BOOK II. In terms not at all measured, she gives it the lie direct, and challenges by her champion every slanderer who will dare to repeat it. We can have no difficulty in assuming it to be the invention of this lady's jealousy or malice; but if we will not defame Mary upon her imputations, how can we upon the same authority suspect the more selfgoverned Elizabeth, who would not credit such a scandal on the Scottish queen on such malicious allegations? 67 An inquisitive thinker might also ask, if, under the circumstances in which she wrote, Mary may not herself have overstated, what even such a person as this countess chose to express in her slandering gossip. The purport of this letter was manifestly to excite the queen's resentment against the woman, who had been, for eighteen years, faithfully and steadily superintending the confinement of Mary in her castle; treating her with respectful honors, but vigilantly guarding her, and perseveringly defeating the numerous plans and efforts to effect her escape. Whatever may have been her temper or maliciousness, this duty for her queen and country she false impostures, I undertake to verify that they have indulged themselves, both in words and actions, against the honor and state of their own queen et la pluspart des grands of this country.' Castel. Mem. v. 1. p. 603. 66 Mary in the same letter expressed to Castelnau, I pray you to assert publicly in my name, that whoever, without any exception, has said, or caused to be said, that between my guarding keeper and me there has passed the least thing in the world contrary or prejudicial to my honor, he has falsely and villainously lied, and will lie as often as he shall say it, offering on this to have him fought with by a person of his rank.' ib. 604. 67 On 2 March 1584, Mary, in her letter to Elizabeth, thus intimates her satisfaction at the queen's disbelief: The said lady told me that, being at court, and inquired by you on such a rumor spread, you declared tout pleinement, that you could not give it any credit.' ib. 608. zealously performed; and was found to be so incorruptible and unalterable in this fidelity, that no hope of Mary's rescue remained while she was the guardian, and her castle the place of restraint. Besides this main purpose, the same letter also shews, that the ingenious Scottish queen endeavored to make the communication, a means of obtaining her own release from her confinement. Hence, she ends it with desiring to be allowed to come to the queen's court, because she had so much more to tell her in a personal conversation. Amid these difficulties, it is not easy to discover what part was the invention of the countess, nor how much may have been the coloring or addition of her illustrious and contriving prisoner. The distinction is not indeed material; because the demand on our credibility from either circumstance, would not greatly differ either in its nature, or in its success. Another authority for Elizabeth's dishonor is a Spaniard's report to his king; not of any criminating fact, but of a popular rumor, contradicted by the queen herself," and thought to be supported by an alteration in the position of Leicester's apartment.70 But when we recollect that the Spanish 68 If I can have this opportunity [cet heur] of speaking to you, I will tell you more particularly the names, times, places, and other circumstances, to make you acquainted with the truth both of this and of other things which I reserve, till I shall be fully assured of your friendship, which I desire more than ever. From my bed, forcing my arm and my pains to satisfy and obey you. Marie R.' Murd. 560. 69Quadra, the Spanish ambassador, in 1561, informs the king, that according to common belief the queen lived with Dudley. In one of his audiences, Elizabeth spoke to him respecting this report, and, in proof of its improbability, shewed him the situation of her room and bed-chamber.' Dr. Lingard's Eliz. p. 621. quarto. 70 In a short time she deprived herself of this plea, under the pretext that Dudley's apartment in the lower story in the palace was unwholesome. She removed him to another, contiguous to her own chamber.' XXXVII. BOOK II. 72 ambassador under Mary was instructed by his master to urge her to have Elizabeth beheaded;" that the next would not attend her coronation, nor even its festivities, because she and the ceremony were heretical; and that the succeeding ones engaged in every plot for her dethronement and assassination ;73 and that all the Spanish writers in that day speak of her with execration, and with the most palpable falsehoods,-few, who do not partake the Spanish spirit, will make Spanish authority a foundation for Elizabeth's defamation."4 We do not suppose that her sister Mary was a licentious woman, because when she dreaded plots, she had gentlemen to sleep near her apartment."-The Frenchman's added tale is a manifest absurdity.7 Dr. Lingard's Eliz. p. 261. That the sovereigns at that time had the persons whom they chiefly confided in as their guards, to sleep not only near them, but even in their chamber, and more especially in every dangerous period, the memoirs and dispatches of the time abundantly shew. Queens, tho women, must be defended by men against assassins and conspirators; and that Elizabeth was in peril from these, from the moment Mary, in France, assumed her arms and title, and claimed the present succession, our preceding pages have sufficiently shewn. Even the lord steward of her household was in the confederacy against her. Believing Leicester to be a faithful friend, she placed him where he could protect her. 71 See before, vol. 3, p. 440. He had urged her arrest before. See vol. 3, p. 422. 72 This was the duc de Feria; and Ribadineira states that he would neither attend at the church, nor in public, nor in private, nor be with the other nobles, nor apart by himself, that he might not authorize the impious act; and that he did this because he was so zeloso for the papal religion, and so devoted to the Jesuits, 'tan devoto de la companià de Jesus.' p. 230, 1. 73 See before, vol. 3, p. 422; and this vol. p. 262, 267, and other places. 74 We must not forget the system and the authority, stated before in this Mod. Hist. in vol. 3, p. 464, to represent all heretics as wretched persons. 75 See before, vol. 3, p. 439, note 77. 76 Houssaie, in his Memoires Historiques, mentions the silly incident of her shewing her leg to Harlay, on his suggesting to her, his master, Henry the fourth's marriage with her, when she told him that this must not be thought of: as if the appearance of any part of her lower limb XXXVII. The profligacy of her court has been also talked CHAP. of," as if the conduct of fashionable persons was that of the sovereign, or could be prevented by her. What court could be more profligate than could in any way indicate her marriageability. The mention of it only shews the avidity of some foreigners to attach depreciating anecdotes to her. See it in D'Israeli, Curios. v. 1. p. 461. This slander was the more absurd, from Elizabeth's being then between 50 and 60. To this Frenchman's imputation of an indecent exposure, let us oppose a genuine fact of the contrary feeling. On 3 May 1578, Gilbert Talbot stated to his noble father: In the morning, about eight o'clock, I happened to walk in the tilt-yard, under the gallery where her majesty useth to stand to see the running at tilt; where by chance she was looking out of a window. My eye was full towards her, and she shewed to be greatly ashamed thereof; for that she was unready and in her night stuff. So when she saw me after dinner, as she went to walk, she gave me a great fillip on the forehead, and told my lord chamberlain, who was the next to her, how I had seen her that morning, and how much ashamed thereof she was.' Lodge, Illust. 2. p. 170. 77 M. Faunt's authority is quoted for this, who, in August 1582, mentions of the city and court of London: The only discontent Í have, is to live where is so little godliness and exercise of religion; so dissolute manners and corrupt conversation generally.' Birch Mem. 1. p. 26. But he does not apply one sentence personally to her; and the passage obviously alludes to the manners of the day, as he estimated them. It is also obvious from his letters, that he viewed such things with the strictness of a very strong and correct religious feeling; for he thought the world had come into those perilous latter times, which are forewarned us in Scripture.' He would, therefore, have said the same things of our court and city now, and at every period since Elizabeth; for in what court or age does the general society of the rich or great shew much godliness and exercise of religion,' or has been without dissolute manners and corrupt conversation? Perhaps we may justly say, that the moral taste of our own times hath much improved in these respects in the last twenty years; yet still it is probable that persons of M. Faunt's feelings, would characterize fashionable life at present, much as he has done the court and city of Elizabeth. In the next year, he remarks again on the enormities he saw, where sin reigneth in the highest degree;' and thinks a sickness of twenty days a more sweet life, thus in mercy to be afflicted, where I receive other spiritual consolations. p. 39. His words are those of a good and pious man; but it is manifest that such a man, like a St. Francis de Sales, would apply similar expressions to every court in Christendom, in all ages, whatever may be the morals or the piety of the reigning monarch. Wherever wealth and luxury prevail, such will their general habits seem to be to every mind which makes virtue and religion its exclusive models, regulators and criterions of estimation. BOOK that of France, under Louis XVI.? and of Rome, II. under the ancient popes? of whom many were severely virtuous. Our venerable George III. had several immoral ministers, before lord North took the helm; but we never confound the monarch with the voluptuous manners of his day, unless decided testimony identifies him with the indecencies which, tho he may avoid, others will practise. Without this discrimination, a luxurious age would be made conclusive evidence against the existence of any individual virtue. 80 The popular scandal against Elizabeth, has turned chiefly on Leicester, Hatton and Essex; but without a single criminating fact as to either. A love of gallantry, habits of gay society," and freedom of manners amounting sometimes to frolic, are all that can be, on any creditable authority, imputed to her. It will become no one to defend the indefensible. Levity is levity in an Elizabeth, as well as in a countess, or a peasant; but it is just not to confound the whims, the follies, and the enjoyments of the 78 Mr. D'Israeli seems to have expressed the truth, when he wrote, that her alleged amours never went further than mere gallantry.' Curios. of Literature, v. 1. p. 458-9. 5th edition. 79 Her foreign biographer, Gregorio Leti, says of her: 'She was a queen; was pretty, young, full of spirit; loved the pomp of dress, diversions, balls, amusements, and to have the handsomest persons of the kingdom for her favorites. This is all that I can inform the reader of.' Hist. Eliz. 2. p. 513. So The publicity with which her freedoms were done, was an indication that no immorality was, in her mind, connected with them. Napoleon sometimes pinched the ears of those with whom he was in high good humor. Melville says, that Elizabeth pinched Leicester, when she made him an earl, to go to Scotland to be the husband of Mary; as he knelt to her to receive the honor a petty indecorum; but to do it before two ambassadors, implied that it was considered by her as a harmless joke on her power and act of aggrandizing her courtiers. |