1553-1558
During the trial and execution of Northumberland and his accomplices,
Cecil remained prudently in the background. Gardiner, Norfolk, Courtney,
Bonner, and the other prisoners in the Tower were released. Home and
foreign policy changed, the Catholics were buoyed with hope, and the
Emperor’s Ambassador was in full favour, whilst the Protestants were
timorous and apprehensive, and the French Ambassador ill at ease, for his
King was at war with the Emperor, and had from the first endeavoured to
minimise the claims of Mary.[66]
On the 3rd August the new Queen entered London with her sister near her,
and preparations were at once set afoot for her coronation (1st October).
Cecil was no longer in office, and was commanded by the Queen to send
her the seals and register of the Garter on the 21st September;[67] but
he appears to have gone to the expense of new liveries for his servants
in honour of the occasion. Twelve of his servants were given garments
of the best cloth with badges, eleven received one and a quarter yards
of the best cloth each, with second-class cognisances, and nine more
had cloth of second quality, one coat being left with Lady Cecil to
bestow as she pleased.[68] On the same document Sir William himself has
made numerous notes as to the price of these materials, which, if we
did not already know it by many other testimonies, would prove that,
though his expenditure was great, he was careful of the items of it. His
father, the Yeoman of the Robes, had died in the previous year (1552),
and apparently the office had remained in abeyance, being temporarily
administered by Sir William. His neighbour Sir Edward Dymoke, of
Scrivelsby, Lincolnshire, had, in accordance with his tenure, to act as
champion at the Queen’s coronation, and was entitled to his equipment out
of the office of robes. A few days before the coronation ceremony Dymoke
applied for his outfit. Some of the articles were not on hand and had to
be bought of one Lenthal; and the champion begged Cecil to vouch for the
purchase, consisting of “a shrowd, a girdle, a scabbard of velvett, two
gilt partizans, a pole axe, a chasing staff and a pair of gilt spurs, the
value in all being £6, 2s. 8d.” Apparently Cecil took no notice of the
application, and in an amusing letter at Hatfield, the champion complains
bitterly, nearly two months after the coronation, that he could never
get his outfit. Cecil insisted upon a warrant from the Queen; but, said
Dymoke, he had received all his equipment without warrant at the previous
coronation, and he prays Cecil not to be “more straytor” than his father
was. He had his cup of gold, his horse, and trappings, and crimson satin,
without warrant then, and why, he asks, should one be required now. “I do
not pass so much of the value of the allowance as I do for the precedent
to hinder those who do come after me, if I do lose it this time.”
Cecil does not seem to have absented himself from court, though he
passed more of his time than hitherto at Wimbledon. Wyatt rose and fell;
Elizabeth and Courtney suffered under the Queen’s displeasure; Cheke
and Cooke went to exile; Cecil’s old friend the Duchess of Suffolk and
her husband Mr. Bertie fled to Germany; Carews, Staffords, Tremaynes,
Killigrews, Fitzwilliams, the ex-Ambassador Pickering, and hundreds
like them, took refuge abroad from the country over which a Spanish
King, with his half-Spanish Queen, were soon to be supreme. Cranmer,
Cecil’s friend from boyhood, and other Protestant Churchmen, filled
the rooms in the Tower vacated by those whom Cecil had been active in
prosecuting, but Cecil himself lived rich and influential, if no longer
politically powerful, and no hand was raised against him. That he was
a conforming Catholic is certain, quite apart from Father Persons’
spiteful description of his exaggerated devotion; “frequenting masses,
said litanies with the priest, laboured a pair of great beads which
he continually carried, preached to his parishioners in Stamford, and
asked pardon for his errors in King Edward’s time.” This statement of
itself would not suffice were it not supported by better evidence; but
although there is a dearth of such evidence at the beginning of Mary’s
reign, there is abundance of it later. At the Record Office, among
other papers of the same sort, there exists the Easter book for 1556,
headed, “The names of them that dwelleth in the pariche of Vembletoun
that was confessed and received the Sacrament of the altar;” the first
entry being, “My master Sir Wilyem Cecell, and my lady Myldread his
wyff;”[69] and Cecil’s accounts for this period contain many entries of
the cost of his oblations and gifts to the altar. He retained, moreover,
the benefices of Putney and Mortlake, of which he kept strict account;
and in August 1557 the Dean and Chapter of Worcester addressed a letter
of thanks to him for his annual contribution to his two churches, and
assured him of their willingness to accede to his wishes and increase the
stipends of the curates there.[70] There is therefore no doubt that, like
Princess Elizabeth and most of those who afterwards became her ministers,
Cecil was quite ready, in outward seeming at least, to adopt the ritual
decreed by the Court and Parliament.
Renard, the Emperor’s Ambassador, had broached the idea of a marriage
between Mary and Philip, the Prince of Spain, less than a week after
the Queen’s entry into London; and thenceforward the arrangements for
the match went forward apace. The people generally were in an agony of
fear; Gardiner himself, the Queen’s Chancellor, and most of her wisest
Councillors, looked coldly upon the idea; they would rather she had
married Courtney, and formed a close political alliance with the House
of Spain. But the Queen was a daughter of Catharine of Aragon, and the
exalted religious ideas of her race had caused her to look upon herself
as the divinely-appointed being who was to bring to pass the salvation of
her people, and this she knew could only be done by the power and money
that Spain could bring to her. The connection would enable her, too, to
be revenged upon France, which had befriended her mother’s supplanter,
and was still subsidising revolution against her. Those who were
Catholics first and Englishmen afterwards, applauded her determination
to wed her Spanish cousin; and the priests in Rome watched, from the
moment of her advent, for the possibility of the restoration of England
to the faith, and the disgorging of the plunder of the Church by those
who had swallowed it. Most of these saw in the Spanish match the probable
realisation of their hopes.
Immediately after Mary’s accession the Pope had appointed Cardinal Pole
to negotiate with these ends. He was an Englishman of the blood royal,
who had no special Spanish ends to serve: his one wish was to bring back
England into the fold of the Church. But before he started on his journey
to England, Charles V. took fright. His views were quite different. He
and his son wanted to get political control over England for their own
dynastic interests. So long as the religious element helped them in this,
they were glad to use it; but if the priests went too fast and too far,
and caused disgust and reaction in England, their plans would fail. So,
as usual when it was a choice between religion and politics by statesmen
of that age, they chose politics. The difficulty was that the Churchmen
had expected that the return of England to the fold would necessarily
mean the restitution of all ecclesiastical property. Pole himself was
full of this idea, and his first powers from the Pope gave him little
or no discretion to abate the claim for entire and unconditional
surrender of the Church plunder. But at the instance of the Emperor,
the Pope was induced to grant to Pole full discretionary powers. Then
he was persuaded to send the Legate to France and Brussels on his way
to England, with the ostensible purpose of mediating a peace between
France and the Emperor, but really in order that he might be influenced
in the Spanish interest, and his departure for England was thus delayed
until it was considered prudent to let him go. It was not until he had
promised that he would only act in accordance with the advice of the new
King-consort, Philip, that he was permitted to proceed on his mission,
with the certainty now, that the restitution of the Church property
would go no further than was dictated by the political interests which
the Emperor had nearest his heart. This happened in November 1554, four
months after the Queen’s marriage, and the somewhat curious choice of
Paget (Lord Privy Seal), Sir Edward Hastings, and Sir William Cecil, was
made to go and meet the Legate at Brussels, and bring him to England.
Their instructions,[71] evidently inspired by Philip, who was still in
England, entirely confirm the above view of the subject. The envoys are
to seek the Cardinal, and “to declare that the greatest, and almost the
only, means to procure the agreement of the noblemen and others of our
Council (to the re-entry of England into the Church) was our promise
that the Pope would, at our suit, dispense with all possessors of any
lands or goods of monasteries, colleges, or other ecclesiastical houses,
to hold and enjoy quietly the same, without trouble or scruple.” Herein
the influence of the politicians is clearly visible; and the Churchmen
for fifty years afterwards attributed the failure of Catholic attempts
in England to God’s anger at this paltering with the plunder of His
property.[72] Cecil’s voyage was a short one. The entry in his journal
runs thus: “_1554. viᵒ Novembris (ii. Mariæ) capi iter cum Domino Paget
et Magistro Hastings versus Casarem pro reducendo Cardinale_;” but in the
little Perpetual Calendar at Hatfield the voyage is noted in English.
The journal continues: “_Venimus Bruxelles 11 Novēbris_;” and then,
“_Redivimus 24ᵒ Westmonsterij cū Card. Polo_.”
No more is said of the events of the journey, or of Cecil’s negotiations
with the Cardinal; but it may be surmised that Pole at first would not
look very favourably upon Sir William, as during the correspondence with
Somerset, in which Pole exhorted the Protector to desist from troubling
Catholics, a somewhat rude communication was sent to him, which in his
reply he attributed, not to the Protector himself, but to Cecil. It is
probable that Cecil was chosen, because, though outwardly a Catholic,
his views were known to be extremely moderate, and at the moment it was
these views which were most in accordance with the interests of England
and Spain from the point of view of the Emperor and his son. It may
be assumed that a similar reason accounts for Cecil’s appointment in
the following May, 1555, to accompany the Cardinal to Calais, for the
purpose of negotiating for a peace between France and the Emperor. Pole
had offered the mediation of England to Noailles some months before, but
the lukewarmness of the Emperor, the delay in the appointment of his
envoys, and the French military successes in Piedmont, had dragged the
matter out whilst an infinity of questions of procedure and personality
were being slowly settled. The French Ambassador protested against the
appointment of the Earl of Pembroke or the Earl of Arundel, especially
the latter, a vain, giddy man, and a friend of Spain, to accompany the
embassy. Gardiner, he said, would be sufficient to represent English
interests, with Pole as Papal Legate; and the addition of either of the
Earls or of Paget was looked upon as an indication of a desire rather to
pick a fresh quarrel with France than to negotiate a peace.
Cecil would appear to have occupied quite a secondary position in the
embassy, as he is never mentioned in the correspondence between the
French envoys Constable Montmorenci and Cardinal Lorraine and Noailles
describing the meetings. In any case, the negotiations, which took place
at Marcq, equidistant from Calais, Ardres, and Gravelines, speedily fell
through, and by the 26th June the attempt was abandoned; in consequence
mainly of the insistence of the Emperor in the restoration of the Duke
of Savoy to his dominions then occupied by the French. The apprehensions
of the French Ambassador had not been entirely unfounded. It had been
Philip’s intention to ask the Parliament of 1554 for England’s armed aid
in favour of the Emperor, but the indiscreet zeal of the Churchmen had
already brought about reaction, and the Parliament was hastily dissolved.
In the new Parliament of 1555, Cecil was elected, as he insinuates not by
his own desire, Knight of the Shire for Lincoln. In the previous year
(February 1554) he had requested the aldermen of the borough of Grantham
to elect a nominee of his their member. What would, no doubt, have been
a command when he was Secretary of State in the previous reign, could be
disregarded under Mary, and the aldermen politely informed him that they
had already made other arrangements.[73] It is quite understandable that
to so prudent a man as Cecil it would have been much more agreeable to
have been represented by a nominee than to have sat personally in the
Parliament of 1555.
The Queen’s pregnancy had turned out a delusion. It was seen by the
Spaniards now that the Queen herself was but a puppet in the hands of the
Council, and that Philip would never be allowed to rule England, as had
been intended, solely for the benefit of Spanish interests. The imperial
plot had failed; and on the 26th August 1555, the King-consort took leave
of his heartbroken wife, and went to his duties elsewhere. As soon as he
had gone, as Renard had wisely foretold, all barriers of prudence which
had hitherto, to some extent, restrained the persecution of Protestants,
were broken down. Philip left with the Queen strict instructions for the
administration of affairs, and notes of all Council meetings were sent
to him, in order that he might still keep some control. But Cranmer was
arraigned, Ridley and Latimer were martyred, the restitution of alienated
tithes, first-fruits, and tenths was proposed, the Protestant exiles
abroad were recalled, under pain of confiscation of their property, the
bishops were deprived, and throughout England the flames of persecution
soon spread unchecked.
What King Philip wanted were English arms and money, to aid his father
in the war, not the fires of Smithfield, or the blind zeal of the
priests to set men’s hearts against the cause of Rome, which was his
main instrument. But the Parliament of 1555 and the Queen’s Council were
determined to withhold aid to the Emperor’s war as long as they could.
Money there was none, the English ships were rotting and unmanned in
port, men-at-arms were sulky at the idea of fighting for the Spaniard;
but burning Protestants and confiscating recusants’ property cost
nothing, and so the game went on in despite of absent Philip. Amongst the
threatened exiles in Germany were many of Cecil’s friends, especially
the Duchess of Suffolk and Sir Anthony Cooke, who kept up a close
correspondence with his son-in-law, but refused to conform and return
to England. Whether it was the enactment against these friends,[74] or
some other of the confiscatory or extreme measures of the Government,
that Cecil opposed in the Parliament of 1555, is not quite certain; but
an entry in his diary shows that he was in extreme peril as a result of
his action.[75] The entry is, as usual, in Latin. “On the 21st October,
Parliament was celebrated at Westminster, in which, although with danger
to myself, I performed my duty; for although I did not wish it, yet being
elected a Knight of the Shire for Lincoln, I spoke my opinion freely, and
brought upon me some odium thereby; but it is better to obey God than
man.” The household biographer gives a fuller account of what probably is
the same matter: “In this Parliament (1555) Sir William Cecil was Knight
for the County of Lincoln. In the House of Commons little was done to the
liking of the court. The Lords passed a bill for confiscating the estates
of such as had fled for religion. In the Lower House it was rejected with
great indignation. Warm speeches were made on this, and other occasions,
particularly in relation to a money bill, in all of which Sir William
Cecil delivered himself frankly.”[76] One day, especially, a measure
was before the House which the Queen wished to pass, and Sir William
Courtney, Sir John Pollard, Sir Anthony Kingston, with other men from the
west, opposed. Sir William Cecil sided with them and spoke effectively,
and after the House rose they came to him and invited themselves to dine
with them. He told them they would be welcome “so long as they did not
speak of any matter of Parliament.” Some, however, did so, and their host
reminded them of the condition. The matter was conveyed to the Council,
and the whole of the company was sent for and committed to custody. Sir
William himself was brought before his late colleagues and friends, Lord
Paget and Sir William Petre. He said he desired they would not do with
him as with the rest, which was somewhat hard, namely, to commit him
first, and then hear him afterwards, but prayed them first to hear him,
and then commit him if he were guilty; whereupon Paget replied, “You
spake like a man of experience;” and Cecil, as usual, cleared himself
from blame.[77]
During this period Cecil divided his time between Cannon Row, Wimbledon,
and Burghley, occupying himself much whilst in the country with farming
and horticulture. His accounts are very voluminous, and are frequently
annotated in his own hand. Every payment is stated under its proper
head—kitchen, cellar, buttery, garden, and so forth; and the whole of the
household supplies, whether, as was usual, taken from his own farm, or
purchased, are duly accounted for at current prices. The dinner-hour of
the family was 11 A.M., before which prayer was read in the chapel, and
the supper was served at 6 P.M.; these rules being observed at all his
houses, whether he was in residence or not. His charities were always
large, and in his later years reached an average of £500 a year; and
wherever he had property there was a regular system of distribution of
relief to the needy in the neighbourhood. His most intimate friends were
still some of the first people in England. As a moderate man he had now
commended himself to Pole; Lord Admiral Clinton, a great Lincolnshire
magnate, was evidently by his letters on terms of familiarity with him;
the Earl of Sussex, the Viceroy of Ireland, expressed himself anxious to
do him service;[78] Sir Philip Hoby and Lord Cobham vied with each other
in inducing him and Lady Cecil to visit them at their respective Kentish
seats; and Lord John Grey, on the occasion of his wife being delivered
of a “gholly boye,” begs Cecil to stand godfather to the infant.[79]
Cecil’s wife had already given birth to a daughter, and in the Calendar
Diary at Hatfield an entry against 5th December 1556 records, “Natus
est Anna Cecil,” which event somewhat disappointed both Cecil and his
father-in-law, Cooke, in his exile, as they had earnestly looked for
a son. Cecil must have been a devoted husband, though probably an
undemonstrative one, as the letters of Sir Anthony Cooke always praise
him for his goodness, both to his daughter and to himself in his poverty
and banishment. Sir Philip Hoby, in one of his hearty letters during Lady
Cecil’s confinement, expresses sorrow that Sir William cannot visit him.
“You should have been welcome if my Lady might have spared you, to whom
you have been as good a nurse as you would have her be to you;”[80] and
seven weeks later he writes again (21st February), advising Cecil “to
come abroad, and not tarry so long with my Lady, and in such a stinking
city, the filthiest of the world.” Sir Nicholas Bacon and his wife, Lady
Cecil’s sister, were also frequent and kindly correspondents; and the
Countess of Bedford, who with her children were left by her husband to
Cecil’s care on the Earl’s departure in command of the English contingent
to aid the Emperor, referred all her business to him.[81] Cecil’s life,
indeed, at this period was that of a noble of great wealth and influence,
surrounded by friends, occupied with the details of large estates and
with studious pursuits, in great request as trustee and intermediary
for other people’s affairs, openly conforming in religion, but of
acknowledged moderate views, and keeping on fairly good terms with
the party in power, as did Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Thomas Smith, Roger
Ascham, and others in similar case.
But there was one element of Cecil’s activity to which no undue
prominence was given, although it was great and continuous—namely, his
communications with the Princess Elizabeth and his prudent efforts in
her favour. From his first official employment at court, he had been
appealed to by the Princess in questions requiring discretion. When he
was Secretary to the Protector (25th September 1549), Parry, the cofferer
and factotum of Elizabeth, wrote to him the letter which has often been
quoted,[82] in which he gives an account of the visit of the Venetian
Ambassador to Ashridge: “Hereof her Grace hath, with all haste, commanded
me to send unto you, and to advertise you, to the intent forthwith it may
please you, at her earnest request, either to move my Lord’s Grace, and
to declare unto him yourself, or else forthwith to send word in writing,
that her Grace may know thereby, whether she shall herself write thereof
… and in case ye shall advise her Grace to write, then so forthwith to
advertise her Grace.… Herein she desires you to use her trust as in
the rest.” It will be seen by this that Cecil was then considered by
Elizabeth as her friend. Another letter from Parry (September 1551)[83]
is still more cordial: “I have enclosed herein her Grace’s letters, for
so is her Grace’s commandment, which she desires you, according to her
trust, to deliver from her unto my Lord’s Grace, taking such opportunity
therein by your wisdom as thereby she may … hear from his Grace.… Her
Grace commanded me to write this. ‘Write my commendations in your letters
to Mr. Cecil that I am well assured, though I send not daily to him, that
he doth not, for all that, daily forget me; say, indeed, I assure myself
thereof.’… I had forgotten to say to you that her Grace commanded me to
say to you for the excuse of her hand, that it is not now as good as
she trusts it shall be; her Grace’s unhealth hath made it weaker and so
unsteady, and that this is the cause.”
Elizabeth, in common with most other people, was also very anxious to put
her business affairs into Cecil’s hands, and in such matters as leases,
sales of timber of her manors, and the like, Sir William’s services and
advice were often requisitioned by her. In April 1553 she had serious
complaints to make of extortion and malversation on the part of the
steward (Keys) of certain of her manors which had been dedicated to
the support of the hospital of Ewelme; and she appointed Cecil as the
principal member of a committee to examine closely into the whole matter,
“as her Grace is determined to remove the violence and oppression,
and to have the poor thoroughly considered.”[84] At the time that
Northumberland was casting about for a foreign husband for Elizabeth,
some prince who, though of Protestant leanings, should not be powerful
enough to force her claims to the crown, Cecil seems to have suggested
the Duke of Ferrara’s son Francesco, but the proposal came to nothing.
It may, however, be accepted as certain that the intrigues of Noailles
on the one hand to pledge Elizabeth to marry Courtney, as proposed by
Paget, and the persistent attempts of the Spanish party to pledge her to
Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, found no support from Cecil, since
one marriage would have played into the hands of France, and the other
would have rendered the Catholics permanently supreme in England; and, as
has already been seen, Cecil’s great principle was to keep his country
as far as possible free, both from Rome and from France. The consummate
dexterity exhibited by Elizabeth during the troubled reign of Mary was
exactly of a piece with Cecil’s own management of his affairs at the
same period; and although there is no proof that he in any way guided
her action, it is in evidence that she kept up communication with him on
many subjects, and it is in the highest degree probable that she asked
his advice on the vital points, upon which on several occasions her very
life depended. Camden expressly says that she did so, and he is confirmed
by Cecil’s household biographer; but if it be true, it must have been
done with great caution and care, for Cecil to have escaped, as he did,
all suspicion when Elizabeth herself was deeply suspected after Wyatt’s
rising. Cecil’s advice to the Princess, if given at all, was probably to
do as he himself endeavoured to do; namely, to conform as much as might
be necessary for her safety, and to avoid entanglements or engagements
of every description. This at all events was the course they both
successfully followed.
Philip had at last dragged England into war against the wish of the whole
of the Council except Paget, though the King had reluctantly to come and
exert his personal influence on his wife before it could be done. At the
beginning of July 1557 he left her for the last time, and in a month
the victory of St. Quentin gave him the great chance of his life. He
hesitated, dallied, and missed it; the English contingent sulky, unpaid,
and discontented—the Spaniards said cowardly—clamoured to go home, and
Philip, not daring to add to his unpopularity in England, let them go.
Calais and Guînes fell before the vigour of Francis of Guise (January
1558), for the fortresses had been neglected both by Northumberland
and Mary. When it was already too late, the King had urged the English
Council to send reinforcements; but his envoy, Feria, crossed the Channel
at the same time as the news that the last foothold of England on the
Continent had gone.
Thenceforward it was evident that Mary’s days were numbered, and eyes
were already looking towards her successor. The war, never popular in
England, became perfectly hateful. The people growled that waggon-loads
of English money were being sent to Philip, and the Council, almost to
a man, resisted as much and as long as they dared, Philip’s constant
requests for English aid. When Parliament and the Council had been
cajoled and squeezed to the utmost, Feria left in July 1558 to join
his master; but before doing so, he thought it prudent to pay a visit
to Madame Elizabeth at Hatfield, with many significant hints of favour
from his King in the time to come; none of which the Princess affected
to understand. A few weeks before the Queen died, peace negotiations
were opened between England, France, and Spain; the foolish Earl of
Arundel, Dr. Thirlby (Bishop of Ely), and Cecil’s friend Dr. Wotton being
sent to represent England. On the 7th November the Queen was known to
be dying, and the Council prevailed upon her to send a message to her
sister confirming her right to succeed. Feria arrived a few days before
unhappy Mary breathed her last, and already he found that “the people
were beginning to act disrespectfully towards the images and religious
persons.”[85] From the 7th November until the Queen died, on the 17th,
matters were in the utmost confusion. All the bonds were breaking, and no
man knew what would come next. The Council had for months been drifting
away from Philip, and during the Queen’s last days were openly turning
to her Protestant successor.
But their duty kept them mostly at court; whereas Cecil, being free from
office, went backwards and forwards between Cannon Row and Hatfield,
making arrangements for the formation of a new Government when the
sovereign should die. Feria writes that on the day the new Queen was
proclaimed (17th November 1558), the Council decided that Archbishop
Heath, Lord Admiral Clinton, the Earls of Shrewsbury, Pembroke, and
Derby, and Lord William Howard should proceed to Hatfield, whilst the
rest stayed behind; “but every one wanted to be the first to get out.”
When they arrived at the residence of the young Queen, Cecil was already
there and the appointments decided upon. Cecil was the first Councillor
sworn, and was appointed Secretary of State;[86] the others mentioned
above, with Paget and Bedford, being subsequently admitted; and the
faithful Parry, her cofferer, elevated to the post of Controller of the
Household; whilst Lord Robert Dudley, the son of Northumberland, Cecil’s
former patron, was made Master of the Horse.
The Catholics, and especially the Spanish party, were in dismay. Changes
met them at every turn. The Councillors who had fattened on Philip’s
bribes, turned against him openly, although some few, like Lord William
Howard (the Lord Chamberlain), Clinton, and Paget, secretly offered
their services for a renewed consideration. But it soon became evident
that the two men who would have the predominant influence were Cecil and
Parry, and they had never yet been bought by Spanish money. Only a week
after the Queen’s accession, Feria wrote to Philip:[87] “The kingdom is
entirely in the hands of young folks, heretics and traitors, and the
Queen does not favour a single man … who served her sister.… The old
people and the Catholics are dissatisfied, but dare not open their lips.
She seems to me incomparably more feared than her sister, and gives her
orders, and has her way, as absolutely as her father did. Her present
Controller, Parry, and Secretary Cecil, govern the kingdom, and they tell
me the Earl of Bedford has a good deal to say.”
Before entering London from Hatfield, the Queen stayed for a day or
two at the Charterhouse, then in the occupation of Lord North. All
London turned out to do her honour, and she immediately made it clear
to onlookers that she meant to bid for popularity and to depend upon
the good-will of her subjects. On the 26th or 27th November the Spanish
Ambassador went to the Charterhouse to salute her. He had been under Mary
practically the master of the Council; but the new Queen promptly made
him understand that everything was changed. Instead of, as before, having
right of access to the sovereign when he pleased, he found that in future
he and his affairs would be relegated to two members of the Council, and
when he asked which two, the Queen replied, Parry and Cecil. Feria did
his best to conciliate her—gave her some jewels he had belonging to the
late Queen, and so forth; but when he mentioned that a suspension of
hostilities had been arranged between the French and Spanish, she thought
it was a trap to isolate her, and she dismissed the Ambassador coldly.
When she had retired, Feria called Cecil and asked him to go in at once
and explain matters to her, “as he is the man who does everything.” The
effects of Cecil’s diplomacy were soon evident. The Queen smiled and
chatted with Feria, took with avidity all the jewels he could give her,
coyly looked down when marriage was mentioned, but would pledge herself
to nothing. “She was full of fine words, however, and told me that when
people said she was ‘French,’ I was not to believe it;”[88] but when the
Ambassador treated such a notion as absurd, and endeavoured to lead her
on to say that her sympathies were with Spain and against France, she
cleverly changed the subject. Her sister, she said, had been at war with
France, but she was not.
As has already been said, when the deputation of the Council arrived
at Hatfield, Cecil was there before them, and had conveyed the news of
her accession to the Queen. Naunton[89] says that when she heard it she
fell on her knees and uttered the words, “_A Domino factum est illud, et
est mirabile in oculis nostris_.” But whether this be true or not, it
is certain that the intelligence did not come upon her as a surprise;
for Cecil had already drawn up for her guidance a document which still
exists,[90] providing for the minutest details of her accession. Some of
these provisions were rendered unnecessary by the universal and peaceful
acceptance of the new sovereign; but they exhibit the care and foresight
which we always associate with the writer. The note runs as follows: 1.
To consider the proclamation and to proclaim it, and to send the same
to all manner of places and sheriffs with speed, and to print it. 2. To
prepare the Tower and to appoint the custody thereof to trusty persons,
and to write to all the keepers of forts and castles in the Queen’s name.
3. To consider for the removing to the Tower, and the Queen there to
settle her officers and Council. 4. To make a stay of passages to all the
ports until a certain day, and to consider the situation of all places
dangerous towards France and Scotland, especially in this change. 5. To
send special messengers to the Pope, Emperor, Kings of Spain and Denmark,
and the State of Venice. 6. To send new commissioners (commissions?) to
the Earl of Arundel and Bishop of Ely (the peace envoys), and to send one
into Ireland with a new commission; the letters under the Queen’s hand
to all ambassadors with foreign princes to authorise them therein. 7. To
appoint commissioners for the interment of the late Queen. 8. To appoint
commissioners for the coronation and the day. 9. To make continuance
of the term with patents to the Chief-Justice, Justices of each Bench,
Barons, and Masters of the Rolls, with inhibition. _Quod non conferant
aliquod officium._ 10. To appoint new sheriffs under the Great Seal.
11. To inhibit by proclamation the making over of any money by exchange
without knowledge of the Queen’s Majesty, and to charge all manner of
persons that have made, or been privy to any exchange made, by the space
of one month before the 17th of this month. 12. To consider the preacher
of St. Paul’s Cross, that no occasion be given by him to stir any dispute
touching the governance of the realm.
It will be seen that every necessary measure for carrying on peaceably
the government and business of the country is here provided for. Within
a week of the Queen’s accession the religious persecutions all over the
country had ceased, and a few days later all persons who were in prison
in London as offenders against religion had been released on their own
recognisances. The Queen had already foreshadowed her dislike to the
harrying of Protestants by refusing her countenance to Bonner, the Bishop
of London, when, with the other bishops, he met her on her approach to
London. The English refugees were flocking back home from Germany and
Switzerland; and though, for the most part, the religious services were
continued without marked change,[91] the Catholics saw that the day of
their tribulation was coming, and were filled with indignation and fear.
The measures suggested by Cecil as to the appointment of the preacher
at Paul’s Cross were doubtless adopted,[92] for there was no violent
ecclesiastical pronouncement against the tendency of the new Government
until the funeral of the late Queen, on the 13th December. White, Bishop
of Winchester, preached the sermon, in which he attacked the Protestants
in the most inflammatory language, quoting the words of Trajan: “If my
commands are just, use this sword for me; if unjust, use it against me.”
It was not Elizabeth’s or prudent Cecil’s line, however, to adopt extreme
measures at first, and the prelate was only kept secluded for a month in
his own house. This is a fair specimen of the cautious policy adopted
by Elizabeth. All of Mary’s Council had been Catholics, many of them
bigoted Catholics, and yet eleven of them were admitted to the Council
of the new Queen; the principal change being the addition to them of
seven known Protestants, who had, like Cecil, conformed in the previous
reign—namely, Parr (Marquis of Northampton), Cecil’s friend the Earl
of Bedford, Sir Thomas Parry, Edward Rogers, Sir Ambrose Cave, Francis
Knollys (the Queen’s cousin), and Sir William Cecil; Sir Nicholas Bacon,
Cecil’s brother-in-law, another Protestant conformer, being shortly
afterwards also appointed a Councillor and Lord Keeper, but not yet
Chancellor, in the place of Heath, Archbishop of York.