which drew on him the indignation of the house, and gave great offence to the queen and the ministers. As it seems to contain a rude sketch of those principles of liberty which happily gained afterwards the ascendant in England, it may not be improper to give, in a few words, the substance of it. He premised, that the very name of liberty is sweet; but the thing itself is precious beyond the most inestimable treasures and that it behoved them to be careful, lest, contenting themselves with the sweetness of the name, they forego the substance, and abandon what of all earthly possessions was of the highest value to the kingdom. He then proceeded to observe, that freedom of speech in that house,--a privilege so useful both to sovereign and subject,--had been formerly infringed in many essential articles, and was at present exposed to the most imminent danger: that it was usual, when any subject of importance was handled, especially if it regarded religion, to surmise, that these topics were disagreeable to the queen, and that the further proceeding in them would draw down her indignation upon their temerity: that Solomon had justly affirmed the king’s displeasure to be a messenger of death; and it was no wonder if men, even though urged by motives of conscience and duty, should be inclined to stop short when they found themselves exposed to so severe a penalty: that by the employing of this argument, the house was incapacitated from serving their country, and even from serving the queen herself, whose ears, besieged by pernicious flatterers, were thereby rendered inaccessible to the most salutary truths: that it was a mockery to call an assembly a parliament, yet deny it that privilege which was so essential to its being, and without which it must degenerate into an abject school of servility and dissimulation: that as the parliament was the great guardian of the laws, they ought to have liberty to discharge their trust, and to maintain that authority whence even kings themselves derive their being: that a king was constituted such by law, and though he was not dependent on man, yet was he subordinate to God and the law, and was obliged to make their prescriptions, not his own will, the rule of his conduct: that even his commission, as God’s vicegerent, enforced, instead of loosening this obligation; since he was thereby invested with authority to execute on earth the will of God, which is nothing but law and justice: that though these surmises of displeasing the queen by their proceedings, had impeached, in a very essential point, all freedom of speech,--a privilege granted them by a special law,--yet was there a more express and more dangerous invasion made on their liberties, by frequent messages from the throne: that it had become a practice, when the house was entering on any question, either ecclesiastical or civil, to bring an order from the queen, inhibiting them absolutely from treating of such matters, and debarring them from all further discussion of these momentous articles: that the prelates, emboldened by her royal protection, had assumed a decisive power in all questions of religion, and required that every one should implicitly submit his faith to their arbitrary determinations: that the love which he bore his sovereign forbade him to be silent under such abuses, or to sacrifice, on this important occasion, his duty to servile flattery and complaisance; and that, as no earthly creature was exempt from fault, so neither was the queen herself; but, in imposing this servitude on her faithful commons, had committed a great and even dangerous fault against herself and the whole commonwealth.[*] It is easy to observe from this speech, that, in this dawn of liberty, the parliamentary style was still crude and unformed; and that the proper decorum of attacking ministers and counsellors, without interesting the honor of the crown, or mentioning the person of the sovereign, was not yet entirely established. The commons expressed great displeasure at this unusual license; they sequestered Wentworth from the house, and committed him prisoner to the serjeant at arms. They even ordered him to be examined by a committee, consisting of all those members who were also members of the privy council; and a report to be next day made to the house. This committee met in the star chamber, and, wearing the aspect of that arbitrary court, summoned Wentworth to appear before them, and answer for his behavior. But though the commons had discovered so little delicacy or precaution in thus confounding their own authority with that of the star chamber, Wentworth better understood the principles of liberty, and refused to give these counsellors any account of his conduct in parliament, till he were satisfied that they acted, not as members of the privy council, but as a committee of the house.[**] He justified his liberty of speech by pleading the rigor and hardship of the queen’s messages; and notwithstanding that the committee showed him, by instances in other reigns, that the practice of sending such messages was not unprecedented, he would not agree to express any sorrow or repentance. The issue of the affair was, that after a month’s confinement, the queen sent to the commons, informing them, that, from her special grace and favor, she had restored him to his liberty and to his place in the house.[***] ** D’Ewes, p. 244.
*** D’Ewes, p. 241.
By this seeming lenity, she indirectly retained the power which she had assumed, of imprisoning the members and obliging them to answer before her for their conduct in parliament. And Sir Walter Mildmay endeavored to make the house sensible of her majesty’s goodness, in so gently remitting the indignation which she might justly conceive at the temerity of their member; but he informed them, that they had not the liberty of speaking what and of whom they pleased; and that indiscreet freedoms used in that house, had, both in the present and foregoing ages, met with a proper chastisement. He warned them, therefore, not to abuse further the queen’s clemency, lest she be constrained, contrary to her inclination, to turn an unsuccessful lenity into a necessary severity.[*] The behavior of the two houses was, in every other respect, equally tame and submissive. Instead of a bill, which was at first introduced,[**] for the reformation of the church, they were contented to present a petition to her majesty for that purpose; and when she told them, that she would give orders to her bishops to amend all abuses, and, if they were negligent, she would herself, by her supreme power and authority over the church, give such redress as would entirely satisfy the nation, the parliament willingly acquiesced in this sovereign and peremptory decision.[***] Though the commons showed so little spirit in opposing the authority of the crown, they maintained, this session, their dignity against an encroachment of the peers, and would not agree to a conference which, they thought, was demanded of them in an irregular manner. They acknowledged, however, with all humbleness, (such is their expression,) the superiority of the lords: they only refused to give that house any reason for their proceedings; and asserted, that where they altered a bill sent them by the peers, it belonged to them to desire a conference, not to the upper house to require it.[****] * D’Ewes, p. 259.
** D’Ewes, p. 252.
*** D’Ewes, p. 257.
The commons granted an aid of one subsidy and two fifteenths. Mildmay, in order to satisfy the house concerning the reasonableness of this grant, entered into a detail of the queen’s past expenses in supporting the government, and of the increasing charges of the crown, from the daily increase in the price of all commodities. He did not, however, forge to admonish them, that they were to regard this detail as the pure effect of the queen’s condescension, since she was not bound to give them any account how she employed her treasure.[*] * D’Ewes, p. 246.
CHAPTER XLI.
ELIZABETH.
{1580.} The greatest and most absolute security that Elizabeth enjoyed during her whole reign, never exempted her from vigilance and attention; but the scene began now to be more overcast, and dangers gradually multiplied on her from more than one quarter.
The earl of Morton had hitherto retained Scotland in strict alliance with the queen, and had also restored domestic tranquility to that kingdom; but it was not to be expected, that the factitious and legal authority of a regent would long maintain itself in a country unacquainted with law and order; where even the natural dominion of hereditary princes so often met with opposition and control. The nobility began anew to break into factions; the people were disgusted with some instances of Morton’s avarice; and the clergy, who complained of further encroachments on their narrow revenue, joined and increased the discontent of the other orders. The regent was sensible of his dangerous situation; and having dropped some peevish expressions, as if he were willing or desirous to resign, the noblemen of the opposite party, favorites of the young king, laid hold of this concession, and required that demission which he seemed so frankly to offer them. James was at this time but eleven years of age; yet Morton, having secured himself, as he imagined, by a general pardon, resigned his authority into the hands of the king, who pretended to conduct in his own name the administration of the kingdom. The regent retired from the government, and seemed to employ himself entirely in the care of his domestic affairs; but either tired with this tranquillity, which appeared insipid after the agitations of ambition, or thinking it time to throw off dissimulation, he came again to court, acquired an ascendant in the council, and though he resumed not the title of regent, governed with the same authority as before. The opposite party, after holding separate conventions, took to arms, on pretence of delivering their prince from captivity, and restoring him to the free exercise of his government: Queen Elizabeth interposed by her ambassador, Sir Robert Bowes, and mediated an agreement between the factions: Morton kept possession of the government; but his enemies were numerous and vigilant, and his authority seemed to become every day more precarious.
The count d’Aubigney, of the house of Lenox, cousin-german to the king’s father, had been born and educated in France; and being a young man of good address and a sweet disposition, he appeared to the duke of Guise a proper instrument for detaching James from the English interest, and connecting him with his mother and her relations. He no sooner appeared at Stirling, where James resided, than he acquired the affections of the young monarch; and joining his interests with those of James Stuart, of the house of Ochiltree, a man of profligate manners, who had acquired the king’s favor, he employed himself, under the appearance of play and amusement, in instilling into the tender mind of the prince new sentiments of politics and government. He represented to him the injustice which had been done to Mary in her deposition, and made him entertain thoughts either of resigning the crown into her hands, or of associating her with him in the administration.[*] Elizabeth, alarmed at the danger which might ensue from the prevalence of this interest in Scotland, sent anew Sir Robert Bowes to Stirling; and accusing D’Aubigney, now created earl of Lenox, of an attachment to the French, warned James against entertaining such suspicious and dangerous connections.[**] The king excused himself by Sir Alexander Hume, his ambassador; and Lenox, finding that the queen had openly declared against him, was further confirmed in his intention of overturning the English interest, and particularly of ruining Morton, who was regarded as the head of it.
That nobleman was arrested in council, accused as an accomplice in the late king’s murder, committed to prison, brought to trial, and condemned to suffer as a traitor. He confessed that Bothwell had communicated to him the design, had pleaded Mary’s consent, and had desired his concurrence; but he denied that he himself had ever expressed any approbation of the crime; and in excuse for his concealing it, he alleged the danger of revealing the secret, either to Henry, who had no resolution nor constancy, or Morton, who appeared to be an accomplice in the murder.[*] Sir Thomas Randolph was sent by the queen to intercede in favor of Morton; and that ambassador, not content with discharging this duty of his function, engaged, by his persuasion, the earls of Argyle, Montrose, Angus, Marre, and Glencairne, to enter into a confederacy for protecting, even by force of arms, the life of the prisoner. The more to overawe that nobleman’s enemies, Elizabeth ordered forces to be assembled on the borders of England; but this expedient served only to hasten his sentence and execution. Morton died with that constancy and resolution which had attended him through all the various events of his life; and left a reputation which was less disputed with regard to abilities than probity and virtue. But this conclusion of the scene happened not till the subsequent year.
Elizabeth was, during this period, extremely anxious on account of every revolution in Scotland; both because that country alone, not being separated from England by sea, and bordering on all the Catholic and malecontent counties, afforded her enemies a safe and easy method of attacking her; and because she was sensible that Mary, thinking herself abandoned by the French monarch, had been engaged by the Guises to have recourse to the powerful protection of Philip, who, though he had not yet come to an open rupture with the queen, was every day, both by the injuries which he committed and suffered, more exasperated against her.
That he might retaliate the assistance which she gave to his rebels in the Low Countries, he had sent, under the name of the pope; a body of seven hundred Spaniards and Italians into Ireland; where the inhabitants, always turbulent, and discontented with the English government, were now more alienated by religious prejudices, and were ready to join every invader. The Spanish general, San Josepho, built a fort in Kerry; and being there besieged by the earl of Ormond, president of Munster, who was soon after joined by Lord Gray, the deputy, he made a weak and cowardly defence. After some assaults, feebly sustained, he surrendered at discretion; and Gray, who commanded but a small force, finding himself encumbered with so many prisoners, put all the Spaniards and Italians to the sword without mercy, and hanged about fifteen hundred of the Irish; a cruelty which gave great displeasure to Elizabeth.[*] When the English ambassador made complaints of this invasion, he was answered by like complaints of the piracies committed by Francis Drake, a bold seaman, who had assaulted the Spaniards in the place where they deemed themselves most secure--in the new world. This man, sprung from mean parents in the county of Devon, having acquired considerable riches by depredations made in the Isthmus of Panama, and having there gotten a sight of the Pacific Ocean, was so stimulated by ambition and avarice, that he scrupled not to employ his whole fortune in a new adventure through those seas, so much unknown at that time to all the European nations.[**] By means of Sir Christopher Hatton, then vice-chamberlain, a great favorite of the queen’s, he obtained her consent and approbation; and he set sail from Plymouth in 1577, with four ships and a pinnace, on board of which were one hundred and sixty-four able sailors.[***] He passed into the South Sea by the Straits of Magellan; and attacking the Spaniards, who expected no enemy in those quarters, he took many rich prizes, and prepared to return with the booty which he had acquired. Apprehensive of being intercepted by the enemy, if he took the same way homewards by which he had reached the Pacific Ocean, he attempted to find a passage by the north of California; and failing in that enterprise, he set sail for the East Indies, and returned safely this year, by the Cape of Good Hope. He was the first Englishman who sailed round the globe; and the first commander-in-chief; for Magellan, whose ship executed the same adventure, died in his passage. His name became celebrated on account of so bold and fortunate an attempt; but many, apprehending the resentment of the Spaniards, endeavored to persuade the queen, that it would be more prudent to disavow the enterprise, to punish Drake, and to restore the treasure. But Elizabeth, who admired valor, and who was allured by the prospect of sharing in the booty, determined to countenance that gallant sailor: she conferred on him the honor of knighthood, and accepted of a banquet from him at Deptford, on board the ship which had achieved so memorable a voyage.
When Philip’s ambassador, Mendoza, exclaimed against Drake’s piracies, she told him, that the Spaniards, by arrogating a right to the whole new world, and excluding thence all other European nations who should sail thither, even with a view of exercising the most lawful commerce, naturally tempted others to make a violent irruption into those countries.[*] To pacify, however, the Catholic monarch, she caused part of the booty to be restored to Pedro Sebura, a Spaniard, who pretended to be agent for the merchants whom Drake had spoiled. Having learned afterwards that Philip had seized the money, and had employed part of it against herself in Ireland, part of it in the pay of the prince of Parma’s troops she determined to make no more restitutions.
{1581.} There was another cause which induced the queen to take this resolution: she was in such want of money, that she was obliged to assemble a parliament; a measure which, as she herself openly declared, she never embraced except when constrained by the necessity of her affairs. The parliament, besides granting her a supply of one subsidy and two fifteenths, enacted some statutes for the security of her government, chiefly against the attempts of the Catholics. Whoever in any way reconciled any one to the church of Rome, or was himself reconciled, was declared to be guilty of treason; to say mass was subjected to the penalty of a year’s imprisonment and a fine of two hundred marks; the being present was punishable by a year’s imprisonment and a fine of a hundred marks: a fine of twenty pounds a month was imposed on every one who continued, during that time, absent from church.[**] To utter slanderous or seditious words against the queen was punishable, for the first offence, with the pillory and loss of ears; the second offence was declared felony; the writing or printing of such words was felony, even on the first offence.[***] The Puritans prevailed so far as to have further applications made for reformation in religion:[****] and Paul Wentworth, brother to the member of that name who had distinguished himself in the preceding session, moved, that the commons, from their own authority, should appoint a general fast and prayers; a motion to which the house unwarily assented. For this presumption they were severely reprimanded by a message from the queen, as encroaching on the royal prerogative and supremacy; and they were obliged to submit, and ask forgiveness.[v] * Camden, p. 480.
** 23 Eliz. cap. 1.
v Camden, p. 477.
The queen and parliament were engaged to pass these severe laws against the Catholics, by some late discoveries of the treasonable practices of their priests. When the ancient worship was suppressed, and the reformation introduced into the universities, the king of Spain reflected, that as some species of literature was necessary for supporting these doctrines and controversies, the Romish communion must decay in England, if no means were found to give erudition to the ecclesiastics; and for this reason he founded a seminary at Douay, where the Catholics sent their children, chiefly such as were intended for the priesthood, in order to receive the rudiments of their education. The cardinal of Lorraine imitated this example, by erecting a like seminary in his diocese of Rheims; and though Rome was somewhat distant, the pope would not neglect to adorn, by a foundation of the same nature, that capital of orthodoxy. These seminaries, founded with so hostile an intention, sent over, every year, a colony of priests, who maintained the Catholic superstition in its full height of bigotry; and being educated with a view to the crown of martyrdom, were not deterred, either by danger or fatigue, from maintaining and propagating their principles. They infused into all their votaries an extreme hatred against the queen, whom they treated as a usurper, a schismatic, a heretic, a persecutor of the orthodox, and one solemnly and publicly anathematized by the holy father. Sedition, rebellion, sometimes assassination, were the expedients by which they intended to effect their purposes against her; and the severe restraint, not to say persecution, under which the Catholics labored, made them the more willingly receive from their ghostly fathers such violent doctrines.
These seminaries were all of them under the direction of the Jesuits, a new order of regular priests erected in Europe, when the court of Rome perceived that the lazy monks and beggarly friars, who sufficed in times of ignorance, were no longer able to defend the ramparts of the church, assailed on every side, and that the inquisitive spirit of the age required a society more active and more learned to oppose its dangerous progress. These men as they stood foremost in the contest against the Protestants, drew on them the extreme animosity of that whole sect; and, by assuming a superiority over the other more numerous and more ancient orders of their own communion, were even exposed to the envy of their brethren: so that it is no wonder, if the blame to which their principles and conduct might be exposed, has, in many instances, been much exaggerated. This reproach, however, they must bear from posterity, that, by the very nature of their institution, they were engaged to pervert learning, the only effectual remedy against superstition, into a nourishment of that infirmity: and as their erudition was chiefly of the ecclesiastical and scholastic kind, (though a few members have cultivated polite literature,) they were only the more enabled by that acquisition to refine away the plainest dictates of morality, and to erect a regular system of casuistry, by which prevarication, perjury, and every crime, when it served their ghostly purposes, might be justified and defended.
The Jesuits, as devoted servants to the court of Rome, exalted the prerogative of the sovereign pontiff above all earthly power; and by maintaining his authority of deposing kings, set no bounds either to his spiritual or temporal jurisdiction. This doctrine became so prevalent among the zealous Catholics in England, that the excommunication fulminated against Elizabeth excited many scruples of a singular kind, to which it behoved the holy father to provide a remedy. The bull of Pius, in absolving the subjects from their oaths of allegiance, commanded them to resist the queen’s usurpation; and many Romanists were apprehensive, that by this clause they were obliged in conscience, even though no favorable opportunity offered, to rebel against her, and that no dangers or difficulties could free them from this indispensable duty.
But Parsons and Campion, two Jesuits, were sent over with a mitigation and explanation of the doctrine; and they taught their disciples, that though the bull was forever binding on Elizabeth and her partisans, it did not oblige the Catholics to obedience except when the sovereign pontiff should think proper, by a new summons, to require it. Campion was afterwards detected in treasonable practices; and being put to the rack, and confessing his guilt, he was publicly executed. His execution was ordered at the very time when the duke of Anjou was in England, and prosecuted, with the greatest appearance of success, his marriage with the queen; and this severity was probably intended to appease her Protestant subjects, and to satisfy them, that whatever measures she might pursue, she never would depart from the principles of the reformation.
The duke of Alençon, now created duke of Anjou, had never entirely dropped his pretensions to Elizabeth; and that princess, though her suitor was near twenty-five years younger than herself, and had no knowledge of her person but by pictures or descriptions, was still pleased with the image, which his addresses afforded her, of love and tenderness. The duke, in order to forward his suit, besides employing his brother’s ambassador, sent over Simier, an agent of his own; an artful man, of an agreeable conversation, who soon remarking the queen’s humor, amused her with gay discourse, and instead of serious political reasonings, which he found only awakened her ambition, and hurt his master’s interests, he introduced every moment all the topics of passion and of gallantry. The pleasure which she found in this man’s company soon produced a familiarity between them; and amidst the greatest hurry of business, her most confidential ministers had not such ready access to her as had Simier, who, on pretence of negotiation, entertained her with accounts of the tender attachment borne her by the duke of Anjou.
The earl of Leicester, who had never before been alarmed with any courtship paid her, and who always trusted that her love of dominion would prevail over her inclination to marriage, began to apprehend that she was at last caught in her own snare, and that the artful encouragement which she had given to this young suitor had unawares engaged her affections. To render Simier odious, he availed himself of the credulity of the times, and spread reports, that that minister had gained an ascendant over the Queen, not by any natural principles of her constitution, but by incantations and love potions. Simier, in revenge, endeavored to discredit Leicester with the queen; and he revealed to her a secret, which none of her courtiers dared to disclose, that this nobleman was secretly, without her consent, married to the widow of the earl of Essex; an action which the queen interpreted either to proceed from want of respect to her, or as a violation of their mutual attachment; and which so provoked her, that she threatened to send him to the Tower.[*] * Camden, p. 471.
The quarrel went so far between Leicester and the French agent, that the former was suspected of having employed one Tudor, a bravo, to take away the life of his enemy and the queen thought it necessary, by proclamation, to take Simier under her immediate protection. It happened, that while Elizabeth was rowed in her barge on the Thames, attended by Simier and some of her courtiers, a shot was fired, which wounded one of the bargemen; but the queen, finding, upon inquiry, that the piece had been discharged by accident, gave the person his liberty without further punishment. So far was she from entertaining any suspicion against her people, that she was often heard to say, “that she would lend credit to nothing against them, which parents would not believe of their own children.”[*] The duke of Anjou, encouraged by the accounts sent him of the queen’s prepossessions in his favor, paid her secretly a visit at Greenwich; and after some conference with her, the purport of which is not known, he departed. It appeared that, though his figure; was not advantageous, he had lost no ground by being personally known to her; and soon after, she commanded Burleigh, now treasurer, Sussex, Leicester, Bedford, Lincoln, Hatton, and Secretary Walsingham, to concert with the French ambassadors the terms of the intended contract of marriage. Henry had sent over, on this occasion, a splendid embassy, consisting of Francis de Bourbon, prince of Dauphiny, and many considerable noblemen; and as the queen had in a manner the power of prescribing what terms she pleased, the articles were soon settled with the English commissioners. It was agreed, that the marriage should be celebrated within six weeks after the ratification of the articles; that the duke and his retinue should have the exercise of their religion; that after the marriage he should bear the title of king, but the administration remain solely in the queen; that their children, male or female, should succeed to the crown of England; that if there be two males, the elder, in case of Henry’s death without issue, should be king of France, the younger of England; that if there be but one male, and he succeed to the crown of France, he should be obliged to reside in England eight months every two years; that the laws and customs of England should be preserved inviolate; and that no foreigner should be promoted by the duke to any office in England.[**] * Camden. p. 471.
** Camden, p. 484.
These articles, providing for the security of England in case of its annexation to the crown of France, opened but a dismal prospect to the English, had not the age of Elizabeth, who was now in her forty-ninth year, contributed very much to allay their apprehensions of this nature.
The queen also, as a proof of her still remaining uncertainty, added a clause, that she was not bound to complete the marriage, till further articles, which were not specified, should be agreed on between the parties, and till the king of France be certified of this agreement.
Soon after, the queen sent over Walsingham as ambassador to France, in order to form closer connections with Henry, and enter into a league offensive and defensive against the increasing power and dangerous usurpations of Spain. The French king, who had been extremely disturbed with the unquiet spirit, the restless ambition, the enterprising, yet timid and inconstant disposition of Anjou, had already sought to free the kingdom from his intrigues, by opening a scene for his activity in Flanders; and having allowed him to embrace the protection of the states, had secretly supplied him with men and money for the undertaking. The prospect of settling him in England was for a like reason very agreeable to that monarch; and he was desirous to cultivate, by every expedient, the favorable sentiments which Elizabeth seemed to entertain towards him. But this princess, though she had gone further in her amorous dalliance[*] than could be justified or accounted for by any principles of policy, was not yet determined to carry matters to a final conclusion; and she confined Walsingham, in his instructions, to negotiating conditions of a mutual alliance between France and England.[**] Henry with reluctance submitted to hold conferences on that subject; but no sooner had Walsingham begun to settle the terms of alliance, than he was informed, that the queen, foreseeing hostility with Spain to be the result of this confederacy, had declared that she would prefer the marriage with the war, before the war without the marriage.[***] The French court, pleased with this change of resolution, broke off the conferences concerning the league, and opened a negotiation for the marriage.[****] But matters had not long proceeded in this train, before the queen again declared for the league in preference to the marriage, and ordered Walsingham to renew the conferences for that purpose. Before he had leisure to bring this point to maturity, he was interrupted by a new change of resolution; [v] and not only the court of France, but Walsingham himself, Burleigh, and all the wisest ministers of Elizabeth, were in amazement doubtful where this contest between inclination and reason love and ambition, would at last terminate.[v*] [17] ** Digges, p. 352.
v Digges, p. 408.
v* See note Q, at the end of the volume.
In the course of this affair, Elizabeth felt another variety of intentions, from a new contest between her reason and her ruling passions. The duke of Anjou expected from her some money, by which he might be enabled to open the campaign in Flanders; and the queen herself, though her frugality made her long reluctant, was sensible that this supply was necessary, and she was at last induced, after much hesitation, to comply with his request.[*] She sent him a present of a hundred thousand crowns; by which, joined to his own demesnes, and the assistance of his brother and the queen dowager, he levied an army, and took the field against the prince of Parma. He was successful in raising the siege of Cambray; and being chosen by the states governor of the Netherlands, he put his army into winter quarters, and came over to England, in order to prosecute his suit to the queen. The reception which he met with made him expect entire success, and gave him hopes that Elizabeth had surmounted all scruples, and was finally determined to make choice of him for her husband. In the midst of the pomp which attended the anniversary of her coronation, she was seen, after long and intimate discourse with him, to take a ring from her own finger, and to put it upon his; and all the spectators concluded, that in this ceremony she had given him a promise of marriage, and was even desirous of signifying her intentions to all the world. St. Aldegonde, ambassador from the states, despatched immediately a letter to his masters, informing them of this great event; and the inhabitants of Antwerp, who, as well as the other Flemings, regarded the queen as a kind of titular divinity, testified their joy by bonfires and the discharge of their great ordnance.[**] 793.
** Camden, p. 486. Thuan. lib. lxxiv.
A Puritan of Lincoln’s Inn had written a passionate book, which he entitled, “The Gulph in which England will be swallowed by the French Marriage.” He was apprehended and prosecuted by order of the queen, and was condemned to lose his right hand as a libeller. Such was the constancy and loyalty of the man, that immediately after the sentence was executed, he took off his hat with his other hand, and waving it over his head, cried, God save the queen.
But notwithstanding this attachment which Elizabeth so openly discovered