But all the insolence of the people was inconsiderable in comparison of that which was exercised by the clergy and the preachers, who took a pride in vilifying, even to her face, this amiable princess. The assembly of the church framed an address, in which, after telling her that her mass was a bastard service of God, the fountain of all impiety, and the source of every evil which abounded in the realm, they expressed their hopes, that she would ere this time have preferred truth to her own preconceived opinion, and have renounced her religion, which, they assured her, was nothing but abomination and vanity. They said, that the present abuses of government were so enormous, that if a speedy remedy were not provided, God would not fail in his anger to strike the head and the tail, the disobedient prince and sinful people. They required, that severe punishment should be inflicted on adulterers and fornicators. And they concluded with demanding for themselves some addition both of power and property.[*]
The ringleader in all these insults on majesty was John Knox; who possessed an uncontrolled authority in the church and even in the civil affairs of the nation, and who triumphed in the contumelious usage of his sovereign. His usual appellation for the queen was Jezebel; and though she endeavored by the most gracious condescension to win his favor, all her insinuations could gain nothing on his obdurate heart. She promised him access to her whenever he demanded it; and she even desired him, if he found her blamable in any thing, to reprehend her freely in private, rather than vilify her in the pulpit before the whole people: but he plainly told her, that he had a public ministry intrusted to him; that if she would come to church, she should there hear the gospel of truth, and that it was not his business to apply to every individual, nor had he leisure for that occupation.[**] The political principles of the man, which he communicated to his brethren, were as full of sedition, as his theological were of rage and bigotry. Though he once condescended so far as to tell the queen that he would submit to her, in the same manner as Paul did to Nero,[***] he remained not long in this dutiful strain. He said to her, that “Samuel feared not to slay Agag the fat and delicate king of Amalek, whom King Saul had saved; neither spared Elias Jezebel’s false prophets, and Baal’s priests, though King Ahab was present. Phineas,” added he, “was no magistrate; yet feared he not to strike Cosbi and Zimri in the very act of filthy fornication. And so, madam, your grace may see that others than chief magistrates may lawfully inflict punishment on such crimes as are condemned by the law of God.”[****] Knox had formerly, during the reign of Mary of England, written a book against female succession to the crown: the title of it is, “The first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regimen of women.” He was too proud either to recant the tenets of this book, or even to apologize for them; and his conduct showed that he thought no more civility than loyalty due to any of the female sex.
The whole life of Mary was, from the demeanor of these men, filled with bitterness and sorrow. This rustic apostle scruples not, in his history, to inform us, that he once treated her with such severity, that she lost all command of temper, and dissolved in tears before him: yet so far from being moved with youth, and beauty, and royal dignity reduced to that condition, he persevered in his insolent reproofs; and when he relates this incident, he discovers a visible pride and satisfaction in his own conduct.[*] The pulpits had become mere scenes of railing against the vices of the court; among which were always noted as the principal, feasting, finery, dancing, balls, and whoredom, their necessary attendant.[**] Some ornaments, which the ladies at that time wore upon their petticoats, excited mightily the indignation of the preachers; and they affirmed, that such vanity would provoke God’s vengeance not only against these foolish women, but against the whole realm.[***]
Mary, whose age, condition, and education, invited her to liberty and cheerfulness, was curbed in all amusements by the absurd severity of these reformers; and she found every moment reason to regret her leaving that country, from whose manners she had in her early youth received the first impressions.[****] Her two uncles, the duke of Aumale and the grand prior, with the other French nobility, soon took leave of her: the marquis of Elbeuf remained some time longer; but after his departure, she was left to the society of her own subjects; men unacquainted with the pleasures of conversation, ignorant of arts and civility, and corrupted, beyond their usual rusticity, by a dismal fanaticism, which rendered them incapable of all humanity or improvement. Though Mary had made no attempt to restore the ancient religion, her Popery was a sufficient crime: though her behavior was hitherto irreproachable, and her manners sweet and engaging, her gayety and ease were interpreted as signs of dissolute vanity. And to the harsh and preposterous usage which this princess met with may, in part, be ascribed those errors of her subsequent conduct which seemed so little of a piece with the general tenor of her character.
There happened to the marquis of Elbeuf, before his departure, an adventure which, though frivolous, might enable him to give Mary’s friends in France a melancholy idea of her situation. This nobleman, with the earl of Bothwell and some other young courtiers, had been engaged, after a debauch, to pay a visit to a woman called Alison Craig, who was known to be liberal of her favors; and because they were denied admittance, they broke the windows, thrust open the door, and committed some disorders in searching for the damsel. It happened that the assembly of the church was sitting at that time, and they immediately took the matter under their cognizance. In conjunction with several of the nobility, they presented an address to the queen, which was introduced with this awful prelude: “To the queen’s majesty, and to her secret and great council, her grace’s faithful and obedient subjects, the professors of Christ Jesus’s holy evangil, wish the spirit of righteous judgment.” The tenor of the petition was that the fear of God, the duty which they owed her grace, and the terrible threatenings denounced by God against every city or country where horrible crimes were openly committed, compelled them to demand the severe punishment of such as had done what in them lay to kindle the wrath of God against the whole realm; that the iniquity of which they complained was so heinous and so horrible that they should esteem themselves accomplices in it, if they had been engaged by worldly fear, or servile complaisance, to pass it over in silence, or bury it in oblivion: that as they owed her grace obedience, in the administration of justice, so were they entitled to require of her, in return, the sharp and condign punishment of this enormity, which, they repeated it, might draw down the vengeance of God on the whole kingdom: and that they maintained it to be her duty to lay aside all private affections towards the actors in so heinous a crime, and so enormous a villany, and without delay bring them to a trial, and inflict the severest penalty upon them. The queen gave a gracious reception to his peremptory address, but because she probably thought that breaking the windows of a brothel merited not such severe reprehension, she only replied, that her uncle was a stranger, and that he was attended by a young company; but she would put such order to him and to all others that her subjects should henceforth have no reason to complain. Her passing over this incident so slightly was the source of great discontent, and was regarded as a proof of the most profligate manners.[*]
It is not to be omitted, that Alison Craig, the cause of all the uproar was known to entertain a commerce with the earl of Arran, who, on account of his great zeal for the reformation, was, without scruple, indulged in that enormity.[*]
Some of the populace of Edinburgh broke into the queen’s chapel during her absence, and committed outrages; for which two of them were indicted, and it was intended to bring them to a trial. Knox wrote circular letters to the most considerable zealots of the party, and charged them to appear in town and protect their brethren. The holy sacraments, he there said, are abused by profane Papists; the mass has been said; and in worshipping that idol, the priests have omitted no ceremony, not even the conjuring of their accursed water, that had ever been practised in the time of the greatest blindness. These violent measures for opposing justice were little short of rebellion; and Knox was summoned before the council to answer for his offence. The courage of the man was equal to his insolence. He scrupled not to tell the queen that the pestilent Papists who had inflamed her against these holy men were the sons of the devil; and must therefore obey the directions of their father, who had been a liar and a manslayer from the beginning. The matter ended with the full acquittal of Knox.[**] Randolph, the English ambassador in Scotland, had reason to write to Cecil, speaking of the Scottish nation, “I think marvellously of the wisdom of God, that gave this unruly, inconstant, and cumbersome people no more power nor substance; for they would otherwise run wild.”[***]
We have related these incidents at greater length than the necessity of our subject may seem to require; but even trivial circumstances, which show the manners of the age, are often more instructive, as well as entertaining, than the great transactions of wars and negotiations, which are nearly similar in all periods and in all countries of the world.
The reformed clergy in Scotland had at that time a very natural reason for their ill humor; namely, the poverty, or rather beggary, to which they were reduced. The nobility and gentry had at first laid their hands on all the property of the regular clergy, without making any provision for the friars and nuns, whom they turned out of their possessions. The secular clergy of the Catholic communion, though they lost all ecclesiastical jurisdiction, still held some of the temporalities of their benefices; and either became laymen themselves and converted them into private property, or made conveyance of them at low prices to the nobility, who thus enriched themselves by the plunder of the church. The new teachers had hitherto subsisted chiefly by the voluntary oblations of the faithful; and in a poor country, divided in religious sentiments, this establishment was regarded as very scanty and very precarious. Repeated applications were made for a legal settlement to the preachers; and though almost every thing in the kingdom was governed by their zeal and caprice, it was with difficulty that their request was at last complied with. The fanatical spirit which they indulged, and their industry in decrying the principles and practices of the Romish communion, which placed such merit in enriching the clergy, proved now a very sensible obstacle to their acquisitions. The convention, however, passed a vote,[*] by which they divided all the ecclesiastical benefices into twenty-one shares: they assigned fourteen to the ancient possessors: of the remaining seven they granted three to the crown; and if that were found to answer the public expenses, they bestowed the overplus on the reformed ministers. The queen was empowered to levy all the seven; and it was ordained that she should afterwards pay to the clergy what should be judged to suffice for their maintenance. The necessities of the crown, the rapacity of the courtiers, and the small affection which Mary bore to the Protestant ecclesiastics, rendered their revenues contemptible as well as uncertain; and the preachers, finding that they could not rival the gentry, or even the middling rank of men, in opulence and plenty, were necessitated to betake themselves to other expedients for supporting their authority. They affected a furious zeal for religion, morose manners, a vulgar and familiar, yet mysterious cant; and though the liberality of subsequent princes put them afterwards on a better footing with regard to revenue, and thereby corrected in some degree those bad habits, it must be confessed that, while many other advantages attend Presbyterian government, these inconveniences are not easily separated from the genius of that ecclesiastical polity.
The queen of Scots, destitute of all force, possessing a narrow revenue, surrounded with a factious, turbulent nobility, a bigoted people, and insolent ecclesiastics, soon found that her only expedient for maintaining tranquillity was to preserve a good correspondence with Elizabeth,[*] who, by former connections and services, had acquired such authority over all these ranks of men.
Soon after her arrival in Scotland, Secretary Lidington was sent to London, in order to pay her compliments to the queen, and express her desire of friendship and a good correspondence; and he received a commission from her, as well as from the nobility of Scotland, to demand, as a means of cementing this friendship, that Mary should, by act of parliament or by proclamation, (for the difference between these securities was not then deemed very considerable,) be declared successor to the crown. No request could be more unreasonable, or made at a more improper juncture. The queen replied, that Mary had once discovered her intention not to wait for the succession, but had openly, without ceremony or reserve, assumed the title of Queen of England, and had pretended a superior right to her throne and kingdom: that though her ambassadors and those of her husband, the French king, had signed a treaty, in which they renounced that claim, and promised satisfaction for so great an indignity, she was so intoxicated with this imaginary right, that she had rejected the most earnest solicitations, and even, as some endeavored to persuade her, had incurred some danger, in crossing the seas, rather than ratify that equitable treaty: that her partisans every where had still the assurance to insist on her title, and had presumed to talk of her own birth as illegitimate: that while affairs were on this footing; while a claim thus openly made, so far from being openly renounced, was only suspended till a more favorable opportunity; it would in her be the most egregious imprudence to fortify the hands of a pretender to her crown by declaring her the successor: that no expedient could be worse imagined for cementing friendship than such a declaration; and kings were often found to bear no good will to their successors, even though their own children; much more when the connection was less intimate, and when such cause of disgust and jealousy had already been given, and indeed was still continued, on the part of Mary: that though she was willing, from the amity which she bore her kinswoman, to ascribe her former pretensions to the advice of others, by whose direction she was then governed, her present refusal to relinquish them could proceed only from her own prepossessions, and was a proof that she still harbored some dangerous designs against her: that it was the nature of all men to be disgusted with the present, to entertain flattering views of futurity, to think their services ill rewarded, to expect a better recompense from the successor; and she should esteem herself scarcely half a sovereign over the English, if they saw her declare her heir, and arm her rival with authority against her own repose and safety: that she knew the inconstant nature of the people; she was acquainted with the present divisions in religion; she was not ignorant that the same party, which expected greater favor during the reign of Mary, did also imagine that the title of that princess was superior to her own: that for her part, whatever claims were advanced, she was determined to live and die queen of England; and after her death it was the business of others to examine who had the best pretensions, either by the laws or by right of blood, to the succession: that she hoped the claim of the queen of Scots would then be found solid; and, considering the injury which she herself had received, it was sufficient indulgence if she promised, in the mean time, to do nothing which might in any respect weaken or invalidate it: and that Mary, if her title were really preferable—a point which, for her own part, she had never inquired into—possessed all advantages above her rivals; who, destitute both of present power and of all support by friends, would only expose themselves to inevitable ruin, by advancing any weak, or even doubtful pretensions.[*]
These views of the queen were so prudent and judicious, that there was no likelihood of her ever departing from them: but that she might put the matter to a fuller proof, she offered to explain the words of the treaty of Edinburgh, so as to leave no suspicion of their excluding Mary’s right of succession;[**] and in this form she again required her to ratify that treaty. Matters at last came to this issue, that Mary agreed to the proposal, and offered to renounce all present pretensions to the crown of England, provided Elizabeth would agree to declare her the successor.[***] But such was the jealous character of this latter princess, that she never would consent to strengthen the interest and authority of any claimant by fixing the succession; much less would she make this concession in favor of a rival queen, who possessed such plausible pretensions for the present, and who, though she might verbally renounce them, could easily resume her claim on the first opportunity.
Mary’s proposal, however, bore so specious an appearance of equity and justice, that Elizabeth, sensible that reason would, by superficial thinkers, be deemed to lie entirely on that side, made no more mention of the matter; and though further concessions were never made by either princess, they put on all the appearances of a cordial reconciliation and friendship with each other.
The queen observed that, even without her interposition, Mary was sufficiently depressed by the mutinous spirit of her own subjects; and instead of giving Scotland for the present any inquietude or disturbance, she employed herself, more usefully and laudably, in regulating the affairs of her own kingdom, and promoting the happiness of her people. She made some progress in paying those great debts which lay upon the crown; she regulated the coin, which had been much debased by her predecessors; she furnished her arsenals with great quantities of arms from Germany and other places; engaged her nobility and gentry to imitate her example in this particular; introduced into the kingdom the art of making gunpowder and brass cannon; fortified her frontiers on the side of Scotland; made frequent reviews of the militia; encouraged agriculture, by allowing a free exportation of corn; promoted trade and navigation; and so much increased the shipping of her kingdom, both by building vessels of force herself, and suggesting like undertakings to the merchants, that she was justly styled the restorer of naval glory, and the queen of the northern seas.[*] The natural frugality of her temper, so far from incapacitating her for these great enterprises, only enabled her to execute them with greater certainty and success; and all the world, saw in her conduct the happy effects of a vigorous perseverance in judicious and well-concerted projects.
It is easy to imagine that so great a princess, who enjoyed such singular felicity and renown, would receive proposals of marriage from every one that had any likelihood of succeeding; and though she had made some public declarations in favor of a single life, few believed that she would persevere forever in that resolution. The archduke Charles, second son of the emperor,[*] as well as Casimir, son of the elector palatine, made applications to her; and as this latter prince professed the reformed religion, he thought himself, on that account, better entitled to succeed in his addresses. Eric, king of Sweden, and Adolph, duke of Holstein, were encouraged by the same views to become suitors: and the earl of Arran, heir to the crown of Scotland, was, by the states of that kingdom, recommended to her as a suitable marriage.
Even some of her own subjects, though they did not openly declare their pretensions, entertained hopes of success. The earl of Arundel, a person declining in years, but descended from an ancient and noble family, as well as possessed of great riches, flattered himself with this prospect; as did also Sir William Pickering, a man much esteemed for his personal merit. But the person most likely to succeed, was a younger son of the late duke of Northumberland, Lord Robert Dudley, who, by means of his exterior qualities, joined to address and flattery, had become in a manner her declared favorite, and had great influence in all her counsels. The less worthy he appeared of this distinction, the more was his great favor ascribed to some violent affection, which could thus seduce the judgment of this penetrating princess; and men long expected that he would obtain the preference above so many princes and monarchs. But the queen gave all these suitors a gentle refusal, which still encouraged their pursuit; and thought that she should the better attach them to her interest, if they were still allowed to entertain hopes of succeeding in their pretensions. It is also probable that this policy was not entirely free from a mixture of female coquetry; and that, though she was determined in her own mind never to share her power with any man, she was not displeased with the courtship, solicitation, and professions of love, which the desire of acquiring so valuable a prize procured her from all quarters.
What is most singular in the conduct and character of Elizabeth is, that though she determined never to have any heir of her own body, she was not only very averse to fix any successor to the crown, but seems, also, to have resolved, as far as it lay in her power, that no one who had pretensions to the succession should ever have any heirs or successors. If the exclusion given by the will of Henry VIII. to the posterity of Margaret, queen of Scotland, was allowed to be valid, the right to the crown devolved on the house of Suffolk; and the lady Catharine Gray, younger sister to the lady Jane, was now the heir of that family. This lady had been married to Lord Herbert, son of the earl of Pembroke; but having been divorced from that nobleman, she had made a private marriage with the earl of Hertford, son of the protector; and her husband, soon after consummation, travelled into France. In a little time she appeared to be pregnant, which so enraged Elizabeth, that she threw her into the Tower, and summoned Hertford to appear, in order to answer for his misdemeanor. He made no scruple of acknowledging the marriage, which, though concluded without the queen’s consent, was entirely suitable to both parties; and for this offence he was also committed to the Tower. Elizabeth’s severity stopped not here: she issued a commission to inquire into the matter; and as Hertford could not, within the time limited, prove the nuptials by witnesses, the commerce between him and his consort was declared unlawful, and their posterity illegitimate. They were still detained in custody, but by bribing their keepers, they found means to have further intercourse; and another child appeared to be the fruit of their commerce. This was a fresh source of vexation to the queen; who made a fine of fifteen thousand pounds be set on Hertford by the star chamber and ordered his confinement to be thenceforth more rigid and severe. He lay in this condition for nine years, till the death of his wife, by freeing Elizabeth from all fears, procured him his liberty.[*] This extreme severity must be accounted for, either by the unrelenting jealousy of the queen, who was afraid lest a pretender to the succession should acquire credit by having issue; or by her malignity, which, with all her great qualities, made one ingredient in her character, and which led her to envy in others those natural pleasures of love and posterity, of which her own ambition and desire of dominion made her renounce all prospect for herself.
There happened, about this time, some other events in the royal family where the queen’s conduct was more laudable. Arthur Pole and his brother, nephews to the late cardinal, and descended from the duke of Clarence, together with Anthony Fortescue, who had married a sister of these gentlemen, and some other persons, were brought to their trial for intending to withdraw into France, with a view of soliciting succors from the duke of Guise, of returning thence into Wales, and of proclaiming Mary queen of England, and Arthur Pole duke of Clarence. They confessed the indictment, but asserted that they never meant to execute these projects during the queen’s lifetime: they had only deemed such precautions requisite in case of her demise, which some pretenders to judicial astrology had assured them they might with certainty look for before the year expired. They were condemned by the jury; but received a pardon from the queen’s clemency.[*]
1562.
After the commencement of the religious wars in France, which rendered that flourishing kingdom, during the course of near forty years, a scene of horror and devastation, the great rival powers in Europe were Spain and England; and it was not long before an animosity, first political, then personal, broke out between the sovereigns of these countries.
Philip II. of Spain, though he reached not any enlarged views of policy, was endowed with great industry and sagacity, a remarkable caution in his enterprises, an unusual foresight in all his measures; and as he was ever cool, and seemingly unmoved by passion, and possessed neither talents nor inclination for war, both his subjects and his neighbors had reason to expect justice, happiness, and tranquillity from his administration. But prejudices had on him as pernicious effects as ever passion had on any other monarch; and the spirit of bigotry and tyranny by which he was actuated, with the fraudulent maxims which governed his counsels, excited the most violent agitation among his own people, engaged him in acts of the most enormous cruelty, and threw all Europe into combustion.
After Philip had concluded peace at Chateau-Cambresis and had remained some time in the Netherlands, in order to settle the affairs of that country, he embarked for Spain; and as the gravity of that nation, with their respectful obedience to their prince, had appeared more agreeable to his humor than the homely, familiar manners and the pertinacious liberty of the Flemings, it was expected that he would for the future reside altogether at Madrid, and would govern all his extensive dominions by Spanish ministers and Spanish counsels. Having met with a violent tempest on his voyage, he no sooner arrived in harbor than he fell on his knees; and after giving thanks for his deliverance, he vowed that his life, which was thus providentially saved, should thenceforth be entirely devoted to the extirpation of heresy.[*] His subsequent conduct corresponded to these professions. Finding that the new doctrines had penetrated into Spain, he let loose the rage of persecution against all who professed them, or were suspected of adhering to them; and by his violence he gave new edge even to the usual cruelty of priests and inquisitors. He threw into prison Constantine Ponce, who had been confessor to his father, the emperor Charles; who had attended him during his retreat; and in whose arms that great monarch had terminated his life: and after this ecclesiastic died in confinement, he still ordered him to be tried and condemned for heresy, and his statue to be committed to the flames. He even deliberated whether he should not exercise like severity against the memory of his father, who was suspected, during his later years, to have indulged a propensity towards the Lutheran principles: in his unrelenting zeal for orthodoxy, he spared neither age, sex, nor condition: he was present, with an inflexible countenance, at the most barbarous executions: he issued rigorous orders for the prosecution of heretics in Spain, Italy, the Indies, and the Low Countries: and having founded his determined tyranny on maxims of civil policy, as well as on principles of religion, he made it apparent to all his subjects, that there was no method, except the most entire compliance or most obstinate resistance, to escape or elude the severity of his vengeance.
During that extreme animosity which prevailed between the adherents of the opposite religions, the civil magistrate, who found it difficult, if not impossible, for the same laws to govern such enraged adversaries, was naturally led, by specious rules of prudence, in embracing one party, to declare war against the other, and to exterminate by fire and sword those bigots who, from abhorrence of his religion, had proceeded to an opposition of his power and to a hatred of his person. If any prince possessed such enlarged views as to foresee, that a mutual toleration would in time abate the fury of religious prejudices, he yet met with difficulties in reducing this principle to practice; and might deem the malady too violent to await a remedy, which, though certain, must necessarily be slow in its operation. But Philip, though a profound hypocrite, and extremely governed by self-interest seems also to have been himself actuated by an imperious bigotry; and as he employed great reflection in all his conduct, he could easily palliate the gratification of his natural temper under the color of wisdom, and find in this system no less advantage to his foreign than his domestic politics. By placing himself at the head of the Catholic party, he converted the zealots of the ancient faith into partisans of Spanish greatness; and by employing the powerful allurement of religion, he seduced every where the subjects from that allegiance which they owed to their native sovereign.
The course of events, guiding and concurring with choice, had placed Elizabeth in a situation diametrically opposite; and had raised her to be the glory, the bulwark, and the support of the numerous, though still persecuted Protestants, throughout Europe. More moderate in her temper than Philip, she found, with pleasure, that the principles of her sect required not such extreme severity in her domestic government as was exercised by that monarch; and having no object but self-preservation, she united her interests in all foreign negotiations with those who were every where struggling under oppression, and guarding themselves against ruin and extermination. The more virtuous sovereign was thus happily thrown into the more favorable cause; and fortune, in this instance, concurred with policy and nature.
During the lifetime of Henry II. of France, and of his successor, the force of these principles was somewhat restrained, though not altogether overcome, by motives of a superior interest; and the dread of uniting England with the French monarchy engaged Philip to maintain a good correspondence with Elizabeth. Yet even during this period he rejected the garter which she sent him; he refused to ratify the ancient league between the house of Burgundy and England;[*] he furnished ships to transport French forces into Scotland; he endeavored to intercept the earl of Arran, who was hastening to join the malecontents in that country; and the queen’s wisest ministers still regarded his friendship as hollow and precarious.[**]
But no sooner did the death of Francis II. put an end to Philip’s apprehensions with regard to Mary’s succession, than his animosity against Elizabeth began more openly to appear; and the interests of Spain and those of England were found opposite in every negotiation and transaction.
The two great monarchies of the continent, France and Spain, being possessed of nearly equal force, were naturally antagonists; and England, from its power and situation, was entitled to support its own dignity, as well as tranquillity, by holding the balance between them. Whatever incident, therefore, tended too much to depress one of these rival powers, as it left the other without control, might be deemed contrary to the interests of England; yet so much were these great maxims of policy overruled, during that age, by the disputes of theology, that Philip found an advantage in supporting the established government and religion of France, and Elizabeth in protecting faction and innovation.
The queen regent of France, when reinstated in authority by the death of her son Francis, had formed a plan of administration more subtle than judicious; and balancing the Catholics with the Hugonots, the duke of Guise with the prince of Condé, she endeavored to render herself necessary to both, and to establish her own dominion on their constrained obedience.[*] But the equal counterpoise of power, which, among foreign nations, is the source of tranquillity, proves always the ground of quarrel between domestic factions; and if the animosity of religion concur with the frequent occasions which present themselves of mutual injury, it is impossible during any time, to preserve a firm concord in so delicate a situation. The constable Montmorency, moved by zeal for the ancient faith, joined himself to the duke of Guise: the king of Navarre, from his inconstant temper, and his jealousy of the superior genius of his brother, embraced the same party: and Catharine, finding herself depressed by this combination, had recourse to Condé and the Hugonots, who gladly embraced the opportunity of fortifying themselves by her countenance and protection.[**]
An edict had been published, granting a toleration to the Protestants; but the interested violence of the duke of Guise, covered with the pretence of religious zeal, broke through this agreement; and the two parties, after the fallacious tranquillity of a moment, renewed their mutual insults and injuries. Condé, Coligny, Andelot assembled their friends and flew to arms: Guise and Montmorency got possession of the king’s person, and constrained the queen regent to embrace their party: fourteen armies were levied and put in motion in different parts of France;[*] each province, each city, each family, was agitated with intestine rage and animosity. The father was divided against the son; brother against brother; and women themselves, sacrificing their humanity as well as their timidity to the religious fury, distinguished themselves by acts of ferocity and valor.[**] Wherever the Hugonots prevailed, the images were broken, the altars pillaged, the churches demolished, the monasteries consumed with fire: where success attended the Catholics, they burned the Bibles, rebaptized the infants, constrained married persons to pass anew through the nuptial ceremony: and plunder, desolation, and bloodshed attended equally the triumph of both parties. The parliament of Paris itself, the seat of law and justice, instead of employing its authority to compose these fatal quarrels, published an edict by which it put the sword into the hands of the enraged multitude, and empowered the Catholics every where to massacre the Hugonots:[***] and it was during this period, when men began to be somewhat enlightened, and in this nation, renowned for polished manners, that the theological rage, which had long been boiling in men’s veins, seems to have attained its last stage of virulence and ferocity.
Philip, jealous of the progress which the Hugonots made in France, and dreading that the contagion would spread into the Low Country provinces, had formed a secret alliance with the princes of Guise, and had entered into a mutual concert for the protection of the ancient faith and the suppression of heresy. He now sent six thousand men, with some supply of money, to reënforce the Catholic party; and the prince of Condé, finding himself unequal to so great a combination, countenanced by the royal authority, was obliged to despatch the Vidame of Chartres and Briguemaut to London, in order to crave the assistance and protection of Elizabeth. Most of the province of Normandy was possessed by the Hugonots: and Condé offered to put Havre de Grace into the hands of the English; on condition that, together with three thousand man for the garrison of that place, the queen should likewise send over three thousand to defend Dieppe and Rouen, and should furnish the prince with a supply of a hundred thousand crowns.[*]
Elizabeth, besides the general and essential interest of supporting the Protestants, and opposing the rapid progress of her enemy the duke of Guise, had other motives which engaged her to accept of this proposal. When she concluded the peace at Chateau-Cambresis, she had good reason to foresee that France never would voluntarily fulfil the article which regarded the restitution of Calais; and many subsequent incidents had tended to confirm this suspicion. Considerable sums of money had been expended on the fortifications; long leases had been granted of the lands; and many inhabitants had been encouraged to build and settle there, by assurances that Calais should never be restored to the English.[**] The queen therefore wisely concluded, that, could she get possession of Havre, a place which commanded the mouth of the Seine, and was of greater importance than Calais, she should easily constrain the French to execute the treaty, and should have the glory of restoring to the crown that ancient possession, so much the favorite of the nation.
No measure could be more generally odious in France than the conclusion of this treaty with Elizabeth. Men were naturally led to compare the conduct of Guise, who had finally expelled the English, and had debarred these dangerous and destructive enemies from all access into France, with the treasonable politics of Condé, who had again granted them an entrance into the heart of the kingdom. The prince had the more reason to repent of this measure, as he reaped not from it all the advantage which he expected. Three thousand English immediately took possession of Havre and Dieppe, under the command of Sir Edward Poinings; but the latter place was found so little capable of defence, that it was immediately abandoned.[***] The siege of Rouen was already formed by the Catholics, under the command of the king of Navarre and Montmorency; and it was with difficulty that Poinings could throw a small reënforcement into the place. Though these English troops behaved with gallantry,[****] and though the king of Navarre was mortally wounded during the siege, the Catholics still continued the attack of the place, and carrying it at last by assault, put the whole garrison to the sword.
The earl of Warwick, eldest son of the late duke of Northumberland, arrived soon after at Havre with another body of three thousand English, and took on him the command of the place.
It was expected that the French Catholics, flushed with their success at Rouen, would immediately have formed the siege of Havre, which was not as yet in any condition of defence; but the intestine disorders of the kingdom soon diverted their attention to another enterprise. Andelot, seconded by the negotiations of Elizabeth, had levied a considerable body of Protestants in Germany; and having arrived at Orleans, the seat of the Hugonots’ power, he enabled the prince of Condé and the admiral to take the field, and oppose the progress of their enemies. After threatening Paris during some time, they took their march towards Normandy, with a view of engaging the English to act in conjunction with them, and of fortifying themselves by the further assistance which they expected from the zeal and vigor of Elizabeth.[*] The Catholics, commanded by the constable, and under him by the duke of Guise, followed on their rear; and overtaking them at Dreux, obliged them to give battle. The field was fought with great obstinacy on both sides; and the action was distinguished by this singular event, that Condé and Montmorency, the commanders of the opposite armies, fell both of them prisoners into the hands of their enemies. The appearances of victory remained with Guise, but the admiral, whose fate it ever was to be defeated, and still to rise more terrible after his misfortunes, collected the remains of the army; and inspiring his own unconquerable courage and constancy into every breast, kept them in a body, and subdued some considerable places in Normandy. Elizabeth, the better to support his cause, sent him a new supply of a hundred thousand crowns; and offered, if he could find merchants to lend him the money, to give her bond for another sum of equal amount.[**]
1563.
The expenses incurred by assisting the French Hugonots had emptied the queen’s exchequer; and in order to obtain supply, she found herself under a necessity of summoning a parliament: an expedient to which she never willingly had recourse. A little before the meeting of this assembly, she had fallen into a dangerous illness, the small-pox; and as her life, during some time, was despaired of, the people became the more sensible of their perilous situation, derived from the uncertainty, which, in case of her demise, attended the succession of the crown. The partisans of the queen of Scots, and those of the house of Suffolk, already divided the nation into factions; and every one foresaw, that, though it might be possible at present to determine the controversy by law, yet, if the throne were vacant, nothing but the sword would be able to fix a successor. The commons, therefore, on the opening of the session, voted an address to the queen; in which, after enumerating the dangers attending a broken and doubtful succession, and mentioning the evils which their fathers had experienced from the contending titles of York and Lancaster, they entreated the queen to put an end to their apprehensions, by choosing some husband, whom they promised, whoever he were, gratefully to receive, and faithfully to serve, honor, and obey: or if she had entertained any reluctance to the married state, they desired that the lawful successor might be named, at least appointed by act of parliament. They remarked, that, during all the reigns which had passed since the conquest, the nation had never before been so unhappy as not to know the person who, in case of the sovereign’s death, was legally entitled to fill the vacant throne. And they observed, that the fixed order which took place in inheriting the French monarchy, was one chief source of the usual tranquillity, as well as of the happiness, of that kingdom.[*]
This subject, though extremely interesting to the nation, was very little agreeable to the queen; and she was sensible that great difficulties would attend every decision. A declaration in favor of the queen of Scots would form a settlement perfectly legal; because that princess was commonly allowed to possess the right of blood; and the exclusion given by Henry’s will, deriving its weight chiefly from an act of parliament, would lose all authority whenever the queen and parliament had made a new settlement, and restored the Scottish line to its place in the succession. But she dreaded giving encouragement to the Catholics, her secret enemies, by this declaration. She was sensible that every heir was, in some degree, a rival; much more one who enjoyed a claim for the present possession of the crown, and who had already advanced, in a very open manner, these dangerous pretensions. The great power of Mary, both from the favor of the Catholic princes, and her connections with the house of Guise, not to mention the force and situation of Scotland, was well known to her; and she saw no security, that this princess, if fortified by a sure prospect of succession, would not revive claims which she could never yet be prevailed on formally to relinquish. On the other hand, the title of the house of Suffolk was supported by the more zealous Protestants only; and it was very doubtful whether even a parliamentary declaration in its favor would bestow on it such validity as to give satisfaction to the people. The republican part of the constitution had not yet acquired such an ascendant as to control, in any degree, the ideas of hereditary right, and as the legality of Henry’s will was still disputed, though founded on the utmost authority which a parliament could confer, who could be assured that a more recent act would be acknowledged to have greater validity? In the frequent revolutions which had of late taken place, the right of blood had still prevailed over religious prejudices; and the nation had ever shown itself disposed rather to change its faith than the order of succession. Even many Protestants declared themselves in favor of Mary’s claim of inheritance;[*] and nothing would occasion more general disgust, than to see the queen, openly and without reserve, take part against it.
The Scottish princess also, finding herself injured in so sensible a point, would thenceforth act as a declared enemy; and uniting together her foreign and domestic friends, the partisans of her present title and of her eventual succession, would soon bring matters to extremities against the present establishment. The queen, weighing all these inconveniences, which were great and urgent, was determined to keep both parties in awe, by maintaining still an ambiguous conduct; and she rather chose that the people should run the hazard of contingent events, than that she herself should visibly endanger her throne, by employing expedients, which, at best, would not bestow entire security on the nation. She gave, therefore, an evasive answer to the applications of the commons; and when the house, at the end of the session, desired, by the mouth of their speaker, further satisfaction on that head, she could not be prevailed on to make her reply more explicit. She only told them, contrary to her declarations in the beginning of her reign, that she had fixed no absolute resolution against marriage; and she added, that the difficulties attending the question of the succession were so great that she would be contented, for the sake of her people, to remain some time longer in this vale of misery; and never should depart life with satisfaction, till she had laid some solid foundation for their future security.[*]
The most remarkable law passed this session, was that which bore the title of “Assurance of the queen’s royal power over all states and subjects within her dominions.”[**] By this act, the asserting twice, by writing, word, or deed, the pope’s authority, was subjected to the penalties of treason. All persons in holy orders were bound to take the oath of supremacy; as also all who were advanced to any degree, either in the universities or in common law; all schoolmasters, officers in court, or members of parliament: and the penalty of their second refusal was treason. The first offence, in both cases, was punished by banishment and forfeiture. This rigorous statute was not extended to any of the degree of a baron; because it was not supposed that the queen could entertain any doubt with regard to the fidelity of persons possessed of such high dignity. Lord Montacute made opposition to the bill; and asserted, in favor of the Catholics, that they disputed not, they preached not, they disobeyed not the queen, they caused no trouble, no tumults among the people.[***] It is, however, probable, that some suspicions of their secret conspiracies had made the queen and parliament increase their rigor against them; though it is also more than probable, that they were mistaken in the remedy.
There was likewise another point, in which the parliament, this session, showed more the goodness of their intention than the soundness of their judgment. They passed a law against fond and fantastical prophecies, which had been observed to seduce the people into rebellion and disorder:[****] but at the same time they enacted a statute, which was most likely to increase these and such like superstitions: it was levelled against conjurations, enchantments, and witchcraft.[v]