221 will never love us for your brother's death." Yet Elizabeth amused herself with coquetting with the disinherited heir of Norfolk, till his reconciliation with his deserted countess provoked her into unequivocal manifestations of hostility, and confirmed the general remark, that " no married man could hope to retain her favour if he lived on terms of affection with his wife." The first indications of her displeasure fell on the weaker vessel. Lady Arundel was presented for recusancy, and confined under the royal warrant to the house of sir Thomas Shirley for twelve months." Arundel was deeply offended at the persecution of his lady, and the deprivation of her society, of which he had learned the value too late. He was himself, in heart, a convert to the same faith which she openly professed; and being much importuned by the friends of the queen of Scots to enter into the various confederacies formed in her favour, he determined to avoid further danger, by quitting England. His secretary, Mumford, had already engaged a passage for him, in a vessel that was to sail from Hull, when he was informed that it was her majesty's intention to honour him with a visit at Arundel house. Elizabeth came, was magnificently entertained, behaved graciously, and carried her dissimulation so far, as to speak in terms of commendation of her host to the French ambassador, Mauvissière de Castelnau, who was present. 3 "She praised the earl of Arundel much for his goodnature," says that statesman; but when she took her leave of him, she thanked him for his hospitality, and in return, bade him," consider himself a prisoner in his own house." His brother, lord William Howard, and Mumford, his secretary, were arrested at the same time. They were subjected to very rigorous examinations, and Mumford was threatened with the rack. Nothing was, however, elicited, that could furnish grounds for proceeding against any of the parties; and after a short imprisonment they were set at liberty. Arundel, after this, attempted once more to leave England, and had actually embarked and set sail from the coast of Sussex. The vessel was chased at sea by two of the queen's ships; he was taken, brought back, and lodged 1 Smythe's Lives of the Berkeleys. 2 Howard Memorials. 3 MS. life of Philip Howard, in possession of the duke of Norfolk. in the Tower. Previous to his departure, he had written a pathetic letter to Elizabeth, complaining of the adverse fortune which had now for several generations pursued his house; his father and grandfather, having perished on a scaffold without just cause; his great grandfather, having also suffered attainder and condemnation to the block, from which he only escaped, as it were, by miracle; and the same evil fortunes appearing to pursue him, he saw no other means of escaping the snares of his powerful enemies, and enjoying liberty of conscience, than leaving the realm. "His life," he said, "had been narrowly sought during his late imprisonment; and as her majesty had shewn on how slight grounds she had been led into a suspicious hard opinion of his ancestors, and that the late attack upon himself, having proved how little his innocence availed for his protection, he had decided on withdrawing himself, trusting that she would not visit him with her displeasure, for doing so without her licence, for that he should consider the bitterest of all his misfortunes." This letter was to have been presented to the queen, by Arundel's sister, lady Margaret Sackville; but she and lord William Howard were placed under arrest almost simultaneously with himself. The confinement of Arundel was rigorous in the extreme, and embittered with every circumstance of aggravation that persons of narrow minds, but great malignity, could devise. At the time of his arrest, lady Arundel was on the eve of becoming a mother. She brought forth a fair son, and sent to gladden her captive lord with the tidings of her safety, and the accomplishment of his earnest desire for the birth of an heir; but lest he should take comfort at the news, he was allowed to remain in suspense many months, and was then falsely informed that his lady had borne another daughter. Lady Arundel was treated with great cruelty. All her goods were seized in the queen's name, and they left her nothing but the beds on which she and the two servants, that now constituted her sole retinue, lay, and these were only lent as a great favour. After Elizabeth had despoiled and desolated Arundel house, she came there one day, in the absence of its sorrowing mistress, and espying a sentence written by her with 1 Memorials of the Howard family. MS. life of Philip Howard. 2 Howard Memorials. MS. life of Philip Howard. 2 a diamond on a pane of glass, in one of the windows, expressing a hope of better fortunes, she cruelly answered it, by inscribing under it another sentence, indicative of anger and disdain.' Arundel remained unnoticed in prison for upwards of a twelvemonth, and was then fined ten thousand pounds by a star-chamber sentence, for having attempted to quit the realm without leave. He was also condemned to suffer imprisonment during her majesty's pleasure. Nothing less than a life-long term of misery satisfied the vengeance of Elizabeth. While these severities were exercised on the devoted representative of the once powerful house of Norfolk, the famous association for the protection of queen Elizabeth against "popish conspirators," was devised by Leicester. All who subscribed it bound themselves to prosecute to the death, or as far as they were able, all who should attempt anything against the queen. Elizabeth, who was naturally much gratified at the enthusiasm with which the majority of her subjects hastened to enrol themselves as her voluntary protectors, imagined that the queen of Scots would be proportionately mortified and depressed at an institution, which proved how little she had to hope from the disaffection of Englishmen to their reigning sovereign. "Her majesty," writes Walsingham to Sadler, "could well like that this association were shewn to the queen, your charge, upon some apt occasion; and that there were good regard had both unto her, her countenance and speech, after the perusing thereof."" Mary Stuart disappointed the prying malignity of the parties, by whom she was exposed to this inquisitorial test, by her frank and generous approval of the association, and astonished them by offering to subscribe it herself. The new parliament, which had been summoned of necessity, the last having been dissolved after the unprecedented duration of eleven years, converted the bond of this association into a statute, which provided, 1MS. life of Anne, countess of Arundel, at Norfolk house, quoted, in the Howard Memorials, by the late Henry Howard, Esq., of Corby. Probably the sentence written by the unfortunate countess, was a distich in rhyme, as she was an elegant poet; and it is possible that Elizabeth's response was one of the sharp epigrammatic couplets for which she was celebrated. 2 Sadler's State Papers, vol. ii. p. 430. "That any person, by or for whom rebellion should be excited, or the queen's life attacked, might be tried by commission under the great seal, and adjudged to capital punishment. And if the queen's life should be taken away, then any person, by or for whom such act was committed, should be capitally punished, and the issue of such person cut off from the succession to the "It is unnecessary," observes that great civilian, sir James Mackintosh, with reference to this act, "to point out the monstrous hardship of making the queen of Scots, a prisoner in the hands of Elizabeth, responsible for acts done for her, or in her name.' Such, however, was the object of the statute, which was intended to prepare the way for the judicial murder of the heiress presumptive to the throne, and also for the exclusion of her son from the succession. This clause, sir James Mackintosh affirms, was ascribed to Leicester, who had views for himself, or his brother-in-law, Huntington, the representative of the house of Clarence. Elizabeth was, at this juncture, on terms of conventional civility with Henry III. of France. Sir Edward Stafford, her ambassador, in a letter from Paris, detailing the dangerous illness of that prince, informs her good grace, in his postscript, of a present that was in preparation for her. "There is," says he, "the fairest caroche, almost ready to be sent your majesty, that ever I saw. It must needs be well in the end, the king hath changed the workmanship of it so often, and never is contented, not thinking it good enough." Henry, however, continued to advocate the cause of his unfortunate sister-in-law, Mary Stuart; and his ambassadors made perpetual intercessions in her favour to Elizabeth, who generally received these representations with a stormy burst of anger and disdain. Henry was too much paralyzed by internal commotions and foreign foes to resent the contempt with which his remonstrances were treated by his haughty neighbour, far less was he able to contend with her for the dominion of the Low Countries. Elizabeth possessed the power, but prudently declined the name of sovereign of those states, though the deputies on their knees again offered her that title after the death of the duke of Anjou. She sent, however, a considerable military force to their aid, under the command of her quondam favourite, the earl of Leicester. If we may credit the private letters of 1 History of England, in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia, vol. ii. p. 300. 2 Sloane MS. i. p. 4160. the French ambassador, Mauvissière, to Mary queen of Scots, this appointment was intended by Elizabeth, and the predominant party in her cabinet, as a sort of honourable banishment for Leicester, whom they were all desirous of getting out of the way. According to the same authority, Christopher Blount, though a catholic, was sent out by the queen as a spy on Leicester. Leicester was received with signal honours by the states, but instead of conducting himself with the moderation which his difficult position required, he assumed the airs of regality, and sent for his countess, with intent to hold a court that should rival that of England in splendour.' 66 "It was told her majesty," writes one of Leicester's kinsmen to his absent patron, that my lady was prepared to come over presently to your excellency, with such a train of ladies and gentlemen, and such rich coaches, litters, and side-saddles, that her majesty had none such; and that there should be such a court of ladies and gentlemen as should far surpass her majesty's court here." This information did not a little stir her majesty to extreme choler, at all the vain doings there, saying, with great oaths, "she would have no more courts under her obeisance but her own, and would revoke you from thence with all speed." This letter confirms the report of. Mauvissière, who, in one of his intercepted confidential communications to the captive queen of Scots, observes,-"The earl of Leicester takes great authority in Flanders, not without exciting the jealousy of the queen. She will neither allow him supplies of money, nor permit his wife to come out to him." "I will let the upstart know," exclaimed the last and proudest of the Tudor sovereigns, in the first fierce explosion of her jealousy and disdain, "how easily the hand which has exalted him can beat him down to the dust." Under the impetus of these feelings, she penned the following scornful letter, which she despatched to him by her vice-chamberlain, who was also charged with a verbal rating on the subject of his offences,-doubtless well worth the hearing, if we may judge, from the sample of the letter, 1 Inedited State Paper MSS. Mary Stuart, vol. xv. p. 141. Inedited State Paper Office MS. Mary Stuart, vol. xv. |