ELIZABETH AND PHILIP
However fond Elizabeth was of Leicester, she would never allow him
to presume upon her favor. A friend of his one day demanded to see
the queen, and the usher, or "gentleman of the black rod," as he was
called, refused to permit him to enter. Leicester threatened the usher
with the loss of his position, but that gentleman went straightway to
the queen, fell at her feet, and told the whole story.
"Your Grace," said he, "I have but obeyed your commands, and all that I
crave is to know the pleasure of your Majesty. Shall I obey yourself or
my Lord Leicester?"
Leicester had also attempted to tell his side of the story, but a wave
of the queen's hand had silenced him. Now she turned upon him haughtily
and said:--
"I have wished you well, my lord, but know you that my favor is not so
locked up in you that others can have no share. I will have here but
one mistress and no master."
Leicester tried to take revenge on the queen's vanity by asking her for
an appointment in France.
"Do you really wish to go?" she demanded.
"It is one of the things that I most desire," answered the earl.
Elizabeth pondered a moment, she glanced at Leicester, and then turned
to the Spanish ambassador, who stood near, and said laughingly:--
"I can't live without seeing him. Why, he is my lap-dog, and wherever I
go, people expect that he will follow." Leicester did not go to France.
Elizabeth's old suitor, King Philip, was giving her more trouble
than Leicester. The Low Countries, as Holland and Belgium were then
called, formed part of his domain. Most of the inhabitants of these
lands were Protestants, and they were making a determined resistance
to the rule of the Spanish king. Elizabeth believed that if Philip was
successful he might attack England. The course decided upon by the
English council was to send money secretly to the revolters in the Low
Countries. This would not make open war with Spain, but would enable
the king's opponents to oppose him more strongly, and would keep him
too busy to think of invading England.
Even before Elizabeth came to the throne, the English Channel and the
neighboring seas were swarming with bold sailors who attacked any
vessel that they believed might be carrying gold or any other cargo
of value. To-day this would be called piracy, it was then looked upon
as brave seamanship. These pirates cared little for the nationality
of a vessel, but Spain had more ships at sea than any other country,
and these ships were loaded with gold from America or with valuable
goods from India, therefore, Spain was the greatest sufferer; and as
the English sailors were generally more bold and more successful than
others in making these attacks, the wrath of Spain toward England grew
more and more bitter. Whenever a Spanish ship captured an English ship,
the sailors were hanged, or imprisoned, or perhaps tortured, or even
burned at the stake as heretics. "It is only fair," said Elizabeth,
"to get our reprisal in whatever way we can;" and whoever had taken a
Spanish vessel, be he English or belonging to some other nation, was
allowed to bring his prize into an English port and there dispose of it.
The slave-trade, too, was looked upon as an honorable business and a
valuable source of wealth for England. Spain forbade all nations to
trade with her American colonies, but these bold Englishmen kidnapped
negroes on the African coast, carried them to America, and found ready
purchasers in the Spanish colonists of the West Indies. One of these
English fleets was attacked by the Spanish in the Gulf of Mexico, and
three of the vessels were captured. Elizabeth raged and declared that
she would have vengeance. It is possible that her indignation was no
less from the fact that two of the vessels of this fleet belonged to
the queen herself.
It was not long before the opportunity for revenge appeared. Four
Spanish vessels loaded with money for the payment of Philip's army
were chased by French pirates and took refuge in an English harbor.
Under the pretence of securing the safety of this money, it was quietly
transferred to the royal treasury.
The Spanish ambassador protested, but there was much delay before he
was permitted to see the queen. He presented a letter from Duke Alva,
who commanded the Spanish forces in the Low Countries, claiming the
treasure.
"I am not wholly without reason," declared Elizabeth coolly, "for
believing that this gold does not belong to the king of Spain."
"This is the duke's own writing, your Highness," said the ambassador.
"Not willingly or with intent to deal unjustly would I seize upon aught
that with propriety belongs to his Majesty," said the queen, "but
certain rumors have reached me that divers persons of Genoa are sending
this money to the Low Countries to make profit by loaning it to the
duke."
"Your Majesty, I give you most solemn assurance that such is not the
case," declared the helpless ambassador.
"A few days will determine whether your informants or mine be correct,"
said the queen haughtily. "If the king of Spain can prove that the
gold is his, I will restore it to him. Otherwise, I will pay the usual
rate of interest to its true owners, and keep it for good service in my
own kingdom."
Elizabeth was right in her belief that Philip would not wish to have
another war on his hands, and so would made no attack upon her kingdom.
He seized Englishmen and English property in Antwerp, but this was
small loss to England, for Elizabeth retaliated by imprisoning the
Spaniards who were doing business in her kingdom and whose possessions
were of far more value than those of the English in Antwerp.
Duke Alva was annoyed and delayed in his plans by the loss of the
money, but the fighting went on most bitterly. In France there was
a kind of peace between the court and the Huguenots, as the French
Protestants were called, but on neither side was there forgiveness or
forgetfulness. The leader of the Huguenots was wounded in Paris by an
assassin. Catherine de Medicis, mother of the French king, alarmed her
son by declaring that the Huguenots would take a fearful vengeance for
this attack, and induced him to consent to a terrible slaughter in
which thousands of Protestants were slain. This was the massacre of St.
Bartholomew's Day.
The English were then thoroughly aroused. Thousands were ready to
take up arms and avenge the wicked murders. To the French ambassador
fell the unwelcome task of telling the dreadful story to the queen
of England. He asked for an audience, but she refused it. For three
days she hesitated; at length he was admitted. The queen and all her
attendants were dressed in the deepest mourning. The unhappy ambassador
entered the room and advanced through the lines of lords and ladies.
Little return was made to his respectful salutations, there was dead
silence. Finally the queen with grave, stern face, came a few steps
toward him, greeted him with politeness, and motioned him to follow her
to one side.
"I have no wish to show discourtesy to your sovereign," she said,
"but it was impossible that I should bring my mind sooner to speak
of a matter so grievous to me and to my realm." The ambassador bowed
silently, and the queen went on. "Can it be that this strange news
of the prince whom I have so loved and honored has been correctly
reported to me?"
"In truth," answered the ambassador gravely, "it is for this very thing
that I am come to lament with your Majesty over the sad accident."
"An accident?" questioned Elizabeth.
"Surely, your Majesty, for is not that an accident which is forced upon
a sovereign by no will of his own, but by the plots and treasons of
those whom he would gladly have befriended?"
"How may that be?" asked Elizabeth.
"The evening before the sad event the king was horrified to learn that
in revenge for the attempt at assassination, a terrible deed had been
planned. It was no less than the imprisonment of himself and his family
and the murder of the Catholic leaders."
"How was this known?"
"One whose conscience could no longer bear the burden revealed the
wicked plot. The words and looks of several of the conspirators gave
gloomy confirmation to the story."
"Why not imprison the traitors? Is there no dungeon in France and no
executioner?"
"Your Majesty, not all rulers have your keen judgment and your control
of even the strongest sentiments of your heart. The king has not yet
learned to govern his feelings by moderation. He had but a few short
hours to decide what was best. Many were urging him on to inflict the
most severe penalties, and at last he yielded, and allowed that to be
done which he will ever regret. Especially does he lament that with a
populace so wildly excited and so indignant at the plot against the
king, it is all but impossible that some who are innocent should not
have perished with the guilty. This is his chief cause of grief." The
ambassador had made as smooth a story as possible, but how would the
queen receive it?
She was silent for several minutes, then she said:--
"Although I could not accept his Majesty, the king of France, for a
husband, yet shall I always revere him as if I were his wife, and ever
feel jealous for his honor. I will believe that from some strange
accident, which time will perhaps more fully explain, these murders
have come to pass. I recommend the Protestants among his people as
especially entitled to his Highness's loving care and protection."
When this speech was reported to Catherine de Medicis, she smiled
grimly and said, "The queen of England can hardly ask greater
protection than she herself grants; namely, to force no man's
conscience, but to permit no other worship in the land than that which
the ruler himself practises."
Four years had passed since Mary of Scotland fled to England. Nothing
had been satisfactorily determined in regard to her guilt or innocence.
An important part of the testimony against her was a casket of her
letters to Bothwell. Elizabeth's commissioners believed these letters
to be the work of Mary's hand, but the English queen refused to permit
them to be made public. Whether they were true or were forgeries, she
would not allow a queen, a member of her own family, to be declared
guilty of murder.
Mary was put under the care of the Earl of Shrewsbury. The sovereign
claimed the right to give prisoners of state or guests of the nation
to her nobles for watch or entertainment or both. "I am about to trust
you as I would trust few men," the queen said to the earl when she
informed him of his new task. He was obliged to accept the charge
meekly, but it must have been a heavy burden. If his family moved from
one of his manors to another, Mary must go with them. She must have
the attendance and treatment due to her rank, but she must be closely
watched to prevent, if possible, the sending of letters and messages
to any that might conspire to rescue her. Guests of the family must be
kept from meeting her. It is no wonder that the earl's health gave out.
He went away for medical treatment, and at once there came a letter
from Cecil:--
"The queen has heard that you are gone from home. She says she can
scarce believe it, but she bids me know from you what order you left
for attendance upon the Queen of Scots. She would not that you should
be long away from her, for she feels it only in accordance with her
honor that the said queen be honorably attended, and for this she cares
as much as for any question of surety."
The earl did not recover at once, and the queen sent another trusty
servant to take charge of Mary. The caring for the prisoner and her
retinue was no small matter, for there were so many in her train that
her unwilling host felt greatly relieved when Elizabeth commanded that
their number be reduced to thirty.
Soon after Mary's coming to England there was an uprising in the north
among the nobles who wished to oblige Elizabeth to acknowledge Mary as
her heir. They planned for the Scotch queen to marry an English duke of
great power and wealth. This conspiracy was discovered, Mary was kept
for a while in closer confinement, and after some time the duke was
beheaded. Elizabeth long refused to sign the warrant, and she would pay
no attention whatever to the counsels of the royal advisers in regard
to the execution of Mary, though one called her "that dangerous woman,"
another, "a desperate person." The archbishop of York advised Elizabeth
to "cut off the Scottish queen's head forthwith;" Cecil was decidedly
in favor of this plan, for he believed that it was the only way to
secure peace to the kingdom, that so long as Mary lived there would be
plots, and that, however closely she was watched, she would find means
to communicate with plotters. The rebellion in the north was the only
revolt of any importance while Elizabeth was on the throne. It was
punished most severely by a vast number of executions.
Not long after the revolt, the Pope excommunicated Elizabeth. He
pronounced upon her a solemn curse whether she ate or drank, went in or
went out; whatever she did, she was accursed, and her subjects were no
longer called upon to obey her. Neither Philip nor the king of France
ventured to have this decree published in his kingdom, and in England
it seems to have produced no effect whatever. The government was every
day becoming stronger. The man who disobeyed did not often escape
punishment, and Englishmen in general preferred to be excommunicated by
the Pope in Italy than to be executed by Elizabeth in England.
The queen gained steadily in power and in the affections of her
subjects. Some of this increase of power was because by good management
England had grown richer, some of it because by her shrewd treatment
of France and Spain she had won the deference of both. Her means of
gaining power were not always to be commended; she was not above
maintaining nominally peaceful relations with a king while she was
aiding his revolting subjects; and she would favor first one proposed
marriage and then another, as it might suit her purposes to win the
good will of the country to which the respective wooers belonged. When
she was once accused of deriding and mocking whoever sought her hand,
she replied with an air of injured innocence that she never "mocked
or trifled" with any of those who would have had her in marriage,
that she had given them her answer as promptly as the "troubles and
hindrances that were happening in the world" would permit. Dishonorable
as her behavior sometimes was, it is only fair to Elizabeth to remember
that in her times fair dealing among nations was the exception rather
than the rule; the country that could gain the advantage over another
country was looked upon as having shown the greater ability.
Part of Elizabeth's gain in power was due to the improved condition
of England. The country was at peace, taxes were not large; ways of
living were becoming more comfortable; all subjects were required to
attend the Protestant church, but fines and loss of office were small
matters when compared with the axe and the stake; bold sailors were
taking English ships to distant harbors; a great exchange had been
built in London where merchants from any part of the world might come
to buy and sell; and the thing that made all these advantages possible
was the fact that the government was firm and sure. That the queen was
the vainest woman who ever lived, that she would say one thing one
day and quite another thing the next morning was perhaps not known
outside of her court, and in any case, her subjects would have forgiven
her faults, for they felt that she was ever a friend to them, that
she believed in them and trusted them. At one time a gun went off by
accident and the bullet came very near the queen. Elizabeth straightway
issued a proclamation, "I will believe nothing against my subjects,"
said she, "that loving parents would not believe of their children."
Elizabeth refused positively to stand at the head of any one party; she
was determined to be, as she said, "a good queen" to all her subjects.
It must be admitted that she was sometimes unjust to the "great folk,"
but nothing else aroused her wrath so surely and so dangerously as a
wrong done to her people, to the masses of her subjects, with whom she
felt sympathy and to whom she turned for support. It was an ancient
custom in the land that whenever the sovereign went from one part
of the kingdom to another, the people of whatever district he might
chance to be in should furnish him with food for his attendants, often
numbered by hundreds. "Purveyors," or officers whose business it was to
attend to the providing of food, went ahead of the royal party and took
what they chose to declare would be needed. Sometimes they paid for
it--whatever price they chose--sometimes they did not, but in any case
the purveyor was sorely tempted to seize larger quantities of supplies
than would be needed and sell them elsewhere. When Elizabeth discovered
that one of her officers had been behaving in this manner, she was most
indignant. "My people shall suffer by no such abuses," she declared.
One article that the cheating purveyor had seized and sold for the
advantage of his own pocket was a quantity of smelts. "Take him to the
pillory," bade the angry queen. "Hang the smelts about his neck, and
see you to it that there shall he sit for three full days. Let him who
steals from my people keep in his account that he has to reckon not
with them but with me; they are _my_ people, and I am their queen."
This proud sovereign who ruled her haughty nobles with so high a hand
enjoyed showing to her subjects how humble she could be. When she was
tormenting the king of Spain by every means in her power, she kept
on one Maundy Thursday the old custom of feet-washing. Elizabeth was
thirty-nine years of age, and therefore the poor women who were seated
before her for the ceremony were thirty-nine in number. The queen's
ladies brought silver basins filled with warm water delicately perfumed
with flowers and sweet-smelling herbs. Cushions were placed, and on
these the queen kneeled as she washed one foot of each of the poor
women, marked it with a cross and kissed it. It takes a little from the
humility of the act to read that just before the queen's performance of
this duty the feet of the thirty-nine poor women were most carefully
scrubbed and perfumed by three separate officials. There must have
been some competition to be among the chosen thirty-nine, if any one
guessed what would happen, for before the queen bade them farewell, she
presented each one with a pair of shoes, cloth for a gown, the towel
and apron used in the ceremony, a purse of white leather containing
thirty-nine pence, and a red purse containing twenty shillings. Besides
these gifts, each one received bread, fish, and wine.
It is no wonder that Elizabeth was popular among her subjects, and
that she rejoiced in their good will, but some of the consequences of
their devotion were not agreeable. It was the custom to wear ornaments
called aglets, which were somewhat like large loops. These were made of
gold and often set with precious stones. They were sewed upon various
parts of her robes of state, and they had a fashion of disappearing
when the queen was dining in public, for her subjects who were near
enough to secure one as a souvenir of their beloved queen seem to have
taken advantage of their opportunity. The persons who had charge of her
wardrobe made in their books many such entries as these:--
"Lost from her Majesty's back the 17th of January, at Westminster, one
aglet of gold, enamelled blue, set upon a gown of purple velvet."
Another one is:--
"One pearl and a tassel of gold being lost from her Majesty's back, off
the French gown of black satin, the 15th day of July, at Greenwich."