[404] A sum of no less than 400,000 crowns was openly provided by Elizabeth for the States at the request of the Catholic Flemish nobles.

[405] Hatfield Papers.

[406] See the extraordinary Italian letter of this period from Baptista de Trento to the Queen, in which nearly the whole of her nobility (including Leicester and Sussex) are accused (Hatfield Papers), and also a letter written by Burghley to Lord Shrewsbury, after his return from Buxton, warning him to keep his eyes on Mary, who was, he said, suspected of suborning some of Shrewsbury’s servants. The persecuting Bishop of London (Aylmer) also wrote at the same time to Burghley urging him to “use more severity than hath hitherto been used; or else we shall smart for it. For as sure as God liveth they look for an invasion, or else they (the Catholics) would not fall away as they do” (Strype’s Aylmer).

[407] According to his own statement the case against him was divulged to Burghley by some of the Catholic Flemish nobles who were aware of his former practices; but there are many indications in his letters up to the time of his arrest, that he was a party to plots then in progress, especially one with Colonel Chester and others.

[408] An interesting minute on the subject, in Burghley’s writing, is in Hatfield Papers (part ii., No. 531). Two personages were to be sent from England to bring about peace: one to the States, and the other to Don Juan. The States were to be reminded that they owed gratitude to Elizabeth for risking war with Spain on their behalf, and aiding them with £85,000; and the envoy was to point out to them the danger of their receiving French help. The French, they are to be told, may either turn and side with the enemy, or try to keep the country for themselves. As a last resort, the English envoy is to be authorised to offer English aid if the States will desist from dealing with the French.

Don Juan, on the other hand, is to be told that if he does not make terms with the States, the French will conquer the country, in which case the Queen will send such aid to the States as will enable them to hold their own against everybody. As usual with Burghley’s minutes, there is at the end a carefully-balanced summary of possibilities, and courses to be pursued, all tending to the same end—the exclusion of the French from Flanders. The mission in question was that of June 1578, the envoys being Lord Cobham and Walsingham.

[409] For a wonder, on this occasion Sussex sided with his enemy Leicester, although, as will be seen, only for a short time.

[410] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[411] Grindall, Archbishop of Canterbury, had been deprived by the Queen for neglecting to suppress the “prophesying”; and Sandys, Archbishop of York, was also in disgrace; but, as Strype says, “his good friend Lord Burghley stood up for him.” He certainly did so in the case of Grindall, who kept up a constant correspondence with the “good Lord Treasurer.”

[412] Add. MSS., 15,891; 21st April 1578.

[413] To such an extent was this so, that whilst, according to Mendoza, money and men were constantly being sent to Flanders, and Leicester and Walsingham were planning the murder of Don Juan and the expulsion of Mendoza from England, “I can assure your Majesty that the Earl of Sussex is sincerely attached to your Majesty’s interests, and Cecil also, though not so openly. But if he and Sussex are properly treated they will both be favourable, and their good disposition will be much strengthened when they see it rewarded.” His suggestion was that Burghley and Sussex should be granted large pensions. It will be observed that Sussex had already broken free from Leicester.

[414] Elizabeth appears to have been very angry about Gondi’s mission. “She told him,” says Mendoza, “loudly in the audience chamber, that she knew very well he had come to disturb her country, and to act in favour of the worst woman in the world, whose head should have been struck off long ago. She was sure he had not come with the knowledge of his King, but only of some of those who surrounded him. Gondi replied that the Queen of Scots was a sovereign, as she was, and her own kinswoman, and it was not surprising that efforts should be made on her behalf. The Queen answered him angrily, that she should never be free as long as she lived, even if it cost her (Elizabeth) her realm and her own liberty. The Queen-mother, she said, must surely know what Mary had attempted against her.” (5th May 1578; Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.)

[415] Mendoza dilates much upon the venality of the English Council, and says, “I am told by a person in the palace, that, even in the matter of giving me audience readily, the Queen has been considerably influenced by the gloves and perfumes I gave her when I arrived.”

[416] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, and also a letter from Sussex to Burghley in November, printed by Lodge, vol. ii.; also Sussex to Burghley, Hatfield Papers, part ii., where he mentions that “Burghley also had been ill-used by lewd speech. I will on all occasions stick as near to you as your shirt is to your back.” (5th November 1578.)

[417] This was true. The treaty of Nerac was signed in February 1579 by Henry of Navarre, now the acknowledged leader.

[418] Cobham, Wilkes, and Smith had all been sent back with a short answer.

[419] Sir Thomas Cecil to Burghley, and Lord Lincoln to the same (Hatfield Papers).

[420] Hatton to Burghley, 28th September 1578 (Hatfield Papers).

[421] There are many hundreds of such letters as these at Hatfield and in the Lansdowne MSS.

[422] Hatfield State Papers, part ii.

[423] Mendoza, writing on 8th April, says, “Lord Burghley is not so much opposed to the match as formerly; but I cannot discover whether he and Sussex have changed their minds because they think that they may thus bring about the fall of Leicester, and avenge themselves upon him for old grievances, and for his having advanced to the office of Chancellor an enemy of theirs” (i.e. Bromley). On another occasion, when the Queen learned of the Papal-Spanish expedition to Ireland to aid the Desmonds in Munster, she was so much alarmed that she dropped the French negotiations for some days and refused to see Simier.

[424] It has not been noticed by Burghley’s biographers that, true to his cautious character, he found an excuse for going into Northamptonshire shortly before Alençon arrived in London. He writes an interesting letter to Hatton from Althorpe, dated 9th August (Nicholas’s “Life of Hatton”), in reply to the advices respecting the fortifying of the Papal force at Dingle, in Kerry. The ships must be sent against them, he says, double-manned, “as there is no good access by land.” He is very jealous of foreigners setting foot in Ireland, for fear any “discontentation grow betwixt France and us upon a breach of this interview (i.e. with Alençon), or if the King of Spain shall be free from his troubles in the Low Country.” He approves of the agreement of Cologne and the pacification of Ghent, whereby Holland and Zeeland were to remain Protestant, and Flanders Catholic, rather than the war should go on. “On Tuesday morning we will be at Northampton, where after noon we mean to hear the babbling matters of the town for the causes of religion, wishing that we may accord them all in mind and action; at least we will draw them to follow one line by the rule of the laws, or else make the contrariant feel the sharpness of the same law.” On the same day Burghley wrote a vigorous letter to Walsingham directing energetic action in Ireland.

[425] Burghley’s minutes of the deliberations are in Hatfield Papers, part ii.

[426] Hatfield Papers, part ii.

[427] The original draft of the protocol in Simier’s handwriting is in the Hatfield Papers. A most valuable digest or “time-table,” in Burghley’s handwriting, of the whole of the negotiations for the Queen’s marriage up to the period of Simier’s departure, will be found in the Hatfield Papers, part ii.

[428] Allen’s famous English seminary had been transferred to Rheims under the patronage of the Guises, and a great number of young priests were continually sent into England, especially after 1579, the first members of the Jesuit mission, Persons and Campion, arriving in 1580.

[429] Mendoza at this period writes to the King of the enormous number of ships being built. “This,” he says, “makes the English almost masters of the commerce … as they have a monopoly of shipping, whereby they profit by all the freights.” Burghley was an untiring promoter of extension of legitimate trade, as he was a constant enemy to piracy. He was at this time promoting Humphrey Gilbert’s colonisation schemes in North America, the enterprises of Frobisher and his friends in Hudson’s Bay, the trade of the Muscovy Company, the overland route to the Caspian by the White Sea and the Volga, and other similar adventures; but, as we shall have occasion to see later, he disapproved entirely of Drake’s proceedings in the Pacific, and other expeditions of a wantonly aggressive character.

[430] Hatfield Papers, part ii.

[431] Sadler State Papers.

[432] The intention, however, was not carried out. In the summer Lord Shrewsbury wrote to Lady Burghley asking her to prevail upon her husband to obtain the Queen’s permission for Mary Stuart to go to Buxton and Chatsworth. Lady Burghley in her reply suggests that the Queen was angry and refused. Mary, however, did go to Buxton later, but not to Chatsworth.

[433] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth. Burghley’s interest in naval affairs was great. He had, when danger threatened from Alba, in the summer of 1578, elaborated a scheme for the mobilisation of the navy, and had put fourteen ships into commission. The Council appear to have addressed to him most of their minutes respecting naval organisation, instead of to the Lord Admiral.

[434] The Duke Hans Casimir was in England at the time (January 1580), and took a large sum of money back with him for the purpose in question.

[435] This was actually the case at the time so far as Scotland itself as apart from Mary was concerned. There is in the Hatfield Papers of this date (1580) a fervent appeal from James VI. to the King of France, begging for assistance in force to release his mother, and support him against his heretic subjects. Mendoza also reports (4th September 1580) that Guise had just recognised James’s title of King for the first time, and that intimate relations were being formed between the courts of Scotland and France. This probably arose from the long delay of the reply from Spain to Mary, Guise, and the Archbishop of Glasgow, relative to their offer of complete submission to Philip. The whole matter, however, was changed in the following year, and thenceforward Mary and her friends depended upon Spain alone.

[436] In Strype’s “Annals,” in extenso.

[437] Hatfield Papers. Another letter of this period (June 1580) from Sussex to Lord Burghley (Hatfield Papers) shows forcibly the affection and veneration he felt for him. “I do love, honour, and reverence you as a father, and do you all the service we can as far as any child you have, with heart and hand.… The true fear of God which your actions have always shown to be in your heart, the great and deep care you have had for the honour and safety of the Queen … and the continual trouble you have of long time taken for the benefit of the commonwealth, and the upright course you have always taken respecting the matter, and not the person, in all causes … have tied me to your Lordship in that knot which no worldly frailty can break.”

[438] See her letter to Henry III. (Hatfield State Papers, 27th July 1580).

[439] According to Drake’s statement given in Cooke’s narrative in Vaux, Drake was presented to the Queen by Walsingham; but Doughty, of whom we shall speak presently, asserted when he was on his trial that he, who was a great friend of Drake, and private secretary to Hatton, had interested the latter in the project, and that it was he who persuaded the Queen to countenance Drake.

[440] 20th June 1578. Doughty confessed that he had given Burghley a plan of the voyage. It was this, unquestionably, that sealed Doughty’s fate.

[441] Mendoza writes to the King (23rd October 1580): “Sussex, Burghley, Crofts, the Admiral, and others insist that the Queen should retain the treasure in her own hands in the Tower, and if your Majesty will give them the satisfaction they desire about Ireland, the treasure may be restored, after reimbursing the adventurers for their outlay.… Leicester and Hatton advocate that Drake should not be personally punished, nor made to restore the plunder if the business is carried before the tribunals. The fine excuse they give is that there is nothing in the treaties between the countries which prohibits Englishmen from going to the Indies.”

[442] Spanish State Papers.

[443] D’Ewes’ Journal.

[444] Sir Walter Mildmay introduced a bill in this Parliament by which reconciliation to Rome should be punishable as high treason, the saying of mass by a fine of 200 marks and a year’s imprisonment, and the hearing of mass half that penalty. Absence from church was to be punished by a fine of £20 a month, and unlicensed schoolmasters were to be imprisoned for a year. The bill met with much opposition by the Lords and by Burghley’s party, and was somewhat lessened in severity before it became law.

[445] How entirely Elizabeth herself depended upon the Burghley policy now, is proved by a remark reported by Mendoza (27th February). D’Aubigny was quite paramount in Scotland, and Morton was in prison, his doom practically sealed. Mendoza reports that the Earl of Huntingdon, Leicester’s brother-in-law, Warden of the Marches, had connived at a raid of Borderers into England as far as Carlisle, where some Englishmen were killed, in order that he might have an excuse for crossing into Scotland and attacking Morton’s enemies. When the Queen heard of this she was extremely angry. “What is this I hear about Scotland?” she asked Walsingham. “Did I order anything of this sort to be done?” Walsingham minimised the affair. The answer was, “You Puritan! you will never be content until you drive me into war on all sides, and bring the King of Spain on to me.” (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.)

[446] It consisted of two very young princes of the blood sent for appearance’ sake, Francis de Bourbon, Dauphin d’Auvergne, and Charles de Bourbon, Count de Soissons; Marshal de Cossé, Pinart, La Mothe Fénélon, Brisson, and a great number of courtiers of rank. So desirous was Elizabeth that they should be impressed with the splendour of her court, that she ordered that the London mercers should sell their fine stuffs at a reduction of 25 per cent. in order that the courtiers might be handsomely dressed.

[447] Lodge, vol. ii.

[448] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[449] Hatfield Papers, part ii.

[450] Hatfield Papers, part ii.

[451] Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris: Fonds français, 3308.

[452] In addition to the letter of the Queen, there is another document signed by the Ambassadors and by the English Council, saying that the terms shall not be considered binding upon the Queen, unless within six weeks she and Alençon report in writing to the King of France that they have arranged certain personal questions to their mutual satisfaction. Both documents are printed in extenso in Digges.

[453] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth.

[454] The real reason for the Queen’s ostentatious slighting of Mendoza at the time was to draw the King of France on, and make him believe that she was willing to break with Spain.

[455] Walsingham to the Queen: “fearing lest when he should be embarqued your Majesty would slip the collar” (Walsingham Papers). See also Walsingham’s letters to Burghley, in the same.

[456] Burghley to Walsingham; in extenso in Digges.

[457] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[458] Hatfield State Papers, part ii.

[459] Burghley to Walsingham; in extenso in Digges.

[460] “Courtships of Queen Elizabeth,” by the present writer.

[461] See Camden; Memoires de Nevers; Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth; and “Courtships of Queen Elizabeth.”

[462] Wilkes, Clerk of the Council, was sent to confer with Mary upon the subject. His report in full is in State Papers, Scotland, and at Hatfield.

[463] See his own book, “Treatise on the Execution of Justice,” written in 1583 in answer to Allen’s attacks.

[464] See Simpson’s Life of Campion, Spanish State Papers, Camden’s Elizabeth, and Allen’s De Persecutione Anglicana.

[465] Burghley, writing to Lord Shrewsbury (Lansdowne MSS., 982) in August 1581, telling him of the trial and execution for treason of the priest Everard Duckett, who had denied the Queen’s authority, says in reference to Campion and his companions, “If they shall do the like, the law is like to correct them. For their actions are not matters of religion, but merely of state, tending directly to the deprivation of her Majesty’s crown.” Campion, he says, had been brought before Leicester and Bromley, but had not confessed anything of importance. It appears to have been the result of the admissions wrung from Campion and others about this time as to the houses in which they had lodged that led to the great number of Catholic arrests all over England.

[466] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[467] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[468] Ibid.

[469] Ralegh was certainly known to Leicester before this. He was attached to his suite when he accompanied Alençon to Antwerp in February; and always professed to be specially attached to him personally, even when he was lending his aid to his political opponents.

[470] B. M. Add. MSS., 15,891: Walsingham to Hatton.

[471] B. M. Lansdowne MSS., 36: Hatton to Burghley.

[472] The probable cause of the Queen’s displeasure with Oxford on this occasion was an affray between him and Sir Thomas Knyvett, one of the Queen’s Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, in March 1582. Nicholas Faunt writes to Anthony Bacon (Bacon Papers, vol. i.): “There has been a fray between my Lord of Oxford and Knyvett, who are both hurt, but Lord Oxford more dangerously. You know,” he adds, “Master Knyvett is not meanly beloved at court, and therefore is not likely to speed ill, whatsoever the quarrel be.” There is also a most interesting letter from Burghley to Hatton (12th March 1582, B. M. MSS., Add. 91), in which he begs him to intercede with the Queen for Oxford, and recites the whole of the accusations against him.

[473] State Papers, Domestic.

[474] Mary to Beton, 18th November 1582 (Spanish State Papers).

[475] Harl. MSS., 5397.

[476] Full particulars of De Maineville’s and La Mothe Fénélon’s missions in M. Chéruel’s Marie Stuart et Catherine de Medicis, drawn from the correspondence of La Mothe Fénélon and the archives of the D’Esneval family.

[477] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[478] See Beale’s instructions, Harl. MSS., 4663; also Beale’s report of his proceedings in Lord Calthorpe’s MSS.

[479] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[480] This is according to Beale’s official report. But on the following day (17th April 1583) Beale wrote to Lord Burghley (Harl. MSS., 4663), saying that she had abandoned all ambition, she was old and ill, and was ready to swear to anything for her liberation. This, however, was before she received Mendoza’s letter (6th May?) advising her on no account to accept her release (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth).

[481] The Queen had nicknames for most of her friends; Burghley was the Leviathan or the Spirit, Hatton was Bellwether or Lyddes, Walsingham was Moon, Alençon was Frog, Simier was Ape, Ralegh was Water, Leicester was Sweet Robin, and so forth.

[482] Printed in Dr. Nares’ Life of Burghley.

[483] See letter from a Scottish gentleman to De Maineville, 13th July (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth), and Mary to Mendoza, of same date (ibid.).

[484] See letter of Castelnau to Henry III., 1st July; in extenso in Chéruel’s Marie Stuart. How completely Mary distrusted the French and Castelnau at the time, notwithstanding her cordial letters to them, may be seen by a paragraph in her letter to Mendoza of 13th July (Spanish State Papers). The recognition of James as King by La Mothe’s embassy had confirmed Mary’s determination to depend only upon the Spaniards.

[485] One of Elizabeth’s movements as soon as she heard the news was to summon Lord Arbroath, the eldest of the Hamiltons, from France, to proceed to Scotland in her pay. See letter, Mary to Castelnau, September (Hatfield Papers), and Mendoza to the King, 19th August (Spanish State Papers).

[486] Guise sent Persons (alias Melino) to the Pope in August, giving him an account of his plans. Four thousand Spaniards were to land at Dalton-in-Furness, Lancashire, whilst Guise made a descent on Sussex, simultaneously with a rising of Catholics in the North of England and on the Scottish Border (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, 22nd August).

[487] Walsingham’s disinclination to undertake the mission is quite comprehensible. He was at the time engaged in a complicated intrigue with the triple traitor Archibald Douglas, by which he learnt the secrets of Mary Stuart; and at the same time he and Leicester were making approaches to Mary Stuart and James, for a marriage between the latter and Lady Dorothy Devereux, the step-daughter of Leicester, on condition of James being declared the heir of England. See letters from Mary to Castelnau, September 1583 (Hatfield Papers, part iii.), and Mendoza to the King, 13th March 1583 (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth); also Castelnau to Henry, 1st January 1584 (Harl. MSS., 1582), and the same to Mary (Harl. MSS., 387). The heads of Walsingham’s instructions are in Hatfield Papers, part iii.

[488] Mendoza to the King, 19th August (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth).

[489] Many of her compromising letters to Mendoza were intercepted and read. Mary herself, writing to Elizabeth from Tutbury (29th September 1584), thanking her for her change of lodging, protests against the stoppage of her correspondence with the French Ambassador Castelnau. “All that I write,” she says, “passes through the hands of your people, who see, read, examine, and keep back in order to point out to me any fault if they find in it anything offensive or injurious to you” (Harl. MSS., 4651). This was more true than Mary thought when she wrote it, for she had no idea that some of her more compromising letters to the Spaniards were read. A letter from Mary to Sir Francis Englefield, Philip’s English Secretary (9th October 1584), contains the following dangerous words: “Of the treaty between the Queen of England and me I may neither hope nor look for good issue. Whatsoever shall come of me, by whatsoever change of my state and condition, let the execution of the great plot go forward without any respect of peril or danger to me.” And she continues by saying that the plan (i.e. the rising and invasion) must take place at latest next spring or the cause will be ruined.

[490] There are several reasons for believing that the prosecution of Somerville, the Ardens, Throgmorton, and others, was not entirely honest on the part of Leicester. Somerville was obviously a madman, and was strangled in his cell; the estates of Arden, whose wife was a Throgmorton, went to enrich a creature of Leicester; and the priest, Hall, on whose evidence the prisoners were condemned, was quietly smuggled out of the country by Leicester’s favour. Although it is possible that Throgmorton may have participated in Guise’s murder plot—he certainly did in the invasion plot—there is no satisfactory evidence to prove it.

[491] Hatfield State Papers, part iii.

[492] How keenly Whitgift felt the attacks upon him for doing what he conceived to be his duty, may be seen by his letters in Strype’s Whitgift. In a letter to Anthony Bacon (Birch’s Elizabeth) he writes: “I am, thank God, exercised with like calumnies at home also; but I comfort myself that lies and false rumours cannot long prevail. In matters of religion I remain the same, and so intend to do by God’s grace during life; wherein I am daily more and more confirmed by the uncharitable and indirect practices, as well by the common adversary the Papist, as also of some of our wayward, unquiet, and discontented brethren.”

[493] Hatfield State Papers, part iii.

[494] Even whilst the bill was passing through Parliament, however, the effects of his moderation were seen. In March twenty Catholic priests and one layman, either convicted or accused of treason, were released from prison and sent to France. Father Howard himself told Mendoza that he was at a loss to account for this leniency.

[495] He certainly was not benefited in purse; for one of the first things Parry did was to borrow fifty crowns of the young man, which he never returned (Birch’s Elizabeth). In the correspondence of Sir Thomas Copley with Burghley at this period (1579-80), Parry is presented in a more favourable light than that in which he is usually regarded, and so far as can be judged by his letters he retained the Lord Treasurer’s esteem almost to the time of his arrest.

[496] Mendoza, writing to Philip from Paris at the time, says that this letter was forged (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth), but in any case the letter did not necessarily imply approval of murder.

[497] Hatfield Papers, part iii.

[498] Harl. MSS., 4651.

[499] Hatfield Papers, part iii.

[500] See letter (Nau?) to Mary (Hatfield Papers, part iii. p. 125).

[501] See letter from Burghley’s nephew Hoby, at Berwick, to the Treasurer (Hatfield Papers, part iii. p. 71).

[502] Hatfield State Papers, part iii.

[503] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, part iii. p. 536; and Hatfield Papers, part iii. p. 99.

[504] Carliell to Walsingham, 4th October 1585 (State Papers, Domestic).

[505] Cotton, Galba, cviii. (Leycester Correspondence).

[506] Harl. MSS., 285 (Leycester Correspondence).

[507] Harl. MSS., 6993 (Leycester Correspondence).