At no time since her accession had Elizabeth and her government been in so much danger as immediately after the suppression of the rebellion of the north. Cecil had known that the Catholic English and Scottish nobles and Mary were in constant communication with Spain and the Pope, but even he was not aware how widespread was the conspiracy.[313] Orange in the Netherlands, and Coligny in France, had for a time been crushed; Condé had been killed in battle; and everywhere the Catholic cause was triumphant. This was the eventuality which alone England had to fear; and although Spanish aid to the English Catholics was neither so active nor so abundant as has usually been assumed,[243] unquestionably the hopes and promises held out both by Philip and the Pope had raised the spirits of the Catholics in England and Scotland higher than they had been for many years. Spanish money and support under papal auspices kept Ireland in a state of discord, as we have seen; Mary appealed to King Philip as a vassal to her suzerain; the Guisan agents were busy plotting with the Hamiltons and Murray’s enemies on the Border, and the whole north of England was riddled with religious discontent. Cecil wrote at the beginning of 1570 to Norris: “We have discovered some tokens, and we hear of some words uttered by the Earl of Northumberland, that maketh us think this rebellion had more branches, both of our own and strangers, than did appear, and I trust the same will be found out, though perchance when all are known in secret manner, all may not be notified.”
The truth of Cecil’s forebodings came soon afterwards. On the 22nd February 1570, Murray was shot by a Hamilton in the streets of Linlithgow, and in the anarchy which followed, the friends of Mary Stuart on the Scottish Border invaded England. Maitland of Lethington and others who had hitherto stood firmly by Murray, now turned to the side of the Hamiltons and the French party; whilst a special French Guisan envoy boldly demanded of Elizabeth, in the name of the King of France, Mary Stuart’s release, permission for himself to pass into Scotland, and a pledge from the English Queen that in future she would refrain from supporting the Huguenots. Papal emissaries whispered at first that the Pope had excommunicated “the flagitious pretended Queen of England”; and then one Catholic, bolder than the rest (Felton), dared publicly to post the bull on the Bishop of London’s door. The Bishop of Ross was tireless in spreading the view of Mary’s innocence and[244] unmerited sufferings,[314] and many Englishmen who were opposed to her in everything were scandalised at her continued captivity. So strong a Protestant as Sir Henry Norris, the English Ambassador in Paris—for ever the butt of French remonstrance against Mary’s imprisonment—advised Cecil to have her released. But Sir William knew better the risk of such a step now, and replied, “Surely few here amongst us conceive it feasible with surety,” and he was right. Stories, too, came from Flanders of plans to assassinate Elizabeth; but she was never so strong or wise as when the circumstances were difficult and dangerous. “I know not,” writes Cecil, “by what means, but her Majesty is not much troubled with the opinion of danger; nevertheless I and others cannot be but greatly fearful for her, and do, and will do, all that in us may lie to understand by God’s assistance the attempts.”
It was not long before Cecil had once more triumphed over his enemies on the Council and in England: the danger that then threatened was from without. Again, the policy of disabling the foreign Catholics by aiding the Protestants was resorted to. Killigrew was kept busy in Germany arranging with Hans Casimir and other mercenary leaders, to raise large forces for the purpose of entering France and enabling the Huguenots to avenge their disasters.[315] Cardinal Chatillon was still a[245] welcome guest at the English court. The privateers in the Channel were stronger and bolder than ever, and had practically swept Spanish shipping from the narrow seas. The Flemings were encouraged with promises of help and support when Orange had once more organised a force to cope with Alba. Sussex and Hunsdon in the meanwhile did not let the grass grow under their feet, but harried both sides of the Border, stamping out the last embers of rebellion, and striking terror into the Catholic fugitives, whilst Morton and the Protestant party were consolidating their position, momentarily shaken by the murder of Murray.[316] De Spes was ceaselessly clamouring to the King and Alba for armed intervention in England before it was too late. Mary might be captured by a coup de main, as she herself suggested, and carried to Spain; a few troops sent to Scotland now, said the Bishop of Ross, might overturn the new Regency; a small force in Ireland would easily expel the heretics; “and the whole nation will rise as soon as they see your Majesty’s standard floating over ships on their coast.”
But Alba distrusted both French and English, Protestants and Catholics alike. He knew that the conflagration in the Netherlands was still all aglow beneath the surface, and he dared not plunge into war with England. His slow master pondered and plotted, beset with cares and poverty, and unable to wreak his vengeance upon England until he had the certainty of Mary Stuart’s exclusive devotion to his interests. But the extent and complexity[246] of Philip’s difficulties were only known to himself, and the danger appeared to Cecil even greater than it was.
The plague had raged in London for the whole of the summer of 1569, and a recrudescence of it in the following June gave Cecil a good opportunity for advocating Norfolk’s partial enlargement. The Duke made a most solemn renunciation of his proposed marriage with Mary, and craved Elizabeth’s forgiveness; and at length in August was allowed to retire to his own house. That he owed his liberation to Cecil is clear from his letters. At the beginning of July, apparently, some person—probably Leicester—had told the Duke that Cecil was against him, and the Secretary showed him how false this was, and proposed to take action against his slanderers. The Duke in reply thanked him for his friendly dealing and his frank explanation, “which have sufficiently purged him (Cecil) and laid the fault on those who deserved it.” But he begged him to refrain from further action, as it might cause mischief.[317] When Norfolk at length was “rid of yonder pestylent infectyous hows” (the Tower), he unhesitatingly attributed his release to Cecil. How busy the slanderers of the Secretary were, and how deeply he felt the wounds they dealt him, may be seen in another statement in his own hand of the same period[318] (July 1570), which contains an indignant denial of the reports that had been spread with regard to his alleged dishonest dealing with the property of his ward the Earl of Oxford.
During the whole of Norfolk’s stay in the Tower and afterwards, the love-letters between him and Mary continued, the Queen signing her letters “your own faithful to death,” and using many similar terms of endearment;[319][247] and Cecil could hardly have been entirely ignorant of the Duke’s bad faith. But for political reasons it was considered necessary, not only to conciliate him, but Mary and the Spaniards as well. Concurrently, therefore, with the negotiations for Norfolk’s release, a show of willingness was made to come to terms with Mary. Her presence in England was an embarrassment and a danger, and now that Murray was dead, the principal personal obstacle to her return had disappeared. If she could be so tied down as to be used as a means for pacifying Scotland, whilst depending for the future entirely upon England, her return to her country would relieve Elizabeth of a difficulty. The first basis of negotiation was the surrender of the English rebel Lords in exchange for her, and the delivery to England of four or six of the principal Scottish nobles and the young Prince as hostages. But these terms were by no means acceptable to Mary’s agents or to herself. She feared that the Scots would kill her, and the English her son, and so secure the joint kingdoms to a nominee of Elizabeth or Cecil.
The main reason for Elizabeth’s change of attitude must be sought in the panic which seized upon England in the early summer of 1570. A powerful Spanish fleet was in the Channel, ostensibly to convey Philip’s fourth wife, Anne of Austria, from Flanders to Spain; but rumours came that the dreaded Duke of Alba was ready now for the invasion of England. The Guises in Normandy, too, were said to have an army of harquebussiers waiting to embark for Scotland; the Irish rebels were being helped both by Philip and the Guises. The Pope’s bull absolving Englishmen from their oaths of allegiance was the talk everywhere, and English merchants in despair cried that at last they and their country were to pay for the depredations of the pirates. The French were demanding haughtily that the English troops should[248] evacuate the Border Scottish fortresses held by them, and the Protestants in France and Flanders were not yet prepared to furnish the diversion upon which the English usually depended for their own safety.
The position was very grave in appearance, though not so great in reality, and it alarmed Elizabeth out of her equanimity. De Guaras says that she shut herself up for three days, and railed against Cecil for bringing her to such a pass; and the same observer reports that when Cecil one day in the middle of July left the Queen and retired to his own apartment, he cried to his wife in deep distress, “O wife! if God do not help us we shall be lost and undone. Get together all the jewels and money you can, that you may follow me when the time comes; for surely trouble is in store for us.”[320] This may or may not be true in detail, and also Guaras’ assertion that Cecil had sent large private funds to Germany, whither he would retire in case of trouble; but it is certain that panic reigned supreme for a few weeks in the summer, accentuated, doubtless, by the plague which was devastating the country. But fright did not paralyse the minister for long, if at all. Twenty-five ships were hastily armed, two fresh armies were raised of five thousand men each, ostensibly for Scotland. Mary was prompted to send Livingston to Scotland to negotiate an arrangement with the Regent Lennox, and Cecil himself, with Sir Walter Mildmay, was induced to go and confer with Mary at Chatsworth; but, says De Spes, “all these things are simply tricks of Cecil’s, who thinks thereby to cheat every one, in which to a certain extent he succeeds.” The Secretary had by this time discovered that in any case neither Philip nor Alba would raise a finger to avenge a slight upon De Spes, for he had imprisoned him and distressed him in a[249] thousand ways already without retaliation. At the same time, a blow at such a notorious conspirator as he was could not fail to produce a great effect upon the English Catholics who plotted with him and looked to Spain alone for support. Cecil therefore sent Fitzwilliams to Flanders about the seizures, and instructed him to complain to Alba of De Spes’ communications with the rebels. “His object,” wrote the Ambassador, “is to expel me, now that they think I understand the affairs of this country; and Cecil thinks that I, with others, might make such representations to the Queen as would diminish his great authority.… Cecil is a crafty fox, a mortal enemy of the Catholics and to our King, and it is necessary to watch his designs very closely, because he proceeds with the greatest caution and dissimulation. There is nothing in his power he does not attempt to injure us. The Queen’s own opinion is of little importance, and that of Leicester less; so that Cecil unrestrainedly and arrogantly governs all.… Your worship may be certain that if Cecil is allowed to have his way he will disturb the Netherlands.”[321] De Spes’ information was correct on the latter point, as well it might be, for in addition to Cecil’s own secretary, Allington, he had in his pay Sir James Crofts, a member of the Council, and the Secretary of the Council, Bernard Hampton, who between them brought him news of everything that passed in the Council or in Cecil House.
The Secretary’s efforts to get rid of so troublesome a guest as De Spes, and to offer an object-lesson to the English Catholics at the same time, were persistent, and in the end successful. De Spes was refused the treatment of an ambassador, threatened with the Tower, flouted, slighted, and insulted at every turn; but he could only futilely storm and fret, for neither his King nor[250] Alba was pleased with the difficult position which his violence had created for them in England. It was all the fault of Cecil personally, insisted De Spes. He wished to afflict the Catholic cause without witnesses, and would stick at nothing, even poison, to get rid of the Spaniard.
Cecil would have liked to avoid his mission to Mary Stuart, for he was almost crippled with constant gout, and he was fully aware of the hollowness of the negotiations in hand. The interviews with Mary could hardly have been agreeable, although they were carried out with great formality and politeness on both sides. Cecil charged her with a knowledge of the northern rebellion, which she only partly denied, saying, however, that she did not encourage it. Mary seems to have been alternately passionate and tearful; but her bad adviser, the Bishop of Ross, was by her side, and though she argued her case shrewdly, she could not refrain from unwisely and unnecessarily wounding Elizabeth at the outset.[322] In the second article of the proposed treaty, where Elizabeth’s issue were to be preferred in the succession, Mary altered the words to “lawful issue,” to which Elizabeth, although acceding to it, replied that Mary “measured other folk’s disposition by her own actions.” After some acrimony on the subject of other alterations on behalf of Mary, an arrangement was arrived at, which, however, was afterwards vetoed by the Scottish Government,[323] at the instance of Morton, who was the Commissioner in London.
Whilst the negotiations with Mary had been progressing, peace had been signed between the Huguenots[251] and Charles IX. at St. Germains (August 1570), and the fears of Elizabeth and Cecil were consequently aggravated at the plans which were known to be promoted by Cardinal Lorraine for the marriage of the Duke of Anjou, next brother to the French King, with the Queen of Scots. Now that the Montmorencis and the “politicians” had reconciled parties in France, the danger of such a match became serious both to England and the sincere Huguenots. Anjou posed as the figurehead of the extreme Catholic party, but was known to be vaguely ambitious and unstable. Cardinal Chatillon therefore thought it would be a good move to disarm him by yoking him under Huguenot auspices to Elizabeth. The first approach was made by the Vidame de Chartres to Cecil, who privately discussed it with the Queen. They must have regarded it with favour, for it was exactly the instrument they needed for splitting the league, and arousing jealousy between France and Spain. The Emperor had just given a severe rebuff to attempts to revive the Archduke’s match with Elizabeth, but the negotiation for making a French Catholic prince King-consort of England under Huguenot control was a master-stroke which sufficed to overturn all international combinations, set France and Spain by the ears, turned the Guises, as relatives of Mary Stuart, against their principal supporter in France, and reduced the Queen of Scots herself to quite a secondary element in the problem. The idea was just as welcome to Catharine de Medici, who hated Mary Stuart as much as she dreaded the Guises. Both she and the young King would have been glad to be quit of the ambitious Anjou, who always threw in his weight on the Catholic side, and made it more difficult for the Queen-mother to hold the balance. So, very soon Guido Cavalcanti was speeding backwards and forwards between England and France, secretly preparing[252] the way for the more formal negotiations between the official Ambassadors.
So far as the Queen of England was concerned, the negotiation was purely political and insincere, for the reasons just stated, but the comedy was well played by all parties. Leicester of course was favourable, for it meant bribes to him, and there was no danger. La Mothe Fénélon, the Ambassador, gently broached the matter to the Queen at Hampton Court in January 1571. As usual she was coy and coquettish. She was too old for Anjou, she objected, but still she said the princes of the House of France had the reputation of being good husbands.[324] Cardinal Chatillon shortly afterwards was blunter than the Ambassador. Would the Queen marry Anjou if he proposed? he asked, to which Elizabeth replied, that on certain conditions she would; and the next day she submitted the subject to her Council, who, as in duty bound, threw the whole of the responsibility on to the Queen.
Walsingham had just replaced Norris as Ambassador to France. He was a friend of Leicester, a strict Protestant, who had been indoctrinated in the political methods of Cecil, with whom and with Leicester he kept up a close confidential correspondence.[325] One of his first letters to Leicester gives a personal description of the young Prince, in which a desire to tell the truth struggles with his duty not to say anything which may hamper the negotiation. The Guises and the Spanish party in Paris exhorted Anjou to avoid being drawn into the net, and the Duke himself at one time openly used insulting expressions towards Elizabeth; but such was the position in England that it was absolutely[253] necessary that an appearance of reality should be given to the affair. Prudent Cecil, as usual, avoided pledging himself personally more than necessary, and wrote from Greenwich to Walsingham on the 3rd March, that he had wished the Queen herself to write her instructions, but as she had declined to do so, he merely repeated her words in a postscript—namely, that if he (Walsingham) were approached on the matter of the marriage, he might say that before he left England he had heard “that the Queen, upon consideration of the benefit of her realm, and to content her subjects, had resolved to marry if she should find a fit husband, who must be of princely rank.” To this Cecil himself adds as his private opinion, to be told to no one, “I am not able to discern what is best, but surely I see no continuance of her quietness without a marriage.”[326] Matters were indeed critical at this juncture, and Cecil, Leicester, and even Walsingham, repeatedly, and apparently with sincerity, stated their opinion that Elizabeth would be forced to wed Anjou, or he would marry Mary Stuart, as it was necessary for Catharine de Medici and the Huguenots to get rid of this fanatical figurehead of the extreme Catholic party.[327]
In his letter to Walsingham of 1st March, Cecil signs[254] his name thus, “By your assured (as I was wont) William Cecil;” and then underneath, “And as I am now ordered to write, William Burleigh.”[328] That the title was not of his own seeking is almost certain. The Spanish Ambassador, De Spes, says that the Queen ennobled him in order that he might be more useful in Parliament and in the matter of the Queen of Scots; and the new Lord himself, in a letter to Nicholas White, speaks thus slightingly of his new honour: “My style is Lord of Burghley if you mean to know it for your writing, and if you list to write truly, the poorest Lord in England. Yours, not changed in friendship, though in name, William Burghley.” To Walsingham again he wrote on the 25th March, “My style of my poor degree is Lord of Burghley;” and on the 14th April in a letter to the same correspondent he signs, “William Cecill—I forgot my new word, William Burleigh.”
At the time of his elevation the new Lord was suffering from one of his constantly recurring fits of gout, and his letters are mostly written, with pain and difficulty, which he frequently mentions, “from my bed in my house at Westminster.” And yet, withal, the amount of work he got through at the time was nothing short of marvellous. Every matter, great and small, seemed to be dealt with by him. He was a Member of Parliament for the two counties of Lincoln and Northampton;[329] as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge he[255] was deeply interested in the interminable disputes there with regard to ritual, vestments, and scholastic questions; as President of the Court of Wards he attended personally to an immense number of estates and private interests;[330] and acquaintances, high and low, from Greys, Howards, Clintons, and Dudleys, down to poor students or alien refugees, still by common accord addressed their petitions for aid and advice to him. To judge by their grateful acknowledgments, they seem rarely to have appealed to him in vain, and it is evident by the hundreds of such letters at Hatfield, that even when petitions could not be granted, they were assured of impartial and just consideration from Lord Burghley. His own great establishments, too, at Burghley, Theobalds, and London, must have claimed much of his attention, for all accounts passed under his own eyes, and in such small matters as the rotation of crops, the sale of produce, the breeding of stock, and the replenishment of gardens, nothing was done without consultation with the master. His hospitality was very great; for we are told by his domestic biographer that “he kept open house everywhere, and his steward kept a standing table for gentlemen, besides two other long tables, often twice set out, one for the clerk of the kitchen, and the other for yeomen.” He personally can have had but little enjoyment from his splendid houses and stately living. He must have been almost constantly at court, or hard[256] at work at his house in Cannon Row, Westminster, handy for Whitehall, rather than at his new palace in the Strand, where his wife and family lodged. He seems to have had no hobby but books and gardens, and to have taken no exercise except on his rare visits to Theobalds or Burghley, when he would jog round his garden paths on an ambling mule.
This was the man, vigilant, prudent, moderate, cautious and untiring in his industry, who in the spring and summer of 1571 by his consummate statecraft once more brought England out of the coil of perils which surrounded her on all sides. His counter-move to Spanish support to the rebels in England and Ireland, and to Guisan plots in Scotland, was to supply arms, munitions, and money to the Protestants of Rochelle and the Dutch privateers, and to fit out a strong English fleet. The pacification of France and the crushing of reform in Flanders were answered by remittances of money to Germany to raise mercenaries for Orange, and the welcoming of Louis of Nassau and Cardinal Chatillon in England; whilst the marriage of Charles IX. to an Austrian Princess, and the closer relations between France and the Catholic league, were counteracted by the marriage negotiations between Elizabeth and Anjou, and the treaty with Mary Stuart for her restoration.
But as the effect of Cecil’s diplomacy gradually became apparent, the more reckless of his opponents resorted to desperate devices to frustrate him. Already, by February 1571, Mary Stuart had convinced herself that the treaty for her liberation was fallacious, and she wrote an important letter to the Bishop of Ross, from which great events sprang.[331] She refers to plans for her escape, and announces her decision to go to Spain,[257] throwing herself in future entirely upon Philip as her protector; and she urges that Ridolfi should be sent to Spain and Rome to explain her situation and resolve, and to beg for help. Norfolk was to be asked to pledge himself finally to become a Catholic; doubt as to his religion, she says, having been the principal reason for Philip’s lukewarmness. The Bishop sent a copy of the letter to Norfolk, who was still nominally under arrest. The Duke gave his consent, and Ridolfi started from England at the end of March. It has been frequently denied that Norfolk connived at this proposal for the invasion of England by a foreign power; but, in addition to the depositions of Ross and Barker,[332] the following letter from De Spes introducing Ridolfi to Philip appears to settle the question against the Duke:[333] “The Queen of Scots, and the Duke of Norfolk on behalf of many other lords and gentlemen who are attached to your Majesty’s interests, and the promotion of the Catholic religion, are sending Rodolfo Ridolfi, a Florentine gentleman, to offer their services to your Majesty, and to represent to you that the time is now ripe to take a step of great benefit to Christianity, as in detail Ridolfi will set forth to your Majesty. The letter of credence from the Duke of Norfolk is written in the cipher that I have sent to Zayas, for fear it should be taken. London, 25th March, 1571.” The exact proposal to be made verbally by Ridolfi is not stated, but De Spes refers to it in his next letter as “the real remedy” for Lord Burghley’s activity. It is probable that not only the support of Mary and Norfolk was intended, but also the assassination of Elizabeth and her minister.[334] Cecil[258] had been put upon the alert by the kidnapping in Flanders and bringing to England of the notorious Dr. Storey, who, under torture in the Tower, had divulged the dealings of the northern Lords with Alba through Ridolfi and the Bishop of Ross. This caused Cecil to keep a watch upon the doings of both the agents; and Lord Cobham, in Dover, was instructed to intercept any cipher letters which might be brought by a Flemish secretary of the Bishop of Ross, one Charles Bailly, who was with Ridolfi in Flanders. The man was stopped and his papers captured, with some copies of the Bishop of Ross’s book in favour of Mary’s claims. The Cobhams were never to be trusted; and Thomas Cobham surreptitiously obtained the cipher keys, and had them conveyed to De Spes, substituting for them a dummy packet, which was sent to Cecil. But Bailly himself, who had written the papers at Ridolfi’s dictation, was promptly put on the rack in the Tower, and confessed that the letters were written to two persons, designated by numbers, under cover to the Bishop, and conveyed the Duke of Alba’s approval of the plan for invading England, and his readiness, if authorised by his King, to co-operate with the persons indicated.
Letters sent by the Bishop to Bailly after his arrest, urging him to firmness, threatening the traitor who had betrayed him, and in a hundred ways proving his own complicity, were all intercepted and read. The tortured wretch swore to the Bishop that he would tell nothing, even if they tore him into a hundred pieces; begged that his trunk containing drafts of letters from Mary to Cardinal[259] Lorraine and Hamilton might be rescued from his lodging. But Burghley forestalled them all. The whole of the letters were taken, and every day, in the Tower, fresh rackings, and threats to cut off his ears or his head, were used by Burghley to the frightened lad, to force him to give a key of the cipher. One morning at five o’clock he was carried by the Lieutenant of the Tower to Lord Burghley, and was told that, unless he immediately confessed all, he would be racked till the truth was torn from him. The lad, half distraught, day by day unfolded as much as he knew, notwithstanding the Bishop’s frantic assurances that Burghley would not dare to harm him much, as he was a foreigner and a servant of the Queen of Scots.[335] And so, piece by piece, the whole conspiracy was unravelled so far as regarded the main object, and the complicity of Alba, the Spaniards and the Bishop of Ross proved beyond doubt; but still the persons indicated by the cipher numbers “30” and “40” could only be surmised, for Bailly himself did not know them. Gradually the names of Mary Stuart and Norfolk crept into the depositions of those examined, but without sufficient definiteness yet for open proceedings against them to be commenced.
Whilst Lord Burghley, with inexhaustible patience, was tracking the plot to its source, the most elaborate pretence of agreement with the French on the subject of the Anjou match was kept up both in Paris and London; though more sincere on the part of the former than the[260] latter, for Catharine and Charles IX. were in mortal fear of the Guises, the League, and the heir-presumptive to the crown. Cavalcanti and officers of the King’s household ran backwards and forwards to England with loving messages; and the Huguenots worked their best to bring the matter to a successful issue, or, in default of it, for a close alliance. Henry Cobham was sent to Madrid ostensibly to treat on the matter of the seizures, but really to learn, if possible, how far Philip was pledged to the plans against England; but the Spaniards were forewarned and ready for him, and he learned nothing.
Lord Burghley had, however, a better plan than this. Fitzwilliam, a relative of the English Duchess of Feria, had been sent to Spain by him for the purpose of negotiating for the release of the men and hostages who had been captured from Hawkins at San Juan de Ulloa. He professed in Spain to be strongly Catholic and in favour of Mary Stuart, and came back to England in 1571, with presents, pledges, and promises to the captive Queen and her friends. Hawkins lay with a strong auxiliary fleet at the mouth of the Channel, and it was agreed with Lord Burghley that Fitzwilliam and Hawkins should hoodwink the Spaniards, obtain a good haul for themselves, and at the same time trace the ramifications of the great international plot against England. De Spes jumped at the bait, with but a mere qualm of misgiving, when Fitzwilliam went and offered, on behalf of Hawkins, to desert with all his fleet to Spain, and take part, if necessary, in an attack upon England. When he wrote to the King he said, “My only fear is lest Burghley himself may have set the matter afoot to............