THE TUDOR QUEENS
_Grave Difficulties as to the Right of Succession—Statement
of the Various Claims—Duke of Northumberland’s Selfish
Scheme—Its Failure—His Arrest and Execution—Lady Jane
Grey—Triumph of Mary—Her Coronation—Sir Thomas Wyatt’s
Rebellion—Execution of Lady Jane and her Husband—Execution
of Duke of Suffolk and Sir Thomas Wyatt—Accusation against
the Princess Elizabeth—Her Imprisonment and Liberation—Death
of Mary and Accession of Elizabeth—Her Coronation—Religious
Troubles—Lord and Lady Hertford—Plots in Favour of the
Queen of Scots—Hopes of the King of Spain—Hatred of Spain
in the English Nation—Execution of the Duke of Norfolk, the
First for Fourteen Years—Fresh Prisoners owing to the Jesuit
Activity against the Queen—Execution of the Queen of Scots at
Fotheringhay, and Results—Sir Walter Raleigh’s Imprisonment
and Liberation—Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex—His Prosperity,
Folly, Downfall—Death of the Queen._
There had been no doubt about the succession when Henry VIII died. Jane
Seymour, the mother of Edward, was Henry’s lawful wife beyond question,
for Queens Katharine and Anne were both dead when he married Jane. But
on the death of Edward the matter looked very complicated in many eyes.
Let us take the possible claimants in order. First, there were the two
sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, who had both been declared illegitimate on
the ground that their mothers had never been lawful wives. King Henry,
it is true, in his later years, had received them as his daughters, and
as possible heirs, though the Statute disqualifying them had not been
repealed. Next, Henry VII had left two daughters. The elder, Margaret,
married James IV of Scotland, who was killed at Flodden. His son, James
V, was father of Mary Queen of Scots, but she was excluded from right
of succession by the Alien Act, having been born on a foreign soil. But
further, Margaret, within a year of King James’s death, had married the
Earl of Angus, and a wretched marriage it was. He had a wife already,
but a papal brief decreed that, as she had married in good faith, her
child Margaret was legitimate.
Henry VII’s second daughter, Mary, married Louis XII of France, but he
died in his honeymoon. She then married Charles Brandon, afterwards
created Duke of Suffolk, he having a wife alive. Their eldest daughter,
Frances, was given in marriage to Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset, the
greatgrandson of Sir John Grey, first husband of Elizabeth Woodville.
Edward IV, on marrying her, made her son a peer. It is a miserable
fact to have to record that the Marquis of Dorset, who now married
the daughter of Brandon and Queen Mary, had put away his lawful wife
in order to do so, the Lady Catherine FitzAlan, sister of the Earl
of Arundel. No wonder that the latter, who had been an affectionate
brother-in-law, became Dorset’s fierce enemy, and nursed his wrath
in secret. Grey was created Duke of Suffolk on account of his royal
spouse, and perhaps thought that the injury he had done was forgotten
in his prosperity. His wife Frances, a lady of amiable temper, brought
him three daughters, the eldest being the Lady Jane Grey, and out of
all this crooked dealing came a great tragedy.
The Duke of Northumberland, who had risen victorious over the Seymour
family, and was apparently in the plenitude of power at King Edward’s
death, was an able, bold, and unprincipled man. He had wedded his
fourth son, Lord Guildford Dudley, to the Lady Jane, and caused the
dying Edward to declare her his legitimate successor. Obviously this
was not the case, for her mother was yet alive, and would under any
circumstances have had first claim. The poor girl was only sixteen
years old. All accounts agree in making her both learned and amiable.
She had no ambitions, but was told that duty lay upon her. The Duke
for some hours kept the King’s death secret, while he took measures
for securing the person of Mary, and brought the Lady Jane to the
Tower, and also a large number of influential peers, to swear homage to
her. But the Londoners were silent, “not a single shout of welcome or
Godspeed was raised as they passed through the silent crowd on their
way to the Tower,” writes Machyn in his diary. The Duke was hated for
his arrogance, and the interference of France and Spain was to be
looked for if Mary’s rights were interfered with. And Jane’s husband,
a poor, wretched, selfish creature, whined and sulked because he had
expected to be declared King Consort. Northumberland, having had Jane
duly proclaimed, went forth to encounter Mary, and soon saw that the
game was up. The fleet off Yarmouth had declared in Mary’s favour, so
had the soldiers which he had sent against her. And so in the street
at Cambridge he threw his cap up in the air with the cry, “God save
Queen Mary!” But it availed him nothing. The Earl of Arundel, who had
been forced by Northumberland to offer allegiance to Jane, but who
waited his opportunity, came forward with a warrant for his arrest,
signed by Mary, and on July 25, nineteen days after Edward’s death,
he was brought a prisoner to the Tower; on August 18 he was tried and
condemned for high treason in Westminster Hall, the Duke of Norfolk
presiding as Lord High Sheriff. He was taken back to the Beauchamp
Tower, and inscriptions which were cut by him and his sons may still be
read on the walls. Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, had been a prisoner
there under King Edward; he was now restored to his dignity, and he
paid a visit to Northumberland, who, in the hope of saving his life,
declared himself a Catholic. Gardiner naturally took the opportunity;
Mass was celebrated in the White Tower Chapel, and the Duke received
after making recantation. Next day he was beheaded on Tower Hill, still
clinging desperately to the hope of life, and making profession all the
way to the scaffold of the fervency of his faith. Sir John Gates and
Sir Thomas Palmer, both implicated in the same treason, perished with
him.
Meanwhile the “nine days’ reign” of the hapless Lady Jane was at an
end. She was consigned to the Lieutenant’s Lodging, called the King’s
House, and her husband to the Beauchamp Tower, where the one word
“Jane,” carved on the wall by him, is still to be seen. All through
the month of September Jane was allowed to walk in the garden, and her
husband and his brother Henry to promenade the outer walk on the wall
which leads from the Beauchamp to the Bell Tower.
Queen Mary was crowned with great splendour on October 1. She was
accompanied by her half-sister Elizabeth.
On November 13 a procession went forth from the Tower Gate to the
Guildhall. First the Gentleman Chief Warder, carrying the axe, next
Archbishop Cranmer, followed by Lord Guildford Dudley and Lady Jane,
the last-named accompanied by two of her ladies. They were arraigned
for high treason, the Lord Mayor presiding, with the Duke of Norfolk as
High Sheriff. They pleaded guilty, received sentence, and were taken
back to the Tower.
It is possible that Mary may have had it in her mind to spare Lady
Jane’s life, but there came a new event, namely, Wyatt’s ill-starred
rising against the projected marriage of Queen Mary with Philip of
Spain. The opinion of the nation was strongly against it, and Wyatt
was certainly moved with an honest purpose. I would not venture to say
as much for his fellow-conspirator, the Duke of Suffolk, Lady Jane’s
father, who probably renewed his hopes of setting his daughter on the
throne. He undertook to head a rising in Leicestershire, as Sir Peter
Carew did in Devon. With the details of this unhappy expedition we have
little to do here. Wyatt started from Maidstone, after publishing a
declaration against the Queen’s marriage, and advanced with a numerous
force to Rochester, where he defeated the Duke of Norfolk and Sir
Henry Jerningham, who had been sent against him. Then he moved on to
Gravesend, where he was met by some members of the Privy Council, who
exhorted him to make known his grievances in a less disorderly manner.
He assented, provided “the custody of the Tower and the Queen within
it” were entrusted to him. This condition being declined, he went on
towards London. Mary was exhorted to take refuge in the Tower, but
cowardice was not one of her faults; she refused, and offered a reward
of a hundred pounds a year to any man who would bring her Wyatt’s head;
she also gave out to the citizens of London that she would not marry
Philip if the match should be disagreeable to the nation. Wyatt, too,
unappalled by his perilous situation, appeared at Southwark, opposite
the Tower, fired upon it and was fired upon by the garrison, on both
sides without effect, but the fact is to be noted as the last time in
its history that the Tower was ever attacked. How he went on, crossed
the river at Kingston, found himself more and more deserted, but still
came forward with the courage of despair until he was captured between
Temple Bar and Ludgate Hill, we all know. Now let Holinshed take up the
narrative: “As for the principals of this faction, Thomas Wyat, William
Knevet, Thomas Cobham, two brethren named Mantells, and Alexander
Bret, were brought by Sir Henry Jerningham by water to the Tower,
prisoners, where Sir Philip R. Denny received them at the bulworke, and
as Wyat passed he said: ‘Go, traitor, there never was such a traitor in
England’; to whom Sir Thomas Wyat turned and said, ‘I am no traitor,
I would thou shouldst well know that thou art more traitor than I, it
is not the point of an honest man to call me so,’ and so went forth.
When he came to the Tower gate, Sir Thomas Bridges, the Lieutenant,
took him through the wicket, first Mantell, and said, ‘Ah thou traitor,
what hast thou and thy companie wrought.’ But he, holding downe his
head, said nothing. Then came Thomas Knevet, whom Master Chambeleine,
gentleman porter of the Tower, tooke in. Then came Alexander Bret,
whome Sir Thomas Pope tooke by the bosome, saying, ‘Oh traitor, how
couldest thou find in thy heart to worke such a villanie, as to take
wages, and being trusted ouer a band of men, to fall to hir enemies,
returning against hir in battell.’ Bret answered, ‘Yea I have offended
in that case.’ Then came Thomas Cobham, whome Sir Thomas Poines tooke
in, and said, ‘Alas, Maister Cobham, what wind headed you to worke such
treason’; and he answered, ‘Oh sir, I was seduced.’ Then came in Sir
Thomas Wyat, whom Sir John Bridges tooke by the collar and said, ‘Oh
thou villen and unhappie traitor, how couldest thou find in thy hart to
worke such detestable treason to the queenes maiestie, who gaue thee
thy life and liuing once alreadie, although thou diddest before this
time beare armes in the field against hir and now to yeeld hir battell.
If it were not (saith he) but that the lawe must passe upon thee, I
would sticke thee through with my dagger.’ To the which, Wyat holding
his arms under his side, and looking grieuously with a grim looke upon
the Lieutenant, said, ‘It is no maisterie now’; and so passed on.
Thomas Wyat had on a shirt of maile, with sleeues verie faire, thereon
a veluet cassocke, and a yellow lace, with the windlace of his dag
hanging thereon, and a paire of boots on his legs, and on his head a
faire hat of veluet, with a broad bone worke lace about it. William
Kneuet, Thomas Cobham, and Bret, were the like apparelled.”
Wyatt was confined in the first floor of the great keep, his adherents
in the crypt beneath. It is hardly to be wondered at that this fixed
the fate of poor Lady Jane. Her father was imprisoned on February 10.
Two days before Feckenham, the Queen’s confessor, afterwards Abbot of
Westminster, was sent to bid her and her husband prepare for death,
and to exhort them to embrace the Roman faith; but on this point they
were both firm in their refusal, and the 12th was fixed for the fatal
day. It was originally intended that they should both die on Tower
Hill, but the fear that Jane’s beauty, simplicity, and sweetness would
excite popular sympathy, induced the authorities to change the place
of her suffering to the Tower Green. When Lord Guildford was told this
he requested a final interview with her, but she declined it, lest it
should change their constancy. On the day appointed he was led forth,
and as he passed the window of “Master Partridge’s House,” where she
was confined, she waved her farewell to him. At the Bulwark Gate, the
sheriffs met him and conducted him to the scaffold, where he met his
fate with firmness. The body was conveyed on a litter to the Tower
Chapel, and Jane saw it on its way thither. “O Guildford, Guildford!”
said she, “the antepast is not so bitter that thou hast tasted, and
which I shall soon taste, as to make my flesh tremble: it is nothing
compared to the feast of which I shall partake this day in Heaven.”
When the Lieutenant of the Tower came to conduct her to her death,
and asked her for some small present which he might keep in memory
of her, she gave him her tablets on which she had just written three
sentences, Latin, Greek, and English. At the scaffold she addressed
the bystanders, protesting that she had erred through bad advice,
in the belief that she was serving the interests of the country,
and that she submitted to the consequences of her error without
murmuring. She prayed fervently, and then—but let us hear Holinshed
once more—“stood vp and gaue hir maid (called Mistress Ellin) her
gloues and handkercher, and hir booke she also gaue to Maister Bridges,
(brother of) the Lieutenant of the Tower, and so untied hir gowne: and
the executioner pressed to helpe hir off with it, but she desired him
to let hir alone, and turned hir toward hir two gentlewomen, who helped
hir off therewith, and with hir other attires, and they gaue hir a fair
handkercher to put about hir eies. Then the executioner kneeled downe
and asked hir forgiuenesse, whom she forgaue most willinglie. Then he
willed hir to stand vpon the straw, which doone, she saw the blocke,
and then she said, ‘I pray you dispatch me quicklie.’ Then she kneeled
downe, saiing, ‘Will you take it off before I laie me downe?’ Whereunto
the executioner answered, ‘No, Madame.’ Then tied she the handkercher
about hir eies, and, feeling for the blocke, she said, ‘Where is it?
where is it?’ One of the standers-by guided hir thereunto, and she laid
downe hir head vpon the blocke, and then stretched forth hir bodie, and
said, ‘Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit,’ and so finished hir
life.”
Eleven days later her father, the Duke of Suffolk, was beheaded, and
many other participators in the ill-concerted rebellion were also put
to death; three were hanged at Maidstone, three at Sevenoaks, more
than fifty died in the City on the block or the gallows, the gates
and London Bridge were disfigured with clusters of rotting heads, in
several of the principal streets gibbets bore their ghastly burdens in
chains, and the air was tainted far and wide. In the midst of this time
Mary was married to Philip at Winchester.
Wyatt, who was put to death on April 11, had used some expressions
which were held to implicate, among others, the Princess Elizabeth.
The latter was lying sick, in semi-custody, at Ashridge in Herts, and
a strong guard was sent to escort her to London, which performed its
duty so zealously as to force admission into her bedchamber. She was
brought, in spite of her remonstrances, by easy stages to London, and
remained for a fortnight in close confinement at Whitehall, and was
then conveyed to the Tower. Her angry protestations made a scene as
she was landed at Traitors’ Gate on Palm Sunday, that day being fixed
upon because the citizens were strictly ordered to Church, and it was
feared that popular disaffection would be exhibited if the Princess
was conducted through the city. Whilst in the Tower, her confinement
was of the most rigid character; the Mass, though offensive to her,
was constantly said in her apartment; at first she was not allowed to
pass the threshold of her room, and when afterwards she obtained the
privilege, through the intercession of Lord Chandos, she was constantly
attended by the Lieutenant and Constable of the Tower, with a guard.
“Queen Elizabeth’s Walk” is still the name of the path she daily
promenaded. She was frequently examined by the Council, but nothing
against her could be found, and Wyatt with his dying breath declared
her innocence. On May 19 she was liberated from the Tower, and
conveyed, under the charge of Sir Henry Bedingfield, to Woodstock. In
the old London Tavern in Leadenhall Street is preserved a heavy pewter
meat dish and cover, which it is said was used at the meal which she
took after leaving the Tower. And there is another tradition that the
bells of some of the city churches were joyously rung on her release,
and that to these churches on her accession she gave silken bell-ropes.
There still remained many prisoners in the Tower who had been concerned
in the Lady Jane attempt and Wyatt’s subsequent rebellion. A large
number of these were now released. The Earl of Warwick and his three
brothers, Ambrose, Robert and Dudley, were in the Beauchamp Tower, but
the Earl died in October, 1554, and his brothers were liberated next
year. There was a strong desire to win popular favour and make the
Spanish marriage less unpopular. The Archbishop of York, who had been
imprisoned for refusing to attend Queen Mary’s coronation, and some
twenty other knights and gentlemen were set free.
With the religious persecutions which followed for three years and a
half we have no concern here. There was one more rising against the
increasing authority of the Spaniards; Thomas, the second son of Lord
Stafford, landed at Scarborough and took the castle, but was defeated
by the Earl of Westmoreland, and a large number of prisoners were
brought to the Tower. Stafford was beheaded on Tower Hill, and the
others were hanged at Tyburn. Queen Mary died on November 17, 1558, and
the accession of Elizabeth was certainly hailed with joy by the English
nation.
Elizabeth was at Hatfield when her sister died. On November 28 she came
to London, and entered, amidst general acclamations, the fortress where
she had been so rigorously imprisoned. It is no wonder if it found no
charms for her; on December 5 she retired first to Somerset House, then
to Whitehall, where she remained until the eve of her coronation, when
she came back to the Tower again. The procession from hence to the
Abbey was more splendid than any that had been recorded. Seated in an
open chariot all glittering with gold, herself blazing with jewels,
she was carried through streets strewn with flowers, with banners
and tapestry on the houses, the conduits running wine, and the city
companies manning the streets in their gorgeous liveries. A young woman
called Deborah stood under a palm-tree in Fleet Street, and prophesied
great prosperity to the nation.
Though the horrors of the stake were at an end, religious persecution
was not; and the Tower seldom appears in the reign of Elizabeth save
as a State prison. The Reformers were only too ready to retaliate on
the Roman party, and so the Bishop of Winchester (Gardiner), who had
rendered himself obnoxious under Mary, was soon in durance here, and
was followed by the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of Ely, Lincoln,
Worcester, Exeter, and Bath, and by Feckenham, Abbot of Westminster,
and other Church dignitaries, for denying the Queen’s supremacy.
And there were fresh prisoners of State. Lady Catherine Grey, one of
Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting, Lady Jane’s sister, married in 1560
Lord Hertford, eldest son of the Duke of Somerset, but secretly, as
it was known that the Queen would not approve of the match. He was
twenty-two, and she twenty. The young people walked from Whitehall
to Lord Hertford’s house in Fleet Street, and here the marriage took
place, though they could not remember the name of the minister who thus
clandestinely united them. When in due time the union could no longer
be concealed they were in a terrible fright, Lady Catherine being of
near kin to the Queen. Lord Hertford could not face her majesty’s
anger, and fled across sea, leaving his poor wife to do the best she
could for herself. This was not much, for when she threw herself at her
royal mistress’s feet and begged for pardon, Elizabeth in a fury sent
her off to the Tower, where, soon after, her child was born.[3] Lord
Hertford, returning to England, was sent also, and remained there many
a long year, in the deeper disgrace because he could produce no proof
of his marriage. He was separated from her, but bribed the keepers
and gained access to her chamber, the result of which was the birth
of another child. Elizabeth, we need hardly say, was more furious
than ever; she declared, and probably thought, that there had been no
marriage, dismissed summarily the Lieutenant, Warner, and had Hertford
brought before the Star Chamber, where he was fined £15,000 and sent
back to his prison, where he lay for nine years longer. During that
time Lady Catherine died (1567). After his liberation he married again,
but proved the validity of his first marriage in 1606 by discovering
the minister who had performed it (Collins’s _Peerage_).
The Earl of Lennox was imprisoned in 1561, on suspicion of privately
corresponding with the Queen of Scots, but was released next year. His
wife, however, being a near kinswoman of Elizabeth, was continually
suspected by her, and was imprisoned three times, “not for any crime of
treason,” says Camden, “but for love matters; first when Thomas Howard,
son of the first Duke of Norfolk of that name, falling in love with
her, was imprisoned and died in the Tower of London; then for the love
of Henry, Lord Darnley, her son, to Mary, Queen of Scots; and lastly
for the love of Charles, her younger son, to Elizabeth Cavendish,
mother to the Lady Arabella, with whom the Queen of Scots was accused
to have made up the match.” In the King’s House there is an inscription
in one of the rooms recording the second of these imprisonments.
The struggle between Elizabeth and the Queen of Scots was long and
fierce. Before it closed on the scaffold at Fotheringhay, February,
1587, it had brought many prisoners to the Tower. Among the earliest
were two more members of the Pole family, Arthur and Edmund, great
grandchildren of the Duke of Clarence. They were imprisoned in the
Beauchamp Tower in 1562 on the charge of conspiring to set Mary Stuart
on the English throne. Inscriptions on the wall may still be seen,
bearing their names. There can be no question that Elizabeth’s position
was one of great danger. England was half ruined when she came to
the throne—no army, no fleet, a huge debt, and the whole country
containing a population less than that of London to-day. And Spain was
rich and populous, with the finest army and navy in the world. Philip
expected England to buy his support against her neighbour, France, by
becoming a dependency of Spain. But he misjudged not only the courage
of the Queen, but the indomitable determination of her nation. They
had had enough of Spain. Unjustly, no doubt, they attributed all the
miseries and disasters of Mary’s reign to the Spanish alliance, and
it was the special feature which so wonderfully marked the reign of
Elizabeth that her people rallied round her in the hour of danger as
people had never done to a sovereign before. We have to bear this
in mind when thinking of the high-handed doings of Burleigh and the
astute diplomacies of Walsingham. A suspicion of conspiracy was a most
serious matter then. In 1569 Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, son of
the ill-fated Surrey, was brought in on the charge of high treason,
his overt act being the proposal to wed the Queen of Scots. Others
implicated in the conspiracy to place Mary on the throne were the Earls
of Arundel and Southampton, Lord Lumley, Lord Cobham, and his brother
Thomas. A batch of letters, written by an Italian banker named Ridolfi,
resident in London, on the same business, got into the hands of the
government, with the result that a fresh haul of prisoners was brought
in. They furnished evidence that the Duke of Alva was laying plans for
the murder of Elizabeth, prior to Norfolk’s marriage with Mary. These
prisoners were distributed in the various towers, and a young man named
Charles Bailly, who was seized at Dover with a number of treasonable
letters in his possession, was placed in the Tower, and under torture
gave evidence against many prisoners. There are several inscriptions
by him in the Beauchamp Tower. The Duke of Norfolk was beheaded on
Tower Hill June 2, 1579, the first execution there for fourteen years.
The old scaffold had become rotten, and a new one was set up for the
occasion. John Leslie, Bishop of Ross, when put on his trial for the
same crime, pleaded that, being an ambassador, he was not amenable to
criminal trial. And on this plea he was put back, kept prisoner for two
years longer, and then dismissed the kingdom, to which he never
returned. Some more executions took place, and a great many culprits
were fined and set at liberty.
For the next few years the Tower held but few captives. Peter Burchet,
a member of the Middle Temple, was committed in October, 1573, for
attempting to murder Hawkins, the celebrated admiral, whom he mistook
for the Chancellor Hatton. During his confinement, he struck to death
a man left in charge of him, who was quietly reading the Bible at the
window. His hand was first struck off for striking a blow in a royal
palace, after which he was hanged at Temple Bar. In 1577 a gentleman
named Sherin was drawn on a hurdle from hence to Tyburn and hanged for
denying the Queen’s supremacy, and six others were carried to Norwich
for the like fate for coining.
But it was in 1580 that the cells again became filled with Roman
Catholic prisoners. It is easy to account for this. The breach with
Rome was complete; the Papal Bull had been issued for the dethronement
of Elizabeth, and the newly-established Order of Jesuits was sending
forth its missionaries to carry out the decree. And so it was war to
the knife. Thus, in June 1580, we have William and Robert Tyrwhitt
sent to the Tower for attending Mass at their sister’s marriage; the
Archbishop of Armagh, the Earls of Kildare and Clanricarde, with other
nobles, for being concerned in the Earl of Desmond’s insurrection in
Ireland; and before the year was out, six Catholic priests and three
laymen are added. Next year it appears as if a system of torture was
established; some were confined in “Little Ease,” a dungeon twenty
feet below the level, in which they could neither stand upright nor
lie down at length; some were racked, some placed in the “Scavenger’s
Daughter,” an iron instrument which held bound the head, hands and
feet. Add to these the thumbscrew and the boot. The most conspicuous
prisoner in 1581 was Father Campion, an eloquent Jesuit who had worked
hard to raise sedition in various parts of the country. He was dragged
off with two other seminary priests to ignominious death, so were
seven more priests that year; in 1583 a Warwickshire gentleman named
Somerville strangled himself to avoid the ghastly dismemberment, but
his father-in-law Arden suffered it. In 1584 five seminary priests
suffered, as did Francis, the eldest son of Sir John Throckmorton,
convicted of treasonable correspondence with the Queen of Scots. In
January, 1585, a clearance was made of those prisoners charged with
religious offences, and twenty-one of them were shipped off to France.
But their places were occupied by others, charged with complicity with
the treasonable practices of Throckmorton. Among them were the Earls
of Northumberland and Arundel. The former killed himself in the Tower
to prevent that bitch, as he called the Queen, from getting possession
of his estates by his attainder. Arundel was tried and condemned to
death in 1589, but Elizabeth delayed the execution, though she gave
very strict orders about his confinement. He might “walk in the Queen’s
garden two hours in the day, with a servant of the Lieutenant’s to
attend him, the garden door being shut at the time of his walking.”
This severity, coupled with the strictest religious austerities
which he constantly practised, hastened his death (Nov. 19, 1595). A
memorial of his piety, graven with his own hand, may be seen in the
Beauchamp Tower. William Parry, instigated from Rome, arranged with
Edmund Neville to shoot the Queen when she was out riding. But the Earl
of Westmoreland died in exile. Neville was his next heir, and hoped
that by revealing the plot he might recover the forfeited estates.
The result was that Parry died a traitor’s death and Neville was kept
close prisoner for many years. Many prisoners were brought in in 1586,
charged with being concerned in Babington’s conspiracy. So was Davison,
the Secretary of State, who was charged with sending the warrant for
the death of the Queen of Scots without Elizabeth’s sanction. This
is generally considered to have been a crafty device of the Queen to
screen herself from the odium. He exculpated himself, but was kept in
the Tower, and ruinously fined by the Star Chamber. In 1598 Sir John
Perrot, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, whose righteous endeavours had
done much to restore tranquillity to that country, having incurred the
enmity of Lord Chancellor Hatton, was recalled home and sent to the
Tower on a charge of treason. He was a hot-tempered man, and had used
some disrespectful words against the Queen. This was the only charge
proved against him, but on it he was condemned. On being conveyed to
the Tower he said to the Lieutenant in great anger that the Queen was
“suffering her brother to be offered up as a sacrifice to his strutting
adversaries.” He was said to be an illegitimate son of King Henry
VIII. Whether or not, when this speech was reported to the Queen, she
refused to sign the warrant for his execution, and declared that his
accusers were all knaves. He died in the Tower six months afterwards,
broken-hearted.
An illustrious name comes before us in the annals of 1592. Sir Walter
Raleigh was lodged here, having incurred the Queen’s displeasure by
his amour with Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, the
celebrated statesman. He soon regained his liberty, however, by using
the most fulsome adulation of his royal mistress. Here is just one
specimen, an extract from a letter which he wrote to Cecil, of course
in order that it might be shown to her Majesty:—“My heart was never
broken till this day, that I hear the Queen goes away so far off [she
was about to start on her annual progress], whom I have followed so
many years with so great love and desire in so many journeys, and am
now left behind her in a dark prison, all alone. While she was yet near
at hand, that I might hear of her once in two or three days, my sorrows
were the less, but even now my heart is cast into the depth of all
misery. I, that was wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting
like Diana, walking like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair
about her pure face like a nymph, sometimes sitting in the shade like
a goddess, sometimes singing like an angel, sometimes playing like
Orpheus.”
Elizabeth was always open to flattery, but in this case her
“love-stricken swain” was further assisted by the arrival at Dartmouth
of his good ship _The Roebuck_, which had taken a great Spanish
treasure ship off Flores, with a treasure which Raleigh estimated at
half a million pounds. The Queen gave him his liberty and sent him off
to arrange the disposal of his capture, and of course got the lion’s
share of it. He returned to Court fresh as ever, and this return was
a fatal event in the fortunes of another brilliant courtier, in fact
the most brilliant, of Elizabeth’s surrounding, Robert Devereux, Earl
of Essex. He and Raleigh were bitter enemies. Ireland was again giving
trouble. Raleigh advised that the disturbers should remorselessly be
trampled out, Essex that justice and good-will should be shown. The
discussion between them was firm on both sides, and when we remember
that both men were high-spirited, full of ambition, jealous of each
other as to the royal favour, we can understand how their selfwill
and egotism proved the ruin of them both. Essex was strikingly
handsome, brilliant both at Court and in the field. His father had
been a personal friend of the Queen, the Earl of Leicester was his
step-father, Sir Francis Knollys his grandfather, Walsingham his
father-in-law, Lord Burleigh his guardian, Shakespeare his friend.
He was now sent to Ireland with the task before him of subduing the
factions which kept the country in continual insurrection, and he
failed, whilst his enemies traduced him at home. Enraged at learning
this, and in despair at his continued illfortune, he returned after
two years to England unbidden, hoping to justify his actions in the
presence of the Queen. But several charges of misconduct were proved
against him, and he was deprived of his offices and banished from
Court. The Queen had said that an unruly horse must be kept short
of provender, and when this was repeated to him he retorted that
the Queen’s mind was as crooked as her body, and it is difficult to
imagine a speech which would anger her more. Then, instigated by his
secretary, Cuffe, he formed the desperate resolution of breaking in
upon the Court, removing by force the courtiers, and so ruling the
Queen by force. A terrible blunder to make. He was perhaps the most
popular noble in London, but the citizens had no idea of imperilling
their lives and fortunes by countenancing such a harum-scarum idea as
this. Nobody came to his call, and after a short siege in his own house
in the Strand he was captured, along with the Earl of Southampton, and
conveyed through the fatal Traitors’ Gate. This was on February 6,
1601; on the 19th he was adjudged a traitor, and on the 25th beheaded.
The execution took place within the Tower, some say because Essex was
so popular that there was a fear of a demonstration in his favour if it
had been on Tower Hill, others that it was his own wish to die within
the walls. He was buried in St. Peter’s Chapel. He was only thirty-five
years of age! There is a story that the Queen expected a ring which he
was to send her when in trouble, and which was to win him forgiveness;
that he had entrusted it to Lady Nottingham, who kept it back; but this
story is certainly untrue. Elizabeth, as one can quite understand, was
unwilling to sign the warrant, considering the favour in which she had
once held him, and after its execution she fell into a terrible fit of
despondency, from which in fact she never recovered. Raleigh, who
was never popular with the Londoners, was hooted in the streets for
his enmity towards Essex, so was Bacon as one of his judges. Four of
Essex’s fellow-conspirators were beheaded; Cuffe was hanged at Tyburn.
Southampton was kept in close confinement, but liberated by special
command of James I in 1603. Essex’s son, born 1593, lived to lead the
Parliamentary army against Charles I.
Sad enough are the accounts of the last days of the great Queen, her
loneliness and terror. No doubt the nature of her disease produced fits
of delirium. She seemed to have no one near her to whom she could look
for a loving or tender word. But she was a great monarch, and under her
rule England rose out of weakness, confusion, distraction. Elizabeth
had triumphed over all her enemies. Her bitterest foe, Philip of Spain,
had gone to his grave five years before her, but not until he had seen
his “Invincible Armada” beaten all to pieces. England was now in the
first rank of the nations.
FOOTNOTE:
[3] In the wardrobe accounts in the British Museum (Lansdowne MSS.,
No. V., Art. 41), the furniture of Lady Catherine’s prison-room is
catalogued. “There were five pieces of tapestry for hanging the
chamber; three window-pieces of the like stuff; a sparver for a bed, of
changeable silk damask; a silk quilt of red striped with gold; a bed
and bolster of down with two pillows of down; one white linen quilt
stuffed with wool; four pairs of fustians; two Turkey carpets; one
small window carpet; one chair of cloth of gold raised with crimson
velvet, with two pannels of copper gilt and the Queen’s arms on the
back; one cushion of purple velvet; two footstools covered with green
velvet; one cupboard joined; one bed, one bolster and a counterpane for
her woman.” But some marginal notes in the handwriting of Sir Edward
Warner, the Lieutenant of the Tower, state that it was all old, worn,
broken and decayed, and another letter of his to Cecil in the same
collection of MSS. says that the Lady Catherine did further injury to
this furniture with her monkeys and her dogs.