Chapter XI…

Chapter XI

1560.

Successful campaign in Scotland.--Embassy of viscount Montacute to Spain--of sir T. Chaloner to the Emperor.--Account of Chaloner.--Letter of his respecting Dudley and the queen.--Dudley loses his wife.--Mysterious manner of her death.--Suspicion cast upon her husband.--Dudley and several other courtiers aspire to the hand of their sovereign.--Tournaments in her honor.--Impresses.--Sir W. Pickering.--Rivalry of Arundel and Dudley.

The accession of Francis II., husband to the queen of Scots, to the French throne had renewed the dangers of Elizabeth from the hostility of France and of Scotland; and in the politic resolution of removing from her own territory to that of her enemies the seat of a war which she saw to be inevitable, she levied a strong army and sent it under the command of the duke of Norfolk and lord Grey de Wilton to the frontiers of Scotland. She also entered into a close connexion with the protestant party in that country, who were already in arms against the queen-regent and her French auxiliaries. Success attended this well-planned expedition, and at the end of a single campaign Elizabeth was able to terminate the war by the treaty of Edinburgh; a convention the terms of which were such as effectually to secure her from all fear of future molestation in this quarter.

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 nobleman 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 ambassador 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 ambassador 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 ambassador, 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 gratitude in his protection, and were thus the means of preserving him unhurt for better times.

Soon after his return from his embassy 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 petition 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 principal work of this accomplished person;--a tractate "on the right ordering of the English republic," also in Latin.

Sir Thomas Chaloner was the first ambassador 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 assure 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 God 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 circumstance occurred soon after which totally changed the nature of their apprehensions respecting her future conduct, and rendered her anticipated 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 circumstances 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 Cumnor 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 circumstance; 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 passed 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 circumstances of probability as the first; and even in support of this, no direct evidence has ever been adduced.

Under all the circumstances 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 Sussex 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 gratitude for the splendid distinction would secure to her the possession of his lasting attachment.

This idea long served to animate the assiduities of her nobles 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 passionate 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 amusements 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 institution 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 assumed at the will of the bearer, and illustrated 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 illustrious 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 circumstance 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 embassies 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 embassies 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 nobleman had endeavoured to bespeak the favorable sentiments of his youthful sovereign; and if illustrious 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 circumstance 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 passions 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 competition, 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 noblemen, 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 ambassador 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 assisted only by such commissioners, lay or ecclesiastical, as it should please herself to appoint.

This exorbitant authority was first assumed 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 title 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 instituted. Mary abhorred the title, 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 assuming 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 circumstances attending the introduction of the reformation into England, will serve to illustrate 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.

In Germany, the impulse originating in the daring mind of Luther, was first communicated to the universities, to the lower orders of the clergy, and through them to the people. The princes of the empire afterwards took their part as patrons or persecutors of the new opinions; but in either case they acted under the influence of ecclesiastics, and no where arrogated to themselves the character of lawgivers in matters of faith.

At Geneva, the vigor and dexterity of Calvin's measures brought the magistracy under a complete subjection to the church, of which he had made himself the head, and restricted its agency in religious concerns to the execution of such decrees as the spiritual ruler saw good to promulgate.

The system of the same reformer had recently been introduced into Scotland by the exertions of John Knox, a disciple who equalled his master in the fierceness of his bigotry, in self-opinion, and in the love of power, whilst he exceeded him in turbulence of temper and ferocity of manners: and here the independence of the church on the state, or rather its paramount legislative authority in all matters of faith, discipline and worship, was held in the loftiest terms. The opposition which this doctrine, so formed for popularity, experienced from the government in the outset, was overborne or disregarded, and it was in despite of the utmost efforts of regal authority that the new religion was established by an act of the Scottish parliament.

In England, on the contrary, the passions of Henry VIII. had prompted him to disclaim submission to the papal decrees before the spirit of the people demanded such a step,--before any apostle of reformation had arisen in the land capable of inspiring the multitude with that zeal which makes its will omnipotent, and leaves to rulers no other alternative than to comply or fall,--yet not before the attachment of men to the ancient religion was so far weakened, that the majority could witness its overthrow with patience if not with complacency.

To have timed this momentous step so fortunately for the cause of prerogative might in some princes have been esteemed the result of profound combinations,--the triumph of political sagacity; in Henry it was the pure effect of accident: but the advantages which he derived from the quiescent state of the public mind were not on this account the less real or the less important, nor did he suffer them to go unimproved. On one hand, no considerable opposition was made to his assumption of the supremacy; on the other, the spoil of the monasteries was not intercepted in its passage to the royal coffers by the more rapid movements of a populace intoxicated with fanatical rage or fired with hopes of plunder. What appeared still more extraordinary, he found it practicable, to the end of his reign, to keep the nation suspended, as to doctrine and the forms of worship, in that nice equilibrium between protestant and papist which happened best to accord with his individual views or prejudices.

Cranmer, who has a better title than any other to be revered as the father of the Anglican church, showed himself during the life of Henry the most cautious and complaisant of reformers. Aware that any rashness or precipitation on the part of the favorers of new opinions might expose them to all the fury of persecution from a prince so dogmatical and violent, he constantly refrained from every alarming appeal to the sense of the people on theological questions, and was content to proceed in his great work step by step, with a slow, uncertain, and interrupted progress, at the will of that capricious master whose vacillations of humor or opinion he watched with the patience, and improved with the skill, of a finished courtier.

Administered in so qualified and mitigated a form, the spirit of reformation exhibited in this country little of its stronger and more turbulent workings. No sect at that time arose purely and peculiarly English: our native divines did not embrace exclusively, or with vehemence, the tenets of any one of the great leaders of reform on the continent, and a kind of eclectic system became that of the Anglican church from its earliest institution.

The respective contributions to this system of the most celebrated theologians of the age may be thus stated. It was chiefly from Zwingle,--the first, in point of time, of all the reformers of the sixteenth century, and the one whose doctrine on the eucharist and on several other points diverged most widely from the tenets of the church of Rome,--that our principal opponents of popery in the reign of Henry VIII. derived their notions. Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer himself, were essentially his disciples.

By others, the system of Luther was in the whole or in part adopted. But this reformer was personally so obnoxious to Henry, on account of the disrespectful and acrimonious style of his answer to the book in which that royal polemic had formerly attacked his doctrine, that no English subject thought proper openly to profess himself his follower, or to open any direct communication with him. Thus the Confession of Augsburg, though more consonant to the notions of the English monarch than any other scheme of protestant doctrine, failed to obtain the sanction of that authority which might have rendered it predominant in this country.

A long and vehement controversy on the subject of the eucharist had been maintained between the German and Swiss divines during the later years of Henry; but at the period of Edward's accession, when Cranmer first undertook the formation of a national church according to his own ideas of gospel truth and political expediency, this dispute was in great measure appeased, and sanguine hopes were entertained that a disagreement regarded as dangerous in a high degree to the common cause of religious reform might soon be entirely reconciled.

Luther, the last survivor of the original disputants, was lately dead; and to the post which he had held in the university of Wittemberg, as well as to the station of head of the protestant church, Melancthon had succeeded. This truly excellent person, who carried into all theological debates a spirit of conciliation equally rare and admirable, was earnestly laboring at a scheme of comprehension. His laudable endeavours were met by the zealous co-operation of Calvin, who had by this time extended his influence from Geneva over most of the Helvetic congregations, and was diligent in persuading them to recede from the unambiguous plainness of Zwingle's doctrine,--which reduced the Lord's supper to a simple commemoration,--and to admit so much of a mystical though spiritual presence of Christ in that rite, as might bring them to some seeming agreement with the less rigid of the followers of the Lutheran opinion. At the same time Bucer, who presided over the flourishing church of Strasburg, was engaged in framing yet another explication of this important rite, by which he vainly hoped to accommodate the consciences of all these zealous and acute polemics.

Bucer was remarkable among the theologians of his time by a subtility in distinction resembling that of the schoolmen, and by a peculiar art of expressing himself on doctrinal points in terms so nicely balanced, and in a style of such labored intricacy, that it was scarcely possible to discover his true meaning, or pronounce to which extreme of opinion he most inclined. These dubious qualifications, by which he disgusted alternately both Calvin and the more zealous Lutherans, were however accompanied and redeemed by great learning and diligence; by a remarkable talent for public business, which rendered him eminently useful in all the various negotiations with temporal authorities, or with each other, in which the leaders of the reformation found it necessary to engage; by a mild and candid spirit, and by as much of sincerity and probity as could co-exist with the open defence of pious frauds.

The whole character of the man appeared to Cranmer admirably fitted for co-operation in the work which he had in hand. On the difficult question of the eucharist Bucer would preserve the wariness and moderation which appeared essential in the divided state of protestant opinion: on justification and good works he held a middle doctrine, which might conciliate the catholics, and was capable of being so interpreted as not greatly to offend the moderate Lutherans: on the subject of church government he had not yet committed himself, and there was little doubt that he would cheerfully submit to the natural predilection of the archbishop for prelacy. His erudition and his morals could not fail to prove serviceable and creditable to the great cause of national instruction and reformed religion. Accordingly an invitation was sent to him, in the name of the young king, to come and occupy the theological chair in the university of Cambridge; and in the year 1549 he reached England, and began to discharge with much assiduity the duties of his office.

The name and influence of Bucer became very considerable in this country, though his career was terminated by death within two years after his arrival. A public funeral, attended by all the members of the university and many other persons of eminence, attested the consideration in which he was held by Edward's ministers; the subsequent disinterment of his remains by order of cardinal Pole, for the purpose of committing his bones to the flames, gave further evidence of his merits in the protestant cause; and in the composition of our national Articles, it has been said that no hand has left more distinguishable traces of itself than that of Bucer.

From Strasburg also the university of Oxford was destined to receive a professor of divinity in the person of the celebrated Peter Martyr. This good and learned man, a Florentine by birth and during some years principal of a college of Augustines at Naples, having gradually become a convert to the doctrines of the reformers, and afterwards proceeding openly to preach them, was compelled to quit his country in order to avoid persecution. Passing into Switzerland, he was received with affectionate hospitality by the disciples of Zwingle at Zurich; and after making some abode there he repaired to Basil, whence Bucer caused him to be invited to fill the station of theological professor at Strasburg. He was also appointed the colleague of this divine in the ministry, and their connexion had subsisted about five years in perfect harmony when the offers of Cranmer induced the two friends to remove into England.

It is to be presumed that no considerable differences of opinion on points deemed by themselves essential could exist between associates so united; but a greater simplicity of character and of views, and superior boldness in the enunciation of new doctrines, strikingly distinguished the proceedings of Peter Martyr from those of his friend. With respect to church government, he, like Bucer, was willing to conform to the regulations of Cranmer and the English council; but he preached at Oxford on the eucharist with so Zwinglian a cast of sentiment, that the popish party raised a popular commotion against him, by which his life was endangered, and he was compelled for a time to withdraw from the city. Tranquillity was soon however restored by the interference of the public authority, and the council proceeded vigorously in obliterating the last vestiges of Romish superstition. Ridley throughout his own diocese now caused the altars to be removed from the churches, and communion-tables to be placed in their room; and, as if by way of comment on this alteration, Martyr and others procured a public recognition of the Genevan as a sister church, and the admission into the English service-book of the articles of faith drawn up by Calvin.

During the remainder of Edward's reign the tide of public opinion continued running with still augmenting velocity towards Geneva. Calvin took upon him openly to expostulate with Bucer on the preference of state expediency to Scripture truth, betrayed, as he asserted, by the obstinate adherence of this divine to certain doctrines and observances which savoured too much of popery; and it is probable that a still nearer approach might have been made to his simpler ritual, but for the untimely death of the zealous young king, and the total ruin of the new establishment which ensued.

Just before the persecutions of Mary drove into exile so many of the most zealous and conscientious of her protestant subjects, the discord between the Lutherans and those whom they styled Sacramentarians had burst out afresh in Germany with more fury than ever. The incendiary on this occasion was Westphal, superintendant of the Lutheran church of Hamburgh, who published a violent book on the subject of the eucharist; and through the influence of this man, and of the outrageous spirit of intolerance which his work had raised, Latimer and Ridley were stigmatized by fellow protestants as "the devil's martyrs," and the Lutheran cities drove from their gates as dangerous and detestable heretics the English refugees who fled to them for shelter. By those cities or congregations, on the contrary,--whether in Germany, France, or Switzerland,--in which the tenets either of Zwingle or Calvin were professed, these pious exiles were received with open arms, venerated as confessors, cherished as brethren in distress, and admitted with perfect confidence into the communion of the respective churches.

Treatment so opposite from the two contending parties, between which they had supposed themselves to occupy neutral ground, failed not to produce corresponding effects on the minds of the exiles. At Frankfort, where the largest body of them was assembled, and where they had formed an English congregation using king Edward's liturgy, this form of worship became the occasion of a division amongst themselves, and a strong party soon declared itself in favor of discarding all of popish forms or doctrine which the English establishment, in common with the Lutheran, had retained, and of adopting in their place the simpler creed and ritual of the Genevan church.

It was found impracticable to compromise this difference; a considerable number finally seceded from the congregation, and it was from this division at Frankfort that English nonconformity took its birth. No equally strong manifestation of opinion occurred amongst the exiles in other cities; but on the whole it may be affirmed, that the majority of these persons returned from their wanderings with their previous predilection for the Calvinistic model confirmed and augmented by the united influence of the reasonings and persuasions of its ablest apostles, and of those sentiments of love and hatred from which the speculative opinions of most men receive an irresistible though secret bias.

Their more unfortunate brethren, in the mean time, who, unwilling to resign their country, or unable to escape from it, had been compelled to look persecution in the face and deliberately acquaint themselves with all its horrors, were undergoing other and in some respects opposite influences.

An overpowering dread and abhorrence of the doctrines of the church of Rome must so have absorbed all other thoughts and feelings in the minds of this dispersed and affrighted remnant of the English church, as to leave them little attention to bestow upon the comparatively trifling objects of dispute between protestant and protestant. They might even be disposed to regard such squabbles with emotions of indignation and disgust, and to ask how brethren in affliction could have the heart to nourish animosities against each other. The memory of Edward VI. was deservedly dear to them, and they would contemplate the restoration of his ritual by the successor of Mary as an event in which they ought to regard all their prayers as fulfilled:--yet the practice, forced upon them by the vigilance of persecution, of holding their assemblies for divine worship in places unconsecrated, with the omission of every customary ceremonial and under the guidance frequently of men whom zeal and piety alone had ordained to the office of teachers and ministers of religion, must amongst them also have been producing a secret alienation from established forms and rituals, and a propensity to those extemporaneous effusions of devotion, or urgencies of supplication, which seem best adapted to satisfy the wants of the pious soul under the fiery trial of persecution and distress. The Calvinistic model therefore, as the freest of all, and that which most industriously avoided any resemblance of popish forms, might be the one most likely to obtain their suffrage also.

Such being the state of religious opinion in England at the accession of Elizabeth, it will not appear wonderful that the Genevan reformer should have begun to indulge the flattering expectation of seeing his own scheme established in England as in Scotland, and himself revered throughout the island as a spiritual director from whose decisions there could be no appeal. Emboldened at once by zeal and ambition, he hastened to open a communication with the new government, in the shape of an exhortation to the queen to call a protestant council for establishing uniformity of doctrine and of church government; but his dream of supremacy was quickly dissipated on receiving for answer, that England was determined to preserve her episcopacy.

This decisive rejection of the presbyterian form was followed up by other acts on the part of the queen which gave offence to all the real friends of reformed religion, and went far to prove that Elizabeth was at heart little more of a protestant than her father. The general prohibition of preaching, which was strictly enforced during the first months of her reign, was understood as a measure of repression levelled full as much against the indiscreet zeal of the returned exiles, as against the disaffection of the catholics. An order that until the next meeting of parliament no change should be made in the order of worship established by the late queen, except the reading of the creed and commandments in English, implied, at least, a determination in the civil power to take the management of religion entirely out of the hands of a clergy whose influence over the minds of the people it viewed with a jealous eye. It was soon also discovered, to the increasing horror of all true protestants, that the queen was strongly disposed to insist on the celibacy of the clergy; and even when the strenuous efforts of Cecil and others had brought her to yield with reluctance this capital point, she still pertinaciously refused to authorize their marrying by an express law. She would not even declare valid the marriages contracted by them during the reign of her brother; so that it became necessary to procure private bills of legitimation in behalf of the offspring of these unions, though formed under the express sanction of then existing laws. The son of Cranmer himself, and the son of archbishop Parker, were of the number of those who found it necessary to resort to this disagreeable and degrading expedient.

Other things which offended the reformists were, the queen's predilection, already mentioned, for crucifixes, which she did not cause to be removed from the churches till after considerable delay and difficulty, and retained in her private chapel for many years longer,--and her wish to continue the use of altars. This being regarded as a dangerous compliance with the Romish doctrine, since an altar could only suit with the notion of a sacrifice of Christ in the mass, earnest expostulations on the subject were addressed to her by several of the leading divines; and in the end the queen found it expedient, with whatever reluctance, to ordain the substitution of communion-tables.

She was also bent upon retaining in the church of which she was the head the use of vestments similar to those worn by the different orders of popish priests in the celebration of the various offices of their religion. A very natural association of ideas caused the protestant clergy to regard with suspicion and abhorrence such an approximation in externals to that worship which was in their eyes the abomination of idolatry; and several of the returned exiles, to whom bishoprics were now offered, scrupled to accept of them under the obligation of wearing the appointed habits. Repeated and earnest representations were made to the queen against them, but she remained inflexible. In this dilemma, the divines requested the advice of Peter Martyr, who had quitted England on the accession of Mary and was now professor of theology at Zurich. He persuaded compliance, representing to them that it was better that high offices in the church should be occupied by persons like themselves, though with the condition of submitting to some things which they did not approve, than that such posts should be given to Lutherans or concealed catholics, who, instead of promoting any further reformation, would labor continually to bring back more and more of the ancient ceremonies and superstitions. This argument was deemed conclusive, and the bishoprics were accepted. But such a plea, though it might suffice certain men for a time, could not long satisfy universally; and we shall soon have occasion to take notice of scruples on this point, as the source of the first intestine divisions by which the Anglican church was disturbed, and of the first persecutions of her own children by which she disgraced herself.

On the whole, it must be admitted that the personal conduct of Elizabeth in this momentous business exhibited neither enlargement of mind nor elevation of soul. Considerably attached to ceremonial observances, and superior to none of the superstitions which she might have imbibed in her childhood, she was however more attached to her own power and authority than to these. Little under the influence of any individual amongst her clergy, and somewhat inclined to treat that order in general with harshness, if not cruelty,--as in the article of their marriages, in the unmitigated rigor with which she exacted from them her first fruits, and in the rapacity which she permitted her courtiers to exercise upon the temporalities of the bishoprics,--the only view which she took of the subject was that of the sovereign and the politician. Aware on one hand of the manner in which her title to the crown was connected with the renunciation of papal authority, of the irreconcileable enmity borne her by the catholic powers, and of the general attachment of her subjects to the cause of the reformation, she felt herself called upon to assume the protection of the protestant interest of Europe, and to re-establish that worship in her own dominions. On the other hand, she remarked with secret dread and aversion the popular spirit and republican tendency of the institutions of Calvin, and she resolved at all hazards to check the growth of his opinions in England. Accordingly, it was the scope of every alteration made by her in the service-book of Edward, to give it more of a Lutheran aspect, and it was for some time apprehended that she would cause the entire Confession of Augsburg to be received into it.

Of toleration, of the rights of conscience, she had as little feeling or understanding as any prince or polemic of her age. Her establishment was formed throughout in the spirit of compromise and political expediency; she took no pains to ascertain, either by the assembling of a national synod or by the submission of the articles to free discussion in parliament, whether or not they were likely to prove agreeable to the opinions of the majority; it sufficed that she had decreed their reception, and she prepared, by means of penal statutes strictly executed, to prevent the propagation of any doctrines, or the observance of any rites, capable of interfering with the exact uniformity in religion then regarded as essential to the peace and stability of every well constituted state.

To Cecil her chief secretary of state and to Nicholas Bacon her keeper of the seals, assisted by a select number of divines, the management of this great affair was chiefly intrusted by the queen: and much might be said of the sagacity displayed by her in this appointment, and of the wisdom and moderation exercised by them in the discharge of their office; much also might be, much has been said, of the excellencies of the form of worship by them established;--but little, alas! of moral or of religious merit can be awarded by the verdict of impartial history to the motives or conduct of the heroine of protestantism in a transaction so momentous and so memorable.

Three acts of the parliament of 1559 gave the sanction of law to the new ecclesiastical establishment; they were those of Supremacy, of Uniformity, and a third empowering the queen to appoint bishops. By the first, the authority of the pope was solemnly renounced, and the whole government of the church vested in the queen, her heirs and successors; and an important clause further enabled her and them to delegate their authority to commissioners of their own appointment, who amongst other extraordinary powers were to be invested with the cognisance of all errors and heresies whatsoever. On this foundation was erected the famous High Commission Court, which grew into one of the principal grievances of this and the two following reigns, and of which, from the moment of its formation, the proceedings assumed a character of arbitrary violence utterly incompatible with the security and happiness of the subject, and hostile to the whole tenor of the ancient charters.

The act of Uniformity ordained an exact compliance in all points with the established form of worship and a punctual attendance on its offices; it also rendered highly penal the exercise, public or private, of any other; and of this law it was not long before several unfortunate catholics were doomed to experience the utmost rigor.

Many parish priests who had been open and violent papists in the last reign, permitted themselves to take the oath of supremacy and retain their cures under the new order of things, a kind of compliance with the times which the court of Rome is said sometimes to have permitted, sometimes even to have privately enjoined,--on the principle of Peter Martyr, that it was better that its secret adherents should continue to occupy the churches, on whatever conditions, than that they should be surrendered entirely into the hands of an opposite party. The bishops, on the contrary, considered themselves as called upon by the dignity of their character and office to bear a public testimony against the defection of England from the holy see; and those of them who had not previously been deprived on other grounds, now in a body refused the oaths and submitted themselves to the consequences. All were deprived, a few imprisoned, several committed to honorable custody. The policy of Elizabeth, unlike the genuine bigotry of her sister, contented itself with a kind of negative intolerance; and as long as the degraded bishops abstained from all manifestations, by words or deeds, of hostility against her government and ecclesiastical establishment, and all celebration of the peculiar rites of their religion, they were secure from molestation; and never to them, as to their unfortunate protestant predecessors, were articles of religion offered for signature under the fearful alternative of compliance or martyrdom.

To supply the vacancies of the episcopal bench became one of the earliest cares of the queen and her ministers; and their choice, which fell on the most eminent of the confessors and exiles, was generally approved by the nation.

Dr. Parker, formerly her mother's chaplain and the religious instructor of her own childhood, was designated by Elizabeth for the primacy. This eminent divine had likewise been one of the chaplains of Edward VI., and enjoyed under his reign considerable church preferments. He had been the friend of Cranmer, Bucer, Latimer, and Ridley; of Cook, Cheke, and Cecil; and was the ardent coadjutor of these meritorious public characters in the promotion of reformed religion, and the advancement of general learning,--two grand objects, which were regarded by them as inseparable and almost identical.

On the accession of Mary, being stripped of all his benefices as a married priest, Parker with his family was reduced to poverty and distress; and it was only by a careful concealment of his person, by frequent changes of place, and in some instances by the timely advertisements of watchful friends, that he was enabled to avoid a still severer trial of his constancy. During this period of distress he found support and solace from the pious task of translating into English metre the whole of the Psalms. The version still exists in manuscript, and is executed with some spirit, and not inelegantly, in the old measure of fourteen syllables.

Parker's "Nolo episcopari" is supposed to have been more than ordinarily sincere: in fact, the station of metropolitan must at this juncture have been felt as one of considerable difficulty, perhaps even of danger; and the stormy temper of the queen afterwards prepared for the prelate so much of contradiction and humiliation as caused him more than once to bewail his final acceptance of the highest dignity of the English church.

With all her personal regard for the primate, Elizabeth could not always refrain in his presence from reflections against married priests, which gave him great pain.

During a progress which she made in 1561 into Essex and Suffolk, she expressed high displeasure at finding so many of the clergy married, and the cathedrals and colleges so filled with women and children; and in consequence she addressed to the archbishop a royal injunction, "that no head or member of any college or cathedral should bring a wife or any other woman into the precincts of it, to abide in the same, on pain of forfeiture of all ecclesiastical promotion." Parker regarded it as his duty to remonstrate with her in person against so popish a prohibition; on which, after declaring to him that she repented of having made any married bishops, she went on to treat the institution of matrimony itself with a satire and contempt which filled him with horror.

It was to his wife that her majesty, in returning acknowledgements for the magnificent hospitality with which she had been received at the archiepiscopal palace, made use of the well-known ungracious address; "Madam I may not call you, mistress I am ashamed to call you, and so I know not what to call you; but howsoever I thank you."

But these fits of ill-humor were transient; for Parker learned the art of dispelling them by submissions, or soothing them by the frequent and respectful tender of splendid entertainments and costly gifts. He did not long remain insensible to the charms of rank and fortune; and it must not be concealed that an inordinate love of power, and a haughty intolerance of all opposition, gradually superseded that candor and Christian meekness of which he had formerly been cited as an edifying example. Against that sect amongst the clergy who refused to adopt the appointed habits and scrupled some of the ceremonies, soon after distinguished by the appellation of Puritans, he exercised his authority with unsparing rigor; and even stretched it by degrees so far beyond all legal bounds, that the queen herself, little as she was inclined to tolerate this sect or to resent any arbitrary conduct in her commissioners, was moved at length to interpose and reverse some of his proceedings. The archbishop, now become incapable of yielding his own will even to that of his sovereign, complained and remonstrated instead of submitting: reproaches ensued on the part of Elizabeth; and in May 1575 the learned prelate ended in a kind of disgrace the career which he had long pursued amid the warmest testimonies of royal approbation.

The fairest, at least the most undisputed, claim of this eminent prelate to the gratitude of his contemporaries and the respect of posterity, is founded on the character which his high station enabled him to assume and maintain, of the most munificent patron of letters of his age and country. The study which he particularly encouraged, and to which his own leisure was almost exclusively devoted, was that of English antiquities; and he formed and presented to Corpus Christi college a large and valuable collection of the manuscripts relative to these objects which had been scattered abroad at the dissolution of the monasteries, and must have been irretrievably lost but for his diligence in inquiring after them and the liberality with which he rewarded their discovery. He edited four of our monkish historians; was the first publisher of that interesting specimen of early English satire and versification, Pierce Plowman's Visions; composed a history in Latin of his predecessors in the see of Canterbury, and encouraged the labors of many private scholars by acts of generosity and kindness.

Grindal, a divine of eminence, who during his voluntary exile at Frankfort had taken a strong part in favor of king Edward's Service-book, was named as the successor of Bonner in the bishopric of London; but a considerable time was spent in overcoming his objections to the habits and ceremonies, before he could be prevailed upon to assume a charge of which he deeply felt the importance and responsibility.

To the reputation of learning and piety which this prelate enjoyed in common with so many of his clerical contemporaries, he added an extraordinary earnestness in the promotion of Christian knowledge, and a courageous inflexibility on points of professional duty, imitated by few and excelled by none. His manly spirit disdained that slavish obsequiousness by which too many of his episcopal brethren paid homage to the narrow prejudices and state-jealousies of an imperious mistress, and it soon became evident that strife and opposition awaited him.

His first difference was with archbishop Parker, whom he highly offended by his backwardness in proceeding to extremities against the puritans, a sect many of whose scruples Grindal himself had formerly entertained, and was still inclined to view with respect or pity rather than with indignation. Cecil, who was his chief friend and patron, apprehensive of his involving himself in trouble, gladly seized an occasion of withdrawing him from the contest, by procuring his appointment in 1570 to the vacant archbishopric of York; a hitherto neglected province, in which his efforts for the instruction of the people and the reformation of the state of the church were peculiarly required and eminently successful.

For his own repose, Grindal ought never to have quitted this sphere of unmolested usefulness; but when, on the death of Parker in 1575, the primacy was offered to him, ambition, or perhaps the hope of rendering his plans more extensively beneficial, unfortunately prompted its acceptance. Thus was he brought once more within the uncongenial atmosphere of a court, and subjected to the immediate control of his sovereign in matters on which he regarded it as a duty, on the double ground of conscience and the rights of his office, to resist the fiat of a temporal head of the church.

The queen, whose dread and hatred of the puritans augmented with the severities which she exercised against them, had conceived a violent aversion to certain meetings called prophesyings, at this time held by the clergy for the purpose of exercising their younger members in expounding the Scriptures, and at which the laity had begun to attend as auditors in great numbers and with much interest. Such assemblies, her majesty declared, were nothing else than so many schools of puritanism, where the people learned to be so inquisitive that their spiritual superiors would soon lose all influence over them, and she issued positive commands to Grindal for their suppression. At the same time she expressed to him her extreme displeasure at the number of preachers licensed in his province, and required that it should be very considerably lessened, "urging that it was good for the world to have few preachers, that three or four might suffice for a county; and that the reading of the homilies to the people was enough." But the venerable primate, so far from consenting to abridge the means of that religious instruction which he regarded it as the most sacred duty of a protestant church to afford, took the freedom of addressing to her majesty a very plain and earnest letter of expostulation. In this piece, after showing the great necessity which existed for multiplying, rather than diminishing, opportunities of edification both to the clergy and the people, and protesting that he could not in conscience be instrumental to the suppression either of preaching or prophesyings, he proceeded to remonstrate with her majesty on the arbitrary, imperious, and as it were papal manner, in which she took upon herself to decide points better left to the management of her bishops. He ended by exhorting her to remember that she also was a mortal creature, and accountable to God for the exercise of her power, and that she ought above all things to be desirous of employing it piously for the promotion of true religion.

The event showed this remonstrance to be rather well-intended than well-judged. Indignation was the only sentiment which it awakened in the haughty mind of Elizabeth, and she answered it by an order of the Star-chamber, in virtue of which the archbishop was suspended from his functions for six months, and confined during the same period to his house. At the end of this time he was urged by Burleigh to acknowledge himself in fault and beg the queen's forgiveness but he steadily refused to compromise thus a good cause, and his sequestration was continued. It even appears that nothing but the honest indignation of some of her ministers and courtiers restrained the queen from proceeding to deprive him.

At the end of four or five years, her anger being somewhat abated, it pleased her to take off the sequestration, but without restoring the primate to her favor; and as he was now old and blind, he willingly consented to resign the primacy and retire on a pension: but in 1583, before the matter could be finally arranged, he died.

Archbishop Grindal was a great contributor to Fox's "Acts and Monuments," for which he collected many materials; but he was the author of no considerable work, and on the whole he seems to have been less admirable by the display of any extraordinary talents than revered and exemplary for the primitive virtues of probity, sincerity, and godly zeal. These were the qualities which obtained for him the celebration of Spenser in his "Shepherd's Calendar," where he is designated by the name of Algrind, and described as a true teacher of the Gospel and a severe reprover of the pride and worldliness of the popish clergy. The lines were written during the period of the prelate's disgrace, which is allegorically related and bewailed by the poet.

Another distinguished ornament of the episcopal bench was Jewel, consecrated to the see of Salisbury in 1560. It is remarkable that this learned apologist of the church of England had expressed at first a stronger repugnance to the habits than most of his colleagues; but having once brought himself to compliance, he thenceforth became noted for the rigor with which he exacted it of others.

In the time of Henry VIII. Jewel had become suspected of opinions which he openly embraced on the accession of Edward, and he was sufficiently distinguished amongst the reformers of this reign to be marked out as one of the first objects of persecution under Mary. As a preliminary step, on which proceedings might be founded, the Romish articles were offered for his signature, when he disappointed alike his enemies and his friends by subscribing them without apparent reluctance. But his insincerity in this act was notorious, and it was in contemplation to subject him to the fierce interrogatories of Bonner, when timely warning enabled him, through many perils, to escape out of the country. Safe arrived at Frankfort, he made a public confession, before the English congregation, of his guilt in signing articles which his conscience abhorred, and humbly entreated forgiveness of God and the church. After this, he repaired to Strasburgh and passed away the time with his friend Peter Martyr.

The erudition of Jewel was profound and extensive, his private life amiable, his performance of his episcopal duties sedulous; and such was the esteem in which his celebrated "Apology" was held, that Elizabeth, and afterwards James I., ordained that a copy of it should be kept in every parish-church in England.

Of Dr. Cox, elevated to the see of Ely, mention has already been made; and it would be superfluous here to enter more largely into the ecclesiastical history of the reign.

A careful consideration of the behaviour of Elizabeth towards the two successive primates Parker and Grindal, will furnish a sufficiently accurate notion of the spirit of her religious policy, besides affording a valuable addition to the characteristic traits illustrative of her temper and opinions.

CHAPTER XIIIa.

1561.

Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex.--Translations of ancient tragedies.--Death of Francis II.--Mary refuses to ratify the treaty of Edinburgh--returns to Scotland.--Enmity between Mary and Elizabeth.--Philip II. secretly encourages the English papists.--Measures of rigor adopted against them by Elizabeth.--Anecdote of the queen and Dr. Sampson.--St. Paul's struck by lightning.--Bishop Pilkington's sermon on the occasion.--Paul's Walk.--Precautions against the queen's being poisoned.--The king of Sweden proposes to visit her.--Steps taken in this matter.

The eighteenth of January 1561 ought to be celebrated as the birthday of the English drama; for it was on this day that Thomas Sackville caused to be represented at Whitehall, for the entertainment of Elizabeth and her court, the tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex, otherwise called Gorboduc, the joint production of himself and Thomas Norton. From the unrivalled force of imagination, the vigor and purity of diction, and the intimate knowledge and tasteful adaptation of the beauties of the Latin poets displayed in the contributions of Sackville to the Mirror of Magistrates, a lettered audience would conceive high expectations from his attempt in a new walk of poetry; but in the then barbarous state of our Theatre, such a performance as Gorboduc must have been hailed as not only a novelty but a wonder. It was the first piece composed in English on the ancient tragic model, with a regular division into five acts, closed by lyric choruses.

It offered the first example of a story from British history, or what passed for history, completely dramatized and represented with an attempt at theatrical illusion; for the earlier pieces published under the title of tragedies were either ballads or monologues, which might indeed be sung or recited, but were incapable of being acted. The plot of the play was fraught with those circumstances of the deepest horror by which the dormant sensibilities of an inexperienced audience require and delight to be awakened. An unwonted force of thought and dignity of language claimed the patience, if not the admiration, of the hearers, for the long political disquisitions by which the business of the piece was somewhat painfully retarded.

The curiosity of the public respecting a drama which had been performed with general applause both at court and before the society of the Middle Temple, encouraged its surreptitious appearance in print in 1565, and a second stolen edition was followed, some years after, by a corrected one published under the inspection of the authors themselves. The taste for the legitimate drama thus awakened, may be supposed to have led to the naturalization amongst us of several of its best ancient models. The Phoenissae of Euripides appeared under the title of Jocasta, having received an English dress from Gascoigne and Kinwelmershe, two students of Gray's Inn. The ten tragedies of Seneca, englished by different hands, succeeded. It is worthy of note, however, that none of these translators had the good taste to imitate the authors of Ferrex and Porrex in the adoption of blank verse, and that one only amongst them made use of the heroic rhymed couplet; the others employing the old alexandrine measure, excepting in the choruses, which were given in various kinds of stanza. Her majesty alone seems to have perceived the superior advantages, or to have been tempted by the greater facility of Sackville's verse; and amongst the MSS. of the Bodleian library there is found a translation by her own hand of part of Seneca's Hercules Oetaeus, which is in this measure. Warton however adds, that this specimen "has no other recommendation than its royalty."

The propensity of Elizabeth, amid all the serious cares of government and all the pettinesses of that political intrigue to which she was addicted, to occupy herself with attempts in polite literature, for which she possessed no manner of talent, is not the least remarkable among the features of her extraordinary and complicated character.

At the period of her reign however which we are now considering, public affairs must have required from her an almost undivided attention. By the death of Francis II. about the end of the year 1560, the queen of Scots had become a widow, and the relations of England with France and Scotland had immediately assumed an entirely novel aspect.

The change was in one respect highly to the advantage of Elizabeth. By the loss of her royal husband, Mary was deprived of that command over the resources of the French monarchy by which she had hoped to render effective her claim to the English crown, and she found it expedient to discontinue for the present the use of the royal arms of England. The enmity of the queen-mother had even chased her from that court where she had reigned so lately, and obliged her to retire to her uncle, the cardinal of Lorrain at Rheims. But from the age and temper of the beautiful and aspiring Mary, it was to be expected that she would ere long be induced to re-enter the matrimonial state with some one of the princes of Europe; and neither as a sovereign nor a woman could Elizabeth regard without jealousy the plans for her reestablishment already agitated by her ambitious uncles of the house of Guise. Under these circumstances, it was the first object of Elizabeth to obtain from her rival the formal ratification, which had hitherto been withheld, of the treaty of Edinburgh, by one article of which Mary was pledged never to resume the English arms; and Throgmorton, then ambassador to France, was instructed to urge strongly her immediate compliance with this certainly not inequitable demand. The queen of Scots, however, persisted in evading its fulfilment, and on pleas so forced and futile as justly to confirm all previous suspicions of her sincerity.

Matters were in this state between the two sovereigns, when Mary came to the resolution of acceding to the unanimous entreaties of her subjects of both religions, by returning to govern in person the kingdom of her ancestors; and she sent to request of Elizabeth a safe-conduct. The English princess promptly replied, that the queen had only to ratify the treaty of Edinburgh, and she should obtain not merely a safe-conduct but free permission to shorten the fatigues of her voyage by passing through England, where she should be received with all the marks of affection due to a beloved sister. By this answer Mary chose to regard herself as insulted; and declaring to the English ambassador in great heat that nothing vexed her so much as to have exposed herself without necessity to such a refusal, and that she doubted not that she should be able to return to her country without the permission of Elizabeth, as she had quitted it in spite of all the vigilance of her brother, she abruptly broke off the conference.

Henceforth the breach between these illustrious kinswomen became irreparable. In vain did Mary, after her arrival in Scotland, endeavour to remedy the imprudence which she was conscious of having committed, by professions of respect and friendship; for with these hollow compliments she had the further indiscretion to mingle the demand that Elizabeth should publicly declare her next heir to the English throne; a proposal which this high-spirited princess could never hear without rage. Neither of the queens was a novice in the arts of dissimulation, and as often as it suited the interest or caprice of the moment, each would lavish upon the other, without scruple, every demonstration of amity, every pledge of affection; but jealousy, suspicion, and hatred dwelt irremoveably in the inmost recesses of their hearts. The protestant party in Scotland was powerfully protected by Elizabeth, the catholic party in England was secretly incited by Mary; and it became scarcely less the care and occupation of each to disturb the administration of her rival than to fix her own on a solid basis.

Mary had been attended on her return to Scotland by her three uncles, the duke of Aumale, the grand prior and the marquis of Elbeuf, with a numerous retinue of French nobility; and when after a short visit the duke and the grand prior took their leave of her, they with their company consisting of more than a hundred returned through England, visiting in their way the court of Elizabeth. Brantome, who was of the party, has given incidentally the following particulars of their entertainment in the short memoir which he has devoted to the celebration of Henry II. of France.

"Bref, c'estoit un roy tres accomply & fort aymable. J'ay ouy conter a la reigne d'Angleterre qui est aujourd'huy, que c'estoit le roy & le prince du monde qu'elle avoit plus desire de voir, pour le beau rapport qu'on luy en avoit fait, & pour sa grande renommee qui en voloit par tout. Monsieur le connestable qui vit aujourd'huy s'en pourra bien ressouvenir, ce fut lorsque retournant d'Escosse M. le grand prieur de France, de la maison de Lorreine, & luy, la reigne leur donna un soir a soupper, ou apres se fit un ballet de ses filles, qu'elle avoit ordonne & dresse, representant les vierges de l'evangile, desquelles les unes avoient leurs lampes allumees & les autres n'avoient ny huile ny feu & en demandoient. Ces lampes estoient d'argent fort gentiment faites & elabourees, & les dames etoient tres-belles & honnestes & bien apprises, qui prirent nous autres Francois pour danser, mesme la reigne dansa, & de fort bonne grace & belle majeste royale, car elle l'avoit & estoit lors en sa grande beaute & belle grace. Rien ne l'a gastee que l'execution de la pauvre reigne d'Escosse, sans cela c'estoit une tres-rare princesse.

"...Estant ainsi a table devisant familierement avec ces seigneurs, elle dit ces mots, (apres avoir fort louee le roy): C'estoit le prince du monde que j'avois plus desire de voir, & luy avois deja mande que bientost je le verrois, & pour ce j'avois commande de me faire bien appareiller mes galeres (usant de ces mots) pour passer en France expres pour le voir. Monsieur le connestable, d'aujourd'huy, qui estoit lors Monsieur d'Amville, respondit, Madame, je m'asseure que vous eussiez este tres-contente de le voir, car son humeur & sa facon vous eussent pleu; aussi lui eust il este tres-content de vous voir, car il eust fort aime votre belle humeur & vos agreables facons, & vous eust fait un honorable accueil & tres-bonne chere, & vous eust bien fait passer le temps. Je le croy & m'en asseure, dit elle." &c.

By the death of the king of France, and the increasing distractions of that unhappy country under the feeble minority of Charles IX., the politics of the king of Spain also were affected. He had not now to fear the union of the crowns of England France and Scotland under the joint rule of Francis and Mary, which he had once regarded as a not improbable event; consequently his strongest inducement for keeping measures with Elizabeth ceased to operate, and he began daily to disclose more and more of that animosity with which he could not fail to regard a princess who was at once the heroine and patroness of protestantism. From this time he began to furnish secret aids which added hope and courage to the English partisans of popery and of Mary; and Elizabeth judged it a necessary policy to place her catholic subjects under a more rigid system of restraint. It was contrary to her private inclinations to treat this sect with severity, and she was the more reluctant to do so as she thus gratified in an especial manner the wishes of the puritanical or Calvinistic party in the church, their inveterate enemies; and by identifying in some measure her cause with theirs, saw herself obliged to conform in several points to their views rather than her own wishes.

The law which rendered it penal to hear mass was first put in force against several persons of rank, that the example might strike the more terror. Sir Edward Waldegrave, in Mary's reign a privy-councillor, was on this account committed to the Tower, with his lady and some others; and lord Loughborough, also a privy-councillor much favored and trusted by the late queen, was brought into trouble on the same ground. Against Waldegrave it is to be feared that much cruelty was exercised during his imprisonment; for it is said to have occasioned his death, which occurred in the Tower a few months afterwards. The High Commission court now began to take cognisance of what was called recusancy, or the refusal to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy; it also encouraged informations against such as refrained from joining in the established worship; and numerous professors of the old religion, both ecclesiastics and laity, were summoned on one account or other before this tribunal. Of these, some were committed to prison, others restricted from entering certain places, as the two universities, or circumscribed within the limits of some town or county; and most were bound in great penalties to be forthcoming whenever it should be required.

As a further demonstration of zeal against popery, the queen caused all the altars in Westminster abbey to be pulled down; and about the same time a remarkable scene occurred between her majesty and Dr. Thomas Sampson dean of Christ-church.

It happened that the queen had appointed to go to St. Paul's on New Year's day to hear the dean preach; and he, thinking to gratify her on that day with an elegant and appropriate present, had procured some prints illustrative of the histories of the saints and martyrs, which he caused to be inserted in a richly bound prayer-book and laid on the queen's cushion for her use. Her majesty opened the volume; but no sooner did the prints meet her eye, than she frowned, blushed, and called to the verger to bring her the book she was accustomed to use. As soon as the service was ended, she went into the vestry and inquired of the dean who had brought that book? and when he explained that he had meant it as a present to her majesty, she chid him severely, inquired if he was ignorant of her proclamation against images, pictures, and Romish reliques in the churches, and of her aversion to all idolatry, and strictly ordered that no similar mistake should be made in future. What renders this circumstance the more curious is, that Elizabeth at this very time kept a crucifix in her private chapel, and that Sampson was so far from being popishly inclined, that he had refused the bishopric of Norwich the year before, on account of the habits and ceremonies, and was afterwards deprived of his deanery by archbishop Parker for nonconformity.

Never did parties in religion run higher than about this period of the reign of Elizabeth; and we may remark as symptomatic of the temper of the times, the manner in which a trivial accident was commented upon by adverse disputants. The beautiful steeple of St. Paul's cathedral, the loftiest in the kingdom, had been stricken by lightning and utterly destroyed, together with the bells and roof. A papist immediately dispersed a paper representing this accident as a judgement of Heaven for the discontinuance of the matins and other services which had used to be performed in the church at different hours of the day and night. Pilkington bishop of Durham, who preached at Paul's cross after the accident, was equally disposed to regard it as a judgement, but on the sins of London in general, and particularly on certain abuses by which the church had formerly been polluted. In a tract published in answer to that of the papist he afterwards gave an animated description of the practices of which this cathedral had been the theatre; curious at the present day as a record of forgotten customs. He said that "no place had been more abused than Paul's had been, nor more against the receiving of Christ's Gospel; wherefore it was more wonder that God had spared it so long, than that he overthrew it now.... From the top of the spire, at coronations or other solemn triumphs, some for vain glory had used to throw themselves down by a rope, and so killed themselves, vainly to please other men's eyes. At the battlements of the steeple, sundry times were used their popish anthems, to call upon their Gods, with torch and taper, in the evenings. In the top of one of the pinnacles was Lollards' Tower, where many an innocent soul had been by them cruelly tormented and murdered. In the middest alley was their long censer, reaching from the roof to the ground; as though the Holy Ghost came down in their censing, in likeness of a dove. In the arches, men commonly complained of wrong and delayed judgments in ecclesiastical causes: and divers had been condemned there by Annas and Caiaphas for Christ's cause. Their images hung on every wall, pillar and door, with their pilgrimages and worshipings of them: passing over their massing and many altars, and the rest of their popish service. The south alley was for usury and popery, the north for simony; and the horse fair in the midst for all kind of bargains, meetings, brawlings, murders, conspiracies. The font for ordinary payments of money as well known to all men as the beggar knows his dish.... So that without and within, above the ground and under, over the roof and beneath, from the top of the steeple and spire down to the low floor, not one spot was free from wickedness."

The practice here alluded to, of making the nave of St. Paul's a kind of exchange for the transaction of all kinds of business, and a place of meeting for idlers of every sort, is frequently referred to by the writers of this and the two succeeding reigns; and when or by what means the custom was put an end to, does not appear. It was here that sir Nicholas Throgmorton held a conference with an emissary of Wyat's; it was here that one of the bravoes engaged in the noted murder of Arden of Feversham was hired. It was in Paul's that Falstaff is made to say he "bought" Bardolph.

In bishop Earl's admirable little book called Micro-cosmography the scene is described with all the wit of the author and somewhat of the quaintness of his age, which was that of James I.

"Paul's walk is the land's epitome, or you may call it the lesser isle of Great Britain. It is, more than this, the whole world's map, which you may here discern in its perfectest motion, justling, and turning. It is the great exchange of all discourse, and no business whatsoever but is here stirring and afoot. It is the synod of all pates politic, joined and laid together in most serious posture, and they are not half so busy at the parliament.... It is the market of young lecturers, whom you may cheapen here at all rates and sizes. It is the general mint of all famous lies, which are here, like the legends of popery, first coined and stamped in the church. All inventions are emptied here, and not a few pockets. The best sign of a temple in it is, that it is the thieves sanctuary.... The visitants are, all men without exception, but the principal inhabitants and possessors are, stale knights, and captains out of service, men of long rapiers and breeches which, after all, turn merchants here, and traffic for news. Some make it a preface to their dinner, but thriftier men make it their ordinary, and board here very cheap."

The vigilant ministers of Elizabeth had now begun to alarm themselves and her with apprehensions of plots against her life from the malice of the papists; and it would be rash to pronounce that such fears were entirely void of foundation; but we may be permitted to smile at the ignorant credulity on the subject of poisons,--universal indeed in that age,--which dictated the following minute of council, extant in the handwriting of Cecil. "We think it very convenient that your majesty's apparel, and specially all manner of things that shall touch any part of your majesty's body bare, be circumspectly looked unto; and that no person be permitted to come near it, but such as have the trust and charge thereof.

"Item. That no manner of perfume either in apparel or sleeves, gloves or such like, or otherwise that shall be appointed for your majesty's savor, be presented by any stranger or other person, but that the same be corrected by some other fume.

"Item. That no foreign meat or dishes being dressed out of your majesty's court, be brought to your food, without assured knowledge from whom the same cometh; and that no use be had hereof.

"Item. That it may please your majesty to take the advice of your physician for the receiving weekly twice some preservative 'contra pestem et venena,' as there be many good things 'et salutaria.'

"Item. It may please your majesty to give order who shall take the charge of the back doors to your chamberers chambers, where landresses, tailors, wardrobers, and the like, use to come; and that the same doors be duly attended upon, as becometh, and not to stand open but upon necessity.

"Item. That the privy chamber may be better ordered, with an attendance of an usher, and the gentlemen and grooms[48]."

[Note 48: "Burleigh Papers" by Haynes, p. 368.]

It was fortunate that the same exaggerated notions of the power of poisons prevailed amongst papists as protestants. Against the ill effects of a drug applied by direction of a Spanish friar to the arms of a chair and the pommel of a saddle, the antidotes received twice a week might be depended upon as an effectual preservative.

From these perils, real and imaginary,--none of which however appear to have taken strong hold of the cheerful and courageous temper of the queen,--her attention and that of her council was for some time diverted by the expectation of a royal suitor.

Eric king of Sweden,--whose hopes of final success in his addresses were kept up in spite of the repeated denials of the queen, by the artifice of some Englishmen at his court who deluded him by pretended secret intelligence,--had sent to her majesty a royal present, and declared his intention of following in person. The present consisted of eighteen large piebald horses, and two ship-loads of precious articles which are not particularized. It does not appear that this offering was ill-received; but as Elizabeth was determined not to relent in favor of the sender, she caused him to be apprized of the impositions passed upon him by the English to whom he had given ear, at the same time expressing her anxious hope that he would spare himself the fatigues of a fruitless voyage. Fearing however that he might be already on his way, she occupied herself in preparations for receiving him with all the hospitality and splendor due to his errand, his rank and her own honor. It was at the same time a business of some perplexity so to regulate all these matters of ceremony that neither Eric himself nor others might conclude that he was a favored suitor. Among the state papers of the time we find, first a letter of council to the lord mayor, setting forth, that, "Whereas certain bookbinders and stationers did utter certain papers wherein were printed the face of her majesty and the king of Sweden; although her majesty was not miscontented that either her own face or that of this king should be pourtrayed; yet to be joined in the same paper with him or any other prince who was known to have made request for marriage to her, was what she could not allow. Accordingly it was her pleasure that the lord mayor should seize all such papers, and pack them up so that none of them should get abroad. Otherwise she might seem to authorize this joining of herself in marriage to him, which might seem to touch her in honor." Next we have a letter to the duke of Norfolk directing the manner in which he should go to meet the king, if he landed at any part of Norfolk or Suffolk: and lastly, we have the solemn judgement of the lord-treasurer, the lord-steward, and the lord-chamberlain, on the ceremonial to be observed towards him on his arrival by the queen herself.

One paragraph is conceived with all the prudery and the deep policy about trifles, which marked the character of Elizabeth herself. "Bycause the queen's majesty is a maid, in this case would many things be omitted of honor and courtesy, which otherwise were mete to be showed to him, as in like cases hath been of kings of this land to others, and therefore it shall be necessary that the gravest of her council do, as of their own judgement, excuse the lack thereof to the king; and yet on their own parts offer the supplement thereof with reverence."

After all, the king of Sweden never came.

CHAPTER XIIIb.

1561 TO 1565.

Difficulties respecting the succession.--Lady C. Grey marries the earl of Hertford.--Cruel treatment of them by Elizabeth.--Conspiracy of the Poles.--Law against prophecies.--Sir H. Sidney ambassador to France.--Some account of him.--Defence of Havre under the earl of Warwick.--Its surrender.--Proposed interview between Elizabeth and Mary.--Plague in London.--Studies of the queen.--Proclamation respecting portraits of her.--Negotiations concerning the marriage of Mary.--Elizabeth proposes to her lord R. Dudley.--Hales punished for defending the title of the Suffolk line.--Sir N. Bacon and lord J. Grey in some disgrace on the same account.--Queen's visit to Cambridge.--Dudley created earl of Leicester.--Notice of sir James Melvil and extracts from his memoirs.--Marriage of Mary with Darnley.--Conduct of Elizabeth respecting it.--She encourages, then disavows the Scotch malcontent lords.--Behaviour of sir N. Throgmorton.--The puritans treated with greater lenity.

The situation of Elizabeth, amid its many difficulties, presented none so perplexing, none which the opinions of her most prudent counsellors were so much divided on the best mode of obviating, as those arising out of the doubt and confusion in which the right of succession was still involved. Her avowed repugnance to marriage, which was now feared to be insurmountable, kept the minds of men continually busy on this dangerous topic, and she was already incurring the blame of many by the backwardness which she discovered in designating a successor and causing her choice to be confirmed, as it would readily have been, by the parliament.

But this censure must be regarded as unjust. Even though the jealousy of power had found no entrance into the bosom of Elizabeth, sound policy required her long to deliberate before she formed a decision, and perhaps, whatever that decision might be, forbade her, under present circumstances, to announce it to the world.

The title of the queen of Scots, otherwise unquestionable, was barred by the will of Henry VIII., ratified by an unrepealed act of parliament, and nothing less solemn than a fresh act of the whole legislature would have been sufficient to render it perfectly free from objection: and could Elizabeth be in reason expected to take such a step in behalf of a foreign and rival sovereign, professing a religion hostile to her own and that of her people; of one, above all, who had openly pretended a right to the crown preferable to her own, and who was even now exhausting the whole art of intrigue to undermine and supplant her?

On the other hand, to confirm the exclusion of the Scottish line, and adopt as her successor the representative of that of Suffolk, appeared neither safe nor equitable.

The testamentary disposition of Henry had evidently been dictated by caprice and resentment, and the title of Mary was nevertheless held sacred and indisputable not only by all the catholics, but by the partisans of strict hereditary right in general, and by all who duly appretiated the benefits which must flow from an union of the English and Scottish sceptres. To inflict a mortal injury on Mary might be as dangerous as to give her importance by an express law establishing her claims, and against any perils in which Elizabeth might thus involve herself the house of Suffolk could afford her no accession of strength, since their allegiance,--all they had to offer,--was hers already.

The lady Catherine Grey, the heiress of this house, might indeed have been united in marriage to some protestant prince, whose power would have acted as a counterpoise to that of Scotland. But a secret and reluctant persuasion that the real right was with the Scottish line, constantly operated on the mind of Elizabeth so far as to prevent her from taking any step towards the advancement of the rival family; and the unfortunate lady Catherine was doomed to undergo all the restraints, the persecutions and the sufferings, which in that age formed the melancholy appanage of the younger branches of the royal race, with little participation of the homage or the hopes which some minds would have accepted as an adequate compensation.

It will be remembered, that the hand of this high-born lady was given to lord Herbert, son of the earl of Pembroke, on the same day that Guildford Dudley fatally received that of her elder sister the lady Jane; and that on the accession of Mary this short-lived and perhaps uncompleted union had been dissolved at the instance of the politic father of lord Herbert. From this time lady Catherine had remained in neglect and obscurity till the year 1560, when information of her having formed a private connexion with the earl of Hertford, son of the Protector Somerset, reached the ears of Elizabeth. The lady, on being questioned, confessed her pregnancy, declaring herself at the same time to be the lawful wife of the earl: her degree of relationship to the queen was not so near as to render her marriage without the royal consent illegal, yet by a stretch of authority familiar to the Tudors she was immediately sent prisoner to the Tower. Hertford, in the mean time, was summoned to produce evidence of the marriage, by a certain day, before special commissioners named by her majesty, from whose decision no appeal was to lie. He was at this time in France, and so early a day was designedly fixed for his answer, that he found it impracticable to collect his proofs in time, and to the Tower he also was committed, as the seducer of a maiden of royal blood.

By this iniquitous sentence, a color was given for treating the unfortunate lady and those who had been in her confidence with every species of harshness and indignity, and the following extract from a warrant addressed in the name of her majesty to Mr. Warner, lieutenant of the Tower, sufficiently indicates the cruel advantage taken of her situation.

..."Our pleasure is, that ye shall, as by our commandment, examine the lady Catherine very straightly, how many hath been privy to the love between her and the earl of Hertford from the beginning; and let her certainly understand that she shall have no manner of favor except she will show the truth, not only what ladies or gentlewomen of this court were thereto privy, but also what lords and gentlemen: For it doth now appear that sundry personages have dealt herein, and when it shall appear more manifestly, it shall increase our indignation against her, if she will forbear to utter it.

"We earnestly require you to use your diligence in this. Ye shall also send to alderman Lodge secretly for St. Low, and shall put her in awe of divers matters confessed by the lady Catherine; and so also deal with her that she may confess to you all her knowledge in the same matters. It is certain that there hath been great practices and purposes; and since the death of the lady Jane she hath been most privy. And as ye shall see occasion so ye may keep St. Low two or three nights more or less, and let her be returned to Lodge's or kept still with you as ye shall think meet[49]." &c.

[Note 49: "Burleigh Papers" by Haynes.]

The child of which the countess of Hertford was delivered soon after her committal, was regarded as illegitimate, and she was doomed to expiate her pretended misconduct by a further imprisonment at the arbitrary pleasure of the queen. The birth of a second child, the fruit of stolen meetings between the captive pair, aggravated in the jealous eyes of Elizabeth their common guilt. Warner lost his place for permitting or conniving at their interviews, and Hertford was sentenced in the Star-chamber to a fine of fifteen thousand pounds for the double offence of vitiating a female of the royal blood, and of breaking his prison to renew his offence.

It might somewhat console this persecuted pair under all their sufferings, to learn how unanimously the public voice was in their favor. No one doubted that they were lawfully married,--a fact which was afterwards fully established,--and it was asked, by what right, or on what principle, her majesty presumed to keep asunder those whom God had joined? Words ran so high on this subject after the sentence of the Star-chamber, that some alarmists in the privy-council urged the necessity of inflicting still severer punishment on the earl, and of intimidating the talkers by strong measures. The further consequences of this affair to persons high in her majesty's confidence will be related hereafter: meantime it must be recorded, to the eternal disgrace of Elizabeth's character and government, that she barbarously and illegally detained her ill-fated kinswoman, first in the Tower and afterwards in private custody, till the day of her death in January 1567; and that the earl her husband, having added to the original offence of marrying a princess, the further presumption of placing upon legal record the proofs of his children's legitimacy, was punished, besides his fine, with an imprisonment of nine whole years. So much of the jealous spirit of her grandfather still survived in the bosom of this last of the Tudors!

On another occasion, however, she exercised towards a family whose pretensions had been viewed by her father with peculiar dread and hostility, a degree of forbearance which had in it somewhat of magnanimity.

Arthur and Edmund Pole, two nephews of the cardinal, with sir Anthony Fortescue their sister's husband, and other accomplices, had been led, either by private ambition, by a vehement zeal for the Romish faith, or both together, to meditate the subversion of the existing state of things, and to plan the following wild and desperate scheme.

Having first repaired to France, where they expected to receive aid and counsels from the Guises, the conspirators were to return at the head of an army and make a landing in Wales. Here Arthur Pole, assuming at the same time the title of duke of Clarence, was to proclaim the queen of Scots, and the new sovereign was soon after to give her hand to his brother Edmund. This absurd plot was detected before any steps were taken towards its execution: the Poles were apprehended, and made a full disclosure on their trial of all its circumstances; pleading however in excuse, that they had no thought of putting their design in practice till the death of the queen, an event which certain diviners in whom they placed reliance had confidently predicted within the year.

In consideration of this confession, and probably of the insignificance of the offenders, the royal pardon was extended to their lives, and the illustrious name of Pole was thus preserved from extinction. It is probable, however, that they were kept for some time prisoners in the Tower; and thither was also sent the countess of Lenox, on discovery of the secret correspondence which she carried on with the queen of Scots.

The confession of the Poles seems to have given occasion to the renewal, by the parliament of 1562, of a law against "fond and fantastical prophecies," promulgated with design to disturb the queen's government; by which act also it was especially forbidden to make prognostications on or by occasion of any coats of arms, crests, or badges; a clause added, it is believed, for the particular protection of the favorite, Dudley, whose bear and ragged staff was the continual subject of open derision or emblematical satire.

A legend in the "Mirror for Magistrates," relating the unhappy catastrophe of George duke of Clarence, occasioned by a prophecy against one whose name began with a G, appears to have been composed in aid of the operation of this law. The author takes great pains to impress his readers with the futility as well as wickedness of such predictions, and concludes with the remark, that no one ought to imagine the foolish and malicious inventors of modern prophecies inspired, though

..."learned Merlin whom God gave the sprite To know and utter princes' acts to come, Like to the Jewish prophets did recite In shade of beasts their doings all and some; Expressing plain by manners of the doom That kings and lords such properties should have As have the beasts whose name he to them gave!"

In France every thing now wore the aspect of an approaching civil war between the partisans of the two religions, under the conduct on one side of the Guises, on the other of the princes of the house of Conde. Elizabeth judged it her duty, or her policy, to make a last effort for the reconciliation of these angry factions, and she dispatched an ambassador to Charles IX. charged with her earnest representations on the subject. They were however ineffectual, and produced apparently no other valuable result than that of rendering her majesty better acquainted with the talents and merit of the eminent person whom she had honored with this delicate commission.

This person was sir Henry Sidney, one of the most upright as well as able of the ministers of Elizabeth:--that he was the father of sir Philip Sidney was the least of his praises; and it may be cited as one of the caprices of fame, that he should be remembered by his son, rather than his son by him. Those qualities which in sir Philip could afford little but the promise of active virtue, were brought in sir Henry to the test of actual performance; and lasting monuments of his wisdom and his goodness remain in the institutions by which he softened the barbarism of Wales, and appeased the more dangerous turbulence of Ireland by promoting its civilization.

Sir Henry was the son of sir William Sidney, a gentleman of good parentage in Kent, whose mother was of the family of Brandon and nearly related to the duke of Suffolk of that name, the favorite and brother-in-law of Henry VIII. Sir William in his youth had made one of a band of gentlemen of figure, who, with their sovereign's approbation, travelled into Spain and other countries of Europe to study the manners and customs of their respective courts. He likewise distinguished himself in the field of Flodden. The king stood godfather to his son Henry, born in 1529, and caused him to be educated with the prince of Wales, to whom sir William was appointed tutor, chamberlain, and steward.

The excellent qualities and agreeable talents of young Sidney soon endeared him to Edward, who made him his inseparable companion and often his bed-fellow; kept him in close attendance on his person during his long decline, and sealed his friendship by breathing his last in his arms.

During the short reign of this lamented prince Sidney had received the honor of knighthood, and had been intrusted, at the early age of one or two and twenty, with an embassy to the French king, in which he acquitted himself so ably that he was soon afterwards sent in a diplomatic character to Scotland. He had likewise formed connexions which exerted important influence on his after fortunes. Sir John Cheke held him in particular esteem, and through his means he had contracted a cordial friendship with Cecil, of which in various ways he found the benefit to the end of his life. A daughter of the all-powerful duke of Northumberland had also honored him with her hand,--a dangerous gift, which was likely to have involved him in the ruin which the guilty projects of that audacious man drew down upon the heads of himself and his family. But the prudence or loyalty of Sidney preserved him from the snare. No sooner had his royal master breathed his last, than, relinquishing all concern in public affairs, he withdrew to the safe retirement of his own seat at Penshurst, where he afterwards afforded a generous asylum to such of the Dudleys as had escaped death or imprisonment.

Queen Mary seems to have held out an earnest of future favor to Sidney, by naming him amongst the noblemen and knights appointed to attend Philip of Spain to England for the completion of his nuptials; and this prince further honored him by becoming sponsor to his afterwards celebrated son and giving him his own name. But Sidney soon quitted a court in which a man of protestant principles could no longer reside with satisfaction, if with safety, and accompanied to Ireland his brother-in-law viscount Fitzwalter, then lord-deputy. In that kingdom he at first bore the office of vice-treasurer, and afterwards, during the frequent absences of the lord-deputy, the high one of sole lord-justice.

The accession of Elizabeth enabled lord Robert Dudley to make a large return for the former kindness of his brother-in-law; and supported by the influence of this distinguished favorite, in addition to his personal claims, sir Henry Sidney rose in a few years to the dignities of privy-councillor and knight of the garter. After his embassy to France he was appointed to the post of lord-president of Wales, to which, in 1565, the still more important one of lord-deputy of Ireland was added;--an union of two not very compatible offices, unexampled in our annals before or since. Some particulars of sir Henry Sidney's government of Ireland may come under review hereafter: it is sufficient here to observe, that ample testimony to his merit was furnished by Elizabeth herself, in the steadiness with which she persisted in appointing and re-appointing him to this most perplexing department of public service, in spite of all the cabals, of English or Irish growth, by which, though his favor with her was sometimes shaken, her rooted opinion of his probity and sufficiency could never be overthrown.

The failure of Elizabeth's negotiations with the French court was followed by her taking up arms in support of the oppressed Hugonots; and Ambrose Dudley earl of Warwick, the elder brother of lord Robert, was sent to Normandy at the head of three thousand men. Of the two Dudleys it was said by their contemporaries, that the elder inherited the money, and the younger the wit, of his father. If this remark were well founded, which seems doubtful, the appointment of Warwick to an important command must probably be set down to the account of favoritism. It was not however the wish of the queen that her troops should often be led into battle. It was her main object to obtain lasting possession of the town of Havre, as an indemnification for the loss of Calais, so much deplored by the nation; and into this place Warwick threw himself with his chief force. In the next campaign, when it was assailed with the whole power of France, he prepared, according to the orders of Elizabeth, for a desperate defence, and no blame was ever imputed to him for a surrender, which became unavoidable through the ravages of the plague, and the delay of reinforcements by contrary winds[50]. Warwick appears to have preserved through life the character of a man of honor and a brave soldier.

[Note 50: It was by no remissness on the part of the queen that this town was lost; the preservation of which was an object very near her heart, as appears from a letter of encouragement addressed by the privy-council to Warwick, which has the following postscript in her own handwriting.

"My dear Warwick; If your honor and my desire could accord with the loss of the needfullest finger I keep, God so help me in my utmost need as I would gladly lose that one joint for your safe abode with me; but since I cannot that I would, I will do that I may, and will rather drink in an ashen cup than you or yours should not be succoured both by sea and land, yea, and that with all speed possible, and let this my scribbling hand witness it to them all.

"Yours as my own,

"E.R."

See "Archaeologia," vol. xiii. p. 201.]

A project which had been for some time under discussion, of a personal interview at York between the English and Scottish queens, was now finally given up. Elizabeth, it is surmised, was unwilling to afford her beautiful and captivating enemy such an opportunity of winning upon the affections of the English people, and Mary was fearful of offending her uncles the princes of Guise by so public an advance towards a good understanding with a princess now engaged in open hostilities against their country and faction. The failure of this design deserves not to be regretted. The meetings of princes have never, under any circumstances, been known to produce a valuable political result; and an interview between these jealous and exasperated rivals could only have exhibited disgusting scenes of forced civility and exaggerated profession, thinly veiling the inveterate animosity which neither party could hope effectually to hide from the intuitive perception of the other.

A terrible plague, introduced by the return of the sickly garrison of Havre, raged in London during the year 1563, and for some time carried off about a thousand persons weekly. The sittings of parliament were held on this account at Hertford Castle; and the queen, retiring to Windsor, kept herself in unusual privacy, and took advantage of the opportunity to pursue her literary occupations with more than common assiduity. Without entirely deserting her favorite Greek classics, she at this time applied herself principally to the study of the Christian fathers, with the laudable purpose, doubtless, of making herself mistress of those questions respecting the doctrine and discipline of the primitive church now so fiercely agitated between the divines of different communions, and on which, as head of the English church, she was often called upon to decide in the last resort.

Cecil had mentioned these pursuits of her majesty in a letter to Cox bishop of Ely, and certainly as matter of high commendation; but the bishop answered, perhaps with better judgement, that after all, Scripture was "that which pierced;" that of the fathers, one was inclined to Pelagianism, another to Monachism, and he hoped that her majesty only occupied herself with them at idle hours.

Even studies so solemn could not however preserve the royal theologian, now in her thirtieth year, from serious disturbance on account of certain ill-favored likenesses of her gracious countenance which had obtained a general circulation among her loving subjects. So provoking an abuse was thought to justify and require the special exertion of the royal prerogative for its correction, and Cecil was directed to draw up an energetic proclamation on the subject.

This curious document sets forth, that "forasmuch as through the natural desire that all sorts of subjects had to procure the portrait and likeness of the queen's majesty, great numbers of painters, and some printers and gravers, had and did daily attempt in divers manners to make portraitures of her, wherein none hitherto had sufficiently expressed the natural representation of her majesty's person, favor, or grace; but had for the most part erred therein, whereof daily complaints were made amongst her loving subjects,--that for the redress hereof her majesty had been so importunately sued unto by the lords of her council and other of her nobility, not only to be content that some special cunning painter might be permitted by access to her majesty to take the natural representation of her, whereof she had been always of her own right disposition very unwilling, but also to prohibit all manner of other persons to draw, paint, grave, or portrait her personage or visage for a time, until there were some perfect pattern or example to be followed:

"Therefore her majesty, being herein as it were overcome with the continual requests of so many of her nobility and lords, whom she could not well deny, was pleased that some cunning person should shortly make a portrait of her person or visage to be participated to others for the comfort of her loving subjects; and furthermore commanded, that till this should be finished, all other persons should abstain from making any representations of her; that afterwards her majesty would be content that all other painters, printers, or gravers, that should be known men of understanding, and so therein licensed by the head officers of the places where they should dwell (as reason it was that every person should not without consideration attempt the same), might at their pleasure follow the said pattern or first portraiture. And for that her majesty perceived a great number of her loving subjects to be much grieved with the errors and deformities herein committed, she straitly charged her officers and ministers to see to the observation of this proclamation, and in the meantime to forbid the showing or publication of such as were apparently deformed, until they should be reformed which were reformable[51]."

[Note 51: "Archaeologia," vol. ii. p. 169.]

On the subject of marriage, so perpetually moved to her both by her parliament and by foreign princes, Elizabeth still preserved a cautious ambiguity of language, well exemplified in the following passage: "The duke of Wirtemburg, a German protestant prince, had lately friendly offered his service to the queen, in case she were minded to marry. To which, January 27th she gave him this courteous and princely answer: 'That although she never yet were weary of single and maiden life, yet indeed she was the last issue of her father left, and the only of her house; the care of her kingdom and the love of posterity did counsel her to alter this course of life. But in consideration of the leave that her subjects had given her in ampler manner to make her choice than they did to any prince afore, she was even in courtesy bound to make that choice so as should be for the best of her state and subjects. And for that he offered therein his assistance, she graciously acknowledged the same, promising to deserve it hereafter[52].'"

[Note 52: Strype's "Annals," vol. i. p. 398.]

It might be curious to inquire of what nature the assistance politely proffered by the duke in this matter, and thus favorably received by her majesty, could be; it does not appear that he tendered his own hand to her acceptance.

The French court became solicitous about this time to draw closer its bond of amity with the queen of Scots, who, partly on account of some wrong which had been done her respecting the payment of her dower, partly in consequence of various affronts put upon her subjects, had begun to estrange herself from her old connexions, and to seek in preference the alliance of Elizabeth. French agents were now sent over to Scotland to urge upon her the claims of former friendship, and to tempt her by brilliant promises to listen to proposals of marriage from the duke of Anjou, preferably to those made her by the archduke Charles or by don Carlos.

Intelligence of these negotiations awakened all the jealousies, political and personal, of Elizabeth. She ordered her agent Randolph, a practised intriguer, to devise means for crossing the matrimonial project. Meantime, by way of intimidation, she appointed the earl of Bedford to the lieutenancy of the four northern counties, and the powerful earl of Shrewsbury to that of several adjoining ones, and ordered a considerable levy of troops in these parts for the reinforcement of the garrison of Berwick and the protection of the English border, on which she affected to dread an attack by an united French and Scottish force.

Randolph soon after received instructions to express openly to Mary his sovereign's dislike of her matching either with the archduke or with any other foreign prince, and her wish that she would choose a husband within the island; and he was next empowered to add, that if the Scottish queen would gratify his mistress in this point, she need not doubt of obtaining a public recognition of her right of succession to the English crown. Elizabeth afterwards came nearer to the point; she designated lord Robert Dudley as the individual on whom she desired that the choice of her royal kinswoman should fall. By a queen-dowager of France, and a queen-regnant of Scotland, the proposal of so inferior an alliance might almost be regarded as an insult, and Mary was naturally haughty; but her hopes and fears compelled her to dissemble her indignation, and even to affect to take the matter into consideration. She trusted that pretexts might be found hereafter for evading the completion of the marriage, even if the queen of England were sincere in desiring such an advancement for her favorite, which was much doubted, and she determined for the present to show herself docile to all the suggestions of her royal sister, and to preserve the good understanding on her part unbroken.

It was during the continuance of this state of apparent amity between the rival queens, that Elizabeth thought proper to visit with tokens of her displeasure the leaders in an attempt to establish the title of the Suffolk line, which still found adherents of some importance.

John Hales, clerk of the hanaper, a learned and able man, and, like all who espoused this party, a zealous protestant, had written, and secretly circulated, a book in defence of the claims of the lady Catherine, and he had also procured opinions of foreign lawyers in favor of the validity of her marriage. For one or both of these offences he was committed to the Fleet prison, and the secretary was soon after commanded to examine thoroughly into the business, and learn to whom Hales had communicated his work. A more disagreeable task could scarcely have been imposed upon Cecil; for, besides that he must probably have been aware that his friend and brother-in-law sir Nicholas Bacon was implicated, it seems that he himself was not entirely free from suspicion of some participation in the affair. But he readily acknowledged his duty to the queen to be a paramount obligation to all others, and he wrote to a friend that he was determined to proceed with perfect impartiality.

In conclusion, Hales was liberated after half a year's imprisonment. Bacon, the lord keeper, who appeared to have seen the book, and either to have approved it, or at least to have taken no measures for its suppression or the punishment of its author, was not removed from his office; but he was ordered to confine himself strictly to its duties, and to abstain henceforth from taking any part in political business. But by this prohibition Cecil affirmed that public business suffered essentially, for Bacon had previously discharged with distinguished ability the functions of a minister of state; and he never desisted from intercession with her majesty till he saw his friend fully reinstated in her favor. Lord John Grey of Pyrgo, uncle to lady Catherine, had been a principal agent in this business, and after several examinations by members of the privy-council, he was committed to a kind of honorable custody, in which he appears to have remained till his death, which took place a few months afterwards. These punishments were slight compared with the customary severity of the age; and it has plausibly been conjectured that the anger of Elizabeth on this occasion was rather feigned than real, and that although she thought proper openly to resent any attempt injurious to the title of the queen of Scots, she was secretly not displeased to let this princess perceive that she must still depend on her friendship for its authentic and unanimous recognition.

Her anger against the earl of Hertford for the steps taken by him in confirmation of his marriage was certainly sincere, however unjust. She was provoked, perhaps alarmed, to find that he had been advised to appeal against the decision of her commissioners: on better consideration, however, he refrained from making this experiment; but by a process in the ecclesiastical courts, with which the queen could not or would not interfere, he finally succeeded in establishing the legitimacy of his sons.

Of the progresses of her majesty, during several years, nothing remarkable appears on record; they seem to have had no other object than the gratification of her love of popular applause, and her taste for magnificent entertainments which cost her nothing; and the trivial details of her reception at the different towns or mansions which she honored with her presence, are equally barren of amusement and instruction. But her visit to the university of Cambridge in the summer of 1564 presents too many characteristic traits to be passed over in silence.

Her gracious intention of honoring this seat of learning with her royal presence was no sooner disclosed to the secretary, who was chancellor of the university, than it was notified by him to the vice-chancellor, with a request that proper persons might be sent to receive his instructions on the subject. It appears to have been part of these instructions, that the university should prepare an extremely respectful letter to lord Robert Dudley, who was its high-steward, entreating him in such manner to commend to her majesty their good intentions, and to excuse any their failure in the performance, that she might be inclined to receive in good part all their efforts for her entertainment. So notorious was at this time the pre-eminent favor of this courtier with his sovereign, and so humble was the style of address to him required from a body so venerable and so illustrious!

Cecil arrived at Cambridge the day before the queen to set all things in order, and received from the university a customary offering of two pairs of gloves, two sugarloaves, and a marchpane. Lord Robert and the duke of Norfolk were complimented with the same gift, and finer gloves and more elaborate confectionary were presented to the queen herself.

When she reached the door of King's college chapel, the chancellor kneeled down and bade her welcome; and the orator, kneeling on the church steps, made her an harangue of nearly half an hour. "First he praised and commended many and singular virtues planted and set in her majesty, which her highness not acknowledging of shaked her head, bit her lips and her fingers, and sometimes broke forth into passion and these words; 'Non est veritas, et utinam'--On his praising virginity, she said to the orator, 'God's blessing of thy heart, there continue.' After that he showed what joy the university had of her presence" &c. "When he had done she commended him, and much marvelled that his memory did so well serve him, repeating such diverse and sundry matters; saying that she would answer him again in Latin, but for fear she should speak false Latin, and then they would laugh at her."

This concluded, she entered the chapel in great state; lady Strange, a princess of the Suffolk line, bearing her train, and her ladies following in their degrees. Te Deum was sung and the evening service performed, with all the pomp that protestant worship admits, in that magnificent temple, of which she highly extolled the beauty. The next morning, which was Sunday, she went thither again to hear a Latin sermon ad clerum, and in the evening, the body of this solemn edifice being converted into a temporary theatre, she was there gratified with a representation of the Aulularia of Plautus. Offensive as such an application of a sacred building would be to modern feelings, it probably shocked no one in an age when the practice of performing dramatic entertainments in churches, introduced with the mysteries and moralities of the middle ages, was scarcely obsolete, and certainly not forgotten. Neither was the representation of plays on Sundays at this time regarded as an indecorum.

A public disputation in the morning and a Latin play on the story of Dido in the evening formed the entertainment of her majesty on the third day. On the fourth, an English play called Ezechias was performed before her. The next morning she visited the different colleges,--at each of which a Latin oration awaited her and a parting present of gloves and confectionary, besides a volume richly bound, containing the verses in English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Chaldee, composed by the members of each learned society in honor of her visit.

Afterwards she repaired to St. Mary's church, where a very long and very learned disputation by doctors in divinity was prepared for her amusement and edification. When it was ended, "the lords, and especially the duke of Norfolk and lord Robert Dudley, kneeling down, humbly desired her majesty to speak something to the university, and in Latin. Her highness at the first refused, saying, that if she might speak her mind in English, she would not stick at the matter. But understanding by Mr. Secretary that nothing might be said openly to the university in English, she required him the rather to speak; because he was chancellor, and the chancellor is the queen's mouth. Whereunto he answered, that he was chancellor of the university, and not hers. Then the bishop of Ely kneeling said, that three words of her mouth were enough." By entreaties so urgent, she appeared to suffer herself to be prevailed upon to deliver a speech which had doubtless been prepared for the occasion, and very probably by Cecil himself. This harangue is not worth transcribing at length: it contained some disqualifying phrases respecting her own proficiency in learning, and a pretty profession of feminine bashfulness in delivering an unstudied speech before so erudite an auditory:--her attachment to the cause of learning was then set forth, and a paragraph followed which may thus be translated: "I saw this morning your sumptuous edifices founded by illustrious princes my predecessors for the benefit of learning; but while I viewed them my mind was affected with sorrow, and I sighed like Alexander the Great, when having perused the records of the deeds of other princes, turning to his friends or counsellors, he lamented that any one should have preceded him either in time or in actions. When I beheld your edifices, I grieved that I had done nothing in this kind. Yet did the vulgar proverb somewhat lessen, though it could not entirely remove my concern;--that 'Rome was not built in a day.' For my age is not yet so far advanced, neither is it yet so long since I began to reign, but that before I pay my debt to nature,--unless Atropos should prematurely cut my thread,--I may still be able to execute some distinguished undertaking: and never will I be diverted from the intention while life shall animate this frame. Should it however happen, as it may, I know not how soon, that I should be overtaken by death before I have been able to perform this my promise, I will not fail to leave some great work to be executed after my decease, by which my memory may be rendered famous, others excited by my example, and all of you animated to greater ardor in your studies."

After such a speech, it might naturally be inquired, which college did she endow? But, alas! the prevailing disposition of Elizabeth was the reverse of liberal; and her revenues, it may be added, were narrow. During the whole course of her long reign, not a single conspicuous act of public munificence sheds its splendor on her name, and the pledge thus solemnly and publicly given, was never redeemed by her, living or dying. An annuity of twenty pounds bestowed, with the title of her scholar, on a pretty young man of the name of Preston, whose graceful performance in a public disputation and in the Latin play of Dido had particularly caught her fancy, appears to have been the only solid benefit bestowed by her majesty in return for all the cost and all the learned incense lavished on her reception by this loyal and splendid university[53].

[Note 53: A seeming contradiction to the assertions in the text may be discovered in the circumstance that Elizabeth is the nominal foundress of Jesus College Oxford. But it was at the expense, as well as at the suggestion, of Dr. Price, a patriotic Welshman, that this seminary of learning, designed for the reception of his fellow-countrymen, was instituted. Her name, a charter of incorporation dated June 27th 1571, and some timber from her forests of Stow and Shotover, were the only contributions of her majesty towards an object so laudable, and of which the inadequate funds of the real founder long delayed the accomplishment.]

Soon after her return from her progress, the queen determined to gratify her feelings by conferring on her beloved Dudley some signal testimonies of her royal regard; and she invested him with the dignities of baron of Denbigh and earl of Leicester, accompanying these honors with the splendid gift of Kennelworth Castle, park and manor:--for in behalf of Dudley, and afterwards of Essex, she could even forget for a time her darling virtue,--frugality. The chronicles of the time describe with extraordinary care and minuteness the whole pompous ceremonial of this creation; but a much more lively and interesting description of this scene, as well as of several others of which he was an eye-witness in the court of Elizabeth, has been handed down to us in the entertaining memoirs of sir James Melvil; a Scotch gentleman noted among the political agents, or diplomatists of second rank, whom that age of intrigue brought forth so abundantly.

A few particulars of the history of this person, curious in themselves, will also form a proper introduction to his narrative.

Melvil was born in Fifeshire in the year 1530, of a family patronized by the queen regent, Mary of Guise, who having taken into her own service his brothers Robert and Andrew, both afterwards noted in public life, determined to send James to France to be brought up as page to the queen her daughter, then dauphiness. He was accordingly placed under the care of the crafty Monluc bishop of Valence, then on his return from his Scotch embassy; and previously to his embarkation for the continent he had the advantage of accompanying this master of intrigue on a secret mission to O'Neil, then the head of the Irish rebels. The youth was apparently not much delighted with his visit to this barbarous chieftain, whose dwelling was "a great dark tower, where," says he, "we had cold cheer, such as herrings and biscuit, for it was Lent." Arriving at Paris, the bishop caused him to be carefully instructed in all the requisite accomplishments of a page,--the French tongue, dancing, fencing, and playing on the lute: and after nine years spent under his protection, Melvil passed into the service of the constable Montmorenci, by whose interest he obtained a pension from the king of France. Whilst in this situation, he was dispatched on a secret mission to Scotland, to learn the real designs of the prior of St. Andrews, and to inform himself of the state of parties in that country.

In the year 1560 he obtained permission from his own sovereign to travel, and gained admission into the service of the elector palatine. This prince employed him in an embassy of condolence on the death of Francis II. Some time after his return he received a commission from the queen of Scots to make himself personally acquainted with the archduke Charles, who was proposed to her for a husband.

This done, he made a tour in Italy, and then returned to the elector palatine at Heidelberg. He was next employed by Maximilian king of the Romans to carry to France the portrait of one of his daughters, to whom proposals of marriage had been made on the part of Charles IX. At this court Catherine dei Medici would gladly have detained him; but a summons from his own queen determined him to repair again to Scotland.

Duke Casimir, son of the elector palatine, having some time before made an offer of his hand to queen Elizabeth, to which a dubious answer had been returned, requested Melvil, in passing through England, to convey his picture to that princess. The envoy, secretly despairing of the suit, desired that he might also be furnished with portraits of the other members of the electoral family, and with some nominal commission by means of which he might gain more easy access to the queen, and produce the picture as if without design. He was accordingly instructed to press for a more explicit answer than had yet been given to the proposal of an alliance offensive and defensive between England and the protestant princes of Germany; and thus prepared he reached London early in the year 1564.

After some discourse with the queen on the ostensible object of his mission, Melvil found occasion to break forth into earnest commendations of the elector, whose service nothing, he said, but this duty to his own sovereign could have induced him to quit; and he added, that for the remembrance of so good a master, he had desired to carry home with him his portrait, as well as those of all his sons and daughters. "So soon as she heard me mention the pictures," continues he, "she enquired if I had the picture of duke Casimir, desiring to see it. And when I alleged that I had left the pictures in London, she being then at Hampton Court, and that I was ready to go forward on my journey, she said I should not part till she had seen the pictures. So the next day I delivered them all to her majesty, and she desired to keep them all night; and she called upon my lord Robert Dudley to be judge of duke Casimir's picture, and appointed me to meet her the next morning in her garden, where she caused to deliver them all unto me, giving me thanks for the sight of them. I then offered unto her majesty all the pictures, so she would permit me to retain the elector's and his lady's, but she would have none of them. I had also sure information that first and last she despised the said duke Casimir."

It was a little before this time that Elizabeth had been consulted by Mary on the proposal of the archduke, and had declared by Randolph her strong disapprobation of it.

She now told Melvil, with whom she conversed on this and other subjects very familiarly and with apparent openness, that she intended soon to mention as fit matches for his queen two noblemen, one or other of whom she hoped to see her accept. These two, according to Melvil, were Dudley and lord Darnley, eldest son of the earl of Lenox by the lady Margaret Douglas. It must however be remarked, that Melvil appears to be the only writer who asserts that the first suggestion of an union between Mary and Darnley came from the English queen, who afterwards so vehemently opposed this step. But be this as it may, it is probable that Elizabeth was more sincere in her desire to impede the Austrian match than to promote any other for the queen of Scots; and with the former view Melvil accuses her of throwing out hints by which the archduke was encouraged to renew his suit to herself. Provoked, as he asserts, by this duplicity, of which she soon received certain information, Mary returned a sharp answer to a letter from her kinswoman of seemingly friendly advice, and hence had ensued a coldness and a cessation of intercourse between them. But Mary, "fearing that if their discord continued it would cut off all correspondence between her and her friends in England," thought good, a few weeks after Melvil had returned to Scotland, to dispatch him again towards London, "to deal with the queen of England, with the Spanish ambassador, and with my lady Margaret Douglas, and with sundry friends she had in England of different opinions."

It was the interest of neither sovereign at this time to be on bad terms with the other; and their respective ministers and secretaries being also agreed among themselves to maintain harmony between the countries, the excuses and explanations of Melvil were allowed to pass current, and the demonstrations of amity were resumed between the hostile queens.

Some particulars of the reception of this envoy at the English court are curious, and may probably be relied on. "Being arrived at London I lodged near the court, which was at Westminster. My host immediately gave advertisement of my coming, and that same night her majesty sent Mr. Hatton, afterwards governor of the isle of Wight, to welcome me, and to show me that the next morning she would give me audience in her garden at eight of the clock." "The next morning Mr. Hatton and Mr. Randolph, late agent for the queen of England in Scotland, came to my lodging to convey me to her majesty, who was, as they said, already in the garden. With them came a servant of my lord Robert's with a horse and foot-mantle of velvet, laced with gold, for me to ride upon. Which servant, with the said horse, waited upon me all the time that I remained there."

At a subsequent interview, "the old friendship being renewed, Elizabeth inquired if the queen had sent any answer to the proposition of marriage made to her by Mr. Randolph. I answered, as I had been instructed, that my mistress thought little or nothing thereof, but attended the meeting of some commissioners upon the borders... to confer and treat upon all such matters of greatest importance, as should be judged to concern the quiet of both countries, and the satisfaction of both their majesties' minds." Adding, "the queen my mistress is minded, as I have said, to send for her part my lord of Murray, and the secretary Lidingtoun, and expects your majesty will send my lord of Bedford and my lord Robert Dudley." She answered, "it appeared I made but small account of my lord Robert, seeing I named the earl of Bedford before him, but that erelong she would make him a far greater earl, and that I should see it done before my returning home. For she esteemed him as her brother and best friend, whom she would have herself married had she ever minded to have taken a husband. But being determined to end her life in virginity, she wished the queen her sister might marry him, as meetest of all other with whom she could find in her heart to declare her second person. For being matched with him, it would remove out of her mind all fears and suspicions, to be offended by any usurpation before her death. Being assured that he was so loving and trusty that he would never suffer any such thing to be attempted during her time. And that the queen my mistress might have the higher esteem of him, I was required to stay till I should see him made earl of Leicester and baron of Denbigh; which was done at Westminster with great solemnity, the queen herself helping to put on his ceremonial (mantle), he sitting upon his knees before her with a great gravity. But she could not refrain from putting her hand in his neck, smilingly tickling him, the French ambassador and I standing by. Then she turned, asking at me how I liked him? I answered, that as he was a worthy servant, so he was happy, who had a princess who could discern and reward good service. Yet, says she, you like better of yonder long lad, pointing towards my lord Darnley, who, as nearest prince of the blood, did bear the sword of honor that day before her."

"She appeared to be so affectionate to the queen her good sister, that she expressed a great desire to see her. And because their so much by her desired meeting could not so hastily be brought to pass, she appeared with great delight to look upon her majesty's picture. She took me to her bed-chamber, and opened a little cabinet, wherein were divers little pictures wrapped within paper, and their names written with her own hand upon the papers. Upon the first that she took up was written 'My lord's picture.' I held the candle, and pressed to see that picture so named; she appeared loath to let me see it, yet my importunity prevailed for a sight thereof, and I found it to be the earl of Leicester's picture. I desired that I might have it to carry home to my queen, which she refused, alleging that she had but that one picture of his. I said, 'Your majesty hath here the original, for I perceived him at the furthest part of the chamber, speaking with secretary Cecil.' Then she took out the queen's picture, and kissed it, and I adventured to kiss her hand, for the great love evidenced therein to my mistress. She showed me also a fair ruby, as great as a tennis-ball; I desired that she would send either it, or my lord of Leicester's picture, as a token to my queen. She said, that if the queen would follow her counsel, she would in process of time get all that she had; that in the meantime she was resolved in a token to send her with me a fair diamond. It was at this time late after supper; she appointed me to be with her the next morning by eight of the clock, at which time she used to walk in her garden."

"She enquired of me many things relating to this kingdom (Scotland) and other countries wherein I had travelled. She caused me to dine with her dame of honor, my lady Strafford (an honorable and godly lady, who had been at Geneva banished during the reign of queen Mary), that I might be always near her, that she might confer with me."

..."At divers meetings we had divers purposes. The queen my mistress had instructed me to leave matters of gravity sometimes, and cast in merry purposes, lest otherwise she should be wearied; she being well informed of that queen's natural temper. Therefore in declaring my observations of the customs of Dutchland, Poland, and Italy; the buskins of the women was not forgot, and what country weed I thought best becoming gentlewomen. The queen said she had clothes of every sort, which every day thereafter, so long as I was there, she changed. One day she had the English weed, another the French, and another the Italian, and so forth. She asked me, which of them became her best? I answered, in my judgement the Italian dress; which answer I found pleased her well, for she delighted to show her golden coloured hair, wearing a caul and bonnet as they do in Italy. Her hair was rather reddish than yellow, curled in appearance naturally.

"She desired to know of me what colour of hair was reputed best, and whether my queen's hair or hers was best, and which of them two was fairest? I answered, the fairness of them both was not their worst faults. But she was earnest with me to declare which of them I judged fairest? I said, she was the fairest queen in England, and mine in Scotland. Yet she appeared earnest. I answered, they were both the fairest ladies in their countries; that her majesty was whiter, but my queen was very lovely. She enquired, which of them was of highest stature? I said, my queen. Then, saith she, she is too high, for I myself am neither too high nor too low. Then she asked, what exercises she used? I answered, that when I received my dispatch, the queen was lately come from the Highland hunting. That when her more serious affairs permitted, she was taken up with reading of histories: that sometimes she recreated herself in playing upon the lute and virginals. She asked if she played well? I said reasonably, for a queen."

"That same day after dinner, my lord of Hunsdon drew me up to a quiet gallery that I might hear some music, but he said he durst not avow it, where I might hear the queen play upon the virginals. After I had harkened awhile, I took by the tapestry that hung before the door of the chamber, and seeing her back was toward the door, I ventured within the chamber, and stood a pretty space hearing her play excellently well; but she left off immediately, so soon as she turned about and saw me. She appeared to be surprised to see me, and came forward, seeming to strike me with her hand, alleging that she used not to play before men, but when she was solitary, to shun melancholy. She asked how I came there? I answered, as I was walking with my lord of Hunsdon, as we passed by the chamber door, I heard such melody as ravished me, whereby I was drawn in ere I knew how, excusing my fault of homeliness as being brought up in the court of France, where such freedom was allowed; declaring myself willing to endure what kind of punishment her majesty should be pleased to inflict upon me, for so great an offence. Then she sat down low upon a cushion, and I upon my knees by her, but with her own hand she gave me a cushion to lay under my knee, which at first I refused, but she compelled me to take it. She then called for my lady Strafford out of the next chamber, for the queen was alone. She enquired whether my queen or she played best? In that I found myself obliged to give her the praise. She said my French was very good, and asked if I could speak Italian, which she spoke reasonably well. I told her majesty I had no time to learn the language, not having been above two months in Italy. Then she spake to me in Dutch, which was not good; and would know what kind of books I most delighted in, whether theology, history, or love matters? I said I liked well of all the sorts. Here I took occasion to press earnestly my dispatch: she said I was sooner weary of her company than she was of mine. I told her majesty, that though I had no reason of being weary, I knew my mistress her affairs called me home; yet I was stayed two days longer, that I might see her dance, as I was afterward informed. Which being over, she enquired of me whether she or my queen danced best? I answered, the queen danced not so high or disposedly as she did. Then again she wished that she might see the queen at some convenient place of meeting. I offered to convey her secretly to Scotland by post, cloathed like a page, that under this disguise she might see the queen, as James V. had gone in disguise with his own ambassador to see the duke of Vendome's sister, who should have been his wife. Telling her that her chamber might be kept in her absence, as though she were sick; that none need be privy thereto except lady Strafford, and one of the grooms of her chamber. She appeared to like that kind of language, only answered it with a sigh, saying, Alas, if I might do it thus!"

Respecting Leicester, Melvil says, that he was conveyed by him in his barge from Hampton Court to London, and that, by the way, he inquired of him what the queen of Scots thought of him and of the marriage proposed by Randolph. "Whereunto," says he, "I answered very coldly, as I had been by my queen commanded." Then he began to purge himself of so proud a pretence as to marry so great a queen, declaring that he did not esteem himself worthy to wipe her shoes, and that the invention of that proposition of marriage proceeded from Mr. Cecil, his secret enemy: "For if I," said he, "should have appeared desirous of that marriage, I should have offended both the queens, and lost their favor[54]."

[Note 54: Melvil's "Memoirs," passim.]

If we are to receive as sincere this declaration of his sentiments by Leicester,--confessedly one of the deepest dissemblers of the age,--what a curious view does it afford of the windings and intricacies of the character of Elizabeth, of the tissue of ingenious snares which she delighted to weave around the foot-steps even of the man whom she most favored, loved, and trusted! Perhaps she encouraged, if she did not originally devise, this matrimonial project purely as a romantic trial of his attachment to herself, and pleased her fancy with the idea of his rejecting for her a younger and a fairer queen;--perhaps she entertained a transient thought of making him her own husband, and wished previously to give him consequence by this proposal;--perhaps she meant nothing more than to perplex Mary by a variety of suitors, and thus delay her marriage; an event which she could not anticipate without vexation.

That she was not sincere in her recommendation of Leicester is certain from the circumstance, that when the queen of Scots, appearing to incline to a speedy conclusion of the business, pressed to know on what conditions Elizabeth would give her approbation to the union, the earnestness in the cause which she had before displayed immediately abated.

Her conduct with respect to Darnley is equally involved in perplexity and double-dealing. Melvil, as we have seen, asserts that it was Elizabeth herself who first mentioned him as a suitable match for the queen of Scots: and if his relation be correct, which his partiality towards his own sovereign makes indeed somewhat doubtful, the English princess must have been well aware, when she conversed with him, of the favor with which the addresses of this young nobleman were likely to be received, though the envoy says that he forbore openly to express the sentiments of his court on this topic. It was after Melvil's departure that Elizabeth, not indeed without reluctance and hesitation, permitted Darnley to accompany the earl his father into Scotland, ostensibly for the purpose of witnessing the reversal of the attainder formerly passed against him, and his solemn restoration in blood; but really, as she must well have known, with the object of pushing his suit with the queen.

Mary no sooner beheld the handsome youth than she was seized with a passion for him, which she determined to gratify: but apprehensive, with reason, of the interference of Elizabeth, she disguised for the present her inclinations, and engaged with a feigned earnestness in negotiations preparatory to an union with Leicester. Meanwhile she was secretly soliciting at Rome the necessary dispensation for marrying within the prohibited degrees of the church; and it was not till the arrival of this instrument was speedily expected, and all her other preparations were complete, that, taking off the mask, she requested her good sister's approbation of her approaching nuptials with lord Darnley.

It is scarcely credible that a person of Elizabeth's sagacity, with her means of gaining intelligence and after all that had passed, could have been surprised by this notification of the intentions of the queen of Scots, and it is even problematical how far she was really displeased at the occurrence. Except by imitating her perpetual celibacy,--a compliment to her envy and her example which could not in reason be expected,--it might seem impossible for the queen of Scots better to consult the views and wishes of her kinswoman than by uniting herself to Darnley;--a subject, and an English subject, a near relation both of her own and Elizabeth's, and a man on whom nature had bestowed not a single quality calculated to render him either formidable or respectable. The queen of England, however, frowardly bent on opposing the match to the utmost, directed sir Nicholas Throgmorton, her ambassador, to set before the eyes of Mary a long array of objections and impediments; and he was further authorized secretly to promise support to such of the Scottish nobles as would undertake to oppose it. She ordered, in the most imperious terms, the earl of Lenox and his son to return immediately into England; threw the countess of Lenox into the Tower by way of intimidation; and caused her privy-council to exercise their ingenuity in discovering the manifold inconveniences and dangers likely to arise to herself and to her country from the alliance of the queen of Scots with a house so nearly connected with the English crown.

Mary, however, persisted in accomplishing the union on which her mind was set: Darnley and his father neglected Elizabeth's order of recall; and her privy-council vexed her by drawing from the melancholy forebodings which she had urged them to promulgate two unwelcome inferences;--that the queen ought to lose no time in forming a connexion which might cut off the hopes of others by giving to the nation posterity of her own;--and that as the Lenox family were known papists, it would now be expedient to exercise against all of that persuasion the utmost severity of the penal laws. The earl of Murray and some other malcontent lords in Scotland were the only persons who entered with warmth and sincerity into the measures of Elizabeth against the marriage; for they alone had any personal interest in impeding the advancement of the Lenox family. Rashly relying on the assurances which they had received of aid from England, they took up arms against their sovereign; but finding no support from any quarter, they were soon compelled to make their escape across the border and seek refuge with the earl of Bedford, lord warden of the marches. On their arrival in London, the royal dissembler insisted on their declaring, in presence of the French and Spanish ambassadors, that their rebellious attempts had received no encouragement from her; but after this open disavowal, she permitted them to remain unmolested in her dominions, secretly supplying them with money and interceding with their offended sovereign in their behalf.

Melvil acquaints us that when sir Nicholas Throgmorton, on returning from his embassy, found that the promises which he had made to these malcontents had been disclaimed both by her majesty and by Randolph, he "stood in awe neither of queen nor council to declare the verity, that he had made such promises in her name, whereof the councillors and craftiest courtiers thought strange, and were resolving to punish him for avowing the same promise to be made in his mistress' name, had not he wisely and circumspectly obtained an act of council for his warrant, which he offered to produce. And the said sir Nicholas was so angry that he had been made an instrument to deceive the said banished lords, that he advised them to sue humbly for pardon at their own queen's hand, and to engage never again to offend her for satisfaction of any prince alive. And because, as they were then stated, they had no interest, he penned for them a persuasive letter and sent to her majesty." On this occasion Throgmorton showed himself a warm friend to Mary's succession in England, and advised clemency to the banished lords as one mean to secure it. Mary, highly esteeming him and convinced by his reasons, resolved to follow his counsels.

Elizabeth never willingly remitted any thing of that rigor against the puritans which she loved to believe it politic to exercise; but they were fortunate enough to find an almost avowed patron in Leicester, and secret favorers in several of her ministers and counsellors; and during the persecutions of the catholics which followed the marriage of Mary, she was compelled to press upon them with a less heavy hand.

Archbishop Parker, who was proceeding with much self-satisfaction and success in the task of silencing by the pains of suspension and deprivation all scruples of conscience among the clergy respecting habits and ceremonies, was now mortified to find his zeal restrained by the interference of the queen herself, while the exulting puritans studied to improve to the utmost the temporary connivance of the ruling powers.

Chapter XIV

1565 AND 1566.

Renewal of the archduke's proposal.--Disappointment of Leicester.--Anecdote concerning him.--Disgrace of the earl of Arundel.--Situation of the duke of Norfolk.--Leicester his secret enemy.--Notice of the earl of Sussex.--Proclamation respecting fencing schools.--Marriage of lady Mary Grey.--Sir H. Sidney deputy of Ireland.--Queen's letter to him.--Prince of Scotland born.--Melvil sent with the news to Elizabeth.--His account of his reception.--Motion in the house of commons for naming a successor.--Discord between the house and the queen on this ground.--She refuses a subsidy--dissolves parliament--visits Oxford.--Particulars of her reception.

Whether or not it was with a view of impeding the marriage of the queen of Scots that Elizabeth had originally encouraged the renewal of the proposals of the archduke to herself, certain it is that the treaty was still carried on, and even with increased earnestness, long after this motive had ceased to operate.

It was subsequently to Mary's announcement of her approaching nuptials, that to the instances of the imperial ambassador 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 ambassador, 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 God 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 nobility 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 circumstance 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, 'God'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 nobleman 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 passed 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 embarrassment of his circumstances.

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 passions 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 entitled by rank, by relationship, or by merit, to a larger share of her esteem and favor, or a more intimate participation in her councils.

One nobleman 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 nobility; 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 nobles 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 competitor 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 Sussex 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 nobleman, 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 title 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 circumstances 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 embassy 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 Sussex 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 Sussex 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.

Sussex 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 Sussex 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 Sussex 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 Sussex 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 embassy to the imperial court, on which he departed in the year 1567.

After his return from this mission the queen named the earl of Sussex 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 passing 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 Sussex 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 multitude 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 nobility 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 circumstance 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 harassed 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 document, 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 pass my hand, this gibberish should hardly have cumbered 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 God 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 bastardy; you were to blame to lay it to their charge, they will trace the steps that others have passed 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. God 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 ambassador 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 assumed, 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 ambassadors. The present of the royal godmother 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 substitutes.

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 principal 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 pass 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.

In her speech on adjourning parliament she did not omit to acquaint both houses with her extreme displeasure at their interference touching the naming of a successor; a matter which she always chose to regard as belonging exclusively to her prerogative;--and she ended by telling them, "that though perhaps they might have after her one better learned or wiser, yet she assured them none more careful over them. And therefore henceforth she bade them beware how they proved their prince's patience as they had now done hers. And notwithstanding, not meaning, she said, to make a Lent of Christmas, the most part of them might assure themselves that they departed in their prince's grace[61]."

[Note 61: Strype's "Annals."]

She utterly refused an extraordinary subsidy which the commons had offered on condition of her naming her successor, and even of the ordinary supplies which she accepted, she remitted a fourth, popularly observing, that it was as well for her to have money in the coffers of her subjects as in her own. By such an alternation of menaces and flatteries did Elizabeth contrive to preserve her ascendency over the hearts and minds of her people!

The earl of Leicester had lately been elected chancellor of the university of Oxford, and in the autumn of 1566 the queen consented to honor with her presence this seat of learning, long ambitious of such a distinction. She was received with the same ceremonies as at Cambridge: learned exhibitions of the same nature awaited her; and she made a similar parade of her bashfulness, and a still greater of her erudition; addressing this university not in Latin, but in Greek.

Of the dramatic exhibitions prepared for her recreation, an elegant writer has recorded the following particulars[62]. "In the magnificent hall of Christ-church, she was entertained with a Latin comedy called Marcus Geminus, the Latin tragedy of Progne, and an English comedy on the story of Palamon and Arcite, (by Richard Edwards gentleman of the queen's chapel, and master of the choristers,) all acted by the students of the university. When the last play was over, the queen summoned the poet into her presence, whom she loaded with thanks and compliments: and at the same time, turning to her levee, remarked, that Palamon was so justly drawn as a lover, that he must have been in love indeed; that Arcite was a right martial knight, having a swart and manly countenance, yet with the aspect of a Venus clad in armour: that the lovely Emilia was a virgin of uncorrupted purity and unblemished simplicity; and that though she sung so sweetly, and gathered flowers alone in the garden, she preserved her chastity undeflowered. The part of Emilia, the only female part in the play, was acted by a boy of fourteen, whose performance so captivated her majesty, that she made him a present of eight guineas[63]. During the exhibition, a cry of hounds belonging to Theseus was counterfeited without in the great square of the college; the young students thought it a real chase, and were seized with a sudden transport to join the hunters: at which the queen cried out from her box, "O excellent! these boys, in very troth, are ready to leap out of the windows to follow the hounds!"

[Note 62: Warton's "History of English Poetry."]

[Note 63: Mr. Warton apparently forgets that guineas were first coined by Charles II.]

Dr. Lawrence Humphreys, who had lately been distinguished by his strenuous opposition to the injunctions of the queen and archbishop Parker respecting the habits and ceremonies, was at this time vice-chancellor of Oxford; and when he came forth in procession to meet the queen, she could not forbear saying with a smile, as she gave him her hand to kiss--"That loose gown, Mr. Doctor, becomes you mighty well; I wonder your notions should be so narrow."