XXXVII. The charge of personal depravity in this cele- CHAP. brated queen, demands a fuller examination. It is the natural sympathy of the human spirit, to love moral as well as material beauty; and if those personages who emerge into celebrity, from any rank, during their earthly pilgrimage, have possessed what we admire, it is an injury to society, which desires to resemble what it esteems, to suffer them to be unjustly depreciated by misrepresentation or mistake. No guilt ought to have the posthumous rewards of virtue; but the punishment of the deprivation has been carelessly inflicted on many who have not incurred it; and a fair examination of the disgracing imputations, may entitle Elizabeth to be classed among those, who have suffered from slanders which ought never to have been credited. That no assertion to her discredit should be believed on the unsupported charge of any of her Romish or political adversaries, is a proposition which the reasonable mind will be inclined to adopt, that has observed their inveterate habit and determined purpose of vilifying her by epithets and charges which are manifestly untrue, and which ought never to have been applied to her, and scarcely to any female. The preceding pages have presented some specimens of this description, which must disqualify all such persons as Dr. Sanders and cardinal Allen," the popes, the Spanish writers, and their assimilating partisans, from being credible evidences on any subject that reviles the memory of 55 See before, p. 503. 56 56 The more the student reads of the works of this description, the more of the spirit and language of Sanders and Allen he will find in them. BOOK II. this queen, whom they strove so perseveringly to destroy, and whose existence and talents alone upheld what they all struggled so desperately to overthrow." And yet if we disbelieve every defamation, which ORIGINATES only from her enemies, the imputations will be found to have no foundation, to which the impartial mind of the present day, which can judge only on the compared evidence before it, and which considers it with all its attendant circumstances and apparent probabilities, will feel justified to itself in attaching its belief. One of the fullest and earliest details of the alleged immoralities, is a letter of Mary's, which purports to be her communication to Elizabeth, of lady Shrewsbury's scandalous tales to her, to defame her queen whom she was then so faithfully serving.5 57 How profitable a trade this rancorous hostility towards Elizabeth was then individually made, from the lavish rewards given by the pope and his hierarchy, to such partisans, we have an instance in this cardinal Allen: he, who was but a poor and unprovided English priest, an exile in Flanders, when he determined to be one of the agents or instruments in this dishonorable battle against his natural sovereign, had managed to get by it, before 1596, an income then of 4,5007. a year; which, if we suppose the value of money to have been since increased only four and a half times as much, would be now equal to more than 20,000 7. a year. We learn this from Mr. Copley's letter to the lords of the council. 'The cardinal's living is valued, at this present, at 15,000 crowns by the year, which is 4,500 of our pounds. His archbishopric of Mechlin, in Brabant, I hear he will exchange for an abbey in Spain, or as others say, exchange the revenues thereof with the king of Spain for a certain sum of money yearly; for by reason of the war in Brabant, the said bishopric is not yearly worth to him alike.' Strype's Annals, v. 4. p. 386. From this enormous income and careful watchfulness of its amount, we may infer the bargain made and paid for that mass of calumny and treason against Elizabeth, which composes the whole of his Declaration' in 1588, already noticed, p. 504; and also the pecuniary encouragements to all revilers and inventors of defamation against her. 58 It has been printed by Murdin, as found by him in lord Salisbury's library, among his other papers, and appears to have been written in It begins, According to what I have promised you, and you 1586. 760 XXXVII. Assuming this to be a true statement of what the CHAP. countess had chosen to say, our first question will be, if she would be entitled to claim our belief." Mary, in repeating it, chose to nullify this evidence by attaching to it her own discredit: I did not believe it, and do not now believe it, knowing the natural disposition of the countess, and by what spirit she was then actuated against you. Thus, if a charge of words be removable by words, or if the spirit of a calumniator be any disproval of his calumnies, we possess Mary's own testimony that the imputations were untrue; and that they were made by this noble person in a state of vindictive resentment, with an intimation also that the countess was naturally of an evil disposition. A still more emphatic declaration to us of what she was, we have from a person who could not but know her best, and was have since desired, I declare to you now with regret, that such things should be brought in question; but very sincerely, and without any passion, as I call heaven to witness, that the countess of Salisbury has spoken to me of you what follows, nearly in these terms, the greatest part of which I protest to have answered, reprimanding the said lady for believing and speaking so licentiously of you, as a thing which I did not believe, NOR DO NOW BELIEVE; knowing the natural temper of the countess, and with what spirit she was actuated against you.' She then details a succession of actions which would entitle Elizabeth to be called a modern Messalina; calumniating her with the duc d'Anjou, with a Frenchman, (Simier,) with Hatton, with two others not named, with lord Oxford, with her servant George, and with all such people.' Murd. 500. 59 After proceeding to add the lady's ridicule of Elizabeth's vanity, for which there appears to have been some better grounds, Mary ends with declaring, that she has truly stated what she heard. I swear to you on my faith and honor, that the above is very true; and that on what concerns your honor, it has never fallen into my mind to do you injury by revealing it; and it shall never be known thro me, as I deem it entirely false. Il ne se saura jamais par moi LE TENANT POUR TRES FAUX.' Murd. 560. 60 Comme chose, que je ne croyois point; ni crois à present, cognoissant le naturel de la comtesse, et de quel esprit, elle etoit alors poussée contre vous.' Murd. 558. BOOK the most interested, for his own sake, not to depre II. 61 ciate her. This was her own husband, who, in a Our judgment on the veracity of lady Shrewsbury on such subjects will be assisted by Mary's own delineation of this lady, two years before, in the 6 It was on the 5 August 1584 that earl Shrewsbury, the husband of this lady, wrote to lord Leicester these emphatic words about her: 'I have forbidden him [Gilbert Talbot his son] from coming to My WICKED AND MALICIOUS WIFE, who has set me at naught in his own hearing. I think it is his wife's wicked persuasion, and her mother's together, for I think neither barrel better herring of them both.' Letter in Lodge's Illust. v. 2. p. 293. XXXVII. same exercise of a slanderous tongue, with a similar CHAP. imputation against herself; which she felt to be so unjust and calumnious, that she not only bitterly complained of it to the French ambassador, Castelnau Mauvissiere, but called upon him to urge Elizabeth to do her justice against this false reviler." She again expressed her indignation at such imputations, which charged her with a direct intrigue with the husband of her calumniator.63 She intimates that lady Shrewsbury had, at another time, only joked with her about it, and even named a person as the author of the scandal." She also declares the countess to have vilified, in the same manner, not only Elizabeth, but also most of the nobility." 62 Laboureur, who has printed several letters of Mary, has inserted two on this subject, in his additions to Castelnau. On 12 December 1583, this queen wrote from Sheffield to the latter, begging him to request Elizabeth, 'qu'elle me fasse raison of the countess of Shrewsbury, and her children, upon the VILLAINOUS REPORTS which they have spread of me. This is a thing which I have so much at heart, that I shall never have any pleasure until their wickedness be made known, as it will be if it be inquired into, as I wish you to do of yourself, that you may see what sort of people are the trumpets of their malicious inclinations against me.' Castel. Mem. v. 1. p. 601. 63 The other letter is also from Sheffield, in the next month, 2January 1584. I have heard, by the rumors spread here and there, that some of my said enemies have maliciously licensed themselves even to such a detestable imposture as to tax my honor with the nobleman [earl Shrewsbury] who has me in guard. I know I could not expect better from them, who at all times have been scheming my ruin, and designed by violence and poison to abridge my life; afflicted by them in every way, and who are laboring, by every sinister means, to defraud me and my son of my right to the succession of this crown.' ib. p. 603. I will not yet particularize any body, as well from the obligation I have formerly had to her who has helped herself by this lie, [the French editor has here inserted the name of the countess, as the person meant] which at another time she has laughed at with me most immoderately, [elle s'est moquée à gorge deployée avec moi] and named to me one Tophlyffe as the author of this fine report. For all her extreme ingratitude I do not wish to do her any injury now, for that by which she formerly thought to do me a good.' Lett. ib. 65 But foreseeing that I may be urged to go farther by such lies and |