restless and wakeful; sitting continually upon the floor supported by cushions; sometimes not uttering a word for two or three hours, or even for twentyfour; holding her finger in her mouth with her eyes glaring fixedly downwards; giving vent to her griefs by sighs and moans; and daily growing weaker and more emaciated.1 She listened with satisfaction to those of her prelates who visited her, to their words of spiritual comfort, and to their exhortations. She also joined in their prayers with every sign of fervent devotion. But her deplorable state of mind and body continued until, having named James of Scotland her successor,3 she expired peacefully and without a struggle, at three o'clock in the morning of the 24th of March, in the seventieth year of her age and the fortyfifth of her reign.* It is impossible to determine precisely how far Camden to Sir Robert Cotton. as became her years, strictly maternal in its character, but doting 1 Birch, II. 507. Osborne, 109, and sadly unfortunate in its innote. Hume III. 241. fluence. He was executed in FebSeveral causes of the queen's ruary, 1600-1, for attempting by melancholy are specified by histori- force of arms to seize the person ans. I rely only upon those to which of the queen and to make a revolushe herself alluded. First, her dis- tion in the government. (Camden, covery that her nobility were neglect- 606. Birch, II. 464, 478.) There ing her court, and "were already were circumstances - - well known offering incense to the King of to historical readers attending Scots." (Camden, 659, 660. Birch, his death which peculiarly aggraII. 505, 506, bis. Dodd's Church vated the sorrow of the queen. History, III. 71, 72 (London, 1840). Hume, III. 240.) This being in her view filial estrangement, filial neglect, filial desertion, cut her to the heart. Second, the death of Robert, Earl of Essex, for whom she had an excessive affection, though such VOL. III. 81 Strype's Whitgift, 558. 3 The most reliable and consistent account of this fact is to be found in D'Israeli's "Curiosities of Literature," p. 353. Camden, 661. Birch, II. 507. Queen Elizabeth was implicated in the great wrongs inflicted upon her Puritan subjects. While their principles were by no means inconsistent with a limited monarchy, they were antagonistic to the despotism which she loved and to which she clung; for in church affairs and in affairs of state the Puritan had "greatly advanced the interests of the people, and had curiously scanned the prerogatives of princes." Of this she became jealous soon after her accession to the throne, and during the last twenty years of her reign she had the clearest evidence of it in the earnest and reiterated cry for a more popular form of church government, in the growing boldness of the House of Commons, and in their increasing scrutiny of the prerogatives of the crown. The prelates were constantly whispering in her ear that the Puritans intended foul and seditious proceedings, should other means prove unavailing, to establish their discipline; the bill filed in the Star-Chamber against Cartwright and his fellows was rank with the same charge; and through these different channels it gained her belief. Hence it was that she was so resolute to "root out Puritanism" by unsparing suspensions, sequestrations, and deprivations, so far as they might be inflicted "by lawful ways and means," or "according to the power limited by the laws, ordinances, and statutes of the realm."2 Her own agency in this eradi cating work we discover only in the instruments by which she constituted, empowered, and instructed her successive Courts of High Commission, and in the emphatic charge which she gave to Whitgift * Ante, Vol. II. 1 Hicks, 303. p. 338. when she raised him to the primacy. To the establishment of this court, the Puritans themselves did not object, although they did to its rigors and unjust proceedings, nor do we find them taking exceptions to the very exceptionable language of the commission itself. Even Martin Marprelate complained not of the High-Commission Court, but of the Commissioners only. "Abuse not the High Commission, as you do, against the best subjects. The Commission itself was ordained for very good purposes, but it is most horribly abused by you, and turned clean contrary to the end wherefor it was ordained." Both the ecclesiastical and the municipal courts but little regarded the principles of justice, the obvious rules of testimony, the rights of the citizen, or even the meaning and intent of statutes. But the illegal and oppressive proceedings of either branch of her judiciary may not be charged upon the queen, unless, indeed, it can be made to appear that such proceedings were by her direction or had her connivance. This, we think, cannot be done. "She referred all ecclesiastical business wholly to Whitgift's management," and all civil prosecutions wholly to her judges. But the doings of these courts she did not and could not scrutinize, and we have yet to learn that she ever knew how frequently and flagrantly they violated their trust. She failed, to be sure, and culpably, to provide reasonable checks against the abuse of judicial power; but we find no evidence that she was privy 9 Ante, p. 278. 1 Ante, Vol. II. p. 348. to the wrong done to Edward Deering and others, who were punished for opinions only; none that she authorized Whitgift's "Three Articles"; none that she sanctioned the enforcement of any other subscription than that, required by statute; none that she justified the racking inquisition which her Primate instituted under her allowance of "the corporal oath." On the other hand, it was her will that the servants of the crown, in each branch of the judiciary, should do justly, love mercy, and eschew all oppression of her people. That they did otherwise was their own sin, not hers. . That Queen Elizabeth was ignorant of the illegal and protracted imprisonment of the Puritans and Barrowists without hearing or trial, that she was ignorant of their cruel usage in prison, and of the slight grounds upon which some of them were condemned to the death of felons, we have sufficient evidence. Witness the facts, that Archbishop Whitgift sought, through false informations and suggestions, to incense her Majesty against them; that their humble supplications to her were intercepted and suppressed; that her Master of Requests, Whitgift's creature, made it his custom to withhold such papers from her; and that, when one accidentally came to her hand, it was graciously 1 I have heretofore expressed myself as though Elizabeth were assenting to prosecutions for men's opinions only, and had, therefore, violated her royal pledge to the contrary. Such opinions were formed, penned, and printed before meeting with documents by which they have been materially modified. It is now my opinion that she was not privy to such prosecutions, and that her great fault was her oversight in vesting her commissioners with powers but vaguely limited. Witness her solemn charge, ante, Vol. I. p. 299. received.1 Witness the language of a Puritan clergyman, when complaining of the outrages of Chief Justice Anderson: "Well, we will not be discouraged in our loyal affection to her Majesty, but will comfort ourselves with our rude country proverb, 'Much water goes by the mill that the miller never knows of' Yea, we are assured that her Majesty would not have her own religion discountenanced, nor her quiet and loving people disquieted and grieved."2 Witness the words of Penry: "I am assured, if her Majesty knew the equity and uprightness of our cause, we should not receive this hard measure which we now sustain. We and our cause are never brought before her but in the odious weeds of sedition, rebellion, schism, and heresy; and therefore it is no marvel to see the edge of her sword turned against us. I am assured, that if her Majesty may understand the uprightness of my cause in any sort, one hair of my head shall not perish." Witness the words of Barrow: "If her Majesty might be truly informed of the things which have passed, she would freely and fully pardon our execution." Witness the language of the suffering church of Separatists: "O that her Grace and you did understand all our actions, and did see the several declarations of our souls, and loyalty long since proved. We should not then be long in the hazard of utter spoil of our bodies and minds, of evil air and diet, of the poor remnant of our goods and of our families' destruction. We are persuaded that the execution of Barrow and Greenwood was rather importuned and 1 Ante, p. 501. 2 Strype's Annals, VII. 372. |