CHAPTER XII 1576-1580

We have seen that from the accession of Henry III. of France in the autumn of 1574 it suited English policy to draw closer to Spain. An event happened, however, late in 1576 which once more changed the entire position. Requesens, the Spanish Viceroy of Flanders, had died in March 1576, before his mission of pacification was complete. It is true that Catholic Flanders and Brabant had been won back again, but Holland and Zeeland still stood out. The fierce Spanish infantry cared for no distinction between Fleming and Hollander, Catholic or Protestant, and were openly discontented at the conciliatory policy which Philip’s penury rendered needful. They were unpaid, for there was no money in the treasury to pay them, and soon mutiny, pillage, and murder became the order of the day. Philip was in despair, and ordered his brother Don Juan to hurry to Flanders from Italy to pacify and withdraw the troops, and to conciliate the indignant Catholic Flemings at any cost. Don Juan scorned and hated the task—which he said a woman could do better than a soldier. He was full of a secret plan to dash over to England with the Spanish infantry from Flanders; and instead of obeying orders and going direct to his new government, he hurried to Spain for the purpose of persuading his brother to allow him to have his way.

The time thus wasted was fatal. Peace with England[314] was absolutely necessary for Philip, and he refused to countenance Don Juan’s plans. But Orange had spies everywhere; Burghley’s secretary, Herll, was in Flanders, and long before Don Juan arrived on the Flemish frontier the hopes of the murderous rabble of soldiery that the young Prince would lead them to England were well known to the Lord Treasurer and his mistress. Early in November 1576 the Spanish fury burst upon Antwerp. The Council of Regency consisted mostly of Flemish Catholic nobles, and they fought as well as they might against the blood lust of the King’s soldiers. When all hope was gone, and the fairest cities of Flanders had been devastated and ruined, and their populations massacred, without distinction of age, sex, or creed, then Catholic Flanders turned against the wreckers of their homes, and shoulder to shoulder with Orange and his Protestants, stood at bay. When Don Juan arrived at Luxemburg he was informed that the States would only allow him to take up his governorship on terms to be dictated by them in union with Orange; the first condition of which was that the Spanish troops must leave the Netherlands forthwith, and by land, in order that they might not invade England. Don Juan was mad with fury and disappointment; but chafe as he might, he had to give way, and in the end was forced to enter Brussels only as Governor on sufferance of the States in the spring of 1577.

To England there came now to beg for aid and support, not rough Zeelanders alone, not beggars of the sea, not boorish burghers, but the very nobles who had often come before as Philip’s representatives—De Croys, Montmorencis, De Granvelles, Zweveghems, and the like; Catholics of bluest blood, but ready to claim any help against the Spanish oppressor. Dr. Wilson was sent as English envoy to the States, and Sir John Smith went[315] to Madrid with a formal offer from Elizabeth to mediate.[403] Philip’s only course was to accept any terms which left him even a nominal sovereignty of his Netherlands dominions, and this he did, rather than allow Elizabeth to pose as mediatrix between him and his subjects. But the altered position in Flanders completely changed the attitude of England towards Spain, especially when in the summer of 1577 Don Juan lost patience, broke faith with the Flemings, threw himself into the fortress of Namur, and defied the States. England’s traditional alliance had not been with the crown of Spain, but with the House of Burgundy as possessor of the Netherlands; and now that Flanders and Brabant were at one with Holland and Zeeland in upholding their rights against Spain, England was naturally on their side against the foreigner, quite independently of the question of creed. There was no longer any concealment about it.[404] The Duke of Arschot’s brother was at the English court in September with the acquiescence of Orange, planning an arrangement which seemed to offer a means by which all parties might be satisfied. The young Austrian Archduke Mathias, Philip’s nephew, was suddenly spirited away from Vienna and installed by the Flemings[316] as sovereign of Flanders, with Orange as his guide and mentor. An English army under Leicester or his brother was to be raised to support him against Don Juan, who was rallying a Catholic force, crying to the Duke of Guise for help, and making a last appeal to his brother to save his honour, if not his sovereignty. The outbreak of the Protestants in Ghent, encouraged by the proximity of Orange, the capture and imprisonment of Arschot and the Catholic nobles, and the desecration of Catholic shrines (end of October), forced Philip’s hands. The Archduke Mathias as a tributary sovereign, with the Catholic Flemings paramount over Orange, might have been tolerated; but if the Protestants and Orange were going to predominate, Spain must fight to the end. So with a heavy heart Philip bent to the inevitable, and sent Alexander Farnese and a Spanish army from Italy once more to reconquer the Netherlands.

The invariable excuse given by Elizabeth for her help to the States was, that it was to keep the French out of Flanders; Don Juan’s appeal to the Guises being especially distasteful to her. “The present support desired of her,” she declared, “is only in consideration of the extreme necessity of the States by reason of the great preparations in France and elsewhere to overrun them, and bring utter ruin upon them; and it not disagreeing with the ancient treaties between the crown of England and the House of Burgundy … the purpose of the States being no other than by these succours to keep themselves in due obedience to the King their sovereign, her Majesty is content to grant the aid desired.”[405] The plausible reasons advanced, however, made no difference to Philip. It was only evident to him that the Queen of England was subsidising rebellion against him, and that her subjects held fortresses in his dominions as[317] a pledge for the money she had advanced. He could not afford to declare war with England at the time, but he did what he could. The Irish malcontents were encouraged with the aid of Papal money; and Catholic plots, with Spanish and Guisan aid, for the rescue of Mary Stuart, the assassination of Elizabeth, and the like, kept the English court in alarm,[406] and pointed the moral for ever on the lips of Philip’s many paid agents and friends in Elizabeth’s counsels.

During most of the period when the arrangements with the States were being concluded in 1577, Burghley was absent from court, and it may be fairly assumed that the less cautious attitude adopted towards Spain was owing to the unchecked influence of Leicester; but with Burghley’s return late in the autumn the astute balancing diplomacy of the master-hand becomes once more apparent, both in the declaration quoted above, and the letter drafted by the Treasurer taken by Wilkes, Clerk of the Council, to Madrid. In it Elizabeth prays Philip to have compassion upon his Flemish subjects and to grant their just demands, and again explains her support of them. Moderate and deferential, however, as the tone of the letter was, it did not alter prior facts, and Philip was indignant and wrathful at what he called an attempt of Elizabeth to lay down the law for him. “Send this man off,” he says, “before his fortnight is up, and before he commits some impertinence which will oblige[318] us to burn him.” Philip might well be angry, for he was impotent: he had to reconquer his own Flemings, Catholics and Protestants too, thanks to the aid they had obtained from Elizabeth. To make matters more galling, Antonio de Guaras had suddenly been arrested at dead of night, all his papers captured, his property sequestrated, and the poor man himself accused of consorting and plotting with the Queen’s enemies.[407] Lord Burghley, his former friend, was daily threatening him with the rack in the Tower; and for eighteen months he was treated with calculating contumely and harshness, only at last to be released, old, broken, and penniless, and sent to Spain scornfully to die.

In January 1578, Don Juan and Farnese defeated the States troops at Gemblours, and it seemed as if once more Flanders and Brabant would fall a prey to Spanish soldiery. Elizabeth’s aid had become less liberal with the return of Burghley, who had no objection at all to Spanish predominance in Catholic Flanders; his only interest there was to keep the French out.[408] But the Flemings naturally regarded the position from another point of view. What they wanted was to preserve their autonomous rights against Spain. Mathias had turned out a broken reed: he had no money, no followers, no friends, and no ability; and the really dominant man in the Government was Protestant Orange. This did not[319] please the Catholic nobles, and they cast about for another prince with a greater following than Mathias, who should at once be a Catholic and yet acceptable to Orange and the Protestants. Catharine had for some time past anticipated the position, and had been busy, but secretly, pushing the claims of her son Alen?on; but for her purpose it was necessary to manage warily, in order to avoid giving Philip open offence. Alen?on, however, was bound by no such considerations. Nothing would have suited him better than to draw France into war with Spain. He was under arrest and strictly guarded, but he contrived, on the 14th February 1578, to escape out of a second-floor window in the Louvre. All France was in a turmoil. Huguenots and malcontents flocked to the Flemish frontier, and Catharine raced half over France to beg her errant son to return. Henry III. assured Mendoza, the new Spanish Ambassador on his way to England, that his brother was obedient, and he was sure he would do nothing against Philip in Flanders. But all the world knew that he would if he could; and that whatever he might do with a French force there would be against English as well as Spanish interests. Once more, therefore, it was necessary for Elizabeth to change her policy somewhat, and Lord Burghley resumed his favourite character of a friend to the ancient Spanish alliance.

The new Spanish Ambassador saw Elizabeth on the[320] 16th March 1578, and gave her all sorts of reassuring messages from Philip. He was the most clement of sovereigns. A successor to Don Juan should be appointed who should please everybody, and all would soon be settled. A few days afterwards Mendoza had a long conversation with Burghley, in the presence of other Councillors. As Philip had, said the Treasurer, practically accepted the various concessions to the Flemings recommended by the Queen; “if the terms offered were not accepted by the States, she herself would take up arms against them.” This was probably too strong for Leicester and Walsingham, Puritans both, and Mendoza says they seemed to be urging something upon Burghley very forcibly, which he thought was the question of the withdrawal of the Spanish troops from Flanders; but it ended in Burghley again pointedly offering the Queen’s mediation.

A few days later the Duke of Arschot’s brother, the Marquis d’Havrey, Leicester’s great friend, arrived in England to counteract Mendoza’s efforts, and to beg that the troops that had been promised should be sent to the States. He was made much of by the English nobles and the Queen, who was now greatly influenced by Leicester, and Burghley at the moment seems to have stood almost alone in his resistance of open aid being sent to the States.[409] It did not take Mendoza many days to discover how things really lay. “I have found the Queen,” he writes, “much opposed to your Majesty’s interests, and most of her ministers are quite alienated from us, particularly those who are most important, as although there are seventeen Councillors … the bulk of the business really depends upon the Queen, Leicester, Walsingham, and Cecil, the latter of whom, although by virtue of his[321] office he takes part in the resolutions, absents himself from the Council on many occasions, as he is opposed to the Queen’s helping the rebels so effectively, and thus weakening her own position. He does not wish, however, to break with Leicester and Walsingham on the matter, they being very much wedded to the States and extremely self-seeking. I am assured that they are keeping the interest of the money lent to the States, besides the presents they have received out of the principal. They urge the business under the cloak of religion, which Cecil cannot well oppose.”[410]

This, indeed, was one of the periods when Burghley’s moderating influence was overborne by Leicester, Walsingham, and the Puritans. The Lord Treasurer still did his best—constantly ill though he was—to stem the violence of the tide, befriending the bishops who were being bitterly attacked,[411] and counselling caution in aiding the Flemings against Spain; but, as we have seen, he was somewhat in the background, and absented himself from court as much as possible. It is curious, however, to see, even under these circumstances, how he was still appealed to by all parties. He was very ill in April at Theobalds, and the Queen happened to be suffering from toothache. Of course Hatton must write to the Lord Treasurer, begging him to come to court and give his advice as to what should be done. The reply is very characteristic. Notwithstanding his own pain he would come up at once, he wrote, if by so doing he could relieve the Queen; but as the physicians advised that the tooth should be extracted, though they dared[322] not tell the Queen so, all he could do would be to urge her Majesty to have it done.[412] Hatton did not care to incur the responsibility of saying so himself, and simply showed the Queen Burghley’s letter. Doubtless Elizabeth took the good advice tendered; for it was only a day or two afterwards that young Gilbert Talbot, Lord Shrewsbury’s son, was walking in the Tilt Yard, Whitehall, one morning, under the Queen’s windows, when her maiden Majesty herself came to the casement in her night-dress, in full view of Talbot, who wrote: “My eye fell towards her, and she showed to be greatly ashamed thereof, for that she was unready and in her night-stuff; so when she saw me after dinner as she went to walk, she gave me a great fillip on the forehead, and told the Lord Chamberlain how I had seen her that morning, and how ashamed she was.” Talbot, in writing this to his father (1st May 1578) ends his letter by saying that the Queen was that week to stay three or four days with Burghley at Theobalds. It is plain to see that the renewed severity against the Catholics in England, and the almost ostentatious aiding of the States against Spain, did not meet with the approval of Burghley. He was much more concerned for the moment at the large levies of French troops being collected on the Flemish frontier; and his ordinary policy would have been either to side with the Spaniards against them, or to have disarmed their figurehead Alen?on (or Anjou as he was now called) by holding out hopes of his marriage with the Queen, if the earnest attempts of the English to mediate between the States and Don Juan were fruitless. But he had to reckon with Leicester and Walsingham, and the Queen’s policy wavered almost daily between her two sets of counsellors.[413]

[323]

To the Queen’s visit to Theobalds is doubtless due the entry in Burghley’s diary of 15th May, recording the despatch of Edward Stafford to inspect and report upon the French forces on the Flemish frontier. Alen?on himself used every effort to convince the Queen of his desire to look to her, rather than to his brother, as his guide and support. On the 19th May he sent her a letter by one of his friends, informing her of his intention of relieving the Netherlands; “of which intention,” he says, “she already knows so much that he will not tire her by explaining it further.” On the 7th July he crossed the frontier, and threw himself into Mons for the purpose, as he declared, “of helping this oppressed people, and humiliating the pride of Spain;” and at the same time he sent his chamberlain to offer marriage to Elizabeth, and assure her of his complete dependence upon her. It was unwelcome news for Elizabeth, for she could never trust the French. Alen?on, after all, was a Catholic, and she was uncertain whether Henry III. was not really behind his brother. Gondi, one of the leaders of Catharine’s counsels, had recently come to England with a request to be allowed to see Mary Stuart;[414] Catholic[324] intrigues in Scotland had succeeded in putting an end to Morton’s regency (March 1578); and on all sides there were indications that, if Elizabeth could only be dragged into open hostility to Spain, and so rendered powerless, an attempt would be made on the part of France to recover its lost influence over Scotland. Mendoza carefully fanned the flame of Elizabeth’s distrust against the French; and the effect of Walsingham’s absence in Flanders, whilst Leicester was away at Buxton, is noticeable at once. “The Queen,” writes Mendoza (19th July), “is now turning her eyes more to your Majesty; and her ministers have begun to get friendly with me. If your Majesty wishes to retain them, I see a way of doing it.”[415]

Alen?on’s agents in the meanwhile were not idle. One after the other came to assure her of their master’s desire to marry her, and look to her alone for guidance. He had quarrelled with his brother, he said, and had no other mistress than the Queen of England. They quite convinced Sussex, apparently, for he entered warmly into their marriage plans, which gave him another chance of revenge upon Leicester. Elizabeth’s desire to be amiable to Alen?on’s envoys at Long Melford during her progress (August) led her to insult Sussex, as Lord Steward, about the amount of plate on the sideboard. This gave an opportunity for Lord North, a creature of Leicester, to give Sussex the lie, and led to a further feud which continued for months.[416]

[325]

But though Elizabeth was somewhat tranquillised with regard to the French King’s connivance in Alen?on’s proceedings, she was cool about the marriage business. “If the Prince liked to come, she told De Bacqueville, he might do so; but he must not take offence if she did not like him when she saw him;” whereupon Burghley told the envoy that if he were in his place he would not bring his master over on such a message. All the charming of Alen?on’s attractive agents was unsuccessful in opening the Queen’s money bags, and the loan of 300,000 crowns they prayed for was refused. If he wanted her aid or affection, she said, he must first obey her and retire from Flanders, and she would then consider what she should do. Pressure was put upon Alen?on by his brother, by the Pope and the Catholics, on the other hand, to desist from his enterprise. Splendid Catholic alliances were proposed to him, and dire threats of punishment held out if he did not retire. When the Protestant Hollanders discovered that Alen?on could count neither upon England nor France to support him, they began to cry off. The only temptation they had in welcoming a Catholic prince was the hope of national aid. If he did not bring that, he was as useless to them as poor Mathias had been. And so all through the autumn of 1578 the fate of Flanders hung on Elizabeth’s caprice. Henry III. was anxious to get his brother married to Elizabeth, and a fresh national alliance concluded; but he wished to avoid pledging himself against Spain, so as to be able to hold the balance. Elizabeth’s aim was similar, and she would promise nothing; but she swore both to Flemings and Spaniards that for every Frenchman that set foot in Flanders there should be an Englishman. Fresh German[326] mercenaries were raised at her expense to aid the States; renewed attempts, backed by threats, were made to persuade Don Juan to ratify the pacification of Ghent; but Alen?on, in the meanwhile, with a dwindling force and no money, was falling to the ground between the two stools of France and England, Huguenot or Catholic. At the end of the year ominous news came that the Huguenots had been won over by the Queen-mother;[417] that the King of France had entered into a great Catholic league against Elizabeth, and was raising a force of mercenaries in Germany to help Alen?on to keep a footing in Flanders, in spite of England; whilst a Scottish nobleman, a Douglas, was at the French court carrying on some secret intrigue with Henry III.

Elizabeth was alarmed at this, and at once became warm in the Alen?on marriage, thanks partly also to the arrival of the Prince’s agent Simier, who very soon established a complete influence over the Queen, to the infinite scandal of all Europe. Against this influence Mendoza, able, bold, and crafty, battled ceaselessly: for ever pointing at the intrigues of the French in Scotland, their old jealousy of England, the approaching marriageable age of the King of Scots, which would give an opportunity for recovering French influence in his country, and much more to the same effect. After one conversation of this sort with the Queen, late in January 1579, Mendoza drove his points home one by one to Burghley and Sussex, showing them how much more profitable was an alliance with Spain than with France, and the danger of England herself being attacked if she took the Netherlands rebels under her protection. Amongst other things Burghley replied that “he had told M. Simier that one of the principal arguments in favour of the marriage,[327] namely, that Alen?on might become King of France, had turned him (Cecil) against it, as he considered that it would be a disadvantage to England, whereupon Simier had complained of him to the Queen. For his own part his desire had always been to see the Queen married to a prince of the House of Austria, with which it was well to be in alliance; but since old friends cast them off, and your Majesty refused to confirm the treaties, or receive a minister at your court,[418] they must seek new friends.”

The current of affairs and the Queen’s fickleness evidently displeased the Lord Treasurer. In September (1578) he had unsuccessfully begged leave of absence to visit Burghley,[419] where the rebuilding of the mansion was still progressing, under the care of Sir Thomas Cecil. He was not allowed to go; but the plague raged in London all the autumn, and Burghley retreated to Theobalds, where he was within easy reach of the Council. He found, moreover, Leicester’s enmity towards him more active than ever,[420] and Hatton, now his chief henchman, for Sussex was unstable, was of inferior rank, influence, and ability. But though his political influence for a time was under a cloud, there was no abatement of the appeals to his judgment and for his intercession with the Queen. Imprisoned Catholics, deprived Puritans, old friends, like the Duchess of Suffolk, Lord Lincoln, or the Earl of Bedford, claimed his advice in their affairs; suitors at law besought his good word; miners or explorers prayed for his patronage; bishops bespoke his aid to govern their clergy; the clergy appealed to him against the bishops. High and humble, friend and stranger,[328] rich and poor alike, looked to Burghley for guidance, and found at least patient consideration for their causes.[421]

By the beginning of 1579, however, the aspect of European politics had become so threatening that the practised hand of the Lord Treasurer was needed at the helm, and thenceforward his influence was again in the ascendant. Simier was making violent vicarious love to the Queen, and letters of the most extravagant description were exchanged between the young Prince and Elizabeth, whilst really sincere and earnest efforts were being made in favour of the match by Henry III. and Catharine de Medici. Commissioners and ambassadors went backwards and forwards, and the conditions, not only of the Queen’s marriage, but of a national offensive and defensive alliance between France and England, were under discussion. Henry III. was ready, he said, to submit to any conditions desired by Elizabeth, and Alen?on was almost blasphemous in his praising of the charms of his elderly flame. There were two main reasons for this drawing together of England and France. Don Juan was dead, and the military genius and diplomacy of Alexander Farnese had once more separated Catholic Belgium from Protestant Holland (Treaty of Arras, January 1579). Orange himself still clung to the hope of consolidating a united Flemish nation, including north and south, and desired to use Alen?on, with the Queen of England’s support, for that purpose but there was no enthusiasm in Holland for the idea; and in the meanwhile Alen?on was isolated in Catholic Flanders, with his own brother raging at the compromising position in which he placed him, and ordering him to return to France. It was evident to Henry that the only way in which his turbulent brother[329] could be established in Flanders, without causing both Spanish and English arms to be used against him, was to let him depend solely upon Elizabeth and Orange, whilst France stood aloof. This was one of the reasons for the closer relations desired by Catharine and her son. The other was more important still. The young King of Portugal had fallen in battle in Morocco, and the new King was an aged, childless Cardinal. Philip of Spain was already intriguing for the succession, which he claimed. The possession of the fine harbours and Atlantic seaboard of Portugal by Spain would enormously increase her maritime potency, to the detriment of England and France; and it was felt that these powers must unite to resist the common danger. That Lord Burghley was early alive to its importance is proved by a genealogical statement of his relating to the Portuguese succession immediately after the death of the King Don Sebastian[422] (August 1578), and several memoranda of subsequent date on the subject.

Under these circumstances the Alen?on approaches again became to all appearance serious. The Prince, ceding to the pressure placed upon him, consented to retire from Flanders early in the year, and was reconciled to his brother; and then the arrangements for effective action in the Netherlands and a visit of Alen?on to England were actively proceeded with. How busy Lord Burghley was in the matter will be seen by the very voluminous minutes in his own hand of the discussions in Council on the subject (Hatfield Papers). In all probability the Queen was not even now sincere in the matter of the marriage, especially as Leicester and Hatton pretended to be warmly in favour of it, until they became personally jealous of Simier; but Burghley was evidently doubtful. In his balancing papers he gives much more[330] space to the “perils” than to the advantages of the match, and his own final judgment is, that “except that her Majesty would of her own mind incline to marriage he would never advise thereto.” In the meanwhile, all England was in a veritable panic at the idea of the marriage of the Queen to a Papist. Puritan pulpits rang with denunciations; Stubbs’ famous book, “The Discovery of a Gaping Gulph,” which cost the author his right hand and deeply offended the Queen, was read widely; and the Queen herself was obliged to warn her eager suitor of the hatred of her people to the idea of his proposed visit. But the preparations went on, and the court was ordered to make itself as fine as money would make it, Leicester alone sending to Flanders for twelve hundred pounds’ worth of silks, velvets, and cloth of gold. Simier in the meanwhile was daily becoming more clamorous for a definite answer to his master’s proposal. Large bribes were paid by the French Ambassador and Mendoza respectively to the Councillors to forward or impede the match, and the probabilities shifted from day to day.[423]

When the Queen seemed really bent upon the match, Burghley did not attempt to oppose her; he simply placed before her the arguments for and against it, and left the decision to her. This is exactly what Elizabeth did not wish. Simier and her own imprudence had drawn her into an extremely dangerous position, and she wished her Council to assume the responsibility of extricating her[331] from it. Her first object in resuming the negotiations had been to get Alen?on and the French out of Flanders, whilst preventing the despair and collapse of Orange; her present aim was to secure the King of France to her side, and weaken Spain without herself being drawn into open hostility. The talk of marriage helped her in this; but if once she fell into the trap, and was married indeed, her power of balance would be gone. Driven into a corner, late in April she took Simier and the French Ambassador, with Burghley, Leicester, Sussex, and Walsingham, to Wanstead, where she desired the Councillors to give her in writing their individual opinions, in order that she might show them to the Frenchmen. They refused to do so, and once more laid before her the “perils and advantages” of each course, leaving her to decide. The Councillors mentioned sat in conference almost day and night during their three days’ stay at Wanstead, but, after all, returned as they came. Simier was furious, and threatened to go back to France; and a full Council sat at Whitehall on the 3rd May, from two o’clock in the day till two the next morning, finally to discuss the question. It was found that the only man really in favour of the marriage was Sussex, and Simier was called in and informed that his master’s conditions were unacceptable. The envoy roared out that he had been played with, and flung out of the room to make his complaint to the Queen. She was all sympathy. She wanted to get married—she must get married. It was all the fault of her Councillors, and so forth, until her ruffled “ape,” as she called him, was pacified. Alen?on was not lightly put off. He announced his intention of coming to see his goddess, no matter what the consequences might be. The Queen was for refusing him leave, but Lord Burghley pointed out to her the danger of this open affront to a French prince. She had gone too far to refuse, and she was[332] obliged to give a passport. Simier rarely left the Queen’s side now, and she seems quite to have lost her head. Mendoza worked hard to spread the sinister murmurs of her behaviour through the country. Leicester grew violently jealous, and twice hired an assassin to kill Simier, which he nearly did once in the Queen’s own barge. The Queen was beside herself with rage, and Simier, to revenge himself upon Leicester, told the Queen, as no one else had dared to do, of the marriage of Leicester with Lady Essex. It was a master-stroke. The Queen’s fury was boundless, and she swore like a trooper at Leicester and the she-wolf he had married. For a time Leicester’s influence was gone, and Simier lived in the palace of Greenwich, to the open disgust of the English people. In August, Alen?on rushed over to England in disguise. His coming was an open secret, but the Queen kept him hid in the palace of Greenwich.[424] She posed before him, showed off all her charms, dined and supped with him in private, fell desperately in love with him, or pretended to do so, and sent him off after a week’s stay as secretly as he came, with expressions of affection on both sides, even too fervid to be sincere, and long afterwards continued by correspondence.

Whatever might be the final result of the marriage negotiations—and Burghley himself was as much in the dark as any one on that point—a close alliance between France and England was of growing importance to both countries. The English Council under Burghley sat at Greenwich almost continuously from the 2nd to the 8th October discussing, weighing, and reporting upon the whole question of alliance and marriage. The final result[333] was that the marriage would be undesirable, Burghley and Sussex being the only Councillors who were not strongly opposed to it.[425] The message to the Queen was delivered by Burghley. It was ambiguous and moderate, begged the Queen to tell the Council her own mind, and so on; but there was no doubt of the meaning of it to the Queen. The Council was against the match, unless some guarantee could be found that the Protestant religion should not be imperilled. Burghley’s minute sets forth the Queen’s answer. “She shed many tears to find that her Councillors, by their long disputations, should make it doubtful whether it would be safe for her to marry and have a child.” She was a simpleton, she said, to have referred the question to them. She expected they would have unanimously begged her to marry, instead of raising doubts about it. When they saw her again later in the day she was more angry still. She railed at those who would think of “surety” before her happiness, “and that any should think so slenderly of her” as to doubt that she would take care that religion was properly safeguarded if she married. She managed, as usual, to reduce the Council to a state of confusion with her tears and reproaches; and a hasty meeting was called, at which a resolution was passed to the effect, that[334] as the Queen seemed so much bent upon the marriage, the Councillors all offered their services to promote it. When this message was taken to her, Lord Burghley records that “her Majesty’s answers were very sharp in reprehending all such as she thought would make arguments against her marriage, and though she thought it not meet to declare to them whether she would marry with Monsieur or no, yet she looked from their hands that they should with one accord have made a special suit to her for the same.”[426]

No wonder that with such a change on the part of the Queen from morning to afternoon, the Councillors were at their wits’ end to know what she really meant; but it is evident that she intended to have her own way, whatever it was, and lay the responsibility upon others. Burghley and Sussex had avoided open opposition, and were favourably regarded by the Queen in consequence; whilst Leicester, Walsingham, Knollys, and even her poor “sheep” Hatton, came in for a share of her vituperation and abuse; and the Puritans who were leading the outcry against the match received harder measure than ever.

Early in November she summoned the Council again, and told them that she had decided to marry. It was only for them now to consider the means. Let them, she said, individually put their opinions in writing. It was evident that this course would again bring forward the dissensions on the subject, and render it more difficult, which was perhaps her intention. Simier went and told her so, whereupon she asked him angrily how he knew what orders she had given to her Council. He replied that Lord Burghley had told him. “Surely,” she cried, “it is possible for my Councillors to keep a secret. I will see to this.” Then she sent orders to the Council to[335] write a letter to Alen?on, asking him to come to England quickly, which they refused to do. He was, they said, coming to marry her, not them, and she ought to write herself. They openly quarrelled with Simier, who was finding England too hot for him, and who left late in November, taking with him a hastily patched draft agreement for the marriage, in which the Queen characteristically introduced at the last hour an additional loophole of escape, by stipulating that the articles should remain in suspense for two months, “during which time the Queen hopes to have brought her people to consent. If before that time she did not write consenting to receive ambassadors for the conclusion of the treaty, the whole of the conditions would be void.”[427]

The year 1580 opened full of anxiety for Elizabeth. The ostentatious fitting out of the Spanish fleet, and the active support by Spain and the Pope of the Desmond rebellion, the success of Parma, and the desperate attempts of Orange to reunite Flanders with Holland under Alen?on in the national cause, were all so many dangers to England. If Elizabeth offended France or alienated Alen?on himself, Flemish affairs might be settled without her participation, and to her detriment, and she would have to face Spain alone. This was the more to be feared, as religious affairs in England were in a worse condition than before, and for the first time since her accession the Queen herself was unpopular. Her light conduct with Simier, and, above all, her seeming determination in favour of the Alen?on marriage, had aroused all the old hatred against the French, and had embittered the widespread Puritan distrust of the “Papists.” The[336] country was being flooded with seminary priests, specially trained for the propaganda to which they devoted their lives,[428] and the great Catholic party in England, having recovered somewhat from the blow of the Norfolk conspiracy, were once more holding up their heads. Elizabeth had allowed Leicester and her own passions to lead her too far, and she struggled to free herself from the toils. When she tried in January to withdraw gently from the Alen?on negotiations, and suggested to Henry III. that some fresh conditions were necessary, she found it difficult. The King was determined to throw the responsibility of breaking upon her, and it still suited him to keep up an appearance of friendship. She could, he replied, make her own stipulations; he would accept them. As for religion, that was his brother’s affair. Alen?on himself also said that he would come over at once to England and leave everything to her. He hoped she was not reviving the religious question for the purpose of deceiving him again, as some people said; but he would risk everything for his love. He went so far as to beg her to forgive Leicester for his sake, and blamed Simier for quarrelling with the Earl.

But Leicester, Hatton, and Walsingham were quite determined now to stop the marriage, which looked too serious to please them; and a cloud of questions about religion, rank of ambassadors, &c., soon threw the matter into obscurity again. How completely affairs had changed in this respect in a few weeks is seen in the long draft of a letter to the Queen at Hatfield, dated at end of January 1580, in the handwriting of Sir Thomas Cecil, although it can hardly have been really written by him to the Queen, but certainly represents the views of his[337] father. Burghley had struggled during all his ministry, and often against great difficulties, to preserve peace with Spain, whilst holding high England’s honour and prosperity; but now that Leicester and the extreme Protestant party, together with Philip’s seizure of Portugal, had forced the Queen into a position which sooner or later must end in hostility to Spain, and perhaps with France also, Burghley urged the need for a close understanding with France, on the safest terms possible for his country.

The course now taken by the Queen seemed to render inevitable that which Burghley had all his life endeavoured to avoid, namely, the isolation of England with both of the great powers against her. The address above referred to lays down that, so long as the Queen was favourable to the Alen?on marriage, the writer was willing to sacrifice his life for it. He still maintains that it is the only safe course, and one which should enable the Queen to “rule the sternes of the shippes of Europe with more fame than ever came to any Quene of the Worelld.” But finding her Majesty utterly against it, he proposes such remedies as are necessary, at least for comparative safety. He points out that she cannot expect that France and Alen?on will sit down patiently under the slight, though they may dissemble for a time; and he suggests that Alen?on should be diverted from allying himself with Spain, by encouraging his enterprise in the Netherlands, dangerous though such a course was to England. All Papists should be dismissed from positions of trust; the army, navy, and fortifications should be placed on a war-footing; mercenary Germans should be bespoken; fresh vents for English commerce should be sought;[429] the Irish should be conciliated, and[338] their just grievances remedied, and “certain private disorders in Ireland winked at.” The Queen of Scots should be brought to a safer place farther south, and repressive precautions taken against her friends in England. Whoever may have given this remarkable state paper to Elizabeth,[430] it is certain that the advice contained in it was followed. Orders were given to bring Mary Stuart to Ashby-de-la-Zouch,[431] the mild and lenient Lord Shrewsbury being reinforced in his guard by Sir Ralph Sadler and two other known Protestants;[432] a general muster of militia was summoned, 90,000 men in all; London was called upon for 4000 armed men; the Queen’s navy, seventeen ships, was mobilised;[433] and negotiations were opened for Condé and a Huguenot force, with a number of mercenary German Protestants, to enter Flanders.[434] It was considered rightly that if a[339] large body of Huguenots depending entirely upon England were by Alen?on’s side, it would not only prevent his brother from supporting him, but would render his enterprise in Flanders less dangerous to England.

Concurrently with these precautions, the Queen renewed her extravagant love correspondence with Alen?on. There is no more remarkable instance than this of the consummate statesmanship of Burghley. The country had been driven out of the straight course in which he had held it so long, and was rapidly nearing the breakers. The document now under consideration laid before the Queen the only course which could avert destruction, and this course, as we see, she wisely took. If Burghley had openly opposed Leicester and Walsingham from the first, he would probably have fallen into disgrace, and have lost his influence entirely; but by holding aloof and tempering their policy only, he was able, when catastrophe impended, to lead the ship of state into a harbour of comparative safety. Under the influence of fear and Burghley, the Queen at the same time became most amiable to the Spaniards again. She assured Mendoza (20th February) that “she would never make war upon your Majesty, unless you began it first, which she could not believe by any means you would do.” She was, she said, a sister to Philip. “She had always done her best for the tranquillity of the Netherlands, and to prevent the French from getting a footing there.” Mendoza spoke some hard truths to her, but she was very humble.

A few days afterwards, when the French Ambassador had been driving her into a corner about Alen?on, and threatening that the Prince would publish her letters, she was closeted in her chamber at Whitehall with Burghley and Archbishop Sandys. “Here am I,” she cried, “between Scylla and Charybdis. Alen?on has agreed to all my conditions, and wants to know when[340] he is to come and marry me. If I fail he will probably quarrel with me, and if I marry him I shall not be able to govern the country. What shall I do?” Sandys gave a courtier-like reply, and Burghley was silent. The Queen was impatient at this, and roughly told him he was purposely absenting himself from the Council. What was his advice? Thus pressed, the Lord Treasurer replied that if it was her pleasure to marry she should do so, as Alen?on had accepted the terms which rendered her safe. “That,” said the Queen, “is not the opinion of the rest of the Council, but that I should keep him in play.” Burghley was aware of this already, and dryly told the Queen that those who tried to trick princes generally ended by being caught themselves. But Elizabeth knew her profound powers of dissimulation better even than Burghley did, and went on her way. The Lord Treasurer stood almost alone among the councillors in his mild and cautious policy. Sussex, in deep dudgeon, was generally at his mansion at Newhall; and, as we have seen, Burghley himself avoided as much as possible incurring responsibility for the present action of the Queen, except so far as to advise her how to render her policy as little harmful as possible. But it is evident that Elizabeth, in moments of difficulty like this, always turned away from Leicester, and sought the sounder aid of the Lord Treasurer.

Leicester, in March, pretended to fall ill, and during his absence from court completely turned round. Now that Lord Burghley was urging for a close friendship with France, since Leicester’s policy had alienated Spain, the Earl, with characteristic instability, suddenly professed to Mendoza a desire to “serve the King of Spain.” His enemies, he said, were plotting this French alliance and marriage only to spite him, and he would bring the Queen to a close friendship to Spain. The Queen was,[341] doubtless, aware of Leicester’s change; because when Castelnau, the French Ambassador, addressed Elizabeth with an important message from Catharine, proposing that a joint effort should be made to prevent the domination of Portugal by Philip (17th April 1580), he was referred to Burghley alone, and only after the decision had been adopted not to commence hostilities, as suggested, was Leicester let into the secret. Dangerous as it was to England that Philip should dominate Portugal, it was of more importance to France; and it was determined to cast upon the latter power, if possible, the responsibility of preventing it.

The prospect of a serious cause for dissension between France and Spain was, indeed, a welcome one for Elizabeth, and she made the most of it. The star of Morton in Scotland was waning fast, and D’Aubigny, Earl of Lennox, had already gained a complete command of the young King’s affection. Mary Stuart from her captivity was taking the grave step of laying herself, her country, and her child at the feet of the King of Spain, with the acquiescence this time of the Duke of Guise. The English Government, however, was not yet aware of this, and looked upon France as more likely than Spain to influence Scotland under D’Aubigny.[435] Division in France was consequently promoted by Leicester and his party. Alen?on was warned not to be too pliant in agreeing[342] with his brother; and when Condé and Navarre once again raised the Huguenot standard, the former rushed over to England to beseech for funds (June 1580), and was received several times in secret by the Queen and Leicester. He immediately sent a message to his adherents in France that all was well, and that assistance would be given to him.

After some days the Queen sent word to Castelnau, the French Ambassador, saying that she had heard that Condé was in England, but she would not receive him except in the Ambassador’s presence. Burghley, writing to Sussex, says that on arriving at Nonsuch from Theobalds, “I came hither about five o’clock, and repairing towards the Privy Chamber to see her Majesty, I found the door at the upper end shut, and understood that the French Ambassador and the Prince of Condé had been a long time there with her Majesty, with none others of the Council but my Lord of Leicester and Mr. Vice-Chamberlain Hatton.” After the audience Castelnau went to Burghley and complained of Condé for raising disturbances in France. “He augmenteth his suspicions upon the sight of the great favours shown to the Prince of Condé by certain Councillors here, whom he understandeth have been many times with him (Condé) at the banqueting-house where he is lodged.” The Queen told Burghley that Condé had asked for a contribution of one-third of the cost of a Huguenot rising, the King of Navarre and the German Protestants paying the other two-thirds; but the Lord Treasurer’s opinion of it is sufficiently expressed in the following words, which probably decided the question, for Condé did not get the aid he sought notwithstanding Leicester’s efforts: “I wish her Majesty may spend some portion to solicit them for peace … but to enter into war and therewith to break the marriage, and so to be left alone as subject[343] to the burden of such a war, I think no good counsellor can allow.”[436]

The fact that he had not been personally consulted earlier did not apparently ruffle Lord Burghley. In his quiet, prudent way he brought things round to his view, without caring for the personal aspect. Not so, irritable, hot-tempered Sussex. He replied in boiling indignation against Leicester—“I have never heard word from my Lord Leicester, Mr. Vice-Chamberlain, or Mr. Secretary Walsingham, of the coming of the Prince of Condé, or of his expectations, or to seek to know what I thought fit to do in his cause; whereby I see either they seek to keep the whole from me, or else care little for my opinion … perhaps at my coming some of them will mislike I am made such a stranger … I can give as good a sound opinion as the best of them … I am very loath to see my sovereign lady to be violently drawn into war.”[437] In any case, Burghley’s unaided efforts were sufficient to prevent the Queen from giving money to Condé, and thus setting the King of France against her as well as the King of Spain. She was, indeed, in a month, so completely turned by Lord Burghley’s influence as to exert herself to bring about some sort of accord between Henry III. and the Huguenots.[438]

[344]

During the rest of the year the haggling between Elizabeth and Alen?on went on. The deputies of the States, after much discussion, offered the sovereignty to the French Prince, whose letters to the Queen grew more preposterous than ever. It was evident that if he went too far in the Protestant direction to please Elizabeth he would be useless as a means for attracting the Catholic Flemings to cordial union with Orange; whereas an uncompromising Catholic attitude, or any appearance of depending upon his brother for armed aid, would have been fiercely resisted both by the English and the Hollanders. Many points therefore had to be reconciled, and the Queen kept the affair mainly in her own hands, playing upon the hopes, fears, and ambitions of Alen?on with the dexterity of a juggler.

Burghley’s main efforts in the meanwhile were directed to preventing her from drifting into war, either with France or Spain. When the envoys came from the Portuguese pretender, Don Antonio, they brought bribes and presents in plenty for Leicester, who entertained them splendidly, and urged their suit for assistance for their master; but again Lord Burghley pointed out to the Queen the expense she would incur and the risks she would run in a war with Spain, and one Ambassador after another went back discomfited, whilst Leicester pocketed their bribes, and alternately raged and sulked when his advice was not followed.

There were others besides Leicester whose recklessness or greed was dragging England to the brink of a war with Spain, in spite of Burghley’s efforts. Strong as was the great statesman’s interest in increasing the legitimate trade of the country, we have seen that from the beginning of Hawkins’ voyages to the West Coast of Africa, and thence to South America with slaves,[345] Burghley had refused any participation in the syndicates that financed them. He had, it is true, on more than one occasion repudiated the claim of the Spaniards, and especially of the Portuguese, to exclusive dominion of the western world by virtue of the Pope’s bull, but he had always frowned upon the filibustering attempts of the syndicates, under the auspices of some of the aldermen of London, to establish posts in territory occupied by other Christian powers, or to force trade upon established settlements against the will of the authorities. He had honestly done his best to check robbery in the Channel by those who called themselves privateers, and almost alone of the Councillors, he had no share or interest in the piratical ventures under the English flag which had committed such destructive depredations upon shipping.

The attack upon Hawkins’ fleet at San Juan de Ulloa, 1568, had aroused fierce and not unnatural indignation amongst sailors and merchants in England; but the expedition was in defiance of the Spanish law, in a port belonging to and occupied by Spain, and it is more than doubtful whether Burghley advised the seizure of the specie belonging to Philip, in December 1568, in reprisal for the attack. There were ample reasons, and an excellent legal pretext, for the seizure of the money without that. In fact it was a master-stroke of policy which the foolish rashness of De Spes had put into Burghley’s power, and the latter and Elizabeth naturally welcomed the opportunity of crippling Alba. But when it became a question of revenging San Juan de Ulloa by the despatch of a strong armed expedition against Spanish colonies, Lord Burghley looked askance at what might well be made a casus belli by Spain, and could only enrich the mariners and shareholders who took part in it.

[346]

Drake’s raid upon Nombre-de-Dios, 1573, had been robbery pure and simple, carried out swiftly and secretly, so that the authorities at home had no opportunity, even if they had the will, to prevent it; and Drake kept out of the way for nearly three years afterwards, to escape punishment. But in 1577 he was introduced by Walsingham or Hatton to the Queen,[439] who told him that she wished to be revenged upon the King of Spain, and that he, Drake, was the man to do it. When Drake explained his plan for a great piratical raid into the Pacific, the Queen swore by her crown that she would have any man’s head who informed the King of Spain of it; and, says Drake, “her Majesty gave me special commandment that of all men my Lord Treasurer should not know it.” But the preparations for the voyage could not be kept secret entirely from Burghley, who was well served by spies, and had many means of winning men. He could not prohibit the expedition, of course; but, as usual, he sought to render it as innocuous as possible. Thomas Doughty, presumably a barrister, certainly a man of questionable character, had become Hatton’s secretary, and was deep with Drake in the plans for the expedition. The whole business is somewhat obscure, but Lord Burghley appears to have bought this man to his interests, and, according to Doughty himself, to have offered him the post of his private secretary, which, however, is unlikely. In any case, he learned from him all that there was to know about Drake’s intentions, and when, in November 1577, Drake’s expedition sailed, Doughty accompanied it as Burghley’s secret agent, and,[347] it may charitably be surmised, for the express purpose of moderating if not frustrating its action. First he tried to desert with his ship, and was duly chased and brought back by Drake. Then he was accused of attempting to sow discord, discouragement, and mutiny amongst the men, and Drake hanged him with his own hands on the coast of Patagonia.[440] Winter, the other captain, drifted back to England again from Tierra del Fuego, whilst Drake in the little Pelican went on his great voyage of plunder round the world. All Europe rang with the news of his ravages in the South Seas, and the shareholders, says Mendoza, “are beside themselves with joy.” But the feelings of peaceful English merchants, and of Burghley himself, were far different. They saw that Spain had been attacked wantonly, her mariners hanged, her treasure stolen without legal excuse, her sacred edifices ransacked, and it was felt that a war of retaliation was inevitable, in which all England would suffer for the dishonest profit of a few.

One day towards the end of September 1580, after an absence of nearly three years, when most people had given up Drake for lost, the Pelican sailed quietly into Plymouth Sound, bringing in her hold plundered riches incalculable. Drake posted up to London, hoping doubtless that Elizabeth’s greed would overcome her fears of war. He was closeted for six hours with the Queen; but when he was summoned to the Council not one of his own backers was there, but only Burghley, Sussex, Crofts—a Spanish agent—and Secretary Wilson. They ordered all his treasure to be brought to the Tower, and a precise inventory made of it, preliminary to its restitution. When the order was taken to Leicester, Walsingham, and Hatton, they refused to sign, and exerted their influence[348] with the Queen to get it suspended. Mendoza raged and threatened. The Queen was in mortal fear of war, and had promised that Drake should be punished if he came back. But she loved money, and was not blind to the injury that had been done to her probable foe by Drake’s boldness. So she temporised as usual, accepted Drake’s presents graciously, and gradually came round to making a hero of the great seaman, in spite of Mendoza’s talk of war and vengeance. She must have proofs against Drake before she punished him, she said. Besides, what were the Spanish troops doing in Ireland? When the last Spanish-Papal soldier was withdrawn, she would talk about the restitution of Drake’s plunder—not before.[441] At present she was the aggrieved party. Gifts and bribes showered from Drake upon the Councillors; but when Burghley was offered 3000 crowns’ worth of fine gold, he refused it, saying he could not receive a present from a man who had stolen all he had,[442] and Sussex also declined any portion of the booty. Once more it was Burghley’s task to avert or provide against the war with Spain, which the ineptitude and cupidity of others had brought within measurable distance.