How soon Catharine de Medici and her son regretted the false step of St. Bartholomew is seen by their attitude towards England early in the following year (1573). The Archbishop of Glasgow was plainly told that no more help could be given to his mistress, Cardinal Lorraine failed ignominiously to draw France into renewed activity on behalf of the League, and Charles IX. considered it necessary to apologise to Elizabeth for the presence in his court of the special papal envoy already referred to. It was seen also that the blood and iron policy of Alba had ended in failure: the revolt in the Netherlands was stronger than ever, Holland was entirely in the hands of Orange, and most of the Catholic provinces of Flanders even had broken from their Spanish allegiance. Under these circumstances it seemed possible that the secular dream of Frenchmen might eventually come to pass, and the fine harbours and busy towns of Belgium might fall to the share of France. But this could only be if she had a close understanding and made common cause with England. So once more the Alençon marriage was vigorously pushed to the front by Catharine. In February the French Ambassador saw Elizabeth, and formally prayed her to give an answer whether she would marry the Prince or not. If she would only let them know her pleasure now, the King and Queen-mother would trouble her no more. It was a good opportunity, and Elizabeth made the most of it. Fair terms must be given to the Huguenots in Rochelle, she said, and on condition that this was done, she would give an answer about Alençon through Lord Burghley. On the 18th February the Lord Treasurer made his formal speech. The Queen would never marry a man she had never seen. If the Prince liked to come over, even secretly, he would be welcome; but in any case an interview had better precede the discussion of religion, because if the lovers did not fancy each other, the question of conscience would be a convenient pretext for breaking off the negotiation; but still no public exercise of Catholic worship must be expected. When Burghley sent to Walsingham a copy of his speech, he added for his private information: “I see the imminent perils to this State, and … the success (i.e. the succession) of the crown manifestly uncertain, or rather so manifestly prejudicial to the state of religion, that I cannot but still persist in seeking marriage for her Majesty, and finding no way that is liking to her but this of the Duke, I do force myself to pursue it with desire, and do fancy myself with imaginations that if he do come hither her Majesty would not refuse him.… If I am deceived, yet for the time it easeth me to imagine that such a sequel may follow.”[370] This was uncertain enough; but Walsingham was even less encouraging. He was sick of the whole hollow business; profoundly distrustful of the French; and, moreover, was a friend of Leicester, who constantly plied him with letters deprecating the match. This, then, is how he managed cleverly to stand in with Burghley whilst serving Leicester. “Touching my private opinion of the marriage, the great impediment that I find in the same is the contentment of the eye. The gentleman, sure, is void of any good favour, besides the blemish of the small pocks. Now, when I weigh the same with the delicateness of her Majesty’s eye, and considering also that there are some about her in credit, who in respect of their particular interests, have neither regard for her Majesty, nor to the preservation of our country from ruine, and will rather increase the misliking by defacing him than by dutifully laying before her the necessity of marriage … I hardly think there will ever grow any liking.… Whether this marriage be sincerely meant here or not is a hard point to judge … in my opinion I think rather no than yea.”[371] This was almost the last letter written by Walsingham as Ambassador. He was recalled, to be shortly afterwards appointed joint-Secretary of State with Sir Thomas Smith, with the intention of still further relieving Burghley from routine labour; and Dr. Dale, as Ambassador in Paris, kept alive the ridiculous, and frequently insincere, discussion of the marriage of Elizabeth and Alençon.[372]
Burghley’s labours and anxieties were not confined to foreign affairs. His interest in the uniformity and discipline of the Anglican Church was unceasing, and especially in connection with his Chancellorship of Cambridge University, gave him endless anxiety. The vestments controversy had now widened and deepened. The famous tract called “An Admonition to Parliament” had been presented to the Parliament of 1572 by Cartwright; and its violence in a Puritan direction had provoked a controversy, which, at the period now under consideration (1573), had developed on one side into a bitter antagonism to prelacy, and even sacerdotalism in all its forms. Both parties appealed to Burghley. He made a speech in the Star Chamber which left no doubt as to his attitude, if any such ever existed, on the point. The Queen, he said, was determined to have the laws obeyed. No innovation of ritual or practice would be permitted. If any of the “novelists” were under the impression that departures from the rules laid down would remain unpunished, he disabused their minds. A Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, named Chark, violently attacked the hierarchy from the University pulpits, and was admonished. He persisted, and was ejected from his Fellowship. Another Cambridge man, Edward Dering, Lecturer at St. Paul’s Cathedral, acted similarly, and was summoned before the Privy Council, and was suspended from his preferment. At the instance of Bishop Sandys[373] he was restored, but again brought before the Star Chamber when he addressed a long letter to Burghley advocating his views. Whilst Leicester always favoured the Puritans, the Lord Treasurer was thus on the side of the law and the prelates; and though he was constantly chosen as arbiter, even by those with whom he disagreed, he never wavered in his insistence on the maintenance of uniformity, and obedience to the prescriptions laid down by Parliament and the rulers of the Church.[374]
Notwithstanding the appointment of two Secretaries of State, which somewhat relieved him from writing despatches, almost every matter, great and small, was still referred to Burghley. We have given instances of his activity in foreign and ecclesiastical affairs; but, as Ellis[375] truly says, “from a question of peace or war, down to a regulation for the lining of slop hose; from quarrels at court to the bickering between a schoolmaster and his scholar; from the arrest of a peer to the punishment of a cutpurse—all was reported to him, and by all parties in turn his favour was craved.”
It must have been difficult for him to keep clear of court factions and scandal; but though it was notorious that Leicester always opposed him, they still remained outwardly friendly, and their letters to each other are full of civil expressions. Sussex and Hatton were for ever at feud with Leicester. Alençon’s amorous agents scandalised all beholders by their open flirting with the Queen, to which Leicester retorted by making violent love to two sisters, Lady Sheffield and Frances Howard; and the light-hearted and light-heeled young Earl of Oxford, Burghley’s son-in-law at this time (1573), had danced himself into the good graces of the erotic Queen, which he soon lost by his folly. Stern Lady Burghley openly and imprudently condemned this philandering, and the Queen fell into a rage with her; yet “my Lord Treasurer, even after his old manner, dealeth with matters of the State only, and beareth himself very uprightly.… At all these love matters my Lord Treasurer winketh, and will not meddle any way.”[376]
Burghley’s private correspondence with his steward, Kemp, at Burghley, at this period, shows that his care for detail in his household management was as unwearied as ever. One letter written in June 1573 by Kemp is very curious. Burghley’s mother was still alive, but, of course, very aged. She appears to have become unduly penurious as to her garb, and her son had ordered a dress for the old lady. The steward writes: “Mr. Thomas Cecil came home well, and my mistress, your mother, came to Burghley two hours before him. The gown that you would make, it must be for every day, and yet because it comes from you (except you write to her to the contrary) she will make it her holiday gown; whereof she hath great store already, both of silk and cloth. But I think, sir, if you make her one of cloth, with some velvet on it, with your letter to desire her for your sake to wear it daily, she would accustom herself to it; so as she would forget to go any longer in such base apparel as she hath used to have a delight in, which is too mean for one of a lower estate than she is.” The old lady also desired a chaplain for service twice a day; and by Burghley’s endorsement on the letter, it is evident that the gown and the chaplain were sent to her.
During the Queen’s great progress through Kent and Sussex in the autumn, Burghley attended her; and whilst the court was at Eridge, the Treasurer, not without difficulty, persuaded the Queen to accede to Mary Stuart’s request, through the Earl of Shrewsbury, that she should be allowed to visit the baths of Buxton, whither shortly afterwards Burghley himself went for his own malady,[377] and saw the unhappy Queen, whom on this occasion, at all events, he impressed not unfavourably.[378] During the Queen’s progress, which was on a more lavish scale even than usual,[379] a determined attempt was made—and, according to one of Mary Stuart’s letters from Buxton, not quite unsuccessfully—to arouse Elizabeth’s distrust of Burghley. Simultaneously there were sent to the Queen, to Burghley, to Bacon, and the principal courtiers and ecclesiastics, another violent book printed in France against Burghley and the Lord Keeper. A copy was sent to the Queen by Lord Windsor, a refugee on the Continent, with great professions of attachment, and hints evidently directed against Burghley, “although for my part, in mine opinion, I suppose he is too wise to be overtaken in many of those things which he is touched withal.”[380] Burghley received his copy from an unknown hand in Canterbury Cathedral precincts, where he was lodged, and it appears quite to have upset his equanimity. He wrote (11th September 1573) to the Archbishop (Parker) bitterly resenting the attack at such a time “by some domestic hidden scorpion.” “If God and our consciences were not our defence and consolation against these pestilential darts, we might well be weary of our lives.” Parker returned “the mad book, so outrageously penned that malice hath made him blind. I judge it not worth an answer.” Bacon was less disturbed with the matter than his brother-in-law, and summarises the contents of the book as follows: “It consisteth of three points. Chiefly it is to change the religion that now is; 2nd, to establish the Scottish Queen’s party; and, 3rd, is an invective against us two. I like the conjunction of the matter, though I mislike the impudent lies of the author to maintain it.”
The accession of Morton to the Regency of Scotland had been followed by the complete collapse of Mary’s cause there. Killigrew was ready with English bribes, and the Hamiltons and the Gordons were induced to abandon a hopeless struggle and lay down their arms. Only Kirkaldy of Grange held out, hoping against hope that the promised Guisan help would reach him in Edinburgh Castle. Once a large sum of French money for him was withheld by the treachery of Sir James Balfour, corrupt almost to the point of grotesqueness; and thenceforward Kirkaldy, Lord Hume, and the rest of the party simply held out in the castle to save their lives. But when Drury with English troops crossed the Border and reinforced Morton, Kirkaldy surrendered to the English general, on promise of fair treatment. Morton insisted upon the prisoners being delivered to him, for whilst they lived, he said, there would be no safety for him or the State; and though Drury held out, Elizabeth at last gave way to Morton’s importunity, and brave Kirkaldy and the rest of Mary’s staunch friends lost their heads. Thenceforward Mary Stuart’s cause was dead, so far as the Scottish people themselves were concerned. Morton nearly obtained the Bishop of Ross, too, from Elizabeth, but he was after all a sovereign’s Ambassador, and her Council dissuaded her from surrendering him. On his abject submission and solemn promise never again to take part in public affairs,[381] he was allowed to go to France, to break his pledge at once, and become thenceforward an untiring agent for the furtherance of Spanish aims in England. Thus Scotland for a time, under so firm an English ally as Morton, ceased to cause active anxiety to Elizabeth and her minister.
Alba, sick of his sanguinary failure, was replaced in Flanders by a more diplomatic Governor (Requesens) late in 1573. Though De Guaras in London continued humbly to imitate De Spes, and immersed himself in intrigues, such as that of the English captains who proposed to betray Flushing, the plans of those who offered to kill the Prince of Orange, to kidnap the young King of Scotland, and the like, many of these plans were merely traps set by Burghley to learn how far the Spaniards were willing to go; and they came to nothing, for of all things Philip needed peace the most. Alba and the war party in Spain were in disgrace, the commerce of the country was almost destroyed by the privateers, and friendly relations with England were once more the great object of Philip’s policy. Burghley also renewed his efforts to draw the countries closer together, for reasons which will presently be stated. A great delivery of Catholics from prison was made mainly at his instance, and drew upon him remonstrances and attacks, both on the part of some of the Bishops themselves, in a guarded fashion, and more violently from the Puritans, now openly patronised by Leicester. Arising out of this, a great conspiracy was said to have been discovered against the lives of Archbishop Parker and Lord Burghley, on the part of one Undertree. The depositions of the accused, which are in the Hatfield Papers, are, as usual in such cases, full to the extent of diffuseness; but though Parker was much alarmed, and the affair gave Burghley an infinity of trouble, there does not appear to have been much importance really attached to it.
The key to Burghley’s milder attitude towards the Catholics—apart from the disappearance of Mary Stuart’s party in Scotland—was the position of affairs in France. The talk of Elizabeth’s marriage with Alençon had continued uninterruptedly, drawn out with a thousand banalities as to the possibility of secret meetings between the lovers, the depth and number of pock holes on the suitor’s face, his personal qualities, his religious elasticity, and the like. His brother, Charles IX., was only twenty-four, but it was known that he could not live long; the heir, Anjou, now King of Poland, was a furious and fanatical Catholic. With the knowledge of Elizabeth and her minister, all France was enveloped in a vast conspiracy, in which the Montmorencis and the “politicians” were making common cause with the Huguenots, of which combination Alençon was the figurehead. But Catharine de Medici was fully aware of the fact, and was determined to frustrate it. With Anjou for King she might still be supreme in France; whereas the rise of Alençon, under the tutelage of the Huguenots and the Queen of England, would have meant extinction for her. Several times before Charles died, Alençon and the Princes of Navarre and Condé had tried to escape to England, but Catharine held them tight, and never left them. Montgomerie was waiting for the signal, with a strong fleet in the Channel, to swoop down upon Normandy, and all the Protestants and anti-Guisans in France were under arms. The mine was to burst in April, the Princes were to be rescued forcibly from Catharine, and St. Bartholomew was to be avenged. But the Queen-mother was on the alert. Just before the day fixed she hurried away from St. Germains to Catholic Paris, clapped Alençon and Navarre, Montmorenci, De Cossé, and all the chiefs into prison, and then crushed the Protestant armies piecemeal, for they were leaderless and far apart. When, therefore, Charles IX. died (30th May 1574), Catharine was mistress of the situation, and held France in her hand until the new King, Henry III., arrived, to take possession of the throne. With such a sovereign as this in France, led by Catharine, who had her grudge to satisfy against Elizabeth for the encouragement she had given to the Princes, it was natural that Burghley should again smile somewhat upon the Catholics, and say civil words to Spain; especially as panic-stricken rumours came—though they were untrue—that Philip was fitting out a great navy to send with a powerful force to Flanders.[382] Catholic Flanders, moreover, had mostly been brought back to Spanish allegiance by the mildness of Requesens; and Elizabeth was growing less willing to continue to provide large sums of money to uphold Orange in what now appeared to be a well-nigh desperate cause, if it had to be supported entirely from England. So when Requesens’ envoys came to see her about the regulation of trade, and the exclusion of the privateers from her ports, she was all smiles; and although upon being appealed to, to allow English mercenaries to serve the Spaniards in Flanders as they served Orange, she refused, though not very firmly, she expressed her desire to bring Orange to submit to the King of Spain. Once more, therefore, an unrestrained Catholic regime in France inevitably drew England and Spain closer together. It was only when the Huguenots were paramount, who would not join Philip against England, or help the Catholics of Scotland, that Elizabeth and Burghley could afford to disregard the friendship of the King of Spain.