England under the Tudors

by Arthur D. Innes

But the hot-headed Earl had deprived himself of the power of choice though he was almost equally unwilling to resign or to undertake the task to which he was committed. In April 1599 he appeared in Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, virtually with plenary powers alike in civil and military affairs, and a warrant to return in a year's time. Yet he chafed at such restrictions as were imposed upon him, at the incompetence of the officers with whom he was provided, at the refusal to permit appointments objectionable to the Queen, at the inefficiency of his troops and the inadequacy of his supplies. In theory, he was come to Ireland to strike straight at the heart of the rebellion and crush Tyrone in his own fastnesses. He found that the condition of the country absolutely precluded an immediate campaign in the North. He proceeded instead on a military progress through Leinster and Munster, capturing castles which surrendered with no more than a show of resistance, scattering small garrisons, perpetually harassed by guerilla companies who avoided pitched battles. He gave Southampton command of the cavalry in defiance of the Queen's orders, and then received from her so peremptory a message that he dared not maintain the appointment. The rebels cut up the forces of the President of Connaught, and another detached column in Wicklow: and on his way back to Dublin, Essex himself had much ado to beat off an attack on his main army at Arklow.

In the meantime, he was writing letters of furious complaint that the Council in London—in especial Raleigh, who was now associated with Cecil—were deliberately seeking to cripple him for their own ends—a charge which they declined to answer, as being merely a piece of excited extravagance; and Elizabeth rated him, not more sharply than he deserved, for wasting the unusually large sums provided for Ireland on a procedure so vain. Further, she peremptorily ordered him to march against O'Neill without delay, warning him on no account to withdraw from the country.

[Sidenote: Fall of Essex]

So at the end of August Essex set out. But when he found himself within striking distance of Tyrone's forces, the latter invited him to a parley. It was granted and held, and was followed by two more meetings; with the amazing result that a truce was concluded and both armies withdrew. That some personal compact was made can hardly be doubted; what it was remains unknown, and it was never carried out; but the presumption is that there was some joint scheme for securing the succession of King James to the throne, with Tyrone supreme in Ireland and Essex in England. Tyrone himself gave the Spaniards an obviously improbable version of the plan (after it had collapsed), according to which he had induced Essex to contemplate adhesion to the ultra-Spanish party, though he was the most pronouncedly hostile to Spain and to Catholicism of all the English leaders.

Whatever the plot, the ignominy of such a termination to the lavish preparations and boastings preceding was palpable. Elizabeth was furious, and her expressions of resentment were scathing. Whereupon Essex took the very worst step possible in his own interests. Relying on the Queen's curious infatuation for his person, which had survived innumerable quarrels and flagrant impertinences, he left his office, sped across the channel, rode post haste across England, flung himself, all mud-bespattered into the presence of his mistress in her chamber, and prayed for pardon. For the moment, she was too utterly taken aback to be herself; he left her thinking he had won. But the outrage was too gross. That evening he found himself under arrest. His enemies' policy of "giving him rope enough" had been more completely successful than they could have hoped. He had set the noose about his neck with his own hand, though it was not yet tightened.

[Sidenote: Catholic factions]

The whole of the Essex story is inextricably interwoven with the crowd of intrigues in progress in connexion with the succession. In England by this time the ultra-Spanish or Jesuit faction, which would have enthroned the Inquisition with a Spanish nominee as sovereign, was all but non-existent. The division was into two main parties. One desired a sovereign under whom either Catholicism should be restored under such tolerant conditions as prevailed under Henry IV. in France, or else Anglicanism might be retained, extending a like toleration to Catholics. There was of course a fundamental divergence between these two positions; but very many of the nobility, whether professed Anglicans or professed Catholics, were prepared to accept either alternative. Of this party the intellectual chief was Cecil. The second party, that of which Essex was the head, relied primarily upon the Puritan element, and advocated persistent hostility to Spain.

Now the effective Spanish position had been materially changed since, shortly before his death, Philip II. had erected the Netherlands into a separate sovereignty under the Infanta Isabella and the Austrian Archduke Albert to whom she was betrothed: he had thus made possible for England a revival of the old-time Burgundian alliance independent of Spain. The Archduke knew that as a Spanish Princess Isabella would never be accepted in England, but the union under one head of England and Burgundy was a very different matter, which might provide a key to the religious problem very much akin to that which France had recently found. It was in this direction that the eyes of the majority of the Cecil party were probably turned. For Essex however—unless indeed he really contemplated the hare-brained scheme of striking for the throne himself—the course was clearly to bring in James as his own puppet. It is no doubt easy to remark that that crafty prince would very soon have outwitted and tripped up the shallow and overweening Earl: but the Earl himself was the last person to anticipate such a denouement.

[Sidenote: Philip III]

But outside England there was the cunning King of Scots, on the one hand intriguing with Essex, on the other appealing to the Pope, as a Catholic at heart who was only waiting for adequate support to drop the mask—bidding in fact for the countenance of both camps. There was Tyrone in Ireland, similarly posing to Spain as the champion of Catholicism, while intriguing with Essex and James indubitably for something like sovereignty for himself as the price of supporting the Scots King. And there was the young Philip III. of Spain, idle and vain, who, with a bankrupt treasury and a rotten administration had his head full of the most inflated ideas of his own power, and still fancied himself quite capable of conquering England at a blow; a delusion from which the fanatical religionists who trusted not in the arm of flesh, were also suffering. To him therefore the idea of James ascending the English throne even as a Catholic was quite repugnant; as was also the succession of his sister, unless she restored the Netherlands to him. Whereas the union with the Netherlands was precisely the one condition which made her candidature possible in England.