LAST YEARS AND DEATH: 1601-1603.
The death of Mary Stuart did something to simplify parties in Scotland;
and, if her son had possessed the qualities of a ruler, he would have
had a better chance of reducing his kingdom to order than any of his
predecessors, because a middle class was at length rising into
importance. As far as knowledge and discernment went, he was an able
politician, and on several occasions he showed not only skill in his
combinations, but--what he is not generally credited with by those who
study only his career in England--considerable energy and courage. But
he was wanting in perseverance, and a slave to idle pleasures. He had
always some favourite upon whom he lavished any money that came into his
hands. What was needed in his own interest and that of his country was
that he should exercise rigid economy, develop all the forces that made
for order, ally himself with the burghs and lower barons, cultivate good
relations with the Kirk, industriously attend to all the details of
government, and seize every opportunity to humble the great nobles of
whatever party or creed. Instead of this, he tried to maintain himself
by balancing rival parties, and employing one nobleman to execute his
vengeance on another. Instead of honestly and zealously seconding the
policy of Elizabeth, and so deserving her confidence and support, which
would have been of the utmost value to him, he tried to levy blackmail
on her by coquetting with Spain and the Catholics.
Elizabeth is accused of deliberately encouraging Scottish factions in
order to keep the northern kingdom weak. She certainly supported
Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, a turbulent and unprincipled man, while he
was the antagonist of the Catholic nobles who were inviting the
Spaniard. But it is plain that she desired nothing so much as to see
James crush all aristocratic disorder, and make himself master of his
kingdom. Her exhortations to him on this subject are full of wisdom, and
expressed in most stirring language. But they only produced petitions
for money. Notwithstanding her own difficulties, she long allowed him
£3000 a year, which, in 1600, was increased to £6000. But ten times that
amount would have done him no good, because he would immediately have
squandered it.
As Elizabeth grew old, James naturally became absorbed in the prospect
of his succession to the English crown. All Scotchmen shared his
eagerness. In England, feeling was almost unanimous in his favour,
though some of the Catholics continued to talk of the Infanta or
Arabella Stuart the niece of Darnley. By teasing Elizabeth to recognise
his title, intriguing with her courtiers, and calling on his own
subjects to furnish him with the means of asserting his rights, James
irritated the English Queen. But she had always intended that he should
succeed her, and she did nothing to prejudice his claim.
The two leading men at the English court--Cecil and Raleigh--who had
been united in their hostility to Essex, were now secretly competing for
the favour of James. Each warned the Scottish King against the other,
and represented himself as the only trustworthy adviser. Cecil, from his
confidential relations with the Queen, had the most difficult game to
play, and it was not till her health was evidently failing that he
ventured to open private communications with James. Even then he did not
dare to correspond with him directly, but it was understood that
everything written by Lord Henry Howard (brother of the last Duke of
Norfolk) was to be taken as written by Cecil. To make up for his
previous backwardness, he lent James £10,000--a pledge of fidelity which
it was out of his rival’s power to emulate.
The long career of Elizabeth was now drawing to its close. Her sun might
seem to be going down in calm splendour. She had triumphed over all her
enemies. She might say with Virgil’s heroine--
“Vixi, et quem dederat cursum fortuna, peregi;
Et nunc magna mei sub terras ibit imago.”
The mighty Philip had gone to his grave five years before her (1598), a
beaten man, having failed in Holland, failed in France, failed against
England. Of the three great champions who withstood him, Elizabeth, if
not the most distinguished by high qualities, had yet, perhaps, the
largest share in saving Europe from the retrograde tyranny which menaced
it. The glorious resistance of William of Orange covered only sixteen
years (1568-84). That of Henry IV. can hardly be said to have had any
European importance before his accession to the French throne, from
which date to the peace of Vervins and the death of Philip is a period
of nine years (1589-98). But the whole of Elizabeth’s long reign was
spent in abating the power of Spain. It was the persistent,
never-relaxing pressure from an unassailable enemy which wore out
Philip, as it afterwards wore out Bonaparte. Elizabeth had found England
weak and distracted: she was leaving it united and powerful. Nor was she
of those to whom their due meed of praise is denied during life, and
accorded only by the tardy justice of posterity. Her wisdom and courage
were the admiration not of her own people alone, but of all Europe. “Her
very enemies,” says a French historian, “proclaimed her the most
glorious and fortunate of all women who ever wore a crown.” From the
point of view of public life, little or nothing was wanting--so Bacon
thought--to fill up the full measure of her felicity.
Yet it seems that the last months of her life were clouded by
melancholy, and deformed by a querulous ill-temper. Some have suggested
that she suffered from remorse for her severity to Essex; others that
she felt herself out of sympathy with the Puritan tendencies of the
time. It is not necessary to resort to these unfounded or far-fetched
suppositions to account for her gloom. If we turn from her public to
her private life, what situation could be more profoundly pitiable?
Honour and obedience, indeed, still surrounded her. But that which also
should accompany old age, love and troops of friends, she might not look
to have. Near relations she had none. Alone she had chosen to live, and
alone she must die. As her time approached, she was haunted by the
consciousness that, among all those who treated her with so much
reverence, there was not one who had any reason to be attached to her or
to care that her life should be prolonged. Those who have not loved when
they were young must not expect to find love when they are old. While
health and strength remained, she had tasted the satisfaction of living
her own life and playing the great game of politics, for which she was
exceptionally gifted. But to a woman who has passed through life without
knowing what it is to love or be loved, who has no memory of even an
unrequited affection to feed on, who has never shared a husband’s joys
and sorrows, never borne the sweet burden of maternity, never suckled
babe or rocked cradle, who must finish her journey alone, sitting in the
solemn twilight before the last dark hour uncared for and uncaring,
without the cheer of children or the varied interests that gather round
the family--to such a one, what avails it that she has tasted the
excitement of public life, that she has borne a share in politics or
business--what even that her aims have been high or that she has done
the State some service, if she has renounced the crown of womanhood, and
turned from their appointed use those numbered years within which the
female heart can find present joy and lay up store of calm satisfaction
for declining age?
Elizabeth had always enjoyed good health, thanks to her “exact
temperance both as to wine and diet, which, she used to say, was the
noblest part of physic,” and her active habits. In capacity for
resisting bodily fatigue and freedom from nervous ailments, she was like
a man. It was not till the beginning of 1602 that those about her
noticed any signs of failing strength. She still went on hunting and
dancing. In dancing she excelled, and she kept it up for exercise, as
many an old man keeps up his skating or tennis without being exposed to
ill-natured remarks. In December 1602 her godson Harington, an amusing
person, whose company she enjoyed, found her “in most pitiable state,”
both in body and mind. “She held in her hand a golden cup which she
often put to her lips; but in sooth her heart seemeth too full to lack
more filling.” He read her some verses he had written, “whereat she
smiled once,” but said, “When thou dost feel creeping Time at thy gate,
these fooleries will please thee less. I am past my relish for such
matters. Thou seest my bodily meat doth not suit me well. I have eaten
but one ill-tasted cake since yesternight.” Harington hastened to send a
present to the King of Scots, with the inscription, “_Domine memento mei
cum veneris in regnum_.”
In the same month Robert Carey, son of her cousin Lord Hunsdon, visited
her, and professed to think her looking well. “No, Robin,” she said, “I
am not well,” and then “discoursed of her indisposition, and that her
heart had been sad and heavy for ten or twelve days, and in her
discourse she fetched not so few as forty or fifty great sighs....
Hereupon I wrote to the King of Scots.”[18] Her melancholy was not
caused by any weakening of her mind. A long letter to James, dated
January 5, 1603, though hardly legible, is very vigorous and
characteristic.
At the beginning of March 1603 she became much worse. There was some
disease of the throat, attended with swelling and a distressing
formation of phlegm, which made speaking difficult. The only relatives
about her were Robert Carey and his sister Lady Scrope, watching keenly
that they might be the first to inform James of her death. She could not
be brought by any of her Council to take food or go to bed. When in bed
she had been troubled by a visual illusion; “she saw her body
exceedingly lean and fearful in a light of fire.” At last Nottingham,
the Admiral, who was mourning the recent death of his wife, was sent
for. He was a second cousin of Anne Boleyn, and was the one person to
whom the dying Queen seemed to cling with some trust. He induced her to
take some broth. “For any of the rest,” says her maid-of-honour,
Mistress Southwell, “she would not answer them to any question, but said
softly to my Lord Admiral’s earnest persuasions that if he knew what she
had seen in her bed he would not persuade her as he did. And Secretary
Cecil, overhearing her, asked if her Majesty had seen any spirits; to
which she said she scorned to answer him so idle a question. Then he
told her how, to content the people, her Majesty must go to bed. To
which she smiled, wonderfully contemning him, saying that the word
_must_ was not to be used to princes; and thereupon said, ‘Little man,
little man, if your father had lived ye [he?] durst not have said so
much: but thou knowest I must die, and that maketh thee so
presumptuous.’ And presently commanding him and the rest to depart her
chamber, willed my Lord Admiral to stay; to whom she shook her head, and
with a pitiful voice said, ‘My Lord, I am tied with a chain of iron
about my neck.’ He alleging her wonted courage to her, she replied, ‘I
am tied, and the case is altered with me.’” At last, “what by fair
means,” says Carey, “what by force, he got her to bed.”
It was perfectly understood that she meant James to be her successor.
The Admiral now told his colleagues that she had confided her intention
to him just before her illness took a serious turn. Two years before, in
conversation with Rosni, the minister of Henry IV., she had spoken of
the approaching union of the Scotch and English crowns as a matter of
course. But it was not till a few hours before her death that her
councillors ventured to question her on the subject. They gave out that
she indicated James by a sign; and this is also asserted by Carey, who,
however, does not seem to have been present, though probably his sister
was. Mistress Southwell seems to write as an eye-witness, but betrays a
Catholic bias, which may cast some doubt on her testimony. “The Council
sent to her the bishop of Canterbury and other of the prelates, upon
sight of whom she was much offended, cholericly rating them, bidding
them be packing, saying she was no atheist, but knew full well they were
hedge-priests, and took it for an indignity that they should speak to
her. Now being given over by all, and at the last gasp, keeping still
her sense in everything and giving ever when she spoke apt answers,
though she spake very seldom, having then a sore throat, she desired to
wash it, that she might answer more freely to what the Council demanded;
which was to know whom she would have king; but they, seeing her throat
troubled her so much, desired her to hold up her finger when they named
whom liked her. Whereupon they named the king of France, the king of
Scotland, at which she never stirred. They named my lord Beauchamp,[19]
whereto she said, ‘I will have no rascal’s son in my seat, but one
worthy to be a king.’ Hereupon instantly she died.” (March 23,
afternoon.)
It is certain, however, that she lived several hours after this
characteristic outburst. Carey says that at six o’clock in the evening
he went into her room with the Archbishop; that, though speechless, she
showed by signs that she followed his prayers, and twice desired him to
remain when he was going away. She died in the early hours of Thursday,
March 24.
There have been many greater statesmen than Elizabeth. She was far from
being an admirable type of womanhood. She does not, in my opinion, stand
first even among female sovereigns, for I should put that able ruler
and perfect woman, Isabella of Castile, above her. I admit, however,
that such comparisons are apt to be unjust. Few rulers have had to
contend with such formidable and complicated difficulties as the English
Queen. Few have surmounted them so triumphantly. This is the criterion,
and the sufficient criterion, which determines the judgment of practical
men. Research, if applied with fairness and common sense, may perhaps
modify, it can never set aside, the popular verdict. There are writers
who have made the discovery that Elizabeth was a very poor ruler,
selfish and wayward, shortsighted, easily duped, fainthearted, rash,
miserly, wasteful, and swayed by the pettiest impulses of vanity, spite,
and personal inclination. They have not explained, and never will, how
it was that a woman with all these disqualifications for government
should have ruled England with signal success for forty-four years.
Statesmen are indebted to good luck occasionally, like other people. But
when this explanation is offered again and again with dull regularity,
we are compelled to say, with one who had at once the best opportunity
and the highest capacity for estimating the greatness of Elizabeth: “It
is not to closet penmen that we are to look for guidance in such a case;
for men of that order being keen in style, poor in judgment, and partial
in feeling, are no faithful witnesses as to the real passages of
business. It is for ministers and great officers to judge of these
things, and those who have handled the helm of government and been
acquainted with the difficulties and mysteries of State business.”[20]
The judgment of those who have handled the helm of government is to be
found in the words of her contemporary, the great Henry--“She was my
other self:” and of a greater still in the next generation--“Queen
Elizabeth of famous memory; we need not be ashamed to call her so!”[21]
APPENDIX
APPENDIX A.
SESSIONS OF PARLIAMENT IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH.
+-------------+------------+-----------------+--------------+--------------+
| | _Year_ | | | |
|_Parliament._| _of_ | _Began._ |_Prorogued._ | _Dissolved._|
| |_Elizabeth._| | | |
+-------------+------------+-----------------+--------------+--------------+
| | | | | |
| I. | 1st | 25 Jan. 1558/9 | | 8 May 1559 |
| | | | | |
| II. | 5th | 12 Jan. 1562/3 |10 April 1563 | |
| | | | | |
| II. } | 8th |} | | |
| 2nd } | and |} 30 Sep. 1566 |30 Dec. 1566 | 2 Jan. 1566/7|
| Sess. } | 9th |} | | |
| | | | | |
| III. | 13th | 2 April 1571 | |29 May 1571 |
| | | | | |
| IV. | 14th | 8 April 1572 |30 June 1572 | |
| | | | | |
| IV. } | | | | |
| 2nd } | 18th | 8 Feb. 1575/6 |15 Mar. 1575/6| |
| S1 s. } | | | | |
| | | | | |
| V. } | | | | |
| 3rd } | 23rd | 16 Jan 1580/1 |18 Mar. 1580/1|19 April 1583 |
| Sess. } | | | | |
| | | | | |
| { | 27th |} | | |
| V. { | and |} 23 Nov. 1584{*}|29 Mar. 1585 |14 Sep. 1586 |
| { | 28th |} | | |
| | | | | |
| { | 28th |} | | |
| VI. { | and |} 15 Oct. 1586{*}|29 Oct. 1586 |23 Mar. 1586/7|
| { | 29th |} | | |
| | | | | |
| VII. | 31st | 4 Feb. 1588/9 | |29 Mar. 1589 |
| | | | | |
| VIII. | 35th | 19 Feb. 1592/3 | |10 April 1593 |
| | | | | |
| IX. | 39th | 24 Oct. 1597{*}| | 9 Feb. 1597/8|
| | | | | |
| X. | 43rd | 27 Oct. 1601 | |19 Dec. 1601 |
+-------------+------------+-----------------+--------------+--------------+
[* Adjourned over Christmas Vacation.]
APPENDIX B.
THE PRINCIPAL HOWARDS CONTEMPORARIES OF ELIZABETH.
2ND DUKE OF NORFOLK.[22]
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | |
3RD DUKE OF NORFOLK.[23] EDMUND. LADY BOLEYN.[30] WILLIAM 1ST LORD
| | | HOWARD OF EFFINGHAM.[31]
---------------- | | |
| | | | |
MARY.[25] EARL OF SURREY.[24] Q. CATHERINE HOWARD. Q. ANNE BOLEYN. CHARLES 2ND
| | LORD EFFINGHAM.[32]
-------------------- |
| | |
4TH DUKE OF NORFOLK.[26] HENRY.[33] QUEEN ELIZABETH.
|
----------------------------------
| | |
EARL OF ARUNDEL.[27] LORD HOWARD[28] WILLIAM.[29]
OF WALDEN.
APPENDIX C.
PRINCIPAL BOLEYN RELATIONS OF ELIZABETH.
SIR THOMAS BOLEYN[34] = LADY ELIZABETH HOWARD.[35]
|
----------------------------------------------------------
| | |
LORD ROCHFORD.[36] QUEEN ANNE. MARY = WILLIAM CAREY.
| |
| -------------- ------------------------
| | |
QUEEN ELIZABETH. 1ST LORD HUNSDON.[37] CATHERINE = SIR FRANCIS
| | KNOLLYS.
-------------------------------------------------- |
| | | | |
2ND LORD HUNSDON. ROBERT.[38] LADY EFFINGHAM[39] LADY SCROPE. WALTER, EARL = LETTICE = EARL OF LEICESTER.
AND COUNTESS OF ESSEX. |
OF NOTTINGHAM. |
|
ROBERT, EARL OF ESSEX[40] = FRANCES SIDNEY.[41]
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at the Edinburgh University Press
* * * * *
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=HENRY VII.= By JAMES GAIRDNER.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] Mr. Motley conjectures that the population of Spain and Portugal
may have been 12,000,000.
[2] The oath of supremacy imposed on members of the House of Commons
in 1562 practically excluded conscientious Catholics.
[3] He had received the Duchy of Anjou in addition to that of Alençon,
and some historians call him by the former title.
[4] Hallam, _Constitutional History_, Chapter III.
Macaulay, _Essay on Hallam’s Constitutional History_.
[5] James had given this man the title and estates of the exiled
Hamiltons.
[6] Some persons whose names do not appear in the Commission sat on
the trial, while some who were appointed did not sit.
[7] Those who wish to know the grounds on which Mary’s complicity in
Babington’s plot has been denied can consult Lingard, Tytler, and
Labanoff. In my opinion, their arguments are very feeble.
[8] There was no formal proclamation of war on either side.
[9] The remaining Privy Councillors were Archbishop Whitgift, Lord
Chancellor Bromley, the Earls of Shrewsbury and Warwick, Lord
Buckhurst, Sir James Crofts, Sir Ralph Sadler, Sir Walter Mildmay, Sir
Amyas Paulet, and the Latin Secretary, Wolley.
[10] Kingsley, _Westward Ho_.
[11] _Institutes_, Fourth Part, Chap. 1.
[12] These figures are taken from Barrow’s Life of Drake.
[13] We hear of thirty-three-pounders and even sixty-pounders in the
Queen’s ships. Whereas the Spanish admiral, sending to Parma for
balls, asks for nothing heavier than ten pounds.
[14] The Earl of Sussex, after inspecting the preparations for defence
in Hampshire towards the end of 1587, writes to the Council that he
had found nothing ready. The “better sort” said, “We are much charged
many ways, and when the enemy comes we will provide for him; but he
will not come yet.”
[15] Sir Edward Radcliffe to the Earl of Sussex.--_Ellis_, 2nd Series,
vol. iii. p. 142.
[16] The story of the ring, said to have been intercepted by Lady
Nottingham, has been shown to be unworthy of belief. See Ranke,
_History of England_, vol. i. p. 352; transl.
[17] The increase was not so great as it appears. A subsidy with two
tenths and fifteenths in the thirteenth year of the reign yielded
£175,000; in the forty-third only £134,000.
[18] Elizabeth made large use of the courage and fidelity of her
kinsmen on the Boleyn side, but she did little to advance them either
in rank or wealth. Hunsdon had set his heart on regaining the Boleyn
Earldom of Wiltshire. When he was dying, Elizabeth brought the patent
and robes of an earl, and laid them on his bed; but the choleric old
man replied, “Madam, seeing you counted me not worthy of this honour
while I was living, I count myself unworthy of it now I am dying.”
[19] Son of Catherine Grey by the Earl of Hertford. “Rascal” at that
time meant a person of low birth.
[20] Bacon, _In felicem memoriam Elizabethæ_.
[21] Carlyle, _Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell_, Speech v.
[22] As Earl of Surrey commanded at Flodden.
[23] Minister of Henry VIII.
[24] The Poet. Beheaded by Henry VIII.
[25] Married Duke of Richmond, natural son of Henry VIII.
[26] Beheaded by Elizabeth. Title forfeited.
[27] Earl of Arundel in right of his mother 1st wife of father. Died
in Tower.
[28] Lord Walden in right of his mother 2nd wife of father.
[29] “Belted Will,” married co-heiress of Lord Dacre of Naworth.
[30] Elizabeth Howard married Sir Thomas Boleyn created Earl of
Wiltshire and Ormonde by Henry VIII.
[31] Lord Admiral. Created Lord Effingham by Mary.
[32] Lord Admiral. Commanded against Armada. Created Earl of
Nottingham by Elizabeth.
[33] Created Earl of Northampton by James I.
[34] Created Earl of Wiltshire and Ormonde by Henry
VIII.
[35] Daughter of 2nd Duke of Norfolk.
[36] Beheaded by Henry VIII.
[37] Elizabeth’s Minister and General.
[38] Carried news of Elizabeth’s death to James; created by him Earl
of Monmouth.
[39] Said to have withheld Essex’s ring from Elizabeth.
[40] Beheaded by Elizabeth.
[41] Daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham and widow of Sir Philip Sidney.
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
that to establish a permanent raw=> that to establish a permanent war
{pg 36}
Mary believed that in every country=> Mary believed that in every county
{pg 53}
They were in fact created a Provisional Government=> They were in fact
creating a Provisional Government {pg 176}
End of Project Gutenberg's Queen Elizabeth, by Edward Spencer Beesly