complishment 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 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 vengeances 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 shown 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 generons 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, "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 Howard Memorials. MS. Life of Philip Howard. MS. Life of Anne, countess of Arundel, at Norfolk House, quoted, in the Howard Memorials, by the late Henry Howard, Esq., of Corby. Probably the sen tence 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. 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 crown." "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 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. "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; 'History of England, in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia, vol. ii., p. 300. 2 Sloane MS., i., p. 4160. Inedited State Paper MSS. Mary Stuart, vol. xv., p. 141. 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, "How contemptuously you have carried yourself towards us you shall understand by this messenger, whom we send to you for that purpose. We little thought that one, whom we had raised out of the dust, and prosecuted with such singular favour, above all others, would, with so great contempt, have slighted and broken our commands in a matter of so great consequence, and so highly concerning us and our honour. Whereof, though you have but small regard, contrary to what you ought, by your allegiance, yet, think not that we are so careless of repairing it, that we can bury so great an injury in silence and oblivion. We, therefore, command you, that, all excuse set apart, you do, forthwith, upon your allegiance, which you owe to us, whatsoever Heneage, our vice-chamberlain, shall make known to you in our name, upon pain of further peril."? She also wrote to the states, "that, as to their disgrace, and without her knowledge, they had conferred the absolute government of the confederate states upon Leicester, her subject, though she had refused it herself, she now required them to eject Leicester from the office they had unadvisedly conferred upon him." The states returned a submissive answer, and Leicester expressed the deepest contrition for having been so unfortunate as to incur her displeasure. At first, she preserved great show of resentment, threatened to recal and punish him, and rated Burleigh for endeavouring to excuse him. Burleigh, on this, tendered his resignation; Elizabeth called him "a presumptuous fellow;" but, the next morning, her choler abated. She had vented her displeasure in empty words, and her council induced her to sanction the measure of sending supplies of men and money to Lei cester. Soon after this reconciliation was effected, Elizabeth began to speak of Leicester in her wonted terms of partial regard; so much so, that even his hated rival, sir Walter Raleigh, in a postscript to a courteous letter, addressed by him to the absent favourite, says, "The queen is in 1 Hardwick State Papers, vol. i., p. 229. 'Inedited State Paper Office MS. Mary Stuart, vol. xv. 4 very good terms with you, and, thanks be to God, well pacified, and you are again her sweet Robin." Bitterly jealous, however, was "sweet Robin" of the graceful and adroit young courtier, whom he suspected of having superseded him in the favour of his royal mistress, by whom, indeed, Raleigh appears, at that time, to have been very partially regarded. Wit, genius, and valour, in him, were united with a fine person, and a certain degree of audacity, which qualified him admirably to make his way with a princess of Elizabeth's temper. He was the younger son of a country gentleman, of small fortune, but good descent; but the great cause of his favourable reception at court, in the first instance, may be traced to his family connection with Elizabeth's old governess, Kate Ashley. That woman, who, from her earliest years, exercised the most remarkable influence over the mind of her royal pupil, was aunt to Raleigh's half-brother, sir Humphrey Gilbert, the celebrated navigator. The young, adventurous Raleigh, was not likely to lose the advantage of her powerful patronage, which had been openly bestowed on Humphrey, who, through her influence, obtained considerable preferment, and an important command in Ireland. It was in that devoted isle that Raleigh first distinguished himself by his military talents, and unhappily sullied his laurels with many acts of cold-blooded cruelty, the details of which belong to the history of Elizabeth's reign. On his return to England, he commenced the business of a courtier, and affected great bravery in his attire; and being gifted, by nature, with a fine presence and handsome person, he contrived, at the expense, probably, of some privation, and much ingenuity, to vie with the gayest of the be-ruffed and embroidered gallants, who fluttered like a swarm of glittering insects round the maiden queen. One day, a heavy shower having fallen before her majesty went out to take her daily walk, attended by her ladies and officers of state, the royal progress, which cannot always be confined to paths of pleasantness, was impeded by a miry slough. Elizabeth, dainty and luxurious in all her habits, paused, as if debating within herself how she might best avoid the "filing" of her feet. Raleigh, who had, on that eventful day, donned a handsome new plush cloak, in the purchase of which he had probably invested his last testoon, perceiving the queen's hesitation, stripped it hastily from his shoulders, and, with gallantry worthy of the age of chivalry, spread it reverentially on the ground, before her majesty, "whereon," says our author, "the queen trod gently over, rewarding him afterwards with many suits for his so free and seasonable tender of so fair a footeloth.” Soon after this auspicious introduction to the royal favour, Raleigh was standing in a window-recess, and observing that the queen's eye was upon him, he wrote the following sentence, with the point of a diamond, on one of the panes : "Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall." In a very different spirit from that in which she had answered the pathetic aspiration, inscribed by the sorrowful countess of Arundel in 'Old Life of Sir Walter Raleigh. the window of her desolated house, did Elizabeth condescend to encourage her handsome poet-courtier, by writing, with her own hand, an oracular line of advice, under his sentence, furnishing thereby a halting rhyme to a couplet, which he would probably have finished with greater regard to melody: "If thy heart fail thee, do not climb at all." Raleigh took the hint, and certainly no climber was ever bolder or more successful in his ascent to fame and fortune. If anything were to be given away, he lost no time in soliciting it of the queen, to the infinite displeasure of his jealous compeers. "When will you cease to be a beggar, Raleigh ?" said the queen to him one day, apparently a little wearied of his greedy importunity. "When, madam, yon cease to be a benefactress," was the graceful rply of the accomplished courtier. Elizabeth did not always reward services, but compliments were rarely offered to her in vain. So considerable was the influence of Raleigh with his partial sovereign at one time, that Tarleton, the comedian, who had probably received his cue from Burleigh or his son-in-law, Oxford, ventured, during the performance of his part in a play, which he was acting before her majesty, to point at the reigning favourite while pronouncing these words, "See, the knave commands the queen" for which he was corrected by a frown from her majesty. If Raleigh could have been contented to remain a bachelor, he would, probably, have superseded all the rival candidates for the smiles of his royal mistress. The first possession acquired by England in the new world, was discovered by sir Walter Raleigh, and in compliment to queen Elizabeth, named Virginia. It was from this coast that he first introduced tobacco into England. It is a well-known tradition, that Raleigh's servant, entering his study with a foaming tankard of ale and nutmeg toast, saw him, for the first time, with a lighted pipe in his mouth, and enveloped in the clouds of smoke he was puffing forth; the simple fellow, imagining his master was the victim of an internal conflagration, flung the contents of the tankard in his face for the purpose of extinguishing the Old Life of Sir Walter Raleigh. Bohun. Notwithstanding all his wit and worldcraft, Raleigh wanted discretion; and he possessed the dangerous faculty of enemy-making in no slight degree. No man was more generally hated. We are indebted to the grave pen of Bacon for the following amusing anecdote, in illustration of his gratuitous impertinence:— "Sir Walter Raleigh was staying at the house of a great lady in the West country, who was a remarkable, notable housewife, and before she made a grand appearance at dinner, in the hall, arranged all matters in her household. Sir Walter's apartment was next to hers, and he became privy to much of her interior management. Early in the morning, he heard her demand of one of her maids, Are the pigs served? Just before dinner she entered, with infinite state and dignity, the great chamber, where her guests were assembled; when Sir Walter directly asked, 'Madam, are the pigs served?' The lady answered, without abating a particle of her dignity, 'You know best whether you have had your breakfast.'"-Bacon's Apophthegms. B |