The Queen had ordered Heneage to go to Holland post-haste, to command Leicester openly to abandon his new title; but from the 7th February till the 14th, whilst Heneage’s harsh instructions were being drafted, Burghley was diplomatically absent from court, and the pleading of Walsingham and Hatton had no softening effect upon the Queen. On the 13th February, Davison at length arrived with Leicester’s excuses. The Queen railed and stormed until he was reduced to tears. She refused at first to receive Leicester’s letter or to delay Heneage’s departure. Burghley arrived the next day, and Davison writes on the 17th that he “had successfully exerted himself to convince the Lord Treasurer that the measures adopted were necessary, and that his Lordship had urged the Queen on the subject.”
The only effect of Burghley’s persuasion, however, was to obtain for Heneage discretion to withhold, if he considered necessary, the Queen’s letter to the States, and to save Leicester from the degradation of a public renunciation. Burghley had thus done his best to preserve Leicester’s friendship and gratitude; but, after all, it was his policy, and not that of Leicester, that was triumphant. Heneage was a friend of the Earl’s, and on his arrival in Holland delayed action; but the Queen was not to be appeased. She had, she said, been slighted, and her commission exceeded, and would send no money till her instructions were fulfilled. Confusion and danger naturally resulted, and Leicester’s friends redoubled their efforts to save him. Burghley himself assured Leicester (31st March) that he had threatened to resign his office unless she changed her course. “I used boldly such language in this matter, as I found her doubtful whether to charge me with presumption, which partly she did, or with some astonishment of my round speech, which truly was no other than my conscience did move me, even in amaritudine anima. And then her Majesty began to be more calm than before, and, as I conceived, readier to qualify her displeasure.”[509]
When the Queen saw that Heneage and Leicester were construing her leniency into acquiescence of the Earl’s action, she blazed out again; and when Burghley begged her to allow Heneage to return and explain the circumstances, “she grew so passionate in the matter that she forbade me to argue more;” and herself wrote a letter to Heneage containing these words: “Do as you are bidden, and leave your considerations for your own affairs; for in some things you had clear commandment, which you did not do, and in others none, which you did.” At the urgent prayer of the States, however, representing the danger to the cause which a public deposition of Leicester would bring about, the Queen finally allowed matters to rest until they could devise some harmless way out of the difficulty.
Throughout the whole business Burghley almost ostentatiously acted the part of Leicester’s friend. It was a safe course for him to take, for the Queen was so angry that he could keep the good-will of Leicester and the Protestants, and yet be certain of the ultimate failure of his opponent. As soon as the States understood Leicester’s position, and had realised his incompetence, they were only too anxious to be rid of him; and throughout his inglorious government Burghley could well speak in his favour, for it must have been evident that the Earl was working his own ruin, and that his position was untenable. One curious feature in the matter is that both Burghley and Walsingham hinted to Leicester that the Queen was being influenced by some one underhand. “Surely,” writes the Secretary, “there is some treachery amongst ourselves, for I cannot think she would do this out of her own head;” and the gossip of the court pointed at Ralegh, who wrote to Leicester[510] vigorously protesting against the calumny.
There were, however, wheels within wheels in Elizabeth’s court. Two of her Councillors were Spanish spies, Ralegh was Burghley’s partisan, the Conservative party in favour of friendship with the House of Burgundy was not dead, and, notwithstanding all that has been written, it may be fairly assumed that the decadence of Leicester and the militant Protestant party during the Earl’s absence in Holland did not take place without some secret prompting from Lord Burghley.
In the meanwhile the plans for the invasion of England were gradually maturing in Philip’s slow mind. The raid of Drake’s fleet upon his colonies, and Leicester’s assumption of the sovereignty of the Netherlands, had at last convinced Philip, after nearly thirty years of hesitancy, that England must be coerced into Catholicism, or Spain must descend from its high estate. So long as the elevation of Mary Stuart meant a Guisan domination of England, with shifty James as his mother’s heir, it had not suited Philip to squander his much needed resources upon the overthrow of Elizabeth; but by this time Guise was pledged to vast ambitions in France, which could only be realised by Philip’s help. The Jesuits and English Catholics had persuaded the Spaniard that he would be welcomed in England, whilst a Scot or a Frenchman would be resisted to the death. Most of Mary’s agents, too, had been bribed to the same side, and Mendoza in Paris was her prime adviser and mainstay. Various attempts were made by the Scottish Catholics and Guise’s friends to manage the subjugation of England over the Scottish Border; but though Philip affected to listen to their approaches, and used them as a diversion, his plan was already fixed—England must be won by Spaniards in Mary’s name, and be held thenceforward in Spanish hands. Mary was ready to agree to anything, and at the prompting of Philip’s agents she disinherited her son (June 1586) in favour of the King of Spain. Morgan, Paget, and others had at last succeeded in reopening communication with Mary, who had now lost all hope of release except by force. A close alliance between England and James VI. had been agreed to: she knew that no help would come from her son or his Government; and her many letters to Charles Paget, to Mendoza, and to Philip himself, leave no doubt whatever that she was fully cognisant of the plans for the overthrow, and perhaps murder, of Elizabeth, in order that she, Mary, might be raised by Spanish pikes to the English throne.[511]
In May 1586 the priest Ballard had seen Mendoza in Paris, and had sought the countenance of Spain for the assassination of Elizabeth; and in August the matter had so far progressed as to enable Gifford to give to Mendoza full particulars of the vile plan. There was, according to his account, hardly a Catholic or schismatic gentleman in England who was not in favour of the plot; and though Philip always distrusted a conspiracy known to many, he promised armed help from Flanders if the Queen were killed. Mendoza, when he saw Gifford, recommended that Don Antonio, Burghley, Walsingham, Hunsdon, Knollys, and Beale should be killed; but the King wrote on the margin of the letter, “It does not matter so much about Cecil, although he is a great heretic, but he is very old, and it was he who advised the understandings with the Prince of Parma, and he has done no harm. It would be advisable to do as he [i.e. Mendoza] says with the others.”[512]
The folly of Babington and his friends almost passes belief. They seem to have been prodigal of their confidences, and to have had no apprehension of treachery. Babington’s own letter to Mary setting forth in full all the plans in favour of “his dear sovereign” (6th July) was handed immediately by the false agent Gifford to Walsingham. No move was made by Walsingham, except to send the clever clerk Phillips to Chartley to decipher all intercepted letters on the spot, and so to avoid delay in their delivery, which might arouse the suspicion of the conspirators. Surrounded by spies and traitors, but in fancied security, the unhappy Queen involved herself daily deeper in the traps laid for her; approved of Babington’s wild plans, and made provision for her own release, whilst Walsingham watched and waited. When the proofs were incontestable, and all in the Secretary’s hands, the blow fell. On the 4th August Ballard was arrested, Babington and the intended murderer Savage a day or so afterwards, and Mary Stuart’s doom was sealed. She was hurried off temporarily to Tixhall; Nau and Curll were placed under arrest, the Queen’s papers seized, and her rooms closely examined. Amias Paulet was a faithful jailer, and he did his work well. “Amyas, my most faithful, careful servant,” wrote Elizabeth, “God reward thee treblefold for the most troublesome charge so well discharged. If you knew, my Amyas, how kindly, besides most dutifully, my grateful heart accepts and prizes your spotless endeavours and faultless actions, your wise orders and safe regard, performed in so dangerous and crafty a charge, it would ease your travail and rejoice your heart.… Let your wicked murderess know how with hearty sorrow her vile deserts compel these orders, and bid her from me ask God’s forgiveness for her treacherous dealing.” Elizabeth and her ministers rightly appreciated the great peril which she had escaped, and from the first it was recognised by most of them that Mary had forfeited all claim to consideration at their hands.[513]
It is usually assumed by a certain class of writers that Mary was unjustly hounded to her death, mainly by the personal enmity of Lord Burghley. Nothing, in reality, is more distant from the truth. A most dangerous conspiracy against the government and religion of England had been discovered, in which she was a prime mover. Her accomplices rightly suffered the penalty of their crime,[514] and it was due to justice and to the safety of the country that the mainspring of the conspiracy should be disabled for further harm. But still the matter was a delicate and dangerous one, for Catholics were numerous in England, and the great Catholic confederacy abroad was ready to take any advantage which a false step on the part of Elizabeth might give them. As we have seen, moreover, the feelings of the Queen of England herself with regard to the sacredness of anointed sovereigns was strong, and no more difficult problem had ever faced the Government than how to dispose of their troublesome guest in a way that should in future safeguard England from her machinations, whilst respecting the many susceptibilities involved. As usual in moments of difficulty, Elizabeth turned to her aged minister,[515] and as a result of a long private conference with him the question was submitted to the Privy Council. The Catholic members advocated only a further stringency in Mary’s imprisonment. Leicester was in favour of solving the difficulty by the aid of poison,[516] whilst Burghley, followed by Walsingham and others, proposed a regular judicial inquiry, which was now legally possible by virtue of the Act of Association passed by Parliament in the previous year. A commission was consequently issued on the 6th October for the trial of Mary, containing the names of forty-six of the principal peers and judges, and all the Councillors, but only after some bickering between the Queen and Burghley with regard to the style to be given to Mary and other details.[517]
Before this point had been reached, however, measures had been taken to test the feeling of foreign powers on the subject. Diplomatic relations had ceased between Spain and England; but as soon as the Babington conspiracy was discovered, Walsingham impressed upon Chateauneuf, the French Ambassador, that the Spaniards were at the bottom of it, and that it was directed almost as much against the King of France as against Elizabeth herself. The Ambassador himself was a strong Guisan,[518] and personally was an object of odium and suspicion to the excited Londoners; but his master’s hatred of the Guises and dread of their objects was growing daily, and when Madame de Montpensier prayed Henry to intercede for the protection of Mary, she obtained but a cold answer;[519] and no official step by the French was taken in her favour at the time, except as a matter of justice Elizabeth was requested that she might have the assistance of counsel. It was clear, therefore, that Henry III. would not go to war for the sake of his sister-in-law.