THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAPTER XLI. ELIZABETH. AFFAIRS OF SCOTLAND.-SPANISH AFFAIRS. - SIR FRANCIS DRAKE.-A PAR- XLI. THE greatest and most absolute security that Elizabeth CHAP. enjoyed during her whole reign never exempted her from vigilance and attention; but the scene began now 1580. to be more overcast, and dangers gradually multiplied on her from more than one quarter. Scotland. The Earl of Morton had hitherto retained Scotland Affairs of in strict alliance with the queen, and had also restored domestic tranquillity to that kingdom. But it was not to be expected that the factitious and legal authority of a regent would long maintain itself in a country unacquainted with law and order, where even the natural dominion of hereditary princes so often met with opposition and control. The nobility began anew to break into factions: the people were disgusted with some instances of Morton's avarice: and the clergy, who complained of farther encroachments on their narrow revenue, joined and increased the discontent of the other orders. The regent was sensible of his dangerous situation; and XLI. 1580. CHAP. having dropped some peevish expressions, as if he were willing or desirous to resign, the noblemen of the opposite party, favourites of the young king, laid hold of this concession, and required that demission which he seemed so frankly to offer them. James was at this time but eleven years of age; yet Morton, having secured himself, as he imagined, by a general pardon, resigned his authority into the hands of the king, who pretended to conduct, in his own name, the administration of the kingdom. The regent retired from the government, and seemed to employ himself entirely in the care of his domestic affairs; but, either tired with this tranquillity, which appeared insipid after the agitations of ambition, or thinking it time to throw off dissimulation, he came again to court; acquired an ascendant in the council; and, though he resumed not the title of regent, governed with the same authority as before. The opposite party, after holding separate conventions, took to arms on pretence of delivering their prince from captivity, and restoring him to the free exercise of his government : Queen Elizabeth interposed by her ambassador, Sir Robert Bowes, and mediated an agreement between the factions: Morton kept possession of the government: but his enemies were numerous and vigilant, and his authority seemed to become every day more precarious. The Count d'Aubigney, of the house of Lenox, cousingerman to the king's father, had been born and educated in France; and being a young man of good address and a sweet disposition, he appeared to the Duke of Guise a proper instrument for detaching James from the English interest, and connecting him with his mother and her relations. He no sooner appeared at Stirling, where James resided, than he acquired the affections of the young monarch; and joining his interest with those of James Stuart, of the house of Ochiltree, a man of profligate manners, who had acquired the king's favour, he employed himself, under the appearance of play and amusement, in instilling into the tender mind of the prince new sentiments of politics and government. He represented to him the injustice which had been done to Mary in her deposition, and made him entertain thoughts either of resigning the crown into her hands, XLI. 1580. or of associating her with him in the administration". CHAP. Elizabeth, alarmed at the danger which might ensue from the prevalence of this interest in Scotland, sent anew Sir Robert Bowes to Stirling; and accusing d'Aubigney, now created Earl of Lenox, of an attachment to the French, warned James against entertaining such suspicious and dangerous connexions. The king excused himself by Sir Alexander Hume, his ambassador; and Lenox, finding that the queen had openly declared against him, was farther confirmed in his intention of overturning the English interest, and particularly of ruining Morton, who was regarded as the head of it. That nobleman was arrested in council, accused as an accomplice in the late king's murder, committed to prison, brought to trial, and condemned to suffer as a traitor. He confessed that Bothwell had communicated to him the design, had pleaded Mary's consent, and had desired his concurrence; but he denied that he himself had ever expressed any approbation of the crime; and, in excuse for his concealing it, he alleged the danger of revealing the secret, either to Henry, who had no resolution nor constancy, or to Mary, who appeared to be an accomplice in the murder. Sir Thomas Randolph was sent by the queen to intercede in favour of Morton; and that ambassador, not content with discharging this duty of his function, engaged, by his persuasion, the Earls of Argyle, Montrose, Angus, Marre, and Glencarne, to enter into a confederacy for protecting, even by force of arms, the life of the prisoner. The more to overawe that nobleman's enemies, Elizabeth ordered. forces to be assembled on the borders of England; but this expedient served only to hasten his sentence and execution. Morton died with that constancy and resolution which had attended him through all the various events of his life; and left a reputation, which was less disputed with regard to abilities than probity and virtue. But this conclusion of the scene happened not till the subsequent year. Elizabeth was, during this period, extremely anxious Spanish a Digges, p. 412. 428. Melvil, p. 130. b Spotswood, p. 309. Ibid. p. 314. Crawford, p. 333. Moyse's Memoirs, p. 54. d Spotswood, p. 312. affairs. XLI. CHAP. on account of every revolution in Scotland; both because that country alone, not being separated from England 1580. by sea, and bordering on all the catholic and malecontent counties, afforded her enemies a safe and easy method of attacking her; and because she was sensible that Mary, thinking herself abandoned by the French monarch, had been engaged by the Guises to have recourse to the powerful protection of Philip, who, though he had not yet come to an open rupture with the queen, was every day, both by the injuries which he committed and suffered, more exasperated against her. That he might retaliate the assistance which she gave to his rebels in the Low Countries, he had sent, under the name of the pope, a body of seven hundred Spaniards and Italians. into Ireland; where the inhabitants, always turbulent, and discontented with the English government, were now more alienated by religious prejudices, and were ready to join every invader. The Spanish general, San Josepho, built a fort in Kerry; and being there besieged by the Earl of Ormond, president of Munster, who was soon after joined by Lord Gray, the deputy, he made a weak and cowardly defence. After some assaults, feebly sustained, he surrendered at discretion; and Gray, who commanded but a small force, finding himself encumbered with so many prisoners, put all the Spaniards and Italians to the sword without mercy, and hanged about fifteen hundred of the Irish: a cruelty which gave great displeasure to Elizabeth Sir Francis When the English ambassador made complaints of this invasion, he was answered by like complaints of the piracies committed by Francis Drake, a bold seaman, who had assaulted the Spaniards in the place where they deemed themselves most secure, in the new world. This man, sprung from mean parents in the county of Devon, having acquired considerable riches by depredations made in the isthmus of Panama, and having there gotten a sight of the Pacific Ocean, was so stimulated by ambition and avarice, that he scrupled not to employ his whole fortune in a new adventure through those seas, so much unknown at that time to all the European nations. By • Digges, p. 359. 370. f Camden, p. 475. Cox's Hist. of Ireland, p. 368. Camden, p. 478. Stowe, p. 689. |