government, and the peaceable course which it had hitherto pursued. Upon general principles, too, the right of her subjects to explore distant seas and countries might well be asserted and maintained, but she made no attempt to defend what was not strictly defensible, and a great part of the money which Drake had brought home was restored to the Spaniards*; and some of the chief persons belonging to the court refused to accept the money which he offered them, because they considered it to have been gained by piracy. This is said to have troubled him greatly, for he no doubt was of opinion that the conduct of the Spaniards in their American conquests warranted any hostile proceedings against them; and he had this to encourage him, that, while statesmen openly condemned his conduct, or only covertly protected him, "the common sort of people admired and extolled his actions, as deeming it no less honourable to have enlarged the bounds of the English name and glory, than of their empire." + Indeed, however desirous Elizabeth's ministers were of avoiding a war, they saw, what the people felt, that it must soon be forced upon them, and that overt acts on the part of Philip would soon follow the covert hostility which had long been carried on. The Jesuits, who were now the moving spirits in every conspiracy, were at that time (to use a word current in that age) completely hispaniolized, and this was not because the founder, and the architect, and the great thaumaturgic saint of their order were Spaniards, but because the chimerical hope was entertained of establishing an universal monarchy, of which Spain was to be the temporal and Rome the spiritual head. The important step of rendering Spain in all spiritual affairs absolutely subservient to Rome had been effected; and they who laboured to extend the Spanish dominion perceived that the succession of the Scottish line to the throne of *It was paid to a certain Pedro Sebura, of whom Camden says, that he "pretended himself an agent for retrieving the gold and silver, though he had no letters of evidence or commission so to do; and that he "never repaid it to the right owners, but employed it against the queen, and converted it to the pay of the Spaniards in the Netherlands, as was at length, when it was too late, understood." P. 255. + Fuller's Church History, 16th century, 180-182. VIEWS OF THE JESUITS. 305 England must be unfavourable to the interests of Spain, because of Mary's connection with the Guises; that of her son would be detrimental to the Romish church, because he had been carefully and well educated in the principles of the protestant faith, and it was now evident that those principles were well rooted in his mind. They set up, therefore, a title of the king of Spain to the English crown, by which, preposterous as it was, not a few of the English papists were deluded.* Some of the queen's counsellors proposed to her, as a counterproject, that she should foment the difference which then existed between Philip and the pope concerning the kingdom of Naples, and assist Gregory not as pope but in his character of temporal prince with ships; thus, they argued, she might bring about a diversion of the Spanish forces, and prevent an invasion of her own dominions. It might have been a sufficient objection to any such proposal that the papal claim rested upon papal grounds, and was not maintainable as a political question. But Elizabeth saw it at once in the right point of view as a question of honour and of conscience: she refused to "entertain compliance with the pope in any capacity, or any conditions, as dishonourable to herself, and distasteful to the protestant princes; nor would she," says our good church-historian, "touch pitch in jest, for fear of being defiled in earnest.”† Part of the system which the hispaniolised faction pursued was to blacken the character of Elizabeth by every imaginable calumny, knowing that no calumnies can be too absurd for itching ears, and hearts that are *This title, Fuller says (180.), was "as much admired by their own party, as slighted by the queen and her loyal subjects. Indeed, it is easy for any indifferent herald so to devise a pedigree, as in some seeming probability to entitle any prince in Christendom to any principality in Christendom; but such will shrink on serious examination. Yea, I believe queen Elizabeth might pretend a better title to the kingdoms of Leon and Castille in Spain, as descended by the house of York, from Edmond earl of Cambridge, and his lady coheir to king Pedro, than any claim that the king of Spain could make out to the kingdom of England. However much mischief was done hereby, many papists paying their good wishes where they were not due, and defrauding the queen (their true creditor) of the allegiance belonging unto her." + Fuller's Church History, 16th century, 180-182. prepossessed with hatred for the person whom it is proposed to injure. Not contented with contending that she was of illegitimate birth, they affirmed that she was the offspring of an incestuous intercourse between Henry VIII. and his own daughter! They arraigned her of the vilest ingratitude towards Philip, to whose intercession, they asserted, she had been three times beholden for her life, when sentence of death had been passed against her for treason against her sister. They represented the punishment of convicted traitors, and the preventive measures against preparatory treason, which for self-preservation her government was compelled to pursue, in à religious persecution, against which the advocates and agents of the inquisition, — yea the very men who had kindled the fires in Smithfield,- filled Europe with their complaints. Books were set forth, wherein it was not contended, but dogmatically taught, that princes, when excommunicated for heresy, were to be deprived of kingdom and life. This doctrine re ceived the sanction of the censorial authorities in Romish countries; and, by a libel which was secretly printed in England, the ladies of Elizabeth's household were exhorted to deal with her as Judith had dealt with Holofernes.* Bernardino de Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in England, was detected in a correspondence with those papists whose object it was, by foreign aid, to depose the queen and re-establish the Romish religion. He was ordered to depart the land, though he had rendered himself liable to the utmost severity of the law; and the queen was still so desirous of continuing at peace with Spain, that she sent the clerk of her council into that country, to inform the king of Spain for what just cause his minister had been sent away, and withal to assure him, lest, by having thus dismissed Mendoza, she might seem to renounce the ancient amity that had subsisted between both kingdoms," that all amicable offices should still be shown by her, if Philip would send any other minister who should be desirous of preserving *Camden, 307. 2.5. 66 friendship,-provided only that a like reception might be given to her ambassador. But this minister could not obtain a hearing.* Meantime the prince of Orange, who had recovered after being desperately wounded by one assassin, perished by the hand of another; and the war in the Netherlands was vigorously prosecuted by the prince of Parma, a general whose martial genius had then never been equalled in modern warfare, and perhaps has never since been surpassed. Elizabeth, in her cautious policy, hesitated at entering into any direct alliance with the United States, till he had taken Antwerp, after one of the most memorable sieges in military history. She then hesitated no longer, lest the war should be brought home to her own doors; and concluded a treaty, whereby she contracted to aid the States with 5000 foot and 1000 horse during the war, the States engaging to repay the expense thus incurred, in the course of five years after the conclusion of a peace. Flushing, Ramma- A. D. kens, and the Briel were to be occupied by English 1585. troops as caution towns. The contracting parties were to enter into no league but on common consent; and ships for their mutual defence were to be equipped in equal numbers by both parties, at their common charge, and to be commanded by the admiral of England. The Zeelanders, in honour of this alliance, coined money with the arms of that province on one side, a lion rising out of the waves, and the motto Luctor et emergo; and on the other the arms of the several cities, with the motto, Authore Deo, favente Regina.† A declaration was published in the queen's name, "of the causes which had moved her to give aid to the defence of the people afflicted and oppressed in the Low Countries;" for "although kings and princes sovereign, it was said, were not bound to render account of their actions to any but to God, their only sovereign Lord, we are, notwithstanding this our prerogative, at this time spe.. cially moved to publish, not only unto our own natural * Camden, 296. + Ibid. 324. loving subjects, but also to all others our neighbours, what our intention is at this time, and upon what just and reasonable grounds we are moved to give aid unto our next neighbours, the natural people of the Low Countries being, by long wars and persecutions of strange nations there, lamentably afflicted, and in present danger to be brought into a perpetual servitude.' "First,” said this declaration, "it is to be understood that there hath been, time out of mind, even by the natural situation of those Low Countries and our realm of England, one directly opposite to the other, and by reason of the ready crossing of the seas, and multitudes of large and commodious havens respectively on both sides, a continual traffic and commerce betwixt the people of England and the natural people of those countries, and so continued in all ancient times, when the several provinces thereof, as Flanders, Holland, and Zeeland, and other countries to them adjoining, were possessed by several lords, and not united together, as of late years they have been by intermarriages, and at length by concurrence of many and sundry titles, reduced to be under the government of those lords that succeeded to the dukedom of Burgundy whereby there had been many special confederations, not only betwixt the kings of England and the lords of the said countries, but also betwixt the very natural subjects of both, as the prelates, noblemen, citizens, burgesses, and other commonalties of the great cities and port towns of either country reciprocally, by special obligations and stipulations under their seals interchangeably, for maintenance of commerce and intercourse of merchants, and also of special mutual amity to be observed; and very express provision for mutual favours, affections, and all other friendly offices to be used and prosecuted by the people of the one nation towards the other. By which mutual bonds there hath continued perpetual union of the people's hearts together; and so, by way of continual intercourse, from age to age, the same mutual love hath been inviolably kept and exer |