fanatical assassin, had plunged his country in distress and dismay, and
the States-general had again made an earnest tender of their sovereignty
to Elizabeth. She once more declined it, from the same motives of
caution and anxiety to avoid the imputation of ambitious encroachment on
the rights of neighbouring princes, which had formerly determined her.
But more than ever aware how closely her own safety and welfare were
connected with the successful resistance of these provinces, she now
consented to send over an army to their succour, and to grant them
supplies of money; in consideration of which several cautionary towns
were put into her hands. Of these, Flushing was one; and Elizabeth
gratified at once the protestant zeal of Philip Sidney and his
aspirations after military glory, by appointing him its governor. It was
in November 1585 that he took possession of his charge.
Meanwhile the earl of Leicester, whose haughty and grasping spirit led
him to covet distinction and authority in every line, was eagerly
soliciting the supreme command of this important armament; and in spite
of the general mediocrity of his talents and his very slight experience
in the art of war, his partial mistress had the weakness to indulge him
in this unreasonable and ill-advised pretension. The title of general of
the queen's auxiliaries in Holland was conferred upon him, and with it a
command over the whole English navy paramount to that of the
lord-high-admiral himself.
He landed at Flushing, and was received first by its governor and
afterwards by the States of Holland and Zealand with the highest honors,
and with the most magnificent festivities which it was in their power to
exhibit. A splendid band of youthful nobility followed in his
train:--the foremost of them all was his stepson Robert earl of Essex,
now in his 19th year, who had already made his appearance at court, and
experienced from her majesty a reception which clearly prognosticated,
to such as were conversant in the ways of the court, the height of favor
to which he was predestined.
It was highly characteristic of the jealous haughtiness of Elizabeth's
temper, that the extraordinary honors lavished by the States upon
Leicester instantly awakened her utmost indignation. She regarded them
as too high for any subject, even for him who enjoyed the first place in
her royal favor, whom she had invested with an amplitude of authority
quite unexampled, and who represented herself in the council of the
States-general. She expressed her anger in a tone which made both
Leicester and the Belgians tremble; and the explanations and humble
submissions of both parties were found scarcely sufficient to appease
her. At the same time, the incapacity and misconduct of Leicester as a
commander were daily becoming more conspicuous and offensive in the eyes
of the Dutch authorities; and the most serious evils would immediately
have ensued, but for the prudence, the magnanimity, the conciliating
behaviour, and the strenuous exertions, by which his admirable nephew
labored unceasingly to remedy his vices and cover his deficiencies.
The brilliant valor of the English troops, and particularly of the young
nobility and gentry who led them on, was conspicuous in every encounter;
but the want of a chief able to cope with that accomplished general the
prince of Parma, precluded them from effecting any important object.
Philip Sidney distinguished himself by a well-conducted surprise of the
town of Axel, and received in reward among a number of others the honor
of knighthood from the hands of his uncle. Afterwards, having made an
attack with the horse under his command on a reinforcement which the
enemy was attempting to throw into Zutphen, a hot action ensued, in
which though the advantage remained with the English, it was dearly
purchased by the blood of their gallant leader, who received a shot
above the knee, which after sixteen days of acute suffering brought his
valuable life to its termination.
Thus perished at the early age of thirty-two sir Philip Sidney, the
pride and pattern of his time, the theme of song, the favorite of
English story. The beautiful anecdote of his resigning to the dying
soldier the draught of water with which he was about to quench his
thirst as he rode faint and bleeding from the fatal field, is told to
every child, and inspires a love and reverence for his name which never
ceases to cling about the hearts of his countrymen. He is regarded as
the most perfect example which English history affords of the _preux
Chevalier_; and is named in parallel with the spotless and fearless
Bayard the glory of Frenchmen, whom he excelled in all the
accomplishments of peace as much as the other exceeded him in the number
and splendor of his military achievements.
The demonstrations of grief for his loss, and the honors paid to his
memory, went far beyond all former example, and appeared to exceed what
belonged to a private citizen. The court went into mourning for him, and
his remains received a magnificent funeral in St. Paul's, the United
Provinces having in vain requested permission to inter him at their own
expense, with the promise that he should have as fair a tomb as any
prince in Christendom. Elizabeth always remembered him with affection
and regret. Cambridge and Oxford published three volumes of "_Lachrymae_"
on the melancholy event. Spenser in verse, and Camden in prose,
commemorated and deplored their friend and patron. A crowd of humbler
contemporaries pressed emulously forward to offer up their mite of
panegyric and lamentation; and it would be endless to enumerate the
poets and other writers of later times, who have celebrated in various
forms the name of Sidney. Foreigners of the highest distinction claimed
a share in the general sentiment. Du Plessis Mornay condoled with
Walsingham on the loss of his incomparable son-in-law in terms of the
deepest sorrow. Count Hohenlo passionately bewailed his friend and
fellow-soldier, to whose representations and intercessions he had
sacrificed his just indignation against the proceedings of Leicester.
Even the hard heart of Philip II. was touched by the untimely fate of
his godson, though slain in bearing arms against him.
We are told that on the next tilt-day after the last wife of the earl of
Leicester had borne him a son, Sidney appeared with a shield on which
was the word "_Speravi_" dashed through. This anecdote,--if indeed the
allusion of the motto be rightly explained, which it is difficult to
believe,--would serve to show how publicly he had been regarded, both by
himself and others, as the heir of his all-powerful uncle. The death of
this child, on which occasion adulatory verses were produced by the
university of Cambridge, restored Sidney, the year before his death, to
this brilliant expectancy; and it cannot reasonably be doubted, that the
academic honors paid to his memory were, like the court-mourning, a
homage to the power of the living rather than the virtues of the dead.
But though he should be judged to have owed to his connexion with a
royal favorite much of his contemporary celebrity, and even in some
measure his enduring fame, no candid estimator will suffer himself to
be hurried, under an idea of correcting the former partiality of
fortune, into the clear injustice of denying to this accomplished
character a just title to the esteem and admiration of posterity. On the
contrary, it will be considered, that the very circumstances which
rendered him so early conspicuous, would also expose him to the shafts
of malice and envy; and that if his spirit had not been in reality
noble, and his conduct irreproachable, it would have exceeded all the
power of Leicester to shield the reputation of his nephew against
attacks similar to those from which he had found it impracticable to
defend his own.
Philip Sidney was educated, by the cares of a wise and excellent father,
in the purest and most elevated moral principles and in the best
learning of the age. A letter of advice addressed to him by this
exemplary parent at the age of twelve, fully exemplifies both the
laudable solicitude of sir Henry respecting his future character, and
the soundness of his views and maxims: in the character of his son, as
advancing to manhood, he saw his hopes exceeded and his prayers
fulfilled. Nothing could be more correct than his conduct, more laudable
than his pursuits, while on his travels; young as he was, he merited the
friendship of Hubert Languet. He also gained just and high reputation
for the manner in which he acquitted himself of an embassy to the
protestant princes of Germany, though somewhat of the ostentation and
family pride of a Dudley was apparent in the port which he thought it
necessary to assume on the occasion. After his return, he commenced the
life of a courtier; and that indiscriminate thirst for glory which was
in some measure the foible of his character, led him into an
ostentatious profusion, which, by involving his affairs, rendered it
necessary for him to solicit the pecuniary favors of her majesty, and to
earn them by some acts of adulation unworthy of his spirit: for all
these, however, he made large amends by his noble letter against the
French marriage. He afterwards took up, with a zeal and ability highly
honorable to his heart and his head, the defence of his father, accused,
but finally acquitted, of some stretches of power as lord-deputy of
Ireland. This business involved him in disputes with the earl of Ormond,
his father's enemy, who seems to have generously overlooked provocations
which might have led to more serious consequences, in consideration of
the filial feelings of his youthful adversary.
These indications of a bold and forward spirit appear however to have
somewhat injured him in the mind of her majesty; his advancement by no
means kept pace either with his wishes or his wants; and a subsequent
quarrel with the earl of Oxford,--in which he refused to make the
concessions required by the queen, reminding her at the same time that
it had been her father's policy, and ought to be hers, rather to
countenance the gentry against the arrogance of the great nobles than
the contrary,--sent him in disgust from court. Retiring to Wilton, the
seat of his brother-in-law the earl of Pembroke, he composed the
Arcadia. This work he never revised or completed; it was published
after his death, probably contrary to his orders; and it is of a kind
long since obsolete. Under all these disadvantages, however, though
faulty in plan and as a whole tedious, this romance has been found to
exhibit extensive learning, a poetical cast of imagination, nice
discrimination of character, and, what is far more, a fervor of
eloquence in the cause of virtue, a heroism of sentiment and purity of
thought, which stamp it for the offspring of a noble mind,--which evince
that the workman was superior to his work.
But the world re-absorbed him; and baffled at court he meditated, in
correspondence with one of his favorite mottoes,--"_Aut viam inveniam
aut faciam_,"--to join one of the almost piratical expeditions of Drake
against the Spanish settlements. Perhaps he might then be diverted from
his design by the strong and kind warning of his true friend Languet,
"to beware lest the thirst of lucre should creep into a mind which had
hitherto admitted nothing but the love of truth and an anxiety to
deserve well of all men." After the death of this monitor, however, he
engaged in a second scheme of this very questionable nature, and was
only prevented from embarking by the arrival of the queen's peremptory
orders for his return to court and that of Fulke Greville who
accompanied him.
It would certainly be difficult to defend in point of dignity and
consistency his conspicuous appearance, as formerly recorded, at the
triumph held in honor of the French embassy, or his attendance upon the
duke of Anjou on his return to the Netherlands.
The story of his nomination to the throne of Poland deserves little
regard; it is certain that such an elevation was never within his
possibilities of attainment. His reputation on the continent was however
extremely high; Don John of Austria himself esteemed him; the great
prince of Orange corresponded with him as a real friend; and Du Plessis
Mornay solicited his good offices on behalf of the French protestants.
Nothing but the highest praise is due to his conduct in Holland; to the
valor of a knight-errant he added the best virtues of a commander and
counsellor. Leicester himself apprehended that it would be scarcely
possible for him to sustain his high post without the countenance and
assistance of his beloved nephew; and the event showed that he was
right.
His death was worthy of the best parts of his life; he showed himself to
the last devout, courageous, and serene. His wife, the beautiful
daughter of Walsingham; his brother Robert, to whom he had performed the
part rather of an anxious and indulgent parent than of a brother; and
many sorrowing friends, surrounded his bed. Their grief was beyond a
doubt sincere and poignant, as well as that of the many persons of
letters and of worth who gloried in his friendship and flourished by his
bountiful patronage.
On the whole, though justice claims the admission that the character of
Sidney was not entirely free from the faults most incident to his age
and station, and that neither as a writer, a scholar, a soldier, or a
statesman,--in all which characters during the course of his short life
he appeared, and appeared with distinction,--is he yet entitled to the
highest rank; it may however be firmly maintained that, as a _man_, an
accomplished and high-souled man, he had among his contemporary
countrymen neither equal nor competitor. Such was the verdict in his own
times not of flatterers only, or friends, but of England, of Europe;
such is the title of merit under which the historian may enroll him,
with confidence and with complacency, among the illustrious few whose
name and example still serve to kindle in the bosom of youth the
animating glow of virtuous emulation.
Leicester never appears in an amiable light except in connexion with his
nephew, for whom his affection was not only sincere but ardent. A few
extracts from a letter written by him to sir Thomas Heneage, captain of
the queen's guards, giving an account of the action in which Sidney
received his mortal wound, will illustrate this remark, while it records
the gallant exploits of several of his companions in arms.
After relating that sir Philip had gone out with a party to intercept a
convoy of the enemy's, he adds, "Many of our horses were hurt and
killed, among which was my nephew's own. He went and changed to another,
and would needs to the charge again, and once passed those musqueteers,
where he received a sore wound upon his thigh, three fingers above his
knee, the bone broken quite in pieces; but for which chance, God did
send such a day as I think was never many years seen, so few against so
many." The earl then enumerates the other commanders and distinguished
persons engaged in the action. Colonel Norris, the earl of Essex, sir
Thomas Perrot; "and my unfortunate Philip, with sir William Russell, and
divers gentlemen; and not one hurt but only my nephew. They killed four
of their enemy's chief leaders, and carried the valiant count Hannibal
Gonzaga away with them upon a horse; also took captain George Cressier,
the principal soldier of the camp, and captain of all the Albanese. My
lord Willoughby overthrew him at the first encounter, man and horse. The
gentleman did acknowledge it himself. There is not a properer gentleman
in the world towards than this lord Willoughby is; but I can hardly
praise one more than another, they all did so well; yet every one had
his horse killed or hurt. And it was thought very strange that sir
William Stanley with three hundred of his men should pass, in spite of
so many musquets, such troops of horse three several times, making them
remove their ground, and to return with no more loss than he did.
Albeit, I must say it, it was too much loss for me; for this young man,
he was my greatest comfort, next her majesty, of all the world; and if I
could buy his life with all I have, to my shirt I would give it. How God
will dispose of him I know not, but fear I must needs, greatly, the
worst; the blow in so dangerous a place and so great; yet did I never
hear of any man that did abide the dressing and setting of his bones
better than he did; and he was carried afterwards in my barge to
Arnheim, and I hear this day, he is still of good heart, and comforteth
all about him as much as may be. God of his mercy grant me his life!
which I cannot but doubt of greatly. I was abroad that time in the
field giving some order to supply that business, which did endure almost
two hours in continual fight; and meeting Philip coming upon his
horseback, not a little to my grief. But I would you had stood by to
hear his most loyal speeches to her majesty; his constant mind to the
cause; his loving care over me, and his most resolute determination for
death, not one jot appalled for his blow; which is the most grievous I
ever saw with such a bullet; riding so a long mile and a half upon his
horse, ere he came to the camp; not ceasing to speak still of her
majesty, being glad if his hurt and death might any way honor her
majesty; for hers he was whilst he lived, and God's he was sure to be if
he died. Prayed all men to think the cause was as well her majesty's as
the country's; and not to be discouraged; for you have seen such success
as may encourage us all; and this my hurt is the ordinance of God by the
hap of the war. Well, I pray God, if it be his will, save me his life;
even as well for her majesty's service sake, as for mine own
comfort[95]."
[Note 95: "Sidney Papers."]
Sir Henry Sidney was spared the anguish of following such a son to the
grave, having himself quitted the scene a few months before. It was in
1578 that he received orders to resign the government of Ireland, having
become obnoxious to the gentlemen of the English pale by his rigor in
levying certain assessments for the maintenance of troops and the
expenses of his own household, which they affirmed to be illegally
imposed. There is every reason to believe that their complaint was well
founded; but Elizabeth, refusing as usual to allow her prerogative to be
touched, imprisoned several Irish lawyers, who came to England to appeal
against the tax; and sir Henry, being able to prove that he had royal
warrant for what he had done, was finally exonerated by the
privy-council from all the charges which had been preferred against him,
and retained to the last his office of lord-president of Wales.
The sound judgement of sir Henry Sidney taught him, that his near
connexion with the earl of Leicester had its dangers as well as its
advantages; and observing the turn for show and expense with which it
served to inspire the younger members of his family, he would frequently
enjoin them "to consider more whose sons than whose nephews they were."
In fact, he was not able to lay up fortunes for them;--the offices he
held were higher in dignity than emolument; his spirit was noble and
munificent; and the following, among other anecdotes, may serve to show
that he himself was not averse to a certain degree of parade; at least
on particular occasions. The queen, standing once at a window of her
palace at Hampton-court, saw a gentleman approach escorted by two
hundred attendants on horseback; and turning to her courtiers, she asked
with some surprise, who this might be? But on being informed that it was
sir Henry Sidney, her lord deputy of Ireland and president of Wales, she
answered, "And he may well do it, for he has two of the best offices in
my kingdom."
The following letter, addressed to sir Henry as lord-president of
Wales, discloses an additional trait of his character, which cannot fail
to recommend him still more to the esteem of a humane and enlightened
age;--his reluctance, namely, to lend his concurrence to the measures of
religious persecution which the queen and her bishops now urged upon all
persons in authority as their incumbent duty.
* * * * *
_Sir Francis Walsingham to sir H. Sidney lord president of Wales_.
"My very good lord;
"My lords of late calling here to remembrance the commission that was
more than a year ago given out to your lordship and certain others for
the reformation of the recusants and obstinate persons in religion,
within Wales and the marches thereof, marvelled very much that in all
this time they have heard of nothing done by you and the rest; and
truly, my lord, the necessity of this time requiring so greatly to have
these kind of men diligently and sharply proceeded against, there will
here a very hard construction be made, I fear me, of you, to retain with
you the said commission so long, doing no good therein. Of late now I
received your lordship's letter touching such persons as you think meet
to have the custody and oversight of Montgomery Castle, by which it
appeareth you have begun, in your present journeys in Wales, to do
somewhat in causes of religion; but having a special commission for that
purpose, in which are named special and very apt persons to join with
you in those matters, it will be thought strange to my lords to hear of
your proceeding in those causes without their assistance; and therefore,
to the end their lordships should conceive no otherwise than well of
your dealing without them, I have forborne to acquaint them with our
late letter, wishing your lordship, for the better handling and success
of those matters in religion, you called unto you the bishop of
Worcester, Mr. Philips, and certain others specially named in the
commission. They will, I am sure, be glad to wait on you in so good a
service, and your proceeding together with them in these matters will be
better allowed of here, &c.
"P.S. Your lordship had need to walk warily, for your doings are
narrowly observed, and her majesty is apt to give ear to any that shall
ill you. Great hold is taken by your enemies for neglecting the
execution of this commission.
"Oatlands, August 9th 1580[96]."
[Note 96: "Sidney Papers," vol. i. p. 276.]
* * * * *
Leicester, soon after the death of his nephew, placed his army in
winter-quarters, having effected no one object of importance. The States
remonstrated with him in strong terms on the various and grievous abuses
of his administration; he answered them in the tone of graciousness and
conciliation which it suited his purpose to assume; and publicly
surrendering up to them the whole apparent authority of the provinces,
whilst by a secret act of restriction he in fact retained for himself
full command over all the governors of towns and provinces, he set sail
for England.
Elizabeth received her favorite with her usual complacency, either
because his abject submissions had in reality succeeded in banishing
from her mind all resentment of his conduct in Holland, or because she
required the support of his long-tried counsels under the awful
responsibilities of that impending conflict with the whole collected
force of the Spanish monarchy for which she felt herself summoned to
prepare. The king of Denmark, astonished to behold a princess of
Elizabeth's experienced caution involving herself with seeming
indifference in peril so great and so apparent, exclaimed, that she had
now taken the diadem from her brow to place it on the doubtful cast of
war; and trembling for the fate of his friend and ally, he dispatched an
ambassador in haste to offer her his mediation for the adjustment of all
differences arising out of the revolt of the Netherlands. But Elizabeth
firmly, though with thanks, declined all overtures towards a
reconciliation with a sovereign whom she now recognised as her
implacable and determined foe.
She was far, however, from despising the danger which she braved; and
with a prudence and diligence equal to her fortitude, she had begun to
assemble and put in action all her means, internal and external, of
defence and annoyance. She linked herself still more closely, by
benefits and promises, with the prince of Conde, chief of the Hugonots
now in arms against the League, or Catholic association, formed in
France under the auspices of the king of Spain. With the king of Scots
also she entered into an intimate alliance; and she had previously
secured the friendship of all the protestant princes of Germany and the
northern powers of Europe. She now openly avowed the enterprises of
Drake, which she had hitherto only encouraged underhand, or on certain
pretexts of retaliation; and she sent him with a fleet of twenty-one
ships, carrying above eleven thousand soldiers, to make war upon the
Spanish settlements in the West Indies.
But if all these measures seemed likely to afford her kingdom sufficient
means of protection against the attacks of a foreign enemy, it was
difficult for her to regard her own person as equally well secured
against the dark conspiracies of her catholic subjects, instigated as
they were by the sanguinary maxims of the Romish see, fostered by the
atrocious activity of the emissaries of Philip, and sanctioned by the
authority of the queen of Scots, to whom homage was rendered by her
party as rightful sovereign of the British isles.
During the festival of Easter 1586, some English priests of the seminary
at Rheims had encouraged a fanatical soldier named Savage to vow the
death of the queen. About the same time Ballard, also a priest of this
seminary, was concerting in France, with Mendoca and the fugitive lord
Paget, the means of procuring an invasion of the country during the
absence of its best troops in Flanders. Repairing to England, Ballard
communicated both these schemes to Anthony Babington, a gentleman who
had been gained over on a visit to France by the bishop of Glasgow,
Mary's ambassador there, and whose vehement attachment to her cause had
rendered him capable of any enterprise, however criminal or desperate,
for her deliverance. Babington entered into both plots with eagerness;
but he suggested, that so essential a part of the action as the
assassination of the queen ought not to be intrusted to one adventurer;
and he lost no time in associating five others in the vow of Savage,
himself undertaking the part of setting free the captive Mary. With her
he had previously been in correspondence, having frequently taken the
charge of transmitting to her by secret channels her letters from
France; and he immediately imparted to her this new design for her
restoration to liberty and advancement to the English throne. There is
full evidence that Mary approved it in all its parts; that in several
successive letters she gave Babington counsels or directions relative to
its execution; and that she promised to the perpetrators of the murder
of Elizabeth every reward which it should hereafter be in her power to
bestow.
All this time the vigilant eye of Walsingham was secretly fixed on the
secure conspirators. He held a thread which vibrated to their every
motion, and he was patiently awaiting the moment of their complete
entanglement to spring forth and seize his victims.
To the queen, and to her only, he communicated the daily intelligence
which he received from a spy who had introduced himself into all their
secrets; and Elizabeth had the firmness to hasten nothing, though a
picture was actually shown her, in which the six assassins had absurdly
caused themselves to be represented with a motto underneath intimating
their common design. These dreadful visages remained however so
perfectly impressed on her memory, that she immediately recognised one
of the conspirators who had approached very near her person as she was
one day walking in her garden. She had the intrepidity to fix him with a
look which daunted him; and afterwards, turning to her captain of the
guards, she remarked that she was well guarded, not having a single
armed man at the time about her.
At length Walsingham judged it time to interpose and rescue his
sovereign from her perilous situation. Ballard was first seized, and
soon after Babington and his associates. All, overcome by terror or
allured by vain hopes, severally and voluntarily confessed their guilt
and accused their accomplices. The nation was justly exasperated against
the partakers in a plot which comprised foreign invasion, domestic
insurrection, the assassination of a beloved sovereign, the elevation to
the throne of her feared and hated rival, and the restoration of popery.
The traitors suffered, notwithstanding the interest which the extreme
youth and good moral characters of most or all of them were formed to
inspire, amid the execrations of the protestant spectators. But what was
to be the fate of that "pretender to the crown," on whose behalf and
with whose privity this foul conspiracy had been entered into, and who
was by the late statute, passed with a view to this very case, liable to
condign punishment?
This was now the important question which awaited the decision of
Elizabeth, and divided the judgements of her most confidential
counsellors. Some advised that the royal captive should be spared the
ignominy of any public proceeding; but that her attendants should be
removed, and her custody rendered so severe as to preclude all
possibility of her renewing her pestilent intrigues. Leicester, in
conformity with the baseness and atrocity of his character, is related
to have suggested the employment of treachery against the life of a
prisoner whom it appeared equally dangerous to spare or to punish; and
to have sent a divine to convince Walsingham of the lawfulness of taking
her off by poison. But that minister rejected the proposal with
abhorrence, and concurred with the majority of the council in urging the
queen to bring her without fear or scruple to an open trial. In favor of
this measure Elizabeth at length decided, and steps were taken
accordingly.
By means of well concerted precautions, Mary had been kept in total
ignorance of the apprehension of the conspirators, till their
confessions had been made and their fates decided:--a gentleman was then
sent to her from the court to announce that all was discovered.
It was just as she had mounted her horse to take her usual exercise with
her keepers, that this alarming message was delivered to her; and for
obvious reasons she was compelled to proceed on her excursion, instead
of returning, as she desired, to her chamber. Meantime all her papers
were seized, sealed up, and conveyed to the queen. Amongst them were
letters from a large proportion of the nobility and other leading
characters of the English court, filled with expressions of attachment
to the person of the queen of Scots and sympathy in her misfortunes, not
unmixed, in all probability, with severe reflections on the conduct of
her rival and oppressor. All these Elizabeth perused, and no doubt
stored up in her memory; but her good sense and prudence supplied on
this occasion the place of magnanimity; and well knowing that the
conscious fears of the writers would be ample security for their future
conduct, she buried in lasting silence and apparent oblivion all the
discoveries which had reached her through this channel.
The principal domestics of Mary were now apprehended, and committed to
different keepers; and Nau and Curl her two secretaries were sent
prisoners to London. She herself was immediately removed from Tutbury,
and conveyed with a great attendance of the neighbouring gentry, and
with pauses at several noblemen's houses by the way, to the strong
castle of Fotheringay in Northamptonshire. This part of the business was
safely and prudently conducted by sir Amias Paulet; and he received for
his encouragement and reward the following characteristic letter,
subscribed by the hand of her majesty, and surely of her own inditing.
* * * * *
"To my faithful Amias.
"Amias, my most careful servant, God reward thee treble fold in the
double for thy most troublesome charge so well discharged! If you knew,
my Amias, how kindly, besides dutifully, my grateful heart accepteth
your double labors and faithful actions, your wise orders and safe
conduct performed in so dangerous and crafty a charge, it would ease
your troubles and rejoice your heart. And (which I charge you to carry
this most just thought) that I cannot balance in any weight of my
judgement the value I prize you at: And suppose no treasure to
countervail such a faith: And condemn myself in that fault which I have
committed, if I reward not such deserts. Yea, let me lack when I have
most need, if I acknowledge not such a merit with a reward '_non omnibus
datum_.'
"But let your wicked mistress know, how with hearty sorrow her vile
deserts compel those orders; and bid her from me ask God forgiveness for
her treacherous dealing toward the saver of her life many years, to the
intolerable peril of her own. And yet, not content with so many
forgivenesses, must fall again so horribly, far passing a woman, much
more a princess. Instead of excusing thereof, not one can serve, it
being so plainly confessed by the authors of my guiltless death.
"Let repentance take place; and let not the fiend possess so as her best
part be lost. Which I pray, with hands lifted up to him that may both
save and spill. With my loving adieu and prayer for thy long life,
"Your assured and loving sovereign in heart,
by good desert induced,
"ELIZ. R."
* * * * *
Soon, after the arrival of Mary at Fotheringay, Elizabeth, according to
the provisions of the late act, issued out a commission to forty
noblemen and privy-councillors, empowering them to try and pass sentence
upon Mary daughter and heir of king James V. and late queen of Scots;
for it was thus that she was designated, with a view of intimating to
her that she was no longer to be regarded as possessing the rights of a
sovereign princess. Thirty-six of the commissioners repaired immediately
to Fotheringay, where they arrived on October 9th 1586, and cited Mary
to appear before them. This summons she refused to obey, on the double
ground, that as an absolute princess she was free from all human
jurisdiction, since kings only could be her peers; and that having been
detained in England as a prisoner, she had not enjoyed the protection of
the laws, and consequently ought not in equity to be regarded as
amenable to their sentence. Weighty as these objections may appear, the
commissioners refused to admit them, and declared that they would
proceed to judge her by default. This menace she at first disregarded;
but soon after, overcome by the artful representations of Hatton on the
inferences which must inevitably be drawn from her refusal to justify
herself for the satisfaction of a princess who had declared that she
desired nothing so much as the establishment of her innocence, she
changed her mind and consented to plead. None of her papers were
restored, no counsel was assigned her; and her request that her two
secretaries, whose evidence was princicipally relied on by the
prosecutors, might be confronted with her, was denied. But all these
were hardships customarily inflicted on prisoners accused of high
treason and it does not appear that, with respect to its forms and
modes of proceedings, Mary had cause to complain that her trial was
other than a regular and legal one.
On her first appearance she renewed her protestation against the
competence of the tribunal. Bromley lord-chancellor answered her,
showing the jurisdiction of the English law over all persons within the
country; and the commissioners ordered both the objection and the reply
to be registered, as if to save the point of law; but it does not appear
that it was ever referred for decision to any other authority.
Intercepted letters, authenticated by the testimony of her secretaries,
formed the chief evidence against Mary. From these the crown lawyers
showed, and she did not attempt to deny, that she had suffered her
correspondents to address her as queen of England; that she had
endeavoured by means of English fugitives to incite the Spaniards to
invade the country; and that she had been negotiating at Rome the terms
of a transfer of all her claims, present and future, to the king of
Spain, disinheriting by this unnatural act her own schismatic son. The
further charge of having concurred in the late plot for the
assassination of Elizabeth, she strongly denied and attempted to
disprove; but it stood on equally good evidence with all the rest; and
in spite of some suggestions of which her modern partisans have
endeavoured to give her the benefit, there appears no solid foundation
on which an impartial inquirer can rest any doubt of the fact.
The deportment of Mary on this trying emergency exhibited somewhat of
the dignity, but more of the spirit and adroitness, for which she has
been famed. She justified her negotiations, or intrigues, with foreign
princes, on the ground of her inalienable right to employ all the means
within her power for the recovery of that liberty of which she had been
cruelly and unjustly deprived. With great effrontery she persisted in
denying that she had ever entertained with Babington any correspondence
whatever; and she urged that his pretending to receive, or having in
fact received, letters written in her cipher, was no conclusive proof
against her; since it was the same which she used in her French
correspondence, and might have fallen into other hands. But finding
herself hard pressed by evidence on this part of the subject, she
afterwards hazarded a rash attempt to fix on Walsingham the imputation
of having suborned witnesses and forged letters for her destruction. The
aged minister, greatly moved by this attack upon his character,
immediately rose and asserted his innocence in a manner so solemn, and
with such circumstantial corroboration, as compelled her to retract the
accusation with an apology.
On some mention of the earl of Arundel and lord William Howard his
brother, which occurred in the intercepted letters, she sighed, and
exclaimed with a feeling which did her honor, "Alas, what has not the
noble house of Howard suffered for my sake!"
On the whole, her presence of mind was remarkable; though the quick
sensibilities of her nature could not be withheld from breaking out at
times, either in vehement sallies of anger or long fits of weeping, as
the sense of past and present injuries, or of her forlorn and afflicted
state and the perils and sufferings which still menaced her, rose by
turns upon her agitated and affrighted mind.
The commissioners, after a full hearing, of the cause, quitted
Fotheringay, and, meeting again in the Star-chamber summoned before them
the two secretaries, who voluntarily confirmed on oath the whole of
their former depositions: after this, they proceeded to an unanimous
sentence of death against Mary, which was immediately transmitted to the
queen for her approbation. On the same day a declaration was published
on the part of the commissioners and judges, importing, that the
sentence did in no manner derogate from the titles and honors of the
king of Scots.
Most of the subsequent steps taken by Elizabeth in this unhappy business
are marked with the features of that intense selfishness which,
scrupling nothing for the attainment of its own mean objects, seldom
fails by exaggerated efforts and overstrained manoeuvres to expose
itself to detection and merited contempt.
Never had she enjoyed a higher degree of popularity than at this
juncture: the late discoveries had opened to view a series of popish
machinations which had fully justified, in the eyes of an alarmed and
irritated people, even those previous measures of severity on the part
of her government which had most contributed to provoke these attempts.
The queen was more than ever the heroine of the protestant party; and
the image of those imminent and hourly perils to which her zeal in the
good cause had exposed her, inflamed to enthusiasm the sentiment of
loyalty. On occasion of the detection of Babington's plot, the whole
people gave themselves up to rejoicings. Sixty bonfires, says the
chronicler, were kindled between Ludgate and Charing-Cross, and tables
were set out in the open streets at which happy neighbours feasted
together. The condemnation of the queen of Scots produced similar
demonstrations. After her sentence had been ratified by both houses of
parliament, it was thought expedient, probably by way of feeling the
pulse of the people, that solemn proclamation of it should be made in
London by the lord-mayor and city officers, and by the magistrates of
the county in Westminster. The multitude, untouched by the long
misfortunes of an unhappy princess born of the blood-royal of England
and heiress to its throne,--insensible too of every thing arbitrary,
unprecedented, or unjust, in the treatment to which she had been
subjected, received the notification of her doom with expressions of
triumph and exultation truly shocking. Bonfires were lighted, church
bells were rung, and every street and lane throughout the city resounded
with psalms of thanksgiving[97].
[Note 97: Hollinshed's Castrations.]
It is manifest, therefore, that no deference for the opinions or
feelings of her subjects compelled Elizabeth to hesitate or to dissemble
in this matter.
Had she permitted the execution of the sentence simply, and without
delay, all orders of men attached to the protestant establishment would
have approved it as an act fully justified by state-expediency and the
law of self-defence; and though misgivings might have arisen in the
minds of some on cooler reflection, when alarm had subsided and the
bitterness of satiated revenge had begun to make itself felt,--these
"compunctious visitings" could have led to no consequences capable of
alarming her. It must have been felt as highly inequitable to reproach
the queen, when all was past and irrevocable, for the consent which she
had afforded to a deed sanctioned by a law, ratified by the legislature
and applauded by the people, and from which both church and state had
reaped the fruits of security and peace. Foreign princes also would have
respected the vigor of this proceeding; they would not have been
displeased to see themselves spared by a decisive act the pain of making
disregarded representations on such a subject; and a secret
consciousness that few of their number would have scrupled under all the
circumstances to take like vengeance on a deadly foe and rival, might
further have contributed to reconcile them to the fact. Even as it was,
pope Sixtus V. himself could scarcely restrain his expressions of
admiration at the completion of so strong a measure as the final
execution of the sentence: his holiness had indeed a strange passion for
capital punishments, and he is said to have envied the queen of England
the glorious satisfaction of cutting off a royal head:--a sentiment not
much more extraordinary from such a personage, than the ardent desire
which he is reported to have expressed, that it were possible for him to
have a son by this heretic princess; because the offspring of such
parents could not fail, he said, to make himself king of the world.
But it was the weakness of Elizabeth to imagine, that an extraordinary
parade of reluctance, and the interposition of some affected delays,
would change in public opinion the whole character of the deed which she
contemplated, and preserve to her the reputation of feminine mildness
and sensibility, without the sacrifice of that great revenge on which
she was secretly bent. The world, however, when it has no interest in
deceiving itself, is too wise to accept of words instead of deeds, or in
opposition to them; and the sole result of her artifices was to
aggravate in the eyes of all mankind the criminality of the act, by
giving it rather the air of a treacherous and cold-blooded murder, than
of solemn execution done upon a formidable culprit by the sentence of
offended laws. The parliament which Elizabeth had summoned to partake
the odium of Mary's death, met four days after the judges had pronounced
her doom, and was opened by commission. An unanimous ratification of the
sentence by both houses was immediately carried, and followed by an
earnest address to her majesty for its publication and execution; to
which she returned a long and labored answer.
She began with the expression of her fervent gratitude to Providence for
the affections of her people; adding protestations of her love towards
them, and of her perfect willingness to have suffered her own life still
to remain exposed as a mark to the aim of enemies and traitors, had she
not perceived how intimately the safety and well-being of the nation
was connected with her own. With regard to the queen of Scots, she said,
so severe had been the grief which she had sustained from her recent
conduct, that the fear of renewing this sentiment had been the cause,
and the sole cause, of her withholding her personal appearance at the
opening of that assembly, where she knew that the subject must of
necessity become matter of discussion; and not, as had been suggested,
the apprehension of any violence to be attempted against her
person;--yet she might mention, that she had actually seen a bond by
which the subscribers bound themselves to procure her death within a
month.
So far was she from indulging any ill will against one of the same sex,
the same rank, the same race as herself,--in fact her nearest
kinswoman,--that after having received full information of certain of
her machinations, she had secretly written with her own hand to the
queen of Scots, promising that, on a simple confession of her guilt in a
private letter to herself, all should be buried in oblivion. She doubted
not that the ancient laws of the land would have been sufficient to
reach the guilt of her who had been the great artificer of the recent
treasons; and she had consented to the passing of the late statute, not
for the purpose of ensnaring her, but rather to give her warning of the
danger in which she stood. Her lawyers, from their strict attachment to
ancient forms, would have brought this princess to trial within the
county of Stafford, have compelled her to hold up her hand at the bar,
and have caused twelve jurymen to pass judgement upon her. But to her
it had appeared more suitable to the dignity of the prisoner and the
importance of the cause to refer the examination to the judges, nobles,
and counsellors of the realm;--happy if even thus she could escape that
ready censure to which the conspicuous station of sovereigns on all
occasions exposed them.
The statute, by requiring her to pronounce judgement upon her kinswoman,
had involved her in anxiety and difficulties. Amid all her perils,
however, she must remember with gratitude and affection the voluntary
association into which her subjects had entered for her defence. It was
never her practice to decide hastily on any matter; in a case so rare
and important some interval of deliberation must be allowed her; and she
would pray Heaven to enlighten her mind, and guide it to the decision
most beneficial to the church, to the state, and to the people.
Twelve days after the delivery of this speech, her majesty sent a
message to both houses, entreating that her parliament would carefully
reconsider the matter, and endeavour to hit upon some device by which
the life of the queen of Scots might be rendered consistent with her own
safety and that of the country. Her faithful parliament, however, soon
after acquainted her, that with their utmost diligence they had found it
impracticable to form any satisfactory plan of the kind she desired; and
the speakers of the two houses ended a long representation of the
mischiefs to be expected from any arrangement by which Mary would be
suffered to continue in life, with a most earnest and humble petition,
that her majesty would not longer deny to the united wishes and
entreaties of all England, what it would be iniquitous to refuse to the
meanest individual; the execution of justice.
Elizabeth, after pronouncing a second long harangue designed to display
her own clemency, to upbraid the malice of her libellers, and to refute
the suspicion, which her conscience no doubt helped her to anticipate,
that all this irresolution was but feigned, and that the decisions of
the two houses were influenced by a secret acquaintance with her
wishes,--again dismissed their petitions without any positive answer.
Soon after, however, she permitted herself to authorize the proclamation
of the sentence, and sent lord Buckhurst, and Beal clerk of the council,
to announce it to Mary herself.
During the whole of this time, the kings of France and of Scotland were
interceding by their ambassadors for the pardon of the illustrious
prisoner. How the representations of Henry III. were received, we do not
find minutely recorded; but Elizabeth knew that they might be safely
disregarded: that monarch was himself too much a sufferer by the
arrogance and ambition of the house of Guise, to be very strenuous in
his friendship towards any one so nearly connected with it; and it is
even said that, while a sense of decorum extorted from him in public
some energetic expressions of the interest taken by him in the fate of a
sister-in-law and queen-dowager of France, a sentiment of regard for
Elizabeth, his friend and ally, prompted him to counsel her, through a
secret agent, to execute the sentence with the least possible delay. Of
the treatment experienced by the master of Gray, the envoy of James, we
gain some particulars from an original memorial drawn up by himself.
He appears to have reached Ware on December 24th, whence he sent to
desire Keith and Douglas, the resident Scotch ambassadors, to announce
to the queen his approach; and she voluntarily promised that the life of
Mary should be spared till his proposals were heard. His reception in
London was somewhat ungracious;--no one was sent to welcome or convoy
him, and it was ten days before he and sir Robert Melvil his coadjutor
were admitted to an audience. Elizabeth's first address to them was, "A
thing long looked for should be welcome when it comes; I would now see
your master's offers." Gray desired first to be assured that the cause
for which those offers were made was "still extant;" that is, that the
life of Mary was still safe, and should be so till their mission had
been heard. She answered, "I think it be extant yet, but I will not
promise for an hour." They then brought forward certain proposals, not
here recited, which she rejected with contempt; and calling in
Leicester, the lord-admiral, and Hatton, "very despitefully" repeated
them in hearing of them all. Gray then propounded his last offer:--that
the queen of Scots should resign all her claims upon the English
succession to her son, by which means the hopes of the papists would, as
he said, be cut off. The terms in which this overture was made Elizabeth
affected not to understand; Leicester explained their meaning to be,
that the king of Scots should be put in his mother's place. "Is it so?"
the queen answered; "then I put myself in a worse case than before:--By
God's passion, that were to cut my own throat; and for a duchy or an
earldom to yourself, you, or such as you, would cause some of your
desperate knaves to kill me. No, by God, he shall never be in that
place!" Gray answered, "He craves nothing of your majesty, but only of
his mother." "That," said Leicester, "were to make him _party_ (rival or
adversary) to the queen my mistress." "He will be far more party,"
replied Gray, "if he be in her place through her death." Her majesty
exclaimed, that she should not have a worse in his mother's place, and
added; "Tell your king what good I have done for him in holding the
crown on his head since he was born, and that I _mind_ (intend) to keep
the league that now stands between us, and if he break it, it shall be a
double fault." With this speech she would have left them; but they
persisted in arguing the matter further, though in vain. Gray then
requested that Mary's life might be spared for fifteen days; the queen
refused: sir Robert Melvil begged for only eight days; she said not for
an hour, and so quitted them.
After this, the Scotch ambassadors assumed a tone of menace: but the
perfidious Gray secretly fortified Elizabeth's resolution with the
proverb, "The dead cannot bite;" and undertook soon to pacify, in any
event, the anger of his master, whose minion he at this time was.
No sooner had Elizabeth silenced with this show of inflexibility all the
pleadings or menaces by which others had attempted to divert her from
her fatal aim, than she began, as in the affair of the French marriage,
to feel her own resolution waver. It appears unquestionable that to
affected delays a real hesitation succeeded. When her pride was no
longer irritated by opposition, she had leisure to survey the meditated
deed in every light; and as it rose upon her view in all its native
deformity, anxious fears for her own fame and credit, yet untainted by
any crime, and perhaps genuine scruples of conscience, forcibly assailed
her resolution. But her ministers, deeply sensible that both she and
they had already gone too far to recede with reputation or with safety,
encountered her growing reluctance with a proportional increase in the
vehemence of their clamors for what they called, and perhaps thought,
justice. All the hazards to which her excess of clemency might be
imagined to expose her, were conjured up in the most alarming forms to
repel her scruples. A plot for her assassination was disclosed, to which
the French ambassador was ascertained to have been privy;--rumors were
raised of invasions and insurrections; and it may be suspected that the
queen, really alarmed in the first instance by the representations of
her council, voluntarily contributed afterwards to keep up these
delusions for the sake of terrifying the minds of men into an approval
of the deed of blood.
At length, on February 1st 1587, her majesty ordered secretary Davison
to bring her the warrant, which had remained ready drawn in his hands
for some weeks; and having signed it, she told him to get it sealed with
the great seal, and in his way to call on Walsingham and tell him what
she had done; "though," she added smiling, "I fear he will die of grief
when he hears of it;"--this minister being then sick. Davison obeyed her
directions, and the warrant was sealed. The next day he received a
message from her, purporting that he should forbear to carry the warrant
to the lord keeper till further orders. Surprised and perplexed, he
immediately waited upon her to receive her further directions; when she
chid him for the haste he had used in this matter, and talked in a
fluctuating and undetermined manner respecting it which greatly alarmed
him. On leaving the queen, he immediately communicated the circumstances
to Burleigh and Hatton; and thinking it safest for himself to rid his
hands of the warrant, he delivered it up to Burleigh, by whom it had
been drawn and from whom he had at first received it. A council was now
called, consisting of such of the ministers as either the queen herself
or Davison had made acquainted with the signing of the warrant; and it
was proposed that, without any further communication with her majesty,
it should be sent down for immediate execution to the four earls to whom
it was directed.
Davison appears to have expressed some fears that he should be made to
bear the blame of this step; but all his fellow-councillors then present
joined to assure him that they would share the responsibility: it was
also said, that her majesty had desired of several that she might not be
troubled respecting any of the particulars of the last dismal scene;
consequently it was impossible that she could complain of their
proceeding without her privity. By these arguments Davison was seduced
to give his concurrence; and Beal, a person noted for the vehemence of
his attachment to the protestant cause and to the title of the countess
of Hertford, was dispatched with the instrument; in obedience to which
Mary underwent the fatal stroke on February 8th.
The news of this event was received by Elizabeth with the most
extraordinary demonstrations of astonishment, grief, and anger. Her
countenance changed, her voice faltered, and she remained for some
moments fixed and motionless; a violent burst of tears and lamentations
succeeded, with which she mingled expressions of rage against her whole
council. They had committed, she said, a crime never to be forgiven;
they had put to death without her knowledge her dear kinswoman and
sister, against whom they well knew that it was her fixed resolution
never to proceed to this fatal extremity. She put on deep mourning, kept
herself retired among her ladies abandoned to sighs and tears, and drove
from her presence with the most furious reproaches such of her ministers
as ventured to approach her. She caused several of the councillors to be
examined as to the share which they had taken in this transaction.
Burleigh was of the number; and against him she expressed herself with
such peculiar bitterness that he gave himself up for lost, and begged
permission to retire with the loss of all his employments. This
resignation was not accepted; and after a considerable interval, during
which this great minister deprecated the wrath of his sovereign in
letters of penitence and submission worthy only of an Oriental slave,
she condescended to be reconciled to a man whose services she felt to be
indispensable.
But the manes of Mary, or the indignation of her son, could not be
appeased, it seems, without a sacrifice; and a fit victim was at hand.
From some words dropped by lord Burleigh on his examination, it had
appeared that it was the declaration of Davison respecting the
sentiments of the queen, as expressed to himself, which had finally
decided the council to send down the warrant; and on this ground
proceedings were instituted against the unfortunate secretary. He was
stripped of his office, sent to the Tower in spite of the warm and
honest remonstrances of Burleigh, and after several examinations
subjected to a process in the Star-chamber for a twofold contempt.
First, in revealing her majesty's counsels to others of her
ministers;--secondly, in giving up to them an instrument which she had
committed to him in special trust and secrecy, to be kept in case of any
sudden emergency which might require its use.
Davison demanded that his own examination, which with that of Burleigh
formed the whole evidence against him, should be read entire, instead of
being picked and garbled by the crown lawyers; but this piece of justice
the queen's counsel refused him, on the ground that they contained
matter unfit to be divulged. He was found guilty, and sentenced to a
fine of ten thousand marks and imprisonment during the queen's pleasure,
by judges who at the same time expressed a high opinion both of his
abilities and his integrity, and who certainly regarded his offence as
nothing more than an error of judgement or want of due caution.
Elizabeth ordered a copy of his sentence to be immediately transmitted
to the king of Scots, as triumphant evidence of that perfect innocence
in the tragical _accident_ of his mother's death, of which she had
already made solemn protestation. James complied so far with obvious
motives of policy as to accept her excuses without much inquiry; but
impartial posterity will not be disposed to dismiss so easily an
important and curious investigation which it possesses abundant means of
pursuing. The record of Burleigh's examination is still extant, and so
likewise is Davison's apology; a piece which was composed by himself at
the time and addressed to Walsingham, who could best judge of its
accuracy; and which after being communicated to Camden, who has inserted
an extract from it in his Annals, has at length been found entire among
the original papers of sir Amias Paulet. From this authentic source we
derive the following very extraordinary particulars.
It was by the lord-admiral that the queen first sent a message to
Davison requiring him to bring the warrant for her signature; after
subscribing it, she asked him if he were not heartily sorry it were
done? to which he replied by a moderate and cautious approval of the
act. She bade him tell the chancellor when he carried the warrant to be
sealed, that he must "use it as secretly as might be." She then signed
other papers which he had brought; dispatching them all "with the best
disposition and willingness that could be." Afterwards she recurred to
the subject; mentioned that she had delayed the act so long that the
world might see "that she had not been violently or maliciously drawn
unto it;" but that she had all along perceived the necessity of it to
her own security. She then said, that she would have it done as secretly
as might be, and not in the open court or green of the castle, but in
the hall. Just as Davison was gathering up his papers to depart, "she
fell into some complaint of sir Amias Paulet and others that might have
eased her of this burthen;" and she desired that he would yet "deal with
secretary Walsingham to write jointly to sir Amias and sir Drue Drury to
sound them in this matter; "aiming still at this, that it might be so
done as the blame might be removed from herself." This nefarious
commission Davison strangely consented to execute, though he declares
that he had always before refused to meddle therein "upon sundry of her
majesty's motions,"--as a thing which he utterly disapproved; and though
he was fully persuaded that the wisdom and integrity of sir Amias would
render the application fruitless. The queen repeated her injunctions of
secrecy in the matter, and he departed.
He went to Walsingham, told him that the warrant was signed for
executing the sentence against the queen of Scots; agreed with him at
the same time about the letter to be written to sir Amias for her
private assassination;--then got the warrant sealed, then dispatched the
letter.
The next morning, the queen sent him word to forbear going to the
chancellor till she had spoken with him again. He went directly to
acquaint her that he had already seen him. She asked, "what needed such
haste?" He pleaded her commands, and the danger of delay. The queen
particularized some other form in which she thought it would be safer
and better for her to have the thing done. Davison answered, that the
just and honorable way would, he thought, be the safest and the best, if
she meant to have it done at all. The queen made no reply, but went to
dinner.--It appears from another statement of Davison's case, also drawn
up by himself, that it was on this very day, without waiting either for
Paulet's answer or for more explicit orders from her majesty, that he
had the incredible rashness to deliver up the warrant to Burleigh, and
to concur in the subsequent proceedings of the council; though aware
that the members were utterly ignorant of the queen's application to
Paulet.
A day or two after, her majesty called him to her in the privy chamber,
and told him smiling, that she had been troubled with him in a dream
which she had had the night before, that the queen of Scots was put to
death; and which so disturbed her, that she thought she could have run
him through with a sword. He answered at first jestingly, but, on
recollection, asked her with great earnestness, whether she did not
intend that the matter should go forward? She answered vehemently and
with an oath, that she did; but again harped upon the old string;--that
this mode would cast all the blame upon herself, and a better might be
contrived. The same afternoon she inquired if he had received an answer
from sir Amias; which at the time he had not, but he brought it to her
the next morning. It contained an absolute refusal to be concerned in
any action inconsistent with justice and honor. At this the queen was
much offended; she complained of what she called the "dainty perjury" of
him and others, who contrary to their oath of association cast the
burthen upon herself. Soon after, she again blamed "the niceness of
these precise fellows;" but said she would have the thing done without
them, and mentioned one Wingfield who would undertake it. Davison
remonstrated against this design; and also represented the dangerous
dilemma in which Paulet and Drury would have been placed by complying
with her wishes; since, if she avowed their act, she took it upon
herself, "with her infinite dishonor;" if she disavowed it, they were
ruined. It is absolutely inconceivable how a man who understood so well
the perils which these persons had skilfully avoided, should have
remained so blind to those which menaced himself; yet Davison, by his
own account, still suffered the queen to go on devising new schemes for
the taking off of Mary, without either acquainting her that the
privy-council had already sent off Beal with the warrant, or interfering
with them to procure, if possible, the recall of this messenger of
death. Even on his next interview with her, which he believes to have
been on Tuesday, the very day before the execution of the sentence, when
her majesty, after speaking of the daily peril in which she lived, swore
a great oath, that it was a shame for them all that the thing was not
yet done, and spoke to him to write a letter to Paulet for the dispatch
of the business; he contented himself with observing generally, that
the warrant was, he thought, sufficient; and though the queen still
inclined to think the letter requisite, he left her without even
dropping a hint that it was scarcely within the limits of possibility
that it should arrive before the sentence had been put in execution.
Of this unaccountable imprudence the utmost advantage was taken against
him by his cruel and crafty mistress; whose chief concern it had all
along been to discover by what artifice she might throw the greatest
possible portion of the blame from herself upon others. Davison
underwent a long imprisonment; the fine, though it reduced him to
beggary, was rigorously exacted; some scanty supplies for the relief of
his immediate necessities, while in prison, were all that her majesty
would vouchsafe him; and neither the zealous attestations of Burleigh in
the beginning to his merit and abilities and the importance of his
public services, nor the subsequent earnest pleadings of her own beloved
Essex for his restoration, could ever prevail with Elizabeth to lay
aside the appearances of perpetual resentment which she thought good to
preserve against him. She would neither reinstate him in office nor ever
more admit him to her presence; unable perhaps to bear the pain of
beholding a countenance which carried with it an everlasting reproach to
her conscience.
From the formidable responsibilities of this unprecedented action, the
wary Walsingham had withdrawn himself by favor of an opportune fit of
sickness, which disabled him from taking part in any thing but the
application to sir Amias Paulet, by which he could incur, as he well
knew, no hazard. A still more crafty politician, Leicester, after
throwing out in the privy-council hints of her majesty's wishes, which
served to accelerate the decisive steps there taken, had artfully
contrived to escape from all further participation in their proceedings.
Both ministers, in secret letters to Scotland, washed their hands of the
blood of Mary. But Leicester, not content with these defensive measures,
sought to improve the opportunity to the destruction of a rival whom he
had never ceased to hate and envy. To his insidious arts the temporary
disgrace of Burleigh is probably to be imputed; and it seems to have
been from the apprehension of his malignant misconstructions that the
lord treasurer refused to put on paper the particulars of his defence,
and never ceased to implore admission to plead his cause before his
sovereign in person. His perseverance at length prevailed: the queen saw
him; heard his justification, and restored him to her wonted grace;
after which the tacit compromise between the minister and the favorite
was restored;--that compromise by which, during eight-and-twenty years,
each had vindicated to himself an equality of political power, personal
influence, and royal favor, with the secret enemy whom he vainly wished,
or hoped, or plotted, to displace.
To relate again those melancholy details of Mary's closing scene, on
which the historians of England and of Scotland, as well as the numerous
biographers of this ill-fated princess, have exhausted all the arts of
eloquence, would be equally needless and presumptuous. It is, however,
important to remark, that she died rather with the triumphant air of a
martyr to her religion, the character which she falsely assumed, than
with the meekness of a victim or the penitence of a culprit. She bade
Melvil tell her son that she had done nothing injurious to his rights or
honor; though she was actually in treaty to disinherit him, and had also
consented to a nefarious plot for carrying him off prisoner to Rome; and
she denied with obstinacy to the last the charge of conspiring the death
of Elizabeth, though by her will, written the day before her death, she
rewarded as faithful servants the two secretaries who had borne this
testimony against her. A spirit of self-justification so haughty and so
unprincipled, a perseverance in deliberate falsehood so resolute and so
shameless, ought under no circumstances and in no personage, not even in
a captive beauty and an injured queen, to be confounded, by any writer
studious of the moral tendencies of history and capable of sound
discrimination, with genuine religion, true fortitude, or the dignity
which renders misfortune respectable.
Let due censure be passed on the infringement of morality committed by
Elizabeth, in detaining as a captive that rival kinswoman, and pretender
to her crown, whom the dread of still more formidable dangers had
compelled to seek refuge in her dominions: let it be admitted, that the
exercise of criminal jurisdiction over a person thus lawlessly detained
in a foreign country was another sacrifice of the just to the
expedient, which none but a profligate politician will venture to
defend; and let the efforts of Mary to procure her own liberty, though
with the destruction of her enemy and at the cost of a civil war to
England, be held, if religion will permit, justifiable or venial;--but
let not our resentment of the wrongs, or compassion for the long
misfortunes, of this unhappy woman betray us into a blind concurrence in
eulogiums lavished, by prejudice or weakness, on a character blemished
by many foibles, stained by some enormous crimes, and never under the
guidance of the genuine principles of moral rectitude.