England under the Tudors Part 36

But, in spite of the ruling of the Courts, no one who believed in the Papal authority could admit that Mary Tudor was illegitimate. Again both she and Elizabeth were the children of unions entered on in _bona fides,_ and only invalidated subsequently on technical grounds: grounds, in the one case, inadequate in the eyes of the Roman Church, and in the other never made public. Hence; although it is perfectly clear that if Katharine was Henry's lawful spouse, the marriage with Anne was bigamous and its offspring illegitimate, whereas, if Anne was Henry's lawful spouse then the marriage with Katharine was void from the beginning and its offspring illegitimate--that is, while both Mary and Elizabeth might be illegitimate, it was quite impossible that both should be legitimate--yet the advantages of setting the whole problem on one side by acknowledging the right of each to the succession, in order, were obvious. And this was done by the Will of Henry VIII. to which Parliament by antic.i.p.ation gave the validity of a statute.

Mary then succeeded Edward, and Elizabeth succeeded Mary, in virtue of their recognition under Henry's will.

ELIZABETH

On Elizabeth's accession then; the validity of Henry's Will being admitted, no other t.i.tle could stand against that instrument, and the Brandon branch would succeed in priority to the Stewarts. But evidently it could be argued that no instrument whatever could confer priority on an illegitimate heir over a legitimate one; or on a junior over a senior branch; and since no secular authority had power to annul the marriage between Henry and Katharine, nothing after Mary Tudor's death could set aside the t.i.tle of Mary Stewart. Mary might accede to an arrangement as a matter of policy, but she could not abrogate her right, or admit that she was barred as an alien. On the other hand, the Greys might be pushed forward under the Will as heirs, in opposition to Mary; but they could not be seriously upheld as rivals to Elizabeth herself; and the same applied to the living representatives of the Poles, the Earl of Huntingdon and Arthur Pole. There were now no De la Poles, nor Courtenays.

With Mary Stewart as the only possible figure-head for a revolt, Elizabeth had no disposition to strengthen her position by acknowledging her as heir presumptive, since that would be an immediate incentive to her own a.s.sa.s.sination by Mary's adherents, who would be anxious to secure their candidate against the possible appearance of an heir apparent. It was safer to leave the question of her successor an open one, so that any overt act in favour of any particular candidate would be tolerably certain to recoil on that candidate's head. Therefore Elizabeth would acknowledge neither Mary nor another, though it can hardly be doubted that she did herself look upon the royal Stewarts as the rightful claimants, throughout her reign.

But when the Queen of Scots was dead, the Catholics were at once in want of a Catholic candidate. James of Scotland was a Protestant: so was Arabella, representing the Lennox Stewarts; so were Katharine Grey and her husband Lord Hertford (the son of the old Protector Somerset); so was their son.

Lord Beauchamp; Huntingdon, the Pole representative, was a Protestant too.

The Countess of Derby, like Katharine Grey, was a grandchild of Mary Brandon; but the Stanleys, though Catholics, rejected all overtures. As Elizabeth's end approached, various schemes were no doubt propounded for marrying Arabella to a Catholic, even to Beauchamp on the understanding that both were in due time to declare themselves Catholics. But the immediate result of Mary Stewart's death was that Philip of Spain entered the field as the Catholic candidate, as tracing descent from John of Gaunt through both his father and his mother. Later, his daughter Isabella was put forward.

From the legitimist point of view however the t.i.tle of James of Scotland was indisputable. The stroke of deliberate policy by which Henry VII. had mated his eldest daughter to the Scots King James IV. bore its fruit when, precisely a hundred years later, the crowns of England and Scotland were united by the accession of Margaret's great-grandson to the southern throne.

APPENDIX C

THE QUEEN OF SCOTS

The life of Mary Tudor has been in its place described as supremely tragic; that of Mary Stewart presents a tragedy not greater but more dramatic-- whatever view we may take of her guilt or innocence with regard to Darnley, to Bothwell, to the conspirators who would fain have made her Queen of England. Of the misdeeds laid to her charge, that of unchast.i.ty has no colourable evidence except in the case of Bothwell, for whom it may be considered certain that she had an overwhelming pa.s.sion; and even there the evidence is not more than colourable. That she was _cognisant_ of the intended murder of Darnley can be doubted only by a very warm partisan: but in weighing the criminality even of that, it must be remembered not only that Darnley himself had murdered her secretary before her eyes, and had insulted her past forgiveness, but that _political_ a.s.sa.s.sinations were connived at by the morals of the times. Henry VIII. had preferred to commit his murders through the forms of law, but had encouraged the a.s.sa.s.sination of Cardinal Beton which John Knox applauded. In Italy, every prominent man lived constantly on his guard against the cup and the dagger.

Philip, Parma, Alva, Mendoza, encouraged the murder of Elizabeth, and incited or approved that of Orange. The royal House of France was directly responsible for the slaughter of St. Bartholomew. Henry III. of France a.s.sa.s.sinated Henry of Guise; the Guises in turn a.s.sa.s.sinated Henry. Many of the Scottish n.o.bility, including certainly Lethington and Morton, if not Murray, were beyond question as deep as Mary, if not deeper, in the murder of Darnley. And in England it may be said frankly that there was no sentiment against political murder, but only against murder without sanction of Law. Given a person whose life was regarded as possibly dangerous to the State, the public conscience was entirely satisfied if any colourable pretext could be found on which the legal authorities could profess to find warrant for a death sentence, though the proof, on modern theories of evidence, might be wholly inconclusive. In plain terms, if Mary had not followed up the murder by marrying the "first murderer," the deed would not have been regarded as particularly atrocious, or as placing her in any way outside the pale. But that marriage was fatal. Darnley was killed because while he lived his intellectual and moral turpitude were perfectly certain to wreck his wife's political schemes; but the new marriage was equally destructive politically and drove home the belief that pa.s.sion, not politics, was the real motive of the murder. Whether politics or pa.s.sion were the real motive, whether either would have sufficed without the other, whether even together they would have sufficed without the third motive of revenge for Rizzio, no human judgment can tell. But if under stress of those three motives in combination, Mary connived at the murder, it proves indeed that her judgment failed her, but not that according to the standards of the day she was unusually wicked.

As to her conduct in England--whatever it was--in connexion with the Ridolfi, Throgmorton, and Babington plots. In the first place, she owed Elizabeth no grat.i.tude. She was perfectly well aware that the Queen kept her alive because--unlike her ministers and her people--she thought Mary alive was on the whole more useful than dangerous. Mary always without any sort of concealment a.s.serted throughout the eighteen years of her captivity her quite indisputable right to appeal to the European Powers for deliverance. She always denied that she had any part in or knowledge of schemes for Elizabeth's a.s.sa.s.sination. Those denials were never met by any evidence [Footnote: Cf. Hume in _State Papers, Spanish,_ III., iii.]

more conclusive than alleged copies of deciphered correspondence, or the confessions of prisoners on the rack or under threat of it. But a.s.suming that her denials were false, that in one or other instance or in all three she was guilty, she did only what Valois and Habsburg and half the leading statesmen in Europe were doing, with the approbation of Rome, and without Mary's excuse. For they had the opportunity of overthrowing Coligny, Orange, Henry of Guise, and Elizabeth herself in fair fight; Mary had not: her crime therefore at the worst was infinitely less than theirs. To a caged captive much may be forgiven which in those others could not be forgiven.

And if in her prison she did a.s.sent to her own deliverance by a.s.sa.s.sination, and condescend (as no doubt she did) to use in some of her dealings with her captor some of that duplicity whereof that captor was herself a past mistress--if she used on her own behalf the weapons which were freely employed against her--she displayed at all times other qualities which were splendidly royal. She never betrayed, never disowned, never forgot a faithful servant or a loyal friend. If she bewitched the men who came in contact with her, she was the object of a no less pa.s.sionate devotion on the part of all her women; not that transient if vehement emotion which a fascinating fiend can arouse when she wills, but a devotion persistent and enduring. And withal she dreed her weird with a lofty courage, faced it full front with a high defiance, which must bespeak for ever the admiration at least of every generous spirit.

All this we may say and yet do justice to the att.i.tude towards her of the people of England. For to them, her life was a perpetual menace. The idea of her succession was to half of them unendurable, yet if Elizabeth died it could be averted only at the cost of a fierce civil war, aggravated almost certainly by a foreign invasion. About her, plots were eternally brewing which if they came to a head must involve the whole nation in a b.l.o.o.d.y strife. She engaged when she could in negotiations which could not do otherwise than imperil the peace of the realm. If no law or precedent could be found applicable to such a situation, there was clear moral justification for removing such a public danger in the only possible way.

Mary's release would only have aggravated it; her death was the one solution. England had no hesitation in a.s.suming the grim responsibility which the Queen of England was fain to evade at her servants' expense.

APPENDIX D

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The works enumerated in this bibliography are such as may usually be found in the larger public libraries, or are available to members of the London Library. In most cases a few words of description are added, and the whole list has been so cla.s.sified that the reader--it is hoped--will be able without much difficulty to pick out those volumes which will best help him whether to a general view or in gathering detailed information on specific points.

To a student "taking up" the Tudor period, the best brief general introduction, as a preliminary survey of the whole subject is to be found-- judging from the writer's early experiences--in two small volumes in the "Epoch" Series (Longmans), Seebohm's _Era of the Protestant Revolution,_ and Creighton's _Age of Elizabeth._

The continuous narrative, _in extenso,_ is presented consecutively in _The Tudor Period,_ vol. i., by W. Busch (translated by A. M. Todd) for Henry VII.: Brewer's _Henry VIII._ (2 vols.) for Henry VIII. to the fall of Wolsey: Froude's _History of England_ (12 vols.) from the fall of Wolsey to the Armada--cautious though the reader must be; with Major Martin Hume's _Treason and Plot_ for Elizabeth's closing years.

Proceeding to the detailed list; the first division gives authorities covering all sections of the Tudor Period. Then, under each reign, are the authorities for that reign, selected as being on the whole the most prominent or the most informing. These are divided into contemporary, _i.e._ Tudor; Intermediate; and Modern, _i.e._ publications (roughly) of the last half century. Further cla.s.sification is introduced, where it seems likely to be of a.s.sistance.

TUDOR PERIOD CONTEMPORARY

The _Carew Papers_ (Ireland).

_Four Masters, Chronicle of The:_ Celtic Chronicles, collated and translated _circa_ 1632 by four Irish Priests. Hakluyt's _Voyages_.

The _Hatfield Papers_ (Historical MSS. Commission). The period before Elizabeth occupies only half of vol. i.; the rest of which, with the following volumes of the series, is devoted to that reign. Rymer's _Foedera_. Stow, _Annals_ and _Survey of London and Westminster_.

INTERMEDIATE

Hallam's _Const.i.tutional History of England_. A valuable study of the const.i.tutional aspects of the period; and especially of the att.i.tude of the Government to the great religious sections of the community.

Hook's _Lives of the Archbishops_; a work somewhat coloured by the author's ecclesiastical predilections.

Lingard's _History of England_; a fair-minded account written avowedly from a Roman Catholic point of view. Valuable data have however been brought to light since Lingard wrote.

Von Ranke's _Englische Geschichte_, translated as "_History of England princ.i.p.ally in the seventeenth century_": not a detailed history of this period, but marked by the Author's keen historical insight.

------ _History of the Popes_, for those aspects of the period suggested by the t.i.tle: see also Macaulay's _Essay_ on this work.

Strype's _Ecclesiastical Memorials_, containing transcripts of many important doc.u.ments. The compiler however occasionally went astray; as in a remarkable instance noted at p. 129.

MODERN

Ashley, W. J., _Introduction to English Economic History_. Brown, P. Hume, _History of Scotland_.

_Cambridge Modern History_: vol. ii., The Reformation. Useful for reference, and containing a very full bibliography of the subject. Cc.

xiii.-xvi. deal more particularly with England. Also vol. iii., The Wars of Religion.

Chambers, _Cyclopaedia of English Literature_, containing useful surveys, criticisms, and extracts. [New edition.]

Chambers, E. K., _The Mediaeval Stage_, invaluable prolegomena to a History of the Elizabethan stage as yet unwritten. Clowes, Sir W. Laird, _The Royal Navy_; vol. i.

Cunningham, W., _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_: the best Economic Authority. _Dictionary of National Biography_.

Green, J. R., _Short History of the English People_, admirably reproducing the atmosphere of the period.

Lang, Andrew, _History of Scotland_, vols. i. and ii.: a strong corrective to the ordinary English treatment of Scottish relations.

Morley, Henry, _English Writers_; partly critical, partly consisting of numerous and ample extracts.

Rait, J. S., _Relations between England and Scotland, 500 to 1707_. A short study.

Rogers, Thorold, _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, and _History of Agriculture and Prices_.

_Social England_, edd. H. D. Traill and J. S. Mann. Contributions by leading authorities, dealing at length with aspects commonly neglected in Political Histories.

Stubbs (Bishop), _Seventeen Lectures on the Study of Medieval and Modern History_; and _Lectures on European History_ (pub. 1904, delivered twenty-five years earlier); very useful to the student, from their extremely lucid method.

HENRY VII CONTEMPORARY