source: documentation/trunk/tutorial_sample_files/tudor/englishhistory.net/tudor/beeslychapternine.html@ 18423

Last change on this file since 18423 was 18423, checked in by kjdon, 15 years ago

added teh sample files into svn. I got these files from the releases on sourceforge, jun2006 release with the october extra files.
File size: 27.5 KB
Line 
1<html>
2
3<head>
4<meta name="content" content="biography of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) by Edward Spencer Beesly, 1892">
5<meta name="page_topic" content="biography of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) by Edward Spencer Beesly, 1892">
6<meta name="author" content="Marilee Mongello">
7<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 5.0">
8<meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">
9<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
10<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us">
11<title>Secondary Sources: Queen Elizabeth by Edward Spencer Beesly, 1892:
12Chapter IX</title>
13<style>
14</style>
15<style fprolloverstyle>A:hover {color: #0000FF; font-weight: bold}
16</style>
17</head>
18
19<body link="#0000FF" vlink="#0000FF" alink="#0000FF">
20
21<table border="0" cellpadding="3" width="100%" height="667">
22 <tr>
23 <td width="25%" height="29"></td>
24 <td valign="top" width="50%" height="29">&nbsp;</td>
25 <td width="25%" height="29"></td>
26 </tr>
27 <tr>
28 <td width="25%" height="3"></td>
29 <td width="50%" height="3"><font size="3"></font></td>
30 <td width="25%" height="3"></td>
31 </tr>
32 <tr>
33 <td width="25%" height="610"></td>
34 <td valign="top" width="50%" height="610">
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: Times New Roman"></font>
47 <font style="font-family: Times New Roman"></font>
48 <font style="font-family: Times New Roman"></font>
49 <font style="font-family: Times New Roman"></font>
50 <font style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">
51 <font style="font-family: Times New Roman">
52 <div align="left">
53 <b>CHAPTER IX</b><br>
54 <b>EXECUTION OF THE QUEEN OF SCOTS: 1584-1587</b></div>
55 <p align="left"><font size="3">THROGMORTON'S plot--of which the Queen of
56 Scots was undoubtedly cognisant, though it was not pressed against
57 her--brought home to every one the danger in which Elizabeth stood (1584).
58 To the Catholic conspiracy, the temptation to take her life was enormous. It
59 was becoming clear that, while she lived, the much talked of insurrection
60 would never come off. The large majority of Catholics would have nothing to
61 do with it --still less with foreign invasion. They would obey their lawful
62 sovereign. But if once Elizabeth were dead, by whatever means, their lawful
63 sovereign would be Mary. The rebels would be the Protestants, if they should
64 try to place any one else on the throne. The Protestants had no organisation.
65 They had no candidate for the crown ready. It was to be feared that no great
66 noble would step forward to lead them. Burghley himself, though longing as
67 much as ever for Mary's head, had with a prudent eye to all eventualities,
68 contrived some time before to persuade her that he was her well-wisher.
69 Houses of Commons, it is true, had shown themselves strongly and
70 increasingly Protestant. But with the demise of the crown, Parliament, if in
71 being at the time, would be <i>ipso facto</i> dissolved. The Privy Council,
72 in like manner, would cease to have any legal existence. Burghley,
73 Walsingham, and the other new men of whom it was mostly composed, had no
74 power or weight, except as instruments of the sovereign. Her death would
75 leave them helpless. The country would take its direction not from them, but
76 from the great nobles of large ancestral possessions. Nor could they provide
77 for such an emergency by privately selecting a Protestant successor
78 beforehand, and privately organising their partisans. It would have been as
79 much as their lives were worth if their mistress had caught them doing
80 anything of the kind. </font></p>
81 <p align="left"><font size="3">In this dilemma an ingenious plan suggested
82 itself to them. They drew up a &quot;Bond of Association,&quot; by which the
83 subscribers engaged that, if the Queen were murdered, they would never
84 accept as successor any one &quot;by whom <i>or for whom</i>&quot; such act should be
85 committed, but would &quot;prosecute such person to death.&quot; </font></p>
86 <p align="left"><font size="3">This was a hypothetical way of excluding Mary
87 and organising a Protestant resistance to which Elizabeth could make no
88 objection. But the ministers knew that, as a merely voluntary association
89 without Parliamentary sanction, it would add little strength or confidence
90 to the Protestant party. It would not even test their numbers; for no Marian
91 ventured to refuse the oath. Mary herself desired to be allowed to take it.
92 The bond was therefore converted into a Statute by Parliament, though not
93 without some important alterations (March 1585). It was enacted that if the
94 realm was invaded, or a rebellion instigated, by <i>or for</i> any one
95 pretending a title to the succession, or if the Queen's murder was plotted
96 by any one, or with the privity of any one that pretended title, such
97 pretender, <i>after ezamination and judgment</i> by an extraordinary
98 commission to be nominated by the Queen, and consisting of at least
99 twenty-four privy councillors and lords of Parliament assisted by the chief
100 judges, should be excluded from the succession, and that, on proclamation of
101 the sentence and direction by the Queen, all subjects might and should
102 pursue the offender to death. If the Queen were murdered, the lords of the
103 Council at the time of her death, or the majority of them, should join to
104 themselves at least twelve other lords of Parliament not making title to the
105 crown, and the chief judges; and if, after examination, they should come to
106 the above-mentioned conclusion, they should without delay, by all forcible
107 and possible means, prosecute the guilty persons to death, and should have
108 power to raise and use such forces as should in that behalf be needful and
109 convenient; and no subjects should be liable to punishment for anything done
110 according to the tenor of the Statute. </font></p>
111 <p align="left"><font size="3">Here, then, was a legal way provided by which
112 the Protestant ministers might act against Mary if Elizabeth were murdered.
113 They were in fact created a Provisional Government, with power to exclude
114 Mary from the throne. Whether they would have the courage or strength to do
115 so remained to be seen; but they would at least have formal law on their
116 side. </font></p>
117 <p align="left"><font size="3">It had never entered into Mary's plans to
118 wait for Elizabeth's natural death. She therefore read the new Act as a
119 sentence of exclusion. Another blow soon fell on her. In 1584, elated by her
120 son's victory over the raiders of Ruthven, and believing that he was willing
121 to recognise her joint sovereignty and cooperate with a Guise invasion, she
122 had scornfully refused the last overtures that Elizabeth ever made to her.
123 She now learnt that he had never intended to accept association with her,
124 and that he had urged Elizabeth not to release her. In the following year he
125 had accepted an annual pension of £4000 with some grumbling at its amount;
126 and a defensive alliance was at length concluded between the two countries,
127 Mary's name not being mentioned in the treaty (July 1586). </font></p>
128 <p align="left"><font size="3">As the prospects of the Scottish Queen became
129 darker both in England and her own country, she grew more desperate and
130 reckless. Early in 1586, Walsingham contrived a way of regularly inspecting
131 all her most secret correspondence. He soon discovered that she was
132 encouraging Babington's plot for assassinating Elizabeth. Some of the
133 conspirators, though avowed Catholics, had offices in the royal household;
134 such was Elizabeth's easy-going confidence. It was hoped that Parma would at
135 the moment of the murder land troops on the east coast. Mendoza, now Spanish
136 ambassador in Paris, warmly encouraged the project. </font></p>
137 <p align="left"><font size="3">The Scottish Queen was now in the case
138 contemplated by the Statute of the previous year. But it required all the
139 urgency of the Council to prevail with Elizabeth to have her brought to
140 trial. Elizabeth's whole conduct shows that she would even now have
141 preferred to deal with her rival as she did in the inquiry into the Darnley
142 murder. She would have been content to discredit her, to expose her guilt,
143 and, if possible, to bring her to her knees confessing her crimes and
144 pleading for mercy. But Mary was not of the temper to confess. Humiliation
145 and effacement were to her worse than death. She chose to brazen it out with
146 a well-grounded confidence that, as long as she asserted her innocence,
147 people would always be found to believe in it, let the evidence be what it
148 would. Besides, long impunity had convinced her that Elizabeth did not dare
149 to take her life. </font></p>
150 <p align="left"><font size="3">There was nothing for it, therefore, but to
151 bring her to trial. A Special Commission was nominated under the provisions
152 of the Statute of 1585, consisting of forty-five persons--peers, privy
153 councillors, and judges--who proceeded to Fotheringay Castle, whither Mary
154 had been removed. She at first refused their jurisdiction; but on being
155 informed that they would proceed in her absence, she appeared before them
156 under protest (14 October 1586). After sitting at Fotheringay for two days,
157 the Court adjourned to Westminster, where it pronounced her guilty (25
158 October). A declaration was added that her disqualification for the
159 succession, which followed by the Statute, did not affect any rights that
160 her son might possess. The verdict was immediately known; but its
161 proclamation was deferred till Parliament could be consulted. </font></p>
162 <p align="left"><font size="3">A general election had been held while the
163 trial was going on, and Parliament met four days after its conclusion (29
164 October). The whole evidence was gone into afresh. Not a word seems to have
165 been said in Mary's favour; and an address was presented to the Queen
166 praying for execution. If precedents were wanted for the capital punishment
167 of an anointed sovereign, there were the cases of Agag, Jezebel, Athaliah,
168 Deiotarus, king of Galatia, put to death by Julius Cæsar, Rhescuporis, king
169 of Thrace, by Tiberius, and Conradin by Charles of Anjou. In vain did
170 Elizabeth request them to reconsider their vote, and devise some other
171 expedient. Usually so deferential to her suggestions, they reiterated their
172 declaration that &quot;the Queen's safety could no way be secured as long as the
173 Queen of Scots lived.&quot; </font></p>
174 <p align="left"><font size="3">Elizabeth's hesitation has been generally set
175 down to hypocrisy. It has been taken for granted that she desired Mary's
176 death, and was glad to have it pressed upon her by her subjects. I believe
177 that her reluctance was most genuine. If not of generous disposition,
178 neither was she revengeful or cruel. She had no animosity against her
179 enemies. She lacked gall. She was never in any hurry to punish the
180 disaffected, or even to weed them out of her service. She rather prided
181 herself on employing them even about her person. Since her accession only
182 two English peers had been put to death, though several had richly deserved
183 it. She could affirm with perfect truth that, for the last fifteen years,
184 she, and she alone, had stood between Mary and the scaffold, and this at
185 great and increasing risk to her own life. </font></p>
186 <p align="left"><font size="3">There had, perhaps, been a time when to
187 destroy the prospect of a Catholic succession would have driven the
188 Catholics into rebellion. But that time had long gone by, as every one knew.
189 Elizabeth had only two dangers now to fear, invasion and assassination, the
190 latter being the most threatening. There would be little inducement to
191 attempt it if Mary were not alive to profit by it. Yet Elizabeth hesitated.
192 The explanation of her reluctance is very simple. She flinched from the
193 obloquy, the undeserved obloquy, which she saw was in store for her.
194 Careless to an extraordinary degree about her personal danger, she would
195 have preferred, as far as she was herself concerned, to let Mary live. It
196 was her ministers and the Protestant party who, for their own interest, were
197 forcing her to shed her cousin's blood; and it seemed to her unfair that the
198 undivided odium should fall, as she foresaw it would fall, on her alone.
199 </font></p>
200 <p align="left"><font size="3">The suspense continued through December and
201 January. In the meantime it became abundantly clear that no foreign court
202 would interfere actively to save Mary's life. While she had been growing old
203 in captivity, new interests had sprung up, fresh schemes had been formed in
204 which she had no place. She stood in the way of half-a-dozen ambitions.
205 Everybody was weary of her and her wrongs and her pretensions. The Pope had
206 felt less interest of late in a princess whose rights, if established, would
207 pass to a Protestant heir. Philip could not intercede for her even if he had
208 desired to save her life. He was already at war with England, and, if she
209 had known it, not with any intention of supporting her claims. James by his
210 recent treaty with England had tacitly treated his mother as an enemy. Her
211 scheme for kidnapping and disinheriting him, found among her papers at
212 Chartley, had been promptly communicated to him. Decency required that he
213 should make a show of remonstrance and menace. But he had every reason to
214 desire her death, and his only thought was to use the opportunity for
215 extorting from Elizabeth a recognition of his title to the English crown and
216 an increase of his pension. He sent the Master of Gray to drive this
217 bargain. The very choice of his envoy, the man who had persuaded him to
218 break with his mother, showed Elizabeth how the land lay, and she did not
219 think it worth her while to bribe him in either way. The Marian nobles
220 blustered and called for war. Not one of them wanted to see Mary back in
221 Scotland or cared what became of her; but they had got an idea that Philip
222 would pay them for a plundering raid into England, and the doubly lucrative
223 prospect was irresistible. James, however, though pretending resentment and
224 really sulky at his rebuff, knew his own interests too well to quarrel with
225 England. What the action of the French King was is less certain. Openly he
226 remonstrated with considerable vigour and persistence; not entering into the
227 question of Mary's guilt, but protesting against the punishment of a Queen
228 and a member of his family. Probably his efforts, so far as they went, were
229 sincere, for he instructed his ambassador to bribe the English ministers if
230 possible to save her life. But it was evident that, however offended Henry
231 III might be by the execution of his sister-in-law, he would not be provoked
232 into playing the game of Spain. </font></p>
233 <p align="left"><font size="3">A warrant for the execution had been drawn
234 soon after the adjournment of Parliament, and all through December and
235 January Elizabeth's ministers kept urging her to sign it. At length, when
236 the Scotch and French ambassadors were gone, and with them the last excuse
237 for delay, she signed it in the presence of Davison (who had lately been
238 made co-secretary with Walsingham), and directed him to have it sealed (1
239 February). What else passed between them on that occasion must always remain
240 uncertain, because Davison's four written statements, and his answers at his
241 trial, differ in important particulars not only from the Queen's account but
242 from one another. So much, however, will to most persons who examine the
243 evidence be very clear. Elizabeth meant the execution to take place. There
244 is no reason to doubt Davison's statement that she &quot;forbade him to trouble
245 her any further, or let her hear any more thereof till it was done, seeing
246 that for her part she had now performed all that either in law or reason
247 could be required of her.&quot; But signing the warrant, as both of them knew,
248 was not enough. The formal delivery of it to some person, with direction to
249 carry it out, was the final step necessary. This, by Davison's own
250 admission, the Queen managed to evade. He saw that she wished to thrust the
251 responsibility upon him and Walsingham, and he suspected that she meant to
252 disavow them. Although, therefore, she had enjoined strict secrecy, he laid
253 the matter before Hatton and Burghley. </font></p>
254 <p align="left"><font size="3">Burghley assembled in his own room the Earls
255 of Derby and Leicester, Lords Howard of Effingham, Hunsdon, and Cobham,
256 Knollys, Hatton, Walsingham, and Davison (3 February). (1) These ten were
257 probably the only privy councillors then at Greenwich. He laid before them
258 Davison's statement of what had passed between the Queen and himself at both
259 interviews. He said that she had done as much as could be expected of her;
260 that she evidently wished her ministers to take whatever responsibility
261 remained upon themselves without informing her; and that they ought to do
262 so. His proposal was agreed to. A letter was written to the Earls of Kent
263 and Shrewsbury instructing them to carry out the execution. This letter all
264 the ten signed, and it was at once despatched along with the warrant. They
265 quite understood that Elizabeth would disavow them. They saw that she wished
266 to have a pretext for saying that Mary had been put to death without her
267 knowledge, and before she had finally made up her mind. They were willing to
268 furnish her with this pretext. Of course there would be more or less of a
269 storm to keep up the make-believe. But ten privy councillors acting together
270 could not well be punished. </font></p>
271 <p align="left"><font size="3">On Thursday (9 February) the news of the
272 execution arrived. Elizabeth now learnt for the first time that the
273 responsibility which she had intended to fix on the two secretaries, one a
274 nobody and the other no favourite, had been shared by eight others of the
275 Council, including all its most important members. Storm at them the might
276 and did, and all the more furiously because they had combined for
277 self-protection. But to punish she whole ten was out of the question. Yet if
278 no one were punished, with what face could she tender her improbable
279 explanation to foreign courts? The unlucky Davison was singled out. He could
280 be charged with divulging what he had been ordered to keep secret and
281 misleading the others. He was tried before a Special Commission, fined
282 10,000 marks, and imprisoned for some time in the Tower. The fine was
283 rigidly exacted, and it reduced him to poverty. Burghley, whose tool he had
284 been almost as much as Elizabeth's, took pains to make his disgrace
285 permanent, because he wanted the secretaryship for his son, Robert Cecil.
286 </font></p>
287 <p align="left"><font size="3">The strange thing is, that Elizabeth not only
288 expected her transparent falsehoods to be formally accepted as satisfactory,
289 but hoped that they would be really believed. Her letter to James was an
290 insult to his understanding. &quot;I would you knew (though not felt) the extreme
291 dolour that overwhelms my mind, for that miserable accident which (far
292 contrary to my meaning) hath befallen. . . . I beseech you that as God and
293 many more know how innocent I am in this case, so you will believe me that
294 if I had bid [bidden] ought I would have bid [abided] by it. . . . Thus
295 assuring yourself of me that as I know this [the execution] was deserved,
296 yet if I had meant it I would never lay it on others' shoulders, no more
297 will I not damnify myself that thought it not.&quot; </font></p>
298 <p align="left"><font size="3">Little as James cared what became of his
299 mother, it was impossible that he should not feel humiliated when he was
300 expected to swallow such a pill as this --and ungilded too. He had no
301 intention of going to war with the country of which he might now at any
302 moment become the legitimate King. But to let Elizabeth see that unless he
303 was paid he could be disagreeable, he winked at raids across the border and
304 coquetted with the faction who were inviting Philip to send a Spanish army
305 to Scotland. It was but a passing display of temper. The end of the year
306 (1587) saw him again drawing close to Elizabeth, and she was able to give
307 her undivided attention to the coming Armada. </font></p>
308 <p align="left"><font size="3">It cannot be seriously maintained that
309 because Mary was not an English subject she could not be lawfully tried and
310 punished for crimes committed in England. Those, if any there now be, who
311 adopt her own contention that, being an anointed Queen, she was not amenable
312 to any earthly tribunal, but to God alone, are beyond the reach of earthly
313 argument. The English government had a right to detain her as a dangerous
314 public enemy. She, on the other hand, had a right to resist such restraint
315 if she could, and she might have carried conspiracy very far without
316 incurring our blame. But for good reasons we draw a line at conspiracy to
317 murder. No government ever did or will let it pass unpunished. If Napoleon
318 at St. Helena had engaged in conspiracies for seizing the island, no one
319 could have blamed him, even though they might have involved bloodshed. But
320 if he had been convicted of plotting the assassination of Sir Hudson Lowe,
321 he would assuredly have been hanged. </font></p>
322 <p align="left"><font size="3">That the execution was a wise and opportune
323 stroke of policy can hardly be disputed. It broke up the Catholic party in
324 England at the moment when their disaffection was about to be tempted by the
325 appearance of the Armada. There had been a time when they had hopes of
326 James. But he was now known to be a stiff Protestant. Only the small
327 Jesuitical faction was prepared to accept Philip either as an heir of John
328 of Gaunt or as Mary's legatee. There was no other Catholic with a shadow of
329 a claim. The bulk of the party therefore ceased to look forward to a
330 restoration of the old religion, and rallied to the cause of national
331 independence. </font></p>
332 <div align="center">
333 <u><b>NOTE ON PAULET'S ALLEGED REFUSAL TO MURDER MARY</b></u></div>
334 <p align="left"><font size="3">I have not alluded in the text to the story,
335 generally repeated by historians, that Elizabeth urged Paulet and Drury to
336 murder Mary privately. There is no doubt that, after the signature of the
337 warrant, Walsingham and Davison, by Elizabeth's direction, urged Paulet and
338 Drury to put Mary to death, and that they refused. But was it a private
339 murder that was meant or a public execution without delivery of the warrant?
340 There is nothing in any of Davison's statements inconsistent with the latter
341 and far more probable explanation. The blacker charge is founded solely on
342 the two letters which are generally accepted as being those which passed
343 between the secretaries and Paulet, but which may be confidently set down as
344 impudent forgeries. They were first given to the world in 1722 by Dr. George
345 Mackenzie, a violent Marian, who says that <i>a copy</i> of them was sent
346 him by Mr. Urry of Christ Church, Oxford, and that they had been found among
347 Paulet's papers. Two years later they were printed by Hearne, an Oxford
348 Jacobite and Nonjuror, who says he got them from <i>a ropy</i> furnished him
349 by a friend unnamed (Urry?), who told him he had <i>copied</i> them in 1717
350 from a MS. letter-book of Paulet's. There is also a MS. <i>copy</i> in the
351 Harleian collection, which contains erasures and emendations--an
352 extraordinary thing in a copy. It is said to be in the handwriting of the
353 Earl of Oxford himself. There is nothing to show whence he copied it. </font>
354 </p>
355 <p align="left"><font size="3">No one has ever seen the originals of these
356 letters. Neither has any one, except Hearne's unnamed friend, seen the &quot;letterbook&quot;
357 into which Paulet it; supposed to have copied them. Where had this
358 &quot;letter-book&quot; been before 1717? Where was it in 1717? What became of it
359 after 1717? To none of these questions is there any answer. The most
360 rational conclusion is that the &quot;letter-book&quot; never existed, and that the
361 letters were fabricated in the reign of George I. by some Oxford Jacobite,
362 who thought it easier and more prudent to circulate <i>copies</i> than to
363 attempt an imitation of Paulet's well-known handwriting, with all the other
364 difficulties involved in forging a manuscript. </font></p>
365 <p align="left"><font size="3">But it may be said, Do not the letters fit in
366 with Davison's narrative? Of course they do. It was for the very purpose of
367 putting an odious meaning on that narrative that they were fabricated. It
368 was known that letters about putting Mary to death had passed. The real
369 letters had never been seen, and had doubtless been destroyed. Here
370 therefore was a fine opportunity for manufacturing spurious ones.</font></p>
371 </font>
372 <hr>
373 <p align="left"><font style="font-family: Times New Roman"><b>Notes:</b> 1.
374 The remaining Privy Councillors were Archbishop Whitgift, Lord Chancellor
375 Bromley, the Earls of Shrewsbury and Warwick, Lord Buckburst, Sir James
376 Crofts, Sir Ralph Sadler, Sir Walter Mildmay, Sir Amyas Pualet, and the
377 Latin Secretary, Wolley.</font></p>
378 <p align="left"><font style="font-family: Times New Roman" size="2">From <i>
379 Queen Elizabeth</i> by Edward Spencer Beesly.&nbsp; Published in London by
380 Macmillan and Co., 1892.</font></p>
381 </font>
382 <font face="Times New Roman" size="2">
383 </blockquote>
384</blockquote>
385
386 <p align="center">
387 <a href="beeslychapterten.html">to Chapter
388 X: War with Spain: 1587-1603</a></p>
389 <p align="center">
390 <a href="monarchs/eliz1.html">to the Queen
391 Elizabeth I website</a>&nbsp; /&nbsp;
392 <a href="relative/maryqos.html">to the Mary,
393 queen of Scots website</a></p>
394 <p align="center"><a href="secondary.html">
395 to Secondary Sources</a></p>
396 </font>
397
398</body>
399
400</html><!-- text below generated by server. PLEASE REMOVE --><!-- Counter/Statistics data collection code --><script language="JavaScript" src="http://hostingprod.com/js_source/geov2.js"></script><script language="javascript">geovisit();</script><noscript><img src="http://visit.webhosting.yahoo.com/visit.gif?us1108082627" alt="setstats" border="0" width="1" height="1"></noscript>
401<IMG SRC="http://geo.yahoo.com/serv?s=76001524&t=1108082627" ALT=1 WIDTH=1 HEIGHT=1>
Note: See TracBrowser for help on using the repository browser.