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14 | <Metadata name="Content">biography of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) by Edward Spencer Beesly, 1892</Metadata>
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15 | <Metadata name="Page_topic">biography of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) by Edward Spencer Beesly, 1892</Metadata>
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16 | <Metadata name="Author">Marilee Mongello</Metadata>
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17 | <Metadata name="Title">Secondary Sources: Queen Elizabeth by Edward Spencer Beesly, 1892: Chapter V</Metadata>
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29 | <Content>
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30 |
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31 | <table border="0" cellpadding="3" width="100%" height="667">
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32 | <tr>
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33 | <td width="25%" height="29"></td>
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34 | <td valign="top" width="50%" height="29">&nbsp;</td>
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35 | <td width="25%" height="29"></td>
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36 | </tr>
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37 | <tr>
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38 | <td width="25%" height="3"></td>
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39 | <td width="50%" height="3"><font size="3"></font></td>
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40 | <td width="25%" height="3"></td>
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41 | </tr>
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42 | <tr>
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43 | <td width="25%" height="610"></td>
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44 | <td valign="top" width="50%" height="610">
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45 | <p align="center"><b><font size="7">Queen Elizabeth<br></font></b>
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46 | <font size="4">by Edward Spencer Beesly, 1892</font></p>
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47 | <p align="center">
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48 | <img border="2" src="_httpdocimg_/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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49 | <i><font size="2">'The Ermine Portrait' of Elizabeth I, c1585, by Nicholas
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50 | Hilliard;<br>from the <a href="_httpextlink_&amp;rl=0&amp;href=http:%2f%2fwww.marileecody.com%2feliz1-images.html">Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I</a> website</font></i></td>
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51 | <td width="25%" height="610"></td>
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52 | </tr>
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53 | </table>
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54 | <blockquote>
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55 | <blockquote>
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56 | <font style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">
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57 | <font style="font-family: Times New Roman">
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58 | <div align="left">
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59 | <b>CHAPTER V</b><br>
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60 | <b>ARISTOCRATIC PLOTS: 1568-1572</b></div>
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61 | <p align="left"><font size="3">FROM the beginning of the reign Cecil had
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62 | never ceased to impress upon his mistress that a French or Spanish invasion
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63 | on behalf of the Pope might at any time be expected, and that she should
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64 | hurry to meet it by forming a league with the foreign Protestants of both
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65 | Confessions, and vigorously assisting them to carry on a war of religion on
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66 | the Continent. He was assuredly too well informed to believe that France and
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67 | Spain would cease to counteract each other's designs on England, or that
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68 | Lutherans and Calvinists would heartily combine for mutual defence. The
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69 | enemies he really feared were his Catholic countrymen, with whom he would
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70 | have to fight for his head if Elizabeth should die. He therefore desired to
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71 | force on the struggle in her lifetime, when they would be rebels, and he
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72 | would wield the power of the Crown. </font></p>
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73 | <p align="left"><font size="3">Elizabeth, on the other hand, was against
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74 | interference on the Continent, because it would be the surest way to bring
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75 | upon England the calamity of invasion. She saw as plainly as Cecil did that
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76 | it would compel her to throw herself into the arms of her own Protestants
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77 | and to become, like her two predecessors, the mere chief of a party; whereas
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78 | she meant to be the Queen of all Englishmen, and to tranquillise the natural
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79 | fears of each party by letting it see that it would not be sacrificed to the
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80 | violence of the other. Moreover the unbridled ascendancy of the Protestants
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81 | would mean such alterations in the established worship as would have driven
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82 | from the parish churches thousands of the most military class, peers,
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83 | squires and their tenantry, who were enduring Anglicanism with its
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84 | episcopate, its semi-Catholic prayer-book, and its claim to belong to the
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85 | Universal Apostolic Church, because they could persuade themselves that its
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86 | variations from the old religion were unimportant and temporary. And this
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87 | again would increase the probability of foreign invasion. For, though to
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88 | Philip all forms of heresy were equally damnable and equally marked out for
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89 | extermination sooner or later, yet he was in much less hurry to begin with
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90 | the politically harmless Lutherans or Anglicans than with the dangerous
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91 | levellers who derived their inspiration from Geneva. Now for Elizabeth to
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92 | gain time was everything. She had gained ten precious years already by her
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93 | moderation. She was to gain twenty more before the slow-moving Spaniard
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94 | decided to launch the great Armada. </font></p>
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95 | <p align="left"><font size="3">But though Elizabeth shunned war with Spain
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96 | she nevertheless resognised that Philip was the enemy, and that all ways of
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97 | damaging him short of war were for her advantage. English and Huguenot
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98 | corsairs swarmed in the Channel. Spanish ships were seized. The crews were
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99 | hanged or made to walk the plank; the prizes were carried into English
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100 | ports, and there sold without disguise or rebuke. These outrages were
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101 | represented as reprisals for cruelties inflicted on English sailors who
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102 | occasionally fell into the hands of the Inquisition. Practically a ship with
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103 | a valuable cargo was treated as fair game whatever its nationality. But
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104 | while in the case of other countries it was only individual traders who
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105 | suffered, to Spain it meant obstruction of her high road to her Belgic
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106 | dominions, then simmering with disaffection. </font></p>
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107 | <p align="left"><font size="3">The English nobles of the old blood disliked
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108 | these proceedings. Even Cecil did not conceal from himself that they
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109 | fostered a spirit of lawlessness. What the corsairs were doing he would have
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110 | preferred to see done by the royal navy. To that Elizabeth would not
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111 | consent. The activity of the corsairs gave her all the advantage she could
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112 | hope to have from war, without any of its disadvantages. Instead of laying
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113 | out her treasure on a navy, she was deriving an income from the piratical
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114 | ventures of Hawkins and Drake; while the ships and sailors of this volunteer
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115 | navy would be available for the defence of the country whenever the need
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116 | should arise. Whatever may be thought of the morality of her plan, there can
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117 | be no question as to its efficiency and economy. </font></p>
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118 | <p align="left"><font size="3">Since even these outrages, exasperating as
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119 | they were, had not goaded Philip to the point of declaring war, a still more
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120 | daring provocation now followed. Some ships, conveying a large sum of money
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121 | borrowed by Philip in Genoa for the payment of Alva's army, having put into
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122 | English ports to avoid the corsairs, Elizabeth, with the hearty approval of
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123 | Cecil, took possession of the money, and said she would herself borrow it
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124 | from the Genoese (December 1568). The Minister hoped this would bring on a
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125 | war. The Queen audaciously but more correctly anticipated that Philip's
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126 | resentment would still stop short of that extremity. He remonstrated: he
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127 | threatened: he seized all English ships and sailors in his ports. Elizabeth,
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128 | undismayed, swept all the Spaniards and Flemings whom she could find in
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129 | London into her prisons, and seized their goods, to a value far greater than
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130 | that of the English property in Philip's grasp. </font></p>
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131 | <p align="left"><font size="3">In striking contrast with this unflinching
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132 | attitude towards Spain was the behaviour of Elizabeth when threatened with
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133 | war by France, unless she undertook to close her harbours to the Huguenots,
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134 | and to forbid her own corsairs to prey on French commerce. The summons was
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135 | promptly obeyed. Full satisfaction was made (April 1569). Yet France was at
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136 | the moment a far less formidable antagonist than Spain. The French
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137 | government did not possess the means of invading England. On this side of
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138 | the Channel the old anti-French feeling was so persistent that all parties
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139 | were ready and willing for the fray. The defeat of the Huguenots at Jarnac
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140 | (April 1569) may have had something to do with Elizabeth's compliance. But
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141 | what influenced her still more was her perception that war with France would
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142 | compel her to place herself under the protection of Spain; whereas she
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143 | desired to keep Spain at arm's-length, and to maintain a good understanding
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144 | with France, as did Eliot, Pym, and Cromwell afterwards, regardless of the
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145 | rooted prejudices of their countrymen. Elizabeth probably stood alone in her
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146 | judgment on this occasion. </font></p>
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147 | <p align="left"><font size="3">The quarrel with Philip had more serious
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148 | results at home than abroad. It was indirectly the cause of the only English
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149 | rebellion that disturbed the long reign of Elizabeth. </font></p>
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150 | <p align="left"><font size="3">Most of the nobility and gentry, even when
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151 | professedly Protestants, regretted the alienation of England from the
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152 | Universal Church. If they had all pulled together they must have had their
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153 | way, for they were the military and political class. But their discontent
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154 | varied widely in its intensity. There were nobles like Sussex who were
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155 | resolved to serve their Queen loyally and zealously, but who, all the same,
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156 | wished her to cultivate a good understanding with Philip, to marry the
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157 | Archduke, to abstain from assisting the Huguenots, to give no countenance to
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158 | the rovers, to recognise Mary as her heir-presumptive and marry her to
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159 | Norfolk. There were others like Norfolk, Montagu, Arundel, and Southampton,
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160 | who had treasonable relations with the Spanish ambassador, and aimed at
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161 | overthrowing Cecil, marrying Mary to Norfolk, and compelling the Queen to
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162 | restore the Catholic worship, or at least to make such changes in the
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163 | Anglican model as would facilitate a reunion with Rome when Mary should
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164 | succeed. A third party, headed by the Catholic lords of the north, was
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165 | plotting to depose Elizabeth in favour of Mary, and to marry the latter to
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166 | Don John of Austria. </font></p>
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167 | <p align="left"><font size="3">With these powerful nobles in opposition,
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168 | who, before the Reformation, could have hurled any sovereign from his
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169 | throne, where was Elizabeth to look for support? The town populations were
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170 | Protestant --too Protestant indeed for her taste. But the town populations
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171 | were a minority, and less military than the landowners and their tenants.
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172 | She had her Cecils, Bacons, Walsinghams, Hunsdons, Knollyses, Sadlers,
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173 | Killegrews, Drurys, capable and devoted servants, but new men without
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174 | territorial wealth or influence, and with no force except what they
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175 | possessed as wielding the power of the Crown. It would be difficult to name
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176 | more than half-a-dozen peers who zealously promoted her policy. Most of them
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177 | looked on it coldly, and would support her only as long as she seemed to be
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178 | strongest. </font></p>
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179 | <p align="left"><font size="3">Mary's rejection of Elizabeth's terms
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180 | coincided with the quarrel with Philip (December 1568). The disaffected
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181 | nobles thought that the time was now come for striking a blow. Conscious
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182 | that the feudal devotion of the gentry and yeomanry to their local chiefs
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183 | had in Tudor times been largely superseded by awe of the central government,
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184 | they were importuning Philip to give them the signal for rebellion by
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185 | sending a division of Alva's army from the Netherlands. Philip, cautious as
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186 | usual, and afraid of driving England into alliance with France, declined to
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187 | send a soldier until either the Norfolk party had overthrown Cecil, or the
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188 | northern lords had carried off Mary. Between these two sets of conspirators
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189 | there was much jealousy and distrust. The Spanish ambassador thought the
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190 | southern scheme the most feasible. Not without difficulty he persuaded the
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191 | northern lords to wait till it should be seen whether the Queen could be
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192 | induced or compelled to sanction the marriage of Mary with Norfolk. If she
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193 | refused, they were to make a dash on Wingfield, a seat of Lord Shrewsbury's
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194 | in Derbyshire where Mary was staying, while Norfolk was to raise the eastern
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195 | counties. </font></p>
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196 | <p align="left"><font size="3">All through the summer of 1569 these plots
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197 | were brewing. Three times Norfolk and his father-in-law Arundel went to the
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198 | Council with the intention of arresting Cecil. Three times their hearts
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199 | failed them. The northern lords, who were not members of the Council, came
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200 | up to London to see Norfolk bell the cat, but went back, more suspicious
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201 | than ever, to make their own preparations. Cecil himself seems to have been
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202 | hedging. In his private advice to the Queen he was opposing the Norfolk
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203 | marriage, pointing out that free or in prison, married or single, in England
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204 | or in Scotland, Mary must always be dangerous, and breathing for the first
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205 | time the suggestion that she might lawfully be put to death in England for
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206 | complicity in English plots. In the Council he concurred in a vote that she
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207 | should be married to an Englishman --in other words, to Norfolk. </font></p>
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208 | <p align="left"><font size="3">If Elizabeth could have felt any confidence
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209 | in Norfolk's loyalty, it seems probable that much as she disliked the
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210 | marriage she would have yielded to the almost unanimous pronouncement of the
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211 | nobility in its favour. But a sure instinct warned her of her danger. &quot;If
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212 | she consented she would be in the Tower before four months were over.&quot; After
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213 | much deliberation she commanded the Duke on his allegiance to renounce his
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214 | project. He gave his promise, but soon retired to his own county, and sent
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215 | word to the northern earls that &quot;he would stand and abide the venture.&quot; But
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216 | while he was shivering and hesitating, Elizabeth, for once, was all
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217 | promptitude and decision. </font></p>
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218 | <p align="left"><font size="3">Mary was hurried to Tutbury Castle. Arundel
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219 | and Pembroke were summoned to Windsor, and kept under surveillance. Norfolk
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220 | himself came in quietly, and was lodged in the Tower. Thus the southern
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221 | conspiracy collapsed (September-October 1569). </font></p>
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222 | <p align="left"><font size="3">The Catholic lords and gentlemen of the north
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223 | who had been awaiting Norfolk's signal, were staggered by his tame
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224 | surrender. Sussex, who was in command at York, and who, being of the old
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225 | blood himself, did not care to see old houses crushed, advised Elizabeth to
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226 | wink at their half-begun treason, and be thankful it had not come to
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227 | fighting. She winked at the attempted flight to Alva of Southampton and
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228 | Montagu, and even affected to trust the latter with the command of the
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229 | militia called out in Sussex. She could afford to ignore the disaffection of
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230 | a southern noble. A Sussex squire or yeoman, even if he was not a
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231 | Protestant, would think twice before he cast in his lot with rebellion. The
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232 | northern counties were mainly Catholic. They were much behind the south in
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233 | civilisation. The Tudor sovereigns were never seen there. Great families
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234 | were still looked up to. Elizabeth knew that though rebellion might be
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235 | adjourned, might possibly never come off, it was a constant menace, which
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236 | crippled her policy. She determined therefore to have done with it, once for
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237 | all, and summoned Northumberland and Westmoreland to London. </font></p>
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238 | <p align="left"><font size="3">Thus driven into a corner, the two earls
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239 | burst into rebellion. They entered Durham in arms, overthrew the communion
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240 | table in the cathedral, set up the old altar, and had mass said (14 November
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241 | 1569). Next day they marched south, with the object of rescuing Mary from
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242 | Tutbury. But when they were within fifty miles of that place, Shrewsbury and
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243 | Huntingdon, in obedience to hurried orders from London, conveyed her to
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244 | Coventry. Having thus missed their spring, the rebel earls halted
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245 | irresolutely for three days, and then turned back. Their followers dropped
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246 | away from them. Clinton and Warwick were on their track, with the musters of
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247 | the Midlands; and before the end of December they were fain to fly across
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248 | the Border. Northumberland was arrested by Moray. Two years later he was
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249 | given up to Elizabeth, and executed. Westmoreland, after being protected for
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250 | a time by Ker of Ferniehirst, escaped to the Netherlands, where he died.
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251 | England was not again disturbed by rebellion till the great civil war.
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252 | </font></p>
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253 | <p align="left"><font size="3">The failure of the northern earls to kindle a
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254 | general rebellion was due to the cautious and temporising policy for which
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255 | Elizabeth has been so severely blamed by heated partisans. The powerful
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256 | party which preferred a Spanish alliance, disliked religious innovation, and
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257 | looked forward to the succession of Mary, had not been driven to despair of
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258 | accomplishing those ends in a lawful way. Their avowed policy had not been
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259 | proscribed--had not even been repudiated. Some of their chief leaders were
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260 | on the Council--as we should say, were members of the Government; others
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261 | were employed and trusted and visited by the Queen. They objected to being
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262 | hurried into civil war by the northern lords, who were not of the Council,
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263 | who kept away from London, and were rebels by inheritance and tradition.
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264 | They would have nothing to do with the ill-advised movement; and, as in
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265 | those days neutrality in the presence of open insurrection was no more
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266 | permissible to a nobleman than it would be now to an officer in the army,
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267 | they had no choice but to range themselves on the side of the Government. If
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268 | Elizabeth had openly branded the Queen of Scots as a murderess, if she had
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269 | pointed to Huntingdon or the son of Catherine Grey as her successor, if she
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270 | had put herself at the head of a Protestant league, she might possibly have
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271 | come victorious out of a civil war. But a civil war it would have been, and
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272 | of the worst kind: one party calling in the Spaniard, and the other, in all
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273 | probability, driven to call in the Frenchman. </font></p>
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274 | <p align="left"><font size="3">The assassination of Moray a few weeks later
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275 | (23 January 1570) was a severe blow to Elizabeth, and an irreparable
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276 | disaster to his own country. An attempt has been made to create an
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277 | impression that the English Queen was somehow responsible for his death,
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278 | because she did not march an army into Scotland to support him. He no more
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279 | wished to receive an English army into Scotland than Elizabeth wished to
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280 | send one. Therein they were both of them wiser than the critics of their own
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281 | day, or this. What he did ask for was money, and the recognition of James.
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282 | The request for money Elizabeth was willing to consider, though, as a rule,
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283 | she did not believe in paying for any work she could get done gratis. The
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284 | recognition of James seems a very simple thing to the critics. But it was as
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285 | difficult for Elizabeth as the recognition of the Prince of Bulgaria is now
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286 | to Austria, and for similar reasons. She was under no obligation whatever to
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287 | Moray. His own interest compelled him to play her game. But she well knew
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288 | his value. On hearing of his death she shut herself up in her chamber,
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289 | exclaiming, with tears, that she had lost the best friend she had in the
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290 | world. </font></p>
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291 | <p align="left"><font size="3">As long as Moray lived, and was able to keep
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292 | the Marian lords in some sort of check, Elizabeth judged, and rightly, that
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293 | she had more to lose than to gain by any open interference in Scotland. It
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294 | was no business of hers to put down anarchy there. Scotch anarchy did not
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295 | imperil England. What would imperil England would be the appearance of
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296 | French troops in Scotland; and she judged that nothing would be so likely to
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297 | bring them there as any pretension to establish an English protectorate. Her
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298 | Protestant councillors fretted at her <i>laisser faire</i> policy. But then
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299 | they, for personal or at least for sectarian reasons, were eager for that
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300 | general European conflagration which she, with superior discernment and
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301 | larger patriotism, was trying to avert. </font></p>
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302 | <p align="left"><font size="3">The death of Moray so weakened the King's
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303 | party that it became necessary to give them a little help. Elizabeth gave it
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304 | in such a way as she thought would be least likely to excite the jealousy of
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305 | France. She told the new Regent Lennox that, though she could not send an
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306 | army to support him, she would send one to chastise the Hamiltons and the
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307 | Borderers, who were harbouring her rebel the Earl of Westmoreland, and,
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308 | along with him, making raids into England. This was done sharply and
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309 | thoroughly. The robber holds on the Border, and Hamilton Castle itself, were
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310 | one after another taken and blown up by the English Wardens of the Marches
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311 | (April and May 1570). </font></p>
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312 | <p align="left"><font size="3">What Elizabeth desired more than anything
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313 | else was to settle Scotch affairs, in conjunction with France, on the terms
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314 | that neither power should interfere in Scotland. To Cecil this was
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315 | unsatisfactory, because the restoration of Mary, on any terms whatever,
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316 | would, if she survived Elizabeth, ensure her succession to the English
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317 | throne, and the ruin of Cecil himself. He did not want to conciliate
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318 | Catholics at home or abroad. He wanted to commit his mistress to an
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319 | internecine war with them. In an angry dispute with Arundel at the Council
|
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320 | board about this time, he blurted out his doctrine, that the Queen had no
|
---|
321 | friends but the Protestants, and that if she restored Mary she would lose
|
---|
322 | them all. No language could have been more displeasing to Elizabeth,
|
---|
323 | especially in the presence of crypto-Catholic lords, and she snubbed him
|
---|
324 | unmercifully. &quot;Mr Secretary, I mean to have done with this business; I shall
|
---|
325 | listen to the proposals of the French King. I am not going to be tied any
|
---|
326 | longer to you and your brethren in Christ.&quot; </font></p>
|
---|
327 | <p align="left"><font size="3">The peace of St. Germain between the French
|
---|
328 | court and the Huguenots (August 8, 1570), and the disgrace of the Guises,
|
---|
329 | were followed by negotiations for a tripartite treaty between England,
|
---|
330 | France, and Scotland on the basis of the restoration of Mary. Elizabeth, of
|
---|
331 | course, insisted on the guarantees she had often sketched out. She was
|
---|
332 | willing--nay, anxious--to leave Scotland alone, if the French would do the
|
---|
333 | same. The French, on the other hand, felt that the equality of such an
|
---|
334 | arrangement was more seeming than real, because there were always English
|
---|
335 | troops lying at Berwick, within sixty miles of Edinburgh. They haggled over
|
---|
336 | the guarantees, and in the meantime, notwithstanding the real desire of
|
---|
337 | Catherine and Charles IX. to conclude an alliance with Elizabeth against
|
---|
338 | Philip, they continued to send money and encouragement to the Marian lords
|
---|
339 | in Scotland. For if, for any reason, the English alliance should not come
|
---|
340 | off, they meant to take up Mary's cause in earnest, and detach her from her
|
---|
341 | Guise relations by marrying her to the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Henry III.
|
---|
342 | </font></p>
|
---|
343 | <p align="left"><font size="3">All this was known to Elizabeth, and in her
|
---|
344 | extreme anxiety for the tripartite treaty, she thought the moment was come
|
---|
345 | to dangle the bait which she always reserved for occasions of special
|
---|
346 | importance. She informed the French ambassador that she was ready to marry
|
---|
347 | Anjou herself. It is not to be supposed that she had the least intention of
|
---|
348 | doing so. She had settled with herself from the first how she would get out
|
---|
349 | of her proposal when it had served its turn. </font></p>
|
---|
350 | <p align="left"><font size="3">A minor motive for this move was the hope
|
---|
351 | that it would reconcile her Protestant councillors to the restoration of
|
---|
352 | Mary. She did not succeed with all of them. Some continued to mutter that
|
---|
353 | Anjou was a Papist, that tripartite treaties were a delusion, and that the
|
---|
354 | only safe course was to grasp the Scotch nettle and uphold James with the
|
---|
355 | whole force of England. But upon Cecil the effect was almost comical. He
|
---|
356 | jumped at the plan. Anything that was likely to make Elizabeth a mother
|
---|
357 | would be salvation to him. Whether the Queen at the mature age of
|
---|
358 | thirty-seven was likely to be happy with a husband of twenty was a question
|
---|
359 | that did not give him a moment's concern. She was not too old to have two or
|
---|
360 | three children, and, that result once achieved, Mary might go to Scotland or
|
---|
361 | anywhere else for what he cared, and do her worst. The sanguine man already
|
---|
362 | saw visions of a converted Valois heading an Anglo-French crusade against
|
---|
363 | Philip, and establishing the reformed faith throughout Europe. Walsingham
|
---|
364 | his right-hand man, then ambassador at Paris, was equally bitten. This was
|
---|
365 | in the year before the massacre of St. Bartholomew. </font></p>
|
---|
366 | <p align="left"><font size="3">The overture of Elizabeth was very welcome to
|
---|
367 | the French court. Negotiations for the match were soon opened, and continued
|
---|
368 | during the first six months of 1571. At the same time, both the Scotch
|
---|
369 | factions were summoned to accept the tripartite arrangement. Mary was at
|
---|
370 | first eager for it, and instructed her agent, the Bishop of Ross, to swallow
|
---|
371 | every condition that might be imposed. She looked on it as the only means of
|
---|
372 | obtaining her release. But there is ample proof that she intended to throw
|
---|
373 | its stipulations to the winds and fight for her own cause when once she
|
---|
374 | should get back to Scotland. In playing this perfidious game, she had
|
---|
375 | confidently counted on the help of France. The Regent's party, however,
|
---|
376 | declined the treaty. They dreaded Mary's return, and they had no wish to
|
---|
377 | shake hands with the Marian lords or admit them to a share in the
|
---|
378 | Government. The tripartite scheme thus fell through. Mary herself ceased to
|
---|
379 | care for it as soon as she heard of the projected match between Elizabeth
|
---|
380 | and Anjou. She saw that if France was going to co-operate heartily with
|
---|
381 | England, her sovereignty in Scotland would be merely nominal. She might
|
---|
382 | almost as well remain with Lord Shrewsbury. </font></p>
|
---|
383 | <p align="left"><font size="3">To remain quietly in England and be content
|
---|
384 | with her position as heir-presumptive to the English crown was indeed the
|
---|
385 | best and safest course open to her. She had only to acquiesce in it and give
|
---|
386 | up plotting, and she might have lived here in considerable magnificence, and
|
---|
387 | with as much freedom as she could desire. If she wished for a husband, she
|
---|
388 | might have married any Englishman of whose loyalty Elizabeth could feel
|
---|
389 | assured. It was of the greatest importance to both countries that she should
|
---|
390 | bear more children. For it must be remembered that if James had died in his
|
---|
391 | childhood, his next heir was a Hamilton, who had no title to the English
|
---|
392 | throne. </font></p>
|
---|
393 | <p align="left"><font size="3">If the proposed Anjou match had not produced
|
---|
394 | the full results which Elizabeth hoped, it had at least defeated the plans
|
---|
395 | and disorganised the party of her rival. It had served its turn; and all
|
---|
396 | that now remained was to get out of it as decently as possible. The old
|
---|
397 | pretext for breaking off the Austrian match was reproduced. Anjou could not
|
---|
398 | be allowed to have a private mass; and when, in its eagerness, the French
|
---|
399 | court seemed disposed to give way on this point, Elizabeth began to talk
|
---|
400 | about a restitution of Calais. Ruefully did poor Cecil watch the vanishing
|
---|
401 | of his dream. It was to no purpose that he tried to frighten Elizabeth by
|
---|
402 | representing that a jilted prince would be converted into an angry enemy.
|
---|
403 | She knew better. Anjou comprehended that she did not mean to have him, and,
|
---|
404 | to avoid the indignity of a refusal, himself broke off negotiations. But, as
|
---|
405 | Elizabeth had calculated, the new alliance did not suffer. The French King
|
---|
406 | went out of his way to say that &quot;for her upright dealing he would honour the
|
---|
407 | Queen of England during his life,&quot; and Catherine, most unsentimental of
|
---|
408 | women, had another suitor to offer--her youngest son Alençon, then just
|
---|
409 | turned seventeen! </font></p>
|
---|
410 | <p align="left"><font size="3">While the negotiations for the Anjou match
|
---|
411 | were going on, what is known as the Ridolfi Plot was hatching against
|
---|
412 | Elizabeth. Ridolfi, an Italian banker in London, and secretly an agent of
|
---|
413 | the Pope, was in close relations with Norfolk and the other peers who for
|
---|
414 | two years had been dabbling in treason. They were still pressing Philip to
|
---|
415 | invade England; but he and Alva were less than ever disposed to undertake
|
---|
416 | the venture since the pitiful collapse of the northern insurrection. In
|
---|
417 | order to impress Philip with the importance of the conspiracy, Ridolfi went
|
---|
418 | to Madrid, and showed Philip a letter purporting to be written by Norfolk,
|
---|
419 | to which was attached a list of noblemen stated to be favourable to the
|
---|
420 | cause. It contained the names of forty out of the sixty-seven peers then
|
---|
421 | existing, while, of the rest, some were marked as neutral, and fifteen at
|
---|
422 | most as true to Elizabeth. The classification was on the face of it absurdly
|
---|
423 | untrustworthy. But correct or incorrect, it did not weigh with Philip. He
|
---|
424 | wanted deeds, not lists of names, and Ridolfi was informed that, unless
|
---|
425 | Elizabeth were first assassinated or imprisoned, not a Spanish soldier could
|
---|
426 | be sent to England. </font></p>
|
---|
427 | <p align="left"><font size="3">Whatever secret disaffection might prevail
|
---|
428 | among the peers, the temper displayed by the new House of Commons, elected
|
---|
429 | in the spring of 1571, was not of a kind to encourage Elizabeth's enemies at
|
---|
430 | home or abroad. So far as can be judged from its proceedings and debates, it
|
---|
431 | was not only entirely Protestant, but largely Puritan.(1) A bill was passed
|
---|
432 | by which any person refusing, on demand, to acknowledge Elizabeth's right to
|
---|
433 | the crown was made incapable of succeeding her; a provision which, though it
|
---|
434 | did not name Mary, could apply to no one else. It was made high treason to
|
---|
435 | deny that the inheritance of the crown could be determined by the Queen and
|
---|
436 | Parliament. To affirm in writing that any particular person was entitled to
|
---|
437 | succeed the Queen, except the Queen's issue, or some one established by
|
---|
438 | Parliament, was made punishable with imprisonment for life, and forfeiture
|
---|
439 | of all property for the second offence. </font></p>
|
---|
440 | <p align="left"><font size="3">The plot which Ridolfi was so busily pushing
|
---|
441 | in 1571 was, in fact, a continuation of the twin aristocratic conspiracies,
|
---|
442 | one of which had exploded in the northern insurrection. By forcing that
|
---|
443 | insurrection to break out before the southern conspirators had made up their
|
---|
444 | minds what to do, the Government had effectually destroyed what chances of
|
---|
445 | success the disaffected nobles had ever had. Alva was right in his judgment
|
---|
446 | that, if the Percys, Nevilles, and Dacres could do so little, the Howard
|
---|
447 | group, whose estates, vast as they were, lay, for the most part, in more
|
---|
448 | orderly and civilised parts of the country, could do still less. There was,
|
---|
449 | indeed, some talk among them of seizing the Queen at the opening of the
|
---|
450 | Parliament of 1571, just as there had been a talk of arresting Cecil two
|
---|
451 | years before. But the truth was that insurrection was a played-out game in
|
---|
452 | England; and if Norfolk had been a ten-times abler and bolder man than he
|
---|
453 | was, it would have made no difference. </font></p>
|
---|
454 | <p align="left"><font size="3">The true history of the time is not to be
|
---|
455 | read in the croakings and wailings privately exchanged between Cecil,
|
---|
456 | Walsingham, and the rest of the Protestant junto, angry and alarmed because
|
---|
457 | Elizabeth would not let them play her cards for her. It is a strange
|
---|
458 | perversity which persists in adopting their view that she was on the brink
|
---|
459 | of ruin, when the patent fact is that Protestantism was making rapid
|
---|
460 | strides, that the Queen's personal popularity was increasing every day, and
|
---|
461 | that Spain, France, and Scotland, the only countries with which she was
|
---|
462 | concerned, were all humble suitors for her alliance on almost any terms that
|
---|
463 | it might please her to exact. The correspondence of Philip with Alva is
|
---|
464 | there to prove, that while writhing under the repeated aggressions of
|
---|
465 | England, he was obliged to put up with them because a war would imperil his
|
---|
466 | hold on the Netherlands. To all the invitations of the Norfolks and
|
---|
467 | Northumberlands, the able and well-informed Alva turned a deaf ear, because
|
---|
468 | he believed Elizabeth too strong to be overthrown. A French alliance she
|
---|
469 | could always have as long as the Guises were excluded from power. If they
|
---|
470 | regained their influence the Huguenots would keep them fully occupied.
|
---|
471 | Scotland, unless foreign troops made their appearance there, could be no
|
---|
472 | source of danger to England. </font></p>
|
---|
473 | <p align="left"><font size="3">Elizabeth's policy was thus, in its broad
|
---|
474 | lines, as simple as it was successful. At home it was her wisdom to wink as
|
---|
475 | long as possible at the disaffection of the few, to win the affection of the
|
---|
476 | many by economical government, to reserve the persecuting laws for special
|
---|
477 | cases, while preventing any general and sweeping application of them, and,
|
---|
478 | lastly, to drive no party to desperation by a too pronounced encouragement
|
---|
479 | of its opponents. Spain, as being the centre of reaction and the hope of her
|
---|
480 | disloyal nobles, she meant to harass and weaken as far as she could do so
|
---|
481 | without bringing on an open war. With Charles IX. and his mother she desired
|
---|
482 | a defensive alliance, and an understanding that neither country should send
|
---|
483 | troops into Scotland or permit Spain to do so. In its general conception, I
|
---|
484 | repeat, this policy was simple and coherent. How it succeeded we know. There
|
---|
485 | was nothing sentimental about it, though, where individuals were concerned,
|
---|
486 | Elizabeth's judgment was sometimes warped by sentiment. Upon the whole, she
|
---|
487 | kept herself at the English point of view. Whereas Cecil was compelled by
|
---|
488 | personal considerations to place himself too much at the point of view of
|
---|
489 | his &quot;brethren in Christ,&quot; both at home and abroad. </font></p>
|
---|
490 | <p align="left"><font size="3">However, a plot there was, and it was
|
---|
491 | necessary that it should be unravelled and punished. Almost from its
|
---|
492 | inception, Cecil (created Lord Burghley February 1571), had been more or
|
---|
493 | less on the scent of it. Hints had come from abroad: spies had been
|
---|
494 | employed: suspected persons had been closely watched: inferior agents had
|
---|
495 | been imprisoned, questioned, racked: and enough had been discovered to make
|
---|
496 | it certain that Englishmen of the highest rank were plotting treason. Who
|
---|
497 | they were might be suspected, but was not ascertained until a lucky arrest
|
---|
498 | put the Minister in possession of evidence incriminating Norfolk, Arundel,
|
---|
499 | Southampton, Lumley, Cobham, the Spanish ambassador, the Bishop of Ross, and
|
---|
500 | Mary herself (September 1571). Norfolk was sent to the Tower, and the other
|
---|
501 | peers placed under arrest. The ambassador was dismissed. The Bishop made
|
---|
502 | ample confessions. Mary, who had hitherto lived as the guest of Lord
|
---|
503 | Shrewsbury, enjoying field-sports, receiving her friends and corresponding
|
---|
504 | with whom she would, was confined to a single room, and carefully cut off,
|
---|
505 | for a time, from all communication with the outer world. Both in England and
|
---|
506 | abroad it was universally expected that she would be brought to trial and
|
---|
507 | executed. James was at length officially styled &quot;King&quot; and his mother &quot;late
|
---|
508 | Queen.&quot; Her partisans in Edinburgh Castle were informed that she would never
|
---|
509 | be restored, and that, if they did not surrender the Castle to the Regent
|
---|
510 | Mar, an English force would be sent to take it. The casket letters had
|
---|
511 | hitherto been withheld from publication under pressure from Elizabeth; they
|
---|
512 | were now at last given to the world in the famous &quot;Detection&quot; of Buchanan.
|
---|
513 | </font></p>
|
---|
514 | <p align="left"><font size="3">Under any other Tudor, or under the Stuarts,
|
---|
515 | all the peers arrested would undoubtedly have lost their heads. Norfolk
|
---|
516 | alone was brought to trial (January 1572). There was much in the proceedings
|
---|
517 | which, according to modern notions, was unfair to the accused. But the peers
|
---|
518 | who tried him felt sure that he was guilty, and they were right. Subsequent
|
---|
519 | investigations have established beyond a doubt that he had conspired to
|
---|
520 | bring a foreign army into the country--the worst form that treason can take.
|
---|
521 | He had done this with contemptible hypocrisy, for a purely selfish object,
|
---|
522 | and after the most lenient and generous construction had been placed on his
|
---|
523 | first steps in crime. And yet historians have been found to make light of
|
---|
524 | the offence, and to pity the malefactor as the victim of a romantic
|
---|
525 | attachment to a woman whom he had never seen, and whom he believed to be an
|
---|
526 | adulteress and a murderess. </font></p>
|
---|
527 | <p align="left"><font size="3">During the spring of 1572 Elizabeth hesitated
|
---|
528 | to let justice take its course. She had reigned fourteen years without
|
---|
529 | taking the life of a single noble. The scaffold on Tower Hill from such long
|
---|
530 | disuse was falling to pieces, and Norfolk's sentence had made it necessary
|
---|
531 | to erect a new one. Elizabeth was loath to break the spell. </font></p>
|
---|
532 | <p align="left"><font size="3">Not knowing with any certainty how many of
|
---|
533 | her nobles might have given more or less approval to the Ridolfi plot, but
|
---|
534 | confident that she could cow them by letting the voice of the untitled
|
---|
535 | aristocracy and middle class be heard, she called a new Parliament (May
|
---|
536 | 1572). The response went beyond her expectation. Of Mary's well-wishers,
|
---|
537 | once so numerous, all except a few fanatics had now given her up. Two
|
---|
538 | alternative courses of action with respect to her were submitted for
|
---|
539 | consideration, with the intimation that the Queen would accept whichever of
|
---|
540 | them Parliament should approve. The first was attainder. The second was that
|
---|
541 | she should be disabled from succession to the crown; that if she attempted
|
---|
542 | treason again she should &quot;suffer pains of death without further trouble of
|
---|
543 | Parliament;&quot; and that it should be treason if she assented to any enterprise
|
---|
544 | to deliver her out of prison. Both houses at once voted to proceed with the
|
---|
545 | attainder. Elizabeth, we may be sure, was not sorry for this unmistakable
|
---|
546 | exhibition of feeling. It would open the eyes of her enemies both at home
|
---|
547 | and abroad. But she had no intention of proceeding to such extremities this
|
---|
548 | time. Mary should have fair warning. Accordingly Parliament was desired to
|
---|
549 | &quot;defer&quot; the bill of attainder, and to proceed with the second measure. But
|
---|
550 | the Commons were in grim earnest. They immediately resolved that the second
|
---|
551 | bill would be useless and even mischievous, as it would imply that at
|
---|
552 | present Mary had a right of succession, whereas she was already disabled by
|
---|
553 | law; and that they therefore preferred to proceed with the attainder. With
|
---|
554 | this resolution the Lords concurred. </font></p>
|
---|
555 | <p align="left"><font size="3">Here they were on dangerous ground. To rake
|
---|
556 | up the law empowering Henry VIII. to determine the succession was to disable
|
---|
557 | all the Stuarts, James included, and so to throw away the opportunity of
|
---|
558 | uniting the crowns. Elizabeth had always, for excellent reasons, refused to
|
---|
559 | allow this question to be raised. Accordingly she again directed the House
|
---|
560 | to defer the attainder; she would not have the Scottish Queen &quot;either
|
---|
561 | enabled or disabled to or from any manner of title to the crown,&quot; nor &quot;any
|
---|
562 | other <i>title</i> to the same whatsoever touched at all;&quot; to make sure of
|
---|
563 | which she would have the second bill drawn by her own law officers. To the
|
---|
564 | repeated demands of the Commons for the execution of Norfolk, she at length
|
---|
565 | gave way, and a few days later he was beheaded (2 June 1572). The second
|
---|
566 | bill, as drawn by the law officers, passed both Houses. Its exact terms are
|
---|
567 | not known, for it never received the royal assent. </font></p>
|
---|
568 | <p align="left"><font size="3">Burghley who was of opinion (as some one
|
---|
569 | afterwards said about Strafford) that &quot;stone dead hath no fellow,&quot; bemoaned
|
---|
570 | himself privately to Walsingham on the disappointment of their hopes; and
|
---|
571 | modern historians, with whom his authority is final, are loud in their
|
---|
572 | condemnation of Elizabeth's vacillation and blindness. Vacillation there was
|
---|
573 | really none. She had determined from the first not to allow Mary to be
|
---|
574 | punished. She had gained all she wanted when the temper of Parliament had
|
---|
575 | been ascertained and displayed to the world. There have always been plenty
|
---|
576 | of people to accuse her of treachery and cruelty because she put Mary to
|
---|
577 | death fifteen years later, for complicity in an assassination plot. How
|
---|
578 | would her name have gone down to posterity if the Scottish Queen had been
|
---|
579 | executed in 1572 merely for inviting a foreign army to rescue her from
|
---|
580 | captivity? </font></p>
|
---|
581 | </font>
|
---|
582 | <hr>
|
---|
583 | </font>
|
---|
584 | <font face="Times New Roman">
|
---|
585 | <p align="left"><b>Notes:</b> 1. The oath of supremacy imposed on members of
|
---|
586 | the House of Commons in 1562 practically excluded conscientious Catholics. </p>
|
---|
587 | </font>
|
---|
588 | <font style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">
|
---|
589 | <p align="left"><font style="font-family: Times New Roman" size="2">From <i>
|
---|
590 | Queen Elizabeth</i> by Edward Spencer Beesly.&nbsp; Published in London by
|
---|
591 | Macmillan and Co., 1892.</font></p>
|
---|
592 | </font>
|
---|
593 | <font face="Times New Roman" size="2">
|
---|
594 | </blockquote>
|
---|
595 | </blockquote>
|
---|
596 |
|
---|
597 | <p align="center">
|
---|
598 | <a href="_httpextlink_&amp;rl=1&amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2fbeeslychaptersix.html">to Chapter
|
---|
599 | VI: Foreign Affairs: 1572-1583</a></p>
|
---|
600 | <p align="center">
|
---|
601 | <a href="_httpextlink_&amp;rl=1&amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2fmonarchs%2feliz1.html">to the Queen
|
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602 | Elizabeth I website</a>&nbsp; /&nbsp;
|
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603 | <a href="_httpextlink_&amp;rl=1&amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2frelative%2fmaryqos.html">to the Mary,
|
---|
604 | queen of Scots website</a></p>
|
---|
605 | <p align="center"><a href="_httpextlink_&amp;rl=1&amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2fsecondary.html">
|
---|
606 | to Secondary Sources</a></p>
|
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607 | </font>
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608 |
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609 |
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610 |
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611 | <!-- text below generated by server. PLEASE REMOVE --><!-- Counter/Statistics data collection code --><script language="JavaScript" src="_httpextlink_&amp;rl=0&amp;href=http:%2f%2fhostingprod.com%2fjs%5fsource%2fgeov2.js"></script><script language="javascript">geovisit();</script><noscript><img src="_httpextlink_&amp;rl=0&amp;el=direct&amp;href=http://visit.webhosting.yahoo.com/visit.gif?us1108082624" alt="setstats" border="0" width="1" height="1"></noscript>
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613 | </Content>
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614 | </Section>
|
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615 | </Archive>
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