Treason and plot; struggles for Catholic supremacy in the last years of Queen Elizabeth

Front matter

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Preface

The adoption of the Reformation by England was an event which did not alone concern the nation itself, but threw out of balance the whole edifice of European power, built upon traditional alliances and international policies that had survived for centuries. However much it may have suited the temporal ends of Spanish monarchs to incite their subjects to religious exaltation, it was not crusading zeal or spiritual fervour which impelled them for half a century to lavish the blood and substance of their countries, and to exhaust every expedient, from marriage to murder, for the purpose of bringing England back to the Catholic fold. A Protestant England and a divided Germany inevitably meant the decadence and final ruin of the great Spanish empire which the "Catholic sovereigns" had reared upon a base of bigotry.

Without a close alliance with England, and the certainty of efficient support from Germany, Spain found herself with a jealous rival, France, on each flank. On the one hand, her dominions in Italy, only held by the right of the sword, would sooner or later be lost to her ; and, on the other hand, Flanders and Holland, shut off by land if the viii PREFACE

Italian dominion passed away, could not be reached from Spain even by water, unless England held the Channel and England were friendly.

When the spread of the Reformed doctrines in Holland drove the Burghers to shake off the yoke of intolerant Spain, and Protestant England, for her own national safety, found it necessary to aid the insurgents, it became no longer a matter of future policy, but of vital and immediate necessity, for Philip II. to persuade or force England into alliance or benevolent neutrality. The need was still further increased when the Huguenot power in France bade fair to overcome the Catholic supremacy there, and thus to leave Spain isolated without the possibility of alliance either with England or France : for it must be remembered that Spain could not afford to deal on equal terms with a Protestant power, because the admission of any question as to the supremacy of the Church, in all its rigidity, would have struck at the power by which Spain held together her mixed and recently reconciled populations, and have invalidated the exclusive right she claimed over the whole of the New World. It was, therefore, a matter of national life or death for her that England, by some means, should be made Catholic.

On the other hand, the circumstances which surrounded the birth and accession of Elizabeth were such that an acknowledgment on her part of the Papal supremacy would have branded her as a bastard, and would have deprived her of her here-

PREFACE ix

ditary right to rule. Whilst this was the case with her, there is no doubt that her personal leanings were to a great extent in favour of a ceremonious form of worship, and of the authority and dignity which belonged to the ancient Church ; and it was equally important for England as it was for Spain to prevent the Flemish dominions of. the latter power from ever falling into the hands of France. It will be understood, therefore, that, although the religious problems between England and Spain were opposed and irreconcilable, their national and traditional interests still to a great extent coincided ; and it was this latter circumstance which enabled Elizabeth and Lord Burghley, through a long series of years, to play their consummate game of balance and chicanery, which paralysed Spain for harm, whilst England was growing in potency and wealth.

The imminence of the succession of a Huguenot to the throne of France, which threatened an approximation of French religious interests with those of England, at length compelled Philip to abandon a temporising policy with Elizabeth. If he could not force England to be Catholic before Henry of Navarre ruled France as a Protestant and made common cause with Elizabeth, then indeed had the star of Spanish power sunk to rise no more. But, as was usual with all his resolutions of action, Philip adopted his policy too late ; and the defeat of the Armada exhibited to a scoffing and

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envious world a nation already in decadence, not only in material strength, but in the moral forces which had previously been the principal secret of her success.

But though her Armada was defeated and Spain was riddled with corruption, her national necessity to make England sufficiently Catholic to be a fit ally for her ends remained unchanged. Her dreams of greatness, moreover, continued to loom large in her uneasy slumbers long after the decay of her potency had set in. The Catholic interests in England were many, and, for a multitude of reasons, devotional, sentimental, and mundane, a considerable portion of the people would have welcomed the return of a Catholic dispensation. But the long years of antagonism and informal warfare which the circumstances just mentioned had produced between England and Spain, had before the last decade of Elizabeth's reign given birth to a new pride of country in the breasts of most Englishmen, and a determination that a people who had shown their inability even to hold their own against England on the sea should not gain dominion over the land by means of religion or otherwise. It was this new patriotism that divided the Catholic forces in England, and the knowledge, then general, of Spain's selfish objects that divided them abroad ; and, as a consequence of the changed position, the struggles to impose Catholic supremacy upon England that followed the catastrophe of the Armada differed entirely from those that preceded it.

PREFACE xi

The story of these struggles up to 1588 has been told fully by Froude and many other historians ; but it has usually been assumed that with the defeat of the Armada the strenuous attempts to bring England again into the circle of the Roman Catholic Church and to a close alliance with Spain came to an end. That this was far from being the case will be admitted by those who honour me by reading these pages, in which I have endeavoured to set forth, as fully as the limits of one volume would permit, the continuous efforts made by the various Catholic elements, English and foreign, to establish the supremacy of their faith in England from 1593 to the accession of James in 1603; which latter date marks the final extinction of their hopes.

Much of the material from which the story is written is now used for the purpose for the first time, especially the Spanish MSS. transcribed by the present writer at Simancas, and abstracted in the last volume of ; the Spanish Calendar of Elizabeth. I have also drawn upon the calendared and uncalendared Irish State papers, the latest volume of the Venetian papers, the Hatfield papers, calendared and uncalendared ; and, for the story of the Lopez conspiracy, I have been permitted to make abstracts of some interesting manuscripts in the possession of Lord Calthorpe, and also some unpublished papers in the Archives Nationales, Paris. I have endeavoured to set forth the historical facts xii PREFACE

in all simplicity, and with absolute detachment so far as regards their religious aspect ; and in every case where I have ventured to draw a deduction of any sort, the evidence upon which I have depended is placed before the reader, in order that he may judge for himself how far my conclusions are justified. This book does not claim to be a contribution, however small, to religious controversy, but is a diligent attempt to add something to the knowledge of historical fact, and to set forth, by the light of modern research, one phase of the important last ten years of the reign of Elizabeth ; a decade which, for various reasons, has been inadequately treated by recent English historians.

MARTIN A. S. HUME.

Introduction

Change in the European situation caused by the defeat of the Armada — The Jesuits and the English Mission — The unmasking of Philip's designs — The influence of England's new maritime strength — Spain's renewed preparations for the struggle

Chapter II

Intrigues of the Scottish Catholics with Spain — James's share in them — The "Spanish blanks" — The Parliament of 1593 — Fears of a new Spanish invasion — John Cecil's mission from Scotland to Spain — The influence of Father Persons — The Spanish mission to the Scottish Catholic Lords — John Cecil's betrayal of the cause 23

Chapter III

Appeal to Spain of the Irish Catholics — Meeting of the Chiefs in Donegal — The Archbishop of Tuam's mission to Spain — James sends another envoy to Spain — The battle of Glenlivat — Walter Lindsay in Madrid — Suppression of the Catholic Lords in Scotland — Their renewed appeal to Philip — Its failure, and the reason for it 50

Chapter IV

The condition of the Catholics in England — Disagreement between the Jesuits and Seculars^ — Party politics in the English Court — Real and pretended plots against the Queen — Father Young's confessions^ The irreconcilable English refugees — The conxiv CONTENTS

PAQE fessions of Webster — Polwhele's and CoUen's plots — Daniel's and Cahill's confessions — Arrest of Father Henry Walpole — The doubtful evidence in support of most of the so-called plots 80

Chapter V

The conspiracy of Dr. Lopez — The confessions of Yorke and Williams — The alleged connection of the Spanish Ministers with the murder plots 115

Chapter VI

The complete separation of the two sections of English Catholics — Alarm in England at the Spanish armaments — Drake's last voyage — Tyrone's declaration — Promise of Spanish aid — Irish emissaries to Spain — The expeditions of Captains Cobos, Medinilla, and Cisneros to Ireland — Their description of Ireland— Breakdown of the Spanish Administration — Essex's attack upon Cadiz 165

Chapter VII

Mission of Lindsay to Rome — Father John Cecil and Pury Ogilvie in Eome — Their voyage to Spain — Address of the English Catholic irreconcilables to Philip — The advice of Father Persons — Preparations in Lisbon for the Irish expedition — Strength of the armament — Failure and return to Spain — Meeting of the Irish chiefs with Cobos in the Monastery of Donegal — A new truce with Tyrone 201

Chapter VIII

Fears of a Spanish invasion of England — English preparations — Essex's voyage — Lopez de Soto's letters — Strength of the Adelantado's fleet (1597) — Its inglorious return to Spain — Renewed appeal of the Irish rebels to Spain — Tyrone's discontent with the Spaniards — Another truce with Tyrone . , . 242

CONTENTS XV

CHAPTEE IX page:

The two sections of English Catholics and the succession — Arabella Stuart versus the Infanta — Lord Beauchamp — Party conflicts in England with regard to the peace with Spain — The aims of

the Jesuits — Paralysis of the Spanish naval administration

Renewed alarm in England — Its groundlessness— Parleys with Tyrone— His renewed appeals to Spain— Critical condition of the English rule in Ireland — The battle of Armagh . .271

CHAPTEE X

Letters of John Colville — James intrigues with the Catholic Powers — The "Wisbech Stirs" — Recriminations against the Jesuit faction — The murder plot of Squire and Rolls — Father Walpole's connection with it — The desire of the Archduke for peace with England— Successes of the Irish rebels — Discontent of Essex — His government in Ireland — The march through Munster — His parley with Tyrone — His disobedience and return to England — His arrest 3

CHAPTEE XI

The aspect of the succession question in England — Cecil and Essex — Negotiations for peace with Spain — Renewed alarm of Spanish invasion in England — Measures for defence — Probable intentional exaggeration of the fears for political reasons — James continues to intrigue with the Catholics for support — The Pope's offer to him — Fitzherbert's address to Philip respecting the Scottish advances — Lord Semple's mission to Madrid — The future religion of England trembling in the balance 361

CHAPTEE XII

Essex in disgrace — His attempts at reconciliation — Small Spanish help to the Irish rebels — The mission of Mateo de Oviedo, Archbishop of Dublin, and Martin de la Cerda to Ireland — Resolution in Spain to aid Tyrone actively — Irish envoys to Spain — Helplessness of Philip and discouragement of Tyrone xvi CONTENTS

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— Father Persons' appeals to Philip to take a decided course on the English succession — Discussions in the Council of. State on the subject — Father Oreswell's efforts in Madrid— The proj ects of the Earl of Both well— Essex and James. Abortive peace negotiations with Spain — Essex's rebellion and execution 39'

CHAPTER XIII

The change in the succession question in consequence of the death of Essex — The secret understanding between James and Cecil — James's new attitude towards the Catholics — Lord Montjoy in Ireland — Occupation of Derry — Disappointment of Tyrone and O'Donnell with Spain — La Cerda's mission to Ireland — Preparations for a new Spanish expedition to Ireland — Carew in Munster — Sailing of the expedition — O'Sullivan Beare — The Spaniards in Kinsale — The siege — The Spaniards isolated in Kinsale, Castlehaven, Dunboy, and Baltimore — Defeat of Tyrone — Capitulation of Kinsale — The O'Sullivans and Dunboy — O'Donnell in Spain — Death of O'Donnell — Exodus of the O'Sullivans, pardon of Tyrone, and the pacification of Ireland 438

CHAPTER XIV

Mission of Thomas James to Spain — The policy of Philip III. towards the English succession — Discussion in the Council of State — The new policy adopted too late — Cecil's conduct — Dynastic intrigues in England — Arabella Stuart's strange behaviour — Suggested explanation — Lord Beauchamp — Attempted flight of Arabella — Death of Elizabeth — Cecil triumphant — Extinction of the last hope of establishing Catholic supremacy by means of foreign intervention . . 478

Chapter I

Change in the European situation caused hy the defeat of the Armada — ■ The Jesuits and the English Mission — The unmasking of Philip's designs — The influence of England's new maritime strength — Spain's renewed preparations for the struggle.

With the flight of the great Armada, beaten and demoralised, into the wild equinoctial gales of the northern seas, the political and religious problems of Europe underwent a change, which, like most far-reaching changes, was only very gradually and imperfectly realised by those immediately concerned. For a hundred years Spain had imposed herself upon the world to an extent entirely unwarranted by her native resources and the numbers of her population : she had discovered, subjected, and organised a vast continent : the commercial and mineral wealth of both East and West had been proclaimed as her monopoly; and throughout the world her arrogant claim to superiority, and to the leadership of orthodox Christianity, had been humbly conceded by all but a few who were regarded as little better than blasphemers for their denial of Spanish, supremacy.

A

What was the secret that had carried this bundle of antagonistic racial and political units, only nominally a nation, irresistibly through Europe and America, and had in one leap raised Castile to the first place amidst the powers of the world ? Not the wealth of the Indies alone ; for, thanks to a vicious fiscal system, the gold and silver of the mines enriched every nation of the earth more than they did Spain. Not natural gifts of energy, intellect, or valour ; for these were not specially conspicuous in the Spanish people either before or after the fleeting period of their country's greatness. Not the impetus of a united nationality stirred to patriotic ambition by the consciousness of strength derived from community of soil, race, and institutions ; for such a feeling could have no place amongst peoples varying in origin, tongue, traditions, and national history, who were loosely bound together with the monarch for their only tie.

The cause of Spain's sudden greatness, as of her inevitable fall, must be discovered in the circumstances of her unification. Unity of some sort was vitally necessary if the ambitions of her successive rulers were to be fulfilled ; and, failing the slow process of racial amalgamation, for which they could not wait, Ferdinand the Catholic and his immediate successors deliberately forged in the fires of the Inquisition the weapon with which they were to conquer half the world. The Spanish nation was bound together by the spiritual exaltation which came of the religious persecution of the minority by the majority. The Inquisition was popular, powerful, and revered by Spaniards at large, because it flattered their pride with the idea that their faith alone had divine sanction, and that God had endowed them with the exclusive right of imposing that faith upon the rest of the world. They were a chosen people, spiritually superior to others ; and in the sacred cause for which they were specially ordained to fight, cruelty, rapine, and blood were praiseworthy and gracious in the sight of the Lord. Mystic fervour and a belief in their mission to exterminate, at any cost, those who had strayed into the service of the devil, gave to Spaniards in the sixteenth century the unity necessary for their rulers to use them as a solid weapon for mundane ends. Much as they might hate each other nationally, they were aU knit together in the fierce assurance that they were a divinely favoured people with a mission. This was the spirit which explained their burning enthusiasm and carried the ferocious men-at-arms of Charles and Philip victorious through the world. Their fervour and confidence dazzled the eyes of other nations to the weakness of material resource which lay behind their haughty, cool assumption of unquestionable superiority. Such claims would have been resented generally, as they were by a few in England, but for the absolute conviction of every individual Spaniard that he was on the side of God ; and that, as a consequence of this solidarity, all other men were as mire beneath his feet. The moral effect of such a conviction was incalculable.

The first staggering blow dealt at this source of power fell upon Spanish hearts with the defeat of the Armada. All that spiritual superstition, all that frantic devotion could do for the supposed invincible fleet had been done. Prayers for its success had been offered up by millions ; sacred relics and bones of saints enough to stock a cemetery had been carried forth in processions innumerable ; Pope and cardinals had blessed and sprinkled ; kings, princes, and peoples had fasted and sacrificed ; all Spain and Portugal were aflame ■with religious exaltation and the positive assurance of an easy victory over God's enemies. For such an expedition on such an errand defeat vras surely impossible, and in that firm belief the soldiers, at least, on the fleet went forth to liberate a yearning people held captive by a small minority of heretics.

But even as the Armada, under its craven admiral, hustled powerlessly up the Channel in the six days' running fight with foes that eluded and harassed it, the first sinister cry went up from hearts already disillusioned and well ^ nigh broken : " God has forsaken us;" and when the battered wrecks of the ships that were left of the panic-stricken fleet slowly crept back to Santander with the few famished and plague- stricken survivors of their gallant companies, the loss of material power, great as it was, that the country had suffered, was the smallest part of the disaster. For the conviction of divine aid, the certainty of being on the right side, which had been the secret of Spain's strength for a hundred years, was wounded now beyond surgery, and Spaniards, if they fought at all, must in future fight on an equality with the rest of mankind with worldly weapons and skill.

The disillusionment came home but slowly to the mass of the Spanish people. The first wail of sorrow that went up was mingled with a cry for vindication and revenge. The towns of Spain, one after the other, offered new contributions, ruined and desolate as the country was, in order that a more powerful expedition than before should at once be fitted out under other commanders and teach a lasting lesson to the insolent heretic, before whom Medina Sidonia had fled helplessly. But as the winter wore on, and the extent of the catastrophe was better understood, the gloom darkened. One of Philip's own confessors boldly told him, that "though his prayers and processions were very good things, yet it was certain that God gave ear to other voices before his," ^ and all prayers on account of the Armada were publicly ordered to be discontinued (22nd October). "The better informed," we are told, " begin to think that if all these ships are lost it will be impossible to make another expedition next year" (22nd October). And so with dismay the Spanish people gradually realised — as their king had done from the first — that they themselves were in danger of attack, and that, far from thinking of inflicting punishment upon England, they must strain every nerve first to defend their own coasts and commerce from devastation. "If Drake should take the sea," wrote the Venetian ambassador, " and meet the Peruvian fleet or make a descent on the shores of Spain, he would find no obstacle to his depredations, and he might even burn a part of the ships that have come back, for

' Lippomano to the Doge, October i, 1589. Venetian Papers.

they are lying scattered without troops to guard them, as all the soldiers reach home sick and in the bad plight I have reported." ^

" If Drake were to go to the Azores now," wrote the same authority, " he would not only ruin the whole of the Indian trade, but could quite easily make himself master of the islands." ^ Philip put as brave a face upon it as he could, and talked about selling his silver candlesticks to arm for an attack upon England ; but he knew full well now that before he could hope to prevail over his foe he must learn the lesson to which he had been deaf for years, and must face the English with ships as mobile and sailors as skilful as their own. For, thanks to Drake and his school, the ship was henceforth a fighting entity of itself, not only a machine for carrying fighters into the fray. A new maritime power indeed was born of the knowledge. England had the start, and only by patient work and slow degrees could Spain hope to change her material and tactics to meet the new departure.

With his laborious stolidity Philip turned his hand to the creation of a new navy. He was desperately impecunious ; the Pope had scornfully refused the subsidy he had promised to the Armada, and the Cortes, failing to understand the need for the laying down of the new ships, of which the construction would occupy years, haggled over their voluntary subsidy. But to Drake and the English seamen, at least, the position was as clear as it was

^ Lippomano to the Doge, October 22. Venetian Calendar. ^ Ibid., December 8.

to Philip : Spain was no match for England upon the sea until her ships and tactics were radically altered. It was seen that religious exaltation and a belief in a monopoly of divine protection, however good in their way as aids, were bad substitutes for the ordinary mundane precautions for securing victory. Thenceforward, therefore, the material aspect of the attempt of Philip to impose Catholicism upon England by force of arms assumed an entirely new condition, and for years to come Spain was forced to stand upon the defensive to save her world-wide commerce from utter destruction. A direct attack upon England itself was out of the question.

The altered conditions of warfare springing from the defeat of the Armada almost coincided in point of time with a political event of still greater magnitude, namely, the discovery of Philip's real aims. Long before the rulers of Spain had dreamt of raising a vast empire on a basis of religious bigotry, it had been an article of faith that a close alliance was necessary, in the interests of both parties, between England and the possessor of the Flemish seaboard ; and when the crowns of Castile and Aragon passed to the House of Austria-Burgundy, this vital necessity passed with it. Spain with a friendly England could always hope to hold France in check ; but with England against her, and in close union with France, Spain's main road to Flanders was closed ; and France, free from suspicion of her neighbour across the Channel, was able to oppose the objects of Aragon in the Mediterranean and Italy. This had been the reason that Charles V., champion of Catholicism though he was, had not dared to quarrel with Henry VIII. or Edward VI., notwithstanding the Protestant reformation and the repudiation by Henry of his lawful Spanish wife. This was the reason for Philip's marriage with his elderly and unprepossessing cousin, Mary of England ; and this was the reason why the Catholic King for thirty years left no stone unturned to win without war Elizabeth and England to the Catholic side, or at least to neutrality. In vain had his hotheaded councillors alternately prayed and hectored at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, and urged that the Catholic majority in England should be aided to throw off the yoke of the heretic Queen.

In vain did ambassador after ambassador try to force the King's hands by fomenting treason in England and openly advocating war. Philip knew better than they that he dared not openly break with Elizabeth whilst jealous France was on his flank and his own Netherlands were in full revolt against him. So he had meekly to see his commerce ruined, his treasure stolen, his subjects hanged by English pirates, and his coasts and colonies violated for thirty years before he decided to risk everything on the issue of an invasion. Eeligion was his stalking-horse, and an effective one ; but he would never have gone to war with England on religious grounds for the sole purpose of making her Catholic. It was necessary for him that she should be Catholic because he needed her friendship and a cessation of her aid to the Protestant Netherlanders ; and when it became evident, even to his slow mind, that, for all her dexterous balancing and religious coquetry, Elizabeth meant to stand permanently to the Reformed doctrines and her own supremacy, he was forced to fight or to throw up the sponge. Philip, both from character and on principle, loved to work in the darkness ; and it was the first condition of success in the use of his religious instrument that his agents should not be aware of the political objects he had ultimately in view. During all the years they had paltered with treason and murder in England they had chafed and marvelled at their master's cold irresponsiveness to their activity. With hardly an effort in the beginning of Elizabeth's reign he might have turned the scale, and have made England at least as Catholic as Henry VIII. left it when he died. What his agents failed to understand was, that whilst it was desirable for Philip that England should be sufficiently Catholic to be friendly with him and to refrain from helping his discontented subjects, it was infinitely better for his ends that she should remain heretic and neutral than that she should become Catholic and French; for if Elizabeth fell, the next heiress to the English crov?n was Mary Stuart, practically a French princess under the control of ambitious and capable kinsmen of the same nation. So for years before he struck his blow the King's crafty intrigues went on to make Mary Stuart a subservient tool, and to pledge and subsidise the Guises for the promotion of their ambitions in France, in order that they might not interfere with Spanish aims in England.

During the period that Mary was captive the religious position in England underwent a complete lo TREASON AND PLOT

change, and at the time of her death the contending elements on both sides were finally ranged. The mass of the English people, except in London and the eastern counties, were Catholics ; but the doctrines and practice of the Romish Church had remained more or less in a fluid state until the publication of the Trentine decrees in 1564. The cautious compromise devised by Elizabeth and Cecil had conciliated many, and for the first few years of the reign the population at large, although they might regret the avowedly papal regime of Mary Tudor, outwardly conformed to the established worship, and, but for the action of extreme parties on both sides, would probably have ended in complete conformity. Like Philip himself, Elizabeth and her chief adviser were influenced in their action by political rather than religious considerations ; but the English Protestant clergy and laymen, who in the days of the Marian persecution had found shelter and hospitality in Switzerland, came back to the land of their birth burning with zeal to purge the worship of their Church of all traces of Rome. To them political considerations were nothing. In the days of their exile they had seen simplicity and adherence to the very word of Scripture made the test of holiness by communities and men whom they knew to be good, and they were rebellious and impatient to see that the Protestant English Church, for whose establishment they had yearned and prayed, included in its practice much which savoured of their Romish persecutors. Vestments, lights, incense, and images to them were anathema in any circumstances, and Protestant nonconformity was