Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

1573-84

reception

French

27. The wars which followed the massacre. A few months before this Elizabeth had concluded an alliance with Charles, and negotiations had been carried on almost to the very day of the massacre, for her marriage, first with the Duke of Anjou, Elizabeth's and next with the Duke of Alençon, his younger brother. of the When, therefore the French ambassador came to ambassador Elizabeth, at Woodstock, to vindicate his master, he found the whole court assembled to receive him, clad in mourning, with gloom and sorrow on every countenance; and not a word was utttered, nor an eye turned towards him, as he advanced between the files of lords and ladies towards the Queen. The court did not long wear this appearance; but in the country there was an universal panic; and, revenge being uppermost in every breast, an outcry was raised for the immediate execution of the Queen of Scots. Some negotiations were actually entered into with the Scottish rulers, to induce them to bring Mary to the scaffold; but they failed, although Morton, her bitterest enemy, soon afterwards became regent in Scotland, and all Mary's friends were dead (August, 1573).

siege of

The English manifested their sympathy for the Huguenots by going over in large numbers to assist in the defence of Rochelle, which the Duke of Anjou had laid siege to, The immediately after the massacres were completed. The Rochelle. Count of Montgomery equipped a fleet in Plymouth and Falmouth in order to relieve the place, but he failed; and next year he was taken prisoner in Normandy and executed in Paris, to the great joy of Catherine, because he had accidentally killed her husband, Henry II., in a tournament. Rochelle, however, was saved by the impatience of Anjou to take possession of the throne of Poland, to which he had been elected (May, 1573). Next year he succeeded Charles IX., under the title of Henry III.; Accession and, at Elizabeth's mediation, he granted the Huguenots of Henry III liberty of worship, under certain restrictions. But Guise and Lorraine induced him to revoke the grant, and to place himself at the head of the Holy League (1577); another civil war, therefore, broke out. In 1584, the late Duke of Alençon, now Duke of Anjou, since the accession of Henry III., died; and Henry of Navarre, the leader of the Huguenots, became the presumptive heir to the throne. This gave rise to the famous Wars of the League, the object of which was to prevent Navarre's succession. The usual truces, murders, and crimes marked these, as they had done former wars. Henry, to rid himself of the Guises, who treated him with tyranny and insolence, caused them both to be

Accession

CHAP. V.

murdered in the castle of Blois (1588), which act only made matters worse. Henry was excommunicated by the Pope; he was driven from Paris; and, at last, was murdered by a of Henry IV. fanatical monk while besieging his own capital (August 1st, 1589). Henry of Navarre then succeeded by the title of Henry IV.

IV. THE INTRIGUES AND CONSPIRACIES WHICH PRECEDED THE EXECUTION OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.

28. Intrigues of Persons, Campian, and the Seminary priests. In 1568, Dr. Allen, formerly principal of St. Mary's Hall, Oxford, established a college at Douay for the education of missionary priests for England. He afterwards established another at Rheims; a similar one was established at Rome; and these colleges, named Seminaries, were filled chiefly with English Roman Catholic exiles, desperate men, ready to brave any perils. In 1579, the Jesuits joined them, chief among whom were Robert Persons and Edward Campian, formerly of Oxford. Persons was a fierce bigot; Campian, a virtuous man, the pride and boast of Douay for scholarship. In June, 1580, they came to England to make known the modification which Gregory XIII. had made in the bull against Elizabeth-to the effect that it was not to be considered binding except there was an opportunity for executing it. Such a jesuitical mission naturally excited the alarm of the English ministers, who, therefore, closely watched the two emissaries, and issued more rigorous proclamations against the Roman Catholics. All persons who had sent their children to be educated abroad were required to give in their names to the bishop of their diocese, and recal them within four months; and every one was warned against incurring the penalties of treason by harbouring a priest or Jesuit. When parliament assembled. (January, 1581), it confirmed these proclamations, and enacted more stringent statutes against reconciliation to Rome. A penalty of £20 per lunar month was imposed on all Romanists who did not attend the established worship; and, in default of payment, the Queen was authorised to seize two-thirds of any delinquent's lands, and all his goods. To prevent the concealment of priests as tutors or schoolmasters, all persons acting in these capacities, without the bishop's license, were made liable to imprisonment, and the persons who employed them to a fine.*

It was hardly possible for any priest or Jesuit to escape such a rigorous persecution as these enactments set afoot, and Campian * Hallam, I., 144; Ling., VIII., 143.

1581

was soon taken and conveyed to the Tower. Persons had returned to the continent. When placed on the rack, Campian said he acknowledged Elizabeth as his lawful sovereign, but declined to say whether he believed the Pope had power to excommunicate her. This betrayed the doubtfulness of his loyalty; but it could not justify his execution. He was, however, condemned to death for an alleged conspiracy to murder the Queen, and overthrow the church and state; and he suffered, along with two others, in December, 1581. Others who had been arrested on his confessions were detained in prison; but before this, some had been executed for asserting this temporal power of the Pope.

29. Persecutions of the Catholics more rigorous. These public executions did not form the most odious part of this persecution. The rack seldom stood idle in the Tower during all the latter part of Elizabeth's reign; and such excessive severities, under the pretext of treason, but really for no other offence than the exercise of the Catholic worship, excited the indignation of Roman Catholic Europe. The Queen was held forth as a more ferocious tyrant than any heathen persecutor; and, though the charges brought against her were unblushing falsehoods, the general charge of cruelty stood upon too many facts to be passed over. Cecil, now Lord Burleigh, published two pamphlets to rebut the charge. He alleged that Campian was only mildly tortured-a miserable excuse, serving only to mingle contempt with derision.* To Elizabeth's honour, however, it must be said that she forbade the use of the torture; but she took no pains to see her commands obeyed, and it is known that they were not obeyed. It should also be stated that Burleigh himself was averse to this cruel policy; he advised that the Catholics should be allowed to take the oath of supremacy in a sense which would bind them to bear arms against all foreign princes, the Pope included, who should invade England; and he suggested that Popery should be put down, not by executions, but by educating the young. But this advice was not adopted, and the penal laws continued to be enforced against the Roman Catholics. Snares and spies were set about them; they were falsely accused, and forged letters from Mary or the disaffected exiles were secretly left in their houses. To save themselves, some entered into the service of the Queen's favourites; others went beyond sea at the risk of being branded as traitors, and losing their estates. So perfectly was the system of espionage established, that Burleigh, when he had occasion to write a confidential letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury, who had the custody of

* Hallam, I., 151. * Ibid, I., 152.

CHAP. V.

the Queen of Scots, kept it by him till he could find a messenger sufficiently trustworthy, lest it might be intercepted and sent to the council.

30. Conspiracies of Somerville and Parry. It was not long before schemes, more formidable than ever, were put in action against the Queen's life. In 1583, one Somerville, half a lunatic, was reported to have declared, that he would murder the Queen and all the Protestants. He was, therefore, arrested, together with Arden, his father-in-law, a Warwickshire gentleman who had incurred Leicester's enmity by refusing to sell him a portion of his estate. Arden was executed, and Somerville was found strangled in his cell. The zealous Protestants were alarmed by this so-called conspiracy, and of another got up by Throgmorton, presently to be noticed, and parliament next year (1584) enacted a statute, which made it high treason for any priest or Jesuit to be found statute in England, and inflicted fine and imprisonment on those Jesuits. who concealed them. All students of Catholic seminaries who refused to return home, were declared traitors; those who supplied them with money, were made liable to præmunire; and parents who persisted in sending their children, were to be fined, and the children deprived of the rights of heirship.*

Severe

against the

of Dr.

One Dr. Parry, who had long been employed as a spy upon Execution the papists, but had gone over to them, opposed the third Parry. reading of this bill, and was thereupon sent to the Tower, and accused of high treason. He had proposed to Neville, a fellow spy, the assassination of Elizabeth, and the release of Mary; whether seriously, or merely to sound Neville, is uncertain. The latter betrayed him to the council; and after he was tortured, he confessed, and was executed (March, 1585). These plots were unconnected with any other schemes; but more deep laid machinations began soon after, some of which arose out of the

31. Revolutions and intrigues in Scotland. Many changes had taken place in Scotland during these proceedings. Morton had been compelled to resign his regency; he had been accused before the King and council of complicity in the murder of Darnley, and had been condemned and executed (1581), notwithstanding Elizabeth's intercessions in his behalf. The English agent, Randolph, had been forced to escape from Edinburgh to save his life; and the young King, under French and Catholic influence, was persuaded to join certain intrigues then going on in Paris, for the purpose of invading England, liberating Mary, and dethroning Elizabeth. Persons, Allen, and Crichton, a Scottish

* Lingard, VIII., 176; Hallam, I., 153.

1583

Jesuit, were the agents of Mary and James in these transactions; the other conspirators being the Papal and Spanish ambassadors, and the Duke of Guise. Cecil and Walsingham were fully informed by their spies of all these projects; and to defeat them, they fomented a new rebellion in Scotland, called "the Raid of Ruthven," in which the Earl of Gowrie, the son of the murderer Ruthven, secured the person of James VI., and transferred the government to Mary's enemies. But James, shortly afterwards, regained his authority; another conference was held in Paris, and French agents were despatched to Edinburgh to induce James to invade England. Elizabeth's ministers knew of every movement, and Walsingham was sent to Scotland to ascertain the state of affairs, and the King's real intentions (September, 1583). From these intrigues arose the

32. Alleged conspiracy of Paget and Throgmorton for the liberation of the Scottish Queen. Francis Throgmorton, a gentleman of Cheshire, was arrested on the evidence of an inter cepted letter, written by Morgan, one of Mary's agents in France, but also one of Cecil's spies. The letter said that Guise was ready to invade England, but that he desired to know what English noblemen and gentlemen were likely to join him. Lord Paget and Charles Arundel were mentioned in the letter, but they escaped; the Earls of Arundel and Northumberland, however, were arrested, and rigorously examined. Before this, Charles Paget, the brother of Lord Paget, had been sent into Sussex, under the assumed name of Mope, for the purpose of obtaining money and troops, both of which were as yet wanting, for the intended invasion; and some time after, another letter, from the Scottish court to Mary, was intercepted, which confirmed all that the former letter had stated. Throgmorton had already been racked three times without making any disclosure; but at the fourth time, he confessed that two catalogues, one of the chief forts, the other of the chief Catholics, in England, said to have been found in his house, were written by him, for the use of the Spanish ambassador in London. The latter was ordered to leave the kingdom; and then Throgmorton was brought to his trial and condemned. He retracted his confessions, but hopes of pardon being held out to him, he declared them to be true, on which he was instantly executed. But he again retracted them in his dying hour.

33. The Protestant Association. The Queen of Scots had now consumed the best years of her life in prison. In 1570 she had been removed to Sheffield Castle, and placed under the

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »