Henry of Navarre succeeds to the throne of France-English expeditions to aid Henry IV.—A Parliament called-Contests of the Crown and the Commons-Intrigues of Spain in Scotland-Naval expeditions-The taking of Cadiz-Parliament-Statutes regarding the PoorProgress of Poor-Law Legislation-Poverty and Vagabondage-Labourers refusing to work at usual wages-Egyptians and pretended Egyptians-Villanies of London-Insecurity of the Suburbs-Statutes against the increase of Buildings-Almshouses-Incidental causes of Indigence-Fluctuations of Price-Sickness-Nuisances-Fires-Insufficient household accommodation-Increase of town populations-Crimes of towns-Police. HENRY OF NAVARRE, the great champion of Protestantism, by a tragical event was suddenly placed upon the throne of France. On the 8th of August, 1589, Jacques Clement, a monk, stabbed Henry III.; and the king died of his wounds on the following day. Henry IV. became the sovereign of a troubled kingdom, reduced by long intestine conflicts to extreme weakness and misery. Henry III., when he fell under the blow of an assassin, was in arms against the great catholic confederacy known as the League; then exasperated by the murder of their leader, the duke of Guise, and of the cardinal his brother. The king was advancing against Paris with an army to put down this formidable party, and the rebellious citizens who adhered to them; when the Dominican friar fearfully revenged the crime which his monarch had perpetrated. Henry IV., on account of his religion, had to encounter the most determined opposition to his succession to the crown, although the undoubted heir. The duke of Mayence, the brother of the murdered Guises, took the command of the League. The king of Spain was ready with his most strenuous aid, to keep a protestant out of the throne of France, coveting 260 ENGLISH EXPEDITIONS TO AID HENRY IV. [1591 probably that great kingdom for himself. Elizabeth of England hesitated not to give her support to the Huguenot king, who had so long battled with the most adverse fortune. She sent him a supply of money-no large sum, it may seem in these days, being only twenty-two thousand pounds,-but Henry declared it was a larger treasure than he had ever seen. An English force, under the command of lord Willoughby, soon after landed at Dieppe; and the king was thus encouraged to continue a contest which without this timely assistance might have been hopeless. Henry, who had learnt the art of war in many a desperate struggle with the powerful enemies of the reformed religion-and had early known how to win the love of all who served him, and to gain new adherents to his cause, by his kind and generous nature, his courage and endurance-was now in a position to risk a general engagement with the enemy who, at his accession to the throne, appeared well able to destroy him. At the great battle of Ivry a gallant army followed his white plume to a complete victory. But the duke of Parma, with the forces of Spain, came to the relief of the League, and compelled Henry to raise the siege of Paris. Elizabeth again sent him succour. In April, 1591, sir John Norris landed in France with a force of three thousand men; and in July of that year, another small army, four thousand in number, under the earl of Essex, was also sent to the aid of Henry. But the duke of Parma, the most accomplished general of that time, again came to the relief of the League; and the expeditions of England had no satisfactory result. Robert Devereux was the son of a distinguished but unfortunate nobleman, Walter, earl of Essex, who died at Dublin in 1576, "his hard estate having long ebbed even to the low water mark," as he described the issue of his ruinous attempt to subdue and colonise a district of Ulster. He committed his eldest son, Robert, who was born in 1567, to the kindness of the queen, requesting that he might be brought up in the household of lord Burleigh. The youth was sent to Trinity College, Cambridge, and with a handsome person, and many accomplishments, made his appearance at court in 1584. He was related to the queen; and the favourite, Leicester, had become his step-father by marrying Letitia, the widow of the lord Walter. Honours were showered upon him, to an extent which provoked the jealousy of older courtiers, and increased the dangerous impetuosity of his own nature. We have mentioned his participation in the attack upon Lisbon under Drake and Norris. He had displeased the queen by joining this expedition without her permission; but on his return soon regained her favour. Raleigh and Essex were each jealous of the influence of the other; and the Cecils, though they kept their feelings under subjection to their policy, could ill brook the confidence which the queen placed in one so young and so indiscreet. The petted earl claimed an almost exclusive right to the royal smiles; and having offered an insult to sir Charles Blount, to whom Elizabeth had given some mark of her approbation, a duel ensued, in which Essex was wounded. The queen upon the occasion exclaimed, "By God's death, it was fit that some one or other should take him down, and teach him better manners, otherwise there would be no rule with him." Such was Essex, at the age of twenty-four, when he was appointed to the command of the expedition sent to the aid of Henry IV. He conducted himself with his native gallantry; but made a singular display of his want of discretion, by 1593.] A PARLIAMENT CALLED. 261 sending a challenge to the governor of Rouen to meet him in single combat. He had attempted the same revival of the worn-out spirit of chivalry in his Lisbon campaign. The only brother of Essex, Walter Devereux, was killed in the unsuccessful warfare of 1591. The naval enterprises of this year had no more fortunate issue. A squadron of seven ships was. sent, under the command of lord Thomas Howard, to intercept the Indian fleet on its return to Spain. But Philip was prepared; and had fitted out a force of fifty-five sail as an escort. The little English squadron fell in with this armament; and one of Howard's vessels became a Spanish prize. This was the first ship that Spain had taken from England during the war. It was commanded by sir Richard Grenville, the vice-admiral; and the memory of the unequal fight which this heroic captain sustained from three in the afternoon to day-break the next morning, long abided with the English sailor as one of his noblest examples of courage and resolution. Grenville was three times wounded during the action, in which he again and again repulsed the enemy, who constantly assailed him with fresh vessels. At length the good ship lay upon the waters like a log. Her captain proposed to blow her up rather than surrender; but the majority of the crew compelled him to yield himself a prisoner. He died in a few days, and his last words were,-" Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind; for that I have ended my life as a true soldier ought to do, fighting for his country, queen, religion, and honour." The mode in which the war against Spain was carried on by England made the wealth of the Indies a very insecure possession to king Philip. Rich carracks were sometimes taken and sometimes destroyed. Real treasures, such as fourteen hundred chests of quicksilver, which were found in two ships captured by a Londoner, were abstracted from the riches of the Spaniard; and the Catholic king's dealings in a commodity which he sold at great profit to his Indian subjects were also interrupted. Thomas White, the Londoner, with his valuable quicksilver, also obtained a prize, worthless in England, of two millions of papal bulls for indulgences. But this war was also costly to England; and in 1593 Elizabeth called a parliament, for she needed a subsidy. In this parliament the Act against "Popish recusants,” and the Act against the Puritans, " to restrain the queen's subjects in their obedience," "'* were passed with little debate, but amidst manifest heartburnings. The queen and the Commons were beginning to be at issue. Prerogative and Privilege were giving indications that the time was approaching when they would come into actual conflict. There was a temper growing up amongst the people which, if it appeared feeble when compared with the ancient feuds between the sovereign and the aristocracy, was, to some acute observers, the little cloud which foretold the coming tempest. Cecil, in 1569, complained of "the decay of obedience in civil policy, which being compared with the fearfulness and reverence of all inferior estates to their superiors in times past, will astonish any wise and considerate person, to behold the desperation of reformation." There is a remarkable passage in Sidney's "Arcadia," in which he, no doubt, seeks to indicate the popular temper of his times: "When they began to talk of their griefs, never bees made such * See Chapter XVI. p. 244. |