the haunts of men into a cave of the desert, where moss
was his couch, and moss, moistened by tears, his only food. Even here
however the report of this assault upon the castle of Perfect Beauty had
reached his ears, and roused him from his slumber of despondency; and in
token of his devoted loyalty and inviolable fidelity to his divine lady,
he sent his shield, which he in treated her to accept as the ensign of
her fame, and the instrument of his glory, prostrating himself at her
feet as one ready to undertake any adventures in hope of her gracious
favor.--Of this romantic picture of devoted and despairing passion the
description of Amadis de Gaul at the Poor Rock seems to have been the
prototype.
On the part of the four sons of sir Francis Knolles, Mercury appeared,
and described them as 'legitimate sons of Despair, brethren to hard
mishap, suckled with sighs, and swathed up in sorrow, weaned in woe, and
dry nursed by Desire, longtime fostered with favorable countenance, and
fed with sweet fancies, but now of late (alas) wholly given over to
grief and disgraced by disdain.' &c. The speeches being ended, probably
to the relief of the hearers, the tilting commenced and lasted till
night. It was resumed the next day with some fresh circumstances of
magnificence and a few more harangues:--at length the challengers
presented to the queen an olive bough in token of their humble
submission, and both parties were dismissed by her with thanks and
commendations[89].
[Note 89: Holinshed.]
By whom the speeches for this triumph were composed does not appear; but
their style appears to correspond very exactly with that of John Lilly,
a dramatic poet who in this year gave to the public a romance in two
parts; the first entitled "Euphues the Anatomy of Wit," the second
"Euphues and his England." A work which in despite, or rather perhaps by
favor, of the new and singular affectations with which it was overrun,
obtained extraordinary popularity, and communicated its infection for a
time to the style of polite writing and fashionable speech.
An author of the present day, whose elegant taste and whose profound
acquaintance with the writers of this and the following reign entitle
him to be heard with deference, has favored us with his opinion of
Euphues in these words. "This production is a tissue of antithesis and
alliteration, and therefore justly entitled to the appellation of
_affected_; but we cannot with Berkenhout consider it as a most
_contemptible piece of nonsense_[90]. The moral is uniformly good; the
vices and follies of the day are attacked with much force and keenness;
there is in it much display of the manners of the times; and though as a
composition it is very meretricious and sometimes absurd in point of
ornament, yet the construction of its sentences is frequently turned
with peculiar neatness and spirit, though with much monotony of
cadence." "So greatly," adds the same writer, "was the style of Euphues
admired in the court of Elizabeth, and, indeed, throughout the kingdom,
that it became a proof of refined manners to adopt its phraseology.
Edward Blount, who republished six of Lilly's plays in 1632, under the
title of _Sixe Court Comedies_, declares that 'Our nation are in his
debt for a new English which he taught them. '_Euphues_ and his
_England_,' he adds, 'began first that language. All our ladies were
then his scholars; and that beauty in court who could not parley
Euphuesme, was as little regarded as she which now there speaks not
French:' a representation certainly not exaggerated; for Ben Jonson,
describing a fashionable lady, makes her address her gallant in the
following terms;--'O master Brisk, (as it is in Euphues,) hard is the
choice when one is compelled, either by silence to die with grief, or by
speaking, to live with shame:' upon which Mr. Whalley observes, that
'the court ladies in Elizabeth's time had all the phrases of Euphues by
heart'[91]."
[Note 90: Berkenhout's "Biographia Literaria," p. 377, note _a_.]
[Note 91: "Shakspeare and his Times:" &c. by Nathan Drake, M.D.]
Shakespeare is believed to have satirized the affectations of Lilly,
amongst other prevailing modes of pedantry and bad taste, under the
character of the schoolmaster Holophernes; and to Sidney is ascribed by
Drayton the merit, that he
..."did first reduce
Our tongue from Lilly's writing then in use,
Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies,
Playing with words and idle similies."
But in this statement there is an inaccuracy, if it refers to the better
model of style furnished by him in his Arcadia, since that work, though
not published till after the death of its author, is known to have been
composed previously to the appearance of Euphues. Possibly however the
lines of Drayton may be explained as alluding to the critical precepts
contained in Sidney's Defence of Poetry, which was written in 1582 or
1583.
It may appear extraordinary that this accomplished person, after his
noble letter of remonstrance against the French marriage, should have
consented to take so conspicuous a part in festivities designed to
celebrate the arrival of the commissioners by whom its terms were to be
concluded. But the actions of every man, it may be pleaded, belong to
such an age, or such a station, as well as to such a school of
philosophy, religious sect, political party, or natural class of
character; and the spirit which prompted this eminent person to aspire
after all praise and every kind of glory, compelled him, at the court of
Elizabeth, to unite, with whatever incongruity, the quaint personage of
a knight errant of romance and a devotee of the beauties and perfections
of his liege lady, with the manly attributes of an English patriot and a
champion of reformed religion.
Fulke Greville furnishes another instance of a respectable character
strangely disguised by the affectations and servilities of a courtier of
this "Queen of Faery." He was the cousin, school-fellow, and inseparable
companion of Sidney, and so devoted to him that, in the inscription
which he composed long after for his own tomb, he entitled himself
"servant to queen Elizabeth, councillor to king James, and friend to sir
Philip Sidney." Born to a fortune so ample as to render him entirely
independent of the emoluments of office or the favors of a sovereign,
and early smitten with a passion for the gentle muse which rendered him
nearly insensible to the enticements of ambition, Greville was yet
contented to devote himself, as a volunteer, to that court-life the
irksomeness of which has often been treated as insupportable by men who
have embraced it from interest or from necessity.
A devotedness so signal was not indeed suffered to go without its
reward. Besides that it obtained for him a lucrative place, Naunton says
of Greville, "He had no mean place in queen Elizabeth's favor, neither
did he hold it for any short time or term; for, if I be not deceived, he
had the longest lease, the smoothest time without rubs, of any of her
favorites." Lord Bacon also testifies that he "had much and private
access to her, which he used honorably and did many men good: yet he
would say merrily of himself, that he was like Robin Goodfellow; for
when the maids spilt the milk-pans or kept any racket, they would lay it
upon Robin: so what tales the ladies about the queen told her, or other
bad offices that they did, they would put it upon him." The poems of
Fulke Greville, celebrated and fashionable in his own time, but now
known only to the more curious students of our early literature, consist
of two tragedies in interwoven rhyme, with choruses on the Greek model;
a hundred love sonnets, in one of which he styles his mistress "Fair
dog:" and "Treaties" "on Human learning," "on Fame and Honor," and "of
Wars." Of these pieces the last three, as well as the tragedies, contain
many noble, free, and virtuous sentiments; many fine and ingenious
thoughts, and some elegant lines; but the harshness and pedantry of the
style render their perusal on the whole more of a fatigue than a
pleasure, and they have gradually sunk into that neglect which
constantly awaits the verse of which it has been the aim to instruct
rather than to delight. Among the English patrons of letters however,
Fulke Greville, afterwards lord Brook, will ever deserve a conspicuous
station; and Speed and Camden have gratefully recorded their obligations
both to his liberality and to his honorable exertion of court interest.
The articles of the marriage-treaty were at length concluded between the
commissioners of France and England, and it was stipulated that the
nuptials should take place six weeks after their ratification: but
Elizabeth, whose uncertainties were not yet at an end, had insisted on a
separate article purporting, that she should not however be obliged to
complete the marriage until further matters, not specified, should have
been settled between herself and the duke of Anjou; by which stipulation
it still remained in her power to render the whole negotiation vain.
The moment that all opposition on the part of her privy-council was
over, and every external obstacle surmounted, Elizabeth seems to have
begun to recover her sound discretion, and to see in their true
magnitude all the objections to which she had hitherto been anxious to
blind her own eyes and those of others. She sent Walsingham to open new
negotiations at Paris, and to try whether the league offensive and
defensive, stipulated by the late articles, could not be brought to
effect before the marriage, which she now discovered that it was not a
convenient season to complete. The French court, after some hesitation,
had just been brought to agree to this proposal, when she inclined again
to go on with the marriage; but no sooner had it resumed with alacrity
this part of the discussion, than she again declared for the alliance.
Walsingham, puzzled and vexed by such a series of capricious changes,
proceeding from motives in which state-expediency had no share, remained
uncertain how to act; and at length all the politicians English and
French, equally disconcerted, seem to have acquiesced in the conviction
that this strange strife must end where it began, in the bosom of
Elizabeth herself, while nothing was left to them but to await the
result in anxious silence. But the duke of Anjou, aware that from a
youthful lover some unequivocal symptoms of impatience would be
required, and that upon a skilful display of this kind his final success
might depend, brought to a speedy conclusion his campaign in the
Netherlands, which a liberal supply of money from the English queen, who
now concurred in his views, had rendered uniformly successful, and
putting his army into winter-quarters, hurried over to England to throw
himself at her feet.
He was welcomed with all the demonstrations of satisfaction which could
revive or confirm the hopes of a suitor; every mark of honor, every
pledge of affection, was publicly conferred upon him; and the queen, at
the conclusion of a splendid festival on the anniversary of her
coronation, even went so far as to place on his finger a ring drawn from
her own. This passed in sight of the whole assembled court, who
naturally regarded the action as a kind of betrothment; and the long
suspense being apparently ended, the feelings of every party broke forth
without restraint or disguise.
Some rejoiced; more grieved or wondered; Leicester, Hatton and
Walsingham loudly exclaimed that ruin impended over the church, the
country, and the queen. The ladies of the court alarmed and agitated
their mistress by tears, cries, and lamentations. A sleepless and
miserable night was passed by the queen amid her disconsolate handmaids:
the next morning she sent for Anjou, and held with him a long private
conversation; after which he retired to his chamber, and hastily
throwing from him, but as quickly resuming, the ring which she had given
him, uttered many reproaches against the levity of women and the
fickleness of islanders.
Such is the account given by the annalist Camden; our only authority for
circumstances some of them so public in their nature that it is
surprising they should not be recorded by others, the rest so secret
that we are at a loss to conceive how they should have become known to
him. What is certain in the matter is,--that the French prince remained
in England above two months after this festival;--that no diminution of
the queen's attentions to him became apparent during that time;--that
when his affairs imperiously demanded his return to the Netherlands,
Elizabeth still detained him that she might herself conduct him on his
way as far as Canterbury;--that she then dismissed him with a large
supply of money and a splendid retinue of English lords and gentlemen,
and that he promised a quick return.
Let us hear on the subject lord Talbot's report to his father.
..."Monsieur hath taken shipping into Flanders...there is gone over
with him my lord of Leicester, my lord Hunsdon, my lord Charles Howard,
my lord Thomas Howard, my lord Windsor, my lord Sheffield, my lord
Willoughby, and a number of young gentlemen besides. As soon as he is at
Antwerp all the Englishmen return, which is thought will be about a
fortnight hence.... The departure was mournful between her majesty and
Monsieur; she loth to let him go, and he as loth to depart. Her majesty
on her return will be long in no place in which she lodged as she went,
neither will she come to Whitehall, because the places shall not give
cause of remembrance to her of him with whom she so unwillingly parted.
Monsieur promised his return in March, but how his Low Country causes
will permit him is uncertain. Her highness went no further but
Canterbury, Monsieur took shipping at Sandwich[92]."
[Note 92: "Illustrations," vol. ii. p. 258.]
It is, after all, extremely difficult to decide whether the
circumstances here related ought to invalidate any part of Camden's
narrative. There can be no doubt that Elizabeth had at times been
violently tempted to accept this young prince for a husband; and even
when she sent Walsingham to France instructed to conclude, if possible,
the league without the marriage, she evidently had not in her own mind
absolutely concluded against the latter measure, because she
particularly charged him to examine whether the duke, who had lately
recovered from the small pox, still retained enough of his good looks to
engage a lady's affections. It is probable that his second visit
revived her love; and the truth of the circumstance of her publicly
presenting to him a ring, is confirmed by Camden's further statement,
that St. Aldegond, minister in England for the United Provinces, wrote
word of it to the States, who, regarding the match as now concluded,
caused public rejoicings to be celebrated at Antwerp. After this the
duke would undoubtedly press for a speedy solemnization, and he cannot
but have experienced some degree of disappointment in at length quitting
the country, _re infecta_. But it was still greatly and obviously his
interest to remain on the best possible terms with Elizabeth, in order
to secure from her that co-operation, and those pecuniary aids, on which
the success of his affairs in the Netherlands must mainly depend. It is
even possible that a further acquaintance with the state of public
opinion in England, and with the temper, maxims, and personal qualities
of the queen herself, might very much abate the poignancy of his
mortification, or even incline him secretly to prefer the character of
her ally to that of her husband. Be this as it may, the favorite son of
Catherine de' Medici was a sufficient adept in the dissimulation of
courts to assume with ease all the demonstrations of complacency and
good understanding that the case required, whatever portion of
indignation or malice he might conceal in his heart. Neither was
Elizabeth a novice in the arts of feigning; and even without the
promptings of those tender regrets which accompany a sacrifice extorted
by reason from inclination, she would have been careful, by every
manifestation of friendship and esteem, to smooth over the affront which
her change of purpose had compelled her to put upon the brother and heir
of so potent a monarch as the king of France.
Shortly after his return to the continent, the duke of Anjou lost at
once his reputation, and his hopes of an independent principality, in an
unprincipled and abortive attempt on the liberties of the provinces
which had chosen him as their protector; and his death, which soon
followed, brings to a conclusion this long and mortifying chapter,
occupied with the follies of the wise. It is worth observing, that
appearances in this affair were kept up to the last: the English
ambassador refrained from giving in his official letters any particulars
of the last illness of Monsieur, lest he should aggravate the grief of
her majesty; and the king of France, in defiance of some established
rules of court precedence and etiquette, admitted this minister to pay
his compliments of condolence before all others, professedly because he
represented that princess who best loved his brother.
Bohun ends his minute description of "the habit of queen Elizabeth in
public and private" with a passage proper to complete this portion of
her history. "The coming of the duke d'Alencon opened a way to a more
free way of living, and relaxed very much the old severe form of
discipline. The queen danced often then, and omitted no sort of
recreation, pleasing conversation, or variety of delights for his
satisfaction. At the same time, the plenty of good dishes, pleasant
wines, fragrant ointments and perfumes, dances, masks, and variety of
rich attire, were all taken up and used to show him how much he was
honored. There were then acted comedies and tragedies with much cost and
splendor. When these things had once been entertained, the courtiers
were never more to be reclaimed from them, and they could not be
satiated or wearied with them. But when Alencon was once dismissed and
gone, the queen herself left off these diversions, and betook herself as
before to the care of her kingdom, and both by example and severe
corrections endeavoured to reduce her nobility to their old severe way
of life."