1572-1576
One of the first effects of the massacre of St. Bartholomew was an
approach on the part of Burghley to the Spanish agent in England. The
object probably was to keep in touch and to learn what was going on,
whilst arousing the jealousy of the French, and, above all, to reopen
English trade with Flanders and Spain. In any case, the cordiality of
so great a personage as the Lord Treasurer quite turned the head of
simple-minded, vain Antonio de Guaras, who suddenly found himself treated
as an important diplomatist, and for the rest of his life tried, but
disastrously, to live up to the character.[361] Soon after the expulsion
of De Spes, one of Burghley’s agents had opened up communications with De
Guaras, which resulted in an interview between the latter and the Lord
Treasurer. The minister was graciousness itself, and quite dazzled the
merchant. There was nothing, he assured him, that he desired more than an
agreement with Spain on all points; and though it all came to nothing at
the time, and shortly afterwards the Flemish Commissioners were curtly
dismissed, a letter was handed to Guaras late in August 1572 to be sent
to Alba, making professions of willingness to negotiate for a reopening
of trade, and to withdraw the English troops from Flanders. Before the
reply came in October the massacre of St. Bartholomew had taken place,
and when De Guaras went to Burghley at Hampton Court with a letter from
Alba he found him all smiles. “The Queen was only remarking yesterday,”
said he, “that she wondered Antonio de Guaras did not come to court with
a reply to the message offering to withdraw the Englishmen who were
helping the rebels.” They were only sent there, said Burghley, to prevent
Frenchmen from gaining a footing. He was overjoyed to receive Alba’s
kind letter, and took it to the Queen at once, though she had already
sickened with the smallpox, which a day or two afterwards declared
itself. He hoped, he said, that God would pardon those who had caused the
dissension between the two countries; and the Queen was most willing to
come to terms. He expressed delight at the reported successes of Alba.
He compared Spaniards with Frenchmen, greatly to the disadvantage of the
latter, and “he said more against the French than I did, speaking with
great reverence of our King, and of so courageous a Prince, which were
the words he applied to your Excellency” (Alba).
The delighted merchant was pressed to stay to supper to meet such great
personages as the Earl of Sussex, the Lord Chamberlain, and others; and
the next day he was in conference with Burghley for hours, with the
result that the latter consented to draw up a new draft treaty for the
reopening of trade, one of the clauses of which was to touch upon the
tender subject of the treatment extended by the Inquisition to English
merchants and mariners in Spain. Burghley hinted to De Guaras that some
of the Council were against an accord, but he persuaded him that his own
feelings were all in favour of a renewal of the close understanding with
the House of Burgundy. De Guaras was backwards and forwards to court for
weeks, more charmed than ever with the Lord Treasurer’s amiability. “It
is,” he says, “undoubted that a great amount of dissension exists in
the Council, some being friendly to our side, and others to the French;
but the best Councillor of all of them is Lord Burghley, as he follows
the tendency of the Queen, which is towards concord. As he is supreme in
the country and in the Queen’s estimation, in all the important Councils
which were held during the days that I was at court, he, with his great
eloquence, having right on his side, was able to persuade those who were
opposed to him. He assured me privately that he had gained over the great
majority of his opponents, and especially the Earl of Leicester, who
has always been on the side of the French.”[362] Burghley could be very
persuasive and talkative when it suited him, as it very rarely did. The
French, he said, were most anxious for a close alliance, but the Queen
and himself set but small store on “these noisy French and Italians.”
A Spanish spy in London, unknown to De Guaras, scornfully wrote to Alba
that Lord Burghley was playing with De Guaras; and before many weeks had
passed, the latter himself had begun to doubt. Burghley passed him in
his ante-room three times without so much as noticing him. “Some great
plot against the Spaniards in Flanders” was hatching, he was sure; “and
in one moment they decided that their false news was of more importance
than our friendship.” “Whilst this Government exists, no good arrangement
will be made, as the Queen only desires it from fear, and the rest will
oppose it on religious grounds.” When De Guaras saw the Lord Treasurer
later in November (1572), grave doubts were expressed about the _bona
fides_ of Philip, much to the Spaniard’s indignation. Burghley said he
was still strongly in favour of an arrangement, because the French, who
wished the English wool trade to go to France instead of Flanders, were
so shifty, and could not be trusted. The Queen would be glad, too, to
mediate between Spain and the Prince of Orange. Thus Burghley played on
the hopes and fears of Spain; but through the whole negotiation it was
clear that the objects were—first, if possible, to reopen the ports for
English trade on profitable terms;[363] and, secondly, to keep Spain in
hand, pending the development of events in France, and the strengthening
of Orange for his forthcoming campaign.
In the meanwhile Sir Humphrey Gilbert and his 800 Englishmen were
recalled from Flanders, and the elaborate pretence made that he was in
disgrace for having gone thither at all against the Queen’s wish; and
other demonstrations were made, especially by Burghley, of a desire to
agree on friendly conditions with Spain. As weeks passed without any
reply coming from Alba to the draft treaty, Burghley grew distrustful,
and, as De Guaras complains, coldly passed him without recognising him.
At last, late in December, he sent for the Spaniard and made a speech,
which, De Guaras says, sounded as if it had been studied. “He hoped,” he
said, “that the good-will of himself and his friends would be recognised.
Some of the Councillors thought that De Guaras had been playing them
false,[364] and his (Burghley’s) party was much annoyed that no answer
had come, especially about the simultaneous opening of the ports.” All
the while the vigorous support of Orange’s preparations went on; money,
men, and arms flowed over in abundance (early in 1573); and the Dutch
agents were in England urging Elizabeth openly to take Holland and
Zeeland under her protection, and to lend national countenance to the
struggle against Spain. She was not prepared for this yet, for France
was under the influence of the Guises, and their intrigues in Scotland
left her no rest. But Alba was afraid of the bare possibility of a
great Protestant league of English, Germans, and Huguenots, in favour
of Orange; and his pride was humbled more by this than by professions
of friendship. The result of Burghley’s negotiations through De Guaras,
and the aiding of Orange, was that in the summer of 1573 the Flemish
and Spanish ports were once more opened to English trade, on terms
immensely favourable to England,[365] since she obtained a free market
for her cloth, whilst she kept the great bulk of the enormous amount
of Spanish property which Elizabeth had seized five years previously.
This was a greater exemplification of the impotence of Philip, even
than the expulsion of De Spes. All the world could see now that, much
as his Inquisition might harry individual Englishmen, the King could
neither defend nor avenge the injuries done to himself; and was obliged
to overlook the presence of armed English regiments on the side of his
rebellious subjects, for the sake of retaining the profit brought to his
dominions by English commerce. Burghley had at all events established one
fact, namely, that, for the present, Philip alone could do no harm.
The struggles between the Protestants and Catholics in Scotland had
continued almost without interruption since the death of Murray. Mary’s
friends were still numerous and strong amongst the aristocratic and
landed classes, and were supported, as we have seen, by Spanish and papal
money, as well as by Guisan intrigue. The Regent Lennox had been murdered
by the Hamiltons (September 1571), and his successor (Mar) had died of
poison or a broken heart (November 1572); but with the advent of Morton,
a man of stronger fibre, the Protestant cause became more aggressive, and
the English influence over Scotland more decided. Shortly before this
happened, when the effects of St. Bartholomew were still weighing on the
English court, and it was known that Catharine de Medici and her son were
as busy with the Archbishop of Glasgow in supporting the Hamiltons and
Gordons as was Cardinal Lorraine himself, secret instructions were given
to Killigrew, the English Ambassador in Scotland, to take a step which
under any other circumstances would have been inexcusable. The secret
instructions are drafted in Burghley’s hand, and more obloquy has been
piled upon his memory in consequence of them than for any other action
in his career; even his thick-and-thin apologist, Dr. Nares, confessing
that he could only look upon Killigrew’s orders “with feelings of disgust
and horror.” Killigrew’s open mission was to reconcile the King’s party
with those who championed the cause of his mother, and especially with
Kirkaldy of Grange and Lethington, who still held Edinburgh Castle; but
his secret instructions were to a different effect. He was to warn
the Protestants that a second St. Bartholomew might be intended in
Scotland—not by any means an improbable suggestion, considering who were
the promoters of the original massacre. “But you are also chosen to deal
in a third matter of far greater moment.” The continuance of the Queen of
Scots in England, he is told, is considered dangerous, and it is deemed
desirable that she should be sent to Scotland and delivered to the Regent
(Mar), “if it might be wrought that they themselves should secretly
require it, with good assurance to deal with her by way of justice, that
she should receive that which she hath deserved, whereby no further peril
should ensue from her escaping, or by setting her up again. Otherwise the
Council of England will never assent to deliver her out of the realm; and
for assurance, none can suffice but hostages of good value—that is, some
children of the Regent and the Earl of Morton.”[366] The suggestion was
not a chivalrous or a generous one. It meant nothing less than handing
over the unfortunate Mary to her enemies to be executed, and so to rid
Elizabeth of her troublesome guest without responsibility. Killigrew was
Burghley’s brother-in-law, and the two, with Leicester and the Queen,
were the only persons acquainted with the intention.
On his arrival in Edinburgh the new envoy found the Protestants
profoundly moved by the news of the massacre in Paris; Knox, paralysed
and on the brink of the grave, used his last remaining spark of life
to denounce the Guises and the Papists who had forged the murder plot
against the people of God. Killigrew found Morton ready and eager to
help in the sacrifice of Mary, but Mar held back; and Burghley and
Leicester wrote, urging speed in the matter.[367] When the terms of
the Scots at last were sent to Burghley, it was seen that, though they
were willing to have Mary killed, they would not relieve Elizabeth of
the responsibility.[368] The death of Mar put an end for a time to the
negotiation, which was never seriously undertaken again, as it was clear
that the Scots would drive too hard a bargain to suit Elizabeth.
It is my province to explain facts rather than to apologise for them, and
the explanation of the plan to cause Mary to be judicially murdered in
Scotland must be sought in the panic which seized upon the Protestants
after St. Bartholomew. The massacre was generally believed to be only a
part of a plan for the universal extirpation of the reformers, in which
it was known that Mary Stuart’s friends and relatives were the prime
movers, and one of the main objects was represented to be the raising of
Mary to the throne of a Catholic Great Britain. So long as this belief
existed, no step was inexcusable that aimed at frustrating so diabolical
and widespread a conspiracy. That Burghley himself was not sensible of
any turpitude in the matter may be seen from a letter written by him
to Walsingham on the 14th January 1573, begging him to discover the
author of a book printed in Paris, in which he and Bacon are scurrilously
accused of plans against Norfolk and Mary. “God amend his spirit,” he
says, referring to the author, “and confound his malice. As for my part,
if I have any such malicious or malignant spirit, God presently so
confound my body to ashes and my soul to perpetual torment in hell.”[369]
How soon Catharine de Medici and her son regretted the false step of
St. Bartholomew is seen by their attitude towards England early in the
following year (1573). The Archbishop of Glasgow was plainly told that
no more help could be given to his mistress, Cardinal Lorraine failed
ignominiously to draw France into renewed activity on behalf of the
League, and Charles IX. considered it necessary to apologise to Elizabeth
for the presence in his court of the special papal envoy already referred
to. It was seen also that the blood and iron policy of Alba had ended in
failure: the revolt in the Netherlands was stronger than ever, Holland
was entirely in the hands of Orange, and most of the Catholic provinces
of Flanders even had broken from their Spanish allegiance. Under these
circumstances it seemed possible that the secular dream of Frenchmen
might eventually come to pass, and the fine harbours and busy towns of
Belgium might fall to the share of France. But this could only be if
she had a close understanding and made common cause with England. So
once more the Alençon marriage was vigorously pushed to the front by
Catharine. In February the French Ambassador saw Elizabeth, and formally
prayed her to give an answer whether she would marry the Prince or
not. If she would only let them know her pleasure now, the King and
Queen-mother would trouble her no more. It was a good opportunity, and
Elizabeth made the most of it. Fair terms must be given to the Huguenots
in Rochelle, she said, and on condition that this was done, she would
give an answer about Alençon through Lord Burghley. On the 18th February
the Lord Treasurer made his formal speech. The Queen would never marry a
man she had never seen. If the Prince liked to come over, even secretly,
he would be welcome; but in any case an interview had better precede
the discussion of religion, because if the lovers did not fancy each
other, the question of conscience would be a convenient pretext for
breaking off the negotiation; but still no public exercise of Catholic
worship must be expected. When Burghley sent to Walsingham a copy of his
speech, he added for his private information: “I see the imminent perils
to this State, and … the success (_i.e._ the succession) of the crown
manifestly uncertain, or rather so manifestly prejudicial to the state
of religion, that I cannot but still persist in seeking marriage for
her Majesty, and finding no way that is liking to her but this of the
Duke, I do force myself to pursue it with desire, and do fancy myself
with imaginations that if he do come hither her Majesty would not refuse
him.… If I am deceived, yet for the time it easeth me to imagine that
such a sequel may follow.”[370] This was uncertain enough; but Walsingham
was even less encouraging. He was sick of the whole hollow business;
profoundly distrustful of the French; and, moreover, was a friend of
Leicester, who constantly plied him with letters deprecating the match.
This, then, is how he managed cleverly to stand in with Burghley whilst
serving Leicester. “Touching my private opinion of the marriage, the
great impediment that I find in the same is the contentment of the eye.
The gentleman, sure, is void of any good favour, besides the blemish
of the small pocks. Now, when I weigh the same with the delicateness of
her Majesty’s eye, and considering also that there are some about her
in credit, who in respect of their particular interests, have neither
regard for her Majesty, nor to the preservation of our country from
ruine, and will rather increase the misliking by defacing him than by
dutifully laying before her the necessity of marriage … I hardly think
there will ever grow any liking.… Whether this marriage be sincerely
meant here or not is a hard point to judge … in my opinion I think rather
no than yea.”[371] This was almost the last letter written by Walsingham
as Ambassador. He was recalled, to be shortly afterwards appointed
joint-Secretary of State with Sir Thomas Smith, with the intention of
still further relieving Burghley from routine labour; and Dr. Dale, as
Ambassador in Paris, kept alive the ridiculous, and frequently insincere,
discussion of the marriage of Elizabeth and Alençon.[372]
Burghley’s labours and anxieties were not confined to foreign affairs.
His interest in the uniformity and discipline of the Anglican Church
was unceasing, and especially in connection with his Chancellorship of
Cambridge University, gave him endless anxiety. The vestments controversy
had now widened and deepened. The famous tract called “An Admonition to
Parliament” had been presented to the Parliament of 1572 by Cartwright;
and its violence in a Puritan direction had provoked a controversy,
which, at the period now under consideration (1573), had developed on
one side into a bitter antagonism to prelacy, and even sacerdotalism in
all its forms. Both parties appealed to Burghley. He made a speech in
the Star Chamber which left no doubt as to his attitude, if any such
ever existed, on the point. The Queen, he said, was determined to have
the laws obeyed. No innovation of ritual or practice would be permitted.
If any of the “novelists” were under the impression that departures from
the rules laid down would remain unpunished, he disabused their minds.
A Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, named Chark, violently attacked the
hierarchy from the University pulpits, and was admonished. He persisted,
and was ejected from his Fellowship. Another Cambridge man, Edward
Dering, Lecturer at St. Paul’s Cathedral, acted similarly, and was
summoned before the Privy Council, and was suspended from his preferment.
At the instance of Bishop Sandys[373] he was restored, but again brought
before the Star Chamber when he addressed a long letter to Burghley
advocating his views. Whilst Leicester always favoured the Puritans,
the Lord Treasurer was thus on the side of the law and the prelates;
and though he was constantly chosen as arbiter, even by those with whom
he disagreed, he never wavered in his insistence on the maintenance of
uniformity, and obedience to the prescriptions laid down by Parliament
and the rulers of the Church.[374]
Notwithstanding the appointment of two Secretaries of State, which
somewhat relieved him from writing despatches, almost every matter, great
and small, was still referred to Burghley. We have given instances of his
activity in foreign and ecclesiastical affairs; but, as Ellis[375] truly
says, “from a question of peace or war, down to a regulation for the
lining of slop hose; from quarrels at court to the bickering between a
schoolmaster and his scholar; from the arrest of a peer to the punishment
of a cutpurse—all was reported to him, and by all parties in turn his
favour was craved.”
It must have been difficult for him to keep clear of court factions
and scandal; but though it was notorious that Leicester always opposed
him, they still remained outwardly friendly, and their letters to each
other are full of civil expressions. Sussex and Hatton were for ever at
feud with Leicester. Alençon’s amorous agents scandalised all beholders
by their open flirting with the Queen, to which Leicester retorted by
making violent love to two sisters, Lady Sheffield and Frances Howard;
and the light-hearted and light-heeled young Earl of Oxford, Burghley’s
son-in-law at this time (1573), had danced himself into the good graces
of the erotic Queen, which he soon lost by his folly. Stern Lady Burghley
openly and imprudently condemned this philandering, and the Queen
fell into a rage with her; yet “my Lord Treasurer, even after his old
manner, dealeth with matters of the State only, and beareth himself very
uprightly.… At all these love matters my Lord Treasurer winketh, and will
not meddle any way.”[376]
Burghley’s private correspondence with his steward, Kemp, at Burghley, at
this period, shows that his care for detail in his household management
was as unwearied as ever. One letter written in June 1573 by Kemp is very
curious. Burghley’s mother was still alive, but, of course, very aged.
She appears to have become unduly penurious as to her garb, and her son
had ordered a dress for the old lady. The steward writes: “Mr. Thomas
Cecil came home well, and my mistress, your mother, came to Burghley two
hours before him. The gown that you would make, it must be for every
day, and yet because it comes from you (except you write to her to the
contrary) she will make it her holiday gown; whereof she hath great store
already, both of silk and cloth. But I think, sir, if you make her one
of cloth, with some velvet on it, with your letter to desire her for
your sake to wear it daily, she would accustom herself to it; so as she
would forget to go any longer in such base apparel as she hath used to
have a delight in, which is too mean for one of a lower estate than she
is.” The old lady also desired a chaplain for service twice a day; and by
Burghley’s endorsement on the letter, it is evident that the gown and the
chaplain were sent to her.
During the Queen’s great progress through Kent and Sussex in the autumn,
Burghley attended her; and whilst the court was at Eridge, the Treasurer,
not without difficulty, persuaded the Queen to accede to Mary Stuart’s
request, through the Earl of Shrewsbury, that she should be allowed to
visit the baths of Buxton, whither shortly afterwards Burghley himself
went for his own malady,[377] and saw the unhappy Queen, whom on this
occasion, at all events, he impressed not unfavourably.[378] During the
Queen’s progress, which was on a more lavish scale even than usual,[379]
a determined attempt was made—and, according to one of Mary Stuart’s
letters from Buxton, not quite unsuccessfully—to arouse Elizabeth’s
distrust of Burghley. Simultaneously there were sent to the Queen, to
Burghley, to Bacon, and the principal courtiers and ecclesiastics,
another violent book printed in France against Burghley and the Lord
Keeper. A copy was sent to the Queen by Lord Windsor, a refugee on the
Continent, with great professions of attachment, and hints evidently
directed against Burghley, “although for my part, in mine opinion, I
suppose he is too wise to be overtaken in many of those things which he
is touched withal.”[380] Burghley received his copy from an unknown hand
in Canterbury Cathedral precincts, where he was lodged, and it appears
quite to have upset his equanimity. He wrote (11th September 1573) to
the Archbishop (Parker) bitterly resenting the attack at such a time “by
some domestic hidden scorpion.” “If God and our consciences were not our
defence and consolation against these pestilential darts, we might well
be weary of our lives.” Parker returned “the mad book, so outrageously
penned that malice hath made him blind. I judge it not worth an answer.”
Bacon was less disturbed with the matter than his brother-in-law, and
summarises the contents of the book as follows: “It consisteth of three
points. Chiefly it is to change the religion that now is; 2nd, to
establish the Scottish Queen’s party; and, 3rd, is an invective against
us two. I like the conjunction of the matter, though I mislike the
impudent lies of the author to maintain it.”
The accession of Morton to the Regency of Scotland had been followed by
the complete collapse of Mary’s cause there. Killigrew was ready with
English bribes, and the Hamiltons and the Gordons were induced to abandon
a hopeless struggle and lay down their arms. Only Kirkaldy of Grange
held out, hoping against hope that the promised Guisan help would reach
him in Edinburgh Castle. Once a large sum of French money for him was
withheld by the treachery of Sir James Balfour, corrupt almost to the
point of grotesqueness; and thenceforward Kirkaldy, Lord Hume, and the
rest of the party simply held out in the castle to save their lives.
But when Drury with English troops crossed the Border and reinforced
Morton, Kirkaldy surrendered to the English general, on promise of fair
treatment. Morton insisted upon the prisoners being delivered to him,
for whilst they lived, he said, there would be no safety for him or the
State; and though Drury held out, Elizabeth at last gave way to Morton’s
importunity, and brave Kirkaldy and the rest of Mary’s staunch friends
lost their heads. Thenceforward Mary Stuart’s cause was dead, so far as
the Scottish people themselves were concerned. Morton nearly obtained the
Bishop of Ross, too, from Elizabeth, but he was after all a sovereign’s
Ambassador, and her Council dissuaded her from surrendering him. On his
abject submission and solemn promise never again to take part in public
affairs,[381] he was allowed to go to France, to break his pledge at
once, and become thenceforward an untiring agent for the furtherance
of Spanish aims in England. Thus Scotland for a time, under so firm an
English ally as Morton, ceased to cause active anxiety to Elizabeth and
her minister.
Alba, sick of his sanguinary failure, was replaced in Flanders by a
more diplomatic Governor (Requesens) late in 1573. Though De Guaras in
London continued humbly to imitate De Spes, and immersed himself in
intrigues, such as that of the English captains who proposed to betray
Flushing, the plans of those who offered to kill the Prince of Orange,
to kidnap the young King of Scotland, and the like, many of these plans
were merely traps set by Burghley to learn how far the Spaniards were
willing to go; and they came to nothing, for of all things Philip needed
peace the most. Alba and the war party in Spain were in disgrace, the
commerce of the country was almost destroyed by the privateers, and
friendly relations with England were once more the great object of
Philip’s policy. Burghley also renewed his efforts to draw the countries
closer together, for reasons which will presently be stated. A great
delivery of Catholics from prison was made mainly at his instance, and
drew upon him remonstrances and attacks, both on the part of some of the
Bishops themselves, in a guarded fashion, and more violently from the
Puritans, now openly patronised by Leicester. Arising out of this, a
great conspiracy was said to have been discovered against the lives of
Archbishop Parker and Lord Burghley, on the part of one Undertree. The
depositions of the accused, which are in the Hatfield Papers, are, as
usual in such cases, full to the extent of diffuseness; but though Parker
was much alarmed, and the affair gave Burghley an infinity of trouble,
there does not appear to have been much importance really attached to it.
The key to Burghley’s milder attitude towards the Catholics—apart from
the disappearance of Mary Stuart’s party in Scotland—was the position
of affairs in France. The talk of Elizabeth’s marriage with Alençon had
continued uninterruptedly, drawn out with a thousand banalities as to
the possibility of secret meetings between the lovers, the depth and
number of pock holes on the suitor’s face, his personal qualities, his
religious elasticity, and the like. His brother, Charles IX., was only
twenty-four, but it was known that he could not live long; the heir,
Anjou, now King of Poland, was a furious and fanatical Catholic. With
the knowledge of Elizabeth and her minister, all France was enveloped
in a vast conspiracy, in which the Montmorencis and the “politicians”
were making common cause with the Huguenots, of which combination
Alençon was the figurehead. But Catharine de Medici was fully aware of
the fact, and was determined to frustrate it. With Anjou for King she
might still be supreme in France; whereas the rise of Alençon, under
the tutelage of the Huguenots and the Queen of England, would have
meant extinction for her. Several times before Charles died, Alençon
and the Princes of Navarre and Condé had tried to escape to England,
but Catharine held them tight, and never left them. Montgomerie was
waiting for the signal, with a strong fleet in the Channel, to swoop
down upon Normandy, and all the Protestants and anti-Guisans in France
were under arms. The mine was to burst in April, the Princes were to be
rescued forcibly from Catharine, and St. Bartholomew was to be avenged.
But the Queen-mother was on the alert. Just before the day fixed she
hurried away from St. Germains to Catholic Paris, clapped Alençon and
Navarre, Montmorenci, De Cossé, and all the chiefs into prison, and then
crushed the Protestant armies piecemeal, for they were leaderless and
far apart. When, therefore, Charles IX. died (30th May 1574), Catharine
was mistress of the situation, and held France in her hand until the new
King, Henry III., arrived, to take possession of the throne. With such
a sovereign as this in France, led by Catharine, who had her grudge to
satisfy against Elizabeth for the encouragement she had given to the
Princes, it was natural that Burghley should again smile somewhat upon
the Catholics, and say civil words to Spain; especially as panic-stricken
rumours came—though they were untrue—that Philip was fitting out a
great navy to send with a powerful force to Flanders.[382] Catholic
Flanders, moreover, had mostly been brought back to Spanish allegiance
by the mildness of Requesens; and Elizabeth was growing less willing to
continue to provide large sums of money to uphold Orange in what now
appeared to be a well-nigh desperate cause, if it had to be supported
entirely from England. So when Requesens’ envoys came to see her about
the regulation of trade, and the exclusion of the privateers from her
ports, she was all smiles; and although upon being appealed to, to allow
English mercenaries to serve the Spaniards in Flanders as they served
Orange, she refused, though not very firmly, she expressed her desire
to bring Orange to submit to the King of Spain. Once more, therefore, an
unrestrained Catholic regime in France inevitably drew England and Spain
closer together. It was only when the Huguenots were paramount, who would
not join Philip against England, or help the Catholics of Scotland, that
Elizabeth and Burghley could afford to disregard the friendship of the
King of Spain.
The behaviour of the young sovereign of France—no longer a king,
but a besotted monk, sunk into the deepest abyss of debauchery
and superstition—kept alive the discontent of the Huguenots and
“politicians,” who had regarded his accession with horror. Alençon and
the King held rival courts in Paris, the one surrounded by reformers, the
other by all that was retrograde and vicious. Cardinal Lorraine was dead,
and the King’s advisers were no longer statesmen, but mendicant friars
and the Italian time-servers of the Queen-mother: Henry of Guise was just
entering into the arena, and was already a popular idol; and all seemed
to portend a renewal of French activity in favour of Mary Stuart.[383]
Elizabeth therefore went out of her way to dazzle poor foolish De Guaras
again. Seeing him walking in Richmond Park, she called him to her, and
exerted all her witchery upon him (March 1575). “You understand,” she
said, “full well, old wine, old bread, and old friends should be prized
the most, and if only for the sake of showing these Frenchmen who are
wrangling as to whether our friendship is firm or not, there is good
reason to prove outwardly the kind feeling which inwardly exists.”[384]
She accused the poor man, quite coquettishly, of having received a token
from the Queen of Scots—which he had not—but ended by quite winning him
over by her prattle. Almost simultaneously with this, strict orders were
given to the Warden of the Cinque Ports “to prevent the landing of the
Prince of Orange, or any of his aiders or abettors in the conspiracy
against the King of Spain, and also to prevent their receiving any aid,
succour, or relief, in men, armour, or victuals.”[385]
Considering that the revolt in Holland had been mainly kept up from
England, this was indeed a complete change of policy; but more was behind
it even than appeared. Many of the Catholic refugees on the Continent
were spies in the service of Lord Burghley, to whom nearly all of them
appealed as their only hope and protector, and one of them particularly,
named Woodshaw,[386] who was deep in the confidence of La Motte, the
Spanish Governor of Gravelines. The latter suggested that, as war
between France and England was in the air, it would be a good plan for
the English to seize Calais or Boulogne, with the aid of the Spaniards,
and come to terms with Philip to prevent any aid or food reaching the
French from Flanders or Artois. This was conveyed to Burghley, and soon
Sir William Drury, Colonel Chester, and several of the officers who
had come from Holland, were in close conference daily with him and the
other Councillors remaining in London when the Queen went upon her summer
progress. De Guaras, whilst reporting their movements, was in the dark
as to their object. “During the last three days,” he says, “at night or
at unsuspected hours, they have taken from the Tower sixty waggons and
gun carriages, which have been shipped to Dover.” Guns, battery-trains,
culverins, fieldpieces, and ammunition were being shipped on four of
the Queen’s ships at Rochester. Mariners were being pressed, commanders
were leaving secretly for the coast, Burghley’s son-in-law the Earl of
Oxford, with Ralph Hopton and young Montmorenci, hurried off to Germany,
and the Huguenot agents were closeted with Burghley almost day and night.
We know now what it all meant, by a letter from the Earl of Sussex to
Lord Burghley,[387] in which he deplores the projected war with Catholic
France, which, he says, is only brought about by those who wish to
prevent the Queen’s marriage with Alençon. “It will bring her into war
with all Europe, and she and the realm will smart for the pleasing of
these men’s humours.” The cost of the war, he says, was to be defrayed
equally by the King of Navarre (Henry), the German princes, and the
Queen; “but he fears her Majesty in the end must pay for all, or let all
fall when she hath put her foot in.”
Wilkes, the Clerk of the Council, was sent with a large sum of money to
young Montmorenci (Meru) in Strasbourg, and then over the Rhine to the
Duke Hans Casimir, the great mercenary; and Meru was able to write to
Burghley in October, “Thanks to the Queen’s favour by your means, we are
now on the point of succeeding. One of the finest armies that for twenty
years hath issued from Germany, ready to march, is coming just in time
to succour the King’s brother.”[388] All through the summer De Guaras was
at fault as to the meaning of the preparations, which he thought might be
a joint expedition against the Spaniards in Flanders. As we have seen,
the very opposite really was the case. Some of the principal English
officers, indeed, who had been with Orange were full of plots with De
Guaras for poisoning the Prince, for betraying Flushing into Spanish
hands, and so forth. For the moment there were certainly no smiles from
Elizabeth for the Netherlanders; for Orange had taken a masterly step,
such as she herself might have conceived. When he saw that English help
was slackening, he boldly made approaches to France for help. So long as
it was Huguenot help under her control, Elizabeth did not mind; but when
it was a question of marrying Orange’s daughter to Alençon or some other
French prince, and obtaining French national patronage, it was quite
another matter—that Elizabeth would never allow. So England and Spain
grew closer and closer. Sir Henry Cobham was sent as an envoy to Philip,
ostensibly on the question of the English prisoners of the Inquisition,
but really to propose a friendship between the two countries, and inform
the King of the Prince of Orange’s intrigues with the French.[389] A
Spanish flotilla on its way to the Netherlands, under Don Pedro de
Valdés, was, moreover, welcomed in the English ports, and an envoy from
Requesens took part, as the Queen’s guest, in the memorable festivities
at Kenilworth.
A renewed appeal was made to the Council by Orange in August, through
Colonel Chester. He offered the island of Zeeland to Elizabeth, if she
would hold it, and begged permission to raise two thousand fresh men
in England. The reply given by Burghley was to the effect that “if the
Queen allowed such a thing, the King of Spain would have a good cause for
introducing schism and fire into her country through Ireland. If Orange
carried out his threat to hand over the territory to the French, the
Queen would oppose it.” Every day some fresh proof of friendship with
Spain was given. Frobisher proposed to place his fleet at the disposal
of the King of Spain, proclamations were issued forbidding all British
subjects from taking service with Orange, and offers of mediation were
frequent. In September 1575, Alençon managed to escape the vigilance of
his brother and his mother, fled to Dreux, adopted the Huguenot cause,
and headed the revolt with Henry of Navarre. This was the eventuality
in which the English preparations were to have been employed. But,
again, Catharine de Medici was too clever to be caught. She suddenly
released Montmorenci and the rest of the “politicians” from the Bastile,
attached them to the King’s cause, and through them patched up a six
months’ truce between the two brothers (November). The terms were hard
for Henry. Alençon was bribed with 100,000 livres, and the three rich
duchies of Anjou, Berri, and Touraine; Hans Casimir got 300,000 crowns,
and a pension of 40,000 livres; the German mercenaries were handsomely
paid to go home; Condé was promised the governorship of Picardy; the
Montmorencis, De Cossé, the Chatillons, and the rest of the malcontents
were bought; the crown jewels of France were pawned, and the country
plunged deeply in debt to pay for the famous truce.
Then Elizabeth and her advisers found themselves confronted with
increased difficulties, as they usually did when the Catholics in
France had a free hand. Catharine and the King saw that France was
not big enough to hold at the same time the sovereign and the heir
presumptive, and cast about for means to get rid of him profitably. The
best suggestion for them came from the Walloon nobles in favour of Spain.
Why should not Alençon marry a daughter of the Spanish King and be made
Viceroy of Spanish Flanders? The mere whisper of such an arrangement
drove Elizabeth into a new course. She might hint, as she did pretty
broadly many times, at the marriage of the young Prince with herself, but
Alençon thought he saw more advantage elsewhere. For the next three years
he was held tightly in the leading-strings of his mother and brother—no
longer a Huguenot, but an ostentatiously devout Catholic, hating the King
and his surroundings bitterly; jealous, vengeful, and turbulent, but
looking for his future to the Catholics and the League rather than to
the Queen of England, with whom he kept up just a sufficient pretence of
love-making to prevent her from opposing him in Flanders. It was doubly
necessary now for Elizabeth to be friendly with Spain; but she could
not afford to see Orange utterly crushed, for with the Huguenots and
Protestant Holland both subdued, there was no barrier between her and
Catholic vengeance. The position was a perplexing one for her. Orange
sent over prayers almost daily for help, or he must abandon the struggle.
At one time, in December, when the Queen learned that a great deputation
of Dutch Protestant nobles were on the way to offer her Holland and
Zeeland in exchange for English support,[390] “she entered her chamber
alone, slamming the door after her, and crying out that they were ruining
her over this business. She declared loudly that she would have no
forces sent openly to Holland. She was in such grief that her ladies
threatened to burst her door open if she would not admit them, as they
could not bear her to be alone in such trouble.”[391] But loudly as she
might protest, especially in the hearing of the friends of Spain, and
roughly as she might use St. Aldegonde, Paul Buiz, and the rest of the
Netherlanders who prayed for aid, she took care, with Burghley’s help, to
look fixedly in another direction when men and arms, munitions and money,
were sent over to Orange in violation of her own orders.
What Lord Burghley’s action in the matter was is seen by his letters.
Beale, one of the clerks of the Council, was sent over to Zeeland to
report on Orange’s position, and to insist upon the suppression of
piracy. Burghley thus writes to Walsingham (16th April 1576): “I have
perused all the letters and memorandum of Mr. Beale’s concerning his
voyage into Zeeland, and so well allow of the whole course therein
taken by the Lords, that both with heart and hand I sign them.”[392]
The Flushing pirates appear to have offered some insult to the Earl
of Oxford, Burghley’s son-in-law, on his way to England, at which the
Treasurer was extremely angry,[393] an unusual thing with him. In
the same letter he writes: “I find it hard to make a good distinction
between anger and judgment for Lord Oxford’s misusage, and especially
when I look into the universal barbarism of the Prince’s (Orange) force
of Flushingers, who are only a rabble of common pirates, or worse, who
make no difference whom they outrage, I mistrust any good issue of the
cause, though of itself it should be favoured.” He almost violently urges
that Beale should ask the Prince of Orange to avenge such an insult “by
hanging some of the principals.” “Such an outrage cannot be condoned
without five or six of such thieves being hanged. If the Prince were rid
of a hundred of them it would be better for the cause. You see my anger
leadeth my judgment. But I am not truly more moved hereto for particular
causes than for the public.”[394] The same day a very strong remonstrance
from the English Council was written to Orange, saying that the piracy of
the Flushing men was rendering his cause odious to all Christendom, and
would ruin his enterprise.
The Netherlanders, especially Paul Buiz, who lodged with Burghley’s
servant, Herll, in Redcross Street, did their best to excuse the
Flushingers, and begged that “these rough men be not roughly dealt with.”
It is evident that they looked upon Leicester and the Puritans as their
champions rather than moderate Burghley, whose approaches to Spain at
the time were, of course, well known. Herll writes (14th March 1576):
“It is given out by those of good sort who profess the religion, that
your Lordship has been the only obstacle to this Holland service, by
dissuading her Majesty from the enterprise, when the Earl of Leicester
and several earnest friends were furtherers thereof. They complain that
these poor men who were sent to the Queen have been, contrary to promise,
kept by indirect dealing so long here, to their utter undoing at home and
abroad. They say that Sir F. Walsingham dealt honestly with them from
the first. He said they would get nothing, and lose their time. They say
these unworthy proceedings with foreign nations make the English the most
hated men in the world, and to be contemned for mere abusers, as those
who put on religion and piety and justice for a cloak to serve humours
withal. Your Lordship’s enemies, however, are compelled to say that you
are more subject to evil judgment for your good service than for evil
itself.” When Herll spoke to Paul Buiz about Burghley’s anger at the
outrage on Lord Oxford, the Netherlander “struck his breast, and said
your Lordship was the only man who had dealt sincerely with them, and
truly favoured their cause, and yet was forced to give them hard words,
according to the alterations of the time, parties, and occasion, which
kind of free proceeding he preferred of all others.”[395]
A few months later (August) Herll was made the means of conveying
to Colonel Chester, then with Orange, Lord Burghley’s view of the
situation. “Her Majesty,” he says, “is so moved by those insolent
delinges of the Prynce and his Zeelanders, as none dare move her to ani
consideratyon towards theme, butt all is sett uppon revenge of their
lewd acts and worse speche, and to extermynate them owt of the world,
rather than endure it ani longer. And where the Prynce pretends aid
owt of France, he dawnceth in a nett. If he se not that, her Majesty
knows the contrary, and that herein he is greatly abused, or seeketh to
abuse others, with small credit to hymselfe and less assurans to his
estate when this maske is taken away.”[396] The great indignation about
the pirates may or may not have been sincere; but it is unquestionable
that it was the fear expressed of an arrangement between Orange and the
French that really caused the disquietude.[397] The remedy to be proposed
to Orange by Chester was simply that he, Orange, should prevent any
repetition of the piratical outrages of the Flushing men, and apologise
for them, and his friends in England will move the Queen “to help him
underhand; but to say that her Majesty will be _forced_ to do anything,
maugre her will, is a great absurdity.” But if Orange will open his
eyes and see things as they are, “somewhat (yea, some round portion)
will be voluntarily given to the assistance of the cause, and to aid
both Zeeland and Holland, especially the latter, to which country the
Queen and her Council are greatly inclined.” Orange was a diplomatist as
keen as Burghley himself, and he well knew that, as a last resource, he
could always force the hands of the English Government by negotiating
for aid from France. Elizabeth might swear at his envoys, make friends
with his enemies the Spaniards, threaten to expend the last man and the
last shilling she had to turn the French out of Flanders, if ever they
entered; but she always ended in sending aid “underhand” to Orange to
prevent his union with the French; unless, as happened later, the French
were Huguenots disowned by their own King, and going as her humble
servants.
Leicester was for ever clamouring for open help to be sent to Orange; the
Puritans, who took their cue from him, were more aggressive than ever in
the country;[398] but ready as the Queen might be to dally Leicester,
she took care to make no serious move in the knotty question of the
Netherlands without the advice of her “spirit,” as she nicknamed the
great Lord Treasurer.[399] In spite of his almost continual illness, she
summoned him to her, wherever she might be; and at about the period when
the letters just quoted were written, the Earl of Sussex writes saying
that the Queen has just received intelligence from beyond the seas which
she must discuss with him at once. When Burghley had seen the Queen,
either on that occasion or soon after, and returned home, Sussex writes
thus: “Her Majesty spoke honourably of your Lordship’s deserts, and of
her affection for you, and of your sound, deep judgment and counsel;
using these words, ‘that no prince in Europe had such a councillor as she
had of him.’ If your Lordship had heard her speeches, they must needs
have been to your great contentment. The end of her Majesty’s speeches
was that she prayed your Lordship to come to Nonsuch, as soon as you
conveniently might.”
Burghley, indeed, was the only one of her ministers whom she treated
with anything approaching respect, for he always respected himself.
Walsingham, especially, was the object of her vulgar abuse. “Scurvy
knave” and “rogue” were the terms she frequently applied to him; and
it was apparently not at all an uncommon thing for her, in moments of
impatience with him, to pluck off her high-heeled shoe and fling it
in his face. Leicester she alternately petted and insulted. After a
squabble he used to sulk at Wanstead for a few days, till she softened
and commanded him to return, and then the comedy recommenced. Hatton
and Heneage were treated in similar fashion, but with even less
consideration. Only towards the Lord Treasurer, except for occasional
fits of distrust caused by his enemies, the Queen usually behaved with
decorum. How careful he was to avoid all cause for doubt is seen by his
answer to Lord Shrewsbury’s offer of his son as a husband for one of
Burghley’s daughters.[400] It will be recollected that Lord Shrewsbury
had the custody of the Queen of Scots, and that Burghley had fallen into
semi-disgrace shortly before, because he had visited Buxton at the same
time as Mary and her keeper. The match proposed was a good one, and the
Lord Treasurer—a new noble—was flattered and pleased at the offer, but
declined it, mainly because his enemies had put into the Queen’s head
that he had gone to Buxton at the instance of the Shrewsburys, to plot in
favour of Mary; “and hereof at my return to her Majesty’s presence, I had
very sharp reproofs … with plain charging of me for favouring the Queen
of Scots, and that in so earnest sort, as I never looked for, knowing my
integrity to her Majesty, but specially knowing how contrariously the
Queen of Scots conceived of me for many things.” He continues his letter
with an evidently sincere protest of his loyalty and disinterestedness,
and the absence in him of any personal feeling against Mary, but declares
his determination to do his best, at all costs, to frustrate any
attempted injury against his mistress or her realm.
Notwithstanding this small cloud, Burghley went again to Buxton in 1577.
A somewhat curious letter from Leicester, who went to Buxton before him
in June, shows that the Lord Treasurer’s mode of life was not always
prudent. Leicester says that he and his brother are benefiting greatly
from the water. “We observe our physician’s orders diligently, and
find great pleasure both in drinking and bathing in the water. I think
it would be good for your Lordship, but not if you do as we hear your
Lordship did last time: taking great journeys abroad ten or twelve miles
a day, and using liberal diet with company dinners and suppers. We take
another way, dining two or three together, having but one dish of meat
at most, and taking the air afoot or on horseback moderately.”[401] In
July (1577) Burghley started from Theobalds for his Lincolnshire estates,
and thence to Buxton. Leicester wrote to him there that the Queen was
desirous of receiving a “tun of Buxton water in hogsheads;” but when
in due time the water arrived, “her Majesty seemeth not to make any
great account of it. And yet she more than twice or thrice commanded me
earnestly to write to you for it, and … asked me sundry times whether
I had remembered it or not: but it seems her Majesty doth mistrust it
will not be of the goodness here it is there; besides, somebody told her
there was some bruit of it about, as though her Majesty had had some sore
leg. Such like devices made her half angry with me now for sending to
you for it.”[402] This hint of her sore leg was enough to make Elizabeth
sacrifice a river of Buxton water if necessary. She, like her father
before her, really had an issue in one of her legs, and there was no
point upon which she was more sensitive.