[346] One of the charges which, in 1588, Sixtus V. publicly brought against Elizabeth, was, that ‘she hath rejected and excluded the ancient nobility, and promoted to honour obscure people.’ Butler's Mem. of the Catholics, vol. ii. p. 4. Persons also reproaches her with her low-born ministers, and says that she was influenced ‘by five persons in particular—all of them sprung from the earth—Bacon, Cecil, Dudley, Hatton, and Walsingham.’ Butler, vol. ii. p. 31. Cardinal Allen taunted her with ‘disgracing the ancient nobility, erecting base and unworthy persons to all the civil and ecclesiastical dignities.’ Dodd's Church History, edit. Tierney, 1840, vol. iii. appendix no. xii. p. xlvi. The same influential writer, in his Admonition, said that she had injured England, ‘by great contempt and abasing of the ancient nobility, repelling them from due government, offices, and places of honour.’ Allen's Admonition to the Nobility and People of England and Ireland, 1588 (reprinted London, 1842), p. xv. Compare the account of the Bull of 1588, in De Thou, Hist. Univ. vol. x. p. 175: ‘On accusoit Elisabeth d'avoir au préjudice de la noblesse angloise élevé aux dignités, tant civiles qu'ecclésiastiques, des hommes nouveaux, sans naissance, et indignes de les posséder.’
[347] To the philosophic historian this rebellion, though not sufficiently appreciated by ordinary writers, is a very important study, because it is the last attempt ever made by the great English families to establish their authority by force of arms. Mr. Wright says, that probably all those who took a leading part in it ‘were allied by blood or intermarriage with the two families of the Percies and Neviles.’ Wright's Elizabeth, 1838, vol. i. p. xxxiv.; a valuable work. See also, in Parl. Hist. vol. i. p. 730, a list of some of those who, in 1571, were attainted on account of this rebellion, and who are said to be ‘all of the best families in the north of England.’
But the most complete evidence we have respecting this struggle, consists of the collection of original documents published in 1840 by Sir C. Sharpe, under the title of Memorials of the Rebellion of 1569. They show very clearly the real nature of the outbreak. On 17th November 1569, Sir George Bowes writes, that the complaint of the insurgents was that ‘there was certaine counsellors cropen’ (i.e. crept) ‘in aboute the prince, which had excluded the nobility from the prince,’ &c., Memorials, p. 42; and the editor's note says that this is one of the charges made in all the proclamations by the earls. Perhaps the most curious proof of how notorious the policy of Elizabeth had become, is contained in a friendly letter from Sussex to Cecil, dated 5th January 1569 (Memorials, p. 137), one paragraph of which begins, ‘Of late years few young noblemen have been employed in service.’
[348] Hallam, i. p. 130; Lingard, v. pp. 97, 102; Turner, xii. pp. 245, 247.
[349] Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 241; an interesting passage. Turner (Hist. of England, vol. xii. p. 237) says, that Cecil ‘knew the tendency of the great lords to combine against the crown, that they might reinstate the peerage in the power from which the house of Tudor had depressed it.’
[350] In 1572 the order of dukes became extinct; and was not revived till fifty years afterwards, when James I. made the miserable Villiers, duke of Buckingham. Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. i. p. 397. This evidently attracted attention; for Ben Jonson, in one of his comedies in 1616, mentions ‘the received heresy that England bears no dukes.’ Jonson's Works, edit. Gifford, 1816, vol. v. p. 47, where Gifford, not being aware of the extinction in 1572, has made an unsatisfactory note.
[351] Clarendon (Hist. of the Rebellion, p. 216) truly calls it ‘the most prodigious and the boldest rebellion, that any age or country ever brought forth.’ See also some striking remarks in Warwick's Memoirs, p. 207.
CHAPTER III.
THE ENERGY OF THE PROTECTIVE SPIRIT IN FRANCE EXPLAINS THE FAILURE OF THE FRONDE. COMPARISON BETWEEN THE FRONDE AND THE CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH REBELLION.