[217] Cecil writes to Smith, 3rd June 1565 (Lansdowne MSS., 102). “My Lord of Lecester furdereth the Quene’s Majesty with all good reasons to take one of these great princes, wherein surely perceaving his own course not sperable, he doth honourably and wisely. I see few noblemen devoted to France; but I being Mancipum ReginÆ, and lackyng witt for to expend so great a matter, will follow with service where hir Majesty will goo before.” This attitude is very characteristic of the writer.

[218] There is an enigmatical entry in Cecil’s journal at this period, August 1565, saying, “The Queene’s Majestie seemed to be much offended with the Earle of Leicester, and so she wrote an obscure sentence in a book at Windsor.” Strype, who has been followed by most other historians, thought that this referred to Leicester’s opposition to the Archduke’s suit. The real reason for the Queen’s squabble with Leicester is given by Guzman (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.). August 27: “I wrote to your Majesty that the Queen was showing favour to one Heneage, who serves in her chamber. Lord Robert and he have had words, and as a consequence Robert spoke to the Queen about it. She was apparently much annoyed at the conversation.… Heneage at once left the court, and Robert did not see the Queen for three days, until she sent for him. They say now that Heneage will come back at the instance of Lord Robert, to avoid gossip.”

[219] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.

[220] Harl. MSS., 6990.

[221] Randolph to Cecil, 3rd June. Harl. MSS., 4645.

[222] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.

[223] The action of the French representatives was extremely perplexing. On the one hand, they offered help to Elizabeth against Scotland, and urged Mary to make terms with Murray; whilst on the other, they continued to intercede with Elizabeth for Lady Margaret and Mary, and conveyed the kindest messages to the Queen and Darnley. (See Randolph’s letters.)

[224] Yaxley was sent back from Madrid with glowing promises and encouragement from Philip to Mary and Darnley, and 20,000 crowns in money. The ship, however, in which he sailed from Flanders was wrecked, and Yaxley’s lifeless body was washed up on the coast of Northumberland, with the money and despatches attached to it. The money, of course, never reached Mary, but formed the subject of a long squabble as to the respective claims for it, of the Crown and the Earl of Northumberland. (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.).

[225] State Papers, Scotland.

[226] Randolph’s letter, 6th February 1566, gives particulars of Mary’s adhesion to the League of Bayonne (Harl. MSS. 4645); but she does not appear actually to have signed the “bond” sent to her, as she was urged to do by the Bishop of Dunblane and other papal emissaries. There is not the slightest doubt, however, that she looked at this time to the Catholic league alone for help in her claims, and had decided to defy England and the Protestant party.

[227] Randolph to Cecil, 1st March; and Randolph and Bedford to Cecil, 6th March (Scottish State Papers).

[228] Randolph wrote to Leicester on the 13th February 1566, telling him of a plot to kill Rizzio, and probably the Queen, in order that Lennox and his son Darnley might seize the crown. He says he thinks it better not to tell Cecil, but to keep the secret between the writer and Leicester. On the 1st March, Randolph sent to Cecil copies of the two “Conventions,” signed by the Earls—namely, that of Darnley, Morton, and Ruthven, to kill Rizzio; and that of Murray, Argyll, Rothes, &c., to uphold Darnley in all his quarrels. Bedford, writing to Cecil on the 6th March, begged him earnestly to keep the whole matter secret, except from Leicester and the Queen. It will thus be seen that, far from being a promoter of the Darnley plot to kill Rizzio, Cecil did not know of it in time to stop its perpetration, if he had been inclined to do so, as the murder was committed on the 9th March. Against this, however, must be placed, for what it is worth, Guzman’s statement that Cecil had told Lady Margaret of Rizzio’s murder as having taken place the day before it really occurred.

[229] From a statement of Guzman (28th January 1566) it would appear that Cecil, probably in union with Murray, had some idea of bringing Darnley round to the English interest. The Queen (Elizabeth), he says, had refused Rambouillet’s suggestion that when he arrived in Scotland he might bring about a reconciliation between the two Queens. “Afterwards, however, Cecil went to his (Rambouillet’s) lodgings, and told him that when the King of Scotland, bearing in mind that he had been an English subject, should write modestly to the Queen, saying that he was sorry for her anger, and greatly wished that it should disappear, he (Cecil) believed that everything would be settled, if at the same time the Queen of Scotland would send an Ambassador hither to treat of Lady Margaret’s affairs” (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.).

[230] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.

[231] Only two days before this Guzman gave the same advice to Elizabeth. Both she and Cecil then assured him of their desire for such a settlement, which would have checked French designs in Scotland, and disarmed Spain.

[232] We do not often hear of Lady Cecil’s action in politics, but on this occasion she seems to have seconded her husband. Guzman writes (22nd April 1566): “Cecil’s wife tells me that the French Ambassador says that if the Archduke comes hither, he will cause discord in the country, as he will endeavour to uphold his religion, and will have many to follow him. She thinks the Queen will never marry Lord Robert, or, indeed, any one else, unless it be the Archduke, which is the match Cecil desires. Certainly, if any one has information on the matter, it is Cecil’s wife, as she is clever and greatly influences him.”

A few days after the above was written, Guzman visited Cecil, who was ill, and mentioned how annoyed the French were when they saw the Archduke’s suit prospering. “They then at once bring forward their own King to embarrass the Queen. When this trick has hindered the negotiations, they take up with Leicester again, and think we do not see through them.” “Yes,” replied Cecil, “they are very full of fine words and promises, as usual, and they think when they have Lord Robert on their side their business is as good as done, but their great object is to embroil the Emperor with the King of Spain.” (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.)

[233] When news came of Brederode’s “protest” in the Netherlands and the rising of the “beggars,” Guzman tried hard to discover from Cecil whether any connection existed between the rebels and the English. He concluded that there was none, although the eastern counties’ ports were full already of Flemish Protestant fugitives. The Queen was very emphatic in her condemnation of the “beggars” at first. “Fine Christianity, she said, was this, which led subjects to defy their sovereign. It had begun in Germany and in France, and then extended to Scotland, and now to Flanders, and perhaps some day will happen here, as things are going now. Some rogues, she said, even wanted to make out that she knew something about the affairs in Flanders. Only let me get them into my hands, she exclaimed, and I will soon make them understand the interest I feel in all that concerns my brother, the King” (i.e. Philip). (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.)

[234] See the letters of Cecil’s spy, Ruxby (or Rooksby), in extenso in Haynes. This man had fled from England to Scotland for debt. He was known to Cecil, who, when he heard that he was dealing with Mary Stuart in Edinburgh, warned him. Ruxby then offered his services as a spy, and sent Cecil very compromising information about Mary’s plans. Melvil discovered this, and Ruxby was seized by the Scots and put in prison, Killigrew’s attempts, at the instance of Cecil, to convey him to England as an escaped recusant, being thus frustrated. (Hatfield Papers.)

[235] He started from Edinburgh a few hours after James’s birth, and reached London in four days (Melvil Memoirs).

[236] Melvil Memoirs.

[237] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i. On the 20th July, Cecil writes to Lord Cobham, “I trust I shall not be troubled with the Scottish journey” (Hatfield Papers).

[238] Nichol’s “Progresses of Queen Elizabeth.”

[239] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.

[240] Although Cecil was a member of the Commons deputation, he was, of course, known to be against the measure, and escaped the Queen’s vituperation. Cecil himself in his notes thus refers to the matter: “1566. October 17. Certen Lords, viz., Erle of Pembroke and Lecester, wer excluded the presence-chamber, for furdering the proposition of the succession to be declared in Parliament without the Queen’s allowance.”

[241] The Parliament was dissolved on 2nd January 1567. The principal measure adopted in it was that which gave Parliamentary confirmation to the consecration of the bishops and archbishops, in order to counteract the attacks promoted by Bonner against the Protestant consecration. The measure was principally urged by the bishops themselves, and in the Lords was carried to a great extent by their votes, there being twenty-eight bishops present, and thirty-two lay peers. The House of Commons was strongly Protestant, and was dissolved instead of being prorogued, as was expected. Although the measure referred to was passed, the Government refrained from proceeding further against the Catholic bishops who had refused the oath of supremacy. (See Strype’s “Annals,” &c.)

[242] Scrinia Ceciliana.

[243] Spanish State Papers: Guzman to Philip, 1st March.

[244] Scrinia Ceciliana.

[245] These letters will be found in Labanoff, vol. ii.

[246] Catharine de Medici’s attitude when she heard the news was characteristic. She thus wrote to Montmorenci: “Gossip: my son the King is sending you this courier to give you the news he has received from Scotland. You see that the young fool (Darnley) has not been King very long. If he had been wiser he would have been alive still. It is a great piece of luck for the Queen, my daughter, to be rid of him.” (MSS. BibliothÈque Nationale, Bethune.)

[247] Drury to Cecil, April 1567 (State Papers, Scotland).

[248] Scrinia Ceciliana.

[249] Scrinia Ceciliana.

[250] Again, on the 3rd September, Cecil writes to Norris: “The Queen’s Majesty, our sovereign, remaineth still offended with the Lords (of Scotland) for the Queen: the example moveth her.” Later in the month (27th September) a French envoy came through England on a mission to Scotland, and proposed to Elizabeth that joint action should be taken to secure Mary’s liberation. The envoy was persuaded in London to refrain from continuing his journey, and we see that Cecil’s feeling in favour of the Protestant party was gradually gaining ground in Elizabeth’s counsels. He writes: “Surely if either the French King or the (English) Queen should appear to make any force against them of Scotland for the Queen (of Scots’) cause, we find it credible that it were the next way to make an end of her; and for that cause her Majesty is loth to take that way.” As an instance of the divergence of the Queen and Cecil during the summer, Guzman, detailing a private conversation he had with the Queen in July, during which he warned her again against French interference in Scotland, writes: “Certain things passed in the conversation which she begged me not to communicate even to Cecil.”

[251] Scrinia Ceciliana.

[252] The object of the French was to retain their alliance with Scotland in any case, which, indeed, was their great safeguard against England and Spain. De Croc was sent as Ambassador in 1566 for this especial purpose. Villeroy and Lignerolles were subsequently despatched respectively to conciliate Murray and Bothwell. When Murray assumed the Regency, the French were just as anxious to recognise him as they had been to welcome other rÉgimes, and Charles IX. himself assured Murray of his continued friendship. (See letters and instructions in ChÉruel.)

[253] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.

[254] Cecil writes to Lord Cobham (27th May): “Lady Clinton hath procured my wife to make a supper to-morrow, where a greater person will covertly be, as she is wont. The Queen hath made asseverations to persuade the Duke (of Norfolk) of her effectual dealing to marry, and to deal plainly in this embassy” (Hatfield Papers). The object of the supper was to enable the Queen privately to meet the Emperor’s Ambassadors before their public reception. She seems to have been much disappointed that they had nothing to say about the marriage, and as a result decided at last to send the Earl of Sussex to the Emperor.

[255] Guzman expressed his disbelief in any such intelligence having been received, whereupon Cecil showed him the paper. The document had reached Cecil in German from one of his agents, and is still in the Burghley Papers. Guzman pointed out to Cecil the undiplomatic form in which the articles of the alleged treaty were drawn up and their inherent improbability, which Cecil admitted. The particulars are now known to have been a fabrication, although the main object of the league was unquestionably to suppress Protestantism by extermination.

[256] The answer, which Guzman calls a very impertinent one, will be found in State Papers, Foreign, June 1567, and the original draft, in Cecil’s hand, at Hatfield.

[257] Guzman writes (5th July): “Everything that can be done to arouse the suspicion of the Queen against your Majesty is being done by certain people, and I am trying all I can to banish such feeling and keep her in a good humour, without saying anything offensive of the King of France … I think I have satisfied and tranquillised her; although when they see your Majesty so strongly armed, suspicion is aroused, and not here alone.” On the 21st July, he says, “With all the demonstrations of friendship and the friendly offers I make to the Queen from your Majesty, I find her rather anxious about the coming of the Duke of Alba to Flanders.”

[258] Murray very closely describes the contents of the “first” casket letter, of which so much has been written. The arguments of Mary’s defenders, founded on the long delay in the production of the letters, therefore fall to the ground, as Murray had evidently seen a copy, or the originals, before the end of July. To those who accuse Murray himself of having caused the letters to be forged, it may be replied that, on the 12th July, De Croc, on his way from Scotland to France, mentioned to Guzman in London the existence of the letters. As Dalgleish, with the letters, was captured in Edinburgh on the 20th June, there was no time in the interval for Morton in Scotland and Murray in Lyons to have concocted an elaborate forgery such as this. Murray, at all events, must be acquitted, as De Croc, leaving Scotland at the end of June, had copies of the letters in his possession.

[259] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[260] How wavering Elizabeth’s policy was at the time, according as Leicester or Cecil was near her, may clearly be seen. By Throgmorton’s instructions of 30th June (State Papers, Scotland; in extenso in Keith), it is evident that his mission was to blame both Mary and the Lords, making Elizabeth the arbiter between them, and to negotiate the restoration of Mary to liberty, but without political power. The Lords would not allow this, and Throgmorton failed. On the other hand, Melvil was sent back to Scotland shortly before Throgmorton, taking a message from Elizabeth to the Lords, in reply to their secret intimation that they intended to depose Mary, and a promise to the effect that she would aid them “in their honourable enterprise” (Melvil to Cecil, 1st July—State Papers, Scotland; in extenso in Tytler).

[261] Guzman to Philip, August 9, 1567, Spanish State Papers. Guzman at this time had a conversation with a French envoy, Lignerolles, who was returning from Scotland. He told him that Leicester’s henchman Throgmorton, on his embassy to Scotland, had acted earnestly and vigorously in favour of Mary. “Which,” writes Guzman, “I quite believe, as he has always been attached to her. He is also a great friend of Lord Robert’s, and an enemy of Cecil, whom the Queen does not consider to be in favour of the Queen of Scots, but a partisan of Catharine” (Grey).

[262] “Her Majesty much dislikes of the Prince of CondÉ and the French Lords. The (English) Council do all they can to cover the same. Her Majesty, being a Prince herself, is doubtful to give comfort to subjects. You (Norris), nevertheless, shall do well to comfort them as occasion shall serve” (Scrinia Ceciliana). The day before this was written, Guzman writes to Philip, speaking of the suspicion that exists that the Queen is helping the Huguenots, of which, however, he cannot find any confirmation: “But still I notice that when news comes favourable to the heretics, these Councillors are more pleased than otherwise, whilst they grieve if the heretics fail” (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth).

[263] Guzman’s comment upon this is curious: “These heretics are so blind as to marvel why your Majesty does not allow full liberty to all in your dominions to enjoy their own opinions and schisms against the Catholic religion, and yet they themselves refuse to let people live freely in the ancient religion which for so many years they have followed without molestation.”

[264] This second “plough” was probably an arrangement to subsidise Murray to send a privateer naval force to intercept some of Philip’s vessels conveying a number of Flemish nobles to Spain, amongst others Count de Buren, the young son of the Prince of Orange.

[265] Dr. Allen had recently established the English seminary at Douai, and a Dr. Wilson was apprehended in March 1568 for collecting money from English Catholics for the seminary at Louvain. Cecil himself, in his essay on the “Execution of Justice,” mentions the large number of papal emissaries in England at this time. Thomas Heath, brother of the Archbishop, and Faithful Cummin, a Dominican monk, were both arrested during this spring for carrying on a Catholic propaganda under the guise of Puritan Nonconformists. (See Strype’s Parker, &c.).

[266] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[267] He was said to have called the Pope a “canting little monk.” Amongst those who testified against him was Gresham’s agent Huggins, who afterwards became one of Cecil’s spies in Spain, and betrayed both sides.

[268] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. ii.

[269] Drury to Cecil, 28th November 1567 (State Papers, Scotland).

[270] In Labanoff, vol. ii. Copy in Hatfield Papers, part i., and Haynes.

[271] Scrinia Ceciliana.

[272] It is possible that these jewels may be those referred to in a memorandum at Hatfield, of the date 17th May, in Cecil’s writing, as having been bought from one Felton.

[273] Drury to Cecil, 15th May, describing Langside (Cotton MSS., Caligula, c. i.)., &c.

[274] Mary to Elizabeth (ibid.).

[275] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[276] Cotton MSS., Caligula, c. i.

[277] See Cecil’s letters to Norris of this period, detailing the discussions which this gave rise to in the Council. Cecil’s whole efforts were directed against preventing French troops being sent to Scotland at any cost. In Cecil’s own memoranda (Harl. MSS., 4653), when Mary first entered England, this is the main point dwelt upon. No person was to see Mary without permission of the English guard, all the known accomplices of Darnley’s murder were to be arrested, all interference of the French was to be prevented, and if it was decided to restore Mary, it was only to be on conditions which insured the exclusion of the French. The summing up of the document consists of a statement of the dangers that would ensue to England if Mary were to be allowed to return to France, or if, on the other hand, she remained in England. At this time Cecil was in favour of Mary’s restoration under the strict tutelage of England.

[278] See letters 21st June, &c., Hatfield Papers (in extenso in Haynes), and 13th June and 5th July, Cotton MSS., Caligula, c. i.

[279] See Cecil’s report and recommendations, Harl. MSS., 4653.

[280] A journal of the proceedings made by the English president, the Duke of Norfolk, is at Hatfield, part i. (No. 1200), and many letters on the subject in extenso in Haynes. In November the sittings were transferred to Westminster. On the 30th October a Council was held at Hampton Court, at which the “casket letters” were considered, and it was decided that Mary’s representatives, the Bishop of Ross and Lord Herries, should first have audience of Elizabeth. They were to be so questioned as to “move them to confess their general authority to answer all charges.” The representatives of the Lords, Maitland and MacGill, were then to be introduced and asked what answer they could give to Mary’s accusations, and why, in face of the letters they produced, they refrained from charging the Queen openly with murder. It was decided in the Council to remove Mary from Bolton to Tutbury. (See Minutes in Cecil’s hand, Hatfield Papers, part i. 1203-1205; in extenso in Haynes.)

[281] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[282] Odet de Coligny, brother of the Admiral of France.

[283] Hatfield State Papers, 18th September 1568.

[284] 28th October (Scrinia Ceciliana).

[285] Hatfield Papers, part i. 1237.

[286] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[287] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. ii.

[288] Hatfield Papers, part i. No. 1243.

[289] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[290] Spinola had been concerned in John Hawkins’ ventures, and it has usually been assumed that he had already received from his correspondents in Spain news of the attack on Hawkins’ fleet at St. Juan de Ulloa two months before. It is asserted that the seizure of the treasure was urged upon Cecil as a reprisal for this. I am of opinion that such was not the case, as the seizure of the money was under consideration before it was possible for the affair of St. Juan de Ulloa to be known.

[291] The safe conduct for the money sent to the ports by De Spes was closely followed by contrary orders from the Council to Sir William Horsey at Southampton, and Champernoun at Plymouth, and the treasure was landed in accordance therewith. On the 13th December, William Hawkins wrote to Cecil from Plymouth with rumours of the attack on John Hawkins at St. Juan de Ulloa, but the seizure must have been decided upon before Cecil received the letter.

[292] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[293] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[294] The seizure of Spanish property had greatly alarmed the English merchants and bankers, and was the pretext seized upon by Cecil’s enemies to ruin him.

[295] Desiderata Curiosa.

[296] Fuller’s “Holy State.”

[297] How moderate and cautious Cecil was in his triumph, after he had discovered and apprised the Queen of the plot to ruin him, and had barely escaped the dagger of the hired assassin who was to kill him, is seen in his subsequent demeanour towards the conspirators. Instead of trying to disgrace or punish them, he continued to work loyally with them. The real prime mover in the plot was Leicester, with whom outwardly Cecil was always friendly. Cecil, writing to a friend at the time, thus expresses himself: “I am in quietness of mind, as feeling the nearness and readiness of God’s favour to assist me with His grace, to have a disposition to serve Him before the world; and therein have I lately proved His mere goodness to preserve me from some clouds or mists, in the midst whereof I trust mine honest actions are proved to have been lightsome and clear. And to make this rule more proper, I find the Queen’s Majesty, my gracious lady, without change of her old good meaning towards me, and so I trust by God’s goodness to observe a continuance. I also am moved to believe that all my Lords, from the greatest to the meanest, think my actions honest and painful, and do profess inwardly to bear me as much good-will as ever they did.” That this was the case, at least with one of the conspirators, is proved by the fact that Lord Pembroke, who died at the end of the year, left Cecil one of his executors, jointly with Leicester and Throgmorton.

[298] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[299] Although in all her letters Mary designates Cecil as her enemy, she could, when not carried away by anger, perceive his good qualities. In February 1569 she was removed to Tutbury, and was extremely angry and alarmed at this. In conversation with Henry Knollys, who repeated the conversation to a correspondent of Cecil’s (Hatfield Papers, part i. 1279), “she spared not to give forth that the Secretary was her enemy, and that she mistrusted by this removing he would cause her to be made away.” But when her passion was over, she said that though the Secretary were not her friend, he was an expert, wise man, wishing it might be her luck to get the friendship of so wise a man.

[300] Hatfield Papers; in extenso in Haynes.

[301] Denied afterwards by Norfolk, but confirmed by Melvil. (See State Trials, and Melvil’s Memoirs).

[302] The Bishop of Ross deposed afterwards that Norfolk was so much exasperated at Murray’s having finally brought forward the whole of the evidence to convict Mary of murder, that he formed a plot for his assassination. Melvil says, however, that before Murray returned to Scotland, Throgmorton had fully gained his acquiescence in the projected marriage, and had reconciled the Regent and the Duke.

[303] Alba was very angry with De Spes for the way in which he was compromising Spain. He wrote again to him in July, saying that he “was informed from France that the Queen of Scotland was being utterly ruined by the plotting of her servants with you, as they never enter your house without being watched. This might cost the Queen her life, and I am not sure that yours would be safe.” The evidence given afterwards at the Duke of Norfolk’s trial, and the examinations of Bailly and the Bishop of Ross, proved that Cecil had information of everything that occurred.

[304] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth. Alba, writing to Philip soon afterwards (8th August), says, “I have written several times to Don Gerau, telling him to suspend negotiations, as I plainly see they are tricking him, so as to get all they can from him, and then say they have negotiated without authority. He is zealous … but he is inexperienced; he allows himself to be led away, and is ruining the negotiation.” It will be seen that it was comparatively easy for Cecil to outwit such an instrument as this.

[305] Mary consented to the condition; and the whole arrangement was, according to Norfolk and the Bishop of Ross, acquiesced in by Leicester and the majority of the Council. How far sincere Mary was in accepting the condition, may be seen by her message to De Spes. “She says if she were at liberty, or could get such help as would enable her to bring her country to submission, she would deliver herself and her son entirely into your Majesty’s hands, but now she will be obliged to sail with the wind” (De Spes to Philip, 27th August). This, no doubt, referred to her having consented to the marriage with Norfolk, and to the proposals submitted by the English Government to Murray and the Parliament of Perth for Mary’s return to Scotland. Murray was opposed to his sister’s return in any form, and neither of the Queen’s propositions, nor Mary’s petition for a divorce from Bothwell, was granted. That Cecil was at this time (the spring and summer of 1569) desirous of getting rid of Mary from England, without allowing her to go to France, where the Catholics had just beaten the Huguenots, is certain, and also that he did not wish her to be ill used in Scotland. See his minute sent to Murray by Henry Carey, demanding to know what hostages would be given for her safety if she was returned. (Hatfield Papers, Haynes; also Strype’s Annals, and Rapin.)

[307] Scrinia Ceciliana, 3rd October.

[308] In a postscript to a letter from the Earl of Huntingdon to Cecil from Coventry, where he was in joint charge of Mary Stuart, 9th December 1569, he mentions “the speech that passeth amongst many, how earnest a dealer you were for this marriage for which the Duke and others do suffer her Majesty’s displeasure: yea, it is reported from the mouth of some of the sufferers that, in persuasion, you (Cecil) yielded such reasons for it as he (the Duke), by them, was most moved to consent.” Cecil can hardly have been so forward in the matter as is here suggested, or it surely would have been mentioned in the rigorous examinations of those implicated. (Hatfield Papers, part i.)

[309] De Spes went so far as to say that it was Cecil who was urging that Norfolk should be sent to the Tower—the very reverse, as we now know, being the case. Cecil afterwards thought it worth while to defend himself against this charge in a note of his still existing in the Cotton MSS. It runs: “Whoso sayeth that I have in any wise directly or indirectly hindered or altered her Majesty’s disposition in the delivery of the Duke of Norfolk out of the Tower, I do affirm the same is untrue, and he that sayeth so doth speak an untruth. If any man will affirm the same to be true against this, my assertion, the same doth therein maintain an untruth and a lye. W. Cecil, xii. Julii, 1570.”

[310] 2nd November (Scrinia Ceciliana).

[311] Full details of the operations against the rebels will be found in the Sadler Papers; Sir Ralph Sadler being the Warden of the East and Middle Marches, and Paymaster-general of the army.

[312] The Earl of Westmoreland succeeded in escaping to Flanders, and thence to Spain. He remained a pensioner of Philip’s for years afterwards, plotting against England, and beseeching payment of the grudging dole which the Spanish King had assigned to him. Northumberland was captured by Murray and imprisoned in Lochleven; and at the time of the Regent’s assassination, Elizabeth’s special envoys from the Border were negotiating for Northumberland’s surrender. He was delivered to the English Government in 1572 by the Regent Morton, and beheaded at York.

[313] On the pretext of negotiating once more for the return of the Spanish property seized, Alba sent to England, in October, the famous Italian general, Ciapino Vitello, and in his letters to Sadler, Cecil expresses great anxiety as to the probability of an attack being made by Alba on Hartlepool at the time. English writers have always assumed that Ciapino came to England in order to take command of a force to be sent by Alba to England, but there is no trace of such a project in Alba’s or Guzman’s letters. Ciapino was forced, however, to leave his large retinue at Dover, and considerable delay took place before even he was received. Alba states to Philip that Cecil and Leicester had been, or were to be, bribed by the bankers Spinola and Fiesco, to allow Ciapino to come to England (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth), but Leicester sent word to Ciapino, as soon as the rising in the north was known, that his stay in England was considered very suspicious. He was then hurried away as soon as possible. There was really, however, not the slightest ground at the time to fear an armed invasion by Alba in favour of Mary. He wrote to Philip, 11th December, that he expected the rising “would all end in smoke,” and he would not move a step without Philip’s precise instructions.

[314] See inter alia the Bishop of Ross’s letter to Philip, 4th November 1569 (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth). His mistress, he says, had ordered him to remonstrate with Elizabeth against her imprisonment at Tutbury, and to demand either her restoration to her throne, or that she should be allowed to go over to France or Spanish Flanders. He can get no answer from Elizabeth, he says, and therefore in Mary’s name fervently begs for Philip’s aid.

[315] Very large sums were granted by Elizabeth for this purpose. To Count Mansfield alone she promised 100,000 crowns payable in three months, and a like sum in two years. In February the Prince of Orange sent an envoy to England to beg for similar aid, which was to be largely supplemented by the Flemings in England. The envoy was secretly lodged in Cecil House.

[316] There is an interesting memorandum of this period in Cecil’s hand (Hatfield Papers, part i., Nos. 1452 and 1455), entitled, “Extract of ye booke of ye state of ye realme,” in which the various dangers set forth in this page and the remedies therefor are described. The dangers are—the conspiracy of the Pope and the Kings of France and Spain against England; that of Mary Queen of Scots; the decay of civil obedience and of martial power in the country; the interruption of trade with Flanders, and the shortcomings in England’s treaties with foreign princes.

[317] Hatfield Papers, part i.

[318] Ibid.

[319] See her letters in Labanoff, iii., and also Banister’s Confessions (Hatfield).

[320] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[321] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[322] The whole of the documents are at Hatfield; most of them in extenso in Haynes.

[323] See Morton to Cecil, 9th February 1571 (Hatfield Papers, part i., 1541); and Elizabeth to Shrewsbury, 24th March (ibid., 1546).

[324] Correspondance de la Mothe FÉnÉlon.

[325] Walsingham Papers. Most of the letters in extenso in “The Compleat Ambassador.”

[326] There are in the Foreign State Papers of the year several of Cecil’s balancing considerations of the advantages and disadvantages of the match. From them it is clear that the Secretary himself was uncertain of the Queen’s intentions. In one important letter to her (31st August), Cecil suggests a way by which she may extricate herself, if she pleases, from the agreement she had made on the matter with Catharine’s special envoy, De Foix, at Knebworth. But he warns her very seriously of the dangerous position in which she stands unless she does marry. “It will,” he says, “also be necessary to seek by your Majesty’s best council the means to preserve yourself, as in the most dangerous and desperate sicknesses, the help of the best physicians; and surely how your Majesty shall obtain remedies for your perils, I think, is only in the knowledge of Almighty God.”

[327] Norris to the Queen (Foreign State Papers), 31st August 1570; also Warcop’s communications from Walsingham to Cecil, 16th July 1571, &c.

[328] Walsingham Papers.

[329] His eldest son Thomas, afterwards Lord Exeter, also sat in this Parliament as representative of the borough of Stamford. He had ended the sowing of his wild oats, to which reference has been made, by running away with a nun from a French convent; and was now married to Dorothy Nevil, a daughter of the last Lord Latimer, whose sister had married Sir Henry Percy, brother of the rebel Earl of Northumberland. Lord Burghley, in the little Perpetual Calendar at Hatfield, duly records the birth of all of Thomas’s children, three of whom had been born by this time.

[330] The young Earl of Rutland, one of his wards, especially at this time seems to have occupied much of his attention. He was sent with Lord Buckhurst’s embassy to France to congratulate Charles IX. on his marriage with Elizabeth of Austria, and at every stage of the journey a correspondence was kept up between them, the Secretary being solicitous for the lad’s welfare and good treatment even to the smallest detail. In the State Papers, Domestic, of 20th January 1571, there is a curious document in Cecil’s handwriting, headed “Directions for a Traveller,” laying down for Lord Rutland’s guidance strict rules for his conduct whilst abroad.

[331] Mary to the Bishop, 8th February 1571 (Cotton MSS., Caligula, c. xi.).

[332] Hatfield Papers and State Trials.

[333] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[334] That this possibility was ever present to the minds of Elizabeth’s advisers, is seen by the constant warnings on the subject by Cecil’s agents in Flanders, and by Walsingham. In one of Cecil’s statements as to the advantages and disadvantages of the Queen’s marriage with Anjou (Foreign State Papers, 14th January 1571), he enters on the contra side the possibility that, in the case of there being no issue, the King-consort might shorten the Queen’s life and marry Mary Stuart. The confessions of the men who were to murder Burghley in connection with the Ridolfi plot are at Hatfield.

[335] Details of all the examinations and the letters are at Hatfield. Burghley alleged that Bailly was a Scotchman. His claim to be considered a servant of the Queen of Scots was merely a technical one, although on his tomb in a church in a suburb of Brussels he is called a secretary of the Queen, which he certainly was not, and there is a bas-relief of her execution. This has led on several occasions to the incorrect assertion that Charles Bailly was present at the scene represented. He lived for many years in Flanders in the pay of Spain; and, at least on one occasion (1586), he took part in a Spanish attempt to foment a Catholic invasion and revolution in Scotland.

[336] The Pope had sent by Beton, early in the year, as much as 140,000 crowns to Mary Stuart, which she received through Ridolfi. (Examination of Ross: Hatfield.)

[337] The conspiracy included also a design to assassinate Burghley himself. (See the confessions of Edmund Mather, the proposed murderer, and Kenelm Berney, January 1572. Hatfield State Papers, part ii.).

[338] The cipher letter from Hickford will be found in Harl. MSS., 290.

[339] Examination of the Duke (Hatfield; in extenso in Murdin).

[340] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[341] The English draft of Burghley’s speech is in Foreign State Papers; De Spes’ version in the Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[342] It added to De Spes’ rage that the time he was thus contemned Burghley was celebrating with great magnificence the marriage of his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, with the young Earl of Oxford, a connection which in after years brought him much trouble and anxiety. During the wedding festivities the open slight to Spain was made the most of. Cavalcanti was flattered and caressed, the Guises were denounced as “Hispaniolised traitors,” and the Queen’s connection with the Protestants of Germany and Flanders boasted of; whilst De Spes and his master were scornfully held up as an object-lesson of England’s boldness and strength. De Spes, in his last letter to Alba before his embarkation, says that “Burghley has received certain threatening letters, and had informed the Queen that if I stay here during the trial of the prisoners the country will rise up in arms; and he, timid, contemptible fellow that he is, commits so many absurdities that people are quite astonished.”

[343] The alcabala or tenth penny—ten per cent. on every sale.

[344] Foreign State Papers.

[345] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[346] Correspondance de la Mothe FÉnÉlon.

[347] Burghley writes to Walsingham, 11th February 1572, an account of the Queen’s vacillation about Norfolk’s fate: “Suddenly on Sunday, late at night the Queen’s Majesty sent for me, and entered into a great misliking that the Duke should die next day, and said she was, and should be, disquieted; and said she would have a new warrant made that night to the sheriffs to forbear, until they should hear further. God’s will be fulfilled, and aid her Majesty to do herself good.” (Walsingham Papers: Complete Ambassador). In another letter from Burghley to Walsingham a few weeks earlier than this, he complains of the Queen’s clemency: “The Queen’s Majesty has always been a merciful lady, and by mercy she hath taken more harm than by justice, and yet she thinks she is more beloved in doing herself harm.” And again: “Here is no small expectation whether the Duke shall die or continue prisoner. I know not how to write, for I am here in my chamber subject to reports which are contrariwise.”

[348] Hatfield Papers, part ii.

[349] Hatfield Papers, part ii.

[350] Walsingham Papers.

[351] A copy of the charges with Lord Burghley’s signature erased is in Hatfield Papers, part ii.

[352] There was in the Parliament in question a strong Puritan element. An attempt was made by it to alter the rites of the Established Church in the Genevan direction, which Elizabeth regarded as an interference with her prerogative; and the pressure put upon her to consent to the trial of Mary Stuart led her to dismiss the Parliament, which did not meet again till 1575. When Parliament did meet again, the clemency of the Queen towards Mary was made a source of complaint by the Puritan Wentworth, who was imprisoned for his undutiful speech. For the consultation and report of the joint committee of the two Houses in 1572 respecting Mary Stuart, see D’Ewes’ “Compleat Journal.”

[353] It is probable that on this occasion the Queen made the celebrated remark to Burghley’s servant. He told her Majesty, who wore a very high head-dress, that it would be necessary to stoop to enter the door of the chamber where the sick man lay. “For your master only will I stoop,” said the Queen, “but not for the King of Spain.” It may be worth while to repeat De Guaras’ remark when giving an account of this sickness of Burghley. The latter had been showing an inclination to come to terms with Spain about the seizures (it was shortly before the French alliance was signed), and his illness had interrupted the negotiations. “If this man dies,” writes De Guaras, “it will be very unfortunate for the purpose which he declared to me.… It is true that hitherto he has undoubtedly been the enemy of peace and tranquillity, for his own bad ends; but I am convinced that he is now well disposed, which means that the Queen and Council are so, for he, and no one else, rules the whole affairs of the State. God grant that if it be for His service he may live.” (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. ii.)

[354] These are the dates in the diary, but they do not quite agree with the entries in the little Perpetual Calendar at Hatfield, which run thus:—

“19 July 1572. W. Cecill admiss. Thesaurus Angl.

“19 July 1572. Quene’s Majestie at Theobalds, 5 to 6.”

[355] A curious letter from Sir Nicholas Bacon to Burghley respecting this visit is in Lansdowne MSS., 14 (printed by Ellis), in which he prays for advice and guidance, “ffor in very deede no man is more rawe in such a matter than myself” (12th July 1572. Gorhambury).

[356] There is another letter in the same collection from the Earl of Bedford to Burghley, begging him to arrange that the Queen should not stay at Woburn longer than two nights and a day. “I pray god the Rowmes and Lodgings there may be to her Majesty’s contentation for the tyme.… They should be better than they be” (16th July 1572. Russell House).

[357] Spanish State Papers, 22nd July 1572, a month before St. Bartholomew. If this be true, it to some extent confirms the subsequent allegations of the Catholics as to a plot of the Huguenots.

[358] Foreign State Papers; in extenso in Digges.

[359] Smith to Walsingham, 27th September (Foreign State Papers; in extenso in Digges).

[360] When Orange entered Brabant in September he sent an envoy to England to ask for aid. An agent at once started from London with £16,000 in money, and a few days afterwards £30,000 in bills on Hamburg were sent, for which the Prince wrote thanking Burghley. Large quantities of stores were also shipped from England, and a force of 12,000 men collected at the ports in case of emergency.

[361] See his letters in Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth; and also “Antonio de Guaras,” by Richard Garnett, LLD.

[362] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[363] How deeply interested Burghley was in the question of trade is seen in the active efforts he was making at this time to establish the Flemish fugitives in various parts of England, to exercise the handicrafts in which they excelled. During the negotiations with De Guaras, he was establishing a community of cloth-workers in his own town of Stamford, lodging them at first in a house of his own, giving them a church and aiding them with money. (Dr. Cunningham’s “Alien Emigrants in England”; State Papers, Domestic; and Strype’s Parker.)

[364] Burghley, on a previous occasion, had frightened De Guaras out of his wits by charging him with conspiring against the Queen. Throughout the whole negotiation the Spaniards were alternately flattered and threatened. De Guaras himself was one day overjoyed with Burghley’s amiability and admiration for all things and men Spanish; and the next day cast into the depths of gloom, by haughty indifference, or hints at punishment for treason, of which the poor man was as yet quite innocent; or, again, by talk of the diversion of all English trade to France or Hamburg, the abundant aid being sent to Orange, or the welcoming of the Dutch privateers into English ports. The negotiation and its result are a good specimen of Lord Burghley’s diplomatic methods.

[365] The documents relating to the protracted negotiations with regard to the seizures, and the resumption of trade, will be found in the Cotton MSS., Galba ciii., civ., cv., cvi., and Vesp. cxiii.

[366] Hatfield Papers; in extenso in Murdin; also State Papers, Scotland.

[367] See letters in Cotton MSS., Caligula, ciii.

[368] The terms were—that the hostages should be delivered within four hours of the surrender of Mary; that James should be taken under the protection of Elizabeth, and his rights remain intact, and be recognised by the English Parliament; that a defensive alliance should be concluded between the two countries; that the Earls of Bedford, Huntingdon, and Essex should be present at the Queen’s execution with a force of 3000 men, and immediately afterwards join the King’s troops to reduce Edinburgh Castle, which should then be delivered to the Regent; and, finally, that all arrears of pay owing to the Scottish army should be paid by England. The Spanish agents attributed the failure of Killigrew’s mission to the efforts of De Croc, the French Ambassador in Scotland. Elizabeth told the latter, when she saw him in London in October, that she was well aware of all his plots in Scotland. Her uneasiness at the time was increased by the news of the arrival in Paris of Cardinal Orsini, a papal envoy with a fresh plan for the release of Mary.

[369] State Papers, Foreign. See also Burghley’s letters to Copley. Roxburghe Club.

[370] Foreign State Papers; in extenso in Digges.

[371] Foreign State Papers; in extenso in Digges.

[372] The progress of each stage in the complicated business is related in the author’s “Courtships of Queen Elizabeth.”

[373] The Bishop of London’s letter to Burghley is at Hatfield, part ii.; in extenso in Murdin. “These be dangerous days,” he says, “full of itching ears mislying their minds, and ready to forget all obedience and duty.… A soft plaister is better than a sharp corosy to apply to this sore.… If Mr. Deryng be somewhat spared, yet wal scoled, the others, being manifest offenders, may be dealt withal according to their deserts” (3rd June 1573).

[374] In one case his love of justice had an unfortunate termination. A crazy Puritan named Birchett stabbed Sir John Hawkins in the Strand, under the belief that he was Sir Christopher Hatton, the declared rival of Leicester in the Queen’s affection; and it was surmised also, his opponent in his Puritan leanings. The Queen issued a commission for Birchett’s summary trial and punishment by martial law, but was persuaded by Burghley to remand him to safe custody for further inquiries. He was imprisoned in the Lollard’s Tower, and a few days afterwards killed his keeper. He was clearly a maniac, but the affair brought great odium upon Puritanism, and led to the arrest of Mr. Cartwright, the leader of the party. It is to be noticed that Burghley provided suitable preferment for all the eminent Puritan nonconformists who were dismissed from their positions in the Church; Cartwright, Lever, and Sampson being made respectively “masters” of charitable foundations where their opinions on ritual were of little importance.

[375] Original letters, Ellis.

[376] Gilbert Talbot to the Earl of Shrewsbury, 9th May 1573 (Lodge’s Illustrations).

[377] The number and variety of remedies sent to Burghley from all parts of the world for the cure of the gout are truly marvellous. We have already mentioned some in an earlier page, but they became much more frequent after this year (1573), when a Mr. Dyon sent one which Burghley endorses as “Recipe pro podagra,” as well as Lady Harrington. Dr. NuÑes, the Queen’s Portuguese physician, sent quite a collection of nostrums in Latin, and a German doctor recommended certain medicated slippers; a tincture of gold was advocated by a Nicholas Gybberd, and the Earl of Shrewsbury was loud in his praises of “oyle of stagg’s blood.” Most of the recipes mentioned will be found in the Lansdowne MSS., 18, 21, 27, 29, 39, and 42.

[378] See letters from Mary, in Labanoff, vol. iv. Elizabeth showed some amount of jealous suspicion at Burghley’s interview with Mary, of which Leicester and the Treasurer’s enemies made the most during his absence.

[379] Burghley, as Lord Treasurer, seems to have been seriously concerned at the heavy cost of these progresses. In the Lansdowne MSS., 16, there is a document, altered and corrected by Lord Burghley himself, of this date (1573), showing how the royal household expenses had been increased by this particular progress. It is to be deduced from the document that extra expenditure entailed was £1034, 0s. 6d.

[380] See a curious letter from Lord Windsor to Burghley, 10th January 1574, exculpating himself for this letter (Hatfield Papers, part ii., No. 181).

[381] Hatfield Papers; in extenso in Murdin.

[382] As a matter of fact he was straining every nerve at the time to hold back his half-brother, Don John of Austria, who, with papal support, was full of all manner of grand plans for the founding of a great Christian Empire in Africa or the East, with himself as Emperor; or else for invading England from Flanders, marrying Mary Stuart, and reigning over a Catholic Great Britain. Don John and Gregory XIII. were very serious in their plans; but Philip was determined that nothing of the sort should be done with Spanish forces. He was absolutely bankrupt at the time, and had recently been obliged to repudiate the interest upon the vast sums he had borrowed. This had caused wholesale financial disaster in Italy and Flanders, and Philip’s credit was at its lowest ebb.

[383] Mary’s own hopes were high for a short time after the accession of her favourite brother-in-law. But she soon found out her mistake. Catharine’s aim was not to benefit Mary Stuart, but to prevent the extinction of French influence in Scotland. Her first act after Henry III. ascended the throne was to project an embassy to Scotland, accredited, not as all previous French embassies had been, to Mary Stuart’s party alone, but to both parties. Mary indignantly protested at this proposed recognition of the “usurpers,” and the embassy was abandoned. La Chatre was sent to London in March 1575, to confirm the treaty of Blois (in which Elizabeth and the Huguenots were comprised), but he did not say a word in favour of the liberation of the Queen of Scots. The withdrawal soon afterwards of the Guisan La Mothe FÉnÉlon from England, and the appointment, as Ambassador, of Castelnau, a great friend of the English alliance, quite convinced Mary that she had nothing to hope for from Henry III., who, sunk in sloth and vice, left everything to his mother.

[384] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[385] 16th April 1575 (Hatfield Papers).

[386] Woodshaw’s interesting letters of this period to Burghley are in Hatfield Papers. See also “Copley’s Correspondence,” Roxburghe Club.

[387] Hatfield Papers, part ii.

[388] Hatfield Papers, part ii.

[389] See Philip’s minute of his conversation with Cobham, October 1575 (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth), and also Lord Burghley’s Diary.

[390] Burghley, in his Diary, refers to this embassy, giving the names of the envoys. He says they based their offer of Holland, &c., to the Queen upon her descent from Philippa of Hainault and Holland, who married Edward III.

[391] Gerald Talbot writes: “Her Majesty is troubled with these causes, which maketh her very melancholy, and she seemeth to be greatly out of quiet. What shall be done in these matters is at present unknown; but here are ambassadors on all sides, who labour greatly, one against the other. Her Majesty hath put upon her to deal betwixt the King of Spain and the Low Country; the King of France and his brother. Her Majesty may deal as pleaseth her, for I think they both be weary of war, especially Flanders, which, as report goeth, is utterly wanting of money, munition, &c.” Hampton Court, 4th January 1576.

[392] Burghley was at the time unable to attend the Council in consequence of an attack of his old enemy the gout.

[393] A few days later Burghley had reason to be still more angry with Oxford himself, though with his reverence for rank he appears to have treated him with inexhaustible patience and forbearance. Oxford had been very extravagant and got into difficulties. During his absence abroad he had made some complaint to Burghley about his steward or agent, but nothing apparently of consequence. In March, Lord Burghley wrote to him in Paris, saying that his wife was pregnant; and the Earl’s answer was most cordial, full of rejoicing at the news, and announcing his immediate return. The Treasurer’s eldest son, Sir Thomas Cecil (he had been knighted the previous year at Kenilworth), travelled to Dover to meet his brother-in-law. All went well until they arrived in London, when Oxford declined to meet his wife or hold any communication with her. Burghley reasoned, remonstrated, and besought in vain. Oxford was sulky and intractable. His wife, he said, had been influenced by her parents against him, and he would have no more to do with her. The whole of the documents in the quarrel are in Hatfield Papers. As some indication of the state in which noblemen of the period travelled even short distances, two entries in the uncalendared household account-book at Hatfield may be quoted: “Saturday, December 1576. My Lord and Lady Oxford came from London to Theobalds; 28 servants with them.” And again, “Monday, 14th January 1577. My Lord and my Lady of Oxford and 28 persons came from London.”

[394] State Papers, Foreign.

[395] State Papers, Foreign.

[396] Hatfield Papers, part ii.

[397] How true this is may be seen by the account of an important conversation De Guaras had with Burghley on the 30th January 1576 (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth). De Guaras had prayed Burghley to prevent the Queen from accepting the offer of Orange’s envoys for her to take Holland and Zeeland. The Treasurer replied that, if the offer were accepted, it would only be in the interests of Spain, and to prevent the French from obtaining a footing. The Spaniard derided such a possibility, and Burghley said that England, in pursuance of its ancient policy, would defend the rights of the House of Burgundy, but that “foreign intruders” had misgoverned the States to an extent which endangered England itself. “Foreign intruders” indeed, retorted De Guaras; “your Lordship cannot call Spaniards ‘foreign intruders’ in Flanders.” Burghley got angry at this, and said, “You people are of such sort that wherever you set foot no grass grows, and you are hated everywhere.” Hollanders, he continued, were fighting for their privileges, and would be successful in upholding them. The end of the colloquy was a renewal of the Queen’s wish to mediate between Orange and Spain. The great object was to prevent the French from obtaining influence in Flanders, and here Spanish and English aims were identical.

[399] As Sussex for once was on the side of Leicester and the Puritans, Burghley seems to have depended as an ally at this time principally upon Hatton. A letter from the latter to the Treasurer (26th August 1576, Lansdowne MSS., 22) shows that Burghley was urging him to return to court from the country, where he was lying ill, and apparently unhappy. His recent unjust extortion of the lease of Ely Place, Holborn, from the Bishop of Ely (Cox), had rendered him very unpopular.

[400] A similar but more flattering offer was made in 1573 by the unfortunate Earl of Essex, who proposed that his eldest son, then only about six years old, should be betrothed to Burghley’s daughter (Lansdowne MSS., 17). A few hours before he died (21st September 1576) the Earl wrote a most pathetic letter to Lord Burghley, praying him to take the same son into his household, and beseeching him to be good to him for the sake of his father, “who lived and died your true and unfeigned friend” (Hatfield Papers). It is sad to consider that the son grew up to be the enemy of his father’s friend; to succeed, in his enmity of Burghley, the vile Leicester, who dishonoured his mother and deliberately ruined his father.

[401] Hatfield Papers.

[402] Ibid.

[403] Philip’s reception of Smith was cold, more so even than had been his treatment of Sir Henry Cobham. Smith writes to Burghley (5th February 1577) saying that he “has had special care to make known the Queen’s noble nature and the great love and obedience of her subjects; in which he has not detracted any title of honour that your Lordship is worthy of. Yea, even the Duke of Alba himself gives you the honour to be one of the most sufficient men in Christendom in all politic government.” Smith’s reports of the extremity of Philip’s financial exhaustion caused great surprise amongst the friends of Spain in Elizabeth’s court, many of whom disbelieved them. When Smith returned and begged the Queen for a reward for his services, she refused to accord him anything except to take his bills payable in twelve months for £2000 instead of a mortgage she had on his lands. (See letter 21st September 1578, Hatton to Burghley: State Papers, Domestic.)

[404] A sum of no less than 400,000 crowns was openly provided by Elizabeth for the States at the request of the Catholic Flemish nobles.

[405] Hatfield Papers.

[406] See the extraordinary Italian letter of this period from Baptista de Trento to the Queen, in which nearly the whole of her nobility (including Leicester and Sussex) are accused (Hatfield Papers), and also a letter written by Burghley to Lord Shrewsbury, after his return from Buxton, warning him to keep his eyes on Mary, who was, he said, suspected of suborning some of Shrewsbury’s servants. The persecuting Bishop of London (Aylmer) also wrote at the same time to Burghley urging him to “use more severity than hath hitherto been used; or else we shall smart for it. For as sure as God liveth they look for an invasion, or else they (the Catholics) would not fall away as they do” (Strype’s Aylmer).

[407] According to his own statement the case against him was divulged to Burghley by some of the Catholic Flemish nobles who were aware of his former practices; but there are many indications in his letters up to the time of his arrest, that he was a party to plots then in progress, especially one with Colonel Chester and others.

[408] An interesting minute on the subject, in Burghley’s writing, is in Hatfield Papers (part ii., No. 531). Two personages were to be sent from England to bring about peace: one to the States, and the other to Don Juan. The States were to be reminded that they owed gratitude to Elizabeth for risking war with Spain on their behalf, and aiding them with £85,000; and the envoy was to point out to them the danger of their receiving French help. The French, they are to be told, may either turn and side with the enemy, or try to keep the country for themselves. As a last resort, the English envoy is to be authorised to offer English aid if the States will desist from dealing with the French.

Don Juan, on the other hand, is to be told that if he does not make terms with the States, the French will conquer the country, in which case the Queen will send such aid to the States as will enable them to hold their own against everybody. As usual with Burghley’s minutes, there is at the end a carefully-balanced summary of possibilities, and courses to be pursued, all tending to the same end—the exclusion of the French from Flanders. The mission in question was that of June 1578, the envoys being Lord Cobham and Walsingham.

[409] For a wonder, on this occasion Sussex sided with his enemy Leicester, although, as will be seen, only for a short time.

[410] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[411] Grindall, Archbishop of Canterbury, had been deprived by the Queen for neglecting to suppress the “prophesying”; and Sandys, Archbishop of York, was also in disgrace; but, as Strype says, “his good friend Lord Burghley stood up for him.” He certainly did so in the case of Grindall, who kept up a constant correspondence with the “good Lord Treasurer.”

[412] Add. MSS., 15,891; 21st April 1578.

[413] To such an extent was this so, that whilst, according to Mendoza, money and men were constantly being sent to Flanders, and Leicester and Walsingham were planning the murder of Don Juan and the expulsion of Mendoza from England, “I can assure your Majesty that the Earl of Sussex is sincerely attached to your Majesty’s interests, and Cecil also, though not so openly. But if he and Sussex are properly treated they will both be favourable, and their good disposition will be much strengthened when they see it rewarded.” His suggestion was that Burghley and Sussex should be granted large pensions. It will be observed that Sussex had already broken free from Leicester.

[414] Elizabeth appears to have been very angry about Gondi’s mission. “She told him,” says Mendoza, “loudly in the audience chamber, that she knew very well he had come to disturb her country, and to act in favour of the worst woman in the world, whose head should have been struck off long ago. She was sure he had not come with the knowledge of his King, but only of some of those who surrounded him. Gondi replied that the Queen of Scots was a sovereign, as she was, and her own kinswoman, and it was not surprising that efforts should be made on her behalf. The Queen answered him angrily, that she should never be free as long as she lived, even if it cost her (Elizabeth) her realm and her own liberty. The Queen-mother, she said, must surely know what Mary had attempted against her.” (5th May 1578; Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.)

[415] Mendoza dilates much upon the venality of the English Council, and says, “I am told by a person in the palace, that, even in the matter of giving me audience readily, the Queen has been considerably influenced by the gloves and perfumes I gave her when I arrived.”

[416] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, and also a letter from Sussex to Burghley in November, printed by Lodge, vol. ii.; also Sussex to Burghley, Hatfield Papers, part ii., where he mentions that “Burghley also had been ill-used by lewd speech. I will on all occasions stick as near to you as your shirt is to your back.” (5th November 1578.)

[417] This was true. The treaty of Nerac was signed in February 1579 by Henry of Navarre, now the acknowledged leader.

[418] Cobham, Wilkes, and Smith had all been sent back with a short answer.

[419] Sir Thomas Cecil to Burghley, and Lord Lincoln to the same (Hatfield Papers).

[420] Hatton to Burghley, 28th September 1578 (Hatfield Papers).

[421] There are many hundreds of such letters as these at Hatfield and in the Lansdowne MSS.

[422] Hatfield State Papers, part ii.

[423] Mendoza, writing on 8th April, says, “Lord Burghley is not so much opposed to the match as formerly; but I cannot discover whether he and Sussex have changed their minds because they think that they may thus bring about the fall of Leicester, and avenge themselves upon him for old grievances, and for his having advanced to the office of Chancellor an enemy of theirs” (i.e. Bromley). On another occasion, when the Queen learned of the Papal-Spanish expedition to Ireland to aid the Desmonds in Munster, she was so much alarmed that she dropped the French negotiations for some days and refused to see Simier.

[424] It has not been noticed by Burghley’s biographers that, true to his cautious character, he found an excuse for going into Northamptonshire shortly before AlenÇon arrived in London. He writes an interesting letter to Hatton from Althorpe, dated 9th August (Nicholas’s “Life of Hatton”), in reply to the advices respecting the fortifying of the Papal force at Dingle, in Kerry. The ships must be sent against them, he says, double-manned, “as there is no good access by land.” He is very jealous of foreigners setting foot in Ireland, for fear any “discontentation grow betwixt France and us upon a breach of this interview (i.e. with AlenÇon), or if the King of Spain shall be free from his troubles in the Low Country.” He approves of the agreement of Cologne and the pacification of Ghent, whereby Holland and Zeeland were to remain Protestant, and Flanders Catholic, rather than the war should go on. “On Tuesday morning we will be at Northampton, where after noon we mean to hear the babbling matters of the town for the causes of religion, wishing that we may accord them all in mind and action; at least we will draw them to follow one line by the rule of the laws, or else make the contrariant feel the sharpness of the same law.” On the same day Burghley wrote a vigorous letter to Walsingham directing energetic action in Ireland.

[425] Burghley’s minutes of the deliberations are in Hatfield Papers, part ii.

[426] Hatfield Papers, part ii.

[427] The original draft of the protocol in Simier’s handwriting is in the Hatfield Papers. A most valuable digest or “time-table,” in Burghley’s handwriting, of the whole of the negotiations for the Queen’s marriage up to the period of Simier’s departure, will be found in the Hatfield Papers, part ii.

[428] Allen’s famous English seminary had been transferred to Rheims under the patronage of the Guises, and a great number of young priests were continually sent into England, especially after 1579, the first members of the Jesuit mission, Persons and Campion, arriving in 1580.

[429] Mendoza at this period writes to the King of the enormous number of ships being built. “This,” he says, “makes the English almost masters of the commerce … as they have a monopoly of shipping, whereby they profit by all the freights.” Burghley was an untiring promoter of extension of legitimate trade, as he was a constant enemy to piracy. He was at this time promoting Humphrey Gilbert’s colonisation schemes in North America, the enterprises of Frobisher and his friends in Hudson’s Bay, the trade of the Muscovy Company, the overland route to the Caspian by the White Sea and the Volga, and other similar adventures; but, as we shall have occasion to see later, he disapproved entirely of Drake’s proceedings in the Pacific, and other expeditions of a wantonly aggressive character.

[430] Hatfield Papers, part ii.

[431] Sadler State Papers.

[432] The intention, however, was not carried out. In the summer Lord Shrewsbury wrote to Lady Burghley asking her to prevail upon her husband to obtain the Queen’s permission for Mary Stuart to go to Buxton and Chatsworth. Lady Burghley in her reply suggests that the Queen was angry and refused. Mary, however, did go to Buxton later, but not to Chatsworth.

[433] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth. Burghley’s interest in naval affairs was great. He had, when danger threatened from Alba, in the summer of 1578, elaborated a scheme for the mobilisation of the navy, and had put fourteen ships into commission. The Council appear to have addressed to him most of their minutes respecting naval organisation, instead of to the Lord Admiral.

[434] The Duke Hans Casimir was in England at the time (January 1580), and took a large sum of money back with him for the purpose in question.

[435] This was actually the case at the time so far as Scotland itself as apart from Mary was concerned. There is in the Hatfield Papers of this date (1580) a fervent appeal from James VI. to the King of France, begging for assistance in force to release his mother, and support him against his heretic subjects. Mendoza also reports (4th September 1580) that Guise had just recognised James’s title of King for the first time, and that intimate relations were being formed between the courts of Scotland and France. This probably arose from the long delay of the reply from Spain to Mary, Guise, and the Archbishop of Glasgow, relative to their offer of complete submission to Philip. The whole matter, however, was changed in the following year, and thenceforward Mary and her friends depended upon Spain alone.

[436] In Strype’s “Annals,” in extenso.

[437] Hatfield Papers. Another letter of this period (June 1580) from Sussex to Lord Burghley (Hatfield Papers) shows forcibly the affection and veneration he felt for him. “I do love, honour, and reverence you as a father, and do you all the service we can as far as any child you have, with heart and hand.… The true fear of God which your actions have always shown to be in your heart, the great and deep care you have had for the honour and safety of the Queen … and the continual trouble you have of long time taken for the benefit of the commonwealth, and the upright course you have always taken respecting the matter, and not the person, in all causes … have tied me to your Lordship in that knot which no worldly frailty can break.”

[438] See her letter to Henry III. (Hatfield State Papers, 27th July 1580).

[439] According to Drake’s statement given in Cooke’s narrative in Vaux, Drake was presented to the Queen by Walsingham; but Doughty, of whom we shall speak presently, asserted when he was on his trial that he, who was a great friend of Drake, and private secretary to Hatton, had interested the latter in the project, and that it was he who persuaded the Queen to countenance Drake.

[440] 20th June 1578. Doughty confessed that he had given Burghley a plan of the voyage. It was this, unquestionably, that sealed Doughty’s fate.

[441] Mendoza writes to the King (23rd October 1580): “Sussex, Burghley, Crofts, the Admiral, and others insist that the Queen should retain the treasure in her own hands in the Tower, and if your Majesty will give them the satisfaction they desire about Ireland, the treasure may be restored, after reimbursing the adventurers for their outlay.… Leicester and Hatton advocate that Drake should not be personally punished, nor made to restore the plunder if the business is carried before the tribunals. The fine excuse they give is that there is nothing in the treaties between the countries which prohibits Englishmen from going to the Indies.”

[442] Spanish State Papers.

[443] D’Ewes’ Journal.

[444] Sir Walter Mildmay introduced a bill in this Parliament by which reconciliation to Rome should be punishable as high treason, the saying of mass by a fine of 200 marks and a year’s imprisonment, and the hearing of mass half that penalty. Absence from church was to be punished by a fine of £20 a month, and unlicensed schoolmasters were to be imprisoned for a year. The bill met with much opposition by the Lords and by Burghley’s party, and was somewhat lessened in severity before it became law.

[445] How entirely Elizabeth herself depended upon the Burghley policy now, is proved by a remark reported by Mendoza (27th February). D’Aubigny was quite paramount in Scotland, and Morton was in prison, his doom practically sealed. Mendoza reports that the Earl of Huntingdon, Leicester’s brother-in-law, Warden of the Marches, had connived at a raid of Borderers into England as far as Carlisle, where some Englishmen were killed, in order that he might have an excuse for crossing into Scotland and attacking Morton’s enemies. When the Queen heard of this she was extremely angry. “What is this I hear about Scotland?” she asked Walsingham. “Did I order anything of this sort to be done?” Walsingham minimised the affair. The answer was, “You Puritan! you will never be content until you drive me into war on all sides, and bring the King of Spain on to me.” (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.)

[446] It consisted of two very young princes of the blood sent for appearance’ sake, Francis de Bourbon, Dauphin d’Auvergne, and Charles de Bourbon, Count de Soissons; Marshal de CossÉ, Pinart, La Mothe FÉnÉlon, Brisson, and a great number of courtiers of rank. So desirous was Elizabeth that they should be impressed with the splendour of her court, that she ordered that the London mercers should sell their fine stuffs at a reduction of 25 per cent. in order that the courtiers might be handsomely dressed.

[447] Lodge, vol. ii.

[448] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[449] Hatfield Papers, part ii.

[450] Hatfield Papers, part ii.

[451] BibliothÈque Nationale, Paris: Fonds franÇais, 3308.

[452] In addition to the letter of the Queen, there is another document signed by the Ambassadors and by the English Council, saying that the terms shall not be considered binding upon the Queen, unless within six weeks she and AlenÇon report in writing to the King of France that they have arranged certain personal questions to their mutual satisfaction. Both documents are printed in extenso in Digges.

[453] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth.

[454] The real reason for the Queen’s ostentatious slighting of Mendoza at the time was to draw the King of France on, and make him believe that she was willing to break with Spain.

[455] Walsingham to the Queen: “fearing lest when he should be embarqued your Majesty would slip the collar” (Walsingham Papers). See also Walsingham’s letters to Burghley, in the same.

[456] Burghley to Walsingham; in extenso in Digges.

[457] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[458] Hatfield State Papers, part ii.

[459] Burghley to Walsingham; in extenso in Digges.

[460] “Courtships of Queen Elizabeth,” by the present writer.

[461] See Camden; Memoires de Nevers; Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth; and “Courtships of Queen Elizabeth.”

[462] Wilkes, Clerk of the Council, was sent to confer with Mary upon the subject. His report in full is in State Papers, Scotland, and at Hatfield.

[463] See his own book, “Treatise on the Execution of Justice,” written in 1583 in answer to Allen’s attacks.

[464] See Simpson’s Life of Campion, Spanish State Papers, Camden’s Elizabeth, and Allen’s De Persecutione Anglicana.

[465] Burghley, writing to Lord Shrewsbury (Lansdowne MSS., 982) in August 1581, telling him of the trial and execution for treason of the priest Everard Duckett, who had denied the Queen’s authority, says in reference to Campion and his companions, “If they shall do the like, the law is like to correct them. For their actions are not matters of religion, but merely of state, tending directly to the deprivation of her Majesty’s crown.” Campion, he says, had been brought before Leicester and Bromley, but had not confessed anything of importance. It appears to have been the result of the admissions wrung from Campion and others about this time as to the houses in which they had lodged that led to the great number of Catholic arrests all over England.

[466] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[467] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[468] Ibid.

[469] Ralegh was certainly known to Leicester before this. He was attached to his suite when he accompanied AlenÇon to Antwerp in February; and always professed to be specially attached to him personally, even when he was lending his aid to his political opponents.

[470] B. M. Add. MSS., 15,891: Walsingham to Hatton.

[471] B. M. Lansdowne MSS., 36: Hatton to Burghley.

[472] The probable cause of the Queen’s displeasure with Oxford on this occasion was an affray between him and Sir Thomas Knyvett, one of the Queen’s Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, in March 1582. Nicholas Faunt writes to Anthony Bacon (Bacon Papers, vol. i.): “There has been a fray between my Lord of Oxford and Knyvett, who are both hurt, but Lord Oxford more dangerously. You know,” he adds, “Master Knyvett is not meanly beloved at court, and therefore is not likely to speed ill, whatsoever the quarrel be.” There is also a most interesting letter from Burghley to Hatton (12th March 1582, B. M. MSS., Add. 91), in which he begs him to intercede with the Queen for Oxford, and recites the whole of the accusations against him.

[473] State Papers, Domestic.

[474] Mary to Beton, 18th November 1582 (Spanish State Papers).

[475] Harl. MSS., 5397.

[476] Full particulars of De Maineville’s and La Mothe FÉnÉlon’s missions in M. ChÉruel’s Marie Stuart et Catherine de Medicis, drawn from the correspondence of La Mothe FÉnÉlon and the archives of the D’Esneval family.

[477] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[478] See Beale’s instructions, Harl. MSS., 4663; also Beale’s report of his proceedings in Lord Calthorpe’s MSS.

[479] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[480] This is according to Beale’s official report. But on the following day (17th April 1583) Beale wrote to Lord Burghley (Harl. MSS., 4663), saying that she had abandoned all ambition, she was old and ill, and was ready to swear to anything for her liberation. This, however, was before she received Mendoza’s letter (6th May?) advising her on no account to accept her release (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth).

[481] The Queen had nicknames for most of her friends; Burghley was the Leviathan or the Spirit, Hatton was Bellwether or Lyddes, Walsingham was Moon, AlenÇon was Frog, Simier was Ape, Ralegh was Water, Leicester was Sweet Robin, and so forth.

[482] Printed in Dr. Nares’ Life of Burghley.

[483] See letter from a Scottish gentleman to De Maineville, 13th July (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth), and Mary to Mendoza, of same date (ibid.).

[484] See letter of Castelnau to Henry III., 1st July; in extenso in ChÉruel’s Marie Stuart. How completely Mary distrusted the French and Castelnau at the time, notwithstanding her cordial letters to them, may be seen by a paragraph in her letter to Mendoza of 13th July (Spanish State Papers). The recognition of James as King by La Mothe’s embassy had confirmed Mary’s determination to depend only upon the Spaniards.

[485] One of Elizabeth’s movements as soon as she heard the news was to summon Lord Arbroath, the eldest of the Hamiltons, from France, to proceed to Scotland in her pay. See letter, Mary to Castelnau, September (Hatfield Papers), and Mendoza to the King, 19th August (Spanish State Papers).

[486] Guise sent Persons (alias Melino) to the Pope in August, giving him an account of his plans. Four thousand Spaniards were to land at Dalton-in-Furness, Lancashire, whilst Guise made a descent on Sussex, simultaneously with a rising of Catholics in the North of England and on the Scottish Border (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, 22nd August).

[487] Walsingham’s disinclination to undertake the mission is quite comprehensible. He was at the time engaged in a complicated intrigue with the triple traitor Archibald Douglas, by which he learnt the secrets of Mary Stuart; and at the same time he and Leicester were making approaches to Mary Stuart and James, for a marriage between the latter and Lady Dorothy Devereux, the step-daughter of Leicester, on condition of James being declared the heir of England. See letters from Mary to Castelnau, September 1583 (Hatfield Papers, part iii.), and Mendoza to the King, 13th March 1583 (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth); also Castelnau to Henry, 1st January 1584 (Harl. MSS., 1582), and the same to Mary (Harl. MSS., 387). The heads of Walsingham’s instructions are in Hatfield Papers, part iii.

[488] Mendoza to the King, 19th August (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth).

[489] Many of her compromising letters to Mendoza were intercepted and read. Mary herself, writing to Elizabeth from Tutbury (29th September 1584), thanking her for her change of lodging, protests against the stoppage of her correspondence with the French Ambassador Castelnau. “All that I write,” she says, “passes through the hands of your people, who see, read, examine, and keep back in order to point out to me any fault if they find in it anything offensive or injurious to you” (Harl. MSS., 4651). This was more true than Mary thought when she wrote it, for she had no idea that some of her more compromising letters to the Spaniards were read. A letter from Mary to Sir Francis Englefield, Philip’s English Secretary (9th October 1584), contains the following dangerous words: “Of the treaty between the Queen of England and me I may neither hope nor look for good issue. Whatsoever shall come of me, by whatsoever change of my state and condition, let the execution of the great plot go forward without any respect of peril or danger to me.” And she continues by saying that the plan (i.e. the rising and invasion) must take place at latest next spring or the cause will be ruined.

[490] There are several reasons for believing that the prosecution of Somerville, the Ardens, Throgmorton, and others, was not entirely honest on the part of Leicester. Somerville was obviously a madman, and was strangled in his cell; the estates of Arden, whose wife was a Throgmorton, went to enrich a creature of Leicester; and the priest, Hall, on whose evidence the prisoners were condemned, was quietly smuggled out of the country by Leicester’s favour. Although it is possible that Throgmorton may have participated in Guise’s murder plot—he certainly did in the invasion plot—there is no satisfactory evidence to prove it.

[491] Hatfield State Papers, part iii.

[492] How keenly Whitgift felt the attacks upon him for doing what he conceived to be his duty, may be seen by his letters in Strype’s Whitgift. In a letter to Anthony Bacon (Birch’s Elizabeth) he writes: “I am, thank God, exercised with like calumnies at home also; but I comfort myself that lies and false rumours cannot long prevail. In matters of religion I remain the same, and so intend to do by God’s grace during life; wherein I am daily more and more confirmed by the uncharitable and indirect practices, as well by the common adversary the Papist, as also of some of our wayward, unquiet, and discontented brethren.”

[493] Hatfield State Papers, part iii.

[495] He certainly was not benefited in purse; for one of the first things Parry did was to borrow fifty crowns of the young man, which he never returned (Birch’s Elizabeth). In the correspondence of Sir Thomas Copley with Burghley at this period (1579-80), Parry is presented in a more favourable light than that in which he is usually regarded, and so far as can be judged by his letters he retained the Lord Treasurer’s esteem almost to the time of his arrest.

[496] Mendoza, writing to Philip from Paris at the time, says that this letter was forged (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth), but in any case the letter did not necessarily imply approval of murder.

[497] Hatfield Papers, part iii.

[498] Harl. MSS., 4651.

[499] Hatfield Papers, part iii.

[500] See letter (Nau?) to Mary (Hatfield Papers, part iii. p. 125).

[501] See letter from Burghley’s nephew Hoby, at Berwick, to the Treasurer (Hatfield Papers, part iii. p. 71).

[502] Hatfield State Papers, part iii.

[503] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, part iii. p. 536; and Hatfield Papers, part iii. p. 99.

[504] Carliell to Walsingham, 4th October 1585 (State Papers, Domestic).

[505] Cotton, Galba, cviii. (Leycester Correspondence).

[506] Harl. MSS., 285 (Leycester Correspondence).

[507] Harl. MSS., 6993 (Leycester Correspondence).

[508] The unfortunate Davison, born apparently to be made a scapegoat, had to bear Leicester’s reproaches for the Queen’s anger, which the Earl said was owing to Davison’s ineffective or insincere advocacy—Davison being a distant connection both of Burghley’s and Leicester’s. The latter even had the meanness to allege that it was mainly owing to Davison’s persuasion that he accepted the sovereignty, and Davison was disgraced and banished from court for a time in consequence. See Sir Philip Sidney’s letters to Davison (Harl. MSS., 285).

[509] Cotton, Galba, cx. (Leycester Correspondence).

[510] Harl. MSS., 6994 (Edwards’ “Letters of Ralegh”).

[511] Amongst many other proofs may be mentioned her letter to Charles Paget, 27th July 1586 (Hatfield Papers, part iii.), in which she says: “Upon Ballard’s return the principal Catholics who had despatched him oversea imparted to her their intentions;” but she advises that “nothing is to be stirred on this side until they have full assurance and promise from the Pope and Spain.” In another letter of the same date to Mendoza she says that although she had turned a deaf ear for six months to the various overtures made to her by the Catholics, now that she had heard of the intentions of the King of Spain, she had consented thereto (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, part iii.). Again, on the same day, she instructed the French Ambassador to ask Burghley to be careful in the choice of a new guardian for her, “so that whatever happen, whether it be the death of the Queen of England, or a rebellion in the country, my life may be safe” (Labanoff).

[512] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. iii. The reference to Parma applies to certain negotiations for peace which had been attempted by Andrea de Looe, Agostino Graffini, and William Bodenham. In a statement furnished by an English agent to Philip in November, it is also asserted that these negotiations were initiated by Burghley “who was always against the war.”

[513] Mendoza wrote to Philip (8th November): “When Cecil saw the papers (taken in Mary’s rooms) he told the Queen that now that she had so great an advantage, if she did not proceed with all rigour at once against the Queen of Scotland, he himself would seek her friendship. These words are worthy of so clever a man as he is, and were intended to lead the other Councillors to follow him in holding the Queen of England back.” It is evident from this that Mendoza did not consider Cecil to be Mary’s enemy.

[514] Babington, Savage, Ballard, Barnewell, Tylney, Tichbourne, and Abingdon were executed at St. Giles-in-the-Fields on the 20th September. Mendoza says that as Babington’s heart was being torn out he was distinctly heard to pronounce the word “Jesus” thrice.

[515] State Papers, Domestic.

[516] Camden.

[517] Davison, who had just been appointed an additional Secretary of State, wrote to Burghley from Windsor (5th October) that the Queen did not like the wording, “Tam per Maria filiam et hÆredem Jacobi quinti nuper Scotoru Regis ac communiter vocatam Scotoru Regis et dotare FranciÆ.” She wished it to be, “Tam per Maria filiam &c. … Scotoru Regis et dotare FranciÆ communiter vocata Regina Scotoru.” Thus it is seen that, although Elizabeth made no difficulty about acknowledging Mary as Queen Dowager of France, she would not recognise her as of right Queen of Scots. Davison adds that she was sending a special messenger to Burghley to discuss the matter with him.

[518] He was the secret means of communication between Mendoza and his spies in England.

[519] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[520] Nau and Curll, the two Secretaries, had been closely examined by Burghley in London, and at first had denied everything, but subsequently when confronted with their own handwriting, were obliged to acknowledge—especially Nau—Mary’s cognisance of Babington’s plans. Nau afterwards (1605) endeavoured to minimise his admissions, but Mary’s letter to Mendoza (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, 23rd November) which was not delivered or opened until long after Mary’s death, leaves no doubt whatever that Mary considered he had betrayed her. Curll lived for the rest of his life on a handsome pension from Spain, but Nau got nothing. Mary’s first answer to her accusers, that she was a free princess and not subject to Elizabeth’s tribunal, had been foreseen by Beale (see his opinion, Harl. MSS., 4646).

[521] Queen to Burghley, 12th October (Cotton, Caligula, cix.).

[522] Camden Annals, and Life of Sir Thomas Egerton.

[523] Hatfield Papers, part iii.

[524] Howell’s State Trials. Burghley writes to Davison (15th October, Cotton, Caligula): “She has only denied the accusations. Her intention was to move pity by long artificial speeches, to lay all blame upon the Queen’s Majesty, or rather upon the Council, that all the troubles past did ensue from them, avowing her reasonable offers and our refusals. And in these speeches I did so encounter her with reasons out of my knowledge and experience, as she hath not the advantage she looked for. And, as I am assured, the auditory did find her case not pitiable, and her allegations untrue.”

[525] Hollingshead.

[526] Mary to Mendoza, 24th November (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, part iii.).

[527] Paris Archives; in extenso in Von Raumer.

[528] Philip’s secret agent in London wrote at the time urging that “a message should be sent from Spain to the Lord Treasurer, who is the ruling spirit in all this business, and is desirous of peace, to let him know that your Majesty wished for his friendship” (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, part iii.).

[529] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, part iii.

[530] BelliÈvre did not arrive in England until 1st December. An account of his embassy will be found printed in Labanoff. The regular Ambassador, Chateauneuf, did his best, for he was a Guisan, but Elizabeth flatly told him she believed he was exceeding his instructions. His own doubts as to his master’s real wishes are expressed in a letter to D’Esneval in Paris (20th October): “Je vous prie me mander privÉment, ou ouvertement, l’intention de Sa MajestÉ sur les choses de deÇa; car il me semble que l’on se soucie fort peu de par dela du fait de la Reine d’Ecosse.” Davison wrote to Burghley at Fotheringay (8th October), telling him of the “presumption” of Chateauneuf’s first remonstrance, and the rebuke sent to him by the Queen “for attempting to school her in her actions.”

[531] Mendoza to Philip, 7th December (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, part iii.).

[532] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, part iii. In a marginal note to another letter, Philip himself expresses an opinion that BelliÈvre has gone, not to save Mary’s life, but for another purpose.

[533] See Lord Burghley’s notes of this appeal for his reply thereto (Hatfield State Papers, part iii.); and also Elizabeth’s own most interesting letter to Henry III. (Harl. MSS., 4647). She ends by a hit at Henry’s helpless position: “I beg you, therefore, rather to think of the means of preserving than of diminishing my friendship. Your States, my good brother, cannot bear many enemies; do not for God’s sake give the rein to wild horses, lest they throw you from your seat.” Another characteristic step taken in England at the same time was to concoct a bogus plot to murder Elizabeth, in which it was pretended that the Ambassador Chateauneuf was concerned. This gave an opportunity for much anger and complaint on the part of Elizabeth, especially against the Guises; and in Lord Burghley’s memoranda giving reasons for Mary’s execution, this so-called plot of Stafford, Moody, and Destrappes is gravely set forth as a contributing factor.

[534] Gray’s own feelings in the matter may be seen by his copious correspondence with Archibald Douglas, at Hatfield. He had, when he was in Flanders, proposed that Mary might be put out of the way by poison, and was hated by Mary’s friends in consequence. “If she die,” he said, “I shall be blamed, and if she live I shall be ruined;” but he was forced against his will to accept the embassy and acted in a similar way to BelliÈvre—pleaded with strong words but weak arguments, in order that his own position might be saved whether Mary lived or died.

[535] Mendoza to Philip, 24th January 1587 (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. iv.).

[536] The matter is fully discussed in Nicolas’s Life of Davison.

[537] It is curious that the warning should come from Howard, a Catholic and a Conservative, several of whose relatives were Spanish pensioners.

[538] Hatfield Papers, part iii. There is no mention of the poison letter to Paulet, but it was written, and is printed in Nicolas’s Life of Davison, with Paulet’s reply.

[539] The Queen kept up a pretence of anger against the Councillors for some time, and especially against Burghley, who on the 13th February wrote her a submissive letter praying for her favour. He was excluded from her presence, and complains that she “doth utter more heavy, hard, bitter, and minatory speeches against me than against any other,” which he ascribes to the calumnies of his many enemies, and to the fact that he alone was not allowed to justify his action personally to her. “I have,” he says, “confusedly uttered my griefs, being glad that the night of my age is so near by service and sickness as I shall not long wake to see the miseries that I fear others shall see that are like to overwatch me.” When at length he obtained audience of the Queen, she treated him so harshly that he again retired, and was only induced to return again by the intercession of Hatton. Elizabeth’s special anger with Burghley may have been an elaborate pretence agreed upon between them, or, what is more probable, the result of some calumnies of Leicester.

[540] An interesting statement of Burghley’s treatment of Davison in later years will be found in Harl. MSS., 290. Part of his unrelenting attitude to him is commonly attributed to Burghley’s desire to secure the Secretaryship of State for his son, Sir Robert Cecil. It is evident, however, that Davison was adopted by Essex as one of his instruments to oppose Burghley’s policy, and the restoration of Davison would thereafter have meant a defeat for the Cecils. This, it appears to me, amply explains the Lord Treasurer’s attitude.

[541] Hatfield Papers, part iii. 223.

[542] That Lord Burghley was desirous of dissociating himself personally from the execution, and of remaining on good terms with the Catholic party, is further seen by a remark made in a letter from Mendoza to Philip (26th March 1587): “Cecil, the Lord Treasurer, said publicly that he was opposed to the execution, and on this and all other points feeling was running very high in the Council; Cecil and Leicester being open opponents” (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth).

[543] Walsingham, conveying this news to Leicester in Flanders (17th April), says: “There are letters written from certain of my Lords, by her Majesty’s effectual command, to inhibit him (Drake) to attempt anything by land or within the ports of Spain.” On the 11th he wrote: “This resolution proceedeth altogether upon a hope of peace, which I fear may do much harm.”

[544] The first hint to this effect reached Philip too late to be useful. It was conveyed by Mendoza from Stafford in Paris on the 19th April, the day that Drake reached Cadiz.

[545] Foreign Office Records, Flanders, 32.

[546] This was the great galleon San Felipe, one of the richest prizes ever brought to England.

[547] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[548] His mother, the owner of Burghley, had just died, aged eighty-five; and his unmanageable son-in-law, the Earl of Oxford, still caused him endless trouble. His only family consolation at the time was the promise of his favourite son, Sir Robert Cecil, whose great talents and application were already remarkable. How incessant and varied Lord Burghley’s labours still were may be seen by the great number of letters addressed to him, entreating him for help, influence, or advice. The Catholic Earl of Arundel from the Tower, the Earl of Huntingdon, Lord Buckhurst, Lord Cobham, and a host of other nobles appealed to him to forward their suits; Puritan divines like Hammond, Cartwright, Humphreys, and Travers; prelates like Whitgift, Aylmer, Herbert, and Sandys, by common accord chose him as the arbiter of their constant disputes. The Court of Wards, too, entailed a large correspondence and much personal attention; whilst at this period Burghley was also deeply concerned in checking the tendency of Cambridge students to indulge in “satin doublets, silk and velvet overstocks, great fine ruffs, and costly facings to their gowns.”

[549] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[550] As instances see letters—Ralegh to Burghley, 27th December 1587 (State Papers, Domestic, ccvi. 40); Howard to Burghley, 22nd December (State Papers, Domestic, ccvi. 42); same to same (Harl. MSS., 6994, 102); Burghley’s own holograph list of ships and their destinations, 5th January 1588; Hawkins to Burghley, 18th January 1588 (both in State Papers, Domestic, cviii.); and many similar papers of this period in State Papers, Domestic, cviii., and Harl. MSS., 6994.

[551] Stafford told Mendoza (25th February) that Burghley had written to him saying, that he would do his best to prevent Drake from sailing, as his voyages were only profitable to himself and his companions, but an injury to the Queen and an irritation to foreign princes; and in May, Burghley told Stafford that if he had remained out of town two days longer, his colleagues would have let Drake go.

[552] Hatfield Papers, part iii.

[553] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[554] This mission was said to have been entrusted originally to Paulet, and afterwards to Herbert; but as they did not go to Flanders, it is more likely to have been left to Crofts. I can, however, find no record of it except in Spanish account.

[555] The Commissioners were the Earl of Derby, Lord Cobham, Sir James Crofts, with Valentine Dale and Rogers. Burghley’s son, Sir Robert Cecil, was also attached. The whole correspondence of the Commissioners, mostly directed to Lord Burghley, will be found in Cotton, Vesp., cviii.

[556] Motley thought that Burghley was referred to, but surely Howard would not call him witless. Probably Crofts is meant.

[557] State Papers, Domestic, ccix.

[558] Howard, writing on the 13th June to Walsingham, says: “I forbear to write unto my Lord Treasurer because I am sure he is a very heavy man for my lady his daughter, for which I am most heartily sorry.”

[559] Writing to Walsingham, “from my house near the Savoy,” 17th July, he says: “I am at present by last night’s torment weakened in spirits, as I am not able to rise out of my bed; which is my grief the more, because I cannot come thither where both my mind and duty do require;” and yet on the same day he (Burghley) sent a long minute corrected with his own hand to Darrell, giving directions for the victualling of the navy.

[560] In September, when the news came of the flight of the Armada, grand reviews of these forces were held previous to their being disbanded. Lord Chancellor Hatton entertained the Queen at dinner in Holborn, and his hundred men-at-arms in red and yellow paraded before her Majesty. The next day (20th August) a similar ceremony took place at Cecil House, and shortly afterwards Leicester’s troop was reviewed. But they were all thrown into the shade by Essex’s splendid force of sixty musketeers and sixty mounted harquebussiers, in orange-tawny, with white silk facings, and two hundred light horsemen, in orange velvet and silver.

[561] See his letter, 30th July (O.S.), to his father, giving him an account from hearsay of what had happened off Calais (State Papers, Domestic, ccxiii.).

[562] The ordinary Arabic numbers were never used by Burghley, even in calculations.

[563] One of the last letters that Leicester wrote was to Burghley, from Maidenhead, two days only before his death, asking for some favour for a friend, Sir Robert Jermyn, and apologising for leaving court without taking leave of the Lord Treasurer; and in November the widowed Countess of Leicester—the mother of Essex—wrote begging Burghley to use his influence with the Queen to buy a vessel belonging to her late husband.

[564] Lord Burghley’s memoranda (State Papers, Domestic). For particulars of the expedition see “The Year after the Armada,” by the present writer.

[565] Don Antonio had been deceived so often in England, that although preparations for the expedition were being made for some months previously, he was not convinced that it was really intended for him until the end of the year 1588.

[566] On the eve of his flight Essex thus explained his action in a letter to Heneage (Hatfield Papers, part iii. 966): “What my courses have been I need not repeat, for no man knoweth them better than yourself. What my state now is I will tell you. My revenue is no greater than when I sued my livery, my debts at least two or three and twenty thousand pounds. Her Majesty’s goodness has been so great I could not ask her for more; no way left to repair myself but mine own adventure, which I had much rather undertake than offend her Majesty with suits, as I have done. If I speed well, I will adventure to be rich; if not, I will not live to see the end of my poverty.”

[567] His entry in his diary recording the fact runs thus: “1589. April 4 Die Veneris inter hor 3 et 4 mane obdormit in Domino, Mildreda Domina Burgley.” She is interred at Westminster Abbey, with her daughter the Countess of Oxford; a very long Latin inscription is on the tomb, written by Burghley, recording their many virtues and the writer’s grief at their loss. There is at Hatfield (part iii. 973) a note of the mourners and arrangements for the funeral in Lord Burghley’s handwriting.

[568] MSS. Lansdowne, ciii. 51.

[569] This is a not unnatural mistake under the circumstances for 9th April 1589. The year then began on the 1st April, and in his sorrow Lord Burghley had overlooked the change of year. More than a month after this he wrote a letter, full of grief still, to his old friend the Earl of Shrewsbury, by which we see that he was still living in retirement in one of the lodges of his park at Theobalds, as it is signed “From my poore lodge neare my howss at Theobalds, 27 Maii 1589. P.S. The Queene is at Barn Elms, but this night I will attend on her at Westminster, for I am no man mete for feastings.”

[570] For the particulars of the Catholic plots of Huntly, Crawford, Errol, Claud Hamilton, and Bothwell (Stuart), see Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[571] State Papers, Domestic.

[572] The Vidame de Chartres was the Huguenot agent in Elizabeth’s court for some years, and was constantly craving aid for the cause. His promises of repayment were very rarely kept, as the Huguenots had most of the wealth of France against them. Hence the saying quoted.

[573] Egerton MSS., 359.

[574] “November 30. I have heard a rumour that you have arrived at Calais, and that if the enemy comes to attack that place you will be there with troops to defend it. If this news be true I pray you let me hear it from yourself, and advertise me by the ordinary courier what the enemy is doing and what you think of these designs. For I shall be very happy to see some opportunity by which we could together win honour and serve the common weal. I am idle here, and have nothing to do but to hearken for such opportunities.” (Essex to La Noue; Hatfield Papers, part iii.)

[575] Hatfield Papers, part iv.

[576] A letter from Sir John Smith to Burghley, 28th January 1590, expresses sorrow “to hear that you were very dangerously sick, being next unto her Majesty, in my opinion, the pillar and upholder of the Commonwealth. Howbeit, I am now very glad to hear you have recovered your health;” to which the Lord Treasurer appends the note “relatio falsÆ” (Hatfield Papers, part iv.). Later in the year, however (October), the Clerk of the Privy Seal, writing to Lord Talbot, says, “I never knew my Lord Treasurer more lusty or fresh in hue than at this hour.” How heavily business still pressed upon the Lord Treasurer is seen by a remark of his in a letter to Mr. Grimstone (January 1591): “The cause” (of his not having written) “is partly for that I have not leisure, being, as it were, roundly besieged with affairs to be answered from north, south, east, and west; whereof I hope shortly to be delivered by supply of some to take charge as her Majesty’s principal secretary” (Bacon Papers, Birch).

[577] Soon afterwards, Essex was at issue with Robert Cecil about the appointment of a successor to one of Heneage’s offices (Essex to Sir Henry Unton; Hatfield Papers, part iv.). How bitter Essex was against the Cecils is shown by a letter from him to Sir Henry Unton in Paris (June 1591): “Things do remain in the same state as they did. They who are most in appetite are not yet satisfied, whereof there is great discontentment. If it stand at this stay awhile longer they will despair, for their chief hour-glass hath little sand left in it, and doth run out still.”

[578] In one of the letters suggested by the secret intelligence secretary, Phillips, to be written to English Catholics abroad (31st August 1591), Robert Cecil’s appointment to the Council is noted; “but the Queen seems determined against Robert Cecil for the Secretaryship; but my Lord being sick, the whole management of the Secretary’s place is in his (Robert’s) hands, and as he is already a Councillor, any employment of him between the Queen and his father will be the means of installing him in the place” (State Papers, Domestic).

[579] He expressed this wish as soon as Essex’s opposition to Robert Cecil’s appointment became manifest. A letter (State Papers, Domestic) from Hatton, 15th July 1590, thus refers to the matter: “We can well witness your endless travails, which in her Majesty’s princely consideration she should relieve you of; but it is true the affairs are in good hands, as we all know, and thereby her Majesty is the more sure, and we her poor servants the better satisfied. God send you help and happiness to your better contentment.” Nearly all through 1590 and 1591 repeated reference is made in his correspondence to Burghley’s infirmities. This, added to the everlasting disputes between the Prelatists and the Puritans, in which he was between two fires, and the galling opposition of Essex to his son’s appointment, might well have excused his desire to be relieved of his heavy burden.

[580] Bacon Papers, Birch. Sir John Norris had recently gone to Brittany with a small English auxiliary force, and had captured Guingamp. There were also 600 Englishmen in Normandy and an English squadron on the Brittany coast. Burghley holds out hopes also of sending 600 more men to Brittany.

[581] Henry wrote one of his clever characteristic letters to Elizabeth (5th August), expressing in fervent terms his delight at hearing of her intention of coming to Portsmouth during his visit to Normandy. He swears eternal gratitude, and begs her to allow him to run across the Channel; “et baiser les mains comme Roi de Navarre, et etre aupres d’elle deux heures, a fin que j’aie ce bien d’avoir veu, au moins une fois, en ma vie, celle a qui j’ai consacrÉ et corps et tant ce que j’aurai jamais; et que j’aime et rÉvÈre plus que chose que soit au monde.” Referring to Essex’s force, he says: “Le secours que qu’il vous a pleu À prÉsent m’accorder m’est en singuliÈre grace, pour la qualitÉ de celluy auquel vous avez donnÉ la principale charge, et pour la belle force dont il est composÉ.” (Hatfield Papers, part iv.)

[582] The Earl’s brother, Walter Devereux, was killed in the siege.

[583] Essex seems to have quarrelled with every one in France, and the Council in England condemned his proceedings from the first. In a letter to the Council (September) he says the whole purport of their letters is “to rip up all my actions and to reprove them” (Hatfield Papers, part iv.). The Queen also wrote him a very angry letter (4th October) consenting on strict conditions that the English shall only be allowed to remain a month longer in France.

[584] From a long letter from Burghley (22nd October), Essex appears to have again left his command and run over to England. He begged Burghley to ask the Queen’s permission for him to join Biron at the siege of Caudebec. The Lord Treasurer says he had not done so, as he was sure the Queen would refuse. Her strict orders were that neither Essex nor his men should risk themselves at the siege of Havre or elsewhere except by her orders. Essex appears to have disobeyed, and returned to France at once without seeing the Queen. During his absence the Englishmen had deserted wholesale. Burghley says there were not 2000 of them remaining—they were unpaid and mutinous, and, according to Biron and Leighton, were committing outrages on all sides. Beauvoir de Nocle wrote to Essex as soon as he had gone back to France (22nd October), “Les courroux de la reine redoublent.”

[585] See the Queen’s very angry letter peremptorily recalling him (24th December 1591), (Hatfield Papers, part iv.).

[586] The heroic but unprofitable result of the expedition was the famous fight of the Revenge and the death of Sir Richard Grenville, who quite needlessly, and out of sheer obstinacy, engaged the whole Spanish squadron. The great difficulty of getting the expedition together is seen by the large number of towns which addressed Lord Burghley personally or the Council, begging on the score of poverty to be excused from fitting the ships, as they had been commanded to do. Southampton, Hull, Yarmouth, Newcastle, and other towns professed to be so decayed as to be quite unable to contribute ships (Hatfield Papers, part iv.).

[587] The reports of spies of plots in Flanders at the time amply justified the precautionary measures taken. Burghley was still appealed to by both religious parties, and he appears at this time to have been claimed by both. In March 1591 one of the spy-letters suggested by Phillips to be sent abroad mentions Burghley’s feud with Archbishop Whitgift and his favour to the Puritans. The Catholic spy in Flanders, Snowdon, in June of the same year, says that the anti-Spanish English Catholic refugees there, Lord Vaux, Sir T. Tresham, Mr. Talbot, and Mr. Owen were opposed to the plots then in progress. “It is said amongst them that if occasion be offered they will requite the relaxation now afforded them by his Lordship’s (Burghley’s) moderation, for it is noted that since the cause of the Catholics came to his arbitrament things have gone on with wonderful suavity” (State Papers, Dom.). On the other hand, Phillips (in July) tells another spy, St. Mains, of the extravagances of the fanatics, Hacket, Coppinger, and Ardington, and speaks of Burghley as being on the side of the Puritans.

[589] Francis Bacon frankly confessed that he adhered to Burghley’s enemies because he thought it would be for his own personal advantage as well as for that of the State; and his brother Antony writes (Bacon Papers): “On the one side, I found nothing but fair words, which make fools fain, and yet even in those no offer or hopeful assistance of real kindness, which I thought I might justly expect at the Lord Treasurer’s hands, who had inned my ten years’ harvest into his own barn.”

[590] It was during this progress at Oxford that the circumstance thus related by Sir J. Harrington happened: “I may not forget how the Queen in the midst of her oration casting her eye aside, and seeing the old Lord Treasurer standing on his lame feet for want of a stool, she called in all haste for a stool for him; nor would she proceed in her speech till she saw him provided. Then she fell to it again as if there had been no interruption.” Harrington says that some one (probably Essex) twitted her for doing this on purpose to show off her Latin.

[591] Writing to Archibald Douglas advising him how to excuse as well as he might the depredations of Scotsmen on Danish shipping, he says in a postscript, “I write not this in favour of piracies, for I hate all pirates mortally” (Hatfield Papers, part iv.).

[592] Lansdowne MSS., lxx.

[593] Lansdowne MSS., lxx., and Hatfield Papers, part iv.

[594] Through the whole of the autumn and winter Lord Burghley was busy in the liquidation and division of the vast plunder brought in the carrack. Ralegh had risked every penny he possessed, and came out a loser. The Queen got the lion’s share, and the adventurers, with the exception of Ralegh, received large bonuses.

[595] One of Thomas Phillips’ suggested spy-letters to be sent abroad (22nd March 1591) says that although the Puritan party is the weaker, Essex has made Ralegh join him in their favour. Ralegh’s Puritan birth and breeding naturally gave him sympathy for Essex’s party, whilst his active temperament and his greed made him in favour of war, especially with Spain. His only tie with the Cecils was his early political connection. Though he was usually in personal enmity with Essex, his natural bent was therefore more in sympathy with Essex’s party than with that to which he was supposed to be attached.

[596] State Papers, Domestic.

[597] Numerous similar instances of this devotion occur in the letters of Burghley to his son and others. In April 1594 he writes to Sir Robert from Cecil House, that as her Majesty desires to have him there (Greenwich) to-day, he will go, if it be her pleasure that he should leave his other engagements. He then recounts his various duties for the day, including sitting all the morning in the Court of Wards, “with small ease and much pain,” and again in the afternoon; the next day he had to preside in the Exchequer Chamber, the Star Chamber, &c.; “but if her Majesty wishes I will leave all. I live in pain, yet spare not to occupy myself for her Majesty.” In July he writes to his son, “I can affirm nothing of my amendment, but if my attendance shall be earnestly required I will wear out my time at court as well as where I am” (State Papers, Domestic). How great and generally recognised his influence still was is seen by the depositions of what disaffected persons said of him. Prestall (Kinnersley’s deposition, State Papers, Domestic, 1591) said “the Lord Treasurer was the wizard of England, a worldling wishing to fill his own purse, and good for nobody; so hated that he would not live long if anything happened to the Queen.” “The Treasurer led the Queen and Council, and only cared about enriching himself.”

[598] Declarations of Kinnersley, Young, and Walpole (1594), State Papers, Domestic.

[599] Ibid.

[600] In accordance with the practice of the time Burghley doubtless received presents from suitors for office and others (see State Papers, Domestic); but it is on record that he frequently refused such offerings when they assumed the form of bribes to influence judicial decisions or questions of account. Above all, there is no proof that he accepted any bribes from Spain, even when almost every other Councillor of the Queen was paid by one side or the other. Several mentions are made in the Spanish State Papers of the advisability of paying him heavily, and even sums were allotted for the purpose; but I have not found a single statement of his having accepted such payments; although in after years his son certainly did so.

[601] Francis Bacon answered the book in an able pamphlet published the same year (1592), called “Observations upon a Libel published in the Present Year,” in which Lord Burghley and Sir Robert Cecil are very highly lauded.

[602] One of the loyal English Catholics, St. Mains, writing (January 1593) to Fitzherbert, says that “the Lord Treasurer has been dangerously ill, but is now well recovered, thanks be to God; for the whole state of the realm depends upon him. If he go, there is not one about the Queen able to wield the State as it stands.” The principal Catholic refugees against Spain at this period were Charles Paget, William Gifford, the Treshams, Hugh Griffith, Dr. Lewis, Bishop of Cassano, the Scottish Carthusian Bishop of Dunblane, Thomas Morgan, Thomas Hesketh, Nicholas Fitzherbert, &c.

[603] Francis was member for Middlesex, whilst his brother Antony sat for Wallingford. The Queen remained angry with Francis for many months. It was only in September that Essex with the greatest difficulty obtained permission for him to appear at court (Bacon Papers, Birch).

[604] Morice was sent to Tutbury Castle and kept there in prison for some years for making a speech in this Parliament complaining of the grievances of the Puritans. Wentworth was sent to the Tower, and Stevens and Walsh to the Fleet. Puckering, the Lord Keeper, told the House that the Queen had not called it together to make new laws; there were more than enough already. “It is, therefore, her Majesty’s pleasure that no time be spent therein” (D’Ewes).

[605] Phillips’ suggestions to Sterrell (State Papers, Domestic).

[606] Elizabeth seems to have received the first hint of his intention in May, and Lord Burghley sends an indignant letter to his son about it (26th May). He ends by saying, “If I may not have some leisure to cure my head, I shall shortly ease it in my grave; and yet if her Majesty mislike my absence, I will come thither” (Hatfield Papers, part iv.). See also letters of Sir Thomas Edmunds (State Papers, France, Record Office); and Elizabeth’s curious letters to Henry (July), signed, “Votre tres assurÉe soeur si ce soit À la vielle mode: avec la nouvelle je n’ay qui faire, E. R.” (Hatfield Papers).

[607] State Papers, Domestic.

[608] How deeply Lady Bacon resented her son’s friendship with Perez is seen in a letter of hers to Francis Bacon: “I pity your brother; but yet so long as he pities not himself, but keepeth that bloody Perez, yea, a court companion and a bed companion—a proud, profane, costly fellow, whose being about him I verily believe the Lord God doth mislike, and doth the less bless your brother in credit and in health. Such wretches as he is never loved your brother, but for his credit, living upon him” (Bacon Papers, Birch).

[609] Nichols’ Progresses, vol. iii.

[610] Burghley appears to have been very dangerously ill a few weeks afterwards at Windsor. Essex’s spy Standen wrote to his friend Antony Bacon (6th November) that he had gone up to the Lord Treasurer’s lodging to inquire after his health; but was refused admittance by the servants, who told him, however, that his Lordship had rested better than on the previous night. Whilst Standen “was going down the stairs, the Queen was at my back, who, unknown to me, had been visiting my Lord, so I stayed among the rest to see her Majesty pass. A little while after I met Mr. Cooke, who told me, that true it was that my Lord had somewhat rested the night past; but that this morning his Lordship had a very rigorous fit of pain, and dangerous” (Bacon Papers, Birch). We hear from the same source of similar attacks in December and January following.

[611] “I hope you will remember,” wrote Raleigh to Howard, “that it is the Queen’s honour and safety to assail rather than to defend” (Hatfield Papers).

[612] Frobisher was mortally wounded in the assault.

[613] See the extraordinary letters of Foulis, Cockburn, and other Scottish agents, to Bacon, &c., in the Bacon Papers (Birch). “Mr Bowes, the English Ambassador here (in Scotland), is very much scandalised at the behaviour of Crato (i.e. Burghley) and his son towards me, and assures me he will remonstrate with the Queen at his return,” writes Foulis to Bacon (Bacon Papers); and similar expressions in the letters of other French and Scotch agents show clearly that Essex took care to cultivate the idea that it was only the Cecils who prevented the adoption of a generous policy towards them.

[614] See the many confessions and declarations of spies and informers (1594) as to alleged plots for the murder of the Queen, Burghley, &c., at this time (State Papers, Domestic).

[615] It was here, and at Eton College, where he was lodged when the court was at Windsor, that he wrote his bitter “Relaciones” against Philip. He alleged that men were sent to London to assassinate him, and with indefatigable zeal of tongue and pen kept up and increased the ill-feeling in the court against Spain. His copious correspondence with Henry IV. leaves no doubt whatever either as to the real object of his mission or the utter baseness with which he executed it.

[616] See Burghley’s correspondence with Andrada, Da Vega, and others (State Papers, Domestic), and Mendoza’s references to the same men in the Spanish State Papers.

[617] On the way from this examination Sir Robert Cecil and Essex rode together in a coach. The former—surely to annoy Essex—reverted to a subject which had caused intense acrimony between the Earl and the Cecils for months past, namely, the appointment to the vacant Attorney-Generalship which Essex was violently urging for Francis Bacon; an appointment to which neither the Queen nor Lord Burghley would consent, although the latter was willing for him to have the Solicitor-Generalship. The abuse and insult heaped upon the Cecils behind their backs on this account by the Earl, by the scoundrel Standen, and by the Bacons themselves, may be seen in the Bacon Papers (Birch). On this occasion the violent rashness and want of tact on the part of Essex is very clear. Cecil asked him, as if the subject was new, who he thought would be the best man for the Attorney-Generalship. The Earl was astonished, and replied that he knew very well, as he, Cecil, was the principal reason why Bacon had not already been appointed. Cecil then expressed his surprise that Essex should waste his influence in seeking the appointment of a raw youth. Essex flew in a rage, and told Cecil that he was younger than Francis, and yet he aspired to a much higher post than the Attorney-Generalship, i.e. the Secretaryship of State, and then, quite losing control of himself, swore that he would have the appointment for Francis, and would “spend all my power, might, authority, and amity, and with tooth and nail procure the same against whomsoever.” The hot-headed Earl foolishly ended by an undisguised threat against Cecil and his father (Bacon Papers), which we may be sure the former, at least, did not forget, although Essex had quite changed his tone and wrote quite humbly to Cecil on the matter in the following May (Hatfield Papers). It is hardly necessary to say that Bacon was disappointed of the Attorney-Generalship.

[618] See the extensive correspondence and proceedings in the case (State Papers, Domestic, and Hatfield Papers).

[619] Cecil to Windebanke (State Papers, Domestic).

[620] Great obscurity still surrounds the case. Apart from his own alleged confession, Lopez’s condemnation depended upon the declarations of the double spies who were his accomplices, and he solemnly asserted his innocence on the scaffold. I have carefully examined all the evidence—much of it hitherto unknown—and although there is no space to enter into the matter here, I am personally convinced that the service that Lopez was to render was to poison Don Antonio—not the Queen—and bring about some sort of modus vivendi between England and Spain.

[621] Bacon Papers, Birch.

[622] Ibid.

[623] Hatfield Papers, part iv.

[624] Correspondence with Burghley, in the Hatfield Papers, part v., and State Papers, Flanders (Record Office); and with Essex, in Bacon Papers (Birch). Burghley, apparently to occupy his mind during his illness, wrote a most elaborate minute, “to be shown to her Majesty when she is disposed to be merry, to see how I am occupied in logic and neglect physic;” proving that her demands upon the States to be made by Bodley are founded upon the maxims of civil law. “If,” he says, “my hand and arm did not pain me as it doth in distempering my spirits, I would send longer argument” (Hatfield Papers, part v.). Thanks to Burghley’s persistence, terms were made with the States.

[625] Printed in Strype’s “Annals.”

[626] The Queen at this time appears to have been desirous of saving Burghley trouble. When the court was at Nonsuch (September 1595), the Council was held in his room, the Queen being present. (Bacon Papers.)

[627] That he was not idle in mind even in his greatest pain is shown by the fact that during this autumn, whilst he was almost entirely disabled, he not only continued his close attendance to State affairs, but gave a great amount of attention to the new question which was disturbing the Church, and especially setting the University of Cambridge by the ears. A Mr. Barrett, of Gonville and Caius, had preached a sermon in which the doctrine of free grace was enunciated. This was thought by many to be “Popish,” and Burghley, as Vice-Chancellor, ordered him to recant. The doctrine was eloquently defended by Burghley’s protegÉ, Professor Baro. Curiously enough, Whitgift, a prelate of prelates, then came out with a series of articles (called the Lambeth articles) enforcing the extreme Calvinistic doctrine of absolute predestination. Burghley was passionately appealed to by both parties, and while supporting the authority of Whitgift, expressed his dissent from the doctrine of predestination. The Queen, annoyed at the question being raised, instructed Sir Robert Cecil to stop the dispute, which had caused much trouble both to her and Burghley.

[628] Venetian State Papers.

[629] In extenso in Bacon Papers (Birch).

[630] Burghley did not prevail with the Queen at this juncture without trouble when Essex was near. In March 1596, Essex arrived at the court at Richmond, and Standen says: “The old man upon some pet would needs away against her will on Thursday last, saying that her business was ended, and he would for ten days go take physic. When she saw it booted not to stay him she said he was a froward old fool” (Bacon Papers). The following dignified letter written soon afterwards by Burghley to his son evidently refers to this incident: “My loving son, Sir Robert Cecil, knt., I do hold, and will always, this course in such matters as I differ in opinion from her Majesty. As long as I may be allowed to give advice I will not change my opinion by affirming the contrary, for that were to offend God, to whom I am sworn first; but as a servant I will obey her Majesty’s command and no wise contrary the same; presuming that she being God’s chief minister here, it shall be God’s will to have her commandments obeyed—after that I have performed my duty as a Councillor, and shall in my heart wish her commandments to have such good success as she intendeth. You see I am a mixture of divinity and policy; preferring in policy her Majesty before all others on earth, and in divinity the King of Heaven above all.” This letter seems to enshrine Burghley’s lifelong rule of conduct as a minister.

[631] Hatfield Papers, part v.

[632] Lord Burghley must be absolved from all blame for the hesitation to succour Calais. The delay and failure were entirely the fault of the Queen. Whilst Burghley held back and resisted attempts to drag England into war with Spain unnecessarily; when English interests were really at stake, as in the case of Calais, he could be as active as any one. On the 6th April, as soon as the news arrived, his secretary wrote to Robert Cecil—the Lord Treasurer being “freshly pinned” with the gout and unable to write—approving of Essex’s plan to relieve Calais; and on the 10th he writes himself, after the town had surrendered, but whilst the citadel held out: “I am heartily sorry to perceive her Majesty’s resolution to stay this voyage, being so far forward as it is; and surely I am of opinion that the citadel being relieved the town will be regained, and if for want of her Majesty’s succour it shall be lost, by judgment of the world the blame will be imputed to her.… These so many changes breed hard opinions of counsell.” Sancy and the Duke de Bouillon came to Elizabeth at Greenwich to remonstrate with her, in Henry’s name, on the effect which her demand for Calais in return for her aid had produced. Sancy had a long conversation with Burghley on the 23rd April, and the latter frankly told him that the conversion of Henry had entirely changed the situation. The only common interests now, he said, between the two countries was their vicinity. Sancy says the Lord Treasurer praised the Spaniards to the skies, to the detriment of the French. The French envoy was endeavouring to secure an offensive and defensive alliance with England, which Burghley steadily opposed. How could Henry help Elizabeth? the Treasurer asked; and what more could Elizabeth do for him than she was doing? In one of their interviews Burghley flatly told Sancy that the Queen did not intend to strengthen Henry in order that he might make an advantageous peace over her head. Sancy was shocked at such an imputation on his master’s honour, and gave a written pledge of Henry that he would never treat without England, and this was embodied in the treaty (26th May 1596). Burghley made as good terms as he could, but he never was in favour of the treaty. His letter quoted above (page 479) and his quarrel with the Queen evidently had reference to this subject.

[633] Bacon Papers.

[634] Writing from Theobalds to Robert Cecil soon after the expedition sailed from Plymouth, he says, “I came here rather to satisfy my mind by change of place, and to be less pressed by suitors, than with any hope of ease or relief.”

[635] Essex had lately, and most intemperately, been trying to force Bodley into the Secretaryship. His importunity was so great as to offend the Queen, and predisposed her against his protegÉs. How jealous Antony Bacon was may be seen in his letter. “Elphas peperit; so that now the old man may say, with the rich man in the gospel, ‘requiescat anima mea.’” Bacon Papers.

[636] That the reconciliation was not easy will be seen in Essex’s letters in the Bacon Papers. The Earl writes in September to Lady Russell, “Yesterday the Lord Treasurer and Sir Robert Cecil did, before the Queen, contest with me, … and this day I was more braved by your little cousin (Cecil) than ever I was by any man in my life. But I was, and am, not angry, which is all the advantage I have of him.” In the following April Essex entertained Cecil and Ralegh at dinner, “and a treaty of peace was confirmed.” During the Earl’s disgrace with the Queen shortly afterwards, Cecil appears to have behaved in a friendly manner towards him.

[637] It is curious that in the previous year, when Essex was going on the Cadiz expedition, BelliÈvre, the French minister, expressed an opinion that “his appointment is a suggestion of the Lord Treasurer, in order to divert the Queen from sending aid to his Majesty (Henry IV.), and to get rid of the Earl of Essex on the pretext of this honourable appointment, which would leave him (Burghley) master of the Council.” It is fair to say that the Venetian ambassador who transmits this opinion, expresses his disbelief in it. Venetian State Papers.

[638] That the sagacious Bacon saw and foretold the consequences of Essex’s willingness to absent himself in risky enterprises, is evident from his letters to the Earl in October 1596 (Bacon’s Works, ed. Montagu, vol. 9).

[639] There were about 120 ships, English and Dutch, and a force of some 6000 men, including 1000 English veterans from the Low Countries, led by the gallant Sir Francis Vere.

[640] State Papers, Domestic.

[641] State Papers, Domestic.

[642] State Papers, Domestic.

[643] Ibid.

[644] Ibid.

[645] De Maisse, the French peace envoy to England, wrote, “These people are still dwelling on their imagination of the house of Burgundy, … but it does not please them to have so powerful a neighbour as the King of Spain.”

[646] Full particulars of his embassy will be found in his Journal, in the Archives de la MinistÈre des affaires ÉtrangÈres, Paris, partly reproduced in PrÉvost-Paradol’s “Elizabeth et Henry IV.”

[647] For Cecil’s account of his embassy see Bacon Papers, Birch. There are also a great number of papers and letters on the subject of the mission in Cotton Vesp., cviii., and B.M. MSS. Add. 25,416.

[648] State Papers, Domestic.

[649] Chamberlain Letters, Camden Society.

[650] The Venetian Ambassador in France writes at this time (24th July): “The States are sending three representatives to England to urge the Queen to continue the war, as in her councils there are not wanting those who recommend this course, chiefly the Earl of Essex; but the Lord Treasurer is opposed, and, more important still, the Queen herself is inclined to peace.”

[651] Desiderata Curiosa.

[652] A superficial observer, Dudley Carlton, writes a few days after Burghley’s death: “There is so much business to be thought of on the Lord Treasurer’s death. The Queen was so prepared for it by the small hopes of recovery that she takes it not over heavily, and gives ears to her suitors. The great places are in a manner passed before his death.” (State Papers, Dom.)

[653] The full arrangements for the funeral will be found in the State Papers, Domestic, of the 29th August (Record Office). After the funeral at Westminster, the body was carried with great state to Stamford and buried at St. Martin’s Church, in accordance with the will. Dr. Nares appears to be in doubt as to whether the interment was at Westminster or Stamford, but the State Papers seem to admit of no question on the point.

[654] Lytton to Carlton (State Papers, Domestic).

[655] Chamberlain Letters.