A history of England principally in the seventeenth century, Volume 1 (of 6)

by Leopold von Ranke

By the side of this pilot of the state, Robert Dudley, who was promoted to be Earl of Leicester, drew all eyes on himself as the leading man at court. Burleigh was looked on as Somerset's creation, Dudley was the youngest son of the Earl of Northumberland: for it was of advantage to Elizabeth, especially at first, to unite around her important representatives of the two parties which had composed her brother's government. One motive for her attachment to Leicester is said to have been the fact that he was born on the same day, and at the very same hour with herself: who at that time would not have believed in the ruling influence of the stars? But, besides this, the Earl dazzled by a fine person, attractive manners, and an almost irresistible charm of disposition. The confidential intimacy which Elizabeth allowed him caused scandalous rumours, probably without ground; for if they had been true, Leicester, who had his father's ambition, would have played a very different part. Elizabeth heard of them; she once actually brought a foreign ambassador into her apartments, to convince him how utterly impossible it would be for her to see any one whatever without witnesses; she censured a foreign writer for letting himself be deceived by a groundless rumour, but she would not on this account dismiss the favourite from court. She liked to have him about her, and to receive his homage which had a tinge of chivalry in it: his devotion satisfied a need of her heart. He could not however take any power to himself which would infringe on her own supreme authority; once, when such a case occurred, she reminded him that he was not in exclusive possession of her favour: she could bestow it on whom she would, and again recall it; at court, she exclaimed, there should be no Master, but only a Mistress.[281] Neither did Leicester display great mental gifts: in the campaigns of the Netherlands he did not at all answer even the moderate expectations that had been formed of him. If the Queen nevertheless put him at the head of her troops when the Spanish danger threatened, this was because he possessed her absolute personal confidence.

With Leicester the Sidneys were most closely allied. Henry Sidney, his sister's husband, introduced civilisation and monarchic institutions into Wales, and was selected to extend them in Ireland. In his son Philip the English ideal of noble culture seemed to have realised itself; he combined a very remarkable literary power peculiar to himself, and talents suited for the society of men of the world (which well fitted him for the duties of an ambassador), with disinterested kindness to others, and a chivalrous courage in war, which gained him universal admiration both at home and in presence of the enemy.

Leicester's good word is also said to have opened an entrance to court for young Walter Ralegh and to have promoted his first successes. Ralegh combined in his own person the aspirations of the age in a most vivid manner. He was ambitious, fond of show, with high aims, deeply engaged in the factions of the court; but at the same time he had a spirit of noble enterprise, was ingenious and thoughtful. In everything new that was produced in the region of discoveries and inventions, of literature and art, he played the part of a fellow worker: he lived in the circle of universal knowledge, its problems and its progress. In his appearance he had something that announced a man of superior mind and nature.

Around Cecil were grouped the statesmen who had been promoted by him, and worked in sympathy with him: for instance Bacon the Keeper of the Seals, whom the Queen regarded as the oracle of the laws, and who also amused her by many a witty word; Mildmay, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who though adhering to the principles now adopted yet gladly favoured the claims of Parliament, and even the tendencies of the Puritans; Francis Walsingham, Secretary of State, who had once suffered exile for his Protestantism and now supported it after his return with all the resources of the administration; it is said of him that he heard in London what was whispered in the ear at Rome; he met the crafty Jesuits with a network of secret counter-action which extended over the world; there has never been a man who more vigilantly and unrelentingly hunted down religious and political conspiracies; to pay his agents, in choosing whom he was not too particular, he expended his own property. Cecil and Bacon had married two daughters of that Antony Cooke, who had once taken part in Edward VI's education: the other sisters, wedded to Hobby and Killigrew, men who were engaged in the most important embassies, extended the connexion of these statesmen. Walsingham was allied by marriage with Mildmay, and with Randolph the active ambassador in Scotland.

Once the Queen brought a man among them, who owed his rise only to her being pleased with his person and conversation, which likewise brought her much ill repute:[282] she promoted her vice-chamberlain Christopher Hatton to be Lord Chancellor of England. The lawyers made loud and bitter complaints of this disregard of their claims and their order. Hatton had however been long on good terms with the leading statesmen: in all the late questions of difficulty as to Mary Stuart's trial he had held firm to them. His nephew and heir soon after married a granddaughter of Burleigh.

The Queen's own relations on the mother's side had always some influence with her. Francis Knolles who had married into this family, and was appointed by the Queen treasurer of her household, won himself a good name with his contemporaries and with posterity by his religious zeal and openness of heart. A still more important figure in this circle is Thomas Sackville, who is also named with honour among the founders of English literature; the part of the 'Mirror for Magistrates' which was due to him witnesses to an original conception of the dark sides of man's existence, and to a creative imagination. But the poet likewise did excellent service to his sovereign: he makes his appearance when an important treaty is to be concluded, or the people are to be called on to defend the country, or even when any agitation is feared in the troubles at home. He was selected to inform the Queen of Scots that the sentence of death had been pronounced on her. He is the Lord Buckhurst from whom the dukes of Dorset are descended.

The distinguished family to which Anne Boleyn belonged, and which had such an important influence on her rise, that of the Howards, proved in its elder branch as little loyal to the daughter as it had once been to the mother. On the other hand Elizabeth had experienced the attachment of the younger line, that of Effingham, and had since repaid it with manifold favours. From this branch came the Admiral, who commanded the sea-force in the decisive attacks on the Spanish Armada. We know that he was not himself a great seaman; but he understood enough of the matter to enable him to avail himself of those who understood more than he did. The Queen looked on him as the man marked out by Providence for the defence of herself and of the country.

General Norris, who gained reputation for the English arms on the continent by the side of Henry IV, was also related to her though more distantly: besides this, she wished to repay him for the good treatment she had formerly received in her distress from his grandfather.

How predominantly the personal element once more manifests itself in this administration! As the Queen's own interest is also that of all, those who belong to her family or have won her favour and done her essential service, are the chiefs of the State and the leaders in war. The royal patronage extended this influence over the Church and the universities. But we find it no less in all other branches. Sir Thomas Gresham, the Queen's agent in money-matters, was the founder of the Exchange of London, to which she at his request gave the name of the Royal Exchange.

In literature also we see the traces of her taste and her influence. Owing to the tone of good society the classics were studied by every one. The higher education was directed to them, as indeed the Queen herself found in them refreshment and food for the mind: many classical authors were translated, and the forms of the old poets revived or imitated. The Italians and Spaniards, who had led the way in similar attempts, further awoke the emulation of the English. In Edmund Spenser, in whom the spirit of the age shows itself most vividly, we constantly meet with imitations of the Latin or Italian poets, which here and there aspire to be paraphrastic translations, and may be inferior to his originals, even to the modern ones, in delicacy of drawing, since he purposely selected their most successful passages: yet how thoroughly different a spirit do his works breathe in their total effect! What in the Italians is a play of fancy is in him a deep moral earnestness. The English nation has an inestimable possession in these works of a moral and religious grandeur, and a simple view of nature, which happily expressed in single stanzas stamp themselves on every man's memory. Spenser has assigned to allegory, as a style, a larger sphere than perhaps belongs to it, and one allegory is always interweaving itself with another; the heroes whom he takes from the old romances become to him representatives of the different virtues, but he possesses such an original power of vivid representation that even in this form he gains the reader's interest. But, if we ask what is the main thing which he celebrates, we find that it is precisely the course of the great war in which his nation is engaged against the Papacy and the Spaniards. The Faery Queen is his sovereign, whose figure under the manifold symbols of the qualities which she possessed, or which were ascribed to her, is always coming forward afresh in his verse. With wonderful power Elizabeth united around her all the aspiring minds and energies of the nation.