The policy, or it may be the prejudices, of Cranmer induced him also to retain in the church a few ceremonial usages, which the Helvetic, though not the Lutheran, reformers had swept away; such as the copes and rochets of bishops, and the surplice of officiating priests. It should seem inconceivable that any one could object to these vestments, considered in themselves; far more, if they could answer in the slightest degree the end of conciliating a reluctant people. But this motive unfortunately was often disregarded in that age; and indeed in all ages an abhorrence of concession and compromise is a never-failing characteristic of religious factions. The foreign reformers then in England, two of whom, Bucer and Peter Martyr, enjoyed a deserved reputation, expressed their dissatisfaction at seeing these habits retained, and complained, in general, of the backwardness of the English reformation. Calvin and Bullinger wrote from Switzerland in the same strain.[144] Nor was this sentiment by any means confined to strangers. Hooper, an eminent divine, having been elected Bishop of Gloucester, refused to be consecrated in the usual dress. It marks, almost ludicrously, the spirit of those times, that, instead of permitting him to decline the station, the council sent him to prison for some time, until by some mutual concessions the business was adjusted.[145] These events it would hardly be worth while to notice in such a work as the present, if they had not been the prologue to a long and serious drama.
Persecution under Mary.—It is certain that the re-establishment of popery on Mary's accession must have been acceptable to a large part, or perhaps to the majority, of the nation. There is reason however to believe that the reformed doctrine had made a real progress in the few years of her brother's reign. The counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, which placed Mary on the throne as the lawful heir, were chiefly protestant, and experienced from her the usual gratitude and good faith of a bigot.[146] Noailles bears witness, in many of his despatches, to the unwillingness which great numbers of the people displayed to endure the restoration of popery, and to the queen's excessive unpopularity, even before her marriage with Philip had been resolved upon.[147] As for the higher classes, they partook far less than their inferiors in the religious zeal of that age. Henry, Edward, Mary, Elizabeth, found almost an equal compliance with their varying schemes of faith. Yet the larger proportion of the nobility and gentry appear to have preferred the catholic religion. Several peers opposed the bills for reformation under Edward; and others, who had gone along with the current, became active counsellors of Mary. Not a few persons of family emigrated in the latter reign; but, with the exception of the second Earl of Bedford, who suffered a short imprisonment on account of religion, the protestant martyrology contains no confessor of superior rank.[148] The same accommodating spirit characterised, upon the whole, the clergy; and would have been far more general, if a considerable number had not availed themselves of the permission to marry granted by Edward; which led to their expulsion from their cures on his sister's coming to the throne.[149] Yet it was not the temper of Mary's parliaments, whatever pains had been taken about their election, to second her bigotry in surrendering the temporal fruits of their recent schism. The bill for restoring first fruits and impropriations in the queen's hands to the church passed not without difficulty; and it was found impossible to obtain a repeal of the Act of Supremacy without the pope's explicit confirmation of the abbey lands to their new proprietors. Even this confirmation, though made through the legate Cardinal Pole, by virtue of a full commission, left not unreasonably an apprehension that, on some better opportunity, the imprescriptible nature of church property might be urged against the possessors.[150] With these selfish considerations others of a more generous nature conspired to render the old religion more obnoxious than it had been at the queen's accession. Her marriage with Philip, his encroaching disposition, the arbitrary turn of his counsels, the insolence imputed to the Spaniards who accompanied him, the unfortunate loss of Calais through that alliance, while it thoroughly alienated the kingdom from Mary, created a prejudice against the religion which the Spanish court so steadily favoured.[151] So violent indeed was the hatred conceived by the English nation against Spain during the short period of Philip's marriage with their queen, that it diverted the old channel of public feelings, and almost put an end to that dislike and jealousy of France which had so long existed. For at least a century after this time we rarely find in popular writers any expression of hostility towards that country; though their national manners, so remote from our own, are not unfrequently the object of ridicule. The prejudices of the populace, as much as the policy of our counsellors, were far more directed against Spain.
Its effect rather favourable to protestantism.—But what had the greatest efficacy in disgusting the English with Mary's system of faith, was the cruelty by which it was accompanied. Though the privy council were in fact continually urging the bishops forward in this prosecution,[152] the latter bore the chief blame, and the abhorrence entertained for them naturally extended to the doctrine they professed. A sort of instinctive reasoning told the people, what the learned on neither side had been able to discover, that the truth of a religion begins to be very suspicious, when it stands in need of prisons and scaffolds to eke out its evidences. And as the English were constitutionally humane, and not hardened by continually witnessing the infliction of barbarous punishments, there arose a sympathy for men suffering torments with such meekness and patience, which the populace of some other nations were perhaps less apt to display, especially in executions on the score of heresy.[153] The theologian indeed and the philosopher may concur in deriding the notion that either sincerity or moral rectitude can be the test of truth; yet among the various species of authority to which recourse had been had to supersede or to supply the deficiencies of argument, I know not whether any be more reasonable, and none certainly is so congenial to unsophisticated minds. Many are said to have become protestants under Mary, who, at her coming to the throne, had retained the contrary persuasion.[154] And the strongest proof of this may be drawn from the acquiescence of the great body of the kingdom in the re-establishment of protestantism by Elizabeth, when compared with the seditions and discontent on that account under Edward. The course which this famous princess steered in ecclesiastical concerns, during her long reign, will form the subject of the two ensuing chapters.
ON THE LAWS OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN RESPECTING THE ROMAN CATHOLICS
Change of religion on the queen's accession.—The accession of Elizabeth, gratifying to the whole nation on account of the late queen's extreme unpopularity, infused peculiar joy into the hearts of all well-wishers to the Reformation. Child of that famous marriage which had severed the connection of England with the Roman see, and trained betimes in the learned and reasoning discipline of protestant theology, suspected and oppressed for that very reason by a sister's jealousy, and scarcely preserved from the death which at one time threatened her, there was every ground to be confident, that, notwithstanding her forced compliance with the catholic rites during the late reign, her inclinations had continued steadfast to the opposite side.[155] Nor was she long in manifesting this disposition sufficiently to alarm one party, though not entirely to satisfy the other. Her great prudence, and that of her advisers, which taught her to move slowly, while the temper of the nation was still uncertain, and her government still embarrassed with a French war and a Spanish alliance, joined with a certain tendency in her religious sentiments not so thoroughly protestant as had been expected, produced some complaints of delay from the ardent reformers just returned from exile. She directed Sir Edward Karn, her sister's ambassador at Rome, to notify her accession to Paul IV. Several catholic writers have laid stress on this circumstance as indicative of a desire to remain in his communion; and have attributed her separation from it to his arrogant reply, commanding her to lay down the title of royalty, and to submit her pretentions to his decision. But she had begun to make alterations, though not very essential, in the church service, before the pope's behaviour could have become known to her; and the bishops must have been well aware of the course she designed to pursue, when they adopted the violent and impolitic resolution of refusing to officiate at her coronation.[156] Her council was formed of a very few catholics, of several pliant conformists with all changes, and of some known friends to the protestant interest. But two of these, Cecil and Bacon, were so much higher in her confidence, and so incomparably superior in talents to the other counsellors, that it was evident which way she must incline.[157] The parliament met about two months after her accession. The creed of parliament from the time of Henry VIII. had been always that of the court; whether it were that elections had constantly been influenced, as we know was sometimes the case, or that men of adverse principles, yielding to the torrent, had left the way clear to the partisans of power. This first, like all subsequent parliaments, was to the full as favourable to protestantism as the queen could desire: the first fruits of benefices, and, what was far more important, the supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs, were restored to the Crown; the laws made concerning religion in Edward's time were re-enacted. These acts did not pass without considerable opposition among the lords; nine temporal peers, besides all the bishops, having protested against the bill of uniformity establishing the Anglican liturgy, though some pains had been taken to soften the passages most obnoxious to catholics.[158] But the act restoring the royal supremacy met with less resistance; whether it were that the system of Henry retained its hold over some minds, or that it did not encroach, like the former, on the liberty of conscience, or that men not over-scrupulous were satisfied with the interpretation which the queen caused to be put upon the oath.
Several of the bishops had submitted to the Reformation under Edward VI. But they had acted, in general, so conspicuous a part in the late restoration of popery, that, even amidst so many examples of false profession, shame restrained them from a second apostasy. Their number happened not to exceed sixteen, one of whom was prevailed on to conform; while the rest, refusing the oath of supremacy, were deprived of their bishoprics by the court of ecclesiastical high commission. In the summer of 1559, the queen appointed a general ecclesiastical visitation, to compel the observance of the protestant formularies. It appears from their reports that only about one hundred dignitaries, and eighty parochial priests, resigned their benefices, or were deprived.[159] Men eminent for their zeal in the protestant cause, and most of them exiles during the persecution, occupied the vacant sees. And thus, before the end of 1559, the English church, so long contended for as a prize by the two religions, was lost for ever to that of Rome.
Acts of supremacy and uniformity.—These two statutes, commonly denominated the acts of supremacy and uniformity, form the basis of that restrictive code of laws, deemed by some one of the fundamental bulwarks, by others the reproach of our constitution, which pressed so heavily for more than two centuries upon the adherents to the Romish church. By the former all beneficed ecclesiastics, and all laymen holding office under the Crown, were obliged to take the oath of supremacy, renouncing the spiritual as well as temporal jurisdiction of every foreign prince or prelate, on pain of forfeiting their office or benefice; and it was rendered highly penal, and for the third offence treasonable, to maintain such supremacy by writing or advised speaking.[160] The latter statute trenched more on the natural rights of conscience; prohibiting, under pain of forfeiting goods and chattels for the first offence, of a year's imprisonment for the second, and of imprisonment during life for the third, the use by a minister, whether beneficed or not, of any but the established liturgy; and imposed a fine of one shilling on all who should absent themselves from church on Sundays and holidays.[161]
Restraint of Roman catholic worship in the first years of Elizabeth.—This act operated as an absolute interdiction of the catholic rites, however privately celebrated. It has frequently been asserted that the government connived at the domestic exercise of that religion during these first years of Elizabeth's reign. This may possibly have been the case with respect to some persons of very high rank whom it was inexpedient to irritate. But we find instances of severity towards catholics, even in that early period; and it is evident that their solemn rites were only performed by stealth, and at much hazard. Thus Sir Edward Waldgrave and his lady were sent to the Tower in 1561, for hearing mass and having a priest in their house. Many others about the same time were punished for the like offence.[162] Two bishops, one of whom, I regret to say, was Grindal, write to the council in 1562, concerning a priest apprehended in a lady's house, that neither he nor the servants would be sworn to answer to articles, saying they would not accuse themselves; and, after a wise remark on this, that "papistry is like to end in anabaptistry," proceed to hint, that "some think that if this priest might be put to some kind of torment, and so driven to confess what he knoweth, he might gain the queen's majesty a good mass of money by the masses that he hath said; but this we refer to your lordship's wisdom."[163] This commencement of persecution induced many catholics to fly beyond sea, and gave rise to those reunions of disaffected exiles, which never ceased to endanger the throne of Elizabeth.
It cannot, as far as appears, be truly alleged that any greater provocation had as yet been given by the catholics, than that of pertinaciously continuing to believe and worship as their fathers had done before them. I request those who may hesitate about this, to pay some attention to the order of time, before they form their opinions. The master mover, that became afterwards so busy, had not yet put his wires into action. Every prudent man at Rome (and we shall not at least deny that there were such) condemned the precipitate and insolent behaviour of Paul IV. towards Elizabeth, as they did most other parts of his administration. Pius IV., the successor of that injudicious old man, aware of the inestimable importance of reconciliation, and suspecting probably that the queen's turn of thinking did not exclude all hope of it, despatched a nuncio to England, with an invitation to send ambassadors to the council at Trent, and with powers, as is said, to confirm the English liturgy, and to permit double communion; one of the few concessions which the more indulgent Romanists of that age were not very reluctant to make.[164] But Elizabeth had taken her line as to the court of Rome; the nuncio received a message at Brussels, that he must not enter the kingdom; and she was too wise to countenance the impartial fathers of Trent, whose labours had nearly drawn to a close, and whose decisions on the controverted points it had never been very difficult to foretell. I have not found that Pius IV., more moderate than most other pontiffs of the sixteenth century, took any measures hostile to the temporal government of this realm; but the deprived ecclesiastics were not unfairly anxious to keep alive the faith of their former hearers, and to prevent them from sliding into conformity, through indifference and disuse of their ancient rites.[165] The means taken were chiefly the same as had been adopted against themselves, the dispersion of small papers either in a serious or lively strain; but, the remarkable position in which the queen was placed rendering her death a most important contingency, the popish party made use of pretended conjurations and prophecies of that event, in order to unsettle the people's minds, and dispose them to anticipate another re-action.[166] Partly through these political circumstances, but far more from the hard usage they experienced for professing their religion, there seems to have been an increasing restlessness among the catholics about 1562, which was met with new rigour by the parliament of that year.[167]
Statute of 1562.—The act entitled, "for the assurance of the queen's royal power over all estates and subjects within her dominions," enacts, with an iniquitous and sanguinary retrospect, that all persons, who had ever taken holy orders or any degree in the universities, or had been admitted to the practice of the laws, or held any office in their execution, should be bound to take the oath of supremacy, when tendered to them by a bishop, or by commissioners appointed under the great seal. The penalty for the first refusal of this oath was that of a præmunire; but any person, who after the space of three months from the first tender should again refuse it when in like manner tendered, incurred the pains of high treason. The oath of supremacy was imposed by this statute on every member of the House of Commons, but could not be tendered to a peer; the queen declaring her full confidence in those hereditary counsellors. Several peers of great weight and dignity were still catholics.[168]
Speech of Lord Montague against it.—This harsh statute did not pass without opposition. Two speeches against it have been preserved; one by Lord Montagu in the House of Lords, the other by Mr. Atkinson in the Commons, breathing such generous abhorrence of persecution as some erroneously imagine to have been unknown to that age, because we rarely meet with it in theological writings. "This law," said Lord Montagu, "is not necessary; forasmuch as the catholics of this realm disturb not, nor hinder the public affairs of the realms, neither spiritual nor temporal. They dispute not, they preach not, they disobey not the queen; they cause no trouble nor tumults among the people; so that no man can say that thereby the realm doth receive any hurt or damage by them. They have brought into the realm no novelties in doctrine and religion. This being true and evident, as it is indeed, there is no necessity why any new law should be made against them. And where there is no sore nor grief, medicines are superfluous, and also hurtful and dangerous. I do entreat," he says afterwards, "whether it be just to make this penal statute to force the subjects of this realm to receive and believe the religion of protestants on pain of death. This I say to be a thing most unjust; for that it is repugnant to the natural liberty of men's understanding. For understanding may be persuaded, but not forced." And further on: "It is an easy thing to understand that a thing so unjust, and so contrary to all reason and liberty of man, cannot be put in execution but with great incommodity and difficulty. For what man is there so without courage and stomach, or void of all honour, that can consent or agree to receive an opinion and new religion by force and compulsion; or will swear that he thinketh the contrary to what he thinketh? To be still, or dissemble, may be borne and suffered for a time—to keep his reckoning with God alone; but to be compelled to lie and to swear, or else to die therefore, are things that no man ought to suffer and endure. And it is to be feared rather than to die they will seek how to defend themselves; whereby should ensue the contrary of what every good prince and well advised commonwealth ought to seek and pretend, that is, to keep their kingdom and government in peace."[169]
Statute of 1562 not fully enforced.—I am never very willing to admit as an apology for unjust or cruel enactments, that they are not designed to be generally executed; a pretext often insidious, always insecure, and tending to mask the approaches of arbitrary government. But it is certain that Elizabeth did not wish this act to be enforced in its full severity. And Archbishop Parker, by far the most prudent churchman of the time, judging some of the bishops too little moderate in their dealings with the papists, warned them privately to use great caution in tendering the oath of supremacy according to the act, and never to do so the second time, on which the penalty of treason might attach, without his previous approbation.[170] The temper of some of his colleagues was more narrow and vindictive. Several of the deprived prelates had been detained in a sort of honourable custody in the palaces of their successors.[171] Bonner, the most justly obnoxious of them all, was confined in the Marshalsea. Upon the occasion of this new statute, Horn, Bishop of Winchester, indignant at the impunity of such a man, proceeded to tender him the oath of supremacy, with an evident intention of driving him to high treason. Bonner, however, instead of evading this attack, intrepidly denied the other to be a lawful bishop; and, strange as it may seem, not only escaped all farther molestation, but had the pleasure of seeing his adversaries reduced to pass an act of parliament, declaring the present bishops to have been legally consecrated.[172] This statute, and especially its preamble, might lead a hasty reader to suspect that the celebrated story of an irregular consecration of the first protestant bishops at the Nag's-head tavern was not wholly undeserving of credit. That tale, however, has been satisfactorily refuted: the only irregularity which gave rise to this statute consisted in the use of an ordinal, which had not been legally re-established.[173]
Application of the emperor in behalf of the English catholics.—It was not long after the act imposing such heavy penalties on catholic priests for refusing the oath of supremacy, that the Emperor Ferdinand addressed two letters to Elizabeth, interceding for the adherents to that religion, both with respect to those new severities to which they might become liable by conscientiously declining that oath, and to the prohibition of the free exercise of their rites. He suggested that it might be reasonable to allow them the use of one church in every city. And he concluded with an expression, which might possibly be designed to intimate that his own conduct towards the protestants in his dominions would be influenced by her concurrence in his request.[174] Such considerations were not without great importance. The protestant religion was gaining ground in Austria, where a large proportion of the nobility as well as citizens had for some years earnestly claimed its public toleration. Ferdinand, prudent and averse from bigoted counsels, and for every reason solicitous to heal the wounds which religious differences had made in the empire, while he was endeavouring, not absolutely without hope of success, to obtain some concessions from the pope, had shown a disposition to grant further indulgences to his protestant subjects. His son, Maximilian, not only through his moderate temper, but some real inclination towards the new doctrines, bade fair to carry much farther the liberal policy of the reigning emperor.[175] It was consulting very little the general interests of protestantism, to disgust persons so capable and so well disposed to befriend it. But our queen, although free from the fanatical spirit of persecution which actuated part of her subjects, was too deeply imbued with arbitrary principles to endure any public deviation from the mode of worship she should prescribe. And it must perhaps be admitted that experience alone could fully demonstrate the safety of toleration, and show the fallacy of apprehensions that unprejudiced men might have entertained. In her answer to Ferdinand, the queen declares that she cannot grant churches to those who disagree from her religion, being against the laws of her parliament, and highly dangerous to the state of her kingdom; as it would sow various opinions in the nation to distract the minds of honest men, and would cherish parties and factions that might disturb the present tranquillity of the commonwealth. Yet enough had already occurred in France to lead observing men to suspect that severities and restrictions are by no means an infallible specific to prevent or subdue religious factions.
Camden and many others have asserted that by systematic connivance the Roman catholics enjoyed a pretty free use of their religion for the first fourteen years of Elizabeth's reign. But this is not reconcilable to many passages in Strype's collections. We find abundance of persons harassed for recusancy, that is, for not attending the protestant church, and driven to insincere promises of conformity. Others were dragged before ecclesiastical commissions for harbouring priests, or for sending money to those who had fled beyond sea.[176] Students of the inns of court, where popery had a strong hold at this time, were examined in the star-chamber as to their religion, and on not giving satisfactory answers were committed to the Fleet.[177] The catholic party were not always scrupulous about the usual artifices of an oppressed people, meeting force by fraud, and concealing their heartfelt wishes under the mask of ready submission, or even of zealous attachment. A great majority both of clergy and laity yielded to the times; and of these temporising conformists it cannot be doubted that many lost by degrees all thought of returning to their ancient fold. But others, while they complied with exterior ceremonies, retained in their private devotions their accustomed mode of worship. It is an admitted fact, that the catholics generally attended the church, till it came to be reckoned a distinctive sign of their having renounced their own religion. They persuaded themselves (and the English priests, uninstructed and accustomed to a temporising conduct, did not discourage the notion) that the private observance of their own rites would excuse a formal obedience to the civil power.[178] The Romish scheme of worship, though it attaches more importance to ceremonial rites, has one remarkable difference from the protestant, that it is far less social; and consequently the prevention of its open exercise has far less tendency to weaken men's religious associations, so long as their individual intercourse with a priest, its essential requisite, can be preserved. Priests therefore travelled the country in various disguises, to keep alive a flame which the practice of outward conformity was calculated to extinguish. There was not a county throughout England, says a catholic historian, where several of Mary's clergy did not reside, and were commonly called the old priests. They served as chaplains in private families.[179] By stealth, at the dead of night, in private chambers, in the secret lurking-places of an ill-peopled country, with all the mystery that subdues the imagination, with all the mutual trust that invigorates constancy, these proscribed ecclesiastics celebrated their solemn rites, more impressive in such concealment than if surrounded by all their former splendour. The strong predilection indeed of mankind for mystery, which has probably led many to tamper in political conspiracies without much further motive, will suffice to preserve secret associations, even where their purposes are far less interesting than those of religion. Many of these itinerant priests assumed the character of protestant preachers; and it has been said, with some truth, though not probably without exaggeration, that, under the directions of their crafty court, they fomented the division then springing up, and mingled with the anabaptists and other sectaries, in the hope both of exciting dislike to the establishment, and of instilling their own tenets, slightly disguised, into the minds of unwary enthusiasts.[180]
Persecution of the catholics in the ensuing period.—It is my thorough conviction that the persecution, for it can obtain no better name,[181] carried on against the English catholics, however it might serve to delude the government by producing an apparent conformity, could not but excite a spirit of disloyalty in many adherents of that faith. Nor would it be safe to assert that a more conciliating policy would have altogether disarmed their hostility, much less laid at rest those busy hopes of the future, which the peculiar circumstances of Elizabeth's reign had a tendency to produce. This remarkable posture of affairs affected all her civil, and still more her ecclesiastical policy. Her own title to the crown depended absolutely on a parliamentary recognition. The act of 35 H. 8, c. 1 had settled the crown upon her, and thus far restrained the previous statute, 28 H. 8, c. 7, which had empowered her father to regulate the succession at his pleasure. Besides this legislative authority, his testament had bequeathed the kingdom to Elizabeth after her sister Mary; and the common consent of the nation had ratified her possession. But the Queen of Scots, niece of Henry by Margaret, his elder sister, had a prior right to the throne during Elizabeth's reign, in the eyes of such catholics as preferred an hereditary to a parliamentary title, and was reckoned by the far greater part of the nation its presumptive heir after her decease. There could indeed be no question of this, had the succession been left to its natural course. But Henry had exercised the power with which his parliament, in too servile a spirit, yet in the plenitude of its sovereign authority, had invested him, by settling the succession in remainder upon the house of Suffolk, descendants of his second sister Mary, to whom he postponed the elder line of Scotland. Mary left two daughters, Frances and Eleanor. The former became wife of Grey, Marquis of Dorset, created Duke of Suffolk by Edward; and had three daughters—Jane, whose fate is well known, Catherine, and Mary. Eleanor Brandon, by her union with the Earl of Cumberland, had a daughter, who married the Earl of Derby. At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, or rather after the death of the Duchess of Suffolk, Lady Catherine Grey was by statute law the presumptive heiress of the crown; but according to the rules of hereditary descent, which the bulk of mankind do not readily permit an arbitrary and capricious enactment to disturb, Mary Queen of Scots, granddaughter of Margaret, was the indisputable representative of her royal progenitors, and the next in succession to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth's unwillingness to decide the succession, or to marry.—This reversion, indeed, after a youthful princess, might well appear rather an improbable contingency. It was to be expected that a fertile marriage would defeat all speculations about her inheritance; nor had Elizabeth been many weeks on the throne, before this began to occupy her subjects' minds.[182] Among several who were named, two very soon became the prominent candidates for her favour, the Archduke Charles, son of the Emperor Ferdinand, and Lord Robert Dudley, sometime after created Earl of Leicester; one recommended by his dignity and alliances, the other by her own evident partiality. She gave at the outset so little encouragement to the former proposal, that Leicester's ambition did not appear extravagant.[183] But her ablest counsellors who knew his vices, and her greatest peers who thought his nobility recent and ill acquired, deprecated so unworthy a connection.[184] Few will pretend to explore the labyrinths of Elizabeth's heart; yet we may almost conclude that her passion for this favourite kept up a struggle against her wisdom for the first seven or eight years of her reign. Meantime she still continued unmarried; and those expressions she had so early used, of her resolution to live and die a virgin, began to appear less like coy affectation than at first. Never had a sovereign's marriage been more desirable for a kingdom. Cecil, aware how important it was that the queen should marry, but dreading her union with Leicester, contrived, about the end of 1564, to renew the treaty with the Archduke Charles.[185] During this negotiation, which lasted from two to three years, she showed not a little of that evasive and dissembling coquetry which was to be more fully displayed on subsequent occasions.[186] Leicester deemed himself so much interested as to quarrel with those who manifested any zeal for the Austrian marriage; but his mistress gradually overcame her misplaced inclinations; and from the time when that connection was broken off, his prospects of becoming her husband seem rapidly to have vanished away. The pretext made for relinquishing this treaty with the archduke was Elizabeth's constant refusal to tolerate the exercise of his religion; a difficulty which, whether real or ostensible, recurred in all her subsequent negotiations of a similar nature.[187]
In every parliament of Elizabeth the House of Commons was zealously attached to the protestant interest. This, as well as an apprehension of disturbance from a contested succession, led to those importunate solicitations that she would choose a husband, which she so artfully evaded. A determination so contrary to her apparent interest, and to the earnest desire of her people, may give some countenance to the surmises of the time, that she was restrained from marriage by a secret consciousness that it was unlikely to be fruitful.[188] Whether these conjectures were well founded, of which I know no evidence, or whether the risk of experiencing that ingratitude which the husbands of sovereign princesses have often displayed, and of which one glaring example was immediately before her eyes, outweighed in her judgment that of remaining single, or whether she might not even apprehend a more desperate combination of the catholic party at home and abroad, if the birth of any issue from her should shut out their hopes of Mary's succession, it is difficult for us to decide.
Though the queen's marriage were the primary object of these addresses, as the most probable means of securing an undisputed heir to the crown, yet she might have satisfied the parliament in some degree by limiting the succession to one certain line. But it seems doubtful whether this would have answered the proposed end. If she had taken a firm resolution against matrimony, which, unless on the supposition already hinted, could hardly be reconciled with a sincere regard for her people's welfare, it might be less dangerous to leave the course of events to regulate her inheritance. Though all parties seem to have conspired in pressing her to some decisive settlement on this subject, it would not have been easy to content the two factions, who looked for a successor to very different quarters.[189] It is evident that any confirmation of the Suffolk title would have been regarded by the Queen of Scots and her numerous partisans as a flagrant injustice, to which they would not submit but by compulsion: and on the other hand, by re-establishing the hereditary line, Elizabeth would have lost her check on one whom she had reason to consider as a rival and competitor, and whose influence was already alarmingly extensive among her subjects.
Imprisonment of Lady Catherine Grey.—She had, however, in one of the first years of her reign, without any better motive than her own jealous and malignant humour, taken a step not only harsh and arbitrary, but very little consonant to policy, which had almost put it out of her power to defeat the Queen of Scots' succession. Lady Catherine Grey, who has been already mentioned as next in remainder of the house of Suffolk, proved with child by a private marriage, as they both alleged, with the Earl of Hertford. The queen, always envious of the happiness of lovers, and jealous of all who could entertain any hopes of the succession, threw them both into the Tower. By connivance of their keepers, the lady bore a second child during this imprisonment. Upon this Elizabeth caused an enquiry to be instituted before a commission of privy counsellors and civilians; wherein, the parties being unable to adduce proof of their marriage, Archbishop Parker pronounced that their cohabitation was illegal, and that they should be censured for fornication. He was to be pitied if the law obliged him to utter so harsh a sentence, or to be blamed if it did not. Even had the marriage never been solemnised, it was impossible to doubt the existence of a contract, which both were still desirous to perform. But there is reason to believe that there had been an actual marriage, though so hasty and clandestine that they had not taken precautions to secure evidence of it. The injured lady sunk under this hardship and indignity;[190] but the legitimacy of her children was acknowledged by general consent, and, in a distant age, by a legislative declaration. These proceedings excited much dissatisfaction; generous minds revolted from their severity, and many lamented to see the reformed branch of the royal stock thus bruised by the queen's unkind and impolitic jealousy.[191] Hales, clerk of the hanaper, a zealous protestant, having written in favour of Lady Catherine's marriage, and of her title to the succession, was sent to the Tower.[192] The lord keeper Bacon himself, a known friend to the house of Suffolk, being suspected of having prompted Hales to write this treatise, lost much of his mistress's favour. Even Cecil, though he had taken a share in prosecuting Lady Catherine, perhaps in some degree from an apprehension that the queen might remember he had once joined in proclaiming her sister Jane, did not always escape the same suspicion;[193] and it is probable that he felt the imprudence of entirely discountenancing a party from which the queen and religion had nothing to dread. There is reason to believe that the house of Suffolk was favoured in parliament; the address of the Commons in 1563, imploring the queen to settle the succession, contains several indications of a spirit unfriendly to the Scottish line;[194] and a speech is extant, said to have been made as late as 1571, expressly vindicating the rival pretension.[195] If indeed we consider with attention the statute of 13 Eliz. c. 1, which renders it treasonable to deny that the sovereigns of this kingdom, with consent of parliament, might alter the line of succession, it will appear little short of a confirmation of that title, which the descendants of Mary Brandon derived from a parliamentary settlement. But the doubtful birth of Lord Beauchamp and his brother, with an ignoble marriage, which Frances, the younger sister of Lady Catherine Grey, had thought it prudent to contract, deprived this party of all political consequence much sooner, as I conceive, than the wisest of Elizabeth's advisers could have desired; and gave rise to various other pretensions, which failed not to occupy speculative or intriguing tempers throughout this reign.
Mary, Queen of Scotland.—We may well avoid the tedious and intricate paths of Scottish history, where each fact must be sustained by a controversial discussion. Every one will recollect, that Mary Stuart's retention of the arms and style of England gave the first, and, as it proved, inexpiable provocation to Elizabeth. It is indeed true, that she was queen consort of France, a state lately at war with England, and that if the sovereigns of the latter country, even in peace, would persist in claiming the French throne, they could hardly complain of this retaliation. But, although it might be difficult to find a diplomatic answer to this, yet every one was sensible of an important difference between a title retained through vanity, and expressive of pretensions long since abandoned, from one that several foreign powers were prepared to recognise, and a great part of the nation might perhaps only want opportunity to support.[196] If, however, after the death of Francis II. had set the Queen of Scots free from all adverse connections, she had with more readiness and apparent sincerity renounced a pretension which could not be made compatible with Elizabeth's friendship, she might perhaps have escaped some of the consequences of that powerful neighbour's jealousy. But, whether it were that female weakness restrained her from unequivocally abandoning claims which she deemed well founded, and which future events might enable her to realise even in Elizabeth's lifetime, or whether she fancied that to drop the arms of England from her scutcheon would look like a dereliction of her right of succession, no satisfaction was fairly given on this point to the English court. Elizabeth took a far more effective revenge, by intriguing with all the malecontents of Scotland. But while she was endeavouring to render Mary's throne uncomfortable and insecure, she did not employ that influence against her in England, which lay more fairly in her power. She certainly was not unfavourable to the Queen of Scots' succession, however she might decline compliance with importunate and injudicious solicitations to declare it. She threw both Hales and one Thornton into prison for writing against that title. And when Mary's secretary, Lethington, urged that Henry's testament, which alone stood in their way, should be examined, alleging that it had not been signed by the king, she paid no attention to this imprudent request.[197]
The circumstances wherein Mary found herself placed on her arrival in Scotland were sufficiently embarrassing to divert her attention from any regular scheme against Elizabeth, though she may sometimes have indulged visionary hopes; nor it is probable that with the most circumspect management she could so far have mitigated the rancour of some or checked the ambition of others, as to find leisure for hostile intrigues. But her imprudent marriage with Darnley, and the far greater errors of her subsequent behaviour, by lowering both her resources and reputation as far as possible, seemed to be pledges of perfect security from that quarter. Yet it was precisely when Mary was become most feeble and helpless, that Elizabeth's apprehensions grew most serious and well founded.
At the time when Mary, escaped from captivity, threw herself on the protection of a related, though rival queen, three courses lay open to Elizabeth, and were discussed in her councils. To restore her by force of arms, or rather by a mediation which would certainly have been effectual, to the throne which she had compulsorily abdicated, was the most generous, and would probably have turned out the most judicious proceeding. Reigning thus with tarnished honour and diminished power, she must have continually depended on the support of England, and become little better than a vassal of its sovereign. Still it might be objected by many, that the queen's honour was concerned not to maintain too decidedly the cause of one accused by common fame, and even by evidence that had already been made public, of adultery and the assassination of her husband. To have permitted her retreat into France would have shown an impartial neutrality; and probably that court was too much occupied at home to have afforded her any material assistance. Yet this appeared rather dangerous; and policy was supposed, as frequently happens, to indicate a measure absolutely repugnant to justice, that of detaining her in perpetual custody.[198] Whether this policy had no other fault than its want of justice, may reasonably be called in question.
Combination in favour of Mary.—The queen's determination neither to marry nor limit the succession had inevitably turned every one's thoughts towards the contingency of her death. She was young indeed; but had been dangerously ill, once in 1562,[199] and again in 1568. Of all possible competitors for the throne, Mary was incomparably the most powerful, both among the nobility and the people. Besides the undivided attachment of all who retained any longings for the ancient religion, and many such were to be found at Elizabeth's court and chapel, she had the stronghold of hereditary right, and the general sentiment that revolts from acknowledging the omnipotency of a servile parliament. Cecil, whom no one could suspect of partiality towards her, admits in a remarkable minute on the state of the kingdom, in 1569, that "the Queen of Scots' strength standeth by the universal opinion of the world for the justice of her title, as coming of the ancient line."[200] This was no doubt in some degree counteracted by a sense of the danger which her accession would occasion to the protestant church, and which, far more than its parliamentary title, kept up a sort of party for the house of Suffolk. The crimes imputed to her did not immediately gain credit among the people; and some of higher rank were too experienced politicians to turn aside for such considerations. She had always preserved her connections among the English nobility, of whom many were catholics, and others adverse to Cecil, by whose counsels the queen had been principally directed in all her conduct with regard to Scotland and its sovereign.[201] After the unfinished process of enquiry to which Mary submitted at York and Hampton Court, when the charge of participation in Darnley's murder had been substantiated by evidence at least that she did not disprove, and the whole course of which proceedings created a very unfavourable impression both in England and on the continent, no time was to be lost by those who considered her as the object of their dearest hopes. She was in the kingdom; she might, by a bold rescue, be placed at their head; every hour's delay increased the danger of her being delivered up to the rebel Scots; and doubtless some eager protestants had already begun to demand her exclusion by an absolute decision of the legislature.
Elizabeth must have laid her account, if not with the disaffection of the catholic party, yet at least with their attachment to the Queen of Scots. But the extensive combination that appeared, in 1569, to bring about by force the Duke of Norfolk's marriage with that princess, might well startle her cabinet. In this combination Westmoreland and Northumberland, avowed catholics, Pembroke and Arundel, suspected ones, were mingled with Sussex and even Leicester, unquestioned protestants. The Duke of Norfolk himself, greater and richer than any English subject, had gone such lengths in this conspiracy that his life became the just forfeit of his guilt and folly. It is almost impossible to pity this unhappy man, who lured by the most criminal ambition, after proclaiming the Queen of Scots a notorious adulteress and murderer, would have compassed a union with her at the hazard of his sovereign's crown, of the tranquillity and even independence of his country, and of the reformed religion.[202] There is abundant proof of his intrigues with the Duke of Alva, who had engaged to invade the kingdom. His trial was not indeed conducted in a manner that we can approve (such was the nature of state proceedings in that age), nor can it, I think, be denied that it formed a precedent of constructive treason not easily reconcilable with the statute; but much evidence is extant that his prosecutors did not adduce; and no one fell by a sentence more amply merited, or the execution of which was more indispensable.[203]
Bull of Pius V.—Norfolk was the dupe throughout all this intrigue of more artful men; first of Murray and Lethington, who had filled his mind with ambitious hopes, and afterwards of Italian agents employed by Pius V. to procure a combination of the catholic party. Collateral to Norfolk's conspiracy, but doubtless connected with it, was that of the northern Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, long prepared, and perfectly foreseen by the government, of which the ostensible and manifest aim was the re-establishment of popery.[204] Pius V., who took a far more active part than his predecessor in English affairs, and had secretly instigated this insurrection, now published his celebrated bull, excommunicating and deposing Elizabeth, in order to second the efforts of her rebellious subjects.[205] This is, perhaps, with the exception of that issued by Sixtus V. against Mary IV. of France, the latest blast of that trumpet, which had thrilled the hearts of monarchs. Yet there was nothing in the sound that bespoke declining vigour; even the illegitimacy of Elizabeth's birth is scarcely alluded to; and the pope seems to have chosen rather to tread the path of his predecessors, and absolve her subjects from their allegiance, as the just and necessary punishment of her heresy.
Since nothing so much strengthens any government as an unsuccessful endeavour to subvert it, it may be thought that the complete failure of the rebellion under the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, with the detection and punishment of the Duke of Norfolk, rendered Elizabeth's throne more secure. But those events revealed the number of her enemies, or at least of those in whom no confidence could be reposed. The rebellion, though provided against by the ministry, and headed by two peers of great family but no personal weight, had not only assumed for a time a most formidable aspect in the north, but caused many to waver in other parts of the kingdom.[206] Even in Norfolk, an eminently protestant county, there was a slight insurrection in 1570, out of attachment to the duke.[207] If her greatest subject could thus be led astray from his faith and loyalty, if others not less near to her councils could unite with him in measures so contrary to her wishes and interests, on whom was she firmly to rely? Who, especially, could be trusted, were she to be snatched away from the world, for the maintenance of the protestant establishment under a yet unknown successor? This was the manifest and principal danger that her counsellors had to dread. Her own great reputation, and the respectful attachment of her people, might give reason to hope that no machinations would be successful against her crown; but let us reflect in what situation the kingdom would have been left by her death in a sudden illness, such as she had more than once experienced in earlier years, and again in 1571. "You must think," Lord Burleigh writes to Walsingham, on that occasion, "such a matter would drive me to the end of my wits." And Sir Thomas Smith expresses his fears in equally strong language.[208] Such statesmen do not entertain apprehensions lightly. Whom, in truth, could her privy council, on such an event, have resolved to proclaim? The house of Suffolk, had its right been more generally recognised than it was (Lady Catherine being now dead), presented no undoubted heir. The young King of Scotland, an alien and an infant, could only have reigned through a regency; and it might have been difficult to have selected from the English nobility a fit person to undertake that office, or at least one in whose elevation the rest would have acquiesced. It appears most probable that the numerous and powerful faction who had promoted Norfolk's union with Mary would have contrived again to remove her from her prison to the throne. Of such a revolution the disgrace of Cecil and of Elizabeth's wisest ministers must have been the immediate consequence; and it is probable that the restoration of the catholic worship would have ensued. These apprehensions prompted Cecil, Walsingham, and Smith to press the queen's marriage with the Duke of Anjou far more earnestly than would otherwise have appeared consistent with her interests. A union with any member of that perfidious court was repugnant to genuine protestant sentiments. But the queen's absolute want of foreign alliances, and the secret hostility both of France and Spain, impressed Cecil with that deep sense of the perils of the time which his private letters so strongly bespeak. A treaty was believed to have been concluded in 1567, to which the two last-mentioned powers, with the Emperor Maximilian and some other catholic princes, were parties, for the extirpation of the protestant religion.[209] No alliance that the court of Charles IX. could have formed with Elizabeth was likely to have diverted it from pursuing this object; and it may have been fortunate that her own insincerity saved her from being the dupe of those who practised it so well. Walsingham himself, sagacious as he was, fell into the snares of that den of treachery, giving credit to the young king's assurances almost on the very eve of St. Bartholomew.[210]
Statutes for the queen's security.—The bull of Pius V., far more injurious in its consequences to those it was designed to serve than to Elizabeth, forms a leading epoch in the history of our English catholics. It rested upon a principle never universally acknowledged, and regarded with much jealousy by temporal governments, yet maintained in all countries by many whose zeal and ability rendered them formidable—the right vested in the supreme pontiff to depose kings for heinous crimes against the church. One Felton affixed this bull to the gates of the Bishop of London's palace, and suffered death for the offence. So audacious a manifestation of disloyalty was imputed with little justice to the catholics at large, but might more reasonably lie at the door of those active instruments of Rome, the English refugee priests and jesuits dispersed over Flanders and lately established at Douay, who were continually passing into the kingdom, not only to keep alive the precarious faith of the laity, but, as was generally surmised, to excite them against their sovereign.[211] This produced the act of 13 Eliz. c. 2; which, after reciting these mischiefs, enacts that all persons publishing any bull from Rome, or absolving and reconciling any one to the Romish church, or being so reconciled, should incur the penalties of high treason; and such as brought into the realm any crosses, pictures, or superstitious things consecrated by the pope or under his authority, should be liable to a premunire. Those who should conceal or connive at the offenders were to be held guilty of misprision of treason. This statute exposed the catholic priesthood, and in great measure the laity, to the continual risk of martyrdom; for so many had fallen away from their faith through a pliant spirit of conformity with the times, that the regular discipline would exact their absolution and reconciliation before they could be reinstated in the church's communion. Another act of the same session, manifestly levelled against the partisans of Mary, and even against herself, makes it high treason to affirm that the queen ought not to enjoy the crown, but some other person; or to publish that she is a heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel, or usurper of the crown; or to claim right to the crown, or to usurp the same during the queen's life; or to affirm that the laws and statutes do not bind the right of the crown, and the descent, limitation, inheritance, or governance thereof. And whosoever should during the queen's life, by any book or work written or printed, expressly affirm, before the same had been established by parliament, that any one particular person was or ought to be heir and successor to the queen, except the same be the natural issue of her body, or should print or utter any such book or writing, was for the first offence to be imprisoned a year, and to forfeit half his goods; and for the second to incur the penalties of a premunire.[212]
It is impossible to misunderstand the chief aim of this statute. But the House of Commons, in which the zealous protestants, or, as they were now rather denominated, puritans, had a predominant influence, were not content with these demonstrations against the unfortunate captive. Fear, as often happens, excited a sanguinary spirit amongst them; they addressed the queen upon what they called the great cause, that is, the business of the Queen of Scots, presenting by their committee reasons gathered out of the civil law to prove that "it standeth not only with justice, but also with the queen's majesty's honour and safety, to proceed criminally against the pretended Scottish queen."[213] Elizabeth, who could not really dislike these symptoms of hatred towards her rival, took the opportunity of simulating more humanity than the Commons; and when they sent a bill to the upper house attainting Mary of treason, checked its course by proroguing the parliament. Her backwardness to concur in any measures for securing the kingdom, as far as in her lay, from those calamities which her decease might occasion, could not but displease Lord Burleigh. "All that we laboured for," he writes to Walsingham in 1572, "and had with full consent brought to fashion, I mean a law to make the Scottish queen unable and unworthy of succession to the crown, was by her majesty neither assented to nor rejected, but deferred." Some of those about her, he hints, made herself her own enemy by persuading her not to countenance these proceedings in parliament.[214] I do not think it admits of much question that, at this juncture, the civil and religious institutions of England would have been rendered more secure by Mary's exclusion from a throne, which indeed, after all that had occurred, she could not be endured to fill without national dishonour. But the violent measures suggested against her life were hardly, under all the circumstances of her case, to be reconciled with justice; even admitting her privity to the northern rebellion and to the projected invasion by the Duke of Alva. These however were not approved merely by an eager party in the Commons: Archbishop Parker does not scruple to write about her to Cecil—"If that only [one] desperate person were taken away, as by justice soon it might be, the queen's majesty's good subjects would be in better hope, and the papists' daily expectation vanquished."[215] And Walsingham, during his embassy at Paris, desires that "the queen should see how much they (the papists) built upon the possibility of that dangerous woman's coming to the crown of England, whose life was a step to her majesty's death;" adding that "she was bound for her own safety and that of her subjects, to add to God's providence her own policy, so far as might stand with justice."[216]
Catholics more rigorously treated.—We cannot wonder to read that these new statutes increased the dissatisfaction of the Roman catholics, who perceived a systematic determination to extirpate their religion. Governments ought always to remember that the intimidation of a few disaffected persons is dearly bought by alienating any large portion of the community.[217] Many retired to foreign countries, and receiving for their maintenance pensions from the court of Spain, became unhappy instruments of its ambitious enterprises. Those who remained at home could hardly think their oppression much mitigated by the precarious indulgences which Elizabeth's caprice, or rather the fluctuation of different parties in her councils, sometimes extended to them. The queen indeed, so far as we can penetrate her dissimulation, seems to have been really averse to extreme rigour against her catholic subjects: and her greatest minister, as we shall more fully see afterwards, was at this time in the same sentiments. But such of her advisers as leaned towards the puritan faction, and too many of the Anglican clergy, whether puritan or not, thought no measure of charity or compassion should be extended to them. With the divines they were idolaters; with the council they were a dangerous and disaffected party; with the judges they were refractory transgressors of statutes; on every side they were obnoxious and oppressed. A few aged men having been set at liberty, Sampson, the famous puritan, himself a sufferer for conscience sake, wrote a letter of remonstrance to Lord Burleigh. He urged in this that they should be compelled to hear sermons, though he would not at first oblige them to communicate.[218] A bill having been introduced in the session of 1571 imposing a penalty for not receiving the communion, it was objected that consciences ought not to be forced. But Mr. Strickland entirely denied this principle, and quoted authorities against it.[219] Even Parker, by no means tainted with puritan bigotry, and who had been reckoned moderate in his proceedings towards catholics, complained of what he called "a Machiavel government;" that is, of the queen's lenity in not absolutely rooting them out.[220]
This indulgence, however, shown by Elizabeth, the topic of reproach in those times, and sometimes of boast in our own, never extended to any positive toleration, nor even to any general connivance at the Romish worship in its most private exercise. She published a declaration in 1570, that she did not intend to sift men's consciences, provided they observed her laws by coming to church; which, as she well knew, the greater part deemed inconsistent with their integrity.[221] Nor did the government always abstain from an inquisition into men's private thoughts. The inns of court were more than once purified of popery by examining their members on articles of faith. Gentlemen of good families in the country were harassed in the same manner.[222] One Sir Richard Shelley, who had long acted as a sort of spy for Cecil on the continent, and given much useful information, requested only leave to enjoy his religion without hindrance; but the queen did not accede to this without much reluctance and delay.[223] She had indeed assigned no other ostensible pretext for breaking off her own treaty of marriage with the Archduke Charles, and subsequently with the Dukes of Anjou and Alençon, than her determination not to suffer the mass to be celebrated even in her husband's private chapel. It is worthy to be repeatedly inculcated on the reader, since so false a colour has been often employed to disguise the ecclesiastical tyranny of this reign, that the most clandestine exercise of the Romish worship was severely punished. Thus we read in the life of Whitgift, that on information given that some ladies and others heard mass in the house of one Edwards by night, in the county of Denbigh, he being then Bishop of Worcester and Vice-President of Wales, was directed to make inquiry into the facts; and finally was instructed to commit Edwards to close prison, and as for another person implicated, named Morice, "if he remained obstinate, he might cause some kind of torture to be used upon him, and the like order they prayed him to use with the others."[224] But this is one of many instances, the events of every day, forgotten on the morrow, and of which no general historian takes account. Nothing but the minute and patient diligence of such a compiler as Strype, who thinks no fact below his regard, could have preserved them from oblivion.[225]
It will not surprise those who have observed the effect of all persecution for matters of opinion upon the human mind, that during this period the Romish party continued such in numbers and in zeal as to give the most lively alarm to Elizabeth's administration. One cause of this was beyond doubt the connivance of justices of the peace, a great many of whom were secretly attached to the same interest, though it was not easy to exclude them from the commission, on account of their wealth and respectability.[226] The facility with which catholic rites can be performed in secret, as before observed, was a still more important circumstance. Nor did the voluntary exiles established in Flanders remit their diligence in filling the kingdom with emissaries. The object of many at least among them, it cannot for a moment be doubted, from the æra of the bull of Pius V., if not earlier, was nothing less than to subvert the queen's throne. They were closely united with the court of Spain, which had passed from the character of an ally and pretended friend, to that of a cold and jealous neighbour, and at length of an implacable adversary. Though no war had been declared between Elizabeth and Philip, neither party had scrupled to enter into leagues with the disaffected subjects of the other. Such sworn vassals of Rome and Spain as an Allen or a Persons, were just objects of the English government's distrust: it is the extension of that jealousy to the peaceful and loyal which we stigmatise as oppressive, and even as impolitic.[227]