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1563-1565

Society of Jesus, usually known as Jesuits. The society was founded in 1540 by Ignatius Loyola. Each Jesuit was to give himself up to winning souls to the Church, whether from heathenism or from heresy. With this end, the old soldier who established the society placed it under more than military discipline. The first virtue of the Jesuit was obedience. He was to be in the hands of his superior as a stick in the hands of a man. He was to do as he was bidden, unless he was convinced that he was bidden to commit sin. Discipline voluntarily accepted is a great power in the world, and this power the Jesuits possessed.

While the opposing forces of Calvinism and the reformed Papacy were laying the foundations of a struggle which would split western Europe in twain, Elizabeth was hampered in her efforts to avert a disruption of her own realm by the necessity of watching the proceedings of the Queen of Scots. If in Elizabeth the politician predominated over the woman, in Mary the woman predominated over the politician. She was keen of sight, strong in feeling, and capable of forming far-reaching schemes, till the gust of passion swept over her and ruined her plans and herself together. After her arrival in Scotland she not only acknowledged the new Calvinistic establishment, but put down with a strong hand the Earl of Huntly, who attempted to resist it, while on the other hand she insisted, in defiance of Knox, on the retention of the mass in her own chapel. Knox knew well that Mary would in the end be found to be fighting for her creed and her party. Her dancing and light gayety he held to be profane. The mass, he said, was idolatry, and according to Scripture the idolater must die. Mary, feeling herself insulted both as a queen and as a woman, took up Knox's challenge and before long, with her winning grace, she had the greater number of the nobility at her feet.

The sense of mental superiority could not satisfy a woman such as Mary. Her life was a lonely one, and it was soon known that she was on the look-out for a husband. The choice of a husband by the ruler of Scotland could not be indifferent to Elizabeth, and in 1564 Elizabeth offered to Mary her own favorite Dudley, whom she created Earl of Leicester. Mary could only regard the proposal as an insult. In 1565 she married her second cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Elizabeth was alarmed, taking the marriage as a sign that Mary intended to defy her in everything, and urged the Scottish malcontents, at whose head was Mary's illegitimate

1566-1567

brother, the Earl of Murray, to rebel. Mary chased them into England, where Elizabeth protested loudly and falsely that she knew nothing of their conspiracy.

Mary had taken a coarse-minded fool for her husband, and had to suffer from him all the tyranny which a heartless man has in his power to inflict on a woman. Darnley grew jealous of her secretary, Rizzio, and a league was formed against him. Rizzio was murdered, but Mary contrived to break up the league of nobles.

On June 19, 1566, Mary gave birth to a son, afterwards James VI. of Scotland, and James I. of England. His birth gave strength to the party in England which was anxious to have Mary named heiress of the crown. Whatever little chance there was of Elizabeth's consent being won was wrecked through a catastrophe in which Mary became involved. Mary despised her miserable husband as thoroughly as he deserved. Her passionate heart found in the Earl of Bothwell one who seemed likely to satisfy her. The evidence on Mary's conduct is conflicting, but it can hardly be doubted that she at least willingly closed her eyes to the preparations made for her husband's murder. Darnley was blown up by gunpowder and slain by Bothwell, or by Bothwell's orders, as he was attempting to escape. Bothwell then obtained a divorce from his own wife, carried Mary off-not, as was firmly believed at the time, against her will-and married her.

Mary, in gaining a husband, had lost Scotland. Her subjects rose against her as an adulteress and a murderess. She was deposed and fled, and a little later, reaching Cumberland, at once appealed to Elizabeth, asking not for protection only, but for an English army to replace her on the throne of Scotland. Elizabeth could hardly replace her rival in power and was still less inclined to set her at liberty, lest she should go to France, and bring with her to Scotland another French army. After innumerable changes of mind Elizabeth appointed a body of commissioners to consider the case against Mary. Before them Murray produced certain letters contained in a casket, and taken after Bothwell's flight. The casket letters, as they are called, were alleged to be in Mary's handwriting, and, if genuine, place out of doubt her guilty passion for Bothwell and her connivance in her husband's murder. They were

acknowledged by the commissioners with the concurrence of certain English lords who were politically partisans of Mary to be in her hand. Mary—either, as her adversaries allege, because she knew

1568-1570

that she was guilty, or as her supporters allege, because she was afraid that she could not obtain justice-withdrew her advocates, and pleaded with Elizabeth for a personal interview. This Elizabeth refused to grant, but on the other hand she denied the right of the Scots to depose their queen. Mary remained virtually a prisoner in England. She was an interesting prisoner, and in spite of all her faults there were many who saw in her claim to the English crown the easiest means of re-establishing the old Church and the old nobility.

The old Church and the old nobility were strongest in the north, where the Pilgrimage of Grace had broken out in 1536. The northern lords, the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland, longed to free Mary, to proclaim her queen of England, and to depose Elizabeth. They were, however, prepared to content themselves with driving Cecil from power, with forcing Elizabeth to acknowledge Mary as her heir, and to withdraw her support from Protestantism. On October 18 Elizabeth, suspecting that Norfolk was entangling himself with the Queen of Scots, sent him to the Tower. Northumberland and Westmoreland hesitated what course to pursue, but a message from the queen requiring their presence at Court decided them, and they rose in insurrection. Elizabeth sent an army against the earls. Both of them were timorous and unwarlike, and they fled to Scotland before the year was ended, leaving their followers to the vengeance of Elizabeth. Little mercy was shown to the insurgents, and cruel executions followed this unwise attempt to check the progress of the Reformation.

Elizabeth, it seemed for all her triumphs over the earls, had a hard struggle still before her. In January, 1570, the regent Murray was assassinated by Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, and Mary's friends began again to raise their heads in Scotland. In April Pope Pius V. excommunicated Elizabeth and absolved her subjects from their allegiance. In May a fanatic named Felton affixed the Pope's bull of excommunication to the door of the Bishop of London's house. Felton was eventually seized and executed, but his deed was a challenge which Elizabeth would be compelled to take up. Hitherto she had trusted to time to bring her subjects into one way of thinking, knowing that the younger generation was likely to be on her side. She had taken care to deal as lightly as possible with those who shrank from abandoning the religion of their

1568-1570

childhood, and she had recently announced that they were free to believe what they would if only they would accept her supremacy. The Pope had now made it clear that he would not sanction this compromise. Englishmen must choose between him and their queen. On the side of the Pope it might be argued with truth that with Elizabeth on the throne it would be impossible to maintain the Roman Catholic faith and organization. On the side of the

queen it might be argued that if the Papal claims were admitted it would be impossible to maintain the authority of the national government. A deadly conflict was imminent, in which the liberty of individuals would suffer whichever side gained the upper hand. Nations, like persons, cannot attend to more than one important matter at a time, and the great question at issue in Elizabeth's reign was whether the nation was to be independent of all foreign powers in ecclesiastical as well as in civil affairs.

I

Chapter XXIX

ELIZABETH AND THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT

1570-1587

LEADING DATES

REIGN OF ELIZABETH, A.D. 1558-1603-THE EXECUTION OF THE DUKE
OF NORFOLK, 1572-THE FOUNDATION OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, 1572—
THE ARRIVAL OF THE JESUITS, 1580-THE ASSOCIATION, 1584-
BABINGTON'S PLOT, 1586-EXECUTION OF MARY STUART, 1587

F the Catholic powers of the continent had been able to assist the English Catholics Elizabeth would hardly have suppressed the rising in the north. It happened, however, that neither in the Spanish Netherlands nor in France were the governments in a position to quarrel with her. In the Netherlands Philip sent the Duke of Alva, a relentless soldier, to establish the absolute authority of the king and the absolute authority of the Papacy. He had therefore no men to spare to send to aid the English Catholics. In France the civil war had broken out afresh in 1568, and the king and his mother took alarm lest the Catholics should become too powerful for the royal authority, and in 1570 a peace was signed once more, the French king refusing to be the instrument of persecution and being very much afraid of the establishment of a Catholic government in England which might give support to the Catholics of France. Accordingly in 1570, France would not interfere in England, if she could, while Spain could not interfere if she would.

For all that, Elizabeth's danger was great. In 1570 she had done her best to embroil parties in Scotland lest they should join against herself. At home Elizabeth expected a fresh outbreak, and could not be certain that Alva would be unable to support it when it occurred. Cecil accordingly pleaded hard with her to marry the frivolous Duke of Anjou. He thought that unless she married and had children her subjects would turn from her to Mary, who, having already a son, would give them an assured succession. If she was to marry, an alliance with the tolerant Govern

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