CHAP. V. unmarried, the house of Suffolk was the hope of the Protestants; but the stigma which Elizabeth thus threw upon it, deprived it of all political consequence, and so strengthened the pretensions of the rival house of Scotland. Candidates Dudley, Earl of It was on this account that the marriage of Elizabeth was a matter of so much solicitude and importance from the Elizabeth's very beginning of her reign. Many princes aspired to hand. her hand at this time: Philip II.; his cousin, the archduke Charles, son of the Emperor Ferdinand; Eric, King of Sweden, the son of Gustavus Vasa; Adolphus, the Duke of Holstein, and others. Of these only one, the Archduke Charles, was recommended by his dignity and alliances; but his religion was an insurmountable obstacle, and he had, besides, a dangerous rival, for whom the Queen betrayed an evident partiality, This was Lord Robert Dudley, the younger son of the Duke Leicester. of Northumberland. He had been married to Amy, the daughter and heiress of Sir John Robesart, whom he had kept from court secluded in a lonely mansion, called Cumnor, near Oxford; and whose sudden death in 1560 had provoked a suspicion that she had been murdered by her husband to make him a way to the throne. Yet it was with the knowledge of this suspicion hanging over him, and of "the slanderous speeches" which were circulated about her excessive fondness for him, that Elizabeth created Dudley Earl of Leicester, made him a knight of the garter, and gave him Kenilworth Castle. He was a handsome and accomplished man, but possessed little capacity, and his marriage with Elizabeth was dreaded by Cecil; but Elizabeth's wisdom at last conquered her passion, although the struggle lasted for the first seven or eight years of her reign. The great difficulty, however, in Elizabeth's marriage was, that it would not have been easy to choose such a husband as would have contented the two great factions, who looked for a successor to very different quarters. This, together with her own personal objection to matrimony, seems to have made a reality that resolution to live and die a virgin Queen, which at first appeared only like coy affectation. The satire and contempt with which she treated the married state is well seen in her constantly-expressed dislike of married priests; and in the well-known ungracious address she made to the wife of Archbishop Parker, in return for that lady's hospitality to her at the episcopal palace" Madam, I may not call you," said the Queen; "mistress I am ashamed to call *Hallam's Const. Hist., I,, 124-126. 1569 you; and so, I know not what to call you; but, howsoever, I thank you."* 15. The great northern insurrection. The Queen's determination not to marry, nor to limit the succession, turned every one's thoughts to the contingency of her death, especially as she had been dangerously ill in 1562 and 1568. Of all possible competitors for the throne, the Queen of Scots was the most powerful; all who still retained their attachment to the ancient religion, and there were many even in Elizabeth's court and chapel, looked up to her; and she had the stronghold of hereditary right. Hence every circumstance connected with Mary Proposed was of the utmost importance to the English cabinet. marriage of The extensive combination, therefore, which appeared and the in 1569, to bring about by force the marriage of that Scots. princess with the Duke of Norfolk, the first subject in the realm, and the hereditary leader of the Roman Catholics, naturally alarmed Elizabeth's ministers. Norfolk Queen of The intrigues for this obnoxious marriage had been actively carried on since the conferences held at York. Maitland had proposed it in order to effect Mary's liberation; Murray knew of it; the Earls of Sussex, Leicester, Pembroke, and Arundel, and Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, supported it in the hope of ruining Cecil's ministry; the Earls of Westmoreland and Northumberland entered into it with the hope of restoring the Catholic religion, and liberating Mary; and the Duke of Alva encouraged it for the same purpose. The intrigues for the marriage became fully known to Elizabeth in August, 1569. Leicester was pardoned, and Norfolk was ordered to give up the project. But, in October, Murray transmitted to the Queen all Norfolk's letters to Mary, and Norfolk was immediately arrested and sent to the Tower, while Leicester, Pembroke, and Arundel were banished from the court. On this, Westmoreland and Northumberland, and the northern lords, rose in arms; the Duke of Alva assured them of succour from abroad; and one Dr. Morton came from Rome, with the title of Apostolical Penitentiary, to tell them that Pius V. was about to issue a bull of excommunication against Elizabeth, absolving all her subjects from their oath and duty of allegiance.† The insurgents advanced to Durham, where they burnt the Bible and Prayer Book, and celebrated mass in the cathedral. Thence they marched through Richmond and Ripon, restoring the ancient ritual in every town, to Bramham Moor, without * Aikin's Memoirs, I., 324. + Lingard, VIII., 44, Note. CHAP. V. meeting with any opposition. Here dissension broke out among them they had no money; the promised succours from Alva had not arrived; the Catholic gentry shunned their approach, and joined the royal army, under the Earl of Sussex, which lay at York; and a body of horse, which they had sent to Tutbury to liberate the Queen of Scots, had returned from Pontefract with the intelligence that she had been removed to Coventry. Under these circumstances, the earls disbanded their forces, and escaped to Scotland. Numerous executions followed; and, in the county of Durham alone, more than three hundred suffered death. Northumberland, after being imprisoned in Lochleven Castle, was afterwards surrendered to the English government, and executed at York (September, 1572). The Earl of Westmoreland ultimately escaped to Flanders, and died in 1584. Rebellion Leonard Dacres renewed the rebellion in January, 1570, and assembled a large force at Naworth Castle. On the 2nd of Dacres. of February, he encountered the Queen's army, under her kinsman, Lord Hunsdon, on the banks of the little river Chelt; and, after a sharp and bloody fight, was defeated. Many desperate women fought in the ranks of the revolters; Dacres fled into Scotland, and numerous executions followed, as in the former rebellion. Murder of the Earl of Murray. The This second rising was excited by the murder of Murray, who was shot in the street of Linlithgow by Hamilton, of Bothwell-haugh, from motives of private revenge. The Earls of Argyle and Huntley, and the Duke of Chastelherault, immediately assumed the government in Mary's name. opposite faction, under the Earl of Morton, flew to arms; Elizabeth sent two armies into Scotland to support them; Mary's partisans were defeated; and Lennox, Darnley's father, was appointed regent (July 10th, 1571). 16. Persecution of the Catholics. During these proceedings, Execution Pius V. published his famous bull of excommunication of Felton. against Elizabeth (February, 1570), and one Felton, a gentleman of large property in Southwark, affixed a copy of it to the gates of the Bishop of London's palace, and suffered death for his temerity. Such a bold act of disloyalty was imputed to the Catholics at large, but unjustly; the real offenders being "the English refugee priests and Jesuits dispersed over Flanders, and lately established at the college of Douay (1568 or '69), who were continually passing into the kingdom, not only to keep alive the precarious faith of the laity, but, as was generally surmised, to excite them against their sovereign."* * Hallam, I., 137. 1570 In consequence of this bull, a statute was passed (13 Elizabeth, c. 2), enacting "that all persons publishing any bull from Rome, or absolving or Act against reconciling any one to the Romish Church, or being so reconciled, should publishing Papal bulls incur the penalties of high treason; and such as brought into the realm in England, any crosses, pictures, or superstitious things consecrated by the Pope, or under his authority, should be liable to a præmunire. Those who should conceal, or connive at, the offenders, were to be guilty of misprision of treason." &c. High This statute exposed the Catholic priesthood and laity to the continual risk of martyrdom; but still further to isolate them from the Pope and their co-religionists on the continent, and to crush the pretensions and partisans of Mary, another statute was passed (13 Elizabeth, c. 1), which made it "high treason to affirm that the Queen ought not to enjoy the crown, but some other person; or to publish that she is a heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel, or usurper of the crown; or to claim right to the crown, or to usurp the same during the Queen's life; or to affirm that the laws and the statutes do not bind the right of the crown, and the descent, limitation, inheritance, or governance thereof. And whosoever should, during the Queen's life, by any book or work, written or right. printed, expressly affirm, before the same had been established by parliament, that any particular person was, or ought to be, heir and successor to the Queen, except the same be the natural issue of her body, or should print or utter any such book or writing, was for the first offence to be imprisoned a year, and to forfeit half his goods; and for the second, to incur the penalties of a præmunire."† treason to deny the Queen's The Puritans had now a predominant influence in the House of Commons; and, not content with these enactments against the Scottish Queen and the Catholics, they addressed Elizabeth upon their "great cause," as they termed the disposal of Mary; and they sent a bill to the upper house attainting the princess of high treason. But Elizabeth stopped their proceedings by proroguing the parliament. They did not, however, end here; and they not only enacted that all persons above a certain age should attend the church regularly, and receive the sacrament; but that every person who had left, or might hereafter leave, the realm, should return in six months after being warned by proclamation, under the pain of forfeiting his goods and chattels, and the profits of his lands. Thus the Catholics could neither remain at home without offence to their consciences, or the fear of persecution, nor remain abroad without sacrificing their fortunes. 'It is worthy to be repeatedly inculcated on the reader," remarks Hallam,‡ "since so false a colour has been employed to disguise Severity the ecclesiastical tyranny of this reign, that the most persecution clandestine exercise of the Romish worship was severely punished," the truth of which will at once be seen by those who read Strype's Annals of the Reformation. The Roman Catholics were pletely at the mercy of their neighbours and enemies; they were daily watched by the pursuivants; they were liable at any hour to be hurried before the courts of high commission, to be inter* Hallam, I., 137. + Ibid, I., 138. Ibid, I., 141. of the 66 com CHAP. V. rogated npon oath, how often they had been at church, and when, or where, they had received the sacrament; to be condemned as recusants, to fines and imprisonment, or, as persons reconciled, to forfeiture and confinement for life. Their terrors were renewed every year by proclamations, or secret messages, calling upon the magistrates, the bishops, and the ecclesiastical commissioners, to redouble their vigilance, and enforce the laws respecting religion. Private houses were 'searched to discover priests, or persons assisting at mass. The foreign ambassadors complained of the violation of their privileges, by the intrusion of the pursuivants into their chapels; and even Elizabeth herself, to give the example, occasionally condescended to commit to prison the recusants, who were denounced to her in the course of her progresses."* 17. Norfolk's Conspiracy. Thus harassed by persecuting laws, the Roman Catholics retired in great numbers to foreign countries, Flanders especially; and receiving for their maintenance pensions from the court of Spain, became the unhappy instruments of its ambitious enterprises. They began to look forward to a revolution by which the ancient religion should be restored, Elizabeth deposed (perhaps murdered), and Mary raised to the vacant throne. They looked up to the Duke of Norfolk as their leader, who had been released from the Tower (August, 1570), on a written engagement not to engage in any matrimonial negotiations with the Queen of Scots without Elizabeth's permission; and they sought assistance from Spain, especially from the Duke of Alva. During 1571, numerous secret negotiations were carried on with Mary, the Pope, Alva, and Philip II. A servant of the Scottish Queen was apprehended at Dover in April, with letters from Brussels, which the Bishop of Ross contrived to exchange secretly for others. But the servant was put to the rack, and he confessed that he had received the letters from Rudolphi, lately a Florentine banker in London, but now employed by Mary as her ambassador to the Pope and the Duke of Alva. Suspicion immediately fell upon Norfolk, and from that moment Cecil's emissaries watched all his movements. In the following July, Rudolphi was called before the council, and he declared that he had proposed an insurrection to Norfolk for the purpose of deposing the Queen, bringing about his marriage with Mary, and restoring the Catholic religion; and that the Duke of Alva had undertaken to land in England with 10,000 men. Next month more letters were intercepted; and Norfolk, the Bishop of Ross, and others were placed Lingard, VIII., 138, 139, and Notes. + Hallam's Const. Hist., I., 140. |