CHAPTER XI 1572-1576

One of the first effects of the massacre of St. Bartholomew was an approach on the part of Burghley to the Spanish agent in England. The object probably was to keep in touch and to learn what was going on, whilst arousing the jealousy of the French, and, above all, to reopen English trade with Flanders and Spain. In any case, the cordiality of so great a personage as the Lord Treasurer quite turned the head of simple-minded, vain Antonio de Guaras, who suddenly found himself treated as an important diplomatist, and for the rest of his life tried, but disastrously, to live up to the character.[361] Soon after the expulsion of De Spes, one of Burghley’s agents had opened up communications with De Guaras, which resulted in an interview between the latter and the Lord Treasurer. The minister was graciousness itself, and quite dazzled the merchant. There was nothing, he assured him, that he desired more than an agreement with Spain on all points; and though it all came to nothing at the time, and shortly afterwards the Flemish Commissioners were curtly dismissed, a letter was handed to Guaras late in August 1572 to be sent to Alba, making professions of willingness to negotiate for a reopening of trade, and to withdraw the English troops from Flanders. Before the reply came in October the massacre of St. Bartholomew had taken place, and when De Guaras[281] went to Burghley at Hampton Court with a letter from Alba he found him all smiles. “The Queen was only remarking yesterday,” said he, “that she wondered Antonio de Guaras did not come to court with a reply to the message offering to withdraw the Englishmen who were helping the rebels.” They were only sent there, said Burghley, to prevent Frenchmen from gaining a footing. He was overjoyed to receive Alba’s kind letter, and took it to the Queen at once, though she had already sickened with the smallpox, which a day or two afterwards declared itself. He hoped, he said, that God would pardon those who had caused the dissension between the two countries; and the Queen was most willing to come to terms. He expressed delight at the reported successes of Alba. He compared Spaniards with Frenchmen, greatly to the disadvantage of the latter, and “he said more against the French than I did, speaking with great reverence of our King, and of so courageous a Prince, which were the words he applied to your Excellency” (Alba).

The delighted merchant was pressed to stay to supper to meet such great personages as the Earl of Sussex, the Lord Chamberlain, and others; and the next day he was in conference with Burghley for hours, with the result that the latter consented to draw up a new draft treaty for the reopening of trade, one of the clauses of which was to touch upon the tender subject of the treatment extended by the Inquisition to English merchants and mariners in Spain. Burghley hinted to De Guaras that some of the Council were against an accord, but he persuaded him that his own feelings were all in favour of a renewal of the close understanding with the House of Burgundy. De Guaras was backwards and forwards to court for weeks, more charmed than ever with the Lord Treasurer’s amiability. “It is,” he says, “undoubted[282] that a great amount of dissension exists in the Council, some being friendly to our side, and others to the French; but the best Councillor of all of them is Lord Burghley, as he follows the tendency of the Queen, which is towards concord. As he is supreme in the country and in the Queen’s estimation, in all the important Councils which were held during the days that I was at court, he, with his great eloquence, having right on his side, was able to persuade those who were opposed to him. He assured me privately that he had gained over the great majority of his opponents, and especially the Earl of Leicester, who has always been on the side of the French.”[362] Burghley could be very persuasive and talkative when it suited him, as it very rarely did. The French, he said, were most anxious for a close alliance, but the Queen and himself set but small store on “these noisy French and Italians.”

A Spanish spy in London, unknown to De Guaras, scornfully wrote to Alba that Lord Burghley was playing with De Guaras; and before many weeks had passed, the latter himself had begun to doubt. Burghley passed him in his ante-room three times without so much as noticing him. “Some great plot against the Spaniards in Flanders” was hatching, he was sure; “and in one moment they decided that their false news was of more importance than our friendship.” “Whilst this Government exists, no good arrangement will be made, as the Queen only desires it from fear, and the rest will oppose it on religious grounds.” When De Guaras saw the Lord Treasurer later in November (1572), grave doubts were expressed about the bona fides of Philip, much to the Spaniard’s indignation. Burghley said he was still strongly in favour of an arrangement, because the French, who wished the English wool trade to go to France instead[283] of Flanders, were so shifty, and could not be trusted. The Queen would be glad, too, to mediate between Spain and the Prince of Orange. Thus Burghley played on the hopes and fears of Spain; but through the whole negotiation it was clear that the objects were—first, if possible, to reopen the ports for English trade on profitable terms;[363] and, secondly, to keep Spain in hand, pending the development of events in France, and the strengthening of Orange for his forthcoming campaign.

In the meanwhile Sir Humphrey Gilbert and his 800 Englishmen were recalled from Flanders, and the elaborate pretence made that he was in disgrace for having gone thither at all against the Queen’s wish; and other demonstrations were made, especially by Burghley, of a desire to agree on friendly conditions with Spain. As weeks passed without any reply coming from Alba to the draft treaty, Burghley grew distrustful, and, as De Guaras complains, coldly passed him without recognising him. At last, late in December, he sent for the Spaniard and made a speech, which, De Guaras says, sounded as if it had been studied. “He hoped,” he said, “that the good-will of himself and his friends would be recognised. Some of the Councillors thought that De Guaras had been playing them false,[364] and his (Burghley’s) party was much[284] annoyed that no answer had come, especially about the simultaneous opening of the ports.” All the while the vigorous support of Orange’s preparations went on; money, men, and arms flowed over in abundance (early in 1573); and the Dutch agents were in England urging Elizabeth openly to take Holland and Zeeland under her protection, and to lend national countenance to the struggle against Spain. She was not prepared for this yet, for France was under the influence of the Guises, and their intrigues in Scotland left her no rest. But Alba was afraid of the bare possibility of a great Protestant league of English, Germans, and Huguenots, in favour of Orange; and his pride was humbled more by this than by professions of friendship. The result of Burghley’s negotiations through De Guaras, and the aiding of Orange, was that in the summer of 1573 the Flemish and Spanish ports were once more opened to English trade, on terms immensely favourable to England,[365] since she obtained a free market for her cloth, whilst she kept the great bulk of the enormous amount of Spanish property which Elizabeth had seized five years previously. This was a greater exemplification of the impotence of Philip, even than the expulsion of De Spes. All the world could see now that, much as his Inquisition might harry individual Englishmen, the King could neither defend nor avenge the injuries done to himself; and was obliged to overlook the presence of[285] armed English regiments on the side of his rebellious subjects, for the sake of retaining the profit brought to his dominions by English commerce. Burghley had at all events established one fact, namely, that, for the present, Philip alone could do no harm.

The struggles between the Protestants and Catholics in Scotland had continued almost without interruption since the death of Murray. Mary’s friends were still numerous and strong amongst the aristocratic and landed classes, and were supported, as we have seen, by Spanish and papal money, as well as by Guisan intrigue. The Regent Lennox had been murdered by the Hamiltons (September 1571), and his successor (Mar) had died of poison or a broken heart (November 1572); but with the advent of Morton, a man of stronger fibre, the Protestant cause became more aggressive, and the English influence over Scotland more decided. Shortly before this happened, when the effects of St. Bartholomew were still weighing on the English court, and it was known that Catharine de Medici and her son were as busy with the Archbishop of Glasgow in supporting the Hamiltons and Gordons as was Cardinal Lorraine himself, secret instructions were given to Killigrew, the English Ambassador in Scotland, to take a step which under any other circumstances would have been inexcusable. The secret instructions are drafted in Burghley’s hand, and more obloquy has been piled upon his memory in consequence of them than for any other action in his career; even his thick-and-thin apologist, Dr. Nares, confessing that he could only look upon Killigrew’s orders “with feelings of disgust and horror.” Killigrew’s open mission was to reconcile the King’s party with those who championed the cause of his mother, and especially with Kirkaldy of Grange and Lethington, who still held Edinburgh Castle; but his secret instructions[286] were to a different effect. He was to warn the Protestants that a second St. Bartholomew might be intended in Scotland—not by any means an improbable suggestion, considering who were the promoters of the original massacre. “But you are also chosen to deal in a third matter of far greater moment.” The continuance of the Queen of Scots in England, he is told, is considered dangerous, and it is deemed desirable that she should be sent to Scotland and delivered to the Regent (Mar), “if it might be wrought that they themselves should secretly require it, with good assurance to deal with her by way of justice, that she should receive that which she hath deserved, whereby no further peril should ensue from her escaping, or by setting her up again. Otherwise the Council of England will never assent to deliver her out of the realm; and for assurance, none can suffice but hostages of good value—that is, some children of the Regent and the Earl of Morton.”[366] The suggestion was not a chivalrous or a generous one. It meant nothing less than handing over the unfortunate Mary to her enemies to be executed, and so to rid Elizabeth of her troublesome guest without responsibility. Killigrew was Burghley’s brother-in-law, and the two, with Leicester and the Queen, were the only persons acquainted with the intention.

On his arrival in Edinburgh the new envoy found the Protestants profoundly moved by the news of the massacre in Paris; Knox, paralysed and on the brink of the grave, used his last remaining spark of life to denounce the Guises and the Papists who had forged the murder plot against the people of God. Killigrew found Morton ready and eager to help in the sacrifice of Mary, but Mar held back; and Burghley and Leicester wrote,[287] urging speed in the matter.[367] When the terms of the Scots at last were sent to Burghley, it was seen that, though they were willing to have Mary killed, they would not relieve Elizabeth of the responsibility.[368] The death of Mar put an end for a time to the negotiation, which was never seriously undertaken again, as it was clear that the Scots would drive too hard a bargain to suit Elizabeth.

It is my province to explain facts rather than to apologise for them, and the explanation of the plan to cause Mary to be judicially murdered in Scotland must be sought in the panic which seized upon the Protestants after St. Bartholomew. The massacre was generally believed to be only a part of a plan for the universal extirpation of the reformers, in which it was known that Mary Stuart’s friends and relatives were the prime movers, and one of the main objects was represented to be the raising of Mary to the throne of a Catholic Great Britain. So long as this belief existed, no step was inexcusable that aimed at frustrating so diabolical and widespread a conspiracy. That Burghley himself was not sensible of any turpitude in the matter may be seen from a letter written by him to Walsingham on the 14th January 1573, begging him to discover the[288] author of a book printed in Paris, in which he and Bacon are scurrilously accused of plans against Norfolk and Mary. “God amend his spirit,” he says, referring to the author, “and confound his malice. As for my part, if I have any such malicious or malignant spirit, God presently so confound my body to ashes and my soul to perpetual torment in hell.”[369]

How soon Catharine de Medici and her son regretted the false step of St. Bartholomew is seen by their attitude towards England early in the following year (1573). The Archbishop of Glasgow was plainly told that no more help could be given to his mistress, Cardinal Lorraine failed ignominiously to draw France into renewed activity on behalf of the League, and Charles IX. considered it necessary to apologise to Elizabeth for the presence in his court of the special papal envoy already referred to. It was seen also that the blood and iron policy of Alba had ended in failure: the revolt in the Netherlands was stronger than ever, Holland was entirely in the hands of Orange, and most of the Catholic provinces of Flanders even had broken from their Spanish allegiance. Under these circumstances it seemed possible that the secular dream of Frenchmen might eventually come to pass, and the fine harbours and busy towns of Belgium might fall to the share of France. But this could only be if she had a close understanding and made common cause with England. So once more the Alen?on marriage was vigorously pushed to the front by Catharine. In February the French Ambassador saw Elizabeth, and formally prayed her to give an answer whether she would marry the Prince or not. If she would only let them know her pleasure now, the King and Queen-mother would trouble her no more. It was a good opportunity, and Elizabeth[289] made the most of it. Fair terms must be given to the Huguenots in Rochelle, she said, and on condition that this was done, she would give an answer about Alen?on through Lord Burghley. On the 18th February the Lord Treasurer made his formal speech. The Queen would never marry a man she had never seen. If the Prince liked to come over, even secretly, he would be welcome; but in any case an interview had better precede the discussion of religion, because if the lovers did not fancy each other, the question of conscience would be a convenient pretext for breaking off the negotiation; but still no public exercise of Catholic worship must be expected. When Burghley sent to Walsingham a copy of his speech, he added for his private information: “I see the imminent perils to this State, and … the success (i.e. the succession) of the crown manifestly uncertain, or rather so manifestly prejudicial to the state of religion, that I cannot but still persist in seeking marriage for her Majesty, and finding no way that is liking to her but this of the Duke, I do force myself to pursue it with desire, and do fancy myself with imaginations that if he do come hither her Majesty would not refuse him.… If I am deceived, yet for the time it easeth me to imagine that such a sequel may follow.”[370] This was uncertain enough; but Walsingham was even less encouraging. He was sick of the whole hollow business; profoundly distrustful of the French; and, moreover, was a friend of Leicester, who constantly plied him with letters deprecating the match. This, then, is how he managed cleverly to stand in with Burghley whilst serving Leicester. “Touching my private opinion of the marriage, the great impediment that I find in the same is the contentment of the eye. The gentleman, sure, is void of any good favour, besides the[290] blemish of the small pocks. Now, when I weigh the same with the delicateness of her Majesty’s eye, and considering also that there are some about her in credit, who in respect of their particular interests, have neither regard for her Majesty, nor to the preservation of our country from ruine, and will rather increase the misliking by defacing him than by dutifully laying before her the necessity of marriage … I hardly think there will ever grow any liking.… Whether this marriage be sincerely meant here or not is a hard point to judge … in my opinion I think rather no than yea.”[371] This was almost the last letter written by Walsingham as Ambassador. He was recalled, to be shortly afterwards appointed joint-Secretary of State with Sir Thomas Smith, with the intention of still further relieving Burghley from routine labour; and Dr. Dale, as Ambassador in Paris, kept alive the ridiculous, and frequently insincere, discussion of the marriage of Elizabeth and Alen?on.[372]

Burghley’s labours and anxieties were not confined to foreign affairs. His interest in the uniformity and discipline of the Anglican Church was unceasing, and especially in connection with his Chancellorship of Cambridge University, gave him endless anxiety. The vestments controversy had now widened and deepened. The famous tract called “An Admonition to Parliament” had been presented to the Parliament of 1572 by Cartwright; and its violence in a Puritan direction had provoked a controversy, which, at the period now under consideration (1573), had developed on one side into a bitter antagonism to prelacy, and even sacerdotalism in all its forms. Both parties appealed to Burghley. He made a speech in the Star Chamber which left no[291] doubt as to his attitude, if any such ever existed, on the point. The Queen, he said, was determined to have the laws obeyed. No innovation of ritual or practice would be permitted. If any of the “novelists” were under the impression that departures from the rules laid down would remain unpunished, he disabused their minds. A Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, named Chark, violently attacked the hierarchy from the University pulpits, and was admonished. He persisted, and was ejected from his Fellowship. Another Cambridge man, Edward Dering, Lecturer at St. Paul’s Cathedral, acted similarly, and was summoned before the Privy Council, and was suspended from his preferment. At the instance of Bishop Sandys[373] he was restored, but again brought before the Star Chamber when he addressed a long letter to Burghley advocating his views. Whilst Leicester always favoured the Puritans, the Lord Treasurer was thus on the side of the law and the prelates; and though he was constantly chosen as arbiter, even by those with whom he disagreed, he never wavered in his insistence on the maintenance of uniformity, and obedience to the prescriptions laid down by Parliament and the rulers of the Church.[374]

Notwithstanding the appointment of two Secretaries[292] of State, which somewhat relieved him from writing despatches, almost every matter, great and small, was still referred to Burghley. We have given instances of his activity in foreign and ecclesiastical affairs; but, as Ellis[375] truly says, “from a question of peace or war, down to a regulation for the lining of slop hose; from quarrels at court to the bickering between a schoolmaster and his scholar; from the arrest of a peer to the punishment of a cutpurse—all was reported to him, and by all parties in turn his favour was craved.”

It must have been difficult for him to keep clear of court factions and scandal; but though it was notorious that Leicester always opposed him, they still remained outwardly friendly, and their letters to each other are full of civil expressions. Sussex and Hatton were for ever at feud with Leicester. Alen?on’s amorous agents scandalised all beholders by their open flirting with the Queen, to which Leicester retorted by making violent love to two sisters, Lady Sheffield and Frances Howard; and the light-hearted and light-heeled young Earl of Oxford, Burghley’s son-in-law at this time (1573), had danced himself into the good graces of the erotic Queen, which he soon lost by his folly. Stern Lady Burghley openly and imprudently condemned this philandering, and the Queen fell into a rage with her; yet “my Lord Treasurer, even after his old manner, dealeth with matters of the State only, and beareth himself very uprightly.… At all these love matters my Lord Treasurer winketh, and will not meddle any way.”[376]

[293]

Burghley’s private correspondence with his steward, Kemp, at Burghley, at this period, shows that his care for detail in his household management was as unwearied as ever. One letter written in June 1573 by Kemp is very curious. Burghley’s mother was still alive, but, of course, very aged. She appears to have become unduly penurious as to her garb, and her son had ordered a dress for the old lady. The steward writes: “Mr. Thomas Cecil came home well, and my mistress, your mother, came to Burghley two hours before him. The gown that you would make, it must be for every day, and yet because it comes from you (except you write to her to the contrary) she will make it her holiday gown; whereof she hath great store already, both of silk and cloth. But I think, sir, if you make her one of cloth, with some velvet on it, with your letter to desire her for your sake to wear it daily, she would accustom herself to it; so as she would forget to go any longer in such base apparel as she hath used to have a delight in, which is too mean for one of a lower estate than she is.” The old lady also desired a chaplain for service twice a day; and by Burghley’s endorsement on the letter, it is evident that the gown and the chaplain were sent to her.

During the Queen’s great progress through Kent and Sussex in the autumn, Burghley attended her; and whilst the court was at Eridge, the Treasurer, not without difficulty, persuaded the Queen to accede to Mary Stuart’s request, through the Earl of Shrewsbury, that she should be allowed to visit the baths of Buxton, whither shortly afterwards Burghley himself went for his own malady,[377][294] and saw the unhappy Queen, whom on this occasion, at all events, he impressed not unfavourably.[378] During the Queen’s progress, which was on a more lavish scale even than usual,[379] a determined attempt was made—and, according to one of Mary Stuart’s letters from Buxton, not quite unsuccessfully—to arouse Elizabeth’s distrust of Burghley. Simultaneously there were sent to the Queen, to Burghley, to Bacon, and the principal courtiers and ecclesiastics, another violent book printed in France against Burghley and the Lord Keeper. A copy was sent to the Queen by Lord Windsor, a refugee on the Continent, with great professions of attachment, and hints evidently directed against Burghley, “although for my part, in mine opinion, I suppose he is too wise to be overtaken in many of those things which he is touched withal.”[380] Burghley received his copy from an unknown hand in Canterbury Cathedral precincts, where he was lodged, and it appears quite to have upset his equanimity. He wrote (11th September 1573) to the Archbishop (Parker) bitterly resenting the attack at such a time “by some domestic hidden scorpion.” “If God and our consciences were not our defence and consolation against these pestilential darts, we might well be weary of our lives.” Parker[295] returned “the mad book, so outrageously penned that malice hath made him blind. I judge it not worth an answer.” Bacon was less disturbed with the matter than his brother-in-law, and summarises the contents of the book as follows: “It consisteth of three points. Chiefly it is to change the religion that now is; 2nd, to establish the Scottish Queen’s party; and, 3rd, is an invective against us two. I like the conjunction of the matter, though I mislike the impudent lies of the author to maintain it.”

The accession of Morton to the Regency of Scotland had been followed by the complete collapse of Mary’s cause there. Killigrew was ready with English bribes, and the Hamiltons and the Gordons were induced to abandon a hopeless struggle and lay down their arms. Only Kirkaldy of Grange held out, hoping against hope that the promised Guisan help would reach him in Edinburgh Castle. Once a large sum of French money for him was withheld by the treachery of Sir James Balfour, corrupt almost to the point of grotesqueness; and thenceforward Kirkaldy, Lord Hume, and the rest of the party simply held out in the castle to save their lives. But when Drury with English troops crossed the Border and reinforced Morton, Kirkaldy surrendered to the English general, on promise of fair treatment. Morton insisted upon the prisoners being delivered to him, for whilst they lived, he said, there would be no safety for him or the State; and though Drury held out, Elizabeth at last gave way to Morton’s importunity, and brave Kirkaldy and the rest of Mary’s staunch friends lost their heads. Thenceforward Mary Stuart’s cause was dead, so far as the Scottish people themselves were concerned. Morton nearly obtained the Bishop of Ross, too, from Elizabeth, but he was after all a sovereign’s Ambassador, and her Council dissuaded her from surrendering him.[296] On his abject submission and solemn promise never again to take part in public affairs,[381] he was allowed to go to France, to break his pledge at once, and become thenceforward an untiring agent for the furtherance of Spanish aims in England. Thus Scotland for a time, under so firm an English ally as Morton, ceased to cause active anxiety to Elizabeth and her minister.

Alba, sick of his sanguinary failure, was replaced in Flanders by a more diplomatic Governor (Requesens) late in 1573. Though De Guaras in London continued humbly to imitate De Spes, and immersed himself in intrigues, such as that of the English captains who proposed to betray Flushing, the plans of those who offered to kill the Prince of Orange, to kidnap the young King of Scotland, and the like, many of these plans were merely traps set by Burghley to learn how far the Spaniards were willing to go; and they came to nothing, for of all things Philip needed peace the most. Alba and the war party in Spain were in disgrace, the commerce of the country was almost destroyed by the privateers, and friendly relations with England were once more the great object of Philip’s policy. Burghley also renewed his efforts to draw the countries closer together, for reasons which will presently be stated. A great delivery of Catholics from prison was made mainly at his instance, and drew upon him remonstrances and attacks, both on the part of some of the Bishops themselves, in a guarded fashion, and more violently from the Puritans, now openly patronised by Leicester. Arising out of this, a great conspiracy was said to have been discovered against the lives of Archbishop Parker and Lord Burghley, on the part of one Undertree. The depositions of the accused, which are in the Hatfield Papers, are, as usual in such cases, full to the extent of diffuseness; but though Parker was[297] much alarmed, and the affair gave Burghley an infinity of trouble, there does not appear to have been much importance really attached to it.

The key to Burghley’s milder attitude towards the Catholics—apart from the disappearance of Mary Stuart’s party in Scotland—was the position of affairs in France. The talk of Elizabeth’s marriage with Alen?on had continued uninterruptedly, drawn out with a thousand banalities as to the possibility of secret meetings between the lovers, the depth and number of pock holes on the suitor’s face, his personal qualities, his religious elasticity, and the like. His brother, Charles IX., was only twenty-four, but it was known that he could not live long; the heir, Anjou, now King of Poland, was a furious and fanatical Catholic. With the knowledge of Elizabeth and her minister, all France was enveloped in a vast conspiracy, in which the Montmorencis and the “politicians” were making common cause with the Huguenots, of which combination Alen?on was the figurehead. But Catharine de Medici was fully aware of the fact, and was determined to frustrate it. With Anjou for King she might still be supreme in France; whereas the rise of Alen?on, under the tutelage of the Huguenots and the Queen of England, would have meant extinction for her. Several times before Charles died, Alen?on and the Princes of Navarre and Condé had tried to escape to England, but Catharine held them tight, and never left them. Montgomerie was waiting for the signal, with a strong fleet in the Channel, to swoop down upon Normandy, and all the Protestants and anti-Guisans in France were under arms. The mine was to burst in April, the Princes were to be rescued forcibly from Catharine, and St. Bartholomew was to be avenged. But the Queen-mother was on the alert. Just before the day fixed she hurried away from St. Germains to[298] Catholic Paris, clapped Alen?on and Navarre, Montmorenci, De Cossé, and all the chiefs into prison, and then crushed the Protestant armies piecemeal, for they were leaderless and far apart. When, therefore, Charles IX. died (30th May 1574), Catharine was mistress of the situation, and held France in her hand until the new King, Henry III., arrived, to take possession of the throne. With such a sovereign as this in France, led by Catharine, who had her grudge to satisfy against Elizabeth for the encouragement she had given to the Princes, it was natural that Burghley should again smile somewhat upon the Catholics, and say civil words to Spain; especially as panic-stricken rumours came—though they were untrue—that Philip was fitting out a great navy to send with a powerful force to Flanders.[382] Catholic Flanders, moreover, had mostly been brought back to Spanish allegiance by the mildness of Requesens; and Elizabeth was growing less willing to continue to provide large sums of money to uphold Orange in what now appeared to be a well-nigh desperate cause, if it had to be supported entirely from England. So when Requesens’ envoys came to see her about the regulation of trade, and the exclusion of the privateers from her ports, she was all smiles; and although upon being appealed to, to allow English mercenaries to serve the Spaniards in Flanders as they served Orange, she refused, though[299] not very firmly, she expressed her desire to bring Orange to submit to the King of Spain. Once more, therefore, an unrestrained Catholic regime in France inevitably drew England and Spain closer together. It was only when the Huguenots were paramount, who would not join Philip against England, or help the Catholics of Scotland, that Elizabeth and Burghley could afford to disregard the friendship of the King of Spain.

The behaviour of the young sovereign of France—no longer a king, but a besotted monk, sunk into the deepest abyss of debauchery and superstition—kept alive the discontent of the Huguenots and “politicians,” who had regarded his accession with horror. Alen?on and the King held rival courts in Paris, the one surrounded by reformers, the other by all that was retrograde and vicious. Cardinal Lorraine was dead, and the King’s advisers were no longer statesmen, but mendicant friars and the Italian time-servers of the Queen-mother: Henry of Guise was just entering into the arena, and was already a popular idol; and all seemed to portend a renewal of French activity in favour of Mary Stuart.[383] Elizabeth therefore went out of her way to dazzle poor foolish De Guaras again. Seeing him walking in Richmond Park, she called him to her, and[300] exerted all her witchery upon him (March 1575). “You understand,” she said, “full well, old wine, old bread, and old friends should be prized the most, and if only for the sake of showing these Frenchmen who are wrangling as to whether our friendship is firm or not, there is good reason to prove outwardly the kind feeling which inwardly exists.”[384] She accused the poor man, quite coquettishly, of having received a token from the Queen of Scots—which he had not—but ended by quite winning him over by her prattle. Almost simultaneously with this, strict orders were given to the Warden of the Cinque Ports “to prevent the landing of the Prince of Orange, or any of his aiders or abettors in the conspiracy against the King of Spain, and also to prevent their receiving any aid, succour, or relief, in men, armour, or victuals.”[385]

Considering that the revolt in Holland had been mainly kept up from England, this was indeed a complete change of policy; but more was behind it even than appeared. Many of the Catholic refugees on the Continent were spies in the service of Lord Burghley, to whom nearly all of them appealed as their only hope and protector, and one of them particularly, named Woodshaw,[386] who was deep in the confidence of La Motte, the Spanish Governor of Gravelines. The latter suggested that, as war between France and England was in the air, it would be a good plan for the English to seize Calais or Boulogne, with the aid of the Spaniards, and come to terms with Philip to prevent any aid or food reaching the French from Flanders or Artois. This was conveyed to Burghley, and soon Sir William Drury,[301] Colonel Chester, and several of the officers who had come from Holland, were in close conference daily with him and the other Councillors remaining in London when the Queen went upon her summer progress. De Guaras, whilst reporting their movements, was in the dark as to their object. “During the last three days,” he says, “at night or at unsuspected hours, they have taken from the Tower sixty waggons and gun carriages, which have been shipped to Dover.” Guns, battery-trains, culverins, fieldpieces, and ammunition were being shipped on four of the Queen’s ships at Rochester. Mariners were being pressed, commanders were leaving secretly for the coast, Burghley’s son-in-law the Earl of Oxford, with Ralph Hopton and young Montmorenci, hurried off to Germany, and the Huguenot agents were closeted with Burghley almost day and night. We know now what it all meant, by a letter from the Earl of Sussex to Lord Burghley,[387] in which he deplores the projected war with Catholic France, which, he says, is only brought about by those who wish to prevent the Queen’s marriage with Alen?on. “It will bring her into war with all Europe, and she and the realm will smart for the pleasing of these men’s humours.” The cost of the war, he says, was to be defrayed equally by the King of Navarre (Henry), the German princes, and the Queen; “but he fears her Majesty in the end must pay for all, or let all fall when she hath put her foot in.”

Wilkes, the Clerk of the Council, was sent with a large sum of money to young Montmorenci (Meru) in Strasbourg, and then over the Rhine to the Duke Hans Casimir, the great mercenary; and Meru was able to write to Burghley in October, “Thanks to the Queen’s favour by your means, we are now on the point of succeeding. One of the finest armies that for twenty years hath issued[302] from Germany, ready to march, is coming just in time to succour the King’s brother.”[388] All through the summer De Guaras was at fault as to the meaning of the preparations, which he thought might be a joint expedition against the Spaniards in Flanders. As we have seen, the very opposite really was the case. Some of the principal English officers, indeed, who had been with Orange were full of plots with De Guaras for poisoning the Prince, for betraying Flushing into Spanish hands, and so forth. For the moment there were certainly no smiles from Elizabeth for the Netherlanders; for Orange had taken a masterly step, such as she herself might have conceived. When he saw that English help was slackening, he boldly made approaches to France for help. So long as it was Huguenot help under her control, Elizabeth did not mind; but when it was a question of marrying Orange’s daughter to Alen?on or some other French prince, and obtaining French national patronage, it was quite another matter—that Elizabeth would never allow. So England and Spain grew closer and closer. Sir Henry Cobham was sent as an envoy to Philip, ostensibly on the question of the English prisoners of the Inquisition, but really to propose a friendship between the two countries, and inform the King of the Prince of Orange’s intrigues with the French.[389] A Spanish flotilla on its way to the Netherlands, under Don Pedro de Valdés, was, moreover, welcomed in the English ports, and an envoy from Requesens took part, as the Queen’s guest, in the memorable festivities at Kenilworth.

A renewed appeal was made to the Council by Orange in August, through Colonel Chester. He offered the island[303] of Zeeland to Elizabeth, if she would hold it, and begged permission to raise two thousand fresh men in England. The reply given by Burghley was to the effect that “if the Queen allowed such a thing, the King of Spain would have a good cause for introducing schism and fire into her country through Ireland. If Orange carried out his threat to hand over the territory to the French, the Queen would oppose it.” Every day some fresh proof of friendship with Spain was given. Frobisher proposed to place his fleet at the disposal of the King of Spain, proclamations were issued forbidding all British subjects from taking service with Orange, and offers of mediation were frequent. In September 1575, Alen?on managed to escape the vigilance of his brother and his mother, fled to Dreux, adopted the Huguenot cause, and headed the revolt with Henry of Navarre. This was the eventuality in which the English preparations were to have been employed. But, again, Catharine de Medici was too clever to be caught. She suddenly released Montmorenci and the rest of the “politicians” from the Bastile, attached them to the King’s cause, and through them patched up a six months’ truce between the two brothers (November). The terms were hard for Henry. Alen?on was bribed with 100,000 livres, and the three rich duchies of Anjou, Berri, and Touraine; Hans Casimir got 300,000 crowns, and a pension of 40,000 livres; the German mercenaries were handsomely paid to go home; Condé was promised the governorship of Picardy; the Montmorencis, De Cossé, the Chatillons, and the rest of the malcontents were bought; the crown jewels of France were pawned, and the country plunged deeply in debt to pay for the famous truce.

Then Elizabeth and her advisers found themselves confronted with increased difficulties, as they usually did when the Catholics in France had a free hand. Catharine[304] and the King saw that France was not big enough to hold at the same time the sovereign and the heir presumptive, and cast about for means to get rid of him profitably. The best suggestion for them came from the Walloon nobles in favour of Spain. Why should not Alen?on marry a daughter of the Spanish King and be made Viceroy of Spanish Flanders? The mere whisper of such an arrangement drove Elizabeth into a new course. She might hint, as she did pretty broadly many times, at the marriage of the young Prince with herself, but Alen?on thought he saw more advantage elsewhere. For the next three years he was held tightly in the leading-strings of his mother and brother—no longer a Huguenot, but an ostentatiously devout Catholic, hating the King and his surroundings bitterly; jealous, vengeful, and turbulent, but looking for his future to the Catholics and the League rather than to the Queen of England, with whom he kept up just a sufficient pretence of love-making to prevent her from opposing him in Flanders. It was doubly necessary now for Elizabeth to be friendly with Spain; but she could not afford to see Orange utterly crushed, for with the Huguenots and Protestant Holland both subdued, there was no barrier between her and Catholic vengeance. The position was a perplexing one for her. Orange sent over prayers almost daily for help, or he must abandon the struggle. At one time, in December, when the Queen learned that a great deputation of Dutch Protestant nobles were on the way to offer her Holland and Zeeland in exchange for English support,[390] “she entered her chamber alone, slamming the door after her, and crying out that they were ruining her over this business. She declared loudly that she would have no[305] forces sent openly to Holland. She was in such grief that her ladies threatened to burst her door open if she would not admit them, as they could not bear her to be alone in such trouble.”[391] But loudly as she might protest, especially in the hearing of the friends of Spain, and roughly as she might use St. Aldegonde, Paul Buiz, and the rest of the Netherlanders who prayed for aid, she took care, with Burghley’s help, to look fixedly in another direction when men and arms, munitions and money, were sent over to Orange in violation of her own orders.

What Lord Burghley’s action in the matter was is seen by his letters. Beale, one of the clerks of the Council, was sent over to Zeeland to report on Orange’s position, and to insist upon the suppression of piracy. Burghley thus writes to Walsingham (16th April 1576): “I have perused all the letters and memorandum of Mr. Beale’s concerning his voyage into Zeeland, and so well allow of the whole course therein taken by the Lords, that both with heart and hand I sign them.”[392] The Flushing pirates appear to have offered some insult to the Earl of Oxford, Burghley’s son-in-law, on his way to England, at which the Treasurer was extremely angry,[393] an unusual thing[306] with him. In the same letter he writes: “I find it hard to make a good distinction between anger and judgment for Lord Oxford’s misusage, and especially when I look into the universal barbarism of the Prince’s (Orange) force of Flushingers, who are only a rabble of common pirates, or worse, who make no difference whom they outrage, I mistrust any good issue of the cause, though of itself it should be favoured.” He almost violently urges that Beale should ask the Prince of Orange to avenge such an insult “by hanging some of the principals.” “Such an outrage cannot be condoned without five or six of such thieves being hanged. If the Prince were rid of a hundred of them it would be better for the cause. You see my anger leadeth my judgment. But I am not truly more moved hereto for particular causes than for the public.”[394] The same day a very strong remonstrance from the English Council was written to Orange, saying that the piracy of the Flushing men was rendering his cause odious to all Christendom, and would ruin his enterprise.

The Netherlanders, especially Paul Buiz, who lodged[307] with Burghley’s servant, Herll, in Redcross Street, did their best to excuse the Flushingers, and begged that “these rough men be not roughly dealt with.” It is evident that they looked upon Leicester and the Puritans as their champions rather than moderate Burghley, whose approaches to Spain at the time were, of course, well known. Herll writes (14th March 1576): “It is given out by those of good sort who profess the religion, that your Lordship has been the only obstacle to this Holland service, by dissuading her Majesty from the enterprise, when the Earl of Leicester and several earnest friends were furtherers thereof. They complain that these poor men who were sent to the Queen have been, contrary to promise, kept by indirect dealing so long here, to their utter undoing at home and abroad. They say that Sir F. Walsingham dealt honestly with them from the first. He said they would get nothing, and lose their time. They say these unworthy proceedings with foreign nations make the English the most hated men in the world, and to be contemned for mere abusers, as those who put on religion and piety and justice for a cloak to serve humours withal. Your Lordship’s enemies, however, are compelled to say that you are more subject to evil judgment for your good service than for evil itself.” When Herll spoke to Paul Buiz about Burghley’s anger at the outrage on Lord Oxford, the Netherlander “struck his breast, and said your Lordship was the only man who had dealt sincerely with them, and truly favoured their cause, and yet was forced to give them hard words, according to the alterations of the time, parties, and occasion, which kind of free proceeding he preferred of all others.”[395]

A few months later (August) Herll was made the means of conveying to Colonel Chester, then with Orange,[308] Lord Burghley’s view of the situation. “Her Majesty,” he says, “is so moved by those insolent delinges of the Prynce and his Zeelanders, as none dare move her to ani consideratyon towards theme, butt all is sett uppon revenge of their lewd acts and worse speche, and to extermynate them owt of the world, rather than endure it ani longer. And where the Prynce pretends aid owt of France, he dawnceth in a nett. If he se not that, her Majesty knows the contrary, and that herein he is greatly abused, or seeketh to abuse others, with small credit to hymselfe and less assurans to his estate when this maske is taken away.”[396] The great indignation about the pirates may or may not have been sincere; but it is unquestionable that it was the fear expressed of an arrangement between Orange and the French that really caused the disquietude.[397] The remedy to be proposed to Orange by Chester was simply that he, Orange, should prevent any repetition of the piratical outrages of the Flushing men, and apologise for them, and his friends in England will move the Queen “to help him underhand; but to[309] say that her Majesty will be forced to do anything, maugre her will, is a great absurdity.” But if Orange will open his eyes and see things as they are, “somewhat (yea, some round portion) will be voluntarily given to the assistance of the cause, and to aid both Zeeland and Holland, especially the latter, to which country the Queen and her Council are greatly inclined.” Orange was a diplomatist as keen as Burghley himself, and he well knew that, as a last resource, he could always force the hands of the English Government by negotiating for aid from France. Elizabeth might swear at his envoys, make friends with his enemies the Spaniards, threaten to expend the last man and the last shilling she had to turn the French out of Flanders, if ever they entered; but she always ended in sending aid “underhand” to Orange to prevent his union with the French; unless, as happened later, the French were Huguenots disowned by their own King, and going as her humble servants.

Leicester was for ever clamouring for open help to be sent to Orange; the Puritans, who took their cue from him, were more aggressive than ever in the country;[398] but ready as the Queen might be to dally Leicester, she took care to make no serious move in the knotty question of the Netherlands without the advice of her “spirit,” as she nicknamed the great Lord Treasurer.[399] In spite of his almost continual illness, she[310] summoned him to her, wherever she might be; and at about the period when the letters just quoted were written, the Earl of Sussex writes saying that the Queen has just received intelligence from beyond the seas which she must discuss with him at once. When Burghley had seen the Queen, either on that occasion or soon after, and returned home, Sussex writes thus: “Her Majesty spoke honourably of your Lordship’s deserts, and of her affection for you, and of your sound, deep judgment and counsel; using these words, ‘that no prince in Europe had such a councillor as she had of him.’ If your Lordship had heard her speeches, they must needs have been to your great contentment. The end of her Majesty’s speeches was that she prayed your Lordship to come to Nonsuch, as soon as you conveniently might.”

Burghley, indeed, was the only one of her ministers whom she treated with anything approaching respect, for he always respected himself. Walsingham, especially, was the object of her vulgar abuse. “Scurvy knave” and “rogue” were the terms she frequently applied to him; and it was apparently not at all an uncommon thing for her, in moments of impatience with him, to pluck off her high-heeled shoe and fling it in his face. Leicester she alternately petted and insulted. After a squabble he used to sulk at Wanstead for a few days, till she softened and commanded him to return, and then the comedy recommenced. Hatton and Heneage were treated in similar fashion, but with even less consideration. Only towards the Lord Treasurer, except for occasional fits of distrust caused by his enemies, the Queen usually behaved with decorum. How careful he was to avoid all cause for doubt is seen[311] by his answer to Lord Shrewsbury’s offer of his son as a husband for one of Burghley’s daughters.[400] It will be recollected that Lord Shrewsbury had the custody of the Queen of Scots, and that Burghley had fallen into semi-disgrace shortly before, because he had visited Buxton at the same time as Mary and her keeper. The match proposed was a good one, and the Lord Treasurer—a new noble—was flattered and pleased at the offer, but declined it, mainly because his enemies had put into the Queen’s head that he had gone to Buxton at the instance of the Shrewsburys, to plot in favour of Mary; “and hereof at my return to her Majesty’s presence, I had very sharp reproofs … with plain charging of me for favouring the Queen of Scots, and that in so earnest sort, as I never looked for, knowing my integrity to her Majesty, but specially knowing how contrariously the Queen of Scots conceived of me for many things.” He continues his letter with an evidently sincere protest of his loyalty and disinterestedness, and the absence in him of any personal feeling against Mary, but declares his determination to do his best, at all costs, to frustrate any attempted injury against his mistress or her realm.

Notwithstanding this small cloud, Burghley went again to Buxton in 1577. A somewhat curious letter from Leicester, who went to Buxton before him in June, shows that the Lord Treasurer’s mode of life was not always prudent. Leicester says that he and his brother are[312] benefiting greatly from the water. “We observe our physician’s orders diligently, and find great pleasure both in drinking and bathing in the water. I think it would be good for your Lordship, but not if you do as we hear your Lordship did last time: taking great journeys abroad ten or twelve miles a day, and using liberal diet with company dinners and suppers. We take another way, dining two or three together, having but one dish of meat at most, and taking the air afoot or on horseback moderately.”[401] In July (1577) Burghley started from Theobalds for his Lincolnshire estates, and thence to Buxton. Leicester wrote to him there that the Queen was desirous of receiving a “tun of Buxton water in hogsheads;” but when in due time the water arrived, “her Majesty seemeth not to make any great account of it. And yet she more than twice or thrice commanded me earnestly to write to you for it, and … asked me sundry times whether I had remembered it or not: but it seems her Majesty doth mistrust it will not be of the goodness here it is there; besides, somebody told her there was some bruit of it about, as though her Majesty had had some sore leg. Such like devices made her half angry with me now for sending to you for it.”[402] This hint of her sore leg was enough to make Elizabeth sacrifice a river of Buxton water if necessary. She, like her father before her, really had an issue in one of her legs, and there was no point upon which she was more sensitive.