XXXVII. entertainments at the houses of her great nobility. CHAP. Her resentment at times could be highly excited. 141 138 Osb. 71. 140 137 Osb. 70, 1. 140 Maurier's account, as prince Maurice, who had it from sir Dudley BOOK her displeasure at the moment when a strong appeal II. was made to her reason, we perceive in the instance when a privy counsellor, more zealous than discreet,' struck Leicester in her presence. The blow excited her to remark, that the offender had forfeited his hand; the usual legal penalty for such an outrage in the royal palace. His intrepid reply was, that he hoped she would suspend that judgment till the traitor had lost his head, who did better deserve it.142 The immediate conviction that the assaulting nobleman had, from an indignant loyalty, risked his life, both with Leicester and with herself, for her benefit, prevented all penal consequences. She displayed the same self-government in that public reception of the Polish ambassador, to which we have already alluded.143 She held a stately court this countess, in her angry letter to the Danish ambassador, on some inculpating epithet or speech which his sovereign had applied to her: Sir! I am very sorry that this occasion should have been offered me by the king your master, which makes me troublesome to you for the present. It is reported to me by men of honor, the great wrong which the king of the Danes has done me, when I was not by to answer for myself, for if I had been present I would have letten him know how much I scorn to receive that wrong at his hands. I need not urge the particular of it, for the king himself knows it best. I protest to you, Sir! I did think as honorably of the king your master as I did of my own prince; but now, I persuade myself there is as much baseness in him as can be in any man. For altho he be a prince by birth, it seems not to me that there harbors any princely thought in his breast; for either in prince or subject, IT IS THE BASEST THING THAT CAN BE, TO WRONG ANY WOMAN OF HONOR. I deserve as little that name he gave me, as either the mother of himself or of his children. And if ever I came to know what man hath informed your master so wrongfully of me, I should do my best for putting him from doing the like to any other. But if it hath come by the tongue of any woman, I dare say she would be glad to have companions. So, leaving to trouble you any further, I rest your friend, M. NOTTINGHAM.' Cabala, p. 303, 4. This is in the complete style of an indignant empress, and of the Amazonian breed. What she would have done to the king, or to any male author of the tale, we can only conjecture; but the words sound like menaced battle. 142 Osb. 88. This is most likely to have been the earl of Sussex. 143 See before, p. 588, note 110. XXXVII. to do him honor,144 and he came before her in his CHAP. best costume,' 145 but made a Latin oration to her, which she felt to be inconsistent with the honor of her people, by its dictatorial spirit, and with her own rightness of intention, by charging her with injustice. It highly affronted her.146 Yet she coerced herself to give him in the same language an extempore answer," which her state secretary, perceiving how much she was moved, admired for its self-restraint.148 She had some power of instantaneous smartness of allusion, without ill-nature. 144 Sir Robert Cecil described his audience to earl Essex, on 26 July 1587: There arrived, three days since, in the city, an ambassador out of Poland, a gentleman of excellent fashion, wit, discourse, and person. Her majesty, as his father the duke of Finland had so much honored her, did resolve to receive him publicly in her chamber of presence, where most of the earls and noblemen about the court attended, and made it a great day.' Ellis, First Series, v. 3, p. 43. 145 He was brought in, attired in a long robe of black velvet, well jewelled and buttoned, and came to kiss her majesty's hand, where she stood under the state; from whence he straight retired ten yards off, and then begun his oration aloud in Latin, with such a gallant countenance as in my life I never beheld.' ib. 43. 146 Sir Robert, after stating his speech, adds, "To this, I swear by the living God, her majesty made one of the best answers extempore, in Latin, that ever I heard, being much moved to be so challenged in public, especially so much against her expectations.' ib. p. 44. 147 Sir Robert thus gives us her sudden speech. I expected an embassy, and you have brought me a complaint. Is this the business on which your king has sent you? Surely, I can hardly believe, that if the king himself were present, he would have used such language; for if he had, I must have thought that, being a king not of many years, and not by right of blood, but by election, he had been left uninformed of that course which his father and ancestors had taken with us. As for you, altho I perceive you have read many books to fortify your arguments, yet you have not lighted upon that chapter which prescribes the form to be used between kings and princes. Were it not for the place you hold, for throwing so publicly an imputation upon our justice, which has yet never failed, we should answer this audacity of yours in another style.' Ellis, p. 45. 148 Sir Robert thus expressed his sense of her self-government: 'I assure your lordship, tho I am not apt to wonder, I must confess that I never heard her, when I knew her spirits were in a passion, speak with better moderation, in my life.' ib. 45. BOOK II. For when Dr. Humphreys, who with a strong puritanical feeling had opposed the ecclesiastical habits, approached in his turn to kiss her hand, she said to him with a smile, Mr. Doctor! that loose gown becomes you mighty well; I wonder your notions should be so narrow.'149 6 Hospitality, charity and splendor,' were the characteristics of her household, and upon the most liberal and comprehensive plan; embracing the inferior as well as the superior orders of society.150 In the latter part of her reign she was thought to be ' over-sparing of expense.'151 The armaments she was obliged to prepare and send out, compelled her to require subsidies, and impose taxations on her people, which some complained of;152 but on one occasion she declined the money which the Commons had voted her, because she found that it was not wanted.153 She gratified her subjects by calling frequent parliaments; 154 and had the pleasure of always witnessing their affectionate loyalty.155 Some thought that she too much courted popularity;' 156 149 Peck Decid. Curiosa, v. 2. p. 276. There is one instance, however, in which she let her resentment deviate into scurrility. In the MS. Titus, B. 2, there are two of her letters, in which she calls lord Mountjoy, Mistress Kitchenmaid.' p. 70. An expression half spleen and half jocoseness. 150 Upon the least acquaintance, all strangers, from the nobleman to the peasant, were invited to one table or other, of which she kept abundance, wherever she removed from one standing house to another.' Osborne, 69. 155 The queen and her parliaments part in love, and on reciprocal terms.' 152 MS. ib. 196. 154 Osborne, 91. had ever the good fortune to Naunton, 184. 156 She 'rested for the security of her person on the love and fidelity of her people, which she politically affected, as it hath been thought, somewhat beneath the height of her spirit and natural magnanimity.' Naunt. 190. XXXVII. but it was one of her real enjoyments. It was her CHAP. feeling, to like to be loved by all, whether high or low; and she had so little of personal pride, and such a desire to promote the public good, that'she would not refuse the informations of mean persons, if they were given with purposes of improvement.' 157 Of the four queens with whom she had been contemporary, her sister Mary, Jane Grey, the queen of Scots, and Catherine de Medicis, the fairlyearned pre-eminence can be refused to her by no one. She united all the real merits of each; and drew a just distinction between herself and the latter, when some one wished to express that in the management of affairs, and in the arts and power of governing, nothing less was to be expected from them than from the greatest men.' She could not endure to be compared to the ambiguous and objectionable French queen. 'I govern by very different measures, and upon principles very unlike her's,' was her correct observation.158 The legal severities which she sanctioned against the Jesuits and seminary priests were contrary to her disposition and principles, but were forced upon her adoption, by the inveterate hostilities and treasonable conduct of those deluding and deluded men; as harsh laws were also made against the Catholics, because they allowed the papal agents and instigators to stimulate them to disaffection, collusion and conspiracy.159 157 Naunt. 190. 158 Lord Bacon, p. 194. 159 Lord Bacon, in his observations on Elizabeth, states their cause and necessity at some length, 187-192. He truly states, that ‘It is most certain, (certissimum est) that the animi sensum, the opinion and principle of this sovereign was, that no force should be used to the |