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| 11 | <title>Secondary Sources: Queen Elizabeth by Edward Spencer Beesly, 1892:
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| 12 | Chapter XI</title>
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| 30 | <td width="50%" height="3"><font size="3"></font></td>
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| 34 | <td width="25%" height="610"></td>
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| 35 | <td valign="top" width="50%" height="610">
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| 36 | <p align="center"><b><font size="7">Queen Elizabeth<br></font></b>
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| 37 | <font size="4">by Edward Spencer Beesly, 1892</font></p>
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| 38 | <p align="center">
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| 39 | <img border="2" src="eliz1-ermine.jpg" width="400" height="478" alt="'The Ermine Portrait' of Elizabeth I, c1585, by Nicholas Hilliard"><p align="center">
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| 40 | <i><font size="2">'The Ermine Portrait' of Elizabeth I, c1585, by Nicholas
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| 41 | Hilliard;<br>from the <a href="http://www.marileecody.com/eliz1-images.html">Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I</a> website</font></i></td>
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| 42 | <td width="25%" height="610"></td>
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| 43 | </tr>
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| 44 | </table>
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| 45 | <blockquote>
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| 46 | <blockquote>
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| 54 | <div align="left">
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| 55 | <b>CHAPTER XI</b><br>
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| 56 | <b>DOMESTIC AFFAIRS: 1588-1601</b></div>
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| 57 | <p align="left"><font size="3">IT was a boast of Elizabeth that when once
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| 58 | her servants were chosen she did not lightly displace them. Difference of
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| 59 | opinion from their mistress, or from one another, did not involve
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| 60 | resignation or dismissal, because, though they were free to speak their
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| 61 | minds, all had to carry out with fidelity and even zeal, whatever policy the
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| 62 | Queen prescribed. This condition they accepted; not only the astute and
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| 63 | compliant Burghley, but the more eager and opinionated Walsingham; and
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| 64 | therefore they had practically a life-tenure of office. Soon after the
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| 65 | Armada the first generation of them began to disappear. Bacon, Sussex, and
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| 66 | Bedford were already gone. Leicester died in 1588; his brother Warwick, and
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| 67 | Mildmay in 1589; Walsingham and Randolph in 1591; Hatton in 1592; Grey de
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| 68 | Wilton in 1593; Knollys and Hunsdon in 1596. Of the trusty servants with
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| 69 | whom she began her reign, Burghley alone remained. The leading men of the
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| 70 | new generation were Robert Cecil, the Treasurer's second son, trained to
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| 71 | business under his father's eye, and of qualities similar, though inferior;
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| 72 | Nottingham (formerly Howard of Effingham), a straightforward man of no great
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| 73 | ability, but acceptable to the Queen for his father's services and his own
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| 74 | (and not the less so for his fine presence); the accomplished Buckhurst; the
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| 75 | brilliant Raleigh; and, younger than the rest, Essex. The last was the son
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| 76 | of a man much favoured by Elizabeth. Leicester was his step-father, Knollys
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| 77 | his grandfather, Hunsdon his great-uncle, Walsingham his father-in-law,
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| 78 | Burghley his guardian. Ardent, impulsive, presumptuous, a warm friend, a
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| 79 | rancorous enemy, profuse in expense, lawless in his amours, jealous of his
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| 80 | equals, brooking no superior, impatient of all rule or order that delayed
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| 81 | him from leaping at once to the highest place,--he was possessed with a most
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| 82 | exaggerated notion of his own capacity, which appears to have been only
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| 83 | moderate. As the ward of Burghley he had been much in the company of his
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| 84 | future enemy, Robert Cecil, whose sly prim ways were most unlike his own.
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| 85 | The contrast did him no harm with the public, to whom the younger man was a
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| 86 | Tom Jones and the elder a Blifil. Two vastly abler men, Francis Bacon and
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| 87 | Raleigh, less advantageously placed, but unhampered with any scruples, were
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| 88 | busily trying to profit by the all-pervading animosity of Cecil and Essex.
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| 89 | </font></p>
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| 90 | <p align="left"><font size="3">Belonging, as Essex did by his connections,
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| 91 | to the inner circle who stood closest to Elizabeth, it was natural that she
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| 92 | should take an interest in him, and give him opportunities for turning his
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| 93 | showy qualities to account. In 1586 he was sent to the Low Countries as
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| 94 | general of cavalry under his step-father, Leicester. He distinguished
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| 95 | himself by his fiery valour in the expeditions to Spain, and as commander of
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| 96 | the English army in France, though he does not seem to have had any real
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| 97 | military talent. But Elizabeth's regard for him was soon shaken by his
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| 98 | presumptuous and unruly behaviour. When he fought a duel with Sir Charles
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| 99 | Blount because she had conferred some favour on the latter, she swore "by
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| 100 | God's death it were fitting some one should take him down and teach him
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| 101 | better manners, or there were no rule with him." He displeased her by his
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| 102 | quarrels with Cecil and Effingham, and his discontented grumbling. She was
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| 103 | highly dissatisfied with his management of the Azores expedition in 1597. In
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| 104 | July 1598, at a meeting of the Council, she was provoked by his insolence to
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| 105 | strike him; and though after three months he obtained his pardon, he never
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| 106 | regained her favour. </font></p>
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| 107 | <p align="left"><font size="3">It was at this time that Burghley died (4
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| 108 | August), in his seventy-eighth year. Elizabeth, though she could call him "a
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| 109 | froward old fool" about a trifling matter ( March 1596), could not but feel
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| 110 | that much was changed when she lost the able and faithful servant who had
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| 111 | worked with her for forty years. "She seemeth to take it very grievously,
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| 112 | shedding of tears and separating herself from all company." Buckhurst was
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| 113 | the new Treasurer. </font></p>
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| 114 | <p align="left"><font size="3">Essex had for some time cast his eyes on
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| 115 | Ireland as a field where glory and power might be won. There can be little
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| 116 | doubt that he was already speculating on the advantage that the possession
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| 117 | of an army might give him in any difficulty with his rivals or with the
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| 118 | Queen herself. Cecil perfidiously advocated his appointment to a post which
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| 119 | had been the grave of so many reputations. The Queen at length consented,
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| 120 | though reluctantly. Essex was a popular favourite. He had managed--it is not
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| 121 | very clear how--to win the confidence of both Puritans and Papists. The
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| 122 | general belief was that, for the first time since she had mounted the
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| 123 | throne, Elizabeth was afraid of one of her subjects. </font></p>
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| 124 | <p align="left"><font size="3">During the whole of the reign Ireland had
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| 125 | been a cause of trouble and anxiety. Elizabeth's treatment of that unhappy
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| 126 | country was not more creditable or successful than that of other English
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| 127 | statesmen before and after her. There was the same absence of any systematic
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| 128 | policy steadily carried out, the same wearisome and disreputable alternation
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| 129 | between bursts of savage repression and intervals of pusillanimity,
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| 130 | concession, and neglect. In the competition of the various departments of
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| 131 | the public service for attention and expenditure, Ireland generally came
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| 132 | last. All other needs had to be served first whether at home or abroad.
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| 133 | </font></p>
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| 134 | <p align="left"><font size="3">In the early years of the reign the chief
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| 135 | trouble lay in Ulster, then the most purely Celtic part of Ireland, and
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| 136 | practically retouched by English conquest. Twice, in her weariness of the
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| 137 | struggle with Shan O'Neill, Elizabeth conceded to him something like a
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| 138 | subkingship of Ulster in return for his nominal submission. In the end he
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| 139 | was beaten, and his head was fixed on the walls of Dublin Castle (1566). But
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| 140 | nothing further was done to anglicise Ulster. During the attempt of the
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| 141 | Devonshire adventurers to colonise South Munster (1569-71), and the
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| 142 | consequent rebellion, the northern province remained an unconcerned
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| 143 | spectator. Nor did it join in the great Desmond rising (1579-83), which,
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| 144 | with the insurrection of the Catholic lords of the Pale and the landing of
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| 145 | the Pope's Italians at Smerwick, was the Irish branch of the threefold
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| 146 | attack on Elizabeth directed by Gregory XIII. The attempt of the elder Essex
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| 147 | to colonise Antrim (1573-75) was a disastrous failure, and Ulster still
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| 148 | remained practically independent of the Dublin Government. </font></p>
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| 149 | <p align="left"><font size="3">The most successful Deputy of the reign was
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| 150 | Perrot (1584-87), a valiant soldier and strict ruler, who, after long
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| 151 | experience in the Irish wars, had come to the conclusion that what Ireland
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| 152 | most wanted was justice. The native chiefs, released from the constant dread
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| 153 | of spoliation, and finding that English encroachment was repressed as
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| 154 | inflexibly as Irish disorder, became quiet and friendly. But this system did
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| 155 | not suit the dominant race. The Deputy was accused to the Queen of seeking
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| 156 | to betray the country to the Irish and the Spaniard. Recalled, and put upon
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| 157 | his trial for treason, he was found guilty on suborned evidence, and
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| 158 | sentenced to death. It is usually said that his real offence was some
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| 159 | disrespectful language about the Queen, which he confessed. But it seems
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| 160 | that she forbore to take his life precisely because she would not have it
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| 161 | thought that she was influenced by personal resentment. </font></p>
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| 162 | <p align="left"><font size="3">His successor, Fitzwilliam, was a Deputy of
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| 163 | the old sort--greedy, violent, careless of consequences, and always acting
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| 164 | on the principle that, as against an Englishman, a Celt had no rights. The
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| 165 | execution of MacMahon in Monaghan, and the confiscation of his lands on a
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| 166 | trivial pretext, alarmed the North. Ulster had not been bled white like the
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| 167 | rest of Ireland. The O'Neills had a nephew of their old hero Shan for their
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| 168 | chief, who had been brought up at the English Court and made Earl of Tyrone
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| 169 | by Elizabeth. An educated and remarkably able man, he had none of his
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| 170 | uncle's illusions. He clung to his ancestral rights and dignity, but he
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| 171 | hoped to preserve them by zealously discharging his obligations as a vassal
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| 172 | of the Queen. He served in the war against Desmond, and exerted himself to
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| 173 | maintain order in Ulster. But he had no mind to sink into the position of a
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| 174 | mere dignified land-owner like the English nobles; nor indeed, under such a
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| 175 | Deputy as Fitzwilliam, was he likely to preserve even his lands if he lost
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| 176 | his power. Rather than that, he determined to enter into what he knew was a
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| 177 | most unequal struggle, on the off-chance of pulling through by help from
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| 178 | Spain. It is clear that he was driven into rebellion against his
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| 179 | inclination. But when he had once drawn the sword he maintained the struggle
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| 180 | against one Deputy after another with wonderful tenacity and resource. For
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| 181 | the first time in Irish history, the rebel forces were disciplined and armed
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| 182 | like those of the crown, and stood up to them in equal numbers on equal
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| 183 | terms. At length, in August 1598, Tyrone inflicted upon Sir Henry Bagnall
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| 184 | near Armagh the severest defeat that the English had ever suffered in
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| 185 | Ireland; slaying 1500 of his men, and capturing all his artillery and
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| 186 | baggage. Insurrections at once broke out all over Ireland. </font></p>
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| 187 | <p align="left"><font size="3">This was the situation with which Essex
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| 188 | undertook to deal. He had loudly blamed other Deputies for not vigorously
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| 189 | attacking Tyrone in his own country. Vigour was the one military quality
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| 190 | which he himself possessed. He went with the title of Lieutenant and
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| 191 | Governor-General, and with extraordinary powers, at the head of 21,000
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| 192 | men--such an army as had never been sent to Ireland (April 1599). The Queen,
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| 193 | who trembled at the expense, and did not wish to see any of her nobles,
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| 194 | least of all Essex, permanently established in a great military command,
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| 195 | enjoined him to push at once into Ulster, as he had himself proposed, and
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| 196 | finish the war. Instead of doing this, he went south into districts that had
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| 197 | been depopulated and desolated by the savage warfare of the last thirty
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| 198 | years. Even here he met with discreditable reverses. When he got back to
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| 199 | Dublin (July) his army was reduced by disease and desertion to less than
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| 200 | 5000 men. Disregarding the Queen's express prohibition, he made his friend
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| 201 | Southampton General of horse. When she censured his bad management, he
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| 202 | replied with impertinent complaints about the favour she was showing to
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| 203 | Cecil, Raleigh, and Cobham, and began to consult with his friends about
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| 204 | carrying selected troops over to England to remove them. Rumours of his
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| 205 | intention to return reached the Queen. "We do charge you," she wrote, "as
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| 206 | you tender our pleasure, that you adventure not to come out of that
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| 207 | kingdom." He declared that he could not invade Ulster without
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| 208 | reinforcements. They were sent, and at length he marched into Louth
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| 209 | (September). There he was met by Tyrone, who, in an interview, completely
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| 210 | twisted him round his finger, and obtained a cessation of arms and the
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| 211 | promise of concessions amounting to what would now be called Home Rule. A
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| 212 | few days later, on receipt of an angry letter from the Queen forbidding him
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| 213 | to grant any terms without her permission, he deserted his post and hurried
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| 214 | to England. The first notice Elizabeth received of this astounding piece of
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| 215 | insubordination was his still more astounding incursion into her bedroom,
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| 216 | all muddy from his ride, before she was completely dressed (28 September
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| 217 | 1599). </font></p>
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| 218 | <p align="left"><font size="3">Elizabeth seems to have been so much taken
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| 219 | aback by the Earl's unparalleled presumption, that she did not blaze out as
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| 220 | might have been expected. She gave him audience an hour or two later, and
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| 221 | heard what he had to say. Probably he adopted an injured tone as usual, and
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| 222 | inveighed against "that knave Raleigh" and "that sycophant Cobham." But his
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| 223 | insubordination had been gross, and no talking could make it anything else.
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| 224 | It was more dangerous than Leicester's disobedience in 1586, because it came
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| 225 | from a vastly more dangerous person. The same afternoon the Queen referred
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| 226 | the matter to the Council. Essex was put under arrest, and never saw her
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| 227 | again. The more she reflected, the more indignant and alarmed she became.
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| 228 | "By God's son," she said to Harington, "I am no Queen; this man is above
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| 229 | me." After a delay of nine months, occasioned by his illness, the fallen
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| 230 | favourite was brought before a special Commission on the charge of contempt
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| 231 | and disobedience, and sentenced to be suspended from his offices and
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| 232 | confined to his house during the Queen's pleasure (June 1600). In a few
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| 233 | weeks he was released from arrest, but he could not obtain permission to
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| 234 | appear at court, though he implored it in most abject letters. </font></p>
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| 235 | <p align="left"><font size="3">There are persons who consider themselves to
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| 236 | be intolerably wronged and persecuted if they cannot have precedence and
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| 237 | power over their fellow-citizens. Essex was such a person. Instead of being
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| 238 | thankful that he had escaped the punishment which under most sovereigns he
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| 239 | would have suffered, he entered into criminal plots for coercing, if not
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| 240 | overthrowing, the Queen. He urged the Scotch King to enforce the recognition
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| 241 | of his title by arms. He tried to persuade Mountjoy, his successor in
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| 242 | Ireland, to carry his army to Scotland to co-operate with James. These
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| 243 | intrigues were not known to the Government. But it did not escape
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| 244 | observation that he was collecting men of the sword in the neighbourhood of
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| 245 | his house; that he was holding consultations with suspected nobles and
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| 246 | gentlemen (some of whom were afterwards engaged in the Gunpowder Plot); that
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| 247 | the Puritan clergy were preaching and praying for his cause; and that there
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| 248 | was a certain ferment in the city. Essex was therefore summoned to attend
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| 249 | before the Council. Instead of obeying, he flew to arms, with Lords
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| 250 | Southampton, Rutland, Sandys, Cromwell, and Monteagle, and about 300
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| 251 | gentlemen. But the citizens of London did not respond to his appeal, and the
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| 252 | insurrection was easily suppressed, less than a dozen persons being slain on
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| 253 | both sides (8 February 1601). A more senseless and profligate attempt to
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| 254 | overthrow a good government it would be difficult to find in history. It was
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| 255 | not dignified by any semblance of principle, and it would sufficiently stamp
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| 256 | the character of its author, even if it stood alone as an evidence of his
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| 257 | vanity, egotism, and want of common sense. </font></p>
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| 258 | <p align="left"><font size="3">The trial and execution of the principal
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| 259 | malefactor followed as a matter of course and without delay (February 25).
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| 260 | It would have been scandalous to spare him. Elizabeth had once been fond of
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| 261 | him, and had no reason to be ashamed of it. To talk of her "passion" and her
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| 262 | "amorous inclination," as Hume and others have done, is revolting and
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| 263 | malignant nonsense. It is creditable to old age when it can take pleasure in
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| 264 | the unfolding of bright and promising youth. But royal favour was not good
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| 265 | for such a man as Essex. It developed the worst features in his showy but
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| 266 | faulty character. As he steadily deteriorated, her regard cooled; but so
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| 267 | much of it remained that she tried to amend him by chastisement, "ad
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| 268 | correctionem," as she said, "non ad ruinam." She had long before warned him
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| 269 | that, though she had put up with much disrespect to her person, he must not
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| 270 | touch her sceptre, or he would be dealt with according to the law of
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| 271 | England. She was as good as her word, and, though the memory of it was
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| 272 | painful to her, there is not the smallest evidence that she ever repented of
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| 273 | having allowed the law to take its course. Only three of the accomplices of
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| 274 | Essex were punished capitally. The five peers, none of them powerful or
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| 275 | formidable, experienced Elizabeth's accustomed clemency. </font></p>
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| 276 | <p align="left"><font size="3">It has been suggested by an admirer of Essex
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| 277 | that he failed in Ireland because his "sensitively attuned nature" shrank
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| 278 | from the systematic desolation and starvation afterwards employed by his
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| 279 | successor. No evidence is offered for this suggestion. In a letter to the
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| 280 | Queen (25 June 1599) he advocates "burning and spoiling the country <i>in
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| 281 | all places</i>," which method "shall starve the rebels in one year." This
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| 282 | course Mountjoy carried out. With means far inferior to those of Essex, and
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| 283 | notwithstanding the landing of 3000 Spaniards at Kinsale (September 1601),
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| 284 | he was the first Englishman who completely subdued Ireland. Tyrone
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| 285 | surrendered a few days before the Queen's death. </font></p>
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| 286 | <p align="left"><font size="3">Little has been said in these pages about
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| 287 | parliamentary proceedings. The real history of the reign does not lie there.
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| 288 | The country was governed wholly by the Queen, with the advice of her
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| 289 | Council, and not at all by Parliament. In the forty-five years of her reign
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| 290 | there were only thirteen sessions of Parliament. The functions of Parliament
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| 291 | were to vote grants of money when the ordinary revenues of the crown were
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| 292 | insufficient, and to make laws. Its right in these matters was unquestioned.
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| 293 | If the Queen had never wanted subsidies or penal laws against her political
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| 294 | and religious opponents (of other laws she often said there were more than
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| 295 | enough already), it would never have been summoned at all; nor is there any
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| 296 | reason to suppose that the country would have complained as long as it was
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| 297 | governed with prudence and success. In fact, to do without Parliaments was
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| 298 | distinctly popular, because it meant doing without subsidies. </font></p>
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| 299 | <p align="left"><font size="3">In the thirty years preceding the Armada--the
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| 300 | sessions of Parliament being nine--Elizabeth applied for only eight
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| 301 | subsidies, and of one of them a portion was remitted. By her economy she not
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| 302 | only defrayed the expenses of government out of the ordinary revenue, which,
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| 303 | at the end of the reign was about £300,000 a year, but paid off old debts.
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| 304 | It was not till the twenty-fourth year of her reign that she discharged the
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| 305 | last of her father's debts, up to which time she had been paying interest on
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| 306 | it. Subsequently she even accumulated a small reserve, which, as she told
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| 307 | Parliament, was a most necessary thing if she was not to be driven to borrow
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| 308 | on sudden emergency. But this reserve vanished immediately she became
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| 309 | involved in the great war with Spain; and during the last fifteen years of
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| 310 | her life, although she received twelve subsidies, she was always in
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| 311 | difficulty for money. She had to sell crown lands to the value of £372,000.
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| 312 | Parliament, which had voted the usual single subsidies without complaint,
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| 313 | grumbled and pretended poverty when she asked for three and even four.
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| 314 | Bacon's famous outburst (1593) about gentlemen having to sell their plate
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| 315 | and farmers their brass pots to pay the tax, was a piece of claptrap. The
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| 316 | nation was, relatively to former times, rolling in wealth. But the old
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| 317 | belief had still considerable strength--that government being the affair of
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| 318 | the King, not of his subjects, he should provide for its expenses out of his
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| 319 | hereditary income, just as they paid their private expenses out of their
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| 320 | private incomes; that he had no more claim to dip into their pockets than
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| 321 | they had to dip into his; and that a subsidy, as its name imports, was an
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| 322 | occasional and extraordinary assistance furnished as a matter not of duty
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| 323 | but of good-will. </font></p>
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| 324 | <p align="left"><font size="3">This might have been healthy doctrine when
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| 325 | kings were campaigning on the Continent for personal or dynastic objects. It
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| 326 | was out of place when a large expenditure was indispensable for the
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| 327 | interests and safety of the country. The grumbling, therefore, about
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| 328 | taxation towards the end of the reign was unreasonable and discreditable to
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| 329 | the grumblers. The Queen met them with her usual good sense. She explained
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| 330 | to them--though, as she correctly said, she was under no constitutional
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| 331 | obligation to do so--how the money went, what she had spent on the Spanish
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| 332 | war, on Ireland, and in loans to the Dutch and the French King. The plea was
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| 333 | unanswerable. Her private expenditure was on a very modest scale. In
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| 334 | particular she had never indulged in that besetting and costly sin of
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| 335 | princes, palace-building; and this at a time when the noble mansions which
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| 336 | still testify to the wealth of the England of that day were rising in every
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| 337 | county. Her only extravagance was dress. Some have carped at her collection
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| 338 | of jewelry. But jewels, like the silver balustrades of Frederick William I.,
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| 339 | were a mode of hoarding, and in her later years she reconverted jewels into
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| 340 | money to meet the expenses of the State. Modern writers, who so airily blame
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| 341 | her for not subsidising more liberally her Scotch, Dutch, and French allies,
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| 342 | would find it difficult, if they condescended to particulars, to explain how
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| 343 | she was able to give them as much money as she did. </font></p>
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| 344 | <p align="left"><font size="3">It is common to make much of the debate on
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| 345 | monopolies in the last Parliament of Elizabeth (1601), as showing the rise
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| 346 | of a spirit of resistance to the royal prerogative. I do not think that the
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| 347 | report of that debate would convey such an impression to any one reading it
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| 348 | without preconceived views. None of the speakers contested the prerogative.
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| 349 | They only complained that it was being exercised in a way prejudicial to the
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| 350 | public interest. If the monopolies had been unimportant, or if the patentees
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| 351 | had used their privilege less greedily, there would evidently have been no
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| 352 | complaint as to the principle involved. No course of action was decided on,
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| 353 | because the Queen intervened by a message in which she stated that she had
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| 354 | not been aware of the abuses prevailing, that she was as indignant at them
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| 355 | as Parliament could be, and that she would put a stop, not to monopolies,
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| 356 | but to such as were injurious. With this message the House of Commons was
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| 357 | more than satisfied. As a matter of fact monopolies went on till dealt with
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| 358 | by the declaratory statute in the twenty-first year of James I. </font></p>
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| 359 | <p align="left"><font size="3">If the last Tudor handed down the English
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| 360 | Constitution to the first Stuart as she had received it from her
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| 361 | predecessors, unchanged either in theory or practice, it was far otherwise
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| 362 | with the English Church. There are two conflicting views as to the
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| 363 | historical position of the Church in this country. According to one it was,
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| 364 | all through the Middle Age, National as well as Catholic. The changes which
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| 365 | took place at the Reformation made no difference in that respect, and
|
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| 366 | involved no break in its continuity. It is not a Protestant Church. It is
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| 367 | still National and still Catholic, resting on precisely the same
|
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| 368 | foundations, and existing by the same title as it did in the days of Dunstan
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| 369 | and Becket. According to the other view, the epithets National and Catholic
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| 370 | are contradictory. A Church which undergoes radical changes of government,
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| 371 | worship, and doctrine is no longer the same Church but a new one, and must
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| 372 | be held to have been established by the authority which prescribed these
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| 373 | changes, which, in this case, was the Queen and Parliament. The word
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| 374 | "Protestant" was avoided in its formularies to make conformity easier for
|
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| 375 | Catholics; but it is a Protestant Church all the same. Whichever of these
|
|---|
| 376 | views is nearer to the truth, it cannot be denied that, by the legislation
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| 377 | of Elizabeth the English Church became--what it was not in the Middle Age--a
|
|---|
| 378 | spiritual organisation entirely dependent on the State. This it remains
|
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| 379 | still; the supremacy having been virtually transferred from the crown to
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| 380 | Parliament in the next century. I shall not venture to inquire how far this
|
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| 381 | condition of dependence has affected its ability and inclination to perform
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| 382 | the part of a true spiritual power. It is enough to say that no act of will
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| 383 | on the part of any English statesman has had such important and lasting
|
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| 384 | consequences, for good or for evil, as the decision of Elizabeth to make the
|
|---|
| 385 | Church of England what it is. </font></p>
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| 386 | <p align="left"><font size="3">We have seen that the government and worship
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|---|
| 387 | of the Church were established by <i>Act of Parliament in 1559</i>, and its
|
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| 388 | doctrines in 1571. But when once Elizabeth had placed her ecclesiastical
|
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| 389 | powers beyond dispute, by obtaining statutory sanction for them, she allowed
|
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| 390 | no further interference by Parliament. All its attempts, even at mere
|
|---|
| 391 | discussion of ecclesiastical matters, she peremptorily suppressed. She
|
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| 392 | supplied any further legislation that was needed by virtue of her supremacy,
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|---|
| 393 | and she exercised her ecclesiastical government by the Court of High
|
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| 394 | Commission. The new Anglican model was acquiesced in by the majority of the
|
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| 395 | nation. But it had, at first, no hearty support except from the Government.
|
|---|
| 396 | The earnest religionists were either Catholics or Puritans. The object of
|
|---|
| 397 | Elizabeth was to compel these two extreme parties to outward conformity of
|
|---|
| 398 | worship. What their real beliefs were she did not care. </font></p>
|
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| 399 | <p align="left"><font size="3">The large majority of the Catholics showed a
|
|---|
| 400 | loyal and patriotic spirit at the time of the Armada. But they were not
|
|---|
| 401 | treated with confidence by the Government. Great numbers of them were
|
|---|
| 402 | imprisoned or confined in the houses of Protestant gentlemen, by way of
|
|---|
| 403 | precaution, when the Armada was approaching. No Catholic, I believe, was
|
|---|
| 404 | intrusted with any command either by land or sea; and after the danger was
|
|---|
| 405 | over, the persecution, in all its forms, became sharper than ever. There was
|
|---|
| 406 | the less reason for this, inasmuch as it was no secret that the secular
|
|---|
| 407 | priests and the great majority of the English Catholics had become bitterly
|
|---|
| 408 | hostile to the small Jesuitical faction whose treasonable conspiracies had
|
|---|
| 409 | brought so much trouble on their loyal co-religionists. </font></p>
|
|---|
| 410 | <p align="left"><font size="3">The term "Puritan" is used loosely, though
|
|---|
| 411 | conveniently, to designate several shades of belief, By far the larger
|
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| 412 | number of those to whom it is applied were, and meant to remain, members of
|
|---|
| 413 | the Established Church. They objected to certain ceremonies and vestments.
|
|---|
| 414 | They hoped to procure the abolition of these, and, in the meantime, evaded
|
|---|
| 415 | them when they could. They were what would now be called the Evangelical or
|
|---|
| 416 | Low Church party. They held Calvin's distinctive doctrines on
|
|---|
| 417 | predestination, as indeed did most of the bishops; but though preferring his
|
|---|
| 418 | Presbyterian organisation, or something like it, they did not treat it as
|
|---|
| 419 | essential. They were broadly distinguished from the Brownists or
|
|---|
| 420 | Independents, then an insignificant minority, who held each congregation to
|
|---|
| 421 | be a church, and therefore protested against the establishment of any
|
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| 422 | national church. </font></p>
|
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| 423 | <p align="left"><font size="3">Though Elizabeth persecuted the Catholics
|
|---|
| 424 | with a severity steadily increasing in proportion as they became less
|
|---|
| 425 | numerous and formidable, she remained to the last anxious to make conformity
|
|---|
| 426 | easy for them. This was her reason for so obstinately refusing the
|
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| 427 | concessions in the matter of ritual and vestments-trifling as they appear to
|
|---|
| 428 | the modern mind--which would have satisfied almost the whole of the Puritan
|
|---|
| 429 | party. This policy (for policy it assuredly was rather than conviction),
|
|---|
| 430 | which drove the most earnest Protestants into an attitude of opposition
|
|---|
| 431 | destined in the next two reigns to have such serious consequences, has been
|
|---|
| 432 | severely censured. But there can be no question that it did answer the
|
|---|
| 433 | purpose she had in view, which for the moment was most important. It did
|
|---|
| 434 | induce great numbers of Catholics to conform. She avoided a civil war in her
|
|---|
| 435 | own time between Catholics and Anglicans at the price of a civil war later
|
|---|
| 436 | on between Anglicans and Puritans. Looking at the great drama as a whole,
|
|---|
| 437 | perhaps the Puritans of the Great Rebellion might congratulate themselves on
|
|---|
| 438 | the part that Elizabeth chose to play in its earlier acts. It cannot be
|
|---|
| 439 | doubted that a civil war in the sixteenth century between Catholics and
|
|---|
| 440 | Protestants would have been waged with far more ferocity than was displayed
|
|---|
| 441 | by either Cavaliers or Roundheads, and would have been attended with the
|
|---|
| 442 | horrors of foreign invasion. To conciliate the earnest religionists on both
|
|---|
| 443 | sides was impossible. Elizabeth chose the <i>via media</i>, and the
|
|---|
| 444 | successful equilibrium which she maintained during nearly half a century
|
|---|
| 445 | proves that she hit upon what in her own day was the true centre of gravity.
|
|---|
| 446 | </font></p>
|
|---|
| 447 | <p align="left"><font size="3">But while doing justice to Elizabeth's
|
|---|
| 448 | insight and prudence, we may not excuse her extreme severity to the
|
|---|
| 449 | nonconformists of either party. It was not necessary. It seems to have been
|
|---|
| 450 | even impolitic. It arose from her arbitrary temper--from a quality, that is
|
|---|
| 451 | to say, valuable in a ruler, but apt, in great rulers, to be somewhat in
|
|---|
| 452 | excess. I have condemned her persecution of the Catholics. Her persecution
|
|---|
| 453 | of the Protestant nonconformists was marked by even greater injustice.
|
|---|
| 454 | Against the Catholics it might at least be urged that their opinions
|
|---|
| 455 | logically led to disloyalty. But the Independents, Barrow, Greenwood, and
|
|---|
| 456 | Penry, were indisputably loyal men. They were put to death nominally for
|
|---|
| 457 | spreading writings which, contrary to common sense, were held to be
|
|---|
| 458 | seditious, but really for their religious opinions, which, in the case of
|
|---|
| 459 | the first two, were extracted from them by the interrogatories of Archbishop
|
|---|
| 460 | Whitgift, an Inquisitor as strenuous and merciless as Torquemada. Some of
|
|---|
| 461 | the Council, especially Burghley and Knollys, were strongly opposed to
|
|---|
| 462 | Whitgift's proceedings. It must therefore be assumed that he had the Queen's
|
|---|
| 463 | personal approval. She had committed herself to a struggle with intrepid and
|
|---|
| 464 | obstinate men. The crowded gaols were a visible demonstration that she could
|
|---|
| 465 | not compel them to submit; and to hang them all was out of the question. An
|
|---|
| 466 | Act was therefore passed in 1593, by which those who would not promise to
|
|---|
| 467 | attend church were to be banished the country. Thus most of the Independents
|
|---|
| 468 | were at last got rid of. The non-separatist Puritans, who aimed at less
|
|---|
| 469 | radical changes, and hoped to effect them, if not under their present
|
|---|
| 470 | sovereign, yet under her successor, kept on the windy side of the law,
|
|---|
| 471 | attending church once a month, and not entering till the service was nearly
|
|---|
| 472 | over. Thus, at the end of her reign, Elizabeth perhaps flattered herself
|
|---|
| 473 | that she was within measurable distance of religious uniformity. </font></p>
|
|---|
| 474 | </font>
|
|---|
| 475 | <hr>
|
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| 476 | <p align="left"><font style="font-family: Times New Roman" size="2">From <i>
|
|---|
| 477 | Queen Elizabeth</i> by Edward Spencer Beesly. Published in London by
|
|---|
| 478 | Macmillan and Co., 1892.</font></p>
|
|---|
| 479 | </font>
|
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| 480 | <font face="Times New Roman" size="2">
|
|---|
| 481 | </blockquote>
|
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| 482 | </blockquote>
|
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| 483 |
|
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| 484 | <p align="center">
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| 485 | <a href="beeslychaptertwelve.html">to Chapter
|
|---|
| 486 | XII: Last Years and Death: 1601-1603</a></p>
|
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| 487 | <p align="center">
|
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| 488 | <a href="monarchs/eliz1.html">to the Queen
|
|---|
| 489 | Elizabeth I website</a> /
|
|---|
| 490 | <a href="relative/maryqos.html">to the Mary,
|
|---|
| 491 | queen of Scots website</a></p>
|
|---|
| 492 | <p align="center"><a href="secondary.html">
|
|---|
| 493 | to Secondary Sources</a></p>
|
|---|
| 494 | </font>
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| 495 |
|
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| 496 | </body>
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| 497 |
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