England under the Tudors

by Arthur D. Innes

[Sidenote: The Anjou Match]

The immediate situation however was fraught with sufficient peril. Mary for the sake of liberty was by this time fairly ready to promise anything, and trust to the chapter of accidents to find some plausible ground for repudiating her promises later. Elizabeth would have been glad enough to get her out of the country if she could by any means be rendered harmless. Once again, to the dismay of Cecil, a restoration, on terms, seemed probable, while the Queen herself showed a tendency to try at any cost to recover the support of the Catholics. In fact however, she would make up her mind to no decided course. But affairs in France suggested to her a new scheme which could be played with indefinitely. In spite of Jarnac, and of another defeat later in the year at Montcontour, Coligny and the Huguenots remained unvanquished in 1570. In the autumn, there was a fresh pacification, and Coligny became once more a power at Court as well as in the country. The younger brother of the young French King, Henry Duke of Anjou, was now old enough to marry. There had been talk of uniting him to Mary. But if he were to marry Elizabeth, who was only some seventeen years his senior, Protestants and Catholics in both countries might make their peace, and all present a united front to Philip and to Papal aggression—for even the Cardinal of Lorraine had dallied with the notion of Nationalism in matters ecclesiastical. Cecil and Walsingham, who had recently come to the front and now represented England in Paris, were keenly in favour of the scheme. As for the Queen she probably intended to use it precisely as she had used all the previous marriage schemes, simply as an instrument for manipulating foreign courts and her own ministers.

[Sidenote: 1570-71 The Ridolfi plot initiated]

Under these conditions, a new plot was initiated for the liberation of Mary, her marriage to Norfolk, and the removal of Elizabeth; to be at last actively if secretly aided by Alva and Philip, on whom the vehement remonstrances of the Pope were now taking effect—in view of the threatened alliance between England and France. The agent was one Ridolfi, who combined cleverness sufficient to deceive even Walsingham for a time with a garrulity and carelessness which proved ruinous in the long run. It was fortunate for Elizabeth that of the two necessary figure-heads for any conspiracy, Mary and Norfolk, one was more than half-believed even by her own party to be stained by the grossest crimes, while the other was nerveless and vacillating.

[Sidenote: 1571 April, Parliament]

At this juncture, need of funds made it impossible for Elizabeth to continue longer without calling a Parliament, which met early in April (1571). The bulk of the peers were still in sympathy with Catholicism and the ideas associated therewith; the lower House, always Protestant, was now more emphatically so than ever. The Puritan element, naturally enough, had come to regard Catholicism as prima facie evidence of treason, and was bent on enforcing a more uncompromising conformity, with a greater severity, than heretofore. The Commons insisted on discussing religious matters, and ignored the Queen's attempts to silence them. They gave, what the last parliament had refused, their sanction to the Thirty-nine Articles. The effect of the Papal excommunication was seen in an Act making it high Treason to question the Queen's title, or to call her a heretic, and disqualifying from the succession any one who laid claim to the crown; they sought even to make the Act retrospective, which would have forthwith excluded Mary permanently. They submitted however to some modification of the original harshness of their intentions; whereby it is probable that not a few Catholics, who would otherwise have been fatally alienated, did as matters turned out remain loyal. Finally, a substantial grant of money was made. The Commons in short were thoroughly at one with Cecil, now known as Lord Burghley. They were intensely loyal, and showed their loyalty none the less emphatically because they ignored the Queen's predilections in the manner of doing it.

[Sidenote: Collapse of Anjou marriage]

At the end of May, Parliament was dissolved. In the meantime, and for some months longer, the affair of the Anjou marriage was running the usual course. As mere postponement seemed to become impossible, the old pretended difficulties by which the Archduke Charles had been finally evaded were rehabilitated. Anjou must not have even his private Mass. The Queen's Ministers understood the position, and their one object became the avoidance of a breach with France. By the exercise of much dexterity, Anjou was drawn into taking the initiative in breaking off the match in a quite complimentary manner; and there was even discussion of the substitution for him of his still younger brother Alençon. France, in fact, at this time was swaying strongly towards antagonism to Spain, at any price which would secure English support; the idea of partitioning the Netherlands being part of the programme. Cecil and Walsingham, believing with reason that an accident might again turn the balance with the French government, and painfully distrustful of Elizabeth's endless vacillations, were on tenterhooks till the amicable conclusion of the Anjou affair.

[Sidenote: Developments of the Ridolfi plot]

They had also been on the alert over the Ridolfi plot. In the spring, Ridolfi was concocting with Alva designs for an invasion; in the summer he was in Spain. In the meantime, the capture of an agent, and the liberal use of spies and of the rack, placed important clues in Burghley's hands. At this juncture the famous seaman Sir John Hawkins, in collusion with Burghley, placed himself at the service of Mary and Philip, in the character of an ill-used and revengeful servant of Elizabeth. Yet it was only by another accidental capture, and more use of the rack, that complicity was actually brought home to Norfolk, who was arrested in September. Norfolk once arrested, traitors and spies soon did what else was necessary to reveal the whole plot, in which invasion and assassination were combined. It was no longer possible to account Spain and the Spanish King as anything but mortal enemies to England and the English Queen. Don Guerau was ordered to leave the country; his parting move was a plot for Burghley's assassination, duly detected by spies, Norfolk was convicted for treason, and condemned to a death which was deferred for some months. Mary Stewart expected a like fate. Elizabeth however still rejected the extreme measure. But the Detectio of George Buchanan—in other words a complete ex parte statement of the case against Mary, including the contents of the Casket Letters—was published.