DEATH OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS
The Catholic powers of the continent formed many schemes for annoying or dethroning Elizabeth; and the imprisoned Scottish queen, or her adherents, were generally concerned in them. The King of Spain, determined at length to make a decisive effort, commenced the preparation of a vast fleet, which he termed the Invincible Armada, and with which he designed to invade the English shores. Elizabeth, her ministers, and people, beheld the preparations with much concern, and their fears were increased by the plots which were incessantly forming amongst her Catholic subjects in behalf of the Queen of Scots. An act was passed declaring that any person, by or for whom any plot should be made against the Queen of England, should be guilty of treason. When, soon after, a gentleman named Babington formed a conspiracy for assassinating Elizabeth and placing Mary on the throne, the latter queen became of course liable to the punishment of treason, although herself innocent. She was subjected to a formal trial in her prison of Fotheringay Castle, and found guilty. Elizabeth hesitated for some time to strike an unoffending and unfortunate person, related to her by blood, and her equal in rank. But at length fears for herself got the better of her sense of justice, and, it may be added, of her good sense, and she gave her sanction to an act which leaves an ineffaceable stain upon her memory. On the 7th of February 1587, Mary Queen of Scots, was beheaded in the hall of the castle, after an embittered confinement of more than eighteen years.
James VI was now, after a turbulent minority, in possession of the reins of government in Scotland, but with little real power, being a dependent and pensioner of Elizabeth, and at the same time much controlled by the clergy, who asserted a total independence of all temporal authority, and considered themselves as the subjects alone of the Divine founder of the Christian faith. James made many attempts to assert a control over the church like that enjoyed by the English monarch, and also to introduce an Episcopal hierarchy, but never could attain more than a mere shadow of his object. The chief influence he possessed arose in fact from his being regarded as heir presumptive to the English crown.
SPANISH ARMADA—REBELLION IN IRELAND.
In 1588, the Spanish Armada, consisting of 130 great vessels, with 20,000 land forces on board, set sail against England, while 34,000 more land forces prepared to join from the Netherlands. Amidst the consternation which prevailed in England, active measures were taken to defend the country; thirty vessels prepared to meet the Armada, and another fleet endeavored to block up the Netherlands forces in port. The command was taken by Lord Howard of Effingham. Troops were also mustered on land to repel the invaders. The English fleet attacked the Armada in the Channel, and was found to have a considerable advantage in the lightness and manageableness of the vessels. As the Armada sailed along, it was infested by the English in the rear, and by a series of desultory attacks, so damaged as to be obliged to take refuge on the coast of Zealand. The Duke of Parma now declined to embark the Netherlands forces, and it was resolved by the admiral, that they should return to Spain by sailing round the Orkneys, as the winds were contrary to their passage directly back. Accordingly they proceeded northward, and were followed by the English fleet as far as Flamborough Head, where they were terribly shattered by a storm. Seventeen of the ships, having 5,000 men on board, were cast away on the Western Isles and the coast of Ireland. Of the whole Armada, fifty-three ships only returned to Spain, and these in a wretched condition. The seamen, as well as the soldiers who remained, were so overcome with hardships and fatigue, and so dispirited by their discomfiture, that they filled all Spain with accounts of the desperate valor of the English, and of the tempestuous violence of that ocean by which they were surrounded.
Though the Protestant church had meanwhile been established in Ireland, the great bulk of the people continued to be Roman Catholics. The native rudeness of the people and their chiefs, and the discontent occasioned by what was considered as a foreign church establishment, rendered the country turbulent and difficult to govern. Sir John Perrot, the deputy, proposed to improve the country by public works and English laws; but it was thought injurious to England to improve the condition of Ireland. A series of rebellions under chiefs named O’Neill was the consequence, and the English government was maintained with great difficulty, and at an enormous expense. The rebellion of Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, was particularly formidable. The English officers were at first unsuccessful, and met with some serious defeats. In 1599, Tyrone gained so great a victory, that the whole province of Munster declared for him. He then invited the Spaniards to make a descent on Ireland, and join him. The queen sent over her favorite, the Earl of Essex, with 20,000 men; but he did not proceed with vigor, and soon after found it necessary to return to England to justify himself. Next year Tyrone broke the truce he had formed with Essex, overran the whole country, and acted as sovereign of Ireland. If Spain had at this time given him the support he asked, Ireland might have been dissevered from the English crown.
Elizabeth now selected as her deputy for Ireland, Blount, Lord Mountjoy, who was in every respect better fitted than Essex to conduct such a warfare. As a preliminary step, this sagacious officer introduced jealousy and disunion among the Irish chiefs. The very celerity of his movements tended to dispirit the insurgents. In 1601, six thousand Spaniards landed in Kinsale harbor, for the purpose of supporting the Irish. Mountjoy immediately invested the place, and prevented them from acting. Tyrone marched from the south of Ireland to their relief, and was met and overthrown by a much inferior English force, after which Kinsale was surrendered. About the time when Elizabeth died (1603), Tyrone submitted, and Ireland was once more reduced under the authority of the English crown.
CONCLUSION OF THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH.
It is remarkable, that while Elizabeth increased in power and resources, she became more noted for feminine weaknesses. In her early years she had shown a stoicism, and superiority to natural affections, not usually observed in women. But in her old age, she became both volatile and susceptible to an extraordinary degree; so that the hand which she had withheld in her younger days from the noblest princes of Europe, seemed likely to be bestowed in her old age upon some mere court minion. Her favorite in middle life was Robert, Earl of Leicester, a profligate and a trifler. In her latter days she listened to the addresses of the Earl of Essex, a young man of greater courage and better principle, but also headstrong and weak. Essex, who had acquired popularity by several brilliant military enterprises, began at length to assume an insolent superiority over the queen, who was on one occasion so much provoked by his rudeness as to give him a hearty box on the ear. Notwithstanding all his caprices, presumption, and insults, the queen still doatingly forgave him, until he at length attempted to raise an insurrection against her in the streets of London, when he was seized, condemned, and after much hesitation, executed (February 25, 1601).
Elizabeth, in at last ordering the execution of Essex, had acted upon her usual principle of sacrificing her feelings to what was necessary for the public cause; but in this effort, made in the sixty-eighth year of her age, she had miscalculated the real strength of her nature. She was observed from that time to decline gradually in health and spirits.