England under the Tudors Part 27

[Sidenote: Scotland, 1579-81]

The diplomatic campaign in Scotland need not detain us long. Morton as Regent governed that country with a strong hand, and at least held down its normal turbulence: but while his forcefulness was recognised, he went his own way, quite regardless of the enemies he made. Despite his religious professions, he treated the preachers with scant courtesy, and was unpopular with all parties. D'Aubigny on his arrival promptly found his way into the young King's good graces, was made Duke of Lennox very shortly, and set himself to conciliate the Puritans by professing to have been converted from Popery by James's dialectical skill. In England, there was no doubt that he was an agent in the papal programme, and Walsingham would have had him removed in the usual lawless fas.h.i.+on, failing other means. But Elizabeth, as always, was confident of the practical impossibility of making Scotland united for any purpose except resistance of an English invasion. She made it evident that armed intervention from her need not be looked for; and in December (1580) Lennox (D'Aubigny) struck at Morton by accusing him of complicity in the murder of Darnley. The agent in this proceeding was another James Stewart, an adventurer, now Captain of the Guard, who was shortly after advanced to the Earldom of Arran. Morton was imprisoned, brought to trial in the following June (1581) and executed. The strong hand being gone, the usual chaos supervened. For the time the Papal party was uppermost, but Elizabeth's calculations were correct. The risk of French intervention was brought nearer, but it was counterbalanced partly by the bait of the Alencon marriage, which the Queen managed to keep dangling, partly by the fact that many of the men who had overthrown Morton were anti-papal, and preferred playing for their own hand to encouraging a French ascendancy. By the "Raid of Ruthven" in 1582 James was removed from the influence of Lennox, who had to leave the country; and in 1583 James Stewart Earl of Arran was carrying out a policy which was to make the King himself, with Arran at his elbow, the force predominating alike over preachers and n.o.bles.

[Sidenote: England 1580]

We may now revert to England and Elizabeth in 1580. Throughout the earlier half of the year, it was as usual the Queen's first object to commit herself to nothing, but to persuade Orange that she might yet help him, and Alencon that she might yet marry him. But in July, Philip was master of Portugal, and the Jesuit campaign was beginning in England. In September, Orange's patience was worn out, and the crown of the Netherlands was definitely offered to Alencon; within a few days Drake and the Pelican were home, and Mendoza was demanding rest.i.tution; and again a few days later Spanish and Italian adventurers were fortifying themselves at Smerwick.

[Sidenote: The Jesuit Mission]

The Papal Bull of Deposition ten years before had stiffened the att.i.tude of Government towards the English Catholics, but had neither broken down the loyalty of the latter nor led to any serious persecution. On this head, the mission of 1580 was the turning point of the reign. The moving spirit was Allen, of Douay and Rheims; a man of high ability and character who conceived that the recovery of his country for the true Church was the highest of all objects for a patriot, and one to which all other considerations should give way.

[Sidenote: Campian and Parsons]

It cannot be disputed that the aim of the Mission was to sow disloyalty as well as to gain converts, though the allegation that incitement to a.s.sa.s.sinate the Queen was part of the programme is not quite conclusively proved. Of the two chief missioners, Parsons and Campian, it is at least tolerably certain that the latter, an amiable enthusiast, was quite innocent of complicity in any such design. That certainty does not apply to Parsons. But the instructions were clearly treasonable in character. The Catholics were told that in spite of the Bull of Deposition they might profess loyalty to the Queen, but must a.s.sist in her overthrow if called upon. That is to say that if treason were brewing against the _de facto_ Government, it was to be a point of conscience and a condition of the Church's approval for all Catholics that they should a.s.sist that treason. There is nothing about that instruction which can fairly be called hypocritical; but _ipso facto_, it converted every Catholic, w.i.l.l.y nilly, into a potential traitor, who if treason arose could only remain loyal under censure of the Church. Moreover it was the business of the missioners not only to impress on those who were already Catholics this view of their duty; but also, by an active propaganda, to increase the number of such potential traitors; while it was quite certain that under such conditions, converts would be actuated by a zeal which would render them doubly dangerous.

For some months the emissaries travelled the country in various disguises, s.h.i.+fting their quarters secretly, but in favourable districts occasionally appearing quite openly, more or less winked at by the authorities. Their immunity made them the more sanguine, but it also alarmed the Protestants, and before the end of the year, there was a change.

[Sidenote: Walsingham]

Walsingham--a sincere Puritan, a man who never soiled his hands for private gain, who by his outspoken opposition to her political double- dealing provoked Elizabeth's anger more frequently than any other of her many outspoken advisers, of whom more than any other statesman of the day it might be said that he loved righteousness and hated iniquity--had yet the fault of the Puritan character, a certain remorselessness in dealing with the servants of the Scarlet Woman. He would have connived at the murder of D'Aubigny; his organisation of "Secret Service" was as unscrupulous as Burghley's; and he more than any one else approved and fostered the revival of the illegal application of torture as a means of extorting information from recalcitrant prisoners. In this iniquity, however, it is fair to recognise that the rack and the boot were not employed wantonly but, as it would seem, honestly: with the single intention of obtaining true information for the unravelment of plots which endangered the public weal, and only on persons who were known to possess that information.

[Sidenote: 1581 An anti-papal Parliament]

Walsingham then, at the close of 1580, appears to have undertaken the conduct of the operations against the emissaries, several of whom were promptly captured and put to the torture without result, though one or two made haste to change sides to save themselves. The rest showed that magnificent constancy which had characterised alike the Carthusians under Henry and the Protestants under Mary. In January (1581) parliament was called, and pa.s.sed a very stringent act making it treason to proselytise, or to join the Church of Rome; imposing a heavy fine as well as imprisonment for celebrating Ma.s.s, and a fine of 20 per month for exemption from attendance at the Anglican ritual. Drastic as the measure was, and a complete departure from the comparative toleration hitherto prevalent in practice if not altogether in theory, the basis of it was quite manifestly the conviction that as a result of the mission every Catholic must now be suspect of treason, and every convert to Catholicism something more than suspect.

When the parliament had completed its business by voting supplies, it was prorogued. Through the spring and the summer the pursuit of the Emissaries and the oppression of the Catholics under the new Act went on. Campian himself was taken in July, and after some months'

imprisonment, in the course of which he was racked, was executed for treason at the end of the year: his martyrdom, with others, producing the usual effect.

[Sidenote: Alencon again]

In the meantime, the acceptance in January of the lords.h.i.+p of the Netherlands by Alencon forced Elizabeth to redouble her pretence of desiring the furtherance of the Alencon marriage--a pretence through which Walsingham alone seems to have penetrated. The French King sent over a magnificent emba.s.sy in April, which was magnificently received.

Then Elizabeth suggested that a League would serve every purpose.

France replied that the League was what it wished for, but the marriage was a condition. Everything was discussed and agreed upon--but the Queen succeeded in retaining her saving clause; the agreement was subject to Alencon and herself being personally satisfied. She was still able to hold off, while she had brought France into such a position that if war should be declared between England and Spain, France must join England. Walsingham was sent off to Paris, with the task before him of evading the marriage, avoiding war while entangling France in it, and all with a full conviction that his instructions would vary from week to week. He believed, and he told her, that France would make the League without the marriage, if her sincerity were only guaranteed by something more substantial than promises; but that if neither the League nor the marriage were completed, she would have Spain, France, and Scotland--where Morton had just been executed--all turning their arms against her at once. But contrary to all reasonable expectation Elizabeth succeeded in avoiding a breach with France and in keeping Alencon still dangling: and however Mendoza--who had quite failed to obtain any compensation for Drake's expedition--might threaten, Philip still refused to declare war openly.

[Sidenote: His visit to England]

The story of the Alencon farce, if it were not unquestionable fact, would be almost incredible. Monsieur was some twenty years younger than the amorous Queen; in person he was offensive and contemptible; his character corresponded to his person, and his intelligence to his character. Elizabeth was eight and forty. Yet the man's amazing vanity made him a perpetual dupe, while it must have taken all her own vanity to persuade the lady that she could play Omphale to his Hercules. Yet she did it. In November she had him back in England. She kissed him before Walsingham and the French Amba.s.sador, [Footnote: _State Papers, Spanish,_ iii., p. 226.] and gave him the ring off her finger, declaring that she was going to marry him. But as soon as it came to business, she made one fresh demand after another. When concession was added to concession, she capped the list by requiring the restoration of Calais, an obvious absurdity. Burghley thought the whole thing was ended, and was for conciliating Spain by restoring Drake's booty.

Walsingham would have handed those spoils over to Orange. The Queen did neither, but told Alencon that his presence in the Netherlands had now become quite necessary to his own honour--which was true--and that with a little patience unreasonable people would be pacified, and she would still marry him.

[Sidenote: Alencon in the Netherlands]

Thus this most unlucky dupe was once more got out of the country, in February (1582), a dupe still; and the United Provinces swore allegiance to him under the new t.i.tle of Duke of Brabant--giving him to understand, however, that they accepted him simply as a surety for English support. When he was safely out of the country, Elizabeth became more emphatic than ever in her declarations that she would marry him. After all, however, she was reluctantly compelled to salve her lover's wounded feelings by cash subsidies, real and substantial though secret.

[Sidenote: Exit Alencon]

At the end of March an attempt was made to a.s.sa.s.sinate the strong man of Holland, William the Silent. He was in fact very dangerously wounded, and Elizabeth became alarmed lest a like danger were in store for her.

Orange recovered, but Parma continued his course of gradual conquest, and Alencon bethought him of playing the traitor, seizing the princ.i.p.al towns, and handing them over to Spain as a peace-offering. In the following January he made the attempt; but the capture succeeded only here and there, and at Antwerp, where he himself lay, the _coup_ failed ignominiously and disastrously. The city got wind of what was going to happen; the French troops were admitted, and, being in, found themselves in a trap and were cut to pieces. Alencon was deservedly and finally ruined, and no one in France or England could pretend any more that he was a possible husband. The year after he sank to a dishonoured grave, leaving the Huguenot Henry of Navarre heir presumptive to the throne of France.

[Sidenote: Scotland]

Before Alencon's disaster, Elizabeth's policy in Scotland had been justified by results: the raid of Ruthven had placed the King in the hands of the Protestant n.o.bles again, and Lennox was out of the country for good. It is probable that from Elizabeth's point of view, it was not worth while to attempt to obtain the friends.h.i.+p of an Anglophil party, either by force or by bribery. Bribes would have told only just for so long as they were accepted as an earnest of more to follow; while force would have had its invariable result of uniting Scotland in determined resistance. The one thing which would have given reality to the overtures perpetually pa.s.sing between Scotland and the Guises was an English attempt to grasp at domination. Elizabeth, with Mary a prisoner, had a permanent diplomatic a.s.set in her hands, since she could hint a threat of either executing her, or liberating her, or surrendering her on terms as might seem most convenient at a given crisis. Intrigues which like the marriage projects were never intended to be consummated were more effective than either bribery or force--and cheaper.

CHAPTER XXII

ELIZABETH (vii), 1583-87--THE END OF QUEEN MARY

[Sidenote: 1583 The Throgmorton Conspiracy]

The collapse of Alencon was the precursor of a comprehensive conspiracy.

Before the Raid of Ruthven (August 1582), the Guise faction in France had contemplated a descent on Scotland in conjunction with Lennox's friends there, with a view of course to raising England in favour of Mary.

Alencon's relations with Elizabeth had not made the French King or his mother, neither of whom loved the Guises, particularly favourable to the scheme. The Raid destroyed the prospects of the definitely Catholic party in Scotland; on the other hand, the failure of Alencon affected, though only slightly, the objections on the part of King Henry. But any enterprise against England would have to take a somewhat different form. In May, Guise was planning a fresh scheme of a.s.sa.s.sination and invasion; [Footnote: _State Papers, Spanish_, iii., pp. 464, 479.] while as against the Guise intrigues still going on in Scotland, Elizabeth at the suggestion of the French amba.s.sador was again proposing diplomatically to release Mary [Footnote: _Ibid_., p. 465.]--on terms.

[Sidenote: Sanguine Catholic forecast]

The English refugees and the Seminarists suffered from the same sanguine conviction that two-thirds of the country was thirsting to throw off the hated yoke of the existing Government, by which Jacobite agents were eternally possessed in the first half of the eighteenth century; and with a good deal less reason. For whereas the House of Hanover had no enthusiastic adherents, while the House of Stuart had many, and the Whig politicians were for the most part ready to transfer themselves to the other side if the other side should look like winning: at this time, the most energetic portion of the population, gentry and commons, including practically all who had practised the art of war by land or sea, in the Low Countries, in Ireland, on the Spanish Main and in Spanish waters, were fierily Protestant, and the Ministers, nearly all irrevocably bound to the Queen, were singularly prompt and alert men of action. Enthusiasts there were on the other side, but they were few. Yet in their prolific imaginations, the enthusiasts multiplied their own numbers pathetically, and believed pa.s.sionately in phantom hosts only waiting for the word to draw the sword, or at least the dagger, in the sacred cause.

Neither the Spaniards nor the Guises appear ever to have allowed themselves to accept unreservedly the Churchmen's estimate of the state of feeling in England; but the Spanish Amba.s.sadors, one after another, and Mendoza certainly not the least, gave more credence to these impressions than they deserved, placing far too high a value on the a.s.surances of a very small number of the n.o.bility. It is probable also that the Jesuits greatly exaggerated the exciting effect of the martyrdom of Campian and his a.s.sociates; for these bore no sort of comparison with the burnings of Mary's reign, of which every man nearing forty years of age was old enough to have a tolerably vivid personal recollection. At any rate the advices of Mendoza went far to confirm the declarations of Allen that a determined Catholic rising might be relied on, in case of an invasion which should have for its object the subst.i.tution of Mary for Elizabeth and the restoration of the old Religion.

[Sidenote: Divided Counsels]

The counsels however of the plotters were divided. The priests would have kept the French out of the affair altogether. Philip was as reluctant as ever to take an English war upon his shoulders until he had completed the subjugation of the Netherlands. Mendoza, recognising that Guise was not France--for now as always, Spain could not afford to let France dominate England--was willing enough that Guise should head an expedition in which Frenchmen should otherwise play no more than an equal part; on the hypothesis that, when the revolution was accomplished, circ.u.mstances would compel the new regime to dependence on Spain. All the parties--Guise, Philip, Allen--were prepared to yield unofficial sanction to the simplification of the problem by a.s.sa.s.sination. Even when the different interests in the scheme had been compromised, prompt action was obviously essential if the English Government, with its vast network of spies and secret agents, was not to get wind of the plot. Prompt.i.tude however was the one thing of which Philip was const.i.tutionally incapable, and Guise was obliged to consent to wait till the following spring.

[Sidenote: The plot discovered]

As a natural result, an active member of the conspiracy, Francis Throgmorton, was suddenly pounced upon in his house in London. He succeeded in conveying sundry important doc.u.ments to Mendoza, but lists of the English conspirators and other conclusively incriminating doc.u.ments were found. The rack did the rest. The unhappy man endured through the first application: the second conquered him. He told the whole story--possibly more than the truth, though that is hardly probable; but of course the persons incriminated denied complicity, and there was in some cases no other evidence against them, while the confessions of a victim under torture are--biased.

The main facts at any rate were indisputable--the plan of a Guise invasion, under Spanish auspices, with the complicity of a number of English Catholics, as well as of Mendoza. The presumption that Mary was cognisant of it was supported by Throgmorton's confession, but such presumptions and such evidence fall short of being absolutely conclusive. [Footnote: Mendoza's letters of this period (_State Papers, Spanish,_ iii.) implicate Mary _prima facie_: but do not _necessarily_ mean more than that her life was endangered by the discoveries.] Under such conditions however, grave and well founded suspicion was enough to justify the severest precautionary measures. Northumberland and Arundel [Footnote: Son of the late Duke of Norfolk. The t.i.tle came through his mother.] were thrown into prison; several of the seminarists, already in ward, were executed; a number of arrests were made; known Catholics all over the country were placed under strict surveillance, and removed from any commands they might hold. Mendoza was ordered in uncompromising terms to leave the country; fleets were manned, and musters levied. The delay had proved fatal to the combined scheme.

The collapse of two a.s.sa.s.sination plots, not forming part of the Throgmorton conspiracy, may be mentioned. One was that of an apparently half-crazy person named Somerville, who betrayed himself by bragging; the other, the more curious affair of Parry, who got himself introduced into the Queen's presence several times, but "let I dare not wait upon I would"

persistently, till he retired with nothing accomplished; to reappear presently.

[Sidenote: 1584 Death of Orange]

Elizabeth escaped; but death was soon to lay his hand on two personages of consequence. In May (1584) Alencon decayed out of a world in which accident only had allowed him for a time to occupy a very disproportionate share of the political stage. A month later, the most heroic figure of a time when heroes were rare among politicians was struck down by the hand of a fanatic. William of Orange, the head, hand, and heart of the great fight for freedom being waged in the Netherlands, was a.s.sa.s.sinated by a zealot.

More than ever it seemed that the Hollanders must submit to Philip, unless the power of France or the power of England were devoted whole-heartedly to their cause. The death of Alencon made Henry of Navarre the actual heir presumptive to the throne of France. The King and his mother hated and feared Protestantism less than they hated and feared the Guises, and publicly acknowledged Navarre as next in succession.

As usual, Elizabeth's advisers would have had her play boldly for Protestantism; as usual, she herself was bent on evading the open collision with Spain. Her hope was to entangle France in the Netherlands war, and herself to strike in--if she must strike in at all--only when her intervention would enable her to make her own terms. The French King would not be inveigled. If he could have relied on her support, or if the Guises had been somewhat less dangerous, he would have been ready to strike; but his distrust of the English Queen was too justifiably complete. She was in fact saved from the absolute necessity of yielding to the persuasions of Burghley and Walsingham only by the dogged tenacity with which the Hollanders held out. And while they held out, she still held off.

[Sidenote: The "a.s.sociation"]

In England however, one fact was more universally and vividly present in men's minds than any other. In the eyes of every Protestant, the supreme danger still lay in the death or deposition of Elizabeth and the elevation of Mary Stewart to the throne. Recent events had brought home the enormous risks of a.s.sa.s.sination; and an a.s.sociation was formed for the defence of the Queen. A declaration was framed, the signatories whereof bound themselves by a solemn vow not only to pursue to the death all persons concerned in any plot against the Queen, but also any person in favour of whose succession to the throne any attempt should be made against her; to bar any such person absolutely from the succession; and to treat as perjured traitors any of the a.s.sociation who failed to carry out this oath. It was sufficiently obvious that the declaration was aimed directly against Mary; but it may be said that the entire nation forthwith enrolled itself. And with the bulk of them, the enrolment was anything but an empty form.

[Sidenote: 1584-85 The a.s.sociation ratified]