Even Renard was alarmed at this burst of passion. He had fed Mary's suspicions till they were beyond either his control or her own; and the attitude of parliament had lately shown him that, if any step were taken against Elizabeth without provocation on her part, it would infinitely increase the difficulty of concluding the marriage. He was beginning to believe, and he ventured to hint to the queen, that Paget's advice might be worth consideration; but on this subject she would listen to nothing.
Elizabeth had hitherto, when at court, taken precedence of all other ladies. The queen now compelled her to walk behind Lady Lennox and the Duchess of Suffolk, as a sign of the meditated change;[176] and the ladies of the court were afraid to be seen speaking to her. But in reply to Mary's derogatory treatment, the young lords, knights, and gentlemen gathered ostentatiously round the princess when she rode abroad, or thronged the levees at her house; old-established statesmen said, in Renard's ear, that, let the queen decide as she would, no foreigner should reign in England; and Lord Arundel believed that Elizabeth's foot was already on the steps of the throne. A large and fast-growing party, which included more than one member of the Privy Council, were now beginning to consider, as the best escape from Philip, that Courtenay had better fly from the court, taking Elizabeth with him—call round him in their joint names all who would strike with him for English independence, and proclaim the queen deposed.
There was uncertainty about Elizabeth herself; both Noailles and Renard believed that she would consent to this dangerous proposal; but she had shown Courtenay, hitherto, no sign of favour; while Courtenay, on his side, complained that he was frightened by her haughty ways. Again there was a serious difficulty in Courtenay's character; he was too cowardly for a dangerous enterprise, too incapable for an intricate one, and his weak humour made men afraid to trust themselves to a person who, to save himself, might at any moment betray them. Noailles, however, said emphatically that, were Courtenay anything but what he was, his success would be certain.[177]
The plot grew steadily into definite form. Devonshire and Cornwall were prepared for insurrection, and thither, as to the stronghold of the Courtenay family, Elizabeth was to be first carried. Meantime the ferment of popular feeling showed in alarming symptoms through the surface. The council were in continual quarrel. Parliament, since the rebuff of the Speaker, had not grown more tractable, and awkward questions began to be asked about a provision for the married clergy. All had been already gained which could be hoped for from the present House of Commons; and, on the 6th of December, the session ended in a dissolution. The same day a dead dog was thrown through the window of the presence chamber with ears cropped, a halter about its neck, and a label saying that all the priests in England should be hanged.
Renard, who, though not admitted, like Noailles, into the confidence of the conspirators, yet knew the drift of public feeling, and knew also Arundel's opinion of the queen's prospects, insisted that Mary should place some restraint upon herself, and treat her sister at least with outward courtesy; Philip was expected at Christmas, should nothing untoward happen in the interval; and the ambassador prevailed on her, at last, to pretend that her suspicions were at an end. His own desire, he said, was as great as Mary's that Elizabeth should be detected in some treasonable correspondence; but harshness only placed her on her guard; she would be less careful, if she believed that she was no longer distrusted. The princess, alarmed perhaps at finding herself the unconsenting object of dangerous schemes, had asked permission to retire to her country house. It was agreed that she should go; persons in her household were bribed to watch her; and the queen, yielding to Renard's entreaties, received her when she came to take leave with an appearance of affection so well counterfeited, that it called out the ambassador's applause.[178] She made her a present of pearls, with a head-dress of sable; and the princess, on her side, implored the queen to give no more credit to slanders against her. They embraced; Elizabeth left the court; and, as she went out of London, five hundred gentlemen formed about her as a voluntary escort.[179] There were not wanting fools, says Renard, who would persuade the queen that her sister's last words were honestly spoken; but she remembers too acutely the injuries which her mother and herself suffered at Anne Boleyn's hands; and she has a fixed conviction that Elizabeth, unless she can be first disposed of, will be a cause of infinite calamities to the realm.[180][(Back to Content)]
CHAPTER II.
THE SPANISH MARRIAGE.
The fears of Renard and the hopes of Noailles were occasioned by the unanimity of Catholics and heretics in the opposition to the marriage; yet, so singular was the position of parties, that this very unanimity was the condition which made the marriage possible. The Catholic lords and gentlemen were jealous of English independence, and, had they stood alone, they would have coerced the queen into an abandonment of her intentions: but, if they dreaded a Spanish sovereign, they hated unorthodoxy more, and if they permitted, or assisted in the schemes of the Reformers, they feared that they might lose the control of the situation when the immediate object was obtained. Those who were under the influence of Gardiner desired to restore persecution; and persecution, which was difficult with Mary on the throne, would be impossible under a sovereign brought in by a revolution. They made a favourite of Courtenay, but they desired to marry him to the queen, not to Elizabeth: Gardiner told the young earl that he would sooner see him the husband of the vilest drab who could be picked out of the London kennels.[181]
Thus, from their murmurs, they seemed to be on the edge of rebellion; yet, when the point of action came, they halted, uncertain what to do, unwilling to acquiesce, yet without resolution to resist. From a modern point of view the wisest policy was that recommended by Paget. The claim of the Queen of Scots on the throne unquestionably made it prudent for England to strengthen herself by some powerful foreign alliance; sufficient precautions could be devised for the security of the national independence; and, so far from England being in danger of being drawn into the war on the continent, Lord Paget said that, if England would accept Philip heartily, the war would be at an end. Elizabeth of France might marry Don Carlos, taking with her the French pretensions to Naples and Milan as a dowry. Another French princess might be given to the expatriated Philibert, and Savoy and Piedmont restored with her. "You," Paget said to Noailles, "by your Dauphin's marriage forced us to be friends with the Scots; we, by our queen's marriage, will force you to be friends with the emperor."[182]
Paget, however, was detested as an upstart, and detested still more as a latitudinarian; he could form no party, and the queen made use of him only to support her in her choice of the Prince of Spain, as in turn she would use Gardiner to destroy the Protestants; and thus the two great factions in the state neutralised each other's action in a matter in which both were equally anxious; and Mary, although with no remarkable capacity, without friends and ruined, if at any moment she lost courage, was able to go her own way in spite of her subjects.
The uncertainty was, how long so anomalous a state of things would continue. The marriage, being once decided on, Mary could think of nothing else, and even religion sank into the second place. Reginald Pole, chafing the imperial bridle between his lips, vexed her, so Renard said, from day to day, with his untimely importunities;[183] the restoration of the mass gave him no pleasure so long as the papal legate was an exile; and in vain the queen laboured to draw from him some kind of approval. He saw her only preferring carnal pleasures to her duty to Heaven; and, indifferent himself to all interests save those of the See of Rome, he was irritated with the emperor, irritated with the worldly schemes to which he believed that his mission had been sacrificed. He talked angrily of the marriage. The queen heard, through Wotton the ambassador at Paris, that he had said openly, it should never take place;[184] while Peto, the Greenwich friar, who was in his train, wrote to her, reflecting impolitely on her age, and adding Scripture commendations of celibacy as the more perfect state.[185] It was even feared that the impatient legate had advised the pope to withhold the dispensations.