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4<meta name="content" content="biography of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) by Edward Spencer Beesly, 1892">
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11<title>Secondary Sources: Queen Elizabeth by Edward Spencer Beesly, 1892:
12Chapter V</title>
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23 <td width="25%" height="29"></td>
24 <td valign="top" width="50%" height="29">&nbsp;</td>
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29 <td width="50%" height="3"><font size="3"></font></td>
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35 <p align="center"><b><font size="7">Queen Elizabeth<br></font></b>
36 <font size="4">by Edward Spencer Beesly, 1892</font></p>
37 <p align="center">
38 <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">
39 <i><font size="2">'The Ermine Portrait' of Elizabeth I, c1585, by Nicholas
40 Hilliard;<br>from the <a href="http://www.marileecody.com/eliz1-images.html">Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I</a> website</font></i></td>
41 <td width="25%" height="610"></td>
42 </tr>
43</table>
44<blockquote>
45 <blockquote>
46 <font style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">
47 <font style="font-family: Times New Roman">
48 <div align="left">
49 <b>CHAPTER V</b><br>
50 <b>ARISTOCRATIC PLOTS: 1568-1572</b></div>
51 <p align="left"><font size="3">FROM the beginning of the reign Cecil had
52 never ceased to impress upon his mistress that a French or Spanish invasion
53 on behalf of the Pope might at any time be expected, and that she should
54 hurry to meet it by forming a league with the foreign Protestants of both
55 Confessions, and vigorously assisting them to carry on a war of religion on
56 the Continent. He was assuredly too well informed to believe that France and
57 Spain would cease to counteract each other's designs on England, or that
58 Lutherans and Calvinists would heartily combine for mutual defence. The
59 enemies he really feared were his Catholic countrymen, with whom he would
60 have to fight for his head if Elizabeth should die. He therefore desired to
61 force on the struggle in her lifetime, when they would be rebels, and he
62 would wield the power of the Crown. </font></p>
63 <p align="left"><font size="3">Elizabeth, on the other hand, was against
64 interference on the Continent, because it would be the surest way to bring
65 upon England the calamity of invasion. She saw as plainly as Cecil did that
66 it would compel her to throw herself into the arms of her own Protestants
67 and to become, like her two predecessors, the mere chief of a party; whereas
68 she meant to be the Queen of all Englishmen, and to tranquillise the natural
69 fears of each party by letting it see that it would not be sacrificed to the
70 violence of the other. Moreover the unbridled ascendancy of the Protestants
71 would mean such alterations in the established worship as would have driven
72 from the parish churches thousands of the most military class, peers,
73 squires and their tenantry, who were enduring Anglicanism with its
74 episcopate, its semi-Catholic prayer-book, and its claim to belong to the
75 Universal Apostolic Church, because they could persuade themselves that its
76 variations from the old religion were unimportant and temporary. And this
77 again would increase the probability of foreign invasion. For, though to
78 Philip all forms of heresy were equally damnable and equally marked out for
79 extermination sooner or later, yet he was in much less hurry to begin with
80 the politically harmless Lutherans or Anglicans than with the dangerous
81 levellers who derived their inspiration from Geneva. Now for Elizabeth to
82 gain time was everything. She had gained ten precious years already by her
83 moderation. She was to gain twenty more before the slow-moving Spaniard
84 decided to launch the great Armada. </font></p>
85 <p align="left"><font size="3">But though Elizabeth shunned war with Spain
86 she nevertheless resognised that Philip was the enemy, and that all ways of
87 damaging him short of war were for her advantage. English and Huguenot
88 corsairs swarmed in the Channel. Spanish ships were seized. The crews were
89 hanged or made to walk the plank; the prizes were carried into English
90 ports, and there sold without disguise or rebuke. These outrages were
91 represented as reprisals for cruelties inflicted on English sailors who
92 occasionally fell into the hands of the Inquisition. Practically a ship with
93 a valuable cargo was treated as fair game whatever its nationality. But
94 while in the case of other countries it was only individual traders who
95 suffered, to Spain it meant obstruction of her high road to her Belgic
96 dominions, then simmering with disaffection. </font></p>
97 <p align="left"><font size="3">The English nobles of the old blood disliked
98 these proceedings. Even Cecil did not conceal from himself that they
99 fostered a spirit of lawlessness. What the corsairs were doing he would have
100 preferred to see done by the royal navy. To that Elizabeth would not
101 consent. The activity of the corsairs gave her all the advantage she could
102 hope to have from war, without any of its disadvantages. Instead of laying
103 out her treasure on a navy, she was deriving an income from the piratical
104 ventures of Hawkins and Drake; while the ships and sailors of this volunteer
105 navy would be available for the defence of the country whenever the need
106 should arise. Whatever may be thought of the morality of her plan, there can
107 be no question as to its efficiency and economy. </font></p>
108 <p align="left"><font size="3">Since even these outrages, exasperating as
109 they were, had not goaded Philip to the point of declaring war, a still more
110 daring provocation now followed. Some ships, conveying a large sum of money
111 borrowed by Philip in Genoa for the payment of Alva's army, having put into
112 English ports to avoid the corsairs, Elizabeth, with the hearty approval of
113 Cecil, took possession of the money, and said she would herself borrow it
114 from the Genoese (December 1568). The Minister hoped this would bring on a
115 war. The Queen audaciously but more correctly anticipated that Philip's
116 resentment would still stop short of that extremity. He remonstrated: he
117 threatened: he seized all English ships and sailors in his ports. Elizabeth,
118 undismayed, swept all the Spaniards and Flemings whom she could find in
119 London into her prisons, and seized their goods, to a value far greater than
120 that of the English property in Philip's grasp. </font></p>
121 <p align="left"><font size="3">In striking contrast with this unflinching
122 attitude towards Spain was the behaviour of Elizabeth when threatened with
123 war by France, unless she undertook to close her harbours to the Huguenots,
124 and to forbid her own corsairs to prey on French commerce. The summons was
125 promptly obeyed. Full satisfaction was made (April 1569). Yet France was at
126 the moment a far less formidable antagonist than Spain. The French
127 government did not possess the means of invading England. On this side of
128 the Channel the old anti-French feeling was so persistent that all parties
129 were ready and willing for the fray. The defeat of the Huguenots at Jarnac
130 (April 1569) may have had something to do with Elizabeth's compliance. But
131 what influenced her still more was her perception that war with France would
132 compel her to place herself under the protection of Spain; whereas she
133 desired to keep Spain at arm's-length, and to maintain a good understanding
134 with France, as did Eliot, Pym, and Cromwell afterwards, regardless of the
135 rooted prejudices of their countrymen. Elizabeth probably stood alone in her
136 judgment on this occasion. </font></p>
137 <p align="left"><font size="3">The quarrel with Philip had more serious
138 results at home than abroad. It was indirectly the cause of the only English
139 rebellion that disturbed the long reign of Elizabeth. </font></p>
140 <p align="left"><font size="3">Most of the nobility and gentry, even when
141 professedly Protestants, regretted the alienation of England from the
142 Universal Church. If they had all pulled together they must have had their
143 way, for they were the military and political class. But their discontent
144 varied widely in its intensity. There were nobles like Sussex who were
145 resolved to serve their Queen loyally and zealously, but who, all the same,
146 wished her to cultivate a good understanding with Philip, to marry the
147 Archduke, to abstain from assisting the Huguenots, to give no countenance to
148 the rovers, to recognise Mary as her heir-presumptive and marry her to
149 Norfolk. There were others like Norfolk, Montagu, Arundel, and Southampton,
150 who had treasonable relations with the Spanish ambassador, and aimed at
151 overthrowing Cecil, marrying Mary to Norfolk, and compelling the Queen to
152 restore the Catholic worship, or at least to make such changes in the
153 Anglican model as would facilitate a reunion with Rome when Mary should
154 succeed. A third party, headed by the Catholic lords of the north, was
155 plotting to depose Elizabeth in favour of Mary, and to marry the latter to
156 Don John of Austria. </font></p>
157 <p align="left"><font size="3">With these powerful nobles in opposition,
158 who, before the Reformation, could have hurled any sovereign from his
159 throne, where was Elizabeth to look for support? The town populations were
160 Protestant --too Protestant indeed for her taste. But the town populations
161 were a minority, and less military than the landowners and their tenants.
162 She had her Cecils, Bacons, Walsinghams, Hunsdons, Knollyses, Sadlers,
163 Killegrews, Drurys, capable and devoted servants, but new men without
164 territorial wealth or influence, and with no force except what they
165 possessed as wielding the power of the Crown. It would be difficult to name
166 more than half-a-dozen peers who zealously promoted her policy. Most of them
167 looked on it coldly, and would support her only as long as she seemed to be
168 strongest. </font></p>
169 <p align="left"><font size="3">Mary's rejection of Elizabeth's terms
170 coincided with the quarrel with Philip (December 1568). The disaffected
171 nobles thought that the time was now come for striking a blow. Conscious
172 that the feudal devotion of the gentry and yeomanry to their local chiefs
173 had in Tudor times been largely superseded by awe of the central government,
174 they were importuning Philip to give them the signal for rebellion by
175 sending a division of Alva's army from the Netherlands. Philip, cautious as
176 usual, and afraid of driving England into alliance with France, declined to
177 send a soldier until either the Norfolk party had overthrown Cecil, or the
178 northern lords had carried off Mary. Between these two sets of conspirators
179 there was much jealousy and distrust. The Spanish ambassador thought the
180 southern scheme the most feasible. Not without difficulty he persuaded the
181 northern lords to wait till it should be seen whether the Queen could be
182 induced or compelled to sanction the marriage of Mary with Norfolk. If she
183 refused, they were to make a dash on Wingfield, a seat of Lord Shrewsbury's
184 in Derbyshire where Mary was staying, while Norfolk was to raise the eastern
185 counties. </font></p>
186 <p align="left"><font size="3">All through the summer of 1569 these plots
187 were brewing. Three times Norfolk and his father-in-law Arundel went to the
188 Council with the intention of arresting Cecil. Three times their hearts
189 failed them. The northern lords, who were not members of the Council, came
190 up to London to see Norfolk bell the cat, but went back, more suspicious
191 than ever, to make their own preparations. Cecil himself seems to have been
192 hedging. In his private advice to the Queen he was opposing the Norfolk
193 marriage, pointing out that free or in prison, married or single, in England
194 or in Scotland, Mary must always be dangerous, and breathing for the first
195 time the suggestion that she might lawfully be put to death in England for
196 complicity in English plots. In the Council he concurred in a vote that she
197 should be married to an Englishman --in other words, to Norfolk. </font></p>
198 <p align="left"><font size="3">If Elizabeth could have felt any confidence
199 in Norfolk's loyalty, it seems probable that much as she disliked the
200 marriage she would have yielded to the almost unanimous pronouncement of the
201 nobility in its favour. But a sure instinct warned her of her danger. &quot;If
202 she consented she would be in the Tower before four months were over.&quot; After
203 much deliberation she commanded the Duke on his allegiance to renounce his
204 project. He gave his promise, but soon retired to his own county, and sent
205 word to the northern earls that &quot;he would stand and abide the venture.&quot; But
206 while he was shivering and hesitating, Elizabeth, for once, was all
207 promptitude and decision. </font></p>
208 <p align="left"><font size="3">Mary was hurried to Tutbury Castle. Arundel
209 and Pembroke were summoned to Windsor, and kept under surveillance. Norfolk
210 himself came in quietly, and was lodged in the Tower. Thus the southern
211 conspiracy collapsed (September-October 1569). </font></p>
212 <p align="left"><font size="3">The Catholic lords and gentlemen of the north
213 who had been awaiting Norfolk's signal, were staggered by his tame
214 surrender. Sussex, who was in command at York, and who, being of the old
215 blood himself, did not care to see old houses crushed, advised Elizabeth to
216 wink at their half-begun treason, and be thankful it had not come to
217 fighting. She winked at the attempted flight to Alva of Southampton and
218 Montagu, and even affected to trust the latter with the command of the
219 militia called out in Sussex. She could afford to ignore the disaffection of
220 a southern noble. A Sussex squire or yeoman, even if he was not a
221 Protestant, would think twice before he cast in his lot with rebellion. The
222 northern counties were mainly Catholic. They were much behind the south in
223 civilisation. The Tudor sovereigns were never seen there. Great families
224 were still looked up to. Elizabeth knew that though rebellion might be
225 adjourned, might possibly never come off, it was a constant menace, which
226 crippled her policy. She determined therefore to have done with it, once for
227 all, and summoned Northumberland and Westmoreland to London. </font></p>
228 <p align="left"><font size="3">Thus driven into a corner, the two earls
229 burst into rebellion. They entered Durham in arms, overthrew the communion
230 table in the cathedral, set up the old altar, and had mass said (14 November
231 1569). Next day they marched south, with the object of rescuing Mary from
232 Tutbury. But when they were within fifty miles of that place, Shrewsbury and
233 Huntingdon, in obedience to hurried orders from London, conveyed her to
234 Coventry. Having thus missed their spring, the rebel earls halted
235 irresolutely for three days, and then turned back. Their followers dropped
236 away from them. Clinton and Warwick were on their track, with the musters of
237 the Midlands; and before the end of December they were fain to fly across
238 the Border. Northumberland was arrested by Moray. Two years later he was
239 given up to Elizabeth, and executed. Westmoreland, after being protected for
240 a time by Ker of Ferniehirst, escaped to the Netherlands, where he died.
241 England was not again disturbed by rebellion till the great civil war.
242 </font></p>
243 <p align="left"><font size="3">The failure of the northern earls to kindle a
244 general rebellion was due to the cautious and temporising policy for which
245 Elizabeth has been so severely blamed by heated partisans. The powerful
246 party which preferred a Spanish alliance, disliked religious innovation, and
247 looked forward to the succession of Mary, had not been driven to despair of
248 accomplishing those ends in a lawful way. Their avowed policy had not been
249 proscribed--had not even been repudiated. Some of their chief leaders were
250 on the Council--as we should say, were members of the Government; others
251 were employed and trusted and visited by the Queen. They objected to being
252 hurried into civil war by the northern lords, who were not of the Council,
253 who kept away from London, and were rebels by inheritance and tradition.
254 They would have nothing to do with the ill-advised movement; and, as in
255 those days neutrality in the presence of open insurrection was no more
256 permissible to a nobleman than it would be now to an officer in the army,
257 they had no choice but to range themselves on the side of the Government. If
258 Elizabeth had openly branded the Queen of Scots as a murderess, if she had
259 pointed to Huntingdon or the son of Catherine Grey as her successor, if she
260 had put herself at the head of a Protestant league, she might possibly have
261 come victorious out of a civil war. But a civil war it would have been, and
262 of the worst kind: one party calling in the Spaniard, and the other, in all
263 probability, driven to call in the Frenchman. </font></p>
264 <p align="left"><font size="3">The assassination of Moray a few weeks later
265 (23 January 1570) was a severe blow to Elizabeth, and an irreparable
266 disaster to his own country. An attempt has been made to create an
267 impression that the English Queen was somehow responsible for his death,
268 because she did not march an army into Scotland to support him. He no more
269 wished to receive an English army into Scotland than Elizabeth wished to
270 send one. Therein they were both of them wiser than the critics of their own
271 day, or this. What he did ask for was money, and the recognition of James.
272 The request for money Elizabeth was willing to consider, though, as a rule,
273 she did not believe in paying for any work she could get done gratis. The
274 recognition of James seems a very simple thing to the critics. But it was as
275 difficult for Elizabeth as the recognition of the Prince of Bulgaria is now
276 to Austria, and for similar reasons. She was under no obligation whatever to
277 Moray. His own interest compelled him to play her game. But she well knew
278 his value. On hearing of his death she shut herself up in her chamber,
279 exclaiming, with tears, that she had lost the best friend she had in the
280 world. </font></p>
281 <p align="left"><font size="3">As long as Moray lived, and was able to keep
282 the Marian lords in some sort of check, Elizabeth judged, and rightly, that
283 she had more to lose than to gain by any open interference in Scotland. It
284 was no business of hers to put down anarchy there. Scotch anarchy did not
285 imperil England. What would imperil England would be the appearance of
286 French troops in Scotland; and she judged that nothing would be so likely to
287 bring them there as any pretension to establish an English protectorate. Her
288 Protestant councillors fretted at her <i>laisser faire</i> policy. But then
289 they, for personal or at least for sectarian reasons, were eager for that
290 general European conflagration which she, with superior discernment and
291 larger patriotism, was trying to avert. </font></p>
292 <p align="left"><font size="3">The death of Moray so weakened the King's
293 party that it became necessary to give them a little help. Elizabeth gave it
294 in such a way as she thought would be least likely to excite the jealousy of
295 France. She told the new Regent Lennox that, though she could not send an
296 army to support him, she would send one to chastise the Hamiltons and the
297 Borderers, who were harbouring her rebel the Earl of Westmoreland, and,
298 along with him, making raids into England. This was done sharply and
299 thoroughly. The robber holds on the Border, and Hamilton Castle itself, were
300 one after another taken and blown up by the English Wardens of the Marches
301 (April and May 1570). </font></p>
302 <p align="left"><font size="3">What Elizabeth desired more than anything
303 else was to settle Scotch affairs, in conjunction with France, on the terms
304 that neither power should interfere in Scotland. To Cecil this was
305 unsatisfactory, because the restoration of Mary, on any terms whatever,
306 would, if she survived Elizabeth, ensure her succession to the English
307 throne, and the ruin of Cecil himself. He did not want to conciliate
308 Catholics at home or abroad. He wanted to commit his mistress to an
309 internecine war with them. In an angry dispute with Arundel at the Council
310 board about this time, he blurted out his doctrine, that the Queen had no
311 friends but the Protestants, and that if she restored Mary she would lose
312 them all. No language could have been more displeasing to Elizabeth,
313 especially in the presence of crypto-Catholic lords, and she snubbed him
314 unmercifully. &quot;Mr Secretary, I mean to have done with this business; I shall
315 listen to the proposals of the French King. I am not going to be tied any
316 longer to you and your brethren in Christ.&quot; </font></p>
317 <p align="left"><font size="3">The peace of St. Germain between the French
318 court and the Huguenots (August 8, 1570), and the disgrace of the Guises,
319 were followed by negotiations for a tripartite treaty between England,
320 France, and Scotland on the basis of the restoration of Mary. Elizabeth, of
321 course, insisted on the guarantees she had often sketched out. She was
322 willing--nay, anxious--to leave Scotland alone, if the French would do the
323 same. The French, on the other hand, felt that the equality of such an
324 arrangement was more seeming than real, because there were always English
325 troops lying at Berwick, within sixty miles of Edinburgh. They haggled over
326 the guarantees, and in the meantime, notwithstanding the real desire of
327 Catherine and Charles IX. to conclude an alliance with Elizabeth against
328 Philip, they continued to send money and encouragement to the Marian lords
329 in Scotland. For if, for any reason, the English alliance should not come
330 off, they meant to take up Mary's cause in earnest, and detach her from her
331 Guise relations by marrying her to the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Henry III.
332 </font></p>
333 <p align="left"><font size="3">All this was known to Elizabeth, and in her
334 extreme anxiety for the tripartite treaty, she thought the moment was come
335 to dangle the bait which she always reserved for occasions of special
336 importance. She informed the French ambassador that she was ready to marry
337 Anjou herself. It is not to be supposed that she had the least intention of
338 doing so. She had settled with herself from the first how she would get out
339 of her proposal when it had served its turn. </font></p>
340 <p align="left"><font size="3">A minor motive for this move was the hope
341 that it would reconcile her Protestant councillors to the restoration of
342 Mary. She did not succeed with all of them. Some continued to mutter that
343 Anjou was a Papist, that tripartite treaties were a delusion, and that the
344 only safe course was to grasp the Scotch nettle and uphold James with the
345 whole force of England. But upon Cecil the effect was almost comical. He
346 jumped at the plan. Anything that was likely to make Elizabeth a mother
347 would be salvation to him. Whether the Queen at the mature age of
348 thirty-seven was likely to be happy with a husband of twenty was a question
349 that did not give him a moment's concern. She was not too old to have two or
350 three children, and, that result once achieved, Mary might go to Scotland or
351 anywhere else for what he cared, and do her worst. The sanguine man already
352 saw visions of a converted Valois heading an Anglo-French crusade against
353 Philip, and establishing the reformed faith throughout Europe. Walsingham
354 his right-hand man, then ambassador at Paris, was equally bitten. This was
355 in the year before the massacre of St. Bartholomew. </font></p>
356 <p align="left"><font size="3">The overture of Elizabeth was very welcome to
357 the French court. Negotiations for the match were soon opened, and continued
358 during the first six months of 1571. At the same time, both the Scotch
359 factions were summoned to accept the tripartite arrangement. Mary was at
360 first eager for it, and instructed her agent, the Bishop of Ross, to swallow
361 every condition that might be imposed. She looked on it as the only means of
362 obtaining her release. But there is ample proof that she intended to throw
363 its stipulations to the winds and fight for her own cause when once she
364 should get back to Scotland. In playing this perfidious game, she had
365 confidently counted on the help of France. The Regent's party, however,
366 declined the treaty. They dreaded Mary's return, and they had no wish to
367 shake hands with the Marian lords or admit them to a share in the
368 Government. The tripartite scheme thus fell through. Mary herself ceased to
369 care for it as soon as she heard of the projected match between Elizabeth
370 and Anjou. She saw that if France was going to co-operate heartily with
371 England, her sovereignty in Scotland would be merely nominal. She might
372 almost as well remain with Lord Shrewsbury. </font></p>
373 <p align="left"><font size="3">To remain quietly in England and be content
374 with her position as heir-presumptive to the English crown was indeed the
375 best and safest course open to her. She had only to acquiesce in it and give
376 up plotting, and she might have lived here in considerable magnificence, and
377 with as much freedom as she could desire. If she wished for a husband, she
378 might have married any Englishman of whose loyalty Elizabeth could feel
379 assured. It was of the greatest importance to both countries that she should
380 bear more children. For it must be remembered that if James had died in his
381 childhood, his next heir was a Hamilton, who had no title to the English
382 throne. </font></p>
383 <p align="left"><font size="3">If the proposed Anjou match had not produced
384 the full results which Elizabeth hoped, it had at least defeated the plans
385 and disorganised the party of her rival. It had served its turn; and all
386 that now remained was to get out of it as decently as possible. The old
387 pretext for breaking off the Austrian match was reproduced. Anjou could not
388 be allowed to have a private mass; and when, in its eagerness, the French
389 court seemed disposed to give way on this point, Elizabeth began to talk
390 about a restitution of Calais. Ruefully did poor Cecil watch the vanishing
391 of his dream. It was to no purpose that he tried to frighten Elizabeth by
392 representing that a jilted prince would be converted into an angry enemy.
393 She knew better. Anjou comprehended that she did not mean to have him, and,
394 to avoid the indignity of a refusal, himself broke off negotiations. But, as
395 Elizabeth had calculated, the new alliance did not suffer. The French King
396 went out of his way to say that &quot;for her upright dealing he would honour the
397 Queen of England during his life,&quot; and Catherine, most unsentimental of
398 women, had another suitor to offer--her youngest son Alençon, then just
399 turned seventeen! </font></p>
400 <p align="left"><font size="3">While the negotiations for the Anjou match
401 were going on, what is known as the Ridolfi Plot was hatching against
402 Elizabeth. Ridolfi, an Italian banker in London, and secretly an agent of
403 the Pope, was in close relations with Norfolk and the other peers who for
404 two years had been dabbling in treason. They were still pressing Philip to
405 invade England; but he and Alva were less than ever disposed to undertake
406 the venture since the pitiful collapse of the northern insurrection. In
407 order to impress Philip with the importance of the conspiracy, Ridolfi went
408 to Madrid, and showed Philip a letter purporting to be written by Norfolk,
409 to which was attached a list of noblemen stated to be favourable to the
410 cause. It contained the names of forty out of the sixty-seven peers then
411 existing, while, of the rest, some were marked as neutral, and fifteen at
412 most as true to Elizabeth. The classification was on the face of it absurdly
413 untrustworthy. But correct or incorrect, it did not weigh with Philip. He
414 wanted deeds, not lists of names, and Ridolfi was informed that, unless
415 Elizabeth were first assassinated or imprisoned, not a Spanish soldier could
416 be sent to England. </font></p>
417 <p align="left"><font size="3">Whatever secret disaffection might prevail
418 among the peers, the temper displayed by the new House of Commons, elected
419 in the spring of 1571, was not of a kind to encourage Elizabeth's enemies at
420 home or abroad. So far as can be judged from its proceedings and debates, it
421 was not only entirely Protestant, but largely Puritan.(1) A bill was passed
422 by which any person refusing, on demand, to acknowledge Elizabeth's right to
423 the crown was made incapable of succeeding her; a provision which, though it
424 did not name Mary, could apply to no one else. It was made high treason to
425 deny that the inheritance of the crown could be determined by the Queen and
426 Parliament. To affirm in writing that any particular person was entitled to
427 succeed the Queen, except the Queen's issue, or some one established by
428 Parliament, was made punishable with imprisonment for life, and forfeiture
429 of all property for the second offence. </font></p>
430 <p align="left"><font size="3">The plot which Ridolfi was so busily pushing
431 in 1571 was, in fact, a continuation of the twin aristocratic conspiracies,
432 one of which had exploded in the northern insurrection. By forcing that
433 insurrection to break out before the southern conspirators had made up their
434 minds what to do, the Government had effectually destroyed what chances of
435 success the disaffected nobles had ever had. Alva was right in his judgment
436 that, if the Percys, Nevilles, and Dacres could do so little, the Howard
437 group, whose estates, vast as they were, lay, for the most part, in more
438 orderly and civilised parts of the country, could do still less. There was,
439 indeed, some talk among them of seizing the Queen at the opening of the
440 Parliament of 1571, just as there had been a talk of arresting Cecil two
441 years before. But the truth was that insurrection was a played-out game in
442 England; and if Norfolk had been a ten-times abler and bolder man than he
443 was, it would have made no difference. </font></p>
444 <p align="left"><font size="3">The true history of the time is not to be
445 read in the croakings and wailings privately exchanged between Cecil,
446 Walsingham, and the rest of the Protestant junto, angry and alarmed because
447 Elizabeth would not let them play her cards for her. It is a strange
448 perversity which persists in adopting their view that she was on the brink
449 of ruin, when the patent fact is that Protestantism was making rapid
450 strides, that the Queen's personal popularity was increasing every day, and
451 that Spain, France, and Scotland, the only countries with which she was
452 concerned, were all humble suitors for her alliance on almost any terms that
453 it might please her to exact. The correspondence of Philip with Alva is
454 there to prove, that while writhing under the repeated aggressions of
455 England, he was obliged to put up with them because a war would imperil his
456 hold on the Netherlands. To all the invitations of the Norfolks and
457 Northumberlands, the able and well-informed Alva turned a deaf ear, because
458 he believed Elizabeth too strong to be overthrown. A French alliance she
459 could always have as long as the Guises were excluded from power. If they
460 regained their influence the Huguenots would keep them fully occupied.
461 Scotland, unless foreign troops made their appearance there, could be no
462 source of danger to England. </font></p>
463 <p align="left"><font size="3">Elizabeth's policy was thus, in its broad
464 lines, as simple as it was successful. At home it was her wisdom to wink as
465 long as possible at the disaffection of the few, to win the affection of the
466 many by economical government, to reserve the persecuting laws for special
467 cases, while preventing any general and sweeping application of them, and,
468 lastly, to drive no party to desperation by a too pronounced encouragement
469 of its opponents. Spain, as being the centre of reaction and the hope of her
470 disloyal nobles, she meant to harass and weaken as far as she could do so
471 without bringing on an open war. With Charles IX. and his mother she desired
472 a defensive alliance, and an understanding that neither country should send
473 troops into Scotland or permit Spain to do so. In its general conception, I
474 repeat, this policy was simple and coherent. How it succeeded we know. There
475 was nothing sentimental about it, though, where individuals were concerned,
476 Elizabeth's judgment was sometimes warped by sentiment. Upon the whole, she
477 kept herself at the English point of view. Whereas Cecil was compelled by
478 personal considerations to place himself too much at the point of view of
479 his &quot;brethren in Christ,&quot; both at home and abroad. </font></p>
480 <p align="left"><font size="3">However, a plot there was, and it was
481 necessary that it should be unravelled and punished. Almost from its
482 inception, Cecil (created Lord Burghley February 1571), had been more or
483 less on the scent of it. Hints had come from abroad: spies had been
484 employed: suspected persons had been closely watched: inferior agents had
485 been imprisoned, questioned, racked: and enough had been discovered to make
486 it certain that Englishmen of the highest rank were plotting treason. Who
487 they were might be suspected, but was not ascertained until a lucky arrest
488 put the Minister in possession of evidence incriminating Norfolk, Arundel,
489 Southampton, Lumley, Cobham, the Spanish ambassador, the Bishop of Ross, and
490 Mary herself (September 1571). Norfolk was sent to the Tower, and the other
491 peers placed under arrest. The ambassador was dismissed. The Bishop made
492 ample confessions. Mary, who had hitherto lived as the guest of Lord
493 Shrewsbury, enjoying field-sports, receiving her friends and corresponding
494 with whom she would, was confined to a single room, and carefully cut off,
495 for a time, from all communication with the outer world. Both in England and
496 abroad it was universally expected that she would be brought to trial and
497 executed. James was at length officially styled &quot;King&quot; and his mother &quot;late
498 Queen.&quot; Her partisans in Edinburgh Castle were informed that she would never
499 be restored, and that, if they did not surrender the Castle to the Regent
500 Mar, an English force would be sent to take it. The casket letters had
501 hitherto been withheld from publication under pressure from Elizabeth; they
502 were now at last given to the world in the famous &quot;Detection&quot; of Buchanan.
503 </font></p>
504 <p align="left"><font size="3">Under any other Tudor, or under the Stuarts,
505 all the peers arrested would undoubtedly have lost their heads. Norfolk
506 alone was brought to trial (January 1572). There was much in the proceedings
507 which, according to modern notions, was unfair to the accused. But the peers
508 who tried him felt sure that he was guilty, and they were right. Subsequent
509 investigations have established beyond a doubt that he had conspired to
510 bring a foreign army into the country--the worst form that treason can take.
511 He had done this with contemptible hypocrisy, for a purely selfish object,
512 and after the most lenient and generous construction had been placed on his
513 first steps in crime. And yet historians have been found to make light of
514 the offence, and to pity the malefactor as the victim of a romantic
515 attachment to a woman whom he had never seen, and whom he believed to be an
516 adulteress and a murderess. </font></p>
517 <p align="left"><font size="3">During the spring of 1572 Elizabeth hesitated
518 to let justice take its course. She had reigned fourteen years without
519 taking the life of a single noble. The scaffold on Tower Hill from such long
520 disuse was falling to pieces, and Norfolk's sentence had made it necessary
521 to erect a new one. Elizabeth was loath to break the spell. </font></p>
522 <p align="left"><font size="3">Not knowing with any certainty how many of
523 her nobles might have given more or less approval to the Ridolfi plot, but
524 confident that she could cow them by letting the voice of the untitled
525 aristocracy and middle class be heard, she called a new Parliament (May
526 1572). The response went beyond her expectation. Of Mary's well-wishers,
527 once so numerous, all except a few fanatics had now given her up. Two
528 alternative courses of action with respect to her were submitted for
529 consideration, with the intimation that the Queen would accept whichever of
530 them Parliament should approve. The first was attainder. The second was that
531 she should be disabled from succession to the crown; that if she attempted
532 treason again she should &quot;suffer pains of death without further trouble of
533 Parliament;&quot; and that it should be treason if she assented to any enterprise
534 to deliver her out of prison. Both houses at once voted to proceed with the
535 attainder. Elizabeth, we may be sure, was not sorry for this unmistakable
536 exhibition of feeling. It would open the eyes of her enemies both at home
537 and abroad. But she had no intention of proceeding to such extremities this
538 time. Mary should have fair warning. Accordingly Parliament was desired to
539 &quot;defer&quot; the bill of attainder, and to proceed with the second measure. But
540 the Commons were in grim earnest. They immediately resolved that the second
541 bill would be useless and even mischievous, as it would imply that at
542 present Mary had a right of succession, whereas she was already disabled by
543 law; and that they therefore preferred to proceed with the attainder. With
544 this resolution the Lords concurred. </font></p>
545 <p align="left"><font size="3">Here they were on dangerous ground. To rake
546 up the law empowering Henry VIII. to determine the succession was to disable
547 all the Stuarts, James included, and so to throw away the opportunity of
548 uniting the crowns. Elizabeth had always, for excellent reasons, refused to
549 allow this question to be raised. Accordingly she again directed the House
550 to defer the attainder; she would not have the Scottish Queen &quot;either
551 enabled or disabled to or from any manner of title to the crown,&quot; nor &quot;any
552 other <i>title</i> to the same whatsoever touched at all;&quot; to make sure of
553 which she would have the second bill drawn by her own law officers. To the
554 repeated demands of the Commons for the execution of Norfolk, she at length
555 gave way, and a few days later he was beheaded (2 June 1572). The second
556 bill, as drawn by the law officers, passed both Houses. Its exact terms are
557 not known, for it never received the royal assent. </font></p>
558 <p align="left"><font size="3">Burghley who was of opinion (as some one
559 afterwards said about Strafford) that &quot;stone dead hath no fellow,&quot; bemoaned
560 himself privately to Walsingham on the disappointment of their hopes; and
561 modern historians, with whom his authority is final, are loud in their
562 condemnation of Elizabeth's vacillation and blindness. Vacillation there was
563 really none. She had determined from the first not to allow Mary to be
564 punished. She had gained all she wanted when the temper of Parliament had
565 been ascertained and displayed to the world. There have always been plenty
566 of people to accuse her of treachery and cruelty because she put Mary to
567 death fifteen years later, for complicity in an assassination plot. How
568 would her name have gone down to posterity if the Scottish Queen had been
569 executed in 1572 merely for inviting a foreign army to rescue her from
570 captivity? </font></p>
571 </font>
572 <hr>
573 </font>
574 <font face="Times New Roman">
575 <p align="left"><b>Notes:</b> 1. The oath of supremacy imposed on members of
576 the House of Commons in 1562 practically excluded conscientious Catholics. </p>
577 </font>
578 <font style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">
579 <p align="left"><font style="font-family: Times New Roman" size="2">From <i>
580 Queen Elizabeth</i> by Edward Spencer Beesly.&nbsp; Published in London by
581 Macmillan and Co., 1892.</font></p>
582 </font>
583 <font face="Times New Roman" size="2">
584 </blockquote>
585</blockquote>
586
587 <p align="center">
588 <a href="beeslychaptersix.html">to Chapter
589 VI: Foreign Affairs: 1572-1583</a></p>
590 <p align="center">
591 <a href="monarchs/eliz1.html">to the Queen
592 Elizabeth I website</a>&nbsp; /&nbsp;
593 <a href="relative/maryqos.html">to the Mary,
594 queen of Scots website</a></p>
595 <p align="center"><a href="secondary.html">
596 to Secondary Sources</a></p>
597 </font>
598
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