The death of Mary was announced to the two houses, which were then sitting, by Heath bishop of Ely, the lord-chancellor. In both assemblies, after the decorum of a short pause, the notification was followed by joyful shouts of "God save queen Elizabeth! long and happily may she reign!" and with great alacrity the members issued out to proclaim the new sovereign before the palace in Westminster and again at the great cross in Cheapside.
The Londoners knew not how to contain their joy on this happy occasion:—the bells of all the churches were set ringing, bonfires were kindled, and tables were spread in the streets according to the bountiful and hospitable custom of that day, "where was plentiful eating, drinking, and making merry." On the following Sunday Te Deum was sung in the churches; probably an unexampled, however merited, expression of disrespect to the memory of the former sovereign.
Elizabeth received the news of her own accession at Hatfield. We are not told that she affected any great concern for the loss of her sister, much less did any unbecoming sign of exultation escape her; but, "falling on her knees, after a good time of respiration she uttered this verse of the Psalms; A Domino factum est istud, et est mirabile oculis nostris[33]: which to this day we find on the stamp of her gold; with this on her silver, Posui Deum adjutorem meum[34]."[35]
Several noblemen of the late queen's council now repairing to her, she held at Hatfield on November the 20th her first privy-council; at which she declared sir Thomas Parry comptroller of her household, sir Edward Rogers captain of the guard, and sir William Cecil principal secretary of state, all three being at the same time admitted to the council-board. From these appointments, the first of her reign, some presages might be drawn of her future government favorable to her own character and correspondent to the wishes of her people.
Parry was the person who had filled for many years the office of her cofferer, who was perfectly in the secret of whatever confidential intercourse she might formerly have held with the lord-admiral, and whose fidelity to her in that business had stood firm against all the threats of the protector and council, and the artifices of those by whom his examination had been conducted. That mindfulness of former services, of which the advancement of this man formed by no means a solitary instance in the conduct of Elizabeth, appeared the more commendable in her, because she accompanied it with a generous oblivion of the many slights and injuries to which her defenceless and persecuted condition had so long exposed her from others.
The merit of Cecil was already in part known to the public; and his promotion to an office of such importance was a happy omen for the protestant cause, his attachment to which had been judged the sole impediment to his advancement under the late reign to situations of power and trust corresponding with the opinion entertained of his integrity and political wisdom. A brief retrospect of the scenes of public life in which he had already been an actor will best explain the character and sentiments of this eminent person, destined to wield for more than forty years with unparalleled skill and felicity, under a mistress who knew his value, the energies of the English state.
Born, in 1520, the son of the master of the royal wardrobe, Cecil early engaged the notice of Henry VIII. by the fame of a religious dispute which he had held in Latin with two popish priests attached to the Irish chieftain O'Neal. A place in reversion freely bestowed on him by the king at once rewarded the zeal of the young polemic, and encouraged him to desert the profession of the law, in which he had embarked, for the political career.
His marriage with the sister of sir John Cheke strengthened his interest at court by procuring him an introduction to the earl of Hertford, and early in the reign of Edward this powerful patronage obtained for him the office of secretary of state. In the first disgrace of the protector he lost his place, and was for a short time a prisoner in the Tower; but his compliant conduct soon restored him to favor: he scrupled not to draw the articles of impeachment against the protector; and Northumberland, finding him both able in business and highly acceptable to the young monarch, procured, or permitted, his reinstatement in office in September 1550.
Cecil, however, was both too wary and too honest to regard himself as pledged to the support of Northumberland's inordinate schemes of ambition; and scarcely any public man of the day, attached to the protestant cause, escaped better in the affair of lady Jane Grey. It is true that one writer accuses him of having drawn all the papers in her favor: but this appears to be, in part at least, either a mistake or a calumny; and it seems, on the contrary, that he refused to Northumberland some services of this nature. It has been already mentioned that his name appeared with those of the other privy-councillors to Edward's settlement of the crown; and his plea of having signed it merely as a witness to the king's signature, deserves to be regarded as a kind of subterfuge. But he was early in paying his respects to Mary, and he took advantage of the graciousness with which she received his explanations to obtain a general pardon, which protected him from all personal danger. He lost however his place of secretary, which some have affirmed that he might have retained by further compliances in religion. This however is the more doubtful, because it cannot be questioned that he must have yielded a good deal on this point, without which he neither could nor would have made one of a deputation sent to conduct to England cardinal Pole the papal legate, nor probably would he have been joined in commission with the cardinal and other persons sent to treat of a peace with France.
But admitting, as we must, that this eminent statesman was far from aspiring to the praise of a confessor, he will still be found to deserve high commendation for the zeal and courage with which, as a member of parliament, he defended the interests of his oppressed and suffering fellow-protestants. At considerable hazard to himself, he opposed with great freedom of speech a bill for confiscating the property of exiles for religion; and he appears to have escaped committal to the Tower on this account, solely by the presence of mind which he exhibited before the council and the friendship of some of its members.