Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth Part 25

The earl of Nottingham survived to the year 1624, the 88th of his age.

Sir Henry Lee was one of the finest courtiers and certainly the most complete knight-errant of his time. He was now in the fortieth year of his age, had travelled, and had seen some military service; but the tilt-yard was ever the scene of his most conspicuous exploits and those in which he placed his highest glory. He had declared himself the queen's own knight and champion, and having inscribed upon his s.h.i.+eld the constellation of Ariadne's Crown, culminant in her majesty's nativity, bound himself by a solemn vow to appear armed in the tilt-yard on every anniversary of her happy accession till disabled by age. This vow gave origin to the annual exercises of the Knights-Tilters, a society consisting of twenty-five of the most gallant and favored of the courtiers of Elizabeth. The modern reader may wonder to find included in this number so grave an officer as Bromley lord chancellor; but under the maiden reign neither the deepest statesman, the most studious lawyer, nor the rudest soldier was exempted from the humiliating obligation of accepting, and even soliciting, those household and menial offices usually discharged by mere courtiers, nor from the irksome one of a.s.suming, for the sake of their sovereign lady, the romantic disguise of armed champions and enamoured knights. Sir Henry Lee, however, appears to have devoted his life to these chivalrous pageantries rather from a quixotical imagination than with any serious views of ambition or interest. He was a gentleman of ancient family and plentiful fortune, little connected, as far as appears, with any court faction or political, party, and neither capable nor ambitious of any public station of importance. It is an amiable and generous trait of his character, that he attended the unfortunate duke of Norfolk even to the scaffold, received his last embrace, and repeated to the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude his request that they would a.s.sist him with their prayers in his final agony. His royal Dulcinea rewarded his fatigues and his adoration by the lieutenancy of Woodstock manor, the office of keeper of the armoury, and especially by the appropriate meed of admission into the most n.o.ble order of the Garter. He resigned the champions.h.i.+p at the approach of old age with a solemn ceremony hereafter to be described, died at his mansion of Quarendon in Bucks, in 1611, in his 81st year, and was interred in the parish church under a splendid tomb hung round with military trophies, and inscribed with a very long, very quaint and very tumid epitaph.

Christopher Hatton, the last of this undaunted band of challengers, was a new compet.i.tor for the smiles of royalty, and bright was the dawn of fortune and of favor which already broke upon him. He was of a decayed family of Northamptons.h.i.+re gentry, and had just commenced the study of the law at one of the inns of court, when hope or curiosity stimulated him to gain admittance at some court-festival, where he had an opportunity of dancing before the queen in a mask. His figure and his performance so captivated her fancy, that she immediately bestowed upon him some flattering marks of attention, which encouraged him to quit his profession and turn courtier.

This showy outside and these gay accomplishments were unexpectedly found in union with a moderate and cautious temper, enlightened views, and a solid understanding; and after due deliberation, Elizabeth, that penetrating judge of men, decided, in spite of ridicule, that she could not do better than make this superlatively-excellent dancer of galliards her lord-chancellor.

The enemies of Hatton are said to have promoted this appointment in expectation of his disgracing himself by ignorance and incapacity; but their malice was disappointed; whatever he did not know, he was able to learn and willing to be taught; he discharged the duties of his high office with prudence first and afterwards with ability, and died in 1591 in possession of it and of the public esteem. It is remarkable, considering the general predilection of the queen in favor of celibacy, that Hatton was the only one of her ministers who lived and died a bachelor.

Early in this year the king of France married a daughter of the emperor Maximilian; and Elizabeth, desirous at this time of being on the best terms both with the French and Imperial courts, sent lord Buckhurst to Paris on a splendid emba.s.sy of congratulation.

Catherine de' Medici took this opportunity of renewing proposals of marriage to the queen of England on the part of her son the duke of Anjou, and they were listened to with an apparent complacency which perplexed the politicians. It is certainly to this negotiation, and to the intrigues of the duke of Norfolk and other n.o.bles with the queen of Scots, that Shakespear alludes in the following ingenious and exquisite pa.s.sage.

..."Once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a _Mermaid_ on a _Dolphin_'s back Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song; And _certain stars shot madly from their spheres_, To hear the sea-maid's music.

That very time I saw, but thou could'st not, Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all-arm'd: a certain aim he took At _a fair Vestal throned by the West_, And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts; But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watry moon, And the Imperial Votress pa.s.sed on, In maiden meditation, fancy-free."

_Midsummer Night's Dream._

Unfortunately for himself, the duke of Norfolk had not acquired, even from the severe admonition of a long imprisonment, resolution sufficient to turn a deaf ear to the enchantments of this syren. His situation was indeed perplexing: He had entered into the most serious engagements with his sovereign to abstain from all further intercourse with the queen of Scots: at the same time the right of Elizabeth to interdict him an alliance so flattering to his vanity might plausibly be questioned, and the previous interchange between himself and Mary of solemn promises of marriage, seemed to have brought him under obligations to her too sacred to be dissolved by any subsequent stipulation of his, though one to which Mary herself had been compelled to become a party. Neither had chivalrous ideas by any means lost their force in this age; and as a knight and a gentleman the duke must have esteemed himself bound in honor to procure the release of the captive princess, and to claim through all perils the fair hand which had been plighted to him.

Impressed by such sentiments, he returned to a letter of eloquent complaint which she found means to convey to him, an answer filled with a.s.surances of his inviolable constancy; and the intrigues of the party were soon renewed with as much activity as ever.

But the vigilance of the ministry of Elizabeth could not long be eluded.

An important packet of letters written by Ridolfi, a Florentine who had been sent abroad by the party to confer with the pope and with the duke of Alva, was intercepted; and in consequence of the plots thus unfolded, the bishop of Ross, who bore the character of Mary's amba.s.sador in England, was given into private custody. Soon after, a servant of the duke's, intrusted by him with the conveyance of a sum of money from the French amba.s.sador to Mary's adherents in Scotland, carried the parcel containing it to the secretary of state. The duke's secretary was then sent for and examined. This man, who was probably in the pay of government, not only confessed with readiness all that he knew, but produced some letters from the queen of Scots which his lord had commanded him to burn after decyphering them. Other concurring indications of the duke's guilt appearing, he was recommitted to the Tower in September 1571.

After various consultations of civilians on the extent of an amba.s.sador's privilege, and the t.i.tle which the agent of a deposed sovereign might have to avail himself of that sacred character, it was determined that the laws of nations did not protect the bishop of Ross, and he was carried to the Tower, where, in fear of death, he made full confession of all his machinations against the person and state of Elizabeth. In the most guilty parts of these designs he affirmed that the duke had constantly refused his concurrence;--and in fact, weak and infatuated as he was, the agents of Mary seem to have found it impracticable, by all their artifices, to bring this unfortunate n.o.bleman entirely to forget that he was a protestant and an Englishman.

He would never consent directly to procure the death or dethronement of Elizabeth; though it must have been perfectly evident to any man of clear and unbia.s.sed judgement, that, under all the circ.u.mstances, the accomplishment of his wishes could by no other means be attained.

This affair was regarded in so very serious a light, that the queen thought it necessary, before the duke was put on his trial, to lay all the circ.u.mstances of his case before the court of France; and the parliament, which was again a.s.sembled after an interval of five years, pa.s.sed some new laws for the protection of the queen's person from the imminent perils by which they saw her environed.

The ill.u.s.trious prisoner was now brought before the tribunal of his brother-peers; and a perfectly fair and regular trial, according to the practices of that age, was accorded him. Whatever his intentions might have been, his actions appear to have come clearly within the limits of treason; and the earl of Shrewsbury, as lord-high-steward for the day, p.r.o.nounced upon him, with tears, a verdict of Guilty. But the queen hesitated or deferred, from clemency or caution, to sign his death warrant, and he was remanded to the Tower under some uncertainty whether or not the last rigor of the offended laws awaited him.

The name of sir Nicholas Throgmorton was so mixed up in the confessions of the bishop of Ross, that it was perhaps an indulgent fate which had removed him some months previously from the sphere of human action. He died at the house of the earl of Leicester, and certainly of a pleurisy; but the malevolent credulity of that age seldom allowed a person of any eminence to quit the world without imputing the occurrence in some manner, direct or indirect, to the malice of his enemies. It was rumored that Throgmorton had fallen a victim to the hostility of Leicester, which he was thought to have provoked by quitting the party of the earl to reconcile himself with Burleigh, his secret enemy; and the suspicion of proficiency in the art of poisoning, which had so long rested upon the favorite, obtained credit to this absurd report. Possibly there might be more truth in the general opinion, that it was in some measure owing to the enmity of Burleigh that a person of such acknowledged abilities in public affairs, and one who had conducted himself so skilfully in various important negotiations, should never have been advanced to any considerable office of trust or profit. But the lofty and somewhat turbulent spirit of Throgmorton himself, ought probably to bear the chief blame both of this enmity, and of his want of success at the court of a princess who exacted from her servants the exercise of the most refined and cautious policy, as well as an entire and implicit submission to all her views and wishes. It is highly probable that she never entirely pardoned Throgmorton for giving the lie to her declarations respecting the promises made to the earl of Murray and his party, by the open production of his own diplomatic instructions.

The hostility of Leicester extended, as we shall see hereafter, to other branches of the unfortunate family of Throgmorton, whom an imprudent or criminal zeal in the cause of popery exposed without defence to the whole weight of his vengeance. On some slight pretext he procured the dismissal of sir John Throgmorton, the brother of sir Nicholas; from his office of chief justice of Chester, who did not long survive the disgrace though apparently unmerited. Puttenham, author of the "Art of English Poesie," ventured, though a professed courtier, to compose an epitaph on this victim of oppression, of which he has preserved to us the following lines in the work above mentioned:

"Whom Virtue reared Envy hath overthrown, And lodged full low under this marble stone: Ne never were his values so well known Whilst he lived here, as now that he is gone.

No sun by day that ever saw him rest Free from the toils of his so busy charge, No night that harboured rancour in his breast, Nor merry mood made Reason run at large.

His head a source of gravity and sense, His memory a shop of civil art: His tongue a stream of sugred eloquence, Wisdom and meekness lay mingled in his heart." &c.

The literary propensities of Elizabeth have already come under our notice: they had frequently served to divert her mind from the cares of government; but in the state of unremitted anxiety occasioned by her dread of the machinations relative to the queen of Scots, in which she had found the first peer of her realm a princ.i.p.al actor, her thoughts, even in the few leisure hours which she found means to bestow on these soothing recreations, still hovered about the objects from which she most sought to withdraw them.

The following sonnet of her composition will ill.u.s.trate this remark: it was published during her lifetime in Puttenham's "Arte of English Poesie," and its authenticity, its princ.i.p.al merit, has never been called in question.

SONNET _by Queen Elizabeth_.

The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy, And wit me warns to shun such snares as threaten mine annoy.

For falsehood now doth flow, and subjects' faith doth ebb; Which would not be if Reason ruled, or Wisdom weaved the web.

But clouds of toys untried do cloak aspiring minds, Which turn to rain of late repent by course of changed winds.

The top of hope supposed the root of ruth will be; And fruitless all their graffed guiles, as shortly ye shall see.

Those dazzled eves with pride, which great ambition blinds, Shall be unseal'd by worthy wights whose foresight falsehood finds.

The Daughter of Debate that eke discord doth sow, Shall reap no gain where former rule hath taught still peace to grow.

No foreign banish'd wight shall anchor in this port; Our realm it brooks no strangers' force, let them elsewhere resort.

Our rusty sword with rest shall first his edge employ, To poll their tops that seek such change, and gape for joy.

The house of commons, in which great dread and hatred of the queen of Scots and her adherents now prevailed, showed itself strongly disposed to pa.s.s an act by which Mary should be declared for ever unworthy and incapable of the English succession: but Elizabeth, with her usual averseness to all unqualified declarations and irrevocable decisions, interfered to prevent the completion of a measure which most sovereigns, under all the circ.u.mstances, would have been eager to embrace. To the unanimous expression of the opinion of the house, that the execution of the sentence against the duke of Norfolk ought not to be longer delayed, she was however prevailed upon to lend a more favorable ear; and on June 2d, 1572, this n.o.bleman received his death on Tower-hill.

Norfolk was a man of many amiable and several estimable qualities, and much too good for the faction with which he had been enticed to act and the cause in which he suffered. On the scaffold he acknowledged, with great apparent sincerity, the justice of his sentence, and his peculiar guiltiness in breaking the solemn promise which he had pledged to his sovereign. He declared himself to have been an earnest protestant ever since he had had any taste for religion, and in this faith he died very devoutly. He bequeathed by his will his best George to his kinsman and true friend the earl of Suss.e.x, whose faithful counsels he too late reproached himself with neglecting. By his attainder the dukedom was lost to the family of Howard; but Philip, his eldest son, succeeded his maternal grandfather in the earldom of Arundel; lord Thomas, his second son, (whose mother was the daughter and heiress of lord Audley,) was created lord Howard of Walden by Elizabeth and earl of Suffolk by James; and lord William, the youngest, who possessed Naworth-castle in right of Elizabeth Dacre his wife, and was known upon the West Border (of which he was warden) by the appellation of "Belted Will," was ancestor to the earls of Carlisle[74].

[Note 74:

"His Bilboa blade, by marchmen felt, Hung in a broad and studded belt; Hence in rude phrase the Borderers still Call n.o.ble Howard Belted Will."

Lay of the Last Minstrel.]

The king of Spain had long been regarded in England as the most implacable and formidable of the enemies of Elizabeth; and on good grounds. It was believed to be through his procurement that Sixtus V.

had been led to fulminate his anathema against her;--it was well known that the pope had made a donation to him of the kingdom of Ireland, of which he was anxious to avail himself;--there was strong ground to suspect that he had sent one of his ablest generals in emba.s.sy to England with no other view than to have taken the command of the northern rebels, had their enterprise prospered;--and the intimate partic.i.p.ation of his agents in all the intrigues of the queen of Scots was notorious. Dr. Wylson, a learned civilian, an accomplished scholar, and one of the first refiners of English prose, had published in 1571, with the express view of rousing the spirit of his readers against this formidable tyrant, a version of the Orations of Demosthenes against the king Philip of his day, and had been at the pains of pointing out in the notes coincidences in the situation of Athens and of England. The author, who was an earnest protestant, had the further motive in this work of paying a tribute to the memory of the learned and unfortunate Cheke, who during his voluntary exile had read gratuitous lectures to his countrymen at Padua on the works of the great Grecian orator, of which Wylson had been an auditor, and who had also made a Latin version of them, of which the English translator freely availed himself.

It was princ.i.p.ally her dread of the Spaniards which led Elizabeth into those perpetual reciprocations of deceitful professions and empty negotiations with the profligate and perfidious court of France, which in the judgement of posterity have redounded so little to her honor, but which appeared to her of so much importance that she now thought herself peculiarly fortunate in having discovered an agent capable of conducting with all the wariness, penetration and profound address so peculiarly requisite where sincerity and good faith are wanting. This agent was sir Francis Walsingham, whose rare acquisitions of political knowledge, made princ.i.p.ally during the period of his voluntary exile for religion, and still rarer talents for public business, had induced lord Burleigh to recommend him to the service and confidence of his mistress. For several years from this time he resided as the queen's amba.s.sador at the court of France, at first as coadjutor to sir Thomas Smith,--a learned and able man, who afterwards became a princ.i.p.al secretary of state,--the rest of the time alone. There was not in England a man who was regarded as a more sincere and earnest protestant than Walsingham; yet such was at this time his sense of the importance to the country of the French alliance, that he expressed himself strongly in favor of the match between Elizabeth and the duke of Anjou, and, as a minister, spared no pains to promote it.

Similar language was held on this subject both by Leicester and Burleigh; but the former was perhaps no more in earnest on the subject than his mistress; and finally all parties, except the French protestants, who looked to the conclusion of these nuptials as their best security, seem to have been not ill pleased when, the marriage treaty being at length laid aside, a strict league of amity between the two countries was agreed upon in its stead.

Splendid emba.s.sies were reciprocally sent to receive the ratifications of this treaty; and Burleigh writes to a friend, between jest and earnest, that an unexpected delay of the French amba.s.sador was cursed by all the husbands whose ladies had been detained at great expense and inconvenience in London, to contribute to the splendor of the court on his reception. On the 9th of June 1572 the duke de Montmorenci and his suite at length arrived. His entertainment was magnificent; all seemed peace and harmony between the rival nations; and Elizabeth even instructed her amba.s.sadors to give favorable ear to a hint which the queen-mother had dropped of a matrimonial treaty between the queen of England and her youngest son, the duke d'Alencon, who had then scarcely attained the age of seventeen.

Lulled by these flattering appearances of tranquillity, her majesty set out on her summer progress, and she was enjoying the festivities prepared by Leicester for her reception at his splendid castle of Kennelworth, when news arrived of the execrable ma.s.sacre of Paris;--an atrocity not to be paralleled in history! Troops of affrighted Hugonots, who had escaped through a thousand perils with life, and life alone, from the hands of their pitiless a.s.sa.s.sins, arrived on the English coast, imploring the commiseration of their brother protestants, and relating in accents of despair their tale of horrors. After such a stroke, no one knew what to expect; the German protestants flew to arms; even the subjects of Elizabeth trembled for their countrymen travelling on the continent and for themselves in their island-home. The pope applauded openly the savage deed; the court of Spain showed itself united hand and heart with that of France,--to the astonishment of Elizabeth, who had been taught to believe them at enmity;--and it seemed as if the signal had been given of a general crusade against the reformed churches of Europe.

For several days fears were entertained for the safety of Walsingham himself, who had not dared to transmit any account of the event except one by a servant of his own, whose pa.s.sage had been by some accident delayed. Even this minister, cautious and crafty and sagacious as he was, a.s.sisted by all the spies whom he constantly kept in pay, had been unable to penetrate any part of the b.l.o.o.d.y secret;--he was completely taken by surprise. But of his personal safety the perfidious young king and his detestable mother were, for their own sakes, careful; and not only were himself and his servants protected from injury, but every Englishman who had the presence of mind to take shelter in his house found it an inviolable sanctuary. Two persons only of this nation fell victims to the fury of that direful night, but the property of many was plundered. The afflicted remnant of the French protestants prepared to stand upon their defence with all the intrepidity of despair. They closed the gates of Roch.e.l.le, their strong hold, against the king's troops, casting at the same time an imploring eye towards England, where thousands of brave and generous spirits were burning with impatience to hasten to their succour.

No act would have been hailed with such loud and general applause of her people as an instant renunciation by Elizabeth of all friends.h.i.+p and intercourse with the perjured and blood-stained Charles, the midnight a.s.sa.s.sin of his own subjects; and it is impossible to contemplate without disdain the coldness and littleness of that character which, in such a case, could consent to measure its demonstrations of indignation and abhorrence by the narrow rules of a self-interested caution. But that early experience of peril and adversity which had formed the mind of this princess to penetration, wariness, and pa.s.sive courage, and given her a perfect command of the whole art of simulation and dissimulation, had at the same time robbed her of some of the n.o.blest impulses of our nature; of generosity, of ardor, of enterprise, of magnanimity. Where more exalted spirits would only have felt, she calculated; where bolder ones would have flown to action, she contented herself with words.

Charles and his mother, while still in uncertainty how far their master-stroke of policy,--so they regarded it,--would be successful in crus.h.i.+ng entirely the Hugonots, prudently resolved to spare no efforts to preserve Elizabeth their friend, or to prevent her at least from becoming an open enemy. Instructions had therefore been in the first instance dispatched to La Mothe Fenelon, the French amba.s.sador in England, to communicate such an account of the ma.s.sacre and its motives as suited these views, and to solicit a confirmation of the late treaty of amity. His reception at court on this occasion was extremely solemn: the courtiers and ladies who lined the rooms leading to the presence-chamber were all habited in deep mourning, and not one of them would vouchsafe a word or a smile to the amba.s.sador, though himself a man of honor, and one whom they had formerly received on the footing of cordial intimacy. The queen herself, in listening to his message, a.s.sumed an aspect more composed, but extremely cold and serious. She expressed her horror at the idea that a sovereign could imagine himself under a necessity of taking such vengeance on his own subjects; represented the practicability of proceeding with them according to law, and desired to be better informed of the reality of the treasonable designs imputed to the Hugonots. She also declared that it would be difficult for her to place reliance hereafter on the friends.h.i.+p of a prince who had shown himself so deadly a foe to those who professed her religion; but, at the suit of the amba.s.sador, she consented to suspend in some degree her judgement of the deed till further information.

Even these feeble demonstrations of sensibility to crime so enormous were speedily laid aside. In spite of Walsingham's declared opinion, that the demonstrations of the French court towards her were so evidently treacherous that its open enmity was less to be dreaded than its feigned friends.h.i.+p, Elizabeth suffered her indignation to evaporate in a few severe speeches, restrained her subjects from carrying such aid to the defenders of Roch.e.l.le as could be made a ground of serious quarrel, and even permitted a renewal of the shocking and monstrous overtures for her marriage with the youngest son of Catherine de' Medici herself. By this shameless woman various proposals were now made for bringing about a personal interview between herself and Elizabeth. She first named England as the place of meeting, then the sea between Dover and Calais, and afterwards the isle of Jersey; but from the first plan she herself departed, and the others were rejected in anger by the English council, who remarked, with a proper and laudable spirit, that they who had ventured upon such propositions must imagine them strangely careless of the personal safety of their sovereign.

Charles IX. was particularly anxious that Elizabeth, as a pledge of friends.h.i.+p, should consent to stand sponsor to his new-born daughter; and with this request, after some difficulties and a few declarations of horror at his conduct, she had the baseness to comply. She refused however to indulge that king in his further desire, that she would appoint either the earl of Leicester or lord Burleigh as her proxy;--not choosing apparently to trust these pillars of state and of the protestant cause within his reach; and she sent instead her cousin the earl of Worcester, "a good simple gentleman," as Leicester called him, and a catholic.

All this time Elizabeth was in her heart as hostile to the court of France as the most zealous of her protestant subjects; for she well knew that it was and ever must be essentially hostile to her and her government; and in the midst of her civilities she took care to supply to the Hugonots such secret aids as should enable them still to persevere in a formidable resistance.

It is worth recording, on the subject of these negotiations between Elizabeth and the royal family of France, that Burleigh seems to have been encouraged to expect a successful issue by a calculation of the queen's nativity, seen by Strype in his own handwriting, from which it was foretold that she should marry, in middle life, a foreign prince younger than herself; and probably be the mother of a son, who should be prosperous in his middle age. Catherine de' Medici also, to whom some female fortune-teller had predicted that all her sons should be kings, hoped, after the election of her second son to the throne of Poland, to find the full accomplishment of the prophecy in the advancement of the youngest to the matrimonial crown of England. So serious was the belief of that age in the lying oracles of judicial astrology!

Among the English travellers doomed to be eye-witnesses of the horrors of the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew was the celebrated Philip Sidney, then a youth of eighteen. He was the eldest son of sir Henry Sidney, lord-deputy of Ireland, and from this excellent man and parent he had received, amongst his earliest and strongest impressions, those elevated principles of honor, veracity and moral purity which regulated and adorned the whole tenor of his after-life. An extraordinary solidity of character with great vivacity of parts had distinguished him from a child, and fortune conspired with genius to bring him early before the public eye.

He was nephew and presumptive heir to the earl of Leicester, by whom he was in a manner adopted; and thus patronized, his rapid advancement was antic.i.p.ated as a matter of course.

It was the practice of that day for parents in higher life to dispose of their children in marriage at an age now justly accounted immature[75]; and no sooner had young Sidney completed his fourteenth year than arrangements were made for his union with Anne Cecil, daughter of the secretary. Why the connexion never took place we do not learn: sir Henry Sidney in a letter to Cecil says, with reference to this affair; "I am sorry that you find coldness any where in proceeding, where such good liking appeared in the beginning; but, for my part, I was never more ready to perfect that affair than presently I am." &c. Shortly after, the lady, unfortunately for herself, became the wife of the earl of Oxford; and Sidney, still unfettered by matrimonial engagements, obtained license to travel, and reached Paris in May 1572. Charles IX., in consideration no doubt of the influence of his uncle at the English court, gave him the appointment of a gentleman of his bed-chamber, a fortnight only before the ma.s.sacre. On that night of horrors Sidney took shelter in the house of Walsingham, and thus escaped all personal danger; but his after-conduct fully proved how indelible was the impression left upon his mind of the monstrous wickedness of the French royal family, and the disgrace and misery which an alliance with it must entail on his queen and country.