Whilst the tedious negotiations with Parma were dragging on, no slackness was visible in the preparations for resisting the attack on England. Drake was sent to the mouth of the Channel with a fine squadron of ships, whilst the Lord Admiral’s fleet was being put in readiness in the Thames with all haste; and Ralegh in Devonshire, Hunsdon in the north, and Lord Grey and Sir John Norris in the home counties, were busily organising the land forces. As usual, upon Lord Burghley rested much of the labour and responsibility, and to him matters great and small were referred for decision.[550] The English preparations met with many difficulties. The Queen was fractious and fickle, one day hectoring and threatening, and the next cursing Walsingham and his gang, who had drawn her into this strait, and were for ever pestering her for money, which she doled out as sparingly as possible. There was, moreover, no great alacrity shown at first by the people at large in providing special funds to meet the great national emergency, and the trading classes were grumbling at Leicester and the greedy gentlemen whose piracy was largely responsible for the coming war.
The sending of Peace Commissioners to Parma was,[430] as usual, the subject of division in the Council, Burghley naturally advocating the pacific policy, and Leicester, Walsingham, and Paulet violently opposing the negotiations except on impossible terms. The Queen wavered constantly, but was more frequently on the side of peace. Soon after Leicester returned from Holland (January 1588) he opposed in the Council the sending of Commissioners. A comedy was played the same night before the Queen and court, and as the company rose, Elizabeth turned upon Leicester in a great rage and told him she must make peace with Spain at any cost. “If my ships are lost,” she said, “nothing can save me.” Leicester tried to tranquillise her by talking about Drake; but she replied that all he did was to irritate the enemy to her detriment.[551]
The instructions to the Peace Commissioners, as drafted by Burghley,[552] seem to be an honest attempt to come to terms. England was to pledge herself not to send aid of any sort, to the prejudice of Philip, to any of the dominions he had inherited (thus excluding Portugal), and Philip was asked, at least, to bind himself to prevent the molestation by the Inquisition of English mariners on board their ships in Spanish ports. But side by side with this there is reason to believe that Lord Burghley, probably through Crofts, endeavoured to gain the Duke of Parma personally to the side of peace.[553] He had been badly treated by Philip in the matter of Portugal, and was still in the dark as to the King’s real intentions. He was liable to dismissal at any moment;[431] he was short of money, and chafing at the inexplicable delay of the Armada. It was suggested that a condition of the peace might be to give him fixity of tenure of his government of Flanders for life. How far these approaches may have influenced him it is at present difficult to say, but he certainly appealed to Philip earnestly and solemnly to allow him to make peace,[554] and when the Armada finally appeared in the Channel he did nothing to falsify his own prediction of the disaster which awaited it.
The English Commissioners[555] embarked for Ostend (a town in English-Dutch occupation) in March, but one of them, Crofts, a Spanish agent, made no hesitation of landing in Philip’s town of Dunkirk and proceeding overland to Ostend. After infinite bickering as to the place of meeting, the preliminary conferences were held in a tent between Ostend and Nieuport; but on questions of procedure and powers the negotiations were delayed until the Armada had sailed from Lisbon, and Philip’s pretence could be kept up no longer, when the Commissioners hurriedly returned. Crofts’ desire to serve his Spanish paymasters, and to obtain peace at any price, caused him to go beyond his public instructions in making concessions, and at the instance of Leicester he was cast into the Tower on his return; but the rest of the Commissioners acknowledged that they had been tricked, and that Philip had never intended peace. Many persons had thought so from the first, though the delay had been[432] advantageous for England. The Lord Admiral, writing to Walsingham before the Commissioners left England, says: “There never was since England was England such a stratagem and mask made to deceive England, withal, as this is of the treaty of peace. I pray God we have not cause to remember one thing that was made of the Scots by the Englishmen; that we do not curse for this a long grey beard with a white head, witless, that will make all the world think us heartless. You know whom I mean.”[556]
Though Burghley had struggled for thirty years to maintain peace with Spain, when war was inevitable he took far more than his share of the labour of organising it. As usual, he worked early and late, sometimes almost in despair at the Queen’s penuriousness and irritability, and himself suffering incessantly. Whilst he was still striving for peace (10th April) he thus writes to Walsingham: “I cannot express my pain, newly increased in all my left arm. My spirits are even now so extenuated as I have no mind towards anything but to groan with my pain.… Surely, sir, as God will be best pleased with peace, so in nothing can her Majesty content her realm better than in procuring it.… So forced with pain, even from my arm to my heart, I end.”[557] In the midst of the preparations, when Howard, Winter, Drake, and Hawkins were daily writing reports or requests to the over-burdened Lord Treasurer, his favourite but unfortunate daughter, Lady Oxford, died. In his diary he simply records the fact in the words, “Anna Comitissa Oxoni?, filia mia charissima, obiit in Do. Greenwici et 25, Sepult. Westminster;”[558] but the bereaved father was[433] in a few days hard at work again, though still confined to his bed.[559]
At length, on the 30th July (N.S.), the long looked for Armada appeared in the Channel. The story of how the sceptre of the sea passed to England during the next week has often been told elsewhere, and need not be here repeated; but Burghley’s share of the glory at least must not go unrecorded. We have seen how the details of organisation were largely left in his hands; but, in addition to this, like other great nobles, he raised a special force, clothed in his colours, and maintained at his expense,[560] and visited the army encamped at Tilbury, “where,” says Leicester, “I made a fair show for my Lord Treasurer, who came from London to see us.” It is usually asserted also that his two sons, Sir Thomas and Sir Robert, joined the English fleet, like so many other gentlemen of rank; and although this may be true, for certainly Sir Robert was at Dover,[561] and might perhaps have gone on board one of the ships, it is questionable, and their names do not appear in any of the records as being present.
It was hardly to be supposed that the Spaniards would[434] so readily submit to defeat as not to renew the attack, for Englishmen had not yet gauged the paralysing effect of Philip’s system upon his subjects, and, like the rest of the world, took Spain largely on trust; but Burghley was right in his forecast that the Armada itself was so broken and weak that it would run round Ireland and return no more. When the heroics in England were over and matters were settling down, there was still no cessation in the work of the Lord Treasurer. There were intricate victualling accounts to be laboriously calculated in perplexing Roman numerals;[562] there were wages to be paid; captains and admirals to be brought to book for every item of their expenditure, for the Queen would have no slackness in that respect, even though the country and herself had been rescued from a great peril; there were prisoners to interrogate, and plans to be made for future defence, and, as usual, Puritans and prelates to be appeased and reconciled. The lion’s share of all this fell to the gouty, crippled old man with the bright eyes, the grave face, and the snowy hair—to Lord Treasurer Burghley.
Shortly after the disappearance of the Armada, Leicester died (4th September), on his way to Kenilworth, and Burghley lost the political rival who had continued to thwart him for nearly thirty years. Nothing proves more clearly Burghley’s consummate prudence and tact than the fact that, to the very last, his relations with the Earl were always outwardly polite, and even friendly.[563] That[435] this was not owing to the forbearance of Leicester is seen by his violent quarrels with Sussex, Arundel, Ormonde, Heneage, Ralegh, and others who crossed his path.
The death of Leicester, together with that of Sir Walter Mildmay, which happened shortly afterwards, changed the balance of Elizabeth’s Council. The old ministers were dropping off one by one and giving place to younger men, who could not expect to exercise over the experienced and mature ruler the same influence as that of her earlier advisers. In order to strengthen his party Lord Burghley had patronised Ralegh; but Leicester had retorted by bringing forward his young stepson Essex, whom his dying father had left as a solemn charge to Burghley. Essex was a mere lad of twenty-two when Leicester died, and as yet too young to head a party against the aged minister; but he had absorbed all the traditions of the dead favourite, and henceforward thwarted the Cecils to the best of his power with all the persistence of Leicester, but with a haughty incautiousness which belonged to himself alone, and ultimately led him to his tragic death.
Notwithstanding the crushing blow that Spanish power had received, English public feeling continued apprehensive and nervous. Spies abroad still sent alarmist reports of Philip’s future plans, and few Englishmen had yet realised how completely their foe was disabled. When Parliament met, therefore, in February (1589), the largest subsidies ever voted were granted for the defence of the country, and the Houses petitioned her Majesty “to denounce open war against the King of Spain.”
There were, however, other ways of crippling the foe more acceptable both to the Queen and her principal minister. Since 1581 Elizabeth had been playing fast and loose with Don Antonio, the claimant to the[436] crown of Portugal. Leicester and Walsingham had more than once encouraged him to spend large sums of money in England—raised on the sale or security of his jewels—in fitting out naval expeditions in his favour, but nothing effectual had been done for his cause. Catharine de Medici, on the other hand, had countenanced the despatch of two fine expeditions from France to the Azores, both of which had been disastrously defeated; and in the Armada year Antonio again came to England to seek for aid against the common enemy. He was sanguine, and ready to promise anything for immediate aid. Just before the Armada arrived, the plan of diverting Philip’s forces by an attack on Portugal had been broached by the Lord Admiral in a letter to Walsingham, but the Queen would not then hear of any of her ships being sent away.
In September, however, circumstances had changed. It was useless to ask the Queen to accept the whole expense and responsibility of an expedition; but in September 1588, Antonio saw Lord Burghley, who wrote down the plans and offers he made. If, said the pretender, he could once land in Portugal with a sufficient force, all the country would rise in his favour; and his suggestion, supported by Sir John Norris and Sir Francis Drake, was to form a joint-stock undertaking with the countenance and help of the Queen and the Dutch, for the purpose of invading and capturing Portugal in his interest. In exchange he promised to pay the soldiers, and handsomely; to allow them to loot Spanish property in Lisbon; and, above all, to burn Philip’s ships in Lisbon and Seville, and recoup the adventurers their expenditure with a large bonus.[564] If war were to be made at all, this was a method of making it likely to[437] find favour in the eyes of the Queen and Burghley; and in February 1589[565] a warrant was issued authorising the expedition, and appointing rules for its government. Drake was to command at sea, and Norris by land, and the objects are carefully set forth in Burghley’s words: “first, to distress the King of Spain’s ships; second, to obtain possession of the Azores in order to intercept the treasure ships; and third, to assist Don Antonio to recover the kingdom of Portugal if it shall be found that the public voice be favourable to him.”
The Queen contributed ￡20,000 and seven ships of the navy, and strict conditions were made that her money should not be wasted. But the affair was mismanaged from the first. Most of the men who went were idle vagabonds, the scum of the towns and the sweepings of the jails. The Dutch contingent fell away, the promises of support in England were not kept, money ran short, and the victuals went bad. The Queen lost her temper and began to frown upon the expedition when Drake’s constant demands for further help became too pressing; but finally, after weeks of galling delay, through bad weather and other causes, the expedition put to sea (13th April), nearly 200 sail of all sorts, with 20,000 men. Shortly before it left, the Earl of Essex, with his brother and other gentlemen, had fled to Plymouth in disguise, shipped on board the Swiftsure and put to sea.[566] The Queen had specially refused him permission[438] to accompany the expedition; and when she found that her favourite had disobeyed her, her fury knew no bounds.
From that hour the expedition and commanders got nothing but ill words from her. Not content simply to burn the few ships in Coru?a, the commanders lost a precious fortnight, in direct violation to orders, in besieging the place and burning the lower town. Wine was found in plenty, and excess incapacitated the greater part of the Englishmen; pestilence and desertion worked havoc in their ranks, and subsequently, as a crowning disaster, Norris, persuaded by Antonio against Drake’s advice, marched overland from Peniche to Lisbon, instead of forcing the Tagus.
But Antonio had been deceived. None but a few country people joined him; the Portuguese in Lisbon were utterly cowed by the firmness and severity of the Archduke Albert and his few Spaniards, and Norris had no siege artillery. After a few days of useless heroism, in which young Essex showed himself the brave, rash, generous lad he was, the attempt was abandoned; and harassed by enemies in flank and rear, beset by famine, sickness, and panic, Norris, and what was left of his army, beat a retreat to Cascaes, where Drake and the ships awaited them. The Azores were never approached, and the ships in Lisbon and Seville were not burned, and the inglorious expedition slunk back again to England with a loss of two-thirds of its number of men.
Although Burghley had drawn up the conditions of the Queen’s aid to the expedition, he took no active part in its subsequent organisation, for a great sorrow was impending, which fell upon him ten days before the expedition sailed. He had lived in harmony and affection[439] with his wife for forty-three years, and her death on the 4th April cast him for a time into the deepest sorrow.[567] But even in the midst of his grief, his passion for placing everything on record led him to write a most interesting series of meditations on his loss, which is still extant.[568] Commencing by a reflection on the fruitlessness of wishing his “dear wife alive again in her mortal body,” he proceeds at great length to lay down the direction his thoughts should take for consolation, such as gratitude to God for “His favour in permitting her to have lived so many years together with me, and to have given her grace to have the true knowledge of her salvation.” But most of the curious document is occupied by a statement of the liberal anonymous charities of Lady Burghley, which during her life she had kept inviolably secret, even from her husband; and as some indication of the reality of Lord Burghley’s grief, it may be mentioned that he signs the paper “April 9, 1588.[569] Written at Colling’s Lodge by me in sorrow.”
Through the whole course of his life we have seen William Cecil pursuing the traditional policy of suspicion of France and Scotland, and a desire to draw closer to[440] the rulers of the Netherlands. But in his old age a series of circumstances which were impossible to have been foreseen, entirely revolutionised the political balance of Europe, and for a time led even Lord Burghley to reverse his main policy. The heavy yoke of the Guises, doubly heavy now that they had the power of Spain behind them, had at last galled to desperation the vicious Valois who ruled France. The long-foretold and carefully-planned blow which had murdered the Duke of Guise and his brother, and rid Henry of his hard taskmaster, had been followed by a combination of all French Catholicism against the royal murderer. The subjects were declared to be absolved from their allegiance to the King, Paris flew to arms, the Church thundered denunciations, and the erstwhile royal bigot and monk, the figurehead of the Catholic League, the sleepless persecutor of Protestants, found himself driven into the arms of the only subjects he had who were not ready to tear him to pieces, namely, the Huguenots and excommunicated Henry of Navarre, the legitimate heir to the throne. Together they advanced upon Paris to crush the Guisan Catholics, and wreak vengeance upon the citizens who had deposed their sovereign. Henry of Navarre had often sought and obtained Elizabeth’s help against the Catholics, and looked to her again in this supreme struggle which was to decide, as it seemed, the fate of France. For the first time, however, on this occasion English aid took the form of supporting the sovereign against rebels, instead of the reverse.
In Scotland also the Catholic nobles had been busy intriguing for the landing of a Spanish force, which should coerce or depose James, and finally crush Protestantism there.[570] The plan had been discovered, and[441] Elizabeth, who had again made sure of James, had urged him to severity, and offered him support if necessary against his Catholic nobles. So that in Scotland, as in France, it was Catholicism that represented rebellion, and Protestantism in both countries looked to England to uphold legality. That the position struck Lord Burghley as curious is seen in a letter from him to Lord Shrewsbury[571] (16th June). “The world,” he says, “is become very strange! We Englishmen now daily desire the prosperity of a King of France and a King of Scots. We were wont to aid the subjects oppressed against both these Kings; now we are moved to aid both these Kings against their rebellious subjects; and though these are contrary effects, yet on our part they proceed from one cause, for that we do is to weaken our enemies.” In another letter he says, “Seeing both Kings are enemies to our enemies we have cause to join with them.” In fact, once more for a time religious union had become stronger than national divisions. It was the Protestantism of England, France, Scotland, and Holland, led by Elizabeth, against militant Catholicism everywhere, championed by the Spanish King.
Six weeks after the above letter was written the changed position towards France was further accentuated by the murder of Henry III. at the hands of a fanatic monk in the interests of the Catholics. With the Huguenot Henry of Navarre as King of France, and with Spain as the power behind the League, England and France were pledged to the same cause. The main sources of distrust in England against France always had been the fear that the latter power might dominate Flanders or gain a footing in Scotland. James’s adhesion to the Protestant party, his alliance with England, and his growing hopes of the English succession, had[442] made the latter contingency one which might now be disregarded, whilst the possession of strong places in the Netherlands in English hands, the religion of the new King of France, and his need to depend upon England for support, rendered it in the highest degree improbable that he would dream of conquering and holding Spanish Flanders against the wish of Elizabeth.
For the last three years Elizabeth had continued to supply Henry of Navarre with large sums of money to pay mercenaries; but if Henry was to reign over France he must now fight the League and Spain; and to enable him to do this, England would have to subscribe more handsomely than ever. Henry accordingly sent Beauvoir la Nocle to London to push his master’s cause. Great quantities of ammunition were shipped to the coast of Normandy, whither Henry had retired with his army; but men were wanted too, and on the 17th August Beauvoir dined with the Lord Treasurer at Cecil House, and concluded an arrangement by which Elizabeth was to lend 300,000 crowns to pay for German reiters in the spring, and to make a cash advance to Henry of 70,000 crowns.
By a letter from Beauvoir in the following year (16th June 1590) it is clear that Burghley’s old distrust of the French had not been overcome without difficulty. “At last,” he says, “I have conquered the Lord Treasurer! Now it must be borne in mind that if the Queen says ‘Do this,’ and Burghley says ‘Do it not,’ it is he who will be obeyed. Still I find him easier and more tractable than he was; these are humours that come and go, like the wind blows. Nevertheless he does well, though he is not one of those who act up to the proverb ‘Quis cito dat, bis dat.’” In the same despatch Beauvoir fervently urges the King to keep his promise with regard to the payment for the ammunition, &c.,[443] supplied to him. He says that the failure to meet such engagements is called in England “to play the Vidame.”[572] “For God’s sake,” he continues, “make provision for payment, or abandon all hope of getting anything else here except on good security.”[573]
Henry’s first attack on Paris failed, and he was forced to retire (November 1589); but he sent the gallant old hero La Noue to Picardy to withstand the League there. When young Essex heard of his proximity he was anxious to join him.[574] From the first he had been trying to persuade the Queen to send national forces under his command to aid the Huguenots, but cautious Burghley was always at hand to hint at expense and responsibility, and the auxiliary English troops under Willoughby, now in Henry’s service, were complaining bitterly of the hardships and penury they were undergoing. A great fleet also was being fitted out in Spain, the destination of which was kept secret, but rumours ran that it was coming to England, or what was almost as bad, to capture a French port in the Channel as a naval base from which the invasion of England could be effected. Brittany was held by the Duke de Merc?ur for the League by Spanish aid, and already (January) overtures had been made by him to Philip to occupy a port on the coast.
[444]
But whether England was to be attacked direct or a Brittany port first taken possession of, it behoved Elizabeth to stand on her guard, and on the 15th March a great plan for the muster and mobilisation of troops all over England was issued by the Lord Treasurer.[575] On the day before the order was made in England the Huguenot King had gained the great battle of Ivry, crushing Mayenne’s army and rapidly beleaguering Paris again. For the moment, therefore, Henry was able to hold his own, and the apprehension of the English Government was mainly directed towards Brittany, where a Spanish force of 4000 men were supporting the Duke de Merc?ur; and the claim of Philip’s daughter to the duchy, if not to the crown of France, was being advanced.
Burghley’s age was now telling upon him greatly. He had become very deaf, and almost constant gout kept him crippled; but still he remained, as ever, the resource of every one with an appeal to make, a question to be decided, or an end to be served.[576] The recent death of Walsingham (April 1590) left him the only one of the Queen’s early Councillors, except Crofts, who died soon afterwards, and Sir Francis Knollys,[445] whose fanatical Puritanism and anti-Prelatism still gave much trouble to the Treasurer. The latter had evidently marked out his brilliant younger son Robert Cecil for Walsingham’s successor; and certainly no better choice could have been made, for he had for some time past relieved his father of some of his most laborious work, and had imbibed much of his policy and method. The mere hint of such an intention, however, was sufficient to arouse the opposition of Essex, who, either out of generosity or in a mere spirit of contradiction of “the Cecils,” took up the cause of Davison, and endeavoured to bring him back to office.[577] The Lord Treasurer was powerful enough to prevent that; but did not push the matter to extremes by obtaining the appointment of his own son until some years afterwards, although Robert Cecil was knighted (May 1591) and was sworn a Member of the Privy Council shortly afterwards (August 1591), and thereafter practically discharged much of the duty of Secretary of State.[578] Burghley has frequently been blamed for a want of generosity towards Davison at this juncture. He was, as we have had occasion to notice more than once, not a generous man;[446] but this was a crucial trial of strength between him and young Essex, and if Davison had been reappointed Secretary of State the influence of Burghley would have suffered irreparably. It was obvious now that Essex was determined, if possible, to force Elizabeth into an aggressive policy, especially against Spain, and it was exactly this policy which Burghley still devoted his life to opposing. But it is clear that the Treasurer did not gain his point with regard to Davison without some little trouble. Whilst the matter was in dispute he pleaded his age and infirmities as a reason for his complete retirement from office;[579] and such a hint always brought the Queen to her bearings.
He, however, absented himself from court and stayed in dudgeon at Theobalds, where the Queen, to pacify him, paid him a stately visit in May, and the notes at Hatfield in the Lord Treasurer’s writing show that on this occasion, as usual, the smallest details of the Queen’s reception were arranged by him. Whilst there the Queen appears to have written the extraordinary jocose letter to “The disconsolate and retired spryte, the hermite of Tyboll,” in which, with tedious and affected jocularity, Hatton, in her name, exhorts him to return to the world and his duty. He must have done so promptly, for he was with the court at Greenwich again as busy as ever[447] in a fortnight, writing to Mr. Grimstone, the agent in France, a letter (June), which shows that already the old distrust of French methods was reasserting itself. “In truth, her Majesty findeth some lack that the King doth not advertise her more frequently of his actions and intentions; and especially she findeth it strange that there is no more care had for the state of Brittany, in that the King sendeth no greater forces thither to encounter the Spaniards’ new descents, or to recover such port towns as be of most moment. And her Majesty is truly comforted with certain successes that have happened in Brittany since the arrival (there) of Sir John Norreys.”[580] The letter ends with an emphatic reminder of Henry’s obligations to Elizabeth, and a somewhat doubting hope that he will be properly grateful.
Henry naturally was for winning Paris, the headquarters of the League and the capital of his realm, and he was already giving pause to Elizabeth and Burghley by his willingness to “receive instruction” from priests, with a view to his conversion. What from the English point of view was most to be feared was that he might at last be forced or cajoled into consenting to a partition of France, in which the Infanta’s claim to the Duchy of Brittany, which was a very strong one, should be acknowledged. This would have brought the Spaniards into the Channel opposite England, and have completely altered the balance of power. Already Don Juan del Aguila had a firm grip upon the port of Blavet, and Elizabeth’s Government were pressing Henry to direct his attention to the north of France, where the League had occupied[448] most of the principal ports, except Dieppe. Henry himself was reducing Chartres and other places near Paris, whilst his officers in the north, with inadequate forces, were doing their best to recover the coast towns.
At the urgent desire of Elizabeth, Henry promised to come to Normandy,[581] and Essex prevailed upon the Queen to give him command of a considerable English force to besiege Rouen[582] (July). The young Earl was in semi-disgrace in consequence of his recent marriage with Walsingham’s daughter (Sir Philip Sidney’s widow), but the Queen gave him strict orders not to expose himself to danger. Henry, however, did not keep his word to meet Essex on the coast, and as soon as Essex landed, made an attempt to utilise the English force elsewhere. Essex was indignant, and rushed off to Noyon to remonstrate with Henry.[583] When, however, Rouen was at last besieged, he violated the Queen’s commands and took an active part in the siege.[584]
[449]
At length Elizabeth declared that she would be played with no longer by him, and he was forced to return to his infuriated mistress,[585] whilst the siege of Rouen dragged on for months longer, sometimes in the presence of Henry himself, until the arrival of Parma and Mayenne caused it to be abandoned (May 1592). The anger of the Queen with Essex and the war-party was increased by the ill success in the autumn (1591) of the attempt to intercept the Spanish treasure fleet off the Azores;[586] and for a time “the Cecils” had their way, which was to administer just so much aid, and no more, as should prevent Maurice of Nassau in Holland and Henry of Navarre in France from succumbing to the power of Spain, whilst the Queen in the meanwhile railed at Navarre for his shiftiness, and at Essex for his disobedience. Her Englishmen, she said, had been badly treated and exposed to undue hardships, her advances were unpaid, nobody was grateful to her; and in future she declared, that though Henry might have her prayers he should have no more of her money.
[450]
The determined efforts of Essex and his party, and more especially of the two Bacons, Francis and Antony, to wound and discredit the Cecils, stopped at no inconsistency. From their earliest childhood the Earl and the Bacons had been attached to the Puritan party, and still posed as its champions; and yet they were the first to endeavour to cast upon Burghley the odium of the severe proclamation and fresh persecution of the seminary priests that had been considered necessary.[587] From the action of Allen, Persons, and their friends at the time of the Armada, from the letters intercepted by Burghley disclosing the Jesuit plot in Scotland, and from the continued bitter writings of Person’s directed against Elizabeth and her minister, it was beyond question now, that whatever may have been the case at the beginning of their propaganda, the aim of the seminarists was simply to undermine and overturn the political government of the country.[588] And yet the Bacons, nephews of Burghley[451] and sons of a fiercely Puritan mother, prompted by the double spy Standen and men of the same evil class, almost violently took up the cause of the persecuted Catholics when they thought it would injure the kinsman to whom they owed so much, and his son, of whom they were jealous.[589]
The renewed severity against the seminarists at this time was certainly not without justification. The shifty James Stuart was again listening to the charming of his Catholic nobles and the agents of Spain, though doubtless with the intention of outwitting them, and from all sides came the news of a powerful fleet being prepared in the Spanish ports either for England, Scotland, or Ireland. For a time in the autumn of 1592, whilst Lord Burghley was accompanying Elizabeth through the southern counties,[590] a perfect panic of apprehension fell upon the people; partly, it must be confessed,[452] caused by the fear of reprisals for the ceaseless ravages of the English upon Spanish shipping. Burghley himself had always been opposed to these ravages,[591] and had steadily refused to accept any share in the profits of them; but when the prizes were brought back he took care that the Queen’s share was not forgotten. A good instance of this occurred in 1592. Ralegh and the Earl of Cumberland with some associates fitted out a powerful expedition to intercept the treasure galleons, and, if possible, to raid some of the Spanish settlements. When the squadron had sailed, Ralegh was suddenly recalled by the angry Queen and thrown into the Tower (May) for having married.
The Roebuck, Ralegh’s own ship, captured off Flores amongst other prizes the great carrack Madre de Dios, which reached Dartmouth on the 8th September. The riches she contained were beyond calculation; pearls, amber, musk, and precious stones, tapestries, silks, spices, and gold formed her cargo. Plunder began long before she reached England, and when the news came of the capture the great road to the west was crowded by Jew dealers, London tradesmen and fine ladies and gentlemen on their way to buy bargains. Ralegh’s sailors were already sulky at the imprisonment of their beloved master, and when attempts were made by the shore authorities to recover some of the plunder and prevent further peculation, they became unmanageable. Sir John Hawkins wrote to Lord Burghley that Ralegh was the only man who could bring them to order.[592] But Ralegh was in the Tower, “the Queen’s poor prisoner”; and it needed all the Lord Treasurer’s[453] influence, working on Elizabeth’s greed, to obtain permission for Sir Walter, still under guard, to go down to Devonshire and set matters straight.[593] Preceding him by a few hours on the same errand went Sir Robert Cecil, whose letters to his father on his journey, detailing the measures he had adopted on the way to intercept the plunder, are extremely graphic and interesting.[594]
Such depredations upon Spanish shipping as this—and they were of constant occurrence—although they might enrich the adventurers, and to some extent even the Queen, were a means of keeping the English people generally in a constant state of apprehension, and rendering legitimate commerce dangerous and difficult. As we have seen, Lord Burghley had steadily set his face against piracy of all sorts, and Sir Robert Cecil followed his lead. Ralegh had from his first appearance at court been a friend of the Cecils, as against Leicester and Essex, and he still remained on their side; but he was greedy and unscrupulous, and certainly from the time of the capture of the great carrack the cordiality between the Cecil party and himself diminished.[595] The talk of the court generally was that Burghley was jealous of the rise of all men who might compete with his[454] beloved son Robert; and Ralegh’s friend Spenser puts the thought in verse (“The Ruins of Time”) thus:—
“O grief of griefs! O gall of all good hearts!
To see that virtue should despisèd be
Of him that first was raised for virtuous parts,
And now broad spreading like an agèd tree,
Lets none shoot up that nigh him planted be.”
That Lord Burghley in his failing age should desire to continue his policy through his son was perfectly natural, especially as in his case the son was in every way worthy to succeed him; and it is not fair to blame him for mean filial jealousy to the detriment of Ralegh, as Spenser does, for Ralegh, although nominally his adherent, was in the matter of the Puritans and aggressive action against Spain, acting rather on the side of Essex. It is to this fact that Ralegh owed his lifelong disappointment at being excluded from the Privy Council.
That Essex and his party were sleepless in their attempts to undermine the influence of the Cecils there is abundant evidence to prove. Amongst many others, an interesting letter from Ralph Lane to Lord Burghley (March 1592) may be quoted.[596] Sir Thomas Cecil and his more brilliant younger brother had quarrelled whilst their father was staying in retirement at Theobalds, sick and sorry. “The world speaks of your Lordship’s grief,” writes Lane, “and thinks it proceeds from the differences between your two sons. The matter is not great, but the humours short. That which grieves your well-wishers, who are the true well-wishers of her Majesty and the State, is that it has been misrepresented to her Majesty so as to injure you for credit and wisdom, and that these hard constructions made against you to her are the principal cause of your own grief. Good men moan[455] that her Majesty is sought to be deprived in this dangerous time of so wise and approved a Councillor. I hope that no envy will make her Majesty disconceit a personage the choice of whom in the beginning of her reign prognosticated her future greatness.”
But Elizabeth, though she might listen to the youngsters who sought to contemn her aged Councillor, knew his worth better than they, and much as he desired rest, when it came to the pinch, she always refused to let him go. Only a few days after the above letter was written, indeed, Lord Burghley received a life-grant of Rockingham Forest, part of the lands of the deceased Lord Chancellor Bromley, as if in answer to the detractions of his enemies. Another instance of the dependence of the Queen upon him and of his devotion to his duty happened in June. He had gone to Bath to seek alleviation from the gout which had afflicted him all the spring, and writes from there to the Queen, who was on her progress, enclosing her an important letter from her Ambassador in France. “I would,” he says, “have attended your Majesty myself with it, but I am in the midst of my cure and may not break off without special harm and frustrating my recovery, which is promised in a few days. But still I will risk all, and come if your Majesty desires it.”[597]
[456]
The persistent attacks upon Burghley and his policy were not confined to Essex and the Puritans. The Spanish Jesuit party in Flanders, which in former years had often looked upon him with sympathy and sometimes with hope, now cast upon him the responsibility of everything that happened in England, even when the policy was dictated by Burghley’s opponents. In all the plots of Holt, Yorke, Archer, Cahill, and the rest of the desperadoes in Flanders, Burghley was one of the principal objects of attack. “He was but a blood-sucker,” said Yorke; and the latter swore he would lay a poisoned glowing coal in his way and kill him.[598] Burghley, he said, had poisoned the young Earl of Derby in order to marry his grand-daughter to the Earl’s brother. “England was governed by the Machivellian policy of those who would be kings, and whom it is time were cut off;”[599] and much more of the same sort. These grosser calumnies and accusations of corruption[600] were in most cases obviously false, and could hardly have caused Lord Burghley very deep concern; but the most artful of his enemies, Father Persons, well[457] knew the weak point in his armour, and wounded him to the quick in his books, in which he pretended to show that the Lord Treasurer was of base origin, his father a tavern-keeper, and he himself a bell-ringer.[601] We have seen in a former similar case that attacks upon his ancestry almost alone aroused Lord Burghley’s anger; and an anti-Spanish Catholic writing at the time (January 1593) records how deeply he was pained by the books of Persons and Verstegen just published, “which,” he says, “will do the Catholics no good.”
The division, indeed, between the two parties of Catholics was now well defined. Those who adhered to Spain and the Jesuits were of course bitterly inimical to moderate statesmen like the Cecils, whose efforts would naturally tend to bring about a compromise with James or Arabella Stuart for the Queen’s successor, peace with Spain, and toleration for Catholics. The Vatican, the French, the Venetians, and many of the English and Scottish Catholics abroad were in favour of this solution;[602] and the English Catholic secular clergy were enlisted almost entirely on the same side. The extreme parties, however, were naturally violently opposed to compromise of any sort; so that the Cecils, as leaders of the peaceful and moderate party, were the target for envenomed attacks at the same time both of Spanish Jesuits, who wished for a purely Catholic England under[458] Spanish auspices, and the militant Protestant party led by Essex, who aimed at a purely Protestant England and an aggressive war with Spain.
The bitterness of party feeling was promptly demonstrated at the meeting of Parliament in February. Intelligence of continued armaments in Spain, and the recent revelations of informers as to the anti-English plots hatched in Flanders, had rendered necessary the employment of large sums for the national defence. A statement of the apprehensions entertained was made in the House of Lords by the Lord Keeper Puckering, and in the Commons by Sir Robert Cecil, the substance of both speeches having been previously drafted by Lord Burghley. The patriotism of the members was appealed to in fervent terms to provide funds for maintaining the national independence. The Puritan party, aided by Ralegh, fanned the flame and sought to pledge the Houses to an offensive war; and with but little dissent a treble subsidy was voted, payable in four years. Francis Bacon[603] struck a discordant note by asking that the payments should extend over six years. The people were poor, he said, and hard pressed; do not arouse their discontent “and set an evil precedent against ourselves and our posterity.” Sir Robert Cecil somewhat indignantly answered his cousin’s speech, and the Queen and Lord Treasurer soon made their displeasure felt, and Francis Bacon could only protest his loyalty and sorrow for his offence. If only he could wound the Cecils and bring himself into the good graces of Essex, he seemed to care but little.
The House of Commons, as usual, had a strongly[459] Puritan leaven, and the indefatigable Peter Wentworth once more incurred the Queen’s anger by bringing forward the succession question. Whilst the Puritan leaders in the Commons were being sent to the Tower and the Fleet,[604] the bishops were preparing a blow which should demolish for good all attempts at attacks against the Establishment. A new extreme sect called Independents or Brownists had gained considerable popularity. Other Nonconformists resisted the orders of the Church, and opposed the authority of prelates, but the Brownists were for disestablishment altogether. Their leaders, Barrow and Greenwood, and several others, were in prison; but their followers were many, and growing in number, and the prelates were determined to stamp out this new danger to the Church, come what might. Several Brownists were arraigned for sedition, on the ground that attacks upon the Establishment were attacks upon the Queen. Barrow and Greenwood were found guilty, and condemned to death. During the prosecution the prelates in the Lords had passed a severe bill against recusancy, designed to press more hardly against Brownists than even against Catholics. On the 31st March the condemned men were dragged to Tyburn, with all the hideous formalities usual in executions for felony; and when the ropes were already around their necks, a reprieve suddenly arrived. Lord Burghley himself, though seriously ill, had insisted upon a suspension of the sentence. “No Papist,” he said, “had suffered for religion, and Protestants’ blood should not[460] be the first shed, at least before an attempt was made to convince them.” We are told also that he spoke sharply to the Archbishop (Whitgift). The recusants bill went to the lower House on the 4th April, and Ralegh amongst others made a vigorous speech against it. The opposition in the Commons, we are told,[605] hardened the prelates’ hearts, and both Barrow and Greenwood suffered the last penalty two days afterwards, to be followed in their martyrdom for Protestant Nonconformity by many others all over the country.
This case has been stated here somewhat at length, because it has become usual to cast upon Lord Burghley the odium for cruel persecution both of Catholics and Protestants, in disregard of the fact that there were in England two extreme parties struggling with each other, he being, so far as religion was concerned, a moderator between the two. He was, of course, the most prominent man in the Government, but he only maintained his influence by avoiding the extremes of both parties, and in order to do this he was obliged to refrain from running strongly counter to either. It may be said that in this case of the Brownists, as well as that of the Catholics, he might have firmly put his foot down and have prevented the sacrifice; but in that event he would not have been William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and he would not have held the tiller of the State for forty years.
In the summer, Essex received a strange and powerful coadjutor in his policy of aggressive war against Spain. He and his friends the Bacons, much to the Puritan Lady Bacon’s concern, were already deep in confidence with Standen, and other double spies and professed Catholics, the object apparently being to organise, for the benefit of Essex, a separate spy system,[461] independent of the universal network controlled by the Cecils. The new recruit to Essex was a man of a very different calibre to the other instruments. Antonio Perez, the former all-powerful minister of Philip II., was at deadly feud with his master, and had been welcomed at the court of France as the bitterest enemy of his native country. He was one of the most brilliant and fascinating scoundrels that ever lived, and soon won the good graces of the jolly Béarnais, who was already meditating what he called the “mortal leap” of going to Mass, and turning the Huguenot Navarre into the Catholic King of France, eldest son of the Church. He had depended much upon Elizabeth’s help; although of late that had been slackening as Essex’s influence waned, and he knew that the step he was about to take would turn her full fury upon him. Who could so plausibly plead his cause and inflame the hearts in England against Spain as this mordant foe of Philip, who knew every weakness, every secret, of his former master? So in June, Perez went to England with Henry’s blessing, and with the cold permission of Elizabeth, for she had no love for traitors, and Burghley knew Perez’s errand.
When he arrived he found Elizabeth already fuming at Henry’s apostasy, and complaining bitterly to Beauvoir de Nocle of his master’s ingratitude.[606] She refused absolutely to receive the “Spanish traitor,” and the cautious Cecils gave him a wide berth. Essex in some[462] notes to Phillips, soon after Perez’s arrival, directs him to set informers to work to discover the real reason of the Spaniard’s coming. Lord Burghley, he says, has seen him once, and the Earl of Essex twice. “Burghley only wished to compare his judgment with his own experience; but he (Essex) wished to found upon Perez some action, for all his plots are to make war offensive rather than defensive.”[607] Essex soon got over his doubts, and plausible Perez stood with Bacon[608] ever at his right hand, living at his cost, writing his biting gibes, weaving his plots against Philip, and with his matchless ability and experience advising the young Earl how best to drag England into war with Spain, even though Henry was a Catholic, and so to outwit the watchful Cecils. It was not long, too, before he flattered and wormed himself into the good graces of the Queen, who gave him a handsome pension; and so gradually the war-party gained ground in Elizabeth’s councils, for in this Ralegh too was on the side of Essex, and the ceaseless talk of the intrigues of the Jesuits kept the English war feeling at fever heat.
Most of the routine work formerly falling upon Lord Burghley was now undertaken by his son. Letters from all quarters, and upon all subjects, came to Sir Robert, whose diligence must have been almost as indefatigable as that of his father; but apparently only those of special importance and touching foreign affairs were submitted to the Lord Treasurer. But[463] though Sir Robert might be diligent, he certainly lacked the high sense of dignity which had always been characteristic of his father. At a time when courtiers vied with each other in addressing almost blasphemous flattery to the Queen, when all the firmament was ransacked to provide comparisons favourable to her Majesty’s beauty and wisdom, Lord Burghley, although always respectful and deferential to the Queen, never sacrificed his dignity to please her.
That his son was more of a supple courtier than he, is seen by the address penned by him to be delivered to the Queen by a man dressed as a hermit on her entrance to Theobalds, where she passed some days on a visit to the Lord Treasurer, in October. For turgid affectation and grovelling humility this production could hardly be excelled by the egregious Simier, or Hatton himself. The subject evidently has reference to the Queen’s previous visit to the house when Lord Burghley was in deep trouble and living in retirement. On that occasion there was much affected verbosity about the Lord Treasurer as a hermit, and in October 1593, when the pretended hermit addressed her Majesty, he reminded her that the last time she came, “his founder, upon a strange conceit to feed his own humour, had placed the hermit, contrary to his profession, in his house, whilst he (Burghley) had retired to the hermit’s poor cell.” Whilst his founder (Burghley) lived he was assured that he would not again dispossess him (as he never turned out tenants) “Only this perplexeth my soul, and causeth cold blood in every vein, to see the life of my founder so often in peril, nay, his desire as hasty as his age to inherit his tomb. But this I hear (which is his greatest comfort), that when his body, being laden with years, oppressed with sickness, having spent his strength in the public service, desireth to be rid of worldly cares, even when he is grievously[464] sick and lowest brought, what holds him back and ransometh him, is the fear that my young master may wish to use my cell. And therefore, hearing of all the country folks I meet, that your Majesty doth use him in your service, as in former time you have done his father, my founder, and that though his experience and judgment be not comparable, yet as report goeth he hath something in him like the child of such a parent,” he (the hermit) begs the Queen, whose will is law, to bid Robert Cecil to continue in active life, and leave to the hermit the cell granted to him by his father.
This was doubtless considered at the time a highly ingenious device for asking the Queen for a reversion of the fathers’ offices for the son, and is certainly not lacking in the worldly wisdom which looks ahead; but surely never was any man’s coming death talked about so much in his lifetime, and with so little constraint, as that of Lord Burghley.