Drake incurred some blame in the expedition to Portugal for failing to bring his ships up the river to Lisbon, according to his promise to sir John Norris, the general; but on explaining the case before the privy-council on his return, he was entirely acquitted by them; having made it appear that, under all the circumstances, to have carried the fleet up the Tagus would have been to expose it to damage without the possibility of any benefit to the service. By his enemies, this great man was stigmatized as vain and boastful; a slight infirmity in one who had achieved so much by his own unassisted genius, and which the great flow of natural eloquence which he possessed may at once have produced and rendered excusable. One trait appears to indicate that he was ambitious of a species of distinction which he might have regarded himself as entitled to despise. He had thought proper to assume, apparently without due authority, the armorial coat of sir Bernard Drake, also a seaman and a native of Devonshire: sir Bernard, from a false pride of family, highly resented this unwarrantable intrusion, as he regarded it, and in a dispute on the subject gave sir Francis a box on the ear. The queen now deemed it necessary to interfere, and she granted to the illustrious navigator the following arms of her own device. Sable, a fess wavy between two pole stars argent, and for crest, a ship on a globe under ruff, with a cable held by a hand coming out of the clouds; the motto Auxilio divino, and beneath, Sic parvis magna; in the rigging of the ship a wivern gules, the arms of sir Bernard Drake, hung up by the heels.
Sir John Baskerville, who succeeded by the death of Drake to the command of the unfortunate expedition to which he had fallen a sacrifice, encountered the Spanish fleet off Cuba in an action, which, though less decisive on the English side than might have been hoped, left at least no ground of triumph to the enemy. Meantime the court was by no means barren of incident; and we are fortunate in possessing a minute and authentic journal of its transactions in a series of letters addressed to sir Robert Sidney governor of Flushing by several of his friends, but chiefly by Rowland Whyte, a gentleman to whom, during his absence, he had recommended the care of his interests, and the task of transmitting to him whatever intelligence might appear either useful or entertaining[116].
In October 1595 Mr. Whyte mentions the following abominable instance of tyranny. That the earl of Hertford had been sent for by a messenger and committed to custody in his own house, because it had appeared by a case found among the papers of a Dr. Aubrey, that he had formerly taken the opinions of civilians on the validity of his first marriage, and caused a record of it to be secretly put into the court of Arches. Whyte adds significantly, that the earl was accounted one of the wealthiest subjects in England. Soon after, his lordship was committed to the Tower; and it was said that orders were given that his son, who since the establishment of the marriage had borne the title of lord Beauchamp, should henceforth be again called Mr. Seymour. Several lawyers and other persons were also imprisoned for a short time about this matter, under what law, or pretext of law, it would be vain to inquire. Lady Hertford, though a sister of the lord admiral and nearly related to the queen, was for some time an unsuccessful suitor at court for the liberty of her lord. Her majesty however was graciously pleased to declare that "neither his life nor living should be called in question;"—as if both had been at her mercy! and though she would not consent to see the countess, she regularly sent her broths in a morning, and, at meals, meat from her own trencher;—affecting, it should seem, in these trifles, to acquit herself of the promises of her special favor, with which she had a few years before repaid the splendid hospitality of this noble pair. We do not learn how long the durance of the earl continued; but it is highly probable that he was once more compelled to purchase his liberty.
Great uneasiness was given about this time to the earl of Essex by a book written in defence of the king of Spain's title to the English crown, which contained "dangerous praises of his valor and worthiness," inserted for the express purpose of exciting the jealousy of the queen and bringing him into disgrace. The work was shown him by Elizabeth herself. On coming from her presence he was observed to look "pale and wan," and going home he reported himself sick;—an expedient for working on the feelings of his sovereign, to which, notwithstanding the truth and honor popularly regarded as his characteristics, Essex is known to have frequently condescended. On this, as on most occasions, he found it successful: her majesty soon made him a consolatory visit; and in spite of the strenuous efforts of his enemies, this attempt to injure him only served to augment her affection and root him more firmly in her confidence.
"Her majesty," says Whyte soon after, "is in very good health, and comes much abroad; upon Thursday she dined at Kew, at my lord keeper's house, (who lately obtained of her majesty his suit for one hundred pounds a year in fee-farm,) her entertainment for that meal was great and exceeding costly. At her first lighting she had a fine fan garnished with diamonds, valued at four hundred pounds at least. After dinner, in her privy-chamber, he gave her a fair pair of virginals. In her bed-chamber, he presented her with a fine gown and a juppin, which things were pleasing to her highness; and, to grace his lordship the more, she of herself took from him a fork, a spoon, and a salt, of fair agate." It must be confessed that this was a mode of "gracing" a courtier peculiarly consonant to the disposition of her majesty.
The further Elizabeth descended into the vale of years, the stronger were her efforts to make ostentation of a youthful gaiety of spirits and an unfailing alacrity in the pursuit of pleasure; though avarice, the vice of age, mingled strangely with these her juvenile affectations. To remark to her the progress of time, was to wound her in the tenderest part, and not even from her ghostly counsellors would she endure a topic so offensive as the mention of her age: an anecdote to this effect belongs to the year 1596, and is found in the account of Rudd bishop of St. Davids given in Harrington's Brief View of the Church.
"There is almost none that waited in queen Elizabeth's court and observed any thing, but can tell that it pleased her very much to seem, to be thought, and to be told that she looked young. The majesty and gravity of a sceptre borne forty-four years could not alter that nature of a woman in her: This notwithstanding, this good bishop being appointed to preach before her in the Lent of the year 1596... wishing in a godly zeal, as well became him, that she should think sometime of mortality," took a text fit for the purpose, on which he treated for a time "well," "learnedly," and "respectively." "But when he had spoken awhile of some sacred and mystical numbers, as three for the Trinity, three for the heavenly Hierarchy, seven for the Sabbath, and seven times seven for a Jubilee; and lastly,—seven times nine for the grand climacterical year; she, perceiving whereto it tended, began to be troubled with it. The bishop discovering that all was not well, for the pulpit stands there vis à vis to the closet, he fell to treat of some more plausible numbers, as of the number 666, making Latinus, with which he said he could prove the pope to be Antichrist; also of the fatal number of 88,—so long before spoken of for a dangerous year,... but withal interlarding it with some passages of Scripture that touch the infirmities of age... he concluded his sermon. The queen, as the manner was, opened the window; but she was so far from giving him thanks or good countenance, that she said plainly he should have kept his arithmetic for himself. 'But I see,' said she, 'the greatest clerks are not the wisest men;' and so went away for the time discontented.
"The lord keeper Puckering, though reverencing the man much in his particular, yet for the present, to assuage the queen's displeasure, commanded him to keep his house for a time, which he did. But of a truth her majesty showed no ill nature in this, for within three days she was not only displeased at his restraint, but in my hearing rebuked a lady yet living for speaking scornfully of him and his sermon. Only to show how the good bishop was deceived in supposing she was so decayed in her limbs and senses as himself perhaps and other of that age were wont to be; she said she thanked God that neither her stomach nor strength, nor her voice for singing, nor fingering instruments, nor, lastly, her sight, was any whit decayed; and to prove the last before us all, she produced a little jewel that had an inscription of very small letters, and offered it first to my lord of Worcester, and then to sir James Crofts to read, and both protested bona fide that they could not; yet the queen herself did find out the poesy, and made herself merry with the standers by upon it."
A point of some importance to the peers of England was about this time brought to a final decision by the following circumstance. Sir Thomas, son and heir of sir Matthew Arundel of Wardour-castle, a young man of a courageous and enterprising disposition, going over to Germany, had been induced to engage as a volunteer in the wars of the emperor against the Turks; and in the assault of the city of Gran in Hungary had taken with his own hand a Turkish banner. For this and other good service, Rodolph the Second had been pleased to confer upon him the honor of count of the holy Roman empire, extending also, as usual, the title of counts and countesses to all his descendants for ever. On his return to England in the year following, the question arose whether this dignity, conferred by a foreign prince without the previous consent of his own sovereign, should entitle the bearer to rank, precedence, or any other privilege in this country.
The peers naturally opposed a concession which tended to lessen the value of their privileges by rendering them accessible through foreign channels; and her majesty, being called upon to settle the debate, pronounced the following judgement. That the closest tie of affection subsisted between sovereigns and their subjects: that as chaste wives should fix their eyes upon their husbands alone, in like manner faithful subjects should only direct theirs towards the prince whom it had pleased God to set over them. And that she would not allow her sheep to be branded with the mark of a stranger, or be taught to follow the whistle of a foreign shepherd. And to this effect she wrote to the emperor, who by a special letter had recommended sir Thomas Arundel to her favor. The decision appears to have been reasonable and politic, and would at the time be regarded as peculiarly so in the instance of honors conferred on a catholic gentleman by a catholic prince. King James, however, created sir Thomas, lord Arundel of Wardour; and he seems to have borne in common speech, the title of count[117].