The Leading Facts of English History Part 37

imprisonment, was beheaded at Fotheringay Castle.[1]

[1] Fotheringay Castle, Northamptonshire, demolished by James I.

As soon as the news of her execution was brought to Elizabeth, she became alarmed at the political consequences the act might have in Europe. With her usual duplicity she bitterly upbraided the minister who had advised it, and throwing Davidson, her secretary, into the Tower, fined him 10,000 pounds, the payment of which reduced him to beggary.

Not satisfied with this, Elizabeth even had the effrontery to write a letter of condolence to Mary's son, James VI, declaring that his mother had been beheaded by mistake! Yet facts prove that Elizabeth had not only determined to put Mary to death, but that she had urged those who held Mary prisoner to kill her privately.[2]

[2] See "Elizabeth" in the "National Dictionary of (British) Biography."

398. The Spanish Armada.

Mary was hardly under ground when a new and greater danger threatened the country. At her death, the Scottish Queen, disgusted with her mean-spirited son James,[3] bequeathed her dominions, including her claim to the English throne, to Philip II of Spain (S370). He was then the most powerful sovereign in Europe, ruling over a territory equal to that of the Roman Empire in its greatest extent.

[3] James had deserted his mother and accepted a pension from Elizabeth.

Philip II, with the encouragement of the Pope, and with the further help of the promise of a very large sum of money from him, resolved to invade England, conquer it, annex it to his possessions, and restore the religion of Rome. To accomplish this, he began fitting out the "Invisible Armada," an immense fleet of warships, intended to carry twenty thousand soldiers, and to receive on its way reenforcements of thirty thousand more from the Spanish army in the Netherlands.

399. Drake's Expedition; Sailing of the Armada (1588).

Sir Francis Drake (S392) determined to check Philip's preparations.

He heard that the enemy's fleet was gathered at Cadiz. He sailed there, and in spite of all opposition effectually "singed the Spanish King's beard," as he said, by burning and otherwise destroying more than a hundred ships.

This so crippled the expedition that it had to be given up for that year, but the next summer a vast armament set sail. Motley[1] says it consisted of ten squadrons, of more than one hundred and thirty ships, carrying upwards of three thousand cannon.

[1] Motley's "United Netherlands," II, 465; compare Froude's "England," XII, 466, and Laughton's "Armada" (State Papers), pp. xl-lvii.

The impending peril thoroughly roused England. Both Catholics and Protestants rose to defend their country and their Queen.

400. The Battle, 1588.

The English sea forces under Lord High Admiral Howard, of Effingham, a zealous patriot, with Sir Francis Drake, who ranked second in command, were a.s.sembled at Plymouth, watching for the enemy. Whe nthe long-looked-for Spanish fleet came in sight, beacon fires were lighted on the hills to give the alarm.

"For swift to east and swift to west the ghastly war flame spread; High on St. Michael's Mount it shone: it shone on Beachy Head.

Far on the deep the Spaniard saw, along each southern shire, Cape beyond cape, in endless range, those twinkling points of fire."

--Macaulay's "Armada."

The enemy's ships moved steadily toward the coast in the form of a crescent seven miles across; but Howard, Drake, Hawkins, Raleigh, and other noted captains, were ready to receive them. With their fast-sailing cruisers they sailed around the unwieldy Spanish warships, firing four shots to the enemy's one, and "hara.s.sing them as a swarm of wasps worry a bear." Several of the Spanish vessels were captured and one blown up. At last the commander sailed for Calais to repair damages and take a fresh start. The English followed. When night came on, Drake sent eight blazing fire ships to drift down among the Armada as it lay at anchor. Thoroughly alarmed at the prospect of being burned where they lay, the Spaniards cut their cables and made sail for the north.

401. Destruction of the Armada, 1588; Elizabeth at Tilbury and at St. Paul's.

They were hotly pursued by the English, who, having lost but a single vessel in the fight, might have cut them to pieces, had not Elizabeth's suicidal economy stinted them in body powder and provisions. Meanwhile the Spanish fleet kept moving northward. The wind increased to a gale, the gale to a furious storm. The commander of the Armada attempted to go around Scotland and return home that way; but ship after ship was driven ash.o.r.e and wrecked on the wild and rocky coast of western Ireland. On one strand, less than five miles long, over a thousand corpses were counted. Those who escaped the waves met death by the hands of the inhabitants. Of the magnificent fleet which had sailed so proudly from Spain only fifty-three vessels returned, and they were but half manned by exhausted crews stricken by pestilence and death. Thus ended Philip II's boasted attack on England.

When all danger was past, Elizabeth went to Tilbury, on the Thames below London, to review the troops collected there to defend the capital. "I know," said she, "that I have but the feeble body of a woman, but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England too."

Unhappily the n.i.g.g.ardly Queen had half starved her brave sailors, and many of them came home only to die. None the less Elizabeth went with solemn pomp to St. Paul's Cathedral to offer thanks for the great victory, which was commemorated by a medal bearing this inscription: "G.o.d blew with his winds, and they were scattered." The date of the defeat of the Armada, 1588, was a turning point in English history.

From that time England gradually rose, under the leadership of such ill.u.s.trious commanders as Drake, Blake, and Nelson, until she became what she has ever since remained--the greatest sea power in the world (SS459, 557).

402. Insurrection in Ireland (1595).

A few years later a terrible rebellion broke out in Ireland. From its partial conquest in the time of Henry II (S159), the condition of that island continued to be deplorable. First, the chiefs of the native tribes fought constantly among themselves; next, the English attempted to force the Protestant religion upon a people who detested it; lastly, the greed and misgovernment of the rulers put a climax to these miseries. Sir Walter Raleigh said, "The country was a commonwealth of common woe." What made this state of things still more dangerous was the fact that the Catholic rulers of Spain considered the Irish as their natural allies, and were plotting to send troops to that island in order to strike England a deadly side blow when she least expected it.

Elizabeth's government began a war, the object of which was "not to subdue but to destroy." The extermination was so merciless that the Queen herself declared that if the work of destruction went on much longer, "she should have nothing left but ashes and corpses to rule over." Then, but not till then, the starving remnant of the Irish people submitted, and England gained a barren victory which has ever since carried with it its own curse.

403. The First Poor Law (1601).

In Elizabeth's reign the first effective English poor law was pa.s.sed.

It required each parish to make provision for such paupers as were unable to work, while the able-bodied were compelled to labor for their own support. This measure relieved much of the distress which had prevailed during the three previous reigns (S354), and forms the basis of the law in force at the present time (S607).

404. Elizabeth's Death (1603).

The death of the great Queen (1603) was as sad as her life had been brilliant. Her favorite, Ess.e.x, Shakespeare's intimate friend, had been beheaded for an attempted rebellion against her power. From that time she grew, as she said, "heavy-hearted." Her old friends and counselors were dead, her people no longer welcomed her with their former enthusiasm. She kept a sword always within reach. Treason had grown so common that Hentzner, a German traveler in England, said that he counted three hundred heads of persons, who had suffered death for this crime, exposed on London Bridge. Elizabeth felt that her sun was nearly set; gradually her strength declined; she ceased to leave her palace, and sat muttering to herself all day long, "Mortua, sed non sepulta!" (Dead, but not buried).

At length she lay propped up on cushions on the floor,[1] "tired," as she said, "of reigning and tired of life." In that sullen mood she departed to join that "silent majority" whose realm under earth is bounded by the sides of the grave. "Four days afterward," says a writer of that time, "she was forgotten."

[1] See in the works of Delaroche his fine picture of "The Death of Queen Elizabeth."

One sees her tomb, with her full-length, rec.u.mbent effigy, in the north aisle of Henry VII's Chapel, Westminster Abbey, while in the south aisle he sees the tomb and effigy of her old rival and enemy, Mary Queen of Scots (S397). The sculptured features of both look placid. "After life's fitful fever they sleep well."

405. Summary.

The Elizabethan period was in every respect remarkable. It was great in its men of thought, great in its literature, and equally great in its men of action. It was greatest, however, in its successful resistance to the armed hand of religious oppression. "Practically the reign of Elizabeth," as Bishop Creighton remarks, "saw England established as a Protestant country."[2]

[2] See "The Dictionary of English History" ("The Reformation"), p. 860.

The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 gave renewed courage to the cause of the Reformation, not only in England, but in every Protestant country in Europe. It meant that a movement had begun which, though it might be temporarily hindered, would secure to all civilized countries, which accepted it, the right of private judgment and of liberty of conscience in matters of religion.

General Reference Summary of the Tudor Period (1485-1603)

I. Government II. Religion III. Military Affairs. IV. Literature, Learning and Art. V. General Industry and Commerce. VI. Mode of Life, Manners, and Customs

I. Government

406. Absolutism of the Crown; Free Trade; the Post Office.

During a great part of the Tudor period the power of the Crown was well-nigh absolute. Four causes contributed to this: (1) The destruction of a very large part of the feudal n.o.bility by the Wars of the Roses.[1] (2) The removal of many of the higher clergy from the House of Lords.[2] (3) The creation of a new n.o.bility dependant on the king. (4) The desire of the great body of the people for "peace at any price."

[1] In the last Parliament before the Wars of the Roses (1454) there were fifty-three temporal peers; at the beginning of the reign of Henry VII (1485) there were only twenty-nine.

[2] Out of a total of barely ninety peers, Henry VIII, by the suppression of the monasteries, removed upwards of thirty-six abbots and priors. He, however, added five new bishops, which made the House of Lords number about fifty-nine.

Under Henry VII and Elizabeth the courts of Star Chamber and High Commission exercised arbitrary power, and often inflicted cruel punishments for offenses against the government, and for heresy or the denial of the religious supremacy of the sovereign.

Henry VII established a treaty of free trade, called the "Great Intercourse," between England and the Netherlands. Under Elizabeth the first postmaster-general entered upon his duties, though the post office was nott fully established until the reign of her successor.

II. Religion

407. Establishment of the Protestant Church of England.

Henry VIII suppressed the Roman Catholic monasteries, seized their property, and ended by declaring the Church of England independent of the Pope. Thenceforth he a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of Supreme Head of the National Church. Under Edward VI Protestantism was established by law. Mary led a reaction in favor of Roman Catholicism, but her successor, Elizabeth, reinstated the Protestant form of worship.

Under Elizabeth the Puritans demanded that the National Church be completely "purified" from all Catholic forms and doctrines. Severe laws were pa.s.sed under Elizabeth for the punishment of both Catholics and Puritans who failed to conform to the Church of England.