posed conditions, to procure for her the present possession of the crown of Scotland, and that of England in reversion. He was now only waiting for a convenient opportunity of laying the design before Elizabeth, when Murray sent secret advice to her Majesty of the whole transaction, charging the Duke of Norfolk with having engaged in private practices to secure to himself the two crowns. This allegation, supported by circumstantial evidence, raised the Queen's jealousy to a high degree; upon which, Norfolk anxiously pressed the Earl of Leicester to impart the project to his royal mistress without delay. Leicester put it off from time to time, till at length falling sick at Titchfield, or at least pretending sickness, and being there visited by Elizabeth, he declared the whole matter to her with sighs and tears: and not long afterward, when Norfolk and the other lords were taken into custody, he gave such an account of his proceedings before the council, that he easily obtained her Majesty's pardon. * But In 1571 died, in a strange manner, Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, who, after having headed Leicester's party against Secretary Cecil, had lately gone over to the opposite faction. Being at Leicester's house at * Sir Nicholas Throgmorton was descended from an ancient family in Warwickshire, and educated abroad. From early youth he had manifested an inclination for political studies, and before he attained the age of thirty, he was esteemed an accomplished courtier. His knowledge of the true interests of his country led him to oppose, in parliament, the marriage of Queen Mary with Philip of Spain; and his attachment to the Protestant cause engaged him in secret measures for the support of Wyat's rebellion. Upon this, he was indicted for high treason: but he pleaded his own cause with so much ability, that neither the supper, he was violently seized with an imposthumation in his lungs, and died in a few days, not without suspicion of poison. It is said that, on his changing sides, Leicester was apprehensive he might make a disclosure of some of his intrigues.* The day before his death, he attributed his distemper to a sallad which he ate at the Earl's, and broke out into bitter invectives against his cruelty. The Earl, however, made a solemn show of lamentation over him, and in a letter to Sir Francis Walsingham thus expressed himself; "We have lost on Monday strength of the evidence, nor the influence of the ministry, could prevail against him. The jury however, who acquitted him, were prosecuted for their verdict by the Attorney-General in the Star-Chamber. Elizabeth, a ready discerner of merit, called him to court in the first year of her reign, and employing his talents in the department in which she knew he chiefly excelled, sent him upon various special embassies to France and Scotland; his knowledge of the political state of Europe, and of men and manners, having acquired him the reputation of being one of the ablest negociators of his time. But the same talents, under the influence of ambition, carrying him deep into court-intrigues at home, made him sacrifice his honour to support his interest with the reigning favourite. Becoming a partisan in Leicester's faction, he involved himself in many troubles upon his account; particularly in 1569, when that nobleman embraced the proposal made to him by the Earl of Murray, of marrying the Queen of Scots to the Duke of Norfolk. Throgmorton, upon Leicester's confession of the project, discovering from this instance of perfidy that he had mistaken his principal's character, went over to Cecil's interest, and, it is imagined, betrayed to him some important secrets. He likewise bore him a secret grudge for an account sent by him to Elizabeth, while he was her embassador in France, of a whisper circulated at the Duke of Montmorenci's table, that her Majesty was about to marry her horse-keeper;' meaning Leicester, her Master of the Horse. our good friend Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, who died in my house, being there taken suddenly in great extremity on Tuesday before. His lungs were perished, but a sudden cold he had taken was the cause of his speedy death. God hath his soul; and we, his friends, great loss of his body." About this time, a marriage was proposed between Elizabeth and the Duke of Anjou; upon which occa sion, Leicester is said to have laid aside his pretensions, and to have forwarded the negociation with considerable zeal. But this is not very probable; and it appears, that when the Duke of Anjou insisted upon a toleration in the exercise of his own religion, her Majesty absolutely refused to comply. With a view to prevent any farther attempts in favour of the imprisoned Mary, a law was now enacted, prohibiting, under a severe penalty, the declaring of any person whatsoever to be heir or successor of the Queen, except it were the natural issue of her body. This expression, unusual in sta tutes of this kind, as the term natural' was ordinarily applied by the lawyers to children born out of wedlock, gave great occasion to censure; and loud clamours were raised against Leicester, as if, by inserting this clause, he had designed to involve the realm in fresh disputes. It was urged, that no possible reason could be imagined, why the common form of lawful' should be changed to that of 'natural' issue, unless with a view of reflecting upon the honour of her Majesty, and of obtruding hereafter under that designation some bastard son of his own. From this time, it appears, Leicester was universally and justly detested: his pride and venality had offended all the principal officers of state, as his other crimes had drawn down upon him the odium of the people. He had openly quarrelled with Archbishop Parker and the Bishop of London, because they had refused a dispensation for holding a valuable benefice to a child, whose father had bribed him to obtain this favour. He had likewise claimed or received private gifts on the disposal of bishoprics, beside many lucrative grants from the crown. In consequence of his favour with the Queen, he carried his insolence to other courtiers so high, as even in the presence to treat them with the utmost indignity. At length a privy-councillor, unable to contain his resentment at such usage, struck him; upon which the Queen told him, he had forfeited his hand:' but the gentleman, with noble intrepidity, entreated her Majesty to suspend this judgement, till the traitor who better deserved it had lost his head.' The year 1572 is but too fatally memorable for the barbarous Massacre of Paris.* This sanguinary plot was laid with the deepest dissimulation; and whether we consider the dignity of the persons by whom it was projected, the rank of the selected victims, or the innocence of the slaughtered multitude, we shall find no parallel example in the pages of history. Charles IX., Katharine of Medicis his mother, and Pope Gregory XIII. were the contrivers of this inhuman butchery. The Queen-Dowager of Navarre was decoyed to Paris by a proposal of marriage between her son, afterward Henry IV. of France, and the Princess Margaret the sister of Charles. * Called The Massacre of St. Bartholomew,' because the bloody business commenced on the eve of St. Bartholomew's day. The same pretext drew thither Henry Prince of Bearn, and his uncle the Prince of Condé. The celebrated Admiral Coligni was invited by the King, with a promise of being declared General in a war against Spain; and the other chiefs of the Hugonots,* depending upon a recent pacification, accom French Protestants, so called (according to some writers) from Hugo Aubriot, Treasurer of the Finances to Charles V. of France, mayor of Paris, and founder of the Bastile in 1369. He subsequently incurred the imputation of heresy, and was sentenced to be confined within two walls, whence he was released by the Maillotins, a band of insurgents in 1381. Others, however, as the name originated at Tours, refer it to one Hugon, Count of that city, whose temper was so cruel, that he was supposed even after his death to walk about in the night-time, beating all he met; and this etymology derives some plausibility from the circumstance, that near one of the gates of Tours, now called Fourgon (qu. feu Hugon) were subterraneous vaults, in which the first French Protestants used to assemble. Cæsaroduni Hugo rex celebratur, qui noctu pomaria civitatis obequitare, et obvios homines pulsare ac rapere dicitur. Ab eo 'Hugonoti' appellati, qui ad ea loca ad conciones audiendas ac preces faciendas itidem noctu (quia interdiu non licebat) agminatim in occulto conveniebant. (Thuan. Hist. XXIV. ad. Ann. 1560.) It was then too, it appears, the practice to impute political motives to some, who assumed only the character of religious dissent; nam alios ad religionem tantùm respicere: alios religionis quidem causam obtendere, sed reip. statum præcipuè spectare. (Id. ib. XXV.) A third class trace it to a remoter source, and contend that it was bestowed upon the Reformed, because they supported the descendents of Hugh Capet; whereas the Leaguers were solicitous to give the crown to the house of Guise, as descended from Charles the Great. Lastly, it is derived from an incorrect pronunciation of the German word Eidgnossen,Confederates,' a name originally applied to the Genevese allies of the Swiss Cantons, in their patriotic struggles against Charles III. Duke of Savoy. Their persecutions have been numerous and severe. They obtained indeed a brief remission of their sufferings, in 1576, 6 |