130 PUBLIC SPIRIT UNDER ELIZABETH. * to be the main cause of the excessive dearness of commodities, members of the various crafts "walk in every market with a white rod in their hands, to look that men should take testons of the rate as the queen has proclaimed in all markets through all London." This difficult operation of restoring the current money to a just value was carried through successfully, because it was set about boldly. The teston of Edward VI. had been coined to pass at the rate of twelve-pence; it was afterwards reduced to six-pence; and lastly to four-pence, its intrinsic value. Fine sterling money was exchanged at the mint for the base coin, according to this last rate. No doubt there was individual suffering in this apparent deterioration of property; but the great body of the labourers now knew that they were paid the agreed value for their labour, and were not deluded by receiving, as twelve-pence, what would only exchange for the third of a bushel of wheat instead of the bushel which the honest twelve-pence would have bought. There required much public spirit in the people, as well as firmness in the government, to carry through such a change without serious confusion. But it was accomplished with no recorded difficulty; and to this correction of the evils produced by the frauds of her despotic predecessors may much of the steady commercial advance of England under Elizabeth be ascribed. Public spirit at this time also manifested itself in a manner which has characterised our country for three centuries. In 1561, the steeple of St. Paul's was destroyed. "The 4th day of June, being Corpus Christi, between four and five of the clock at afternoon, the lightning took and entered into one of the holes that was in the outward part of the steeple, and set the steeple on fire, and consumed both wood and lead, and the bells fell below where the great organs stood beneath the chapel where the old bishop was buried." Some of the ancient devotees ascribed this calamity to the new religion; for there were relics of saints, deposited two centuries and a half before by a bishop of London, for the express purpose of protecting the steeple from the danger of tempests. The misfortune, however, did not discourage the Protestants from instantly beginning the repairs of the beautiful church. The magnificent steeple was never restored; but the roofs, which were entirely burnt, were replaced in the course of a year, at the cost of nearly six thousand pounds. This sum was raised by contributions from the queen, from the citizens of London, from the clergy of the province of Canterbury and of the diocese, and from voluntary subscribers. In earlier times the especial funds of the Church would have been devoted to the restoration of this splendid cathedral. But the Church property was now scattered; and in that distribution amongst the laity, the popular interests became more identified with the ecclesiastical, and the Church ceased to stand apart in self-supporting grandeur. The union of the high and the humble, the sovereign and the burgher, the noble and the priest, to carry through some object of common good, is one of the social principles of England which we see thus developing in the restoration of St. Paul's. That principle has formed one of the foundations of a generous and confiding nationality, in which the inequality of ranks is lost in a concurrence of duties; an union whose monuments are the results of systematic growth rather than of sudden creation, and therefore Machyn's Diary, p. 245. 1561.] SPORTS AND PROCESSIONS. 131 more extensively and permanently useful than the solitary wonders of capricious despotism. State Carriage of Queen Elizabeth. (From Hoefnagel's Print of Nonsuchi Palace.) The English love of sports and popular amusements seems to have revived after the years of martyrdoms. Though the displays of a terrible criminal justice are revolting to our present notions, and we cannot read without some disgust, month after month, of burglars and cutpurses being hanged by dozens at Hyde Park Corner and Tyburn, yet the people of that time thought these things just and right; and went, without any sad reflections, from the scenes of the gallows and the pillory, to look upon matches of archery and aquatic games. Whilst St. Paul's is still smouldering, a great wager of archery was shot in Finsbury-field, in which lord Robert Dudley, afterwards earl of Leicester, was the challenger; and on Midsummer Day, there was a great triumph on the river at Greenwich, with a sham fight, and shooting of guns, and hurling of balls of wild-fire, and a bark for the queen's grace to be in to see the pastime. On the 10th of July all London is out to behold Elizabeth go in grand procession from the Tower "unto Aldgate church, and so down Houndsditch to the Spital, and so down Hog Lane, and so over the fields to the Charter-house, my lord North's place." The next day the queen travels " from the Charter-house by Clerkenwell, over the fields into the Savoy, unto master Secretary Cecil to supper, and there was the council and many lords and ladies and gentlewomen, and there was great cheer till midnight; and after, her grace rid to my lord North's to bed at the Charterhouse." These country excursions in the midst of the now "populous city," sound strange to the pent-up two millions and a half, for whom the fields, even among the pleasant villages and farms adjoin'd," are a dream of the past. One more glimpse of the English queen, in her early days of triumph and splendour, if only to make us look more compassionately upon the poor Mary of Scotland, whose first recreation was to behold a pageant of the godly citizens of Edinburgh, in which Korah, Dathan, and Abiram were destroyed as they offered strange fire upon the altar-the show signifying the divine vengeance against such idolatry as that of the Romish church. On the 14th of July all the streets of London were new gravelled, as Elizabeth set forth from the Charter-house to Whitechapel, on her progress. The houses 66 132 ENGLAND SENDS AID TO THE FRENCH PROTE STANTS. [1568. were hung with cloth of arras, and carpets, and silk, with cloth of gold and silver, and velvet of all colours. The crafts of London stood in their liveries; and there were trains of pensioners, and knights and lords, and the aldermen in scarlet, and heralds in their coat-armours, and my lord mayor bearing the sceptre, and the lord Hunsdon bearing the sword. Then came the queen, and her footmen richly habited; and ladies and gentlemen, and lords' men and knights' men in their master's liveries; and at Whitechapel my lord mayor and the aldermen took their leave of her grace, and so she went on her way. All these pomps look like profitless vanity. But they were the poetry of the real life of that time; and we may believe that they were not without their influence on the glorious imaginations that have reflected this age in harmonious association with the permanent and the universal. When Charles IX., a boy eleven years old, succeeded to the crown of France, the religious differences of the people had become so extended that they imparted their character to the political factions of the time. The direction of the government was in the hands of the duke of Guise and the cardinal his brother; who, joined in interests with the queen-mother, were naturally opposed by the princes of the blood, headed by the prince of Condé. The Guises persecuted the Protestants; the other party supported them. The religious wars which divided the French into two great hostile bands of Catholic and Huguenot, now commenced in terrible earnest. There were two fierce armies in the field, by whom the people were alike plundered and harassed. In 1561, according to some writers, a hundred thousand persons were butchered by the contending factions. The Protestants, although inferior in numbers, fought with desperation; and the duke of Guise solicited and obtained assistance against them from Philip of Spain. The prince of Condé, on the other hand, concluded a treaty with Elizabeth, who, after some attempts at mediation, sent a force of three thousand men to take possession of Havre. The queen was at first careful that this should not be deemed an act of hostility to France, declaring to the French ambassador that her desire was to free the young king from the tyranny of the Guises. But the contest soon assumed a national character. The English warlike operations, though conducted with great bravery, were finally unsuccessful. Catholics and Protestants concluded a hollow peace; and, at length, both parties agreed in determining that the English should hold no position in France. The garrison of Havre defended themselves for two months, and then capitulated. They were released without ransom, and came with their - property to London. But they brought with them the pestilence which had thinned their ranks; and the French Catholics looked upon the infliction as a judgment upon the English heretics. (In this year, 1563, the parliament again met, and a statute of increased rigour was passed against Papists. This was entitled, "An Act for the assurance of the queen's royal power over all estates and subjects within her dominions;" and, with what has been justly called "an iniquitous and sanguinary retrospect," it provided that all persons who had been in holy orders, or taken a degree in the universities,. or had practised as lawyers, or held office in the execution of the law, should take the oath of supremacy when tendered to them, under the penalty of a præmunire, and if continuing to refuse for three months, should incur the pains of high treason. The statute was inefficient from its very severity; The 1563.] SCOTLAND-PLANS FOR MARY'S MARRIAGE. 133 and although the first penalty was incurred by some of the higher clergy, archbishop Parker warned the bishops, with whom it rested to enforce the oath, to do so with great circumspection, and never to tender it a second time without his special sanction. In 1563, Edmund and Arthur Pole were convicted of a conspiracy to set Mary of Scotland on the throne. Their associates were executed, but they wore out their lives as prisoners in the Tower of London. In 1563 an Act was passed against "fond and fantastical prophecies."* One description of prophecy that it was declared unlawful to promulgate was that founded upon the armorial bearings of any person. There was a famous prophecy of Thomas the Rhymer which might come within this punishable class: "However it happen for to fall, The Lion shall be lord of all; The predictions which were familiar to the people of Scotland, might have become current on the English side of the border; and the notion that the son of the queen of Scots, "the lion with the floure-de-lyce" would “rule all Britain," would at that period be naturally denounced by the government of Elizabeth as "fond and fantastical," delusive and dangerous. At this time it was feared by the reformers in Scotland, and their fears were communicated to the English court, that intrigues were going forward for marrying Mary to some foreign prince of her own religion. When the Scottish parliament met in 1563 Knox preached a vehement sermon, in which he said that those who would consent that an infidel-for all Papists were infidels—should be head to their sovereign, would do as far as in them lay to banish Christ Jesus from the realm, and to bring God's vengeance on the country. The queen summoned the bold preacher before her, and asked what he had to do with her marriage? Knox repeated the words he had said in public; and, with a passionate burst of tears, Mary commanded him to leave her. There can be little doubt that the queen would have sought a foreign catholic alliance had she not been deterred by the power of the reformers at home, and her apprehensions of giving dire offence to England. Whatever shows of amity might have passed between the queens at this period, their policies were systematically opposed, and contained the germs of hostility. Whilst Elizabeth was lending aid to the Huguenots, and Mary was writing letters to the Council of Trent, in which she professed that if she succeeded to the throne of England she would subject both kingdoms to the apostolic see, there must have been dissimulation on both sides. They were to have met in 1562; but the interview was postponed, as if there were insuperable barriers to a cordial personal agreement. As it was not likely that the queen of Scotland would remain a widow, with princes eager to wed one so beautiful and of such high pretensions, it was the policy of the queen * 5 Eliz., c. 15. + Mr. Aytoun, in his notes to "Bothwell, a Poem," has clearly shown that this Scottish prophecy was referred to in a poem by Alexander Scott, addressed to Mary on her return in 1561; and that therefore the belief of lord Hailes, that it was an interpolation after the death of Elizabeth, is unfounded. Page 232. 134 LEICESTER AND DARNLEY. [1564. of England to induce her to marry an English subject-" some noble person within the kingdom of England, having the qualities and conditions meet for such an alliance."* Lord Robert Dudley, the younger son of the duke of Northumberland, the father of lady Jane Grey, was recommended. It is one of the mysteries connected with the capricious character of all Elizabeth's own matrimonial negotiations and female preferences, that Robert Dudley, afterwards earl of Leicester, her chief favourite, should have been pressed upon Mary as a husband. But even in that protracted negotiation, it was not the reluctance of Mary to "embase herself," as she thought would be the effect of a marriage with a subject, nor any lingering wish of the queen to retain Leicester as her devoted follower, which prevented it being successfully concluded. Cecil, at the end of 1564, wrote: "I see the queen's majesty very desirous to have my lord of Leicester to be the Scottish queen's husband; but when it cometh to the conditions which are demanded, I see her then remiss of her earnestness."+ Whilst Mary was always pressing that her succession to the English crown should be recognised by a declaratory Act, Elizabeth was as reluctant to comply; for the eyes of the Roman Catholic party were constantly turned towards Mary as the legitimate branch of the Tudors-the descendant of the daughter of Henry VII., although unrecognised in the will of Henry VIII. "The conditions which are demanded" under this proposed marriage with Leicester were probably such as Elizabeth did not choose to bring too prominently before her subjects. She had a strong dislike even to hear of this question of the succession; and said that Maitland, the Scottish minister, was always, like a death-watch, ringing her knell in her ears. In looking at the delays and evasions about this demand of Mary, it is usual to represent the conduct of Elizabeth as marked by "fraud, falsehood, and selfishness;" and that of Mary as "warm, generous, and confiding." This is an easy mode of disposing of a great and difficult public question. The eagerness of Mary for the recognition, and the reluctance of Elizabeth to grant it, may each be explained by the fact that Mary was the instrument of those who had determined to eradicate the reformed religion, and that Elizabeth was equally resolved to support it. The negotiations for the marriage with Leicester gradually faded away. There was another candidate for Mary's hand, ready at an opportune moment. Henry Stuart, lord Darnley, was the son of the earl of Lennox, by the daughter of Margaret Tudor, queen of Scots, who had married the earl of Angus after the death of her royal husband. The countess of Lennox was the next to Mary in hereditary succession to the English crown. The earl of Lennox had long resided in England as an exile, and in 1564, having returned to Scotland with letters from Elizabeth urging the reversal of his attainder, he was finally restored. Then came his countess and their son to the Scottish court. Darnley arrived on the 13th of February 1565. In a fortnight, Randolph, the English ambassador, had observed the favours which Mary bestowed upon this youth. He soon manifested a preference for the Romish party, and gave offence to the reformers. Within two months of Darnley's arrival an envoy was sent by Mary to desire Elizabeth's approval of her * Cecil's Instructions to Randolph. Tytler, vol. vi. p. 373. + Ellis, Second Series, vol. ii. p. 294. |