Cassell's History of England, Vol. 2 (of 8) / From the Wars of the Roses to the Great Rebellion

by Anonymous

But little solid hope could be entertained of Mary's enfranchisement by any one who considered the real situation of affairs. The King of France was far from sincere in his wish for her release. So long as she was in the hands of Elizabeth, he was secure from any further meddling of Elizabeth in the internal affairs of France. At any moment he could alarm her by rumours of designs to set the Scottish queen free, at the same time that James, as a young man, was open to influence from France against England. For these reasons a fresh conference in Paris on Mary's behalf came to nothing. The Duke of Guise, Castelli, the Archbishop of Glasgow, and Matthieu met again, this time with the addition of Morgan, a Welsh gentleman, one of the commissioners of her dower in France. They proposed that Guise should land in the south of England with an army, while James should simultaneously enter it at the north. James at once assented to the project; but Mary, who knew very well that her life would be sacrificed at once if there were a formidable attempt at her rescue, resorted to the hopeless course of endeavouring to persuade Elizabeth to treat with France for her release on safe terms. Elizabeth appeared to listen; but the rumours of the invasion speedily caused her to abandon any such negotiation, on the plea that, once at liberty, Mary could not be trusted. Revenge might induce her to ally herself with France and Spain, to the great peril of England.

No situation in the world could be conceived more miserable than that of Elizabeth. The captive queen had become to her a source of perpetual alarms—alarm of invasion from France and from Scotland—alarm at insurrections among the Papists, whom persecutions kept in a state of the deepest disaffection. For two years the prisons had been crowded with Catholics, and the scaffolds drenched with their blood. They had been persecuted and insulted till they must have been more than mortal to have felt no desire for revenge. Therefore the country swarmed with spies and informers; and Walsingham, as a skilful unraveller of plots, was kept hard at work to trace, by his secret emissaries, every concealed movement of sedition. Both at home and abroad he had a host of agents under a multitude of disguises. The Jesuits never had a more expert and fearless general, nor a more varied army of informers. They presented themselves in the shape of travelling noblemen, of physicians, of students in Popish seminaries. They swarmed in sea-ports lying between England and the different Continental routes. There was scarcely a Roman Catholic gentleman or nobleman into whose house they had not found their way. To those whom they suspected of a leaning towards the Queen of Scots they professed to be confidential agents of her or of her adherents, and presented forged letters by which they might entrap the unwary into compromising answers.

At length the chief of the conspirators was brought to justice in the person of Thomas Throgmorton, the son of Sir John Throgmorton, Chief Justice of Chester. Walsingham intercepted letters, and by his spies made his way into every abode and company. He received from his trusty emissaries the information that Charles Paget, one of the commissioners of the Queen of Scots' dower—Morgan, just mentioned, being the other—had landed on the coast of Sussex under the name of Mope. A letter of Morgan's was also intercepted, and from something in its contents the two sons of Sir John Throgmorton, Thomas and George, were immediately arrested and committed to the Tower. The Earl of Northumberland, with his son the Earl of Arundel, his countess, uncle, and brothers, were summoned before the Privy Council and repeatedly questioned. The Lord Paget, brother of Charles Paget, and Charles Arundel, escaped to the Continent, but sent a declaration that they had fled, not from any sense of guilt, but from the utter hopelessness of acquittal where Leicester had any influence. Northumberland and Lord Arundel, with their wives and relatives, stoutly denied all concern with plots or any species of disloyalty, and no proof could be brought against them. Meanwhile it was asserted that the Duke of Guise was proceeding with his scheme of invasion, and that many English noblemen and gentlemen were co-operating in it; that a letter had been intercepted from the Scottish Court to Mary, informing her that James was quite ready to perform his part of the scheme by invading the kingdom from the north, having had the promise of 20,000 crowns; but that he was desirous to know who were the influential persons in England that might be calculated upon for support. All this was soon wonderfully corroborated by the confession of Thomas Throgmorton, in whose trunks were found two catalogues, one of the chief ports, and the other of the principal Romanists in the kingdom. He admitted that these were for the use of Mendoza, the Spanish minister, and that he had devised a plan with that ambassador to raise troops in the name of the queen through the Catholics, who were then to call on her to tolerate Catholicism, or to depose her. This was a strong case indeed against the prisoners and the fugitives; and Burleigh, with Throgmorton's confession in his hand, charged the Spanish ambassador with his breach of all the laws of nations and of his office. Mendoza had the impudence to deny the charges; but he was ordered to withdraw from England, and Throgmorton was hanged (1583). From that hour war with Spain was inevitable.

The patriotism of England was now awake. An association was formed, under the influence of the Government, by which all the members bound themselves to pursue and kill every person who should attempt the life of the queen, and every person for whose advantage it should be attempted. This palpably pointed at the Scottish Queen. The bond of association was shown to Mary as a means of intimidating her. At the first glance she perceived that it was aimed at her life; but, after a moment of astonishment, she proposed to sign the bond herself so far as she was concerned, which, of course, was not permitted, as it would have neutralised the whole intention, but it was industriously circulated for signature amongst those who dared not well do otherwise.

The same object was pursued in the Parliament, which met on the 23rd of November. After the clergy had granted an aid of six shillings in the pound to be paid in three years, and the Commons a subsidy and two-fifteenths, an Act was passed condemning as traitors any one who had been declared by a court of twenty-four commissioners cognisant of any treasonable designs against the queen; and Mary and her issue were excluded from the succession in case of the queen coming to a violent death. The Roman Catholics were also treated with increased severity, in consequence of the alleged plots. No Popish clergyman was to be allowed to remain in the kingdom; if found there after forty days he was pronounced guilty of high treason; any one knowing of his being in the country, and not giving information within twelve days, was to be fined and imprisoned during the queen's pleasure; and any one receiving or relieving him was guilty of felony. All students in Popish seminaries were called on to return to their native country within six months after proclamation; parents sending their children to such seminaries without licence were to forfeit for every such offence a hundred pounds; and the students themselves forfeited all right to the property of their parents.

To avoid, if possible, the fate which the bill of this Session prepared for them, the Roman Catholics drew up an earnest and loyal memorial to the queen, declaring it as their settled and solemn conviction that she was their sovereign de jure and de facto; that neither Pope nor priest had power to license any one to lift their hand against her, nor to absolve them were such a crime committed, and that they renounced and abominated any one who held a contrary doctrine.

All these transactions only tended to aggravate the situation of the Queen of Scots. She was now taken out of the hands of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and consigned to the custody of Sir Amyas Paulet, a dependent of Leicester's, a man of a rigid, gaoler-like disposition, but not destitute of honour. She was removed from Sheffield Park to the ruinous stronghold of Tutbury. Finding that all appeals to Elizabeth and all protestations of her innocence of any participation in, and even ignorance of, the plots charged on different persons were alike disregarded, she turned to her son, but only to receive from that quarter a disregard still harder to bear. James coldly announced to her that he had nothing to do with her concerns, nor she with his: he was now, in fact, in the pay of Elizabeth. He bade her remember that she was only the queen-mother, and enjoyed no authority in Scotland, though she bore the empty title of queen. Abandoning all hope of assistance from him, Mary now demanded of Elizabeth to liberate her on any conditions she pleased—she asked only liberty and life. But her requests were unheeded.

Meanwhile Elizabeth was supporting Protestantism abroad. Henry of Navarre had become the next in succession to the crown of France, by the death of the Duke of Anjou in 1584. Being well known as a Protestant, the Roman Catholics in France, with the Duke of Guise at their head, reorganised their league, and compelled the French King to subscribe to it. The King of Spain, a member of the league, promised it all his support. On the other hand, Elizabeth, anxious to see a Protestant prince on the throne of France, sent Henry large remittances, and invited him to make England his home in case his enemies should compel him to retreat for a time, when he could wait the turn of events. In all this there was nothing to complain of. Henry had a clear right to the throne of France, and justice as well as the Reformed faith called upon her to support it; but not so honourable were her proceedings in the Netherlands. There she secretly urged to insurrection the subjects of a power with whom she was at peace, and maintained them by repeated supplies of money.

Sympathising as she did with the oppressed Protestants of the Netherlands, her course was quite obvious. She could call on Philip to give to them free exercise of their religion, and if he refused, she had a fair plea to break with him and to support the cause of the common religion. But Elizabeth had too much politic regard for the rights of kings openly to support against them the rights of the people; and, what was still more embarrassing, she was practising the very intolerance and persecution against her Roman Catholic subjects that Philip was against his Protestant ones.