Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth Part 45

The affinity of Ess.e.x to the crown by his descent from Thomas of Woodstock has been already adverted to;--it seems never to have awakened the slightest jealousy in the mind of Elizabeth; but the absurd vaunts of some of his followers, commented upon by the malicious ingenuity of his enemies, had sufficed to excite sinister suspicions in the bosom of the king of Scots. For the purpose of counteracting these, lord Montjoy, near the beginning of the earl's captivity, had sent Henry Leigh into Scotland, to give the king a.s.surance that Ess.e.x entertained none of the ambitious views which had been imputed to him, but was, on the contrary, firmly resolved to endure no succession but that of his majesty; further hinting at some steps for causing his right to be recognised in the lifetime of the queen. From this time a friendly correspondence had been maintained between James and the Ess.e.x party; and Montjoy, on being appointed lord deputy of Ireland, had gone so far as to offer to the king to bring over to England such part of his army as, acting in concert with the force that the earl would be able to raise, might compa.s.s by force the object which they had in view. By some delay in the return of the messenger, added to the dilatoriness or reluctance of James, this plan was frustrated; but some time after Ess.e.x, impatient alike of the disgrace and the inactivity of his present restraint, urged Montjoy to bring over his forces without waiting for the tardy co-operation of the king of Scots. The lord deputy replied, "that he thought it more lawful to enter into such a course with one that had interest in the succession than otherwise; and though he had been led before out of the opinion he had to do his country good by the establishment of the succession, and to deliver my lord of Ess.e.x out of the danger he was in; yet now his life appeared to be safe, to restore his fortune only, and to save himself from the danger which hangs over him by discovery, and to satisfy my lord of Ess.e.x's private ambition, he would not enter into any enterprise of that" kind[139].

[Note 139: Confession of sir Charles Davers, in Birch's Memoirs.]

After this repulse, Ess.e.x as a last resource applied himself once more to the court of Scotland, and, with the disingenuousness inseparable from the conduct of political intrigue, exerted all his efforts to deceive James into a belief that the party now in power were pensioners of Spain, hired to the support of the pretended t.i.tle of the Infanta. He further alarmed the king by representing that the places most proper for the reception of Spanish forces were all in the hands of the creatures of Cecil;--Raleigh being governor of Jersey, lord Cobham warden of the Cinque Ports, lord Burleigh president of the North, and sir George Carew president of Munster. In consequence, he urged James to lose no time in claiming by his amba.s.sadors a solemn acknowledgement of his t.i.tle. These suggestions were listened to; and Ess.e.x was animated to proceed in his perilous career by hopes of the speedy arrival of the Scottish emba.s.sy.

In the meantime he formed a council of five of the friends most devoted to his cause:--the earl of Southampton, sir Charles Davers, sir Ferdinando Gorges, sir John Davis surveyor of the ordnance, and John Littleton esquire of Frankley. By this junto, which met privately at Drury-house, the plot was matured. The earl delivered in a list of one hundred and twenty n.o.bles, knights and gentlemen, on whose attachment he thought he could rely: it was agreed that an attempt should be made to seize the palace, and to persuade or compel the queen to remove from her councils the enemies of the earl, and to summon a new parliament; and their respective parts were allotted to the intended actors in this scene of violence.

Meantime the extraordinary concourse to Ess.e.x-house had fixed the attention of government, and measures were taken for obtaining intelligence of all that pa.s.sed within its walls. Lord Henry Howard, who had made a timely secession from the leader to whom, in terms of the grossest adulation, he had professed everlasting and unlimited attachment, is believed to have discovered some of his secrets; and a domestic educated with the earl from childhood, and entirely trusted by him, had also the baseness to reveal his counsels. On the 7th of February 1601, the privy-council, being fully informed of his proceedings, dispatched secretary Herbert to summon the earl to appear before them. But apprehensive that he was betrayed, and conscious that the steps which he had already taken were incapable of being justified, the earl excused himself from attending the council, and summoning around him the most confidential of his friends, he represented to them that they were on the point of being committed to prison, and bade them decide whether they would quietly submit themselves to the disposal of their enemies, or attempt thus prematurely to carry into effect the designs which they had meditated.

During the debate which ensued, a person entered who pretended to be deputed by the people of London to a.s.sure the earl of their cordial co-operation in his cause. This decided the question; Ess.e.x, with a more cheerful countenance, began to expatiate on the affection borne him by the city, and his expectation of being joined by sheriff Smith with a thousand of the trained bands whom he commanded. The following morning was fixed for the insurrection; and in the meantime emissaries were dispatched, who ran about the town in all directions, to spread among the friends of the earl the alarm of a design upon his life by Cobham and Raleigh.

Early on the morrow the lord keeper, the lord chief justice, and sir W.

Knolles comptroller of the household, arrived at Ess.e.x-house and demanded entrance on the part of the queen. They themselves were with difficulty admitted through the wicket of the gate, which was now kept shut and guarded; but all their servants, except the purse-bearer, were excluded. They beheld the court-yard filled with a confused mult.i.tude, in the midst of which stood Ess.e.x accompanied by the earls of Southampton and Rutland and many others. The lord keeper demanded in the name of her majesty the cause of this unusual concourse; adding an a.s.surance that if any had injured his lords.h.i.+p, he should find redress.

Ess.e.x in a vehement manner complained of letters counterfeited in his name,--of designs against his life,--of perfidious dealings towards him: but the conference was interrupted by the clamors of the crowd, some of whom threatened violence against the court-emissaries. Without further parley the earl conducted them into the house, where he ordered them to be safely kept as hostages till his return from the city, whither he was hastening to take measures with the lord-mayor and sheriffs.

About ten o'clock he entered the city attended by the "chief gallants"

of the time; as the earls of Southampton and Rutland, lords Sandys and Monteagle, sir Charles Davers, sir Christopher Blount, and many others.

As they pa.s.sed Fleet-street, they cried, "For the queen, for the queen!"

in other places they gave out that Cobham and Raleigh would have murdered the earl in his bed; and the mult.i.tude, universally well affected to Ess.e.x, eagerly reported that he and the queen were reconciled, and that she had appointed him to ride in that triumphant manner through the city to his house in Seething-lane. The lord-mayor however received warning from the privy-council to look well to his charge, and by eleven the gates were closed and strongly guarded. The earl, though a good deal disconcerted at observing no preparations for joining him, made his way to the house of sheriff Smith; but this officer slipped out at his back door and hastened to the lord-mayor for instructions. He next proceeded to an armourer's and demanded ammunition, which was refused; and while he was hastening to and fro, without aim or object as appears, lord Burleigh courageously entered the city with a king-at-arms and half a score horse-men, and in two places proclaimed the earl and all his adherents traitors. A pistol was fired at him by one of the followers of Ess.e.x; but the mult.i.tude showed no disposition to molest him, and he hastened back to a.s.sure the queen that a popular commotion was not at all to be apprehended.

The palace was now fortified and double-guarded; the streets were blocked up with carts and coaches; and the earl, after wandering in vain about the town till two o'clock, finding himself joined by none of the citizens and deserted by a great portion of his original followers, determined to make his way back to Ess.e.x-house. At Ludgate he was opposed by some troops posted there by order of the bishop; and drawing his sword, he directed sir Christopher Blount to attack them; "which he did with great bravery, and killed Waite, a stout officer, who had been formerly hired by the earl of Leicester to a.s.sa.s.sinate sir Christopher, and was now abandoned by his company[140]." In the end, however, the earl was repulsed with the loss of one young gentleman killed and sir Christopher Blount wounded and taken prisoner; and retreating with his diminished band to the river side, he returned by water to his own house.

[Note 140: Birch's Memoirs.]

He was much disappointed to find that his three prisoners had been liberated in his absence by sir Ferdinando Gorges: but sanguine to the last in his hopes of an insurrection of the citizens in his favor, he proceeded to fortify his house in the best manner that circ.u.mstances would admit.

It was soon invested by a considerable force under the lord admiral, the earls of c.u.mberland and Lincoln, and other commanders. Sir Robert Sidney was ordered to summon the little garrison to surrender, when the earl of Southampton demanded terms and hostages; but being answered that none would be granted to rebels, except that the ladies within the house and their women would be permitted to depart if they desired it, the defenders declared their resolution to hold out, and the a.s.sault continued.

Lord Sandys, the oldest man in the party, encouraged the earl in the resolution which he once appeared to have adopted, of cutting a way through the a.s.sailants; observing, that the boldest courses were the safest, and that at all events it was more honorable for men of quality to die sword in hand than by the axe of the executioner:--but Ess.e.x, who had not yet resigned the flattering hopes of life, was easily moved by the tears and cries of the surrounding females to yield to less courageous, not more prudent, counsels. Captain Owen Salisbury, a brave veteran, seeing that all was lost, planted himself at a window bare-headed, for the purpose of being slain: on receiving from one of the a.s.sailants a bullet on the side of his head, "O!" cried he, "that thou hadst been so much my friend to have shot but a little lower!" Of this wound however he expired the next morning.

About six in the evening the earl made known his willingness to surrender, on receiving a.s.surance, for himself and his friends, of civil treatment and a legal trial; and permission for a clergyman named Aston to attend him in prison:--the lord admiral answered that of the two first articles there could be no doubt, and for the last he would intercede. The house was then yielded with all that were in it. During that night the princ.i.p.al offenders were lodged in Lambeth-palace, the next day they were conveyed to the Tower; while the common prisons received the accomplices of meaner rank.

On February 19th Ess.e.x and Southampton were brought to their trial before the house of peers; lord Buckhurst sitting as lord high steward.

Ess.e.x inquired whether peers might not be challenged like common jurymen, but was answered in the negative. He pleaded Not guilty; professed his unspotted loyalty to his queen and country, and earnestly labored to give to his attempt to raise the city the color of a necessary act of self-defence against the machinations of enemies from whom his life was in danger. Had this interpretation of his conduct been admitted, possibly his offence might not have come within the limits of treason: but it was held, that his refusal to attend the council; the imprisonment of the three great officers sent to him by the queen; and above all the consultations held at Drury-house for bringing soldiers from Ireland, for surprising the Tower, for seizing the palace, and for compelling the queen to remove certain persons from her counsels and to call a parliament, a.s.signed to his overt acts the character of designs against the state itself. For the confessions of his accomplices, by which the secrets of the Drury-house meetings were brought to light, he was evidently unprepared; and the native violence of his temper broke out in invectives against those a.s.sociates by whom, as he falsely pretended, all these criminal designs had been originally suggested to his mind. This evidence, he said, had been elicited by the hope of pardon and reward;--let those who had given it enjoy their lives with impunity;--to him death was far more welcome than life. Whatever interpretation lawyers might put upon it, the necessity of self-defence against Cobham, Raleigh and Cecil, had impelled him to raise the city; and he was consoled by the testimony of a spotless conscience. Lord Cobham here rose, and protested that he had never acted with malice against the earl, although he had disapproved of his ambition. "On my faith," replied the earl, "I would have given this right hand to have removed from the queen such an informer and calumniator."

He afterwards proceeded to accuse sir Robert Cecil of having affirmed that the t.i.tle of the Infanta was equally well founded with that of any other claimant. But the secretary here stepped forward to entreat that, the prisoner might be obliged to bring proof of his a.s.sertions; and it thus became manifest, and in the end was confessed with contrition by the earl himself, that he had advanced this charge on false grounds.

It was with better reason that he reproached Francis Bacon, who then stood against him as queen's counsel, with the glaring inconsistency between his past professions and his present conduct. This cowardly desertion of his generous and affectionate friend and patron,--or rather this open revolt from him, this shameless attack upon him in the hour of his extreme distress and total ruin,--forms indeed the foulest of the many blots which stain the memory of this ill.u.s.trious person: it may even be p.r.o.nounced, on a deliberate survey of all its circ.u.mstances, the basest and most profligate act of that reign, which yet affords examples, in the conduct of its public men, of almost every species of profligacy and baseness. That it continued to be matter of general reproach against him, clearly appears from the long and labored apology which Bacon thought it necessary, several years afterwards, to address to lord Montjoy, then earl of Devon;--an apology which extenuates in no degree the turpitude of the fact; but which may be consulted for a number of highly curious, if authentic, particulars.

The earl of Southampton likewise pleaded Not guilty, and professed his inviolate fidelity towards her majesty: he excused whatever criminality he might have fallen into by the warmth of his attachment for Ess.e.x, and behaved throughout with a mildness and an ingenuous modesty which moved all hearts in his favor. After a trial of eleven hours, sentence of Guilty was unanimously p.r.o.nounced on both the prisoners. Southampton in an affecting manner implored all present to intercede for him with her majesty, and Ess.e.x, with great earnestness, joined in this pet.i.tion of his unfortunate friend: as to himself, he said, he was not anxious for life; wis.h.i.+ng for nothing more than to lay it down with entire fidelity towards G.o.d and his prince.--Yet he would have no one insinuate to the queen that he despised her mercy, though he believed he should not too submissively implore it; and he hoped all men would in their consciences acquit him, though the law had p.r.o.nounced him guilty. Such was the lofty tone of self-justification a.s.sumed by Ess.e.x on this memorable occasion, when his pride was roused and his temper exasperated, by the open war of recrimination and reproaches into which he had so unadvisedly plunged with his personal enemies; and by the cruel and insolent invectives of the crown lawyers. But he was soon to undergo on this point a most remarkable and total change.

The mind of the earl of Ess.e.x was deeply imbued with sentiments of religion: from early youth he had conversed much with divines of the stricter cla.s.s, whom he held in habitual reverence; and conscious in the conduct of his past life of many deviations from the Gospel rule of right, he now, in the immediate prospect of its violent termination, surrendered himself into the hands of these spiritual guides with extraordinary humility and implicit submission. To the criminality of his late attempt, his conscience was not however awakened; he seems to have believed, that in contriving the fall of his enemies, he was at the same time deserving the thanks of his country, oppressed by their maladministration; and he repelled all the efforts of Dr. Dove, by whom he was first visited, to inspire him with a different sense of this part of his conduct. Cut his favorite divine, Mr. Aston,--who is described by a contemporary as "a man base, fearful and mercenary," in whom the earl was much deceived,--practised with more success upon his mind. By an artful pretext of believing him to have aimed at the crown, he first drew him into a warm defence of his conduct on this point; then by degrees into a confession of all that he had really plotted, and the concurrence which he had found from others. This was the end aimed at by Aston, or by the government which employed him: he professed that he could not reconcile it to his conscience to conceal treasons so foul and dangerous; alarmed the earl with all the terrors of religion; and finally persuaded him, that a full discovery of his accomplices was the only atonement which he could make to heaven and earth. The humbled Ess.e.x was brought to entreat that several privy-councillors, of whom Cecil by name was one, should be sent to hear his confessions; and so strangely scrupulous did he show himself to leave nothing untold, that he gave up even the letters of the king of Scots, and betrayed every private friend whom attachment to himself had ever seduced into an acquiescence in his designs, or a nice sense of honor withheld from betraying them.

Sir Henry Nevil, for having only concealed projects in which he had absolutely refused to concur, was thus exposed to the loss of his appointment of amba.s.sador to France; to imprisonment, and to a long persecution;--and lord Montjoy might have suffered even capitally, had not his good and acceptable service in Ireland induced the queen to wink at former offences. Cuff, the secretary of the earl, whom he sent for to exhort him to imitate his sincerity, sternly upbraided his master with his altered mind, and his treachery towards those who had evinced the strongest attachment to his service: but the earl remained unmoved by his reproaches, and calmly prepared for death in the full persuasion that he had now worked out his own salvation.

Elizabeth had behaved on occasion of the late insurrection with all her wonted fort.i.tude; even at the time when Ess.e.x was actually in the city and a false report was brought her of its revolt to him, "she was never more amazed," says Cecil in a letter to sir George Carew, "than she would have been to have heard of a fray in Fleet-street." But when, in the further progress of the affair, she beheld her once loved Ess.e.x brought to the bar for high-treason and condemned by the unanimous verdict of his peers; when it rested solely with herself to take the forfeit of his life or interfere by an act of special grace for his preservation,--her grief, her agitation and her perplexity became extreme. A sense of the many fine qualities and rare endowments of her kinsman,--his courage, his eloquence, his generosity, and the affectionate zeal with which he had served her:--indulgence for the youthful impetuosity which had carried him out of the path of duty, not unmixed with compunction for that severe and contemptuous treatment by which she had exasperated to rebellion the spirit which mildness might have softened into penitence and submission;--above all, the remaining affection which still lurked at the bottom of her heart, pleaded for mercy with a force scarcely to be withstood. On the other hand, the ingrat.i.tude, the neglect, the insolence with which he had occasionally treated her, and the magnitude of his offences, which daily grew upon her by his own confessions and those of his accomplices, fatally united to confirm the natural bias of her mind towards severity.

At this juncture Thomas Leigh, one of the dark and desperate characters whose service Ess.e.x had used in his criminal negotiations with Tyrone, by an atrocious plot for entering the palace, seizing the person of the queen and compelling her to sign a warrant for the release of the two earls, renewed her fears and gave fresh force to her anger. Irresolute for some days, she once countermanded by a special messenger the order for the death of Ess.e.x; then, as repenting of her weakness, she signed a second warrant, in obedience to which he was finally, on February 25th, brought to the scaffold.

The last scene was performed in a manner correspondent in all respects to the contrite and humiliated frame of mind to which the n.o.ble culprit had been wrought. It was no longer the brave, the gallant, the haughty earl of Ess.e.x, the favorite of the queen, the admiration of the ladies, the darling of the soldiery, the idol of the people;--no longer even the undaunted prisoner, pouring forth invectives against his enemies in answer to the charges against himself; loudly persisting in the innocence of his intentions, instead of imploring mercy for his actions, and defending his honor while he a.s.serted a lofty indifference to life;--it was a meek and penitent offender, profoundly sensible of all his past transgressions, but taught to expect their remission in the world to which he was hastening, through the fervency of his prayers and the plenitude of his confessions; and prepared, as his latest act, to perform in public a solemn religious service, composed for his use by the a.s.sistant clergy, whose directions he obeyed with the most scrupulous minuteness. Under a change so entire, even his native eloquence had forsaken him. Sir Robert Cecil, who seems to have been a cool and critical spectator of the fatal scene, remarks to his correspondent that "the conflict between the flesh and the soul did thus far appear, that in his prayers he was fain to be helped; otherwise no man living could pray more christianly than he did."

Ess.e.x had requested of the queen that he might be put to death in a private manner within the walls of the Tower, fearing, as he told the divines who attended him, that "the acclamations of the citizens should have hoven him up." His desire in this point was willingly complied with; but about a hundred n.o.bles, knights and gentlemen witnessed the transaction from seats placed near the scaffold. Sir Walter Raleigh chose to station himself at a window of the armory whence he could see all without being observed by the earl. This action, universally imputed to a barbarous desire of glutting his eyes with the blood of the man whom he hated and had pursued with a hostility more unrelenting than that of Cecil himself, was never forgiven by the people, who detested him no less than they loved and admired his unfortunate rival. Several years after, when Raleigh in his turn was brought to the same end in the same place, he professed however, and perhaps truly, that the sorrowful spectacle had melted him to tears: meantime, he at least extracted from the late events large gratification for another ruling pa.s.sion of his breast, by setting to sale his interest in procuring pardons to gentlemen concerned in the insurrection. Mr. Lyttleton in particular is recorded to have paid him ten thousand pounds for his good offices, and Mr. Bainham a sum not specified. The life of the earl of Southampton was spared, at the intercession chiefly of Cecil, but he was confined in the Tower till the death of the queen: others escaped with short imprisonments and the imposition of fines, few of which were exacted; sir Fulk Greville having humanely made it his business to represent to the queen that no danger was to be apprehended from a faction which had lost its leader. Four only of the princ.i.p.al conspirators suffered capitally; sir Christopher Blount and sir Charles Davers, both catholics, sir Gilly Merrick and Henry Cuff.

Those amba.s.sadors from the king of Scots on whose co-operation Ess.e.x had placed his chief reliance, now arrived; and finding themselves too late for other purposes, they obeyed their master's instructions in such a case by offering to the queen his warmest congratulations on her escape from so foul and dangerous a conspiracy. They were further charged to make secret inquiry whether James's correspondence with Ess.e.x and concurrence in the late conspiracy had come to her knowledge; and whether any measures were likely to be taken in consequence for his exclusion from the succession. The confessions of Ess.e.x to the privy-councillors had indeed rendered Elizabeth perfectly acquainted with the machinations of James; but resolute to refrain during the remnant of her days from all angry discussions with the prince whom she saw destined to succeed her, she had caused the earl to be not only requested, but commanded, to forbear the repet.i.tion of this part of his acknowledgements on the scaffold. She was thus left free to receive with all those demonstrations of amity which cost her nothing the compliments of James; and she remained deliberately ignorant of all that he desired her not to know. The Scottish emissaries had the further satisfaction of carrying back to their master a.s.surances of the general consent of Englishmen in his favor, and in particular a pledge of the adherence of secretary Cecil, who immediately opened a private correspondence with the king, of which lord Henry Howard, who had formerly conducted that of Ess.e.x, became the willing medium.

There is good evidence that the peace of Elizabeth received an incurable wound by the loss of her unhappy favorite, which she daily found additional cause to regret on perceiving how completely it had delivered her over to the domination of his adversaries; but she still retained the resolution to pursue with unabated vigor the great objects on which she was sensible that the mind of a sovereign ought to be with little remission employed. The memorable siege of Ostend, begun during this summer by the archduke Albert, fixed her attention and that of Europe.

The defence was conducted by that able officer sir Francis Vere at the head of a body of English auxiliaries, whom the States had enlisted with the queen's permission, at their own expense. Henry IV., as if for the purpose of observing more nearly the event, had repaired to Calais. The queen of England, earnestly desirous of a personal interview, wrote him two letters on the subject; and Henry sent in return marshal Biron and two other amba.s.sadors of rank, with a train of three or four hundred persons, whom the queen received with high honors, and caused to accompany her in her progress. During her visit of thirteen days to the marquis of Winchester at Basing, the French emba.s.sy was lodged at the house of lord Sandys, which was furnished for the occasion with plate and hangings from Hampton-court; the queen defraying all the charges, which were more than those of her own court at Basing. She made it her boast that she had in this progress entertained royally a royal amba.s.sador at her subjects' houses; which she said no other prince could do. The meeting of the two sovereigns, in hopes of which Elizabeth had actually gone to Dover, could not for some unknown reason be at last arranged; but Henry, at the particular instance of his friend and ally, sent Sully over in disguise to confer confidentially with her respecting an important political project which she had announced. This was no less than a plan for humbling the house of Austria, and establis.h.i.+ng a more perfect balance of power in Europe by uniting into one state the seventeen Flemish provinces. It was an idea, as Sully declared to her, which had previously occurred to Henry himself; and the coincidence was flattering to both; but various obstacles were found likely to r.e.t.a.r.d its execution till a period to which Elizabeth could scarcely look forward. One advantage, however, was gained to the queen of England by the interview;--the testimony of this celebrated statesman, recorded in his own memoirs, to the solidity of her judgement and the enlargement of her views; and his distinct avowal that she was in all respects worthy of the high estimation which she had for more than forty years enjoyed by common consent of all the politicians of Europe.

Ireland was still a source to Elizabeth of anxiety and embarra.s.sment. In order to sustain the expenses of the war, she suffered herself to be prevailed on to issue base money for the pay of the troops;--a mortifying circ.u.mstance, after the high credit which she had gained by that restoration of the coin to its original standard which was one of the first acts of her reign. Montjoy in the meantime was struggling with vigor and progressive success against the disorders of the country. With the a.s.sistance of sir George Carew president of Munster, and other able commanders, he was gradually reducing the inferior rebels and cutting off the supplies of Tyrone himself: but the courage of this insurgent was still supported by the hope of aids from Spain; and during this summer two bodies of Spanish troops, one of four thousand, the other of two thousand men, made good their landing. The larger number, under Aquila, took possession of Kinsale; the smaller, under Ocampo, was joined by Tyrone and other rebels with all their forces. The appearance of affairs was alarming, since the catholic Irish every where welcomed the Spaniards as deliverers and brethren: but Montjoy, after blockading Aquila in Kinsale, marched boldly to attack Ocampo and his Irish allies; gave them a complete defeat, in which the Spanish general was made prisoner and Tyrone compelled to fly into Ulster; and afterwards returning to the siege of Kinsale, compelled Aquila to capitulate on condition of a safe conveyance to their own country for himself and all the Spanish troops in the island.

The state of the queen's mind while the fate of Ireland seemed to hang in the balance, and while the impression made by the attempt of Ess.e.x was still recent, is depicted in the following letter by sir John Harrington with his usual minuteness and vivacity.

_To sir Hugh Portman knight._ (Dated October 9th 1601.)

"...For six weeks I left my oxen and sheep and ventured to court....

Much was my comfort in being well received, notwithstanding it is an ill hour for seeing the queen. The madcaps are all in riot, and much evil threatened. In good sooth I feared her majesty more than the rebel Tyrone, and wished I had never received my lord of Ess.e.x's honor of knighthood. She is quite _disfavored_[141] and unattired, and these troubles waste her much. She disregarded every costly cover that cometh to the table, and taketh little but manchet and succory pottage. Every new message from the city doth disturb her, and she frowns on all the ladies. I had a sharp message from her, brought by my lord Buckhurst, namely thus. 'Go tell that witty fellow my G.o.dson to get home; it is no season now to fool it here,' I liked this as little as she doth my knighthood, so took to my boots, and returned to the plough in bad weather. I must not say much even by this trusty and sure messenger, but the many evil plots and designs hath overcome all her highness' sweet temper. She walks much in her privy chamber, and stamps with her feet at ill news, and thrusts her rusty sword at times into the arras in great rage. My lord Buckhurst is much with her, and few else since the city business; but the dangers are over, and yet she always keeps a sword by her table. I obtained a short audience at my first coming to court, when her highness told me, if ill counsel had brought me so far from home, she wished heaven might mar that fortune which she had mended. I made my peace in this point, and will not leave my poor castle of Kelston, for fear of finding a worse elsewhere, as others have done. I will eat Aldborne rabbits, and get fish as you recommend from the man at Curry-Rival; and get partridge and hares when I can; and my venison where I can; and leave all great matters to those like them better than myself.... I could not move in any suit to serve your neighbour B. such was the face of things: and so disordered is all order that her highness hath worn but one change of raiment for many days, and swears much at those that cause her griefs in such wise, to the no small discomfiture of all about her, more especially our sweet lady Arundel, that _Venus plus quam venusta_."

[Note 141: Changed in countenance.]

In the month of October 1601, the wants of her treasury compelled the queen to call a parliament. Her procession to the house had something gloomy and ominous; the people, still resenting the death of their favorite, whom they never could be taught to regard as a traitor to his sovereign, refused to gratify her ears as formerly with those affectionate acclamations on which this wise and gracious princess had ever placed so high a value. The house of commons however, in consideration of her extraordinary expenses in the Irish wars, granted a supply large beyond example. Having thus deserved well of her majesty, they ventured to revive the topic of monopolies, the crying grievance of the age, against which the former parliament had pet.i.tioned her, but without effect. It was universally allowed, that the granting of exclusive privileges to trade in certain articles was a prerogative inherent in the crown; and though the practice so lavishly adopted by Elizabeth of providing in this manner for her courtiers without expense to herself, had rendered the evil almost intolerable, the ministerial members insisted strongly that no right existed in the house to frame a bill for its redress. It was maintained by them, that the dispensing power possessed by the queen would enable her to set at nought any statute which could be made in this matter;--in short, that she was an absolute prince; and consequently that the mode of pet.i.tion, of which the last parliament had proved the inefficacy, was the only course of proceeding open to them. Other members, in whose bosoms some sparks of liberty had now been kindled, supported the bill which had been offered to the house: the event was, that in the midst of the debate the queen sent for the speaker, to inform him that she would voluntarily cancel some of the patents which had excited most discontent.

This concession, though extorted doubtless by necessity, was yet made with so good a grace, that her faithful commons were filled with admiration and grat.i.tude. One member p.r.o.nounced the message "a gospel of glad tidings;" others employed phrases of adulation equally profane;--a committee was appointed to return their acknowledgements to her majesty, who kneeled for some time at her feet, while the speaker enlarged upon her "preventing grace and all-deserving goodness," She graciously gave thanks to the commons for pointing out to her abuses which might otherwise have escaped her notice; since the truth, as she observed, was too often disguised from princes by the persons about them, through motives of private interest: and thus, with the customary a.s.surances of her loving care over her loyal subjects, she skilfully accomplished her retreat from a contest in which she judged perseverance to be dangerous and final success at best uncertain. In her farewell speech, however, at the close of the session, she could not refrain from observing, in reference to this matter, that she perceived private respects to be masked with them under public pretences. Such was the final parting between Elizabeth and her last parliament!

The year 1602 was not fertile of domestic incident. One of the most remarkable circ.u.mstances was a violent quarrel between the Jesuits and the secular priests in England. The latter accused the former, and not without reason, of having been the occasion, by their a.s.sa.s.sination-plots and conspiracies against the queen and government, of all the severe enactments under which the English catholics had groaned since the fulmination of the papal bull against her majesty. In the height of this dispute, intelligence was conveyed to the privy-council of some fresh plots on the part of the Jesuits and their adherents; on which a proclamation was immediately issued, banis.h.i.+ng this order the kingdom on pain of death; and the same penalty was declared against all secular priests who should refuse to take the oath of allegiance.

The queen continued to pursue from habit, and probably from policy also, amus.e.m.e.nts for which all her relish was lost. She went a-maying to Air.

Buckley's at Lewisham, and paid several other visits in the course of the year;--but her efforts were unavailing; the irrevocable past still hung upon her spirits. About the beginning of June, in a conversation with M. de Beaumont the French amba.s.sador, she owned herself weary of life; then sighing, whilst her eyes filled with tears, she adverted to the death of Ess.e.x; and mentioned, that being apprehensive, from his ambition and the impetuosity of his temper, of his throwing himself into some rash design which would prove his ruin, she had repeatedly counselled him, during the two last years, to content himself with pleasing her, and forbear to treat her with the insolent contempt which he had lately a.s.sumed; above all, not to touch her sceptre; lest she should be compelled to punish him by the laws of England, and not according to her own laws; which he had found too mild and favorable to give him any cause of fear: but that her advice, however salutary and affectionate, had proved ineffectual to prevent his ruin.

A letter from sir John Harrington to his lady, dated December 27th, 1602, gives the following melancholy picture of the state of his sovereign and benefactress.

"Sweet Mall;

"I herewith send thee what I would G.o.d none did know, some ill-bodings of the realm and its welfare. Our dear queen, my royal G.o.dmother and this state's natural mother, doth now bear some show of human infirmity; too fast, for that evil which we shall get by her death, and too slow, for that good which she shall get by her releas.e.m.e.nt from pains and misery. Dear Mall, how shall I speak what I have seen or what I have felt? thy good silence in these matters emboldens my pen. For thanks to the sweet G.o.d of silence, thy lips do not wanton out of discretion's path like the many gossiping dames we could name, who lose their husbands' fast hold in good friends rather than hold fast their own tongues. Now I will trust thee with great a.s.surance; and whilst thou dost brood over thy young ones in the chamber, thou shalt read the doings of thy grieving mate in the court. I find some less mindful of what they are soon to lose, than of what they may perchance hereafter get: Now, on my own part, I cannot blot from my memory's table the goodness of our sovereign lady to me, even, I will say, before born. Her affection to my mother, who waited in privy-chamber, her bettering the state of my father's fortune (which I have, alas, so much worsted), her watchings over my youth, her liking to my free speech and admiration of my little learning and poesy, which I did so much cultivate on her command, have rooted such love, such dutiful remembrance of her princely virtues, that to turn askant from her condition with tearless eyes, would stain and foul the spring and fount of grat.i.tude. It was not many days since I was bidden to her presence; I blessed the happy moment, and found her in most pitiable state; she bade the archbishop ask me if I had seen Tyrone? I replied with reverence, that I had seen him with the lord deputy; she looked up with much choler and grief in her countenance, and said: O! now it mindeth me that you was _one_ who saw this man _elsewhere_[142], and hereat she dropped a tear and smote her bosom; she held in her hand a golden cup, which she often put to her lips; but in truth her heart seemeth too full to need more filling. This sight moved me to think of what pa.s.sed in Ireland, and I trust she did not less think on _some_ who were busier there than myself. She gave me a message to the lord deputy, and bade me come to the chamber at seven o'clock. Hereat some who were about her did marvel, as I do not hold so high place as those she did not choose to do her commands.... Her majesty inquired of some matters which I had written; and as she was pleased to note my fanciful brain, I was not unheedful to feed her humour, and read some verses, whereat she smiled once, and was pleased to say: 'When thou dost feel creeping time at thy gate, these fooleries will please thee less; I am past my relish for such matters; thou seest my bodily meat doth not suit me well; I have eaten but one ill-tasted cake since yesternight.' She rated most grievously at noon at some one who minded not to bring up certain matters of account: several men have been sent to, and when ready at hand, her highness hath dismissed in anger; but who, dearest Mall, shall say, that 'your highness hath forgotten?'"

[Note 142: Harrington had been at a conference held with him by Ess.e.x; for which he had been severely rated by the queen.]

During the campaign of 1602, lord Montjoy had been occupied in Ireland in reducing the inferior rebels to submission; in building forts and planting garrisons; at the same time wasting the country in every direction, for the purpose of straitening the quarters of Tyrone and cutting off his supplies. At length, having collected all his forces, he purposed to hazard an attack on the chieftain himself, in the midst of the desert fastnesses to which he had driven him; but the difficulties which he experienced from the impa.s.sable state of the roads, the treachery of scouts and the inclemency of the season, compelled him to defer this undertaking till the return of spring. Meantime, such was the extremity of distress to which Tyrone had been reduced, that numbers of his people had perished by hunger; and perceiving the remnant fast diminis.h.i.+ng by daily desertion, he renewed the offer of surrender on certain conditions which he had propounded some months before. At that time, Cecil had once prevailed upon her majesty, for the sake of avoiding the intolerable expense of a further prosecution of the Irish war, to sign the rebel's pardon;--but she had immediately retracted the concession, and all that he was able finally to gain of her, by the intercession of the French amba.s.sador, was a promise, that if Tyrone were not taken by the lord deputy before winter, she would consent to pardon him. About Christmas her council urged upon her the fulfilment of this engagement; but she replied with warmth, that she would not begin at her age to treat with her subjects, nor leave such an ill example after her decease[143].

[Note 143: Carte.]

The importunities of her ministers, however, among whom Tyrone is said to have made himself friends, finally overpowered the reluctance of the queen; and she authorized the deputy to grant the rebel his life, with some part of the terms which he asked; but so extreme was her mortification in making this concession, that many have regarded it as the origin of that deep melancholy to which she soon after fell a victim. The council apprehended, or affected to apprehend, that Tyrone would still refuse to surrender on the hard conditions imposed by the queen; but so desperate was now his situation, that without even waiting to receive them, he had thrown himself at the feet of the deputy and submitted his lands and life to the queen's mercy. Ministers more resolute, or more disinterested, might therefore have spared her the degradation, as she regarded it, of treating with a rebel. The news of his final submission, which occurred four days only before her death, she never learned.