It is an extraordinary circumstance in our history, that the succession
to the English dominion, in two remarkable cases, was never settled by
the possessors of the throne themselves during their lifetime; and that
there is every reason to believe that this mighty transfer of three
kingdoms became the sole act of their ministers, who considered the
succession merely as a state expedient. Two of our most able sovereigns
found themselves in this predicament: Queen Elizabeth and the Protector
Cromwell! Cromwell probably had his reasons not to name his successor;
his positive election would have dissatisfied the opposite parties of
his government, whom he only ruled while he was able to cajole them. He
must have been aware that latterly he had need of conciliating all
parties to his usurpation, and was probably as doubtful on his death-bed
whom to appoint his successor as at any other period of his reign.
Ludlow suspects that Cromwell was "so discomposed in body or mind, that
he could not attend to that matter; and whether he named any one is to
me uncertain." All that we know is the report of the Secretary Thurlow
and his chaplains, who, when the protector lay in his last agonies,
suggested to him the propriety of choosing his eldest son, and they tell
us that he agreed to this choice. Had Cromwell been in his senses, he
would have probably fixed on _Henry_, the lord-lieutenant of Ireland,
rather than on _Richard_, or possibly had not chosen either of his sons!
Elizabeth, from womanish infirmity, or from state-reasons, could not
endure the thoughts of her successor; and long threw into jeopardy the
politics of all the cabinets of Europe, each of which had its favourite
candidate to support. The legitimate heir to the throne of England was
to be the creature of her breath, yet Elizabeth would not speak him into
existence! This had, however, often raised the discontents of the
nation, and we shall see how it harassed the queen in her dying hours.
It is even suspected that the queen still retained so much of the woman,
that she could never overcome her perverse dislike to name a successor;
so that, according to this opinion, she died and left the crown to the
mercy of a party! This would have been acting unworthy of the
magnanimity of her great character--and as it is ascertained that the
queen was very sensible that she lay in a dying state several days
before the natural catastrophe occurred, it is difficult to believe that
she totally disregarded so important a circumstance. It is therefore,
reasoning _a priori_, most natural to conclude that the choice of a
successor must have occupied her thoughts, as well as the anxieties of
her ministers; and that she would not have left the throne in the same
unsettled state at her death as she had persevered in during her whole
life. How did she express herself when bequeathing the crown to James
the First, or did she bequeath it at all?
In the popular pages of her female historian Miss Aikin, it is observed
that "the closing scene of the long and eventful life of Queen Elizabeth
was marked by that peculiarity of character and destiny which attended
her from the cradle, and pursued her to the grave." The last days of
Elizabeth were indeed most melancholy--she died a victim of the higher
passions, and perhaps as much of grief as of age, refusing all remedies
and even nourishment. But in all the published accounts, I can nowhere
discover how she conducted herself respecting the circumstance of our
present inquiry. The most detailed narrative, or as Gray the poet calls
it, "the Earl of Monmouth's _odd account_ of Queen Elizabeth's death,"
is the one most deserving notice; and there we find the circumstance of
this inquiry introduced. The queen at that moment was reduced to so sad
a state, that it is doubtful whether her majesty was at all sensible of
the inquiries put to her by her ministers respecting the succession. The
Earl of Monmouth says, "On Wednesday, the 23rd of March, she grew
speechless. That afternoon, by signs, she called for her council, and by
putting her hand to her head when the King of Scots was named to succeed
her, they all knew he was the man she desired should reign after her."
Such a sign as that of a dying woman putting her hand to her head was,
to say the least, a very ambiguous acknowledgment of the right of the
Scottish monarch to the English throne. The "odd" but very _naive_
account of Robert Cary, afterwards Earl of Monmouth, is not furnished
with dates, nor with the exactness of a diary. Something might have
occurred on a preceding day which had not reached him. Camden describes
the death-bed scene of Elizabeth; by this authentic writer it appears
that she had confided her state-secret of the succession to the lord
admiral (the Earl of Nottingham); and when the earl found the queen
almost at her extremity, _he communicated her majesty's secret to the
council_, who commissioned the lord admiral, the lord keeper, and the
secretary, to wait on her majesty, and acquaint her that they came in
the name of the rest to learn her pleasure in reference to _the
succession_. The queen was then very weak, and answered them with a
faint voice, that she had already declared, that as she held a regal
sceptre, so she desired no other than a royal successor. When the
secretary requested her to explain herself, the queen said, "I would
have a king succeed me; and who should that he but my nearest kinsman,
the King of Scots?" Here this state conversation was put an end to by
the interference of the archbishop advising her majesty to turn her
thoughts to God. "Never," she replied, "has my mind wandered from him."
An historian of Camden's high integrity would hardly have forged a
fiction to please the new monarch: yet Camden has not been referred to
on this occasion by the exact Birch, who draws his information from the
letters of the French ambassador, Villeroy; information which it appears
the English ministers had confided to this ambassador; nor do we get any
distinct ideas from Elizabeth's more recent popular historian, who could
only transcribe the account of Cary. He had told us a fact which he
could not be mistaken in, that the queen fell speechless on Wednesday,
23rd of March, on which day, however, she called her council, and made
that sign with her hand, which, as the lords choose to understand, for
ever united the two kingdoms. But the noble editor of Cary's Memoirs
(the Earl of Cork and Orrery) has observed that "the speeches made for
Elizabeth on her death-bed are all forged." Echard, Rapin, and a long
string of historians, make her say faintly (so faintly indeed that it
could not possibly be heard), "I will that a king succeed me, and who
should that be but my nearest kinsman, the King of Scots?" A different
account of this matter will be found in the following memoirs. "She was
speechless, and almost expiring, when the chief councillors of state
were called into her bedchamber. As soon as they were perfectly
convinced that she could not utter an articulate word, and scarce could
hear or understand one, they named the King of Scots to her, _a liberty
they dared not to have taken if she had been able to speak_; she put her
hand to her head, which was probably at that time in agonising pain.
_The lords, who interpreted her signs just as they pleased_, were
immediately convinced that the _motion of her hand to her head was a
declaration of James the Sixth as her successor_. What was this but the
unanimous interpretation of persons who were adoring the rising sun?"
This is lively and plausible; but the noble editor did not recollect
that "the speeches made by Elizabeth on her death-bed," which he deems
"forgeries," in consequence of the circumstance he had found in Cary's
Memoirs, originate with Camden, and were only repeated by Rapin and
Echard, &c. I am now to confirm the narrative of the elder historian, as
well as the circumstance related by Cary, describing the sign of the
queen a little differently, which happened on Wednesday, 23rd. A
hitherto unnoticed document pretends to give a fuller and more
circumstantial account of this affair, which commenced on _the preceding
day_, when the queen retained the power of speech; and it will be
confessed that the language here used has all that loftiness and brevity
which was the natural style of this queen. I have discovered a curious
document in a manuscript volume formerly in the possession of Petyt, and
seemingly in his own handwriting. I do not doubt its authenticity, and
it could only have come from some of the illustrious personages who were
the actors in that solemn scene, probably from Cecil. This memorandum is
entitled
"Account of the last words of Queen Elizabeth about her Successor.
"On the Tuesday before her death, being the twenty-third of March, the
admiral being on the right side of her bed, the lord keeper on the left,
and Mr. Secretary Cecil (afterwards Earl of Salisbury) at the bed's
feet, all standing, the lord admiral put her in mind of her speech
concerning the succession had at Whitehall, and that they, in the name
of all the rest of her council, came unto her to know her pleasure who
should succeed; whereunto she thus replied:
"_I told you my seat had been the seat of kings, and I will have no
rascal to succeed me. And who should succeed me but a king?_
"The lords not understanding this dark speech, and looking one on the
other; at length Mr. Secretary boldly asked her what she meant by those
words, that _no rascal should succeed her_. Whereto she replied, that
_her meaning was, that a king should succeed: and who_, quoth she,
_should, that be but our cousin of Scotland_?
"They asked her whether that were her absolute resolution? whereto she
answered, _I pray you trouble me no more; for I will have none but him_.
With which answer they departed.
"Notwithstanding, after again, about four o'clock in the afternoon the
next day, being Wednesday, after the Archbishop of Canterbury and other
divines had been with her, and left her in a manner speechless, the
three lords aforesaid repaired unto her again, asking her if she
remained in her former resolution, and who should succeed her? but not
being able to speak, was asked by Mr. Secretary in this sort, 'We
beseech your majesty, if you remain in your former resolution, and that
you would have the King of Scots to succeed you in your kingdom, show
some sign unto us: whereat, _suddenly heaving herself upwards in her
bed, and putting her arms out of bed, she held her hands jointly over
her head in manner of a crown_; whence as they guessed, she signified
that she did not only wish him the kingdom, but desire continuance of
his estate: after which they departed, and the next morning she died.
Immediately after her death, all the lords, as well of the council as
other noblemen that were at the court, came from Richmond to Whitehall
by six o'clock in the morning, where other noblemen that were in London
met them. Touching the succession, after some speeches of divers
competitors and matters of state, at length the admiral rehearsed all
the aforesaid premises which the late queen had spoken to him, and to
the lord keeper, and Mr. Secretary (Cecil), with the manner thereof;
which they, being asked, did affirm to be true upon their HONOUR."
Such is this singular document of secret history. I cannot but value it
as authentic, because the one part is evidently alluded to by Camden,
and the other is fully confirmed by Cary; and besides this, the
remarkable expression of "rascal" is found in the letter of the French
ambassador. There were two interviews with the queen, and Cary appears
only to have noticed the last on Wednesday, when the queen lay
speechless. Elizabeth all her life had persevered in an obstinate
mysteriousness respecting the succession, and it harassed her latest
moments. The second interview of her ministers may seem to us quite
supernumerary; but Cary's "putting her hand to her head," too meanly
describes the "joining her hands in manner of a crown."