One of the attacks on Elizabeth deserves some notice, as it has lately been revived. In the statute 13 Eliz. an expression is used, "her majesty, and the natural issue of her body," instead of the more common legal phrase, "lawful issue." This probably was adopted by the queen out of prudery, as if the usual term implied the possibility of her having unlawful issue. But the papistical libellers put the most absurd interpretation on the word "natural," as if it was meant to secure the succession for some imaginary bastards by Leicester. And Dr. Lingard is not ashamed to insinuate the same suspicion. Vol. viii. p. 81, note. Surely what was congenial to the dark malignity of Persons, and the blind frenzy of Whitaker, does not become the good sense, I cannot say the candour, of this writer.
It is true that some, not prejudiced against Elizabeth, have doubted whether "Cupid's fiery dart" was as effectually "quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon," as her poet intimates. This I must leave to the reader's judgment. She certainly went strange lengths of indelicacy. But, if she might sacrifice herself to the queen of Cnidus and Paphos, she was unmercifully severe to those about her, of both sexes, who showed any inclination to that worship, though under the escort of Hymen. Miss Aikin, in her well written and interesting Memoirs of the Court of Elizabeth, has collected several instances from Harrington and Birch. It is by no means true, as Dr. Lingard asserts, on the authority of one Faunt, an austere puritan, that her court was dissolute, comparatively at least with the general character of courts; though neither was it so virtuous as the enthusiasts of the Elizabethan period suppose.
[239] Somers Tracts, i 189; Strype, iii. 205, 265, 480. Strype says that he had seen the manuscript of this tract in Lord Burleigh's handwriting. It was answered by Cardinal Allen, to whom a reply was made by poor Stubbe, after he had lost his right hand. An Italian translation of the Execution of Justice was published at London in 1584. This shows how anxious the queen was to repel the charges of cruelty, which she must have felt to be not wholly unfounded.
[240] Somers Tracts, p. 209.
[241] State Trials, i. 1160.
[242] Somers Tracts, 164.
[243] Strype, iii. 298. Shelley, though notoriously loyal and frequently employed by Burleigh, was taken up and examined before the council for preparing this petition.
[244] P. 591. Proofs of the text are too numerous for quotation, and occur continually to a reader of Strype's 2nd and 3rd volumes. In vol. iii. Append. 158, we have a letter to the queen from one Antony Tyrrel, a priest, who seems to have acted as an informer, wherein he declares all his accusations of catholics to be false. This man had formerly professed himself a protestant, and returned afterwards to the same religion; so that his veracity may be dubious. So, a little further on, we find in the same collection (p. 250) a letter from one Bennet, a priest, to Lord Arundel, lamenting the false accusations he had given against him, and craving pardon. It is always possible, as I have just hinted, that these retractations may be more false than the charges. But ministers who employ spies, without the utmost distrust of their information, are sure to become their dupes, and end by the most violent injustice and tyranny.
[245] The rich catholics compounded for their recusancy by annual payments, which were of some consideration in the queen's rather scanty revenue. A list of such recusants, and of the annual fines paid by them in 1594, is published in Strype, iv. 197, but is plainly very imperfect. The total was £3323 1s. 10d. A few paid as much as £140 per annum. The average seems, however, to have been about £20. Vol. iii. Append. 153; see also p. 258. Probably these compositions, though oppressive, were not quite so serious as the catholics pretended.
[246] Parry seems to have been privately reconciled to the church of Rome about 1580; after which he continued to correspond with Cecil, but generally recommending some catholics to mercy. He says, in one letter, that a book printed at Rome, De Persecutione Anglicanâ, had raised a barbarous opinion of our cruelty; and that he could wish that in those cases it might please her majesty to pardon the dismembering and drawing. Strype, iii. 260. He sat afterwards in the parliament of 1584, taking, of course, the oath of supremacy, where he alone opposed the act against catholic priests. Parl. Hist. 822. Whether he were actually guilty of plotting against the queen's life (for this part of his treason he denied at the scaffold) I cannot say; but his speech there made contained some very good advice to her. The ministry garbled this before its publication in Holingshed and other books; but Strype has preserved a genuine copy. Vol. iii. Append. 102. It is plain that Parry died a catholic; though some late writers of that communion have tried to disclaim him. Dr. Lingard, it may be added, admits that there were many schemes to assassinate Elizabeth, though he will not confess any particular instance. "There exist," he says, "in the archives at Simancas several notices of such offers."—P. 384.