SECOND PART
When Mary Queen of Scots arrived in England, without money and evenwithout any other clothes than those she wore, she wrote to Elizabeth,representing herself as an innocent and injured piece of Royalty, andentreating her assistance to oblige her Scottish subjects to take herback again and obey her. But, as her character was already known inEngland to be a very different one from what she made it out to be, shewas told in answer that she must first clear herself. Made uneasy bythis condition, Mary, rather than stay in England, would have gone toSpain, or to France, or would even have gone back to Scotland. But, asher doing either would have been likely to trouble England afresh, it wasdecided that she should be detained here. She first came to Carlisle,and, after that, was moved about from castle to castle, as was considerednecessary; but England she never left again.
After trying very hard to get rid of the necessity of clearing herself,Mary, advised by LORD HERRIES, her best friend in England, agreed toanswer the charges against her, if the Scottish noblemen who made themwould attend to maintain them before such English noblemen as Elizabethmight appoint for that purpose. Accordingly, such an assembly, under thename of a conference, met, first at York, and afterwards at HamptonCourt. In its presence Lord Lennox, Darnley's father, openly chargedMary with the murder of his son; and whatever Mary's friends may now sayor write in her behalf, there is no doubt that, when her brother Murrayproduced against her a casket containing certain guilty letters andverses which he stated to have passed between her and Bothwell, shewithdrew from the inquiry. Consequently, it is to be supposed that shewas then considered guilty by those who had the best opportunities ofjudging of the truth, and that the feeling which afterwards arose in herbehalf was a very generous but not a very reasonable one.
However, the DUKE OF NORFOLK, an honourable but rather weak nobleman,partly because Mary was captivating, partly because he was ambitious,partly because he was over-persuaded by artful plotters againstElizabeth, conceived a strong idea that he would like to marry the Queenof Scots--though he was a little frightened, too, by the letters in thecasket. This idea being secretly encouraged by some of the noblemen ofElizabeth's court, and even by the favourite Earl of Leicester (becauseit was objected to by other favourites who were his rivals), Maryexpressed her approval of it, and the King of France and the King ofSpain are supposed to have done the same. It was not so quietly planned,though, but that it came to Elizabeth's ears, who warned the Duke 'to becareful what sort of pillow he was going to lay his head upon.' He madea humble reply at the time; but turned sulky soon afterwards, and, beingconsidered dangerous, was sent to the Tower.
Thus, from the moment of Mary's coming to England she began to be thecentre of plots and miseries.
A rise of the Catholics in the north was the next of these, and it wasonly checked by many executions and much bloodshed. It was followed by agreat conspiracy of the Pope and some of the Catholic sovereigns ofEurope to depose Elizabeth, place Mary on the throne, and restore theunreformed religion. It is almost impossible to doubt that Mary knew andapproved of this; and the Pope himself was so hot in the matter that heissued a bull, in which he openly called Elizabeth the 'pretended Queen'of England, excommunicated her, and excommunicated all her subjects whoshould continue to obey her. A copy of this miserable paper got intoLondon, and was found one morning publicly posted on the Bishop ofLondon's gate. A great hue and cry being raised, another copy was foundin the chamber of a student of Lincoln's Inn, who confessed, being putupon the rack, that he had received it from one JOHN FELTON, a richgentleman who lived across the Thames, near Southwark. This John Felton,being put upon the rack too, confessed that he had posted the placard onthe Bishop's gate. For this offence he was, within four days, taken toSt. Paul's Churchyard, and there hanged and quartered. As to the Pope'sbull, the people by the reformation having thrown off the Pope, did notcare much, you may suppose, for the Pope's throwing off them. It was amere dirty piece of paper, and not half so powerful as a street ballad.
On the very day when Felton was brought to his trial, the poor Duke ofNorfolk was released. It would have been well for him if he had keptaway from the Tower evermore, and from the snares that had taken himthere. But, even while he was in that dismal place he corresponded withMary, and as soon as he was out of it, he began to plot again. Beingdiscovered in correspondence with the Pope, with a view to a rising inEngland which should force Elizabeth to consent to his marriage with Maryand to repeal the laws against the Catholics, he was re-committed to theTower and brought to trial. He was found guilty by the unanimous verdictof the Lords who tried him, and was sentenced to the block.
It is very difficult to make out, at this distance of time, and betweenopposite accounts, whether Elizabeth really was a humane woman, ordesired to appear so, or was fearful of shedding the blood of people ofgreat name who were popular in the country. Twice she commanded andcountermanded the execution of this Duke, and it did not take place untilfive months after his trial. The scaffold was erected on Tower Hill, andthere he died like a brave man. He refused to have his eyes bandaged,saying that he was not at all afraid of death; and he admitted thejustice of his sentence, and was much regretted by the people.
Although Mary had shrunk at the most important time from disproving herguilt, she was very careful never to do anything that would admit it. Allsuch proposals as were made to her by Elizabeth for her release, requiredthat admission in some form or other, and therefore came to nothing.Moreover, both women being artful and treacherous, and neither evertrusting the other, it was not likely that they could ever make anagreement. So, the Parliament, aggravated by what the Pope had done,made new and strong laws against the spreading of the Catholic religionin England, and declared it treason in any one to say that the Queen andher successors were not the lawful sovereigns of England. It would havedone more than this, but for Elizabeth's moderation.
Since the Reformation, there had come to be three great sects ofreligious people--or people who called themselves so--in England; that isto say, those who belonged to the Reformed Church, those who belonged tothe Unreformed Church, and those who were called the Puritans, becausethey said that they wanted to have everything very pure and plain in allthe Church service. These last were for the most part an uncomfortablepeople, who thought it highly meritorious to dress in a hideous manner,talk through their noses, and oppose all harmless enjoyments. But theywere powerful too, and very much in earnest, and they were one and allthe determined enemies of the Queen of Scots. The Protestant feeling inEngland was further strengthened by the tremendous cruelties to whichProtestants were exposed in France and in the Netherlands. Scores ofthousands of them were put to death in those countries with every crueltythat can be imagined, and at last, in the autumn of the year one thousandfive hundred and seventy-two, one of the greatest barbarities evercommitted in the world took place at Paris.
It is called in history, THE MASSACRE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW, because ittook place on Saint Bartholomew's Eve. The day fell on Saturday thetwenty-third of August. On that day all the great leaders of theProtestants (who were there called HUGUENOTS) were assembled together,for the purpose, as was represented to them, of doing honour to themarriage of their chief, the young King of Navarre, with the sister ofCHARLES THE NINTH: a miserable young King who then occupied the Frenchthrone. This dull creature was made to believe by his mother and otherfierce Catholics about him that the Huguenots meant to take his life; andhe was persuaded to give secret orders that, on the tolling of a greatbell, they should be fallen upon by an overpowering force of armed men,and slaughtered wherever they could be found. When the appointed hourwas close at hand, the stupid wretch, trembling from head to foot, wastaken into a balcony by his mother to see the atrocious work begun. Themoment the bell tolled, the murderers broke forth. During all that nightand the two next days, they broke into the houses, fired the houses, shotand stabbed the Protestants, men, women, and children, and flung theirbodies into the streets. They were shot at in the streets as they passedalong, and their blood ran down the gutters. Upwards of ten thousandProtestants were killed in Paris alone; in all France four or five timesthat number. To return thanks to Heaven for these diabolical murders,the Pope and his train actually went in public procession at Rome, and asif this were not shame enough for them, they had a medal struck tocommemorate the event. But, however comfortable the wholesale murderswere to these high authorities, they had not that soothing effect uponthe doll-King. I am happy to state that he never knew a moment's peaceafterwards; that he was continually crying out that he saw the Huguenotscovered with blood and wounds falling dead before him; and that he diedwithin a year, shrieking and yelling and raving to that degree, that ifall the Popes who had ever lived had been rolled into one, they would nothave afforded His guilty Majesty the slightest consolation.
When the terrible news of the massacre arrived in England, it made apowerful impression indeed upon the people. If they began to run alittle wild against the Catholics at about this time, this fearful reasonfor it, coming so soon after the days of bloody Queen Mary, must beremembered in their excuse. The Court was not quite so honest as thepeople--but perhaps it sometimes is not. It received the Frenchambassador, with all the lords and ladies dressed in deep mourning, andkeeping a profound silence. Nevertheless, a proposal of marriage whichhe had made to Elizabeth only two days before the eve of SaintBartholomew, on behalf of the Duke of Alencon, the French King's brother,a boy of seventeen, still went on; while on the other hand, in her usualcrafty way, the Queen secretly supplied the Huguenots with money andweapons.
I must say that for a Queen who made all those fine speeches, of which Ihave confessed myself to be rather tired, about living and dying a MaidenQueen, Elizabeth was 'going' to be married pretty often. Besides alwayshaving some English favourite or other whom she by turns encouraged andswore at and knocked about--for the maiden Queen was very free with herfists--she held this French Duke off and on through several years. Whenhe at last came over to England, the marriage articles were actuallydrawn up, and it was settled that the wedding should take place in sixweeks. The Queen was then so bent upon it, that she prosecuted a poorPuritan named STUBBS, and a poor bookseller named PAGE, for writing andpublishing a pamphlet against it. Their right hands were chopped off forthis crime; and poor Stubbs--more loyal than I should have been myselfunder the circumstances--immediately pulled off his hat with his lefthand, and cried, 'God save the Queen!' Stubbs was cruelly treated; forthe marriage never took place after all, though the Queen pledged herselfto the Duke with a ring from her own finger. He went away, no betterthan he came, when the courtship had lasted some ten years altogether;and he died a couple of years afterwards, mourned by Elizabeth, whoappears to have been really fond of him. It is not much to her credit,for he was a bad enough member of a bad family.
To return to the Catholics. There arose two orders of priests, who werevery busy in England, and who were much dreaded. These were the JESUITS(who were everywhere in all sorts of disguises), and the SEMINARYPRIESTS. The people had a great horror of the first, because they wereknown to have taught that murder was lawful if it were done with anobject of which they approved; and they had a great horror of the second,because they came to teach the old religion, and to be the successors of'Queen Mary's priests,' as those yet lingering in England were called,when they should die out. The severest laws were made against them, andwere most unmercifully executed. Those who sheltered them in theirhouses often suffered heavily for what was an act of humanity; and therack, that cruel torture which tore men's limbs asunder, was constantlykept going. What these unhappy men confessed, or what was ever confessedby any one under that agony, must always be received with great doubt, asit is certain that people have frequently owned to the most absurd andimpossible crimes to escape such dreadful suffering. But I cannot doubtit to have been proved by papers, that there were many plots, both amongthe Jesuits, and with France, and with Scotland, and with Spain, for thedestruction of Queen Elizabeth, for the placing of Mary on the throne,and for the revival of the old religion.
If the English people were too ready to believe in plots, there were, asI have said, good reasons for it. When the massacre of Saint Bartholomewwas yet fresh in their recollection, a great Protestant Dutch hero, thePRINCE OF ORANGE, was shot by an assassin, who confessed that he had beenkept and trained for the purpose in a college of Jesuits. The Dutch, inthis surprise and distress, offered to make Elizabeth their sovereign,but she declined the honour, and sent them a small army instead, underthe command of the Earl of Leicester, who, although a capital Courtfavourite, was not much of a general. He did so little in Holland, thathis campaign there would probably have been forgotten, but for itsoccasioning the death of one of the best writers, the best knights, andthe best gentlemen, of that or any age. This was SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, whowas wounded by a musket ball in the thigh as he mounted a fresh horse,after having had his own killed under him. He had to ride back wounded,a long distance, and was very faint with fatigue and loss of blood, whensome water, for which he had eagerly asked, was handed to him. But hewas so good and gentle even then, that seeing a poor badly wounded commonsoldier lying on the ground, looking at the water with longing eyes, hesaid, 'Thy necessity is greater than mine,' and gave it up to him. Thistouching action of a noble heart is perhaps as well known as any incidentin history--is as famous far and wide as the blood-stained Tower ofLondon, with its axe, and block, and murders out of number. Sodelightful is an act of true humanity, and so glad are mankind toremember it.
At home, intelligence of plots began to thicken every day. I suppose thepeople never did live under such continual terrors as those by which theywere possessed now, of Catholic risings, and burnings, and poisonings,and I don't know what. Still, we must always remember that they livednear and close to awful realities of that kind, and that with theirexperience it was not difficult to believe in any enormity. Thegovernment had the same fear, and did not take the best means ofdiscovering the truth--for, besides torturing the suspected, it employedpaid spies, who will always lie for their own profit. It even made someof the conspiracies it brought to light, by sending false letters todisaffected people, inviting them to join in pretended plots, which theytoo readily did.
But, one great real plot was at length discovered, and it ended thecareer of Mary, Queen of Scots. A seminary priest named BALLARD, and aSpanish soldier named SAVAGE, set on and encouraged by certain Frenchpriests, imparted a design to one ANTONY BABINGTON--a gentleman offortune in Derbyshire, who had been for some time a secret agent ofMary's--for murdering the Queen. Babington then confided the scheme tosome other Catholic gentlemen who were his friends, and they joined in itheartily. They were vain, weak-headed young men, ridiculously confident,and preposterously proud of their plan; for they got a gimcrack paintingmade, of the six choice spirits who were to murder Elizabeth, withBabington in an attitude for the centre figure. Two of their number,however, one of whom was a priest, kept Elizabeth's wisest minister, SIRFRANCIS WALSINGHAM, acquainted with the whole project from the first. Theconspirators were completely deceived to the final point, when Babingtongave Savage, because he was shabby, a ring from his finger, and somemoney from his purse, wherewith to buy himself new clothes in which tokill the Queen. Walsingham, having then full evidence against the wholeband, and two letters of Mary's besides, resolved to seize them.Suspecting something wrong, they stole out of the city, one by one, andhid themselves in St. John's Wood, and other places which really werehiding places then; but they were all taken, and all executed. When theywere seized, a gentleman was sent from Court to inform Mary of the fact,and of her being involved in the discovery. Her friends have complainedthat she was kept in very hard and severe custody. It does not appearvery likely, for she was going out a hunting that very morning.
Queen Elizabeth had been warned long ago, by one in France who had goodinformation of what was secretly doing, that in holding Mary alive, sheheld 'the wolf who would devour her.' The Bishop of London had, morelately, given the Queen's favourite minister the advice in writing,'forthwith to cut off the Scottish Queen's head.' The question now was,what to do with her? The Earl of Leicester wrote a little note home fromHolland, recommending that she should be quietly poisoned; that noblefavourite having accustomed his mind, it is possible, to remedies of thatnature. His black advice, however, was disregarded, and she was broughtto trial at Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire, before a tribunal offorty, composed of both religions. There, and in the Star Chamber atWestminster, the trial lasted a fortnight. She defended herself withgreat ability, but could only deny the confessions that had been made byBabington and others; could only call her own letters, produced againsther by her own secretaries, forgeries; and, in short, could only denyeverything. She was found guilty, and declared to have incurred thepenalty of death. The Parliament met, approved the sentence, and prayedthe Queen to have it executed. The Queen replied that she requested themto consider whether no means could be found of saving Mary's life withoutendangering her own. The Parliament rejoined, No; and the citizensilluminated their houses and lighted bonfires, in token of their joy thatall these plots and troubles were to be ended by the death of the Queenof Scots.
{Mary Queen of Scots Reading the death warrant: p240.jpg}
She, feeling sure that her time was now come, wrote a letter to the Queenof England, making three entreaties; first, that she might be buried inFrance; secondly, that she might not be executed in secret, but beforeher servants and some others; thirdly, that after her death, her servantsshould not be molested, but should be suffered to go home with thelegacies she left them. It was an affecting letter, and Elizabeth shedtears over it, but sent no answer. Then came a special ambassador fromFrance, and another from Scotland, to intercede for Mary's life; and thenthe nation began to clamour, more and more, for her death.
What the real feelings or intentions of Elizabeth were, can never beknown now; but I strongly suspect her of only wishing one thing more thanMary's death, and that was to keep free of the blame of it. On the firstof February, one thousand five hundred and eighty-seven, Lord Burleighhaving drawn out the warrant for the execution, the Queen sent to thesecretary DAVISON to bring it to her, that she might sign it: which shedid. Next day, when Davison told her it was sealed, she angrily askedhim why such haste was necessary? Next day but one, she joked about it,and swore a little. Again, next day but one, she seemed to complain thatit was not yet done, but still she would not be plain with those abouther. So, on the seventh, the Earls of Kent and Shrewsbury, with theSheriff of Northamptonshire, came with the warrant to Fotheringay, totell the Queen of Scots to prepare for death.
When those messengers of ill omen were gone, Mary made a frugal supper,drank to her servants, read over her will, went to bed, slept for somehours, and then arose and passed the remainder of the night sayingprayers. In the morning she dressed herself in her best clothes; and, ateight o'clock when the sheriff came for her to her chapel, took leave ofher servants who were there assembled praying with her, and went down-stairs, carrying a Bible in one hand and a crucifix in the other. Two ofher women and four of her men were allowed to be present in the hall;where a low scaffold, only two feet from the ground, was erected andcovered with black; and where the executioner from the Tower, and hisassistant, stood, dressed in black velvet. The hall was full of people.While the sentence was being read she sat upon a stool; and, when it wasfinished, she again denied her guilt, as she had done before. The Earlof Kent and the Dean of Peterborough, in their Protestant zeal, made somevery unnecessary speeches to her; to which she replied that she died inthe Catholic religion, and they need not trouble themselves about thatmatter. When her head and neck were uncovered by the executioners, shesaid that she had not been used to be undressed by such hands, or beforeso much company. Finally, one of her women fastened a cloth over herface, and she laid her neck upon the block, and repeated more than oncein Latin, 'Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit!' Some say herhead was struck off in two blows, some say in three. However that be,when it was held up, streaming with blood, the real hair beneath thefalse hair she had long worn was seen to be as grey as that of a woman ofseventy, though she was at that time only in her forty-sixth year. Allher beauty was gone.
But she was beautiful enough to her little dog, who cowered under herdress, frightened, when she went upon the scaffold, and who lay downbeside her headless body when all her earthly sorrows were over.