Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth Part 15

During the period of these hostilities, however, her situation was an anxious one. It was greatly to be feared that the emperor and the king of Spain, forgetting in their zeal for the catholic church the habitual enmity of the house of Austria against that of Bourbon, would make common cause with France against a sovereign who now stood forth the avowed protectress of protestantism; and such a combination of the great powers of Europe, seconded by a large catholic party at home, England was by no means in a condition to withstand. By skilful negotiation it seemed possible to avert these evils; and Elizabeth, by her selection of diplomatic agents on this important occasion, gave striking evidence of her superior judgement.

To plead her cause with the king of Spain, she dispatched Anthony Browne viscount Montacute; a n.o.bleman who, to the general recommendation of wisdom and experience in public affairs, added the peculiar one, for this service, of a zealous attachment to the Romish faith, proved by his determined opposition in the house of lords to the bill of uniformity lately carried by a great majority. The explanations and arguments of the viscount prevailed so far with Philip, that he ordered his amba.s.sador at Rome to oppose the endeavours of the French court to prevail on the pope to fulminate his ecclesiastical censures against Elizabeth. It was found impracticable, however, to bring him to terms of cordial amity with a heretic sovereign whose principles he both detested and dreaded; and by returning, some time after, the decorations of the order of the garter, he distinctly intimated to the queen, that motives of policy alone restrained him from becoming her open enemy.

For amba.s.sador to the emperor she made choice, at the recommendation probably of Cecil, of his relation and beloved friend sir Thomas Chaloner the elder, a statesman, a soldier, and a man of letters; and in these three characters, so rarely united, one of the distinguished ornaments of his age. He was born in 1515 of a good family in Wales, and, being early sent to Cambridge, became known as a very elegant Latin poet, and generally as a young man of the most promising talents. After a short residence at court, his merit caused him to be selected to attend into Germany sir Henry Knevet the English amba.s.sador, with a view to his qualifying himself for future diplomatic employment. At the court of Charles V. he was received with extraordinary favor; and after waiting upon that monarch, in several of his journeys, he was at length induced, by admiration of his character, to accompany him as a volunteer in his rash expedition against Algiers. He was shipwrecked in the storm which almost destroyed the fleet, and only escaped drowning by catching in his mouth, as he was struggling with the waves, a cable, by which he was drawn up into a ship with the loss of several of his teeth.

Returning home, he was made clerk of the council, which office he held during the remainder of Henry's reign. Early in the next he was distinguished by the protector, and, having signalized his valor in the battle of Pinkey, was knighted by him on the field. The fall of his patron put a stop to his advancement; but he solaced himself under this reverse by the cultivation of literature, and of friendship with such men as Cook, Smith, Cheke, and Cecil. The strictness of his protestant principles rendered his situation under the reign of Mary both disagreeable and hazardous, and he generously added to its perils by his strenuous exertions in behalf of the unfortunate Cheke; but the services which he had rendered in Edward's time to many of the oppressed catholics now interested their grat.i.tude in his protection, and were thus the means of preserving him unhurt for better times.

Soon after his return from his emba.s.sy to the emperor Ferdinand, we find him engaged in a very perplexing and disagreeable mission to the unfriendly court of Philip II., where the mortifications which he encountered, joined to the insalubrity of the climate, so impaired his health that he found himself obliged to solicit his recall, which he did in an Ovidian elegy addressed to the queen. The pet.i.tion of the poet was granted, but too late; he sunk under a lingering malady in October 1565, a few months after his return.

The poignant grief of Cecil for his loss found its best alleviation in the exemplary performance of all the duties of surviving friendship. He officiated as chief mourner at his funeral, and superintended with solicitude truly paternal the education of his son, Thomas Chaloner the younger, afterwards a distinguished character. By his encouragement, the Latin poems of his friend, chiefly consisting of epitaphs and panegyrics on his most celebrated contemporaries, were collected and published; and it was under his patronage, and prefaced by a Latin poem from his pen in praise of the author, that a new and complete edition appeared of the princ.i.p.al work of this accomplished person;--a tractate "on the right ordering of the English republic," also in Latin.

Sir Thomas Chaloner was the first amba.s.sador named by Elizabeth; a distinction of which he proved himself highly deserving. Wisdom and integrity he was already known to possess; and in his negotiations with the imperial court, where it was his business to draw the bonds of amity as close as should be found practicable without pledging his mistress to the acceptance of the hand of the archduke Charles, he also manifested a degree of skill and dexterity which drew forth the warmest commendations from Elizabeth herself. His conduct, she said, had far exceeded all her expectations of his prudence and abilities.

This testimony may be allowed to give additional weight to his opinion on a point of great delicacy in the personal conduct of her majesty, as well as on some more general questions of policy, expressed in a postscript to one of his official letters to secretary Cecil. The letter, it should be observed, was written near the close of the year 1559, when the favor of the queen to Dudley had first become a subject of general remark, and before all hopes were lost of her finally closing with the proposals of the archduke.

"I a.s.sure you, sir, these folks are broad-mouthed where I spake of one too much in favor, as they esteem. I think ye guess whom they named; if ye do not, I will upon my next letters write further. To tell you what I conceive; as I count the slander most false, so a young princess cannot be too wary what countenance or familiar demonstration she maketh, more to one than another. I judge no man's service in the realm worth the entertainment with such a tale of obloquy, or occasion of speech to such men as of evil will are ready to find faults. This delay of ripe time for marriage, besides the loss of the realm (for without posterity of her highness what hope is left unto us?) ministereth matter to these leud tongues to descant upon, and breedeth contempt. I would I had but one hour's talk with you. Think if I trusted not your good nature, I would not write thus much; which nevertheless I humbly pray you to reserve as written to yourself.

"Consider how ye deal now in the emperor's matter: much dependeth on it.

Here they hang in expectation as men desirous it should go forward, but yet they have small hope: In mine opinion (be it said to you only) the affinity is great and honorable: The amity necessary to stop and cool many enterprises. Ye need not fear his greatness should overrule you; he is not a Philip, but better for us than a Philip. Let the time work for Scotland as G.o.d will, for sure the French, I believe, shall never long enjoy them: and when we be stronger and more ready, we may proceed with that, that is yet unripe. The time itself will work, when our great neighbours fall out next. In the mean time settle we things begun; and let us arm and fortify our frontiers." &c.[46]

[Note 46: "Burleigh Papers," by Haynes, p. 212.]

Sufficient evidence remains that the sentiments of Cecil respecting the queen's behaviour to Dudley coincided with those of his friend, and that fears for her reputation gave additional urgency about this period to those pleadings in favor of matrimony which her council were doomed to press upon her attention so often and so much in vain. But a circ.u.mstance occurred soon after which totally changed the nature of their apprehensions respecting her future conduct, and rendered her antic.i.p.ated choice of a husband no longer an object of hope and joy, but of general dissatisfaction and alarm.

Just when the whispered scandal of the court had apprized him how obvious to all beholders the partiality of his sovereign had become,--just when her rejection of the proposals of so many foreign princes had confirmed the suspicion that her heart had given itself at home,--just, in short, when every thing conspired to sanction hopes which under any other circ.u.mstances would have appeared no less visionary than presumptuous,--at the very juncture most favorable to his ambition, but most perilous to his reputation, lord Robert Dudley lost his wife, and by a fate equally sudden and mysterious.

This unfortunate lady had been sent by her husband, under the conduct of sir Richard Verney, one of his retainers,--but for what reason or under what pretext does not appear,--to c.u.mnor House in Berkshire, a solitary mansion inhabited by Anthony Foster, also a dependent of Dudley's and bound to him by particular obligations. Here she soon after met with her death; and Verney and Foster, who appear to have been alone in the house with her, gave out that it happened by an accidental fall down stairs. But this account, from various causes, gained so little credit in the neighbourhood, that reports of the most sinister import were quickly propagated. These discourses soon reached the ears of Thomas Lever, a prebendary of Coventry and a very conscientious person, who immediately addressed to the secretaries of state an earnest letter, still extant, beseeching them to cause strict inquiry to be made into the case, as it was commonly believed that the lady had been murdered: but he mentioned no particular grounds of this belief, and it cannot now be ascertained whether any steps were taken in consequence of his application. If there were, they certainly produced no satisfactory explanation of the circ.u.mstance; for not only the popular voice, which was ever hostile to Dudley, continued to accuse him as the contriver of her fate, but Cecil himself, in a memorandum drawn up some years after of reasons against the queen's making him her husband, mentions among other objections, "that he is infamed by the death of his wife."

Whether the thorough investigation of this matter was evaded by the artifices of Dudley, or whether his enemies, finding it impracticable to bring the crime home to him, found it more advisable voluntarily to drop the inquiry, certain it is, that the queen was never brought in any manner to take cognisance of the affair, and that the credit of Dudley continued as high with her as ever. But in the opinion of the country the favorite pa.s.sed ever after for a dark designer, capable of perpetrating any secret villainy in furtherance of his designs, and skilful enough to conceal his atrocity under a cloak of artifice and hypocrisy impervious to the partial eyes of his royal mistress, though penetrated by all the world besides. This idea of his character caused him afterwards to be accused of practising against the lives of several other persons who were observed to perish opportunely for his purposes.

Each of these charges will be particularly examined in its proper place; but it ought here to be observed, that not one of them appears to be supported by so many circ.u.mstances of probability as the first; and even in support of this, no direct evidence has ever been adduced.

Under all the circ.u.mstances of his situation, Dudley could not venture as yet openly to declare himself the suitor of his sovereign; but she doubtless knew how to interpret both the vehemence of his opposition to the pretensions of the archduke, and the equal vehemence with which those pretensions were supported by an opposite party in her council, of which the earl of Suss.e.x was the head.

Few could yet be persuaded that the avowed determination of the queen in favor of the single state would prove unalterable: most therefore who observed her averseness to a foreign connexion believed that she was secretly meditating to honor with her hand some subject of her own, who could never have a separate interest from that of his country, and whose grat.i.tude for the splendid distinction would secure to her the possession of his lasting attachment.

This idea long served to animate the a.s.siduities of her n.o.bles and courtiers, and two or three besides Dudley were bold enough to publish their pretensions. Secret hopes or wishes were cherished in the bosoms of others; and it thus became a fashion to accost her in language where the pa.s.sionate homage of the lover mingled with the base adulation of the menial. Her personal vanity, triumphant over her good sense and her perceptions of regal dignity, forbade her to discourage a style of address equally disgraceful to those who employed and to her who permitted it; and it was this unfortunate habit of receiving, and at length requiring, a species of flattery which became every year more grossly preposterous, which depraved by degrees her taste, infected her whole disposition, and frequently lent to the wisest sovereign of Europe the disgusting affectation of a heroine of French romance.

Tilts and tournaments were still the favorite amus.e.m.e.nts of all the courts of Europe; and it was in these splendid exhibitions that the rival courtiers of Elizabeth found the happiest occasions of displaying their magnificence, giving proof of their courage and agility, and at the same time insinuating, by a variety of ingenious devices, their hopes and fears, their amorous pains, and their profound devotedness to her service.

In the purer ages of chivalry, no other cognisances on shields were adopted, either in war or in these games which were its image, than the armorial bearings which each warrior had derived from his ancestors, or solemnly received at the hands of the heralds before he entered on his first campaign. But as the spirit of the original inst.i.tution declined, and the French fashion of gallantry began to be engrafted upon it, an innovation had taken place in this matter, which is thus commemorated and deplored by the worthy Camden, Clarencieux king-at-arms, who treats the subject with a minuteness and solemnity truly professional.

"Whoever," says he, "would note the manners of our progenitors,--in wearing their coat-armour over their harness, and bearing their arms in their shields, their banners and pennons, and in what formal manner they were made bannerets, and had license to rear their banner of arms, which they presented rolled up, unto the prince, who unfolded and re-delivered it with happy wishes; I doubt not but he will judge that our ancestors were as valiant and gallant as they have been since they left off their arms and used the colors and curtains of their mistress' bed instead of them." The same author afterwards observes, that these fopperies, as well as the adoption of _impresses_, first prevailed in the expedition of Charles VIII. against Naples in 1494, and that it was about the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII. that the English wits first thought of imitating the French and Italians in the invention of these devices.

An _impress_, it seems, was an emblematical device a.s.sumed at the will of the bearer, and ill.u.s.trated by a suitable motto; whereas the coat of arms had either no motto, or none appropriate. Of this nature therefore was the representation of an English archer, with the words "Cui adhaereo praeest" (He prevails to whom I adhere), used by Henry VIII. at his meeting with Charles and Francis.

Elizabeth delighted in these whimsical inventions. Camden says that she "used upon different occasions so many heroical devices as would require a volume," but most commonly a sieve without a word. Her favorite mottos were "Video taceo" (I see and am silent), and "Semper eadem" (Always the same). Thus patronized, the use of impresses became general. Scarcely a public character of that age, whether statesman, courtier, scholar, or soldier, was unprovided with some distinction of this nature; and at tournaments in particular, the combatants all vied with each other in the invention of occasional devices, sometimes quaintly, sometimes elegantly, expressive of their situation or sentiments, and for the most part conveying some allusion at once gallant and loyal.

It may be worth while to cite a few of the most remarkable of these out of a considerable number preserved by Camden. The prevalence amongst them of astronomical emblems is worthy of observation, as indicative of that general belief of the age in the delusions of judicial astrology, which rendered its terms familiar alike to the learned, the great, and the fair.

A dial with the sun setting, "Occasu desines esse" (Thy being ceases with its setting). The sun shining on a bush, "Si deseris pereo"

(Forsake me, and I perish). The sun reflecting his rays from the bearer, "Quousque avertes" (How long wilt thou avert thy face)? Venus in a cloud, "Salva me, Domina" (Mistress, save me). The letter I, "Omnia ex uno" (All things from one). A fallow field, "At quando messis" (When will be the harvest)? The full moon in heaven, "Quid sine te coelum"

(What is heaven without thee)? Cynthia, it should be observed, was a favorite fancy-name of the queen's; she was also designated occasionally by that of Astraea, whence the following devices. A man hovering in the air, "Feror ad Astraeam" (I am borne to Astraea). The zodiac with Virgo rising, "Jam redit et Virgo" (The Maid returns); and a zodiac with no characters but those of Leo and Virgo, "His ego praesidiis" (With these to friend). A star, "Mihi vita Spica Virginis" (My life is in Spica Virginis)--a star in the left hand of Virgo so called: here the allusion was probably double; to the queen, and to the horoscope of the bearer.

The twelve houses of heaven with neither sign nor planet therein, "Dispone" (Dispose). A white shield, "Fatum inscribat Eliza" (Eliza writes my fate). An eye in a heart, "Vulnus alo" (I feed the wound). A ship sinking and the rainbow appearing, "Quid tu si pereo" (To what avail if I perish)? As the rainbow is an emblem seen in several portraits of the queen, this device probably reproaches some tardy and ineffectual token of her favor. The sun shining on a withered tree which blooms again, "His radiis rediviva viresco" (These rays revive me). A pair of scales, fire in one, smoke in the other, "Ponderare errare" (To weigh is to err).

At one tilt were borne all the following devices, which Camden particularly recommends to the notice and interpretation of the reader.

Many flies about a candle, "Sic splendidiora petuntur" ("Thus brighter things are sought). Drops falling into a fire, "Tamen non extinguenda"

(Yet not to be extinguished). The sun, partly clouded over, casting its rays upon a star, "Tantum quantum" (As much as is vouchsafed). A folded letter, "Lege et relege"[47] (Read and reread).

[Note 47: See Camden's "Remains."]

It would have increased our interest in these very significant impresses, if our author could have informed us who were the respective bearers. Perhaps conjecture would not err in ascribing one of the most expressive to sir William Pickering, a gentleman whose name has been handed down to posterity as an avowed pretender to the royal marriage.

That a person ill.u.s.trious neither by rank nor ancestry, and so little known to fame that no other mention of him occurs in the history of the age, should ever have been named amongst the suitors of his sovereign, is a circ.u.mstance which must excite more curiosity than the scanty biographical records of the time will be found capable of satisfying. A single paragraph of Camden's Annals seems to contain nearly all that can now be learned of a man once so remarkable.

"Nor were lovers wanting at home, who deluded themselves with vain hopes of obtaining her in marriage. Namely sir William Pickering, a man of good family though little wealth, and who had obtained reputation by the cultivation of letters, by the elegance of his manners, and by his emba.s.sies to France and Germany." &c.

Rapin speaks of him as one who was encouraged to hope by some distinguished mark of the queen's favor, which he does not however particularize. Lloyd in his "Worthies" adds nothing to Camden's information but the epithet "comely" applied to his person, the vague statement that "his emba.s.sies in France and Germany were so well managed, that in king Edward's days he was by the council pitched upon as the oracle whereby our agents were to be guided abroad," and a hint that he soon retired from the court of Elizabeth to devote himself to his studies.

The earl of Arundel might be the bearer of another of these devices. We have already seen with what magnificence of homage this n.o.bleman had endeavoured to bespeak the favorable sentiments of his youthful sovereign; and if ill.u.s.trious ancestry, vast possessions, established consequence in the state, and long experience in public affairs, might have sufficed to recommend a subject to her choice, none could have advanced fairer pretensions than the representative of the ancient house of Fitzalan. The advanced age of the earl was indeed an objection of considerable and daily increasing weight; he persevered however in his suit, notwithstanding the queen's visible preference of Dudley and every other circ.u.mstance of discouragement, till the year 1566. Losing then all hopes of success, and becoming sensible at length of pecuniary difficulties from the vast expense which he had lavished on this splendid courtship, he solicited the permission of his royal mistress to retire for a time into Italy.

While it lasted, however, the rivalry of Arundel and Dudley, or rather, in the heraldic phraseology of the day, that of the White Horse and the Bear, divided the court, inflamed the pa.s.sions of the numerous retainers of the respective candidates, and but for the impartial vigilance of Cecil might have ended in deeds of blood.

In the Burleigh Papers is a confession of one Guntor, a servant or retainer of the earl of Arundel, who was punished for certain rash speeches relative to this compet.i.tion, from which we learn some curious particulars. He says, that he once fell in talk with a gentleman named Cotton, who told him, that the queen, having supped one evening at lord Robert Dudley's, it was dark before she could get away; and some servants of the house were sent with torches to light her home. That by the way her highness was pleased to enter into conversation with the torch-bearers, and was reported to have said, that she would make their lord the best that ever was of his name. As the father of lord Robert was a duke, this promise was understood to imply nothing less than her design of marrying him. On this Guntor answered, that he prayed all men might take it well, and that no trouble might arise thereof; afterwards he said, that he thought if a parliament were held, some men would recommend lord Robert, and some his own master to the queen for a husband; and so it might fortune there would rise trouble among the n.o.blemen, adding, "I trust the White Horse will be in quiet, and so shall we be out of trouble; it is well known _his_ blood as yet was never attaint, nor was he ever man of war, wherefore it is likely that we shall sit still; but if he should stomach it, he were able to make a great power." In his zeal for the cause of his lord, he also wished that his rival had been put to death with his father, "or that some ruffian would have dispatched him by the way as he hath gone, with some dag (pistol) or gun."

So high did words run on occasion of this great contest.

CHAPTER XII.

1560.

On the conduct of Elizabeth as head of the church.--Sketch of the history of the reformation in England.--Notices of Parker, Grindal, and Jewel.

There was no part of the regal office the exercise of which appeared so likely to expose Elizabeth to invidious reflections, as that which comprehended the management of ecclesiastical affairs. Few divines, though protestant, could behold without a certain feeling of mingled jealousy and disdain, a female placed at the head of the religion of the country, and by the whole papal party such a supremacy was regarded perhaps as the most horrible, certainly as the most preposterous, of all the prodigies which heresy had yet brought forth. "I have seen the head of the English church dancing!" exclaimed, it is said, with a sarcastic air, an amba.s.sador from one of the catholic courts of Europe.

A more striking incongruity indeed could scarcely be imagined, than between the winning manners and sprightly disposition of this youthful princess, as they displayed themselves amid the festivities of her court and the homage of her suitors, and the grave and awful character of Governess of the church, with which she had been solemnly invested.

In virtue of this office, it was the right and duty of the queen to choose a religion for the country; to ordain its rites and ceremonies, discipline, and form of church government; and to fix the rank, offices and emoluments of its ministers. She was also to exercise this power entirely at her own discretion, free from the control of parliament or the interference of the clerical body, and a.s.sisted only by such commissioners, lay or ecclesiastical, as it should please herself to appoint.

This exorbitant authority was first a.s.sumed by her arbitrary father when it became his will that his people should acknowledge no other pope than himself; and the servile spirit of the age, joined to the ignorance and indifference on religious subjects then general, had caused it to be submitted to without difficulty. In consequence, the t.i.tle of Head of the Church had quietly devolved upon Edward VI. as part of his regal style; and while the duties of the office were exercised by Cranmer and the Protector, the nation, now generally favorable to the cause of reform, was more inclined to rejoice in its existence than to dispute the authority by which it had been inst.i.tuted. Mary abhorred the t.i.tle, as a badge of heresy and a guilty usurpation on the rights of the sovereign pontiff, and in the beginning of her reign she laid it aside, but was afterwards prevailed upon to resume it, because there was a convenience in the legal sanction which it afforded to her acts of tyranny over the consciences of men.

The first parliament of Elizabeth, in the fervor of its loyalty, decreed to her, as if by acclamation, all the honors or prerogatives ever enjoyed by her predecessors, and it was solely at her own request that the appellation of Head, was now exchanged for the less a.s.suming one of Governess, of the English church. The power remained the same; it was, as we have seen, of the most absolute nature possible; since, unlimited by law, it was also, owing to its recent establishment, equally uncontrolled by custom. It remains to the delineator of the character of Elizabeth to inquire in what manner she acquitted herself, to her country and to posterity, of the awful responsibility imposed upon her by its possession.

A slight sketch of the circ.u.mstances attending the introduction of the reformation into England, will serve to ill.u.s.trate this important branch of her policy.

On comparing the march of this mighty revolution in our own country with its mode of progress amongst the other nations of Europe, one of the first remarks which suggests itself is, that in no other country was its course so immediately or effectually subjected to the guidance and control of the civil power.

In Switzerland, the system of Zwingle, the earliest of the reformers, had fully established itself in the hearts of his fellow-citizens before the magistracies of Zurich and its neighbouring republics thought proper to interfere. They then gave the sanction of law to the religion which had become that of the majority, but abstained from all dictation on points of which they felt themselves incompetent judges.