On their return, she repeated her former expressions of displeasure; then endeavoured at some length to refute the objections brought against the match; and finally, her "great misliking" of all opposition, and her earnest desire for the marriage, being reported to her faithful council, they agreed, after long consultations, to offer her their services in furtherance of it, should such really be her pleasure[84].
But the country possessed some men less obsequious than privy-councillors, who could not endure to stand by in silence and behold the great public interests here at stake surrendered in slavish deference to the fond fancy of a romantic woman, caught by the image of a passion which she was no longer of an age to inspire, and which she ought to have felt it an indecorum to entertain. Of this number, to his immortal honor, was Philip Sidney. This young gentleman bore at the time the courtly office of cup-bearer to the queen, and was looking for further advancement at her hands; and as on a former occasion he had not scrupled to administer some food to her preposterous desire of personal admiration, Elizabeth, when she applied to him for his opinion on her marriage, assuredly did so in the hope and expectation of hearing from him something more graceful to her ears than the language of truth and wisdom. But Sidney had beheld with his own eyes the horrors of the Paris massacre; he had imbibed with all the eagerness of a youthful and generous mind the principles of his friend the excellent Hubert Languet, one of the ablest advocates of the protestant cause; and he had since, on his embassy to Germany and Holland, enjoyed the favor and contemplated the illustrious virtues of William prince of Orange its heroic champion.
To this sacred cause the purposed marriage must prove, as he well knew, deeply injurious, and to the reputation of his sovereign fatal:—this was enough to decide his judgement and his conduct; and magnanimously disdaining the suggestions of a selfish and servile policy, he replied to the demand of her majesty, by a letter of dissuasion, almost of remonstrance, at once the most eloquent and the most courageous piece of that nature which the age can boast. Every important view of the subject is comprised in this letter, which is long, but at the same time so condensed in style, and so skilfully compacted as to matter, that it well deserves to be read entire, and must lose materially either by abridgement or omission. Yet it may be permitted to detach from political reasonings, foreign to the nature and object of this work, a few sentences referring more immediately to the personal character of Anjou, and displaying in a strong light the enormous unfitness of the connexion; and also the animated and affectionate conclusion by which the writer seems desirous to atone for the enunciation of so many unwelcome truths.
"These," speaking of her majesty's protestant subjects... "These, how will their hearts be galled, if not aliened, when they shall see you take a husband, a Frenchman and a papist, in whom (howsoever fine wits may find further dealings or painted excuses) the very common people well know this, that he is the son of a Jezabel of our age; that his brother made oblation of his own sister's marriage, the easier to make massacres of our brethren in belief: That he himself, contrary to his promise and all gratefulness, having his liberty and principal estate by the Hugonots' means, did sack La Charité, and utterly spoil them with fire and sword! This, I say, even at first sight, gives occasion to all truly religious to abhor such a master, and consequently to diminish much of the hopeful love they have long held to you."
"Now the agent party, which is Monsieur. Whether he be not apt to work on the disadvantage of your estate, he is to be judged by his will and power: his will to be as full of light ambition as is possible, besides the French disposition and his own education, his inconstant temper against his brother, his thrusting himself into the Low Country matters, his sometimes seeking the king of Spain's daughter, sometimes your majesty, are evident testimonies of his being carried away with every wind of hope; taught to love greatness any way gotten; and having for the motioners and ministers of the mind only such young men as have showed they think evil contentment a ground of any rebellion; who have seen no commonwealth but in faction, and divers of which have defiled their hands in odious murders. With such fancies and favorites what is to be hoped for? or that he will contain himself within the limits of your conditions?"
...."Against contempt, if there be any, which I will never believe, let your excellent virtues of piety, justice and liberality, daily, if it be possible, more and more shine. Let such particular actions be found out (which be easy, as I think, to be done) by which you may gratify all the hearts of your people. Let those in whom you find trust, and to whom you have committed trust, in your weighty affairs, be held up in the eyes of your subjects: Lastly, doing as you do, you shall be as you be, the example of princes, the ornament of this age, and the most excellent fruit of your progenitors, and the perfect mirror of your posterity."
Such had ever been the devoted loyalty of Philip Sidney towards Elizabeth, and so high was the place which he held in her esteem, that she appears to have imputed the boldness of this letter to no motives but good ones; and instead of resenting his interference in so delicate a matter, she is thought to have been deeply moved by his eloquence, and even to have been influenced by it in the formation of her final resolve. But far other success attended the efforts of a different character, who labored with equal zeal, equal reason, and probably not inferior purity of intention, though for less courtliness of address, to deter rather than dissuade her from the match, on grounds much more offensive to her feelings, and by means of what was then accounted a seditious appeal to the passions and prejudices of the nation.
The work alluded to was entitled "The discovery of a gaping gulf wherein England is like to be swallowed by another French marriage, if the Lord forbid not the banns by letting her see the sin and punishment thereof." Its author was a gentleman named Stubbs, then of Lincoln's Inn, and previously of Bene't College Cambridge, where we are told that his intimacies had been formed among the more learned and ingenious class of students, and where the poet Spenser had become his friend. He was known as a zealous puritan, and had given his sister in marriage to the celebrated Edmund Cartwright the leader of the sect. It is probable that neither his religious principles nor this connexion were forgotten by the queen in her estimate of his offence. A furious proclamation was issued against the book, all the copies of which were ordered to be seized and burned; and the author and publisher, being proceeded against on a severe statute of Philip and Mary, which many lawyers held to be no longer in force, were found guilty, and condemned to the barbarous punishment of amputation of the right hand.
The words of Stubbs on being brought to the scaffold to undergo his sentence have been preserved, and well merit transcription. "What a grief it is to the body to lose one of his members you all know. I am come hither to receive my punishment according to the law. I am sorry for the loss of my hand, and more sorry to lose it by judgement; but most of all with her majesty's indignation and evil opinion, whom I have so highly displeased. Before I was condemned, I might speak for my innocency; but now my mouth is stopped by judgement, to the which I submit myself, and am content patiently to endure whatsoever it pleaseth God, of his secret providence, to lay upon me, and take it justly deserved for my sins; and I pray God it may be an example to you all, that it being so dangerous to offend the laws, without an evil meaning, as breedeth the loss of a hand, you may use your hands holily, and pray to God for the long preservation of her majesty over you, whom God hath used as an instrument for a long peace and many blessings over us; and specially for his Gospel, whereby she hath made a way for us to rest and quietness to our consciences. For the French I force not; but my greatest grief is, in so many weeks and days of imprisonment, her majesty hath not once thought me worthy of her mercy, which she hath often times extended to divers persons in greater offences. For my hand, I esteem it not so much, for I think I could have saved it, and might do yet; but I will not have a guiltless heart and an infamous hand. I pray you all to pray with me, that God will strengthen me to endure and abide the pain that I am to suffer, and grant me this grace, that the loss of my hand do not withdraw any part of my duty and affection toward her majesty, and because, when so many veins of blood are opened, it is uncertain how they may be stayed, and what wilt be the event thereof.".... The hand ready on the block to be stricken off, he said often to the people: "Pray for me now my calamity is at hand." And so, with these words, it was smitten off, whereof he swoonded[85]."
In this speech, the language of which is so remarkably contrasted with those abject submissions which fear extorted from the high-born victims of the tyranny of Henry VIII., the attentive reader will discern somewhat of the same spirit which combated popery and despotism under the Stuarts, though tempered by that loyal attachment towards the restorer and protectress of reformed religion which dwelt in the hearts of all the protestant subjects of Elizabeth without exception.