Women of History Part 6

Together with her were conducted Nicholas Belenian, a priest; John La.s.sels, of the king's household; and John Adams, a tailor, who had been condemned for the same crime to the same punishment. They were all tied to the stake; and, in that dreadful situation, the chancellor sent to inform them that their pardon was ready drawn and signed, and should instantly be given them, if they would merit it by a recantation. They only regarded this offer as a new ornament to their crown of martyrdom; and they saw with tranquillity the executioner kindle the flames which consumed them. Wriothesley did not consider that this public and noted situation interested their honour the more to maintain a steady perseverance.

[While Anne Askew was in Newgate, she made what she called a ballad, which began thus:--

"Like as the armed knight Appointed to the field, With this world will I fight.

And Faith shall be my s.h.i.+eld."

And having recounted her bitter conflicts, and firm trust in G.o.d, the only comfort she had in her affliction, she concludes with these charitable and truly Christian lines--

"Yet, Lord, I Thee desire, For that they do to me; Let them not taste the hire Of their iniquity."

The whole ballad is published by Bale.]

QUEEN ELIZABETH.

[BORN 1533. DIED 1603.]

HUME--MACAULAY.

There are few great persons in history who have been more exposed to the calumny of enemies and the adulation of friends than Queen Elizabeth, and yet there scarcely is any whose reputation has been more certainly determined by the unanimous consent of posterity. The unusual length of her administration, and the strong features of her character, were able to overcome all prejudices; and, obliging her detractors to abate much of their invectives, and her admirers somewhat of their panegyrics, have at last, in spite of political factions, and, what is more, of religious animosities, produced a uniform judgment in regard to her conduct.

Her vigour, her constancy, her magnanimity, her penetration, vigilance, and address, are allowed to merit the highest praises, and appear not to have been surpa.s.sed by any person that ever filled a throne. A conduct less rigorous, less imperious, more sincere, more indulgent to her people, would have been requisite to form a perfect character. By the force of her mind she controlled all her more active and stronger qualities, and prevented them from running into excess. Her heroism was exempt from temerity, her frugality from avarice, her friends.h.i.+p from partiality, her enterprise from turbulency and a vain ambition: she guarded not herself with equal care or equal success from lesser infirmities--the rivals.h.i.+p of beauty, the desire of admiration, the jealousy of love, and the sallies of anger.

Her singular talents for government were founded equally on her temper and on her capacity. Endowed with a great command over herself, she soon obtained an uncontrolled ascendant over her people; and while she merited all their esteem by her real virtues, she also engaged their affection by her pretended ones. Few sovereigns of England succeeded to the throne in more difficult circ.u.mstances, and none ever conducted the government with such uniform success and felicity. Though unacquainted with the practice of toleration, the true secret for managing religious factions, she preserved her people, by her superior prudence, from those confusions in which religious controversy had involved all the neighbouring nations; and though her enemies were the most powerful princes of Europe,--the most active, the most enterprising, the least scrupulous,--she was able, by her vigour, to make deep impressions on their states. Her own greatness remained, meanwhile, untouched and unimpaired.

The wise ministers and brave warriors who flourished under her reign, share the praise of her success; but instead of lessening the applause due to her, they make a great addition to it. They owed, all of them, their advancement to her choice; they were supported by her constancy; and, with all their abilities, they were never able to acquire any undue ascendant over her. In her family, in her court, in her kingdom, she remained equally mistress: the force of the tender pa.s.sions was great over her, but the force of her mind was still superior; and the combat which the victory visibly cost her, serves only to display the firmness of her resolution and the loftiness of her ambitious sentiments.

The fame of this princess, though it has surmounted the prejudices both of faction and of bigotry, yet lies still exposed to another prejudice, which is more durable, because more natural, and which, according to the different views in which we survey her, is capable either of exalting beyond measure, or diminis.h.i.+ng the l.u.s.tre of her character. This prejudice is founded on the consideration of her s.e.x. When we contemplate her as a woman, we are apt to be struck with the highest admiration of her great qualities and extensive capacity; but we are also apt to require some more softness of disposition, some greater lenity of temper, some of those amiable weaknesses by which her s.e.x is distinguished. But the true method of estimating her merit is to lay aside all these considerations, and to consider her merely as a rational being placed in authority, and entrusted with the government of mankind.

We may find it difficult to reconcile our fancy to her as a wife or a mistress; but her qualities as a sovereign, though with some considerable exceptions, are the object of undisputed applause and approbation.

(MACAULAY.)

Of all the sovereigns who exercised a power which was seemingly absolute, but which, in fact, depended for support on the love and confidence of their subjects, Elizabeth was by far the most ill.u.s.trious.

It has often been alleged as an excuse for the misgovernment of her successors, that they only followed her example; that precedents might be found in the transactions of her reign for persecuting the Puritans; for levying money without the sanction of the House of Commons, for confining men without bringing them to trial, for interfering with the liberty of Parliamentary debate. All this may be true. But it is no good plea for her successors, and for this plain reason, that they were her successors. She governed one generation--they governed another. It was not by looking at the particular measures which Elizabeth had adopted, but by looking at the great general principles of her government, that those who followed her were likely to learn the art of managing untractable subjects. If, instead of searching the records of her reign for precedents which might seem to vindicate the mutilation of Prynne and the imprisonment of Eliot, the Stuarts had attempted to discover the fundamental rules which guided her conduct in all her dealings with her people, they would have perceived that their policy was then most unlike to hers, when, to a superficial observer, it would have seemed most to resemble hers. Firm, haughty, sometimes unjust and cruel in her proceedings towards individuals, or towards small parties, she avoided with care, or retracted with speed, every measure which seemed likely to alienate the great ma.s.s of the people. She gained more honour and more love by the manner in which she repaired her errors than she would have gained by never committing errors.

If such a man as Charles I. had been in her place when the whole nation was crying out against the monopolies, he would have refused all redress. He would have dissolved the Parliament and imprisoned the most popular members. He would have called another Parliament. He would have given some vague and delusive promises of relief in return for subsidies. When entreated to fulfil his promises, he would have again dissolved the Parliament, and again imprisoned his leading opponents.

The country would have become more agitated than before. The next House of Commons would have been more unmanageable than that which preceded it. The tyrant would have agreed to all that the nation demanded. He would have solemnly ratified an act abolis.h.i.+ng monopolies for ever. He would have received a large supply in return for this concession, and, within half a year, new patents, more oppressive than those which had been cancelled, would have been issued by scores. Such was the policy which brought the heir of a long line of kings, in early youth the darling of his country, to a prison and a scaffold.

Elizabeth, before the House of Commons could address her, took out of their mouths the words they were about to utter in the name of the nation. Her promises went beyond their desires, and their performance followed close upon her promises. She did not treat the nation as an adverse party, as a party who had an interest opposed to hers, as a party to which she was to grant as few advantages as possible. Her benefits were given, not sold, and when once given, they were never withdrawn. She gave them, too, with a frankness, an effusion of heart, a princely dignity, a motherly tenderness, which enhanced their value.

They were received by the st.u.r.dy country gentlemen, who had come up to Westminster full of resentment, with tears of joy, and shouts of G.o.d save the Queen.

LADY JANE GREY.

[BORN 1537. DIED 1554.]

HUME.

The grand-daughter of Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII., and of Charles Branden, Duke of Suffolk, and daughter of Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset, was a lady of an amiable person, an engaging disposition, and accomplished parts; and being of an equal age with the late king [Edward VI.], she had received all her education with him, and seemed to possess greater facility in acquiring every part of manly and polite literature.

She had attained a similar knowledge of the Roman and Greek languages, besides modern tongues; had pa.s.sed most of her time in an application to learning, and expressed a great indifference for other occupations and amus.e.m.e.nts usual with her s.e.x and station. Roger Ascham, tutor to the Lady Elizabeth, having one day paid her a visit, found her employed in reading Plato, while the rest of the party were engaged hunting in the park; and on his admiring the singularity of her choice, she told him that she received more pleasure from that author than the others could reap from all their sport and gaiety.

Her heart, full of this pa.s.sion for literature and the elegant arts, and of tenderness towards her husband [Lord Guildford], who was deserving of her affections, had never opened itself to the flattering allurements of ambition, and the intelligence of her elevation to the throne was nowise agreeable to her. She even refused to accept of the present; pleaded the preferable t.i.tle of the two princesses; expressed her dread of the consequences attending an enterprise so dangerous, not to say criminal; and desired to remain in the private station in which she was born. Overcome at length by the entreaties rather than the reasons of her father and father-in-law, and above all of her husband, she submitted to their will, and was prevailed on to relinquish her own judgment.

It was then usual for the kings of England, after their accession, to pa.s.s their first days in the Tower, and Northumberland thither conveyed the new sovereign. All the councillors were obliged to attend her to that fortress, and by this means became in reality prisoners in the hands of Northumberland, whose will they were necessitated to obey.

Orders were given by the council to proclaim Jane throughout the kingdom, but their orders were executed only in London and the neighbourhood. No applause ensued. The people heard the proclamation with silence and concern; some even expressed their scorn and contempt; and one Pot, a vintner's apprentice, was severely punished for this offence. The Protestant teachers themselves, who were employed to convince the people of Jane's t.i.tle, found their eloquence fruitless; and Ridley, Bishop of London, preached a sermon to that purpose, which wrought no effect upon his audience.

After the defeat of Northumberland's and another rebellion, warning was given the Lady Jane to prepare for death--a doom which she had long expected, and which the innocence of her life, as well as the misfortunes to which she had been exposed, rendered nowise unwelcome to her. The queen's zeal, under colour of tender mercy to the prisoner's soul, induced her to send divines, who hara.s.sed her with perpetual disputations; and even a reprieve for three days was granted, in hopes that she should be persuaded during that time to pay, by a timely conversion, some regard to her eternal welfare. The Lady Jane had presence of mind in those melancholy circ.u.mstances not only to defend her religion by all the topics then in use, but also to write a letter to her sister in the Greek language, in which, besides sending her a copy of the Scriptures in that tongue, she exhorted her to maintain in every feature a like steady perseverance.

It had been intended to execute the Lady Jane and Lord Guildford together on the same scaffold at Tower Hill; but the council, dreading the compa.s.sion of the people for their youth, beauty, innocence, and n.o.ble birth, changed their orders, and gave directions that she should be beheaded within the verge of the Tower. She saw her husband led to execution, and, having given him from the window some token of remembrance, she waited with tranquillity till her own appointed hour should bring her to a like fate. She even saw his headless body carried back in a cart, and found herself more confirmed by the reports which she heard of the constancy of his end, than shaken by so tender and melancholy a spectacle. Sir John Gage, constable of the Tower, when he led her to execution, desired her to bestow on him some small present which he might keep as a perpetual memorial of her. She gave him her table-book, on which she had just written three sentences on seeing her husband's dead body--one in Greek, another in Latin, a third in English.

On the scaffold she made a speech to the bystanders, in which the mildness of her disposition led her to take the blame wholly on herself, without uttering one complaint against the severity with which she had been treated; that she justly deserved this punishment for being made the instrument, though the unwilling instrument, of the ambition of others; and that the story of her life, she hoped, might at least be useful, by proving that innocence excuses not great misdeeds, if they tend anywise to the destruction of the commonwealth. After uttering these words, she caused herself to be disrobed by her women, and, with a steady serene countenance, submitted herself to the executioner.

TARQUINIA MOLZA.

[1600.]

HILARION DE COSTE.

Camillas Molza, Knight of the Order of St James in Spain, who was son of the great Frances Maria Molza of Modena, orator and excellent poet, having remarked from her early years the bounty and excellence of her spirit, sent her with her brothers to learn the principles of grammar.

John Politian, a native of Modena, very learned in all the sciences, very virtuous, and of holy life, became her master. She apprehended also the humane letters, learned to write well, and to compose correctly, under the care of Lazarus Labadini, a celebrated grammarian of the time, reducing his instruction to practice in elegant compositions in prose and verse. She became well versed in the rhetoric of Aristotle under Camillus Corcapini. The mathematician Antonio Guarini taught her the knowledge of the sphere. She became intimately acquainted with poetry under the famous philosopher Patricio, with logic and general philosophy under P. Latoni, and also attained to an entire and perfect knowledge of the Greek tongue. Rabi Abraham taught her the principles of the Hebrew language, as her uncle had taught her before; the consequence of all which was that, with her inclination to study so well observed by these great men, she made such notable progress, that it became easy for her to solve the most subtle questions in theology.

Nor did she stop here. John Maria Barbier, a man of great knowledge and judgment, introduced her to the refinements of the Tuscan language, in which she not only composed many elegant verses, but also many letters and other works, much esteemed by the most accomplished and learned men of Italy. With her more peculiar inventions, she mixed up a quant.i.ty of translations of Greek and Latin works, in which she expressed so happily and properly the thoughts of the authors, that she reduced the reader to doubt whether she had not a better knowledge of these languages than of her own. She afterwards applied herself to music, to entertain her and divert her from more serious studies, and soon surpa.s.sed all the dames who had been in use to sing with great applause, and to ravish the ears with admiration. She acquired the conduct of her voice by the true rules of books of the best authors, of whom many had the ambition to show her something rare; and, while playing on instruments, she could join her voice with such address and science as could not be equalled. And so much did she excel in this, that Alfonso, the second Duke of Ferrara, a judicious prince, and who had an extreme pa.s.sion for all fair and good things, was ravished with admiration, having found more of the marvellous in this dame than he had looked for. A little afterwards she inst.i.tuted the celebrated concert of dames, who did her so much honour, that they always called her into their company, that, by her presence, she might perfect the choir she had formed.

[Having lost her husband, says Bayle, this admirable woman, though left without children and still young, wished to remain unmarried; while her grief was so remarkable, that she might have been compared to Artemisia. She was by the senate and Roman people honoured with the t.i.tle of Incomparable, and invested by patent with the right of a Roman citizen,--a privilege extended to the whole house of Molza.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: From a Painting at St. James's. 1580.

(reproduction of signature of Queen Mary)]

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.

[BORN 1542. DIED 1587.]