ELIZABETH (ii), 1561-68--QUEENS AND SUITORS
[Sidenote: 1561 The Situation]
On August 19th, 1561, Mary Stewart returned to Scotland; in May 1568, she
left her kingdom for ever. During those seven years, what she did, what she
was accused of doing, what she was expected to do, what she intended to do,
formed the subject of the keenest interest and anxiety in England at the
time; and the problems and mysteries of those years, never unravelled to
this day, never with any certainty to be unravelled at all, continued to
perplex English statesmen and to complicate the situation in England for
nearly nineteen years more. We shall have to follow them therefore in much
greater detail than would _a priori_ seem justifiable in a volume
ostensibly dealing not with Scottish but with English History.
During these same years it may be said that the great antagonisms were
formulated, which were to rend the two great Continental monarchies for
forty years to come. Thus in order to follow the subsequent story
efficiently even from the purely English point of view, we must devote what
may seem somewhat disproportionate attention to foreign affairs, which do
not appear at first sight to have a very intimate connexion with events in
England. For France these events may be summed up as the opening of the set
struggle between Catholics and Huguenots; for Spain, as the preliminaries
to the revolt of the Netherlands: while for all Europe, the effective
sessions of the Council of Trent laid down finally the sharp dividing line
between Protestant and Catholic--terms which have a well defined political
meaning, in neither case identical with their original or correct
theological import, in which latter sense half the Protestant world
continued to assert its claim to membership in the Catholic Church.
[Sidenote: (1) The Council of Trent]
That Council reassembled under the auspices of Paul's successor, Pius IV.,
in January 1562. While the Protestants could not recognise it as a Catholic
Council, in the sense of representing the whole Catholic Church, it claimed
that character for itself, and those who maintained its authority
appropriated the name, which thus became a party title. In the course of
its sessions, it rejected doctrines, notably that of Justification by
Faith, which had been strongly favoured even by such men as Pole and
Contarini, so narrowing the bounds of orthodoxy. But while cutting off all
possibility of reconciliation with the Protestants, it marked a strong
tendency to reformation not of dogma but of practice; while an increased
intolerance of what was stigmatised as error, an intensification of the
spirit which demanded the most merciless repression of heresy, was
accompanied in other respects by an elevation of the standard of
ecclesiastical morals, and a zeal for the Faith more pure and less
influenced by worldly considerations, if narrower, than in the past. From
this time, as the exemplar both of the new discipline, and of the new
warfare against heresy, the Order of Jesuits takes its place as the
dominating force. The Council terminated in 1563; in 1566 the Pope died and
was succeeded by Pius V., the nominee of the most rigid section of the
Church.
[Sidenote: (2) France: Catholics, Huguenots, and _Politiques_]
In France, from the days of Francis I., the tendency had been to persecute
the followers of the reformed doctrines, who were for the most part
disciples of Calvin rather than of Luther. On the other hand, the political
attraction of alliance with the German Lutherans had served to keep the
mind of the court open, and throughout the sittings of the Council of Trent
there had been and continued to be threats that the Gallican Church might
follow the Anglican in claiming independence of the Pope. In France however
the opposition lay between the Catholics and the Calvinists, who by 1561
had acquired the general name of Huguenots: in England, the Reformation was
carried through under the auspices of a middle ecclesiastical party. In
France the middle party was purely political, not aiming at a compromise
tending to amalgamation, but rather at holding the two parties balanced.
Before the death of Henry II., the Guise brothers were recognised as the
heads of the Catholic faction. The Duke, Francis, was the popular and
successful soldier who won back Calais from England: his brother, the
Cardinal of Lorraine, was one of the ablest of living ecclesiastics and
statesmen. There were four more brothers, all men of mark; and their sister
was the mother of Mary Stewart. On the other hand, the family came from
Lorraine only in the time of Francis I., and though the first Duke of Guise
married a daughter of the house of Bourbon, they were regarded with
jealousy by a considerable body of the French nobility, who, partly in
consequence, threw their weight in favour of the Protestants. At the head
of these now were Anthony of Bourbon, nominal King of Navarre in right of
his wife, his brother Condé, and Admiral Coligny, with his brother the
Cardinal Chatillon. When Henry II. died, the Guises--uncles of the new
Queen (Mary Stewart)--assumed unmistakable supremacy; but when Francis also
died, and was succeeded by his younger brother Charles IX., the
Queen-mother, Katharine de Medici, obtained for herself the regency, which
would naturally have fallen to Navarre as next Prince of the Blood, and the
control passed not to the Huguenots but to the "_Politiques_".
[Footnote: The name for the "Middle" Party, which was not however generally
adopted till a later date.] It may be remarked that this century is
noteworthy for the number of women who made their mark in history as
politicians; for Isabella of Castile was still living when it opened, and
Elizabeth of England when it closed; Katharine de Medici and Mary Stewart
were of ability not much inferior; while Mary of Guise, regent of Scotland,
and Mary Tudor in England, were both striking figures; and the women of
Charles V.'s family were conspicuous as Governors of the Netherlands.
[Sidenote: Religious war in France 1561-68]
The rule of the Politiques was, unlike that of the Guises, favourable to
toleration--as a matter not of conscience but of policy. Katharine's was
the controlling spirit, and her chief supporters in the policy were the
Chancellor L'Hôpital and the Constable Montmorency, a connexion of
Coligny's but an orthodox Catholic. In January 1562 a large extension of
toleration was granted to the Huguenots, which roused the fanaticism of the
other party and drew the Constable over to their ranks. Navarre was induced
to go over to the Catholics, leaving the Protestant leadership to
Condé. Some of Guise's followers massacred a number of unarmed Huguenots at
Vassy; Paris, frantically anti-Huguenot, gave a triumphal reception to
Guise, who held Katharine and the boy-king practically prisoners. The
Huguenots rose in arms; Navarre was killed, leaving a boy--afterwards Henry
IV.--as his heir and the hope of the Huguenots; for his mother Jeanne of
Navarre had not followed her husband in his apostasy. A great battle,
indecisive in result, was fought at Dreux, in which each of the commanders,
Condé and Montmorency, fell into the hands of their antagonists; and then,
in February 1563, Francis of Guise was assassinated by the fanatic Poltrot.
About the same time died two of his brothers, D'Aumale and the Grand Prior.
The result was the termination of the war by the Peace of Amboise,
practically confirming the recent edict of toleration. Katharine still
refused to adopt the policy, urged on her by Spain as well as by the Guise
faction, of suppressing the Huguenots by the sword. The Huguenots, however,
believing that Katharine was merely actuated by motives of expediency, and
would seek to crush them if a favourable opportunity offered, organised
with a view to enforcing their demands in arms, and again took the field in
1567, thereby deciding the Regent in the policy which they had--up to this
time perhaps erroneously--attributed to her. For the time being, however,
the war was closed in the spring of 1568, by a treaty confirming the terms
of the previous Peace of Amboise.
[Sidenote: The Netherlands and Spain]
The Netherlands or Low Countries was the general title of a group of
provinces, corresponding in area roughly but not accurately to the modern
States of Holland and Belgium. These provinces, originally independent
States, but latterly associated in a loose federation, had owned allegiance
to the Dukes of Burgundy, and so had passed in due course to Charles V.,
who in turn transferred them to Philip shortly before his own abdication of
the Spanish crown. The institutions within the provinces varied, as did the
character and race of their populations: but in general their industrial
development was of a high standard, and their wealth was of great
importance to the Spanish monarchy. At the hands of Charles, who was
brought up as a Netherlander, they enjoyed considerable favour; but Philip,
by instinct and training, was a Spaniard, who looked on them as a paying
appanage of Spain, had no sympathy with them, and no regard for their
political organisations, and did not set foot among them after 1559. Before
that year, most of his time since his marriage with Mary had been spent
there; but in 1559 he departed, leaving as Governor his sister Margaret of
Parma, and ignoring the nobility of the country.
The Reformation doctrines had obtained a very extensive hold, more
particularly in the Northern provinces; but had been suppressed with
considerable rigour by Charles, who early established the Inquisition in
the country. By Philip the severities were increased, and the government of
Margaret of Parma was conducted on the like intolerant principles: her
chief adviser being Philip's nominee, Cardinal Granvelle. The native
nobles--at whose head were Egmont, Horn, and William (the Silent), Prince
of Orange [Footnote: William was a Netherlander in virtue of the lordship
of Breda.] and Count of Nassau--as well as the burghers, were indignant at
the encroachment on the constitutional liberties of the provinces by the
appointment of foreigners to offices of State, and by the presence of
Spanish troops; and the removal of both was demanded. The multiplication of
bishops and endowment of the new bishoprics constituted another grievance.
The troops had to be withdrawn, and in 1564 Granvelle left the Netherlands
to join his master in Spain; but Philip's determination to bring the whole
country into the system of Spanish despotism remained unchanged: and
whereas the whole population was in favour of general religious toleration,
he insisted, in the face of remonstrance, on intensifying instead of
relaxing the edicts against the Reformed doctrines. To avoid the
persecution, multitudes of Flemish weavers left the country, to be welcomed
by Elizabeth in England, which was rapidly supplanting the commercial
supremacy of the Low Countries.
[Sidenote: 1566 Resistance in the Netherlands]
In 1565 it was generally believed that Katharine de Medici was concerting
measures, with the Duke of Alva on behalf of Spain, for the suppression of
heretics; and this brought matters in the Netherlands to a head. In 1566 a
League, widespread though not openly supported by the greatest nobles, was
formed for the abolition of the Inquisition, an institution, introduced
forty years before by Charles V., which had worked as mercilessly as in
Spain. The supporters of the league included Lewis of Nassau, brother of
William of Orange; it was known as the Compromise, and its adherents were
nick-named the _Gueux_, or beggars. The general ferment resulted in
violent anti-"idolatry" riots, accompanied by great destruction of Church
property. The disturbances were quieted down by the exertions of Egmont and
William of Orange; the Governor, Margaret of Parma, promising the
concessions they advised. Philip however was enraged, repudiated the
concessions, and in 1567 sent Alva with an army of Spanish and Italian
veterans to restore order. Margaret, finding herself virtually superseded,
retired. Alva's conception of order was the enforcement of the worst type
of combined military and ecclesiastical tyranny. Egmont (a Catholic), and
Horn, though both had rendered the Government conspicuous assistance, were
arrested; Orange escaped by retiring to his German dominions. Not
Protestants only, but even Maximilian who now occupied the Imperial throne
in succession to Ferdinand, remonstrated; yet Philip obstinately encouraged
Alva to go on his way. William of Orange avowed himself a Protestant; and
in the spring a mixed army of Netherlander, Huguenots, and Germans, took
the field under Lewis of Nassau. The revolt of the Netherlands may be
reckoned as dating from the first engagement, at Heiligerlee, in May
1568. The Spaniards were worsted, and as an immediate consequence, Egmont
and Horn were sent to the block.
[Sidenote: Elizabeth, Mary, and their Suitors]
The arrival of Mary Stewart in Scotland brings her personality into more
intimate relation with that of Elizabeth than before. The problem of
finding bridegrooms politically and personally acceptable to the two queens
becomes particularly prominent. Arran, flatly declined by Elizabeth,
becomes for a time one of her cousin's actual suitors. The Archduke Charles
becomes a possible candidate for either. Dudley, still looked upon as
Elizabeth's favoured lover, is offered by her to Mary as a husband. Now,
too, we first meet with Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, [Footnote: See
Appendix A, iii.] whose mother, Lady Lennox, was daughter of Margaret Tudor
by her second husband, the young man himself being a possible successor to
the English throne. Being an English as well as a Scottish subject, brought
up in England and therefore not, like Mary--whatever her claims by
descent--an alien, that technical ground for disputing her succession did
not apply to him. He too was mentioned as a possible suitor both for
Elizabeth's and for Mary's hand. Then there was Don Carlos, son of Philip
of Spain by his first wife, to whom Mary had a political inclination; or
again there was for her a possibility of marrying her dead husband's
brother, the boy-king Charles IX. of France. Mary herself, it must be
remembered, was still some months short of nineteen when she landed at
Leith. And it was a matter of grave political importance to Elizabeth, who
should be the man to share the Scottish throne.
[Sidenote: 1562 Mary in Scotland]
Mary's reception was austere not to say brutal on the part of Knox and his
friends; but the Earl of Murray (as Lord James Stewart soon after became)
and Maitland, confident now in the security of Protestantism, were not
disposed to subordinate polities to zealotry. They were ready for a degree
of toleration. Their ultimate goal was the union of the crowns; and they
wished Mary to repose her confidence on them. They would not press her to
ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh, at any rate unless she was formally
recognised as heir presumptive of England. Mary, for her part, though
holding by her own faith, was not slow to perceive that for the present at
least she must not challenge the Reformers. Her first business was
conciliation.
The year 1562 was not far advanced when the first Huguenot war broke out in
France. Condé was soon making overtures to Elizabeth, and her Protestant
counsellors, headed by Cecil, were zealous that she should lend his party
active support, with the restoration of Calais to England as the
price. Philip of Spain, bent on suppressing the Netherlands heretics, was
strongly on the side of the Guises, and threatened Elizabeth if she should
venture to intervene. The house of the Spanish Ambassador in London was the
centre of much Catholic intriguing; and much of what was going on was
betrayed to Cecil by a secretary. Elizabeth was angry enough, but could not
afford an open rupture with Philip, who, now that Mary was no longer Queen
of France, might find it in his interest to support her pretensions to the
English throne. On the other hand, the French Queen-mother could not now
view with complacency the succession of Mary with her Guise connexions,
coupled with the possibility of her matrimonial alliance either with the
Spanish Don Carlos or the Habsburg Archduke Charles. Elizabeth's own desire
now was to be in amity with Mary, and to have her married to some one who
would not be dangerous. For a long time she dallied with the idea of
meeting Mary with a view to a settlement as to the ratification of the
Edinburgh treaty and her recognition as heir presumptive; and Catholic
hopes ran high. But the successes of the Guise party in France forced her
hand by alarming the Protestants. She had to decline the meeting with Mary,
and at least to make a show of enforcing the laws against attendance at
Mass more energetically. She had, in fact, been letting herself believe
that she could indulge her personal predilection for the more ceremonial
worship of the old faith; but as usual when a crisis seemed, really
imminent, her personal predilections were suppressed for the time.
[Sidenote: 1562-63 Elizabeth and the Huguenots]
As the year went on, the intrigue with Condé reached a point at which the
Huguenot leader actually handed over Havre to the English, and promised the
restitution of Calais; and before the autumn was far advanced, the town was
garrisoned, and a troop of English--ignoring instructions from home--went
to join Condé. The colour for Elizabeth's action was that the Guises had
usurped the government, and that they palpably and avowedly directed their
policy to the injury of England; also that she was entitled to take
measures to ensure the restoration of Calais, promised by treaty. The
fighting went steadily against the Huguenots, and Elizabeth made the
mistake--in which the country supported her even with passion--of holding
Condé to his promise as to Calais, instead of applying herself to the
establishment of the Huguenots as a powerful Anglophil anti-Guise
party. Throwing over the method which had so successfully cleared Scotland
of the French, she staked everything on the recovery of Calais, forced half
Condé's friends to look upon him as something very like a traitor, and
alienated Huguenot sentiment completely. The battle of Dreux in December,
followed early in the next year by the murder of Guise, led to the truce of
Amboise, in April, between the warring factions; England was left in the
lurch. A desperate effort was made to retain the grip on Havre, but an
outbreak of the plague among the garrison ruined all chance of success. It
fell, and with it the last hope of recovering Calais (July 1563). It was
not till the spring of 1564 that the French war was formally terminated by
the treaty of Troyes, when the English, after much vain haggling, found
themselves obliged to accept the French terms.
[Sidenote: The English Succession]
Near the end of 1562 the Queen had been stricken with smallpox and her life
all but despaired of; so that the grave problem of the Succession assumed a
momentary prominence. Henry's Will had never been set aside; but no one
would have viewed with favour the claims of the Greys. Mary of Scotland,
the heir by inheritance, was an alien, and abhorrent to the Protestants.
Darnley was the only remaining claimant of Tudor stock; [Footnote: Except
the Clifford or Stanley branch, junior to the Greys. See _Front._]
while the House of York had still representatives living, in two grandsons
of the old Countess of Salisbury executed by Henry--the Earl of Huntingdon
and Arthur Pole, the latter of whom did actually become the centre of a
still-born plot. What would have happened had the Queen died at this
juncture it is impossible to guess: happily for England, she recovered. But
the interest attaching to Mary's course was intensified.
The Scots Queen had in the meantime ostensibly given her support to Murray
and Maitland, accompanying her half-brother on an expedition to crush
Huntly, the head of the Catholic nobility. Murray and Maitland did their
best during the early months of 1563 to force the recognition of their
Queen as Elizabeth's heir by the menace of her marriage with the Prince of
Spain; Elizabeth in turn did her own best to induce Mary to marry Dudley,
whom she later on raised to the rank of Earl of Leicester. This union
however was one which neither Mary herself nor any of her counsellors would
accept; and when the year closed, Knox and the extreme Calvinists were
grimly assimilating the to them portentous probability that she would end
by marrying either Don Carlos or the young King of France--either event
threatening the restoration of the Old Church in Scotland.
[Sidenote: 1564 Darnley and others]
The civil war in France ended, as we saw, in the triumph of the
Politiques. The corollary was the treaty of Troyes with England in the
spring of 1564. The French court was now disposed to be friendly towards
Elizabeth; the Guises had lost weight by the death of the Duke; Philip of
Spain saw nothing to gain by further embroilments; so the chances of Mary's
marriage either with his son or with Charles IX. were small. The Scots
Queen began to give Darnley a leading place in her own mind, feeling that a
marriage with him would give a double claim to the English succession, and
one in favour of which the whole of the English Catholics would be
united. So far Elizabeth had only urged her to marry an English nobleman,
with an implication that Leicester [Footnote: Dudley was not in fact raised
to the Earldom till the year was well advanced.] was intended. Mary tried
to extract approval for Darnley, but with the result only that Leicester
was definitely and explicitly nominated. Yet even on behalf of her
favourite, the English Queen would not commit herself on the subject of the
succession. On the other hand, with the exception of Maitland of Lethington
who was not actually opposed to the Darnley marriage on condition of
Elizabeth's public approval, the Scottish Protestants were very
unfavourable to that solution. So the year passed in perpetual diplomatic
fencing, Mary trying to draw Darnley to Scotland, while Elizabeth kept him
at her own court, to which he with both his parents had been attached for
many years past. It is not a little curious to find all this intriguing
crossed by a proposal from Katharine de Medici that King Charles should
marry not Mary but Elizabeth, who was eighteen years his senior: while
Elizabeth herself was trying to revive the idea of her own marriage with
the Archduke Charles, whose brother Maximilian had just succeeded Ferdinand
as Emperor. In February 1565, Elizabeth found it no longer possible to
prevent Darnley's return to Scotland, and in April it was tentatively
announced that he was to be Mary's husband.
[Sidenote: 1565 The Darnley marriage]
It is not impossible [Footnote: The case for this view is effectively put
in Lang, _Hist. of Scotland_, ii., pp. 136 ff.; and _cf._
Creighton, _Queen Elizabeth_, p. 87.] that privately Elizabeth had
expected and desired that Mary should jeopardise her position precisely in
this manner, counting on the animosity to the marriage not only of Knox's
party but of all the adherents of the rival house of Hamilton. If so she
was justified in the event. But publicly she expressed a strong
disapproval, which took colour from the risk that the marriage might serve
to rally the English Catholics in support of the joint Stewart succession.
At any rate, whether Mary merely miscalculated the political forces; or,
weary of the shackles which preachers and politicians sought to impose on
her, determined to take her own way at last at any cost; or allowed herself
to be swayed by an unaccountable fancy for the person of her young cousin,
a spoilt, arrogant, and vicious boy; marry him she did, at the end of July:
in defiance of the sentiment of all her Protestant subjects, half of whom
were really afraid of the attempted revival of Catholic domination, while
the rest foresaw, at the best, the gravest political complications, and the
revival of internecine clan and family feuds and intrigues. Mary however
had not taken the step until she was sure in the first place that there was
no prospect of her marriage with Don Carlos, and had in the second place
received assurances of support from Philip [Footnote: _Cf._ Hume,
_Love Affairs of Mary Queen of Scots_, p. 262. Mary was aiming at a
Catholic combination under Philip, with the active co-operation of Rome.
Cecil and Elizabeth however had good reason from experience to count on
Spain's immobility, and may very well have counted also on Darnley's
imbecility. They knew him.] if she married Darnley. For a girl of two and
twenty, working single handed, it was an exceedingly clever move--on the
hypothesis that Philip was capable of taking open action, and Darnley of
acting with common decency and common intelligence.
[Sidenote: Mary and Murray]
The Protestant lords however were not unanimous. Maitland and the Douglases
did not join Murray and the Hamiltons who, even before the actual marriage,
were practically in open rebellion. But Mary was now playing for her own
hand; if she had any trusted counsellor it was her deformed Italian
secretary, David Rizzio. She dropped diplomatic fencing. Elizabeth, who had
been privately sending money to Murray, remonstrated on his behalf; but
Mary asserted her right to deal with her own rebellious subjects. Now, as
always, she maintained that she had no intention of subverting the
Protestant religion, though she desired the same freedom for Catholics as
for Calvinists. But she would not submit to dictation; and any promises she
was willing to make were conditional on the recognition first of herself
and her heirs and afterwards of Lady Lennox's heirs, as Elizabeth's
successors. At the end of August she marched against Murray and the
insurgents; they however avoided battle. On October 6th Murray and his
principal adherents crossed the Border. A little later he was allowed to
present himself at the English court, where Elizabeth [Footnote: Froude,
viii., pp. 213 ff. (Ed. 1864): with which cf. Lang, _Hist. Scotland_,
ii., pp. 150 ff., and authorities there cited.] publicly rated him, and
declared that she would never assist rebels against their lawful
sovereign. Murray, who had just written to Cecil that he would "never have
enterprised the action but that he had been moved thereto by the Queen" of
England, accepted Elizabeth's lecture without protest.
[Sidenote: The murder of Rizzio, 1566]
The expulsion of Murray from Scotland did not hinder the coming tragedy;
perhaps it had the contrary effect. The lords round Mary were bitterly
aggrieved by Rizzio's influence; Darnley long before he was six months
married, chose to be jealous of the secretary, a sentiment carefully
fostered by the lords. The common hatred united them in a "band" for the
murder of Rizzio, of which Sadler, the English envoy, was cognisant; Murray
probably knew just so much as he chose to know. The plot was carried out in
March. The conspirators broke into Mary's room at Holyrood, and butchered
Rizzio almost before her eyes.
[Sidenote: Kirk o' Field, 1567]
It may be doubted whether Mary ever forgave any one who was implicated or
supposed to be implicated in that outrage. For her husband, as the offence
in him was foulest and the insult from him to her deepest, she assuredly
conceived and cherished a bitter loathing. But there was one man who had
always been ready to champion her cause, the daring, reckless, ruffianly
James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, who nevertheless was no mere
swash-buckler, but according to Scottish standards of the day, a man of
education [Footnote: Lang, _Hist. Scotland_, ii., p. 168.] and even,
it would seem, of some culture. From this time, Bothwell was her one ally.
She had the policy and the self-control to profess a desire for
reconciliation even with Darnley: to receive Murray and even Lethington
into apparent favour. But Darnley's brief rapprochement with the lords was
soon over; his intolerable arrogance was made the worse by his
contemptibility. Three months after Rizzio's murder, the envy of the Virgin
Queen of England was roused by the birth of a son to Mary. The history of
the following months becomes a chaos of which there are a dozen conflicting
versions. The one clear fact is that another "band" was formed to put
Darnley out of the way. There were pretences at attempted reconciliation
between Mary and Darnley, while the Queen's relations with Bothwell were so
intimate as to produce rumours no less scandalous than those which had
prevailed about Elizabeth and Dudley. Darnley fell ill; a better appearance
than usual of reconciliation was patched up. The sick man was conveyed to
Kirk o' Field, a house near Edinburgh, where Mary joined him. Thence one
evening she went to Holyrood to attend a bridal masque. That night the
house was blown up; Darnley's unscathed corpse was found in the garden.
From the tangled mass [Footnote: The evidence has been discussed in many
volumes. The most judicial examination with which the present writer is
acquainted is that in Mr. Lang's _Mystery of Mary Stewart_, summarised
in his _History of Scotland_, ii., pp. 168 ff.] of letters,
narratives, and confessions, it remains, and will for ever remain,
impossible to ascertain more than a fragment of the real truth. As to many
of the documents, it is hard to say whether the theory of their genuineness
or of their forgery is the more incredible. For the confessions, every man
had a dozen good reasons for sheltering some of the guilty, implicating
some of the innocent, and garbling the actual facts. That the thing was
done by Bothwell is absolutely certain; it is hardly less doubtful that
both Maitland and Morion helped to hatch the plot; there is no conclusive
proof that Mary was active in it. No single act can be brought home to her
which was necessarily incompatible with innocence--or with guilt. It is the
accumulation of suspicious circumstances which makes the presumption lean
heavily to guilt; but it remains no more than a presumption; no jury would
have been justified in convicting. Her accusers had a strong case; but they
tried to strengthen it by inventing or suborning additional evidence
palpably false, with the result of discrediting the whole--and her friends
adopted the same tactics. That both Mary and Murray knew that _some_
plot existed, and that neither of them stirred a finger to frustrate it, is
hardly an open question.
Guilty in the fullest sense or not guilty, Mary's detestation of Darnley
was notorious; and within three months of the murder she was the wife of
the man whom the whole world accounted the murderer. Naturally, the whole
world believed that she was Bothwell's accomplice in the act, and his
mistress before it. There was a show at least of the marriage being brought
about by force. A formal attempt at investigation into the murder had
collapsed. Bothwell had his supporters; he kidnapped the Queen and
Maitland--_not_ one of his supporters-with her. A scandalous divorce
was pronounced between him and his wife, and Mary wedded him. The only
credible explanation is that she was over-mastered by a passion for the
daring ruffian who at least had always stood by her. The lords--accomplices
in the murder with the rest--were almost immediately in arms to "rescue"
the Queen, who took the field by her husband's side. The opposing forces
met at Carberry Hill; Bothwell, seeing the contest to be hopeless, fled;
Mary surrendered.
[Sidenote: Mary made prisoner]
The Queen was forthwith imprisoned in Lochleven Castle; and just at this
time the famous casket of letters from Mary to Bothwell was seized, in the
custody of a servant of Bothwell's. Of the documents subsequently produced
as having formed part of that collection, the experts are totally unable to
prove decisively whether any or all are genuine, or forged, or a mixture of
forgeries and transcripts from genuine originals; though on the whole the
last hypothesis is the least incredible of the three.
[Sidenote 1: Murray made regent]
[Sidenote 2: 1568 Mary's escape to England]
All this took place in June. Elizabeth was now suggesting that the baby
prince James should be sent to her safe-keeping: there were similar
hints--_mutatis mutandis_--from France. The Scots lords played off
French and English against each other, and kept the child in their own
hands. There was a strong desire in some quarters that Mary should be put
to death; she was actually compelled, at the end of July, to sign her
abdication in favour of the infant James. Soon after Murray arrived from
France, whither he had gone shortly after the murder, and she assented to
his appointment as Regent--indeed begged him to undertake it, having
virtually no other course open. Both he and Lethington probably desired to
protect her. Meantime however, Elizabeth was demanding her release, the
successful rebellion of subjects against their lawful prince being by no
means to her liking. Murray, however, felt that such a course could only
involve civil war, and if pressed would force him to have Mary executed on
the strength of the evidence, genuine or forged, of her complicity in the
murder of Darnley. Yet it was universally believed that many of the lords
now with Murray were no less guilty; over their heads too the sword was
hanging by a thread. Murray as Regent ruled with vigour; and his
enforcement of the anti-Catholic laws soon roused the hostility of that
section. After many months of imprisonment, the Queen succeeded in escaping
from Lochleven in May (1568); but the attempt to rally her followers was
desperate. There was a fight at Langside on May 13th; Mary's party were
completely routed; she herself fled south; and on May 16th she crossed the
Solway; becoming, and remaining from thenceforth, Elizabeth's prisoner.
Thus, in June 1568, there was in France an uneasy truce between Catholics
and Huguenots; in the Netherlands, the struggle between the Prince of
Orange and Alva was just commencing; in Britain, the Queen of Scots had
just fallen into the power of her sister of England--disgraced in the eyes
of the world by her marriage with Bothwell, and on almost all hands
credited with the murder of Darnley; so that whatever might happen it was
certain that no foreign Power would have either the will or the means to
intervene on her behalf.
The affairs of Ireland will demand our attention; but, as they did not at
the time directly influence English policy, it will be more convenient to
treat of them consecutively in a later chapter. The same may be said of the
great sea-going movement, which was now active and was in a few years' time
to be revealed as a feature of the first importance in the development of
"our island story". Here we will merely note that the consideration of
these subjects is deferred. The progress however of the religious
settlement, always a present factor in the relations of England with other
Powers, requires to be treated _pari passu_ with the other events of
the period; as also do the relations between the Queen and her Parliament.
[Sidenote: England: Protestantism of the Government]
We have already observed that Elizabeth had personal predilections in
favour of the ceremonial, if not the actual theological, position adopted
by her father. The weightiest of her counsellors however, headed by Cecil
and Bacon, succeeded in a more definite protestantising of the bench of
bishops than the Queen herself would have desired. The formularies of the
Church, confirmed by the Act of Uniformity, were very much easier to
reconcile with Calvinism than with what Calvinists called idolatry, and in
particular the abolition of the law of celibacy in itself had a very strong
tendency to abolish the sense of differentiation between clergy and laity
so essential to the old Catholic position. It may have been the
consciousness of this which made Elizabeth feel and express with much
freedom her own objection to married clerics. But Cecil and his party were
alive to the fact that the religious cleavage was everywhere becoming
intensified as a political cleavage also; that politically, England would
be obliged to declare for one side or the other, or would be rent in twain;
that danger to Elizabeth's throne--and this she fully recognised herself--
was much more likely to arise from Catholic than from Protestant
quarters. Being therefore determined that she should take the Protestant
side--whether from genuine religious conviction or from motives of
political expediency--they steadily encouraged moderate Protestants of the
type of Archbishop Parker, and others who were still more under the
influence of the Swiss, or at least the Lutheran, reformers; a course in
which they were greatly aided by the direct hostility to Elizabeth of the
Guise party in France. In that country, the _Politiques_ found
themselves driven into the Catholic camp; in England, the Queen, whose
personal sentiments were not unlike those of Katharine de Medici, was
reluctantly compelled by the force of circumstances to yield to her
Protestant advisers.
[Sidenote: Religious parties]
Elizabeth's first Parliament was puritan in its tendencies, and only fell
short of that which had approved the second prayer-book of Edward. The bulk
of the clergy still no doubt favoured the old religion, but it was the
followers of the new lights who received promotion, and it was they who
were encouraged by the Act of Uniformity. In many parts of the country,
however, and especially in the North, the magnates countenanced a hardly
veiled disregard of the new laws: and the Queen's apparent inclination to
find a way of recognising Mary as her successor, as well as her favour for
crosses and disfavour for married clergy, raised the hopes of the
Catholics. The Huguenot war in 1562 compelled her to change her tone, and
enabled Cecil to enforce the law against attendance at Mass with greater
vigour. The first Parliament had been dissolved in 1559; the second, which
met in the beginning of 1563, was not less strenuously Protestant and
opposed to the Stewart succession. It was only the determined stand of the
Catholic peers which prevented sharp legislation against the Catholics in
general; and even as it was, the application of the oath of Supremacy was
widened. Then Parliament was prorogued, and the affair of Havre caused the
Huguenot alliance to cool. By the winter of 1564-5, the English Queen was
irritating the bishops and the clergy, the most capable of whom were
increasingly identifying themselves with puritan views, by insistence not
altogether successful on obedience to the Act of Uniformity in the matter
of vestments; although it was notorious that there was strong feeling
against some of the regulations, which in not a few instances were
habitually ignored. The feeling was intensified by a lively suspicion that
she really wished for the Darnley marriage which actually took place a few
months later, though she was professedly urging Leicester's suit, and
beyond all doubt encouraged Murray and the Scottish Protestants to
rebellion.
[Sidenote: 1566-67 Parliament and the Queen's marriage]
It was not till the autumn of 1566 that Parliament reassembled; more than
ever determined to get the Queen committed to a marriage which should end
the menace of the Stewart succession. This desire was in some cases the
cause and in others the effect of a zealous protestantism. A Bill was
introduced, at the instance of the Bishops acting on a vote of Convocation,
to compel the clergy to subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, a
slight modification of Edward's Forty-two Articles; but this was withdrawn
after passing the Commons. The Queen was enraged by the audacity of the
Commons in discussing the question of her marriage and the succession, and
she attempted to suppress debate; but was met with a stubborn insistence,
headed by Cecil, on the constitutional rights of the House. Elizabeth had
to give way; but while on the question of principle the Parliament was
victorious, it did not press the victory and the Queen was enabled to evade
the immediate issue. The house voted supplies generously, after which she
succeeded in dissolving it with a sharp reprimand and without definitely
committing herself on the subject either of her own marriage or of the
succession. But this was hardly accomplished, when the murder of Darnley,
for the time being at least, divided the party which had hitherto supported
Mary's claim to the English throne.
[Sidenote: The Queen and the Archduke]
For some months, the question of Elizabeth's marriage was allowed to fall
into abeyance; but the effect of the murder was in some degree counteracted
by the imprisonment of Mary in Lochleven the appeal to chivalry of a
deserted, helpless, and lovely woman, and the very unattractive character
of most of the men now at the head of the Scottish Government. The Stewart
cause seemed to be in some danger of reviving, and once again the English
Council began to urge the marriage with the Archduke Charles. Elizabeth
pretended concurrence, but when she refused to promise that Charles should
be allowed the free exercise of his own religion in England, it was no
longer possible to doubt that she was merely playing with the idea; while
there were certainly a great many of her subjects who entirely sympathised
with the ostensible grounds on which the negotiation was broken off. The
prospect of a closer union with the House of Habsburg was dispelled, almost
at the moment when the Scots Queen fell into Elizabeth's hands, and the
standard of revolt against the Spanish system was being raised in the
Netherlands.