But whilst this seed was germinating it was necessary for Cecil to dally with the Catholics and “Philipians” in England. He accordingly went (March 1561) to the Spanish Ambassador with a message—secretly purporting to come from the Queen, but ostensibly from himself—to the effect that it would be a great favour to the Queen “and a help to this business” if Philip would write her a letter as soon as possible, “urging her, in the interests of her country, to marry at once; and, as she is disinclined to marry a foreigner, he advises her to choose one of her own subjects, who, in such case, would receive Philip’s friendship and support.” Cecil affected to urge this course very warmly upon the Bishop, who, however, was wary, and insisted upon knowing definitely whether the Queen herself had sent the message. The only answer that Cecil would give was that it was not fair to drive a modest maiden like the Queen up in a corner, and make her personally responsible for steps leading to her own marriage. But he told the Bishop that the reason Philip’s letter was necessary, was that the Queen should submit it to a packed deputation of both Houses of Parliament, so that her marriage with Dudley might, in appearance, have the sanction of her people. No course so likely as this to frustrate the match could have been devised, as Dudley himself saw, for he fell ill of vexation; but, as the Bishop says, he was faint-hearted, and lacked ability and courage to break through the snares that Cecil had spread for him. The Bishop divined the plan very soon. “The deputation is being arranged,” he says, “to suit him and the heretics, who have entire control of the Queen.… She dares not go against Cecil’s advice, because she thinks that both sides would then rise up against her.”
Cecil, “who,” he says, “is entirely pledged to these unhappy heresies, and is the leader of the business,” tried on more than one occasion to draw the Spanish Bishop into religious controversy—the Bishop thought, with the object of discovering whether Dudley or the Queen had gone further in their pledges than he had been told. He suggested that the Pope should send theologians to England to discuss religion with English divines, but the Bishop would not hear of it. Then he proposed that the Bishop himself should secretly meet the Archbishop of Canterbury (Parker) and endeavour to bring about a religious modus vivendi; to which the Spaniard replied, that if they were sincere in their desire to agree, they had better begin with the main points of difference, instead of discussing secondary points of dogma.[139]
Cecil assured him that the Queen would send representatives to the Pope’s Council, on condition that it was held in a place satisfactory to other princes; that the Pope or his legate should preside over the Council, not so as to infer that he was the ruler of it, but only the president of its deliberations; that questions of faith might be decided by Holy Scripture, the consensus of divines, and the decisions of early councils; that the English bishops should be recognised as equals of the rest; and other conditions of the same sort, which obviously frustrated—as they were meant to do—all hope of the religious compact, upon which Dudley’s hopes were ostensibly built. In the court, we are told, Cecil went about saying that the Queen wished to send her envoys to the Council, but that a Council could not judge questions of faith, nor could the Pope, as of right, claim to preside.[140] On the one hand, he reprehended the Bishop of Winchester (Horn) for preaching against the authority of the Councils, and caused a meeting of bishops to be called at Lambeth, to settle a profession of faith to be sent to the Council; whilst, on the other, he told the Spaniard that if when the Pope wrote to the Queen he did not give her her full titles of Queen of England and Defender of the Faith, she would not receive his letters. Well might Quadra say: “I do not know what to think of it all: these people are in such a confusion that they confound me as well. Cecil is a very great heretic, but he is neither foolish nor false, and he professes to treat me very frankly. He has conceded to me these three points, which I consider of the utmost importance, however much he may twist them to the other side.” Whoever else may have been confused, we may be certain that Cecil knew what he was about, for he completely hoodwinked and conciliated the Spanish Bishop and the Catholics until his new combination was consolidated.[141] The English Catholics were more leniently treated; and the Queen and court were almost inconveniently friendly with Quadra, who was obliged to whisper to his friends that it was all make-believe. He said more truly than he thought at the time. At the end of April, Cecil’s arrangements were complete, and the mask could be dropped safely.
At the instance of Randolph the Scottish Lords of the Congregation had commissioned James Stuart, Mary’s natural brother, afterwards Earl of Murray, who was already in English pay, to visit his sister in France, and influence her to return to Scotland pledged to the treaty of Edinburgh, and to place herself in the hands of the Protestant party. For the moment the Guises in France were in disgrace, and plotting for their own advancement, so that it suited them to appear to acquiesce in an arrangement which promised that their niece should take possession of her kingdom without disturbance. James Stuart, carefully coached by Throgmorton, went back to London with the assurance that all was well.[142] Mundt, in Germany, had drawn the league closer between England and the Princes; Bedford in France had completed a cordial arrangement with Vendôme, Coligny, and the Protestants; Philip’s Netherlands were in seething discontent, his coffers were empty and he was in a death grapple with the Turk for the mastery of the Mediterranean. There was nothing for England to fear, therefore. Circumstances and Cecil’s diplomacy had placed once more all the cards into his hands, and again he could go forward on a straight course.
The pretext for a change was given by the secret presence of a papal nuncio in Ireland. English Catholics were suddenly proceeded against all over the country for attending mass. Sir Edward Waldegrave and other ex-members of Mary’s Council were thrown into the Tower; the Pope’s legate, who was hurrying with all sorts of concessions, and an invitation to Elizabeth to send envoys to the Council of Trent, was refused admittance into England; and the old Bishop of Aquila found once more that Cecil had outwitted him. There were no more conciliatory religious discussions or amiable attentions; on the contrary, the Ambassador, to his intense indignation, was accused of taking part in plots against the Queen, and found himself slighted on all sides. A great outcry took place that a conspiracy of Catholics had been discovered to poison the Queen, the rumour in all probability being part of the general plan to weaken and discredit the Catholic party; and Cecil himself drew up a paper, still extant,[143] urging her Majesty not to place any apparel next her skin until it had been carefully examined, that no perfume should be inhaled by her which came from a stranger, that no food should be consumed by her unless it was dressed by her own cooks, that twice a week she should take some contra pestum, that the back doors of her apartments should be strictly guarded, and so forth. Whether Cecil was really apprehensive of danger to the Queen at the time is uncertain; but this general change of attitude towards the Catholics in less than four months suspiciously coincided with the successful consolidation of the Protestants throughout Europe, and the paralysation for harm both of Spain and France in the matter of Mary Stuart.
How far Dudley was sincere in his approaches to the Catholics on this occasion may be doubted. He would have been willing, of course, to have paid any price—or rather have made his country pay any price—for his marriage with the Queen; but there are circumstances which tend to the belief that he and Cecil, for once, had joined their forces, Cecil probably promising his support to Dudley’s suit in exchange for this clever “entertaining” of Spain and the Catholics until the Protestant coalition was formed. In any case, Dudley was in nowise cast down at the rupture of the negotiations, but remained on excellent terms with Cecil, and flirted with the Queen more furiously than ever. In the meanwhile the King of Sweden had made all preparations for visiting England. The extreme Protestant party had continued to encourage him during the time that the Queen, Cecil, and Dudley were lulling the Catholics; but now that the Catholic mask had been dropped, Eric’s visit was very inconvenient to the Queen. Mary Stuart was a widow, and every court in Europe was intriguing for her marriage.[144] Elizabeth knew that if she was forced into a marriage with the King of Sweden, Mary would immediately be wedded to a nominee of Philip, for which object Cardinal Lorraine was already planning. Eric was therefore refused a passport into England;[145] the Lord Mayor was ordered to suppress the prints which had been scattered by the Protestants, representing Elizabeth and Eric XIV. together (July 1561),[146] and the embarrassment of the Swede’s advances was postponed until a more convenient season.
The English Catholics were naturally losing heart. They had looked in vain for help from Philip ever since the Queen’s accession. The war party in the Spanish King’s councils had ceaselessly urged him to overturn Elizabeth and the “heretics” before their power was consolidated. Feria and his successor the Bishop had done their best to keep alive the hopes of Elizabeth’s enemies in England; but as year followed year and leaden-footed Philip moved not the English Catholics began to cast their eyes elsewhere. Mary Stuart arrived in Scotland (19th August 1561) surrounded by her Lorraine kinsmen. Elizabeth now thoroughly distrusted her, for she saw that she was her match in dissimulation, at all events, and made some show of intercepting her on the voyage;[147] but her Scottish subjects of all faiths were ready to welcome the young half-foreign Queen from whom they hoped so much. The country was practically in a condition of anarchy; but the administration, such as it was, was in the hands of the reform party under Maitland and James Stuart. Although herself devoutly following the Catholic faith—to the disgust of the predominant party—the Queen soon after her arrival confirmed the free exercise of the Protestant worship, and for a time both she and her ministers were popular. To the north, therefore, the English Catholic party now cast their eyes. Catharine Grey had recently contracted a doubtful marriage with the eldest son (Hertford) of the Protector Somerset, and was out of the question as a Catholic candidate; but Mary Stuart’s claim to the English throne was in many respects better than that of Elizabeth herself. Lady Margaret Lennox, too, was busy in the north of England, where the population was mainly Catholic, plotting for the marriage of her son and the subsequent raising of the country in the interests of Mary and a Catholic England.
In the meanwhile Elizabeth was somewhat roughly demanding to know why Mary delayed the ratification of the treaty of Edinburgh, and jealously watching for any signs of matrimonial negotiations to her detriment. The Earl of Arran, Elizabeth’s candidate for Mary Stuart’s hand, was extremely unpopular with the Scottish people, and soon became impossible as a consort for the Queen; and the carefully laid plans of Elizabeth and Cecil in Scotland were seen to be at the mercy of a secret matrimonial intrigue, which might be sprung upon them at any moment. Maitland of Lethington, Mary’s Secretary of State, ostensibly a Protestant, went to London[148] and saw Cecil in September, in the hope of arranging matters. He professed to be sanguine about the Arran marriage; but though bound to the English interest, he protested more than once on his return, in letters to Cecil, upon the pressure exerted upon his mistress to renounce her English birthright, and even begged the Secretary to furnish him with a draft of a reply for Mary to send which he thought might satisfy Elizabeth. Whilst Lord James, Maitland, and Cecil were trying to conciliate and calm matters, the zealot Knox and his like were clamouring for extreme measures and embittering spirits on both sides. Cecil in vain counselled Knox to be moderate; the reply reproaches him for “swimming betwixt two waters,” and throws all the blame for the troubles on moderate statesmen like Lord James and Lethington, “whose mistaken forbearance and gentleness” he denounces. The young Queen, he says, will never be of “our opinion, and in very deed her whole proceedings do declare that the Cardinal’s lessons are so deeply imprinted on her heart, that they … are like to perish together.… In communication with her I espied such craft as I have not found in such age.”
This opinion must only be accepted as that of a bitterly severe man on one whose position was as difficult as can well be conceived. English Catholics, Mary knew, now looked to her as their only hope. She was a daughter of kings, brought up in a deep school of statecraft, and was determined to resist the demanded renunciation of her birthright in England at the bidding of a rival. Her letter to Elizabeth (5th January 1562)[149] explains why she declined to ratify the treaty of Edinburgh, pathetically pleads that the clause in the treaty renouncing her rights to the English succession was agreed to without her authority, and she appeals to the generosity of so near a cousin not to make her a stranger to her own blood. She will, she says, make a new treaty on Elizabeth’s own terms, if her rights to succeed, failing Elizabeth’s issue, are not prejudiced. But on this point Elizabeth would never give way. As we have seen, it was the keynote of Cecil’s policy all his life to secure England from the presence of a probable enemy on the Scottish border, and this question of Mary’s claim to the English succession, especially with her marriage still undecided, touched the heart of the whole matter. It was evident, moreover, that at this juncture the great trial of arms between the Catholics and Protestants throughout Europe was at hand. The war of religion was already looming near in France and Flanders, papal emissaries had incited armed revolt in Ireland against the Queen’s Protestant measures, and English Catholics were in a dangerous state of ferment.[150] It was therefore of the most vital interest, not only to England and Elizabeth, but to the reform party throughout Europe, that no advantage should be given in Scotland to vigilant enemies, who, by the control of that country, would have been enabled to ruin the acknowledged head of the Protestant confederacy. It is the fashion to accuse Elizabeth and Cecil of unprincipled rancour against Mary Stuart. Generosity and magnanimity, it may be conceded, were not conspicuous characteristics of either of them. But before judging too harshly, it should be considered that their lives, the freedom and independence of England, and the fate of the reformed religion depended almost inevitably upon the course of events in Scotland, and both Elizabeth and her minister would have been false to their trust if they had not availed themselves of all the means which circumstances and the feeling of the times placed in their hands to prevent Mary Stuart and her country from precipitating their downfall.
Cecil’s position in London also was surrounded with difficulties. The Catholics, even those about the Queen, were busy, and reports of plans for poisoning Elizabeth continued without cessation. Everything, great and small, had to be done by Cecil. “He has,” writes the Bishop of Aquila, “absolutely taken possession of the Queen and Council, but he is so perplexed and unpopular that I do not know how he will be able to stand if there are any disturbances.”[151] The Queen, moreover, fell ill: “she is falling away and is extremely thin, and the colour of a corpse.” The sorely tried Secretary, bearing upon his shoulders everybody’s burden, frequently sick himself,[152] but working early and late, endeavouring to keep a middle course whilst holding to his policy, naturally aroused no enthusiasm. Extreme men of all parties cavilled at his methods; only the Queen grew in her trust of him, for she at least understood, as perhaps no other person did, that he was almost the only person near her who was not bribed. The city and the trading classes, however, by this time had seen the good results of his commercial and fiscal policy. From the first days of the reign he had set about reforming the currency, and he enters in his diary for 29th May of this year (1561) a statement which shows that his labours at last bore fruit. “Base monies decried and fine silver coined,” he writes; and in November a proclamation was issued that Spanish gold and silver money, which during the debasement of English coin had been a favourite form of currency, should no longer be allowed, but should be taken to the Queen’s mint for exchange into English coin. “The Queen,” grumbles the Spanish Ambassador, “makes a profit on it, as she did with the other money she called in.” No doubt she did, but the new pure coinage placed English merchants at an immense advantage in trading abroad, and they thanked Cecil for it.[153] “There hath,” says Camden, “been better and purer money in England than was seen in two hundred years before, or hath been elsewhere in use throughout Europe.” Nor was this all. Shipbuilding under subsidy had progressed very rapidly, and English commerce was penetrating into regions hitherto unapproached.[154] The Hawkinses had already shown the way to the West Coast of Africa, but the Portuguese had so far successfully resisted the establishment of a regular trade. English ships, however, now found their way down to Elmina, on the Gold Coast, with frequency distressing to the Portuguese; whilst English and Scotch privateers, and pirates who called themselves such, preyed almost unchecked upon Spanish and Flemish small craft about the Channel. Against both of these grievances the Spanish and Portuguese ministers complained often and bitterly. Throughout his life Cecil set his face against piracy in all its forms, as being inimical to legitimate trade, and at his instance five of the Queen’s ships were fitted out (1561) for the purpose of suppressing the corsairs; but to the other complaint he turned a very different face.