1568-1569
Norris in France, and Cecil’s agents in Spain and Flanders, continued
to send home alarming news of the intentions of Philip and the Guises
against England. The stories were untrue, but coming from so many
quarters at the same time, were evidently not invented by the senders.
They were in fact set afloat by Philip, as a means of keeping England
in a state of apprehension, and so preventing her from sending overt
aid to the Protestants in Flanders and France. To some extent they were
successful in frightening Elizabeth, evidently to Cecil’s annoyance, for
the Secretary at least had taken Philip’s measure, and knew that his
hands were full. In a letter to Lord Cobham, written in April 1568, Cecil
gives expression to this feeling in the figurative language which he was
in the habit of employing. Cobham, as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports,
had forwarded a secret proposal of some Frenchmen in Calais to seize
that citadel and deliver it to the Huguenots to be held for Elizabeth.
The Queen was alarmed at the boldness of the plan, but promised that she
would consider it if the King of France refused her offered mediation
between him and the Huguenots. Cecil writes thereupon: “It grieveth me
to hold and follow the plough where the owner of the ground forbears
to cast in the seed in seasonable time, and I am all the more grieved
that your Lordship is in like manner discouraged. ‘_Moremus sepe sed
nihil promoremus._’ But besides the plough your Lordship follows, we
are occupied with another, meaning to join both together for surety, but
still I despair of seed.”[264]
In the meanwhile, though Elizabeth herself was still overshadowed by
the traditional might of Spain, the English Catholics were feeling, by
the increased severity exercised towards them, the changed political
situation. The English minister, and in her stronger moments the English
Queen, were speaking more firmly now than ever they had dared to do since
Elizabeth’s accession. For the first time the position was becoming
defined. It was no longer France or Spain nationally that was the enemy
of England: it was Catholic against Protestant the world over. Philip
was as nervously anxious to avoid war as Elizabeth herself, and his need
to do so much greater than hers; but if Protestantism was allowed to
become strong, then his great empire must crumble, and the basis of his
system disappear. His own slow stolidity had been in a great measure the
cause of his finding himself in so unfavourable a tactical position, for
he had allowed the champions of the autonomous rights of his Flemish
dominions—rights which at first he might easily have conciliated with his
own sovereignty—to obtain for their cause the immense added impetus of
religious reform. It was this fact which had changed the situation; and
it was accentuated in England by the activity of the Pope (Pius V.) in
establishing English seminaries abroad, and by means of money and busy
agents in England itself, raising the spirits of those who clung to the
old faith.[265]
The answer to the effervescence thus caused amongst the Catholics was the
renewed harshness against them by the English ministers and the rising
aggressiveness of the Protestants. Late in February 1568, Cecil sent word
to Guzman, with whom he was still ostensibly on friendly terms, to say
that the Queen had learnt casually that the English Ambassador in Madrid
(Dr. Man) was not allowed to hold Protestant service in the embassy.
She was surprised at this, and had sent to the Ambassador orders to
demand the same rights as were accorded to Guzman in England; if these
were denied she would recall him. Cecil himself was more outspoken and
indignant than usual, and much more so than the Queen. “They think, no
doubt, that the present troubles in France and elsewhere,” writes Guzman,
“give them a good opportunity of gaining ground, their own affairs being
favourable; so they have begun to look out more keenly, and to trouble
the Catholics, summoning some and arresting others, and warning them to
obey the present laws … they (the Council) soon change her (the Queen),
and all their efforts are directed at making her shy of me.”[266]
Guzman’s messenger to Madrid travelled more quickly than Cecil’s, and
before Dr. Man could demand his right to enjoy Protestant service, he was
unceremoniously hustled out of Madrid, without obtaining audience of the
King, the pretext being that he had in public conversation at his own
table insulted the Catholic faith.[267] Though Philip took this strong
course, he was as anxious as ever to avoid an open quarrel with England
about that or anything else, and sent all sorts of conciliatory messages
to the Queen. Dr. Man, he said, had behaved himself so outrageously that
his further stay in Spain was impossible; but if another Ambassador were
sent who would act as English Ambassadors always had done, he should be
received with open arms.
The news arrived in London at a bad time. A Portuguese Ambassador had
just come (May 1568) to complain—“brawling,” as Cecil calls it—of the
Hawkins expeditions to Guinea. He went to the audience with Guzman, and
found the Queen in a towering rage about a scurrilous letter referring
to her, written by the Cardinal Prince Dom Henrique. Cecil had obtained
possession of the letter somehow, and produced it, saying that the
presumption of the Portuguese was insufferable and made them hated by
all nations. The matter of the letter quite overshadowed the grievance
about trade, as it no doubt was intended to do, and the Portuguese got no
redress. On the contrary, Cecil called to him some Spanish residents in
London who accompanied the Ambassador to Whitehall, and warned them that
they might not attend mass at the embassy. What! not foreigners? asked
Antonio de Guaras. No, retorted Cecil, and turned his back upon them to
rejoin the Queen. The next day when Cecil saw Guzman, he complained of
Alba’s severity in Flanders, and of some insulting reference to Elizabeth
in the “Pontifical History” of Dr. Illescas, so that when Dr. Man’s
letter arrived immediately afterwards announcing his practical expulsion
from Spain, everything was prepared for an explosion. The Queen received
the news with some alarm as to what it might portend, and was at first
inclined to be conciliatory; but when Guzman visited Cecil in the Strand
two or three days afterwards, he found the Secretary in a fit of anger
unusual with him. Such treatment of an Ambassador, he said, was an
unheard-of insult to his mistress, unless it was meant as a provocation
to war. After storming for some time, he stopped for want of breath;
and it needed all Guzman’s suavity to calm him. “I waited a little for
him to recover from his rage, and then went up to him, laughing, and
embraced him, saying that I was amused to see him fly into such a passion
over what I had told him, because I knew that he understood differently.
The affair, I said, might be made good or bad as the Queen liked to
make it.”[268] But Cecil was not easily appeased. He told Guzman that
the Council regarded him with suspicion, that Englishmen were treated
harshly in Spain, and much more to the same effect, all of which was very
surprising to the Spaniard, who was unused to such plain speaking from
him. But in the ten years that Elizabeth had sat upon the throne, things
had radically changed. Cecil could afford to speak boldly to Spain now;
for whilst England had grown enormously in wealth, commerce, industry,
and shipping, under a prudent, patriotic Government, both the great
rivals she formerly feared were rent by the religious schism which the
folly or ambition of their rulers had precipitated upon them, and England
at any given moment could paralyse either of them for harm by smiling
upon their Protestant subjects.
Whilst Mary was in Lochleven Castle, Murray’s enemies, the Hamiltons
and the Catholics, were busy. Murray had tried his best by severity to
reduce the country to something approaching order, and the turbulent
chiefs who profited by anarchy resented it. The compromising papers
which implicated the ruling powers in the late deeds of murder and
violence were burnt, though not those that implicated the Queen,[269]
and the whole of the responsibility was cast upon the Queen and Bothwell.
Religious uniformity was passed by Parliament, and the exercise of
Catholic worship abolished. All this violent action, too rapid and too
partial to be readily assimilated by a country so profoundly divided as
Scotland was, naturally caused reaction in favour of Mary, and when after
one unsuccessful attempt she escaped from prison (2nd May), there were
friends in plenty to flock to her banner. The day before her flight she
had written the fervent prayer to Elizabeth, swearing unchanging fidelity
to her if she would send her help[270]—help for which she had besought
Catharine de Medici in vain; for France wanted the alliance of Scotland,
not that of Mary Stuart personally. The day after, when Mary, surrounded
by Hamiltons, was free again, the possibilities were all changed. Mary
Stuart turned in a few hours from the humble suppliant to the haughty
sovereign. Her abdication was revoked, Murray’s regency declared illegal,
and all his acts annulled. Beton was sent off post-haste to London and
Paris to demand for his mistress a thousand harquebussiers and a sum of
money. Beton’s instructions were to tell the English Government that if
they would not send the help, he was to demand it from the French. Cecil
writes to Norris,[271] 16th May, that under these circumstances the Queen
had promised all that Mary demanded; but he was to keep his eye on Beton,
and if he asked for French aid, Catharine was to be told the message he
brought from Mary to London. Before Beton left London he went to see
Guzman with a verbal message from Mary. Now that she was free, she said,
she would show the world how innocent she was, and begged for the advice
and help of Guzman and his master. She was a firmer Catholic than ever,
she averred; nearly all the people and nobles of Scotland were on her
side; but she complained that she was in the field without proper garb or
adornments, and begged Guzman to send a request to the Duke of Alba to
seize her jewels and restore them to her, if Murray sent them to Flanders
for sale.[272]
This was on the 11th May. Two days afterwards the result of the battle
of Langside once more cast the unhappy Mary Stuart into the chasm of
irredeemable misfortune, and on the 16th she fled across the Solway a
fugitive to England, to see her country no more in life. Such a step
as this was tempting fate. It is true that Elizabeth had constantly
professed sympathy for her in her captivity; but whilst the English
Queen’s words were fair, the acts of her Government, dictated not by
personal motives, such as the friends of Mary have absurdly tried to fix
upon Cecil, but by high national policy, had been uniformly in favour
of Murray and the Protestants. Mary’s attitude, moreover, had from the
first, and not unnaturally, been favourable to the French alliance, upon
which for centuries Scotland had depended for the preservation of its
independence; and to place herself thus unconditionally at the mercy of
the English, whose policy she had opposed and whose interests she sought
to subvert, was little short of an act of madness. Mary had no excuse for
trusting to a Quixotic generosity, of which Elizabeth had never given her
the slightest indication beyond conventional fine words, such as would
hardly deceive Mary. It was not so much that she overrated her generosity
as she underrated her boldness.
Drury in Berwick had kept Cecil informed almost from hour to hour of
the course of events in Scotland;[273] and a few hours only after Mary
landed at Workington she wrote her famous and oft-quoted letter to the
English Queen. In it she recites her sorrows, and begs Elizabeth to aid
her in her just quarrel; but, above all, to send for her as soon as
possible, “for I am in a pitiable condition, not only for a Queen but
a gentlewoman.”[274] The position was a difficult one for the English
Queen and Council. Guzman says they were much perplexed, “as the Queen
has always shown good-will to the Queen of Scots, and the majority of
the Council has been opposed to her, and favourable to the Regent and
his government. If this Queen has her way, they will have to treat Mary
as a sovereign, which will offend those who forced her to abdicate; so
that although these folks are glad enough to have her in their hands,
they have many things to consider … if she remain free, and able to
communicate with her friends, great suspicions will arise. In any case it
is certain that the two women will not agree very long together.”[275]
When Mary had arrived at Carlisle a few days afterwards, she sent Lord
Herries to London with a letter for Cecil, which may be given in full.
Mary’s letters were always clever, unless she lost her temper, as she
did sometimes, and here it will be seen that she appeals to positively
the only feeling which it was probable would move Cecil to favour her,
namely, her kinship to his mistress and her regal status. “Mester
Ceciles,” runs the letter, “L’équité, dont vous avvez le nom d’estre
amateur, et la fidelle et sincère servitude que portez a la Royne,
Madame ma bonne sœur, et par consequent a toutes celles qui sont de son
sang, et en pareille dignité, me fayt en ma juste querele, par sur tous
autres m’adresser a vous en ce temps de mon trouble pour etre avancée
par votre bon conseille, que j’ai commandé Lord Heris, presant porteur
vous fayre entandre au long.… De Karlile ce xxviii Mey. Votre bien bonne
amye Marie R.”[276] With this letter Herries brought others for the
Pope and Guzman. He demanded aid for his mistress on a pledge sent to
her by Elizabeth through Throgmorton in the form of a ring, and when
some hesitation was shown, he imprudently blurted out that if Elizabeth
did not keep her word his mistress would appeal to France, Spain, the
Emperor, and the Pope. “The Pope!” exclaimed puritan Bedford, shocked
at the idea. “Yes, the Pope,” replied Herries, “or the Grand Turk, or
the Sophi, or any one else who will help her.” This sort of talk was
sufficient to decide Mary’s removal to Bolton as a measure of precaution.
Before this took place, however, Lord Scrope and Sir Francis Knollys had
been deputed by Elizabeth to visit and confer with Mary at Carlisle.
Herries on that occasion had said that if the English would not help
his Queen, she wished to go to France; “whereupon,” writes Knollys, we
“answered that your Highness could in no wise lyke hyr sekyng aide in
France, therbie to bring Frenchmen into Skotland;” and, continued the
envoys, the Queen of England could not receive her personally until she
was satisfied of her innocence in the murder of her husband. Mary was
just as imprudent as Herries in her interview with the English envoys;
but what frightened Knollys most was the large number of her English
sympathisers in the north of England. In his letter to Elizabeth he
points out the danger of the situation, and suggests that Mary should
have the choice of freely returning to Scotland, if she chose, or of
remaining in England; but not of going to France, as she evidently wished
to do. “She was so agile and spirited,” says Knollys, that she could only
be kept a prisoner so near the Border by very rigorous means, such as
“devices of towels and toyes at her chamber window”; whereas to carry her
farther inland might cause “serious sedition.”
Elizabeth and her Council decided to run the latter risk rather than
that Mary should go to France to be a permanent thorn in the flesh of
England, and the Queen of Scots’ long imprisonment commenced.[277] Even
in the first few weeks of her stay she was busy endeavouring to subvert
English ends; appointing Chatelherault, Argyll, and Huntly to the supreme
government of the kingdom against Murray; Chatelherault being strongly
in the French interest, and daily clamouring through his brother in
Paris for French armed support. All this was known to the Queen and
Cecil; and Mary’s intemperate letters of protest against her removal
from Carlisle, and her constant threats to appeal to France and Spain
if Elizabeth would not help her,[278] made it altogether inconsistent
with prudence to allow the misguided woman her liberty. The investigation
into Mary’s guilt or innocence seems to have originated with Cecil.[279]
Left to herself, Elizabeth, as we have seen, was mainly influenced by the
personal feeling of reverence for a sovereign: Cecil could not oppose
this, and as usual took an indirect means of reaching his end. When Mary
complained to Knollys at Carlisle of the subjects who had dethroned
her, he had told her that as it was lawful for subjects to depose mad
sovereigns, it was also lawful for them to depose those who had lost
their wits to the extent of conniving at murder. Mary wept at this,
and Knollys softened the blow; but Knollys had certainly seen Cecil’s
report, and took the line suggested by it. If Mary could be shown to have
connived at Darnley’s death—and Cecil must have known of the damning
proofs against her when he proposed the negotiation—the regal immunity
fell from her like a loosened garment, and Elizabeth’s personal desire
to consider the sacredness of the monarch before the interests of the
country lost its principal resting point.
In the meanwhile the state of civil war in Scotland continued, and
news came daily of French armaments preparing to aid Mary’s party.
Cecil ceaselessly urged an armistice, and at last (1st September) was
successful, though imprudent Herries continued to threaten that if
Elizabeth did not restore the Queen of Scots to the throne in two months,
she and her friends would appeal only to France for armed aid. Elizabeth
clearly could not force Mary upon the Scottish people, and for her
interference to be effective she must be recognised as a mediator, not
by Mary alone, but also by Murray and his party. This was difficult; for
Murray knew that if the final result was to restore Mary with any power
at all, he and his party sooner or later were doomed. Thanks mainly to
the efforts of Cecil, Murray at last gave way, and the commissions of
Scotch and English Councillors were sent to York, ostensibly to mediate
between the Queen of Scots and her subjects. But Mary found herself no
longer, as she had hoped to be, the accuser of Murray, but practically on
her own trial for murder. By a remark in a letter from Cecil to Norris
at the time, he seems again with some difficulty to have avoided being
appointed a commissioner himself.
Whilst the intricate and obscure proceedings in York[280] were
progressing, Cecil’s hands were full in London. Protestant zeal was
fairly aflame now at Alba’s proceedings in the Netherlands. All eastern
England swarmed with Flemish fugitives, many of whom found their way back
home again well armed with weapons bought in England, and even more with
messages of indignant sympathy from English Protestants. Guzman protested
to Cecil again and again, but could get no more than vague half promises,
and once a proclamation, which the Spaniards described as a “compliment
rather than a remedy.”
In September the mild and diplomatic Guzman was withdrawn, much to
Elizabeth’s apprehension, and Cecil’s regret, and an Ambassador of very
different calibre was sent. For many years the warlike party in Philip’s
councils, led by Alba, had been urging him to active hostility towards
England, but the peace party of Ruy Gomez had prevented the advice
from being adopted. Now that Alba was supreme in the Netherlands, and
reported that the Protestant revolt was mainly fed from England, Philip
seems to have decided to alarm Elizabeth into neutrality by sending
a rough-tongued representative. He had felt his ground first by his
contemptuous treatment of Dr. Man, and seeing that Elizabeth had taken
it quietly, he sent as his new Ambassador a turbulent bigoted Catalan,
named Gerau de Spes, to endeavour by truculence to do what the suavity
of Guzman had failed to effect. Dutch, Huguenot, and English privateers
were preying upon Spanish shipping, to an extent which well-nigh cut
off communication by sea between Spain and northern Europe. Money and
arms, unchecked, found their way from England to the brave “beggars” in
Holland; and though Philip did not wish to fight England, it was vital
for him to paralyse her for harm. Mary Stuart had written to Philip from
Carlisle, begging him for help against Elizabeth, and the chance seemed
to Philip a good one to disturb England for his own ends, without war.
He accordingly wrote cautiously to Alba (15th September), saying that
he was willing to help Mary, but desired Alba to report upon what might
be done to that end, whilst sending reassuring promises to the Queen of
Scots.[281] From the first hour that De Spes set foot in England, he went
beyond his instructions and conspired actively against the Government to
which he was accredited.
There was more even than this untoward change to occupy the thoughts
and hands of Elizabeth’s first minister. The war had raged in France
between the Huguenots and the Catholics from September 1567 till the
clever management of Catharine had beguiled the Protestants to accept the
hollow peace of Longjumeau (March 1568). Hans Casimir and his mercenary
Germans went home; the Huguenots laid down their arms; and then again the
Catholic pulpits thundered forth that it was godly to break faith with
heretics, and that the blood shed of unbelievers sent up sweet incense
to heaven. Nearly 10,000 Huguenots were treacherously slain in three
months, and no punishment could be obtained against the murderers. Condé
and Coligny fled to the stronghold of La Rochelle, there to be joined by
the Queen of Navarre with 4000 men-at-arms, and all that was strong and
warlike on the side of the Huguenots. Elizabeth in the autumn was making
a progress through the valley of the Thames when she heard that Cardinal
Chatillon[282] had escaped from Tréport, and had arrived in England and
desired an audience. Lord Cobham, Warden of the Cinque Ports, made much
of him when he landed; Gresham entertained him; the French Ambassador,
himself inclined to be a Huguenot, honoured him as if he were a prince;
and as soon as the Queen’s answer was received, Chatillon hurried down
to Newbury to prefer his request to the Queen. He looked little of a
cardinal or a churchman, for he dressed in cape, hat, and sword, and
his wife joined him, but that perhaps made him all the more welcome.
Throgmorton voices the general idea in a letter to Cecil. “I think,” he
says, “with you, that it is a special favour of God to preserve this
realm from calamities by their neighbours’ troubles.… If her Majesty
suffer the Low Countries and France to be weeded of the members of the
Church whereof England is also a portion, I see no other thing can happen
but a more grievous accident to us than to those whom we have suffered to
be destroyed.”[283]
But it is quite clear that neither the Queen nor Cecil intended to
allow the Huguenots to be destroyed. The Cardinal was received with
open arms, munitions were brought from the Tower in hot haste, and a
strong fleet was fitted out to carry aid to Huguenots in Rochelle. The
French Ambassador might be half a Huguenot, but his brother the Bishop
of Rennes was not, and he came and protested strongly in the name of
Catharine against Chatillon’s reception in England. Cecil tells Norris
in Paris that he got a very short answer. “I told him,” says Cecil, “we
had more cause to favour him (Chatillon) and all such, because the said
Cardinal Lorraine was known to be an open enemy of our sovereign. So he
departed with no small misliking, and I well contented to utter some
round speeches.”[284] But, prudent as usual, Cecil was a stickler for
legality, and took care that appearances were kept up. The Cardinal, he
insisted, was a faithful subject of his King; it was the Guises who were
the enemies. Norris is directed to tell Catharine that the fleet is “to
protect our Burdeaux fleet from pyrats”; and if any complaint is made
about money and munitions of war being provided for Chatillon, he is
to say that the Queen would never do anything against the French King,
but if English merchants made bargains with the Huguenots, he (Cecil)
knew of no way to stop it. He certainly made no attempt to do so; for
with a great civil war on hand it was clear that France could not resort
to arms for the cause of Mary Stuart; and whilst mediatory proceedings
were dragging on in England, the Protestant cause in Scotland was being
consolidated.
The unhappy Queen of Scots herself, persuaded that no help could just now
reach her from her French kinsmen, seems to have depended almost entirely
upon the aid to be given by the King of Spain and Alba to the Scottish
Catholics. No messenger came from her to London without beseeching
secret letters in cipher to the Spanish Ambassador; and whilst the trial
dragged on, she left no stone unturned to arouse indignation against
Murray and the English. They wished to kill her child, she said, and
force the reformed faith upon her and Scotland. In an intercepted letter
to one of the Hamiltons, which fell into Cecil’s hands,[285] she says
that Dumbarton, with Murray’s consent, was to be seized by the English.
Elizabeth had, she averred, promised to sustain Murray, to recognise his
legitimacy, and raise him to the throne as her vassal; both of these
being accusations which were likely to move the Hamiltons to fury. But,
above all, she accused Cecil of a deeper plot still. He had arranged,
she said, to marry one of his daughters to the Earl of Hertford, father
of Catharine Grey’s young heir, and thus, by mutual support, Hertford’s
son and Murray might occupy respectively the English and Scottish thrones
under Cecil’s tutelage. “So they will both be bent on my son’s death.”
There was no truth in it; but it was an excellent invention to arouse the
ire of the Scottish Catholics. Before even this was written (December),
Cecil knew how bitter was Mary’s feeling against him. When Beton came to
London from Mary in October, with secret messages for De Spes, suggesting
her escape, “which will not be difficult, or even to raise a revolt
against this Queen,” Cecil guessed his real errand, and, says De Spes,
“Cecil is so much against the Queen of Scotland, and so jealous in the
matter, that as soon as he saw Beton he asked him whether he had been
with his complaints to the Spanish Ambassador, and whether he came to see
me often; to which Beton replied that he had no dealings whatever with
me.”[286]
But Cecil’s spies were everywhere, and he knew that De Spes was working
ceaselessly in Mary’s interests to bring disaster upon England, in union
with his chief, the Duke of Alba, in Flanders. The great difficulty
in the way of the Spaniards was the extreme penury of the treasury.
Spain was in the very depths of poverty, its commerce well-nigh killed
by unwise fiscal arrangements and the depredations of the privateers,
against whom De Spes inveighed to Cecil constantly, but in vain, though
the Secretary was strongly against piracy on principle. Flanders
desolated with war, Holland and Zeeland in revolt, were no longer the
milch-cows for the Spaniards that they had been, and Alba, with an
unpaid and rebellious soldiery, was in despair of subduing Orange, much
less of crushing England, unless large sums of money were forthcoming.
Philip made a great effort in the autumn of 1568, and borrowed a large
sum of money from the Genoese bankers to supply Alba with the sinews of
war. The money was to be conveyed by sea to Flanders at the risk of the
bankers. Three of the vessels duly arrived in Antwerp, after having been
chased by Huguenot privateers; but several others put into Southampton,
Plymouth, and Falmouth, to escape from their pursuers. The representative
in England of the bankers was the Genoese Benedict Spinola, who requested
De Spes to ask the Queen to allow the money to be discharged and brought
overland to Dover, where it could be transhipped under convoy for the
Duke of Alba. De Spes saw the Queen on the 29th November, and she
consented to this course being adopted.
In the meanwhile the privateers, in crowds, were clustered outside the
harbours where the rich treasure lay, and nearly every Spanish ship that
entered the Channel fell into their hands. De Spes had not been sent by
Philip to provoke war, but in the few months that he had been in England
his violence, insolence, and bigotry had brought war nearer than ever
it had been before. Norris in Paris had just been warned, and had sent
the warning to Cecil, that a plot was formed to kill the Queen, and that
the papal banker Ridolfi, De Spes, and the English Catholic nobility,
headed by the Earl of Arundel, had agreed to place Mary Stuart on the
English throne. De Spes was closeted day and night with Mary’s agents.
“The Bishop of Ross came at midnight to offer me the good-will of his
mistress and many gentlemen of this country.… The Queen of Scotland told
my servant to convey to me the following words: ‘Tell the Ambassador that
if his master will help me I shall be Queen of England in three months,
and mass shall be said all over the country.’”[287]
Condé’s agents, too, were for ever telling the Queen and Cecil of the
plans against England of the Guises and Alba, as soon as the Protestants
in France and Flanders had been subjugated; and Knollys wrote almost
despairingly from Bolton of Mary’s haughty disbelief in Elizabeth’s
power to harm her.[288] There need, therefore, be no surprise that the
English Council began to question the wisdom of allowing the treasure
that had fallen into their power to be used against the tranquillity and
independence of their own country. When De Spes asked Cecil for the safe
conducts for the money, he was put off with vague evasions, whilst the
main question was being discussed. After much pressing, Cecil gave the
safe conducts, and sent orders to Plymouth and Falmouth (13th December,
N.S.) that the shore authorities were to defend the treasure-ships,
which were being threatened by pirates, even in port. “These orders are
now being sent off,” writes De Spes, “but in all things Cecil showed
himself an enemy to the Catholic cause, and desirous on every opportunity
of opposing the interests of your Majesty.… He has to be dealt with by
prayers and gentle threats.” “The Council is sitting night and day about
the Queen of Scotland’s affairs. Cecil and the Chancellor (Bacon) would
like to see her dead, as they have a King of their own choosing, one of
Hertford’s children.”[289]
After deliberation, Cecil had sent for Bernard Spinola, and ascertained
from him that the money was being conveyed at the bankers’ risk, and
could not legally be called King Philip’s property.[290] This seems to
have decided the question. The money on the cutter in Southampton harbour
was discharged, on the pretext of protecting it from pirates;[291] and
as soon as De Spes got the news, on the 20th December, he went to the
Queen in a violent rage to demand its return. He only saw Cecil, who said
the money was safe, but hinted that it did not belong to the King. De
Spes then gave the bad advice to Alba to retaliate by seizing all English
property in the Netherlands, which was done, and Cecil was provided with
a pretext which gave him what he always needed, a good legal position to
justify his acts. The Queen had not hitherto plainly said that she would
keep the money; but as soon as she heard that Alba had seized English
property, it gave her the required excuse for doing so. Her credit was
as good as Philip’s, she said, and she would borrow it herself. Not only
400,000 crowns in gold, but every scrap of Spanish property in England
was seized, enormously in excess of all English property in Flanders. In
vain De Spes hectored and stormed, in vain Alba alternately threatened
and implored, in vain Philip made seizures of Englishmen and goods
in Spain; the Queen was in an unassailable position. Alba had openly
declared the seizures of English property first, and all Elizabeth had
done was to adopt reprisals afterwards. But it crippled Alba and Philip
almost to exhaustion, and well-nigh ruined Spanish commerce and killed
Spanish credit.
For years open and secret negotiations went on to obtain some restoration
of the enormous amount of Spanish property seized. Cajolery, bribery,
and appeals to English honour were resorted to without effect; private
negotiations were opened by the owners of the property to get partial
restitution on any terms; envoy after envoy was sent, and returned home
empty-handed. The Queen refused to acknowledge Alba or his agents in any
form, and Cecil was immovable in his determination that no arrangement
should be made that did not bring into account all the confiscations
and persecutions that had ever been suffered by English in Spain at the
hands of the Inquisition, which he knew was impossible. In the meanwhile
the property dwindled and was jobbed away, and little, if any, ever
eventually reached its proper owners.
Early in January the Queen refused to receive De Spes, and sent Cecil
and the Lord Admiral, attended by a large train, and the aldermen of the
city, to see him at his house. Cecil, as usual, was the spokesman. He was
angry and severe: upbraided the Ambassador for his bad offices; condemned
the cruelty of the Duke of Alba, and his insolence in seizing English
property; and ended by placing De Spes and all his household under
arrest, in the custody of Henry Knollys, Arthur Carew, and Sir Henry
Knyvett. The reason of this was that a violent letter from De Spes to
Alba had been intercepted by Cecil’s orders. To make matters worse, the
foolish Ambassador, whilst under arrest, wrote an insolent letter to Alba
complaining of his treatment, and sent it open to the Council. In it he
says that “Cecil is harsh and arrogant; that he vapoured about religion,
dragged up the matter of John Man and about Bishop Quadra’s affairs,
and, in short, did and said a thousand impertinent things. He thinks he
is dealing with Englishmen, who all tremble before him.… The question
of the money does not suit him. I beg your Excellency not to refrain on
my account from doing everything that the interests and dignity of the
King demand; for whilst Cecil rules, I do not believe there will ever be
lasting peace. It is a pity so excellent a Queen should give credit to
so scandalous a person as this. God send a remedy; for in this country,
people great and small are discontented with the Government.… Cecil is
having a proclamation drawn up, from which he leaves out what is most
important, and misstates the case. He refused to return my packet, and is
getting one Somers to decipher my letters. If he succeeds I will pardon
him.”[292] The transmission of this insolent letter, open to the Council,
to be sent to Alba, produced the effect that might have been expected.
De Spes was asked to explain what he meant by such offensive expressions
against the Government, and by some scurrilous references employed in
another intercepted letter towards the Queen. He tried to attenuate his
insolence towards the Queen, and the Council as a whole, but not that
towards Cecil personally.
And so affairs drifted from bad to worse. Every letter from De Spes to
Alba and the King was full of abuse of Cecil, and statements of the
determination of the English Catholics to shake off his tyranny and raise
Mary Stuart to the throne. The people are all discontented, he says,
and the slightest show of countenance from Philip will enable Elizabeth
and the detested Cecil to be overthrown. Philip did not know what to
think of it, and sent to Alba orders to inquire independently whether
De Spes’ representations were true. If it is so easy, he says, he is
willing to give the aid required, as after his duty to maintain the holy
faith in his own dominions, it is incumbent upon him to re-establish it
in England. “If you think the chance will be lost by again waiting to
consult me, you may at once take the steps you consider advisable.”[293]
Alba soon undeceived the King. He had his hands full in the Netherlands;
he was almost without money; rash and foolish De Spes, he knew, was not
to be depended upon, and he told Philip plainly that he must temporise
and make friends with Elizabeth, leaving vengeance until later. De
Spes, he thought, was being deceived, perhaps betrayed, by Ridolfi and
the Catholics, and open war with England must be avoided at any cost.
Cecil, indeed, had accurately gauged the situation, and knew far better
than De Spes that Philip dared not fight, now that the Prince of Orange
was holding Holland and Zeeland against him. England’s traditional
alliance was not with the House of Spain, but with the possessor of the
Netherlands, and in the same proportion as Spain lost control over the
Low Countries, the need for a close union with her shifted.
Late in February the Duke of Norfolk, and his father-in-law, the Earl of
Arundel, to whom the changed situation was not so clear as to Cecil, sent
Ridolfi to De Spes with a cipher communication to tell him that the money
and Spanish property should be returned.[294] “They had only consented
to my detention and Cecil’s other impertinences, because they were not
yet strong enough to resist him. But they were gathering friends, and
were letting the public know what was going on, in the hope and belief
that they will be able to turn out the present accursed Government and
raise up another Catholic one, bringing the Queen to consent thereto.
They think your Excellency (Alba) will support them in this, and that
the country will not lose the friendship of our King. They say they will
return to the Catholic religion, and they think a better opportunity
never existed than now. Although Cecil thinks he has them all under his
heel, he will find few or none of them stand by him. I have encouraged
them.… In the meanwhile Cecil is bravely harrying the Catholics,
imprisoning many, for nearly all the prisons are full. The Spaniards
(_i.e._ from the arrested ships) are in Bridewell to the number of over
150, and a minister is sent to preach to them.” This gives us a clue to
the real origin of the plot against Cecil, which his domestic biographer
absurdly ascribes to a noble member of the Council having seen upon his
table a book attacking aristocracy.[295] Rapin is nearer in guessing the
cause of the conspiracy in ascribing it to Norfolk, Winchester, Pembroke,
Leicester, Northumberland, Westmoreland, and Arundel, in favour of Mary
Stuart’s claim, at least to the succession, in opposition to Cecil’s
candidate, Catharine Grey’s son, Lord Beauchamp. Camden records that
Throgmorton, Leicester’s henchman, advocated the lodging of Cecil in
the Tower first. “If he were once shut up, men would open their mouths
to speak freely against him.”[296] As will be seen, however, Cecil was
more than a match for his jealous enemies, who were also the enemies of
England; and the Queen, to her honour, stood bravely up for her great
minister.[297] The plan agreed upon was for Norfolk, a cat’s-paw of
Leicester, to denounce Cecil for his supposed intention of forcing the
succession of Beauchamp, and provoking war with Spain by advocating the
seizure of Philip’s treasure; but Leicester, too unstable, even, to keep
the counsel of his own plot, dropped a hint to the Queen, who warned
Cecil, and the whole nefarious conspiracy was unveiled. The excuse given
by Norfolk and Arundel to De Spes for their failure was that so many
Councillors were interested in the plunder that they could not get them
to move against Cecil. “For my part,” says De Spes, “I believe that they
have very little courage, and in the usual English way wish things to be
so far advanced that they can with but little trouble win your Majesty’s
rewards and favours.”
On the strength of their intentions against Cecil, Arundel, with his
sons-in-law, Norfolk and Lumley, tried their hardest to get some
money from De Spes, but without effect until the northern rebellion
was in preparation. Their intermediary was a Florentine banker, whose
brother-in-law, Cavalcanti, was one of Cecil’s agents, and through him
every step was known to the Secretary. Spies were everywhere. Whilst
Cecil’s most confidential private secretary, Allington, carried all his
secrets to De Spes for a consideration,[298] no visitor went to the
Spanish Embassy whose name and business was not at once reported to
Cecil, who, says De Spes, was suspicious even of the birds of the air.
Though Mary was in captivity, she contrived to write constant cipher
letters through De Spes to the Pope, to Alba, and to Philip. The Bishop
of Ross, her indefatigable but imprudent agent, took no step in Mary’s
cause without consultation with the Spaniard. She would, he said, have
been released already but for Cecil, her great enemy in the Council.[299]
If he could be got rid of, all would be well. The Bishop of Ross went so
far as to solicit another husband for Mary to be chosen by Philip, and
offered her abject submission both for England and Scotland, in return
for aid to the coming rising in her favour. It will be seen by this that
a more dangerous and widespread plot even than that against Cecil was
being planned by the Catholic nobility.
At what period the first suggestion was made for a marriage between the
Duke of Norfolk and Mary Stuart is not certain, but the Bishop of Ross
afterwards deposed[300] that the Duke had sent his offer to the Queen
before the meeting of the Commission of York (October 1568), of which
he was president; and as Lady Scrope, in whose husband’s house, Bolton
Castle, Mary was kept, was Norfolk’s sister, it is probable that the plan
was hatched during her stay at Bolton. From Murray’s statement[301] it
appears that Norfolk had a private conference with him during the sitting
of the Commission at York, when the Duke proposed to suppress the papers
which incriminated Mary, in order to save the scandal of a conviction.
Murray placed the evidence before the English Commissioners, and agreed
to abide by Elizabeth’s decision, and Norfolk at once wrote a private
letter to Cecil conveying his strong impression of the Queen’s guilt, but
advocating the suppression of the evidence. Norfolk’s conference with
Murray, and probably Cecil’s knowledge of the marriage plan, appears to
have been the reason for the removal of the Commission to London, and
the employment of Norfolk elsewhere, as well as of the removal of Mary to
Tutbury. When Norfolk returned to court, Elizabeth received him coldly,
for the talk about his marriage with Mary was now public, and the Duke
assured the Queen of the untruth of the rumours. After Murray, with real
or pretended reluctance, had laid the whole of his evidence against Mary
before the Commission, and the sittings had come to an end with the sole
result of leaving the cloud over her head, Norfolk’s plan for a time was
shelved;[302] but the conspiracy of the nobles against Cecil in favour of
Mary again revived the idea of the marriage; and Guzman in June 1569 says
that the new Lord Dacre had mentioned the matter to him, and professed
his willingness to hold in readiness 15,000 men in the north, to rise in
favour of Mary if he were assured of Philip’s support. De Spes asserts
that Cecil had proposed to marry his widowed sister-in-law, Lady Hoby, to
the Duke, a proposal which the Duke had rejected with scorn, “as his eyes
were fixed upon the Queen of Scots.”
By this time matters had so far advanced that a large sum of money (6000
crowns) was sent by Alba to the Catholic nobles, through Lumley and
Arundel, as well as 10,000 to Mary, and the rising in the north was in
principle decided upon; but Alba, whilst ready to supply money secretly,
strictly enjoined De Spes to turn a deaf ear to any suggestions for
overt aid against the Queen’s Government.[303] His great care for the
moment was to repair the effects of his mistake, and obtain some sort
of restitution of the Spanish property seized in England. Agents were
sent backwards and forwards, supple cosmopolitan Florentines mostly.
Ridolfi, Fiesco, the Cavalcantis, and several others tried by bribery and
other means to induce Cecil to consent to an arrangement. It suited him
to pretend a willingness to do so. Ridolfi dined and conferred with him
more than once on the subject at Cecil House. De Spes was released from
his captivity in Paget House (on the site of the present Essex Street,
Strand), and allowed to take the Bishop of Winchester’s house instead;
but on various pretexts, invented, as he says, by Cecil, the interminable
negotiations about the restitution dragged on without much result, as
Cecil evidently intended them to do. “We must have patience,” De Spes
writes to Alba, “but the affair is greatly injured by Cecil’s having
again got the upper hand in the government, without fear now that the
other members may overthrow him, for he knows that they could not agree
together for the purpose.”[304]
Whilst Cecil was temporising about the restitution, and dallying with
the Spanish agents, he kept his hand on the pulse of the Catholic Lords.
Arundel and his party had arranged that De Spes should once more be
admitted to the Queen’s presence at Guildford, and then go to a meeting
of the conspirators at Nonsuch; but Cecil raised difficulties, and
himself came to town specially to tell De Spes that the Queen could not
receive him until he obtained fresh credentials direct from Spain. Cecil
had apparently by this time (August 1569) won over the Earl of Pembroke;
and Leicester himself had taken fright at the probable result of his
plotting. His accomplices had gone beyond him. The rise of Norfolk and
Mary under a Catholic regime would of course have meant extinction for
Leicester, and though he was ready enough to ruin Cecil, he had no wish
to be dragged down in his fall. “The Duke’s party,” writes De Spes, “and
those who favour the Queen of Scotland, are incomparably the greater
number.… I believe there will be some great event soon, as the people are
much dissatisfied and distressed by want of trade, and these gentlemen of
Nonsuch have some new imaginations in their heads.”
A few days after this was written, Norfolk received the ominous warning
from the Queen at Titchfield, to “beware on what pillow he rested his
head.” The Duke was a poor, weak creature, and instead of accompanying
the Queen to Windsor, he fled into Norfolk, and from there wrote an
apology to the Queen. Elizabeth’s answer was a peremptory summons for
him to come to court, ill or well. He delayed, and the Queen, in a rage,
sent and arrested him, confining him first at Burnham, near Windsor, and
shortly afterwards in the Tower. How wise and moderate Cecil was under
the circumstances, may be seen in his own letters. He knew better than
any one that the conspiracy was primarily directed against him, as one
of the conditions imposed upon Mary was stated to be that nothing should
be done against Elizabeth;[305] yet this is how he wrote to the Queen
just before Norfolk was sent to the Tower[306] (9th October): “If the
Duke shall be charged with the crime of treason, and shall not thereof
be convicted, he shall not only save his credit, but increase it. And
surely, without the facts may appear manifest within the compass of
treason (which I cannot see how they can), he shall be acquitted of that
charge; and better it were in the beginning to foresee the matter, than
attempt it with discredit, and not without suspicion of evil will and
malice. Wherefore I am bold to wish that your Majesty would show your
intention only to inquire of the facts and circumstances, and not by any
speech to note the same as treason. And if your Majesty would yourself
consider the words of the statute evidencing treasons, I think you would
so consider it.”
In a letter written by Cecil to Norris a few days before this,[307] he
says that he had answered to the Queen, who was very angry with Norfolk,
for the latter’s return; and he gives an account of the Duke’s plight and
reported willingness to obey the Queen’s summons: “whereof I am glad;
first, for the respect of the State, and next for the Duke himself, whom
of all subjects I honoured and loved above the rest, and surely found in
him always matter so deserving. Whilst this matter hath been passing,
you must not think but that the Queen of Scots was nearer looked to than
before; and though evil willers of our State would gladly have seen some
troublesome issue of this matter, yet, God be thanked, I trust they
shall be deceived. The Queen hath willed Lord Arundel and Lord Pembroke
to keep their lodgings here, for that they were privy to this marriage
intended, and did not reveal it to her Majesty; but I think none of them
did so with any evil meaning.[308] Of Lord Pembroke’s intent herein,
I can witness that he meant nothing but well to the Queen’s Majesty.
Lord Lumley is also restrained, and the Queen hath also been grievously
offended with Lord Leicester, but considering that he hath revealed all
that he sayeth he knoweth of himself, her Majesty spareth her displeasure
more towards him. Some disquiets must arise, but I trust not hurtful, for
that her Majesty sayeth she will know the truth, so as every one shall
see his own fault, and so stay.” But for all Cecil’s diplomatic pleading,
Norfolk went to the Tower, where, with feigned submission and lying
protestations, he continued to plot with Mary Stuart and the enemies of
England. The Catholics and Norfolk’s friends, of course, threw the whole
blame upon Cecil.[309]
Shortly before Norfolk’s arrest, De Spes, who was still in close
communication with the northern Lords and the Duke’s friends, wrote to
the King, anticipating a favourable result of the movement; “although, on
the other hand, I observe that Cecil and his fellow-Protestants on the
Council are still very much deluding themselves. Even now, with the peril
before them, they will not come to reason, so firmly persuaded are they
that their religion will prevail.” As soon as Arundel and his friends
were placed under arrest, De Spes says that “every one cast the blame
on Secretary Cecil, who conducts these affairs with great astuteness.”
All would be lost, he said, by the Duke’s cowardice, and the Queen of
Scots had sent to urge him to behave valiantly. But valour was no part
of wretched Norfolk’s nature. A few days before the Duke was lodged in
the Tower, an envoy of the northern Earls, headed by Northumberland, came
to De Spes, promising to raise and capture the north country, release
Mary, restore the Catholic religion, and return unconditionally all the
Spanish property seized. They only asked in return that a few Spanish
harquebussiers should be sent; and they dropped Norfolk out of their
programme, looking to the Spaniards to provide a fit husband for Mary.
“Whilst Cecil governs here, no good course can be expected, and the
Duke of Norfolk says that he wished to get him out of the government
and change the guard of the Queen of Scotland before taking up arms. It
is thought they will not dare to take the Duke to the Tower, though in
this they may be deceived, because they who now rule are Protestants,
and most of them creatures of Cecil.” The Secretary’s attitude in this
matter has been treated somewhat at length, because it happens that
material exists which shows conclusively how bitter and unjust were his
enemies towards him, and how impossible it is to accept, without full
examination, statements to his detriment, made even by men who were in
daily communication with him.
In the middle of October the Catholic ferment in the north reached its
height. The Queen had summoned Northumberland and Westmoreland, and they
refused to obey. Without waiting for the Spanish aid for which they
had stipulated, they entered Durham with 5000 foot and 1000 horse, and
proclaimed the restoration of the Catholic faith. Cecil himself, giving
an account of the rising to Norris,[310] says, “They have in their
company priests of their faction, who, to please the people thereabouts,
give them masses, and some such trash as the spoils and wastes where they
have been.” Smashing communion-tables and devastating Protestant houses
as they went, they advanced to Doncaster; but the Government had long
foreseen the affair, and were ready to cope with it. Mary was hurried
off, strongly guarded, to Coventry, out of the reach of the rebels. Lord
Darcy repulsed one band; the Earl of Sussex, president of the north,
held York against the main body; the wardens of the marches were well
prepared and provided by Cecil’s foresight, and the country people in the
great towns of the north were intimidated into quietude. On the 24th
December, Cecil could write: “Thank God, our northern rebellion is fallen
flat to the ground and scattered away.[311] The Earls are fled into
Northumberland, seeking all ways to escape, but they are roundly pursued,
by Sir John Forster and Sir Henry Percy in one company, and Lord Sussex
in another. The 16th December they broke up their sorry army, the 18th
entered Northumberland, the 19th into the mountains; they scattered all
their footmen, willing them to shift for themselves; and of a thousand
horsemen there are left but five hundred. By this time they must be
fewer, and, I trust, either taken or fled into Scotland, where the Earl
of Murray is in good readiness to chase them to their ruin.”[312]
So ended, ignominiously, the only important armed revolt against
Elizabeth in England, but the first of a long series of plots against
the peace and independence of the nation, by which Mary Stuart from her
captivity, English Catholics who prized their faith more than their
country, and Spain and the Guises, for their own national or dynastic
ends, sought to bend the neck of England once again to the yoke which the
statecraft of Elizabeth and her great minister had enabled her to shake
off.