At length Elizabeth declared that she would be played with no longer by him, and he was forced to return to his infuriated mistress,[585] whilst the siege of Rouen dragged on for months longer, sometimes in the presence of Henry himself, until the arrival of Parma and Mayenne caused it to be abandoned (May 1592). The anger of the Queen with Essex and the war-party was increased by the ill success in the autumn (1591) of the attempt to intercept the Spanish treasure fleet off the Azores;[586] and for a time “the Cecils” had their way, which was to administer just so much aid, and no more, as should prevent Maurice of Nassau in Holland and Henry of Navarre in France from succumbing to the power of Spain, whilst the Queen in the meanwhile railed at Navarre for his shiftiness, and at Essex for his disobedience. Her Englishmen, she said, had been badly treated and exposed to undue hardships, her advances were unpaid, nobody was grateful to her; and in future she declared, that though Henry might have her prayers he should have no more of her money.

The determined efforts of Essex and his party, and more especially of the two Bacons, Francis and Antony, to wound and discredit the Cecils, stopped at no inconsistency. From their earliest childhood the Earl and the Bacons had been attached to the Puritan party, and still posed as its champions; and yet they were the first to endeavour to cast upon Burghley the odium of the severe proclamation and fresh persecution of the seminary priests that had been considered necessary.[587] From the action of Allen, Persons, and their friends at the time of the Armada, from the letters intercepted by Burghley disclosing the Jesuit plot in Scotland, and from the continued bitter writings of Person’s directed against Elizabeth and her minister, it was beyond question now, that whatever may have been the case at the beginning of their propaganda, the aim of the seminarists was simply to undermine and overturn the political government of the country.[588] And yet the Bacons, nephews of Burghley and sons of a fiercely Puritan mother, prompted by the double spy Standen and men of the same evil class, almost violently took up the cause of the persecuted Catholics when they thought it would injure the kinsman to whom they owed so much, and his son, of whom they were jealous.[589]

The renewed severity against the seminarists at this time was certainly not without justification. The shifty James Stuart was again listening to the charming of his Catholic nobles and the agents of Spain, though doubtless with the intention of outwitting them, and from all sides came the news of a powerful fleet being prepared in the Spanish ports either for England, Scotland, or Ireland. For a time in the autumn of 1592, whilst Lord Burghley was accompanying Elizabeth through the southern counties,[590] a perfect panic of apprehension fell upon the people; partly, it must be confessed, caused by the fear of reprisals for the ceaseless ravages of the English upon Spanish shipping. Burghley himself had always been opposed to these ravages,[591] and had steadily refused to accept any share in the profits of them; but when the prizes were brought back he took care that the Queen’s share was not forgotten. A good instance of this occurred in 1592. Ralegh and the Earl of Cumberland with some associates fitted out a powerful expedition to intercept the treasure galleons, and, if possible, to raid some of the Spanish settlements. When the squadron had sailed, Ralegh was suddenly recalled by the angry Queen and thrown into the Tower (May) for having married.

The Roebuck, Ralegh’s own ship, captured off Flores amongst other prizes the great carrack Madre de Dios, which reached Dartmouth on the 8th September. The riches she contained were beyond calculation; pearls, amber, musk, and precious stones, tapestries, silks, spices, and gold formed her cargo. Plunder began long before she reached England, and when the news came of the capture the great road to the west was crowded by Jew dealers, London tradesmen and fine ladies and gentlemen on their way to buy bargains. Ralegh’s sailors were already sulky at the imprisonment of their beloved master, and when attempts were made by the shore authorities to recover some of the plunder and prevent further peculation, they became unmanageable. Sir John Hawkins wrote to Lord Burghley that Ralegh was the only man who could bring them to order.[592] But Ralegh was in the Tower, “the Queen’s poor prisoner”; and it needed all the Lord Treasurer’s influence, working on Elizabeth’s greed, to obtain permission for Sir Walter, still under guard, to go down to Devonshire and set matters straight.[593] Preceding him by a few hours on the same errand went Sir Robert Cecil, whose letters to his father on his journey, detailing the measures he had adopted on the way to intercept the plunder, are extremely graphic and interesting.[594]

Such depredations upon Spanish shipping as this—and they were of constant occurrence—although they might enrich the adventurers, and to some extent even the Queen, were a means of keeping the English people generally in a constant state of apprehension, and rendering legitimate commerce dangerous and difficult. As we have seen, Lord Burghley had steadily set his face against piracy of all sorts, and Sir Robert Cecil followed his lead. Ralegh had from his first appearance at court been a friend of the Cecils, as against Leicester and Essex, and he still remained on their side; but he was greedy and unscrupulous, and certainly from the time of the capture of the great carrack the cordiality between the Cecil party and himself diminished.[595] The talk of the court generally was that Burghley was jealous of the rise of all men who might compete with his beloved son Robert; and Ralegh’s friend Spenser puts the thought in verse (“The Ruins of Time”) thus:—

That Lord Burghley in his failing age should desire to continue his policy through his son was perfectly natural, especially as in his case the son was in every way worthy to succeed him; and it is not fair to blame him for mean filial jealousy to the detriment of Ralegh, as Spenser does, for Ralegh, although nominally his adherent, was in the matter of the Puritans and aggressive action against Spain, acting rather on the side of Essex. It is to this fact that Ralegh owed his lifelong disappointment at being excluded from the Privy Council.

That Essex and his party were sleepless in their attempts to undermine the influence of the Cecils there is abundant evidence to prove. Amongst many others, an interesting letter from Ralph Lane to Lord Burghley (March 1592) may be quoted.[596] Sir Thomas Cecil and his more brilliant younger brother had quarrelled whilst their father was staying in retirement at Theobalds, sick and sorry. “The world speaks of your Lordship’s grief,” writes Lane, “and thinks it proceeds from the differences between your two sons. The matter is not great, but the humours short. That which grieves your well-wishers, who are the true well-wishers of her Majesty and the State, is that it has been misrepresented to her Majesty so as to injure you for credit and wisdom, and that these hard constructions made against you to her are the principal cause of your own grief. Good men moan that her Majesty is sought to be deprived in this dangerous time of so wise and approved a Councillor. I hope that no envy will make her Majesty disconceit a personage the choice of whom in the beginning of her reign prognosticated her future greatness.”

But Elizabeth, though she might listen to the youngsters who sought to contemn her aged Councillor, knew his worth better than they, and much as he desired rest, when it came to the pinch, she always refused to let him go. Only a few days after the above letter was written, indeed, Lord Burghley received a life-grant of Rockingham Forest, part of the lands of the deceased Lord Chancellor Bromley, as if in answer to the detractions of his enemies. Another instance of the dependence of the Queen upon him and of his devotion to his duty happened in June. He had gone to Bath to seek alleviation from the gout which had afflicted him all the spring, and writes from there to the Queen, who was on her progress, enclosing her an important letter from her Ambassador in France. “I would,” he says, “have attended your Majesty myself with it, but I am in the midst of my cure and may not break off without special harm and frustrating my recovery, which is promised in a few days. But still I will risk all, and come if your Majesty desires it.”[597]

The persistent attacks upon Burghley and his policy were not confined to Essex and the Puritans. The Spanish Jesuit party in Flanders, which in former years had often looked upon him with sympathy and sometimes with hope, now cast upon him the responsibility of everything that happened in England, even when the policy was dictated by Burghley’s opponents. In all the plots of Holt, Yorke, Archer, Cahill, and the rest of the desperadoes in Flanders, Burghley was one of the principal objects of attack. “He was but a blood-sucker,” said Yorke; and the latter swore he would lay a poisoned glowing coal in his way and kill him.[598] Burghley, he said, had poisoned the young Earl of Derby in order to marry his grand-daughter to the Earl’s brother. “England was governed by the Machivellian policy of those who would be kings, and whom it is time were cut off;”[599] and much more of the same sort. These grosser calumnies and accusations of corruption[600] were in most cases obviously false, and could hardly have caused Lord Burghley very deep concern; but the most artful of his enemies, Father Persons, well knew the weak point in his armour, and wounded him to the quick in his books, in which he pretended to show that the Lord Treasurer was of base origin, his father a tavern-keeper, and he himself a bell-ringer.[601] We have seen in a former similar case that attacks upon his ancestry almost alone aroused Lord Burghley’s anger; and an anti-Spanish Catholic writing at the time (January 1593) records how deeply he was pained by the books of Persons and Verstegen just published, “which,” he says, “will do the Catholics no good.”

The division, indeed, between the two parties of Catholics was now well defined. Those who adhered to Spain and the Jesuits were of course bitterly inimical to moderate statesmen like the Cecils, whose efforts would naturally tend to bring about a compromise with James or Arabella Stuart for the Queen’s successor, peace with Spain, and toleration for Catholics. The Vatican, the French, the Venetians, and many of the English and Scottish Catholics abroad were in favour of this solution;[602] and the English Catholic secular clergy were enlisted almost entirely on the same side. The extreme parties, however, were naturally violently opposed to compromise of any sort; so that the Cecils, as leaders of the peaceful and moderate party, were the target for envenomed attacks at the same time both of Spanish Jesuits, who wished for a purely Catholic England under Spanish auspices, and the militant Protestant party led by Essex, who aimed at a purely Protestant England and an aggressive war with Spain.

The bitterness of party feeling was promptly demonstrated at the meeting of Parliament in February. Intelligence of continued armaments in Spain, and the recent revelations of informers as to the anti-English plots hatched in Flanders, had rendered necessary the employment of large sums for the national defence. A statement of the apprehensions entertained was made in the House of Lords by the Lord Keeper Puckering, and in the Commons by Sir Robert Cecil, the substance of both speeches having been previously drafted by Lord Burghley. The patriotism of the members was appealed to in fervent terms to provide funds for maintaining the national independence. The Puritan party, aided by Ralegh, fanned the flame and sought to pledge the Houses to an offensive war; and with but little dissent a treble subsidy was voted, payable in four years. Francis Bacon[603] struck a discordant note by asking that the payments should extend over six years. The people were poor, he said, and hard pressed; do not arouse their discontent “and set an evil precedent against ourselves and our posterity.” Sir Robert Cecil somewhat indignantly answered his cousin’s speech, and the Queen and Lord Treasurer soon made their displeasure felt, and Francis Bacon could only protest his loyalty and sorrow for his offence. If only he could wound the Cecils and bring himself into the good graces of Essex, he seemed to care but little.

The House of Commons, as usual, had a strongly Puritan leaven, and the indefatigable Peter Wentworth once more incurred the Queen’s anger by bringing forward the succession question. Whilst the Puritan leaders in the Commons were being sent to the Tower and the Fleet,[604] the bishops were preparing a blow which should demolish for good all attempts at attacks against the Establishment. A new extreme sect called Independents or Brownists had gained considerable popularity. Other Nonconformists resisted the orders of the Church, and opposed the authority of prelates, but the Brownists were for disestablishment altogether. Their leaders, Barrow and Greenwood, and several others, were in prison; but their followers were many, and growing in number, and the prelates were determined to stamp out this new danger to the Church, come what might. Several Brownists were arraigned for sedition, on the ground that attacks upon the Establishment were attacks upon the Queen. Barrow and Greenwood were found guilty, and condemned to death. During the prosecution the prelates in the Lords had passed a severe bill against recusancy, designed to press more hardly against Brownists than even against Catholics. On the 31st March the condemned men were dragged to Tyburn, with all the hideous formalities usual in executions for felony; and when the ropes were already around their necks, a reprieve suddenly arrived. Lord Burghley himself, though seriously ill, had insisted upon a suspension of the sentence. “No Papist,” he said, “had suffered for religion, and Protestants’ blood should not be the first shed, at least before an attempt was made to convince them.” We are told also that he spoke sharply to the Archbishop (Whitgift). The recusants bill went to the lower House on the 4th April, and Ralegh amongst others made a vigorous speech against it. The opposition in the Commons, we are told,[605] hardened the prelates’ hearts, and both Barrow and Greenwood suffered the last penalty two days afterwards, to be followed in their martyrdom for Protestant Nonconformity by many others all over the country.

This case has been stated here somewhat at length, because it has become usual to cast upon Lord Burghley the odium for cruel persecution both of Catholics and Protestants, in disregard of the fact that there were in England two extreme parties struggling with each other, he being, so far as religion was concerned, a moderator between the two. He was, of course, the most prominent man in the Government, but he only maintained his influence by avoiding the extremes of both parties, and in order to do this he was obliged to refrain from running strongly counter to either. It may be said that in this case of the Brownists, as well as that of the Catholics, he might have firmly put his foot down and have prevented the sacrifice; but in that event he would not have been William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and he would not have held the tiller of the State for forty years.

In the summer, Essex received a strange and powerful coadjutor in his policy of aggressive war against Spain. He and his friends the Bacons, much to the Puritan Lady Bacon’s concern, were already deep in confidence with Standen, and other double spies and professed Catholics, the object apparently being to organise, for the benefit of Essex, a separate spy system, independent of the universal network controlled by the Cecils. The new recruit to Essex was a man of a very different calibre to the other instruments. Antonio Perez, the former all-powerful minister of Philip II., was at deadly feud with his master, and had been welcomed at the court of France as the bitterest enemy of his native country. He was one of the most brilliant and fascinating scoundrels that ever lived, and soon won the good graces of the jolly Béarnais, who was already meditating what he called the “mortal leap” of going to Mass, and turning the Huguenot Navarre into the Catholic King of France, eldest son of the Church. He had depended much upon Elizabeth’s help; although of late that had been slackening as Essex’s influence waned, and he knew that the step he was about to take would turn her full fury upon him. Who could so plausibly plead his cause and inflame the hearts in England against Spain as this mordant foe of Philip, who knew every weakness, every secret, of his former master? So in June, Perez went to England with Henry’s blessing, and with the cold permission of Elizabeth, for she had no love for traitors, and Burghley knew Perez’s errand.

When he arrived he found Elizabeth already fuming at Henry’s apostasy, and complaining bitterly to Beauvoir de Nocle of his master’s ingratitude.[606] She refused absolutely to receive the “Spanish traitor,” and the cautious Cecils gave him a wide berth. Essex in some notes to Phillips, soon after Perez’s arrival, directs him to set informers to work to discover the real reason of the Spaniard’s coming. Lord Burghley, he says, has seen him once, and the Earl of Essex twice. “Burghley only wished to compare his judgment with his own experience; but he (Essex) wished to found upon Perez some action, for all his plots are to make war offensive rather than defensive.”[607] Essex soon got over his doubts, and plausible Perez stood with Bacon[608] ever at his right hand, living at his cost, writing his biting gibes, weaving his plots against Philip, and with his matchless ability and experience advising the young Earl how best to drag England into war with Spain, even though Henry was a Catholic, and so to outwit the watchful Cecils. It was not long, too, before he flattered and wormed himself into the good graces of the Queen, who gave him a handsome pension; and so gradually the war-party gained ground in Elizabeth’s councils, for in this Ralegh too was on the side of Essex, and the ceaseless talk of the intrigues of the Jesuits kept the English war feeling at fever heat.

Most of the routine work formerly falling upon Lord Burghley was now undertaken by his son. Letters from all quarters, and upon all subjects, came to Sir Robert, whose diligence must have been almost as indefatigable as that of his father; but apparently only those of special importance and touching foreign affairs were submitted to the Lord Treasurer. But though Sir Robert might be diligent, he certainly lacked the high sense of dignity which had always been characteristic of his father. At a time when courtiers vied with each other in addressing almost blasphemous flattery to the Queen, when all the firmament was ransacked to provide comparisons favourable to her Majesty’s beauty and wisdom, Lord Burghley, although always respectful and deferential to the Queen, never sacrificed his dignity to please her.

That his son was more of a supple courtier than he, is seen by the address penned by him to be delivered to the Queen by a man dressed as a hermit on her entrance to Theobalds, where she passed some days on a visit to the Lord Treasurer, in October. For turgid affectation and grovelling humility this production could hardly be excelled by the egregious Simier, or Hatton himself. The subject evidently has reference to the Queen’s previous visit to the house when Lord Burghley was in deep trouble and living in retirement. On that occasion there was much affected verbosity about the Lord Treasurer as a hermit, and in October 1593, when the pretended hermit addressed her Majesty, he reminded her that the last time she came, “his founder, upon a strange conceit to feed his own humour, had placed the hermit, contrary to his profession, in his house, whilst he (Burghley) had retired to the hermit’s poor cell.” Whilst his founder (Burghley) lived he was assured that he would not again dispossess him (as he never turned out tenants) “Only this perplexeth my soul, and causeth cold blood in every vein, to see the life of my founder so often in peril, nay, his desire as hasty as his age to inherit his tomb. But this I hear (which is his greatest comfort), that when his body, being laden with years, oppressed with sickness, having spent his strength in the public service, desireth to be rid of worldly cares, even when he is grievously sick and lowest brought, what holds him back and ransometh him, is the fear that my young master may wish to use my cell. And therefore, hearing of all the country folks I meet, that your Majesty doth use him in your service, as in former time you have done his father, my founder, and that though his experience and judgment be not comparable, yet as report goeth he hath something in him like the child of such a parent,” he (the hermit) begs the Queen, whose will is law, to bid Robert Cecil to continue in active life, and leave to the hermit the cell granted to him by his father.[609]

This was doubtless considered at the time a highly ingenious device for asking the Queen for a reversion of the fathers’ offices for the son, and is certainly not lacking in the worldly wisdom which looks ahead; but surely never was any man’s coming death talked about so much in his lifetime, and with so little constraint, as that of Lord Burghley.[610]

CHAPTER XVI
1594-1598

All through the year 1593 Lord Burghley’s agents in Spain had sent news of the powerful naval preparations being made at Pasages, Coruña, and elsewhere, and the war-party at home and abroad had strained every nerve to induce the Queen to assume the offensive. Raleigh,[611] Drake, and Hawkins supported Essex in his efforts; but the caution of “the Cecils,” the Queen, and the Lord Admiral restrained, as well as might be, the ardour of the forward party.

There were, indeed, many elements of danger near home which amply justified a cautious policy. James Stuart’s extraordinary lenity to the Catholic lords who had rebelled against him, and his known dallying with Spain and Rome, again suggested the possibility of a Spanish invasion of England over the Border, simultaneously with a rising of Catholics in England. The almost complete control of the coast of Brittany by the Spaniards, their recent seizure and fortification of a strong position in Brest harbour, and their continued intrigues in Ireland, all pointed to the aggressive policy against this country which Philip’s newly reorganised fleet enabled him to adopt. What would have caused but modified alarm to England a few years before, became much more terrible now that Henry IV. had become a Catholic and was making peace with the League. Elizabeth and her trusted advisers, therefore, kept Drake and Hawkins at home, and with the exception of sending Frobisher and Norris in the autumn of 1594 to oust the Spaniards from Brest harbour,[612] stood on the defensive.

Essex, often in temporary disgrace with the Queen, headstrong and inexperienced, was no match in diplomacy for Robert Cecil, fortified by the experience and sagacity of his father; but he had enlisted in his service some of the cleverest and most unscrupulous spies and agents to aid him. Wherever the Queen had an ambassador, or the Cecils an agent, Essex also had a man to represent his interest. Every envoy that came from James Stuart or Henry IV. to ask for aid which the Cecils considered it imprudent to give under the circumstances, was received by Essex and his friends with open arms; and counter intrigues were carried on through them against the policy of Lord Burghley. In Scotland, Holland, and France, it was Essex who posed as the friend at the expense of the Cecils.[613]

It had been to a considerable extent owing to the diplomacy of Antonio Perez that Henry IV. had decided to come to terms with the League, in order that the united forces of France might be opposed to the Spaniards. It was now Perez’s secret mission from the French King, with the aid of Essex, to exacerbate English feeling against Spain nationally, and to pledge Elizabeth to help him against the common enemy, independently of the question of religion. This would have been a distinct departure from the traditional policy of England, which had usually been to stand aloof whilst the two great rivals were fighting; and only the attachment of the King of France to the Protestant cause had for a time altered this policy. Elizabeth’s interests in France, now that Henry was a Catholic, were limited to preventing the permanent establishment of the Spanish power on the north coast opposite England, and to that end the Cecils directed their efforts. This, however, did not satisfy Essex and the war-party; and the persistent plots of the English Jesuits in Spain and Flanders[614] added constant fuel to the flame, which Perez so artfully fanned from Essex House.[615]

An opportunity occurred late in 1593 by which some of the instruments of the Cecils might be discredited, and a fresh blow dealt at the policy of cautious moderation. Many of the Portuguese gentlemen who surrounded the pretender, Don Antonio, had for years sold themselves both to Philip and to England—and played false to both. It has been seen that Lord Burghley’s network of secret intelligence, under the management of Phillips, was extremely extensive; and, amongst others, several of these Portuguese were employed.[616] The most popular physician in London at the time was Dr. Ruy Lopez, a Portuguese Jew, the Queen’s physician, who was frequently employed by Burghley as an intermediary with the spies, in order to avert suspicion from them. On several occasions suggestions had been made to Philip by these spies of plans to kill the pretender, and Lopez’s name had been mentioned to the Spanish Government as one who would be willing to undertake the task of poisoning him.

In 1590 one Andrada had been discovered in an act of treachery against Don Antonio, and arrested in England, and a letter of his to Mendoza had been intercepted, in which he said that he had won over Lopez to the cause of Spain. In another letter, not intercepted, he gave particulars of a proposal of Lopez to bring about peace between England and Spain, if a sum of money was paid to him. Through the influence of Lopez, however, Andrada was liberated, and sent abroad as a spy in the interests of England. Thenceforward for three years secret correspondence was known, by Lord Burghley, to be passing between Spanish agents in Flanders and Spain, and Dr. Lopez, through Andrada and others. The intermediaries were all double spies and scoundrels who would have stuck at nothing, and were so regarded by Lord Burghley; but Lopez was thought to be above suspicion, and to be acting solely in English interests. He had, however, made an enemy of Essex; and Perez artfully wheedled some admissions from him that he was in communication with Spanish agents about some great plan. In October 1593, Gama, one of the agents, was, at Essex’s suggestion, arrested in Lopez’s house and searched. The letters found upon him were enigmatical, but suspicious. Then another agent named Tinoco, with similar communications and bills of exchange in his pocket from Spanish ministers, was laid by the heels. Essex, prompted by Perez, was indefatigable in the examination of the men. They lied and prevaricated—for it is certain that they were paid by both sides; but one of them mentioned Dr. Lopez as being interested in some compromising papers found upon him, and suddenly on the 30th January the Queen’s physician was arrested. He was immediately carried to Cecil House in the Strand, and there examined by the Lord Treasurer, Sir Robert Cecil, and Essex.[617]

His answers seemed satisfactory to the Cecils, whose agent Lopez was, but did not please Essex. The Earl, however, was forestalled by Robert Cecil, who posted off to Hampton Court and assured Elizabeth of the physician’s innocence. Whilst he was assuring her that the only ground for the accusation—which had now assumed the form of a plot to murder the Queen—arose from the Earl’s hatred of Lopez, Essex was endeavouring to strengthen the proofs against the accused. When the Earl appeared at court the Queen burst out in a fury against him, called him a rash and temerarious youth to bring this ruinous accusation of high treason against her trusty servant from sheer malice, and told him that she knew Lopez was innocent, and her honour was at stake in seeing justice done. Gradually, however, the nets closed around the doctor. The Cecils did as much as they dared in his favour, but the presumptive evidence against him was too strong. The underlings competed with each other in the fulness of their confessions against Lopez, in hope of favour for themselves; and at length some sort of confession was said to have been wrung from Lopez himself,[618] Robert Cecil, with horror, was forced to admit his belief that he was guilty,[619] and Lopez and his fellow-criminals were executed at Tyburn early in June.[620] This, together with the simultaneous declaration of other Spanish Jesuit plots against the Queen, and the activity of Perez’s venomous pen, aroused a feeling of perfect fury against Philip and his country.

All eyes looked to Drake and the sailors again to punish Spain upon the sea. Talk of great expeditions to America, to the Azores, to Spain itself, ran from mouth to mouth. What had been done with impunity before, might, said the Englishmen, be done again, even though the King of France had become a Papist and was unworthy of English help. But the Queen was in one of her timid moods, and the Cecils held the reins tightly. Essex remained sulking or in disgrace for the greater part of the summer, and, we learn from a letter from Sir Thomas Cecil to his brother, only became ostensibly reconciled with the Lord Treasurer in August.

Little of the routine business passed through Lord Burghley’s hands now, thanks to the activity of his son, but we get a glance occasionally at the aged minister from friends and foes who visited him. In the latter category we may place the spy Standen, a place-hunter and double traitor, who had fastened himself upon Essex, and yet was for ever pestering Burghley for an appointment. Sometimes the Lord Treasurer pretended to forget who he was, sometimes he gravely and politely expressed his regret at his inability to help him; but on one occasion, at least, he let him know that as he had joined Essex he must expect nothing from him. Standen was hanging about Hampton Court in the spring, and when the Queen had left, thinking the Lord Treasurer would be less busy than usual, “he stepped into his Lordship’s bedchamber, and found him alone sitting by the fire.” After some compliments, the place-hunter, for the hundredth time, set forth his claims. Burghley replied as before, that Standen was in England for a long time after his return from abroad without even coming to salute him. Standen said he had been ill with ague; “but,” said the minister, “you have been about the court all the winter and must have had some good days. And,” he asked, “how is it I have not seen the statement the Queen told you to draw up about Spain and to hand to me?” Standen hemmed and ha’d, but at last had to confess that he had given the statement to Essex for the Queen six months before. “Then my Lord began to start in his chair, and to alter his voice and countenance from a kind of crossing and wayward manner which he hath, into a tune of choler,”[621] and told the spy that since he had begun with the Earl of Essex he had better go on with him, and hoped him well of it. Then angrily telling him some home-truths about his conduct, the Lord Treasurer dismissed the spy; though for the rest of the great minister’s life he was not free from his importunities.

It was not often that Lord Burghley thus exhibited anger, even to a man like Standen. We seem to know the aged statesman better in the following pathetic little word-picture contained in a letter from his faithful secretary, Sir Michael Hicks, to Sir Robert Cecil[622] (27th September): “My Lord called me to him this evening, and willed me to write to you in mine own name, to signify to you that the Judge of the Admiralty came hither to him a little before supper time, to let him understand that he was not furnished with sufficient matter to meet the French Ambassador, and required five or six days’ further respite … wherewith he (Burghley) was well contented … for at the time of his coming to him he found himself ill, and not fit to hear and deal in suits, and he doth so continue. And truly, methinks, he is nothing sprighted, but lying on his couch he museth or slumbereth. And being a little before supper at the fire, I offered him some letters and other papers, but he was soon weary of them, and told me he was unfit to hear suits. But I hope a good night’s rest will make him better to-morrow.”[623]

But though the great statesman was nearing his end, his mind was as keen as ever, and his influence was strong enough to prevent Essex from dragging England into an offensive war with Spain for the benefit of Henry IV. The Béarnais had still to cope with rebellion in various parts of his realm, and the Spaniards had secured a firm footing in Picardy and Brittany; his finances were in the utmost disorder, and against the advice of Sully he declared a national war against Philip in January. He had clamoured and cajoled in vain for more aid from Elizabeth, and in his pressing need had appealed with more success to the Hollanders.

This was the last straw. All the old distrust of the Burghley school against the French revived. The Queen was furious that these ingrate Dutchmen, whom she alone had rescued from the Spanish tyranny, should now curry favour with France. They owed her vast sums of money and eternal gratitude, they had offered her the sovereignty of their States, and yet instead of paying their debts and releasing some of her forces occupied in their service, they must needs seek fresh friends. If possible she was more indignant still with Henry; for, as we have seen, one of the two pivots upon which English policy turned was to exclude French influence in the Low Countries. Thomas Bodley was sent back to the States with reproaches for their ingratitude, and a peremptory demand that they should pay her what they owed her. Before he left England, however, he also was gained by Essex, and notwithstanding Burghley’s and the Queen’s strict instructions, was far more careful to provide excuses for the States than to press them.[624] Henry IV., too, never ceased to declare that unless much more English help was sent to him, the north of France would slip from his grasp whilst he was busy in the south; and in the autumn, point was given to his warning by the treacherous surrender of Cambray to the Spaniards. This was a direct danger to England, and Henry made the most of it by sending a special envoy to demand fresh English aid. But still Burghley was against violent measures, for a great Spanish fleet was being fitted out in Galicia, and Tyrone’s rebellion in Ireland was being actively promoted by Philip. Defence, as usual, was the first thought of the Lord Treasurer; and disabled as he was, he drew up in the autumn a complete scheme for the protection of the country against invasion.[625]

But though Elizabeth would not commence offensive warfare against Spain, she was induced to listen at last to Drake’s oft-rejected prayer for permission to raise a powerful privateer squadron to capture prizes and raid Panama. This was what people wanted. Drake’s name had not lost its magic, and volunteers joined in thousands, eager for fighting and loot under the great admiral. The ports of Spain and Portugal were panic-stricken at the mere prospect of a visit, and if the fleet had sailed promptly in the spring, Philip might have been crippled again. But the Queen and Burghley were still apprehensive, and loath to let Drake sail too far away. Suddenly on 23rd July four Spanish pinnaces landed 600 soldiers on the Cornish coast, and without resistance they ravaged and burnt the country round Penzance. It was a mere predatory raid from the Brittany coast; but it seemed to justify all Elizabeth’s fears, and, to Drake’s despair, she forbade him to go direct to Panama. He was, she said, to cruise about the Channel and Ireland for a month, then to intercept any fleet from Spain that might threaten, and finally to lay in wait for the Spanish treasure flotilla before he crossed the Atlantic. The orders doubtless originated from Howard, who was as cautious as Burghley himself; but Drake and his officers flatly refused to obey them. They had, they said, on the Queen’s commission fitted out at vast expense a private fleet for a certain purpose, and it was utterly inappropriate to the service now demanded of it. The Queen was angry, and, as usual, called upon Burghley to refute the strategical arguments of the sailors, which he did in a learned minute. But it was never sent, for Drake was obviously in the right, and the Queen was obliged to give way. She made Drake pledge his honour to be back in England again in the following May to fight the new Armada, and, on the 28th August, Drake and Hawkins sailed out of Plymouth to failure and death.

All through the year, with but short intervals of comparative ease, Lord Burghley remained ill, but manfully determined to perform his duty. His letters to his son, written, of course, with greater freedom than to others, disclose more of his private feelings than we have been able to see at any earlier period of his career. Both in these letters and those of his secretaries the note touched is intense devotion to the public service at any cost to his own repose. Maynard writes to Sir Robert Cecil (23rd December 1594) that the sharp weather had increased the Lord Treasurer’s pain. “But for your coming hither his Lordship says you shall not need, although you shall hear his amendment is grown backward.” A few months later at Theobalds, Clapham sends to Sir Robert very unfavourable news of the invalid, and in the following month of May we find him confined to his bed at Cecil House in London, suffering greatly, and fretting at his inability to go to court. In the autumn he tells his son that he is obliged to sign his letters with a stamp, “for want of a right hand”; but even then he concludes his letter thus—“And if by your speech with her Majesty she will not mislike to have so bold a person to lodge in her house, I will come as I am (in body not half a man, but in mind passable) to the muster of the rest of my good Lords, her Majesty’s Councillors, my good friends.… Upon your answer I will make no unnecessary delay, by God’s permission.”[626] In the midst of his pain his letters are full of directions upon State matters. In a letter to Cecil in October, urging the Queen to send prompt reinforcements to Ireland, which apparently she was inclined to neglect, he says, “My aching pains so increase that I am all night sleepless, though not idle in mind.”[627]

That the Lord Treasurer’s bodily weakness and overpowering political influence were recognised elsewhere than in England as a powerful factor in the international situation, is evident from the correspondence—amongst many others—of the Venetian Ambassador in France. Henry had gone north, and was besieging La Fère, in Picardy, in the late autumn, after the fall of Cambray, and had sent his agent Lomenie to England to support the efforts of Essex in his favour. But the Earl was in semi-disgrace, and the French agent went back with but small promises of aid. Henry was about to send a stronger envoy, Sancy, but Essex told him it would be useless, and the clever Béarnais, knowing best how to arouse Elizabeth’s jealousy, despatched Sancy to Holland. Thereupon the Venetian Ambassador writes to the Doge: “If Sancy went to England just now he would not find the Queen well disposed towards the policy of his Majesty (Henry IV.), not only on the grounds I have so often explained, but also because she does not approve of the conduct of the French ministers. The chief reason, however, is that there reigns a division in the councils of the Queen, and her two principal ministers are secretly in disaccord. One of these ministers, the Lord Treasurer, is very ill-disposed towards the crown of France, and uses all his influence to prevent the Queen from taking an active part in this direction. There is a strong suspicion that he has been bought by Spanish gold. The other nobleman, a prime favourite with the Queen, is of the contrary opinion, urging that every effort should be made to quench the fire in one’s neighbour’s house to prevent one’s own from being burnt. The Queen is in the greatest perplexity. The Lord Treasurer, in addition to his other arguments, urges the plea of economy, to which women are naturally more inclined than men. All the same, no efforts are being spared to dispose her mind, so that should Sancy go to England he may easily obtain all he asks for.”[628]

When it became evident that Henry was again appealing to the States, Elizabeth was forced to make a counter-move, and decided to send Sir Henry Unton to offer further English help, if certain French towns, especially Calais, were placed in her hands as security. It was clear that Henry neither could nor would agree to such terms, and probably the Queen and Burghley were quite aware of the fact; but upon Unton’s embassy Essex founded a regular conspiracy for the purpose of outwitting the Cecils and dragging England into war. Antonio Perez had already been sent back to France in July 1595, self-pitying and lachrymose at leaving the luxury of Essex House to follow a camp; but to be received in France almost with royal consideration, and to be welcomed once more as the bosom friend of the King. He betrayed everybody; but his real mission was to send alarming news to Essex as to Henry’s intentions, in order that Elizabeth might be frightened into an alliance with him to prevent his joining her enemies against her. Perez thought more of his own discomfort than of his English patron’s policy, and had to be brought to book more than once. The Earl sent Sir Roger Williams to upbraid him for not making matters more lively. “I am doing,” says the Earl, “what I can to push on war in England; but you! you! Antonio, what are you doing on that side?”

But when Unton went on his mission early in January 1596, a stronger ally than Perez was gained. He was entirely in Essex’s interests, and received secret instructions from the Earl.[629] Perez and Unton were to work together, of course without the knowledge of Sir Thomas Edmonds, the regular Ambassador, who was a “Cecil man.” Henry IV. was to be prompted to feign anger and indignation with England, and threaten to make friends with Spain. “He must so use the matter as Unton may send us thundering letters, whereby he must drive us to propound and to offer.” Perez, too, was to keep the game alive by assuring Essex that a treaty was on foot between France and Spain, and to reproach Essex for allowing Unton to be sent on such an errand as would mortally offend the King.

But the Cecils were too clever for Essex and Perez combined. One of Perez’s secretaries played him false, for which he was afterwards imprisoned in the Clink by Essex; and it is probable that the threads of the intrigue, all through, were in the hands of Burghley. In any case, there was no great change in Elizabeth’s policy,[630] and Unton himself died in France before his mission was complete (23rd March 1596). Only a few days afterwards news reached London that the Spaniards were marching on Calais. This, at all events, was calculated to arouse Elizabeth to action; and on Easter Sunday 1596 all the church doors in London were suddenly closed during service, and there and then a number of the men-worshippers pressed for service. They were hurriedly armed and on the same night marched to Dover for embarkation under Essex. No sooner were the men on board and ready to sail than a counter order came from London. Essex was frantic, and wrote rash and foolish letters to the Queen and the Lord Admiral. He writes to Sir Robert Cecil on the same day: “O! pray get the order altered. I have written to the Queen in a passion. Pray plead for me, that I may not be disgraced by any one else commanding the succour whilst I have done the work. Pray do not show the Queen my letter to the Admiral; it is too passionate.”[631] Almost in sight of Essex, the day after this was written (14th), the citadel of Calais fell into the hands of the Spaniards, and Elizabeth found she had overreached herself.[632] When Unton had asked for Calais as the price of her help, the Béarnais had said, with his usual oath, that he would see it in the hands of the Spaniards first; and for once he had told the truth.

The blow to Elizabeth’s policy was undoubtedly a severe one, and a counter-stroke had to be delivered. The old project which on several occasions had been submitted by Howard to the Council for an attack upon the shipping in Cadiz harbour, was revived. Essex was all aflame in the business from the first; but the Queen changed her mind from day to day. “The Queen,” wrote Reynolds in May,[633] “is daily changing her humour about my Lord’s voyage, and was yesterday almost resolute to stay it, using very hard words of my Lord’s wilfulness.” Lord Burghley appears to have been very ill at the time of the preparations;[634] but he was sufficiently well to secure the appointment of the aged Lord Admiral to the joint command of the fleet, to the discontent, and almost despair, of Essex; and to pen an order from the Queen strictly limiting the objects of the expedition to the destruction of the Spanish ships manifestly intended for the invasion of England. The great fleet of 96 sail, with a contingent of 24 sail of Hollanders, left Plymouth on the 5th June, and on the 20th appeared before the astounded eyes of the citizens of Cadiz. The divided command, and the small experience of actual fighting at sea of Howard and Essex, was nearly bringing about a disaster to the English; but at a critical moment Ralegh’s advice was taken. The fleet sailed boldly into the harbour, and destroyed the shipping first, and then captured and sacked the city.

It was the greatest blow that had ever been dealt to the power of Spain; and it proved that Philip’s system was rotten, and that the Spanish pretensions were incapable of being sustained by force of arms. When Essex came back he found that Sir Robert Cecil had been appointed Secretary of State (July) in his absence.[635] The Queen was fractious, and offended that her orders had been exceeded, and above all, that she had not received so much booty as she expected; and for a time Essex was kept at arm’s length. But now that Cecil had obtained the coveted post of Secretary, he wisely endeavoured to make friends with Essex, who had so bitterly opposed him;[636] and, greatly to the Queen’s delight, a new appearance of cordiality between them was the result. Sir Robert even brought Ralegh into the circle of grace. He had been for five years under the Queen’s frown, but Cadiz had made him friendly with Essex, and now Cecil and Essex together brought about a reconciliation with the Queen. On the 2nd June 1597 Ralegh once more knelt before his royal mistress, and donned his long-neglected silver armour as captain of the guard.

The sacking of Cadiz had irretrievably ruined Philip’s prestige; but it had not deprived him of all material resources, heavy and ceaseless as had been the drain upon his treasury for the war in France. The Irish chiefs left him no peace from their importunities, and assured him again and again that with the aid of a few men the island might be his, and Elizabeth and the heretics at his mercy. Promises, sums of money, and slight succour were sent from time to time; but the insult of Cadiz and the exhortations of the Church, at length prevailed upon the King to attempt one great effort in Ireland to crush his enemy before swift approaching death struck him down. We understand now that such a system as his foredoomed to failure any attempt to organise promptly an efficient naval armament; for penury, peculation, delay, and ineptitude were the natural result of the minutest details being jealously retained in the hands of an overworked hermit hundreds of miles away from the centre of activity. But in England the news of his intentions caused far greater apprehension than we now know that they deserved; and Essex was again all eagerness to take out another fleet, and repeat elsewhere the coup of Cadiz.

This time he found no obstacles raised by the Cecils. In a biography of Lord Burghley, it is not necessary to probe the vexed question of the sincerity of Sir Robert Cecil’s reconciliation with Essex. Most inquirers of late years have assumed, with some show of justification, that it was from the first a deep-laid plot of Cecil, perhaps with Ralegh’s co-operation, to ruin the Earl, as in its results it certainly did. But without admitting this, or at least implicating Burghley himself in such a plan,[637] it may fairly be assumed that when Cecil saw how smoothly things went for him, and how soon he obtained the Secretaryship when Essex was absent, he may have welcomed any opportunity of again getting rid of so turbulent and quarrelsome a colleague.[638] The earl’s pride and jealousy had also taken from him much of the Queen’s regard, and she was determined to humble or to break him. The first project had been to raise a small expedition under Ralegh and Lord Thomas Howard to intercept the Spanish treasure fleets; but when it became known that the Adelantado of Castile was making ready a fleet of 100 ships and a powerful army in the Galician ports, Essex proposed a great enlargement of the plan. He was authorised to raise a force of 120 ships, the Dutchmen were induced to send a strong contingent, and with infinite labour Essex and Ralegh induced the Queen to consent to their plan for burning the Spanish fleet, in port or wherever they could find it, and then to intercept and capture the homeward-bound flotillas from the East and West Indies.

Lord Burghley’s attitude is seen by a cordial letter he wrote to Essex early in May (State Papers, Domestic). “I thank you,” he says, “for not reproving my objections for the resolutions for conference. I hope to see you at Court to-morrow, if God by over-great pains do not countermand me. I like so well to attempt something against our Spanish enemy that I hope God will prosper the purpose.”

The fleets gathered in Plymouth Sound early in July, and sailed in three fine squadrons under Essex, Thomas Howard, and Ralegh respectively.[639] On the day he sailed unsuspecting Essex in the fulness of his heart wrote a fervent letter of thanks to Cecil.[640] He would, he said, never forget his kindness whilst he lived; “and if I live to return, I will make you think your friendship well professed.” Unfortunately he returned sooner than he expected, for the fleets were caught in a storm and driven back with much suffering and danger. Famine and sickness broke out, and for a whole month the fleets were wind-bound in the Channel, whilst the Queen began to waver about allowing her ships and men to be exposed again so late in the season. Once more the aged Lord Treasurer wrote to Essex on his return (July 23), “It is not right that I should condole with you for your late torment at sea, for I am sure that would but increase your sorrow, and be no relief to me. I am but as a monoculus, by reason of a flux falling into my left eye; and you see the impediment by my evil writing and short letter.… In the time of this disaster I did by common usage of my morning prayer on the 23rd of every month, in the 107th Psalm, read these nine verses proper for you to repeat, and especially six of them, which I send to you. This letter savours more of divinity. As for humanity, I refer you to the joint-letter from the Lord Admiral, myself, and my son.”[641]

Essex and Ralegh posted to London early in August and prayed the Queen to let them resume their voyage. “Only,” said Essex, “allow me to take half the ships and to do as I please where I like, and I will perform a worthy service.” But the Queen would not hear of such a thing, nor should they with her permission enter any Spanish port at all. At last, as a compromise, she consented to Ralegh’s sending a few fire-ships into Ferrol, on condition that Essex was to keep quite away from the enterprise; and to be sure she should be obeyed, she insisted upon the soldiers being left at home. At length, on the 17th August, the truncated expedition again sailed. Disaster, jealousy and division dogged it from the first. Another great storm drove the squadrons asunder. The winds prevented them from approaching Ferrol. Ralegh, under a misunderstanding, attacked Fayal, in the Azores, in the absence of Essex, and the sycophants around the Earl bred evil blood between them. The main body of the flotillas from the Indies escaped them; and eventually Essex, with his ships battered and disabled, crept into Plymouth at the end of October, bringing with them hardly sufficient plunder to pay their expenses. Fortunately in their absence the Spanish fleet for the invasion of Ireland had also been driven back and practically destroyed by a storm, and all present danger from that quarter had disappeared.

Essex found that in his absence the Lord Admiral had been made Earl of Nottingham, which, in conjunction with his office, gave him precedence, and that Secretary Cecil had been made Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The Earl was furious, and sulked at Wanstead instead of going to court; but the old Lord Treasurer was once more amiability itself—as well he might be, for his son was winning all along the line. On the 9th November he wrote to the Earl, “My writing manifests my sickness. Some of your friends say that the cause of your absence is sickness, so I send my servant to ascertain your health. I wish I could remedy any other cause of your absence; but writing will do no good. It requires another manner of remedy, in which you may command my service.”[642] And again, ten days later, “I hoped you would have come to court for the fortieth anniversary of her Majesty’s coronation. I hear, to my sorrow, that you have been really sick, but hope you will soon be back at court, where you shall find a harvest of business, needful for many heads, wits, and hands.”[643]

Although the young Earl obstinately absented himself from court, he seems to have sent a letter of thanks and friendship to Lord Burghley; for the latter on the 30th November writes expressing his joy at the Earl’s contentment, but chiding him for his continued absence, which he says is exposing him to “diversity of censures.” “I find,” he says, “her Majesty sharp to such as advise her to that which it were meet for her to do, and for you to receive. My good Lord, overcome her with yielding without disparagement of your honour, and plead your own cause with your presence; whereto I will be as serviceable as any friend you have, to my power—which is not to run, for lack of good feet, nor to fight, for lack of good hands, but ready with my heart to command my tongue to do you due honour.”[644] At length, probably at the suggestion of Burghley, the angry Queen made Essex Earl-Marshal, which gave him precedence over Howard, and he came back to court sulky and quarrelsome, galled that cooler heads and keener wits than his could work their will in spite of him.

In the meanwhile the war between France and Spain was wearing itself out. Since the conversion of Henry IV. matters were gradually working back into their natural groove of nationalities instead of faiths. Philip was bankrupt in purse, broken in spirit, and already on the brink of the grave; but the awful sacrifices his ruined country had made had at least prevented France from becoming a Protestant country. He was leaving Flanders to his beloved daughter Isabel, and wished to bequeath to her peace as well. By Henry’s treaty with England and the United Provinces two years before he had bound himself to make common cause with them against the King of Spain; but the main cause of his own quarrel with Spain had nearly disappeared, for the Leaguers were now mostly on his side, and for a year past the Pope (Clement VIII.) had been busy trying to bring about a reconciliation between the two great Catholic powers. The pontiff assured Henry that he was not bound to keep faith with heretics, and might break the treaty with Elizabeth and Holland. “I have,” replied the Béarnais, “pledged my faith to the Queen of England and the United Provinces. How could I treat to their detriment, or even fail in a single point, without betraying my duty, my honour, and my own interests? No pretext would excuse such baseness and perfidy, and if it could, sooner than avail myself of it I would lose my life.”

But when, in the autumn of 1597, the Spaniards were finally routed at Amiens, it was evident that Spain could fight no longer, and that the moment for peace had come. The Archduke, who was to marry the new sovereign of Flanders, was especially anxious for peace before the Spanish King died, and at his instance advances to Henry were made. This was the last great international question in which Burghley was personally interested, and by a curious coincidence it brought once more to the front the traditional English policy, of which he was the representative; a policy which had for many years past been broken and interrupted by the religious position on the Continent. The growing power and ambition of the Dutch United Provinces, and their aid sent to Henry IV. against Spain, together with Henry’s conversion to Catholicism, had once more aroused the fear of England that by an arrangement between them the French might dominate Spanish Flanders. The project of making the Infanta and her husband practically independent sovereigns of the Belgic provinces was therefore eminently favourable to English interests, and drew England once more irresistibly to the side of Spain, as against the Dutchmen and Henry IV.; for the possession of Flanders by the French (or now even by the strong pushing young Republic under French influence) was one of the two eventualities against which for centuries the traditional policy of England had been directed. Coincident, therefore, with Henry’s negotiations, secret approaches were made by England to the Archduke, and once more, after a half-century of fighting, England was smiling as of old on a “Duke of Burgundy,” as against a French King.[645]

In November Henry sent envoys to the States and to England to demand further aid, but with the alternative of a peace conference. The Dutchmen thought they had been betrayed, and indignantly said so; refusing absolutely to make peace with ruined, defeated Spain, except on their own terms, and in their own time. Elizabeth had far greater reason than they for indignation with her ally, and had to be approached more gently and with greater diplomacy. De Maisse, Henry’s envoy, arrived in London on the 2nd, and was received by the Queen on the 8th December. He found the Cecils absolute masters of the Council; for all of Burghley’s predictions of the falsity of Frenchmen had come true, and his objection to the treaty of alliance (May 1596) had been more than justified. Essex, only just returned to court from his sulky fit at Wanstead, took in earnest Henry’s demands for reinforcements against Spain, and was all for fighting again, whilst Burghley of course understood them to be only a mask for the peace suggestion. The Queen and Burghley were determined to assume indignation and grievance in order that, in the coming peace, they might get the best possible terms for England; indignant, however, as they might pretend to be, there was nothing they desired more than a pacification that should open all ports to English trade and leave Flanders in the hands of a modest, moderate sovereign under the guarantee of Spain. But withal it behoved them to walk warily, for Spain had outwitted them in the peace negotiations of 1588, and Protestant Holland could not be abandoned.

On the 8th December De Maisse was received in State by Elizabeth at Whitehall,[646] whither Lord Burghley was brought in a litter, but Essex was still absent. The Queen was enigmatical but polite, and referred the envoy to Lord Burghley, with whom he conferred on the 10th, when it became evident that the object of the English was to gain time whilst other negotiations were proceeding. The Queen exerted all her wiles and ancient coquetry on De Maisse to delay matters, and not without success; whilst she inflamed Caron, the envoy of the Dutch States, with hints of Henry’s desertion and perfidy, in order to embitter French relations with them.

At length Henry IV. got tired of this buckler play, and De Maisse plainly told Elizabeth that the King considered that her delay in giving him a definite answer released him from his pledges under the treaty of alliance. Again he was referred to Burghley, whom he saw again early in January. The Queen could not treat with the Archduke, said the Treasurer. If her envoys were to attend a peace conference, it could only be with the representatives of the King of Spain; besides, he said, the Queen must settle with States before she entered into any negotiations at all. It was well known to Henry and his minister at this time that brisk secret negotiations were being conducted between Elizabeth and the Archduke; and in a final interview with Burghley on 10th January, De Maisse gave him an ultimatum. His master must make peace or be supported in war. Essex was present at the interview; and although the Lord Treasurer invited him to speak he remained obstinately silent, except to say that he did not see how religious dissensions would allow of peace being made with Spain.

At length Burghley announced that the Queen would send an embassy to France to settle with Henry the whole question of peace or war, in conjunction with an embassy from the States. The embassy consisted of Sir Robert Cecil, Sir Thomas Wilkes, and Dr. Herbert; and the instructions taken by them are contained in the last of the important State papers written by the failing hand of the great statesman. The document is a long and sagacious one, laying down as an absolute condition of any peace with Spain that the United Provinces should be secured from all fear of future attempts to subdue them. An earnest desire for peace breathes all through the document, but it must be a real peace, which acknowledged accomplished facts, abandoned inflated claims, and recognised the rights of Protestantism to equal treatment.

Cecil and his companions embarked from Dover on the 17th February, and on the death of Wilkes in Rouen, the whole burden of the embassy fell upon the Secretary. It was not until they reached Angers on the 21st that Cecil saw the King. In effect the Béarnais had already made peace secretly with the Archduke; the States were determined that they would give up no tittle of their hard-won independence, and haughtily refused even a truce if their rights were not recognised. England dared not abandon them, so that Cecil on his interview with Henry could only reproach him for his desertion of the ally to whom he owed so much. Henry replied that his position was such that he could not do otherwise. “I am,” he said, “like a man clothed in velvet that hath no meat to put in his mouth.”[647]

On the 28th March Cecil received a letter from his father dated the 1st, which caused him deep alarm. “The bearer,” it said, “will report to you my great weakness. But do not take any conceit thereby to hinder your service; but I must send you a message delivered to me in writing by Mr. Windebanke. I make no comment, not knowing out of what shop the text is come, but in my opinion non sunt ponendi rumores ante salutem. God bless you in earth and me in heaven, the place of my present pilgrimage.”[648] Cecil unwillingly followed Henry to Nantes on his hollow errand; but this letter disturbed him, and at the earliest moment he took leave of France and returned, although on the way somewhat better news reached him. “Mr. Secretary returned the 1st of the month” (May), says Chamberlain, “somewhat crazed with his posting journey, the report of his father’s dangerous state gave him wings; but for aught I can learn the old man’s case is not so desperate but he may hold out another year well enough.”[649]