The behaviour of the young sovereign of France—no longer a king, but a besotted monk, sunk into the deepest abyss of debauchery and superstition—kept alive the discontent of the Huguenots and “politicians,” who had regarded his accession with horror. Alençon and the King held rival courts in Paris, the one surrounded by reformers, the other by all that was retrograde and vicious. Cardinal Lorraine was dead, and the King’s advisers were no longer statesmen, but mendicant friars and the Italian time-servers of the Queen-mother: Henry of Guise was just entering into the arena, and was already a popular idol; and all seemed to portend a renewal of French activity in favour of Mary Stuart.[383] Elizabeth therefore went out of her way to dazzle poor foolish De Guaras again. Seeing him walking in Richmond Park, she called him to her, and exerted all her witchery upon him (March 1575). “You understand,” she said, “full well, old wine, old bread, and old friends should be prized the most, and if only for the sake of showing these Frenchmen who are wrangling as to whether our friendship is firm or not, there is good reason to prove outwardly the kind feeling which inwardly exists.”[384] She accused the poor man, quite coquettishly, of having received a token from the Queen of Scots—which he had not—but ended by quite winning him over by her prattle. Almost simultaneously with this, strict orders were given to the Warden of the Cinque Ports “to prevent the landing of the Prince of Orange, or any of his aiders or abettors in the conspiracy against the King of Spain, and also to prevent their receiving any aid, succour, or relief, in men, armour, or victuals.”[385]
Considering that the revolt in Holland had been mainly kept up from England, this was indeed a complete change of policy; but more was behind it even than appeared. Many of the Catholic refugees on the Continent were spies in the service of Lord Burghley, to whom nearly all of them appealed as their only hope and protector, and one of them particularly, named Woodshaw,[386] who was deep in the confidence of La Motte, the Spanish Governor of Gravelines. The latter suggested that, as war between France and England was in the air, it would be a good plan for the English to seize Calais or Boulogne, with the aid of the Spaniards, and come to terms with Philip to prevent any aid or food reaching the French from Flanders or Artois. This was conveyed to Burghley, and soon Sir William Drury, Colonel Chester, and several of the officers who had come from Holland, were in close conference daily with him and the other Councillors remaining in London when the Queen went upon her summer progress. De Guaras, whilst reporting their movements, was in the dark as to their object. “During the last three days,” he says, “at night or at unsuspected hours, they have taken from the Tower sixty waggons and gun carriages, which have been shipped to Dover.” Guns, battery-trains, culverins, fieldpieces, and ammunition were being shipped on four of the Queen’s ships at Rochester. Mariners were being pressed, commanders were leaving secretly for the coast, Burghley’s son-in-law the Earl of Oxford, with Ralph Hopton and young Montmorenci, hurried off to Germany, and the Huguenot agents were closeted with Burghley almost day and night. We know now what it all meant, by a letter from the Earl of Sussex to Lord Burghley,[387] in which he deplores the projected war with Catholic France, which, he says, is only brought about by those who wish to prevent the Queen’s marriage with Alençon. “It will bring her into war with all Europe, and she and the realm will smart for the pleasing of these men’s humours.” The cost of the war, he says, was to be defrayed equally by the King of Navarre (Henry), the German princes, and the Queen; “but he fears her Majesty in the end must pay for all, or let all fall when she hath put her foot in.”
Wilkes, the Clerk of the Council, was sent with a large sum of money to young Montmorenci (Meru) in Strasbourg, and then over the Rhine to the Duke Hans Casimir, the great mercenary; and Meru was able to write to Burghley in October, “Thanks to the Queen’s favour by your means, we are now on the point of succeeding. One of the finest armies that for twenty years hath issued from Germany, ready to march, is coming just in time to succour the King’s brother.”[388] All through the summer De Guaras was at fault as to the meaning of the preparations, which he thought might be a joint expedition against the Spaniards in Flanders. As we have seen, the very opposite really was the case. Some of the principal English officers, indeed, who had been with Orange were full of plots with De Guaras for poisoning the Prince, for betraying Flushing into Spanish hands, and so forth. For the moment there were certainly no smiles from Elizabeth for the Netherlanders; for Orange had taken a masterly step, such as she herself might have conceived. When he saw that English help was slackening, he boldly made approaches to France for help. So long as it was Huguenot help under her control, Elizabeth did not mind; but when it was a question of marrying Orange’s daughter to Alençon or some other French prince, and obtaining French national patronage, it was quite another matter—that Elizabeth would never allow. So England and Spain grew closer and closer. Sir Henry Cobham was sent as an envoy to Philip, ostensibly on the question of the English prisoners of the Inquisition, but really to propose a friendship between the two countries, and inform the King of the Prince of Orange’s intrigues with the French.[389] A Spanish flotilla on its way to the Netherlands, under Don Pedro de Valdés, was, moreover, welcomed in the English ports, and an envoy from Requesens took part, as the Queen’s guest, in the memorable festivities at Kenilworth.
A renewed appeal was made to the Council by Orange in August, through Colonel Chester. He offered the island of Zeeland to Elizabeth, if she would hold it, and begged permission to raise two thousand fresh men in England. The reply given by Burghley was to the effect that “if the Queen allowed such a thing, the King of Spain would have a good cause for introducing schism and fire into her country through Ireland. If Orange carried out his threat to hand over the territory to the French, the Queen would oppose it.” Every day some fresh proof of friendship with Spain was given. Frobisher proposed to place his fleet at the disposal of the King of Spain, proclamations were issued forbidding all British subjects from taking service with Orange, and offers of mediation were frequent. In September 1575, Alençon managed to escape the vigilance of his brother and his mother, fled to Dreux, adopted the Huguenot cause, and headed the revolt with Henry of Navarre. This was the eventuality in which the English preparations were to have been employed. But, again, Catharine de Medici was too clever to be caught. She suddenly released Montmorenci and the rest of the “politicians” from the Bastile, attached them to the King’s cause, and through them patched up a six months’ truce between the two brothers (November). The terms were hard for Henry. Alençon was bribed with 100,000 livres, and the three rich duchies of Anjou, Berri, and Touraine; Hans Casimir got 300,000 crowns, and a pension of 40,000 livres; the German mercenaries were handsomely paid to go home; Condé was promised the governorship of Picardy; the Montmorencis, De Cossé, the Chatillons, and the rest of the malcontents were bought; the crown jewels of France were pawned, and the country plunged deeply in debt to pay for the famous truce.
Then Elizabeth and her advisers found themselves confronted with increased difficulties, as they usually did when the Catholics in France had a free hand. Catharine and the King saw that France was not big enough to hold at the same time the sovereign and the heir presumptive, and cast about for means to get rid of him profitably. The best suggestion for them came from the Walloon nobles in favour of Spain. Why should not Alençon marry a daughter of the Spanish King and be made Viceroy of Spanish Flanders? The mere whisper of such an arrangement drove Elizabeth into a new course. She might hint, as she did pretty broadly many times, at the marriage of the young Prince with herself, but Alençon thought he saw more advantage elsewhere. For the next three years he was held tightly in the leading-strings of his mother and brother—no longer a Huguenot, but an ostentatiously devout Catholic, hating the King and his surroundings bitterly; jealous, vengeful, and turbulent, but looking for his future to the Catholics and the League rather than to the Queen of England, with whom he kept up just a sufficient pretence of love-making to prevent her from opposing him in Flanders. It was doubly necessary now for Elizabeth to be friendly with Spain; but she could not afford to see Orange utterly crushed, for with the Huguenots and Protestant Holland both subdued, there was no barrier between her and Catholic vengeance. The position was a perplexing one for her. Orange sent over prayers almost daily for help, or he must abandon the struggle. At one time, in December, when the Queen learned that a great deputation of Dutch Protestant nobles were on the way to offer her Holland and Zeeland in exchange for English support,[390] “she entered her chamber alone, slamming the door after her, and crying out that they were ruining her over this business. She declared loudly that she would have no forces sent openly to Holland. She was in such grief that her ladies threatened to burst her door open if she would not admit them, as they could not bear her to be alone in such trouble.”[391] But loudly as she might protest, especially in the hearing of the friends of Spain, and roughly as she might use St. Aldegonde, Paul Buiz, and the rest of the Netherlanders who prayed for aid, she took care, with Burghley’s help, to look fixedly in another direction when men and arms, munitions and money, were sent over to Orange in violation of her own orders.
What Lord Burghley’s action in the matter was is seen by his letters. Beale, one of the clerks of the Council, was sent over to Zeeland to report on Orange’s position, and to insist upon the suppression of piracy. Burghley thus writes to Walsingham (16th April 1576): “I have perused all the letters and memorandum of Mr. Beale’s concerning his voyage into Zeeland, and so well allow of the whole course therein taken by the Lords, that both with heart and hand I sign them.”[392] The Flushing pirates appear to have offered some insult to the Earl of Oxford, Burghley’s son-in-law, on his way to England, at which the Treasurer was extremely angry,[393] an unusual thing with him. In the same letter he writes: “I find it hard to make a good distinction between anger and judgment for Lord Oxford’s misusage, and especially when I look into the universal barbarism of the Prince’s (Orange) force of Flushingers, who are only a rabble of common pirates, or worse, who make no difference whom they outrage, I mistrust any good issue of the cause, though of itself it should be favoured.” He almost violently urges that Beale should ask the Prince of Orange to avenge such an insult “by hanging some of the principals.” “Such an outrage cannot be condoned without five or six of such thieves being hanged. If the Prince were rid of a hundred of them it would be better for the cause. You see my anger leadeth my judgment. But I am not truly more moved hereto for particular causes than for the public.”[394] The same day a very strong remonstrance from the English Council was written to Orange, saying that the piracy of the Flushing men was rendering his cause odious to all Christendom, and would ruin his enterprise.
The Netherlanders, especially Paul Buiz, who lodged with Burghley’s servant, Herll, in Redcross Street, did their best to excuse the Flushingers, and begged that “these rough men be not roughly dealt with.” It is evident that they looked upon Leicester and the Puritans as their champions rather than moderate Burghley, whose approaches to Spain at the time were, of course, well known. Herll writes (14th March 1576): “It is given out by those of good sort who profess the religion, that your Lordship has been the only obstacle to this Holland service, by dissuading her Majesty from the enterprise, when the Earl of Leicester and several earnest friends were furtherers thereof. They complain that these poor men who were sent to the Queen have been, contrary to promise, kept by indirect dealing so long here, to their utter undoing at home and abroad. They say that Sir F. Walsingham dealt honestly with them from the first. He said they would get nothing, and lose their time. They say these unworthy proceedings with foreign nations make the English the most hated men in the world, and to be contemned for mere abusers, as those who put on religion and piety and justice for a cloak to serve humours withal. Your Lordship’s enemies, however, are compelled to say that you are more subject to evil judgment for your good service than for evil itself.” When Herll spoke to Paul Buiz about Burghley’s anger at the outrage on Lord Oxford, the Netherlander “struck his breast, and said your Lordship was the only man who had dealt sincerely with them, and truly favoured their cause, and yet was forced to give them hard words, according to the alterations of the time, parties, and occasion, which kind of free proceeding he preferred of all others.”[395]
A few months later (August) Herll was made the means of conveying to Colonel Chester, then with Orange, Lord Burghley’s view of the situation. “Her Majesty,” he says, “is so moved by those insolent delinges of the Prynce and his Zeelanders, as none dare move her to ani consideratyon towards theme, butt all is sett uppon revenge of their lewd acts and worse speche, and to extermynate them owt of the world, rather than endure it ani longer. And where the Prynce pretends aid owt of France, he dawnceth in a nett. If he se not that, her Majesty knows the contrary, and that herein he is greatly abused, or seeketh to abuse others, with small credit to hymselfe and less assurans to his estate when this maske is taken away.”[396] The great indignation about the pirates may or may not have been sincere; but it is unquestionable that it was the fear expressed of an arrangement between Orange and the French that really caused the disquietude.[397] The remedy to be proposed to Orange by Chester was simply that he, Orange, should prevent any repetition of the piratical outrages of the Flushing men, and apologise for them, and his friends in England will move the Queen “to help him underhand; but to say that her Majesty will be forced to do anything, maugre her will, is a great absurdity.” But if Orange will open his eyes and see things as they are, “somewhat (yea, some round portion) will be voluntarily given to the assistance of the cause, and to aid both Zeeland and Holland, especially the latter, to which country the Queen and her Council are greatly inclined.” Orange was a diplomatist as keen as Burghley himself, and he well knew that, as a last resource, he could always force the hands of the English Government by negotiating for aid from France. Elizabeth might swear at his envoys, make friends with his enemies the Spaniards, threaten to expend the last man and the last shilling she had to turn the French out of Flanders, if ever they entered; but she always ended in sending aid “underhand” to Orange to prevent his union with the French; unless, as happened later, the French were Huguenots disowned by their own King, and going as her humble servants.
Leicester was for ever clamouring for open help to be sent to Orange; the Puritans, who took their cue from him, were more aggressive than ever in the country;[398] but ready as the Queen might be to dally Leicester, she took care to make no serious move in the knotty question of the Netherlands without the advice of her “spirit,” as she nicknamed the great Lord Treasurer.[399] In spite of his almost continual illness, she summoned him to her, wherever she might be; and at about the period when the letters just quoted were written, the Earl of Sussex writes saying that the Queen has just received intelligence from beyond the seas which she must discuss with him at once. When Burghley had seen the Queen, either on that occasion or soon after, and returned home, Sussex writes thus: “Her Majesty spoke honourably of your Lordship’s deserts, and of her affection for you, and of your sound, deep judgment and counsel; using these words, ‘that no prince in Europe had such a councillor as she had of him.’ If your Lordship had heard her speeches, they must needs have been to your great contentment. The end of her Majesty’s speeches was that she prayed your Lordship to come to Nonsuch, as soon as you conveniently might.”
Burghley, indeed, was the only one of her ministers whom she treated with anything approaching respect, for he always respected himself. Walsingham, especially, was the object of her vulgar abuse. “Scurvy knave” and “rogue” were the terms she frequently applied to him; and it was apparently not at all an uncommon thing for her, in moments of impatience with him, to pluck off her high-heeled shoe and fling it in his face. Leicester she alternately petted and insulted. After a squabble he used to sulk at Wanstead for a few days, till she softened and commanded him to return, and then the comedy recommenced. Hatton and Heneage were treated in similar fashion, but with even less consideration. Only towards the Lord Treasurer, except for occasional fits of distrust caused by his enemies, the Queen usually behaved with decorum. How careful he was to avoid all cause for doubt is seen by his answer to Lord Shrewsbury’s offer of his son as a husband for one of Burghley’s daughters.[400] It will be recollected that Lord Shrewsbury had the custody of the Queen of Scots, and that Burghley had fallen into semi-disgrace shortly before, because he had visited Buxton at the same time as Mary and her keeper. The match proposed was a good one, and the Lord Treasurer—a new noble—was flattered and pleased at the offer, but declined it, mainly because his enemies had put into the Queen’s head that he had gone to Buxton at the instance of the Shrewsburys, to plot in favour of Mary; “and hereof at my return to her Majesty’s presence, I had very sharp reproofs … with plain charging of me for favouring the Queen of Scots, and that in so earnest sort, as I never looked for, knowing my integrity to her Majesty, but specially knowing how contrariously the Queen of Scots conceived of me for many things.” He continues his letter with an evidently sincere protest of his loyalty and disinterestedness, and the absence in him of any personal feeling against Mary, but declares his determination to do his best, at all costs, to frustrate any attempted injury against his mistress or her realm.