Although we have seen that the Lord Treasurer from motives of policy had been forced to take a prominent part in the condemnation and execution of Mary, it cannot be supposed that the position of affairs at the time was agreeable to him. The wars in Flanders, the persecution of English Protestants in Spain, the reprisals of Drake and the privateers, and the Catholic plots in the interests of Mary had aroused a strong Protestant war feeling in the country. Leicester and his friends had the popular voice on their side, and Burghley and the Conservatives could only very cautiously and tentatively endeavour to stay the impetus with which the country was rushing towards a national war with the strongest power in Christendom. The great Armada was in full preparation, and the ports of Italy, Flanders, Spain, and Portugal rang with the sound of arms. Don Antonio once more was welcomed in England, to be used as a stalking-horse, this being Lord Burghley’s last hope of levying war without national responsibility.
But though there was much talk about Don Antonio, and Spanish spies in England continued to report that the great fleet under Drake was to be employed in his interests, its real object was to render impossible, at least for that year, the junction of Philip’s naval forces in Lisbon. Thanks to the efforts of Burghley and his party, an elaborate pretence was kept up of the expedition being a private one; but it was really controlled and organised by government officers, and the second in command, Borough, was a Queen’s admiral, sent avowedly to place a check upon Drake, and to prevent him from going too far in his open attack upon Spain. Drake’s instructions were “to prevent or withstand any enterprise as might be attempted against her Highness’s dominions, and especially by preventing the concentration of Philip’s squadrons;” and he was to distress the ships as much as possible, both in the havens themselves and on the high seas. Drake arrived in Plymouth from the Thames on the 23rd March, and in a week of incessant energy had everything ready. The secret of his intentions was well kept, and Mendoza’s many spies could only tardily report the loose gossip of the streets. Sir Edward Stafford assured his Spanish paymaster that no living soul but the Queen and the Lord Treasurer knew what the design was to be.
Leicester was now at Buxton (April 1587), shortly to start on another visit to Flanders, and in his absence Burghley’s influence, both Ralegh and Hatton being on his side, as well as Crofts and the Catholics, overshadowed that of Walsingham and Knollys. Drake seems to have feared the consequence of this, and hurried his departure from Plymouth (2nd April). He was only just in time, for as soon as he had gone a courier came in hot haste with orders from the Council, which now meant Burghley, strictly limiting Drake’s action:[543] “You shall forbear to enter forcibly into any of the said King’s ports or havens, or to offer any violence to any of his towns or shipping within harbour, or to do any act of hostility on land.”
This was exactly what Drake had foreseen. The ship sent after him with the orders failed to reach him, and the great seaman went on his way. But, as usual with Drake, the official drag on the wheel had to be overcome. Off Cape St. Vincent, Borough recited to the Admiral the conditions under which the Queen’s ships accompanied him, evidently expecting that he would not confine his operations to preventing the concentration of the Spanish squadrons. But Drake was on his own element now, and sailed straight to Cadiz, as some people had shrewdly expected he meant to do from the first.[544] Borough warned him not to exceed the Queen’s orders, and was placed under arrest for his pains; and unopposed, Drake sailed into Cadiz harbour, to the dismay of the astounded Spaniards. He plundered, burned, and sank all the ships in port, destroyed the stores, and then quietly sailed out again unmolested. He did damage to the extent of a million ducats (though Philip wrote that he felt the insolence of the act more than the material damage), and if he had cared to disobey the Queen’s orders further he might have stopped the Armada for good by burning the ships in Lisbon, for they had neither guns nor men on board to protect them. But he knew now that the peace party in the Council were busy arranging with Parma’s envoy for the meeting of a conference, and doubtless thought he had gone far enough in his brilliant disobedience.
The indispensable Andrea de Looe had arrived in London from the Prince of Parma immediately after Drake sailed, and was soon deep in negotiation with Burghley with the object of arranging a meeting of Peace Commissioners. When he had returned to Brussels with the proposals, news came of Drake’s daring raid. De Looe then wrote a long letter to Burghley (11th July), pointing out how much the cause of peace was injured by such acts of aggression. Burghley’s answer[545] (28th July) perfectly defines his position towards Drake’s action. After professing the Queen’s desire for peace, and readiness to send her Commissioners to Flanders if the Duke of Parma will suspend hostilities (before the Sluys), he says: “True it is, and I avow it upon my faith, her Majesty did send a ship expressly with a message by letters charging him (Drake) not to show any act of hostility before he went to Cadiz, which messenger, by contrary winds, could never come to the place where he was, but was constrained to come home, and hearing of Sir Fras. Drake’s actions, her Majesty commanded the party that returned to be punished, but he acquitted himself by oath of himself and all his company. And so unwitting, yea unwilling, to her Majesty those actions were committed by Sir Fras. Drake, for the which her Majesty is greatly offended with him; and now also for bringing home of a rich ship that came out of the East Indies.”[546] And then, as some counterbalance to these enormities, Lord Burghley sets forth once more the various grievances of England against Spain.
Whilst the elaborate and frequently insincere negotiations for peace were being laboriously pursued for many months, Lord Burghley’s other standing policy was not neglected, namely, that of causing jealousy between France and Spain. Henry III. was now in mortal fear of Guise, and was ready to listen to English and Huguenot suggestions that Philip’s conquest of England would be followed by a Guisan dynasty under Spanish patronage in France. All the French influence at the Vatican was exercised to procure the conversion of James Stuart and the opposition of Spanish aims, and before the end of the year Lord Burghley had the satisfaction of seeing that Henry III. and his clever mother in no case would aid Philip to subjugate England.
Elizabeth, in the meanwhile, was assailed by doubts and fears, and periodical fits of penuriousness in the midst of her danger, which drove her Councillors to despair. Stafford told Mendoza that “Cecil writes that the Queen is so peevish and discontented that it was feared she would not live long. Her temper is so bad that no Councillor dares to mention business to her, and when even he (Cecil) did so, she had told him that she had been strong enough to lift him out of the dirt, and was able to cast him down again. He (Cecil) was of opinion that the Councillors might be divided into three classes—those who wished to come to terms with Spain, those who desired a close friendship with France, and those who wanted to stand aloof from both, whilst enriching themselves with plunder. He (Cecil) was neither a Spaniard nor a Frenchman, but wished the Queen to be friendly with both powers. King Henry, under whom the country was powerful and tranquil, thought he was doing a great thing when he was able to make war with France when he had an alliance with Spain; and now it happened that the French were as desirous of being friendly as the English were, and he urges the Ambassador to hasten the conclusion of an agreement.”[547]
But whilst he was writing amiably for the French, he took care, on the other hand, to make the most of the peace negotiations with Spain, and thus to cause Henry to be the more anxious for England’s friendship. The old statesman was thus cautiously and slowly going on his traditional way, hopeless though he must have been of the final result as regarded keeping peace with Spain. The long-continued preparations of the Armada were rapidly approaching completion; the Pope had been cajoled into promising funds unwillingly to aid Philip’s aims; the English Catholic refugees were eagerly awaiting the harvest of their efforts; the great, cumbrous machine for crushing England was already in motion, and no efforts of diplomacy could stop it.
But yet Burghley did his best. The war and plunder party, as usual, checked him at every turn; but early and late, through constant pain and sickness, family trouble[548] and public disappointment, he struggled on in the way he had marked out for himself so many years before—to divide England’s possible enemies, and keep the peace with Spain so long as was humanly possible. The Queen was full of qualms and misgivings; swaying now to one side, now to another, and abusing in turn both the party of peace and the advocates of war. “The Queen has been scolding the Lord Treasurer greatly for the last few days, for having neglected to disburse money for the fleet,” wrote a Spanish spy in November; and a few days afterwards, when she was alarmed at the delay in Parma’s reply, she flew into a tremendous rage with Burghley, “upon whom she heaped a thousand insults,” for having induced her to negotiate for peace whilst the enemy completed his preparations. “She told the Treasurer he was old and doting; to which he replied that he knew he was old, and would gladly retire to a church to pray for her.” But the old minister gave the Queen as good as she brought, and in vigorous words pointed out in detail that her present dangers arose entirely from her neglect of his advice and the imprudence of his opponents in the Council.[549] But the next day came Parma’s answer, and the Queen was all smiles again towards Burghley and the peacemakers.