The further development of the Jesuit scheme met with difficulties on all sides. Most even of the Catholic lords were alarmed by the suggestion that James should hold the crown by the gift of his mother, because it would imply that hitherto he had not been lawful King; and this would invalidate their titles to all the lands they had grabbed from Church and crown during the last fourteen years. It would seem therefore that, if they had harassed the Government during all that time, it was from a liking for anarchy rather than from attachment to Mary. Two Jesuits, Crichton and Holt, who were sent in disguise to Scotland, found Lennox desponding. He was obliged to confess that, greatly as he had fascinated the King, he could not move him an inch in his religious opinions. On the contrary, James imagined that his controversial skill had converted Lennox, and was extremely proud of the feat. The only course remaining was to seize him, and send him to France or Spain, Lennox in the meantime administering the Government in the name of Mary. But to carry out this stroke, Lennox said he must have a foreign army. In view of the mutual jealousy of France and Spain it was suggested that, if Philip would furnish money underhand, the Pope might send an Italian army direct to Scotland, viâ the Straits of Gibraltar. Crichton went to Rome to arrange this precious scheme, and Holt was proceeding to Madrid. But Philip forbade him to come. If Lennox could convert James, or send him to Spain, well and good. But until one of these preliminaries was accomplished he was to expect no help from Philip. Nor were prospects more hopeful on the side of France. Mary from her prison implored Guise to undertake the long-planned expedition. But he would not venture it without the assent of his own sovereign and the King of Spain. While he was hesitating, the Anglophiles patched up their differences and got possession of the King’s person (Raid of Ruthven, August 1582). His tears were unavailing. “Better bairns greet,” said the Master of Glamis, “than bearded men.” The favourite fled to France, where he died in the next year.

Thus once more had it been clearly shown that if the Anglophiles were left to depend on themselves they would not fail to do all that was necessary to safeguard English interests. “Anglophiles” is a convenient appellation. But, strictly speaking, there was no party in Scotland that loved England. There was a religious party to whom it was of the highest importance that Elizabeth should be safe and powerful. She was therefore certain of its co-operation. This party would not be always uppermost; for Scottish nobles were too selfish, too treacherous, too much interested in disorder to permit any stability. But, whether in power or in opposition, it would be able and it would be obliged to serve English interests. There was only one way in which it could be paralysed or alienated, and that was by a recurrence on the part of England to the traditions of armed interference inherited by Elizabeth’s councillors from Henry VIII. and the Protector Somerset.

Such is the plain history of this Jesuit and Papal scheme which we are asked to believe was so dangerous to England and so inadequately handled by Elizabeth. She had not shown much concern for her honour. But her coolness, her intrepidity, her correct estimate of the forces with which she had to deal, her magnificent confidence in her own judgment, saved England from the endless expenditure of blood and treasure into which her advisers would have plunged, and prolonged the formal peace with her three principal neighbours, a peace of already unexampled duration, and of incalculable advantage to her country.

The policy which Elizabeth had thus deliberately adopted towards Scotland she persisted in. The successful Anglophiles clamoured for pensions, and her ministers were for gratifying them. She was willing to give a moderate pension to James, but not a penny to the nobles. “Her servants and favourites,” she said, “professed to love her for her high qualities, Alençon for her beauty, and the Scots for her crown; but they all wanted the same thing in the end; they wanted nothing but her money, and they should not have it.” She had ascertained that James regarded his mother as his rival for the crowns of both kingdoms, and that, whatever he might sometimes pretend, his real wish was that she should be kept under lock and key. She had also satisfied herself that the Scottish noblemen on whom Mary counted would, with very few exceptions, throw every difficulty in the way of her restoration, out of regard for their own private interests—the only datum from which it was safe to calculate in dealing with a Scottish nobleman. She therefore felt herself secure. By communicating her knowledge to Mary she could show her the hopelessness of her intrigues in Scotland; while a resumption of friendly negotiations for her restoration would always be a cheap and effectual way of intimidating James. Thus she could look on with equanimity when his new favourite Stewart, Earl of Arran,[5] again chased the Anglophiles into England (December 1583). Arran himself urgently entreated her to accept him and his young master as the genuine Anglophiles. Walsingham’s voice was still for war. But, with both factions at her feet and suing for her favour, Elizabeth had good reason to be satisfied with her policy of leaving the Scottish nobles to worry it out among themselves.

CHAPTER VIII
THE PROTECTORATE OF THE NETHERLANDS: 1584-86

WE are now approaching the great crisis of the reign—some may think of English history—the grand struggle with Spain; a struggle which, if Elizabeth had allowed herself to be guided by her most celebrated counsellors, would have been entered upon a quarter of a century earlier. England was then unarmed and weighed down with a load of debt, the legacy of three thriftless and pugnacious reigns. The population was still mainly Catholic. The great nobles still thought themselves a match for the crown, and many of them longed to make one more effort to assert their old position in the State. Trade and industry were languishing. The poorer classes were suffering and discontented. Scotland was in the hands of a most dangerous enemy, whose title to the English crown was held by many to be better than Elizabeth’s. Philip II., as yet unharassed by revolt, seemed almost to have drawn England as a sort of satellite into the vast orbit of his empire.

Nearly a generation had now passed away since Elizabeth ascended the throne. Every year of it had seen some amendment in the condition of the country. Under a pacific and thrifty Government taxation had been light beyond precedent. All debts, even those of Henry VIII., had been honourably paid off. While the lord of American gold mines and of the richest commercial centres in Europe could not raise a loan on any terms, Elizabeth could borrow when she pleased at five per cent. But she had ceased to borrow, for she had a modest surplus stored in her treasury, a department of the administration managed under her own close personal supervision. A numerous militia had been enrolled and partially trained. Large magazines of arms had been accumulated. A navy had been created; not a large one indeed; but it did not need to be large, for the warship of those days did not differ from the ordinary vessel of commerce, nor was its crew differently trained. The royal navy could therefore be indefinitely increased if need arose. Philip’s great generals, Alva and Parma, had long come to the conclusion that the conquest of England would be the most difficult enterprise their master could undertake. The wealth of landed proprietors and traders had increased enormously. New manufactures had been started by exiles from the Netherlands. New branches of foreign commerce had been opened up. The poor were well employed and contented. I believe it would be impossible to find in the previous history of England, or, for that matter, of Europe, since the fall of the Roman Empire, any instance of peace, prosperity, and good government extending over so many years.

Looking abroad we find that in all directions the strength and security of Elizabeth’s position had been immensely increased. Her ministers, especially Walsingham—for Burghley in his old age came at last to see more with the eyes of his mistress—believed that by a more spirited policy Scotland might have been converted into a submissive and valuable ally. Elizabeth alone saw that this was impossible; that, so treated, Scotland would become to England what Holland was to Philip, what “the Spanish ulcer” was afterwards to Napoleon—a fatal drain on her strength and resources. It was enough for Elizabeth if the northern kingdom was so handled as to be harmless; and this, as I have shown, was in fact its condition from the moment that the only Scottish ruler who could be really dangerous was locked up in England.

The Dutch revolt crippled Philip. The conquest of England was postponed till the Dutch revolt should be suppressed. Why then, it has been asked, did not Elizabeth support the Dutch more vigorously? The answer is a simple one. If she had done so the suppression of the Dutch revolt would have been postponed to the conquest of England. This is proved by the events now to be related. Elizabeth was obliged by new circumstances to intervene more vigorously in the Netherlands, and the result was the Armada. If the attack had come ten or fifteen years earlier the fortune of England might have been different.

Elizabeth’s foreign policy has been judged unfavourably by writers who have failed to keep in view how completely it turned on her relations with France. Though her interests and those of Henry III. cannot be called identical, they coincided sufficiently to make it possible to keep up a good understanding which was of the highest advantage to both countries. But to maintain this good understanding there was need of the coolest temper and judgment on the part of the rulers; for the two peoples were hopelessly hostile. They were like two gamecocks in adjoining pens. The Spaniards were respected and liked by our countrymen. Their grave dignity, even their stiff assumption of intrinsic superiority, were too like our own not to awake a certain appreciative sympathy. Whereas all Englishmen from peer to peasant would at any time have enjoyed a tussle with France, until its burdens began to be felt.