But haughtiness and timidity, pursued he, were not the only vices that turned to good account in the queen’s hands. She was frugal beyond all bounds of decorum in a prince, or rather AVARICIOUS beyond all reasonable excuse from the public wants and the state of her revenue. Nothing is more certain than this fact, from the allowance both of friends and enemies. It seems as if, in this respect, her father’s example had not been sufficient; and that, to complete her character, she had incorporated with many of his, the leading vice of her grandfather.

Here Dr. Arbuthnot could not contain himself; and the castle happening at that time, from the point where they stood, to present the most superb prospect, “Look there, said he, on the striking, though small, remnants of that grandeur you just now magnified so much; and tell me if, in your conscience, you can believe such grants are the signs, or were the effects, of avarice. For you are not to learn, that this palace before us is not the only one in the kingdom, which bears the memory of the queen’s bounty to her servants.”

Mr. Addison seemed a little struck with the earnestness of this address: “It is true, said he, the queen’s fondness for one or two of her favourites made her sometimes lavish of her grants; especially of what cost her nothing, and did not, it seems, offend the delicacy of her scruples; I mean, of the church-lands. But at the same time her treasury was shut against her ambassadors and foreign ministers; who complain of nothing more frequently than the slenderness of their appointments, and the small and slow remittances that were made to them. This frugality (for I must not call it by a worse name) distressed the public service on many occasions[100]; and would have done it on more, if the zeal of her trusty servants had not been content to carry it on at the expence of their own fortunes. How many instances might be given of this, if ONE were not more than sufficient, and which all posterity will remember with indignation!

You speak of Walsingham, interposed Dr. Arbuthnot. But were it not more candid to impute the poverty of that minister to his own generous contempt of riches, which he had doubtless many, fair occasions of procuring to himself, than to any designed neglect of him by his mistress?

The candour, returned Mr. Addison, must be very extraordinary, that can find an excuse for the queen in a circumstance that doubles her disgrace. But be it as you pretend. The uncommon moderation of the man shall be a cover to the queen’s parsimony. It was not, we will say, for this wise princess to provoke an appetite for wealth in her servants: it was enough that she gratified it, on proper occasions, where she found it already raised. And in this proceeding, no doubt, she was governed by a tender regard, for their honour, as well as her own interest. For how is her great secretary ennobled, by filling a place in the short list of those worthies, who, having lived and died in the service of their countries, have left not so much as a pittance behind them, to carry them to their graves! All this is very well. But when she had indulged this humour in one or two of her favourites, and suffered them, for example’s sake, to ascend to these heights of honour, it was going, methinks, a little too far, to expect the same delicacy of virtue in all her courtiers. Yet it was not her fault, if most of them did not reap this fame of illustrious poverty, as well as Walsingham. She dealt by them, indeed, as if she had ranked poverty, as well as celibacy, among the cardinal virtues.

In the mean time, I would not deny that she had a princely fondness for shew and appearance. She took a pride in the brilliancy of her court. She delighted in the large trains of her nobility. She required to be royally entertained by them. And she thought her honour concerned in the figure they made in foreign courts, and in the wars. But, if she loved this pomp, she little cared to furnish the expence of it. She considered in good earnest (as some have observed, who would have the observation pass for a compliment[101]) the purses of her subjects as her own; and seemed to reckon on their being always open to her on any occasion of service, or even ceremony. She carried this matter so far, that the very expences of her wars were rather defrayed out of the private purses of her nobility, than the public treasury. As if she had taken it for a part of her prerogative to impoverish her nobles at pleasure; or rather, as if she had a mind to have it thought that one of their privileges was, to be allowed to ruin themselves from a zeal to her service.

But the queen’s avarice, proceeded he, did not only appear from her excessive parsimony in the management of the public treasure, but from her rapacity in getting what she could from particulars into her privy purse. Hence it was that all offices, and even personal favours, were in a manner set to sale. For it was a rule with her majesty, to grant no suit but for a reasonable consideration. So that whoever pretended to any place of profit or honour was sure to send a jewel, or other rich present beforehand, to prepare her mind for the entertainment of his petition. And to what other purpose was it that she kept her offices so long vacant, but to give more persons an opportunity of winning a preference in her favour; which for the most part inclined to those who had appeared, in this interval, to deserve it best? Nay, the slightest disgust, which she frequently took on very frivolous occasions, could not be got over but by the reconciling means of some valuable or well fancied present. And, what was most grievous, she sometimes accepted the present, without remitting the offence.

I remember a ridiculous instance of this sort. When the Lady Leicester wanted to obtain the pardon of her unfortunate son, the Lord Essex, she presented the queen with an exceeding rich gown, to the value of above an hundred pounds. She was well pleased with the gift, but thought no more of the pardon. We need not, after this, wonder at what is said of her majesty’s leaving a prodigious quantity of jewels and plate behind her, and even a crowded wardrobe. For so prevalent was this thrifty humour in the queen’s highness, that she could not persuade herself to part with so much, as a cast-gown to any of her servants[102].

You allow yourself to be very gay, replied Dr. Arbuthnot, on this foible of the great queen. But one thing you forget, that it never biased her judgment so far as to prevent a fit choice of her servants on all occasions[103]. And, as to her wary management of the public revenue, which you take a pleasure to exaggerate, this, methinks, is a venial fault in a prince, who could not, in her circumstances; have provided for the expences of government, but by the nicest and most attentive economy.

I understand, said Mr. Addison, the full force of that consideration; and believe it was that attention principally, which occasioned the popularity of her reign, and the high esteem, in which the wisdom of her government is held to this day. The bulk of her subjects were, no doubt, highly pleased to find themselves spared on all occasions of expence. And it served at the same time, to gratify their natural envy of the great, to find, that their fortunes were first and principally sacrificed to the public service. Nay, I am not sure that the very rapacity of her nature, in the sale of her offices, was any objection with the people at large, or even the lower gentry of the kingdom. For these, having no pretensions themselves to those offices, would be well enough pleased to see them not bestowed on their betters, but dearly purchased by them. And then this traffic at court furnished the inferior gentry with a pretence for making the most of their magistracies. This practice at least must have been very notorious amongst them, when a facetious member of the lower house could define a justice of peace to be, “A living creature, that for half a dozen of chickens, will dispense with a whole dozen of penal statutes[104].” But, however this be, the queen’s ends, in every view, were abundantly answered. She enriched herself: she gained the affections of the people, and depressed and weakened the nobility. And by all these ways she effectually provided for, what she had ever most at heart, her own supreme and uncontrolled authority.