Abandoned by her relatives and her friends in France, Mary Stuart

had not ceased to conspire with Spain; but her agents were so

closely watched, the supervision of Cecil was so strict, that

several emissaries fell in succession into his hands. On one

occasion, the Bishop of Ross, recently restored to liberty,

contrived to substitute innocent letters for the compromising

papers, which his messenger brought; but enough was soon known to

make it certain that Mary was urging the Spaniards to attempt an

invasion of England, and that the Duke of Alba promised to make

arrangements with a person designated in cypher. Suspicion

immediately fell upon the Duke of Norfolk. The plague having

broken out in the Tower, he had been guarded in his house in

London for fifteen months. He was taken back to his prison, and

his trial began. The duke at first made a bold denial; then, when

the confessions were shown him, which had been extorted by

torture or fear from his servants and the agents of Queen Mary,

including the Bishop of Ross, he admitted certain things, still

maintaining that he had never conspired against the queen, that

he had only engaged in the negotiation for the marriage, because

he thought she was informed of it, and that, in marrying Queen

Mary, he did nothing prejudicial to her Majesty.

{377}

He formally resented all accusations of correspondence abroad or

with the rebels during the insurrection. No witness was

confronted with him; only the depositions, written after the

tortures, were communicated to him. He was accused of having

maintained relations with the Pope. Norfolk, the old pupil of

Fox, the author of the Protestant martyrology, declared that he

would rather be drawn by four horses than change his religion. He

recalled the solicitations which the Earl of Leicester had made

him, before he had become concerned in this affair. Leicester sat

at the council listening without pity to the complaints of his

confiding victim. He voted the death of the duke, who immediately

turned toward his judges. "This is the punishment of traitors, my

lords," he exclaimed: "but I am faithful to God and the queen, as

I have always been. I do not desire to live and do not ask you

for my life. You have this day cut me off from your company, but

I hope soon to find a better one. I only beg you, my lords, to

intercede with her Majesty, in order that she may have pity upon

my poor orphan children." Even in his letters to the queen, full

of repentance for having offended her, and for having acted in

several matters without her knowledge, the duke never asked for

mercy, and refused to make any confession which might drag other

victims to the unhappy fate which awaited him. Norfolk had been

condemned since the middle of January, and the queen had signed

his sentence on the 8th of February; but during the night, she

became agitated, and caused Cecil, whom she had raised to the

rank of Lord Burleigh, to be summoned.

{378}

She forbade him to have the sentence executed, saying that she

wished to reflect again; three times the sentence was signed, and

three times Elizabeth recalled it, hesitating to put to death her

relative and former friend. At length Parliament intervened. The

nation was profoundly agitated by rumours of plots. The documents

found upon the emissaries of Mary had circulated among the

public; already they saw the Duke of Alba, the ferocious butcher

of the Low Countries, invade England at the head of those Spanish

soldiers whose dark exploits had terrified Europe. On the 16th of

May, the Commons presented to the queen a petition accepted by

the Lords, demanding the execution of the duke, for the security

of the country. This time the sentence was not withdrawn, and, on

the 2nd of June, 1572, the Duke of Norfolk was beheaded on Tower

Hill, protesting to the last his devotion to his sovereign and

his attachment to the reformed faith. He refused the handkerchief

with which it was proposed to bind his eyes. "I do not fear

death," he said. When his head fell, the crowd wept as they had

wept twenty-five years before at the death of his father, the

Earl of Surrey, beheaded on the same spot, by order of King Henry

VIII. Two months later, on the 22nd of August, the Duke of

Northumberland, captured by treachery when he thought himself

delivered at the price of an enormous ransom paid by his wife,

died upon the scaffold at York. He was seized upon the vessel

which was to take him to the Low Countries, and the "attainder"

which overtook him, avoided the embarrassment of a trial. His

father had also died upon the scaffold, upon the same day,

nineteen years before.

{379}

All these prosecutions and deaths upon the scaffold tended

towards the same end. Mary Stuart had been condemned before her

accusation. Protestant opinion, and Protestant fears were

violently excited against her. Burleigh and Walsingham were both

convinced that the repose of England was only to be purchased at

the price of her blood. Parliament, always ardent in such a

matter, proposed to proceed against the prisoner by means of an

attainder, but the queen opposed this. The Houses contented

themselves with depriving Mary of her hereditary rights, and

declaring her unfit to succeed to the throne of England. The

captive queen was then at Sheffield, in the custody of Sir Ralph

Sadler, and the Countess of Shrewsbury. None of the details of

the death of the Duke of Norfolk had been spared her. She had

refused to leave her apartment during all the time of the trial.

Her faithful servants were everywhere losing ground in Scotland.

The archbishop of St. Andrew's, seized by Lennox in Dunbar

Castle, had been hanged without more ado, and the murder of

Lennox himself by the Hamiltons had not sufficed to compensate

for the blows to the Catholic cause. The new regent, the Earl of

Mar, was less powerful than Morton, his fiercest enemy. Meanwhile

Edinburgh Castle still held out for Mary, and the Highlanders

recognized no other sovereign.

A crime committed far off, and for which she was in nowise

responsible, was destined to condemn the unfortunate Mary to

death, however long the alternations between hope and fear might

be. In the night of the 23rd to the 24th of August, 1572,

following the day of St. Bartholomew, the Protestants, gathered

together in great numbers in Paris, upon the occasion of the

marriage of the King of Navarre to Marguerite of Valois, sister

of King Charles IX, were surprised and massacred, in their beds,

in the streets, or while flying upon the housetops; and the same

slaughter, spreading from town to town like a fire, soon extended

through the whole of France.

{380}

Thirty to forty thousand persons perished thus in a few days.

Almost all the chiefs of the Protestants had fallen. The most

illustrious, the Admiral de Coligny, was killed in his apartment,

and his body thrown out of the window. It was to free themselves

from the preponderating influence which he was beginning to

assume over the king, that Catherine of Medicis and her son, the

Duke of Anjou, formerly an aspirant to the hand of Elizabeth, now

king-elect of Poland, had concerted and accomplished the

massacre, for which they had only obtained the authorization of

Charles IX. by dint of harassments which had almost reduced the

monarch to imbecility. The public outcry was terrible in all

Protestant countries, nowhere, however, more than in England,

whither the fugitives, who escaped from their executioners,

flocked from all quarters. The queen went into mourning, and

refused for several days to receive the French ambassador, M. de

La Mothe-Fénelon; but she felt no real sympathy for the French

Huguenots, and the horrors which caused the blood of her subjects

to boil in their veins, did not interrupt the tranquil course of

her policy. Walsingham courteously thanked the king, inasmuch as

his house had been spared during "the riot." The excuses and

explanations of Charles IX., transmitted by his ambassador, were

accepted.

{381}

The project of marriage with the Duke of Alençon was not

abandoned: but Walsingham gave Queen Catherine to understand that

the time was not favourable for the visit of the Duke of Alençon

to England, considering the extreme exasperation of the people

against the Catholics.

The fruits of this exasperation were the counsels which queen

Elizabeth received from all quarters for the destruction of her

rival, so long a prisoner. The bishops, in a body, advised her to

rid herself of the Queen of Scotland, "the origin and source of

all the evils;" but Elizabeth shrank from the State crime which

has sullied her name in the eyes of posterity. She would have

wished that the natural enemies of Mary Stuart, the subjects whom

she had misgoverned and who had revolted against her, might have

steeped _their_ hands in the blood of their sovereign. She

dispatched Killigrew, one of her most skilful agents, to

negotiate for the liberation of Mary Stuart, who was to be

consigned to the justice of the people, in exchange for certain

hostages of the great families of Scotland. "It was becoming too

difficult to keep the Queen of Scotland (Killigrew was to say);

she drew too many dangers upon the Kingdom, and the queen

preferred to consign her into the hands of her subjects."

This attempt failed through the royal uprightness of the Earl of

Mar, then engaged in the difficult task of reconciling the

factions. After taking part in a banquet at the residence of Lord

Morton, in the course of his patriotic negotiations, he fell ill

and died, not without suspicion of foul play, and, on the 14th of

October, 1572, Morton, who for a long time previously, had been a

dependant of Elizabeth, was raised under her auspices to the

dignity of Regent.

{382}

Killigrew assisted him in negotiating for the surrender of

Edinburgh Castle, which was reduced to the last extremities by

the private treaty concluded by Lord Huntley and the Hamiltons.

The secretary, Maitland, shut up in the castle with the brave

Kircaldy of Grange, poisoned himself a few days after the

capitulation, ending, by his voluntary death, a life of ingenious

and subtile intrigues which were almost always doomed to final

collapse. Kircaldy was hanged as a traitor, and Queen Mary lost

her last friends in Scotland. Charles IX. had refused assistance

to the faithful defenders of the citadel of Edinburgh, for fear

that Elizabeth might support the Protestants, who depended upon

La Rochelle. Secretly, she had several times come to their

assistance, and she encouraged the naval expedition of the Earl

of Montgomery in their favour. When the unhappy Charles IX. died

in 1574, haunted upon his deathbed by the remembrance of his

victims, the efforts of the French reformers were suddenly

seconded by the support of the Duke of Alençon leagued against

his brother, Henry III., who had returned from Poland to ascend

that throne of France whereon the sons of Catherine of Medicis

sat successively, to the misfortune and shame of their country.

When the new king had discovered the plot, the Duke of Alençon

was already engaged in concert with the young King of Navarre in

raising an army: both asked assistance of Elizabeth, but she

preferred the position of mediator, and it was through her good

offices that the peace of St. Germain was concluded in 1576,

securing to the Protestants the free exercise of their religion,

and to the Duke of Alençon the appanage and title of Duke of

Anjou.

{383}

The peace was not of long duration, and the formation of the

League, the progress of the influence of the Guises in the

kingdom, and their authority over King Henry III. as well as the

fanatical party, soon put arms once more into the hands of the

reformers. A brilliant prospect was opened up at the same time in

the Low Countries to the new Duke of Anjou.

The affairs of the Prince of Orange and the cause of liberty in

the United Provinces had been under a cloud since the

commencement of the struggle; but through defeat after defeat,

from disaster after disaster oppression after oppression, the

indomitable courage of William the Taciturn and his

fellow-citizens had by degrees gained so much ground, that Spain

was upon the point of losing for ever half of the Low Countries.

The Duke of Alba had been recalled after that government, the

fearful memory of which yet causes us to tremble. His successor,

the great commander Requesens, died in 1576; shortly afterwards

the Prince of Orange, not knowing where to look for a support in

his growing embarrassments offered the Protectorate of Holland

and Zealand to Queen Elizabeth, as the descendant of the former

sovereigns of the country through Philippine of Hainault, wife of

Edward III. The Queen of England refused, not desiring, she said,

to encourage the subjects of her good brother the King of Spain

in revolt. William the Taciturn offered the sovereignty to the

Duke of Anjou.

{384}

Don Juan of Austria, then governor of the Low Countries, longed

to invade England, to deliver Queen Mary, marry her, and sit with

her upon the throne of Elizabeth. The project was chimerical, and

was not encouraged by Philip II.; but it was a plausible pretext

for Elizabeth with regard to the King of Spain. She affirmed that

the offensive and defensive alliance which she had concluded with

the Prince of Orange, was solely intended to defend the Low

Countries against the invasions of France, and to protect England

from the invasions of Don Juan. Queen Elizabeth had already given

a great deal of money to the revolted provinces; she gave yet

more upon the pledges which the State-general furnished her; but

the Duke of Anjou took no steps, and the patriotic armies were

twice defeated by Alexander Farnèse, nephew of the King of Spain.

The French prince excused himself for his tardiness by the fear

of offending the Queen of England. He had resumed his matrimonial

negotiations with her. The agent whom he sent to London, M. de

Simier was a man of talents and of pleasant manners; he obtained

great influence over the queen, and revealed to her a

circumstance of which she was ignorant, namely, the secret

marriage of the Earl of Leicester with the widow of the Earl of

Essex, then very recently deceased. Elizabeth flew into a

passion; the man who had occupied for thirty years the first

place at her court was closely confined in his mansion at

Greenwich. Simier did still more: he induced his master to

attempt a romantic venture with the queen; in the middle of the

summer of 1580 the Duke of Anjou appeared in England under a

disguise. He was short, lean, marked with small-pox; but his

amorous ardour, his youth, his journey, pleased the queen.

{385}

When the duke was about to return, it seemed that, for the first

time, Elizabeth really wished to contract a princely union. The

council was much divided: the queen was forty-eight years of age,

the prince was very young and a Catholic. The most skilful

politicians could not contrive to discover the secret feelings of

their sovereign; but the time of petitions for her marriage had

gone by; the queen bitterly felt it. The negotiations with Simier

continued with alternations of favour and discontent on the part

of Elizabeth. It was at length announced that the marriage would

take place in six weeks. The States-general of the Low Countries

proclaimed the Duke of Anjou, and when he entered the provinces

with an army of sixteen thousand men, his royal affianced wife

sent him a present of a hundred thousand crowns. After having

achieved several successes and delivered the city of Cambray,

besieged by the Spaniards, he repaired to England, where he was

favorably received. The queen gave him her ring, and commanded

that the contract should be prepared. There was rejoicing at the

marriage in Paris and in the Low Countries. Even in England it

was believed that the queen was at length about to take a

husband. This was the 22nd of November, 1581. When the duke

appeared before the queen on the morning of the 23rd, he found

her pale and in tears; it is said that she had changed her mind

during the night upon the representations of her ladies, and at

the idea of the danger which threatened her if she should have

children; she declared to the prince that she would never marry.

{386}

The duke in a passion, returned to his residence, throwing the

ring upon the ground, and accusing the women of England of being

as capricious as the waves of their seas. The change which had

been wrought in the designs of the queen was not yet made public;

the Protestant preachers thundered against the Catholic marriage,

and libels abounded against the Duke of Anjou, which were

severely punished by the queen, who accompanied the prince as far

as Canterbury, weeping bitterly at his departure. She was never

to see him again; the defeats suffered by his arms in the Low

Countries, his retreat into France, and his death in the month of

June, 1584, caused so much grief to the queen, that the

ambassador of her Majesty in Paris dared not write her the

details of his last moments, fearing "to cause her too much

sorrow."

The affairs of Scotland caused great anxieties to Elizabeth. As

long as Morton governed she was assured of the support of a

mortal enemy of Queen Mary; but the great Scottish noblemen, had

become wearied of the iron hand of a master sullied by so many

crimes; and in 1578 the assembly of the nobility declared the

young king, then thirteen years of age, competent to exercise his

authority himself. Morton retired to Lochleven Castle, then

reappeared at Court, powerful with the young king, and abusing

his power as usual; but the ground was undermined beneath his

feet; King James had a favorite, the first of a long list, Esme

Stuart, his cousin, son of a brother of the Earl of Lennox. The

young monarch had raised him to the title of Duke of Lennox; he

was seconded by another Stuart, son of Lord Ochiltree; both

accused Morton of the murder of Darnley.

{387}

The earl was arrested. Queen Elizabeth sent Randolph, her former

agent, to Scotland, to plead in his favour. It was even attempted

to intimidate the Scots by movements of troops; but all was

useless; Elizabeth did not wish to wage war to save the head of

Morton; he was condemned, and perished upon the scaffold. The

young Duke of Lennox and Stuart, who had become Earl of Arran,

governed the kingdom in the name of James VI.

This revolution in Scotland, this resistance to the pressure of

Elizabeth and even the Protestant princes of the continent,

revived the hopes of the Catholics. James had been brought up

with great care in the Protestant religion. His tutor, George

Buchanan, celebrated for his genius and learning, was a

distinguished theologian, and had inspired the taste for that

science in him, but it was hoped that the Catholic blood of the

Guises would strengthen his power, and that the desire of

delivering his mother would inspire in the young monarch opinions

favourable to the intrigues which were still in progress on her

behalf. The Earl of Arran, who wished to supplant Lennox in the

favour of James, lent himself to these manœuvres. Queen Mary

offered to legalize the irregular assession of her son, and to

abdicate in his favour. But at the moment when the agents of the

Catholic party abroad brought to James the approval of the the

Pope and of Spain, he was lured into the residence of the Earl of

Gowrie, son of old Ruthven, where he suddenly found himself a

prisoner. The power fell again entirely into the hands of the

Protestant lords. Arran was cast into prison. Lennox fled to

France, where he perished shortly afterwards, and Queen Mary,

trembling for her only son, wrote to Elizabeth, imploring her to

preserve the life of the young king.

{388}

James had already contrived to deliver himself from the snares of

his enemies; he had promised pardon, he was free, and lived in

the midst of a crowd of contradictory and confused intrigues

which occasionally embarrassed even the penetration of

Walsingham, who had been sent to Scotland by Queen Elizabeth.

Meanwhile, the presence of the son upon the throne of Scotland

had awakened the hopes of the mother in her prison, as well as

the ardour of her friends in England and on the Continent. A

number of isolated Catholic plots, of no serious importance, were

constantly renewed and inevitably followed by torture and the

gallows. The penal law against the Catholic priests were applied

with extreme rigour, being often favoured by public opinion,

which saw in them only so many conspirators. The most celebrated

victim of this persecution was the Jesuit Campion, a

distinguished and able man, whose execution excited a certain

amount of passion. Burleigh was compelled to exonerate himself

for having ordered him to be tortured. The wooden horse had been

applied so gently, he affirmed, that the Jesuit had been able to

walk at once to sign his confession. The prisons were filled with

Catholics; those whom the persecutors dared not send to gallows,

sometimes died there of grief and suffering. This was the fate of

the Earl of Arundel, son of the Duke of Norfolk, formerly in

great favour with Elizabeth. Having become a Catholic and fallen

into disgrace, he was arrested while endeavouring to escape;

being thrown into the Tower, he languished there for several

years, and finally died without being permitted to see his wife

and children again.

{389}

The formidable abuses of absolute power manifested themselves

vigorously, for the strong intellect of Burleigh had not, any

more than that of his mistress, conceived the least idea of the

rights of conscience. While Elizabeth forbade the Catholic

priests to say mass, she drove from their livings the

nonconformist ministers until 1589, and caused the anabaptists

and heretics to be burned. A circumstance which aggravated the

situation of the Catholics, was the suspicion, very often well

founded, that they had a secret understanding with foreign

countries, and mixed politics with the religious interests. In

1584, the ambassador of Spain, Mendoza, received his passports

and quitted the kingdom, much compromised by the revelations of

Francis Throgmorton, who was condemned to death for having

conspired against the queen, with the object of delivering Mary

Stuart. Parliament voted fresh measures against the Catholic

priests; these measures were attacked by a Welsh member named

Parry, who was sent to the Tower; his confessions were so

complete, he denounced so many accomplices, he revealed dangers

so imminent, that he was suspected of being simply the instrument

of the Protestant party, intended to prove the peril which

surrounded the queen. But if Parry had counted upon pardon, he

was mistaken; he was executed on the 25th of February, 1585,

retracting at the last moment all his revelations, and exclaiming

upon the scaffold, "God grant that in taking my life Queen

Elizabeth may not have killed the best keeper of her park."

{390}

It was supposed that Parry was mad, but his accusations agitated

the Catholics, who resolutely protested against any disloyal

project and in particular against the theory of _permissible

assassination_, which Parry had attributed to their Church.

The gentleman who presented this protest to the queen was cast

into prison where he died. A Protestant association was formed,

to protect the life of her Majesty, and to avenge her death in

case of crime. The Earl of Leicester placed himself at the head

of the movement, which received the sanction of Parliament. Mary

Stuart looked upon this league as her death-warrant; she

trembled, with good reason, in her prison, for her son made no

effort in her favour; he was negotiating with the Queen of

England for a treaty of alliance against the Catholic powers,

without the name of Mary being uttered between them. In reply to

the pathetic appeals of his mother, James VI. contented himself

with replying that she was Queen-Mother, and had nothing to do

with the affairs of Scotland. "I love my mother, as I ought, by

duty and by nature," he said to the French ambassador, "but I

cannot approve of her conduct, and I know that she wishes no more

good to me than to the Queen of England." The end of the long

drama was approaching.

The Protestant policy had completely gained the ascendant in the

councils of Elizabeth; she was still officially at peace with

Spain; but, for many years her great admirals, Drake, Hawkins,

and Sir Walter Raleigh, freely overran the seas, taking

possession of all the Spanish vessels which they encountered,

furnished with letters of marque, pillaging at times the Spanish

towns, and constantly the Spanish settlements in America.

{391}

For a long while, moreover, the cause of liberty in the Low

Countries had been secretly protected by the money and assistance

of Elizabeth, and she had recently lent her brilliant support by

sending an army of six thousand men, under the orders of the Earl

of Leicester, to support the war which had lost (a year before,

on the 10th of July, 1584,) its illustrious chief, William the

Taciturn, by the dagger of Balthazar Gérard, an assassin in the

pay of Philip II. The Queen of England again declined the

Protectorate of the United Provinces; but she accepted as a

pledge of her close alliance with that rising state the surrender

of the towns of Brill and Flushing. On his own motive, and

without consulting the queen, Leicester even went so far as to

cause himself to be nominated governor by the States-general of

the Low Countries. But he had presumed too much upon his past

influence over his queen; she had never forgiven him for his

marriage with the Countess of Essex; he gained no success in the

Low Countries; his military talents were not as great as his

political skill. Elizabeth flew into a passion against him, with

a violence which gave uneasiness to the members of the council;

great difficulty was experienced in preventing her from recalling

Leicester at once, and the States-general, who had thought to

satisfy the Court of England, soon perceived with grief that

Elizabeth was growing cold toward their cause.

{392}

A fresh effort was being prepared in favour of Queen Mary, the

last link of the long succession of plots which were to bring her

to the scaffold. Anthony Babington, a young man of good birth, a

fervent Catholic, rich, for a long while devoted to the unhappy

captive, engaged in a project of conspiracy, supported, it is

said, by the Duke of Parma, Alexander Farnèse, who was to make a

descent upon England as soon as he should succeed in

assassinating Queen Elizabeth. Babington was desirous of

delivering Mary Stuart and placing her upon the throne; he did

not take heed of the means proposed by Savage, the prime mover in

the plot, and he gathered around him a few friends as bold and

imprudent as himself. It appears certain that from this point

Walsingham was aware of the conspiracy, but he allowed matters to

proceed until Queen Mary had written twice to Babington. As soon

as the captive was compromised, the accomplices were all

arrested. Savage and Babington alone had desired and plotted the

murder of the queen; a few of the conspirators contemplated only

the deliverance of Mary Stuart, others limited themselves to

keeping silence concerning the conspiracy. "It is my cruel

destiny," exclaimed Jones, before the tribunal, "that I should

betray my friend whom I love as myself or fail in my allegiance,

and become a false friend or a miserable traitor. My tender

feeling for Thomas Salisbury has ruined me, but God knows that I

meditated no treason." The less guilty among the conspirators

were condemned to be hanged; the chiefs of the conspiracy

suffered the horrible punishment at traitors. They were so young

and of such good appearance that their punishment caused a

certain degree of emotion in London. These were the last victims

of the beauty and misfortunes of Mary Stuart.

{393}

The captive queen had been transferred from prison to prison,

each day more closely confined, each day treated with less

consideration and respect. She had at one time reproached Lord

Shrewsbury for too much severity, but she felt herself protected

by his honour; Lord Shrewsbury was no longer her guardian, she

was entrusted to Sir Amyas Pawlet and Sir Drew Drury, fierce

Protestants, almost Puritans, who felt no pity for the corrupt,

murderous, and idolatrous woman whom they held in their hands.

Mary had been removed from Chartley Castle, in Staffordshire, a

few days before the arrest of Babington; when she was taken back

there, she found all her coffers open, her papers abstracted: her

two secretaries, Nam and Curie, had been taken to London. She

looked for a moment at the havoc, then, turning towards Pawlet,

"There are two things, sir, which you cannot take from me," she

said, with dignity, "the royal blood which gives me the right to

the succession, and the attachment which unites me to the faith

of my ancestors." Alas! Mary would willingly have repurchased her

life and liberty at the price of the faith of her ancestors; she

had formerly made the offer to Elizabeth, but the approach of

death, which she felt to be inevitable, brought her back to the

real convictions of her soul. Throughout all the faults and

crimes of her life, she had been sincerely Catholic; purified by

long sufferings, she was to die a Catholic, leaving to a rival

whose life she had embittered, the odious stain of her execution.

{394}

Parliament now voted a law, which, without naming Mary, condemned

her by anticipation. The council of Elizabeth urged the queen to

place the captive upon her trial. The repeated plots of which she

had been the occasion, the inexhaustible interest which she had

excited in Europe, appeared to Burleigh, Walsingham, and Sadler,

sufficient reasons for her destruction. Elizabeth hesitated,

irresolute and perplexed; she foresaw, perhaps, better than her

councillors the harm which would be done her by the death of her

relative, who had taken refuge under her protection and was

without defence in her hands. Leicester, who had recently

returned to England proposed to have recourse to poison;

Walsingham opposed this suggestion resolutely; he was specially

entrusted with the matter. Burleigh was old, and perhaps had a

repugnance, like the queen, to striking the last blow; but

Walsingham insisted upon a trial in due form and a public

condemnation. "That conduct is alone worthy of your Grace," he

said. He carried with him the majority of the council, and the

queen nominated a commission entrusted to try "her good sister,

the Queen of Scotland," according to the new law of Parliament,

against "any person claiming the succession who might have

encouraged or supported plots, invasions, or attempts against the

safety of the of kingdom and the person of the queen." It was not

necessary to bring together the great names which formed the

commission for signing a sentence already written in the law

itself.

Mary was brought, a few days after the execution of Babington, to

Fotheringay Castle, in Northamptonshire. It was there that the

commissioners arrived, on the 11th of October, 1586, the bearers

of a letter of Queen Elizabeth, which informed the captive that

she was compromised in the recent conspiracy, and that she was

about to be tried upon that count, as well as several other

points, according to the laws of England, under the protection of

which she had lived.

{395}

Mary was old before her time, infirm and overwhelmed with

sorrows, but her royal pride was aroused by this arrogant

pretension of her rival. "I do not recognize the laws of

England," she replied; "and I know that what the Parliament has

just voted is directed against me; but I will not derogate from

the honour of my ancestors, Kings of Scotland, by submitting to

be tried as the subject of my sister of England, and as a

criminal." The legists were before her when she made this protest

"We will try you then as absent and contumacious," said Burleigh.

"Look to your conscience," replied Mary. "If you are innocent,

you have nothing to fear," insisted the old chamberlain, Hatton:

"but in rejecting the trial, you sully your reputation with

eternal infamy." Mary at length yielded, on condition that her

protest should be admitted. Protestation and resistance was

equally useless.

On the 14th of October, the commissioners assembled in the great

hall of Fotheringay Castle. A throne, with a canopy, occupied the

place of Queen Elizabeth; lower down, a chair without a canopy

awaited Queen Mary. The judges were surrounded by their

assessors, with tables for their documents. The accused queen had

neither assessors, advocates, nor documents; but her pride, her

skill, her presence of mind sufficed, for two days, to hold in

check the most able lawyers of England. It was no longer a

question of defending herself from past accusations, from the

murder of her husband, or her complicity with Bothwell; she was

accused of having participated in plots for the overthrow and

death of the Queen of England, and, notwithstanding her denials,

it is difficult for history to exonerate her from this crime.

{396}

She had probably implicated herself in the conspiracies against

Elizabeth at the time when she was yet a sovereign and free. What

a temptation to do so when she was detained, a prisoner, in

defiance of justice as well as royal hospitality! The light of

those eyes which had made so many victims was extinguished, the

elegant figure bent, but the subtle wit, the majestic grace, the

infinite seductiveness which had been the danger and the charm of

Mary Stuart still existed. She covered her face with her hands

when the Earl of Arundel, still in prison at the Tower was

mentioned. "Alas!" she exclaimed, "what has the noble House of

Howard endured for my sake?" She asked that her two secretaries,

whose depositions had been read, should be brought before her.

They were in London, and she challenged the authenticity of their

testimony, as well as that of a letter written, it was said, by

her, to provoke an invasion of England. "I think that that

document is the work of the secretary of State, Walsingham," she

said. Walsingham rose, protesting that he had never acted through

malice, and had done nothing which was unworthy of an honest man.

He, no doubt, congratulated himself inwardly on having rejected

the suggestion of poison put forth by the Earl of Leicester. The

weight of the accusation rested upon the recent conspiracy of

Babington, and upon the testimony of the two secretaries. Mary

demanded to be heard by Parliament and to see the queen in

person.

{397}

The instructions of the commissioners were formal. Elizabeth

_would_ not see the captive. When the judges quitted

Fotheringay and assembled at Westminster, the witnesses were

summoned before them, but the accused was not there. On the 25th

of October, 1586, in the Star Chamber, the commissioners declared

that Mary Stuart, daughter of James V., known as the Queen of

Scotland, had taken part in the conspiracy of Anthony Babington

and in several others to the prejudice of and against the life of

her Majesty the Queen of England, in the name and under the

pretext of her pretended rights to the crown; consequent upon

which, she was condemned to death, without this sentence being in

any wise prejudicial to James VI., King of Scotland, who retained

all his rights and privileges as though the said condemnation had

not existed.

The sentence was passed, but Elizabeth hesitated to put it in

execution, as she had hesitated to bring her royal cousin to

trial. Parliament made an effort to deliver her from the odious

responsibility which she dreaded, and, on the 12th of November,

the two Houses implored the queen to provide for her safety, by

causing, as soon as possible, the punishment which her crimes

deserved, to fall upon the guilty head. Elizabeth replied to her

faithful subjects, while dwelling upon the absence of any rancour

in her soul, "If we were two milk-maids, with pails upon our

arms, and it was merely a question which involved my own life,

without endangering the religion and welfare of my people, I

would willingly pardon all her offences." She prayed God to

enlighten her upon the course to follow, promising to make known

her resolution within a short time.

{398}

In the meanwhile, she caused the two Houses, through the

chancellor, to be asked whether there was not some means of

placing her life in safety without interfering with that of Mary.

Parliament replied in the negative. But the hesitations of

Elizabeth were not yet at an end; a fresh speech expounded her

scruples to her people. "Many opprobrious books and pamphlets

(she said) accuse me of being a tyrant, which is indeed news to

me; but what would they now say if a maiden queen should shed the

blood of her own kinswoman? Yet it were a foolish course to

cherish a sword to cut my own throat, and I am infinitely

beholden to you who seek to preserve my life. If I should say I

will not do what you require, it might peradventure be saying

more than I should mean, and if I should say I will do it, it

might, perhaps, breed greater perils than those from which you

would protect me; for an answer, I will dismiss you, then,

without an answer." The sentence of death was meanwhile posted up

in all parts of London, and greeted with shouts of joy by the

people.

Lord Buckhurst was chosen to announce her condemnation to Mary;

it was hoped that some confession would be obtained from her, in

the agitation and despair of an approaching death. But whatever

might have been the crimes of Mary in the past, and her wrongs

towards Queen Elizabeth, her courage had not relaxed in

misfortune, and did not abandon her at the supreme hour. A bishop

had accompanied the fatal messenger; the queen refused to see

him, asking for her chaplain, "I am weary of this world," she

said, "and glad that my troubles are about to end."

{399}

She repeated that she had never taken part in any plot against

the life of Elizabeth, and her last care was to write to the Pope

and the Archbishop of Glasgow, to enjoin that her reputation

should be cleared of all stain; it was a task above the power of

those to whom it was entrusted by the unfortunate woman, who

could not appeal to her son to defend her.

In her quality of a condemned person, the Queen of Scotland was

degraded from all the honours which had hitherto been rendered

her. Her jailor, Sir Amyas Pawlet, would sit down before her

without permission. "I am an anointed queen," said the fallen

sovereign; "in spite of the Queen of England, her council, and

her heretical judges, I will still die a queen." The last letter

of Mary to Elizabeth was truly a royal epistle, without

complaints or recriminations, thanking God inasmuch as He was

good enough to put an end to a sorrowful pilgrimage, and asking

no other favour than that of dying in the presence of her

servants, to whom she begged the queen to cause the small

legacies indicated in her will to be given. It was in the name of

Jesus Christ, of their kinship, of the memory of Henry VII.,

their ancestor, and of the royal dignity which was common to

them, that the captive, upon the point of dying, proudly demanded

these modest favours of her triumphant rival.

{400}

The King of France, Henry III., had not absolutely abandoned his

sister-in-law in her extremity; he sent to the court of England

an ambassador extraordinary to plead her cause. Elizabeth delayed

before giving him an audience; when she admitted him into her

presence, with great ceremony, it was not without keen tokens of

emotion that she affirmed that the Queen of Scotland had three

times attempted her life. All the arguments of Bellièvre were

useless; when he declared that his sovereign would consider as a

cause of rupture the execution of a Dowager Queen of France,

Elizabeth flew into a passion. The emissary received his

passports. The ordinary ambassador, M. de l'Aubespine, accused of

having been implicated in a fresh conspiracy against the life of

the queen, saw his secretary cast into prison. A third emissary

was no more successful.

While he was interceding for Mary with the Queen of England, King

Henry III. was endeavouring to awaken in the breast of James VI.

the natural feelings of a son for his mother. What more cruel

condemnation of the conduct of the King of Scotland could be

imagined than the fact that it shocked and scandalized Henry

III.! He succeeded in obtaining a preliminary mission to

Elizabeth, but by a personage of so little importance, and so

deep in the interests of England, that France was not satisfied

with this proceeding, which, nevertheless, aroused the anger of

Queen Elizabeth. James hastened to write, excusing himself

humbly, alleging that he in nowise imputed to her the blame of

what she had done against his mother. Sir Robert Melville

accompanied the second embassy. "Why does the Queen of Scotland

seem so dangerous to you?" asked the emissaries. "Because she is

a Papist and wishes to succeed to my throne," said Elizabeth,

flatly. "Does her grace still live?" said Melville, tremblingly.

"I think so," replied the queen, "but I would not answer for it

in an hour."

{401}

The old servant of Mary interceded ardently for her, but his

colleague, Gray, assured the ministers that it was not a

dangerous affair, adding coarsely, "A dead woman does not bite."

Walsingham was seriously astonished that a Protestant monarch

should not feel that the existence of his mother was incompatible

with the safety of the Reformed Churches in England and Scotland.

James VI. recalled his ambassadors and contented himself with

recommending his mother to the prayers of all his subjects; the

greater number of Presbyterian pastors refused to obey his

orders.

Elizabeth had repelled all foreign intervention; meanwhile, she

still hesitated; she was heard to mutter between her teeth, in

Latin "_Aut ferire, aut feriri; ne feriare, feri._" (Either

to strike or to be stricken; in order not to be stricken,

strike). The warrant had been ready for six weeks, when the queen

signed it, in private, on the 1st of February, consigning it to

the secretary of state, Davison, "without other orders," as she

subsequently asserted. She only suggested that Sir Amyas Pawlet

might spare her all that trouble, and she commanded that he

should be written to in that strain, Pawlet formally refused,

saying that his property and life were at the disposition of her

majesty, but that God did not permit him to sacrifice his

conscience, nor to leave an infamous stain upon his name. None

would incur the responsibility of the crime; the queen did not

even command the warrant to be sent. It went, however, without

her having inquired into it, a precaution which was useful to her

subsequently. On the 7th of February, while the scaffold was

being erected in the courtyard of Fotheringay, Elizabeth told

Davison that he should write again to Sir Amyas.

{402}

"It is useless, I think," began the secretary; she did not allow

him time to explain himself, and turned towards one of her ladies

who was entering. Davison was never to see his mistress again.

The Earl of Shrewsbury now arrived at Fotheringay. Queen Mary

immediately understood what the arrival of the Earl-Marshal

meant. When the sentence was read, Mary made the sign of the

cross, then, without agitation, she said that death was welcome,

but that she had not expected, after being detained twenty years

in prison, that her sister Elizabeth would thus dispose of her.

She at the same time placed her hand upon a book beside her,

swearing that she had never contemplated nor sought the death of

Elizabeth. "That is a Popish Bible," exclaimed the Earl of Kent,

brutally, "your oath is of no value." "It is a Catholic

testament," said the captive, "and therefore, my lord, as I

believe that to be the true version my oath is the more to be

relied on;" and she asked what would be the time of the

execution. "Tomorrow morning, at eight o'clock," said Lord

Salisbury, in great agitation. "Your death will be the life of

our religion," said Kent, "as your life would have been its

death." The queen smiled bitterly. She was left alone with her

servants: she bade farewell to them, drinking to their health at

her last repast, and asking pardon of them all. She passed a

portion of the night in writing to her confessor, to the King of

France, and to the Duke of Guise.

[Image]

Mary Stuart Swearing She Had Never Sought The Life Of Elizabeth.

{403}

At eight o'clock the sheriff of the county entered the oratory

where she was in prayer; she raised herself immediately, took the

crucifix from the altar, and advanced with a firm step; she was

clad in the rich and sober costume of a Dowager Queen. At the

door of the antechamber, she found her faithful servant,

Melville, who for three weeks had waited in vain to be permitted

to see her. He threw himself upon his knees before her, weeping

and sobbing. "Cease to lament, good Melville," said the queen,

"for thou shalt now see a final period to Mary Stuart's troubles;

the world, my servant, is naught but vanity, and subject to more

sorrow than an ocean of tears can wash away. But, I pray thee,

take this message when thou goest, that I die true to my

religion, to Scotland and to France. Commend me to my son, and

tell him that I have done nothing to prejudice the kingdom of

Scotland." She asked that her servants might be present at her

execution. The Earl of Kent refused; she insisted, with warmth:

"In regard of womanhood," she said, "your mistress would not deny

me to have some of my women about me at my death." The point was

conceded: two of the ladies of the queen accompanied her to the

scaffold, as well as Melville and a few servants. When the

sentence had been read, Mary reminded the spectators that she was

a sovereign princess, and had nothing to do with the laws of

England, that she died by injustice and violence, without ever

having conspired against the life of Elizabeth. The Dean of

Peterborough began to speak; the queen interrupted him several

times. "I am fixed in the ancient religion," she said, "and, by

God's grace, I will shed my blood for it." Seeing that she could

not impose silence upon him, she turned round looking on the

other side of the scaffold but he followed her movements, and

proceeded to place himself in front of her.

{404}

While he prayed aloud in English, the queen repeated in Latin the

Penitential Psalms, with profound contrition. When the dean had

finished, she prayed aloud in English for the Church, her son,

and Queen Elizabeth. She kissed the crucifix; the Earl of Kent

exclaimed, "Madam, you had better put such Popish trumpery out of

your hand and carry Christ in your heart." "I can hardly bear

this emblem in my hand without at the same time bearing Him in my

heart," said the queen. The executioners laid hands upon her to

undress her; as her women burst into sobs in their indignation,

she placed her finger to her lips and embraced them, saying to

the spectators, "I am not accustomed to be undressed by such

attendants, nor to put off my clothes before so much company."

Her eyes were bound with a handkerchief embroidered with gold,

and the executioners conducted her to the block. She laid her

head upon it without trembling. "Into Thy hands, O Lord, I

commend my spirit," she said aloud. The executioner was more

agitated than the victim; he was compelled to strike three times.

When he raised the bleeding head, exclaiming, "God save Queen

Elizabeth," the dean and the Earl of Kent alone replied, "Thus

perish all her enemies." No one said _Amen_. The queen's

little lap-dog had hidden himself in her clothing; he could not

be separated from the body while it remained upon the scaffold.

{405}

The news of the execution soon spread abroad in London, and many

people manifested their joy thereat, before anyone dared to

announce the fact to the queen. She feigned great anger, shedding

tears, and asserting that she had given no order. The secretary

of state, Davison, was sent to the Tower; Burleigh and the other

ministers were disgraced. Walsingham had been prudent enough to

absent himself; when he reappeared, his colleagues were not long

in returning into favour, but a victim was necessary. Davison

remained in prison during all the remainder of the reign of

Elizabeth, and his whole fortune was confiscated to pay the fine

which was imposed upon him.

The first care of Elizabeth was to communicate to King James the

grief which she experienced at the unhappy event which had

occurred without her knowledge in her kingdom. The king wept on

learning the death of his mother, asserting that he would move

heaven and earth in his vengeance. His anger was immediately

appeased; the pension which he received from Elizabeth was

increased; one of the obstacles which might impede his succession

to the throne of England had disappeared. The royal Pretender

consoled himself with this expectation. "Could an only son forget

his mother?" Mary Stuart had asked on learning her condemnation.

The conduct of King James proved that he could.

King Henry III. would have been much embarrassed to accomplish

his threats and to wage war in England to avenge his unhappy

sister-in-law. He groaned under the yoke of the League and of the

Guises, and no doubt easily forgave Elizabeth for the blow which

she had struck at the haughty House of Lorraine. L'Aubespine

reproached Elizabeth for the assistance which she had so long

been giving to Henry of Navarre. "I have done nothing against

your sovereign," said the queen, resorting to her former

argument; "I support the King of Navarre against the Duke of

Guise." L'Aubespine did not persist.

{406}

For a long time past, the expeditions of the English Buccaneers

in the West Indies had completed the exasperation occasioned to

Philip by the assistance accorded by Elizabeth to the rebels of

the Low Countries. The death of Queen Mary furnished him with a

natural pretext for the bursting forth of his resentment. The

Queen of England made some efforts to appease it as she had

appeased the anger of the Kings of France and Scotland. In the

Netherlands her arms had not been covered with glory. Leicester

was the weakest and most incompetent of the generals, and in his

absence, while he was in England to assist in the condemnation of

Mary Stuart, a body of his troops commanded by malcontent

officers, had restored Deventer to the King of Spain, passing at

the same time into his service. The return of the Earl into the

Low Countries did not repair matters. The Dutch were discontented

and uneasy; the queen recalled her forces, retaining merely the

hostage towns, and she accepted the provisional nomination of

Maurice of Nassau, son of William the Taciturn, as Stadtholder of

the United Provinces. She had even opened up a secret negotiation

with the Duke of Parma, who still held out in the Low Countries,

but although endeavouring to preserve the peace, she understood

that war was becoming imminent, and the great preparations to

which the King of Spain was devoting himself were not unknown to

her.

{407}

As a preliminary to hostilities, Sir Francis Drake was despatched

with a fleet of thirty vessels, with orders to destroy, even in

their ports, all the Spanish vessels which he might encounter.

Never was a mission executed with more satisfaction and success.

On the 19th of April, 1587, that bold seaman forced the entrance

of the port of Cadiz, where he destroyed thirty great vessels;

then, following the coast-line as far as Cape St. Vincent, he

captured, burnt, and sunk a hundred other ships, and destroyed on

his way, four fortresses. At length he entered the Tagus,

recently become tributary to Philip II., who had taken possession

of Portugal, to console himself for the loss of Holland, and

Drake took possession, under cover of the Spanish standard, of

the St. Philip, the largest vessel of the royal navy, laden with

a precious cargo, The exploits of Drake delayed by more than a

year the expedition which the King of Spain contemplated, and

gave time to Elizabeth to complete her preparations. "I have

singed the King of Spain's beard," said the victorious admiral on

returning to England. The anger of Philip redoubled under these

insults. The Pope, Sixtus the Fifth, had supplied him with money

and renewed the bull of excommunication against Elizabeth. All

the vessels of the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily were confiscated

for the service of the king. The republic of Venice and that of

Genoa lent their fleets to him. Every where in all the ports of

Spain vessels were in course of construction. A fleet of

flat-bottomed vessels prepared in Flanders were to transport to

England the Duke of Parma and his thirty thousand soldiers.

{408}

The humblest Spanish sailor thought himself assured of the

conquest of England. Philip II., promised himself the triumph of

the Catholic faith in this haunt of the heretics. It is allowable

to doubt that the Pope Sixtus the Fifth was as sure of success.

"_Un gran cervello di principessa_" (She has the mind of a

great princess), he often said in speaking of Elizabeth. But

Europe, Protestant or Catholic, had not yet lost the habit of

trembling before the power of Spain. All eyes were fixed upon

England, against which country so many preparations were being

made.

Meanwhile England did not remain idle. In the month of November,

1587, the queen convoked a council of war, to which she had

summoned all the distinguished soldiers and seamen of that time,

and which was destined to found the great navy of England. Sir

Walter Raleigh took a large share in the deliberations, and

vigorously maintained the opinion, that it was necessary both to

meet the enemies at sea, and to prepare for them on land. The

fleet of Elizabeth was not large. She had never waged war, and

the money of which she could dispose did not suffice for the

demands she received from all the Protestant countries, opposed

and struggling for their faith. Thirty-six vessels only composed

the royal navy, but merchant ships abounded. The progress of

wealth had been rapid during the reign of Elizabeth; the devotion

of her subjects provided for all wants; private persons armed the

commercial ships for war, to do homage to the queen with them,

and the great seamen who had acquired their renown and experience

in waging war as buccaneers against the Spanish in all the seas

of the world--Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher--took command of the

vessels, under the orders of the High Admiral, Lord Howard of

Effingham.

{409}

A hundred and ninety-one ships were at length gathered together,

and the Dutch sent to the assistance of their allies sixty others

manned by the fierce Zealanders, ever eager to fight the

Spaniards. The fleet was disposed in squadrons to cover the

coasts, while the land forces, under the orders of Leicester,

assembled from all parts to resist the invasion. All the ancient

fortifications were repaired, and new redoubts were raised as

though by enchantment. A camp was formed at Tilbury Fort,

opposite Gravesend. The queen repaired thither herself, to be

present at a review. Her subjects had vied with each other in

devotion. Catholics as well as Protestants had generously

responded to her appeal. Catholic gentlemen, when command was

refused them, enrolled themselves as private soldiers. A hundred

and thirty thousand men were raised in the kingdom. When the

queen assembled her forces at Tilbury, she had around her more

than sixty thousand men. The Earls of Essex and Leicester marched

at the bridle of her war-horse; she carried in her hand the staff

of command. All her courage glistened in her eyes. "My loving

people," she said, "we have been persuaded by some that are

careful for our safety to take heed how we commit ourselves to

armed multitudes for fear of treachery, but I assure you that I

do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people.

Let tyrants fear! I have always borne myself so that, under God,

I place my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts

and good will of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you

at this time, not as for my recreation and sport, but being

resolved in the midst and heat of battle to live or die amongst

you all, to lay down for my God, for my kingdom, and for my

people, my honour and my blood even in the dust.

{410}

I know that I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I

have the heart of a king and of a King of England too, and think

foul scorn that Parma or Spain should dare to invade the borders

of my realms. To which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me

I myself will take up arms." The popular enthusiasm was great,

but general terror equalled the enthusiasm. The terrible

reputation of the Spanish troops had preceded them. The

inexperienced recruits who formed the greater portion of the land

forces would have been unable to resist the veterans of the Duke

of Parma; the English navy was to save England.

The invincible Armada, as the Spaniards arrogantly called it,

issued forth from the Tagus on the 29th of May, 1588. It numbered

about a hundred and thirty ships, of which some were enormous.

The sea appeared to fight in favour of England, in directing the

course of the invaders towards Corunna, where the fleet was to

take reinforcements. In the vicinity of Cape Finisterre a storm

arose which dispersed the squadron and destroyed a certain number

of vessels. The news of the disaster arrived in England; the

people thought themselves delivered of the enemy. Elizabeth,

always economical, immediately wrote to Lord Howard to disarm the

four largest vessels of the fleet, and to disband the crews.

{411}

The Admiral refused to do so, saying that he would prefer to

maintain them with his private fortune; this was fortunate for

him, for the _Armada_ had re-formed, and on the 19th of June

it was signalled in the vicinity of Plymouth. It advanced

majestically, in the form of a crescent, covering the sea,

measuring from one horn of the crescent to the other a space of

three leagues. An immediate landing was expected, but the orders

of Philip were to approach the coast of Flanders, there to rally

the Duke of Parma, his fleet and his soldiers. Lord Howard

followed the enemy, in readiness to attack the ships separated

from the squadron by accidents of the sea. Thus began a series of

combats, all disastrous to the Spaniards, though often impeded on

the side of the English by the failure of supplies. On the 22nd,

23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th of July, Howard, Drake, Hawkins,

Frobisher, engaged either in concert or separately, fought almost

without intermission. On the 28th at length, "this morrice-dance

upon the waters," as Sir Henry Wotton called it, was approaching

its end. The Duke of Medina-Sidonia, a Spanish Admiral, had asked

assistance of the Duke of Parma; he was in the vicinity of

Calais, but the English vessels blockaded the Strait between

Nieuport and Dunkirk. The Flemings could not pass; a great battle

began. The Spaniards presented a compact mass which impeded the

movements of the English vessels, smaller than theirs. During the

night, fire-ships were launched against them. The Spaniards had

had terrible experience of this method of warfare from the Dutch

in the Scheldt; confusion spread through the squadron. The

vessels quitted their positions and crowded all sail to escape

from the explosion of the fire-ships; in vain did their admiral

endeavour to reassemble them; the English attacked the isolated

vessels at their ease.

{412}

Everywhere minor encounters were signalled; almost everywhere the

English were the victors. The Duke of Medina-Sidonia had already

taken the course of abandoning any invasion and of returning to

Spain by doubling Scotland. The English pursued him. "We have the

Spaniards before us," wrote Drake to Walsingham, "and with the

grace of God, we intend to join them yet. God grant that the Duke

of Parma be watched, for, with the grace of God, if we are

living, we will not delay in seizing the Duke of Medina-Sidonia,

so that he may wish himself at St. Mary amidst his vines." The

failure of supplies put an end to the pursuit; it was necessary

to abandon the Spaniards to the mercy of the sea. A terrible

storm assailed them near the Orkney Islands. A great number of

vessels stranded upon the coast of Scotland, and the crews were

made prisoners. Those ships that were driven to Ireland did not

save one man. The English colonists cut them to pieces to prevent

them from seconding the Irish insurrection. When the Duke of

Medina-Sidonia returned in the month of September, to Santander,

in the Bay of Biscay, he had but sixty vessels, and those in bad

condition, while their crews, overwhelmed with fatigue, looked

like spectres. The English had lost but one ship of importance.

For some time people feared a descent of the Duke of Parma,

"who," wrote Drake, "I take to be as a bear robbed of her

whelps;" but the alarm soon subsided, and the queen caused the

camp at Tilbury to be raised.

{413}

The army was disbanded, and the Earl of Leicester set out for his

castle at Kenilworth. He died there on the 4th of September,

shortly after his arrival. The queen, whose favorite he had been

for thirty years, did not appear greatly afflicted at his loss;

she caused his effects to be sold at auction, to pay his debts to

the public treasury. She had chosen a new favourite, as yet

almost a child, the Earl of Essex, son-in-law of Leicester. The

charm of his person, the gaiety and frankness of his manners,

amused Elizabeth. She was fifty-five years of age; Essex was not

twenty, when, in 1587, she made him Knight of the Garter, and

captain-general of the cavalry. At the death of Leicester, he was

raised to the dangerous position of titled favourite at the court

of an imperious, exacting woman, accustomed to the most

extravagant flatteries, and moreover jealous yet of her beauty

and personal charms. The greatness of Essex was to cost him

dearly.

A fruitless expedition to Spain, in favour of Don Antonio,

Pretender to the crown of Portugal, did more honour to the

bravery of the Earl of Essex than to his military talents. When

he returned to England, he imprudently entered into a fierce

struggle against the influence of the Cecils. Walsingham had

died, in 1590, and Burleigh desired to have his office bestowed

upon his son, Robert Cecil. Essex supported the cause of the

unhappy Davison, unjustly disgraced for several years; the queen

gave the office to Burleigh, authorizing him to obtain the

assistance of his son. Hence there sprang a constant hostility

which was to terminate in the ruin of Essex.

{414}

Elizabeth had often differed in opinion from her great minister;

she had offended him, ill-used him, vexed him, but none had ever

succeeded in destroying his influence with her. Leicester had

attempted it in vain. Essex was endeavouring to attain the same

object in his turn, with as little chance of success. The queen

knew to whom she owed in a great measure the prosperity of her

reign, and the memory of the father was destined to constantly

increase in her eyes the services and merits of the son.

The Earl of Essex consoled himself for his defeat at court, by

departing for France at the head of the troops whom Elizabeth

sent to the assistance of Henry of Navarre, now become Henry IV.,

king of France. Henry III. was stabbed by Jacques Clément, on the

21st of July, 1589, and since then, his legitimate successor was

labouring to rescue his kingdom from the Leaguers obeying the

Duke of Guise, and supported by Spain. He was besieging Rouen

when the Earl of Essex joined him, at the head of the English

reinforcements. He distinguished himself in the skirmishes, in

one of which his brother, Walter Devereux, was killed: but the

impatient attachment of his mistress recalled him to England.

Duplessis-Mornay advised Henry IV. to send back Essex to Queen

Elizabeth, if he wished to obtain of the latter fresh aids in men

and money, which were becoming every day more necessary in order

to check the attacks of the Duke of Parma, who had recently

entered France. The war was popular in England, the English

gentlemen having always been eager to enroll themselves in the

ranks of the Huguenots. The queen had been, for a long while

past, the faithful ally of Henry of Navarre.

{415}

When he resolved, in 1593, to secure the peace of his kingdom and

the establishment of his throne by adjuring Protestantism,

indignation in England was violent. Elizabeth accused the king of

treachery, but the Edict of Nantes soon satisfied the English

Protestants, while securing to their brethren the free exercise

of their religion, and the hostilities which continued between

France and Spain, served the policy of Elizabeth too well for her

to withdraw from her ally the efficacious support which she had

always given him. The moment would not have been propitious for

abandoning him; for the Spanish armies had again penetrated into

France, and in the month of April, 1596, the Archduke Albert of

Austria took possession of Calais which Elizabeth claimed of

Henry IV., in exchange for her services. Amiens, Doullens,

Cambray, were taken in succession. "It is very well to make a

King of France," exclaimed Henry IV., on placing himself at the

head of his troops; "it is time to make a King of Navarre," and

he repulsed and defeated his enemies, while Queen Elizabeth,

carrying war to their coasts, sent the Earl of Essex to Spain

with Sir Walter Raleigh. The fleet commanded by Lord Howard

bombarded Cadiz. Essex stormed the town and took possession of

it; he wished to retain his prize, but, the council of England

not approving that measure, Cadiz was delivered up to the flames

before the English weighed anchor to return to their country. A

second expedition directed against the Azores, brought about few

results. The influence of the Cecils over the queen was still

hostile to Essex, notwithstanding an apparent reconciliation.

{416}

The earl retired to Wamstead House, inhabited by his wife, the

daughter of Walsingham, and widow of the celebrated Sir Philip

Sydney, the Christian hero of the chivalry of the sixteenth

century, slain at thirty years of age, before Zutphen. The

jealousy and affection of the queen soon recalled Essex to court;

he was nominated earl-marshal. Notwithstanding the opposition of

the court of England, the King of France had concluded, in 1598,

with Philip II., the treaty of Verdun, and Sir Robert Cecil, who

had been on a mission to Paris, brought back the Spanish

proposals for peace. Essex, who only lived for war, and who could

not exert his influence elsewhere, rose vigorously against these

overtures. The queen was not in favour of peace, but the Cecils

dwelt upon the embarrassments of the situation, upon the gravity

of affairs in Ireland, upon the distress of the treasury.

Burleigh, drawing from his pocket a book of Psalms, showed this

prophetic verse: "The bloodthirsty man shall not live half his

days." The quarrel became bitter. Essex flew into a passion, and

turned his back upon the queen, who had reprimanded him.

Elizabeth rose and gave a box on the ear to her insolent subject.

Essex had his hand upon his sword: "I would not have such an

affront from the hands of the king, her father," he said, "and I

will not accept it of a petticoat." Lord Howard arrested his arm,

and the earl impetuously quitted the council, to proceed to

Wamstead, where he remained in retirement for four months. When

he reappeared at the court, still powerful in appearance,

Burleigh had disappeared from the scene; he died on the 4th of

August, 1598, at the age of seventy-eight. His loss had cost his

mistress bitter tears.

{417}

Sir Robert Cecil, able and sagacious, but more corrupt than his

father, and less faithfully attached to the interests of the

queen, could not replace with Elizabeth the constant and sincere

union of the sovereign and the minister, during forty years. The

great consolation of the queen at this period was the death of

Philip II. The war soon languished, and peace being concluded at

the end of the year 1598, between the Spaniards and the United

Provinces, delivered Elizabeth from the enormous subsidies which

she had for a long time furnished her Dutch allies. The

States-general recognized their debt to her Majesty, and

undertook to discharge it by degrees. People in England were now

only occupied with the imaginary or real plots which were

discovered every day against the life of the queen, some hatched,

it was said, by the Catholics, who still groaned under the weight

of the most oppressive penal laws, others attributed to the

Spanish influence. The King of Scotland was even accused of a

project of assassination. He defended himself warmly against the

charge. The queen wrote him that she could not think him guilty;

but her confidence in his honour was so like a pardon for the

alleged crime, that King James was not content, and demanded the

trial of the accused, Valentine. The court of England contented

itself with detaining in prison the wretch who had dared to

tarnish the name of James VI.; when the latter succeeded to the

throne, he enjoyed the pleasure of sending Valentine to the

galleys.

{418}

The state of Ireland had for a long while preoccupied Queen

Elizabeth and her ministers. A serious insurrection at the

beginning of the reign had for a moment placed Shane O'Neil at

the head of all the Irish of pure race. He had been betrayed and

assassinated, but his country was not subjugated. The projects of

colonization of the Earl of Essex, father of the favourite of

Elizabeth, and encouraged by her, had not succeeded better than

the devastating campaigns of the Lords-Lieutenant, Sir Henry

Sidney and Fitzwilliam. The English had undertaken to civilize

Ireland by destroying its inhabitants, as they had undertaken to

establish Protestantism by prohibiting Catholic worship in a

country entirely devoted to that religion. Both efforts had

justly failed, and the jealous rivalries of the Irish noblemen,

the ever-recurring quarrels of the Butler's and the Fitzgeralds,

the revolts, the submissions, the arrests, the murders of the

chiefs of these two houses, the rival pretensions of the Earls of

Ormond and Desmond wearied the patience of the queen and council,

exhausted the public treasury, and maintained the hopes of the

enemies of England. Two adventurers, Stuckely and Fitzmaurice,

conceived the idea of taking advantage of the papal pretensions

to the possession of the islands, to attempt a bold stroke upon

Ireland. They obtained a bull relieving the Irish of their

allegiance to Elizabeth, besides assistance in money, a few

soldiers and some arms. Stuckely remained in Portugal, and

perished at the battle of Alcazar against the Moors, but

Fitzmaurice, brother of the Earl of Desmond, landed in Ireland,

in 1579, in the hope of bringing about an insurrection. He was

coldly received, and compelled to take refuge at the residence of

his brother.

{419}

A reinforcement of pontifical soldiers, besieged in the fortress

of Smerwick, were put to the sword by Sir Walter Raleigh. The

Earl of Desmond, suspected of having taken part in the

insurrection, was beheaded by the English troops, who seized him

in a hut; Lord Grey de Wilton, who had become Lord-Lieutenant,

restrained the revolt with a hand of iron, without obtaining any

amelioration in the moral or material situation of the country.

Sir John Perrot succeeded him in 1585; as severe as Lord Grey,

but more just, he had the misfortune to give himself up in a fit

of exasperation, to bitter words, not only against the queen, but

against her "dancing chancellor," Hatton. The vengeance of the

minister and the anger of the sovereign appeared to slumber, but

when Perrot, weary of asking in vain for assistance and money,

obtained his recall, he was accused of high treason, overwhelmed

by the testimony of men whose excesses he had restrained during

his government, and was soon condemned to death. His son had

married a sister of Essex, and the influence of the earl

counterbalanced that of his enemies. Grief or poison averted his

execution, he died on the 20th of June, 1591, at the moment when

the power of the Earl of Tyrone, Hugh, son of O'Neil, baron of

Duncannon, was becoming great in Ireland. He was regarded by his

fellow-citizens as the legitimate sovereign of Ulster. He claimed

for his country liberty of conscience and the maintenance of

ancient local customs, savage privileges having little

compatibility with civilization. At the same time he also claimed

all the property which had formerly belonged to his ancestors.

Skilful and of noble appearance, he had contrived to discipline

his fierce soldiers, and he conducted them in battle array

against the troops of the queen.

{420}

Sir John Norris had died of grief and anger. Sir Henry Bagnall

was defeated and killed at Blackwater, in County Tyrone, and the

insurrection spread throughout the whole of Ireland. It was

asserted that the Pope and the King of Spain had promised

assistance to the rebels. In this perilous situation the council

of the queen decided that no other but the Earl of Essex could

take command of the army. For a long time he refused. The

viceroys of Ireland had all suffered disgrace or death. He

finally yielded to the personal entreaties of Elizabeth, and left

London in the month of March, 1599, accompanied by the flower of

the English nobility. His absence was to inflict upon him a

mortal blow. The troops were despatched slowly, ill armed, ill

fed. In vain he demanded reinforcements. Sir Walter Raleigh and

Sir Robert Cecil assured the queen that her general had no other

desire than to prolong the war. When he entered the province of

Ulster, the centre of the rebellion, he had less than six

thousand men with him. He concluded an armistice with the Earl of

Tyrone, then without waiting for authority for this settlement he

embarked in haste for England. Scarcely arrived in London, he

repaired to the palace of the queen; she was at her toilet; he

entered and threw himself upon his knees before her, kissing her

hands. When he issued forth, he appeared radiant, congratulating

himself after suffering far from home stormy troubles and inward

griefs, and finding once more peace and quietude in his own

country.

{421}

On the morrow everything was changed. The Earl received orders to

remain a prisoner in his apartment. Sir John Harrington, who had

accompanied Essex to Ireland, was summoned to appear before the

queen: "she chafed much, walked to and fro, looked with

discomposure in her visage," says Sir John, "and when I kneeled

to her she clutched at my girdle, saying, 'By God's son I am no

queen, that man is above me! Who gave him command to come here so

soon? I did send him on other business.' She bid me go home, I

did not stay to be bidden twice. If all the Irish rebels had been

at my heels, I should not have made better speed." On the morrow,

Essex was summoned before the council. He replied with gravity

and moderation, but was consigned to the care of the keeper of

the seals. All the affection of the queen for the Earl appeared

to have turned to anger. She forbade the friends, the physicians,

and particularly the wife of the prisoner, to have any access to

his person. He was ill, and had been detained for eight months,

when, in the month of May, 1600, he wrote to the queen, reminding

her of her former favour, of which his enemies had been so

jealous that they continued to hate him habitually, "now that he

was forgotten and thrown into a corner, like a dishonoured

corpse." On the 26th of August, liberty was restored to him, but

orders were given to him not to appear at court. Terrible is the

intoxication of love of power and royal favour! Essex was

learned; he had a taste for arts and literature; he might have

retired into the country, and concealed the check he had

received, but he desired to tempt fortune once more. His

secretary, Cuffs, an enterprising man, without principle, urged

him to attempt the rule of his enemies by a bold stroke.

{422}

He was beloved by the population of London. An insurrection might

rid him of Cecil, Raleigh, Cobham, the party of the court, as

they were called, the earl opened the doors of his house to all

malcontents, and assembled together the officers who had served

under him. He involved in his cause King James VI., asserting

that Cecil and his friends were endeavoring to banish him from

the succession, in favour of the Infanta of Spain, Clara-Eugenia,

daughter of Philip II., married to the Archduke Albert. Secret

advices warned the Earl that his projects were known to the

council. He resolved to act. He was surrounded by his friends on

Sunday, the 8th of February, 1601, preparing to march to the City

to rouse to insurrection the populace assembled at the cross of

St. Paul's, at the moment of the sermon, and thus to open up a

way for himself to the queen with the assistance of the mob. The

keeper of the seals, and Lord Egerton and Sir William Knollys,

arrived at his house at the same moment, demanding an explanation

of this noisy assemblage. "There is a plot against my life:

letters have been forged in my name; men have been hired to

murder me in my bed," exclaimed Essex violently; then, as the

magistrates promised justice, he invited them to enter an inner

apartment; the door was closed upon them. Essex hastened to the

City with Lord Rutland, Lord Southampton and a few others. The

streets were deserted; no sermon had been delivered at the cross

of St. Paul's. The citizens remained shut up in their houses. The

aldermen had received the orders of the queen. Essex called every

one to arms; none responded. He had great difficulty in

re-entering his house, which he in vain endeavoured to defend.

{423}

At the sight of the cannon leveled against the walls, he, as well

as his friends, surrendered, and he was conducted to the Tower

with the Earl of Southampton. When the accused appeared before

the peers, on the 19th of February, Essex asserted that he had

only obeyed the law of nature in defending his reputation and his

life. The indictment of the crown was supported by Francis Bacon,

whose career was soon to present so strange a mixture of

greatness and infamy. He owed his elevation to the friendship and

the protection of the Earl of Essex. He was less violent than his

compeer, Coke, who accused the Earl of having desired to raise an

insurrection. "He would have called a Parliament, and a bloody

Parliament would that have been, where my Lord of Essex, that now

stands all in black, would have worn a bloody robe; but now, in

God's just judgment, he of his earldom shall be Robert the Last,

that of a kingdom thought to be Robert the First." All the

arguments of Essex were demolished by Bacon, although the latter

reminded him of the language which he had himself used regarding

the party which he now supported. No witness was confronted with

the accused, whose condemnation to death was unanimously

pronounced by the peers.

When the usual question was put to the two earls, whether they

knew of any reason why they should not be condemned, Essex did

not complain of the fate which awaited him. He was weary of life,

he said, but he interceded keenly for his friend. Lord

Southampton. He was urged to ask mercy of the queen.

{424}

"Do not accuse me of pride," said the Earl, "but I could not ask

for mercy in that way, though with all humility I pray her

Majesty's forgiveness; I would rather die than live in misery; I

have cleared my accounts, and have forgiven all the world." A

confession signed by Essex was circulated, but many people

believed it to be forged. It was also asserted that he had

expressly asked to be executed in secret, although that fact was

formally denied by King Henry IV. "Quite on the contrary," said

the monarch, "he would have desired nothing so much as to die in

public." The popularity of the Earl of Essex was dreaded, and the

prolonged emotion which his death caused proved that this dread

was not without foundation. He was beheaded on the 25th of

February, 1601, at eight o'clock in the morning, in an outer

court of the Tower. He was not thirty-three years of age. Sir

Walter Raleigh witnessed the execution from a window, as well as

that of several of the friends of the Earl. He did not know that

the day would come in like manner when other eyes would in their

turn come to contemplate his death. The Earl of Southampton

remained in prison until the accession of King James, with whom

he was soon in great favour.

If the King of Scotland had now found himself, as his mother had

been, under the rule of the English law, he would have incurred

serious dangers. His correspondence with Essex had compromised

him so much that he felt compelled to send ambassadors to London

to exonerate himself with Elizabeth. Sir Robert Cecil was in the

service of the King of Scotland, faithful to the instinct of the

courtier, who turns to the rising sun.

{425}

The queen was appeased and increased the pay of her successor. If

the chroniclers do not wrong her, she had shortly before been

concerned in a strange plot, in which the king had narrowly

escaped perishing by the hand of the sons of the Earl of Gowrie,

beheaded for rebellion in 1584. The queen and her destined

successor had little liking for each other, and bitter

recollections estranged them. In despatching his emissaries to

London, the King of Scotland had recommended them to proceed

prudently between the two precipices of the queen and the people.

The emissaries were sufficiently skilful to secure the best of

guides. It was then that Sir Robert Cecil began with King James a

correspondence which would have cost him his head if his mistress

had been aware of it. Less skilful, Sir Walter Raleigh and Cobham

did not contrive to gain in time the good graces of the future

monarch, a fatal imprudence, as one of them afterwards found.

The war continued in Ireland, supported by a considerable body of

Spaniards. Lord Mountjoy had besieged them in Kinsale and pressed

them vigorously, when the Earl of Tyrone advanced, at the head of

six thousand Irish, to second his allies. He was repulsed after a

desperate fight; the Spaniards were obliged to capitulate and

re-embark in their vessels. Mountjoy pursued Tyrone from retreat

to retreat, until he was compelled to surrender, towards the end

of 1602. The expenses of the war had been enormous; the Queen had

convoked Parliament for the last time in the month of October,

1601. She was sick and depressed in spirits; but she appeared

before the Houses more magnificently attired than ever, and

obtained considerable supplies.

{426}

The Commons, however, had determined to cause their favours to be

paid for. They protested violently against the monopolies granted

or sold by the Crown, which allowed the possessors to fix the

price of articles of first necessity as suited them. The sale of

wine, oil, salt, tin, steel and coal, were all objects of these

monopolies. It was asked why bread was not among the number. "If

no remedy is found for these," said a member, "bread will be

there before the next Parliament." The discussion, formal and

categorical in its nature, lasted four days. The ministers

endeavoured to defend the prerogative, but Parliament held firm;

the spirit of the Puritans had constantly gained ground during

recent years, and the queen was compelled to yield. A promise was

given to abolish the existing monopolies, and not to grant fresh

ones. This engagement was not strictly kept, but the worst

features of the evil diminished. Elizabeth no longer governed as

of old. The energy of her will yielded to the growing feebleness

of her body. She had always contrived to know the moment when it

was necessary to make concessions; and she felt, besides, with

bitter sorrow, that her popularity had diminished among the

nation. The day of complete decline was approaching. The

anxieties of absolute power, remorse for past cruelties, and

regret for the death of the Earl of Essex, weighed upon that

head, bent with age and sickness. Elizabeth did not seek

confidants. Secret in her griefs as in her resolves, she bore

alone the burden of her weariness; but the beginning of the year

1603 saw her strength diminishing day by day.

{427}

She no longer showed herself in public, alleging the sorrow which

she experienced at the recent death of the Countess Nottingham.

She no longer slept, and scarcely ate; "She remains seated upon

cushions," wrote the French Ambassador, at the beginning of

March, "refusing to take any medicine or to go to bed." She no

longer rose, yet she did not lie down; her eyes remained fixed

upon the ground, and days elapsed without her saying a word. On

the 21st of March her women put her to bed, and she listened

attentively to the prayers of the Archbishop of Canterbury,

Whitgift. On the morrow, the 22nd of March, Cecil, the Lord

Admiral, and Lord Keeper of the Seals, approached her to ask her

to name her successor. She trembled. "I told you my seat has been

the seat of Kings; I will have no rascal to succeed me." The

lords looked at each other, uncertain as to the meaning of her

words. "I tell you that I will have no rascal. I must have a

king, and who could that be but my cousin of Scotland?" "Is your

Grace quite determined?" asked Cecil. She made a sign indicating

yes, asking that she should be left in peace. She had again seen

the archbishop, and was speechless when the lords of the council

returned. "May your Grace deign to make a sign to indicate if you

have chosen the the King of Scotland for your successor," they

asked again. She raised herself, and joined her hands above her

head as though to form a crown. Then she sank back upon her

pillows and died in the night of the 24th of March, 1603, without

having uttered a word. She was nearly seventy, and had wielded

the sceptre for forty-five years.

{428}

Queen Elizabeth had willed and accomplished great things. She had

governed England despotically, but was skilful, nevertheless, in

observing the national tendencies and in yielding to them when

resistance became dangerous. Under the influence and upon the

advice of her faithful minister, Lord Burleigh, she had often

been the arbitrator of Europe, constantly the patron and

protector of the persecuted Protestants. She had tarnished the

brilliancy of her reign, and for ever sullied her glory, by

weaknesses and bad passions, while obstinately refusing to devote

herself to the duties and to share in the legitimate happiness of

a woman's life. Courageous, proud, farsighted, and persevering,

she had displayed many great intellectual faculties and moral

qualities, but rarely or never the tender and modest virtues

which both inspire and retain private affections. She had long

contrived to inspire sentiments of another nature. When in the

midst of her glorious career, Elizabeth, asking a lady of her

court how she preserved the affection of her husband, the latter

replied, "By assuring him of mine, madam," the queen exclaimed,

"It is thus that I possess the love of my many husbands, the

people of England, by causing them to feel that which I bear to

them." She had indeed possessed the love of her people, and she

had made common cause with them during long years, and through

great trials. When she died, the evils and dangers inherent in

absolute power had done their worst. The English nation began to

grow weary of the domination of its great queen, and to

contemplate political and religious liberties which had no place

in the mind or heart of Elizabeth Tudor.

{429}