But Elizabeth was now incapable of receiving any satisfaction from this

fortunate event: she had fallen into a profound melancholy; which all

the advantages of her high fortune, all the glories of her prosperous

reign, were unable in any degree to alleviate or assuage. Some ascribed

this depression of mind to her repentance of granting a pardon to

Tyrone, whom she had always resolved to bring to condign punishment for

his treasons, but who had made such interest with the ministers as to

extort a remission from her. Others, with more likelihood, accounted for

her dejection by a discovery which she had made, of the correspondence

maintained in her court with her successor, the king of Scots, and by

the neglect to which, on account of her old age and infirmities, she

imagined herself to be exposed. But there is another cause assigned for

her melancholy, which has long been rejected by historians as romantic,

but which late discoveries seem to have confirmed:[*] some incidents

happened which revived her tenderness for Essex, and filled her with

the deepest sorrow for the consent which she had unwarily given to his

execution.

* See the proofs of this remarkable fact collected in

Birch’s Negotiations, p. 206. And Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 481,

505, 506, etc.

The earl of Essex, after his return from the fortunate expedition

against Cadiz, observing the increase of the queen’s fond attachment

towards him, took occasion to regret, that the necessity of her service

required him often to be absent from her person, and exposed him to all

those ill offices which his enemies, more assiduous in their attendance,

could employ against him. She was moved with this tender jealousy; and

making him the present of a ring, desired him to keep that pledge of her

affection, and assured him, that into whatever disgrace he should fall,

whatever prejudices she might be induced to entertain against him, yet,

if he sent her that ring, she would immediately upon the sight of it

recall her former tenderness, would afford him a patient hearing, and

would lend a favorable ear to his apology. Essex, notwithstanding all

his misfortunes, reserved this precious gift to the last extremity; but

after his trial and condemnation, he resolved to try the experiment, and

he committed the ring to the countess of Nottingham, whom he desired to

deliver it to the queen. The countess was prevailed on by her husband,

the mortal enemy of Essex, not to execute the commission; and Elizabeth,

who still expected that her favorite would make this last appeal to

her tenderness, and who ascribed the neglect of it to his invincible

obstinacy, was, after much delay and many internal combats, pushed

by resentment and policy to sign the warrant for his execution. The

countess of Nottingham, falling into sickness, and affected with the

near approach of death, was seized with remorse for her conduct; and

having obtained a visit from the queen, she craved her pardon, and

revealed to her the fatal secret. The queen, astonished with this

incident, burst into a furious passion: she shook the dying countess in

her bed; and crying to her, “that God might pardon her, but she never

could,” she broke from her, and thenceforth resigned herself over to the

deepest and most incurable melancholy. She rejected all consolation: she

even refused food and sustenance: and throwing herself on the floor, she

remained sullen and immovable, feeding her thoughts on her afflictions,

and declaring life and existence an insufferable burden to her. Few

words she uttered; and they were all expressive of some inward grief

which she cared not to reveal: but sighs and groans were the chief vent

which she gave to her despondency, and which, though they discovered her

sorrows, were never able to ease or assuage them. Ten days and nights

she lay upon the carpet, leaning on cushions which her maids brought

her; and her physicians could not persuade her to allow herself to

be put to bed, much less to make trial of any remedies which they

prescribed to her.[*]

* Strype, vol. iv. No. 276.

Her anxious mind at last had so long preyed on her frail body, that her

end was visibly approaching; and the council, being assembled, sent

the keeper, admiral, and secretary, to know her will with regard to her

successor. She answered with a faint voice, that as she had held a regal

sceptre, she desired no other than a royal successor. Cecil requesting

her to explain herself more particularly, she subjoined, that she would

have a king to succeed her; and who should that be but her nearest

kinsman, the king of Scots? Being then advised by the archbishop of

Canterbury to fix her thoughts upon God, she replied, that she did so,

nor did her mind in the least wander from him. Her voice soon after

left her and senses failed; she fell into a lethargic slumber, which

continued some hours; and she expired gently, without further struggle

or convulsion, in the seventieth year of her age, and forty-fifth of her

reign.

So dark a cloud overcast the evening of that day which had shone out

with a mighty lustre in the eyes of all Europe. There are few great

personages in history who have been more exposed to the calumny of

enemies and the adulation of friends than Queen Elizabeth; and yet there

scarcely is any whose reputation has been more certainly determined

by the unanimous consent of posterity. The unusual length of her

administration, and the strong features of her character, were able to

overcome all prejudices; and obliging her detractors to abate much of

their invectives, and her admirers somewhat of their panegyrics, have

at last, in spite of political factions and, what is more, of religious

animosities, produced a uniform judgment with regard to her conduct.

Her vigor, her constancy, her magnanimity, her penetration, vigilance,

address, are allowed to merit the highest praises, and appear not to

have been surpassed by any person that ever filled a throne: a conduct

less rigorous, less imperious, more sincere, more indulgent to her

people, would have been requisite to form a perfect character. By the

force of her mind, she controlled all her more active and stronger

qualities, and prevented them from running into excess: her heroism was

exempt from temerity, her frugality from avarice, her friendship from

partiality, her active temper from turbulency and a vain ambition;

she guarded not herself with equal care or equal success from lesser

infirmities; the rivalship of beauty, the desire of admiration, the

jealousy of love, and the sallies of anger.

Her singular talents for government were founded equally on her temper

and on her capacity. Endowed with a great command over herself, she

soon obtained an uncontrolled ascendant over her people; and while she

merited all their esteem by her real virtues, she also engaged their

affections by her pretended ones. Few sovereigns of England succeeded to

the throne in more difficult circumstances; and none ever conducted the

government with such uniform success and felicity. Though unacquainted

with the practice of toleration, the true secret for managing religious

factions, she preserved her people, by her superior prudence, from

those confusions in which theological controversy had involved all

the neighboring nations: and though her enemies were the most powerful

princes of Europe, the most active, the most enterprising, the least

scrupulous, she was able by her vigor to make deep impressions on their

states; her own greatness, meanwhile, remained untouched and unimpaired.

The wise ministers and brave warriors who flourished under her reign,

share the praise of her success; but instead of lessening the applause

due to her, they make great addition to it. They owed all of them their

advancement to her choice; they were supported by her constancy; and,

with all their abilities, they were never able to acquire any undue

ascendant over her. In her family, in her court, in her kingdom, she

remained equally mistress: the force of the tender passions was great

over her, but the force of her mind was still superior; and the combat

which her victory visibly cost her, serves only to display the firmness

of her resolution, and the loftiness of her ambitious sentiments.

The fame of this princess, though it has surmounted the prejudices both

of faction and bigotry, yet lies still exposed to another prejudice,

which is more durable because more natural, and which, according to the

different views in which we survey her, is capable either of exalting

beyond measure, or diminishing the lustre of her character. This

prejudice is founded on the consideration of her sex. When we

contemplate her as a woman, we are apt to be struck with the highest

admiration of her great qualities and extensive capacity; but we are

also apt to require some more softness of disposition, some greater

lenity of temper, some of those amiable weaknesses by which her sex is

distinguished. But the true method of estimating her merit, is to lay

aside all these considerations, and consider her merely as a rational

being placed in authority, and intrusted with the government of mankind.

We may find it difficult to reconcile our fancy to her as a wife or

a mistress; but her qualities as a sovereign, though with some

considerable exceptions, are the object of undisputed applause and

approbation.

APPENDIX III

The party among us who have distinguished themselves by their adhering

to liberty and a popular government, have long indulged their prejudices

against the succeeding race of princes, by bestowing unbounded

panegyrics on the virtue and wisdom of Elizabeth. They have even been

so extremely ignorant of the transactions of this reign, as to extol her

for a quality which, of all others, she was the least possessed of; a

tender regard for the constitution, and a concern for the liberties

and privileges of her people. But as it is scarcely possible for the

prepossessions of party to throw a veil much longer over facts so

palpable and undeniable, there is danger lest the public should run into

the opposite extreme, and should entertain an aversion to the memory of

a princess who exercised the royal authority in a manner so contrary to

all the ideas which we at present entertain of a legal constitution.

But Elizabeth only supported the prerogatives transmitted to her by her

predecessors: she believed that her subjects were entitled to no more

liberty than their ancestors had enjoyed: she found that they entirely

acquiesced in her arbitrary administration: and it was not natural for

her to find fault with a form of government by which she herself was

invested with such unlimited authority. In the particular exertions of

power, the question ought never to be forgotten, What is best? But

in the general distribution of power among the several members of a

constitution, there can seldom be admitted any other question than,

What is established? Few examples occur of princes who have willingly

resigned their power; none of those who have, without struggle and

reluctance, allowed it to be extorted from them. If any other rule than

established practice be followed, factions and dissensions must multiply

without end: and though many constitutions, and none more than the

British, have been improved even by violent innovations, the praise

bestowed on those patriots to whom the nation has been indebted for its

privileges, ought to be given with some reserve, and surely without the

least rancor against those who adhered to the ancient constitution.[*]

In order to understand the ancient constitution of England, there is not

a period which deserves more to be studied than the reign of Elizabeth.

The prerogatives of this princess were scarcely ever disputed, and

she therefore employed them without scruple: her imperious temper--a

circumstance in which she went far beyond her successors--rendered her

exertions of power violent and frequent, and discovered the full extent

of her authority: the great popularity which she enjoyed, proves that

she did not infringe any established liberties of the people: there

remains evidence sufficient to ascertain the most noted acts of her

administration: and though that evidence must be drawn from a source

wide of the ordinary historians, it becomes only the more authentic

on that account, and serves as a stronger proof, that her particular

exertions of power were conceived to be nothing but the ordinary course

of administration, since they were not thought remarkable enough to be

recorded even by contemporary writers. If there was any difference in

this particular, the people in former reigns seem rather to have been

more submissive than even during the age of Elizabeth;[**] it may not

here be improper to recount some of the ancient prerogatives of the

crown, and lay open the sources of that great power which the English

monarchs formerly enjoyed.

* By the ancient constitution, is here meant that which

prevailed before the settlement of our present plan of

liberty. There was a more ancient constitution, where,

though the people had perhaps less liberty than under the

Tudors, yet the king had also less authority: the power of

the barons was a great check upon him, and exercised great

tyranny over them. But there was still a more ancient

constitution, viz., that before the signing of the charters,

when neither the people nor the barons had any regular

privileges; and the power of the government during the reign

of an able prince was almost wholly in the king. The English

constitution, like all others, has been in a state of

continual fluctuation.

** In a memorial of the state of the realm, drawn by

Secretary Cecil in 1569, there is this passage: “Then

followeth the decay of obedience in civil policy, which

being compared with the fearfulness and reverence of all

inferior estates to their superiors in times past, will

astonish any wise and considerate person, to behold the

desperation of reformation,” Haynes, p, 586. Again, p. 538.

One of the most ancient and most established instruments of power was

the court of star chamber, which possessed an unlimited discretionary

authority of fining, imprisoning, and inflicting corporal punishment;

and whose jurisdiction extended to all sorts of offences, contempts, and

disorders that lay not within reach of the common law. The members of

this court consisted of the privy council and the judges; men who all of

them enjoyed their offices during pleasure; and when the prince himself

was present, he was the sole judge, and all the others could only

interpose with their advice. There needed but this one court in any

government to put an end to all regular, legal, and exact plans of

liberty; for who durst set himself in opposition to the crown and

ministry, or aspire to the character of being a patron of freedom, while

exposed to so arbitrary a jurisdiction? I much question whether any of

the absolute monarchies in Europe contain, at present, so illegal and

despotic a tribunal.

The court of high commission was another jurisdiction still more

terrible; both because the crime of heresy, of which it took cognizance,

was more undefinable than any civil offence, and because its methods of

inquisition, and of administering oaths, were more contrary to all the

most simple ideas of justice and equity. The fines and imprisonments

imposed by this court were frequent: the deprivations and suspensions of

the clergy for nonconformity were also numerous, and comprehended at one

time the third of all the ecclesiastics of England.[*] The queen, in

a letter to the archbishop of Canterbury, said expressly, that she was

resolved “that no man should be suffered to decline, either on the left

or on the right hand, from the drawn line limited by authority, and by

her laws and injunctions.”[**]

But martial law went beyond even these two courts in a prompt, and

arbitrary, and violent method of decision. Whenever there was any

insurrection or public disorder, the crown employed martial law; and it

was, during that time, exercised not only over the soldiers, but over

the whole people; any one might be punished as a rebel, or an aider

and abettor of rebellion, whom the provost martial, or lieutenant of a

county, or their deputies, pleased to suspect. Lord Bacon says, that

the trial at common law granted to the earl of Essex and his

fellow-conspirators, was a favor; for that the case would have borne and

required the severity of martial law.[***]

* Neal, vol. i. p. 479.

** Vol. iv. p. 510.

**** Murden, p. 183.

We have seen instances of its being employed by Queen Mary in defence

of orthodoxy. There remains a letter of Queen Elizabeth’s to the earl

of Sussex, after the suppression of the northern rebellion, in which she

sharply reproves him, because she had not heard of his having executed

any criminals by martial law;[*] though it is probable that near eight

hundred persons suffered, one way or other, on account of that slight

insurrection. But the kings of England did not always limit the exercise

of this law to times of civil war and disorder. In 1552, when there

was no rebellion or insurrection, King Edward granted a commission of

martial law; and empowered the commissioners to execute it, “as should

be thought by their discretions most necessary.”[**] Queen Elizabeth too

was not sparing in the use of this law. In 1573, one Peter Burchet, a

Puritan, being persuaded that it was meritorious to kill such as opposed

the truth of the gospel, ran into the streets, and wounded Hawkins, the

famous sea captain, whom he took for Hatton, the queen’s favorite. The

queen was so incensed, that she ordered him to be punished instantly by

martial law; but upon the remonstrance of some prudent counsellors,

who told her that this law was usually confined to turbulent times, she

recalled her order, and delivered over Burchet to the common law.[***]

But she continued not always so reserved in executing this authority.

There remains a proclamation of hers, in which she orders martial law

to be used against all such as import bulls, or even forbidden books

and pamphlets from abroad;[****] and prohibits the questioning of the

lieutenants or their deputies for their arbitrary punishment of

such offenders, “any law or statute to the contrary in anywise

notwithstanding.”

* MS. of Lord Royston’s, from the paper office.

** Strype’s Eccles. Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 373, 458, 459.

*** Camden, p. 446. Strype, vol. ii. p. 288.

**** Strype, vol. iii. p. 570

We have another act of hers still more extraordinary. The streets of

London were much infested with idle vagabonds and riotous persons: the

lord mayor had endeavored to repress this disorder: the star chamber had

exerted its authority, and inflicted punishment on these rioters: but

the queen, finding those remedies ineffectual, revived martial law, and

gave Sir Thomas Wilford a commission of provost-martial: “Granting him

authority, and commanding him, upon signification given by the justices

of peace in London or the neighboring counties, of such offenders worthy

to be speedily executed by martial law, to attach and take the same

persons, and in the presence of the said justices, according to justice

of martial law, to execute them upon the gallows or gibbet openly, or

near to such place where the said rebellious and incorrigible offenders

shall be found to have committed the said great offences.”[*] I suppose

it would be difficult to produce an instance of such an act of authority

in any place nearer than Muscovy. The patent of high constable, granted

to Earl Rivers by Edward IV., proves the nature of the office. The

powers are unlimited, perpetual, and remain in force during peace as

well as during war and rebellion. The parliament in Edward VI.’s reign

acknowledged the jurisdiction of the constable and martial’s court to be

part of the law of the land.[**]

The star chamber, and high commission, and court martial, though

arbitrary jurisdictions, had still some pretence of a trial, at least of

a sentence; but there was a grievous punishment very generally inflicted

in that age, without any other authority than the warrant of a secretary

of state or of the privy council;[***] and that was, imprisonment in any

jail, and during any time, that the ministers should think proper. In

suspicious times, all the jails were full of prisoners of state; and

these unhappy victims of public jealousy were sometimes thrown into

dungeons, and loaded with irons, and treated in the most cruel manner,

without their being able to obtain any remedy from law.

This practice was an indirect way of employing torture: but the rack

itself, though not admitted in the ordinary execution of justice,[****]

was frequently used, upon any suspicion, by authority of a warrant from

a secretary or the privy council. Even the council in the marches of

Wales was empowered, by their very commission, to make use of torture

whenever they thought proper.[v]

* Rymer, vol. xvi. p. 279.

** 7 Edw. VI. cap. 20. See Sir John Davis’s Question

concerning Impositions, p. 9.

*** In 1588, the lord mayor committed several citizens to

prison, because they refused to pay the loan demanded of

them. Murden, p. 632.

**** Harrison, chap. 11.

v Haynes, p 196. See further, La Boderie, vol. i. p. 211.

There cannot be a stronger proof how lightly the rack was employed than

the following story, told by Lord Bacon. We shall give it in his own

words: “The queen was mightily incensed against Haywarde, on account of

a book he dedicated to Lord Essex, being a story of the first year of

Henry IV., thinking it a seditious prelude to put into the people’s

heads boldness and faction:[*] she said, she had an opinion that there

was treason in it, and asked me if I could not find any places in it

that might be drawn within the case of treason? Whereto I answered,

For treason, sure I found none; but for felony, very many: and when her

majesty hastily asked me, Wherein? I told her, the author had committed

very apparent theft; for he had taken most of the sentences of Cornelius

Tacitus, and translated them into English, and put them into his text.

And another time, when the queen could not be persuaded that it was

his writing whose name was to it, but that it had some more mischievous

author, and said with great indignation, that she would have him racked

to produce his author; I replied, Nay, madam, he is a doctor; never rack

his person, but rack his style: let him have pen, ink, and paper, and

help of books, and be enjoined to continue the story where it breaketh

off, and I will undertake, by collating the styles, to judge whether he

were the author or no.”[**] Thus, had it not been for Bacon’s humanity,

or rather his wit, this author, a man of letters, had been put to

the rack for a most innocent performance. His real offence was his

dedicating a book to that munificent patron of the learned, the earl of

Essex, at a time when this nobleman lay under her majesty’s displeasure.

* To our apprehension, Haywarde’s book seems rather to have

a contrary tendency. For he has there preserved the famous

speech of the bishop of Carlisle, which contains, in the

most express terms, the doctrine of passive obedience. But

Queen Elizabeth was very difficult to please on this head.

** Cabala, p. 81. anciently common of fining, imprisoning,

or otherwise punishing the jurors, merely at the discretion

of the court, for finding a verdict contrary to the

direction of these dependent judges, it is obvious that

juries were then no manner of security to the liberty of the

subject.

The queen’s menace of trying and punishing Haywarde for treason could

easily have been executed, let his book have been ever so innocent.

While so many terrors hung over the people, no jury durst have acquitted

a man when the court was resolved to have him condemned. The practice,

also, of not confronting witnesses with the prisoner, gave the crown

lawyers all imaginable advantage against him. And indeed there scarcely

occurs an instance during all these reigns, that the sovereign or the

ministers were ever disappointed in the issue of a prosecution. Timid

juries, and judges who held their offices during pleasure, never failed

to second all the views of the crown.

The power of pressing, both for sea and land service, and obliging

any person to accept of any office, however mean or unfit for him, was

another prerogative totally incompatible with freedom. Osborne gives the

following account of Elizabeth’s method of employing this prerogative:

“In case she found any likely to interrupt her occasions,” says he, “she

did seasonably prevent him by a chargeable employment abroad, or putting

him upon some service at home, which she knew least grateful to the

people; contrary to a false maxim, since practised with far worse

success, by such princes as thought it better husbandry to buy off

enemies than reward friends.”[*] The practice with which Osborne

reproaches the two immediate successors of Elizabeth, proceeded partly

from the extreme difficulty of their situation, partly from the greater

lenity of their disposition. The power of pressing, as may naturally be

imagined, was often abused, in other respects, by men of inferior

rank; and officers often exacted money for freeing persons from the

service.[**]

* Page 392.

* Murden, p. 181.

The government of England during that age, however different in other

particulars, bore in this respect some resemblance to that of Turkey at

present: the sovereign possessed every power, except that of imposing

taxes; and in both countries, this limitation, unsupported by other

privileges, appears rather prejudicial to the people. In Turkey, it

obliges the sultan to permit the extortion of the pashas and governors

of provinces, from whom he afterwards squeezes presents or takes

forfeitures: in England, it engaged the queen to erect monopolies, and

grant patents for exclusive trade; an invention so pernicious, that had

she gone on during a tract of years at her own rate, England, the seat

of riches, and arts, and commerce, would have contained at present as

little industry as Morocco or the coast of Barbary.

We may further observe that this valuable privilege, valuable only

because it proved afterwards the means by which the parliament extorted

all their other privileges, was very much encroached on, in an indirect

manner, during the reign of Elizabeth, as well as of her predecessors.

She often exacted loans from her people; an arbitrary and unequal kind

of imposition, and which individuals felt severely; for though the money

had been regularly repaid, which was seldom the case,[*] it lay in the

prince’s hands without interest, which was a sensible loss to the

persons from whom the money was borrowed.[**]

There remains a proposal, made by Lord Burleigh, for levying a general

loan on the people, equivalent to a subsidy;[***] a scheme which would

have laid the burden more equally, but which was, in different words, a

taxation imposed without consent of parliament. It is remarkable, that

the scheme thus proposed, without any visible necessity, by that wise

minister, is the very same which Henry VIII. executed, and which

Charles I., enraged by ill usage from his parliament, and reduced to

the greatest difficulties, put afterwards in practice, to the great

discontent of the nation.

The demand of benevolence was another invention of that age for taxing

the people. This practice was so little conceived to be irregular, that

the commons in 1585 offered the queen a benevolence; which she very

generously refused, as having no occasion at that time for money.[****]

Queen Mary, also, by an order of council, increased the customs in some

branches; and her sister imitated the example.[v] There was a species

of ship money imposed at the time of the Spanish invasion: the several

ports were required to equip a certain number of vessels at their own

charge: and such was the alacrity of the people for the public defence,

that some of the ports, particularly London, sent double the number

demanded of them.[v*]

* Bacon, vol. iv. p. 362.

** In the second of Richard II., it was enacted that in

loans which the king shall require of his subjects, upon

letters of privy seal, such as have “reasonable” excuse of

not lending, may there be received without further summons,

travel, or grief. See Cotton’s Abridg. p. 170. By this law,

the king’s prerogative of exacting loans was ratified; and

what ought to be deemed a “reasonable” excuse was still left

in his own breast to determine.

*** Haynes, p. 518, 519.

**** D’Ewes, p. 494.

v Bacon, vol. iv p. 362.

v* Monson, p 267.

When any levies were made for Ireland, France, or the Low Countries, the

queen obliged the counties to levy the soldiers, to arm and clothe them,

and carry them to the seaports at their own charge. New-year’s gifts

were at that time expected from the nobility, and from the more

considerable gentry.[*]

Purveyance and preëmption were also methods of taxation, unequal,

arbitrary, and oppressive. The whole kingdom sensibly felt the burden of

those impositions; and it was regarded as a great privilege conferred

on Oxford and Cambridge, to prohibit the purveyors from taking

any commodities within five miles of these universities. The queen

victualled her navy by means of this prerogative, during the first years

of he reign.[**]

Wardship was the most regular and legal of all these impositions by

prerogative; yet was it a great badge of slavery and oppressive to all

the considerable families. When an estate devolved to a female, the

sovereign obliged her to marry anyone he pleased: whether the heir were

male or female, the crown enjoyed the whole profit of the estate during

the minority. The giving of a rich wardship was a usual method of

rewarding a courtier or favorite.

The inventions were endless which arbitrary power might employ for the

extorting of money, while the people imagined that their property was

secured by the crown’s being debarred from imposing taxes. Strype has

preserved a speech of Lord Burleigh to the queen and council, in which

are contained some particulars not a little extraordinary.[***]

* Strype’s Memoirs, vol. i. p. 137.

** Camden, p. 388.

*** Annals, vol. iv. p. 234 et seq.

Burleigh proposes, that she should erect a court for the correction

of all abuses, and should confer on the commissioners a general

inquisitorial power over the whole kingdom. He sets before her the

example of her wise grandfather, Henry VII., who by such methods

extremely augmented his revenue; and he recommends that this new court

should proceed, “as well by the direction and ordinary course of the

laws, as by virtue of her majesty’s supreme regiment and absolute power,

from whence law proceeded.” In a word, he expects from this institution

greater accession to the royal treasure than Henry VIII. derived from

the abolition of the abbeys, and all the forfeitures of ecclesiastical

revenues. This project of Lord Burleigh’s needs not, I think, any

comment. A form of government must be very arbitrary indeed, where a

wise and good minister could make such a proposal to the sovereign.

Embargoes on merchandise was another engine of royal power, by which the

English princes were able to extort money from the people. We have seen

instances in the reign of Mary. Elizabeth, before her coronation, issued

an order to the custom-house, prohibiting the sale of all crimson silks

which should be imported, till the court were first supplied.[*] She

expected, no doubt, a good pennyworth from the merchants while they lay

under this restraint.

The parliament pretended to the right of enacting laws, as well as of

granting subsidies; but this privilege was, during that age, still more

insignificant than the other. Queen Elizabeth expressly prohibited them

from meddling either with state matters or ecclesiastical causes;

and she openly sent the members to prison who dared to transgress

her imperial edict in these particulars. There passed few sessions of

parliament, during her reign where there occur not instances of this

arbitrary conduct.

But the legislative power of the parliament was a mere fallacy, while

the sovereign was universally acknowledged to possess a dispensing

power, by which all the laws could be invalidated, and rendered of no

effect. The exercise of this power was also an indirect method

practised for erecting monopolies. Where the statutes laid any branch of

manufacture under restrictions, the sovereign, by exempting one person

from the laws, gave him in effect the monopoly of that commodity.[**]

There was no grievance at that time more universally complained of, than

the frequent dispensing with the penal laws.[***]

But in reality the crown possessed the full legislative power, by means

of proclamations, which might affect any matter, even of the greatest

importance, and which the star chamber took care to see more rigorously

executed than the laws themselves. The motives for these proclamations

were sometimes frivolous, and even ridiculous. Queen Elizabeth had taken

offence at the smell of woad; and she issued an edict prohibiting any

one from cultivating that useful plant.[****]

* Strype, vol. i. p. 27.

** Rymer, tom. xv. p. 756. D’Ewes, p. 645.

*** Murden, p. 325.

**** Townsend’s Journals, p. 250. Stow’s Annals.

She was also pleased to take offence at the long swords and high ruffs

then in fashion: she sent about her officers to break every man’s sword,

and clip every man’s ruff which was beyond a certain dimension.[*] This

practice resembles the method employed by the great Czar Peter to make

his subjects change their garb.

The queen’s prohibition of the “prophesyings,” or the assemblies

instituted for fanatical prayers and conferences, was founded on a

better reason, but shows still the unlimited extent of her prerogative.

Any number of persons could not meet together, in order to read the

Scriptures and confer about religion, though in ever so orthodox a

manner, without her permission.

There were many other branches of prerogative incompatible with an

exact or regular enjoyment of liberty. None of the nobility could marry

without permission from the sovereign. The queen detained the earl of

Southampton long in prison, because he privately married the earl of

Essex’s cousin.[**] No man could travel without the consent of the

prince. Sir William Evers underwent a severe persecution because he had

presumed to pay a private visit to the king of Scots.[***] The sovereign

even assumed a supreme and uncontrolled authority over all foreign

trade; and neither allowed any person to enter or depart the kingdom,

nor any commodity to be imported or exported, without his consent.[****]

The parliament, in the thirteenth of the queen, praised her for not

imitating the practice usual among her predecessors, of stopping the

course of justice by particular warrants.[v] There could not possibly be

a greater abuse, nor a stronger mark of arbitrary power; and the queen,

in refraining from it, was very laudable. But she was by no means

constant in this reserve. There remain in the public records some

warrants of hers for exempting particular persons from all law-suits and

prosecutions;[v*] If and these warrants, she says, she grants from her

royal prerogative, which she will not allow to be disputed.

* Townsend’s Journals, p. 250. Stow’s Annals. Strype, vol. i

p 603.

** Birch’s Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 422.

*** Birch’s Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 511.

**** Sir John Davis’s Question concerning Impositions,

passim

v D’Ewes, p. 141.

v* Rymer, tom, xv. p 652 708, 777.

It was very usual in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, and probably in all the

preceding reigns, for noblemen or privy counsellors to commit to prison

any one who had happened to displease them by suing for his just debts;

and the unhappy person, though he gained his cause in the courts of

justice, was commonly obliged to relinquish his property in order to

obtain his liberty. Some, likewise, who had been delivered from prison

by the judges, were again committed to custody in secret places, without

any possibility of obtaining relief; and even the officers and serjeants

of the courts of law were punished for executing the writs in favor of

these persons. Nay, it was usual to send for people by pursuivants, a

kind of harpies who then attended the orders of the council and high

commission; and they were brought up to London, and constrained by

imprisonment, not only to withdraw their lawful suits, but also to pay

the pursuivants great sums of money. The judges, in the thirty-fourth of

the queen, complain to her majesty of the frequency of this practice. It

is probable that so egregious a tyranny was carried no farther down than

the reign of Elizabeth; since the parliament who presented the petition

of right found no later instances of it.[*] And even these very judges

of Elizabeth, who thus protect the people against the tyranny of the

great, expressly allow, that a person committed by special command of

the queen is not bailable.

It is easy to imagine that, in such a government, no justice could by

course of law be obtained of the sovereign, unless he were willing to

allow it. In the naval expedition undertaken by Raleigh and Frobisher

against the Spaniards, in the year 1592, a very rich carrack was taken,

worth two hundred thousand pounds. The queen’s share in the adventure

was only a tenth; but as the prize was so great, and exceeded so much

the expectation of all the adventurers, she was determined not to rest

contented with her share. Raleigh humbly and earnestly begged her to

accept of a hundred thousand pounds in lieu of all demands, or rather

extortions; and says that the present which the proprietors were willing

to make her of eighty thousand pounds, was the greatest that ever prince

received from a subject.[**]

* Rushworth, vol. i. p. 511. Franklyn’s Annals, p. 250, 251.

** Strype, vol. iv. p. 128, 129.

But it is no wonder the queen, in her administration, should pay so

little regard to liberty, while the parliament itself, in enacting laws,

was entirely negligent of it. The persecuting statutes which they passed

against Papists and Puritans are extremely contrary to the genius of

freedom; and by exposing such multitudes to the tyranny of priests and

bigots, accustomed the people to the most disgraceful subjection. Their

conferring an unlimited supremacy on the queen, or, what is worse,

acknowledging her inherent right to it, was another proof of their

voluntary servitude.

The law of the twenty-third of her reign, making seditious words against

the queen capital, is also a very tyrannical statute; and a use no less

tyrannical was sometimes made of it. The case of Udal, a Puritanical

clergyman, seems singular even in those arbitrary times. This man had

published a book, called a Demonstration of Discipline, in which he

inveighed against the government of bishops; and though he had

carefully endeavored to conceal his name, he was thrown into prison upon

suspicion, and brought to a trial for this offence. It was pretended,

that the bishops were part of the queen’s political body; and to speak

against them, was really to attack her, and was therefore felony by the

statute. This was not the only iniquity to which Udal was exposed. The

judges would not allow the jury to determine any thing but the fact,

whether Udal had written the book or not, without examining his

intention, or the import of the words. In order to prove the fact, the

crown lawyers did not produce a single witness to the court: they only

read the testimony of two persons absent, one of whom said, that Udal

had told him he was the author; another, that a friend of Udal’s had

said so. They would not allow Udal to produce any exculpatory evidence;

which, they said, was never to be permitted against the crown.[*] And

they tendered him an oath, by which he was required to depose that he

was not the author of the book; and his refusal to make that deposition

was employed as the strongest proof of his guilt. It is almost needless

to add, that notwithstanding these multiplied iniquities, a verdict

of death was given by the jury against Udal; for, as the queen was

extremely bent upon his prosecution, it was impossible he could

escape.[**] He died in prison, before execution of the sentence.

* It was never fully established that the prisoner could

legally produce evidence against the crown, till after the

revolution. See Blackstone’s Commentaries, vol. iv. p. 352.

** State Trials, vol. i. p. 144. Strype, voL iv. p. 21.

Strype’s Life of Whitgift, p. 343.

The case of Penry was, if possible, still hardier. This man was a

zealous Puritan, or rather a Brownist, a small sect, which afterwards

increased, and received the name of “Independents.” He had written

against the hierarchy several tracts, such as Martin Marprelate, Theses

Martinianæ, and other compositions, full of low scurrility and petulant

satire. After concealing himself for some years, he was seized; and as

the statute against seditious words required that the criminal should

be tried within a year after committing the offence, he could not be

indicted for his printed books. He was therefore tried for some papers

found in his pocket, as if he had thereby scattered sedition.[*] It

was also imputed to him, by the lord keeper, Puckering, that in some

of these papers, “he had only acknowledged her majesty’s royal power to

establish laws ecclesiastical and civil; but had avoided the usual terms

of making, enacting, decreeing, and ordaining laws; which imply,”

says the lord keeper, “a most absolute authority.”[**] Penry for these

offences was condemned and executed.

Thus we have seen, that the “most absolute” authority of the sovereign,

to make use of the lord keeper’s expression was established on above

twenty branches of prerogative, which are now abolished, and which were,

every one of them totally incompatible with the liberty of the subject.

But what insured more effectually the slavery of the people, than even

these branches of prerogative, was, the established principles of the

times, which attributed to the prince such an unlimited and indefeasible

power, as was supposed to be the origin of all law, and could be

circumscribed by none. The homilies published for the use of the clergy,

and which they were enjoined to read every Sunday in all the churches,

inculcate every where a blind and unlimited passive obedience to the

prince, which on no account, and under no pretence, is it ever lawful

for subjects in the smallest article to depart from or infringe. Much

noise has been made because some court chaplains, during the succeeding

reigns, were permitted to preach such doctrines; but there is a great

difference between these sermons, and discourses published by authority,

avowed by the prince and council, and promulgated to the whole

nation.[***]

* Strype’s Life of Whitgift, book iv. chap. 11. Neal, vol.

i. p. 564.

** Strype’s Annals, vol. iv. p. 177.

*** Gifford, a clergyman, was suspended in the year 1584,

for preaching up a limited obedience to the civil

magistrate, Neal, vol. i. p. 435.

So thoroughly were these principles imbibed by the people, during the

reigns of Elizabeth and her predecessors, that opposition to them was

regarded as the most flagrant sedition; and was not even rewarded by

that public praise and approbation, which can alone support men under

such dangers and difficulties as attend the resistance of tyrannical

authority.[*] It was only during the next generation that the noble

principles of liberty took root, and spreading themselves under the

shelter of Puritanical absurdities, became fashionable among the people.

It is worth remarking, that the advantage usually ascribed to absolute

monarchy, a greater regularity of police, and a more strict execution of

the laws, did not attend the former English government, though in many

respects it fell under that denomination. A demonstration of this truth

is contained in a judicious paper which is preserved by Strype,[**] and

which was written by an eminent justice of peace of Somersetshire, in

the year 1596, near the end of the queen’s reign; when the authority of

that princess may be supposed to be fully corroborated by time, and her

maxims of government improved by long practice.

* It is remarkable, that in all the historical plays of

Shakspeare, where the manners and characters, and even the

transactions of the several reigns, are so exactly copied,

there is scarcely any mention of civil liberty, which some

pretended historians have imagined to be the object of all

the ancient quarrels, insurrections, and civil wars. In the

elaborate panegyric of England, contained in the tragedy of

Richard II., and the detail of its advantages, not a word of

its civil constitution, as anywise different from or

superior to that of other European kingdoms; an omission

which cannot be supposed in any English author that wrote

since the restoration, at least since the revolution.

** Annals, vol. iv. p. 290

This paper contains an account of the disorders which then prevailed in

the county of Somerset. The author says, that forty persons had there

been executed in a year for robberies, thefts, and other felonies;

thirty-five burnt in the hand, thirty-seven whipped, one hundred and

eighty-three discharged: that those who were discharged were most wicked

and desperate persons, who never could come to any good, because

they would not work, and none would take them into service: that

notwithstanding this great number of indictments, the fifth part of the

felonies committed in the county were not brought to trial; the greater

number escaped censure, either from the superior cunning of the felons,

the remissness of the magistrates, or the foolish lenity of the people:

that the rapines committed by the infinite number of wicked, wandering,

idle people, were intolerable to the poor countrymen, and obliged them

to keep a perpetual watch over their sheepfolds, their pastures, their

woods, and their cornfields: that the other counties of England were in

no better condition than Somersetshire; and many of them were even in

a worse: that there were at least three or four hundred able-bodied

vagabonds in every county, who lived by theft and rapine; and who

sometimes met in troops to the number of sixty, and committed spoil on

the inhabitants: that if all the felons of this kind were assembled,

they would be able, if reduced to good subjection, to give the greatest

enemy her majesty has a “strong battle:” and that the magistrates

themselves were intimidated from executing the laws upon them; and there

were instances of justices of peace who, after giving sentence against

rogues, had interposed to stop the execution of their own sentence,

on account of the danger which hung over them from the confederates of

these felons.

In the year 1575, the queen complained in parliament of the bad

execution of the laws; and threatened, that if the magistrates were not

for the future more vigilant, she would intrust authority to indigent

and needy persons, who would find an interest in a more exact

administration of justice.[*] It appears that she was as good as

her word. For in the year 1601, there were great complaints made in

parliament of the rapine of justices of peace; and a member said, that

this magistrate was an animal who, for half a dozen of chickens, would

dispense with a dozen of penal statutes.[**] It is not easy to account

for this relaxation of government, and neglect of police, during a reign

of so much vigor as that of Elizabeth. The small revenue of the crown is

the most likely cause that can be assigned. The queen had it not in

her power to interest a great number in assisting her to execute the

laws.[***] [39]

* D’Ewes, p. 234.

** D’Ewes, p. 661-694.

*** See note MM, at the end of the volume.

On the whole, the English have no reason, from the example of their

ancestors, to be in love with the picture of absolute monarchy; or

to prefer the unlimited authority of the prince and his unbounded

prerogatives, to that noble liberty, that sweet equality, and that happy

security, by which they are at present distinguished above all nations

in the universe. The utmost that can be said in favor of the government

of that age and perhaps it may be said with truth, is, that the power

of the prince, though really unlimited, was exercised after the European

manner, and entered not into every part of the administration; that

the instances of a high exerted prerogative were not so frequent as

to render property sensibly insecure, or reduce the people to a total

servitude; that the freedom from faction, the quickness of execution,

and the promptitude of those measures which could be taken for

offence or defence, made some compensation for the want of a legal and

determinate liberty; that as the prince commanded no mercenary army,

there was a tacit check on him, which maintained the government in that

medium, to which the people had been accustomed; and that this situation

of England, though seemingly it approached nearer, was in reality more

remote from a despotic and Eastern monarchy, than the present government

of that kingdom, where the people, though guarded by multiplied laws,

are totally naked, defenceless, and disarmed; and besides, are

not secured by any middle power, or independent powerful nobility,

interposed between them and the monarch.

We shall close the present Appendix with a brief account of the

revenues, the military force, the commerce, the arts, and the learning

of England during this period.

Queen Elizabeth’s economy was remarkable; and in some instances seemed

to border on avarice. The smallest expense, if it could possibly be

spared, appeared considerable in her eyes; and even the charge of

an express, during the most delicate transactions, was not below

her notice.[*] She was also attentive to every profit, and embraced

opportunities of gain which may appear somewhat extraordinary. She kept,

for instance, the see of Ely vacant nineteen years, in order to retain

the revenue;[**] and it was usual with her, when she promoted a bishop,

to take the opportunity of pillaging the see of some of its manors.[***]

* Birch’s Negot. p. 21.

** Strype, vol. iv. p.. 351.

*** Strype, vol. iv. p. 215. There is a curious letter of

the queen’s written to a bishop of Ely, and preserved in the

register of that see. It is in these words: “Proud prelate,

I understand you are backward in complying with your

agreement: but I would have you know, that I, who made you

what you are, can unmake you; and if you do not forthwith

fulfil your engagement, by God I will immediately unfrock

you. Yours, as you demean yourself, Elizabeth.” The bishop,

it seems, had promised to exchange some part of the land

belonging to the see for a pretended equivalent; and did so,

but it was in consequence of the above letter. Annual

Register. 1761, p. 15.

But that in reality there was little of no avarice in the queen’s

temper, appears from this circumstance, that she never amassed any

treasure; and even refused subsidies from the parliament when she had

no present occasion for them. Yet we must not conclude, from this

circumstance, that her economy proceeded from a tender concern for her

people; she loaded them with monopolies and exclusive patents, which are

much more oppressive than the most heavy taxes levied in an equal and

regular manner. The real source of her frugal conduct was derived from

her desire of independency, and her care to preserve her dignity, which

would have been endangered had she reduced herself to the necessity of

having frequent recourse to parliamentary supplies. In consequence of

this motive, the queen, though engaged in successful and necessary wars,

thought it more prudent to make a continual dilapidation of the royal

demesnes,[*] than demand the most moderate supplies from the commons. As

she lived unmarried, and had no posterity, she was content to serve her

present turn, though at the expense of her successors; who, by reason of

this policy, joined to other circumstances, found themselves on a sudden

reduced to the most extreme indigence.

The splendor of a court was during this age a great part of the public

charge; and as Elizabeth was a single woman, and expensive in no kind of

magnificence, except clothes, this circumstance enabled her to perform

great things by her narrow revenue. She is said to have paid four

millions of debt, left on the crown by her father, brother, and sister;

an incredible sum for that age.[**] The states at the time of her death

owed her about eight hundred thousand pounds; and, the king of France

four hundred and fifty thousand.[***]

* Rymer, tom. xvi. p. 141. D’Ewes, p. 151,457,525,629.

Bacon, vol. iv. p. 363.

** D’Ewes, p. 473. I think it impossible to reconcile this

account of the public debts with that given by Strype,

(Eccles. Mem. vol. ii. p. 344,) that in the year 1553 the

crown owed but three hundred thousand pounds. I own that

this last sum appears a great deal more likely. The whole

revenue of Queen Elizabeth would not in ten years have paid

four millions.

*** Winwood, vol. i. p. 29, 54.

Though that prince was extremely frugal, and after the peace of Vervins

was continually amassing treasure, the queen never could, by the most

pressing importunities, prevail on him to make payment of those sums

which she had so generously advanced him during his greatest distresses.

One payment of twenty thousand crowns, and another of fifty thousand,

were all she could obtain, by the strongest representations she could

make of the difficulties to which the rebellion in Ireland had reduced

her.[*] The queen expended on the wars with Spain, between the years

1589 and 1593, the sum of one million three hundred thousand pounds,

besides the pittance of a double subsidy, amounting to two hundred and

eighty thousand pounds, granted her by parliament.[**] In the year 1599,

she spent six hundred thousand pounds in six months on the service of

Ireland.[***] Sir Robert Cecil affirmed, that in ten years Ireland cost

her three millions four hundred thousand pounds.[****] She gave the earl

of Essex a present of thirty thousand pounds upon his departure for the

government of that kingdom.[v] Lord Burleigh computed, that the value of

the gifts conferred on that favorite amounted to three hundred thousand

pounds; a sum which, though probably exaggerated, is a proof of her

strong affection towards him. It was a common saying during this reign,

“The queen pays bountifully, though she rewards sparingly.”[v*]

It is difficult to compute exactly the queen’s ordinary revenue, but it

certainly fell much short of five hundred thousand pounds a year.[v**]

In the year 1590, she raised the customs from fourteen thousand pounds

a year to fifty thousand, and obliged Sir Thomas Smith, who had farmed

them, to refund some of his former profits.[v***]

* Winwood, vol. i. p. 117--195.

** D’Ewes, p. 483.

*** Camden, p. 167.

**** Appendix to the Earl of Essex’s Apology.

v Birch’s Memoirs, vol. ii.

v* Nanton’s Regalia, chap. 1.

v** Franklyn, in his Annals, (p. 9,) says that the profit of

the kingdom, besides wards and the duchy of Lancaster,

(which amounted to about one hundred and twenty thousand

pounds,) was one hundred and eighty-eight thousand one

hundred and ninety-seven pounds: the crown lands seem to be

comprehended in this computation.

v*** Camden, p. 558. This account of Camden is difficult or

impossible to be reconciled to the state of the customs in

the beginning of the subsequent reign, as they appear in the

journals of the commons. See Hist. of James, chap. 46.

This improvement of the revenue was owing to the suggestions of one

Caermarthen; and was opposed by Burleigh, Leicester, and Walsingham:

but the queen’s perseverance overcame all their opposition. The great

undertakings which she executed with so narrow a revenue, and with such

small supplies from her people, prove the mighty effects of wisdom and

economy. She received from the parliament, during the course of her

whole reign, only twenty subsidies and thirty-nine fifteenths. I pretend

not to determine exactly the amount of these supplies; because the value

of a subsidy was continually falling; and in the end of her reign it

amounted only to eighty thousand pounds,[*] though in the beginning it

had been a hundred and twenty thousand. If we suppose that the supplies

granted Elizabeth during a reign of forty-five years amounted to three

millions, we shall not probably be much wide of the truth.[**] This sum

makes only sixty-six thousand six hundred and sixty-six pounds a year;

and it is surprising, that while the queen’s demands were so moderate,

and her expenses so well regulated, she should ever have found any

difficulty in obtaining a supply from parliament, or be reduced to make

sale of the crown lands. But such was the extreme, I had almost said,

absurd parsimony of the parliaments during that period.

* D’Ewes, p. 630.

* Lord Salisbury computed these supplies only at two

millions eight hundred thousand pounds, Journ. 17th Feb.

1609. King James was certainly mistaken when he estimated

the queen’s annual supplies at one hundred and thirty-seven

thousand pounds. Franklyn, p. 44. It is curious to observe

that the minister, in the war begun in 1754, was in some

periods allowed to lavish in two months as great a sum as

was granted by parliament to Queen Elizabeth in forty-five

years. The extreme frivolous object of the late war, and the

great importance of hers, set this matter in still a

stronger light. Money too, we may observe, was in most

particulars of the same value in both periods: she paid

eight pence a day to every foot soldier. But our late

delusions have much exceeded any thing known in history, not

even excepting those of the crusades. For I suppose there is

no mathematical, still less an arithmetical demonstration,

that the road to the Holy Land was not the road to paradise,

as there is, that the endless increase of national debts is

the direct road to national ruin. But having now completely

reached that goal, it is needless at present to reflect on

the past. It will be found in the present year, 1776, that

all the revenues of this island north of Trent and west of

Reading, are mortgaged or anticipated forever. Could the

small remainder be in a worse condition were those provinces

seized by Austria and Prussia? There is only this

difference, that some event might happen in Europe, which

would oblige these great monarchs to disgorge their

acquisitions. But no imagination can figure a situation

which will induce our creditors to relinquish their claims,

or the public to seize their revenues. So egregious indeed

has been our folly, that we have even lost all title to

compassion in the numberless calamities that are awaiting

us.

They valued nothing in comparison of their money: the members had no

connection with the court; and the very idea which they conceived of the

trust committed to them, was, to reduce the demands of the crown, and

to grant as few supplies as possible. The crown, on the other hand,

conceived the parliament in no other light than as a means of supply.

Queen Elizabeth made a merit to her people of seldom summoning

parliaments.[*] No redress of grievances was expected from these

assemblies: they were supposed to meet for no other purpose than to

impose taxes.

Before the reign of Elizabeth, the English princes had usually recourse

to the city of Antwerp for voluntary loans; and their credit was so low,

that, besides paying the high interest of ten or twelve per cent., they

were obliged to make the city of London join in the security. Sir

Thomas Gresham, that great and enterprising merchant, one of the chief

ornaments of this reign, engaged the company of merchant-adventurers to

grant a loan to the queen; and as the money was regularly repaid, her

credit by degrees established itself in the city, and she shook off this

dependence on foreigners.[**]

In the year 1559, however, the queen employed Gresham to borrow for her

two hundred thousand pounds at Antwerp, in order to enable her to reform

the coin, which was at that time extremely debased.[***] She was so

impolitic as to make, herself, an innovation in the coin; by dividing a

pound of silver into sixty-two shillings, instead of sixty, the former

standard. This is the last time that the coin has been tampered with in

England.

* Strype, vol. iv. p. 124.

** Stowe’s Survey of London, book i. p. 286.

*** MS. of Lord Royston’s, from the paper office, p. 295.

Queen Elizabeth, sensible how much the defence of her kingdom depended

on its naval power, was desirous to encourage commerce and navigation:

but as her monopolies tended to extinguish all domestic industry, which

is much more valuable than foreign trade, and is the foundation of it,

the general train of her conduct was ill calculated to serve the purpose

at which she aimed, much less to promote the riches of her people. The

exclusive companies also were an immediate check on foreign trade.

Yet, notwithstanding these discouragements, the spirit of the age was

strongly bent on naval enterprises; and besides the military expeditions

against the Spaniards, many attempts were made for new discoveries, and

many new branches of foreign commerce were opened by the English. Sir

Martin Frobisher undertook three fruitless voyages to discover the

north-west passage: Davis, not discouraged by this ill success, made a

new attempt, when he discovered the straits which pass by his name.

In the year 1600, the queen granted the first patent to the East India

Company: the stock of that company was seventy-two thousand pounds; and

they fitted out four ships, under the command of James Lancaster, for

this new branch of trade. The adventure was successful; and the ships

returning with a rich cargo, encouraged the company to continue the

commerce.

The communication with Muscovy had been opened in Queen Mary’s time

by the discovery of the passage to Archangel: but the commerce to that

country did not begin to be carried on to a great extent till about the

year 1569. The queen obtained from the czar an exclusive patent to

the English for the whole trade of Muscovy;[*] and she entered into a

personal as well as national alliance with him. This czar was named John

Basilides, a furious tyrant, who, continually suspecting the revolt

of his subjects, stipulated to have a safe retreat and protection in

England. In order the better to insure this resource, he purposed to

marry an English woman; and the queen intended to have sent him Lady

Anne Hastings; daughter of the earl of Huntingdon: but when the lady was

informed of the barbarous manners of the country, she wisely declined

purchasing an empire at the expense of her ease and safety.[**]

The English, encouraged by the privileges which they had obtained from

Basilides, ventured farther into those countries than any Europeans had

formerly done. They transported their goods along the River Dwina in

boats made of one entire tree, which they towed and rowed up the stream

as far as Walogda. Thence they carried their commodities seven days’

journey by land to Yeraslau, and then down the Volga to Astracan. At

Astracan they built ships, crossed the Caspian Sea, and distributed

their manufactures into Persia. But this bold attempt met with such

discouragements, that it was never renewed.[***]

* Camden, p. 408.

** Camden, p. 493.

*** Camden, p. 418.

After the death of John Basilides, his son Theodore revoked the patent

which the English enjoyed for a monopoly of the Russian trade: when the

queen remonstrated against this innovation, he told her ministers, that

princes must carry an indifferent hand, as well between their subjects

as between foreigners; and not convert trade, which, by the laws of

nations, ought to be common to all, into a monopoly for the private gain

of a few.[*] So much juster notions of commerce were entertained by this

barbarian than appear in the conduct of the renowned Queen Elizabeth!

Theodore, however, continued some privileges to the English, on account

of their being the discoverers of the communication between Europe and

his country.

The trade to Turkey commenced about the year 1583; and that commerce was

immediately confined to a company by Queen Elizabeth. Before that

time, the grand seignior had always conceived England to be a dependent

province of France;[**] but having heard of the queen’s power and

reputation, he gave a good reception to the English, and even granted

them larger privileges than he had given to the French.

* Camden, p. 493.

** Birch’s Memoirs, vol. i. p. 36

The merchants of the Hanse Towns complained loudly, in the beginning

of Elizabeth’s reign, of the treatment which they had received in the

reigns of Edward and Mary. She prudently replied, that as she would not

innovate any thing, she would still protect them in the immunities and

privileges of which she found them possessed. This answer not contenting

them, their commerce was soon after suspended for a time, to the great

advantage of the English merchants, who tried what they could themselves

effect for promoting their commerce. They took the whole trade into

their own hands; and their returns proving successful, they divided

themselves into staplers and merchant adventurers; the former residing

constantly at one place, the latter trying their fortunes in other towns

and states abroad with cloth and other manufactures. This success

so enraged the Hanse Towns, that they tried all the methods which a

discontented people could devise, to draw upon the English merchants

the ill opinion of other nations and states. They prevailed so far as

to obtain an imperial edict, by which the English were prohibited all

commerce in the empire: the queen, by way of retaliation, retained sixty

of their ships, which had been seized in the River Tagus with contraband

goods of the Spaniards. These ships the queen intended to have restored,

as desiring to have compromised all differences with those trading

cities; but when she was informed, that a general assembly was held at

Lubec, in order to concert measures for distressing the English trade,

she caused the ships and cargoes to be confiscated: only two of them

were released to carry home the news, and to inform these states, that

she had the greatest contempt imaginable for all their proceedings.[*]

Henry VIII., in order to fit out a navy, was obliged to hire ships from

Hamburgh, Lubec, Dantzic, Genoa, and Venice, but Elizabeth, very early

in her reign, put affairs upon a better footing; both by building

some ships of her own, and by encouraging the merchants to build

large trading vessels which, on occasion, were converted into ships

of war.[**] In the year 1582, the seamen in England were found to be

fourteen thousand two hundred and ninety-five men;[***] the number of

vessels twelve hundred and thirty-two; of which there were only two

hundred and seventeen above eighty tons. Monson pretends, that though

navigation decayed in the first years of James I., by the practice of

the merchants, who carried on their trade in foreign bottoms,[****] yet,

before the year 1640, this number of seamen was tripled in England.[v]

The navy which the queen left at her decease appears considerable, when

we reflect only on the number of vessels, which were forty-two: but when

we consider that none of these ships carried above forty guns; that four

only came up to that number; that there were but two ships of a thousand

tons; and twenty-three below five hundred, some of fifty, and some even

of twenty tons; and that the whole number of guns belonging to the fleet

was seven hundred and seventy four;[v*] we must entertain a contemptible

idea of the English navy, compared to the force which it has now

attained.[*] In the year 1588, there were not above five vessels fitted

out by the noblemen and seaports, which exceeded two hundred tons.[v**]

[40]

* Lives of the Admirals, vol. i. p. 470.

** Camden, p. 388.

*** Monson, p. 256.

**** Monson, p. 300.

v Monson, p. 210, 256.

v* Monson, p. 196. The English navy at present carries about

fourteen thousand guns.

v** See note NN, at the end of the volume.

Monson, p. 300. Spaniards; and the queen equipped a

fleet and levied an army in a fortnight to oppose them.

Nothing gave foreigners a higher idea of the power of

England than this sudden armament.

In the year 1575, all the militia in the kingdom were computed at a

hundred and eighty-two thousand nine hundred and twenty-nine.[*] A

distribution was made, in the year 1595, of a hundred and forty thousand

men, besides those which Wales could supply.[**] These armies were

formidable by their numbers; but their discipline and experience were

not proportionate. Small bodies from Dunkirk and Newport frequently ran

over and plundered the east coast: so unfit was the militia, as it was

then constituted, for the defence of the kingdom. The lord lieutenants

were first appointed to the counties in this reign.

Mr. Murden[***] has published, from the Salisbury collections, a paper

which contains the military force of the nation at the time of the

Spanish armada, and which is somewhat different from the account given

by our ordinary historians. It makes all the able-bodied men of the

kingdom amount to a hundred and eleven thousand five hundred

and thirteen; those armed, to eighty thousand eight hundred and

seventy-five; of whom forty-four thousand seven hundred and twenty-seven

were trained. It must be supposed that these able-bodied men consisted

of such only as were registered, otherwise the small number is not to be

accounted for. Yet Sir Edward Coke[****] said, in the house of commons,

that he was employed about the same time, together with Popham, chief

justice, to take a survey of all the people of England, and that they

found them to be nine hundred thousand of all sorts. This number, by

the ordinary rules of computation, supposes that there were above

two hundred thousand men able to bear arms. Yet even this number is

surprisingly small. Can we suppose that the kingdom is six or seven

times more populous at present? and that Murden’s was the real number of

men, excluding Catholics, and children, and infirm persons?

* Lives of the Admirals, vol. i. p. 432.

** Strype, vol. iv. p. 221

*** Page 608.

**** Journ. 25 April 1621.

Harrison says, that in the musters taken in the years 1574 and 1575, the

men fit for service amounted to one million one hundred and seventy-two

thousand six hundred and seventy-four; yet was it believed that a full

third was omitted. Such uncertainty and contradiction are there in all

these accounts.

Notwithstanding the greatness of this number, the same author complains

much of the decay of populousness; a vulgar complaint in all places and

all ages. Guicciardini makes the inhabitants of England in this reign

amount to two millions.

Whatever opinion we may form of the comparative populousness of England

in different periods, it must be allowed that, abstracting from the

national debt, there is a prodigious increase of power in that, more

perhaps than in any other European state, since the beginning of the

last century. It would be no paradox to affirm, that Ireland alone

could, at present, exert a greater force than all the three kingdoms

were capable of at the death of Queen Elizabeth. And we might go

further, and assert, that one good county in England is able to make, at

least to support, a greater effort than the whole kingdom was capable of

in the reign of Henry V.; when the maintenance of a garrison in a small

town like Calais, formed more than a third of the ordinary national

expense. Such are the effects of liberty, industry, and good government!

The state of the English manufactures was at this time very low; and

foreign wares of almost all kinds had the preference.[*] About the year

1590, there were in London four persons only rated in the subsidy books

so high as four hundred pounds.[**] This computation is not indeed to be

deemed an exact estimate of their wealth. In 1567, there were found, on

inquiry, to be four thousand eight hundred and fifty-one strangers

of all nations in London; of whom three thousand eight hundred and

thirty-eight were Flemings, and only fifty-eight Scots.[***] The

persecutions in France and the Low Countries drove afterwards a

greater number of foreigners into England; and the commerce, as well as

manufactures of that kingdom, was very much improved by them.[****]

It was then that Sir Thomas Gresham built, at his own charge, the

magnificent fabric of the Exchange for the reception of the merchants:

the queen visited it, and gave it the appellation of the Royal Exchange.

* D’Ewes, p. 505.

** D’Ewes, p. 497.

*** Haynes, p. 461, 462.

**** Stowe, p. 668.

By a lucky accident in language, which has a great effect on men’s

ideas, the invidious word usury which formerly meant the taking of any

interest for money, came now to express only the taking of exorbitant

and illegal interest. An act passed in 1571 violently condemns all

usury; but permits ten per cent, interest to be paid. Henry IV. of

France reduced Interest to six and a half per cent.; an indication of

the great advance of France above England in commerce.

Dr. Howell says,[*] that Queen Elizabeth, in the third of her reign, was

presented with a pair of black silk knit stockings by her silk-woman,

and never wore cloth hose any more. The author of the Present State of

England, says, that about 1577, pocket watches were first brought into

England from Germany. They are thought to have been invented at Nurem

berg. About 1580, the use of coaches was introduced by the earl of

Arundel.[**] Before that time, the queen, on public occasions, rode

behind her chamberlain.

Camden says, that in 1581, Randolph, so much employed by the queen

in foreign embassies, possessed the office of postmaster-general of

England. It appears, therefore, that posts were then established;

though from Charles I.’s regulations in 1635, it would seem that few

post-houses were erected before that time.

In a remonstrance of the Hanse Towns to the diet of the empire, in 1582,

it is affirmed that England exported annually about two hundred thousand

pieces of cloth.[***] This number seems to be much exaggerated.

In the fifth of this reign was enacted the first law for the relief of

the poor.

A judicious author of that age confirms the vulgar observation, that the

kingdom was depopulating, from the increase of enclosures and decay of

tillage; and he ascribes the reason very justly to the restraints put

oh the exportation of corn; while full liberty was allowed to export

all the produce of pasturage, such as wool, hides, leather, tallow, etc.

These prohibitions of exportation were derived from the prerogative, and

were very injudicious. The queen once, on the commencement of her reign,

had tried a contrary practice, and with good success. From the same

author we learn, that the complaints renewed in our time were then very

common, concerning the high prices of every thing.[****]

* History of the World, vol. ii. p. 222.

** Anderson, vol. i. p. 421.

*** Anderson, voL i. p. 424.

**** A compendious or brief Examination of certain ordinary

Complaints of divers of our Countrymen. The author says,

that in twenty or thirty years before 1581, commodities had

in general risen fifty per cent.; some more. “Cannot you,

neighbor, remember,” say she “that, indeed, to have been two

periods, in which prices rose remarkably in England;” namely,

that in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, when they are computed to

have doubled, and that in the present age. Between the two,

there seems to have been a stagnation. It would appear, that

industry, during that intermediate period, increased as fast

as gold and silver, and kept commodities nearly at a par

with money.

There were two attempts made in this reign to settle colonies in

America; one by Sir Humphrey Gilbert in Newfoundland, another by

Sir Walter Raleigh in Virginia: but neither of these projects proved

successful. All those noble settlements were made in the following

reigns. The current specie of the kingdom, in the end of this reign, is

computed at four millions.[*]

The earl of Leicester desired Sir Francis Walsingham, then ambassador in

France, to provide him with a riding master in that country, to whom

he promises a hundred pounds a year, besides maintaining himself and

servant and a couple of horses. “I know,” adds the earl, “that such a

man as I want may receive higher wages in France: but let him consider,

that a shilling in England goes as far as two shillings in France.” [**]

It is known that every thing is much changed since that time.

The nobility in this age still supported, in some degree, the ancient

magnificence in their hospitality, and in the numbers of their

retainers; and the queen found it prudent to retrench, by proclamation,

their expenses in this last particular.[***] The expense of hospitality

she somewhat encouraged, by the frequent visits she paid her nobility,

and the sumptuous feasts which she received from them.

“I could, in this town, buy the best pig or goose I could

lay my hands on for fourpence, which now costeth

twelvepence; a good capon for threepence or fourpence; a

chicken for a penny; a hen for twopence?” (p. 35.) “Yet the

price of ordinary labor was then eightpence a day,” (p. 31.)

* Lives of the Admirals, vol. i. p. 475.

** Digges’s Complete Ambassador.

*** Strype, vol. iii. Append, p. 54.

Harrison, after enumerating the queen’s palaces, adds, “But what shall

I need to take upon me to repeat all, and tell what houses the queen’s

majesty hath? Sith all is hers; and when it pleaseth her in the summer

season to recreate herself abroad, and view the estate of the country,

and hear the complaints of her poor commons injured by her unjust

officers or their substitutes, every nobleman’s house is her palace,

where she continueth during pleasure and tell her an entertainment in

Kenilworth Castle, which was extraordinary for expense and magnificence.”

Among other particulars, we are told that three hundred and sixty-five

hogsheads of beer were drunk at it.[*] The earl had fortified this

castle at great expense; and it contained arms for ten thousand men.[**]

The earl of Derby had a family consisting of two hundred and forty

servants.[***] Stowe remarks it as a singular proof of beneficence in

this nobleman, that he was contented with his rent from his tenants, and

exacted not any extraordinary services from them; a proof that the great

power of the sovereign (what was almost unavoidable) had very generally

countenanced the nobility in tyrannizing over the people. Burleigh,

though he was frugal, and had no paternal estate, kept a family

consisting of a hundred servants.[****] He had a standing table for

gentlemen, and two other tables for persons of meaner condition, which

were always served alike, whether he were in town or in the country.

About his person he had people of great distinction; insomuch that

he could reckon up twenty gentlemen retainers who had each a thousand

pounds a year; and as many among his ordinary servants who were

worth from a thousand pounds to three, five, ten, and twenty thousand

pounds.[v] It is to be remarked, that though the revenues of the crown

were at that time very small, the ministers and courtiers sometimes

found means, by employing the boundless prerogative, to acquire greater

fortunes than it is possible for them at present to amass, from their

larger salaries, and more limited authority.

Burleigh entertained the queen twelve several times in his country

house; where she remained three, four, or five weeks at a time. Each

visit cost him two or three thousand pounds.[v*] The quantity of silver

plate possessed by this nobleman is surprising; no less than fourteen or

fifteen thousand pounds weight;[v**] which, besides the fashion, would

be above forty-two thousand pounds sterling in value. Yet Burleigh left

only four thousand pounds a year in land, and eleven thousand pounds in

money; and as land was then commonly sold at ten years’ purchase, his

plate was nearly equal to all the rest of his fortune. It appears that

little value was then put upon the fashion of the plate, which probably

was but rude: the weight was chiefly considered.

*“She return again to some of her own, in which she

remaineth so long as she pleaseth.” Book ii. chap. 15.

Surely one may say of such a guest, what Cicero says to

Atticus, on occasion of a visit paid him by Cæsar. “Hospes

tamen non is cui diceres, Amabo te, eodem ad me cum

revertêre.” Lib. xiii. Ep. 52. If she relieved the people

from oppressions, (to whom it seems the law could give no

relief,) her visits were a great oppression on the nobility.

** Biogr. Brit. vol. iii. p. 1791.

*** Strype, vol. iii. p. 394.

**** Stowe, p. 674.

v Strype, vol. iii. p. 129. Append.

v* Life of Burleigh, published by Collins.

v** Life of Burleigh published by Collins, p. 40.

But though there were preserved great remains of the ancient customs,

the nobility were by degrees acquiring a taste for elegant luxury;

and many edifices, in particular were built by them, neat, large, and

sumptuous; to the great ornament of the kingdom, says Camden,[*] [41]

but to the no less decay of the glorious hospitality of the nation. It

is, however, more reasonable to think, that this new turn of expense

promoted arts and industry; while the ancient hospitality was the source

of vice, disorder, sedition, and idleness.[**]

Among the other species of luxury, that of apparel began much to

increase during this age; and the queen thought proper to restrain it

by proclamation.[***] Her example was very little conformable to her

edicts. As no woman was ever more conceited of her beauty, or more

desirous of making impression on the hearts of beholders, no one ever

went to a greater extravagance in apparel, or studied more the variety

and richness of her dresses. She appeared almost every day in a

different habit; and tried all the several modes by which she hoped to

render herself agreeable. She was also so fond of her clothes, that

she never could part with any of them; and at her death she had in her

wardrobe all the different habits, to the number of three thousand,

which she had ever worn in her lifetime.[****] [42]

* See note OO, at the end of the volume.

** This appears from Burleigh’s will: he specifies only the

number of ounces to be given to each legatee, and appoints a

goldsmith to see it weighed out to them, without making any

distinction of the pieces.

**** See note PP, at the end of the volume.

The retrenchment of the ancient hospitality, and the diminution of

retainers, were favorable to the prerogative of the sovereign; and, by

disabling the great noblemen from resistance, promoted the execution

of the laws, and extended the authority of the courts of justice. There

were many peculiar causes in the situation and character of Henry

VII. which augmented the authority of the crown: most of these causes

concurred in succeeding princes; together with the factions in religion,

and the acquisition of the supremacy, a most important article of

prerogative: but the manners of the age were a general cause, which

operated during this whole period, and which continually tended to

diminish the riches, and still more the influence, of the aristocracy,

anciently so formidable to the crown. The habits of luxury dissipated

the immense fortunes of the ancient barons: and as the new methods of

expense gave subsistence to mechanics and merchants, who lived in an

independent manner on the fruits of their own industry, a nobleman,

instead of that unlimited ascendant which he was wont to assume over

those who were maintained at his board, or subsisted by salaries

conferred on them, retained only that moderate influence which

customers have over tradesmen, and which can never be dangerous to civil

government. The landed proprietors also, having a greater demand for

money than for men, endeavored to turn their lands to the best account

with regard to profit; and either enclosing their fields, or joining

many small farms into a few large ones, dismissed those useless hands

which formerly were always at their call in every attempt to subvert the

government, or oppose a neighboring baron. By all these means the cities

increased; the middle rank of men began to be rich and powerful; the

prince, who in effect was the same with the law, was implicitly obeyed:

and though the further progress of the same causes begat a new plan of

liberty, founded on the privileges of the commons, yet in the interval

between the fall of the nobles and the rise of this order, the sovereign

took advantage of the present situation, and assumed an authority almost

absolute.

Whatever may be commonly imagined, from the authority of Lord Bacon,

and from that of Harrington, and later authors the laws of Henry VII.

contributed very little towards the great revolution which happened

about this period in the English constitution. The practice of breaking

entails by a fine and recovery, had been introduced in the preceding

reigns; and this prince only gave indirectly a legal sanction to the

practice, by reforming some abuses which attended it. But the settled

authority which he acquired to the crown enabled the sovereign to

encroach on the separate jurisdictions of the barons, and produced a

more general and regular execution of the laws. The counties palatine

underwent the same fate as the feudal powers; and, by a statute of Henry

VIII.,[*] the jurisdiction of these counties was annexed to the crown,

and all writs were ordained to run in the king’s name. But the change of

manners was the chief cause of the secret revolution of government, and

subverted the power of the barons. There appear still in this reign some

remains of the ancient slavery of the boors and peasants,[*] but none

afterwards.

Learning, on its revival, was held in high estimation by the English

princes and nobles; and as it was not yet prostituted by being too

common, even the great deemed it an object of ambition to attain a

character for literature. The four successive sovereigns, Henry, Edward,

Mary, and Elizabeth, may, on one account or other, be admitted into

the class of authors. Queen Catharine Parr translated a book: Lady Jane

Gray, considering her age, and her sex, and her station, may be regarded

as a prodigy of literature. Sir Thomas Smith was raised from being

professor in Cambridge, first to be ambassador to France, then secretary

of state. The despatches of those times, and among others those of

Burleigh himself, are frequently interlarded with quotations from the

Greek and Latin classics. Even the ladies of the court valued themselves

on knowledge: Lady Burleigh, Lady Bacon, and their two sisters, were

mistresses of the ancient as well as modern languages; and placed more

pride in their erudition than in their rank and quality.

Queen Elizabeth wrote and translated several books: and she was

familiarly acquainted with the Greek as well as Latin tongue.[**] [43]

* 27 Henry VIII. c. 24.

** See note QQ, at the end of the volume.

It is pretended that she made an extemporary reply in Greek to the

university of Cambridge, who had addressed her in that language. It is

certain that she answered in Latin without premeditation, and in a

very spirited manner, to the Polish ambassador, who had been wanting

in respect to her. When she had finished, she turned about to her

courtiers, and said, “God’s death, my lords,” (for she was much addicted

to swearing,) “I have been forced this day to scour up my old Latin,

that hath long lain rusting.”[*]

* Speed.

Elizabeth, even after she was queen, did not entirely drop the ambition

of appearing as an author; and, next to her desire of admiration for

beauty, this seems to have been the chief object of her vanity. She

translated Boethius of the Consolation of Philosophy; in order, as she

pretended, to allay her grief for Henry IV.’s change of religion. As far

us we can judge from Elizabeth’s compositions, we may pronounce that,

notwithstanding her application, and her excellent parts, her taste in

literature was but indifferent: she was much inferior to her successor

in this particular, who was himself no perfect model of eloquence.

Unhappily for literature, at least for the learned of this age,

the queen’s vanity lay more in shining by her own learning, than in

encouraging men of genius by her liberality. Spenser himself, the finest

English writer of his age, was long neglected; and after the death of

Sir Philip Sidney, his patron, was allowed to die almost for want. This

poet contains great beauties, a sweet and harmonious versification, easy

elocution, a fine imagination; yet does the perusal of his work become

so tedious, that one never finishes it from the mere pleasure which it

affords; it soon becomes a kind of task-reading, and it requires some

effort and resolution to carry us on to the end of his long performance.

This effect, of which every one is conscious, is usually ascribed to the

change of manners: but manners have more changed since Homer’s age; and

yet that poet remains still the favorite of every reader of taste and

judgment. Homer copied true natural manners, which, however rough or

uncultivated, will always form an agreeable and interesting picture; but

the pencil of the English poet was employed in drawing the affectations,

and conceits, and fopperies of chivalry, which appear ridiculous as

soon as they lose the recommendation of the mode. The tediousness of

continued allegory, and that, too, seldom striking or ingenious, has

also contributed to render the Fairy Queen peculiarly tiresome; not to

mention the too great frequency of its descriptions, and the languor of

its stanza. Upon the whole, Spenser maintains his place upon the shelves

among our English classics; but he is seldom seen on the table; and

there is scarcely any one, if he dares to be ingenuous, but will

confess, that, notwithstanding all the merit of the poet, he affords an

entertainment with which the palate is soon satiated. Several writers of

late have amused themselves in copying the style of Spenser; and no

imitation has been so indifferent as not to bear a great resemblance to

the original: his manner is so peculiar that it is almost impossible not

to transfer some of it into the copy.