Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth Part 20

It was subsequently to Mary's announcement of her approaching nuptials, that to the instances of the imperial amba.s.sador Elizabeth had replied, that she desired to keep herself free till she had finally decided on the answer to be given to the king of France, who had also offered her his hand[55]. After breaking off this negotiation with Charles IX., she declared to the same amba.s.sador, that she would never engage to marry a person whom she had not seen;--an answer which seemed to hint to the archduke that a visit would be well received. It was accordingly reported with confidence that this prince would soon commence his journey to England; and Cecil himself ventured to write to a friend, that if he would accede to the national religion, and if his person proved acceptable to her majesty, "except G.o.d should please to continue his displeasure against us, we should see some success." But he thought that the archduke would never explain himself on religion to any one except the queen, and not to her until he should see hopes of speeding.

[Note 55: It is on the authority of Strype's "Annals" that this offer of Charles IX. to Elizabeth is recorded. Hume, Camden, Rapin, are all silent respecting it; but as it seems that Catherine dei Medici was at the time desirous of the appearance of a closer connexion with Elizabeth, it is not improbable that she might throw out some hint of this nature without any real wish of bringing about an union in all respects so unsuitable.]

The splendid dream of Leicester's ambition was dissipated for ever by these negotiations; and a diminution of the queen's partiality towards him, distinctly visible to the observant eyes of her courtiers, either preceded or accompanied her entertaining so long, and with such an air of serious deliberation, the proposals of a foreign prince. The enemies of Leicester,--a large and formidable party, comprehending almost all the highest names among the n.o.bility and the greater part of the ministers,--openly and zealously espoused the interest of the archduke.

Leicester at first with equal warmth and equal openness opposed his pretensions; but he was soon admonished by the frowns of his royal mistress, that if he would preserve or recover his influence, he must now be content to take a humbler tone, and disguise a disappointment which there was arrogance in avowing.

The disposition of Elizabeth partook so much more of the haughty than the tender, that the slightest appearances of presumption would always provoke her to take a pleasure in mortifying the most distinguished of her favorites; and it might be no improbable guess, that almost the whole of the encouragement given by her to the addresses of the archduke was prompted by the desire of humbling the pride of Leicester, and showing him that his ascendency over her was not so complete or so secure as he imagined.

A circ.u.mstance is related which we may conjecture to have occurred about this time, and which sets in a strong light this part of the character of Elizabeth. "Bowyer, a gentleman of the Black Rod, being charged by her express command to look precisely into all admissions into the privy-chamber, one day stayed a very gay captain, and a follower of my lord of Leicester's, from entrance; for that he was neither well known, nor a sworn servant to the queen: at which repulse, the gentleman, bearing high on my lord's favor, told him, he might perchance procure him a discharge. Leicester coming into the contestation, said publicly (which was none of his wont) that he was a knave, and should not continue long in his office; and so turning about to go in to the queen, Bowyer, who was a bold gentleman and well beloved, stepped before him and fell at her majesty's feet, related the story, and humbly craves her grace's pleasure; and whether my lord of Leicester was king, or her majesty queen? Whereunto she replied with her wonted oath, 'G.o.d's death, my lord, I have wished you well; but my favor is not so locked up for you, that others shall not partake thereof; for I have many servants, to whom I have, and will at my pleasure, bequeath my favor, and likewise resume the same: and if you think to rule here, I will take a course to see you forthcoming. I will have here but one mistress, and no master; and look that no ill happen to him, lest it be required at your hands.'

Which words so quelled my lord of Leicester, that his feigned humility was long after one of his best virtues[56]."

[Note 56: Naunton's "Fragmenta Regalia."]

It might be some consolation to Leicester, under his own mortifications, to behold his ancient rival the earl of Arundel subjected to far severer ones. This n.o.bleman had resigned in disgust his office of lord-chamberlain; subsequently, the queen, on some ground of displeasure now unknown, had commanded him to confine himself to his own house; and at the end of several months pa.s.sed under this kind of restraint, she still denied him for a further term the consolation and privilege of approaching her royal presence. Disgraces so public and so lasting determined him to throw up the desperate game on which he had hazarded so deep a stake: he obtained leave to travel, and hastened to conceal or forget in foreign lands the bitterness of his disappointment and the embarra.s.sment of his circ.u.mstances.

It is probable that from this time Elizabeth found no more serious suitors amongst her courtiers, though they flattered her by continuing, almost to the end of her life, to address her in the language of love, or rather of gallantry. With all her coquetry, her head was clear, her pa.s.sions were cool; and men began to perceive that there was little chance of prevailing with her to gratify her heart or her fancy at the expense of that independence on which her lofty temper led her to set so high a value. Some were still uncharitable, unjust enough to believe that Leicester was, or had been, a fortunate lover; but few now expected to see him her husband, and none found encouragement sufficient to renew the experiment in which he had failed. Notwithstanding her short and capricious fits of pride and anger, it was manifest that Leicester still exercised over her mind an influence superior on the whole to that of any other person; and the high distinction with which she continued to treat him, both in public and private, alarmed the jealousy and provoked the hostility of all who thought themselves ent.i.tled by rank, by relationship, or by merit, to a larger share of her esteem and favor, or a more intimate partic.i.p.ation in her councils.

One n.o.bleman there was, who had peculiar pretensions to supersede Leicester in his popular appellation of "Heart of the Court," and on whom he had already fixed in secret the watchful eye of a rival. This was Thomas duke of Norfolk. Inheriting through several channels the blood of the Plantagenets,--nearly related to the queen by her maternal ancestry, and connected by descent or alliance with the whole body of the ancient n.o.bility; endeared also to the people by many shining qualities, and still more by his unfeigned zeal for reformed religion,--his grace stood first amongst the peers of England, not in degree alone or in wealth, but in power, in influence, and in public estimation.

He was in the prime of manhood and lately a widower; and when, in the parliament of 1566, certain members did not scruple to maintain that the queen ought to be compelled to marry for the good of her country, the duke was named by some, as the earl of Pembroke was by others and the earl of Leicester by a third party, as the person whom she ought to accept as a husband. It does not however appear that the duke himself had aspired, openly at least, to these august but unattainable nuptials.

Elizabeth seems to have entertained for him at this period a real regard: he could be to her no object of distrust or danger, and the example which she was ever careful to set of a scrupulous observance of the gradations of rank, led her on all occasions to prefer him to the post of honor. Thus, after the peace with France in 1564, when Charles IX. in return for the Garter, which the queen of England had sent him, offered to confer the order of St. Michael on two English n.o.bles of her appointment, she named without hesitation the duke of Norfolk and the earl of Leicester.

The arrogance of Dudley seldom escaped from the control of policy; and as he had the sagacity to perceive that the duke was a compet.i.tor over whom treachery alone could render him finally triumphant, he cautiously avoided with him any open collision of interests, any offensive rivalry in matters of place and dignity. He even went further; he compelled himself, by a feigned deference, to administer food to that exaggerated self-consequence,--the cherished foible of the house of Howard in general and of this duke in particular,--out of which he perhaps already hoped that matter would arise to work his ruin. The chronicles of the year 1565 give a striking instance of this part of his behaviour, in the information, that the duke of Norfolk, going to keep his Christmas in his own county, was attended out of London by the earls of Leicester and Warwick, the lord-chamberlain and other lords and gentlemen, who brought him on his journey, "doing him all the honor in their power."

The duke was not gifted with any great degree of penetration, and the generosity of his disposition combined with his vanity to render him generally the dupe of outward homage and fair professions. He repaid the insidious complaisance of Leicester with good will and even with confidence; and it was not till all was lost that he appears to have recognised this fatal and irreparable error.

Thomas earl of Suss.e.x was an antagonist of a different nature,--an enemy rather than a rival,--and one who sought the overthrow of Leicester with as much zeal and industry as Leicester himself sought his, or that of the duke; but by means as open and courageous as those of his opponent were ever secret, base, and cowardly. This n.o.bleman, the third earl of the surname of Radcliffe, and son of him who had interfered with effect to procure more humane and respectful treatment of Elizabeth during the period of her adversity, had been first known by the t.i.tle of lord Fitzwalter, which he derived from a powerful line of barons well known in English history from the days of Henry I. By his mother, a daughter of Thomas second duke of Norfolk, he was first-cousin to queen Anne Boleyn; and friendship, still more than the ties of blood, closely connected him with the head of the Howards. Several circ.u.mstances render it probable that he was not a zealous protestant, though it is no where hinted that he was even secretly attached to the catholic party. During the reign of Mary, his high character and approved loyalty had caused him to be employed, first in an emba.s.sy to the emperor Charles V. to settle the queen's marriage-articles; and afterwards in the arduous post of lord-deputy of Ireland. Elizabeth continued him for some time in this situation; but wishing to avail herself of his counsels and service at home, she recalled him in 1565, conferred upon him the high dignity of lord-chamberlain, vacant by the resignation of the earl of Arundel, and appointed as his successor in Ireland his excellent second in office sir Henry Sidney, who stood in the same relation, that of brother-in-law, to Suss.e.x and to Leicester, and whose singular merit and good fortune it was to preserve to the end the esteem and friendship of both.

The ostensible cause of quarrel between these two earls seems to have been their difference of opinion respecting the Austrian match; but this was rather the pretext than the motive of an animosity deeply rooted in the natures and situation of each, and probably called into action by particular provocations now unknown. The disposition of Suss.e.x was courageous and sincere; his spirit high, his judgement clear and strong, his whole character honorable and upright. In the arts of a courtier, which he despised, he was confessedly inferior to his wily adversary; in all the qualifications of a statesman and a soldier he vastly excelled him.

Suss.e.x was endowed with penetration sufficient to detect, beneath the thick folds of hypocrisy and artifice in which he had involved them, the monstrous vices of Leicester's disposition; and he could not without indignation and disgust behold a princess whose blood he shared, whose character he honored, and whose service he had himself embraced with pure devotion, the dupe of an impostor so despicable and so pernicious.

That influence which he saw Leicester abuse to the dishonor of the queen and the detriment of the country, he undertook to overthrow by fair and public means, and, so far as appears, without motives of personal interest or ambition:--thus far all was well, and for the effort, whether successful or not, he merited the public thanks. But there mingled in the bosom of the high-born Suss.e.x an illiberal disdain of the origin of Dudley, with a just abhorrence of his character and conduct.

He was wont to say of him, that two ancestors were all that he could number, his father and grandfather; both traitors and enemies to their country. His sarcasms roused in Leicester an animosity which he did not attempt to disguise: with the exception of Cecil and his friends, who stood neuter, the whole court divided into factions upon the quarrel of these two powerful peers; and to such extremity were matters carried, that for some time neither of them would stir abroad without a numerous train armed, according to the fashion of the day, with daggers and spiked bucklers.

Scarcely could the queen herself restrain these "angry opposites" from breaking out into acts of violence: at length however, summoning them both into her presence, she forced them to a reconciliation neither more nor less sincere than such pacifications by authority have usually proved.

The open and unmeasured enmity of Suss.e.x seems to have been productive in the end of more injury to his own friends than to Leicester. The storm under which the favorite had bowed for an instant was quickly overpast, and he once more reared his head erect and lofty as before. To revenge himself by the ruin or disgrace of Suss.e.x was however beyond his power: the well-founded confidence of Elizabeth in his abilities and his attachment to her person, he found to be immovable; but against his friends and adherents, against the duke of Norfolk himself, his malignant arts succeeded but too well; and it seems not improbable that Leicester, for the purpose of carrying on without molestation his practices against them, concurred in procuring for his adversary an honorable exile in the shape of an emba.s.sy to the imperial court, on which he departed in the year 1567.

After his return from this mission the queen named the earl of Suss.e.x lord-president of the North, an appointment which equally removed him from the immediate theatre of court intrigue. Not long after, the hand of death put a final close to his honorable career, and to an enmity destined to know no other termination. As he lay upon his death-bed, this eminent person is recorded to have thus addressed his surrounding friends: "I am now pa.s.sing into another world, and must leave you to your fortunes and to the queen's grace and goodness; but beware of the _Gipsy_ (meaning Leicester), for he will be too hard for you all; you know not the beast so well as I do[57]."

[Note 57: Naunton's "Fragmenta Regalia."]

This earl left no children, and his widow became the munificent foundress of Sidney Suss.e.x college, Cambridge. Of his negotiations with the court of Vienna respecting the royal marriage which he had so much at heart, particulars will be given in due time; but the miscellaneous transactions of two or three preceding years claim a priority of narration.

By a proclamation of February 1566, the queen revived some former sumptuary laws respecting apparel; chiefly, it should appear, from an apprehension that a dangerous confusion of ranks would be the consequence of indulging to her subjects the liberty of private judgement in a matter so important. The following clause concerning fencing schools is appended to this instrument.

"Because it is daily seen what disorders do grow and are likely to increase in the realm, by the increase of numbers of persons taking upon them to teach the mult.i.tude of common people to play at all kind of weapons; and for that purpose set up schools called schools of fence, in places inconvenient; tending to the great disorder of such people as properly ought to apply to their labours and handy works: Therefore her majesty ordereth and commandeth, that no teacher of fence shall keep any school or common place of resort in any place of the realm, but within the liberties of some city of the realm. Where also they shall be obedient to such orders as the governors of the cities shall appoint to them, for the better keeping of the peace, and for prohibition of resort of such people to the same schools as are not mete for that purpose."

&c.

On these restrictions, which would seem to imply an unworthy jealousy of putting arms and the skill to use them into the hands of the common people, it is equitable to remark, that the custom of constantly wearing weapons, at this time almost universal, though prohibited by the laws of some of our early kings, had been found productive of those frequent acts of violence and outrage which have uniformly resulted from this truly barbarous practice in all the countries where it has been suffered to prevail.

From the description of England prefixed to Holinshed's Chronicles, we learn several particulars on this subject. Few men, even of the gravest and most pacific characters, such as ancient burgesses and city magistrates, went without a dagger at their side or back. The n.o.bility commonly wore swords or rapiers as well as daggers, as did every common serving-man following his master. Some "desperate cutters" carried two daggers, or two rapiers in a sheath, always about them, with which in every drunken fray they worked much mischief; their swords and daggers also were of an extraordinary length (an abuse which was provided against by a clause of the proclamation above quoted); some "suspicious fellows" also would carry on the highways staves of twelve or thirteen feet long, with pikes of twelve inches at the end, wherefore the honest traveller was compelled to ride with a case of _dags_ (pistols) at his saddle-bow, and none travelled without sword, or dagger, or hanger.

About this time occurred what a contemporary reporter called "an unhappy chance and monstrous;" the marriage of lady Mary Grey to the serjeant-porter: a circ.u.mstance thus recorded by Fuller, with his accustomed quaintness. "Mary Grey... frighted with the infelicity of her two elder sisters, Jane and this Catherine, forgot her honor to remember her safety, and married one whom she could love and none need fear, Martin Kays, of Kent esquire, who was a judge at court, (but only of doubtful casts at dice, being serjeant-porter,) and died without issue the 20th of April 1578[58]."

[Note 58: "Worthies in Leicestershire."]

The queen, according to her usual practice in similar cases, sent both husband and wife to prison. What became further of the husband I do not find; but respecting the wife, sir Thomas Gresham the eminent merchant, in a letter to lord Burleigh dated in April 1572, mentions, that the lady Mary Grey had been kept in his house nearly three years, and begs of his lordship that he will make interest for her removal. Thus it should appear that this unfortunate lady did not sufficiently "remember her safety" in forming this connexion, obscure and humble as it was; for all matrimony had now become offensive to the austerity or the secret envy of the maiden queen.

Sir Henry Sidney, on arriving to take the government of Ireland, found that unhappy country in a state of more than ordinary turbulence, distraction, and misery. Petty insurrections of perpetual recurrence hara.s.sed the English pale; and the native chieftains, disdaining to accept the laws of a foreign sovereign as the umpire of their disputes, were waging innumerable private wars, which at once impoverished, afflicted, and barbarized their country. The most important of these feuds was one between the earls of Ormond and Desmond, which so disquieted the queen that, in addition to all official instructions, she deemed it necessary to address her deputy on the subject in a private letter written with her own hand. This doc.u.ment, printed in the Sidney papers, is too valuable, as a specimen of her extraordinary style and her manner of thinking, to be omitted. It is without date, but must have been written in 1565.

"Letter of Queen Elizabeth to Sir Henry Sidney, on the Quarrel between Thomas Earl of Ormond and the Earl of Desmond, _anno_ 1565.

"HARRY,

"If our partial slender managing of the contentious quarrel between the two Irish earls did not make the way to cause these lines to pa.s.s my hand, this gibberish should hardly have c.u.mbered your eyes; but warned by my former fault, and dreading worser hap to come, I rede you take good heed that the good subjects lost state be so revenged that I hear not the rest be won to a right bye way to breed more traitor's stocks, and so the goal is gone. Make some difference between tried, just, and false friend. Let the good service of well-deservers be never rewarded with loss. Let their thank be such as may encourage no strivers for the like. Suffer not that Desmond's denying deeds, far wide from promised works, make you to trust to other pledge than either himself or John for gage: he hath so well performed his English vows, that I warn you trust him no longer than you see one of them. Prometheus let me be, _Epimetheus_[59] hath been mine too long. I pray G.o.d your old strange sheep late (as you say) returned into the fold, wore not her wooly garment upon her wolvy back. You know a kingdom knows no kindred, _si violandum jus regnandi causa_. A strength to harm is perilous in the hand of an ambitious head. Where might is mixed with wit, there is too good an accord in a government. Essays be oft dangerous, specially when the cup-bearer hath received such a preservative as, what might so ever betide the drinker's draught, the carrier takes no bane thereby.

[Note 59: In the original, "and Prometheus," but evidently by a mere slip of the pen.]

"Believe not, though they swear, that they can be full sound, whose parents sought the rule that they full fain would have. I warrant you they will never be accused of b.a.s.t.a.r.dy; you were to blame to lay it to their charge, they will trace the steps that others have pa.s.sed before.

If I had not espied, though very late, legerdemain, used in these cases, I had never played my part. No, if I did not see the balances held awry, I had never myself come into the weigh house. I hope I shall have so good a customer of you, that all other officers shall do their duty among you. If aught have been amiss at home, I will patch though I cannot whole it. Let us not, nor no more do you, consult so long as till advice come too late to the givers: where then shall we wish the deeds while all was spent in words; a fool too late bewares when all the peril is past. If we still advise, we shall never do, thus are we still knitting a knot never tied; yea, and if our _web_[60] be framed with rotten hurdles, when our _loom_ is welny done, our work is new to begin. G.o.d send the weaver true prentices again, and let them be denizens I pray you if they be not citizens; and such too as your ancientest aldermen, that have or now dwell in your official place, have had best cause to commend their good behaviour.

[Note 60: The words _web_ and _loom_ in this sentence ought certainly to be transposed.]

"Let this memorial be only committed to Vulcan's base keeping, without any longer abode than the reading thereof, yea, and with no mention made thereof to any other wight. I charge you as I may command you. Seem not to have had but secretary's letter from me.

"Your loving mistress

"ELIZABETH R."

In the month of June 1566, the queen of Scots was delivered of a son.

James Melvil was immediately dispatched with the happy intelligence to her good sister of England: and he has fortunately left us a narrative of this mission, which equals in vivacity the relation of his former visit. "By twelve of the clock I took horse, and was that night at Berwick. The fourth day after, I was at London, and did first meet with my brother sir Robert (then amba.s.sador to England), who that same night sent and advertised secretary Cecil of my arrival, and of the birth of the prince, desiring him to keep it quiet till my coming to court to show it myself unto her majesty, who was for the time at Greenwich, where her majesty was in great mirth, dancing after supper. But so soon as the secretary Cecil whispered in her ear the news of the prince's birth, all her mirth was laid aside for that night. All present marvelling whence proceeded such a change; for the queen did sit down, putting her hand under her cheek, bursting out to some of her ladies, that the queen of Scots was mother of a fair son, while she was but a barren stock.

"The next morning was appointed for me to get audience, at what time my brother and I went by water to Greenwich, and were met by some friends who told us how sorrowful her majesty was at my news, but that she had been advised to show a glad and cheerful countenance; which she did in her best apparel, saying, that the joyful news of the queen her sister's delivery of a fair son, which I had sent her by secretary Cecil, had recovered her out of a heavy sickness which she had lain under for fifteen days. Therefore she welcomed me with a merry volt, and thanked me for the diligence I had used in hasting to give her that welcome intelligence." &c. "The next day her majesty sent unto me her letter, with the present of a fair chain."

Resolved to perform with a good grace the part which she had a.s.sumed, Elizabeth accepted with alacrity the office of sponsor to the prince of Scotland, sending thither as her proxies the earl of Bedford, Mr. Carey son of lord Hunsdon, and other knights and gentlemen; who met with so cordial a reception from Mary,--now at open variance with her husband, and therefore desirous of support from England,--as to provoke the jealousy of the French amba.s.sadors. The present of the royal G.o.dmother was a font of pure gold worth above one thousand pounds; in return for which, rings, rich chains of diamond and pearl, and other jewels were liberally bestowed upon her subst.i.tutes.

The birth of her son lent a vast accession of strength to the party of the queen of Scots in England; and Melvil was commissioned to convey back to her from several of the princ.i.p.al personages of the court, warm professions of an attachment to her person and interests, which the jealousy of their mistress compelled them to dissemble. Elizabeth, on her part, was more than ever disturbed by suspicions on this head, which were kept in constant activity by the secret informations of the armies of spies whom it was her self-tormenting policy to set over the words and actions of the Scottish queen and her English partisans. The more she learned of the influence privately acquired by Mary amongst her subjects, the more, of course, she feared and hated her, and the stronger became her determination never to give her additional consequence by an open recognition of her right of succession. At the same time she was fully sensible that no other person could be thought of as the inheritrix of her crown; and she resolved, perhaps wisely, to maintain on this subject an inflexible silence: this policy, however, connected with her perseverance in a state of celibacy, began to awaken in her people an anxiety respecting their future destinies, which, being artfully fomented by Scottish emissaries, produced, in 1566, the first symptoms of discord between the queen and her faithful commons.

A motion was made in the lower house for reviving the suit to her majesty touching the naming of a successor in case of her death without posterity; and in spite of the strenuous opposition of the court party, and the efforts of the ministers to procure a delay by declaring "that the queen was moved to marriage and inclined to prosecute the same," it was carried, and a committee appointed to confer with the lords. The business was not very agreeable to the upper house: a committee however was named, and the queen soon after required some members of both houses to wait upon her respecting this matter; when the lord-keeper explained their sentiments in a long speech, to which her majesty was pleased to reply after her darkest and most ambiguous manner. "As to her marriage,"

she said, "a silent thought might serve. She thought it had been so desired that none other trees blossom should have been minded or ever any hope of fruit had been denied them. But that if any doubted that she was by vow or determination never bent to trade in that kind of life, she bade them put out that kind of heresy, for their belief was therein awry. And though she could think it best for a private woman, yet she strove with herself to think it not meet for a prince. As to the succession, she bade them not think that they had needed this desire, if she had seen a time so fit; and it so ripe to be denounced. That the greatness of the cause, and the need of their return, made her say that a short time for so long a continuance ought not to pa.s.s by rote. That as cause by conference with the learned should show her matter worth utterance for their behoof, so she would more gladly pursue their good after her days, than with all her prayers while she lived be a means to linger out her living thread. That for their comfort, she had good record in that place that other means than they mentioned had been thought of perchance for their good, as much as for her own surety: which, if they could have been presently or conveniently executed, it had not been now deferred or over-slipped. That she hoped to die in quiet with _Nunc dimittis_, which could not be without she saw some glimpse of their following surety after her graved bones."

These vague sentences tended little to the satisfaction of the house; and a motion was made, and strongly supported by the speeches of several members, for reiteration of the suit. At this her majesty was so incensed, that she communicated by sir Francis Knowles her positive command to the house to proceed no further in this business, satisfying themselves with the promise of marriage which she had made on the word of a prince. But that truly independent member Paul Wentworth could not be brought to acquiesce with tameness in this prohibition, and he moved the house on the question, whether the late command of her majesty was not a breach of its privileges? The queen hereupon issued an injunction that there should be no debates on this point; but the spirit of resistance rose so high in the house of commons against this her arbitrary interference, that she found it expedient, a few days after, to rescind both orders, making a great favor however of her compliance, and insisting on the condition, that the subject should not at this time be further pursued.