Such was Elizabeth's friendship to Mary, while she remained in Scotland; and even Mr. Froude appears to be not wholly without misgivings as to its sincerity. What was her friendship, when Mary, ruined and desolate, fled to her dominions for protection? Mary craved permission to be admitted to her presence, but was refused; she had come to seek comfort from her royal friend and sister, and found herself a prisoner; she had merely fled from one prison to another. A guard of two hundred men was sent from Berwick to Carlisle Castle, men so faithful that if there was any attempt at flight, Elizabeth expressed a fear that they would make short work of their charge. Mary's flight into England was, no doubt, embarrassing; and Mr. Froude says that in the golden era of the Plantagenets, such a difficulty would have been disposed of more swiftly and more effectively; but now, in a more scrupulous age, 'the beautiful and interesting sufferer was manifestly a dangerous amimal which had run into a trap, difficult to keep, yet not to be allowed to go abroad, till her teeth were drawn, and her claws pared to the quick.' Elizabeth still affected friendship, but she readily accepted the harsh counsels of her ministers. She wrote affectionate letters, she continued her intermeddling policy in Scotland, but she held her prisoner safe, and was taking measures to destroy her reputation and influence. throne which she had forfeited.'. We fear, however, that her friendship was about equal to her generosity. Mary, who had fled without her wardrobe, complained to the Queen that she was even without a change of linen; her necessities were nobly relieved by a couple of torn shifts, two pieces of black velvet and two pair of shoes.' The rags of Elizabeth's friendship were not more worthy of gratitude. While she made a show of supporting Mary in Scotland, with high words and menaces, she was betraying her into submission and casting toils around her. She had no right to meddle between Mary and her subjects: she had no claim to dictate to a neighboring and friendly State; yet she assumed to judge of Mary's guilt or innocence, and beguiled the unhappy captive, by terms of pretended sympathy, into compliance with her treacherous advise. She promised that if Mary could acquit herself of the charges made against her, she should be restored. Mary declined with queenly dignity to be thus put upon her trial : 'I came,' said she, to recover my honour, and to obtain help to chastise my false accusers - not to answer those charges against me as if I were their equal, but myself to accuse them in your presence. Madam, I am no equal of theirs, and would sooner die than so, by act of mine, declare myself.' (Vol. iii. p. 255.) In vain Lord Herries protested, on her behalf, that Elizabeth had no right to constitute herself a judge between the sovereign and subjects of a foreign realm. She replied that she would not quarrel for the name of judge, but on the reality she intended to insist.' No less vainly aid he entreat that she might be permitted to leave England. Elizabeth was resolved to hold her fast, and to degrade her. 'Oh, Madam,' she wrote, there is not a creature living who more longs to hear your justification than myself; not one who would lend more willing ear to any answer which will 'As to her going to France,' she said, 'I will clear your honour. On the word of a not lower myself in the eyes of my fellow-sovprince, I promise you that neither your sub-ereigns by acting like a fool. The King, her jects, nor any advise I may receive from my husband, when she was in that country, gave own councillors, shall move me to ask any her the style and arms of this realm. I am not thing of you which may endanger you or touch anxious for a repetition of that affair. I can your honour.' (Vol. iii. p. 248.) defend my own right. But I will not, of my own accord, do a thing which may be turned to Most people will think such professions as insincere and insidious as the rest of Elizabeth's conduct; but Mr. Froude regards her as in reality Mary's best friend, who was fighting for her against all her own ministers, and, guilty or innocent, wished only to give her a fresh chance upon the Ibid., p. 239. my own hurt.' (Vol. iii. p. 261.) According to Mr. Froude, she wished only that so much evidence should be brought forward as would justify the Lords in their rebellion, and would justify Elizabeth also in restoring the Queen with a character slightly clouded - to be maintained under her own protectorate, and with her hands To her of being concerned in the murder. so bound as to incapacitate her from further rebellion; and in reply, Murray defended mischief.'* 'She told De Silva that the them on the ground of Bothwell's crimes Queen of Scots should be restored, but and the Queen's marriage, without accusing restored without power, and her acquittal should be so contrived that a shadow of guilt should be allowed still to remain.'t But Mary herself naturally treated her professions as hypocrisy; and Cecil wrote that it was not meant, if the Queen of Scots was found guilty of the murder, to restore her to Scotland, however her friends might brag to the contrary.' At all events, the unfortunate rival was to be made an instrument of Elizabeth's ambition and love of intrigue. If she would not be put upon her trial, before a tribunal which had no pretence to jurisdiction, the lords were to be charged with rebellion, and in their own Here she assembled a council of Peers, defence were to bring accusations against before whom the proceedings were resumed. their sovereign, which she might answer or The Bishop of Ross entered a 'protestation not, as she thought fit. It was a cunning that while ready to treat for an arrangedevice; but the Queen's jurisdiction was ment, he was submitting to no form of equally wanting; and her purpose was no judgment, nor would admit any judge or less dishonest than cruel. She intended judges whatever to have authority over his Murray to utter all he could to the Queen sovereign.' Murray now openly accused of Scots' dishonour; to cause her to come Mary of having been the contriver of her in disdain with the whole subjects of the husband's murder, but without producing realm, that she might be the more unable to the proofs; and the Bishop of Ross contendattempt anything to her disadvantage;'§ed on her behalf, that she was now insidwhile to persuade Mary to appear, she was iously put upon her trial, contrary to the pretending that if she could clear herself engagements of the Queen of England. she should be restored to her kingdom. If she were to reply at all, it could only be After protracted negotiations, intrigues, in person, before the Queen herself and the and vacillation, Elizabeth completed her Peers. Another attempt was now made to subtle scheme. In October 1568, a commis- stop the case and arrange a compromise; sion was opened at York, in which Elizabeth but the Queen was resolved that the proofs was represented by the Earl of Sussex, Sir should not to be withheld. The Bishop of Ralph Sadler, and the Duke of Norfolk, Ross protested, and declared the conference Scotland by the Regent Murray in person at an end; but Murray, when called upon and other commissioners, and Mary Stuart to justify his accusations, produced the fatal by Lord Herries, Boyd, Livingston, Cockburn, and her chief adviser John Leslie, Bishop of Ross. All these parties were playing a cross game: Elizabeth was intent upon obtaining evidence of Mary's guilt, without sacrificing her entirely to the Regent; the Duke of Norfolk was forwarding his own design of a marriage with the fugitive Queen; Murray, distrusting Elizabeth, was fearful of exposing himself to the vengeance of his own sovereign, in case of her restoration; and Mary was hoping that partly by the aid of Elizabeth, and partly by intrigues with her own friends, and a compromise with her enemies, she might be restored to liberty and power. The confederate lords were accused of casket and other evidence. In this manner, the Queen of Scots had been betrayed into proceedings by which she found herself put upon her trial, in a court having no pretence to jurisdiction over her; and the proofs of her guilt were now in the hands of the sovereign whose enmity she had too much reason to dread. She was tried in her absence, and in a form which put it out of her power to rebut the adverse evidence, without acknowledging the usurped jurisdiction of the Court Mr. Froude is pleased to affirm that Elizabeth had not meant to deceive; but a vacillating purpose and shifting humour had been as effective as the most deliberate treachery.'* That she showed vacillation in contriving the means of ruining Mary Stuart may be admitted; but as to Hist. of Eliz., vol. iii. p. 350. the object itself there was throughout an inflexible resolution. She now artfully advised her victim to abandon her defence and throw herself upon her forbearance, which would have been no less than a confession of guilt. This snare was avoided she was afraid of being entrapped and allured; but Mary was disgraced in the eyes of the peers and privy council; and, as she had refused to offer a defence, there was still an excuse for continuing her imprisonment. On the other hand, Murray had been tricked by false promises into the production of evidence of his sister's guilt, but failed in obtaining a confirmation of her deposition, or an acknowledgment of his own title as regent. Elizabeth had been false, fickle, and treacherous to all parties; she had betrayed them all alike for her own selfish and tortuous ends. Mr. Froude finds traces of a 'weak and unreasoning tenderness,' and even of generosity,' in her conduct, where others see hypocrisy and hardness of heart. We are unable to accept his judgment upon these events, or to acquit Queen Elizabeth of injustice and perfidy. The flight of Mary into England had been prompted by her own strong professions of friendship, and her pretended indignation against those who had dethroned her; and to reward her confidence with imprisonment, and reduce her by insidious devices to the degraded position of a criminal, needs a better excuse than vacillation to redeem her conduct from imputations of treachery. However embarrassing Mary's flight into England may have been, it was the clear duty of Elizabeth to have left her free; and the artful scheme of assuming a jurisdiction over her, which had no warrant in international law, was a monstrous usurpation of power. Her conduct was no less impolitic than unjust; and however much reason there may have been for apprehending Mary's intrigues with France or Spain, her unjust imprisonment in England was the cause of the greater part of the troubles of Elizabeth's reign. Mr. Froude has laboured heavily to vindicate or excuse her; but we think he has laboured in vain; and that M. Mignet's sterner estimate of her conduct is more consistent with historic truth. Speaking of this period, he says: 'As for Mary Stuart, she remained a prisoner in England. Elizabeth not only did not assist her against her subjects, as she had promised, but did not even restore her libetry, of which she ought never to have deprived her. Without respect for the rules of justice and the rights of hospitality, as well as for the prerogatives of crowns, she was not afraid to imprison a suppliant and to bring to judgment a queen. She had not been sensible either of the trust of the the affliction of the woman, or of the honour fugitive, or of the prayers of the relative, or of of the sovereign. Mary Stuart, on her side, had no longer any reserve to maintain towards Elizabeth. Arrested with perfidy, defamed with hatred, imprisoned with injustice, she was justified in attempting everything to gain her freedom. She did not fail to do so.'* More serious difficulties were about to disturb Elizabeth's reign than the torture of a defenceless woman, and officious intermeddling in the affairs of a friendly State; and they were due, in great measure, to her treatment of Mary, and to her insincerity and vacillation in dealing with her own subjects and with foreign sovereigns. The Reformation was so recent that religion was still one of the chief causes of embarrassment in England, as in several other States. The Catholics had been put down; but they hoped for the restoration of their faith in another reign, if not in this. They had looked forward to the succession of Mary Stuart; and her hard treatment by the Queen now led them to espouse her cause, and to precipitate their plans for overthrowing the Re formation, and with it the Queen herself— the chief Protestant sovereign of Europe. The aid of the kings of France and Spain, as great Catholic Powers, was naturally relied on; and hence arose a succession of intrigues and rebellions which distracted Elizabeth's reign for eighteen years. In August 1568, the Spanish ambassador, De Silva, was replaced at the Court of London by Don Guerau de Espes. The one was a high-bred and accomplished gentleman, averse to intrigue, and without fanaticism: the other was at once a conspirator and a fanatic. 'On Don Guerau had descended the dropped mantle of De Quadra. Inferior to bis prototype in natural genius for conspiracy, inferior to him in intellectual appreciation of the instruments with which he was working-he was nevertheless in hatred of heresy, in unscrupu lousness, in tenacity of purpose, and absolute carelessness of personal risk to himself, as fit. an instrument as Philip could have found to communicate with the Catholics, and to form a party among them ready for any purpose for which the King of Spain might desire to use them.' (Hist. of Eliz., vol. iii. p. 328.) He at once became the centre of intrigues * Histoire de Marie Stuart, 3rd ed., vol. ii. p. 63. and conspiracies, into all the secrets of which we are admitted by the Simancas archives and other state papers of the time. Mr. Froude has entered into them with elaborate and instructive detail; he has traced out all the agents in the dark plots by which Elizabeth's throne and life were threatened; and he has introduced us to the inner councils of the Queen and her advisers, by whom these plots were countermined. Two conspiracies, to which Don Guerau was a party, were speedily set on foot; and in both the foremost place was assigned to Mary Stuart. The northern lords were projecting a Catholic insurrection, the dethronement of Elizabeth, the crowning of Mary Stuart, and her marriage with Don John of Austria. The Duke of Norfolk and his adherents merely sought the overthrow of Cecil, and the marriage of Norfolk to Mary, who was to become a member of the Church of England. While these plots were being hatched, Elizabeth's conduct to Spain and France was so false and treacherous that she narrowly escaped a war with both. She had encouraged and protected English privateers who preyed upon the commerce of Spain; ships laden with Spanish treasure were seized in the ports of Plymouth and Southampton, and appropriated by the Queen; and outrages were commited upon the persons and property of Spanish merchants resident in England. Redress was withheld by cunning subterfuges and falsehood. A policy no less provoking was pursued towards France. While the Queen professed herself neutral in the civil war raging between the King and the Huguenots, she was aiding the Prince of Condé at Rochelle with money and ammunition; and English privateers sailing under Conde's flag seized French ships, and openly sold their prizes at Plymouth and Dover. The remonstrances of the French ambassador were met with transparent evasions. Happily, the jealousies of France and Spain prevented them from making common cause against England; and Elizabeth continued her deceptions without the cost of a foreign war. But conspiracies at home were naturally fomented by so impolitic an irritation of the Catholic Powers. Elizabeth might have taken the lead of the Protestant cause in Europe. She might have aided the Huguenots in France and the Netherlands, and have conciliated the Reformers of all denominations in England and Scotland. Such a policy might have been hazardous, but while generous and noble in itself, it would have secured a hearty support to her throne against the intrigues of the Catholics; and who can say what an impulse it would have given to Protestantism in Europe! The mean and pitiful course pursued by her, so far from effectually supporting the Protestant cause abroad, merely encouraged the Huguenots in an ineffectual resistance, while it provoked the Catholics throughout Europe, and won no Protestant sympathy in England. Such being her relations with foreign Powers, she was exposed to the treasons of her own subjects encouraged by their ambassadors. The Duke of Norfolk, feeble, hesitating, and timid, had separated himself from the northern lords in pursuit of his own personal objects; but he had been so far tempted into treason as to seek assistance in his plot from the Duke of Alva; and when Elizabeth peremptorily forbade his projected marriage with Mary, he was nearly driven into revolt. But his courage failed him; he allowed himself to be arrested, and was imprisoned in the Tower. There he renounced his alliance with Mary, and, after some time, obtained the Queen's forgiveness. But the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, and their confederates in the North, were more earnest in their conspiracy, and were encouraged by the strong Catholic sympathies of the northern counties, and by promises of support from Alva in Flanders. All their measures were concerted with the Queen of Scots and Don Guerau; and in November 1569, the counties of Northumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire were in arms against the Queen. But the South was true and loyal; the rebels were foiled in their attempt to rescue Mary Stuart; they received no aid from Alva; and the Queen's forces soon drove the leaders across the border into Scotland. Northumberland was taken prisoner by the Regent, greatly to the disgust of the Scottish people, and lodged in Lochleven Castle; and Eliza beth, not content with the most cruel punishments inflicted upon the rebels whom she had in her power, demanded the extradition of the earls by the Scottish government. Wholesale executions were carried out, in which the Queen showed herself as intent upon lucre as upon vengeance. Numbers of those who had no lands were to be hung by martial law on the parish green or market place; and the servants of the principal insurgents were to be executed near their master's houses; and the bodies were not to be removed, but to remain till they fell to pieces where they hung.' Those who had lands were to be formally tried, in order that the Queen might be assured of the escheats; and if judgment was not given for the political problems of Elizabeth's reign. the Crown, the prisoners were to be remitted Three-quarters of the peers, he tells us, and to the tender mercies of the Star Chamber. Elizabeth, to whom,' says Mr. Froude, nothing naturally was more distasteful than cruelty () when Sussex's arrangements (for these executions) were made known to her, was only impatient that they should be carried out; and on the 11th January she wrote that she somewhat marvelled that she had as yet heard nothing from Sussex of any execution done by martial law as was appointed; and she required him, if the same was not already done, to proceed thereto with all the expedition he might, and to certify her of his doings therein.' While these executions were proceeding, the Queen was trying to force the Regent to surrender Northumberland, and was offering bribes for the treacherous capture of Westmoreland. Murray did not venture to comply with her demands; he had already roused a bitter feeling by the imprisonment of Northumberland; and while he was still holding out against Elizabeth's persistent claims, he was himself struck down by the hand of the assassin Bothwellhaugh. half the gentlemen were disaffected; and they had the goodwill and encouragement of France and Spain, whom she had insulted and provoked: yet the northern rebellion had miserably failed. It was, indeed, a rash and ill-concerted rising, and was readily put down by the strong arm of the executive government; yet if the Catholic body were as numerous and as disaffected as they are represented to have been, it is singular that the northern earls met with so little support. Doubtless it was one thing to conspire for the restoration of the ancient faith, and another to rebel against their lawful sovereign; but much was due to the characteristics of the two religions. 'Catholicism in England was still to appearance large and imposing, but its strength was the strength of age, which, when it is bowed or broken, cannot lift itself again. Protestantism, on the other hand, was exuberant in the freshness of youth. The Catholic rested upon order and tradition, stately in his habits of thought, mechanical and regular in his mode of action. His party depended on its leaders, and the leaders looked for guidance to the Pope and the European Princes. The Protestant was self-dependent, confident, careless of life, believing in the future not the past, irrepressible by authority, eager to grapple with his adversary wherever he could find him, and rushing lar warfare was denied him.' (Vol. iv. p. 4.) into piracy, metaphorical or literal, when regu With such supporters of her throne, Elizabeth was able to defy Catholic disaffection and foreign intrigues. The Regent Murray is one of Mr. Froude's favourite characters, and deserves a large share of his panegyrics. That he was the enemy of Mary Queen of Scots, and had driven her from her kingdom, would alone have been a sufficient claim to his favour; but Murray had many eminent qualities which, in evil times, commend him to our respect. If it be exaggerated praise, to affirm with Mr. Froude that when the verdict of plain human sense can get itself pronounced, the "good Regent" will take his place among the best and greatest men who have ever lived, we cannot but admire his moral superiority over the ruffians by whom he was surrounded. They were 'Elsewhere the plebeian elements of nations without any sense of religion or justice; he had risen to power through the arts and induswas an earnest Protestant, yet above the tries which make men rich-the commons of narrow intolerance of the fanatics of his Scotland were sons of their religion. While the own age and country; and he honestly nobles were splitting into factions, chasing desired that Scotland should be quietly gov- their small ambitions, taking securities for their erned and her deadly factions quelled. His fortunes or entangling themselves in political greatest embarrassments had been due to intrigues, the tradesmen, the mehanics, the poor Elizabeth's meddling and inconstant poli-sciousness, with spiritual convictions for which tillers of the soil, had sprung suddenly into concy, and his chief errors to her dietation. The second of Mr. Froude's new volumes opens with some observations on the influence of the Reformation upon the character of the people in England and in Scotland, which will help us to understand some of Hist. of Eliz., vol. iii. p. 581. Mignet's estimate of Murray's character is less favourable; but he does Justice to his eminent qualities. (Histoire de Marie Stuart, vol. ii. p. 116.) The influence of the Reformation upon the character of the people, was far more striking in Scotland than in England. of God in them left no room for the fear of any they were prepared to live and die. The fear other thing; and in the very fierce intolerance which Knox had poured into their veins, they had become a force in the state. The poor clay which, a generation earlier, the baron would have trodden into slime, had been heated redhot in the furnace of a new faith."* * Hist. of Eliz., vol. iv. p. 24; see also another in. structive passage upon the influence of John Knox, p. 456. |