In November Henry sent envoys to the States and to England to demand further aid, but with the alternative of a peace conference. The Dutchmen thought they had been betrayed, and indignantly said so; refusing absolutely to make peace with ruined, defeated Spain, except on their own terms, and in their own time. Elizabeth had far greater reason than they for indignation with her ally, and had to be approached more gently and with greater diplomacy. De Maisse, Henry’s envoy, arrived in London on the 2nd, and was received by the Queen on the 8th December. He found the Cecils absolute masters of the Council; for all of Burghley’s predictions of the falsity of Frenchmen had come true, and his objection to the treaty of alliance (May 1596) had been more than justified. Essex, only just returned to court from his sulky fit at Wanstead, took in earnest Henry’s demands for reinforcements against Spain, and was all for fighting again, whilst Burghley of course understood them to be only a mask for the peace suggestion. The Queen and Burghley were determined to assume indignation and grievance in order that, in the coming peace, they might get the best possible terms for England; indignant, however, as they might pretend to be, there was nothing they desired more than a pacification that should open all ports to English trade and leave Flanders in the hands of a modest, moderate sovereign under the guarantee of Spain. But withal it behoved them to walk warily, for Spain had outwitted them in the peace negotiations of 1588, and Protestant Holland could not be abandoned.
On the 8th December De Maisse was received in State by Elizabeth at Whitehall,[646] whither Lord Burghley was brought in a litter, but Essex was still absent. The Queen was enigmatical but polite, and referred the envoy to Lord Burghley, with whom he conferred on the 10th, when it became evident that the object of the English was to gain time whilst other negotiations were proceeding. The Queen exerted all her wiles and ancient coquetry on De Maisse to delay matters, and not without success; whilst she inflamed Caron, the envoy of the Dutch States, with hints of Henry’s desertion and perfidy, in order to embitter French relations with them.
At length Henry IV. got tired of this buckler play, and De Maisse plainly told Elizabeth that the King considered that her delay in giving him a definite answer released him from his pledges under the treaty of alliance. Again he was referred to Burghley, whom he saw again early in January. The Queen could not treat with the Archduke, said the Treasurer. If her envoys were to attend a peace conference, it could only be with the representatives of the King of Spain; besides, he said, the Queen must settle with States before she entered into any negotiations at all. It was well known to Henry and his minister at this time that brisk secret negotiations were being conducted between Elizabeth and the Archduke; and in a final interview with Burghley on 10th January, De Maisse gave him an ultimatum. His master must make peace or be supported in war. Essex was present at the interview; and although the Lord Treasurer invited him to speak he remained obstinately silent, except to say that he did not see how religious dissensions would allow of peace being made with Spain.
At length Burghley announced that the Queen would send an embassy to France to settle with Henry the whole question of peace or war, in conjunction with an embassy from the States. The embassy consisted of Sir Robert Cecil, Sir Thomas Wilkes, and Dr. Herbert; and the instructions taken by them are contained in the last of the important State papers written by the failing hand of the great statesman. The document is a long and sagacious one, laying down as an absolute condition of any peace with Spain that the United Provinces should be secured from all fear of future attempts to subdue them. An earnest desire for peace breathes all through the document, but it must be a real peace, which acknowledged accomplished facts, abandoned inflated claims, and recognised the rights of Protestantism to equal treatment.
Cecil and his companions embarked from Dover on the 17th February, and on the death of Wilkes in Rouen, the whole burden of the embassy fell upon the Secretary. It was not until they reached Angers on the 21st that Cecil saw the King. In effect the Béarnais had already made peace secretly with the Archduke; the States were determined that they would give up no tittle of their hard-won independence, and haughtily refused even a truce if their rights were not recognised. England dared not abandon them, so that Cecil on his interview with Henry could only reproach him for his desertion of the ally to whom he owed so much. Henry replied that his position was such that he could not do otherwise. “I am,” he said, “like a man clothed in velvet that hath no meat to put in his mouth.”[647]
On the 28th March Cecil received a letter from his father dated the 1st, which caused him deep alarm. “The bearer,” it said, “will report to you my great weakness. But do not take any conceit thereby to hinder your service; but I must send you a message delivered to me in writing by Mr. Windebanke. I make no comment, not knowing out of what shop the text is come, but in my opinion non sunt ponendi rumores ante salutem. God bless you in earth and me in heaven, the place of my present pilgrimage.”[648] Cecil unwillingly followed Henry to Nantes on his hollow errand; but this letter disturbed him, and at the earliest moment he took leave of France and returned, although on the way somewhat better news reached him. “Mr. Secretary returned the 1st of the month” (May), says Chamberlain, “somewhat crazed with his posting journey, the report of his father’s dangerous state gave him wings; but for aught I can learn the old man’s case is not so desperate but he may hold out another year well enough.”[649]
Before Cecil had left on his mission, greatly against his inclination, he had received a promise from Essex that during his absence he would not cause any alteration to be made either in policy or court affairs. The Earl had been as good as his word, and for a few days after Cecil’s return they were friendly; but when the Peace of Vervins was actually signed between Henry and Philip the old feud between the policies of peace and war broke out again. This was one of those junctures when France and Spain being friendly, it had always been the Burghley policy to draw closer to the latter power, whilst at the same time fortifying those who were opposing her; and this was the course adopted by the Cecils on the present occasion. Francis Vere was sent to Holland with promises and encouragement for the States to stand firm; whilst the Archduke in Flanders was secretly informed that the Queen desired peace, and would enter into negotiations if she were assured that her desires were reciprocated. This policy soon alienated Essex and the war-party, and after one stormy interview on the subject with the dying Lord Treasurer, the latter handed to the Earl a book of Psalms and silently pointed with his finger to the line, “Bloodthirsty men shall not live out half their days;” a last prophecy which the Earl’s pride and folly hastened to fulfil.[650]
All the summer the aged minister lingered sick unto death in his palace in the Strand, sometimes taking the air in a coach or litter, and on two occasions going as far as Theobalds. During the time his great yearning was to bring about a peace before he died between his mistress and the old enemy, who, in the bitterness of defeat, was dying too in the frowning mountains of the Guadarrama far away. For forty years these two men had striven as none ever strove before to maintain peace between England and Spain; and their efforts had been unavailing, for religious differences had for a time obliterated national lines of policy. But Burghley had had the supreme wisdom of bending before superior force and adapting his varying means to his unvarying objects. England thus had gained, whilst Philip, buoyed up with the fatuous belief in his divine power and inspiration, scorning to give way to considerations of expediency, had been ruined by war and had failed in most of his aims. And yet through the welter of wrong and slaughter, Providence had decreed that the objects that both men aimed at should not be utterly defeated. The alliance between the countries was needed both by Spain and England in order that Flanders should not fall into the hands of the French, and this at least had been attained. By England it was required to counterbalance a possible French domination of Scotland, and this had ceased to be a danger. On the side of Philip had been gained the point that France was still a Catholic country; whilst to England it was to be credited that Protestantism was now a great force which demanded equality with the older form of belief, and, above all, that England was no longer in the leading strings of France or Spain, but had, in the forty years of dexterous balance under Elizabeth and Burghley, attained full maturity and independence, with the consciousness of coming imperial greatness.