Isolation produced by Elizabeth's policy.

in his hands. She had thus in Scotland refused the friendship both of the Protestant and of the Catholic parties. She had insulted France by the rejection of Alençon. She had thrown away all chance of attaching the Netherlands to her cause. She had almost driven Philip, against his will, to listen to the strong wish of the Spanish nation, and to join the ranks of her enemies.

And all this while, without her knowledge, the most dangerous and complete scheme was on foot for deposing her. This scheme was finally arranged at Paris. King James of Scotland had escaped from his Protestant keepers (July 7, 1583), and had again made an offer of his kingdom as a landing-place for Guise. But the Duke had seen in Lennox's failure a proof of the strength of the Protestant party in that country. His ideas were now directed towards England itself. The Spanish ambassador had assured him that a certain number of the Catholic nobles were only waiting for help Great general

conspiracy

against

Elizabeth.

from abroad. The Jesuits spoke of the readiness of the people for insurrection. The agents of the Queen of Scots were constantly urging him forward. At a meeting held in Paris, he announced that he was ready, in combination with Duke Albert of Bavaria, and his brother, the Duke of Mayenne, to make the intended descent upon England. But here the strong Spanish leanings of the English Jesuits and English Catholics interfered. They insisted upon the King of Spain taking a prominent part in the movement. After some persuasion, Philip agreed that he would supply some portion of the invading troops. An army, collected in the Netherlands, was to join that of Guise, and under cover of the Spanish fleet to invade the country, when all was ready for their reception. But the fleet, which was a necessary part of the plan, was long in coming. Philip, as usual, was slow in action, and regarded the fullest preparation as necessary for success. By degrees Walsingham's spies began to give him information of the coming danger. A conspiracy for the assassination of the Queen was discovered (November), and, more important still, Thomas Throgmor

Arrest of ton, who was thoroughly conversant with all the details Throgmorton. of the great conspiracy, was observed frequently leaving Discovery of the plot. the Spanish ambassador's house, and was arrested. His rooms were searched. Lists of the chief Catholic malcontents were discovered, and plans of the harbours best fitted for the landing of a foreign force. His more important papers he contrived to conceal, but he was not proof against the rack, and made a full confession of all that he knew. His confession did not save him; he was executed. But the whole scheme of conspiracy was now before Elizabeth's ministers,

1584]

BREACH WITH SPAIN

549

and at last she recognized the full extent of her danger. Some of her Council urged her at once to take a straightforward step, to make common cause with the Protestants of Scotland and the Netherlands, and to bid defiance to Spain. To this honest step she as usual could not bring herself, but strong measures were taken in England. Great numbers of Jesuits and seminary priests were apprehended and executed, suspected magistrates removed, and those Catholic Lords, whose treachery might have been fatal to her, ejected from their places of authority and deprived of influence. Against the Spanish ambassador, too, her action was prompt. Mendoza was summoned before the Council, and ordered at once to leave the country. In vain he alleged his innocence and defied proof; he was obliged to go, and left England, vowing vengeance. The cessation of diplomatic relations between Spain and England rendered war sooner or later inevitable.

Dismissal of

Mendoza.
Spain.

Breach with

Jan. 1584.

of Mary.

Up till this time the Queen's policy, shifty, even treacherous as it had been, had been successful as far as England was Declining concerned. Peace had been preserved, an economical importance Government had been carried on, and the wellbeing of the people secured. Disaffection had thus been gradually dying away, and the resources of the country to meet the inevitable crisis increasing. One chief means employed by the Queen in securing this happy result had been the position of Mary Queen of Scots. By playing the mother against the son, any active interference on the part of Scotland had been prevented, and the Catholic party in that country neutralized. At the same time the Catholics in England had been divided in their views. The old hereditary Catholics, for the most part loyal to England, were anxious for the restoration of Mary, and that she should be declared the Queen's successor, while the new Catholics, and those who were under Jesuit influence, wished for a more complete revolution, and that Mary, if restored at all, should be Queen only with Spanish assistance, and as the creature of Spain; while dread of Mary's restoration, and the consequent close connection of England and France, had been one of the chief causes which had kept Philip from entering more eagerly into the plans of the Catholics. The course of events was rapidly destroying the importance of Mary's life. In Scotland, the success of the Protestants had been only temporary. James had made his escape from their hands, and Angus and other of their leaders were in exile in England. At first, as has been mentioned, James had written to place his kingdom at the disposal of the Guises, but before long other influences prevailed. On the flight Deserted by of Lennox, James's favour had fallen upon Stuart, a man her son.

whose views were confined to his own personal advantage; he had contrived to get possession of the property of the Hamiltons, with the title of the Earl of Arran, in the place of the imbecile heir of the Hamilton house, and he had also, on the flight of Angus with the Protestant Lords, obtained the patrimony of the Douglases. The restoration of Mary and the re-establishment of Protestantism would have been equally distasteful to him. The return of Mary must have brought with it the restoration of the Hamiltons, her most trusted supporters, and would consequently have deprived him of the Hamilton property. The restoration, on the other hand, of the Protestants, would have obliged him to restore to Angus the Douglas property. Understanding Elizabeth's character, he therefore devised a third plan, in which James was ready to join him. He induced the King, ignoring alike the claims of Catholics and Protestants, to assume in Scotland the same position as Elizabeth had assumed in England, and to establish a State church, of which he was the head, with Bishops and the rest of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. This measure was exceedingly pleasing to Elizabeth, and James, whose chief idea was to secure the English succession, when thus brought into friendship with Elizabeth, readily, upon the payment of a very moderate pension, gave up his mother's cause. In extreme anger at this desertion, Mary denounced her false son, and declared Philip of Spain the heir of her claims upon the the English crown. Fear of interference from

Removal

to Tutbury. Jan. 1585.

Scotland being thus removed, and Mary having been clearly implicated in all the late conspiracies, she was removed to stricter confinement in Tutbury Castle, where, after a while, under the care of Sir Amyas Paulet, she was so rigorously watched that all communication with her friends was prevented.

Fear of the
Queen's

assassination.

Meanwhile, the national feeling had been strongly roused by late events. It was plain that the idea of assassinating Elizabeth was very prevalent. It had all along been Alva's view, in which Philip seems to have shared, that a Spanish invasion would succeed best in the confusion that would follow the Queen's death. Somerville had been already executed for attempting it (October 1583), and now a Dr. Parry, instigated by Morgan, Mary's agent in Paris, came over with the same intention (January 1584). Moreover, the death of the Prince of Orange appeared to show a determination on the part of the Catholics to have recourse to assassination as a means to rid themselves of their enemies. The great pacification of Ghent had in it from the first the seeds of weakness. It included the Catholic provinces of the South. Between them and the Protestants

Increased by affairs in Flanders.

1584]

FEAR OF ASSASSINATION

551

of Holland and Zeeland there could be no really cordial union. It was these Catholics who had harboured the futile idea of placing the States in the hands of Matthias of Austria. In that step, with true patriotism, Orange had concurred, rather than break up the union. But on its becoming evident that the Catholic States were ready to make terms with Spain to secure their own religion, he had, in 1579, made a closer union among the States more entirely under his influence, and the Union of Utrecht was formed between Holland, Zeeland, Gueldres, and Friesland, to which subsequently the great cities, Brussels, Antwerp, Bruges, Ypres, and Ghent, gave in their adhesion. Of this union, throwing aside the fiction under which he had hitherto acted as Stadtholder by the royal commission, Orange had assumed the title of Captain-General and Admiral. In September of the following year (180) he had proceeded a step further. Philip was deposed from his position as Duke of Burgundy, and the independence of the States declared. Having thus broken loose from Spain, the States were compelled to look for another ruler, and had offered that position to the Duke of Anjou, with the title of Duke of Brabant. It was to assume the duties of that office that he had left England, after the Queen's kiss at Greenwich had given him hopes of being her accepted suitor. Being a man wholly unprincipled, desirous only of his own aggrandizement, and jealous of the Prince of Orange, he had betrayed the people he was called upon to govern, and had made an effort to capture with his French troops the chief cities. This attempt, carried out by the favour of the Catholic faction, was made in 1583. In some places it was successful. But in Antwerp, where the Prince in person made the attempt, it signally failed. When his troops entered the town, they found themselves attacked on all sides; 1600 men and more were killed in the streets, and Anjou, with the small remainder, fled in disgrace to France, where he died in the following year. His flight restored Orange to all his old importance, and left him free to carry on the war vigorously with the Prince of Parma, who was in command of the Spanish forces. A price had long been set on his head. Two or three attempts, in one of which he was desperately wounded, had already been made to assassinate him, and at length, in July 1584, Gerard succeeded in deserving the promised reward. Just as Orange was receiving news of Anjou's death, he shot him at his own house at Delft. His death raised the fear of the English that a similar fate awaited Elizabeth, and conscious of the terrible disorder that would arise on the sudden death of the Queen in the existing uncertainty as to the

Assassination of

the Prince
of Orange.

July 9, 1584.

Association to protect the Queen's life.

succession, the Council and chief nobles in England drew up a Bond of Association, in which they pledged themselves to prosecute with arms "all who should attempt any act or counsel to the harm of the Queen's person, and to prosecute to the death any pretended successor" in favour of whose title such an attempt should be made. The Association received almost unanimous adhesion; Protestants and Catholics alike joined it; even the Scotch Queen herself signed it. To complete this Association, which in appearance set aside the usual course of law, it was determined to give it the sanction of Parliament, which was summoned for that purpose in November 1584; and with some slight alterations it was incorporated in a Bill, securing the safety of the Queen.

Again, after the breach with Spain, and secure on the side of Scotland, an opportunity was offered to Elizabeth for openly adopting the cause of the Netherlands and the Protestants in France; again the opportunity was allowed to slip, and a fresh course of doubledealing was entered upon. Having lost both Alençon and Orange, the States offered themselves to Elizabeth. Being refused by her, they applied to France. This application, accepted fully, would have brought back the old danger of a junction of France and the Netherlands, which it was supposed that England would not allow. But Elizabeth was now anxious that the war against Spain should be undertaken, not by herself, but by the French. She therefore urged Henry to accept the proposition of the States, while at the same time she contrived to obtain a promise from her partisans among the Netherlanders that Brille and Flushing should be given up to her, and managed to introduce such conditions into the offer made to France as should make its acceptance by Henry useless. Her plan was, however, seen through, and defeated. Henry refused the sovereignty of the States (Feb. 1585), while almost at the same time Elizabeth's rejection of the demand for assistance from the Huguenots obliged him to yield to the Guises, and to put himself at the head of the League. While the States were thus left without assistance from either of the great powers, the Prince of Parma was constantly continuing his victorious course, and was using all his efforts at the great siege of Ant

In spite

of herself Elizabeth is

werp. In their extremity, the States refused to accept the Queen's late reply as final, and continued their application. driven to assist To accept and annex the Provinces, to render them part the Netherlands. of her dominions, was much too decided a step for Elizabeth to take. But she began to hint that she might either accept the position of Protector, or of friend and auxiliary, if first her position