[1568-1569 A.D.]

It should appear, however, that Norfolk did not commit himself very seriously until he was propelled by the insidious favourite Leicester, by the earls of Arundel and Pembroke, and by Sir Nicholas Throcmorton, the experienced diplomatist and plotter, who had suddenly coalesced with Leicester in the hope of throwing Cecil into the Tower, and changing that minister's system for one that would more promote his own interests.

At last the duke agreed to be the husband, and then a letter, subscribed by the earls of Leicester, Arundel, and Pembroke, and the lord Lumley, was privately addressed to Mary in her prison, urging her to consent to the marriage, but requiring her at the same time "to relinquish all such claims as had been made by her to the prejudice of the queen's majesty; and that religion might be stablished both in Scotland and England; and that the league of France might be dissolved, and a league made betwixt England and Scotland; and that the government of Scotland might be to the contentation of the queen of England." Norfolk and his friends said afterwards that they had assured themselves, from the letter being written by the earl of Leicester, there would be nothing in it "but for the queen's majesty's security." Norfolk, in his own name, wrote letters to the fair captive as a lover and liberator. These letters were conveyed to the queen by the bishop of Ross.

The consent of the French and Spanish courts to the match was asked through their ambassadors; everything seemed to favour the project and flatter the ambition of Norfolk. Many of the principal nobility of England encouraged him, and none remonstrated save the earl of Sussex, who saw clearly the real nature of the plot and the ruin it would bring upon his friend the duke.

The regent pretended to recommend his sister's liberation to a Scottish parliament which he had assembled; but at the same time he was taking all the measures in his power to keep her a closer prisoner in England than ever. Here Maitland and he quarrelled; for the astute secretary, dissatisfied with Murray's government and full of his grand state intrigue-which embraced England as well as Scotland-was now more anxious for the restoration of Mary than he had been two years before for her deprivation. But Maitland for the moment was overmatched, and fearing for his life, and cursing what he called the double dealing and perfidy of Murray, he fled from Edinburgh, to seek an asylum in the mountains of the north.

Leicester now found it convenient to fall very sick-sick, it was said, unto death! Alarmed-and, as is generally represented, still amorous-Elizabeth flew to the bedside of her unworthy favourite, who, with many sighs and tears, began to disclose every particular of the plot into which he had inveigled Norfolk. Leicester received a fond pardon, Norfolk a severe reprimand. The duke protested that he had never meant ill to her majesty, and readily promised to let the project drop. But Elizabeth could not conceal her anger against him and Leicester began to treat him rudely.

Murray now undertook the odious office of informer and forwarded all the duke of Norfolk's letters to the English queen, humbly protesting that he had not devised the project and that he would never have given his feigned assent to it had it not been to preserve his own life. On the 9th of October the duke was committed to the Tower. On the 11th of the same month the bishop of Ross, who in vain pleaded his privilege as the agent and ambassador of a crowned head-the helpless prisoner Mary-was sharply examined at Windsor, and then committed to prison. At the same time the lord Lumley and some others of less note were placed under arrest.

[1568-1569 A.D.]

ELIZABETH AIDS THE NETHERLANDS

The alarm of the English Protestant court was the greater on account of the successes which had recently attended the Catholic arms on the Continent, notwithstanding the encouragement and assistance sent to the French Huguenots by Elizabeth.

At the same time Elizabeth, by a measure of very questionable morality, had given a deadly provocation to the powerful Philip. In the course of the preceding autumn (1568) a Spanish squadron of five sail, carrying stores and money for the payment of Philip's army in the Low Countries, took refuge on the English coast to escape a Protestant fleet which had been fitted out by the prince of Condé. For a while the queen hesitated; she was at peace with Spain-a Spanish ambassador was at her court, and her own ambassador, Mann, was at Madrid-but the temptation was very strong; the money was destined for the support of those who were mercilessly bent on destroying a people who professed the same religion as her own subjects; and besides, Elizabeth much wanted money, for she had spent, and was then spending, a great deal to support the Protestant religion abroad. In the end it was resolved to seize the specie, upon pretence that it in truth belonged not to the king of Spain, but to certain Italian bankers and money-lenders who had exported it upon speculation.

The duke of Alva presently retaliated by seizing the goods and imprisoning the persons of all the English merchants he could find in Flanders. But according to La Mothe-Fénélon,f1 the narrow seas were already swarming with English privateers-the Frenchman calls them pirates-and with armed vessels manned by French and Flemish Protestants. The English cruisers of course offered no molestation to the Protestant privateers of the Low Countries, but assisted them in landing troops on the French coast for the service of the Huguenots.2 The French court and the court of Spain were almost equally incensed; but they had both so many troubles on their hands that they resolved to avoid for the present a declaration of war. At the end of January, however, the French government, after remonstrating against the supplies sent in English ships to the Huguenots, seized all the English merchandise in Rouen.

There was a loud outcry in England at this seizure, and some of the lords of the council advised an immediate declaration of war against France.3 A double war with France and Spain was unpromising, however, and the queen declared that it was her full intention to be at peace with France.

In a very few days after Elizabeth's pacific declarations, it was found that her ambassador at Paris, Sir Henry Norris, was again intriguing with the Huguenots and promising them assistance. Upon this the French government made a fresh seizure of English merchandise at Rouen, Calais, and

According to the French ambassador, La Mothe-Fénélon, f the money seized amounted to four hundred and fifty thousand ducats, and the five ships were Biscayans.-Correspondance Diplomatique de Bertrand de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénélon. Publiée pour la première fois sous la direction de Monsieur Charles Purton Cooper.

A great quantity of arms and ammunition had recently been landed at La Rochelle for the French insurgents, from four English men-of-war.

Alva sent over the Sieur d'Assoleville to treat about the money. The queen sent orders to arrest him at Rochester and to detain him there two days, that he might see and hear in that principal arsenal what a vast number of workmen she had employed on her great ships of war. This old diplomatist might well complain of the little respect shown by Elizabeth to the character of ambassadors.

H. W.-VOL. XIX. Z

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Dieppe. Elizabeth's privateers retaliated on the French coast; but she again negotiated, and promised to put an end to that kind of warfare upon condition that the French should recall their commissions, for they also had begun to fit out swarms of privateers.

But again within a few weeks Elizabeth gave audience to envoys from the Huguenots and to envoys from the prince of Orange, and the other leaders of the Protestants in the Low Countries, who all wanted from her loans of money, arms, and gunpowder. She held a grand review of her troops, horse and foot; and inflamed at this aspect of war, many gentlemen bought themselves swords and pikes and went over to join the Huguenots. Elizabeth denied that this last was done by her permission, but presently a fleet of ships, armed for war and escorted by the largest vessels in the queen's service, set sail for La Rochelle, which was, and long continued to be, the principal port and stronghold of the French Protestants. But this fleet was detained by contrary winds; the Huguenots were defeated in the interval, and then

Elizabeth made fresh protestations, and issued a proclamation against privateers and all such as made war without her license upon the French king.

Her conduct had irritated the French court to the extreme, and as the power of the Protestants in France seemed to be broken, it was resolved, by parties as crafty as herself, to give encouragement, if not more, to the Catholics in England, and to excite an interest in all the papistical countries of the Continent in favour of the captive Mary. The duke of Alva entered into this scheme; a Florentine, named Rudolfi, well acquainted with England, acted as agent for the pope; and sanguine hopes were entertained, if not of restoring England to the bosom of the church, of distracting and weakening her by internal dissensions.

THE NORTHERN INSURRECTION (1569 A.D.)

The penal statutes against the professors of the old religion had gradually increased in severity, and as the Catholics triumphed on the Continent, their religion became more and more an object of suspicion and of persecution in England. Elizabeth cared little for the dogmas of either church. She was

[1569-1570 A.D.]

altogether free from intolerance as to speculative opinions in religion, unless they went to weaken the royal prerogative. Her intolerance was all of a political kind, and she persecuted, not because men believed in the real presence, but because she believed that no Catholic could possibly be a loyal subject. In the month of October, immediately after the duke of Norfolk's arrest, the counties of York, Durham, and Northumberland betrayed symptoms of open insurrection.

At the same time Queen Mary had found means to establish a correspondence with the Catholic earl of Northumberland, with the earl of Westmoreland, whose wife was the duke of Norfolk's sister, with Egremont Ratcliffe, brother of the earl of Sussex, and Leonard Dacre. Most of these noblemen were excited by many motives, the chief of which was the restoration of the Catholic faith in England. Their ostensible leader was the earl of Northumberland, a very munificent but a very weak lord. He talked imprudently and did nothing; and when at last, in the middle of November, he put himself in motion, it was only because he was frightened out of bed at the dead of night in his house at Topcliffe in Yorkshire by a panic-fear that a royal force was approaching to seize him. He then rode in haste to the castle of Branspeth, where he found Norfolk's brother-in-law, the earl of Westmoreland, surrounded with friends and retainers all ready to take arms for what they considered a holy cause.

On the morrow, the 16th of November, they openly raised their banner. If an ingenious stratagem had succeeded that banner would have floated over the liberated Mary. The countess of Northumberland had endeavoured to get access to the captive queen in the disguise of a nurse, in the intention of exchanging clothes with her that she might escape. But as this device had miscarried, the insurgents proposed marching to Tutbury castle to liberate the queen by force of arms.d

A manifesto was immediately put forth in the usual style, expressive of the utmost loyalty to the queen, but declaring their intentions to rescue her out of the hands of evil counsellors, to obtain the release of the duke and other peers, and to re-establish the religion of their fathers. They marched to Durham (November 16th), where they purified the churches by burning the heretical Bibles and prayer-books. At Ripon they restored the mass; on Cliffordmoor they mustered seven thousand men. Richard Norton, a venerable old gentleman who had joined them with his five sons, raised in their front a banner displaying the Saviour with the blood streaming from his five wounds. Finding that the Catholics in general were loyal to the queen, and that Sussex was collecting an efficient force at York, they fell back to Hexham (December 16th). Here the footmen dispersed; the earls, with the horse, about five hundred in number, fled into Scotland.e

The earl of Northumberland was sent by the regent to the castle of Lochleven, the old prison of Queen Mary. When Elizabeth pressed him to deliver up his captive that she might do justice on him, Murray offered to exchange Northumberland for Mary. Thus Northumberland remained in captivity in Lochleven. After a while the other refugees were conveyed to the Spanish Netherlands. But the vengeance of the law, unmitigated by any royal mercy, fell upon the retainers and friends of the fugitives. On the 4th and 5th of January threescore and six individuals were executed in Durham alone; and thence Sir George Bowes, with his executioner, traversed the

There were, however, occasional exceptions. Matthew Hammond, a Unitarian, was burned alive in the castle ditch of Norwich! But this poor man had also spoken what were called "words of blasphemy against the queen's majesty and others of her council."-Srow.9

[1570 A.D.]

whole country between Newcastle and Netherby, a district sixty miles in length and forty miles in breadth, "and finding many to be fautors in the said rebellion, he did see them executed in every market-town and in every village, as he himself (says Stow) reported unto me." All that country was dotted in every direction with gibbets, Elizabeth imitating pretty closely the conduct of her sanguinary father on the suppression of the Pilgrimage of Grace.

THE RISING OF DACRE (1570 A.D.)

Among the Catholic gentlemen whose loyalty had been suspected by Sadler was Leonard Dacre, the representative of the ancient family of the Dacres of Gilsland. This bold man had resolved to risk his life and fortunes in the cause of the captive queen, whom he regarded with a romantic devotion. He raised a gallant troop to join Northumberland and Westmoreland; but when those two weak earls fled so hastily, he endeavoured to make Elizabeth believe that he had taken up arms not for, but against the insurgents.

But Elizabeth and her council were seldom overreached or deceived, and an order was sent down to the earl of Sussex to arrest Dacre, cautiously and secretly, as a traitor. He fled, but he resolved to try his good sword before he submitted to the hard doom of exile and beggary. Within a month from the flight of Northumberland, Dacre was at the head of three thousand English borderers; but before a body of Scots could join him he was attacked on the banks of the river Gelt, February 22nd, 1570, by a far superior force commanded by Lord Hunsdon. Leonard Dacre, however, was not defeated without a desperate battle. He fled across the Borders, where he was received and honourably entertained by some noble friends of Mary, and he soon after passed over to Flanders.

THE ASSASSINATION OF MURRAY (1570 A.D.)

Before this rising of Leonard Dacre the regent Murray had gone to his account: and it has been reasonably conjectured that the hopes of the English insurgent had been excited by this event in Scotland. On his return from Elizabeth's court and the mock trial of his sister, Murray had encountered many difficulties; but he had triumphed over them all by means of English money and his own wondrous caution and dexterity. On the 22nd of January, 1570, he was shot through the body.2 On the very night of the murder the Scotts and the Kers dashed across the English frontiers with unusual fury and apparently with the purpose of producing a breach between the two nations, or of giving fresh encouragement to the malcontents of Northum

['Hunsdon was the son of Mary Boleyn.]

"The fate of Murray's name is singular even among conspicuous and active men, in an age torn in pieces by contending factions. Contemporary writers agree in nothing, indeed, but his great abilities and energetic resolution. Among the people he was long remembered as 'the good regent,' partly from their Protestant zeal, but in a great measure from a strong sense of the unwonted security of life and property enjoyed in Scotland during his vigorous administration. His Catholic countrymen abroad bestowed the highest commendations on his moral character, which are not impugned by one authenticated fact. But a powerful party has for nearly three centuries defamed and maligned him, in order to extract from the perversion of history an hypothetical web to serve as a screen for his unhappy sister; in the formation of which they are compelled to assume that she did nothing which she appeared to have done; and that he did all that he appears to have cautiously abstained from doing." -SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH,