The child of which the countess of Hertford was delivered soon after her committal, was regarded as illegitimate, and she was doomed to expiate her pretended misconduct by a further imprisonment at the arbitrary pleasure of the queen. The birth of a second child, the fruit of stolen meetings between the captive pair, aggravated in the jealous eyes of Elizabeth their common guilt. Warner lost his place for permitting or conniving at their interviews, and Hertford was sentenced in the Star-chamber to a fine of fifteen thousand pounds for the double offence of vitiating a female of the royal blood, and of breaking his prison to renew his offence.
It might somewhat console this persecuted pair under all their sufferings, to learn how unanimously the public voice was in their favor. No one doubted that they were lawfully married,—a fact which was afterwards fully established,—and it was asked, by what right, or on what principle, her majesty presumed to keep asunder those whom God had joined? Words ran so high on this subject after the sentence of the Star-chamber, that some alarmists in the privy-council urged the necessity of inflicting still severer punishment on the earl, and of intimidating the talkers by strong measures. The further consequences of this affair to persons high in her majesty's confidence will be related hereafter: meantime it must be recorded, to the eternal disgrace of Elizabeth's character and government, that she barbarously and illegally detained her ill-fated kinswoman, first in the Tower and afterwards in private custody, till the day of her death in January 1567; and that the earl her husband, having added to the original offence of marrying a princess, the further presumption of placing upon legal record the proofs of his children's legitimacy, was punished, besides his fine, with an imprisonment of nine whole years. So much of the jealous spirit of her grandfather still survived in the bosom of this last of the Tudors!
On another occasion, however, she exercised towards a family whose pretensions had been viewed by her father with peculiar dread and hostility, a degree of forbearance which had in it somewhat of magnanimity.
Arthur and Edmund Pole, two nephews of the cardinal, with sir Anthony Fortescue their sister's husband, and other accomplices, had been led, either by private ambition, by a vehement zeal for the Romish faith, or both together, to meditate the subversion of the existing state of things, and to plan the following wild and desperate scheme.
Having first repaired to France, where they expected to receive aid and counsels from the Guises, the conspirators were to return at the head of an army and make a landing in Wales. Here Arthur Pole, assuming at the same time the title of duke of Clarence, was to proclaim the queen of Scots, and the new sovereign was soon after to give her hand to his brother Edmund. This absurd plot was detected before any steps were taken towards its execution: the Poles were apprehended, and made a full disclosure on their trial of all its circumstances; pleading however in excuse, that they had no thought of putting their design in practice till the death of the queen, an event which certain diviners in whom they placed reliance had confidently predicted within the year.
In consideration of this confession, and probably of the insignificance of the offenders, the royal pardon was extended to their lives, and the illustrious name of Pole was thus preserved from extinction. It is probable, however, that they were kept for some time prisoners in the Tower; and thither was also sent the countess of Lenox, on discovery of the secret correspondence which she carried on with the queen of Scots.
The confession of the Poles seems to have given occasion to the renewal, by the parliament of 1562, of a law against "fond and fantastical prophecies," promulgated with design to disturb the queen's government; by which act also it was especially forbidden to make prognostications on or by occasion of any coats of arms, crests, or badges; a clause added, it is believed, for the particular protection of the favorite, Dudley, whose bear and ragged staff was the continual subject of open derision or emblematical satire.
A legend in the "Mirror for Magistrates," relating the unhappy catastrophe of George duke of Clarence, occasioned by a prophecy against one whose name began with a G, appears to have been composed in aid of the operation of this law. The author takes great pains to impress his readers with the futility as well as wickedness of such predictions, and concludes with the remark, that no one ought to imagine the foolish and malicious inventors of modern prophecies inspired, though
..."learned Merlin whom God gave the sprite
To know and utter princes' acts to come,
Like to the Jewish prophets did recite
In shade of beasts their doings all and some;
Expressing plain by manners of the doom
That kings and lords such properties should have
As have the beasts whose name he to them gave!"
In France every thing now wore the aspect of an approaching civil war between the partisans of the two religions, under the conduct on one side of the Guises, on the other of the princes of the house of Condé. Elizabeth judged it her duty, or her policy, to make a last effort for the reconciliation of these angry factions, and she dispatched an ambassador to Charles IX. charged with her earnest representations on the subject. They were however ineffectual, and produced apparently no other valuable result than that of rendering her majesty better acquainted with the talents and merit of the eminent person whom she had honored with this delicate commission.