Before this point had been reached, however, measures had been taken to test the feeling of foreign powers on the subject. Diplomatic relations had ceased between Spain and England; but as soon as the Babington conspiracy was discovered, Walsingham impressed upon Chateauneuf, the French Ambassador, that the Spaniards were at the bottom of it, and that it was directed almost as much against the King of France as against Elizabeth herself. The Ambassador himself was a strong Guisan,[518] and personally was an object of odium and suspicion to the excited Londoners; but his master’s hatred of the Guises and dread of their objects was growing daily, and when Madame de Montpensier prayed Henry to intercede for the protection of Mary, she obtained but a cold answer;[519] and no official step by the French was taken in her favour at the time, except as a matter of justice Elizabeth was requested that she might have the assistance of counsel. It was clear, therefore, that Henry III. would not go to war for the sake of his sister-in-law.
Mary was removed to Fotheringay for trial on the 6th October, and on the following day Paulet and Mildmay delivered to her Elizabeth’s letter, informing her of the charges against her, and the tribunal to which she was to be submitted. She indignantly refused to acknowledge Elizabeth’s right to place her, an anointed sovereign, upon her trial; but she denied all knowledge and complicity in the murder plot. This was the safest attitude she could have assumed, although the proofs against her already in the hands of Elizabeth were overwhelming;[520] and the arguments of Burghley and Lord Chancellor Bromley failed to alter Mary’s determination. This was embarrassing, and in the face of it Elizabeth wrote to Burghley[521] instructing him that, although the examination might proceed, no judgment was to be delivered until she had conferred with him. At the same time she wrote to Mary a letter of mingled threats and hope, with the object of changing her attitude towards the tribunal. This, added to the persuasions of Hatton, succeeded in the object,[522] and Mary, unfortunately for her, retreated from her unassailable position.
On the 14th, two days afterwards, the tribunal sat in the great hall of Fotheringay Castle, and Mary, almost crippled with rheumatism, painfully hobbled to her place, supported by her Steward, Sir Andrew Melvil. On the right of the Lord Chancellor sat Lord Burghley. That the proceedings against Mary, in which he had from the first taken an active part, were in his opinion necessary for the safety of England, is clear from his many letters upon the subject; but it is equally evident that if he could decently have avoided personal identification with them he would have been better pleased. His letters to Popham, the Attorney-General, show that he wished to be absent from the trial; but as he wrote at the time to Sir Edward Stafford, the English Ambassador in France, “I was never more toiled than I have been of late, and yet am, with services that here do multiply daily; and whosoever scapeth I am never spared. God give me grace.”
Much of the obloquy that has been unjustly cast upon him in the matter of Mary Stuart arises from his inveterate habit of putting everything in writing, which other men did not do. For instance, the draft of the whole case, or, as he puts it, “the indignities and wrongs done and offered by the Queen of Scots to the Queen,” is in his handwriting,[523] and the letters to the Queen detailing the progress of events at Fotheringay are sent from him, whilst Elizabeth’s instructions through Davison are all addressed to Walsingham and Burghley. But it must be remembered that he was the Queen’s most trusted and experienced Councillor, and the existence of records written by or to him does not show that he was more eager than the rest for the sacrifice of the Scottish Queen.
Mary defended herself with consummate ability before a tribunal almost entirely prejudiced against her. She was deprived of legal aid, without her papers, and in ill health; and, according to modern notions, the procedure against her was unjust in the extreme. Once she turned upon Walsingham and denounced him as the contriver of her ruin, but soon regained her composure; and in her argument with Burghley, with respect to the avowals of Babington and her Secretaries, reached a point of touching eloquence which might have moved the hearts, though it did not convince the intellects, of her august judges.[524] But her condemnation was a foregone conclusion; and although the sentence was not pronounced until the return of the Commission to Westminster (October 25), Mary left the hall of Fotheringay practically a condemned felon on the 15th.
But it was one thing to condemn and another thing to execute. Here Elizabeth’s scruples again assailed her. The two Houses of Parliament addressed her on the 12th November, begging that for the sake of the realm and her own safety the sentence might be carried into effect. At no point of her career was the profound duplicity of Elizabeth more resorted to than now. She had evidently determined that Mary must die, which is of itself not surprising; but she was equally determined that, if she could help it, no blame should personally attach to her for having disregarded the privileges of a crowned head. After much pretended sorrow and repudiation of any desire for revenge, but at the same time setting forth a careful recapitulation of Mary’s offences, she complained of Parliament for passing the Act which made it necessary for her to pronounce sentence of death on a kinswoman, and said she must take time for prayer and contemplation before she could give an answer to the petition. A few days afterwards she besought the Houses to consider again whether some other course could not be adopted instead of executing Mary, but she was assured by them that there was “no other sound and assured means” than that which they had formerly recommended (18th November). Her next address to the Houses was still more hypocritical. After infinite talk of her mercy, her goodness, and her hatred of bloodshed, even for her own safety, she ended enigmatically: “Therefore if I should say I would not do what you request, it might be peradventure more than I thought, and to say I would do it might perhaps breed peril of what you labour to preserve, being more than in your own wisdoms and discretions would seem convenient.”[525]
Several days before this, Mary’s sentence had been communicated to her by Lord Buckhurst and Beale. She was dignified and courageous, rejoiced that she was to die, as she said, for the Catholic faith, and again affirmed that she had taken no part in the plot for the murder of Elizabeth, which was doubtless true so far as active participation or direction was concerned. Her letters written immediately afterwards to Mendoza[526] and the Duke of Guise[527] are conceived in the same spirit, and appear to entertain no expectation of mercy. The Spaniards, however, were more hopeful, and ascribed to Burghley a deep scheme for selling Mary’s life to France, in exchange for concessions to English interests.
The arrangements for the invasion of England by a great fleet from Spain were now so far advanced as to be impossible of concealment, and the English Government were actively adopting measures of defence and reprisal. Under the transparent pretext of aiding Don Antonio, English armed ships were hounding Spanish commerce from the seas and harrying Spanish settlements; the English troops under Leicester, and the Scots under the Master of Gray, were fighting Spaniards in Holland, and the English militant Protestant party had now supplanted Burghley’s policy on all sides. But still the cautious old statesman patiently worked in his own way to minimise the dangers with which his political opponents had already surrounded the Queen. There were two things only that he could do, namely, once more to endeavour to disarm Spain by making a show of friendship, and to sow discord between France and Spain; and both these things he did. One of Ralegh’s privateers had captured Philip’s governor of Patagonia, the famous explorer and navigator, Sarmiento; and almost simultaneously with the passing of Mary’s sentence, Ralegh was invited to bring his prisoner to Cecil House for a private conference. Sarmiento was flattered and made much of, and received his free release on condition of his taking to Spain messages from Burghley and Ralegh suggesting a friendly arrangement between the countries. Ralegh, indeed, went so far as to offer—whether sincerely or not does not affect the question—two of his ships for Philip’s service, and for many weeks sympathetic messages found their way secretly from the Lord Treasurer and Sir Walter to Spain and Flanders.[528]
At the same time Sir Henry Wotton was sent to Paris with certified copies of Mary’s will in favour of Philip, and of her correspondence with Mendoza. “He is instructed to point out how much she depended upon your Majesty, and how shy she was of France.”[529] This was exactly the course most likely to alienate Henry III. from Spain and his sister-in-law; and although he tardily sent Pomponne de Bellièvre to remonstrate with Elizabeth, the Spaniards and Guisans, at all events, never believed in the sincerity of his protests.[530] Mendoza writes: “Elizabeth has given orders that directly Bellièvre arrives in England the rumour is to be spread that the Queen of Scots is killed, in order to discover how he takes it. Bellièvre, however, is forewarned of it, and has his instructions what to say when he hears it. It is a plan of Cecil’s arising out of a desire (as I wrote to your Majesty) to sell to the French on the best terms they can what they do not dream of carrying out. The English and French will have no difficulty in agreeing on the point, because the King and his mother are very well pleased that the Queen of Scots should be kept alive, though a prisoner, in order to prevent the succession of your Majesty to the English throne; whilst the English see plainly that the many advantages accruing to them from keeping the Queen of Scots a prisoner would change into as many dangers if they made away with her.”[531]
On the 6th December public proclamation of Mary’s sentence was made in London amidst signs of extravagant rejoicing on the part of the populace. The next day Bellièvre delivered a long speech to the Queen, in which he made no attempt to deny Mary’s guilt, but appealed to Elizabeth’s magnanimity, and proposed guarantees from France to insure Mary’s future harmlessness. The Queen repeated bitterly her grievances against Mary, and replied that the life of Mary was incompatible with her own safety; and Lord Burghley, in a subsequent interview with the Frenchman, repeated more emphatically the same idea. Shortly afterwards, at the renewed request of Bellièvre and Chateauneuf, Elizabeth ungraciously consented to grant a respite of twelve days to Mary to enable the Ambassadors to communicate with their master. But Henry III. himself was now in a hopeless condition. “Such is the confusion of the court, the vacillation of the King, and the jealousy, hatred, and suspicion of the courtiers, that decisions are adopted and abandoned at random.… The King is trying to draw closer to the Queen of England, which is the principal object of Bellièvre’s mission.”[532] The only reply, therefore, sent to Bellièvre and Chateauneuf from France was a pedantic and wordy appeal to Elizabeth’s mercy, which must have convinced her that she need fear nothing from the French.[533]
Notwithstanding the first movement of indignation on the part of James also, it soon became clear that selfish reasons would confine his action to protest. This is not altogether to be wondered at. He had been informed that Mary had disinherited him, and told De Courcelles, the French Ambassador, that he knew “she had no more good-will towards him than towards the Queen of England.” The Master of Gray, at his side, too, was the humble servant of England, and the traitor, Archibald Douglas, represented him in the English court. On pressure from France, however, James sent Sir William Keith, another English partisan, to intercede for his mother, or at least to induce Elizabeth to delay the execution until a fitting embassy from him might be sent. Elizabeth hectored and stormed at James’s threatening letters; but when she became calmer she granted the twelve days’ respite already referred to. The Master of Gray and Sir Robert Melvil subsequently arrived at the English court and were equally unsuccessful.[534] Melvil undoubtedly did his best, and Elizabeth threatened his life in consequence; but the Master of Gray’s advocacy went no further than he knew would please the English Government.
It is certain that Elizabeth herself had decided that Mary should die, if the execution could be carried out without uniting France and Spain against her, and especially if she herself could manage to escape personal opprobrium. Of Lord Burghley’s personal opinion on the matter it is extremely difficult to judge. He is generally represented by historians as being the prime enemy and persecutor of the unhappy woman, which he certainly was not. He was a cautious man and took his stand behind legal forms; but the slightest slackness on his part was represented by Leicester and his friends as a desire to curry favour with Mary. He, the Howards, Crofts, and the other conservatives were, as usual, desirous of staving off the rupture with Spain, but dared not appear for a moment to favour so unpopular a cause as that of Mary. The truth of this view is partly shown by the revelations of Sir Edward Stafford, the English Ambassador in Paris, a great friend of Burghley’s and a paid agent of Spain. Stafford told Charles Arundell in January that Burghley had written that Bellièvre had not acted so cleverly as they had expected, and if that he (Burghley) had not prompted him he would have done worse still. “He was advised to ask for private audience without Chateauneuf, and was closeted with the Queen, who was accompanied by only four persons. What passed at the interview was consequently not known; but that he (Cecil) could assure him (Stafford) that the Queen of Scotland’s life would be spared, although she would be kept so close that she would not be able to carry on her plots as hitherto. This is what I have always assured your Majesty was desired by the Queen of England, as well as the King of France. Cecil also says that, although he has constantly shown himself openly against the Queen of Scots, Leicester and Walsingham, his enemies, had tried to set the Queen against him by saying that he was more devoted to the Queen of Scotland than any one. But she (Elizabeth) had seen certain papers in her (Mary’s) coffers that told greatly against Leicester, and the Queen had told the latter and Walsingham that they were a pair of knaves, and she saw plainly now that, owing to her not having taken the advice of certain good and loyal subjects of hers, she was in peril of losing her throne and her life, by burdening herself with a war which she was unable to carry on. She said if she had done her duty as Queen she would have had them both hanged.”[535]
By this and several similar pronouncements it would appear that Burghley, true to his invariable method, was still by indirect and cautious steps endeavouring to lead the Queen back to the moderate path from which Leicester, Walsingham, and the militant Protestants had diverted her; and that, very far from being the mortal enemy of Mary, he would probably have saved her if he could have done it with perfect harmlessness to himself, and have insured the future security of the Queen and Government. But whilst the Queen was very slowly being influenced by the Catholics and Conservatives near her, events were precipitated and Mary paid the last penalty. There is no space in this work to tell in detail the obscure and much debated story of the issue of the warrant for Mary’s execution;[536] but a summary glance at Burghley’s share in it cannot be excluded in any biography of the statesman. Soon after the proclamation of the sentence (6th December 1586) Elizabeth herself directed Burghley to draft the warrant for the execution. He did so, and sent for Secretary Davison—Walsingham being absent from illness—and informed him that as he, Burghley, was returning to London, the court then being at Richmond, he would leave the draft with Davison that it might be engrossed and presented to the Queen for signature. When Davison laid the document before the Queen she told him to keep it back for the present. Six weeks passed without anything more being done, and Leicester in the interval complained to Davison, in Burghley’s presence, of his remissness in not again laying the document before the Queen.
The Master of Gray left London at the end of January, and on the 1st February Lord Admiral Howard told the Queen that there was much disquieting talk in the country with regard to attempts to be made for the rescue of Mary, &c.[537] Elizabeth then requested Howard to send for Davison and direct him to lay the warrant before her for signature. The Secretary accordingly carried the warrant to the Queen, who was full of smiles and amiability, and asked him what he had there. Davison told her, and she signed the warrant, explaining to him whilst doing so, that she had hitherto delayed it for the sake of her own reputation. Then, with a joke, she handed the signed warrant back to him, and, according to Davison, bade him carry it at once to the Lord Chancellor, have it sealed with the great seal as privately as possible, and send it away to the Commissioners, so that she should hear no more about it.
Elizabeth afterwards, however, swore that she had given him no such instructions. As he was leaving, Elizabeth directed him to call on Walsingham, who was confined to his house by illness, and to tell him what had been done. She then spoke bitterly of Amias Paulet for not having made the warrant unnecessary, and hinted to Davison that he might write to Paulet again suggesting the poisoning of Mary. This Davison demurred at doing, as he knew that it would be fruitless, and he did not relish the task, but promised to mention it to Walsingham. The Secretary’s story is that he went straight to Lord Burghley and showed him and Leicester the warrant, repeating the Queen’s directions. He then proceeded to Walsingham House; and the result of his visit is seen in a memorandum (dated the next day, 2nd February) in Walsingham’s hand, annotated by Lord Burghley, laying down the steps to be taken for immediately carrying the warrant into effect.[538] The fullest details, even for the burial, are set forth, and at the end it is directed that “the Lords and court are to give out that there will be no execution.”
Thus far Davison’s statement has been followed; but there is at Hatfield (part iii., No. 472) a rough draft in Lord Burghley’s handwriting, which, in view of the date upon it, 2nd February, throws rather a new light upon the matter, and proves that, unknown to Davison, Lord Burghley and the rest of the Council were accomplices of the Queen in her intention of subsequently repudiating her orders and ruining her Secretary, and that the tragi-comedy was not played by Elizabeth alone, but by her grave Councillors as well. The draft document is in the name of the Council, and sets forth the reasons that had moved them to despatch the warrant without further consulting the Queen; “and yet we are now at this time most sorry to understand that your Majesty is so greatly grieved with this kind of proceeding, and do most humbly beseech your Majesty,” &c. This, be it remembered, is dated the 2nd February, before the warrant had been sent off or the Queen even knew it had been sealed.
Early in the morning of the 2nd the Queen sent Killigrew to Davison, directing him not to go to the Lord Chancellor until he had seen her. When he entered her presence she asked him, to his surprise, whether he had had the warrant sealed, and he informed her that he had. Why so much haste? she asked; to which he replied that she had told him to use despatch. He then inquired if she wished the warrant executed. Yes, she said; but she did not like the form of it, for it threw all the responsibility upon her, and again suggested poison as the best way out of her difficulty.
All this made Davison suspicious, and he went to Hatton and told him that he feared the intention was subsequently to disavow him. He would, he said, take no more responsibility, but would go at once to Lord Burghley. This he did, and the latter summoned the Privy Council for next day; whilst he, Burghley, busied himself in drafting the letters to the Commissioners, the Earls of Kent and Shrewsbury. The next morning (3rd February) the Council met in Lord Burghley’s room, and the Lord Treasurer laid the whole matter before them, repeating Davison’s story, and recommending that the warrant should be despatched without further reference to the Queen. This was agreed to, and the instructions and warrant were sent the same night (Friday, 3rd February) to the Commissioners, Burghley himself handing the document to Beale to carry down into the country.
The next morning when Davison entered the Queen’s room at Greenwich she was chatting with Ralegh, and told the Secretary that she had dreamed the previous night that the Queen of Scots was executed, which made her very angry. It was a good thing, she said, that Davison was not near her at the time. This frightened Davison, and he asked her whether she really did not wish the warrant executed. With an oath she said she did, but again repeated what she had said the previous day about the responsibility, and “another way of doing it.” A day or so afterwards, Davison informed the Queen that Paulet had indignantly refused Walsingham’s suggestion to poison Mary, whereupon she broke into complaints of the “daintiness of these precise fellows,” and violently denounced people who professed to love and defend her, but threw all responsibility upon her.
On the 8th February the tragedy of Fotheringay was consummated, and in the afternoon of the 9th young Talbot brought the news to London. Lord Burghley at once summoned Davison, and after consulting with Hatton and others, it was decided not to tell the Queen suddenly. When she learnt it later in the day the well-prepared blow fell upon Davison. The Queen pretended to be infuriated, swore that she had never intended to have the warrant divulged, and whilst blaming all the Councillors,[539] threw most of the onus upon Davison. The Council advised him to retire from court, and he was soon afterwards cast into the Tower and degraded from his office. After a long and tedious trial and a painful imprisonment, he was condemned to a fine sufficient to ruin him, and thenceforward lived in poverty and obscurity. The Earl of Essex fought manfully in his favour whilst he lived, but Lord Burghley and the rest of the Councillors were too strong for him, and the man they had ruined was never allowed to raise his head again.[540]
That Burghley and the other principal Councillors were parties to the plot, and that the Queen’s anger with them was assumed, is also seen by a memorandum in Burghley’s handwriting at Hatfield,[541] dated 17th February, headed “The State of the Cause as it ought to be conceived and reported concerning the Execution done upon the Queen of Scots,” in which the Queen’s version is adopted, and all the blame thrown upon Davison and the Council. Even before this was written the affair was so reported to Burghley’s friend Stafford in Paris, in order that this version might be spread on the Continent. Charles Arundell, in conveying the news from Stafford to Mendoza, says that Burghley was absent through illness,[542] and that the execution was carried through by Davison, “who is a terrible heretic,” and the rest of Mary’s enemies. This is perhaps the blackest stain that rests upon Burghley’s name. We have seen before that he was not generous or magnanimous in his treatment of others when his own interests were at stake; and the sacrifice of Davison would probably appear to him a very small price to pay for helping Elizabeth out of a difficult position, and maintaining his own favour.
Although we have seen that the Lord Treasurer from motives of policy had been forced to take a prominent part in the condemnation and execution of Mary, it cannot be supposed that the position of affairs at the time was agreeable to him. The wars in Flanders, the persecution of English Protestants in Spain, the reprisals of Drake and the privateers, and the Catholic plots in the interests of Mary had aroused a strong Protestant war feeling in the country. Leicester and his friends had the popular voice on their side, and Burghley and the Conservatives could only very cautiously and tentatively endeavour to stay the impetus with which the country was rushing towards a national war with the strongest power in Christendom. The great Armada was in full preparation, and the ports of Italy, Flanders, Spain, and Portugal rang with the sound of arms. Don Antonio once more was welcomed in England, to be used as a stalking-horse, this being Lord Burghley’s last hope of levying war without national responsibility.
But though there was much talk about Don Antonio, and Spanish spies in England continued to report that the great fleet under Drake was to be employed in his interests, its real object was to render impossible, at least for that year, the junction of Philip’s naval forces in Lisbon. Thanks to the efforts of Burghley and his party, an elaborate pretence was kept up of the expedition being a private one; but it was really controlled and organised by government officers, and the second in command, Borough, was a Queen’s admiral, sent avowedly to place a check upon Drake, and to prevent him from going too far in his open attack upon Spain. Drake’s instructions were “to prevent or withstand any enterprise as might be attempted against her Highness’s dominions, and especially by preventing the concentration of Philip’s squadrons;” and he was to distress the ships as much as possible, both in the havens themselves and on the high seas. Drake arrived in Plymouth from the Thames on the 23rd March, and in a week of incessant energy had everything ready. The secret of his intentions was well kept, and Mendoza’s many spies could only tardily report the loose gossip of the streets. Sir Edward Stafford assured his Spanish paymaster that no living soul but the Queen and the Lord Treasurer knew what the design was to be.
Leicester was now at Buxton (April 1587), shortly to start on another visit to Flanders, and in his absence Burghley’s influence, both Ralegh and Hatton being on his side, as well as Crofts and the Catholics, overshadowed that of Walsingham and Knollys. Drake seems to have feared the consequence of this, and hurried his departure from Plymouth (2nd April). He was only just in time, for as soon as he had gone a courier came in hot haste with orders from the Council, which now meant Burghley, strictly limiting Drake’s action:[543] “You shall forbear to enter forcibly into any of the said King’s ports or havens, or to offer any violence to any of his towns or shipping within harbour, or to do any act of hostility on land.”
This was exactly what Drake had foreseen. The ship sent after him with the orders failed to reach him, and the great seaman went on his way. But, as usual with Drake, the official drag on the wheel had to be overcome. Off Cape St. Vincent, Borough recited to the Admiral the conditions under which the Queen’s ships accompanied him, evidently expecting that he would not confine his operations to preventing the concentration of the Spanish squadrons. But Drake was on his own element now, and sailed straight to Cadiz, as some people had shrewdly expected he meant to do from the first.[544] Borough warned him not to exceed the Queen’s orders, and was placed under arrest for his pains; and unopposed, Drake sailed into Cadiz harbour, to the dismay of the astounded Spaniards. He plundered, burned, and sank all the ships in port, destroyed the stores, and then quietly sailed out again unmolested. He did damage to the extent of a million ducats (though Philip wrote that he felt the insolence of the act more than the material damage), and if he had cared to disobey the Queen’s orders further he might have stopped the Armada for good by burning the ships in Lisbon, for they had neither guns nor men on board to protect them. But he knew now that the peace party in the Council were busy arranging with Parma’s envoy for the meeting of a conference, and doubtless thought he had gone far enough in his brilliant disobedience.
The indispensable Andrea de Looe had arrived in London from the Prince of Parma immediately after Drake sailed, and was soon deep in negotiation with Burghley with the object of arranging a meeting of Peace Commissioners. When he had returned to Brussels with the proposals, news came of Drake’s daring raid. De Looe then wrote a long letter to Burghley (11th July), pointing out how much the cause of peace was injured by such acts of aggression. Burghley’s answer[545] (28th July) perfectly defines his position towards Drake’s action. After professing the Queen’s desire for peace, and readiness to send her Commissioners to Flanders if the Duke of Parma will suspend hostilities (before the Sluys), he says: “True it is, and I avow it upon my faith, her Majesty did send a ship expressly with a message by letters charging him (Drake) not to show any act of hostility before he went to Cadiz, which messenger, by contrary winds, could never come to the place where he was, but was constrained to come home, and hearing of Sir Fras. Drake’s actions, her Majesty commanded the party that returned to be punished, but he acquitted himself by oath of himself and all his company. And so unwitting, yea unwilling, to her Majesty those actions were committed by Sir Fras. Drake, for the which her Majesty is greatly offended with him; and now also for bringing home of a rich ship that came out of the East Indies.”[546] And then, as some counterbalance to these enormities, Lord Burghley sets forth once more the various grievances of England against Spain.
Whilst the elaborate and frequently insincere negotiations for peace were being laboriously pursued for many months, Lord Burghley’s other standing policy was not neglected, namely, that of causing jealousy between France and Spain. Henry III. was now in mortal fear of Guise, and was ready to listen to English and Huguenot suggestions that Philip’s conquest of England would be followed by a Guisan dynasty under Spanish patronage in France. All the French influence at the Vatican was exercised to procure the conversion of James Stuart and the opposition of Spanish aims, and before the end of the year Lord Burghley had the satisfaction of seeing that Henry III. and his clever mother in no case would aid Philip to subjugate England.
Elizabeth, in the meanwhile, was assailed by doubts and fears, and periodical fits of penuriousness in the midst of her danger, which drove her Councillors to despair. Stafford told Mendoza that “Cecil writes that the Queen is so peevish and discontented that it was feared she would not live long. Her temper is so bad that no Councillor dares to mention business to her, and when even he (Cecil) did so, she had told him that she had been strong enough to lift him out of the dirt, and was able to cast him down again. He (Cecil) was of opinion that the Councillors might be divided into three classes—those who wished to come to terms with Spain, those who desired a close friendship with France, and those who wanted to stand aloof from both, whilst enriching themselves with plunder. He (Cecil) was neither a Spaniard nor a Frenchman, but wished the Queen to be friendly with both powers. King Henry, under whom the country was powerful and tranquil, thought he was doing a great thing when he was able to make war with France when he had an alliance with Spain; and now it happened that the French were as desirous of being friendly as the English were, and he urges the Ambassador to hasten the conclusion of an agreement.”[547]
But whilst he was writing amiably for the French, he took care, on the other hand, to make the most of the peace negotiations with Spain, and thus to cause Henry to be the more anxious for England’s friendship. The old statesman was thus cautiously and slowly going on his traditional way, hopeless though he must have been of the final result as regarded keeping peace with Spain. The long-continued preparations of the Armada were rapidly approaching completion; the Pope had been cajoled into promising funds unwillingly to aid Philip’s aims; the English Catholic refugees were eagerly awaiting the harvest of their efforts; the great, cumbrous machine for crushing England was already in motion, and no efforts of diplomacy could stop it.
But yet Burghley did his best. The war and plunder party, as usual, checked him at every turn; but early and late, through constant pain and sickness, family trouble[548] and public disappointment, he struggled on in the way he had marked out for himself so many years before—to divide England’s possible enemies, and keep the peace with Spain so long as was humanly possible. The Queen was full of qualms and misgivings; swaying now to one side, now to another, and abusing in turn both the party of peace and the advocates of war. “The Queen has been scolding the Lord Treasurer greatly for the last few days, for having neglected to disburse money for the fleet,” wrote a Spanish spy in November; and a few days afterwards, when she was alarmed at the delay in Parma’s reply, she flew into a tremendous rage with Burghley, “upon whom she heaped a thousand insults,” for having induced her to negotiate for peace whilst the enemy completed his preparations. “She told the Treasurer he was old and doting; to which he replied that he knew he was old, and would gladly retire to a church to pray for her.” But the old minister gave the Queen as good as she brought, and in vigorous words pointed out in detail that her present dangers arose entirely from her neglect of his advice and the imprudence of his opponents in the Council.[549] But the next day came Parma’s answer, and the Queen was all smiles again towards Burghley and the peacemakers.
Whilst the tedious negotiations with Parma were dragging on, no slackness was visible in the preparations for resisting the attack on England. Drake was sent to the mouth of the Channel with a fine squadron of ships, whilst the Lord Admiral’s fleet was being put in readiness in the Thames with all haste; and Ralegh in Devonshire, Hunsdon in the north, and Lord Grey and Sir John Norris in the home counties, were busily organising the land forces. As usual, upon Lord Burghley rested much of the labour and responsibility, and to him matters great and small were referred for decision.[550] The English preparations met with many difficulties. The Queen was fractious and fickle, one day hectoring and threatening, and the next cursing Walsingham and his gang, who had drawn her into this strait, and were for ever pestering her for money, which she doled out as sparingly as possible. There was, moreover, no great alacrity shown at first by the people at large in providing special funds to meet the great national emergency, and the trading classes were grumbling at Leicester and the greedy gentlemen whose piracy was largely responsible for the coming war.
The sending of Peace Commissioners to Parma was, as usual, the subject of division in the Council, Burghley naturally advocating the pacific policy, and Leicester, Walsingham, and Paulet violently opposing the negotiations except on impossible terms. The Queen wavered constantly, but was more frequently on the side of peace. Soon after Leicester returned from Holland (January 1588) he opposed in the Council the sending of Commissioners. A comedy was played the same night before the Queen and court, and as the company rose, Elizabeth turned upon Leicester in a great rage and told him she must make peace with Spain at any cost. “If my ships are lost,” she said, “nothing can save me.” Leicester tried to tranquillise her by talking about Drake; but she replied that all he did was to irritate the enemy to her detriment.[551]
The instructions to the Peace Commissioners, as drafted by Burghley,[552] seem to be an honest attempt to come to terms. England was to pledge herself not to send aid of any sort, to the prejudice of Philip, to any of the dominions he had inherited (thus excluding Portugal), and Philip was asked, at least, to bind himself to prevent the molestation by the Inquisition of English mariners on board their ships in Spanish ports. But side by side with this there is reason to believe that Lord Burghley, probably through Crofts, endeavoured to gain the Duke of Parma personally to the side of peace.[553] He had been badly treated by Philip in the matter of Portugal, and was still in the dark as to the King’s real intentions. He was liable to dismissal at any moment; he was short of money, and chafing at the inexplicable delay of the Armada. It was suggested that a condition of the peace might be to give him fixity of tenure of his government of Flanders for life. How far these approaches may have influenced him it is at present difficult to say, but he certainly appealed to Philip earnestly and solemnly to allow him to make peace,[554] and when the Armada finally appeared in the Channel he did nothing to falsify his own prediction of the disaster which awaited it.
The English Commissioners[555] embarked for Ostend (a town in English-Dutch occupation) in March, but one of them, Crofts, a Spanish agent, made no hesitation of landing in Philip’s town of Dunkirk and proceeding overland to Ostend. After infinite bickering as to the place of meeting, the preliminary conferences were held in a tent between Ostend and Nieuport; but on questions of procedure and powers the negotiations were delayed until the Armada had sailed from Lisbon, and Philip’s pretence could be kept up no longer, when the Commissioners hurriedly returned. Crofts’ desire to serve his Spanish paymasters, and to obtain peace at any price, caused him to go beyond his public instructions in making concessions, and at the instance of Leicester he was cast into the Tower on his return; but the rest of the Commissioners acknowledged that they had been tricked, and that Philip had never intended peace. Many persons had thought so from the first, though the delay had been advantageous for England. The Lord Admiral, writing to Walsingham before the Commissioners left England, says: “There never was since England was England such a stratagem and mask made to deceive England, withal, as this is of the treaty of peace. I pray God we have not cause to remember one thing that was made of the Scots by the Englishmen; that we do not curse for this a long grey beard with a white head, witless, that will make all the world think us heartless. You know whom I mean.”[556]
Though Burghley had struggled for thirty years to maintain peace with Spain, when war was inevitable he took far more than his share of the labour of organising it. As usual, he worked early and late, sometimes almost in despair at the Queen’s penuriousness and irritability, and himself suffering incessantly. Whilst he was still striving for peace (10th April) he thus writes to Walsingham: “I cannot express my pain, newly increased in all my left arm. My spirits are even now so extenuated as I have no mind towards anything but to groan with my pain.… Surely, sir, as God will be best pleased with peace, so in nothing can her Majesty content her realm better than in procuring it.… So forced with pain, even from my arm to my heart, I end.”[557] In the midst of the preparations, when Howard, Winter, Drake, and Hawkins were daily writing reports or requests to the over-burdened Lord Treasurer, his favourite but unfortunate daughter, Lady Oxford, died. In his diary he simply records the fact in the words, “Anna Comitissa Oxoniæ, filia mia charissima, obiit in Do. Greenwici et 25, Sepult. Westminster;”[558] but the bereaved father was in a few days hard at work again, though still confined to his bed.[559]
At length, on the 30th July (N.S.), the long looked for Armada appeared in the Channel. The story of how the sceptre of the sea passed to England during the next week has often been told elsewhere, and need not be here repeated; but Burghley’s share of the glory at least must not go unrecorded. We have seen how the details of organisation were largely left in his hands; but, in addition to this, like other great nobles, he raised a special force, clothed in his colours, and maintained at his expense,[560] and visited the army encamped at Tilbury, “where,” says Leicester, “I made a fair show for my Lord Treasurer, who came from London to see us.” It is usually asserted also that his two sons, Sir Thomas and Sir Robert, joined the English fleet, like so many other gentlemen of rank; and although this may be true, for certainly Sir Robert was at Dover,[561] and might perhaps have gone on board one of the ships, it is questionable, and their names do not appear in any of the records as being present.
It was hardly to be supposed that the Spaniards would so readily submit to defeat as not to renew the attack, for Englishmen had not yet gauged the paralysing effect of Philip’s system upon his subjects, and, like the rest of the world, took Spain largely on trust; but Burghley was right in his forecast that the Armada itself was so broken and weak that it would run round Ireland and return no more. When the heroics in England were over and matters were settling down, there was still no cessation in the work of the Lord Treasurer. There were intricate victualling accounts to be laboriously calculated in perplexing Roman numerals;[562] there were wages to be paid; captains and admirals to be brought to book for every item of their expenditure, for the Queen would have no slackness in that respect, even though the country and herself had been rescued from a great peril; there were prisoners to interrogate, and plans to be made for future defence, and, as usual, Puritans and prelates to be appeased and reconciled. The lion’s share of all this fell to the gouty, crippled old man with the bright eyes, the grave face, and the snowy hair—to Lord Treasurer Burghley.
Shortly after the disappearance of the Armada, Leicester died (4th September), on his way to Kenilworth, and Burghley lost the political rival who had continued to thwart him for nearly thirty years. Nothing proves more clearly Burghley’s consummate prudence and tact than the fact that, to the very last, his relations with the Earl were always outwardly polite, and even friendly.[563] That this was not owing to the forbearance of Leicester is seen by his violent quarrels with Sussex, Arundel, Ormonde, Heneage, Ralegh, and others who crossed his path.
The death of Leicester, together with that of Sir Walter Mildmay, which happened shortly afterwards, changed the balance of Elizabeth’s Council. The old ministers were dropping off one by one and giving place to younger men, who could not expect to exercise over the experienced and mature ruler the same influence as that of her earlier advisers. In order to strengthen his party Lord Burghley had patronised Ralegh; but Leicester had retorted by bringing forward his young stepson Essex, whom his dying father had left as a solemn charge to Burghley. Essex was a mere lad of twenty-two when Leicester died, and as yet too young to head a party against the aged minister; but he had absorbed all the traditions of the dead favourite, and henceforward thwarted the Cecils to the best of his power with all the persistence of Leicester, but with a haughty incautiousness which belonged to himself alone, and ultimately led him to his tragic death.
Notwithstanding the crushing blow that Spanish power had received, English public feeling continued apprehensive and nervous. Spies abroad still sent alarmist reports of Philip’s future plans, and few Englishmen had yet realised how completely their foe was disabled. When Parliament met, therefore, in February (1589), the largest subsidies ever voted were granted for the defence of the country, and the Houses petitioned her Majesty “to denounce open war against the King of Spain.”
There were, however, other ways of crippling the foe more acceptable both to the Queen and her principal minister. Since 1581 Elizabeth had been playing fast and loose with Don Antonio, the claimant to the crown of Portugal. Leicester and Walsingham had more than once encouraged him to spend large sums of money in England—raised on the sale or security of his jewels—in fitting out naval expeditions in his favour, but nothing effectual had been done for his cause. Catharine de Medici, on the other hand, had countenanced the despatch of two fine expeditions from France to the Azores, both of which had been disastrously defeated; and in the Armada year Antonio again came to England to seek for aid against the common enemy. He was sanguine, and ready to promise anything for immediate aid. Just before the Armada arrived, the plan of diverting Philip’s forces by an attack on Portugal had been broached by the Lord Admiral in a letter to Walsingham, but the Queen would not then hear of any of her ships being sent away.
In September, however, circumstances had changed. It was useless to ask the Queen to accept the whole expense and responsibility of an expedition; but in September 1588, Antonio saw Lord Burghley, who wrote down the plans and offers he made. If, said the pretender, he could once land in Portugal with a sufficient force, all the country would rise in his favour; and his suggestion, supported by Sir John Norris and Sir Francis Drake, was to form a joint-stock undertaking with the countenance and help of the Queen and the Dutch, for the purpose of invading and capturing Portugal in his interest. In exchange he promised to pay the soldiers, and handsomely; to allow them to loot Spanish property in Lisbon; and, above all, to burn Philip’s ships in Lisbon and Seville, and recoup the adventurers their expenditure with a large bonus.[564] If war were to be made at all, this was a method of making it likely to find favour in the eyes of the Queen and Burghley; and in February 1589[565] a warrant was issued authorising the expedition, and appointing rules for its government. Drake was to command at sea, and Norris by land, and the objects are carefully set forth in Burghley’s words: “first, to distress the King of Spain’s ships; second, to obtain possession of the Azores in order to intercept the treasure ships; and third, to assist Don Antonio to recover the kingdom of Portugal if it shall be found that the public voice be favourable to him.”
The Queen contributed £20,000 and seven ships of the navy, and strict conditions were made that her money should not be wasted. But the affair was mismanaged from the first. Most of the men who went were idle vagabonds, the scum of the towns and the sweepings of the jails. The Dutch contingent fell away, the promises of support in England were not kept, money ran short, and the victuals went bad. The Queen lost her temper and began to frown upon the expedition when Drake’s constant demands for further help became too pressing; but finally, after weeks of galling delay, through bad weather and other causes, the expedition put to sea (13th April), nearly 200 sail of all sorts, with 20,000 men. Shortly before it left, the Earl of Essex, with his brother and other gentlemen, had fled to Plymouth in disguise, shipped on board the Swiftsure and put to sea.[566] The Queen had specially refused him permission to accompany the expedition; and when she found that her favourite had disobeyed her, her fury knew no bounds.
From that hour the expedition and commanders got nothing but ill words from her. Not content simply to burn the few ships in Coruña, the commanders lost a precious fortnight, in direct violation to orders, in besieging the place and burning the lower town. Wine was found in plenty, and excess incapacitated the greater part of the Englishmen; pestilence and desertion worked havoc in their ranks, and subsequently, as a crowning disaster, Norris, persuaded by Antonio against Drake’s advice, marched overland from Peniche to Lisbon, instead of forcing the Tagus.
But Antonio had been deceived. None but a few country people joined him; the Portuguese in Lisbon were utterly cowed by the firmness and severity of the Archduke Albert and his few Spaniards, and Norris had no siege artillery. After a few days of useless heroism, in which young Essex showed himself the brave, rash, generous lad he was, the attempt was abandoned; and harassed by enemies in flank and rear, beset by famine, sickness, and panic, Norris, and what was left of his army, beat a retreat to Cascaes, where Drake and the ships awaited them. The Azores were never approached, and the ships in Lisbon and Seville were not burned, and the inglorious expedition slunk back again to England with a loss of two-thirds of its number of men.
Although Burghley had drawn up the conditions of the Queen’s aid to the expedition, he took no active part in its subsequent organisation, for a great sorrow was impending, which fell upon him ten days before the expedition sailed. He had lived in harmony and affection with his wife for forty-three years, and her death on the 4th April cast him for a time into the deepest sorrow.[567] But even in the midst of his grief, his passion for placing everything on record led him to write a most interesting series of meditations on his loss, which is still extant.[568] Commencing by a reflection on the fruitlessness of wishing his “dear wife alive again in her mortal body,” he proceeds at great length to lay down the direction his thoughts should take for consolation, such as gratitude to God for “His favour in permitting her to have lived so many years together with me, and to have given her grace to have the true knowledge of her salvation.” But most of the curious document is occupied by a statement of the liberal anonymous charities of Lady Burghley, which during her life she had kept inviolably secret, even from her husband; and as some indication of the reality of Lord Burghley’s grief, it may be mentioned that he signs the paper “April 9, 1588.[569] Written at Colling’s Lodge by me in sorrow.”
Through the whole course of his life we have seen William Cecil pursuing the traditional policy of suspicion of France and Scotland, and a desire to draw closer to the rulers of the Netherlands. But in his old age a series of circumstances which were impossible to have been foreseen, entirely revolutionised the political balance of Europe, and for a time led even Lord Burghley to reverse his main policy. The heavy yoke of the Guises, doubly heavy now that they had the power of Spain behind them, had at last galled to desperation the vicious Valois who ruled France. The long-foretold and carefully-planned blow which had murdered the Duke of Guise and his brother, and rid Henry of his hard taskmaster, had been followed by a combination of all French Catholicism against the royal murderer. The subjects were declared to be absolved from their allegiance to the King, Paris flew to arms, the Church thundered denunciations, and the erstwhile royal bigot and monk, the figurehead of the Catholic League, the sleepless persecutor of Protestants, found himself driven into the arms of the only subjects he had who were not ready to tear him to pieces, namely, the Huguenots and excommunicated Henry of Navarre, the legitimate heir to the throne. Together they advanced upon Paris to crush the Guisan Catholics, and wreak vengeance upon the citizens who had deposed their sovereign. Henry of Navarre had often sought and obtained Elizabeth’s help against the Catholics, and looked to her again in this supreme struggle which was to decide, as it seemed, the fate of France. For the first time, however, on this occasion English aid took the form of supporting the sovereign against rebels, instead of the reverse.
In Scotland also the Catholic nobles had been busy intriguing for the landing of a Spanish force, which should coerce or depose James, and finally crush Protestantism there.[570] The plan had been discovered, and Elizabeth, who had again made sure of James, had urged him to severity, and offered him support if necessary against his Catholic nobles. So that in Scotland, as in France, it was Catholicism that represented rebellion, and Protestantism in both countries looked to England to uphold legality. That the position struck Lord Burghley as curious is seen in a letter from him to Lord Shrewsbury[571] (16th June). “The world,” he says, “is become very strange! We Englishmen now daily desire the prosperity of a King of France and a King of Scots. We were wont to aid the subjects oppressed against both these Kings; now we are moved to aid both these Kings against their rebellious subjects; and though these are contrary effects, yet on our part they proceed from one cause, for that we do is to weaken our enemies.” In another letter he says, “Seeing both Kings are enemies to our enemies we have cause to join with them.” In fact, once more for a time religious union had become stronger than national divisions. It was the Protestantism of England, France, Scotland, and Holland, led by Elizabeth, against militant Catholicism everywhere, championed by the Spanish King.
Six weeks after the above letter was written the changed position towards France was further accentuated by the murder of Henry III. at the hands of a fanatic monk in the interests of the Catholics. With the Huguenot Henry of Navarre as King of France, and with Spain as the power behind the League, England and France were pledged to the same cause. The main sources of distrust in England against France always had been the fear that the latter power might dominate Flanders or gain a footing in Scotland. James’s adhesion to the Protestant party, his alliance with England, and his growing hopes of the English succession, had made the latter contingency one which might now be disregarded, whilst the possession of strong places in the Netherlands in English hands, the religion of the new King of France, and his need to depend upon England for support, rendered it in the highest degree improbable that he would dream of conquering and holding Spanish Flanders against the wish of Elizabeth.
For the last three years Elizabeth had continued to supply Henry of Navarre with large sums of money to pay mercenaries; but if Henry was to reign over France he must now fight the League and Spain; and to enable him to do this, England would have to subscribe more handsomely than ever. Henry accordingly sent Beauvoir la Nocle to London to push his master’s cause. Great quantities of ammunition were shipped to the coast of Normandy, whither Henry had retired with his army; but men were wanted too, and on the 17th August Beauvoir dined with the Lord Treasurer at Cecil House, and concluded an arrangement by which Elizabeth was to lend 300,000 crowns to pay for German reiters in the spring, and to make a cash advance to Henry of 70,000 crowns.
By a letter from Beauvoir in the following year (16th June 1590) it is clear that Burghley’s old distrust of the French had not been overcome without difficulty. “At last,” he says, “I have conquered the Lord Treasurer! Now it must be borne in mind that if the Queen says ‘Do this,’ and Burghley says ‘Do it not,’ it is he who will be obeyed. Still I find him easier and more tractable than he was; these are humours that come and go, like the wind blows. Nevertheless he does well, though he is not one of those who act up to the proverb ‘Quis cito dat, bis dat.’” In the same despatch Beauvoir fervently urges the King to keep his promise with regard to the payment for the ammunition, &c., supplied to him. He says that the failure to meet such engagements is called in England “to play the Vidame.”[572] “For God’s sake,” he continues, “make provision for payment, or abandon all hope of getting anything else here except on good security.”[573]
Henry’s first attack on Paris failed, and he was forced to retire (November 1589); but he sent the gallant old hero La Noue to Picardy to withstand the League there. When young Essex heard of his proximity he was anxious to join him.[574] From the first he had been trying to persuade the Queen to send national forces under his command to aid the Huguenots, but cautious Burghley was always at hand to hint at expense and responsibility, and the auxiliary English troops under Willoughby, now in Henry’s service, were complaining bitterly of the hardships and penury they were undergoing. A great fleet also was being fitted out in Spain, the destination of which was kept secret, but rumours ran that it was coming to England, or what was almost as bad, to capture a French port in the Channel as a naval base from which the invasion of England could be effected. Brittany was held by the Duke de Mercœur for the League by Spanish aid, and already (January) overtures had been made by him to Philip to occupy a port on the coast.
But whether England was to be attacked direct or a Brittany port first taken possession of, it behoved Elizabeth to stand on her guard, and on the 15th March a great plan for the muster and mobilisation of troops all over England was issued by the Lord Treasurer.[575] On the day before the order was made in England the Huguenot King had gained the great battle of Ivry, crushing Mayenne’s army and rapidly beleaguering Paris again. For the moment, therefore, Henry was able to hold his own, and the apprehension of the English Government was mainly directed towards Brittany, where a Spanish force of 4000 men were supporting the Duke de Mercœur; and the claim of Philip’s daughter to the duchy, if not to the crown of France, was being advanced.
Burghley’s age was now telling upon him greatly. He had become very deaf, and almost constant gout kept him crippled; but still he remained, as ever, the resource of every one with an appeal to make, a question to be decided, or an end to be served.[576] The recent death of Walsingham (April 1590) left him the only one of the Queen’s early Councillors, except Crofts, who died soon afterwards, and Sir Francis Knollys, whose fanatical Puritanism and anti-Prelatism still gave much trouble to the Treasurer. The latter had evidently marked out his brilliant younger son Robert Cecil for Walsingham’s successor; and certainly no better choice could have been made, for he had for some time past relieved his father of some of his most laborious work, and had imbibed much of his policy and method. The mere hint of such an intention, however, was sufficient to arouse the opposition of Essex, who, either out of generosity or in a mere spirit of contradiction of “the Cecils,” took up the cause of Davison, and endeavoured to bring him back to office.[577] The Lord Treasurer was powerful enough to prevent that; but did not push the matter to extremes by obtaining the appointment of his own son until some years afterwards, although Robert Cecil was knighted (May 1591) and was sworn a Member of the Privy Council shortly afterwards (August 1591), and thereafter practically discharged much of the duty of Secretary of State.[578] Burghley has frequently been blamed for a want of generosity towards Davison at this juncture. He was, as we have had occasion to notice more than once, not a generous man; but this was a crucial trial of strength between him and young Essex, and if Davison had been reappointed Secretary of State the influence of Burghley would have suffered irreparably. It was obvious now that Essex was determined, if possible, to force Elizabeth into an aggressive policy, especially against Spain, and it was exactly this policy which Burghley still devoted his life to opposing. But it is clear that the Treasurer did not gain his point with regard to Davison without some little trouble. Whilst the matter was in dispute he pleaded his age and infirmities as a reason for his complete retirement from office;[579] and such a hint always brought the Queen to her bearings.
He, however, absented himself from court and stayed in dudgeon at Theobalds, where the Queen, to pacify him, paid him a stately visit in May, and the notes at Hatfield in the Lord Treasurer’s writing show that on this occasion, as usual, the smallest details of the Queen’s reception were arranged by him. Whilst there the Queen appears to have written the extraordinary jocose letter to “The disconsolate and retired spryte, the hermite of Tyboll,” in which, with tedious and affected jocularity, Hatton, in her name, exhorts him to return to the world and his duty. He must have done so promptly, for he was with the court at Greenwich again as busy as ever in a fortnight, writing to Mr. Grimstone, the agent in France, a letter (June), which shows that already the old distrust of French methods was reasserting itself. “In truth, her Majesty findeth some lack that the King doth not advertise her more frequently of his actions and intentions; and especially she findeth it strange that there is no more care had for the state of Brittany, in that the King sendeth no greater forces thither to encounter the Spaniards’ new descents, or to recover such port towns as be of most moment. And her Majesty is truly comforted with certain successes that have happened in Brittany since the arrival (there) of Sir John Norreys.”[580] The letter ends with an emphatic reminder of Henry’s obligations to Elizabeth, and a somewhat doubting hope that he will be properly grateful.
Henry naturally was for winning Paris, the headquarters of the League and the capital of his realm, and he was already giving pause to Elizabeth and Burghley by his willingness to “receive instruction” from priests, with a view to his conversion. What from the English point of view was most to be feared was that he might at last be forced or cajoled into consenting to a partition of France, in which the Infanta’s claim to the Duchy of Brittany, which was a very strong one, should be acknowledged. This would have brought the Spaniards into the Channel opposite England, and have completely altered the balance of power. Already Don Juan del Aguila had a firm grip upon the port of Blavet, and Elizabeth’s Government were pressing Henry to direct his attention to the north of France, where the League had occupied most of the principal ports, except Dieppe. Henry himself was reducing Chartres and other places near Paris, whilst his officers in the north, with inadequate forces, were doing their best to recover the coast towns.
At the urgent desire of Elizabeth, Henry promised to come to Normandy,[581] and Essex prevailed upon the Queen to give him command of a considerable English force to besiege Rouen[582] (July). The young Earl was in semi-disgrace in consequence of his recent marriage with Walsingham’s daughter (Sir Philip Sidney’s widow), but the Queen gave him strict orders not to expose himself to danger. Henry, however, did not keep his word to meet Essex on the coast, and as soon as Essex landed, made an attempt to utilise the English force elsewhere. Essex was indignant, and rushed off to Noyon to remonstrate with Henry.[583] When, however, Rouen was at last besieged, he violated the Queen’s commands and took an active part in the siege.[584]