There were, indeed, many elements of danger near home which amply justified a cautious policy. James Stuart’s extraordinary lenity to the Catholic lords who had rebelled against him, and his known dallying with Spain and Rome, again suggested the possibility of a Spanish invasion of England over the Border, simultaneously with a rising of Catholics in England. The almost complete control of the coast of Brittany by the Spaniards, their recent seizure and fortification of a strong position in Brest harbour, and their continued intrigues in Ireland, all pointed to the aggressive policy against this country which Philip’s newly reorganised fleet enabled him to adopt. What would have caused but modified alarm to England a few years before, became much more terrible now that Henry IV. had become a Catholic and was making peace with the League. Elizabeth and her trusted advisers, therefore, kept Drake and Hawkins at home, and with the exception of sending Frobisher and Norris in the autumn of 1594 to oust the Spaniards from Brest harbour,[612] stood on the defensive.
Essex, often in temporary disgrace with the Queen, headstrong and inexperienced, was no match in diplomacy for Robert Cecil, fortified by the experience and sagacity of his father; but he had enlisted in his service some of the cleverest and most unscrupulous spies and agents to aid him. Wherever the Queen had an ambassador, or the Cecils an agent, Essex also had a man to represent his interest. Every envoy that came from James Stuart or Henry IV. to ask for aid which the Cecils considered it imprudent to give under the circumstances, was received by Essex and his friends with open arms; and counter intrigues were carried on through them against the policy of Lord Burghley. In Scotland, Holland, and France, it was Essex who posed as the friend at the expense of the Cecils.[613]
It had been to a considerable extent owing to the diplomacy of Antonio Perez that Henry IV. had decided to come to terms with the League, in order that the united forces of France might be opposed to the Spaniards. It was now Perez’s secret mission from the French King, with the aid of Essex, to exacerbate English feeling against Spain nationally, and to pledge Elizabeth to help him against the common enemy, independently of the question of religion. This would have been a distinct departure from the traditional policy of England, which had usually been to stand aloof whilst the two great rivals were fighting; and only the attachment of the King of France to the Protestant cause had for a time altered this policy. Elizabeth’s interests in France, now that Henry was a Catholic, were limited to preventing the permanent establishment of the Spanish power on the north coast opposite England, and to that end the Cecils directed their efforts. This, however, did not satisfy Essex and the war-party; and the persistent plots of the English Jesuits in Spain and Flanders[614] added constant fuel to the flame, which Perez so artfully fanned from Essex House.[615]
An opportunity occurred late in 1593 by which some of the instruments of the Cecils might be discredited, and a fresh blow dealt at the policy of cautious moderation. Many of the Portuguese gentlemen who surrounded the pretender, Don Antonio, had for years sold themselves both to Philip and to England—and played false to both. It has been seen that Lord Burghley’s network of secret intelligence, under the management of Phillips, was extremely extensive; and, amongst others, several of these Portuguese were employed.[616] The most popular physician in London at the time was Dr. Ruy Lopez, a Portuguese Jew, the Queen’s physician, who was frequently employed by Burghley as an intermediary with the spies, in order to avert suspicion from them. On several occasions suggestions had been made to Philip by these spies of plans to kill the pretender, and Lopez’s name had been mentioned to the Spanish Government as one who would be willing to undertake the task of poisoning him.
In 1590 one Andrada had been discovered in an act of treachery against Don Antonio, and arrested in England, and a letter of his to Mendoza had been intercepted, in which he said that he had won over Lopez to the cause of Spain. In another letter, not intercepted, he gave particulars of a proposal of Lopez to bring about peace between England and Spain, if a sum of money was paid to him. Through the influence of Lopez, however, Andrada was liberated, and sent abroad as a spy in the interests of England. Thenceforward for three years secret correspondence was known, by Lord Burghley, to be passing between Spanish agents in Flanders and Spain, and Dr. Lopez, through Andrada and others. The intermediaries were all double spies and scoundrels who would have stuck at nothing, and were so regarded by Lord Burghley; but Lopez was thought to be above suspicion, and to be acting solely in English interests. He had, however, made an enemy of Essex; and Perez artfully wheedled some admissions from him that he was in communication with Spanish agents about some great plan. In October 1593, Gama, one of the agents, was, at Essex’s suggestion, arrested in Lopez’s house and searched. The letters found upon him were enigmatical, but suspicious. Then another agent named Tinoco, with similar communications and bills of exchange in his pocket from Spanish ministers, was laid by the heels. Essex, prompted by Perez, was indefatigable in the examination of the men. They lied and prevaricated—for it is certain that they were paid by both sides; but one of them mentioned Dr. Lopez as being interested in some compromising papers found upon him, and suddenly on the 30th January the Queen’s physician was arrested. He was immediately carried to Cecil House in the Strand, and there examined by the Lord Treasurer, Sir Robert Cecil, and Essex.[617]
His answers seemed satisfactory to the Cecils, whose agent Lopez was, but did not please Essex. The Earl, however, was forestalled by Robert Cecil, who posted off to Hampton Court and assured Elizabeth of the physician’s innocence. Whilst he was assuring her that the only ground for the accusation—which had now assumed the form of a plot to murder the Queen—arose from the Earl’s hatred of Lopez, Essex was endeavouring to strengthen the proofs against the accused. When the Earl appeared at court the Queen burst out in a fury against him, called him a rash and temerarious youth to bring this ruinous accusation of high treason against her trusty servant from sheer malice, and told him that she knew Lopez was innocent, and her honour was at stake in seeing justice done. Gradually, however, the nets closed around the doctor. The Cecils did as much as they dared in his favour, but the presumptive evidence against him was too strong. The underlings competed with each other in the fulness of their confessions against Lopez, in hope of favour for themselves; and at length some sort of confession was said to have been wrung from Lopez himself,[618] Robert Cecil, with horror, was forced to admit his belief that he was guilty,[619] and Lopez and his fellow-criminals were executed at Tyburn early in June.[620] This, together with the simultaneous declaration of other Spanish Jesuit plots against the Queen, and the activity of Perez’s venomous pen, aroused a feeling of perfect fury against Philip and his country.
All eyes looked to Drake and the sailors again to punish Spain upon the sea. Talk of great expeditions to America, to the Azores, to Spain itself, ran from mouth to mouth. What had been done with impunity before, might, said the Englishmen, be done again, even though the King of France had become a Papist and was unworthy of English help. But the Queen was in one of her timid moods, and the Cecils held the reins tightly. Essex remained sulking or in disgrace for the greater part of the summer, and, we learn from a letter from Sir Thomas Cecil to his brother, only became ostensibly reconciled with the Lord Treasurer in August.
Little of the routine business passed through Lord Burghley’s hands now, thanks to the activity of his son, but we get a glance occasionally at the aged minister from friends and foes who visited him. In the latter category we may place the spy Standen, a place-hunter and double traitor, who had fastened himself upon Essex, and yet was for ever pestering Burghley for an appointment. Sometimes the Lord Treasurer pretended to forget who he was, sometimes he gravely and politely expressed his regret at his inability to help him; but on one occasion, at least, he let him know that as he had joined Essex he must expect nothing from him. Standen was hanging about Hampton Court in the spring, and when the Queen had left, thinking the Lord Treasurer would be less busy than usual, “he stepped into his Lordship’s bedchamber, and found him alone sitting by the fire.” After some compliments, the place-hunter, for the hundredth time, set forth his claims. Burghley replied as before, that Standen was in England for a long time after his return from abroad without even coming to salute him. Standen said he had been ill with ague; “but,” said the minister, “you have been about the court all the winter and must have had some good days. And,” he asked, “how is it I have not seen the statement the Queen told you to draw up about Spain and to hand to me?” Standen hemmed and ha’d, but at last had to confess that he had given the statement to Essex for the Queen six months before. “Then my Lord began to start in his chair, and to alter his voice and countenance from a kind of crossing and wayward manner which he hath, into a tune of choler,”[621] and told the spy that since he had begun with the Earl of Essex he had better go on with him, and hoped him well of it. Then angrily telling him some home-truths about his conduct, the Lord Treasurer dismissed the spy; though for the rest of the great minister’s life he was not free from his importunities.
It was not often that Lord Burghley thus exhibited anger, even to a man like Standen. We seem to know the aged statesman better in the following pathetic little word-picture contained in a letter from his faithful secretary, Sir Michael Hicks, to Sir Robert Cecil[622] (27th September): “My Lord called me to him this evening, and willed me to write to you in mine own name, to signify to you that the Judge of the Admiralty came hither to him a little before supper time, to let him understand that he was not furnished with sufficient matter to meet the French Ambassador, and required five or six days’ further respite … wherewith he (Burghley) was well contented … for at the time of his coming to him he found himself ill, and not fit to hear and deal in suits, and he doth so continue. And truly, methinks, he is nothing sprighted, but lying on his couch he museth or slumbereth. And being a little before supper at the fire, I offered him some letters and other papers, but he was soon weary of them, and told me he was unfit to hear suits. But I hope a good night’s rest will make him better to-morrow.”[623]
But though the great statesman was nearing his end, his mind was as keen as ever, and his influence was strong enough to prevent Essex from dragging England into an offensive war with Spain for the benefit of Henry IV. The Béarnais had still to cope with rebellion in various parts of his realm, and the Spaniards had secured a firm footing in Picardy and Brittany; his finances were in the utmost disorder, and against the advice of Sully he declared a national war against Philip in January. He had clamoured and cajoled in vain for more aid from Elizabeth, and in his pressing need had appealed with more success to the Hollanders.