Parliament broke up on the 8th of May, and on the 15th the bishops and other churchmen of note were summoned to take the oath of conformity to the new statutes. Much to the credit of their consistency they all refused, with the exception of one Kitchen, the bishop of Llandaff, a low fellow, whose name implies his origin. This Kitchen had acquired the rotatory motion of the roasting-jack, as well as a fondness for sops in the pan, for he had been twirling round and having a finger in the ecclesiastical pie since the year 1545, from which time to that of Elizabeth he had, through all changes, stuck to his bishopric. The clergy, who had refused to conform to the Protestant religion, were on the whole gently dealt with, some being exported to Spain amid the luggage of the Spanish ambassador, and a few being quartered upon their successors in England. Most of the inferior clergy seemed to have been made of Kitchen-stuff, that is to say, they appeared to be composed of much the same material as the Bishop Kitchen we have named, and were at all events alive to the necessity of keeping the pot boiling, for out of 9400 persons holding benefices, there were scarcely more than a hundred, exclusive of the fifteen bishops, who quitted their preferments rather than change their religion.
We must now look at Scotland, of which the celebrated Mary was queen when she was suddenly called to France to share the throne which had devolved upon her husband, Francis the Second, or rather upon which he had devolved by the death of his father, Henry. This somewhat elderly gentleman had been playing the fool in a tilting match, which was rather infra dig. at his time of life, and ended in his receiving a dig in the eye from a broken lance, which ultimately closed in death both the wounded and its companion optic. In the absence of Mary from Scotland, Elizabeth did her utmost to advance the Protestant cause in that country, and dealt out some heavy blows through the medium of the celebrated Knox against the Catholics. Mary's mamma, who had remained at home to keep house as it were in her daughter's absence, did not exactly like what was passing, particularly when she found that English emissaries were continually passing to and fro, for the purpose of bribing the Scotch, whose "itching palm" has always been a national characteristic that we decline accounting for. The English were bent on getting the French out of Scotland, but the task was as difficult as expelling the fleas from a hay mattress in which they have once got embedded. After a good deal of desultory fighting, the Queen Regent was worried out of her life, and she was no sooner gone, than some of her most devoted adherents were off like shots to draw up a treaty with the enemy. Peace was proclaimed, and the French Governor of Leith gave the besiegers a dinner, at which salted horse was the only animal food, for there was not even a saddle of mutton to make the horse go off with effect at this truly horsepitable banquet. By the treaty mutual indemnities were exchanged, oblivion of the past was determined upon at Leith, which on that occasion became a veritable Lethe. Elizabeth had two or three flags in Scotland surrendered to her, but religion, which was the ostensible cause of the whole dispute, was permitted to stand over as an open question.
It was not to be expected that such a capital match as the Queen of England would fail to be the subject of several flames, and an old beau, in the person of Eric, now the king of Sweden, together with two or three other suitors, royal as well as noble, sent in the most tender tenders for the hand of Elizabeth. Like a true coquette, she gave encouragement to all, and even some seedy adventurers among her own subjects were induced to strike up to her.
Mary, who, as great-niece of Henry the Eighth, had in the first instance assumed the arms and title of Queen of England, a measure almost as futile as if Snooks of Surrey should assume the arms and title of Seringapatam, relinquished her nominal pretensions upon the death of her husband, which happened on the 5th of December, 1560. Mary had become so habituated to the splendid formalities of the French Court, that, on returning to Scotland, the substantial barrenness of that bleak country completely disgusted her. Tears, it is said, came into her eyes when she saw the wretched ponies that were about to convey herself and her ladies from the waterside to Holy-rood, while the saddles, made of wood, gave her such a series of bumpers at parting, that she declared the impression made by her reception would never be forgotten.
Mary, who had been born and bred a Catholic, was, of course, anxious for the privilege of following her own religion; but her Scotch subjects, who claimed liberty of conscience for themselves, practised upon their unfortunate sovereign the most brutal and intolerant tyranny. She was insulted on her way to mass, her indulgence in the most harmless amusements was savagely condemned, and she was continually exposed to the hardest raps from Knox, who undertook the task of converting her. This vulgar, but zealous, and no doubt sincere personage endeavoured to effect his purpose by coarse abuse, and always spoke of his queen from the pulpit as Jezebel. In vain did Mary endeavour to quiet her turbulent and libellous assailant by offering him private audiences, but, as if nothing short of mob popularity would answer his purpose, he rudely declined her invitation, telling her it was her duty to come to him, and continued to make the pulpit the medium of the most malignant assaults on his sovereign. However honest and upright the intentions of Knox may have been, his brutal manner of telling his home truths deprived them of much of their influence; and Knox made very few effective hits in the course of his noisy and vituperative career as a Presbyterian reformer.
Elizabeth saw with unamiable pleasure that her rival, Mary, was having what, very figuratively speaking, may be termed a nice time of it. The English queen busily occupied herself in feathering her own nest in a variety of ways, and, among other measures, she called in all the debased coin; for, as she sometimes said, with a sneer at poor Mary, "I have a great objection to light sovereigns." She filled her arsenals with arms, and had quite a conservatory of grape at the Tower, while, by way of putting the country into a state of defence, she resorted to the very odd expedient of reviewing the militia. She improved the arts of making gunpowder and casting cannon, so that, as she used to say, "every brave brick in my army may have a supply of mortar, with which, in the hour of battle, he may cement the interests of my empire."
