SOVEREIGNTY OF HOLLAND REJECTED.

39

spairing of being able longer to maintain alone the unequal contest which they had provoked; yet resolute to return no more under the tyranny of a detested master; they now embraced the resolution of throwing themselves entirely upon her protection. It was urged that Elizabeth,-as descended from Philippa wife of Edward III., a daughter of that count of Hainalt and Holland from one of whose co-heiresses the king of Spain derived the Flemish part of his dominions,-might claim somewhat of a hereditary title to their allegiance; and a solemn deputation was appointed to offer to her the sovereignty of the provinces on condition of defending them from the Spaniards.

There was much in the proposal to flatter the pride and tempt the ambition of a prince; much also to gratify that desire of retaliation which the encouragement given by Philip to the Northern rebellion and to certain movements in Ireland, as well as to all the machinations of the queen of Scots, may reasonably be supposed to have excited in the bosom of Elizabeth. Zeal for the protestant cause, had she ever entertained this sentiment separately from considerations of personal interest and safety,might have proved a further inducement with her to accept the patronage of these afflicted provinces:-but not all the motives which could be urged were of force to divert her from her settled plan of policy; and after a short interval of anxious hesitation, she resolved to dismiss the envoys with an absolute refusal. The speech which she addressed to them on this occasion was highly cha racteristic, and in one point extremely remarkable.

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1

40

QUEEN'S SPEECH TO DUTCH DEPUTIES.

She reprobated, doubtless with great sincerity, the principle, that there were cases in which subjects might be justified in throwing off allegiance to their lawful prince; and protested that, for herself, nothing could ever tempt her to usurp upon the dominions either of her good brother of Spain or any other prince. Finally, she took upon her to advert to the religious scruples which had produced the revolt of the Hollanders, in a tone of levity which it is difficult to understand her motive for assuming since it could not fail, from her lips especially, to give extreme scandal to the deputies and to all other serious men. She said, that it was unreasonable in the Dutch to have stirred up so great a commotion merely on account of the celebration of mass; and that so contumacious a resistance to their king could never redound to their honor; since they were not compelled to believe in the divinity of the mass, but only to be spectators of its performance, as at a public spectacle. "What!" said she, "if I were to begin to act some scene in a dress like this," (for she was clad in white like a priest), "should you regard it as a crime to behold it ?" Was the queen here making the apology of her own compliances under the reign of her sister, or was she generously furnishing a salvo for others? In any case, the sentiment, as coming from the heroine of protestantism, is extra ordinary.

An effectual remonstrance addressed by Elizabeth to the king of Spain, was the only immediate

a Reidani“. Annal." Vide Bayle's " Dictionary," art. Elizabeth;

ALCHEMY.NOTICE OF DR. DEE.

41

result of this attempt of the Provinces to engage her in their concerns. She kept a watchful eye, however, upon their great and glorious struggle; and the time at length came when she found it expedient to unite more closely her interest with theirs.

England now enjoyed profound tranquillity, internal and external, and our annalists find leisure to advert to various circumstances of domestic history. They mention a corporation formed for the transmutation of iron into copper by the method of one Medley an alchemist; of which the learned but credulous sir Thomas Smith, secretary of state, was a principal promoter; and in which both Leicester and Burleigh embarked some capital. The master of the Mint ventured to express a doubt of the success of the experiment, because the adept had engaged that the weight of copper procured should exceed that of all the substances employed in its production; but nobody seems to have felt the force of this simple objection, and great was the disappointment of all concerned when at length

the bubble burst.

About the same time the famous Dr. Dee, mathematician, astrologer and professor of the occult sciences, being pressed by poverty, supplicated Burleigh to procure her majesty's patronage for his infallible method of discovering hidden treasures. This person, who stood at the head of his class, had been early protected by Leicester, who employed him to fix a lucky day for the queen's coronation. He had since been patronized by her majesty; she once visited him at his house at Mortlake; took lessons of him in astronomy; and occasionally supplied him with money to defray

42

OF MARTIN FROBISHER.

the expenses of his experiments. She likewise presented him to some ecclesiastical benefices; but he often complained of the delay or non-performance of her promises of pensions and preferment. On one occasion he was sent to the continent, ostensibly for the purpose of consulting physicians and philosophers on the state of her majesty's health; but probably not without some secret political commission. After a variety of wild adventures in different countries of Europe; in which he and his associate Kelly discovered still more knavery than credulity in the exercise of their various false sciences and fallacious arts; Dee was invited home by her majesty in 1589, and was afterwards elected by her to the wardenship of Manchester-college. But he was hated, and sometimes insulted by the people, as a conjurer; quarrelled with the fellows of his college; quitted Manchester in disgust; and failing to obtain the countenance of king James, died at length in poverty and neglect ;-the ordinary fate of his class of projectors. Elizabeth performed a more laudable part in lending her support to the enterprise of that able and spirited navigator Martin Frobisher; who had long been soliciting in vain among the merchants the means of attempting a north-west passage to the Indies, and was finally supplied by the queen with two small vessels. With these he set sail in June 1576; and though unsuccessful in the prime object of his voyage, he extended considerably the previous acquaintance of navigators with the coasts of Greenland, and became the discoverer of the straits which still bear his name.

A sect called "The family of Love" had lately

BURNING OF TWO ANABAPTISTS.

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sprung up in England. Its doctrines, notwithstanding the frightful reports raised of them, were probably dangerous neither to the established church, with the rites of which the brethren will ingly complied, nor yet to the state; and it may be doubted whether they were in any respect incompatible with private morals; but no innovations in religion were regarded as tolerable or venial under the rigid administration of Elizabeth; and the leaders of the new heresy were taken into custody, and compelled to recant. Some anabaptists were apprehended about the same time, who acknowledged their errors at Paul's Cross, bearing faggots;-the tremendous symbol of the fate from which their recantation had rescued them. Two of these unhappy men, however, repented of the disingenuous act into which human frailty had betrayed them; and returning to the open profession of their opinions were burned in Smithfield; to the eternal opprobrium of protestant principles, and the deep disgrace of the governess and institutress of the Anglican Church.

The observation of lord Talbot, that the earl of Leicester showed himself more than ever solicitous to improve the favor of his sovereign, received confirmation from the unparalleled magnificence of the reception which he provided for her when, during her progress in the summer of 1575, she honored him with a visit in Warwickshire.

The "princely pleasures of Kennelworth" were famed in their day as the quintessence of all courtly delight; and very long and very pompous descriptions of these festive devices have come down to