History of the United Netherlands, 1584-1609 Part 61

The Queen.--"I think differently."

De Dieu.--"There is no place within his dominions where he has permitted the exercise of the pure religion. He has never done so."

The Queen.--"He conceded it in the pacification of Ghent."

De Dieu.--"But he did not keep his agreement. Don John had concluded with the States, but said he was not held to his promise, in case he should repent; and the King wrote afterwards to our States, and said that he was no longer bound to his pledge."

The Queen.--"That is quite another thing."

De Dieu.--"He has very often broken his faith."

The Queen.--"He shall no longer be allowed to do so. If he does not keep his word, that is my affair, not yours. It is my business to find the remedy. Men would say, see in what a desolation the Queen of England has brought this poor people. As to the freedom of wors.h.i.+p, I should have proposed three or four years' interval--leaving it afterwards to the decision of the States."

De Dieu.--"But the majority of the States is Popish."

The Queen.--"I mean the States-General, not the States of any particular Province."

De Dieu.--"The greater part of the States-General is Popish."

The Queen.--"I mean the three estates--the clergy, the n.o.bles, and the cities." The Queen--as the deputies observed--here fell into an error.

She thought that prelates of the reformed Church, as in England, had seats in the States-General. Daniel de Dieu explained that they had no such position.

The Queen.--"Then how were you sent hither?"

De Dieu.--"We came with the consent of Count Maurice of Na.s.sau."

The Queen.--"And of the States?"

De Dieu.--"We came with their knowledge."

The Queen.--"Are you sent only from Holland and Zeeland? Is there no envoy from Utrecht and the other Provinces?"

Helmichius.--"We two," pointing to his colleague Sossingius, "are from Utrecht."

The Queen.--"What? Is this young man also a minister?" She meant Helmichius, who had a very little beard, and looked young.

Sossingius.--"He is not so young as he looks."

The Queen.--"Youths are sometimes as able as old men."

De Dieu.--"I have heard our brother preach in France more than fourteen years ago."

The Queen.--"He must have begun young. How old were you when you first became a preacher?"

Helmichius.--"Twenty-three or twenty-four years of age."

The Queen.--"It was with us, at first, considered a scandal that a man so young as that should be admitted to the pulpit. Our antagonists reproached us with it in a book called 'Scandale de l'Angleterre,' saying that we had none but school-boys for ministers. I understand that you pray for me as warmly as if I were your sovereign princess. I think I have done as much for the religion as if I were your Queen."

Helmichius.--"We are far from thinking otherwise. We acknowledge willingly your Majesty's benefits to our churches."

The Queen.--"It would else be ingrat.i.tude on your part."

Helmichius.--"But the King of Spain will never keep any promise about the religion."

The Queen.--"He will never come so far: he does nothing but make a noise on all sides. Item, I don't think he has much confidence in himself."

De Dieu.--"Your Majesty has many enemies. The Lord hath hitherto supported you, and we pray that he may continue to uphold your Majesty."

The Queen.--"I have indeed many enemies; but I make no great account of them. Is there anything else you seek?"

De Dieu.--"There is a special point: it concerns our, or rather your Majesty's, city of Flus.h.i.+ng. We hope that Russelius--(so he called Sir William Russell)--may be continued in its government, although he wishes his discharge."

"Aha!" said the Queen, laughing and rising from her seat, "I shall not answer you; I shall call some one else to answer you."

She then summoned Russell's sister, Lady Warwick.

"If you could speak French," said the Queen to that gentlewoman, "I should bid you reply to these gentlemen, who beg that your brother may remain in Flus.h.i.+ng, so very agreeable has he made himself to them."

The Queen was pleased to hear this good opinion of Sir William, and this request that he might continue to be governor of Flus.h.i.+ng, because he had uniformly supported the Leicester party, and was at that moment in high quarrel with Count Maurice and the leading members of the States.

As the deputies took their leave, they requested an answer to their memorial, which was graciously promised.

Three days afterwards, Walsingham gave them a written answer to their memorial--conceived in the same sense as had been the expressions of her Majesty and her counsellors. Support to the Netherlands and stipulations for the free exercise of their religion were promised; but it was impossible for these deputies of the churches to obtain a guarantee from England that the Popish religion should be excluded from the Provinces, in case of a successful issue to the Queen's negotiation with Spain.

And thus during all those eventful days-the last weeks of July and the first weeks of August--the clerical deputation remained in England, indulging in voluminous protocols and lengthened conversations with the Queen and the princ.i.p.al members of her government. It is astonis.h.i.+ng, in that breathless interval of history, that so much time could be found for quill-driving and oratory.

Nevertheless, both in Holland and England, there had been other work than protocolling. One throb of patriotism moved the breast of both nations. A longing to grapple, once for all, with the great enemy of civil and religious liberty inspired both. In Holland, the States-General and all the men to whom the people looked for guidance, had been long deprecating the peace-negotiations. Extraordinary supplies--more than had ever been granted before--were voted for the expenses of the campaign; and Maurice of Na.s.sau, fitly embodying the warlike tendencies of his country and race, had been most importunate with Queen Elizabeth that she would accept his services and his advice. Armed vessels of every size, from the gun-boat to the galleon of 1200 tons--then the most imposing s.h.i.+p in those waters--swarmed in all the estuaries and rivers, and along the Dutch and Flemish coast, bidding defiance to Parma and his armaments; and offers of a large contingent from the fleets of Jooat de Moor and Justinua de Na.s.sau, to serve under Seymour and Howard, were freely made to the States-General.

It was decided early in July, by the board of admiralty, presided over by Prince Maurice, that the largest square-rigged vessels of Holland and Zeeland should cruise between England and the Flemish coast, outside the banks; that a squadron of lesser s.h.i.+ps should be stationed within the banks; and that a fleet of sloops and fly-boats should hover close in sh.o.r.e, about Flus.h.i.+ng and Rammekens. All the war-vessels of the little republic were thus fully employed. But, besides this arrangement, Maurice was empowered to lay an embargo--under what penalty he chose and during his pleasure--on all square-rigged vessels over 300 tons, in order that there might be an additional supply in case of need. Ninety s.h.i.+ps of war under Warmond, admiral, and Van der Does, vice-admiral of Holland; and Justinus de Na.s.sau, admiral, and Joost de Moor, vice-admiral of Zeeland; together with fifty merchant-vessels of the best and strongest, equipped and armed for active service, composed a formidable fleet.

The States-General, a month before, had sent twenty-five or thirty good s.h.i.+ps, under Admiral Rosendael, to join Lord Henry Seymour, then cruising between Dover and Calais. A tempest, drove them back, and their absence from Lord Henry's fleet being misinterpreted by the English, the States were censured for ingrat.i.tude and want of good faith. But the injustice of the accusation was soon made manifest, for these vessels, reinforcing the great Dutch fleet outside the banks, did better service than they could have done; in the straits. A squadron of strong well-armed vessels, having on board, in addition to their regular equipment, a picked force of twelve hundred musketeers, long accustomed to this peculiar kind of naval warfare, with crews of, grim Zeelanders, who had faced Alva, and Valdez in their day, now kept close watch over Farnese, determined that he should never thrust his face out of any haven or nook on the coast so long as they should be in existence to prevent him.

And in England the protracted diplomacy at Ostend, ill-timed though it was, had not paralyzed the arm or chilled the heart of the nation. When the great Queen, arousing herself from the delusion in which the falsehoods of Farnese and of Philip had lulled her, should once more.

represent--as no man or woman better than Elizabeth Tudor could represent--the defiance of England to foreign insolence; the resolve of a whole people to die rather than yield; there was a thrill of joy through the national heart. When the enforced restraint was at last taken off, there was one bound towards the enemy. Few more magnificent spectacles have been seen in history than the enthusiasm which pervaded the country as the great danger, so long deferred, was felt at last to be closely approaching. The little nation of four millions, the merry England of the sixteenth century, went forward to the death-grapple with its gigantic antagonist as cheerfully as to a long-expected holiday. Spain was a vast empire, overshadowing the world; England, in comparison, but a province; yet nothing could surpa.s.s the steadiness with which the conflict was awaited.

For, during all the months of suspense; the soldiers and sailors, and many statesman of England, had deprecated, even as the Hollanders had been doing, the dangerous delays of Ostend. Elizabeth was not embodying the national instinct, when she talked of peace; and shrank penuriously from the expenses of war. There was much disappointment, even indignation, at the slothfulness with which the preparations for defence went on, during the period when there was yet time to make them. It was feared with justice that England, utterly unfortified as were its cities, and defended only by its little navy without, and by untaught enthusiasm within, might; after all, prove an easier conquest than Holland and Zeeland, every town, in whose territory bristled with fortifications. If the English s.h.i.+ps--well-trained and swift sailors as they were--were unprovided with spare and cordage, beef and biscuit, powder and shot, and the militia-men, however enthusiastic, were neither drilled nor armed, was it so very certain, after all, that successful resistance would be made to the great Armada, and to the veteran pikemen and musketeers of Farnese, seasoned on a hundred, battlefields, and equipped as for a tournament? There was generous confidence and chivalrous loyalty on the part of Elizabeth's naval and military commanders; but there had been deep regret and disappointment at her course.

Hawkins was anxious, all through the winter and spring, to cruise with a small squadron off the coast of Spain. With a dozen vessels he undertook to "distress anything that went through the seas." The cost of such a squadron, with eighteen hundred men, to be relieved every four months, he estimated at two thousand seven hundred pounds sterling the month, or a s.h.i.+lling a day for each man; and it would be a very unlucky month, he said, in which they did not make captures to three times that amount; for they would see nothing that would not be presently their own. "We might have peace, but not with G.o.d," said the pious old slave-trader; "but rather than serve Baal, let us die a thousand deaths. Let us have open war with these Jesuits, and every man will contribute, fight, devise, or do, for the liberty of our country."

And it was open war with the Jesuits for which those stouthearted sailors longed. All were afraid of secret mischief. The diplomatists--who were known to be flitting about France, Flanders, Scotland, and England--were birds of ill omen. King James was beset by a thousand bribes and expostulations to avenge his mother's death; and although that mother had murdered his father, and done her best to disinherit himself, yet it was feared that Spanish ducats might induce him to be true to his mother's revenge, and false to the reformed religion. Nothing of good was hoped for from France. "For my part," said Lord Admiral Howard, "I have made of the French King, the Scottish King, and the King of Spain, a trinity that I mean never to trust to be saved by, and I would that others were of my opinion."

The n.o.ble sailor, on whom so much responsibility rested, yet who was so trammelled and thwarted by the timid and parsimonious policy of Elizabeth and of Burghley, chafed and shook his chains like a captive. "Since England was England," he exclaimed, "there was never such a stratagem and mask to deceive her as this treaty of peace. I pray G.o.d that we do not curse for this a long grey beard with a white head witless, that will make all the world think us heartless. You know whom I mean." And it certainly was not difficult to understand the allusion to the pondering Lord-Treasurer. "'Opus est aliquo Daedalo,' to direct us out of the maze," said that much puzzled statesman; but he hardly seemed to be making himself wings with which to lift England and himself out of the labyrinth. The s.h.i.+ps were good s.h.i.+ps, but there was intolerable delay in getting a sufficient number of them as ready for action as was the spirit of their commanders.

"Our s.h.i.+ps do show like gallants here," said Winter; "it would do a man's heart good to behold them. Would to G.o.d the Prince of Parma were on the seas with all his forces, and we in sight of them. You should hear that we would make his enterprise very unpleasant to him."

And Howard, too, was delighted not only with his own little flag-s.h.i.+p the Ark-Royal--"the odd s.h.i.+p of the world for all conditions,"--but with all of his fleet that could be mustered. Although wonders were reported, by every arrival from the south, of the coming Armada, the Lord-Admiral was not appalled. He was perhaps rather imprudent in the defiance he flung to the enemy. "Let me have the four great s.h.i.+ps and twenty hoys, with but twenty men a-piece, and each with but two iron pieces, and her Majesty shall have a good account of the Spanish forces; and I will make the King wish his galleys home again. Few as we are, if his forces be not hundreds, we will make good sport with them."

But those four great s.h.i.+ps of her Majesty, so much longed for by Howard, were not forthcoming. He complained that the Queen was "keeping them to protect Chatham Church withal, when they should be serving their turn abroad." The Spanish fleet was already reported as numbering from 210 sail, with 36,000 men,' to 400 or 500 s.h.i.+ps, and 80,000 soldiers and mariners; and yet Drake was not ready with his squadron. "The fault is not in him," said Howard, "but I pray G.o.d her Majesty do not repent her slack dealing. We must all lie together, for we shall be stirred very shortly with heave ho! I fear ere long her Majesty will be sorry she hath believed some so much as she hath done."