1597 AND 1598.
Fresh expedition against Spain proposed.--Extracts from Whyte's
letters.--Raleigh reconciles Essex and R. Cecil.--Essex master of the
ordnance.--Anecdote of the queen and Mrs. Bridges.--Preparations for the
expedition.--Notice of lord Southampton.--Ill success of the
voyage.--Quarrel of Essex and Raleigh.--Displeasure of the queen.--Lord
admiral made earl of Nottingham.--Anger of Essex.--He is declared
hereditary earl marshal.--Reply of the queen to a Polish ambassador.--to
a proposition of the king of Denmark.--State of Ireland.--Treaty of
Vervins.--Agreement between Cecil and Essex.--Anecdotes of Essex and the
queen.--Their quarrel.--Letter of Essex to the lord keeper.--Dispute
between Burleigh and Essex.--Agreement with the Dutch.--Death and
character of Burleigh.--Transactions between the queen and the king of
Scots, and an extract from their correspondence.--Anecdote of sir Roger
Aston and the queen.--Anecdote of archbishop Hutton.--Death of
Spenser.--Hall's satires.--Notice of sir John Harrington.--Extracts from
his note-book.
A fresh expedition against the Spaniards was in agitation from the
beginning of this year, which occasioned many movements at court, and,
as usual, disturbed the mind of the queen with various perplexities. Her
captious favor towards Essex, and the arts employed by him to gain his
will on every contested point, are well illustrated in the letters of
Rowland White, to which we must again recur.
On February twenty-second he writes: "My lord of Essex kept his bed the
most part of all yesterday; yet did one of his chamber tell me, he could
not weep for it, for he knew his lord was not sick. There is not a day
passes that the queen sends not often to see him, and himself every day
goeth privately to her." Two days after, he reports that "my lord of
Essex comes out of his chamber in his gown and night-cap.... Full
fourteen days his lordship kept in; her majesty, as I heard, resolved to
break him of his will and to pull down his great heart, who found it a
thing impossible, and says he holds it from the mother's side; but all
is well again, and no doubt he will grow a mighty man in our state."
The earl of Cumberland made "some doubt of his going to sea," because
lord Thomas Howard and Raleigh were to be joined with him in equal
authority; the queen mentioned the subject to him, and on his repeating
to herself his refusal, he was "well chidden."
In March, Raleigh was busied in mediating a reconciliation between Essex
and Robert Cecil, in which he was so far successful that a kind of
compromise took place; and henceforth court favors were shared without
any open quarrels between their respective adherents. The motives urged
by Raleigh for this agreement were, that it would benefit the country;
that the queen's "continual unquietness" would turn to contentment, and
that public business would go on to the hurt of the common enemy.
Essex however was malcontent at heart; he began to frequent certain
meetings held in Blackfriars at the house of lady Russel, a busy
puritan, who was one of the learned daughters of sir Anthony Cook.
"Wearied," says White, "with not knowing how to please, he is not
unwilling to listen to those motions made him for the public good." He
was soon after so much offended with her majesty for giving the office
of warden of the cinque ports to his enemy lord Cobham, after he had
asked it for himself, that he was about to quit the court; but the queen
sent for him, and, to pacify him, made him master of the ordnance.
It is mentioned about this time, that the queen had of late "used the
fair Mrs. Bridges with words and blows of anger." This young lady was
one of the maids of honor, and the same referred to in a subsequent
letter, where it is said, "it is spied out by envy that the earl of
Essex is again fallen in love with his fairest B." On which White
observes, "It cannot choose but come to the queen's ears; and then is he
undone, and all that depend upon his favor." A striking indication of
the nature of the sentiment which the aged sovereign cherished for her
youthful favorite!
In May our intelligencer writes thus: "Here hath been much ado between
the queen and the lords about the preparation to sea; some of them
urging the necessity of setting it forward for her safety; but she
opposing it by no danger appearing towards her any where; and that she
will not make wars but arm for defence; understanding how much of her
treasure was already spent in victual, both for ships and soldiers at
land. She was extremely angry with them that made such haste in it, and
at Burleigh for suffering it, seeing no greater occasion. No reason nor
persuasion by some of the lords could prevail, but that her majesty hath
commanded order to be given to stay all proceeding, and sent my lord
Thomas (Howard) word that he should not go to sea. How her majesty may
be wrought to fulfil the most earnest desire of some to have it go
forward, time must make it known."
But the reconciliation, whether sincere or otherwise, brought about by
Raleigh between Essex and the Cecils, rendered at this time the
war-party so strong, that the scruples of the queen were at length
overruled, and a formidable armament was sent to sea, with the double
object of destroying the Spanish ships in their harbours and
intercepting their homeward-bound West India fleet. Essex was commander
in chief by sea and land; lord Thomas Howard and Raleigh vice and rear
admirals; lord Montjoy was lieutenant-general; sir Francis Vere,
marshal. Several young noblemen attached to Essex joined the expedition
as volunteers; as lord Rich his brother-in-law, the earl of Rutland,
afterwards married to the daughter of the countess of Essex by sir
Philip Sidney; lord Cromwel, and the earl of Southampton. The last,
whose friendship for Essex afterwards hurried him into an enterprise
still more perilous, appears to have been attracted to him by an
extraordinary conformity of tastes and temper. Like Essex, he was brave
and generous, but impetuous and somewhat inclined to arrogance:--like
him, a munificent patron of the genius which he loved. Like his friend
again, he received from her majesty tokens of peculiar favor, which she
occasionally suspended on his giving indications of an ungovernable
temper or too lofty spirit, and which she finally withdrew, on his
presuming to marry without that consent which to certain persons she
could never have been induced to accord. This earl of Southampton was
grandson of that ambitious and assuming but able and diligent statesman,
lord chancellor Wriothesley, appointed by Henry VIII. one of his
executors; he was father of the virtuous Southampton lord treasurer, and
by him, grandfather of the heroical and ever-memorable Rachel lady
Russel.
A storm drove the ill-fated armament back to Plymouth, where it remained
wind-bound for a month, and Essex and Raleigh posted together up to
court for fresh instructions. Having concerted their measures, they made
sail for the Azores, and Raleigh with his division arriving first,
attacked and captured the isle of Fayal without waiting for his admiral.
Essex was incensed; and there were not wanting those about him who
applied themselves to fan the flame, and even urged him to bring sir
Walter to a court-martial: but he refused; and his anger soon
evaporating, lord Thomas Howard was enabled to accommodate the
difference, and the rivals returned to the appearance of friendship.
Essex was destitute of the naval skill requisite for the prosperous
conduct of such an enterprise: owing partly to his mistakes, and partly
to several thwarting circumstances, the West India fleet escaped him,
and three rich Havannah ships, which served to defray most of the
expenses, were the only trophies of his "Island Voyage," from which
himself and the nation had anticipated results so glorious.
The queen received him with manifest dissatisfaction; his severity
towards Raleigh was blamed, and it was evident that matters tended to
involve him in fresh differences with Robert Cecil. During his absence,
the lord admiral had been advanced to the dignity of earl of Nottingham,
and he now discovered that by a clause in the patent this honor was
declared to be conferred upon him in consideration of his good service
at the taking of Cadiz, an action of which Essex claimed to himself the
whole merit. To make the injury greater, this title, conjoined to the
office of lord high admiral, gave the new earl precedency of all others
of the same rank, Essex amongst the rest. To such complicated
mortifications his proud spirit disdained to submit; and after
challenging without effect to single combat the lord admiral himself or
any of his sons who would take up the quarrel, the indignant favorite
retired a sullen malcontent to Wanstead-house, feigning himself sick.
This expedient acted on the heart of the queen with all its wonted
force;--she showed the utmost concern for his situation, chid the Cecils
for wronging him, and soon after made him compensation for the act which
had wounded him, by admitting his claim to the hereditary office of earl
marshal, with which he was solemnly invested in December 1597; and in
right of it once more took place above the lord admiral.
It was during this summer that the arrogant deportment of a Polish
ambassador, sent to complain of an invasion of neutral rights in the
interruption given by the English navy to the trade of his master's
subjects with Spain, gave occasion to a celebrated display of the spirit
and the erudition of the queen of England. Speed, the ablest of our
chroniclers, gives at length her extemporal Latin reply to his harangue;
adding in his quaint but expressive phrase, that she "thus lion like
rising, daunted the malapert orator no less with her stately port and
majestical deporture, than with the tartness of her princely checks: and
turning to the train of her attendants thus said, 'God's death, my
lords,' (for that was her oath ever in anger,) 'I have been inforced
this day to scour up my old Latin, that hath lain long in rusting.'" The
same author mentions, that the king of Denmark having by his ambassador
offered to mediate between England and Spain, the queen declined the
overture, adding, "I would have the king of Denmark and all princes
Christian and Heathen to know, that England hath no need to crave peace;
nor myself indured one hour's fear since I attained the crown thereof,
being guarded with so valiant and faithful subjects." Such was the lofty
tone which Elizabeth, to the end of her days, maintained towards foreign
powers; none of whom had she cause to dread or motive to court. Yet her
cheerfulness and fortitude were at the same time on the point of sinking
under the harassing disquietudes of a petty war supported against her by
an Irish chief of rebels.
The head of the sept O'Neal, whom she had in vain endeavoured to attach
permanently to her interests by conferring upon him the dignity of earl
of Tyrone, had now for some years persevered in a resistance to her
authority, which the most strenuous efforts of the civil and military
governors of this turbulent and miserable island had proved inadequate
to overcome. That brave officer sir John Norris, then general of Ulster,
had found it necessary to grant terms to the rebel whom he would gladly
have brought in bonds to the feet of his sovereign. But the treaty thus
made, this perfidious barbarian, according to his custom, observed only
till the English forces were withdrawn and he saw the occasion favorable
to rise again in arms. Lord Borough, whom the queen had appointed deputy
in 1598,--on which sir John Norris, appointed to act under him, died, as
it is thought, of chagrin,--began his career with a vigorous attack, by
which he carried, though not without considerable loss, the fort of
Blackwater, the only place of strength possessed by the rebels; but
before he was able to pursue further his success, death overtook him,
and the government was committed for a time to the earl of Ormond.
Tyrone, nothing daunted, laid siege in his turn to Blackwater; and sir
Henry Bagnal, with the flower of the English army, being sent to relieve
it, sustained the most signal defeat ever experienced by an English
force in Ireland. The commander himself, several captains of distinction
and fifteen hundred men, were left on the field; and the fort
immediately surrendered to the rebel chief, who now vauntingly declared,
that he would accept of no terms from the queen of England, being
resolved to remain in arms till the king of Spain should send forces to
his assistance.
Such was the alarming position of affairs in this island at the
conclusion of the year 1598. At home, several incidents had intervened
to claim attention.
The king of France had received from Spain proposals for a peace, which
the exhausted state of his country would not permit him to neglect; and
he had used his utmost endeavours to persuade his allies, the queen of
England and the United Provinces, to enter into the negotiations for a
general pacification. But Philip II. still refused to acknowledge the
independence of his revolted subjects, the only basis on which the new
republic would condescend to treat. Elizabeth, besides that she
disdained to desert those whom she had so long and so zealously
supported, was in no haste to terminate a war from which she and her
subjects anticipated honor with little peril, and plunder which would
more than repay its expenses; and both from England and Holland agents
were sent to remonstrate with Henry against the breach of treaty which
he was about to commit by the conclusion of a separate peace. Elizabeth
wrote to admonish him that the true sin against the Holy Ghost was
ingratitude, of which she had so much right to accuse him; that fidelity
to engagements was the first of duties and of virtues; and that union,
according to the ancient apologue of the bundle of rods, was the source
of strength. But to all her eloquence and all her invectives Henry had
to oppose the necessity of his affairs, and the treaty of Vervins was
concluded; but not without some previous stipulations on the part of the
French king which softened considerably the resentment of his ally. Of
the commissioners named by Elizabeth to arrange this business with
Henry, Robert Cecil was the chief; who held before his departure many
private conferences with Essex, and would not move from court till he
had bound him by favors and promises to do him no injury by promoting
his enemies in his absence. The earl of Southampton having given some
offence to her majesty for which she had ordered him to absent himself
awhile from court, took the opportunity to obtain license to travel, and
attended the secretary to France, perhaps in the character of a spy upon
his motions on behalf of Essex, who seems to have prepared him for the
service by much private instruction.
"I acquainted you," says Rowland Whyte to his correspondent, "with the
care had to bring my lady of Leicester to the queen's presence. It was
often granted, and she brought to the privy galleries, but the queen
found some occasion not to come. Upon Shrove Monday the queen was
persuaded to go to Mr. Comptroller's at the tilt end, and there was my
lady of Leicester with a fair jewel of three hundred pounds. A great
dinner was prepared by my lady Chandos; the queen's coach ready, and all
the world expecting her majesty's coming; when, upon a sudden, she
resolved not to go, and so sent word. My lord of Essex that had kept his
chamber all the day before, in his nightgown went up to the queen the
privy way; but all would not prevail, and as yet my lady Leicester hath
not seen the queen. It had been better not moved, for my lord of Essex,
by importuning the queen in these unpleasing matters, loses the
opportunity he might take to do good unto his ancient friends." But on
March 2d he adds; "My lady Leicester was at court, kissed the queen's
hand and her breast, and did embrace her, and the queen kissed her. My
lord of Essex is in exceeding favor here. Lady Leicester departed from
court exceedingly contented, but being desirous again to come to kiss
the queen's hand, it was denied, and, as I heard, some wonted unkind
words given out against her."
This extraordinary height of royal favor was not merely the precursor,
but, by the arrogant presumption with which it inspired him, a principal
cause of Essex's decline, which was now fast approaching. Confident in
the affections of Elizabeth, he suffered himself to forget that she was
still his queen and still a Tudor; he often neglected the attentions
which would have gratified her; on any occasional cause of ill humour he
would drop slighting expressions respecting her age and person which, if
they reached her ear, could never be forgiven; on one memorable instance
he treated her with indignity openly and in her presence. A dispute had
arisen between them in presence of the admiral, the secretary, and the
clerk of the signet, respecting the choice of a commander for Ireland;
the queen resolving to send sir William Knolles, the uncle of Essex,
while he vehemently supported sir George Carew, because this person,
who was haughty and boastful, had given him some offence; and he wanted
to remove him out of his way. Unable either by argument or persuasion to
prevail over the resolute will of her majesty, the favorite at last
forgot himself so far as to turn his back upon her with a laugh of
contempt; an outrage which she revenged after her own manner, by boxing
his ears and bidding him "Go and be hanged." This retort so inflamed the
blood of Essex that he clapped his hand on his sword, and while the lord
admiral hastened to throw himself between them, he swore that not from
Henry VIII. himself would he have endured such an indignity, and foaming
with rage he rushed out of the palace. His sincere friend the lord
keeper immediately addressed to him a prudential letter, urging him to
lose no time in seeking with humble submissions the forgiveness of his
offended mistress: but Essex replied to these well intended admonitions
by a letter which, amid all the choler that it betrays, must still be
applauded both for its eloquence and for a manliness of sentiment of
which few other public characters of the age appear to have been
capable. The lord keeper in his letter had strongly urged the religious
duty of absolute submission on the part of a subject to every thing that
his sovereign, justly or unjustly, should be pleased to lay upon him; to
which the earl thus replies: "But, say you, I must yield and submit. I
can neither yield myself to be guilty, or this imputation laid upon me
to be just. I owe so much to the author of all truth, as I can never
yield falsehood to be truth, or truth to be falsehood. Have I given
cause, ask you, and take scandal when I have done? No; I gave no cause
to take so much as Fimbria's complaint against me, for I did _totum
telum corpore recipere_. I patiently bear all, and sensibly feel all,
that I then received, when this scandal was given me. Nay more, when the
vilest of all indignities are done unto me, doth religion enforce me to
sue? or doth God require it? Is it impiety not to do it? What, cannot
princes err? cannot subjects receive wrong? Is an earthly power or
authority infinite? Pardon me, pardon me, my good lord, I can never
subscribe to these principles. Let Solomon's fool laugh when he is
stricken; let those that mean to make their profit of princes, show to
have no sense of princes' injuries; let them acknowledge an infinite
absoluteness on earth, that do not believe in an absolute infiniteness
in heaven. As for me, I have received wrong, and feel it. My cause is
good; I know it; and whatsoever come, all the powers on earth can never
show more strength and constancy in oppressing, than I can show in
suffering whatsoever can or shall be imposed upon me." &c.
Several other friends of Essex, his mother, his sister and the earl of
Northumberland her husband, urged him in like manner to return to his
attendance at court and seek her majesty's forgiveness; while she, on
her part, secretly uneasy at his absence, permitted certain persons to
go to him, as from themselves, and suggest terms of accommodation. Sir
George Carew was made lord president of Munster; and sir William
Knolles, who perhaps had not desired the appointment, assured his
nephew of his earnest wish to serve him. Finally, this great quarrel was
made up, we scarcely know how, and Essex appeared as powerful at court
as ever; though some have believed, and with apparent reason, that from
this time the sentiments of the queen for her once cherished favorite,
partook more of fear than of love; and that confidence was never
re-established between them.
This celebrated dispute appears to have been in some manner mingled or
connected with the important question of peace or war with Spain, which
had previously been debated with extreme earnestness between Essex and
Burleigh. The former, who still thirsted for military distinction,
contended with the utmost vehemence of invective for the maintenance of
perpetual hostility against the power of Philip; while the latter urged,
that he was now sufficiently humbled to render an accommodation both
safe and honorable. Wearied and disgusted at length with the violence of
his young antagonist, the hoary minister, in whom
..."old experience did attain
To something like prophetic strain,"
drew forth a Prayer-book, and with awful significance pointed to the
text, "Men of blood shall not live out half their days." But the clamor
for war prevailed over the pleadings of humanity and prudence, and it
was left for the unworthy successor of Elizabeth to patch up in haste an
inconsiderate and ignoble peace, in place of the solid and advantageous
one which the wisdom of Elizabeth and her better counsellor might at
this time with ease have concluded.
The lord treasurer enjoyed however the satisfaction of completing for
his mistress an agreement with the states of Holland, which provided in
a satisfactory manner for the repayment of the sums which she had
advanced to them, and exonerated her from a considerable portion of the
annual expense which she had hitherto incurred in their defence. This
was the last act of lord Burleigh's life, which terminated by a long and
gradual decay on August 4th 1598, in the 78th year of his age.
On the character of this great minister, identified as it is with that
of the government of Elizabeth during a period of no less than forty
years, a few additional remarks may here suffice.--Good sense was the
leading feature of his intellect; moderation of his temper. His native
quickness of apprehension was supported by a wonderful force and
steadiness of application, and by an exemplary spirit of order. His
morals were regular; his sense of religion habitual, profound, and
operative. In his declining age, harassed by diseases and cares and
saddened by the loss of a beloved wife, the worthy sharer of his inmost
counsels, he became peevish and irascible; but his heart was good; in
all the domestic relations he was indulgent and affectionate; in his
friendships tender and faithful, nor could he be accused of pride, of
treachery, or of vindictiveness. Rising as he did by the strength of his
own merits, unaided by birth or connexions, he seems to have early
formed the resolution, more prudent indeed than generous, of attaching
himself to no political leader, so closely as to be entangled in his
fall. Thus he deserted his earliest patron, protector Somerset, on a
change of fortune, and is even said to have drawn the articles of
impeachment against him.
He extricated himself with adroitness from the ruin of Northumberland,
by whom he had been much employed and trusted; and at some expense of
protestant consistency contrived to escape persecution, though not to
hold office, under the rule of Mary. Towards the queen his mistress, his
demeanor was obsequious to the brink of servility; he seems on no
occasion to have hesitated on the execution of any of her commands; and
the kind of tacit compromise by which he and Leicester, in spite of
their mutual animosity, were enabled for so long a course of years to
hold divided empire in the cabinet, could not have been maintained
without a general acquiescence on the part of Burleigh in the various
malversations and oppressions of that guilty minion.
Another accusation brought against him is that of taking money for
ecclesiastical preferments. Of the truth of this charge, sufficient
evidence might be brought from original documents; but an apologist
would urge with justice that his royal mistress, who virtually delegated
to him the most laborious duties of the office of head of the church,
both expected and desired that emolument should thence accrue to him and
to the persons under him. Thus we find it stated that bishop Fletcher
had "bestowed in allowances and gratifications to divers attendants
about her majesty, since his preferment to the see of London, the sum of
thirty one hundred pounds or there abouts; which money was given by
him, for the most part of it, by her majesty's direction and special
appointment[122]."
[Note 122: Birch's Memoirs.]
The ministers of a sovereign who scrupled not to accept of bribes from
parties engaged in law-suits for the exertion of her own interest with
her judges, could scarcely be expected to exhibit much delicacy on this
head. In fact, the venality of the court of Elizabeth was so gross, that
no public character appears even to have professed a disdain of the
influence of gifts and bribes; and we find lord Burleigh inserting the
following among rules moral and prudential drawn up for the use of his
son Robert when young: "Be sure to keep some great man thy friend. But
trouble him not for trifles. Compliment him often. Present him with many
yet small gifts, and of little charge. And if thou have cause to bestow
any great gratuity, let it be some such thing as may be daily in his
sight. Otherwise, in this ambitious age, thou shalt remain as a hop
without a pole; live in obscurity, and be made a football for every
insulting companion[123]."
[Note 123: In connexion with this subject the following letter
appears worthy of notice.
_Hutton Archbishop of York to the lord treasurer:_--
I am bold at this time to inform your lordship, what ill success I had
in a suit for a pardon for Miles Dawson, seminary priest, whom I
converted wholly the last summer from popery. Upon his coming to church,
receiving the holy communion and taking the oath of supremacy, I and the
council here, about Michaelmas last, joined in petition to her majesty
for her gracious pardon, and commended the matter to one of the masters
of requests, and writ also to Mr. Secretary to further it if need were,
which he willingly promised to do. In Michaelmas term nothing was done.
And therefore in Hilary term, I being put in mind that all was not done
in that court for God's sake only, sent up twenty French crowns of mine
own purse, as a small remembrance for a poor man's pardon, which was
thankfully accepted of.
Some say that Mr. Topcliffe did hinder his pardon; who protesteth that
he knoweth no cause to stay it. There is some fault somewhere, I know it
is not in her majesty. Of whom I will say, as the prophet David speaketh
of God, "Hath queen Elizabeth forgotten to be gracious? And is her mercy
come to an end for evermore?" _Absit._ The whole world knoweth the
contrary. Your lordship may do very well in mine opinion to move Mr.
Secretary Cecil to deal often in these works of mercy. It will make him
beloved of God and man.
(Dated York, May 1597.)]
In his office of lord treasurer, this minister is allowed to have
behaved with perfect integrity and to have permitted no oppression on
the subject; wisely and honorably maintaining that nothing could be for
the advantage of a sovereign which in any way injured his reputation.
His conduct in this high post, added to a general opinion of his
prudence and virtue, caused his death to be sincerely deplored and his
memory to be constantly held in higher esteem by the people than that of
any former minister of any English prince.
Elizabeth was deeply sensible that to her the loss of such a servant,
counsellor, and friend was indeed irreparable. Contrary to her custom,
she wept much; and retired for a time from all company; and it is said
that to the end of her life she could never hear or pronounce his name
without tears. Although she was not sufficiently mistress of herself in
those fits of rage to which she was occasionally liable, to refrain from
treating him with a harshness and contempt which sometimes moved the
old man even to weeping, her behaviour towards him satisfactorily
evinced on the whole her deep sense of his fidelity and various merits
as a minister, and her affection for him as a man. He was perhaps the
only person of humble birth whom she condescended to honor with the
garter: she constantly made him sit in her presence, on account of his
being troubled with the gout, and would pleasantly tell him, "My lord,
we make much of you, not for your bad legs but your good head[124]." In
his occasional fits of melancholy and retirement, she would woo him back
to her presence by kind and playful letters, and she absolutely refused
to accept of the resignation which his bodily infirmities led him to
tender two or three years before his death. She constantly visited him
when confined by sickness:--on one of these occasions, being admonished
by his attendant to stoop as she entered at his chamber-door, she
replied, "For your master's sake I will, though not for the king of
Spain." His lady was much in her majesty's favor and frequently in
attendance on her; and it has been surmised that her husband found her
an important auxiliary in maintaining his influence.
[Note 124: Fuller.]
Elizabeth had the weakness, frequent among princes and not unusual with
private individuals, of hating her heir; a sentiment which gained ground
upon her daily in proportion as the infirmities of age admonished her of
her approach towards the destined limit of her long and splendid course.
Notwithstanding the respectful observances by which James exerted
himself to disguise his impatience for her death, particular incidents
occurred from time to time to aggravate her suspicion and exasperate her
animosity; and the present year was productive of some remarkable
circumstances of this nature. The queen had long been displeased at the
indulgence exercised by the king of Scots towards certain catholic
noblemen by whom a treasonable correspondence had been carried on with
Spain and a very dangerous conspiracy formed against his person and
government. Such misplaced lenity, combined with certain negotiations
which he carried on with the catholic princes of Europe, she regarded as
evincing a purpose to secure to himself an interest with the popish
party in England as well as Scotland, which she could not view without
anxiety: And her worst apprehensions were now confirmed by the
information which reached her from two different quarters, that James,
in a very respectful letter to the pope, had given him assurance under
his own hand of his resolution to treat his catholic subjects with
indulgence, at the same time requesting that his holiness would give a
cardinal's hat to Drummond bishop of Vaison. Almost at the same time,
one Valentine Thomas, apprehended in London for a theft, accused the
king of Scots of some evil designs against herself. Explanations however
being demanded, James solemnly disavowed the letter to the pope, which
he treated as a forgery and imposture; though circumstances which came
out several years afterwards render the king's veracity in this point
very questionable.
To the charge brought by Thomas, he returned a denial, probably better
founded; and required that the accuser should be arraigned in presence
of some commissioner whom he should send: but Elizabeth, less jealous of
his dealings with the papal party now that she no longer dreaded a
Spanish invasion, judged it more prudent to bury the whole matter in
silence, and resumed, in the tone of friendship, the correspondence
which she regularly maintained with her kinsman.
This correspondence, which still exists in MS. in the Salisbury
collection, is rendered obscure and sometimes unintelligible by its
reference to verbal messages which the bearers of the letters were
commissioned to deliver: but several of those of Elizabeth afford a rich
display of character. She sometimes assures James of the tenderness of
her affection and her disinterested zeal for his welfare in that tone of
hypocrisy which was too congenial to her disposition; at other times she
breaks forth into vehement invective against the weakness and mutability
of his counsels, and offers him excellent instructions in the art of
reigning; but clouded by her usual uncouth and obscure phraseology and
rendered offensive by their harsh and dictatorial style. When she
regards herself as personally injured by any part of his conduct, her
complaints are seasoned with an equal portion of menace and contempt; as
in the following specimen.
* * * * *
_Queen Elizabeth to the king of Scots:_
"When the first blast of a strange, unused, and seld heard of sound had
pierced my ears, I supposed that flying fame, who with swift quills oft
paceth with the worst, had brought report of some untruth, but when too
too many records in your open parliament were witnesses of such
pronounced words, not more to my disgrace than to your dishonor, who did
forget that (above all other regard) a prince's word ought utter nought
of any, much less of a king, than such as to which truth might say Amen:
But you, neglecting all care of yourself, what danger of reproach,
besides somewhat else, might light upon you, have chosen so unseemly a
theme to charge your only careful friend withal, of such matter as (were
you not amazed in all senses) could not have been expected at your
hands; of such imagined untruths as were never thought of in our time;
and do wonder what evil spirits have possessed you, to set forth so
infamous devices void of any show of truth. I am sorry that you have so
wilfully fallen from your best stay, and will needs throw yourself into
the hurlpool of bottomless discredit. Was the haste so great to hie to
such opprobry as that you would pronounce a never thought of action
afore you had but asked the question of her that best could tell it? I
see well we two be of very different natures, for I vow to God I would
not corrupt my tongue with an unknown report of the greatest foe I have;
much less could I detract my best deserving friend with a spot so foul
as scarcely may be ever outrazed. Could you root the desire of gifts of
your subjects upon no better ground than this quagmire, which to pass
you scarcely may without the slip of your own disgrace? Shall ambassage
be sent to foreign princes laden with instructions of your rash-advised
charge?... I never yet loved you so little as not to moan your infamous
dealings, which you are in mind, we see, that myself shall possess more
princes witness of my causeless injuries, which I should have wished had
passed no seas to testify such memorials of your wrongs. Bethink you of
such dealings, and set your labor upon such mends as best may, though
not right, yet salve some piece of this overslip; and be assured that
you deal with such a king as will bear no wrongs and endure infamy; the
examples have been so lately seen as they can hardly be forgotten of a
far mightier and potenter prince than any Europe hath. Look you not
therefore that without large amends, I may or will slupper up such
indignities. We have sent this bearer Bowes, whom you may safely credit,
to signify such particularities as fits not a letters talk. And so I
recommend you to a better mind and more advised conclusions." Dated
January 4th 1597-1598[125].
[Note 125: M.S. in Dr. Haynes's extracts from the Salisbury
collection.--I am unable to discover to what particular circumstance
this angry letter refers.]
* * * * *
From another of these letters we learn that James had addressed a
love-sonnet to the queen and complained of her having taken no notice of
it; reminding her that Cupid was a God of a most impatient disposition.
An author has the following notice respecting sir Roger Aston,
frequently the bearer of these curious epistles. "He was an Englishman
born, but had his breeding wholly in Scotland, and had served the king
many years as his barber; an honest and free-hearted man, and of an
ancient family in Cheshire, but of no breeding answerable to his birth.
Yet was he the only man ever employed as a messenger from the king to
queen Elizabeth, as a letter-carrier only, which expressed their own
intentions without any help from him, besides the delivery; but even in
that capacity was in very good esteem with her majesty, and received
very royal rewards, which did enrich him, and gave him a better revenue
than most gentlemen in Scotland. For the queen did find him as faithful
to her as to his master, in which he showed much wisdom, though of no
breeding. In this his employment I must not pass over one pretty passage
I have heard himself relate. That he did never come to deliver any
letters from his master, but ever he was placed in the lobby; the
hangings being turned towards him, where he might see the queen dancing
to a little fiddle; which was to no other end than that he should tell
his master, by her youthful disposition, how likely he was to come to
the possession of the crown he so much thirsted after: for you must
understand, the wisest in that kingdom did believe the king should never
enjoy this crown, as long as there was an old wife in England, which
they did believe we ever set up as the other was dead[126]."
[Note 126: Weldon's Court of King James.]
Though in her own letters to James, Elizabeth made no scruple of
treating him as the destined heir to her throne, she still resisted with
as much pertinacity as ever, all the proposals made her for publicly
declaring her successor; and on this subject, a lively anecdote is
related by sir John Harrington in his account of Hutton archbishop of
York, which must belong to the year 1595 or 1596.
"I no sooner," says he, "remember this famous and worthy prelate, but
methinks I see him in the chappel at Whitehall, queen Elizabeth at the
window in the closet; all the lords of the parliament spiritual and
temporal about them, and then, after his three curtsies that I hear him
out of the pulpit thundering this text, 'The kingdoms of the earth are
mine, and I do give them to whom I will, and I have given them to
Nebuchodonosor and his son, and his son's son:' which text when he had
thus produced, taking the sense rather than words of the prophet, there
followed first so general a murmur of one friend whispering to another,
then such an erected countenance in those that had none to speak to,
lastly, so quiet a silence and attention in expectance of some strange
doctrine, where text itself gave away kingdoms and sceptres, as I have
never observed before or since.
"But he... showed how there were two special causes of translating of
kingdoms, the fullness of time and the ripeness of sin.... Then coming
nearer home, he showed how oft our nation had been a prey to foreigners;
as first when we were all Britons subdued by these Romans; then, when
the fullness of time and ripeness of our sin required it, subdued by the
Saxons; after this a long time prosecuted and spoiled by the Danes,
finally conquered and reduced to perfect subjection by the Normans,
whose posterity continued in great prosperity to the days of her
majesty, who for peace, for plenty, for glory, for continuance, had
exceeded them all; that had lived to change all her councillors but one;
all officers twice or thrice; some bishops four times: only the
uncertainty of succession gave hopes to foreigners to attempt fresh
invasions and breed fears in many of her subjects of a new conquest. The
only way then, said he, that is in policy left to quail those hopes and
to assuage those fears, were to establish the succession... at last,
insinuating as far as he durst the nearness of blood of our present
sovereign, he said plainly, that the expectations and presages of all
writers went northward, naming without any circumlocution Scotland;
which, said he, if it prove an error, yet will it be found a learned
error.
"When he had finished this sermon, there was no man that knew queen
Elizabeth's disposition, but imagined that such a speech was as welcome
as salt to the eyes, or, to use her own word, to pin up her winding
sheet before her face, so to point out her successor and urge her to
declare him; wherefore we all expected that she would not only have been
highly offended, but in some present speech have showed her displeasure.
It is a principle not to be despised, _Qui nescit dissimulare nescit
regnare_; she considered perhaps the extraordinary auditory, she
supposed many of them were of his opinion, she might suspect some of
them had persuaded him to this motion; finally, she ascribed so much to
his years, to his place, to his learning, that when she opened the
window we found ourselves all deceived; for very kindly and calmly,
without shew of offence (as if she had but waked out of some sleep) she
gave him thanks for his very learned sermon. Yet when she had better
considered the matter, and recollected herself in private, she sent two
councillors to him with a sharp message, to which he was glad to give a
patient answer."
The premature death of Edmund Spenser, under circumstances of severe
distress, now called forth the universal commiseration and regret of the
friends and patrons of English genius. After witnessing the plunder of
his house and the destruction of his whole property by the Irish rebels,
the unfortunate poet had fled to England for shelter,--the annuity of
fifty pounds which he enjoyed as poet-laureat to her majesty apparently
his sole resource; and having taken up his melancholy abode in an
obscure lodging in London, he pined away under the pressure of penury
and despondence.
The genius of this great poet, formed on the most approved models of the
time, and exercised upon themes peculiarly congenial to its taste,
received in all its plenitude that homage of contemporary applause which
has sometimes failed to reward the efforts of the noblest masters of the
lyre. The adventures of chivalry, and the dim shadowings of moral
allegory, were almost equally the delight of a romantic, a serious and a
learned age. It was also a point of loyalty to admire in Gloriana queen
of Faery, or in the empress Mercilla, the avowed types of the graces and
virtues of her majesty; and she herself had discernment sufficient to
distinguish between the brazen trump of vulgar flattery with which her
ear was sated, and the pastoral reed of antique frame tuned sweetly to
her praise by Colin Clout. Spenser was interred with great solemnity in
Westminster abbey by the side of Chaucer; the generous Essex defraying
the cost of the funeral and walking himself as a mourner. That
ostentatious but munificent woman Anne countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and
Montgomery, erected a handsome monument to his memory several years
afterwards; the brother-poets who attended his obsequies threw elegies
and sonnets into the grave; and of the more distinguished votaries of
the muse in that day there is scarcely one who has withheld his tribute
to the fame and merit of this delightful author. Shakespeare in one of
his sonnets had already testified his high delight in his works; Joseph
Hall, afterwards eminent as a bishop, a preacher, and polemic, but at
this time a young student of Emanuel college, has more than one
complimentary allusion to the poems of Spenser in his "Toothless
Satires" printed in 1597. Thus, in the invocation to his first satire,
referring to Spenser's description of the marriage of the Thames and
Medway, he inquires,
..."what baser Muse can bide
To sit and sing by Granta's naked side?
They haunt the tided Thames and salt Medway,
E'er since the fame of their late bridal day.
Nought have we here but willow-shaded shore,
To tell our Grant his banks are left forlore."
And again, in ridiculing the imitation of some of the more extravagant
fictions of the Orlando Furioso, he thus suddenly checks himself;
"But let no rebel satyr dare traduce
Th' eternal legends of thy faery muse,
Renowned Spenser! whom no earthly wight
Dares once to emulate, much less dares despight.
Salust of France[127] and Tuscan Ariost,
Yield up the laurel garland ye have lost."
[Note 127: Du Bartas, then an admired writer in England as well as
France.]
These pieces of Hall, reprinted in 1599 with three additional books
under the uncouth title of "Virgidemiarum" (a harvest of rods), present
the earliest example in our language of regular satire on the ancient
model, and have gained from an excellent poetical critic the following
high eulogium. "These satires are marked with a classical precision, to
which English poetry had yet rarely attained. They are replete with
animation of style and sentiment. The indignation of the satirist is
always the result of good sense. Nor are the thorns of severe invective
unmixed with the flowers of pure poetry. The characters are delineated
in strong and lively colouring, and their discriminations are touched
with the masterly traces of genuine humour. The versification is equally
energetic and elegant, and the fabric of the couplets approaches to the
modern standard[128]."
[Note 128: Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. iv.]
A few of his allusions to reigning follies may here be quoted.
Contrasting the customs of our barbarous ancestors with those of his own
times, he says:
"They naked went, or clad in ruder hide,
Or homespun russet void of foreign pride.
But thou can'st mask in garish gaudery,
To suit a fool's far-fetched livery.
A French head joined to neck Italian,
Thy thighs from Germany and breast from Spain.
An Englishman in none, a fool in all,
Many in one, and one in several."
Shakespeare makes Portia satirize the same affectation in her English
admirer;--"How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his doublet in
Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behavior
every where."
Other contemporary writers have similar allusions, and it may be
concluded, that the passion for travelling then, and ever since, so
prevalent amongst the English youth, was fast eradicating all traces of
a national costume by rendering fashionable the introduction of novel
garments, capriciously adopted by turns from every country of Europe.
"Cadiz spoil" is more than once referred to by Hall; and amongst
expedients for raising a fortune he enumerates, with a satirical glance
at sir Walter Raleigh, the trading to Guiana for gold; as also the
search of the philosopher's stone. He likewise ridicules the costly
mineral elixirs of marvellous virtues vended by alchemical quacks; and
with sounder sense in this point than usually belonged to his age, mocks
at the predictions of judicial astrology.
In several passages he reprehends the new luxuries of the time, among
which coaches are not forgotten.
It should appear that the increasing conveniences and pleasures of a
London life had already begun to occasion the desertion of rural
mansions, and the decay of that boundless hospitality which the former
possessors had made their boast; for thus feelingly and beautifully does
the poet describe the desolation of one of these seats of antiquated
magnificence:
"Beat the broad gates, a goodly hollow sound
With double echoes doth again rebound;
But not a dog doth bark to welcome thee,
Nor churlish porter canst thou chafing see;
All dumb and silent like the dead of night,
Or dwelling of some sleepy Sybarite!
The marble pavement hid with desert weed,
With houseleek, thistle, dock, and hemlock-seed.--
Look to the towered chimneys, which should be
The windpipes of good hospitality:--
Lo there the unthankful swallow takes her rest,
And fills the tunnel with her circled nest."
The translation of the Orlando Furioso through which that singular work
of genius had just become known to the English reader, was executed by
sir John Harrington, the same who afterwards composed for Henry prince
of Wales, the Brief View of the English Church, the godson of Elizabeth,
and the child of her faithful servants James Harrington and Isabella
Markham.
After the usual course of school and college education, young
Harrington, who was born in 1561, presented himself at court, where his
wit and learning soon procured him a kind of distinction, which was not
however unattended with danger. A satirical piece was traced to him as
its author, containing certain allusions to living characters, which
gave so much offence to the courtiers, that he was threatened with the
animadversions of the star-chamber; but the secret favor of Elizabeth
towards a godson whom she loved and who amused her, saved him from this
very serious kind of retaliation. A tale which he sometime after
translated out of Ariosto proved very entertaining to the court ladies,
and soon met the eyes of the queen; who in affected displeasure at
certain indelicate passages, ordered him to appear no more at
court--till he had translated the whole poem. The command was obeyed
with alacrity; and he speedily committed his Orlando to the press, with
a dedication to her majesty. Before this time our sprightly poet had
found means to dissipate a considerable portion of the large estate to
which he was born; and being well inclined to listen to the friendly
counsels of Essex, who bade him, "lay good hold on her majesty's bounty
and ask freely," he dexterously opened his case by the following lines
slipped behind her cushion.
"For ever dear, for ever dreaded prince,
You read a verse of mine a little since;
And so pronounced each word and every letter,
Your gracious reading graced my verse the better:
Sith then your highness doth by gift exceeding
Make what you read the better for your reading;
Let my poor muse your pains thus far importune,
Like as you read my verse, so--read my fortune.
"_From your Highness' saucy Godson._"
Of the further progress of his suit and the various little arts of
pleasing to which Harrington now applied himself, some amusing hints
may be gathered out of the following extracts taken from a note-book
kept by himself[129].
[Note 129: See Nugae Antiquae.]
..."I am to send good store of news from the country for her highness
entertainment.... Her highness loveth merry tales."
"The queen stood up and bade me reach forth my arm to rest her thereon.
O! what sweet burden to my next song. Petrarch shall eke out good matter
for this business."
"The queen loveth to see me in my new frize jerkin, and saith 'tis well
enough cut. I will have another made liken to it. I do remember she spit
on sir Matthew's fringed cloth, and said the fool's wit was gone to
rags.--Heaven spare me from such jibing!"
"I must turn my poor wits towards my suit for the lands in the north....
I must go in an early hour, be fore her highness hath special matters
brought up to counsel on.--I must go before the breakfast covers are
placed, and stand uncovered as her highness cometh forth her chamber;
then kneel and say, God save your majesty, I crave your ear at what hour
may suit for your servant to meet your blessed countenance. Thus will I
gain her favor to follow to the auditory.
"Trust not a friend to do or say,
In that yourself can sue or pray."
The lands alluded to in the last extract, formed a large estate in the
north of England, which an ancestor of Harrington had forfeited by his
adherence to the house of York during the civil wars, and which he was
now endeavouring to recover. This further mention of the business occurs
in one of his letters.
"Yet I will adventure to give her majesty five hundred pounds in money,
and some pretty jewel or garment, as you shall advise, only praying her
majesty to further my suit with some of her learned counsel; which I
pray you to find some proper time to move in; this some hold as a
dangerous adventure, but five and twenty manors do well justify my
trying it."
How notorious must have been the avarice and venality of a sovereign,
before such a mode of insuring success in a law-suit could have entered
into the imagination of a courtier!
But the fortunes of Harrington, as of persons of more importance, now
become involved in the state of Irish affairs, to which the attention of
the reader must immediately be directed.