[99] Something like this was observed of her disposition by Sir James Melvil. After having related to his mistress, the queen of Scots, the strong professions of friendship which the queen of England had made to him, “She [the queen of Scots] inquired, says he, whether I thought that queen meant truly towards her inwardly in her heart, as she appeared to do outwardly in her speech. I answered freely, that, in my judgment, there was neither plain dealing, nor upright meaning; but great dissimulation, emulation, and FEAR, lest her princely qualities should over-soon chace her from her kingdom,” &c. Memoirs, p. 53.
[100] Secretary Walsingham, in a letter to the queen, Sept. 2, 1581, amongst other things to the same purpose, has the following words—“Remember, I humbly beseech your majesty, the respect of charges hath lost Scotland: and I would to God I had no cause to think, that it might put your highness in peril of the loss of England.”—“And even the Lord Treasurer himself (we are told) in a letter still extant in the paper-office, written in the critical year 1588, while the Spanish armada was expected against England, excuses himself to sir Edward Stafford, then embassador in France, for not writing to him oftener, on account of her majesty’s unwillingness to be at the expence of messengers.” Sir T. Edmondes’ State-papers, by Dr. Birch, p. 21.
[101] One of these complaisant observers was the writer of the Description of England, who, speaking of the variety of the queen’s houses, checks himself with saying, “But what shall I need to take upon me to repeat all, and tell what houses the queen’s majesty hath? Sith ALL IS HIRS; and when it pleaseth hir in the summer season to recreate hirself abroad, and view the state of the countrie, and hear the complaints of hir unjust officers or substitutes, every nobleman’s house is hir palace, where she continueth during pleasure, and till she returne again to some of hir owne; in which she remaineth as long as pleaseth hir.” p. 196.
[102] Perhaps they had no need of such favours: It seems as if they had provided for themselves another way. One of her ladies, the Lady Edmondes, had been applied to for her interest with the queen in a certain affair of no great moment, then depending in the Court of Chancery. The person, commissioned to transact this matter with her ladyship, had offered her 100l. which she treated as too small a sum. The relater of this fact adds—“This ruffianry of causes I am daily more and more acquainted with, and see the manner of dealing, which cometh of the queen’s straitness to give these women, whereby they presume thus to grange and truck causes.” See a letter in Mem. of Q. Elizabeth, by Dr. Birch, vol. i. p. 354. But this 100l. as the virtuous Lady Edmondes says, was a small sum. It appears, that bishop Fletcher, on his translation to London, “bestowed in allowances and gratifications to divers attendants [indeed we are not expressly told, they were female] about her majesty, the sum of 3100l. which money was given by him, for the most part of it, by her majesty’s direction and special appointment.” Mem. vol. ii. p. 113. And the curiosity is, to find this minute of episcopal gratifications in a petition presented to the queen herself, “To move her majesty in commiseration towards the orphans of this bishop.”—However, to do the ladies justice, the contagion of bribery was so general in that reign, that the greatest men in the court were infected by it. The lord-keeper Puckering, it seems, had a finger in the affair of the 100l.; nay, himself speaks to the lady to get him commanded by the queen to favour the suit. And we are told, that Sir W. Raleigh had no less than 10,000l. for his interest with the queen on a certain occasion, after having been invited to this service by the finest letter that ever was written.—Indeed it is not said how much of this secret service money went in allowances and gratifications to the attendants about the queen’s majesty, vol. ii. p. 497.
[103] Lord Bacon made the same excuse for his bribery; as he had learnt, perhaps, the trade itself from his royal mistress. It was a rule with this great chancellor, “Not to sell injustice, but never to let justice go scot-free.”
[104] See Hist. Collections, by H. Townshend, Esq.; p. 268. Lond. 1680.—The lord-keeper too, in a speech in the star-chamber, confirms this charge on the country justices. “The thirst, says he, after this authority, proceedeth from nothing but an ambitious humour of gaining of reputation amongst their neighbours; that still, when they come home, they may be presented with presents.” Ibid. p. 355.
[105] When the queen declared to Sir James Melvil her resolution of virginity, “I know the truth of that, madam, (said he); you need not tell it me. Your majesty thinks, if you were married, you would be but queen of England; and now you are both king and queen. I know your spirit cannot endure a commander.” Mem. p. 49. This was frank. But Sir James Melvil was too well seen in courts to have used this language, if he had not understood it would be welcome. Accordingly, the queen’s highness did not seem displeased with the imputation.
[106] This was a common topick of complaint against the queen; or at least her ministers, and gave occasion to that reproof of the poet Spenser, which the persons concerned could hardly look upon as very decent,
“Scarce can a bishoprick forepass them bye
But that it must be gelt in privity.”
Mother Hubbard’s Tale.
But a bishop of that time carries the charge still further. In one of his sermons at court before the queen, “Parsonages and vicarages, says he, seldom pass now-a-days from the patron, but either for the lease, or the present money. Such merchants are broken into the church of God, a great deal more intolerable than were they whom Christ whipped out of the temple.”—This language is very harsh, and surely not deserved by the Protestant patrons of those days, who were only, as we may suppose, for reducing the church of Christ to its pure and primitive state of indigence and suffering. How edifying is it to hear St. Paul speak of his being—In hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness! And how perfectly reformed would our church be, if its ministers were but once more in this blessed apostolical condition!