These letters said too much; it was not credible that either her majesty or her privy-councillors should each individually know to be false all the imputations thrown upon Leicester in the libels written against him; there was even good reason to believe that many of them were firmly believed to be well founded by several, and perhaps most, of the privy-councillors; at all events nothing like exculpatory evidence was brought, or attempted to be brought, on the subject, consequently no effect was produced on public opinion; the whole was regarded as anex-parteproceeding.Philip Sidney, who probably set out with a sincere disbelief of these shocking accusations brought against any uncle who had shown for him an affection next to parental, eagerly took up the pen in his defence. But the only point on which his refutation appears to have been triumphant, was unfortunately one of no moral moment,—the antiquity and nobility of the Dudley family, falsely, as it seems, impugned by the libeller. Some inconsistencies and contradictions he indeed pointed out in other matters; but, on the whole, the answer was miserably deficient in every thing but invective, of which there was far too much; and either from a gradual perception of the badness of his cause or the weakness of his performance, or perhaps for other reasons with which we are unacquainted, he abandoned his design; and the fragment never saw the light till the publication of the Sidney Papers about sixty years ago. But whatever might be the private judgements of men concerning the character and conduct of the earl of Leicester; the support of the queen, and the strength of the party which the long possession of power, and a remarkable fidelity in the observance of his engagements towards his own adherents, had enabled him to form, effectually protected him from experiencing any decline of his political influence. Of this a proof appeared soon after, when in consequence of further disclosures of the dangerous designs of the catholics, a form of association, by which the subscribers bound themselves to pursue, to the utmost of their power, even to the death, all who should attempt any thing against the queen in favor of any pretenderto the crown, was drawn up by this nobleman and obtained the signatures of all orders of men.
This was a measure which the queen of Scots perceived to be aimed expressly against herself, and of which she sought to divert the ill effects by all the means still within her power. She desired to be one of the first to whom the association should be offered for subscription; and she begged that this act might form the basis of a treaty by which all differences between herself and Elizabeth might be finally composed, and her long captivity exchanged at length, if not for absolute freedom, at least for a state of comparative independence under articles guarantied by the principal powers of Europe. These articles, far different from the former claims of Mary, appeared to Walsingham so advantageous to his mistress, by the exemption which they seemed to promise her from future machinations on the part of the queen of Scots, that he strenuously urged their acceptance; but it was in vain. Mutual injuries, dissimulation on both sides, and causes of jealousy on the part of Elizabeth from which all her advantages over her captive enemy had not served to set her free, now, as ever, opposed the conclusion of any terms of agreement; and the imprudent and violent conduct of Mary served to confirm Elizabeth in her unrelentingness. Even while the terms were under discussion, a letter was intercepted addressed by the queen of Scots to sir Francis Englefield, an English exile and pensioner in Spain, in which she thus wrote: "Of the treaty between the queen of England and me, I may neither hope nor look forgood issue. Whatsoever shall become of me, by whatsoever change of my state and condition, let the execution of theGreat Plotgo forward, without any respect of peril or danger to me. For I will account my life very happily bestowed, if I may with the same help and relieve so great a number of the oppressed children of the Church.... And further, I pray you, use all possible diligence and endeavour to pursue and promote, at the pope's and other kings' hand, such a speedy execution of their former designments, that the same may be effectuated sometime this next spring." &c. It must be confessed, that after such a letter Mary had little right to complain of the failure of these negotiations. The countess of Shrewsbury, now at open variance with her husband, had employed every art to infuse into the queen suspicions of a too great intimacy subsisting between the earl and his prisoner; and Elizabeth, either from a jealousy which the long fidelity of Shrewsbury to his arduous trust was unable to counteract, or, as was believed, at the instigation of some who meant further mischief to Mary, ordered about this time her removal to the custody of sir Amias Paulet and sir Drugo Drury.
This change filled the mind of the captive queen with terror, which prepared her to listen with avidity to any schemes, however desperate, for her own deliverance and the destruction of her enemy; and proved the prelude to that tragical castastrophe which was now advancing fast upon her.
A violent quarrel between Mary and the countess of Shrewsbury had naturally resulted from theconduct of this furious woman; and Mary, whose passions, whether fierce or tender, easily hurried her beyond the bounds of decency and of prudence, gratified her resentment at once against the countess and the queen by addressing to Elizabeth a letter which could never be forgiven or forgotten. In this piece, much too gross for insertion in the present work, she professes to comply with the request of her royal sister, by acquainting her very exactly with all the evil of every kind that the countess of Shrewsbury had ever spoken of her majesty in her hearing. She then proceeds to repeat or invent all that the most venomous malice could devise against the character of Elizabeth: as, that she had conferred her favors on a nameless person (probably Leicester) to whom she had promised marriage; on the duke of Anjou, on Simier, on Hatton and others; that the latter was quite disgusted with her fondness; that she was generous to none but these favorites, &c. That her conceit of her beauty was such, that no flattery could be too gross for her to swallow; and that this folly was the theme of ridicule to all her courtiers, who would often pretend that their eyes were unable to sustain the radiance of her countenance,—a trait, by the way, which stands on other and better authority than this infamous letter. That her temper was so furious that it was dreadful to attend upon her;—that she had broken the finger of one lady, and afterwards pretended to the courtiers that it was done by the fall of a chandelier, and that she had cut another across the hand with a knife;—stories very probably not entirely unfounded in fact,since we find the earl of Huntingdon complaining, in a letter still preserved in the British Museum, that the queen, on some quarrel, had pinched his wife "very sorely." That she interfered in an arbitrary manner with the marriage of one of the countess of Shrewsbury's daughters, and wanted to engross the disposal of all the heiresses in the kingdom;—in which charge there was also some truth. This insulting epistle concluded with assurances of the extreme anxiety of the writer to see a good understanding restored between herself and Elizabeth.
Meantime, the most alarming manifestations of the inveterate hostility of the persecuted papists against the queen, continued to agitate the minds of a people who loved and honored her; and who anticipated with well founded horror the succession of another Mary, which seemed inevitable in the event of her death. A book was written by a Romish priest, exhorting the female attendants of her majesty to emulate the merit and glory of Judith by inflicting on her the fate of Holophernes. Dr. Allen, afterwards cardinal, published a work to justify and recommend the murder of a heretic prince; and by this piece a gentleman of the name of Parry was confirmed, it is said, in the black design which he had several times revolved in his mind, but relinquished as often from misgivings of conscience.
In the history of this person there are some circumstances very remarkable. He was a man of considerable learning, but, being vicious and needy, had some years before this time committed a robbery, forwhich he had received the royal pardon. Afterwards he went abroad, and was reconciled to the Romish church, though employed at the same time by the ministers of Elizabeth to give intelligence respecting the English exiles, whom he often recommended to pardon or favor, and sometimes apparently with success. Returning home, he gained access to the queen, who admitted him to several private interviews; and he afterwards declared, that fearing he might be tempted to put in act the bloody purpose which perpetually haunted his mind, he always left his dagger at home when he went to wait upon her. On these occasions he apprized her majesty of the existence of many designs against her life, and endeavoured, with great earnestness and plainness of speech, to convince her of the cruelty and impolicy of those laws against the papists which had rendered them her deadly foes: but finding his arguments thrown away upon the queen, he afterwards procured a seat in parliament, where he was the sole opponent of a severe act passed against the Jesuits. On account of the freedom with which he expressed himself on this occasion, he was for a few days imprisoned.
Soon after a gentleman of the family of Nevil, induced it is said by the hope of obtaining as his reward the honors and lands of the rebel earl of Westmorland lately dead, disclosed to the government a plot for assassinating the queen, in which he affirmed that Parry had engaged his concurrence. Parry confessed in prison that he had long deliberated on the means of effectually serving his church, and it appeared thathe had come to the decision that the assassination of the queen's greatest subject might be lawful: a letter was also found upon him from cardinal Como, expressing approbation of some design which he had communicated to him. On this evidence he was capitally condemned; but to the last he strongly denied that the cardinal's letter, couched in general terms, referred to any attempt on the queen's person, or that he had ever entertained the design charged upon him. Unlike all the other martyrs of popery at this time, he died,—not avowing and glorying in the crime charged upon him,—but earnestly protesting his innocence, his loyalty, his warm attachment to her majesty. An account of his life was published immediately afterwards by the queen's printer, written in a style of the utmost virulence, and filled with tales of his monstrous wickedness which have much the air of violent calumnies.
Parry was well known to lord Burleigh, with whom he had corresponded for several years; and the circumstance of his being brought by him to the presence of the queen, proves that this minister was far from regarding him either as the low, the infamous, or the desperate wretch that he is here represented. That he had sometimesimaginedthe death of the queen, he seems to have acknowledged; but most probably he had never so far conquered the dictates of loyalty and conscience as to have laid any plan for her destruction, or even to have resolved upon hazarding the attempt. The case therefore was one in which mercy and even justice seem to have required the remission of a harshand hasty sentence; but the panic terror which had now seized the queen, the ministry, the parliament, and the nation, would have sufficed to overpower the pleadings of the generous virtues in hearts of nobler mould than those of Elizabeth, of Leicester, or of Walsingham.
Nevil, the accuser of Parry, far from gaining any reward, was detained prisoner in the Tower certainly till the year 1588, and whether he even then obtained his liberation does not appear.
The severe enactments of the new parliament against papists, which included a total prohibition of every exercise of the rites of their religion, so affected the mind of Philip Howard earl of Arundel, already exasperated by the personal hardships to which the suspicions of her majesty and the hostility of her ministers had exposed him, that he formed the resolution of banishing himself for ever from his native land. Having secretly prepared every thing for his departure, he put his whole case upon record in a letter addressed to her majesty, and left behind at his house in London. This piece ought, as it appears, to have excited in the breast of his sovereign sentiments of regret and compunction rather than of indignation. The writer complains, that without any offence given on his part, or even objected against him by her majesty, he had long since fallen into her disfavor, as by her "bitter speeches" had become publicly known; so that he was generally accounted, "nay in a manner pointed at," as one whom her majesty least favored, and in most disgrace as a person whom she did deeply suspectand especially mislike." That after he had continued for some months under this cloud, he had been called sundry times by her command before the council, where charges had been brought against him, some of them ridiculously trifling, others incredible, all so untrue, that even his greatest enemies could not, after his answers were made, reproach him with any disloyal thought;—yet was he in the end ordered to keep his house. That his enemies still continued to pursue him with interrogatories, and continued his restraint; and that even after the last examination had failed to produce any thing against him, he was still kept fifteen weeks longer in the same state, though accused of nothing. That when, either his enemies being ashamed to pursue these proceedings further, or her majesty being prevailed upon by his friends to put an end to them, he had at length recovered his liberty, he had been led to meditate on the fates of his three unfortunate ancestors, all circumvented by their enemies, and two of them (the earl of Surry his grandfather and the duke of Norfolk his father) brought for slight causes to an untimely end. And having weighed their cases with what had just befallen himself, he concluded that it might well be his lot to succeed them in fortune as in place. His foes were strong to overthrow, he weak to defend himself, since innocence, he had found, was no protection; her majesty being "easily drawn to an ill opinion of" his "ancestry;" and moreover, he had been "charged by the council to be of the religion which was accounted odious and dangerous to her estate." "Lastly," he adds, "but principally, I weighedin what miserable doubtful case my soul had remained if my life had been taken, as it was not unlikely, in my former troubles. For I protest, the greatest burden that rested on my conscience at that time was, because I had not lived according to the prescript rule of that which I undoubtedly believed." &c.
The earl had actually embarked at a small port in Sussex, when, his project having been betrayed to the government by the mercenary villany of the master of the vessel and of one of his own servants, orders were issued for his detention, and he was brought back in custody and committed to the Tower. The letter just quoted was then produced against him; it was declared to reflect on the justice of the country; and for the double offence of having written it and of attempting to quit the kingdom without license, he underwent a long imprisonment, and was arbitrarily sentenced to a fine of one thousand pounds, which he proved his inability to pay. The barbarous tyranny which held his body in thraldom, served at the same time to rivet more strongly upon his mind the fetters of that stern superstition which had gained dominion over him. The more he endured for his religion, the more awful and important did it appear in his eyes; while in proportion to the severity and tediousness of his sufferings from without, the scenery within became continually more cheerless and terrific; and learning to dread in a future world the prolonged operation of that principle of cruelty under which he groaned in this, he sought to avert its everlasting action by practising upon himself the expiatory rigorsof asceticism. The sequel of his melancholy history we shall have occasion to contemplate hereafter.
Thomas Percy earl of Northumberland, brother to that earl who had suffered death on account of the Northern rebellion,—by his participation in which he had himself also incurred a fine, though afterwards remitted,—was naturally exposed at this juncture to vehement suspicions. After some examinations before the council, cause was found for his committal to the Tower; and here, according to the iniquitous practice of the age, he remained for a considerable time without being brought to trial. At length the public was informed that another prisoner on a like account having been put to the torture to force disclosures, had revealed matters against the earl of Northumberland amounting to treason, on which account he had thought fit to anticipate the sentence of the law by shooting himself through the heart. That the earl was really the author of his own death was indeed proved before a coroner's jury by abundant and unexceptionable testimony, as well as by his deliberate precautions for making his lands descend to his son, and his indignant declaration that the queen, on whom he bestowed a most opprobrious epithet, should never have his estate; though it may still bear a doubt whether a consciousness of guilt, despair of obtaining justice, or merely the misery of an indefinite captivity, were the motive of the rash act: but the catholics, actuated by the true spirit of party, added without scruple the death of this nobleman to the "foul and midnight murders" perpetrated within these gloomy walls.
Meantime the opposition to popery, which had now become the reigning principle of English policy, was to be maintained on other ground, and with other weapons than those with which an inquisitorial high-commission, or a fierce system of penal enactments, had armed the hands of religious intolerance, political jealousy, or private animosity; and all the more generous and adventurous spirits prepared with alacrity to draw the sword in the noble cause of Belgian independence, against the united tyranny and bigotry of the detestable Philip II.
The death of that patriot hero William prince of Orange by the hand of a fanatical assassin, had plunged his country in distress and dismay, and the States-general had again made an earnest tender of their sovereignty to Elizabeth. She once more declined it, from the same motives of caution and anxiety to avoid the imputation of ambitious encroachment on the rights of neighbouring princes, which had formerly determined her. But more than ever aware how closely her own safety and welfare were connected with the successful resistance of these provinces, she now consented to send over an army to their succour, and to grant them supplies of money; in consideration of which several cautionary towns were put into her hands. Of these, Flushing was one; and Elizabeth gratified at once the protestant zeal of Philip Sidney and his aspirations after military glory, by appointing him its governor. It was in November 1585 that he took possession of his charge.
Meanwhile the earl of Leicester, whose haughtyand grasping spirit led him to covet distinction and authority in every line, was eagerly soliciting the supreme command of this important armament; and in spite of the general mediocrity of his talents and his very slight experience in the art of war, his partial mistress had the weakness to indulge him in this unreasonable and ill-advised pretension. The title of general of the queen's auxiliaries in Holland was conferred upon him, and with it a command over the whole English navy paramount to that of the lord-high-admiral himself.
He landed at Flushing, and was received first by its governor and afterwards by the States of Holland and Zealand with the highest honors, and with the most magnificent festivities which it was in their power to exhibit. A splendid band of youthful nobility followed in his train:—the foremost of them all was his stepson Robert earl of Essex, now in his 19th year, who had already made his appearance at court, and experienced from her majesty a reception which clearly prognosticated, to such as were conversant in the ways of the court, the height of favor to which he was predestined.
It was highly characteristic of the jealous haughtiness of Elizabeth's temper, that the extraordinary honors lavished by the States upon Leicester instantly awakened her utmost indignation. She regarded them as too high for any subject, even for him who enjoyed the first place in her royal favor, whom she had invested with an amplitude of authority quite unexampled, and who represented herself in the council of the States-general.She expressed her anger in a tone which made both Leicester and the Belgians tremble; and the explanations and humble submissions of both parties were found scarcely sufficient to appease her. At the same time, the incapacity and misconduct of Leicester as a commander were daily becoming more conspicuous and offensive in the eyes of the Dutch authorities; and the most serious evils would immediately have ensued, but for the prudence, the magnanimity, the conciliating behaviour, and the strenuous exertions, by which his admirable nephew labored unceasingly to remedy his vices and cover his deficiencies.
The brilliant valor of the English troops, and particularly of the young nobility and gentry who led them on, was conspicuous in every encounter; but the want of a chief able to cope with that accomplished general the prince of Parma, precluded them from effecting any important object. Philip Sidney distinguished himself by a well-conducted surprise of the town of Axel, and received in reward among a number of others the honor of knighthood from the hands of his uncle. Afterwards, having made an attack with the horse under his command on a reinforcement which the enemy was attempting to throw into Zutphen, a hot action ensued, in which though the advantage remained with the English, it was dearly purchased by the blood of their gallant leader, who received a shot above the knee, which after sixteen days of acute suffering brought his valuable life to its termination.
Thus perished at the early age of thirty-two sir PhilipSidney, the pride and pattern of his time, the theme of song, the favorite of English story. The beautiful anecdote of his resigning to the dying soldier the draught of water with which he was about to quench his thirst as he rode faint and bleeding from the fatal field, is told to every child, and inspires a love and reverence for his name which never ceases to cling about the hearts of his countrymen. He is regarded as the most perfect example which English history affords of thepreux Chevalier; and is named in parallel with the spotless and fearless Bayard the glory of Frenchmen, whom he excelled in all the accomplishments of peace as much as the other exceeded him in the number and splendor of his military achievements.
The demonstrations of grief for his loss, and the honors paid to his memory, went far beyond all former example, and appeared to exceed what belonged to a private citizen. The court went into mourning for him, and his remains received a magnificent funeral in St. Paul's, the United Provinces having in vain requested permission to inter him at their own expense, with the promise that he should have as fair a tomb as any prince in Christendom. Elizabeth always remembered him with affection and regret. Cambridge and Oxford published three volumes of "Lachrymæ" on the melancholy event. Spenser in verse, and Camden in prose, commemorated and deplored their friend and patron. A crowd of humbler contemporaries pressed emulously forward to offer up their mite of panegyric and lamentation; and it wouldbe endless to enumerate the poets and other writers of later times, who have celebrated in various forms the name of Sidney. Foreigners of the highest distinction claimed a share in the general sentiment. Du Plessis Mornay condoled with Walsingham on the loss of his incomparable son-in-law in terms of the deepest sorrow. Count Hohenlo passionately bewailed his friend and fellow-soldier, to whose representations and intercessions he had sacrificed his just indignation against the proceedings of Leicester. Even the hard heart of Philip II. was touched by the untimely fate of his godson, though slain in bearing arms against him.
We are told that on the next tilt-day after the last wife of the earl of Leicester had borne him a son, Sidney appeared with a shield on which was the word "Speravi" dashed through. This anecdote,—if indeed the allusion of the motto be rightly explained, which it is difficult to believe,—would serve to show how publicly he had been regarded, both by himself and others, as the heir of his all-powerful uncle. The death of this child, on which occasion adulatory verses were produced by the university of Cambridge, restored Sidney, the year before his death, to this brilliant expectancy; and it cannot reasonably be doubted, that the academic honors paid to his memory were, like the court-mourning, a homage to the power of the living rather than the virtues of the dead. But though he should be judged to have owed to his connexion with a royal favorite much of his contemporary celebrity, and even in some measure his enduring fame,no candid estimator will suffer himself to be hurried, under an idea of correcting the former partiality of fortune, into the clear injustice of denying to this accomplished character a just title to the esteem and admiration of posterity. On the contrary, it will be considered, that the very circumstances which rendered him so early conspicuous, would also expose him to the shafts of malice and envy; and that if his spirit had not been in reality noble, and his conduct irreproachable, it would have exceeded all the power of Leicester to shield the reputation of his nephew against attacks similar to those from which he had found it impracticable to defend his own.
Philip Sidney was educated, by the cares of a wise and excellent father, in the purest and most elevated moral principles and in the best learning of the age. A letter of advice addressed to him by this exemplary parent at the age of twelve, fully exemplifies both the laudable solicitude of sir Henry respecting his future character, and the soundness of his views and maxims: in the character of his son, as advancing to manhood, he saw his hopes exceeded and his prayers fulfilled. Nothing could be more correct than his conduct, more laudable than his pursuits, while on his travels; young as he was, he merited the friendship of Hubert Languet. He also gained just and high reputation for the manner in which he acquitted himself of an embassy to the protestant princes of Germany, though somewhat of the ostentation and family pride of a Dudley was apparent in the port which he thought it necessary to assume on the occasion.After his return, he commenced the life of a courtier; and that indiscriminate thirst for glory which was in some measure the foible of his character, led him into an ostentatious profusion, which, by involving his affairs, rendered it necessary for him to solicit the pecuniary favors of her majesty, and to earn them by some acts of adulation unworthy of his spirit: for all these, however, he made large amends by his noble letter against the French marriage. He afterwards took up, with a zeal and ability highly honorable to his heart and his head, the defence of his father, accused, but finally acquitted, of some stretches of power as lord-deputy of Ireland. This business involved him in disputes with the earl of Ormond, his father's enemy, who seems to have generously overlooked provocations which might have led to more serious consequences, in consideration of the filial feelings of his youthful adversary.
These indications of a bold and forward spirit appear however to have somewhat injured him in the mind of her majesty; his advancement by no means kept pace either with his wishes or his wants; and a subsequent quarrel with the earl of Oxford,—in which he refused to make the concessions required by the queen, reminding her at the same time that it had been her father's policy, and ought to be hers, rather to countenance the gentry against the arrogance of the great nobles than the contrary,—sent him in disgust from court. Retiring to Wilton, the seat of his brother-in-law the earl of Pembroke, he composed the Arcadia. This work he never revised or completed;it was published after his death, probably contrary to his orders; and it is of a kind long since obsolete. Under all these disadvantages, however, though faulty in plan and as a whole tedious, this romance has been found to exhibit extensive learning, a poetical cast of imagination, nice discrimination of character, and, what is far more, a fervor of eloquence in the cause of virtue, a heroism of sentiment and purity of thought, which stamp it for the offspring of a noble mind,—which evince that the workman was superior to his work.
But the world re-absorbed him; and baffled at court he meditated, in correspondence with one of his favorite mottoes,—"Aut viam inveniam aut faciam,"—to join one of the almost piratical expeditions of Drake against the Spanish settlements. Perhaps he might then be diverted from his design by the strong and kind warning of his true friend Languet, "to beware lest the thirst of lucre should creep into a mind which had hitherto admitted nothing but the love of truth and an anxiety to deserve well of all men." After the death of this monitor, however, he engaged in a second scheme of this very questionable nature, and was only prevented from embarking by the arrival of the queen's peremptory orders for his return to court and that of Fulke Greville who accompanied him.
It would certainly be difficult to defend in point of dignity and consistency his conspicuous appearance, as formerly recorded, at the triumph held in honor of the French embassy, or his attendance upon the duke of Anjou on his return to the Netherlands.
The story of his nomination to the throne of Poland deserves little regard; it is certain that such an elevation was never within his possibilities of attainment. His reputation on the continent was however extremely high; Don John of Austria himself esteemed him; the great prince of Orange corresponded with him as a real friend; and Du Plessis Mornay solicited his good offices on behalf of the French protestants. Nothing but the highest praise is due to his conduct in Holland; to the valor of a knight-errant he added the best virtues of a commander and counsellor. Leicester himself apprehended that it would be scarcely possible for him to sustain his high post without the countenance and assistance of his beloved nephew; and the event showed that he was right.
His death was worthy of the best parts of his life; he showed himself to the last devout, courageous, and serene. His wife, the beautiful daughter of Walsingham; his brother Robert, to whom he had performed the part rather of an anxious and indulgent parent than of a brother; and many sorrowing friends, surrounded his bed. Their grief was beyond a doubt sincere and poignant, as well as that of the many persons of letters and of worth who gloried in his friendship and flourished by his bountiful patronage.
On the whole, though justice claims the admission that the character of Sidney was not entirely free from the faults most incident to his age and station, and that neither as a writer, a scholar, a soldier, or a statesman,—in all which characters during the course of his short life he appeared, and appeared withdistinction,—is he yet entitled to the highest rank; it may however be firmly maintained that, as aman, an accomplished and high-souled man, he had among his contemporary countrymen neither equal nor competitor. Such was the verdict in his own times not of flatterers only, or friends, but of England, of Europe; such is the title of merit under which the historian may enroll him, with confidence and with complacency, among the illustrious few whose name and example still serve to kindle in the bosom of youth the animating glow of virtuous emulation.
Leicester never appears in an amiable light except in connexion with his nephew, for whom his affection was not only sincere but ardent. A few extracts from a letter written by him to sir Thomas Heneage, captain of the queen's guards, giving an account of the action in which Sidney received his mortal wound, will illustrate this remark, while it records the gallant exploits of several of his companions in arms.
After relating that sir Philip had gone out with a party to intercept a convoy of the enemy's, he adds, "Many of our horses were hurt and killed, among which was my nephew's own. He went and changed to another, and would needs to the charge again, and once passed those musqueteers, where he received a sore wound upon his thigh, three fingers above his knee, the bone broken quite in pieces; but for which chance, God did send such a day as I think was never many years seen, so few against so many." The earl then enumerates the other commanders and distinguished persons engaged in the action. Colonel Norris,the earl of Essex, sir Thomas Perrot; "and my unfortunate Philip, with sir William Russell, and divers gentlemen; and not one hurt but only my nephew. They killed four of their enemy's chief leaders, and carried the valiant count Hannibal Gonzaga away with them upon a horse; also took captain George Cressier, the principal soldier of the camp, and captain of all the Albanese. My lord Willoughby overthrew him at the first encounter, man and horse. The gentleman did acknowledge it himself. There is not a properer gentleman in the world towards than this lord Willoughby is; but I can hardly praise one more than another, they all did so well; yet every one had his horse killed or hurt. And it was thought very strange that sir William Stanley with three hundred of his men should pass, in spite of so many musquets, such troops of horse three several times, making them remove their ground, and to return with no more loss than he did. Albeit, I must say it, it was too much loss for me; for this young man, he was my greatest comfort, next her majesty, of all the world; and if I could buy his life with all I have, to my shirt I would give it. How God will dispose of him I know not, but fear I must needs, greatly, the worst; the blow in so dangerous a place and so great; yet did I never hear of any man that did abide the dressing and setting of his bones better than he did; and he was carried afterwards in my barge to Arnheim, and I hear this day, he is still of good heart, and comforteth all about him as much as may be. God of his mercy grant me his life! which I cannot but doubt of greatly.I was abroad that time in the field giving some order to supply that business, which did endure almost two hours in continual fight; and meeting Philip coming upon his horseback, not a little to my grief. But I would you had stood by to hear his most loyal speeches to her majesty; his constant mind to the cause; his loving care over me, and his most resolute determination for death, not one jot appalled for his blow; which is the most grievous I ever saw with such a bullet; riding so a long mile and a half upon his horse, ere he came to the camp; not ceasing to speak still of her majesty, being glad if his hurt and death might any way honor her majesty; for hers he was whilst he lived, and God's he was sure to be if he died. Prayed all men to think the cause was as well her majesty's as the country's; and not to be discouraged; for you have seen such success as may encourage us all; and this my hurt is the ordinance of God by the hap of the war. Well, I pray God, if it be his will, save me his life; even as well for her majesty's service sake, as for mine own comfort[95]."
Sir Henry Sidney was spared the anguish of following such a son to the grave, having himself quitted the scene a few months before. It was in 1578 that he received orders to resign the government of Ireland, having become obnoxious to the gentlemen of the English pale by his rigor in levying certain assessments for the maintenance of troops and the expenses of his own household, which they affirmed to be illegally imposed. There is every reason to believe thattheir complaint was well founded; but Elizabeth, refusing as usual to allow her prerogative to be touched, imprisoned several Irish lawyers, who came to England to appeal against the tax; and sir Henry, being able to prove that he had royal warrant for what he had done, was finally exonerated by the privy-council from all the charges which had been preferred against him, and retained to the last his office of lord-president of Wales.
The sound judgement of sir Henry Sidney taught him, that his near connexion with the earl of Leicester had its dangers as well as its advantages; and observing the turn for show and expense with which it served to inspire the younger members of his family, he would frequently enjoin them "to consider more whose sons than whose nephews they were." In fact, he was not able to lay up fortunes for them;—the offices he held were higher in dignity than emolument; his spirit was noble and munificent; and the following, among other anecdotes, may serve to show that he himself was not averse to a certain degree of parade; at least on particular occasions. The queen, standing once at a window of her palace at Hampton-court, saw a gentleman approach escorted by two hundred attendants on horseback; and turning to her courtiers, she asked with some surprise, who this might be? But on being informed that it was sir Henry Sidney, her lord deputy of Ireland and president of Wales, she answered, "And he may well do it, for he has two of the best offices in my kingdom."
The following letter, addressed to sir Henry aslord-president of Wales, discloses an additional trait of his character, which cannot fail to recommend him still more to the esteem of a humane and enlightened age;—his reluctance, namely, to lend his concurrence to the measures of religious persecution which the queen and her bishops now urged upon all persons in authority as their incumbent duty.
Sir Francis Walsingham to sir H. Sidney lord president of Wales.
"My very good lord;
"My lords of late calling here to remembrance the commission that was more than a year ago given out to your lordship and certain others for the reformation of the recusants and obstinate persons in religion, within Wales and the marches thereof, marvelled very much that in all this time they have heard of nothing done by you and the rest; and truly, my lord, the necessity of this time requiring so greatly to have these kind of men diligently and sharply proceeded against, there will here a very hard construction be made, I fear me, of you, to retain with you the said commission so long, doing no good therein. Of late now I received your lordship's letter touching such persons as you think meet to have the custody and oversight of Montgomery Castle, by which it appeareth you have begun, in your present journeys in Wales, to do somewhat in causes of religion; but having a special commission for that purpose, in which are named special and very apt persons to join with you in those matters, it will be thought strange to my lords to hearof your proceeding in those causes without their assistance; and therefore, to the end their lordships should conceive no otherwise than well of your dealing without them, I have forborne to acquaint them with our late letter, wishing your lordship, for the better handling and success of those matters in religion, you called unto you the bishop of Worcester, Mr. Philips, and certain others specially named in the commission. They will, I am sure, be glad to wait on you in so good a service, and your proceeding together with them in these matters will be better allowed of here, &c.
"P.S. Your lordship had need to walk warily, for your doings are narrowly observed, and her majesty is apt to give ear to any that shall ill you. Great hold is taken by your enemies for neglecting the execution of this commission.
"Oatlands, August 9th 1580[96]."
Leicester, soon after the death of his nephew, placed his army in winter-quarters, having effected no one object of importance. The States remonstrated with him in strong terms on the various and grievous abuses of his administration; he answered them in the tone of graciousness and conciliation which it suited his purpose to assume; and publicly surrendering up to them the whole apparent authority of the provinces, whilst by a secret act of restriction he in fact retained for himself full command over all the governors of towns and provinces, he set sail for England.
Elizabeth received her favorite with her usual complacency, either because his abject submissions had in reality succeeded in banishing from her mind all resentment of his conduct in Holland, or because she required the support of his long-tried counsels under the awful responsibilities of that impending conflict with the whole collected force of the Spanish monarchy for which she felt herself summoned to prepare. The king of Denmark, astonished to behold a princess of Elizabeth's experienced caution involving herself with seeming indifference in peril so great and so apparent, exclaimed, that she had now taken the diadem from her brow to place it on the doubtful cast of war; and trembling for the fate of his friend and ally, he dispatched an ambassador in haste to offer her his mediation for the adjustment of all differences arising out of the revolt of the Netherlands. But Elizabeth firmly, though with thanks, declined all overtures towards a reconciliation with a sovereign whom she now recognised as her implacable and determined foe.
She was far, however, from despising the danger which she braved; and with a prudence and diligence equal to her fortitude, she had begun to assemble and put in action all her means, internal and external, of defence and annoyance. She linked herself still more closely, by benefits and promises, with the prince of Condé, chief of the Hugonots now in arms against the League, or Catholic association, formed in France under the auspices of the king of Spain. With the king of Scots also she entered into an intimate alliance; and she had previously secured the friendshipof all the protestant princes of Germany and the northern powers of Europe. She now openly avowed the enterprises of Drake, which she had hitherto only encouraged underhand, or on certain pretexts of retaliation; and she sent him with a fleet of twenty-one ships, carrying above eleven thousand soldiers, to make war upon the Spanish settlements in the West Indies.
But if all these measures seemed likely to afford her kingdom sufficient means of protection against the attacks of a foreign enemy, it was difficult for her to regard her own person as equally well secured against the dark conspiracies of her catholic subjects, instigated as they were by the sanguinary maxims of the Romish see, fostered by the atrocious activity of the emissaries of Philip, and sanctioned by the authority of the queen of Scots, to whom homage was rendered by her party as rightful sovereign of the British isles.
During the festival of Easter 1586, some English priests of the seminary at Rheims had encouraged a fanatical soldier named Savage to vow the death of the queen. About the same time Ballard, also a priest of this seminary, was concerting in France, with Mendoça and the fugitive lord Paget, the means of procuring an invasion of the country during the absence of its best troops in Flanders. Repairing to England, Ballard communicated both these schemes to Anthony Babington, a gentleman who had been gained over on a visit to France by the bishop of Glasgow, Mary's ambassador there, and whose vehement attachmentto her cause had rendered him capable of any enterprise, however criminal or desperate, for her deliverance. Babington entered into both plots with eagerness; but he suggested, that so essential a part of the action as the assassination of the queen ought not to be intrusted to one adventurer; and he lost no time in associating five others in the vow of Savage, himself undertaking the part of setting free the captive Mary. With her he had previously been in correspondence, having frequently taken the charge of transmitting to her by secret channels her letters from France; and he immediately imparted to her this new design for her restoration to liberty and advancement to the English throne. There is full evidence that Mary approved it in all its parts; that in several successive letters she gave Babington counsels or directions relative to its execution; and that she promised to the perpetrators of the murder of Elizabeth every reward which it should hereafter be in her power to bestow.
All this time the vigilant eye of Walsingham was secretly fixed on the secure conspirators. He held a thread which vibrated to their every motion, and he was patiently awaiting the moment of their complete entanglement to spring forth and seize his victims.
To the queen, and to her only, he communicated the daily intelligence which he received from a spy who had introduced himself into all their secrets; and Elizabeth had the firmness to hasten nothing, though a picture was actually shown her, in which the six assassins had absurdly caused themselves to be represented with a motto underneath intimating theircommon design. These dreadful visages remained however so perfectly impressed on her memory, that she immediately recognised one of the conspirators who had approached very near her person as she was one day walking in her garden. She had the intrepidity to fix him with a look which daunted him; and afterwards, turning to her captain of the guards, she remarked that she was well guarded, not having a single armed man at the time about her.
At length Walsingham judged it time to interpose and rescue his sovereign from her perilous situation. Ballard was first seized, and soon after Babington and his associates. All, overcome by terror or allured by vain hopes, severally and voluntarily confessed their guilt and accused their accomplices. The nation was justly exasperated against the partakers in a plot which comprised foreign invasion, domestic insurrection, the assassination of a beloved sovereign, the elevation to the throne of her feared and hated rival, and the restoration of popery. The traitors suffered, notwithstanding the interest which the extreme youth and good moral characters of most or all of them were formed to inspire, amid the execrations of the protestant spectators. But what was to be the fate of that "pretender to the crown," on whose behalf and with whose privity this foul conspiracy had been entered into, and who was by the late statute, passed with a view to this very case, liable to condign punishment?
This was now the important question which awaited the decision of Elizabeth, and divided the judgements of her most confidential counsellors. Someadvised that the royal captive should be spared the ignominy of any public proceeding; but that her attendants should be removed, and her custody rendered so severe as to preclude all possibility of her renewing her pestilent intrigues. Leicester, in conformity with the baseness and atrocity of his character, is related to have suggested the employment of treachery against the life of a prisoner whom it appeared equally dangerous to spare or to punish; and to have sent a divine to convince Walsingham of the lawfulness of taking her off by poison. But that minister rejected the proposal with abhorrence, and concurred with the majority of the council in urging the queen to bring her without fear or scruple to an open trial. In favor of this measure Elizabeth at length decided, and steps were taken accordingly.
By means of well concerted precautions, Mary had been kept in total ignorance of the apprehension of the conspirators, till their confessions had been made and their fates decided:—a gentleman was then sent to her from the court to announce that all was discovered.
It was just as she had mounted her horse to take her usual exercise with her keepers, that this alarming message was delivered to her; and for obvious reasons she was compelled to proceed on her excursion, instead of returning, as she desired, to her chamber. Meantime all her papers were seized, sealed up, and conveyed to the queen. Amongst them were letters from a large proportion of the nobility and other leading characters of the English court, filled withexpressions of attachment to the person of the queen of Scots and sympathy in her misfortunes, not unmixed, in all probability, with severe reflections on the conduct of her rival and oppressor. All these Elizabeth perused, and no doubt stored up in her memory; but her good sense and prudence supplied on this occasion the place of magnanimity; and well knowing that the conscious fears of the writers would be ample security for their future conduct, she buried in lasting silence and apparent oblivion all the discoveries which had reached her through this channel.
The principal domestics of Mary were now apprehended, and committed to different keepers; and Nau and Curl her two secretaries were sent prisoners to London. She herself was immediately removed from Tutbury, and conveyed with a great attendance of the neighbouring gentry, and with pauses at several noblemen's houses by the way, to the strong castle of Fotheringay in Northamptonshire. This part of the business was safely and prudently conducted by sir Amias Paulet; and he received for his encouragement and reward the following characteristic letter, subscribed by the hand of her majesty, and surely of her own inditing.
"To my faithful Amias.
"Amias, my most careful servant, God reward thee treble fold in the double for thy most troublesome charge so well discharged! If you knew, my Amias, how kindly, besides dutifully, my grateful heart accepteth your double labors and faithful actions, yourwise orders and safe conduct performed in so dangerous and crafty a charge, it would ease your troubles and rejoice your heart. And (which I charge you to carry this most just thought) that I cannot balance in any weight of my judgement the value I prize you at: And suppose no treasure to countervail such a faith: And condemn myself in that fault which I have committed, if I reward not such deserts. Yea, let me lack when I have most need, if I acknowledge not such a merit with a reward 'non omnibus datum.'
"But let your wicked mistress know, how with hearty sorrow her vile deserts compel those orders; and bid her from me ask God forgiveness for her treacherous dealing toward the saver of her life many years, to the intolerable peril of her own. And yet, not content with so many forgivenesses, must fall again so horribly, far passing a woman, much more a princess. Instead of excusing thereof, not one can serve, it being so plainly confessed by the authors of my guiltless death.
"Let repentance take place; and let not the fiend possess so as her best part be lost. Which I pray, with hands lifted up to him that may both save and spill. With my loving adieu and prayer for thy long life,
"Your assured and loving sovereign in heart,
by good desert induced,
"Eliz. R."
Soon, after the arrival of Mary at Fotheringay, Elizabeth, according to the provisions of the late act,issued out a commission to forty noblemen and privy-councillors, empowering them to try and pass sentence upon Mary daughter and heir of king James V. and late queen of Scots; for it was thus that she was designated, with a view of intimating to her that she was no longer to be regarded as possessing the rights of a sovereign princess. Thirty-six of the commissioners repaired immediately to Fotheringay, where they arrived on October 9th 1586, and cited Mary to appear before them. This summons she refused to obey, on the double ground, that as an absolute princess she was free from all human jurisdiction, since kings only could be her peers; and that having been detained in England as a prisoner, she had not enjoyed the protection of the laws, and consequently ought not in equity to be regarded as amenable to their sentence. Weighty as these objections may appear, the commissioners refused to admit them, and declared that they would proceed to judge her by default. This menace she at first disregarded; but soon after, overcome by the artful representations of Hatton on the inferences which must inevitably be drawn from her refusal to justify herself for the satisfaction of a princess who had declared that she desired nothing so much as the establishment of her innocence, she changed her mind and consented to plead. None of her papers were restored, no counsel was assigned her; and her request that her two secretaries, whose evidence was princicipally relied on by the prosecutors, might be confronted with her, was denied. But all these were hardships customarily inflicted on prisoners accused of high treasonand it does not appear that, with respect to its forms and modes of proceedings, Mary had cause to complain that her trial was other than a regular and legal one.
On her first appearance she renewed her protestation against the competence of the tribunal. Bromley lord-chancellor answered her, showing the jurisdiction of the English law over all persons within the country; and the commissioners ordered both the objection and the reply to be registered, as if to save the point of law; but it does not appear that it was ever referred for decision to any other authority.
Intercepted letters, authenticated by the testimony of her secretaries, formed the chief evidence against Mary. From these the crown lawyers showed, and she did not attempt to deny, that she had suffered her correspondents to address her as queen of England; that she had endeavoured by means of English fugitives to incite the Spaniards to invade the country; and that she had been negotiating at Rome the terms of a transfer of all her claims, present and future, to the king of Spain, disinheriting by this unnatural act her own schismatic son. The further charge of having concurred in the late plot for the assassination of Elizabeth, she strongly denied and attempted to disprove; but it stood on equally good evidence with all the rest; and in spite of some suggestions of which her modern partisans have endeavoured to give her the benefit, there appears no solid foundation on which an impartial inquirer can rest any doubt of the fact.
The deportment of Mary on this trying emergencyexhibited somewhat of the dignity, but more of the spirit and adroitness, for which she has been famed. She justified her negotiations, or intrigues, with foreign princes, on the ground of her inalienable right to employ all the means within her power for the recovery of that liberty of which she had been cruelly and unjustly deprived. With great effrontery she persisted in denying that she had ever entertained with Babington any correspondence whatever; and she urged that his pretending to receive, or having in fact received, letters written in her cipher, was no conclusive proof against her; since it was the same which she used in her French correspondence, and might have fallen into other hands. But finding herself hard pressed by evidence on this part of the subject, she afterwards hazarded a rash attempt to fix on Walsingham the imputation of having suborned witnesses and forged letters for her destruction. The aged minister, greatly moved by this attack upon his character, immediately rose and asserted his innocence in a manner so solemn, and with such circumstantial corroboration, as compelled her to retract the accusation with an apology.
On some mention of the earl of Arundel and lord William Howard his brother, which occurred in the intercepted letters, she sighed, and exclaimed with a feeling which did her honor, "Alas, what has not the noble house of Howard suffered for my sake!"
On the whole, her presence of mind was remarkable; though the quick sensibilities of her nature could not be withheld from breaking out at times, either in vehement sallies of anger or long fits of weeping, asthe sense of past and present injuries, or of her forlorn and afflicted state and the perils and sufferings which still menaced her, rose by turns upon her agitated and affrighted mind.
The commissioners, after a full hearing, of the cause, quitted Fotheringay, and, meeting again in the Star-chamber summoned before them the two secretaries, who voluntarily confirmed on oath the whole of their former depositions: after this, they proceeded to an unanimous sentence of death against Mary, which was immediately transmitted to the queen for her approbation. On the same day a declaration was published on the part of the commissioners and judges, importing, that the sentence did in no manner derogate from the titles and honors of the king of Scots.
Most of the subsequent steps taken by Elizabeth in this unhappy business are marked with the features of that intense selfishness which, scrupling nothing for the attainment of its own mean objects, seldom fails by exaggerated efforts and overstrained manœuvres to expose itself to detection and merited contempt.
Never had she enjoyed a higher degree of popularity than at this juncture: the late discoveries had opened to view a series of popish machinations which had fully justified, in the eyes of an alarmed and irritated people, even those previous measures of severity on the part of her government which had most contributed to provoke these attempts.
The queen was more than ever the heroine of the protestant party; and the image of those imminent and hourly perils to which her zeal in the good cause hadexposed her, inflamed to enthusiasm the sentiment of loyalty. On occasion of the detection of Babington's plot, the whole people gave themselves up to rejoicings. Sixty bonfires, says the chronicler, were kindled between Ludgate and Charing-Cross, and tables were set out in the open streets at which happy neighbours feasted together. The condemnation of the queen of Scots produced similar demonstrations. After her sentence had been ratified by both houses of parliament, it was thought expedient, probably by way of feeling the pulse of the people, that solemn proclamation of it should be made in London by the lord-mayor and city officers, and by the magistrates of the county in Westminster. The multitude, untouched by the long misfortunes of an unhappy princess born of the blood-royal of England and heiress to its throne,—insensible too of every thing arbitrary, unprecedented, or unjust, in the treatment to which she had been subjected, received the notification of her doom with expressions of triumph and exultation truly shocking. Bonfires were lighted, church bells were rung, and every street and lane throughout the city resounded with psalms of thanksgiving[97].
It is manifest, therefore, that no deference for the opinions or feelings of her subjects compelled Elizabeth to hesitate or to dissemble in this matter.
Had she permitted the execution of the sentence simply, and without delay, all orders of men attached to the protestant establishment would have approvedit as an act fully justified by state-expediency and the law of self-defence; and though misgivings might have arisen in the minds of some on cooler reflection, when alarm had subsided and the bitterness of satiated revenge had begun to make itself felt,—these "compunctious visitings" could have led to no consequences capable of alarming her. It must have been felt as highly inequitable to reproach the queen, when all was past and irrevocable, for the consent which she had afforded to a deed sanctioned by a law, ratified by the legislature and applauded by the people, and from which both church and state had reaped the fruits of security and peace. Foreign princes also would have respected the vigor of this proceeding; they would not have been displeased to see themselves spared by a decisive act the pain of making disregarded representations on such a subject; and a secret consciousness that few of their number would have scrupled under all the circumstances to take like vengeance on a deadly foe and rival, might further have contributed to reconcile them to the fact. Even as it was, pope Sixtus V. himself could scarcely restrain his expressions of admiration at the completion of so strong a measure as the final execution of the sentence: his holiness had indeed a strange passion for capital punishments, and he is said to have envied the queen of England the glorious satisfaction of cutting off a royal head:—a sentiment not much more extraordinary from such a personage, than the ardent desire which he is reported to have expressed, that it were possible for him to have a son by this heretic princess;because the offspring of such parents could not fail, he said, to make himself king of the world.
But it was the weakness of Elizabeth to imagine, that an extraordinary parade of reluctance, and the interposition of some affected delays, would change in public opinion the whole character of the deed which she contemplated, and preserve to her the reputation of feminine mildness and sensibility, without the sacrifice of that great revenge on which she was secretly bent. The world, however, when it has no interest in deceiving itself, is too wise to accept of words instead of deeds, or in opposition to them; and the sole result of her artifices was to aggravate in the eyes of all mankind the criminality of the act, by giving it rather the air of a treacherous and cold-blooded murder, than of solemn execution done upon a formidable culprit by the sentence of offended laws. The parliament which Elizabeth had summoned to partake the odium of Mary's death, met four days after the judges had pronounced her doom, and was opened by commission. An unanimous ratification of the sentence by both houses was immediately carried, and followed by an earnest address to her majesty for its publication and execution; to which she returned a long and labored answer.
She began with the expression of her fervent gratitude to Providence for the affections of her people; adding protestations of her love towards them, and of her perfect willingness to have suffered her own life still to remain exposed as a mark to the aim of enemies and traitors, had she not perceived how intimatelythe safety and well-being of the nation was connected with her own. With regard to the queen of Scots, she said, so severe had been the grief which she had sustained from her recent conduct, that the fear of renewing this sentiment had been the cause, and the sole cause, of her withholding her personal appearance at the opening of that assembly, where she knew that the subject must of necessity become matter of discussion; and not, as had been suggested, the apprehension of any violence to be attempted against her person;—yet she might mention, that she had actually seen a bond by which the subscribers bound themselves to procure her death within a month.
So far was she from indulging any ill will against one of the same sex, the same rank, the same race as herself,—in fact her nearest kinswoman,—that after having received full information of certain of her machinations, she had secretly written with her own hand to the queen of Scots, promising that, on a simple confession of her guilt in a private letter to herself, all should be buried in oblivion. She doubted not that the ancient laws of the land would have been sufficient to reach the guilt of her who had been the great artificer of the recent treasons; and she had consented to the passing of the late statute, not for the purpose of ensnaring her, but rather to give her warning of the danger in which she stood. Her lawyers, from their strict attachment to ancient forms, would have brought this princess to trial within the county of Stafford, have compelled her to hold up her hand at the bar, and have caused twelve jurymen to pass judgementupon her. But to her it had appeared more suitable to the dignity of the prisoner and the importance of the cause to refer the examination to the judges, nobles, and counsellors of the realm;—happy if even thus she could escape that ready censure to which the conspicuous station of sovereigns on all occasions exposed them.
The statute, by requiring her to pronounce judgement upon her kinswoman, had involved her in anxiety and difficulties. Amid all her perils, however, she must remember with gratitude and affection the voluntary association into which her subjects had entered for her defence. It was never her practice to decide hastily on any matter; in a case so rare and important some interval of deliberation must be allowed her; and she would pray Heaven to enlighten her mind, and guide it to the decision most beneficial to the church, to the state, and to the people.
Twelve days after the delivery of this speech, her majesty sent a message to both houses, entreating that her parliament would carefully reconsider the matter, and endeavour to hit upon some device by which the life of the queen of Scots might be rendered consistent with her own safety and that of the country. Her faithful parliament, however, soon after acquainted her, that with their utmost diligence they had found it impracticable to form any satisfactory plan of the kind she desired; and the speakers of the two houses ended a long representation of the mischiefs to be expected from any arrangement by which Mary would be suffered to continue in life, with a most earnest and humble petition, that her majesty would not longer denyto the united wishes and entreaties of all England, what it would be iniquitous to refuse to the meanest individual; the execution of justice.
Elizabeth, after pronouncing a second long harangue designed to display her own clemency, to upbraid the malice of her libellers, and to refute the suspicion, which her conscience no doubt helped her to anticipate, that all this irresolution was but feigned, and that the decisions of the two houses were influenced by a secret acquaintance with her wishes,—again dismissed their petitions without any positive answer. Soon after, however, she permitted herself to authorize the proclamation of the sentence, and sent lord Buckhurst, and Beal clerk of the council, to announce it to Mary herself.
During the whole of this time, the kings of France and of Scotland were interceding by their ambassadors for the pardon of the illustrious prisoner. How the representations of Henry III. were received, we do not find minutely recorded; but Elizabeth knew that they might be safely disregarded: that monarch was himself too much a sufferer by the arrogance and ambition of the house of Guise, to be very strenuous in his friendship towards any one so nearly connected with it; and it is even said that, while a sense of decorum extorted from him in public some energetic expressions of the interest taken by him in the fate of a sister-in-law and queen-dowager of France, a sentiment of regard for Elizabeth, his friend and ally, prompted him to counsel her, through a secret agent, to execute the sentence with the least possible delay. Of thetreatment experienced by the master of Gray, the envoy of James, we gain some particulars from an original memorial drawn up by himself.
He appears to have reached Ware on December 24th, whence he sent to desire Keith and Douglas, the resident Scotch ambassadors, to announce to the queen his approach; and she voluntarily promised that the life of Mary should be spared till his proposals were heard. His reception in London was somewhat ungracious;—no one was sent to welcome or convoy him, and it was ten days before he and sir Robert Melvil his coadjutor were admitted to an audience. Elizabeth's first address to them was, "A thing long looked for should be welcome when it comes; I would now see your master's offers." Gray desired first to be assured that the cause for which those offers were made was "still extant;" that is, that the life of Mary was still safe, and should be so till their mission had been heard. She answered, "I think it be extant yet, but I will not promise for an hour." They then brought forward certain proposals, not here recited, which she rejected with contempt; and calling in Leicester, the lord-admiral, and Hatton, "very despitefully" repeated them in hearing of them all. Gray then propounded his last offer:—that the queen of Scots should resign all her claims upon the English succession to her son, by which means the hopes of the papists would, as he said, be cut off. The terms in which this overture was made Elizabeth affected not to understand; Leicester explained their meaning to be, that the king of Scots should be put in hismother's place. "Is it so?" the queen answered; "then I put myself in a worse case than before:—By God's passion, that were to cut my own throat; and for a duchy or an earldom to yourself, you, or such as you, would cause some of your desperate knaves to kill me. No, by God, he shall never be in that place!" Gray answered, "He craves nothing of your majesty, but only of his mother." "That," said Leicester, "were to make himparty(rival or adversary) to the queen my mistress." "He will be far more party," replied Gray, "if he be in her place through her death." Her majesty exclaimed, that she should not have a worse in his mother's place, and added; "Tell your king what good I have done for him in holding the crown on his head since he was born, and that Imind(intend) to keep the league that now stands between us, and if he break it, it shall be a double fault." With this speech she would have left them; but they persisted in arguing the matter further, though in vain. Gray then requested that Mary's life might be spared for fifteen days; the queen refused: sir Robert Melvil begged for only eight days; she said not for an hour, and so quitted them.
After this, the Scotch ambassadors assumed a tone of menace: but the perfidious Gray secretly fortified Elizabeth's resolution with the proverb, "The dead cannot bite;" and undertook soon to pacify, in any event, the anger of his master, whose minion he at this time was.
No sooner had Elizabeth silenced with this show of inflexibility all the pleadings or menaces by which others had attempted to divert her from her fatal aim,than she began, as in the affair of the French marriage, to feel her own resolution waver. It appears unquestionable that to affected delays a real hesitation succeeded. When her pride was no longer irritated by opposition, she had leisure to survey the meditated deed in every light; and as it rose upon her view in all its native deformity, anxious fears for her own fame and credit, yet untainted by any crime, and perhaps genuine scruples of conscience, forcibly assailed her resolution. But her ministers, deeply sensible that both she and they had already gone too far to recede with reputation or with safety, encountered her growing reluctance with a proportional increase in the vehemence of their clamors for what they called, and perhaps thought, justice. All the hazards to which her excess of clemency might be imagined to expose her, were conjured up in the most alarming forms to repel her scruples. A plot for her assassination was disclosed, to which the French ambassador was ascertained to have been privy;—rumors were raised of invasions and insurrections; and it may be suspected that the queen, really alarmed in the first instance by the representations of her council, voluntarily contributed afterwards to keep up these delusions for the sake of terrifying the minds of men into an approval of the deed of blood.