Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth
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A formidable mass of discontent did in fact subsist among the catholics of the north, and it was not long before a new and more daring leader found means to set it again in fierce and violent action.
Leonard Dacre had found no opportunity to take part in the enterprise of the two earls, though a deep participator in their counsels; for knowing that their design could not yet be ripe for execution, and foreseeing as little as the rest of the faction those measures of the queen by which their affairs were prematurely brought to a crisis, he had proceeded to court on his private concerns, and was there amusing her majesty with protestations of his unalterable fidelity and attachment, while his associates in the north were placing their lands and lives on the hazard of rebellion. Learning on his journey homewards the total discomfiture of the earls, he carefully preserved the semblance of a zealous loyalty, till, having armed the retainers of his family on pretence of preserving the country in the queen's obedience, and having strongly garrisoned its hereditary castles of Naworth and Greystock, which he wrested from the custody of the Howards, he declared himself, and broke out into violent rebellion.
The late severities had rather exasperated than subdued the spirit of disaffection in this neighbourhood, and three thousand men ranged themselves under the scallop-shells of Dacre;—a well known ensign which from age to age had marshalled the hardy borderers to deeds of warlike prowess. Lord Hunsdon, the governor of Berwick, marched promptly forth with all the force he could muster to disperse the rebels; but this time they stood firmly on the banks of the little river Gelt, to give him battle. Such indeed was the height of fanaticism or despair to which these unhappy people were wrought up, that the phrensy gained the softer sex; and there were seen in their ranks, says the chronicler, "many desperate women that gave the adventure of their lives, and fought right stoutly." After a sharp action in which about three hundred were left dead on the field, victory at length declared for the queen's troops; and Leonard Dacre, who had bravely sustained, notwithstanding the deformity of his person, the part of soldier as well as general, seeing that all was lost, turned his horse's head and rode off full speed for Scotland, whence he passed into Flanders and took up at Lovain his melancholy abode.
The treason of this unfortunate gentleman was, it must be confessed, both notorious and heinous; and had he been intercepted in making his escape, no blame could have attached to Elizabeth in exacting the full penalty of his offence. But when, five-and-twenty years after this time, we find his aged mother at court "an earnest suitor" for the pardon of her two sons70; obtaining, probably by costly bribes, a promise of admission to the queen's presence, and at length gaining nothing more,—it is impossible not to blame or lament that relentless severity of temper which rendered Elizabeth so much a stranger to the fairest attribute of sovereign power. The case of Francis Dacre indeed was one which ought to have appealed to her sense of justice rather than to her feelings of mercy. This gentleman, after the expatriation and attainder of his elder brother, had prosecuted at law the claims to the honors and lands of the barony of Gilsland which had thus devolved upon him; but being baffled in all his appeals to the equity of the courts, he had withdrawn in disgust to Flanders, and on this account suffered a sentence of outlawry. He lived and died in exile, leaving a son, named Ranulph, heir only to poverty and misfortunes, to noble blood, and to rights which he was destitute of the power of rendering available. Lord Dacre of the south, as he was usually called, settled on this poor man, his very distant relation, a small annuity; and on his death the following lord Dacre, becoming the heir male of the family, received by way of compromise from the Howards no less than thirteen manors which they had en joyed to the prejudice of Leonard Dacre, of his brother and of his nephew.
On the suppression of this second rising in the north, the queen, better advised or instructed by experience, granted a general pardon to all but its leader; and such was the effect of this lenity, or of the example of repeated failure on the part of the insurgents, that the internal tranquillity of her kingdom was never more disturbed from this quarter, the most dangerous of all from the vicinity of Scotland.
The earl of Sussex had been kept for some time in a state of dissatisfaction, as appears from one of his letters to Cecil, by her majesty's dilatoriness in conferring upon him such a mark of her special favor as she had graciously promised at the conclusion of his satisfactory defence of himself before the council; but she appeased at length his wounded feelings, by admitting him to the council-board and giving him the command of a strong force appointed to act on the Scottish border.
The occasion for this military movement arose out of the tragical incident of the assassination of the regent Murray, which had proved the signal for a furious inroad upon the English limits by some of the southern clans, who found themselves immediately released from the restraints of an administration vigorous enough to make the lawless tremble. Sussex was ordered to chastize their insolence; and he performed the task thoroughly and pitilessly, laying waste with fire and sword the whole obnoxious district.
Besides recognising in Murray a valuable coadjutor, neighbour and ally, Elizabeth appears to have loved and esteemed him as a man and a friend, and she bewailed his death with an excess of dejection honorable surely to her feelings, though regarded by some as derogatory from the dignity of her station. It was indeed an event which broke all her measures, and which, at a period when difficulties and dangers were besetting her on all hands, added fresh embarrassment to her perplexity and presented new chances of evil to her fears. What degree of compunction she felt for her unjustifiable detention of Mary may be doubtful; but it is certain that her mind was now shaken with perpetual terrors and anxieties for the consequences of that irrevocable step, and that there was nothing which she more earnestly desired than to transfer to other hands the custody of so dangerous a prisoner.
She had nearly concluded an agreement for this purpose with Murray, to whom she was to have surrendered the person of the captive queen, receiving six Scottish noblemen as hostages for her safe keeping; and though the interference of the French and Spanish ambassadors had obliged her to suspend its execution, there is no reason to suppose that the design was relinquished, when this unexpected stroke rendered it for ever impracticable. The regency of Scotland, too, was now to be contested by the enraged factions of that distracted country, and it was of great importance to Elizabeth that the victory should fall to the party of the young king; yet such were the perplexities of her political situation, that it was some time before she could satisfy herself that there would not be too great a hazard in supporting by arms the election of the earl of Lenox, to whom she gave her interest.
Her first recourse was to her favorite arts of intrigue; and she sent Randolph, her chosen instrument for these occasions, to tamper with various party-leaders, while Sussex, whose character inclined him more to measures of coercion, exhorted her to put an end to her irresolution and throw the sword into the scale of Lenox. She at length found reason to adopt this counsel; and the earl, re-entering Scotland with his army, laid waste the lands and took or destroyed the castles of Mary's adherents.
Sir William Drury, marshal of the army, was afterwards sent further into the country to chastize the Hamiltons, of which clan was the assassin of Murray.
The contemporary accounts of this expedition, amid many lamentable particulars of ravages committed, afford one amusing trait of manners. Lord Fleming, who held out Dumbarton castle for the queen of Scots, had demanded a parley with sir William Drury, during which he treacherously caused him to be fired upon; happily without effect. Sir George Cary, burning to avenge the injury offered to his commander, sent immediately a letter of defiance to lord Fleming, challenging him to meet him in single combat on this quarrel, when, where and how he dares; concluding thus: "Otherwise I will baffle your good name, sound with the trumpet your dishonor, and paint your picture with the heels upward and bear it in despite of yourself." That this was not the only species of affront to which portraits were in these days exposed, we learn from an expression of Ben Jonson's:—"Take as unpardonable offence as if he had torn your mistress's colors, or breathed on her picture71."
The Scotch war was terminated a few months after, by an agreement between Elizabeth and Mary, by virtue of which the former consented to withdraw her troops from the country on the engagement of the latter that no French forces should enter it in support of her title. After this settlement, Elizabeth returned to her usual ambiguous dealing in the affairs of Scotland; and so far from insisting that Lenox should be named regent, she sent a request to the heads of the king's party that they would refrain for a time from the nomination of any person to that office. In consequence of this mandate, which they dared not disobey, Lenox was only chosen lieutenant for a time; an appointment which served equally well the purposes of the English queen.
Connected with all the other measures adopted by the zeal of the great catholic combination for the destruction of Elizabeth and the ruin of the protestant cause, was one from which their own narrow prejudices or sanguine wishes, rather than any just views of the state of public opinion in England, led them to anticipate important results. This was the publication of a papal bull solemnly anathematizing the queen, and dispensing her subjects from their oath of allegiance. A fanatic named Fulton was found willing to earn the crown of martyrdom by affixing this instrument to the gate of the bishop of London's palace. He was taken in the fact, and suffered the penalty of treason without exciting a murmur among the people. A trifling insurrection in Norfolk ensued, of which however the papal bull was not openly assigned as the motive, and which was speedily suppressed with the punishment of a few of the offenders according to law. Even the catholic subjects of Elizabeth for the most part abhorred the idea of lifting their hands against her government and the peace of their native land; and several of them were now found among the foremost and most sincere in their offers of service against the disaffected.
On the whole, the result of the great trial of the hearts of her people afforded to the queen by the alarms of this anxious period, was satisfactory beyond all example. Henceforth she knew, and the world knew, the firmness of that rock on which her throne was planted;—based on religion, supported by wisdom and fortitude and adorned by every attractive art, it stood dear and venerable to her people, defying the assaults of her baffled and malignant enemies. The anniversary of her accession began this year to be celebrated by popular festivals all over the country;—a practice which was retained not only to the end of the reign, but for many years afterwards, during which the 17th of November continued to be solemnly observed under designation of the Birthday of the Gospel.
end of the first volumeVolume II
CHAPTER XVII
1571 TO 1573Notice of sir T. Gresham.—Building of his exchange.—The queen's visit to it.—Cecil created lord Burleigh and lord-treasurer.—Justs at Westminster.—Notices of the earl of Oxford, Charles Howard, sir H. Lee, sir Chr. Hatton.—Fresh negotiations for the marriage of Elizabeth with the duke of Anjou.—Renewal of the intrigues of Norfolk.—His re-committal, trial, and conviction.—Death of Throgmorton.—Sonnet by Elizabeth.—Norfolk beheaded.—His character and descendants.—Hostility of Spain.—Wylson's translation of Demosthenes.—Walsingham ambassador to France.—Treaty with that country.—Massacre of Paris.—Temporizing conduct of Elizabeth.—Burleigh's calculation of the queen's nativity.—Notice of Philip Sidney.
From the intrigues and violences of crafty politicians and discontented nobles, we shall now turn to trace the prosperous and honorable career of a private English merchant, whose abilities and integrity introduced him to the notice of his sovereign, and whose patriotic munificence still preserves to him the respectful remembrance of posterity. This merchant was Thomas Gresham. Born of a family at once enlightened, wealthy and commercial, he had shared the advantage of an education at the university of Cambridge previously to his entrance on the walk of life to which he was destined, and which, fortunately for himself, his superior acquirements did not tempt him to desert or to despise.
His father, sir Richard Gresham, had been agent to Henry VIII. for the negotiation of loans with the merchants of Antwerp, and in 1552 he himself was nominated to act in a similar capacity to Edward VI., when he was eminently serviceable in redeeming the credit of the king, sunk to the lowest ebb by the mismanagement of his father's immediate successor in the agency. Under Elizabeth he enjoyed the same appointment, to which was added that of queen's merchant; and it appears by the official letters of the time, that political as well as pecuniary affairs were often intrusted to his discreet and able management. He was also a spirited promoter of the infant manufactures of his country, several of which owed to him their first establishment. By his diligence and commercial talents he at length rendered himself the most opulent subject in the kingdom, and the queen showed her sense of his merit and consequence by bestowing on him the honor of knighthood.
Gresham had always made a liberal and patriotic use of his wealth; but after the death of his only son, in 1564, he formed the resolution of making his country his principal heir. The merchants of London had hitherto been unprovided with any building in the nature of a burse or exchange, such as Gresham had seen in the great commercial cities of Flanders; and he now munificently offered, if the city would give him a piece of ground, to build them one at his own expense. The edifice was begun accordingly in 1566, and finished within three years. It was a quadrangle of brick, with walks on the ground floor for the merchants, (who now ceased to transact their business in the middle aisle of St. Paul's cathedral,) with vaults for warehouses beneath and a range of shops above, from the rent of which the proprietor sought some remuneration for his great charges. But the shops did not immediately find occupants; and it seems to have been partly with the view of bringing them into vogue that the queen promised her countenance to the undertaking. In January 1571, attended by a splendid train, she entered the city; and after dining with sir Thomas at his spacious mansion in Bishopsgate-street (still remaining), she repaired to the burse, visited every part of it, and caused proclamation to be made by sound of trumpet that henceforth it should bear the name of the Royal Exchange. Gresham offered the shops rent-free for a year to such as would furnish them with wares and wax lights against the coming of the queen; and a most sumptuous display was made of the richest commodities and manufactures of every quarter of the globe.
Afterwards the shops of the exchange became the favorite resort of fashionable customers of both sexes: much money was squandered here, and, if we are to trust the representations of satirists and comic writers, many reputations lost. The building was destroyed in the fire of London; and the divines of that day, according to their custom, pronounced this catastrophe a judgement on the avarice and unfair dealing of the merchants and shopkeepers, and the pride, prodigality and luxury of the purchasers and idlers by whom it was frequented and maintained.
Elizabeth soon after paid homage to merit in another form, by conferring on her invaluable servant Cecil,—whose wisdom, firmness and vigilance had most contributed to preserve her unhurt amid the machinations of her implacable enemies,—the dignity of baron of Burleigh; an elevation which might provoke the envy or resentment of some of the courtiers his opponents, but which was hailed by the applauses of the people.
Before the close of the year, the death, at a great but not venerable age, of that corrupt and selfish statesman the marquis of Winchester, afforded her an opportunity of apportioning to the new dignity of her secretary a suitable advance in office and emolument, by conferring on him the post of lord-high-treasurer, which he continued to enjoy to the end of his life.
On the first of May and the two following days solemn justs were held before the queen at Westminster; in which the challengers were the earl of Oxford, Charles Howard, sir Henry Lee and sir Christopher Hatton,—all four deserving of biographical commemoration.
Edward earl of Oxford was the seventeenth of the illustrious family of Vere who had borne that title, and his character presented an extraordinary union of the haughtiness, violence and impetuosity of the feudal baron, with many of the elegant propensities and mental accomplishments which adorn the nobleman of a happier age. It was probably to his travels in Italy that he owed his more refined tastes both in literature and in luxury, and it was thence that he brought those perfumed and embroidered gloves which he was the first to introduce into England. A superb pair which he presented to her majesty were so much approved by her, that she sat for her portrait with them on her hands. These gloves became of course highly fashionable, but those prepared in Spain were soon found to excel in scent all others; and the importance attached to this discovery may be estimated by the following commission given by sir Nicholas Throgmorton, then in France, to sir Thomas Chaloner ambassador in Spain:—"I pray you, good my lord ambassador, send me two pair of perfumed gloves, perfumed with orange-flowers and jasmin, the one for my wife's hand, the other for mine own; and wherein soever I can pleasure you with any thing in this country, you shall have it in recompense thereof, or else so much money as they shall cost you; provided always that they be of the best choice, wherein your judgement is inferior to none72."
The earl of Oxford enjoyed in his own times a high poetical reputation; but his once celebrated comedies have perished, and two or three fugitive pieces inserted in collections are the only legacy bequeathed to posterity by his muse. Of these, "The complaint of a lover wearing black and tawny" has ceased, in the change of manners and fashions, to interest or affect the reader. "Fancy and Desire" may still lay claim to the praise of ingenuity, though the idea is perhaps not original even here, and has since been exhibited with very considerable improvements both in French and English, especially in Ben Jonson's celebrated song, "Tell me where was Fancy bred?" Two or three stanzas may bear quotation.
"Where wert thou born Desire?""In pomp and pride of May.""By whom sweet boy wert thou begot?""By Fond Conceit men say.""Tell me who was thy nurse?""Fresh Youth in sugred joy.""What was thy meat and daily food?""Sad sighs with great annoy.""What had'st thou then to drink?""Unsavoury lovers' tears.""What cradle wert thou rocked in?""In hope devoid of fears." &c.In the chivalrous exercises of the tilt and tournament the earl of Oxford had few superiors: he was victor in the justs both of this year and of the year 1580, and on the latter occasion he was led by two ladies into the presence-chamber, all armed as he was, to receive a prize from her majesty's own hand. Afterwards, by gross misconduct, he incurred from his sovereign a disgrace equally marked and public, being committed to the Tower for an attempt on one of her maids of honor. On other occasions his lawless propensities broke out with a violence which Elizabeth herself was scarcely able to restrain.
He had openly begun to muster his friends, retainers and servants, to take vengeance on sir Thomas Knevet, by whom he had been wounded in a duel; and the queen, who interfered to prevent the execution of this savage design, was obliged for some time to appoint Knevet a guard in order to secure his life. He also publicly insulted sir Philip Sidney in the tennis-court of the palace; and her majesty could discover no other means of preventing fatal consequences than compelling sir Philip Sidney, as the inferior in rank, to compromise the quarrel on terms which he regarded as so inequitable and degrading, that after transmitting to her majesty a spirited remonstrance against encouraging the insolence of the great nobles, he retired to Penshurst in disgust. The duke of Norfolk was the nephew of this earl of Oxford, who was very strongly attached to him, and used the utmost urgency of entreaty with Burleigh, whose daughter he had married, to prevail on him to procure his pardon: "but not succeeding," says lord Orford, "he was so incensed against that minister, that in most absurd and unjust revenge (though the cause was amiable) he swore he would do all he could to ruin his daughter; and accordingly not only forsook her bed, but sold and consumed great part of the vast inheritance descended to him from his ancestors73."
This remarkable person died very aged early in the reign of James I.
Sir Charles Howard, eldest son of lord Howard of Effingham, was at this period of his life chiefly remarkable for the uncommon beauty of his person,—a species of merit never overlooked by her majesty,—for grace and agility in his exercises, and for the manners of an accomplished courtier. At no time was he regarded as a person of profound judgement, and of vanity and self-consequence he is said to have possessed an abundant share. He was however brave, courteous, liberal, and diligent in affairs; and the favor of the queen admitted him in 1585 to succeed his father in the office of lord-high-admiral. His intrepid bearing, in the year 1588, encouraged his sailors to meet the terrible Armada with stout hearts and cheerful countenances, and the glory of its defeat was as much his own as the participation of winds and waves would allow. In consideration of this distinguished piece of service he was created earl of Nottingham; and the queen's partiality towards her relations increasing with her years, he became towards the end of the reign one of the most considerable persons at her court, where his hostility to Essex grew equally notorious with the better grounded antipathy entertained by Sussex, also a royal kinsman, against Leicester, the earlier favorite of her majesty.
The earl of Nottingham survived to the year 1624, the 88th of his age.
Sir Henry Lee was one of the finest courtiers and certainly the most complete knight-errant of his time.
He was now in the fortieth year of his age, had travelled, and had seen some military service; but the tilt-yard was ever the scene of his most conspicuous exploits and those in which he placed his highest glory. He had declared himself the queen's own knight and champion, and having inscribed upon his shield the constellation of Ariadne's Crown, culminant in her majesty's nativity, bound himself by a solemn vow to appear armed in the tilt-yard on every anniversary of her happy accession till disabled by age. This vow gave origin to the annual exercises of the Knights-Tilters, a society consisting of twenty-five of the most gallant and favored of the courtiers of Elizabeth. The modern reader may wonder to find included in this number so grave an officer as Bromley lord chancellor; but under the maiden reign neither the deepest statesman, the most studious lawyer, nor the rudest soldier was exempted from the humiliating obligation of accepting, and even soliciting, those household and menial offices usually discharged by mere courtiers, nor from the irksome one of assuming, for the sake of their sovereign lady, the romantic disguise of armed champions and enamoured knights. Sir Henry Lee, however, appears to have devoted his life to these chivalrous pageantries rather from a quixotical imagination than with any serious views of ambition or interest. He was a gentleman of ancient family and plentiful fortune, little connected, as far as appears, with any court faction or political, party, and neither capable nor ambitious of any public station of importance. It is an amiable and generous trait of his character, that he attended the unfortunate duke of Norfolk even to the scaffold, received his last embrace, and repeated to the assembled multitude his request that they would assist him with their prayers in his final agony. His royal Dulcinea rewarded his fatigues and his adoration by the lieutenancy of Woodstock manor, the office of keeper of the armoury, and especially by the appropriate meed of admission into the most noble order of the Garter. He resigned the championship at the approach of old age with a solemn ceremony hereafter to be described, died at his mansion of Quarendon in Bucks, in 1611, in his 81st year, and was interred in the parish church under a splendid tomb hung round with military trophies, and inscribed with a very long, very quaint and very tumid epitaph.