On the part of the four sons of sir Francis Knolles, Mercury appeared, and described them as 'legitimate sons of Despair, brethren to hard mishap, suckled with sighs, and swathed up in sorrow, weaned in woe, and dry nursed by Desire, longtime fostered with favorable countenance, and fed with sweet fancies, but now of late (alas) wholly given over to grief and disgraced by disdain.' &c. The speeches being ended, probably to the relief of the hearers, the tilting commenced and lasted till night. It was resumed the next day with some fresh circumstances of magnificence and a few more harangues:—at length the challengers presented to the queen an olive bough in token of their humble submission, and both parties were dismissed by her with thanks and commendations[89].
By whom the speeches for this triumph were composed does not appear; but their style appears to correspond very exactly with that of John Lilly, a dramatic poet who in this year gave to the public a romance in two parts; the first entitled "Euphues the Anatomy of Wit," the second "Euphues and his England." A work which in despite, or rather perhaps by favor, of the new and singular affectations with which it was overrun, obtained extraordinary popularity, and communicated its infection for a time to the style of polite writing and fashionable speech.
An author of the present day, whose elegant taste and whose profound acquaintance with the writers of this and the following reign entitle him to be heard with deference, has favored us with his opinion of Euphues in these words. "This production is a tissue of antithesis and alliteration, and therefore justly entitled to the appellation ofaffected; but we cannot with Berkenhout consider it as a mostcontemptible piece of nonsense[90]. The moral is uniformly good; the vices and follies of the day are attacked with much force and keenness; there is in it much display of the manners of the times; and though as a composition it is very meretricious and sometimes absurd in point of ornament, yet the construction of its sentences is frequently turned with peculiar neatness and spirit, though with much monotony of cadence." "So greatly," adds the same writer, "was the style of Euphues admired in the court of Elizabeth, and, indeed, throughout the kingdom, that it became a proof of refined manners to adopt its phraseology. Edward Blount, who republished six of Lilly's plays in 1632, under the title ofSixe Court Comedies, declares that 'Our nation are in his debt for a new English which he taught them. 'Euphuesand hisEngland,' he adds, 'began first that language. All our ladies were then his scholars; and that beauty in court who could not parley Euphuesme, was as little regarded as she which now there speaks not French:' a representation certainly not exaggerated; for Ben Jonson, describinga fashionable lady, makes her address her gallant in the following terms;—'O master Brisk, (as it is in Euphues,) hard is the choice when one is compelled, either by silence to die with grief, or by speaking, to live with shame:' upon which Mr. Whalley observes, that 'the court ladies in Elizabeth's time had all the phrases of Euphues by heart'[91]."
Shakespeare is believed to have satirized the affectations of Lilly, amongst other prevailing modes of pedantry and bad taste, under the character of the schoolmaster Holophernes; and to Sidney is ascribed by Drayton the merit, that he
..."did first reduceOur tongue from Lilly's writing then in use,Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies,Playing with words and idle similies."
But in this statement there is an inaccuracy, if it refers to the better model of style furnished by him in his Arcadia, since that work, though not published till after the death of its author, is known to have been composed previously to the appearance of Euphues. Possibly however the lines of Drayton may be explained as alluding to the critical precepts contained in Sidney's Defence of Poetry, which was written in 1582 or 1583.
It may appear extraordinary that this accomplished person, after his noble letter of remonstrance against the French marriage, should have consented to take so conspicuous a part in festivities designed tocelebrate the arrival of the commissioners by whom its terms were to be concluded. But the actions of every man, it may be pleaded, belong to such an age, or such a station, as well as to such a school of philosophy, religious sect, political party, or natural class of character; and the spirit which prompted this eminent person to aspire after all praise and every kind of glory, compelled him, at the court of Elizabeth, to unite, with whatever incongruity, the quaint personage of a knight errant of romance and a devotee of the beauties and perfections of his liege lady, with the manly attributes of an English patriot and a champion of reformed religion.
Fulke Greville furnishes another instance of a respectable character strangely disguised by the affectations and servilities of a courtier of this "Queen of Faery." He was the cousin, school-fellow, and inseparable companion of Sidney, and so devoted to him that, in the inscription which he composed long after for his own tomb, he entitled himself "servant to queen Elizabeth, councillor to king James, and friend to sir Philip Sidney." Born to a fortune so ample as to render him entirely independent of the emoluments of office or the favors of a sovereign, and early smitten with a passion for the gentle muse which rendered him nearly insensible to the enticements of ambition, Greville was yet contented to devote himself, as a volunteer, to that court-life the irksomeness of which has often been treated as insupportable by men who have embraced it from interest or from necessity.
A devotedness so signal was not indeed suffered to go without its reward. Besides that it obtained for him a lucrative place, Naunton says of Greville, "He had no mean place in queen Elizabeth's favor, neither did he hold it for any short time or term; for, if I be not deceived, he had the longest lease, the smoothest time without rubs, of any of her favorites." Lord Bacon also testifies that he "had much and private access to her, which he used honorably and did many men good: yet he would say merrily of himself, that he was like Robin Goodfellow; for when the maids spilt the milk-pans or kept any racket, they would lay it upon Robin: so what tales the ladies about the queen told her, or other bad offices that they did, they would put it upon him." The poems of Fulke Greville, celebrated and fashionable in his own time, but now known only to the more curious students of our early literature, consist of two tragedies in interwoven rhyme, with choruses on the Greek model; a hundred love sonnets, in one of which he styles his mistress "Fair dog:" and "Treaties" "on Human learning," "on Fame and Honor," and "of Wars." Of these pieces the last three, as well as the tragedies, contain many noble, free, and virtuous sentiments; many fine and ingenious thoughts, and some elegant lines; but the harshness and pedantry of the style render their perusal on the whole more of a fatigue than a pleasure, and they have gradually sunk into that neglect which constantly awaits the verse of which it has been the aim to instruct rather than to delight. Among the English patrons of letters however, FulkeGreville, afterwards lord Brook, will ever deserve a conspicuous station; and Speed and Camden have gratefully recorded their obligations both to his liberality and to his honorable exertion of court interest.
The articles of the marriage-treaty were at length concluded between the commissioners of France and England, and it was stipulated that the nuptials should take place six weeks after their ratification: but Elizabeth, whose uncertainties were not yet at an end, had insisted on a separate article purporting, that she should not however be obliged to complete the marriage until further matters, not specified, should have been settled between herself and the duke of Anjou; by which stipulation it still remained in her power to render the whole negotiation vain.
The moment that all opposition on the part of her privy-council was over, and every external obstacle surmounted, Elizabeth seems to have begun to recover her sound discretion, and to see in their true magnitude all the objections to which she had hitherto been anxious to blind her own eyes and those of others. She sent Walsingham to open new negotiations at Paris, and to try whether the league offensive and defensive, stipulated by the late articles, could not be brought to effect before the marriage, which she now discovered that it was not a convenient season to complete. The French court, after some hesitation, had just been brought to agree to this proposal, when she inclined again to go on with the marriage; but no sooner had it resumed with alacrity this part of the discussion, than she again declared for the alliance.Walsingham, puzzled and vexed by such a series of capricious changes, proceeding from motives in which state-expediency had no share, remained uncertain how to act; and at length all the politicians English and French, equally disconcerted, seem to have acquiesced in the conviction that this strange strife must end where it began, in the bosom of Elizabeth herself, while nothing was left to them but to await the result in anxious silence. But the duke of Anjou, aware that from a youthful lover some unequivocal symptoms of impatience would be required, and that upon a skilful display of this kind his final success might depend, brought to a speedy conclusion his campaign in the Netherlands, which a liberal supply of money from the English queen, who now concurred in his views, had rendered uniformly successful, and putting his army into winter-quarters, hurried over to England to throw himself at her feet.
He was welcomed with all the demonstrations of satisfaction which could revive or confirm the hopes of a suitor; every mark of honor, every pledge of affection, was publicly conferred upon him; and the queen, at the conclusion of a splendid festival on the anniversary of her coronation, even went so far as to place on his finger a ring drawn from her own. This passed in sight of the whole assembled court, who naturally regarded the action as a kind of betrothment; and the long suspense being apparently ended, the feelings of every party broke forth without restraint or disguise.
Some rejoiced; more grieved or wondered; Leicester,Hatton and Walsingham loudly exclaimed that ruin impended over the church, the country, and the queen. The ladies of the court alarmed and agitated their mistress by tears, cries, and lamentations. A sleepless and miserable night was passed by the queen amid her disconsolate handmaids: the next morning she sent for Anjou, and held with him a long private conversation; after which he retired to his chamber, and hastily throwing from him, but as quickly resuming, the ring which she had given him, uttered many reproaches against the levity of women and the fickleness of islanders.
Such is the account given by the annalist Camden; our only authority for circumstances some of them so public in their nature that it is surprising they should not be recorded by others, the rest so secret that we are at a loss to conceive how they should have become known to him. What is certain in the matter is,—that the French prince remained in England above two months after this festival;—that no diminution of the queen's attentions to him became apparent during that time;—that when his affairs imperiously demanded his return to the Netherlands, Elizabeth still detained him that she might herself conduct him on his way as far as Canterbury;—that she then dismissed him with a large supply of money and a splendid retinue of English lords and gentlemen, and that he promised a quick return.
Let us hear on the subject lord Talbot's report to his father.
..."Monsieur hath taken shipping into Flanders...there is gone over with him my lord of Leicester, my lord Hunsdon, my lord Charles Howard, my lord Thomas Howard, my lord Windsor, my lord Sheffield, my lord Willoughby, and a number of young gentlemen besides. As soon as he is at Antwerp all the Englishmen return, which is thought will be about a fortnight hence.... The departure was mournful between her majesty and Monsieur; she loth to let him go, and he as loth to depart. Her majesty on her return will be long in no place in which she lodged as she went, neither will she come to Whitehall, because the places shall not give cause of remembrance to her of him with whom she so unwillingly parted. Monsieur promised his return in March, but how his Low Country causes will permit him is uncertain. Her highness went no further but Canterbury, Monsieur took shipping at Sandwich[92]."
It is, after all, extremely difficult to decide whether the circumstances here related ought to invalidate any part of Camden's narrative. There can be no doubt that Elizabeth had at times been violently tempted to accept this young prince for a husband; and even when she sent Walsingham to France instructed to conclude, if possible, the league without the marriage, she evidently had not in her own mind absolutely concluded against the latter measure, because she particularly charged him to examine whether the duke, who had lately recovered from the small pox, still retained enough of his good looks to engage a lady'saffections. It is probable that his second visit revived her love; and the truth of the circumstance of her publicly presenting to him a ring, is confirmed by Camden's further statement, that St. Aldegond, minister in England for the United Provinces, wrote word of it to the States, who, regarding the match as now concluded, caused public rejoicings to be celebrated at Antwerp. After this the duke would undoubtedly press for a speedy solemnization, and he cannot but have experienced some degree of disappointment in at length quitting the country,re infecta. But it was still greatly and obviously his interest to remain on the best possible terms with Elizabeth, in order to secure from her that co-operation, and those pecuniary aids, on which the success of his affairs in the Netherlands must mainly depend. It is even possible that a further acquaintance with the state of public opinion in England, and with the temper, maxims, and personal qualities of the queen herself, might very much abate the poignancy of his mortification, or even incline him secretly to prefer the character of her ally to that of her husband. Be this as it may, the favorite son of Catherine de' Medici was a sufficient adept in the dissimulation of courts to assume with ease all the demonstrations of complacency and good understanding that the case required, whatever portion of indignation or malice he might conceal in his heart. Neither was Elizabeth a novice in the arts of feigning; and even without the promptings of those tender regrets which accompany a sacrifice extorted by reason from inclination, she would have beencareful, by every manifestation of friendship and esteem, to smooth over the affront which her change of purpose had compelled her to put upon the brother and heir of so potent a monarch as the king of France.
Shortly after his return to the continent, the duke of Anjou lost at once his reputation, and his hopes of an independent principality, in an unprincipled and abortive attempt on the liberties of the provinces which had chosen him as their protector; and his death, which soon followed, brings to a conclusion this long and mortifying chapter, occupied with the follies of the wise. It is worth observing, that appearances in this affair were kept up to the last: the English ambassador refrained from giving in his official letters any particulars of the last illness of Monsieur, lest he should aggravate the grief of her majesty; and the king of France, in defiance of some established rules of court precedence and etiquette, admitted this minister to pay his compliments of condolence before all others, professedly because he represented that princess who best loved his brother.
Bohun ends his minute description of "the habit of queen Elizabeth in public and private" with a passage proper to complete this portion of her history. "The coming of the duke d'Alençon opened a way to a more free way of living, and relaxed very much the old severe form of discipline. The queen danced often then, and omitted no sort of recreation, pleasing conversation, or variety of delights for his satisfaction. At the same time, the plenty of good dishes, pleasant wines, fragrant ointments and perfumes, dances, masks,and variety of rich attire, were all taken up and used to show him how much he was honored. There were then acted comedies and tragedies with much cost and splendor. When these things had once been entertained, the courtiers were never more to be reclaimed from them, and they could not be satiated or wearied with them. But when Alençon was once dismissed and gone, the queen herself left off these diversions, and betook herself as before to the care of her kingdom, and both by example and severe corrections endeavoured to reduce her nobility to their old severe way of life."
1582 TO 1587.
Traits of the queen.—Brown and his sect.—Promotion of Whitgift.—Severities exercised against the puritans.—Embassy of Walsingham to Scotland.—Particulars of lord Willoughby.—Transactions with the Czar.—Death of Sussex.—Adventures of Egremond Ratcliffe—of the earl of Desmond.—Account of Raleigh—of Spenser.—Prosecutions of catholics.—Burleigh's apology for the government.—Leicester's Commonwealth.—Loyal association.—Transactions with the queen of Scots.—Account of Parry.—Case of the earl of Arundel—of the earl of Northumberland.—Transactions of Leicester in Holland.—Death and character of P. Sidney—of sir H. Sidney.—Return of Leicester.—Approaching war with Spain.—Babington's conspiracy.—Trial and condemnation of the queen of Scots.—Rejoicings of the people.—Artful conduct of the queen.—Reception of the Scotch embassy.—Conduct of Davison.—Death of Mary.—Behaviour of Elizabeth.—Davison's case.—Conduct of Leicester.—Reflections.
Thedisposition of Elizabeth was originally deficient in benevolence and sympathy, and prone to suspicion, pride and anger; and we observe with pain in the progress of her history, how much the influences to which her high station and the peculiar circumstances of her reign inevitably exposed her, tended in various modes to exasperate these radical evils of her nature.
The extravagant flattery administered to her dailyand hourly, was of most pernicious effect; it not only fostered in her an absurd excess of personal vanity, but, what was worse, by filling her with exaggerated notions both of her own wisdom and of her sovereign power and prerogative, it contributed to render her rule more stern and despotic, and her mind on many points incapable of sober counsel. This effect was remarked by one of her clergy, who, in a sermon preached in her presence, had the boldness to tell her, that she who had been meek as lamb was become an untameable heifer; for which reproof he was in his turn reprehended by her majesty on his quitting the pulpit, as "an over confident man who dishonored his sovereign."
The decay of her beauty was an unwelcome truth which all the artifices of adulation were unable to hide from her secret consciousness; since she could never behold her image in a mirror, during the latter years of her life, without transports of impotent anger; and this circumstance contributed not a little to sour her temper, while it rendered the young and lovely the chosen objects of her malignity.
On this head the following striking anecdote is furnished by sir John Harrington.... "She did oft ask the ladies around her chamber, if they loved to think of marriage? And the wise ones did conceal well their liking hereto, as knowing the queen's judgement in this matter. Sir Matthew Arundel's fair cousin, not knowing so deeply as her fellows, was asked one day hereof, and simply said, she had thought much about marriage, if her father did consent to theman she loved. 'You seem honest, i'faith,' said the queen; 'I will sue for you to your father.'... The damsel was not displeased hereat; and when sir Robert came to court, the queen asked him hereon, and pressed his consenting, if the match was discreet. Sir Robert, much astonied at this news, said he never heard his daughter had liking to any man, and wanted to gain knowledge of her affection; but would give free consent to what was most pleasing to her highness will and advice. 'Then I will do the rest,' saith the queen. The lady was called in, and the queen told her that her father had given his free consent. 'Then,' replied the lady, 'I shall be happy, and please your grace'. 'So thou shalt, but not to be a fool and marry; I have his consent given to me, and I vow thou shalt never get it into thy possession. So go to thy business, I see thou art a bold one to own thy foolishness so readily[93].'"
The perils of many kinds, from open and secret enemies, by which Elizabeth had found herself environed since her unwise and unauthorized detention of the queen of Scots, aggravated the mistrustfulness of her nature; and the severities which fear and anger led her to exercise against that portion of her subjects who still adhered to the ancient faith, increased its harshness. It is true that, since the fulmination of the papal anathema, the zealots of this church had kept no measures with respect to her either in their words, their writings, or their actions. Plans of insurrection and even of assassination were frequentlyrevolved in their councils, but as often disappointed by the extraordinary vigilance and sagacity of her ministers; while the courage evinced by herself under these circumstances of severe probation was truly admirable. Bacon relates that "the council once represented to her the danger in which she stood by the continual conspiracies against her life, and acquainted her that a man was lately taken who stood ready in a very dangerous and suspicious manner to do the deed; and they showed her the weapon wherewith he thought to have acted it. And therefore they advised her that she should go less abroad to take the air, weakly attended, as she used. But the queen answered, 'that she had rather be dead than put in custody.'"
"Ireland," says Naunton, "cost her more vexation than any thing else; the expense of it pinched her, the ill success of her officers wearied her, and in that service she grew hard to please." She also arrived at a settled persuasion that the extreme of severity was safer than that of indulgence; an opinion which, being communicated to her officers and ministers, was the occasion, especially in Ireland, of many a cruel and arbitrary act.
When angry, she observed little moderation in the expression of her feelings. In the private letters even of Cecil, whom she treated on the whole with more consideration than any other person, we find not unfrequent mention of the harsh words which he had to endure from her, sometimes, as he says, on occasions when he appeared to himself deserving ratherof thanks than of censure. The earl of Shrewsbury often complains to his correspondents of her captious and irascible temper; and we find Walsingham taking pains to console sir Henry Sidney under some manifestations of her displeasure, by the assurance that they had proceeded only from one of those transient gusts of passion for which she was accustomed to make sudden amends to her faithful servants by new and extraordinary tokens of her favor.
There was no branch of prerogative of which Elizabeth was more tenacious than that which invested her with the sole and supreme direction of ecclesiastical affairs. The persevering efforts therefore of the puritans, to obtain various relaxations or alterations of the laws which she in her wisdom had laid down for the government of the church,—on failure of which they scrupled not to recall to her memory the strong denunciations of the Jewish prophets against wicked and irreligious princes,—at once exasperated and alarmed her, and led her to assume continually more and more of the incongruous and odious character of a protestant persecutor of protestants. But the puritans themselves must have seemed guiltless in her eyes compared with a new sect, the principles of which, tending directly to the abrogation of all authority of the civil magistrate in spiritual concerns, called forth about this time her indignation manifested by the utmost severity of penal infliction.
It was in the year 1580 that Robert Brown, having completed his studies in divinity at Cambridge, began to preach at Norwich against the discipline andceremonies of the church of England, and to promulgate a scheme which he affirmed to be more conformable to the apostolical model. According to his system, each congregation of believers was to be regarded as a separate church, possessing in itself full jurisdiction over its own concerns; theliberty of prophesyingwas to be indulged to all the brethren equally, and pastors were to be elected and dismissed at the pleasure of the majority, in whom he held that all power ought of right to reside. On account of these opinions Brown was called before certain ecclesiastical commissioners, who imprisoned him for contumacy; but the interference of his relation lord Burleigh procured his release, after which he repaired to Holland, where he founded several churches and published a book in defence of his system, in which he strongly inculcated upon his disciples the duty of separating themselves from what he stated antichristian churches. For the sole offence of distributing this work, two men were hanged in Suffolk in 1583; to which extremity of punishment they were subjected as having impugned the queen's supremacy, which was declared felony by a late statute now for the first time put in force against protestants. Brown himself, after his return from Holland, was repeatedly imprisoned, and, but for the protection of his powerful kinsman might probably have shared the fate of his two disciples. At length, the terror of a sentence of excommunication drove him to recant, and joining the established church he soon obtained preferment. But the Brownist sect suffered little by the desertion of its founder,whose private character was far from exemplary: in spite of penal laws, of persecution, and even of ridicule and contempt, it survived, increased, and eventually became the model on which the churches not only of the sect of Independents but also of the two other denominations of English protestant dissenters remain at the present day constituted.
The death of archbishop Grindal in 1583 afforded the queen the long desired opportunity of elevating to the primacy a prelate not inclined to offend her, like his predecessor, by any remissness in putting in force the laws against puritans and other nonconformists. She nominated to this high dignity Whitgift bishop of Worcester, known to polemics as the zealous antagonist of Cartwright the puritan, and further recommended to her majesty by his single life, his talents for business, whether secular or ecclesiastical, his liberal and hospitable style of living, and the numerous train of attendants which swelled the pomp of his appearance on occasions of state and ceremony, when he even claimed to be served on the knee.
This promotion forms an important æra in the ecclesiastical history of the reign of Elizabeth: but only a few circumstances more peculiarly illustrative of the sentiments and disposition of Whitgift, of the queen herself, and of some of her principal counsellors, can with propriety find a place in a work like the present.
To bring back the clergy to that exact uniformity with respect to doctrines, rites, and ceremonies, from which the lenity of his predecessor had suffered them in many instances to recede, appeared to the newprimate the first and most essential duty of his office; and the better to enforce obedience, he eagerly demanded to be armed with that plenitude of power which her majesty as head of the church was authorized to delegate at her pleasure. His request was granted with alacrity, and the work of intolerance began. Subscriptions were now required of the whole clerical body to the supremacy; to the book of Common-prayer; and to the articles of religion settled by the convocation of 1560. In consequence of this first step alone, so large a number of zealous preachers and able divines attached to the Calvinistic model were suspended from their functions for non-compliance, that the privy-council took alarm, and addressed a letter to the archbishop requesting a conference; but he loftily reproved their interference in matters of this nature, declaring himself amenable in the discharge of his functions to his sovereign alone. In the following year he prevailed upon her majesty to appoint a second high-commission court, the members of which were authorized,ex officio, to administer interrogatories on oath in matters of faith;—an assumption of power not merely cruel and oppressive, but absolutely illegal, if we are to rely on Beal, clerk of the council, an able and learned but somewhat intemperate partisan of the puritans, who published on this occasion a work against the archbishop. To enter into controversy was now no part of the plan of Whitgift; he held it as a maxim, that it was safer and better for an established church to silence than to confute; and a book of Calvinistic discipline having issued from theCambridge press, he procured a Star-chamber decree for lessening and limiting the number of presses; for restraining any man from exercising the trade of a printer without a special license; and for subjecting all works to the censorship, of the archbishop or the bishop of London. At the same time he vehemently declared that he would rather lie in prison all his life, or die, than grant any indulgence to puritans; and he expressed his wonder, as well as indignation, that men high in place should countenance the factious portion of the clergy, low and obscure individuals and not even considerable by their numbers, against him the second person of the state. The earl of Leicester was not however to be intimidated from extending to these conscientious sufferers a protection which was in many instances effectual: Walsingham occasionally interceded in behalf of Calvinistic preachers of eminence; and sir Francis Knolles, whose influence with the queen was considerable, never failed to encounter the measures of the primate with warm, courageous, and persevering opposition. Even Burleigh, whom Whitgift had regarded as a friend and patron and hoped to number among his partisans, could not forbear expressing to him on various occasions his serious disapprobation of the rigors now resorted to; nor was he to be silenced by the plea of the archbishop, that he acted entirely by the command of her majesty. On the contrary, as instances multiplied daily before his eyes of the tyranny and persecution exercised, through the extraordinary powers of the ecclesiastical commission, on ministers ofunblemished piety and often of exemplary usefulness, his remonstrances assumed a bolder tone and more indignant character: as in the following instance. "But when the said lord treasurer understood, that two of these ministers, living in Cambridgeshire, whom for the good report of their modesty and peaceableness he had a little before recommended unto the archbishop's favor, were by the archbishop in commission sent to a register in London, to be strictly examined upon those four and twenty articles before mentioned, he was displeased. And reading over the articles himself, disliked them as running in a Romish style, and making no distinction of persons. Which caused him to write in some earnestness to the archbishop, and in his letter he told him, that he found these articles so curiously penned, so full of branches and circumstances, as he thought the inquisitors of Spain used not so many questions to comprehend and to trap their preys. And that this juridical and canonical sifting of poor ministers was not to edify and reform. And that in charity he thought, they ought not to answer to all these nice points, except they were very notorious offenders in papistry or heresy: Begging his grace to bear with that one fault, if it were so, that he had willed these ministers not to answer those articles, except their consciences might suffer them[94]."
The archbishop, in a long and labored answer, expressed his surprise at his lordship's "vehement speeches" against the administering of interrogatories,"seeing it was the ordinary course in other courts: as in the star-chamber, in the courts of the marches, and in other places:" and he advanced many arguments, or assertions, in defence of his proceedings, none of which proved satisfactory to the lord treasurer, as appeared by his reply. In the end, the archbishop found himself obliged to compromise this dispute by engaging that in future the twenty-four articles should only be administered to students in divinity previously to their ordination; and not to ministers already settled in cures, unless they should have openly declared themselves against the church-government by law established. But this instance of concession extorted by the urgency of Walsingham appears to have been a solitary one; the high commission, with the archbishop at its head, proceeded unrelentingly in the work of establishing conformity, and crushing with a strong hand all appeals to the sense of the public on controverted points of discipline or doctrine. The queen, vehemently prepossessed with the idea that the opposers of episcopacy must ever be ill affected also to monarchy, made no scruple of declaring, after some years experience of the untameable spirit of the sect, that the puritans were greater enemies of hers than the papists; and in the midst of her greatest perils from the machinations of the latter sect, she seldom judged it necessary to conciliate by indulgence the attachment of the former. Several Calvinistic ministers, during the course of the reign, were subjected even to capital punishment on account of the scruples which they entertained respecting the lawfulness of acknowledgingthe queen's supremacy: on the other hand, the attempts of sir Francis Knowles to inspire her majesty with jealousy of the designs of the archbishop, by whom some advances were made towards claiming for the episcopal order an authority by divine right, independently of the appointment of the head of the church, failed entirely of success. No ecclesiastic had ever been able to acquire so great an ascendency over the mind of Elizabeth as Whitgift; there was a conformity in their views, and in some points a sympathy in their characters; which seem to have secured to the primate in all his undertakings the sanction and approval of his sovereign: his favor continued unimpaired to the latest hour of her life: it was from his lips that she desired to receive the final consolations of religion; and regret for her loss, from the apprehension of unwelcome changes in the ecclesiastical establishment under the auspices of her successor, is believed to have contributed to the attack which carried off the archbishop within a year after the decease of his gracious and lamented mistress.
Elizabeth took an important though secret part in the struggles for power among the Scottish nobles of opposite factions by which that kingdom was now agitated during several years. It has been suspected, but seems scarcely probable, that she was concerned in the conspiracy of the earl of Gowry for seizing the person of the young king; she certainly however interposed afterwards to mitigate his just anger against the participators in that dark design. On the whole,she was generally enabled to gain all the influence in the court of Scotland which she found necessary to her ends; for James could always be intimidated, and his minions most frequently bribed or cajoled. She regarded it however as an object of some consequence to gain an accurate knowledge of the character and capacity of her young kinsman, from one on whom she could rely; and for this purpose she prevailed on Walsingham, notwithstanding his age and infirmities, to undertake an embassy into Scotland, of which the ostensible objects were so trifling that its real purpose became perfectly evident to the more sagacious of James's counsellors. Melvil confesses, that it cost him prodigious pains to equip the king, at short notice, with so much of artificial dignity and borrowed wisdom as might enable him to pass successfully through the ordeal of Walsingham's examination. But his labor was not thrown away; for James, who really possessed considerable quickness of parts and a competent share of book learning, played with such plausibility the part assigned him, that even this sagacious statesman is believed to have returned impressed with a higher opinion of his abilities than any part of his after conduct was found to warrant.
Her increasing apprehensions from the hostility of the king of Spain, caused Elizabeth to cultivate with added zeal the friendship of the northern powers of Europe, and in 1582 she sent the garter to the king of Denmark as a pledge of amity; making at the same time a fruitless endeavour to obtain for Englishmerchant ships some remission of the duties newly levied by the Danish sovereign on the passage of the Sound. It was the prudent practice of her majesty to intrust these embassies of compliment to young noblemen lately come into possession of their estates, who, for her favor and their own honor, were willing to discharge them in a splendid manner at their private expense. The Danish mission was the price which she exacted from Peregrine Bertie, lately called up to the house of peers as lord Willoughby of Eresby in right of his mother, for her reluctant and ungracious recognition of his undeniable title to this dignity. On the occurrence of this first mention of a high-spirited nobleman, afterwards celebrated for a brilliant valor which rendered him the idol of popular fame, the remarkable circumstances of his birth and parentage must not be omitted. His mother, only daughter and heir of the ninth lord Willoughby by a Spanish lady of high birth who had been maid of honor to queen Catherine of Arragon, was first the ward and afterwards the third wife of Charles Brandon duke of Suffolk, by whom she had two sons, formerly mentioned as victims to the sweating-sickness.
Few ladies of that age chose long to continue in the unprotected state of widowhood; and the duchess had already re-entered the matrimonial state with Richard Bertie, a person of obscure birth but liberal education, when the accession of Mary exposed her to all the cruelties and oppressions exercised without remorse by the popish persecutors of that reign upon such of their private enemies as they could accuseof being also the enemies of the catholic church. The duchess, during the former reign, had drawn upon herself the bitter enmity of Gardiner by some imprudent and insulting manifestations of her abhorrence of his character and contempt for his religion; and she now learned with dismay that it was his intention to subject her to a strict interrogatory on the subject of her faith.
Except apostasy, there was no other resource than the hazardous and painful one of voluntary banishment, and this she without hesitation adopted. Bertie first obtained license for quitting the country on some pretended business; and soon after, the duchess, attended only by two or three domestics, escaped by night with her infant daughter from her house in Barbican, and taking boat on the Thames arrived at a port in Kent. Here she embarked; and through many perils,—for stress of weather compelled her to put back into an English port, and the search was every where very strict,—she reached at length a more hospitable shore, and rejoined her husband at Santon in the duchy of Cleves. From this town, however, they were soon chased by the imminent apprehension of molestation from the bishop of Arras. It was on an October evening that, followed only by two maid-servants, on foot, through rain and mire and darkness, Bertie carrying a bundle and the duchess her child, the forlorn wanderers began their march for Wesel one of the Hanse-towns, about four miles distant. On their arrival, their wild and wretched appearance, with the sword which Bertie carried, gave them in the eyes of theinhabitants so suspicious an appearance, that no one would harbour them; and while her husband ran from inn to inn vainly imploring admittance, the afflicted duchess was compelled to betake herself to the shelter of a church porch; and there, in that misery and desolation and want of every thing, was delivered of a child, to whom, in memory of the circumstance, she gave the name of Peregrine. Bertie meantime, addressing himself in Latin to two young scholars whom he overheard speaking together in that language, obtained a direction to a Walloon minister, to whom the duchess had formerly shown kindness in England. By his means such prompt and affectionate succour was administered as served to restore her to health; and here for some time they found rest for the sole of their foot. A fresh alarm then obliged them to remove into the dominions of the Palsgrave, where they had remained till the supplies which they had brought with them in money and jewels were nearly exhausted; when a friend of the duchess's having interested the king of Poland in their behalf, they fortunately received an invitation from this sovereign. Arriving in his country, after great hardships and imminent danger of their lives from the brutality of some soldiers on their way, a large demesne was assigned them by their princely protector, on which they lived in great honor and tranquillity till the happy accession of Elizabeth recalled them to their native land.
Peregrine lord Willoughby found many occasions of distinguishing himself in the wars of Flanders, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant-general. He wasnot less magnanimous than brave; and disdaining the servility of a court life, is thought to have enjoyed on this account less of the queen's favor than her admiration of military merit would otherwise have prompted her to bestow upon him. He died governor of Berwick in 1601; his son was afterwards created earl of Lindsey, and the title of duke of Ancaster is now borne by his descendants.
The king of Sweden, conducted to the brink of ruin by an unequal contest with the arms of Russia, sent in 1583 a solemn embassy to the queen of England to entreat her to mediate a peace for him. This good work, in which she cheerfully engaged, was speedily brought to a happy issue; and the Czar seized the opportunity of the negotiations to press for the conclusion of that league offensive and defensive with England, which he had formerly proposed in vain. The objection that such an alliance was inconsistent with the laws of nations, since it might engage the queen to commit hostilities on princes against whom she had never declared war, made, as might be expected, little impression on this barbarian; and Elizabeth had considerable difficulty in escaping from the intimate embrace of his proffered friendship, to the cool civilities of a commercial treaty. Another perplexing circumstance occurred. The Czar had set his heart upon an English wife; some say he ventured to address the queen herself; but however this might be, she was about to gratify his wish by sending him for a bride a lady of royal blood, sister of the earl of Huntingdon, when the information which she receivedof the unlimited privilege of divorce exercised by his Muscovite majesty, deterred her from completing her project. She was in consequence obliged to excuse the failure on the ground of the delicate health of the young lady, the reluctance of her brother to part with her, and, what must have filled the despot with astonishment, her own inability to dispose of her female subjects in marriage against the consent of their own relations.
About this time died the earl of Sussex. In him the queen was deprived of a faithful and honorable counsellor and an affectionate kinsman; Leicester lost the antagonist whom he most dreaded, and the nobility one of its principal ornaments. Dying childless, his next brother succeeded him, in whom the race ended; for Egremond Ratcliffe, his youngest brother, had already completed his disastrous destiny. This unfortunate gentleman, it will be remembered, was rendered a fugitive and an outlaw by the part which he had taken, at a very early age, in the Northern rebellion. For several years he led a forlorn and rambling life, sometimes in Flanders, sometimes in Spain, deriving his sole support from an ill paid pension and occasional donations of Philip II., and often enduring extremities of poverty and hardship.
Wearied with so many sufferings in a desperate cause, he then employed all his endeavours to make his peace at home; and impatient at length of the suspense which he endured, he took the step of returning to England at all hazards and throwing himself on the compassion of lord Burleigh. Thetreasurer, touched with his misery and his expressions of penitence, interceded with the queen for his pardon; but she, on some fresh occasion of suspicion, caused him to be advised to steal out of the kingdom again; and neglecting this intimation, he was committed to the Tower. After some months he was released, possibly under a promise of attempting some extraordinary piece of service to his country, and was sent back to Flanders, where he was soon after apprehended on a charge of conspiring against the life of don John of Austria: some say, and some deny, that he confessed his guilt, and accused the English ministry of a participation in the design: however this might be, he perished by the hand of public justice, a lamentable victim to the guilty violence of the popish faction which first beguiled his inexperience; to the relentless policy of Elizabeth, which forbade the return of offenders perhaps not incorrigible; and to the desperation which gaining dominion over his mind had subverted all its moral principles.
Ireland had been as usual the scene of much danger and disturbance. In 1582 an attempt was made by the king of Spain to incite the catholic inhabitants to a general rebellion, by throwing on the coast a small body of troops seconded by a very considerable sum of money, and attended by a number of priests prepared to preach up his title to the sovereignty of the island in virtue of the papal donation. But the vigorous measures of Arthur lord Grey the deputy, by holding the Irish in check, rendered this effort abortive. The Spaniards, unable to penetrate intothe country, raised a fort near the place of their landing, which they hoped to be able to hold out till the arrival of reinforcements. They obstinately refused the terms of surrender first offered them by the deputy; and the fort being afterwards taken by assault, the whole garrison, with the exception of the officers, was put to the sword: an act of cruelty which the deputy is said to have commanded with tears, in obedience to the decision of a court-martial from which he could not venture to depart; and which Elizabeth publicly reprobated, perhaps without internally condemning.
The earl of Desmond, who on the arrival of the Spanish troops had risen in arms against the government with all the power he could muster, was excepted from the general pardon granted to other Irish insurgents, and thus remaining by necessity in a state of rebellion, gave for some time considerable disquiet, if not alarm, to the English government. But his resources of every kind gradually falling off, he was hunted about through bogs and forests, from one fastness or lurking-place to another, enduring every kind of privation and hardship, and often foiling his pursuers by hair-breadth scapes. It is even related that he and his countess on one occasion being roused from their bed in the middle of the night, found no other mode of concealment than that of wading up to their necks in the river which bathed the walls of their retreat. At length, a small party of soldiers having entered by surprise a solitary cabin, they there found one old man sitting alone, to whomtheir brutal leader gave a blow with his sword, which nearly cut off his arm, and another on the side of his head; on which he cried out, "I am the earl of Desmond." The name was no protection; for perceiving that he bled fast and was unable to march, the ruthless soldier, bidding him prepare for instant death, struck off his head and brought it away as a trophy; leaving the mangled trunk to the chance of interment by any faithful follower of the house of Fitzgerald who might venture from his hiding-place to explore the fate of his chief. The head was sent to England as a present to the queen, and placed by her command on London Bridge.
From this time, the beginning of 1583, Ireland enjoyed a short respite from scenes of violence and blood under the vigorous yet humane administration of sir John Perrot, the new deputy.
The petty warfare of this turbulent province, amid the many and great evils of various kinds which it brought forth, was productive however of some contingent advantage to the queen's affairs, by serving as a school of military discipline to many an officer of merit whose abilities she afterwards found occasion to employ in more important enterprises to check the power of Spain. Ireland was, in particular, the scene of several of the early exploits of that brilliant and extraordinary genius Walter Raleigh; and it was out of his service in this country that an occasion arose for his appearing before her majesty, which he had the talent and dexterity so to improve as to make it the origin of all his favor and advancement. Raleigh wasthe poor younger brother of a decayed but ancient family in Devonshire. His education at Oxford was yet incomplete, when the ardor of his disposition impelled him to join a gallant band of one hundred volunteers led by his relation Henry Champernon, in 1569, to the aid of the French protestants. Here he served a six-years apprenticeship to the art of war, after which, returning to his own country, he gave himself for a while to the more tranquil pursuits of literature; for "both Minervas" claimed him as their own. In 1578 he resumed his arms under general Norris, commander of the English forces in the Netherlands; the next year, ambitious of a new kind of glory, he accompanied that gallant navigator sir Humphrey Gilbert, his half brother, in a voyage to Newfoundland. This expedition proving unfortunate, he obtained in 1580 a captain's commission in the Irish service; and recommended by his vigor and capacity, rose to be governor of Cork. He was the officer appointed to carry into effect the bloody sentence passed upon the Spanish garrison; a cruel service, but one which the military duty of obedience rendered matter of indispensable obligation. A quarrel with lord Grey put a stop to his promotion in Ireland; and on his following this nobleman to England, their difference was brought to a hearing before the privy-council, when the great talents and uncommon flow of eloquence exhibited by Raleigh in pleading his own cause, by raising the admiration of all present, proved the means of introducing him to the presence of the queen. His comely person, fine address, and prompt proficiency inthe arts of a courtier, did all the rest; and he rapidly rose to such a height of royal favor as to inspire with jealousy even him who had long stood foremost in the good graces of his sovereign.
It is recorded of Raleigh during the early days of his court attendance, when a few handsome suits of clothes formed almost the sum total of his worldly wealth, that as he was accompanying the queen in one of her daily walks,—during which she was fond of giving audience, because she imagined that the open air produced a favorable effect on her complexion,—she arrived at a miry spot, and stood in perplexity how to pass. With an adroit presence of mind, the courtier pulled off his rich plush cloak and threw it on the ground to serve her for a footcloth. She accepted with pleasure an attention which flattered her, and it was afterwards quaintly said that the spoiling of a cloak had gained him manygood suits.
It was in Ireland too that Edmund Spenser, one of our first genuine poets, whose rich and melodious strains will find delighted audience as long as inexhaustible fertility of invention, truth, fluency and vivacity of description, copious learning, and a pure, amiable and heart-ennobling morality shall be prized among the students of English verse, was now tuning his enchanting lyre; and the ear of Raleigh was the first to catch its strains. This eminent person was probably of obscure parentage and slender means, for it was as a sizer, the lowest order of students, that he was entered at Cambridge; but that his humble merit early attracted the notice of men of learning and virtue isapparent from his intimacy with Stubbs, already commemorated, and from his friendship with that noted literary character Gabriel Hervey, by whom he was introduced to the acquaintance of Philip Sidney. His leaning towards puritanical principles, clearly manifested by various passages in the Shepherd's Calendar, had probably betrayed itself to his superiors at the university, by his choice of associates, or other circumstances, previously to the publication of that piece; and possibly might have some share in the disappointment of his hopes of a fellowship which occurred in 1576. Quitting college on this occurrence, he retired for some time into the north of England; but the friendship of Sidney drew him again from his solitude, and it was at Penshurst that he composed much of his Shepherd's Calendar, published in 1579 under the signature of Immerito, and dedicated to this generous patron of his muse. The earl of Leicester, probably at his nephew's request, sent Spenser the same year on some commission to France; and in the next he obtained the post of secretary to lord Grey, and attended him to Ireland.
Though the child of fancy and the muse, Spenser now showed that business was not "the contradiction of his fate;" he drew up an excellent discourse on the state of Ireland, still read and valued, and received as his reward the Grant of a considerable tract of land out of the forfeited Desmond estates, and of the castle of Kilcolman, which henceforth became his residence, and where he had soon the satisfaction of receiving a first visit from Raleigh. Both pupils ofclassical antiquity, both poets and aspirants after immortal fame, they met in this land of ignorance and barbarity as brothers; and so strong was the impression made on the mind of Raleigh, that even on becoming a successful courtier he dismissed not from his memory or his affection the tuneful shepherd whom he had left behind tending his flocks "under the foot of Mole, that mountain hoar." He spoke of him to the queen with all the enthusiasm of kindred genius; obtained for him some favors, or promises of favors; and on a second visit which he made to Ireland, probably for the purpose of inspecting the large grants which he had himself obtained, he dragged his friend from his obscure retreat, carried him over with him to England, and hastened to initiate him in those arts of pushing a fortune at court which with himself had succeeded so prosperously. But bitterly did the disappointed poet learn to deprecate the mistaken kindness which had taught him to exchange leisure and independence, though in a solitude so barbarous and remote, for the servility, the intrigues and the treacheries of this heart-sickening scene. He put upon lasting record his grief and his repentance, in a few lines of energetic warning to the inexperienced in the ways of courts, and hastened back to earn in obscurity his title to immortal fame by the composition of the Faery Queen. This great work appeared in 1589, with a preface addressed to Raleigh and a considerable apparatus of recommendatory poems; one of which, a sonnet of great elegance, is marked with initials which assign it to the same patronizing friend.
The proceedings of the administration against papists accused of treasonable designs or practices, began about this time to excite considerable perturbation in the public mind; for though circumstances were brought to light which seemed to justify in some degree the worst suspicions entertained of this faction, a system of conduct on the part of the government also became apparent which no true Englishman could without indignation and horror contemplate. The earl of Leicester, besides partaking with the other confidential advisers of her majesty in the blame attached to the general character of the measures now pursued, lay under the popular imputation of making these acts of power subservient, in many atrocious instances, to his private purposes of rapacity or vengeance, and a cloud of odium was raised against him which the breath of his indulgent sovereign was in vain exerted to disperse.
There was in Warwickshire a catholic gentleman named Somerville, a person of violent temper and somewhat disordered in mind, who had been worked up, by the instigations of one Hall his confessor, to such a pitch of fanatical phrensy, that he set out for London with the fixed purpose of killing the queen; but falling furiously upon some of her protestant subjects by the way, he was apprehended, and readily confessed the object of his journey. Being closely questioned, perhaps with torture, he is said to have dropped something which touched Mr. Arden his father-in-law; and Hall on examination positively declared that this gentleman had been made privy tothe bloody purpose of Somerville. On this bare assertion of the priest, unconfirmed, as appears, by any collateral evidence, Arden was indicted, found guilty, and underwent the whole sentence of the law. It happened to be publicly known that Arden was the personal enemy of Leicester, for he had refused to wear his livery;—a base kind of homage which was paid him without scruple, as it seems, by other neighbouring gentlemen;—and he was also in the habit of reproaching him with the murder of his first wife. The wife also of Arden was the sister of sir Nicholas Throgmorton, whom Leicester was vulgarly supposed to have poisoned, and of the chief justice of Chester lately displaced. When therefore, in addition to these circumstances of suspicion, it was further observed that Somerville, instead of being produced to deny or confirm on the scaffold the evidence which he was said to have given against Arden, died strangled in prison, by his own hand as was affirmed;—when it was seen that Hall, who was confessedly the instigator of the whole, and further obnoxious to the laws as a catholic priest, was quietly sent out of the kingdom by Leicester's means, in spite of the opposition of sir Christopher Hatton;—and finally, when it appeared that the forfeited lands of Arden went to enrich a creature of the same great man,—this victim of law was regarded as a martyr, and it was found impossible to tie up the tongues of men from crying shame and vengeance on his cruel and insidious destroyer.
The plot thickened when Francis Throgmorton,son of the degraded judge of Chester, was next singled out. Some intercepted letters to the queen of Scots formed the first ground of this gentleman's arrest; but being carried to the Tower, he was there racked to extort further discoveries, and lord Paget and Charles Arundel, a courtier, quitted the kingdom in haste as soon as they knew him to be in custody. After this many of the leading catholics fell into suspicion, particularly the earls of Northumberland and Arundel, who were ordered to confine themselves to their houses; lord William Howard, brother to the latter nobleman, and his uncle lord Henry Howard, were likewise subjected to several long and rigorous examinations, but were dismissed at length on full proof of their perfect innocence. The confessions of Throgmorton further implicated the Spanish ambassador; who replied in so high a tone to the representations made him on the subject, that her majesty commanded him to quit the kingdom.
Francis Throgmorton was condemned, and suffered as a traitor, and, it is probable, not undeservedly: there was reason also to believe that a dangerous activity was exercised by the queen of Scots and her agents, and that the letters which she was continually finding means of conveying not only to the heads of the popish party, but to all whose connexions led her to imagine them in any degree favorable to the cause, had shaken the allegiance of numbers. On the other hand, the catholics complained, and certainly not without reason, of dark and detestable means employed by the ministry to betray and ensnare them.Counterfeited letters, it seems, were often addressed to gentlemen of this persuasion, purporting to come either from the queen of Scots or from certain English exiles, and soliciting concurrence in some scheme for her deliverance, or some design against the government. If the unwary receivers either answered the letters, or simply forbore to deliver them up to the secretary of state, their houses were entered; search was made for these papers by the emissaries of government, who were themselves the fabricators of them; the unfortunate owners were dragged to prison as suspected persons; and interrogated, and perhaps tortured, till they discovered all that they knew of the secrets of the party. Spies were planted upon them, every unguarded word was caught up and interpreted in the worst sense, and false or frivolous accusations were greedily entertained.
Walsingham, next to Leicester, bore the chief odium of these proceedings; but to him no corrupt motives or private ends ever appear to have been imputed in particular cases, though an anxiety to preserve his place, and to recommend himself to the queen his mistress by an extraordinary manifestation of care for her safety and zeal in her service, may not unfairly be supposed to have influenced the general character of his policy.
The loud complaints of the catholics had excited so strong and so widely diffused a sentiment of compassion for them and indignation against their oppressors, that it was judged expedient to publish an apology for the measures of government, written eitherby lord Burleigh himself or under his direction, which bore the title of "A declaration of the favorable dealing of her majesty's commissioners appointed for the examination of certain traitors, and of tortures unjustly reported to be done upon them for matters of religion."
It thus begins: "Good reader, although her majesty's most mild and gracious government be sufficient to defend itself against those most slanderous reports of heathenish and unnatural tyranny and cruel tortures pretended to have been exercised upon certain traitors who lately suffered for their treason, and others; as well as spread abroad by rungates, Jesuits, and seminary men in their seditious books, letters and libels, in foreign countries and princes courts, as also intimated into the hearts of some of our own countrymen and her majesty's subjects.... I have conferred with a very honest gentleman whom I knew to have good and sufficient means to deliver the truth." &c. And the following are the heads of this "honest gentleman's" testimony. "It is affirmed for truth, and is offered upon due examination to be proved," "that the forms of torture in their severity or rigor of execution have not been such as is slanderously represented"... "that even the principal offender Campion himself"... "before the conference had with him by learned men in the Tower, wherein he was charitably used, was never so racked but that he was presently able to walk and to write, and did presently write and subscribe all his confessions." That Briant, a man said to, have been reduced to such extremitiesof hunger and thirst in prison, that he ate the clay out of the walls and drank the droppings of the roof, was kept in that state by his own fault; for certain treasonable writings being found upon him, he was required to give a specimen of his handwriting; which refusing, he was told he should have no food till he wrote for what he wanted, and after fasting nearly two days and nights he complied. Also, that both with respect to these two and others, it might be affirmed, that the warders, whose office it is to use the rack, "were ever by those that attended the examinations specially charged to use it in as charitable a manner as such a thing might be."
Secondly, that none of those catholics who have been racked during her majesty's reign were, "upon the rack or in any other torture," demanded of any points of faith and doctrine merely, "but only with what persons, at home or abroad, and touching what plots and practises they had dealt... about attempts against her majesty's estate or person, or to alter the laws of the realm for matters of religion, by treason or by force; and how they were persuaded themselves and did persuade others, touching the pope's pretence of authority to depose kings and princes; and namely for deprivation of her majesty, and to discharge subjects from their allegiance." &c.
"Thirdly, that none of them have been put to the rack or torture, no not for the matters of treason, or partnership of treason, or such like, but where it was first known and evidently probable, by former detections, confessions, and otherwise, that the party wasguilty, and could deliver truth of the things wherewith he was charged; so as it was first assured that no innocent was at any time tormented, and the rack was never used to wring out confessions at adventure upon uncertainties." &c.
"Fourthly, that none of them hath been racked or tortured unless he had first said expressly, or amounting to as much, that he will not tell the truth though the queen did command him." &c.
"Fifthly, that the proceeding to torture was always so slowly, so unwillingly, and with so many preparations of persuasions to spare themselves, and so many means to let them know that the truth was by them to be uttered, both in duty to her majesty, and in wisdom for themselves, as whosoever was present at those actions must needs acknowledge in her majesty's ministers a full purpose to follow the example of her own gracious disposition."... "Thus it appeareth, that albeit, by the more general laws of nations, torture hath been and is lawfully judged to be used in lesser cases, and in sharper manner, for inquisition of truth in crimes not so near extending to public danger as these ungracious persons have committed, whose conspiracies, and the particularities thereof, it did so much import and behove to have disclosed; yet even in that necessary use of such proceeding, enforced by the offenders notorious obstinacy, is nevertheless to be acknowledged the sweet temperature of her majesty's mild and gracious clemency, and their slanderous lewdness to be the more condemned, that have in favor of heinous malefactorsand stubborn traitors spread untrue rumours and slanders, to make her merciful government disliked, under false pretence and rumors of sharpness and cruelty to those against whom nothing can be cruel, and yet upon whom nothing hath been done but gentle and merciful."
This is a document which speaks sufficiently for itself. Torture, in any shape, was even at this time absolutely contrary to the law of the land; and happily, there was enough of true English feeling in the country, even under the rule of a Tudor, to render it expedient for Elizabeth, soon after the exposition of these "favorable dealings" of her commissioners, to issue an order that no species of it should in future be applied to state-prisoners on any pretext whatsoever.
Parsons the Jesuit, who had been fortunate enough to make his escape when his associate Campion was apprehended, is believed to have been the papist who sought to avenge his party on its capital enemy by the composition of that virulent invective called "Leicester's Commonwealth:" a pamphlet which was printed in Flanders in 1584, and of which a vast number of copies were imported into England, where it obtained, from the color of the leaves and the supposed author, the familiar title of "Father Parsons' Green-coat." In this work all the current stories against the unpopular favorite were collected and set forth as well attested facts; and they were related with that circumstantiality and minuteness of detail which are too apt to pass upon the common reader as the certain and authentic characters of truth. Thesuccess of this book was prodigious; it was read universally and with the utmost avidity. All who envied Leicester's power and grandeur; all who had smarted under his insolence, or felt the gripe of his rapacity; all who had been scandalized, or wounded in family honor, by his unbridled licentiousness; all who still cherished in their hearts the image of the unfortunate duke of Norfolk, whom he was believed to have entangled in a deadly snare; all who knew him for the foe and suspected him for the murderer of the gallant and lamented earl of Essex;—finally, all, and they were nearly the whole of the nation, who looked upon him as a base and treacherous miscreant, shielded by the affection of his sovereign and wrapped in an impenetrable cloud of hypocrisy and artifice, who aimed in the dark his envenomed weapons against the bosom of innocence;—exulted in this exposure of his secret crimes, and eagerly received and propagated for truth even the grossest of the exaggerations and falsehoods with which the narrative was intermixed.
Elizabeth, incensed to the last degree at so furious an attack upon the man in whom her confidence was irremoveably fixed, caused her council to write letters to all persons in authority for the suppression of these books, and punishment of such as were concerned in their dispersion; adding at the same time the declaration, that her majesty "testified in her conscience before God, that she knew in assured certainty the books and libels against the earl to be most malicious, false and scandalous, and such as none but an incarnate devil himself could dream to be true." Theletters further stated, that her majesty regarded this publication as an attempt to discredit her own government, "as though she should have failed in good judgement and discretion in the choice of so principal a councillor about her, or to be without taste or care of all justice or conscience, in suffering such heinous and monstrous crimes, as by the said books and libels be infamously imputed, to pass unpunished; or finally, at the least, to want either good will, ability or courage, if she knew these enormities were true, to call any subject of hers whatsoever to render sharp account of them, according to the force of her laws." The councillors in their own persons afterwards went on to declare, that they, "to do his lordship but right, of their sincere consciences must needs affirm these strange and abominable crimes to be raised of a wicked and venomous malice against the said earl, of whose good service, sincerity of religion, and all other faithful dealings towards her majesty and the realm, they had had long and true experience."