CLOSING YEARS
After the defeat of the Armada not only was there a general rejoicing,
but the whole land felt a new sense of freedom. Until 1588 Elizabeth
had been obliged to steer the ship of state with the utmost wariness.
She must keep on good terms with Scotland, lest that country should
turn to France for friendship. She must make sure that France would not
oppose her, lest Philip should join the ruler of the land across the
Channel. She must help the Low Countries sufficiently to strengthen
their opposition to the Spanish king and so keep him from England, but
she must not give them so much aid that they would become a burden upon
her in their dependence, and she must not accept the Protectorate,
that would perhaps involve her realm in a long and bloody war with
Spain. For thirty years this keen, shrewd scheming went on. England
was gaining every day in power and wealth, and when at last "Old
Leadenfoot" began to bestir himself, the country was ready to meet him.
The Armada had come and gone, and England was free. Philip might talk
as boastfully as he would about sending another fleet to make another
attack, but no one forgot that he had sent a fleet and it had failed.
England was "mistress of the seas" in the sense that she was no longer
in fear of any other nation. If a Spanish vessel encountered an English
vessel, they would be likely to fight, but the Englishmen expected to
win, and that expectation of victory was in itself a mark of greatness.
If England chose to plant colonies in the New World, there was little
fear that Spain would trouble them to any great extent.
This new sense of freedom showed itself not only in what was done but
in what was written, and often the same man that had written an undying
poem could fight a battle or lead a voyage of discovery or plan what
was best for the nation when there were difficult questions of state to
decide. Shakespeare himself, the greatest writer of all, was not only
a poet but a keen, thrifty man of business.
The people of England had become accustomed to seeing great deeds done
before their eyes, and that is one reason why few stories were written
but many plays, for it seemed much more "real" to see a tale acted on
the stage than to hear an account of it.
It was a great pity that this freedom could not have extended to
religious matters, but it was some years after Queen Elizabeth's death
before many people realized that it was possible for two persons to
have entirely different ideas of religion and yet be honest and sincere
and live peacefully together. Toward the close of Elizabeth's reign
there were persecutions of those refusing to attend the Church of
England that were far more severe than the mild system of fines with
which she began her rule. The fines were increased, and Puritans as
well as Catholics were sometimes ruined by the large sums of money
that they were obliged to pay if they persisted in refusing to attend
the services of the Church of England. They were often imprisoned,
and in the Elizabethan days imprisonment was no light penalty. Not
only were the jails damp, unhealthy, filthy places, but prisoners were
obliged to pay many exorbitant charges, so that if a man escaped with
his life and health, he had to leave large sums of money behind him.
One jail bill of that day has a weekly item of five dollars and a half
for food, and as money would purchase about five times as much then
as now, this charge was equivalent to more than twenty-seven dollars
to-day. This was not all by any means, for a prisoner had to pay the
rent of his wretched dungeon. If he was doomed to wear fetters, he must
pay extra for them, and, most absurd charge of all, he was forced to
pay an entrance fee on being sent to the horrible place. Besides being
imprisoned, dissenters, as those were called who would not attend the
Church of England, were sometimes whipped or tortured or even hanged.
The only excuse for such treatment is that neither the queen nor her
council was in fault for not being a century in advance of their times.
Indeed, it was more than two centuries after the death of the queen
before England would allow a Catholic to become a member of Parliament.
As Elizabeth drew older, she dressed with increasing magnificence. Her
hands were loaded with rings, and her robes were made of the richest
material that could be obtained. A German traveler who saw her on her
way to her private chapel describes her as wearing a dress of heavy
white silk, made with a very long train and bordered with pearls as
large as beans. She wore a deep collar made of gold and jewels. This
same traveler says that every corner of her palace shone with gold and
silver and crystal and precious stones, and yet her floors were strewn
with rushes that were probably as dirty as those in the homes of her
subjects.
The end of the century drew near, and it brought sorrow to the queen in
the death of her old adviser, Lord Burleigh. Leicester had died soon
after the defeat of the Armada, and Elizabeth never parted with a paper
upon which she had written sadly, "His last letter." In Burleigh's
old age he became quite infirm, and while Elizabeth's other ministers
addressed her kneeling, Burleigh was always made to seat himself
comfortably before she would discuss any question with him. "I am too
old and too feeble to serve you well," he would say, but she refused
to let him resign his office. In the days of his strength, she would
storm at him in a tornado of rage when his judgment differed from
hers, but as he became weak and ill, she was the tenderest of friends.
"The door is low, your Majesty," said the servant as she entered the
sickroom of the councilor. "Then I will stoop," said she, "for your
master's sake, though never for the king of Spain." She often went to
sit by his bedside, and the haughty sovereign whose wrath burst forth
so furiously at a word of opposition became the most gentle of nurses.
As she sat beside him, she would allow no hand but her own to give him
nourishment. "She never speaks of him without tears," said one who was
with her after his death.
The loss of another of her friends brought her even greater grief
than that of Burleigh, for this time the life of her favorite lay
in her own power, but as the faithful sovereign she felt herself
obliged to sacrifice it. From the time that Leicester had presented
to her his brilliant, fascinating stepson, the Earl of Essex, the
young man had been a prime favorite with the queen. At their first
meeting he was seventeen and the queen fifty-six, and she treated
him like a petted child who can do no wrong. She forbade him to take
any part in the fighting in Portugal, but he slipped away from court
without her knowledge, and was the first to leave the boats on the
Portuguese coast. He returned with some fear of being punished for his
disobedience, but the queen forgot the wrongdoing, and was only anxious
to make up for his disappointment because a position that he had wished
for had been given to some one else.
When Essex married, Elizabeth was as indignant as usual at each new
proof that with all the adoration that her courtiers continually
declared of herself, she was not the whole world to them. When Essex
was fighting in Holland, a request was sent to the queen for more
troops. The ambassador said:--
"Your Majesty, my master has consulted the Earl of Essex, and he favors
the request."
Elizabeth had not yet granted Essex her forgiveness, and she blazed
forth:--
"The Earl of Essex, indeed! He would have it thought that he rules my
realm."
In spite of her anger with him, she was so anxious when she knew how
carelessly he risked his life that she wrote ordering him to return
to England at once, and when, much against his will, he obeyed her
command, she spent a week in feasting and merriment. Over and over they
quarreled. Essex would perhaps favor one candidate for a position, and
the queen another. There would be hot words between them, and they
would part, both in a fury. Then Essex would pretend to be ill, and
the repentant queen would go to see the spoiled child, and pardon his
petulance unasked. "He is not to blame, he takes it from his mother,"
she would say, and as she especially disliked his mother, she admitted
this as sufficient excuse for overlooking his impertinence. The great
storm came when the queen named a lord lieutenant for Ireland, and
Essex opposed. Elizabeth made one of her severe speeches, and the young
man retorted by shrugging his shoulders and turning his back on her.
The queen replied by soundly boxing his ears. Essex grasped his sword.
"I wouldn't have pardoned that blow even from King Henry himself. What
else could one expect from an old king in petticoats!" he cried and
dashed away from court.
His friends urged him to return and try to regain the affection of
the queen by a humble apology, but for many weeks he refused. "I am
the queen's servant," said he, "but I am not her slave." However, he
finally sued for pardon and was again forgiven.
[Illustration: Last moments of Elizabeth.--_From painting by
Delaroche._]
So long as the offences of Essex were against Elizabeth as a woman,
she was ready to forgive, but at last he committed a crime against her
government, and the woman was forgotten in the sovereign. All through
the reign there was trouble with Ireland. The Irish hated the English
and would follow anyone who would lead them against English rule. There
were continual rebellions. Essex's enemies brought it about that the
favorite should be sent to command what he called "the cursedest of all
islands." Before long, rumors of his mismanagement began to reach the
ears of the queen. "He is ever forcing his soldiers to make wearisome
and useless marches and countermarches," said the reports. "He wastes
money and supplies, and he exhausts his troops by irregular
skirmishes that amount to nothing. He has made a foolish peace with
the leader of the Irish rebels instead of suppressing them by force of
arms. He is trying to make himself king of the Irish, and he will then
raise an Irish army to come over and dethrone the queen."
Elizabeth sent letters full of reproof to Essex, but the young fellow
only said to himself, "They are not her letters. She has written the
words, but it is Burleigh who has guided her pen." He abandoned his
command and went straight to England, sure that the queen would pardon
any misdeed on the part of her favorite.
Early one morning the young man arrived in London. He must see the
queen before his enemies could have word of her and induce her to
forbid him to appear at court, and he galloped wildly on to the
palace. He looked into the audience chamber, she was not there; into
the privy chamber, she was not there. Then he burst into her dressing
room where the queen sat with her women brushing her hair. He was
muddy with his mad gallop to the palace, his clothes were disordered
and travelstained, but when he threw himself at her feet and pleaded,
"Don't judge me by the tales of my enemies," the queen was so kind to
him that he thought himself forgiven. Later, however, she saw that he
had committed many acts of disobedience which in a military commander
were unpardonable. He was tried by the privy council, and for a few
weeks was confined to his own house. Elizabeth deprived him of several
valuable monopolies and even after his release forbade him to appear
at court. In any other commander the penalty of such crimes would have
been far more severe, but instead of thinking upon the mercy that
had been shown him, Essex meditated upon what he thought his wrongs.
He became more and more embittered, and at last he tried to arouse a
rebellion against the queen. There was a fierce struggle in Elizabeth's
mind between her love for the young man and her duty to punish the
treason. At last she signed the death warrant, recalled it, then signed
another, and Essex was executed in the Tower of London.
The seventeenth century began, and the health of the queen was clearly
failing. A woman of less strength of character would have posed as an
invalid, but Elizabeth seemed to feel that sickness was unworthy of a
queen, and she concealed her increasing weakness as far as possible.
She often had to be lifted upon her horse, but she would not give
up riding. She even went to visit one of her councilors. Cornets
saluted her, drums and trumpets sounded as she entered the courtyard.
She watched the dancing of the ladies of the house and the feats of
horsemanship and swordplay of the young men, but she was exhausted, and
in spite of her good courage, she could not go up the stairs without
a staff. Yet in the early part of 1602 she went a-Maying in the old
fashion of celebrating the coming of spring.
With all her glory and her greatness, the last days of this woman on a
throne were more lonely than those of a woman in a cottage. Essex had
been a great favorite among the people, and they had never forgiven
his death. When the queen showed herself among them, she was no longer
received with all the old tokens of loyalty and affection, and no one
could have been more keen than she to note the least change in the
manner of her subjects.
She knew that James would be her heir, but she had not forgotten the
long lines of greedy courtiers who had sought her when her sister Mary
was near her end, and she refused to name him definitely as the one
whom she wished to succeed her. This refusal made little difference,
however, in the increasing devotion of those around her to the Scotch
king, who would so soon be the ruler of England. One after another
wearied of attendance; some made excuses to leave her, others left
without excuse. The son of Burleigh, who had taken his father's place,
sent almost daily epistles to Scotland. Harington, who used to write
her merry, jesting letters, signed "Your Majesty's saucy godson," had
sent valuable gifts to the King of Scots, and a petition that he might
not be forgotten when James should come into his kingdom. Her own
councilors were sending messengers to James hoping to win his favor.
Two of her relatives stood by her bedside, but their watchfulness arose
not from affection but that they might be the first to tell James that
the crown was his at last.
The queen became more and more feeble. She was sad and melancholy.
Often she sat for hours alone in the dark weeping. She felt her
loneliness most keenly. "Whom can I trust? Whom can I trust?" her
attendants heard her murmur. A kinsman who went to see her said that
she drew heavy sighs continually, "And I never knew her to sigh"
he declared, "save at the death of the Queen of Scots." She lay on
cushions piled up on the floor.
"Madam," urged the son of Burleigh, "will you not be moved to your bed?"
"If I go to my bed, I shall never leave it," she answered.
"But you must in order to content your loving subjects," he urged.
Then the queen showed once more her proud Tudor blood. "'Must' is no
word to use to princes," said she, "and, little man, if your father had
lived, even he would not have dared to say so much."
She passed away quietly in a gentle sleep. According to a strange
custom of the times an image of her was made in wax, decked in the
royal robes, and laid upon her coffin. She was buried in Westminster
Abbey, and as the sad procession went through the streets, the early
love of her subjects returned in full measure. An old chronicler says:--
"And when they beheld her statue, or effigy, lying on the coffin, set
forth in royal robes, having a crown upon the head thereof, and a ball
and sceptre in either hand, there was such a general sighing, groaning,
and weeping, as the like hath not been seen or known in the memory of
man; neither doth any history mention any people, time, or state, to
make like lamentation for the death of their sovereign."
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Transcribers' note:
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not
changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unpaired
quotation marks retained.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.
Page 51: Missing closing quotation mark added after "has been mine for
three full years."
Page 155: "and so would made" may be a misprint for "make".
Page 192: Missing opening quotation mark added before "this youth had".
Page 205: Closing quotation mark added after "tasters,".
Page 264: Missing opening quotation mark added before "how would it
please".