ELIZABETH (xi), 1598-1603-THE QUEEN'S LAST YEARS
[Sidenote: A new generation]
By Burghley's death, Elizabeth was left alone, reft of all her earlier
counsellors. Nicholas Bacon had died as far back as 1579, Leicester in
1588, Walsingham in 1590, her kinsmen Knollys and Hunsdon--less prominent,
but of sober weight--more recently. Except Howard of Effingham (created
Earl of Nottingham after the Cadiz expedition), Burghley was the last; and
their sombre antagonist of forty years had followed him in a few weeks. She
herself was sixty-five years old. The leading men at home and abroad--Henry
IV., Philip III., Robert Cecil, Raleigh, Essex, who was now only thirty--
were of a younger generation. Lonely but stubborn and indomitable as ever
she ruled still to the end.
Those last five years were troubled enough.
[Sidenote: 1598 Ireland]
We have seen that in Ireland Tyrone was resolved to place no more
dependence on Spanish aid; but it was equally clear that the Government as
constituted was quite unable to quell him. Norreys was now dead, and
Ormonde was in command of the Queen's army, such as it was. The English
garrison was quite incapable of vigorous aggression. In 1598 a few raw
levies were sent over, instead of the strong disciplined force without
which nothing could be effected. In the middle of August a force was
dispatched against Tyrone, who was beleaguering the Blackwater fort not far
from Armagh; and Tyrone inflicted on it a complete and disastrous defeat,
[Footnote: S. P. _Irish_, pp. 236 ff.] which caused nothing less than
a panic among the Council at Dublin. The practical effect was that outside
the Pale the chiefs were doing as they chose, and the English could hardly
move beyond their fortifications; even within the Pale ravaging was almost
unchecked; and if it had been possible for Tyrone to march in force on
Dublin, the capital would probably have fallen.
In the troubles of Ireland, Essex was to seek a ladder for his ambitions,
and to find, as others before and after him have found, the road to ruin.
[Sidenote: Essex]
The personal interest of these years belongs very much to the rivalries of
three men; Robert Cecil, sly, cautious, and plausible; Raleigh, brilliant
and bitter, intellectually a head and shoulders above the rest; Essex, not
lacking in abilities distorted by inordinate vanity. Associated on equal
terms, in war, with the experience of Howard and the genius of Raleigh, at
the Council-board with the astute and consummately trained Cecil, petted
and spoiled by the elderly Queen as she had spoiled no one since the days
of Leicester's youth, a public favourite by reason of his undoubted courage
and his popular habits, Essex, young as he was, had long imagined himself
the greatest man in the kingdom, chafing at every favour bestowed on a
rival, and treating men who knew themselves his superiors with intolerable
arrogance. Now, when the state of Ireland, and the remedies, were the
subject of grave anxiety, he clamoured of the blank incompetence to the
task of every one who had undertaken it or could be suggested as fitted for
it; with the result that he was invited to undertake it himself. Thereupon
he made unprecedented conditions. Some months elapsed before the conditions
could be arranged; it would certainly seem that his object was to get under
his own captaincy a force large enough to enable him to defy all control,
though he was not without friends to warn him that his influence with
Elizabeth depended on the fascination of his presence--a fact of which his
ill-wishers were equally aware, and by which they intended to profit to the
full. Not the least part of the danger to Essex lay in the fact that the
political air was thick with intrigues as to the succession when Elizabeth
should die, and that his rivals might utilise his absence to secure the
throne for a candidate who under the circumstances would be certain to
prove unfriendly to him.
[Sidenote: 1599 Essex in Ireland]
But the hot-headed Earl had deprived himself of the power of choice though
he was almost equally unwilling to resign or to undertake the task to which
he was committed. In April 1599 he appeared in Ireland as Lord Lieutenant,
virtually with plenary powers alike in civil and military affairs, and a
warrant to return in a year's time. Yet he chafed at such restrictions as
were imposed upon him, at the incompetence of the officers with whom he was
provided, at the refusal to permit appointments objectionable to the Queen,
at the inefficiency of his troops and the inadequacy of his supplies. In
theory, he was come to Ireland to strike straight at the heart of the
rebellion and crush Tyrone in his own fastnesses. He found that the
condition of the country absolutely precluded an immediate campaign in the
North. He proceeded instead on a military progress through Leinster and
Munster, capturing castles which surrendered with no more than a show of
resistance, scattering small garrisons, perpetually harassed by guerilla
companies who avoided pitched battles. He gave Southampton command of the
cavalry in defiance of the Queen's orders, and then received from her so
peremptory a message that he dared not maintain the appointment. The rebels
cut up the forces of the President of Connaught, and another detached
column in Wicklow: and on his way back to Dublin, Essex himself had much
ado to beat off an attack on his main army at Arklow.
In the meantime, he was writing letters of furious complaint that the
Council in London--in especial Raleigh, who was now associated with
Cecil--were deliberately seeking to cripple him for their own ends--a
charge which they declined to answer, as being merely a piece of excited
extravagance; and Elizabeth rated him, not more sharply than he deserved,
for wasting the unusually large sums provided for Ireland on a procedure so
vain. Further, she peremptorily ordered him to march against O'Neill
without delay, warning him on no account to withdraw from the country.
[Sidenote: Fall of Essex]
So at the end of August Essex set out. But when he found himself within
striking distance of Tyrone's forces, the latter invited him to a
parley. It was granted and held, and was followed by two more meetings;
with the amazing result that a truce was concluded and both armies
withdrew. That some personal compact was made can hardly be doubted; what
it was remains unknown, and it was never carried out; but the presumption
is that there was some joint scheme for securing the succession of King
James to the throne, with Tyrone supreme in Ireland and Essex in England.
Tyrone himself gave the Spaniards an obviously improbable version of the
plan (after it had collapsed), according to which he had induced Essex to
contemplate adhesion to the ultra-Spanish party, though he was the most
pronouncedly hostile to Spain and to Catholicism of all the English
leaders.
Whatever the plot, the ignominy of such a termination to the lavish
preparations and boastings preceding was palpable. Elizabeth was furious,
and her expressions of resentment were scathing. Whereupon Essex took the
very worst step possible in his own interests. Relying on the Queen's
curious infatuation for his person, which had survived innumerable quarrels
and flagrant impertinences, he left his office, sped across the channel,
rode post haste across England, flung himself, all mud-bespattered into the
presence of his mistress in her chamber, and prayed for pardon. For the
moment, she was too utterly taken aback to be herself; he left her thinking
he had won. But the outrage was too gross. That evening he found himself
under arrest. His enemies' policy of "giving him rope enough" had been more
completely successful than they could have hoped. He had set the noose
about his neck with his own hand, though it was not yet tightened.
[Sidenote: Catholic factions]
The whole of the Essex story is inextricably interwoven with the crowd of
intrigues in progress in connexion with the succession. In England by this
time the ultra-Spanish or Jesuit faction, which would have enthroned the
Inquisition with a Spanish nominee as sovereign, was all but non-existent.
The division was into two main parties. One desired a sovereign under whom
either Catholicism should be restored under such tolerant conditions as
prevailed under Henry IV. in France, or else Anglicanism might be retained,
extending a like toleration to Catholics. There was of course a
fundamental divergence between these two positions; but very many of the
nobility, whether professed Anglicans or professed Catholics, were prepared
to accept either alternative. Of this party the intellectual chief was
Cecil. The second party, that of which Essex was the head, relied primarily
upon the Puritan element, and advocated persistent hostility to Spain.
Now the effective Spanish position had been materially changed since,
shortly before his death, Philip II. had erected the Netherlands into a
separate sovereignty under the Infanta Isabella and the Austrian Archduke
Albert to whom she was betrothed: he had thus made possible for England a
revival of the old-time Burgundian alliance independent of Spain. The
Archduke knew that as a Spanish Princess Isabella would never be accepted
in England, but the union under one head of England and Burgundy was a very
different matter, which might provide a key to the religious problem very
much akin to that which France had recently found. It was in this direction
that the eyes of the majority of the Cecil party were probably turned. For
Essex however--unless indeed he really contemplated the hare-brained scheme
of striking for the throne himself--the course was clearly to bring in
James as his own puppet. It is no doubt easy to remark that that crafty
prince would very soon have outwitted and tripped up the shallow and
overweening Earl: but the Earl himself was the last person to anticipate
such a _denouement_.
[Sidenote: Philip III]
But outside England there was the cunning King of Scots, on the one hand
intriguing with Essex, on the other appealing to the Pope, as a Catholic at
heart who was only waiting for adequate support to drop the mask--bidding
in fact for the countenance of both camps. There was Tyrone in Ireland,
similarly posing to Spain as the champion of Catholicism, while intriguing
with Essex and James indubitably for something like sovereignty for himself
as the price of supporting the Scots King. And there was the young Philip
III. of Spain, idle and vain, who, with a bankrupt treasury and a rotten
administration had his head full of the most inflated ideas of his own
power, and still fancied himself quite capable of conquering England at a
blow; a delusion from which the fanatical religionists who trusted not in
the arm of flesh, were also suffering. To him therefore the idea of James
ascending the English throne even as a Catholic was quite repugnant; as was
also the succession of his sister, unless she restored the Netherlands to
him. Whereas the union with the Netherlands was precisely the one condition
which made her candidature possible in England.
While Essex was still in Ireland this imagination of Philip's had borne
curious fruit. He ordered the preparation of another Armada: the greatest
of all. The Spanish vapourings on the subject actually created some alarm
in England; Raleigh and Lord Thomas Howard very promptly had efficient
fleets on the narrow seas; the Lord Admiral (now Earl of Nottingham) was
appointed Lord General and there was a great mustering of troops and
raising of companies by noblemen and gentlemen. But it is more than
probable that, as far as the land forces were concerned, these measures
were intended quite as much to be a hint to Essex that he would find any
attempt at coercion an exceedingly dangerous game, as for protection
against any effort which Philip was capable of putting forth. In fact this
Armada ended in the feeblest of all these feeble fiascoes: for while it was
making ready, a Dutch fleet was raiding the Canaries and the trade routes;
when it put to sea its energies were absorbed in a futile attempt to catch
these audacious enemies; and before it reached the Azores, a fourth part of
it had foundered and the balance had been practically crippled by foul
weather.
Such then was the position when in the autumn of 1599 Essex suddenly found
himself a prisoner. Cecil however did not think it politic to go to
extremities. The Earl was not haled before the Star-Chamber as was proposed
in some quarters; it was not till the following June that he was brought
before a commission of the Privy Council for enquiry and censure; and some
two months later he was released. But from October 1599 to August 1600 he
remained in custody.
[Sidenote: 1600 Ireland]
In the meantime, Tyrone was appealing to Spain and to the Archduke Albert.
The latter, with ulterior objects, was negotiating for peace with Cecil--
who was following a path of his own--and had no mind to complicate the
intrigue by an Irish embroilment. Philip immediately gave orders that
everything was to be provided to conquer Ireland out of hand; but as the
means for carrying out those orders were entirely lacking, there were no
results. Moreover, Elizabeth had at last realised that the systematic
reduction of Ireland was now an absolute necessity which could only be
accomplished by adequate forces under a competent commander. Montjoy, a
connexion of Essex, was sent over; his dealings with Tyrone met with
increasing success. Essex had at first counted on Montjoy acting in effect
as his own deputy; but in this he was disappointed. Placed in a position of
responsibility, the Deputy immediately rejected the overtures he made. The
army in Ireland was not to be the instrument of Essex's ambition.
[Sidenote: Succession intrigues]
Where so many of the actors were simultaneously engaged in alternative
intrigues, some of them with entire insincerity, and solely for the purpose
of keeping inconvenient persons or groups in play until they were harmless,
it is not possible to be sure in most cases of the real policy intended.
Cecil's party were in some sort of communication even with Parsons, who
persuaded himself that if only Philip would definitely commit himself to a
nominee, and would strike in before the Scots King could secure himself,
the chiefs of that party would support him. It is not credible that this
was really the case, but it is at least probable that the group were
deliberately seeking to produce that impression at the Spanish head-
quarters. For them the essential thing was to wreck Essex on the one side
and out-wit the extreme Catholics on the other. Others might be deceived,
but Cecil and Raleigh at least must have been fully alive to the
worthlessness of any programme which assumed political intelligence on the
part of Philip, or effective activity in Spain. James was playing for the
support of every section, by inducing each to believe that his overtures to
the other sections were mere blinds: and during this year he was working
for the support of Henry IV., as being at heart a tolerant Catholic.
Whether Essex, who must have been aware of the intrigue, accepted the
policy or regarded it as merely a useful diplomatic deception remains
uncertain; at any rate it did not alienate him. But the appearance of a
Franco-Scottish rapprochement was an immediate incentive to and excuse for
counter negotiations with Philip and the Archduke on the part of the
English government.
[Sidenote: The end of Essex 1600-1]
At the end of August, Essex was released, though still excluded from
favour. The Cecil party had complete control of the situation, and to all
appearance meant to come to terms with the Archduke: which would wreck the
Earl's ambitions irretrievably. Now, when his one chance lay in playing the
repentant and tearful adorer of a mistress cruel and fair if somewhat
mature--a very familiar role for him--his cry was all for the restoration
of lost pecuniary privileges; and his mistress would naturally have none of
a lover so self-centred. Despairing of the Queen's favour, he was rash
enough to pose as a popular champion, declaiming against the intriguers who
were selling England to the Infanta, and drawing round him the young
hot-heads and scape-graces of the nobility, in the insane belief that their
swords and the cheers of the London mob would enable him to effect the
overthrow of Cecil by a _coup de main_. When the time was ripe, early
in February, Cecil struck. Essex was summoned to appear before the Council.
He evaded the summons, and next day with his friends made a frantic attempt
to raise the City for the removal of the Queen's false Counsellors. That
evening he was a prisoner in the Tower. A few days later, he was brought to
trial for treason before a Court of Peers, and was condemned and
executed. Pardon was impossible, though Elizabeth's grief at signing his
death warrant was poignant and permanent.
[Sidenote: Robert Cecil]
The triumph of Cecil was complete. The utter overthrow of Essex had been
his first objective; now he was free to work his own underground policy.
Publicly and ostensibly as before he remained the chief of the "moderate"
party, seeking reconciliation with Spain and a _modus vivendi_ between
Catholics and Anglicans; privately he took Essex's vacated place as the
friend of the Scots King. Thenceforth, from the Moderate camp, directing
the Moderate programme, he was in intimate correspondence [Footnote: Now
published in its entirety by the Camden Society.] with James; working for
the ultimate destruction of his rivals and associates, when the Stewart
should become King of England, owing his crown to Cecil's dexterity. James,
realising his position, promptly fell in with Cecil's plans, dropped
coquetting with Catholics abroad, and was quite content to wait for a dead
woman's shoes, and to give up irritating demands for an immediate
recognition, of which, with Cecil on his side, he felt ultimately assured.
[Sidenote: Ireland 1600-1]
During 1600, Montjoy had already been doing good service in Ireland. The
14,000 troops at his disposal--though thrice as many as had been allowed to
Norreys--were insufficient for dealing a rapid and crushing blow at the
heart of the rebellion in Ulster. In Munster, however, the Deputy had a
vigorous lieutenant in Carew, and the chiefs were of a divided mind--
largely because many of them held their positions precariously, in virtue
of the English tenure which had been officially substituted for the Irish
method of succession--so that the forces of resistance were to a great
extent broken up. But in Ulster, Montjoy accomplished a fine strategic
stroke by making a feint of invading the province from the south, while he
sent a large force of 4000 men by sea, under command of Docwra, to Loch
Foyle, where they established themselves at Londonderry. He was thus in a
position to strike at Tyrone or O'Donnell whenever those chiefs should
attempt to move southward in force: as was exemplified next year, when
Donegal was seized, and the Blackwater fort was recaptured by a move from
the South, because Tyrone could not withdraw his attention from Derry.
[Sidenote: 1601 The Irish rebellion broken]
About the time of Essex's crash, there were again rumours of a Spanish
invasion. Carew could deal with the Irish rebels alone, but hardly with a
strong invading force as well. When in September 1601 a real Spanish force
did arrive at Kinsale, Montjoy had to concentrate in Munster. But though
this expedition showed the limits of Philip's capacities, it was as usual
so ill found that many of the ships had been obliged to put back to
Corunna, and others, failing to make Kinsale, put in at Baltimore. Montjoy
was in strength near Cork, Carew at Limerick ready to intercept the
approach of the rebels from the North. In a very short time, Kinsale was
beleagured, and when a portion of a Spanish reinforcement managed to reach
the coast in December, it found an English flotilla before it, and its
troops were isolated in a third station at Castlehaven. O'Donnell however
succeeded in evading Carew, who then joined forces with Montjoy and the
fleet before Kinsale. When Tyrone arrived, an attempt was made to relieve
Kinsale; but Montjoy was unusually well served by his intelligence, his
dispositions were skilful, and the rebels were totally routed beyond
possibility of present recovery. Aguilar, the Spanish commander, was
admitted to terms; Baltimore and Castlehaven were surrendered. Thus
abortively collapsed the last effort of Philip III. The Irish rebellion was
broken. Many of the chiefs after vain and desperate resistance escaped to
Spain; others surrendered to the Queen's mercy. O'Donnell was of the
former; he died soon after reaching Spain. But Tyrone the diplomatic
succeeded in making terms. It seemed that once more the English Government
was supreme.
[Sidenote: 1602 The Succession]
Once again, as the death of the great Queen becomes imminent, we must
remind ourselves that to the last she refused to recognise any heir, and
that there were various claimants, [Footnote: Genealogical Tables;
_Front._ and _App. A_, iii.] each one with a colourable claim.
In point of priority by heredity King James of Scotland unquestionably
stood first of the descendants of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York; yet the
fact that he was not only an alien but King of Scotland made him in himself
an unwelcome candidate. Next to him, since like him she descended from
Margaret Tudor, stood his cousin Arabella--a Stewart too, but of the Lennox
Stewarts, not the Royal House: an English subject; but with the drawback
that she was a woman and unmarried. Third, but first under the will of
Henry VIII. was Lord Beauchamp, son of Katharine Grey and the Earl of
Hertford; about the validity of his parents' marriage however there was a
doubt. The Stanleys of Derby, who through Margaret Clifford could claim
descent from the younger daughter of Henry VII., would have nothing to do
with inheriting the crown; no more would the Earl of Huntingdon who
descended from Edward IV.'s brother, George of Clarence. But Philip of
Spain claimed the crown for himself as a descendant of John of Gaunt;
though, the union of the crowns of England and Spain being admittedly
impracticable, he was under promise to transfer his claim to a hitherto
unnamed nominee, presumably his sister. Virtually therefore Isabella ranked
as a possible though not very enthusiastic candidate.
[Sidenote: The last intrigues]
By this time, it was perfectly obvious that the Infanta could not be forced
upon England, though it was supposed that the Moderates would have favoured
her candidature provided she brought Flanders with her: whereas the
negotiations controlled by Cecil were not tending to bring about any such
result. As 1602 drew to a close, the ablest man in Spain, Olivares, was
emphasising the necessity for giving the English Catholics as a body a free
hand to nominate an English candidate instead of an alien. It is probable,
though it cannot be called certain, that there was a plot to unite the
claims of Arabella and Lord Beauchamp by marrying them, with an implication
that both were prepared in due time to declare themselves Catholics.
Meantime the Moderates were awaiting direction from Cecil; who ostensibly
was himself waiting on a hint from the Queen, but was privily keeping the
way clear for James, while seeking to implicate Raleigh and others in
language and actions which might at any rate be interpreted as hostile to
him. In this secret intriguing, Cecil's great ally was Lord Henry Howard, a
brother of the last Duke of Norfolk; and he had with him the Careys of the
Hunsdon family. Of the Moderates in general it can only be said that, while
there was no candidate in whose favour they could combine with any warmth,
James was rather more obnoxious to them than others. Yet they did not
combine against him, while if any of them sought to ingratiate themselves
with him Cecil was particularly careful to sow distrust of them in the
Scots King's mind, unless they happened to be partisans of his own or at
any rate probable allies. When Arabella tried to escape from what was
practically the custody of her grandmother the Dowager Countess of
Shrewsbury, the famous "Bess of Hardwick," the attempt was nipped in the
bud: and the Catholics were still without any declared candidate when the
lonely old Queen was seized in March with her last mortal illness.
[Sidenote: 1603 Death of the Queen]
As Elizabeth lay on her death-bed, her entourage consisted almost
exclusively of Cecil and his friends, among whom is to be numbered the old
Lord Admiral, though he was innocent of the intrigues going on. The ships
in the Thames, the troops in the North, were commanded by members of the
same group; almost before the breath was out of her body Robert Carey was
galloping North to hail James I. King of England: and the world was told
that Elizabeth's last conscious act was to ratify by a sign the succession
of her old-time rival's son. In her seventieth year, in the early hours of
March 24th, 1603, ended the long and glorious reign of the Virgin Queen.