Meanwhile, The Earl of Essex. Essex, who had returned to England against the queen's orders, was treated with coldness, deprived of his employments, and sentenced to be confined. This was more than the haughty favorite could bear, accustomed as he had been to royal favor. At first, he acquiesced in his punishment, with every mark of penitence, and Elizabeth was beginning to relax in her severity for she never intended to ruin him; but he soon gave vent to his violent temper, indulged in great liberties of speech, and threw off all appearance of duty and respect. He even engaged in treasonable designs, encouraged Roman Catholics at his house, and corresponded with James VI. of Scotland about his succession. His proceedings were discovered, and he was summoned before the privy council. Instead of obedience, he armed himself and his followers, and, in conjunction with some discontented nobles, and about three hundred gentlemen, attempted to excite an insurrection in London, where he was very popular with the citizens. He was captured and committed to the Tower, with the Earl of Southampton. These rash but brave noblemen were tried by their peers, and condemned as guilty of high treason. In this trial, the celebrated Bacon appeared against his old patron, and likened him to the Duke of Guise. The great lawyer Coke, who was attorney-general, compared him to Catiline.
Essex disdained to sue the queen for a pardon, and was privately beheaded in the Tower. He merited his fate, if the offence of which he was guilty deserved such a punishment. It is impossible not to be interested in the fate of a man so brave, high-spirited, and generous, the idol of the people, and the victor in so many enterprises. Some historians maintain that Elizabeth relented, and would have saved her favorite, had he only implored her clemency; but this statement is denied by others; nor have we any evidence to believe that Essex, caught with arms against the sovereign who had honored him, could have averted his fate.
Elizabeth may have wept for the death of the nobleman she had loved. It is certain that, after his death, she never regained her spirits, and that a deep melancholy was visible in her countenance. All her actions showed a deeply-settled inward grief, and that she longed for death, having tasted the unsubstantial nature of human greatness. She survived the execution of Essex two years, but lived long enough to see the neglect into which she was every day falling, and to feel that, in spite of all her glory and power, she was not exempted from drinking the cup of bitterness.
Whatever unamiable qualities she evinced as a woman, in spite of Character of Elizabeth. her vanity, and jealousy, and imperious temper, her reign was one of the most glorious in the annals of her country. The policy of Burleigh was the policy of Sir Robert Walpole—that of peace, and a desire to increase the resources of the kingdom. Her taxes were never oppressive, and were raised without murmur; the people were loyal and contented; the Protestant religion was established on a firm foundation; and a constellation of great men shed around her throne the bright rays of immortal genius.
The most unhappy peculiarity of her reign was the persecution of the Non-conformists, which, if not sanguinary, was irritating and severe. For some time after the accession of Elizabeth, the Puritans were permitted to indulge in their peculiarities, without being excluded from the established church; but when Elizabeth felt herself secure, then they were obliged to conform, or suffered imprisonment, fines, and other punishments. The original difficulty was their repugnance to the surplice, and to some few forms of worship, which gradually extended to an opposition to the order of bishops; to the temporal dignities of the church; to the various titles of the hierarchy; to the jurisdiction of the spiritual courts; to the promiscuous access of all persons to the communion table; to the liturgy; to the observance of holydays; to the cathedral worship; to the use of organs; to the presentation of living by patrons; and finally, to some of the doctrines of the established church. The separation of the Puritans from the Episcopal church, took place in 1566; and, from that time to the death of Elizabeth, they enjoyed no peace, although they sought redress in the most respectful manner, and raised no opposition to the royal authority. Thousands were ejected from their livings, and otherwise punished, for not conforming to the royal conscience. But persecution and penal laws fanned a fanatical spirit, which, in the reign of Charles, burst out into a destructive flame, and spread devastation and ruin through all parts of the kingdom.
If the queen and her ministers did not understand the principles of religious toleration, they pursued a much more enlightened policy in regard to all financial and political subjects, than during any former reign. The commercial importance of England received a new impulse. The reign of Henry VIII. was a reign of spoliation. The king was enriched beyond all former precedent, but his riches did not keep pace with his spendthrift habits. The value of the abbey lands which Henry seized amounted, a century after his death, to six million pounds. The lands of the abbey of St. Alban's alone rented for two hundred thousand pounds. The king debased the coin, confiscated chapels and colleges, as well as monasteries, and raised money by embargoes, monopolies, and compulsory loans.
But Elizabeth, instead of contracting debts, Improvements Made in the Reign of Elizabeth. paid off the old ones, restored the coin to its purity, and was content with an annual revenue of five hundred thousand pounds, even at a time when the rebellion in Ireland cost her four hundred thousand pounds. Her frugality equalled the rapacity of her father, and she was extravagant only in dress, and on great occasions of public rejoicings. But her economy was a small matter compared with the wise laws which were passed respecting the trade of the country, by which commercial industry began to characterize the people. Improvements in navigation followed, and also maritime discoveries and colonial settlements. Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe, and the East India Company was formed. Under the auspices of Sir Walter Raleigh, Virginia was discovered and colonized. Unfortunately, also, the African slave trade commenced—a traffic which has been productive of more human misery, and led to more disastrous political evils, than can be traced to any other event in the history of modern times.
During this reign, the houses of the people became more comfortable; chimneys began to be used; pewter dishes took the place of wooden trenchers, and wheat was substituted for rye and barley; linen and woollen cloth was manufactured; salads, cabbages, gooseberries, apricots, pippins, currants, cherries, plums, carnations, and the damask rose were cultivated, for the first time. But the great glory of this reign was the revival of literature and science. Raleigh, "the soldier, the sailor, the scholar, the philosopher, the poet, the orator, the historian, the courtier," then, adorned the court, and the prince of poets, the immortal Shakspeare, then wrote those plays, which, for moral wisdom and knowledge of the human soul, appear to us almost to be dictated by the voice of inspiration. The prince of philosophers too, the great miner and sapper of the false systems of the middle ages, Francis Bacon, then commenced his career, and Spenser dedicated to Elizabeth his "Fairy Queen," one of the most truly poetical compositions that genius ever produced. The age produced also great divines; but these did not occupy so prominent a place in the nation's eye as during the succeeding reigns.
While Reflections. the virgin queen was exercising so benign an influence on the English nation, great events, though not disconnected with English politics, were taking place on the continent. The most remarkable of these was the persecution of the Huguenots. The rise and fortunes of this sect, during the reigns of Henry II., Francis II., Charles IX., Henry III., and Henry IV., now demand our attention. If a newspaper had, in that age, been conducted upon the principles it now is, the sufferings of the Huguenots would always be noticed. It is our province to describe just what a modern newspaper would have alluded to, had it been printed three hundred years ago. It would not have been filled with genealogies of kings, but with descriptions of great popular movements. And this is history.