THE MONARCHY of Philip II was held by no binding idea, but religious
unity. The dynasty was new, and the king was not personally imposing or
attractive. The people of Palermo, Milan, Antwerp, had no motive to
make sacrifices, except the fact that their king was the one upholder
of religion in Europe. Catholics in every country were his natural
allies.
Charles V, who accepted inevitable divisions in Germany, had
established the Inquisition in the Netherlands. Under Philip that
policy was consistent, and promised, in the flood of the
Counter-Reformation, to be a source of power. He would not fall behind
his father. He drove the Netherlands into rebellion; but his
intention was intelligible. In the sixteenth century the pride of
state does as much for oppression and intolerance as religious
passion. If he succeeded in repressing heresy, he would have a very
real political advantage over other powers. In October 1565 he wrote:
"As to the Inquisition, my will is that it be enforced by the
Inquisitors as of old, and as is required by all law, human and
divine. This lies very near my heart, and I require you to carry out
my orders. Let all prisoners be put to death, and suffer them no
longer to escape through the neglect, weakness, and bad faith of the
judges. If any are too timid to execute the edicts, I will replace
them by men who have more heart and zeal."
By this scheme of violence Philip II turned the Reformation into
revolution. He saw that generally nothing was more striking than the
ease with which people changed religious profession; and he believed
that what was done with success in Germany and Austria and England,
could be done in the seven provinces of the Burgundian crown. The
leaders of the popular movement were men of rank, like Egmont and
William of Orange, men not likely to go to extremes. And it was an
axiom that the masses are always led by few, and cannot act of
themselves. But in the Netherlands more than elsewhere the forms, if
not the reality, of freedom were preserved, and the sovereign was not
absolute. Moreover, he governed from a distance, and, in addition to
his constitutional caution and procrastination, correspondence was
very slow.
The endeavour of Philip to substitute his will for self-government
provoked a Catholic and aristocratic opposition, followed by a
democratic and Protestant movement, which proved more difficult to
deal with. The nobles were overcome by the strong measures of Alva.
The Gueux were defeated by Don Juan and Farnese, after the recall of
Alva. And it seemed, for many years, that the movement would fail.
It is to the statesmanship of William the Silent, who was neither a
great soldier nor a strong churchman, that they owed their success.
He failed, indeed, to keep Protestants and Catholics together on a
wide basis of toleration. In 1579 the southern provinces returned to
Spain, and the northern provinces cast off their allegiance. But, by
the union of Utrecht, they founded that confederacy which became one
of the foremost powers in the world, and the first of revolutionary
origin. The southern provinces remained Catholic. The northern were,
in great measure, Protestant, but with a large Catholic population.
William, the Stadtholder, was killed by an assassin in 1584, before
his work was done. He had brought in Alencon, Elizabeth's suitor,
that he might secure the help of France. But Alencon proved a
traitor; and during the proconsulate of Farnese, Duke of Parma, the
Spaniards gained much ground.
Philip II stood at the height of his power in the middle of the
eighties. He had annexed Portugal, with its immense colonial empire.
By the death of Alencon, the King of Navarre, who was a Huguenot,
became the heir to the crown of France, and the Catholic party looked
to Spain for their salvation. Now, after many patient years, he
prepared for war with England. For Drake was ravaging Spanish
territory; and an English army under Leicester, having occupied the
Netherlands after the death of William, though they accomplished
little, gave just cause for an open quarrel. Whenever, in the course
of the Counter-Reformation, it came to a duel between Spain and
England, the fate of Protestantism would be staked on the issue. That
conflict was finally brought about, not by the revolt of the
Netherlands, but by the most tragic of all histories, that begins at
Holyrood with the murder of Riccio and ends twenty-one years later at
Fotheringay.
When Mary Stuart came to Scotland the country had just become
Protestant. She did not interfere with the settlement, but refused to
permit the suppression of Catholicism, and became, in opposition to
the most violent of the reformers, a champion of religious
toleration. John Knox differed from all the Protestant founders in his
desire that the Catholics should be exterminated, root and branch,
either by the ministry of State, or by the self-help of all Christian
men. Calvin, in his letter to Somerset, went very far in the same
direction, but not so far as this. The nobles, or rather the heads of
clans, in whom the power of society resided, having secured the Church
lands, were not so zealous as their preachers, and the queen succeeded
in detaching them. Mary was religious without ferocity, and did not
share the passions of her time. She would have been willing to marry
Leicester, and to make herself dependent on English policy, but
Elizabeth refused to acknowledge her right of succession, and drove
her to seek connection with the Catholic Powers. She wished at one
time to marry Don Carlos, that, having been Queen of France, she might
become Queen of Spain. This was impossible; and so she became the wife
of Darnley, who united the blood of the Tudors and the Stuarts. She
belonged, on her mother's side, to the house of Guise, whose princes
were leaders of the militant Counter-Reformation. The duke, who had
slaughtered the Huguenots at Vassy, was now dead. But his brother, the
Cardinal, who afterwards claimed the merit of a more signal massacre,
was still an important personage in Church and State. Mary, appearing
on this background of sanguinary uncles, was believed to be an
adherent of their policy, and to take part in all extremes of the
Catholic reaction.
Riccio, the Piedmontese secretary, through whom she corresponded with
foreign princes, was hated accordingly; and Darnley, who attributed to
the Italian's influence his own exclusion from power, consented that
he should be made away with. The accomplices who wrought the deed
took care that Mary should know that they acted with his approval;
and when she found herself the wife of an assassin and a coward, the
breach ensued which was sometimes dissembled but never repaired.
Three months later their son was born, but Darnley was not present at
the christening. His enemies advised the Queen to obtain a divorce,
but she objected that it would injure the prospects of her son.
Maitland then hinted that there might be other ways of getting rid of
him. Mary did not yield consent; but the idea once started was
followed up, and the king was doomed to death by what was called the
Bond of Craigmillar.
At the end of 1566 he fell seriously ill at his father's house at
Glasgow. Mary came, spent three days with him, and an explanation
took place, amounting apparently to a reconciliation. Darnley was
taken to Edinburgh, and lodged about a mile from Holyrood, at
Kirk-o'-Field, where he was repeatedly visited by the queen. On the
night of 9th February she went away to attend a ball, and three hours
after she had left him his house was blown up, and he was found in the
garden, strangled. Nobody doubted at the time, or has ever doubted
since, that the crime was committed by the Earl of Bothwell, a rough
and resolute soldier, whose ambition taught him to seek fortune as a
supporter of the throne. He filled Edinburgh with his troops, stood
his trial, and was at once acquitted. Thereupon his friends, and some
who were not his friends, acting under pressure, resolved that he
should marry the queen. As a widow, she was helpless. Bothwell
possessed the energy which Darnley wanted, and, as he was a
Protestant, the queen would be less isolated. He had killed her
husband; but then her husband was himself a murderer, who deserved his
fate. Bothwell, encouraged by many of the Lords, had only executed
justice on a contemptible criminal. There was a debt of gratitude
owing to him for what he had done.
Public decorum forbade that the queen should ostensibly accept the
offer of a man who made her a widow ten weeks before. Therefore
Bothwell waylaid the queen at the Brig of Almond, some miles from
Edinburgh, dispersed her attendants, and carried her off to Dunbar.
There was a difficulty about the marriage, because he was married
already. He now procured a divorce, and, ten days after the outrage
at Almond Brig, they reappeared at Edinburgh. The queen publicly
forgave Bothwell for what he had done, made him a duke, and, on 15th
May, three months after the explosion at Kirk-o'-Field, married him
according to the Presbyterian rite. The significant sequence of these
events gave an irresistible advantage to her enemies. It was an
obvious inference that she had been a party to the murder of the king,
when she was so eager to marry the man that slew him. The only answer
would be by discarding him. Nobody could think the son safe in the
hands of his father's murderer.
Either the Lords must get the queen into their power, or they must
dethrone her and govern Scotland during the long minority of her son.
The forces met at Carberry Hill. There was no fight. Mary hoped, by
a temporary parting from her third husband, to save her crown. She
passed into captivity, was shut up at Loch Leven, and compelled to
abdicate. The Protestant interest was at last supreme.
Mary escaped from her island prison, gathered an army, gave battle at
Langside, and lost it, and then, losing courage before her cause was
helpless, fled to England, in the belief that Elizabeth would save
her.
From the death of Darnley, still more after her Protestant marriage,
she had ceased to be the champion of her own Church. That was again
her position when she came to England. There, she was heir to the
throne, and the centre of all the hopes and efforts to preserve or to
restore Catholicism.
The story of Mary Stuart cannot be told without an understanding in
regard to the Casket Letters. They are still the object of an
incessant controversy, and the problem, although it has made progress
of late, and the interest increases with the increase of daylight,
remains unsolved. The view to be taken of the events depends
essentially on the question of authenticity. If the letters are what
they seem to be, the letters of the queen to Bothwell, then she is
implicated in the murder of her husband. If they are not authentic,
then there is no evidence of her guilt. Everybody must satisfy
himself on this point before he can understand the ruin of the
Catholic cause in Scotland and in England, and the consequent arrest of
the Counter-Reformation in Europe.
At the same time the issue does not seriously affect the judgment of
History on the character of the queen herself. She repeatedly
expressed her delight in murder, and her gratitude to those who
executed or attempted it, and stands on the same level of morality
with the queen her mother-in-law, or with the queen her rival. But the
general estimate does not throw light on the particular action, and
supplies no help in a hanging matter.
The opinion of historians inclines, on the whole, in her favour.
About fifty writers have considered the original evidences
sufficiently to form something like an independent conclusion.
Eighteen of these condemn Mary, thirty pronounce her not guilty; two
cannot make up their minds. Most of the Catholics absolve, and among
Protestants there is an equal number for and against. The greater
names are on the hostile side. They do not carry weight with us,
because they decided upon evidence less complete than that which we
possess. Four of the greatest, Robertson, Ranke, Burton, Froude, were
all misled by the same damaging mistake. The equal division of the
Protestants shows how little any religious bias has had to do with the
inquiry; so that the overwhelming majority on the Catholic side
requires explanation.
There have been two reasons for it. Many found it difficult to
understand how a woman who died so edifying a death could have been a
murderess. It would be easy to find many instances of men in that age
who led holy lives and died with sincerity, but who, in the matter of
homicide, had much in common with the Roman triumvirs, or the heroes
of the French Revolution. But persons disposed to admit that
difficulty would naturally be impressed by an argument of much greater
force. The man who produced the famous letters, the Chancellor
Morton, was a notorious villain. He had kept guard at Holyrood while
his friends slew Riccio. Further, many have admitted, many more are
now ready to admit, that some portion of the letters is forged. In
that case, how can we accept evidence which the forgers have supplied?
How can we send Mary to the scaffold on the testimony of perjured
witnesses? Either we must say that the proofs are genuine throughout,
and that Morton did not suffer them to be tampered with, or we must
absolve Mary. Nobody, I think, at the present day, will deny that the
letters, as we have them, were tampered with. Therefore we must hold
Mary to be not guilty. Everybody can see the force of this argument,
and the likelihood that it would impress those who expect to find
consistency in the lives and characters of men, or even of women.
On 20th June, 1567 Morton captured Dalgleish, one of Bothwell's men,
who had helped to kill Darnley. In order to escape torture--he did not
escape capital punishment--Dalgleish delivered up a silver gilt casket
which had belonged to the queen's first husband, and which now
contained papers, the property of her third husband. Among them were
eight letters, not directed, or dated, or signed, but which were
recognised by those who saw them to be in the handwriting of the
queen.
Towards the end of July it began to be whispered, by Moray in London,
by Throckmorton at Edinburgh, that they proved her complicity in the
death of Darnley, and justified the Lords in deposing her. In the
following year, when Mary had sought a refuge in England, these papers
were produced, and they furnished the argument by which Elizabeth
justified the detention of the Scottish queen. The decisive piece is a
long document, known as the Glasgow letter, which alludes distinctly
to the intended crime. As it contains a conversation with Darnley,
which he repeated to Crawford, one of his officers, the confirmation
thus supplied caused it to be widely accepted at the time, and by the
four writers I named just now.
That is what puts them out of court; for the letter was evidently
concocted by men who had Crawford's report before them. The letter is
spurious, and it is the only one that connects the queen with the
death of Darnley. It does not follow that the others are spurious,
for they add nothing to the case. The forgers, having constructed the
damning piece, would not be likely to do more. Every additional
forgery would increase the risk of detection, without any purpose.
What purported to be the originals do not exist. They can be traced
down to 1584, and no farther. The handwriting can no longer be
tested. Until lately, the French text of the letters was not known,
and they could be studied only in translations.
Since 1872, when the Hatfield letters were discovered, and were
printed at Brussels, we possess four in their original shape. These
cannot be seriously impeached. The comparison of the style and
language with that of Mary's undisputed writings shows that they
correspond; and they do not resemble in the same degree those of her
contemporaries. The ablest of Mary's advocates accept these letters as
genuine. But they deny that they were written to Bothwell. The writer
speaks of a secret marriage, which she would like to disclose. There
certainly was no secret marriage with Bothwell; but it is a possible
hypothesis that she may have married Darnley in secret before the
ceremonial wedding. Therefore this letter, which is a love letter, is
quite legitimate, and is meant for the right address. But the word
which the queen uses, marriage, is employed in the sense of a wedding
ring, as they say alliance or union, to this day, in the same
meaning. She is regretting that she must wear the ring round her neck,
and cannot produce it in public, because of Darnley.
Besides the one which is spurious and the four which are genuine,
there are three other letters which we do not know in the original
French. They cannot be tested in the same manner as those I have just
spoken of, and cannot be accepted with the same confidence. If, then,
we divide the letters in this way: one evidently forged, four
evidently genuine, and three that are best left aside, the result is
that there is no evidence of murderous intent. But it would appear
that Mary wished to be carried off by Bothwell, and that she meant to
marry him. How she proposed to dispose of her living husband, whether
by death or by his consent to divorce, we cannot tell. The case is
highly suspicious and compromising; but more than that is required for
a verdict of guilty in a matter of life and death.
What is known as the Penal Laws begins with Mary's captivity in
England. There was the northern rising; the Pope issued a Bull
deposing Elizabeth, and Philip undertook to make away with her; for
the Queen of Scots, once Queen of France, now fixed her hopes on Spain
and the forces of the Counter-Reformation. The era of persecution
began which threw England back for generations, while France, Germany,
Austria, the Netherlands were striving for religious freedom. It was
proposed to extirpate the Catholics. Negotiations were opened with
the Scots to give them back their queen, on condition that they would
at once put her to death. And when she had been condemned for
plotting treason, Elizabeth asked her gaoler to murder her in her
prison. The execution at Fotheringay gave Elizabeth that security at
home which she could never have enjoyed while Mary lived. But it was
the signal of danger from abroad. Philip II was already preparing for
war with England when Mary bequeathed her rights to him. The legal
force of the instrument was not great, but it gave him a claim to
fight for, constituting the greatest enterprise of the Reformation
struggle. Sixtus V, the ablest of the modern Popes, encouraged him.
Personally, he much preferred Elizabeth to Philip, and he offered her
favourable terms. But he gave his benediction, and even his money, to
the Spaniards when there was a chance that they would succeed. And
their chances, in the summer of 1588, seemed very good. The Armada
was stronger, though not much stronger, than the English fleet; but
the army that was to be landed at the mouth of the Thames was
immeasurably superior to the English. This was so evident that Philip
was dazzled and listened to no advice. They might have sailed for
Cork and made Ireland a Spanish stronghold. They might have supplied
Farnese with the land force that he required to complete the conquest
of the revolted provinces, putting off to the following year the
invasion of England. When they came in sight of Plymouth, Recalde,
one of the victors of Lepanto, and Oquendo, whose name lasted as long
as the Spanish navy, for the ship of the line that bore it was sunk in
Cervera's action, demanded to fight. But the orders were peremptory
to sail for Dunkirk and to transport Farnese to Margate. The Armada
made the best of its way to Gravelines, where they were attacked
before Farnese could embark, and the expedition failed.
An American writer, meditating upon our history at Battle, on the spot
where Harold fell, once expressed his thought in these words, "Well,
well, it is a small island, and has been often conquered." It was not
conquered in August 1588, because Drake held the narrow seas. The
credit was not shared by the army. And it may be a happy fortune that
the belated levies of Tilbury, commanded by Leicester, never saw the
flash of Farnese's guns. For the superiority of Spain was not by sea,
nor the greatness of England on land. But England thenceforth was
safe, and had Scotland in tow. Elizabeth occupied a position for
which her timorous and penurious policy, during so many years, had not
prepared the world. She proposed terms to Philip. She would
interfere no more in the Low Countries, if he would grant toleration.
Farnese entered into the scheme, but Philip refused. The lesson of
the Armada was wasted upon him. He did not perceive that he had lost
Holland as well as England.
The revolt of the Netherlands created a great maritime power; for it
was by water, by the dexterous use of harbours, estuaries, and dykes,
that they obtained independence. By their sea power they acquired the
trade of the Far East, and conquered the Portuguese possessions. They
made their universities the seat of original learning and original
thinking, and their towns were the centre of the European press. The
later Renaissance, which achieved by monuments of solid work what
dilettantism had begun and interrupted in the Medicean age, was due to
them and to the refuge they provided for persecuted scholars. Their
government, imperfect and awkward in its forms, became the most
intelligent of the European governments. It gave the right of
citizenship to revolutionary principles, and handed on the torch when
the turn of England came. There the sects were reared which made this
country free; and there the expedition was fitted out, and the king
provided, by which the Whigs acquired their predominance. England,
America, France have been the most powerful agents of political
progress; but they were preceded by the Dutch. For it was by them
that the great transition was made, that religious change became
political change, that the Revolution was evolved from the
Reformation.