II. CHAP. XXIX. CECIL RAISED TO THE PEERAGE-HIS GRADUAL DETECTION BOOK THE traitorous disposition and dealings of some of Elizabeth's most trusted friends, which have been already noticed, evinces the peril in which she was reigning; and the fact that many of them formed One instance of this appears in the conduct of sir Nich. Throckmorton. When he was her ambassador in France in 1559 and 1560, he was strenuous in pointing out to Elizabeth, Mary's assumption of the royal arms and title of England, and in urging his queen to hostilities against her French enemies; and in 1565, he was selected as one of the English queen's steadiest friends to be sent to Scotland' to stay the marriage' between Mary and Darnley. And yet he afterwards sent Mary elaborate instructions in writing for her gaining a speedy possession of the throne of Elizabeth. He thus counsels her: Your majesty has in England many friends of all degrees, that favor your title. Some being persuaded that in law your right is best. Some for the good opinion they have conceived of your virtues and liberality, whereby they esteem you MOST worthy to govern. Some, that favor your religion. Of these, some are Papists and some Protestants; and yet, however they differ among themselves, they are both of a mind for the advancement of that propos that touches your majesty.' He then proceeds to advise her what she must do to get the whole votes or the most part of the parliament, and to please the people; to abstain from any league with a foreign prince, but not to forsake the friendship of France and Spain, but wisely entertain them both to remain at your devotion; in case that afterwards ye have to do with their favor.' The written object of this advice was to secure her succession, but the object was to obtain a party in England that would overpower Elizabeth. 6 By following this advice, your majesty may recover and win the most part of the bishops of England, and many of the greatest of the nobility and gentlemen who are yet neutral. He added their names in cipher; and then follows a paragraph which at once reveals the real treason in contemplation: By whose means,' he alleged, 'her majesty should obtain so great an interest in England, that albeit that queen would kyeth in her contrary; she need to come, for in sending but one thousand men of her own, a sufficient number out of four parts of England should join with them, by whose force, without any strangers, her majesty should obtain that thing which is wrongously refused and a solemn band for her overthrow, increases our admiration of that intellectual sagacity in herself, and of that superior protection, by which her life and power were preserved from machinations, which extended from the interior of her palace to the farthest extremities of her kingdom. One of these secret plottings was discovered by an accomplice, in the August after the revolt of the two earls. The chief conspirators were executed; but some disclosed that it was intended to help the duke of Alva into Yarmouth." These partial detained.' Melv. Mem. 141-6. A succession obtained by a rebellion could only mean that immediate succession which follows a preceding deposition or destruction. Revolt leaves no other alternative. It was such a one as our Henry IV. acquired. 2 Sir James Melville expressly declares: My brother sir Robert, when he returned the first time of his ambassage out of England, BROUGHT the hand-writing of TWENTY-FIVE PRINCIPAL EARLS AND LORDS of England to set the crown of England upon the queen of Scots' head; and that the captains in shires were already named by the said lords to be in readiness to march forwards when they should be charged; only they stayed upon the queen's opportunity and advertisement.' Melv. Mem. p. 239. 4to edit. Edinb. 1827. Sir Robert was sent by Mary as her ambassador to remain in England in 1566. p. 147. Sir Robert brought the true explanatory comment on Throckmorton's paper. 3 Several persons were suddenly discovered to be plotting, in Norfolk, the assassination of the queen; the imprisonment of three of her cabinet ministers; the liberation of the duke, and the banishment of foreigners, meaning apparently the French refugees. They were tried and found guilty, four of actual treason, and three of the misprision of concealing it. Their confessions shew, that their designs were a part of the great secret conspiracy that was proceeding with all its malignant activity, but with a privacy and a fidelity among its promoters which eluded all the watchfulness and researches of the now awakened but still baffled cabinet. See the account in the letter of 31st August 1570 to the countess of Shrewsbury, printed in Lodge's Illust. v. 2, p. 46. Appleyard, Throckmorton, and two others, were condemned to be hanged. ib. If W. Kete had not accused me,' said one of them, we had had a hot harvest.' ib. 47. They were preparing to begin the insurrection by proclamations, with the sound of trumpets and drums, at Harleston fair, on Midsummerday. On 17th July, ten were indicted for high treason; and on 21st August, seven were found guilty, and three were executed. Stowe, 667. Ib. 47. Another declared, My lord Morley is gone to set the duke of Alva into Yarmouth.' ib. In Cecil's dispatch to Norris, in the preceding June, we read, The fond lord Morley, without any cause XXIX. II. BOOK failures producing no larger discoveries, the formidable conspiracy was continued. The earls had been ruined by the want of simultaneous risings by their banded friends. The papal agents ascribed this backwardness to their ignorance that the pontiff had excommunicated Elizabeth, and to their conscientious feeling, that they were bound by their oath of allegiance, until he absolved them from it." To remove this moral difficulty, the bull was clandestinely affixed on the bishop of London's door, and the copies brought by Ridolfi were copiously distributed. Enough now gradually came out, to increase the disquietude of sir William Cecil.' He could not now but perceive, that plots for the assassination of his sovereign, for the substitution of the queen of Scots, and for the extirpation of the Protestant religion, were on foot, and were highly patronized, tho he could not penetrate into the actual offered him, is gone like a noddy to Lorraine.' Lett. 22d June 1570. Cabala, 166. If he went to concert measures on Alva's invasion, it was the English statesman, who had not detected such plans being on foot, that seemed more like the noddy. 6 5 Sanders expressly declares this reason: 'But the other Catholics did not join them, because the sentence of excommunication was not yet publicly issued by the pope, and they did not yet see themselves absoluti obedientia.' De Schis. Hence Northumberland, being 417. p. sold and brought into England, suffered martyrdom at York.' ib. Ă nobleman wilfully rebelling and heading an army against the sovereign, and suffering the legal penalty, was therefore a martyr, in the estimation of a Romish priest!! It was for thus affixing it, that John Felton was, in August 1570, arraigned and condemned; and, on the 8th, hung in St. Paul's churchyard. Stowe, 667. 7 We see his embarrassed state of mind in his short paragraph to his friend, on 26th September 1570: I am thrown into such a maze at this time, that I know not how to walk from dangers.' Lett. Cabala, p. 167. Leicester we find in equal uneasiness, or preparing for cooperation, for the Norfolk plotters stated, as if for their own encouragement, He hath many workmen at Killingworth to make his house strong, and doth furnish it with armor, munition, and all necessaries for defence.' Lett. 21st August 1570. Lodge, 2. p. 49. 1 XXIX. trains and substance of the mysterious conspiracy; CHAP. more formidable from its invisibility, because, while its authors and partisans remained unknown, it could not be grappled with, nor by any exertion of wisdom or vigor, be extinguished. The nobility were still doubtful, as to their sincerity, altho death was removing some of the more questionable tempers." In these difficulties, the queen's conduct towards Scotland, after Murray's murder, had been wise and disinterested.10 But some of the chieftains on the borders chose to retain and cherish the northern rebels, who, from this support, from their vicinity to their old connexions, and from the facility of intercourse with these which their asylum gave them, endangered the government by new plots, and en 8 On 8th June 1570, Cecil apprised his friend, that the bishop of Ross had departed to the queen of Scots, to deal with her: Since his going, the queen understands of a practice he had two days before with a nobleman, a papist, contrary to his manner of dealing with the queen, whereupon she is not a little moved against him.' And on 22d June, we find that this was the earl Southampton, the friend and patron of our Shakespear, and that being lately known to have met in Lambeth Marsh with the bishop of Ross, is committed to the sheriff of London, to be there closely kept.' Cabala, 166. In 1570, besides Pembroke, the earl of Cumberland, and sir Nicholas Throckmorton, died. Camden, 124, 130. Of the latter, Camden remarks,' He died in good time for himself and his, being in great danger of life and estate by reason of his restless spirit.' p. 131. Melville remarked of Pembroke, that he and Norfolk, and many others, shew themselves more plainly friendly [to Mary] after the prince's birth.' Melv. Mem. 161. The next year, Parr, the marquis of Northampton, died, whose intimate connections with Pembroke are evinced by his making that lord's son his heir. Camd. 144. In the British Museum, MS. Titus B. 8. is a Latin paper obscurely alluding to some objectionable conduct of this nobleman, with regard to the queen of Scots. p. 320. 10 Thus, on 29 January 1570, she directed sir R. Sadler to repair speedily to Scotland, where you shall find the nobility. Treat with them severally or jointly, to accord fast together in unity among themselves, to the stay of that realm in quietness and common peace; and to employ themselves jointly against the disturbers thereof; and to preserve the state of religion from any change, and not to bring that realm into the bondage of any foreign prince.' Sadl. State Papers, v. 2, p. 147. 11. 12 BOOK Couraged the disaffected to prepare for new revolts. To repress this mischief, the English forces were ordered to march against these Scottish lairds ;" and advancing only to punish and deter, it was in its very scheme and object, one of those expeditions of destruction, which from the human suffering it occasions to dependants and peasantry, who do not cause, and cannot prevent, the offence, which occasions it, excites every reader to regret and reprobation.13 The French government threatened to send an armament if the English troops were not withdrawn.14 But Elizabeth had no intentions of ambitious conquest; and the troops returned from their calamitous incursion, tho without obtaining the earl of Northumberland, whom his Scottish friends both sheltered and detained, as much for their pecuniary advantage, as from their political sympathy.15 As the year 1571 began, Elizabeth shewed that "The reason of this movement we see in Cecil's letter of 22 March, to Norris: Since the death of the regent, the borderers have maintained our rebels, and invaded England, wherefore my lord of Sussex is now ordered with an army to invade them.' Cab. 162. He began his operations on 17th April, ib. p. 163, and on 27th besieged Hume Castle until it surrendered, p. 164. Lord Scrope made a co-operating one from Carlisle. Lett. 21 April, p. 164. 12 One trait implies the ravages of all. Drury, the marshal, with 1,000 foot and 400 horse, has so plagued the Hamiltons, as they have never had such losses in all the wars between Scotland and England these FORTY YEARS.' Lett. 22 June, Cabala, p. 166. 13 Stowe's marginal note is, 'He had burnt 300 towns and villages, and spoiled 50 stone castles.' p. 667. 14 Letter of Charles IX. dated 31 May 1570. Murray's MS. 15 That the Scottish lairds were trying to make a good bargain for themselves, for giving him an asylum, and letting him go safely, we learn from the letter of the countess to her husband, of 28 January 1571: I hear from France, that the laird is persuaded that you should have from the pope and the king 10,000 crowns towards your redemption, for which cause he said, as I hear, he did exact the more, seeing it was to come out of their pockets. I do all that I can to have the same persuasion pulled out of their heads, and that he may be occasioned otherwise to think.' Murd. St. Pap. 192. |