Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth, Volumes I & II — 29 - Volume II, Chapter XIX. 1577-1582, part 2

Sir Nicholas Bacon, who under the humbler title of lord keeper had exercised from the beginning of the reign the office of lord high chancellor, died generally regretted in 1579. No one is recorded to have filled this important post with superior assiduity or a greater reputation for uprightness and ability than sir Nicholas, and several well-known traits afford a highly pleasing image of the general character of his mind.

Of this number are his motto, "_Mediocria firma_," and his handsome reply to the remark of her majesty that his house was too little for him;--"No, madam; but you have made me too big for my house."

Even when, upon this royal hint, he erected his elegant mansion of Gorhambury, he was still careful not to lose sight of that idea of lettered privacy in which he loved to indulge; and the accomplishments of his mind were reflected in the decorations of his home.

In the gardens, on which his chief care and cost were bestowed, arose a banqueting-house consecrated to the seven Sciences, whose figures adorned the walls, each subscribed with a Latin distich and surrounded with portraits of her most celebrated votaries; a temple in which we may imagine the youthful mind of that illustrious son of his, who "took all learning to be" his "province," receiving with delight its earliest inspiration!

In his second wife,--one of the learned daughters of sir Anthony Cook, a woman of a keen and penetrating intellect, and much distinguished by her zeal for reformed religion in its austerer forms,--sir Nicholas found a partner capable of sharing his views and appreciating his character.

By her he became the father of two sons;

that remarkable man Anthony Bacon, and Francis, the light of science, the interpreter of nature; the admiration of his own age, and the wonder of succeeding ones; the splendid dawn of whose unrivalled genius his father was happy enough to behold; more happy still in not surviving to witness the calamitous eclipse which overshadowed his reputation at its highest noon.

The lord keeper was esteemed the second pillar of that state of which Burleigh was the prime support.

In all public measures of importance they acted together; and similar speculative opinions, with coinciding views of national policy, united these two eminent statesmen in a brotherhood dearer than that of alliance; but in their motives of action, and in the character of their minds, a diversity was observable which it may be useful to point out.

Of Burleigh it has formerly been remarked, that with his own interest he considered also, and perhaps equally, that of his queen and his country: but the patriotism of Bacon seems to have risen higher; and his conformity with the wishes and sentiments of his sovereign was less obsequiously exact.

In the affair of lady Catherine Grey's title, he did not hesitate to risk the favor of the queen and his own continuance in office, for the sake of what appeared to him the cause of religion and his country.

On the whole, however, moderation and prudence were the governing principles of his mind and actions.

The intellect of Burleigh was more versatile and acute, that of Bacon more profound; and their parts in the great drama of public life were cast accordingly: Burleigh had most of the alertness of observation, the fertility of expedient, the rapid calculation of contingencies, required in the minister of state; Bacon, of the gravity and steadfastness which clothe with reverence and authority the counsellor and judge.

"He was a plain man," says Francis Bacon of his father, "direct and constant, without all finesse and doubleness, and one that was of a mind that a man in his private proceedings and estate, and in the proceedings of state, should rest upon the soundness and strength of his own courses, and not upon practice to circumvent others."

After Elizabeth had forgiven his interference respecting the succession, no one was held by her in greater honor and esteem than her lord keeper;

she visited him frequently, conversed with him familiarly; took pleasure in the flashes of wit which often relieved the seriousness of his wisdom; and flattered with kind condescension his parental feelings by the extraordinary notice which she bestowed on his son Francis, whose brightness and solidity of parts early manifested themselves to her discerning eye, and caused her to predict that her "little lord keeper" would one day prove an eminent man.

Great interest was excited by the arrival in Plymouth harbour, in November 1580, of the celebrated Francis Drake from his circumnavigation of the globe.

National vanity was flattered by the idea that this Englishman should have been the first commander-in-chief by whom this great and novel enterprise had been successfully achieved; and both himself and his ship became in an eminent degree the objects of public curiosity and wonder.

The courage, skill and perseverance of this great navigator were deservedly extolled; the wealth which he had brought home, from the plunder of the Spanish settlements, awakened the cupidity which in that age was a constant attendant on the daring spirit of maritime adventure, and half the youth of the country were on fire to embark in expeditions of pillage and discovery.

But the court was not so easily induced to second the ardor of the nation.

Drake's captures from the Spaniards had been made, under some vague notion of reprisals, whilst no open war was subsisting between the nations; and the Spanish ambassador, not, it must be confessed, without some reason, branded his proceedings with the reproach of piracy, and loudly demanded restitution of the booty.

Elizabeth wavered for some time between admiration of the valiant Drake, mixed with a desire of sharing in the profits of his expedition, and a dread of incensing the king of Spain; but she at length decided on the part most acceptable to her people,--that of giving a public sanction to his acts.

During the spring of 1581 she accepted of a banquet on board his ship off Deptford, conferred on him the order of knighthood, and received him into favor.

Much anxiety and alarm was about this time occasioned to the queen and her protestant subjects by the clandestine arrival in the country of a considerable number of catholic priests, mostly English by birth, but educated at the seminaries respectively founded at Douay, Rheims, and Rome, by the king of Spain, cardinal Lorrain, and the pope, for the express purpose of furnishing means for the disturbance of the queen's government.

Monks of the new order of Jesuits presided over these establishments, who made it their business to inspire the pupils with the most frightful excess of bigotry and fanaticism; and two of these friars, fathers Parsons and Campion, coming over to England to guide and regulate the efforts of their party, were detected in treasonable practices; on account of which Campion, with some accomplices, underwent capital punishment, or, in the language of his church, received the crown of martyrdom.

In order to check the diffusion among the rising generation of doctrines so destructive of the peace and good government of the country, a proclamation was issued in June 1580, requiring that all persons who had any children, wards, or kinsmen, in any parts beyond seas, should within ten days give in their names to the ordinaries, and within four months send for them home again.

Circular letters were also dispatched by the privy-council to the bishops, setting forth, that whereas her majesty found daily inconvenience to the realm by the education of numbers of young gentlemen and others her subjects in parts beyond the seas;--where for the most part they were "nourselled and nourished in papistry," with such instructions as "made them to mislike the government of their country, and thus tended to render them undutiful subjects;" &c. and intending to "take some present order therein;" as well by prohibiting that any but such as were known to be well affected in religion, and would undertake for the good education of their children, should send them abroad; and they not without her majesty's special license;--as also, by recalling such as were at present, in Spain, France, or Italy, without such license;--had commanded that the bishops should call before them, in their respective dioceses, certain parents or guardians whose names were annexed, and bind them in good sums of money for the recall of their sons or wards within three months[86].

Many other indications of a jealousy of the abode of English youth in catholic countries, which at such a juncture will scarcely appear unreasonable, might be collected from various sources.

[Note 86: Strype's "Whitgift."

] A friend of Anthony Bacon's sends him this warning to Bordeaux in 1583: "I can no longer abstain from telling you plainly that the injury is great, you do to yourself, and your best friends, in this your voluntary banishment (for so it is already termed)....

The times are not as heretofore for the best disposed travellers: but in one word, sir, believe me, they are not the best thought of where they would be that take any delight to absent themselves in foreign parts, especially such as are of quality, and known to have no other cause than their private contentment; which also is not allowable, or to be for any long time, as you will shortly hear further; touching these limitations.

In the mean time I could wish you looked well to yourself, and to think, that whilst you live there, perhaps in no great security, you are within the compass of some sinister conceits or hard speeches here, if not of that jealousy which is now had even of the best, that in these doubtful days, wherein our country hath need to be furnished of the soundest members and truest hearts to God and prince, do yet take delight to live in those parts where our utter ruin is threatened[87]: &c." [Note 87: Birch's "Memoirs."

] "The old lord Burleigh," says a contemporary, "if any one came to the lords of the council for a license to travel, would first examine him of England.

And if he found him ignorant, would bid him stay at home and know his own country first[88]."

A plausible evasion, doubtless, of requests with which that cautious minister judged it inexpedient to comply.

[Note 88: "Complete Gentleman," by H. Peacham.

] These machinations of the papists afforded a plea to the puritans in the house of commons for the enactment of still severer laws against this already persecuted sect; and Elizabeth judged it expedient to accord a ready assent to these statutes, for the purpose of tranquillizing the minds of her protestant subjects on the score of religion, previously to the renewal of negotiations with the court of France.

Simier, who still remained in England, had been but too successful in continuing or reviving the tender impressions created in the heart of the queen by the personal attentions of his master; and the French king, finding leisure to turn his attention once more to this object, from which he had been apparently diverted by the civil wars which had broken out afresh in his country, was encouraged to send in 1581 a splendid embassy, headed by a prince of the blood, to settle the terms of this august alliance, of which every one now expected to see the completion.

A magnificent reception was prepared by Elizabeth for these noble strangers; but she had the weakness to choose to appear before them in the borrowed character of a heroine of romance, rather than in that of a great princess whose vigorous yet cautious politics had rendered her for more than twenty years the admiration of all the statesmen of Europe.

She caused to be erected on the south side of her palace of Whitehall, a vast banqueting-house framed of timber and covered with painted canvass, which was decorated internally in a style of the most fantastic gaudiness.

Pendants of fruits of various kinds (amongst which cucumbers and carrots are enumerated) were hung from festoons of ivy, bay, rosemary, and different flowers, the whole lavishly sprinkled with gold spangles: the ceiling was painted like a sky, with stars, sunbeams, and clouds, intermixed with scutcheons of the royal arms; and a profusion of glass lustres illuminated the whole.

In this enchanted palace the French ambassadors were entertained by the maiden queen at several splendid banquets, while her ministers were engaged by her command in drawing up the marriage articles.

Meantime several of her youthful courtiers, anxious to complete the gay illusion in the imagination of their sovereign, prepared for the exhibition of what was called _a triumph_,--of which the following was the plan.

The young earl of Arundel, lord Windsor, Philip Sidney, and Fulke Greville, the four challengers, styled themselves the foster-children of Desire, and to that end of the tilt-yard where her majesty was seated, their adulation gave the name of the Castle of Perfect Beauty.

This castle the queen was summoned to surrender in a very courtly message delivered by a boy dressed in red and white, the colours of Desire.

On her refusal, a mount placed on wheels was rolled into the tilt-yard, and the four cavaliers rode in superbly armed and accoutred, and each at the head of a splendid troop; and when they had passed in military order before the queen, the boy who had delivered the former message thus again addressed her:-- "If the message lately delivered unto you had been believed and followed, O queen!

in whom the whole story of virtue is written with the language of beauty; nothing should this violence have needed in your inviolate presence.

Your eyes, which till now have been wont to discern only the bowed knees of kneeling hearts, and, inwardly turned, found always the heavenly peace of a sweet mind, should not now have their fair beams reflected with the shining of armour, should not now be driven to see the fury of desire, nor the fiery force of fury.

But sith so it is (alas that it is so!

) that in the defence of obstinate refusal there never groweth victory but by compassion, they are come:--what need I say more?

You see them, ready in heart as you know, and able with hands, as they hope, not only to assailing, but to prevailing.

Perchance you despise the smallness of number.

I say unto you, the force of Desire goeth not by fulness of company.

Nay, rather view with what irresistible determination themselves approach, and how not only the heavens send their invisible instruments to aid them, (_music within the mount_) but also the very earth, the dullest of all the elements, which with natural heaviness still strives to the sleepy centre, yet, for advancing this enterprise, is content actively (as you shall see) to move itself upon itself to rise up in height, that it may the better command the high and high-minded fortresses.

"(_Here the mount rose up in height.

_) Many words, when deeds are in the field, are tedious both unto the speaker and hearer.

You see their forces, but know not their fortunes: if you be resolved, it boots not, and threats dread not.

I have discharged my charge, which was even when all things were ready for the assault, then to offer parley, a thing not so much used as gracious in besiegers.

You shall now be summoned to yield, which if it be rejected, then look for the affectionate alarm to be followed with desirous assault.

The time approacheth for their approaches, but no time shall stay me from wishing, that however this succeed the world may long enjoy its chiefest ornament, which decks it with herself, and herself with the love of goodness."

The rolling mount was now moved close to the queen, the music sounded, and one of the boys accompanied with cornets sung a fresh summons to the fortress.

When this was ended, another boy, turning to the challengers and their retinue, sung an alarm, which ended, the two canons were shot off, 'the one with sweet powder and the other with sweet water, very odoriferous and pleasant, and the noise of the shooting was very excellent consent of melody within the mount.

And after that, was store of pretty scaling-ladders, and the footmen threw flowers and such fancies against the walls, with all such devices as might seem fit shot for Desire.

All which did continue till time the defendants came in.'

These were above twenty in number, and each accompanied by his servants, pages, and trumpeters.

Speeches were delivered to the queen on the part of these knights, several of whom appeared in some assumed character; sir Thomas Perrot and Anthony Cook thought proper to personate Adam and Eve; the latter having 'hair hung all down his helmet.'

The messenger sent on the part of Thomas Ratcliff described his master as a forlorn knight, whom despair of achieving the favor of his peerless and sunlike mistress had driven out of the haunts of men into a cave of the desert, where moss was his couch, and moss, moistened by tears, his only food.

Even here however the report of this assault upon the castle of Perfect Beauty had reached his ears, and roused him from his slumber of despondency; and in token of his devoted loyalty and inviolable fidelity to his divine lady, he sent his shield, which he in treated her to accept as the ensign of her fame, and the instrument of his glory, prostrating himself at her feet as one ready to undertake any adventures in hope of her gracious favor.

--Of this romantic picture of devoted and despairing passion the description of Amadis de Gaul at the Poor Rock seems to have been the prototype.

On the part of the four sons of sir Francis Knolles, Mercury appeared, and described them as 'legitimate sons of Despair, brethren to hard mishap, suckled with sighs, and swathed up in sorrow, weaned in woe, and dry nursed by Desire, longtime fostered with favorable countenance, and fed with sweet fancies, but now of late (alas) wholly given over to grief and disgraced by disdain.'

&c. The speeches being ended, probably to the relief of the hearers, the tilting commenced and lasted till night.

It was resumed the next day with some fresh circumstances of magnificence and a few more harangues:--at length the challengers presented to the queen an olive bough in token of their humble submission, and both parties were dismissed by her with thanks and commendations[89].

[Note 89: Holinshed.

] By whom the speeches for this triumph were composed does not appear; but their style appears to correspond very exactly with that of John Lilly, a dramatic poet who in this year gave to the public a romance in two parts; the first entitled "Euphues the Anatomy of Wit," the second "Euphues and his England."

A work which in despite, or rather perhaps by favor, of the new and singular affectations with which it was overrun, obtained extraordinary popularity, and communicated its infection for a time to the style of polite writing and fashionable speech.

An author of the present day, whose elegant taste and whose profound acquaintance with the writers of this and the following reign entitle him to be heard with deference, has favored us with his opinion of Euphues in these words.

"This production is a tissue of antithesis and alliteration, and therefore justly entitled to the appellation of _affected_; but we cannot with Berkenhout consider it as a most _contemptible piece of nonsense_[90].

The moral is uniformly good; the vices and follies of the day are attacked with much force and keenness;

there is in it much display of the manners of the times; and though as a composition it is very meretricious and sometimes absurd in point of ornament, yet the construction of its sentences is frequently turned with peculiar neatness and spirit, though with much monotony of cadence."

"So greatly," adds the same writer, "was the style of Euphues admired in the court of Elizabeth, and, indeed, throughout the kingdom, that it became a proof of refined manners to adopt its phraseology.

Edward Blount, who republished six of Lilly's plays in 1632, under the title of _Sixe Court Comedies_, declares that 'Our nation are in his debt for a new English which he taught them.

'_Euphues_ and his _England_,' he adds, 'began first that language.

All our ladies were then his scholars; and that beauty in court who could not parley Euphuesme, was as little regarded as she which now there speaks not French:' a representation certainly not exaggerated; for Ben Jonson, describing a fashionable lady, makes her address her gallant in the following terms;--'O master Brisk, (as it is in Euphues,) hard is the choice when one is compelled, either by silence to die with grief, or by speaking, to live with shame:' upon which Mr. Whalley observes, that 'the court ladies in Elizabeth's time had all the phrases of Euphues by heart'[91]."

[Note 90: Berkenhout's "Biographia Literaria," p. 377, note _a_.

] [Note 91: "Shakspeare and his Times:" &c. by Nathan Drake, M. D.

] Shakespeare is believed to have satirized the affectations of Lilly, amongst other prevailing modes of pedantry and bad taste, under the character of the schoolmaster Holophernes; and to Sidney is ascribed by Drayton the merit, that he ..."

did first reduce Our tongue from Lilly's writing then in use, Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies, Playing with words and idle similies."

But in this statement there is an inaccuracy, if it refers to the better model of style furnished by him in his Arcadia, since that work, though not published till after the death of its author, is known to have been composed previously to the appearance of Euphues.

Possibly however the lines of Drayton may be explained as alluding to the critical precepts contained in Sidney's Defence of Poetry, which was written in 1582 or 1583. It may appear extraordinary that this accomplished person, after his noble letter of remonstrance against the French marriage, should have consented to take so conspicuous a part in festivities designed to celebrate the arrival of the commissioners by whom its terms were to be concluded.

But the actions of every man, it may be pleaded, belong to such an age, or such a station, as well as to such a school of philosophy, religious sect, political party, or natural class of character; and the spirit which prompted this eminent person to aspire after all praise and every kind of glory, compelled him, at the court of Elizabeth, to unite, with whatever incongruity, the quaint personage of a knight errant of romance and a devotee of the beauties and perfections of his liege lady, with the manly attributes of an English patriot and a champion of reformed religion.

Fulke Greville furnishes another instance of a respectable character strangely disguised by the affectations and servilities of a courtier of this "Queen of Faery."

He was the cousin, school-fellow, and inseparable companion of Sidney, and so devoted to him that, in the inscription which he composed long after for his own tomb, he entitled himself "servant to queen Elizabeth, councillor to king James, and friend to sir Philip Sidney."

Born to a fortune so ample as to render him entirely independent of the emoluments of office or the favors of a sovereign, and early smitten with a passion for the gentle muse which rendered him nearly insensible to the enticements of ambition, Greville was yet contented to devote himself, as a volunteer, to that court-life the irksomeness of which has often been treated as insupportable by men who have embraced it from interest or from necessity.

A devotedness so signal was not indeed suffered to go without its reward.

Besides that it obtained for him a lucrative place, Naunton says of Greville, "He had no mean place in queen Elizabeth's favor, neither did he hold it for any short time or term; for, if I be not deceived, he had the longest lease, the smoothest time without rubs, of any of her favorites."

Lord Bacon also testifies that he "had much and private access to her, which he used honorably and did many men good: yet he would say merrily of himself, that he was like Robin Goodfellow; for when the maids spilt the milk-pans or kept any racket, they would lay it upon Robin: so what tales the ladies about the queen told her, or other bad offices that they did, they would put it upon him."

The poems of Fulke Greville, celebrated and fashionable in his own time, but now known only to the more curious students of our early literature, consist of two tragedies in interwoven rhyme, with choruses on the Greek model;

a hundred love sonnets, in one of which he styles his mistress "Fair dog:" and "Treaties" "on Human learning," "on Fame and Honor," and "of Wars."

Of these pieces the last three, as well as the tragedies, contain many noble, free, and virtuous sentiments; many fine and ingenious thoughts, and some elegant lines; but the harshness and pedantry of the style render their perusal on the whole more of a fatigue than a pleasure, and they have gradually sunk into that neglect which constantly awaits the verse of which it has been the aim to instruct rather than to delight.

Among the English patrons of letters however, Fulke Greville, afterwards lord Brook, will ever deserve a conspicuous station; and Speed and Camden have gratefully recorded their obligations both to his liberality and to his honorable exertion of court interest.

The articles of the marriage-treaty were at length concluded between the commissioners of France and England, and it was stipulated that the nuptials should take place six weeks after their ratification: but Elizabeth, whose uncertainties were not yet at an end, had insisted on a separate article purporting, that she should not however be obliged to complete the marriage until further matters, not specified, should have been settled between herself and the duke of Anjou; by which stipulation it still remained in her power to render the whole negotiation vain.

The moment that all opposition on the part of her privy-council was over, and every external obstacle surmounted, Elizabeth seems to have begun to recover her sound discretion, and to see in their true magnitude all the objections to which she had hitherto been anxious to blind her own eyes and those of others.

She sent Walsingham to open new negotiations at Paris, and to try whether the league offensive and defensive, stipulated by the late articles, could not be brought to effect before the marriage, which she now discovered that it was not a convenient season to complete.

The French court, after some hesitation, had just been brought to agree to this proposal, when she inclined again to go on with the marriage; but no sooner had it resumed with alacrity this part of the discussion, than she again declared for the alliance.

Walsingham, puzzled and vexed by such a series of capricious changes, proceeding from motives in which state-expediency had no share, remained uncertain how to act; and at length all the politicians English and French, equally disconcerted, seem to have acquiesced in the conviction that this strange strife must end where it began, in the bosom of Elizabeth herself, while nothing was left to them but to await the result in anxious silence.

But the duke of Anjou, aware that from a youthful lover some unequivocal symptoms of impatience would be required, and that upon a skilful display of this kind his final success might depend, brought to a speedy conclusion his campaign in the Netherlands, which a liberal supply of money from the English queen, who now concurred in his views, had rendered uniformly successful, and putting his army into winter-quarters, hurried over to England to throw himself at her feet.

He was welcomed with all the demonstrations of satisfaction which could revive or confirm the hopes of a suitor; every mark of honor, every pledge of affection, was publicly conferred upon him; and the queen, at the conclusion of a splendid festival on the anniversary of her coronation, even went so far as to place on his finger a ring drawn from her own.

This passed in sight of the whole assembled court, who naturally regarded the action as a kind of betrothment; and the long suspense being apparently ended, the feelings of every party broke forth without restraint or disguise.

Some rejoiced; more grieved or wondered; Leicester, Hatton and Walsingham loudly exclaimed that ruin impended over the church, the country, and the queen.

The ladies of the court alarmed and agitated their mistress by tears, cries, and lamentations.

A sleepless and miserable night was passed by the queen amid her disconsolate handmaids: the next morning she sent for Anjou, and held with him a long private conversation; after which he retired to his chamber, and hastily throwing from him, but as quickly resuming, the ring which she had given him, uttered many reproaches against the levity of women and the fickleness of islanders.

Such is the account given by the annalist Camden; our only authority for circumstances some of them so public in their nature that it is surprising they should not be recorded by others, the rest so secret that we are at a loss to conceive how they should have become known to him.

What is certain in the matter is,--that the French prince remained in England above two months after this festival;--that no diminution of the queen's attentions to him became apparent during that time;--that when his affairs imperiously demanded his return to the Netherlands, Elizabeth still detained him that she might herself conduct him on his way as far as Canterbury;--that she then dismissed him with a large supply of money and a splendid retinue of English lords and gentlemen, and that he promised a quick return.

Let us hear on the subject lord Talbot's report to his father.

"Monsieur hath taken shipping into Flanders...

there is gone over with him my lord of Leicester, my lord Hunsdon, my lord Charles Howard, my lord Thomas Howard, my lord Windsor, my lord Sheffield, my lord Willoughby, and a number of young gentlemen besides.

As soon as he is at Antwerp all the Englishmen return, which is thought will be about a fortnight hence....

The departure was mournful between her majesty and Monsieur; she loth to let him go, and he as loth to depart.

Her majesty on her return will be long in no place in which she lodged as she went, neither will she come to Whitehall, because the places shall not give cause of remembrance to her of him with whom she so unwillingly parted.

Monsieur promised his return in March, but how his Low Country causes will permit him is uncertain.

Her highness went no further but Canterbury, Monsieur took shipping at Sandwich[92]."

[Note 92: "Illustrations," vol. ii.

p. 258. ] It is, after all, extremely difficult to decide whether the circumstances here related ought to invalidate any part of Camden's narrative.

There can be no doubt that Elizabeth had at times been violently tempted to accept this young prince for a husband; and even when she sent Walsingham to France instructed to conclude, if possible, the league without the marriage, she evidently had not in her own mind absolutely concluded against the latter measure, because she particularly charged him to examine whether the duke, who had lately recovered from the small pox, still retained enough of his good looks to engage a lady's affections.

It is probable that his second visit revived her love; and the truth of the circumstance of her publicly presenting to him a ring, is confirmed by Camden's further statement, that St. Aldegond, minister in England for the United Provinces, wrote word of it to the States, who, regarding the match as now concluded, caused public rejoicings to be celebrated at Antwerp.

After this the duke would undoubtedly press for a speedy solemnization, and he cannot but have experienced some degree of disappointment in at length quitting the country, _re infecta_.

But it was still greatly and obviously his interest to remain on the best possible terms with Elizabeth, in order to secure from her that co-operation, and those pecuniary aids, on which the success of his affairs in the Netherlands must mainly depend.

It is even possible that a further acquaintance with the state of public opinion in England, and with the temper, maxims, and personal qualities of the queen herself, might very much abate the poignancy of his mortification, or even incline him secretly to prefer the character of her ally to that of her husband.

Be this as it may, the favorite son of Catherine de' Medici was a sufficient adept in the dissimulation of courts to assume with ease all the demonstrations of complacency and good understanding that the case required, whatever portion of indignation or malice he might conceal in his heart.

Neither was Elizabeth a novice in the arts of feigning; and even without the promptings of those tender regrets which accompany a sacrifice extorted by reason from inclination, she would have been careful, by every manifestation of friendship and esteem, to smooth over the affront which her change of purpose had compelled her to put upon the brother and heir of so potent a monarch as the king of France.

Shortly after his return to the continent, the duke of Anjou lost at once his reputation, and his hopes of an independent principality, in an unprincipled and abortive attempt on the liberties of the provinces which had chosen him as their protector; and his death, which soon followed, brings to a conclusion this long and mortifying chapter, occupied with the follies of the wise.

It is worth observing, that appearances in this affair were kept up to the last: the English ambassador refrained from giving in his official letters any particulars of the last illness of Monsieur, lest he should aggravate the grief of her majesty; and the king of France, in defiance of some established rules of court precedence and etiquette, admitted this minister to pay his compliments of condolence before all others, professedly because he represented that princess who best loved his brother.

Bohun ends his minute description of "the habit of queen Elizabeth in public and private" with a passage proper to complete this portion of her history.

"The coming of the duke d'Alencon opened a way to a more free way of living, and relaxed very much the old severe form of discipline.

The queen danced often then, and omitted no sort of recreation, pleasing conversation, or variety of delights for his satisfaction.

At the same time, the plenty of good dishes, pleasant wines, fragrant ointments and perfumes, dances, masks, and variety of rich attire, were all taken up and used to show him how much he was honored.

There were then acted comedies and tragedies with much cost and splendor.

When these things had once been entertained, the courtiers were never more to be reclaimed from them, and they could not be satiated or wearied with them.

But when Alencon was once dismissed and gone, the queen herself left off these diversions, and betook herself as before to the care of her kingdom, and both by example and severe corrections endeavoured to reduce her nobility to their old severe way of life."

CHAPTER XX. 1582 TO 1587.

Traits of the queen.

--Brown and his sect.

--Promotion of Whitgift.

--Severities exercised against the puritans.

--Embassy of Walsingham to Scotland.

--Particulars of lord Willoughby.

--Transactions with the Czar.

--Death of Sussex.

--Adventures of Egremond Ratcliffe--of the earl of Desmond.

--Account of Raleigh--of Spenser.

--Prosecutions of catholics.

--Burleigh's apology for the government.

--Leicester's Commonwealth.

--Loyal association.

--Transactions with the queen of Scots.

--Account of Parry.

--Case of the earl of Arundel--of the earl of Northumberland.

--Transactions of Leicester in Holland.

--Death and character of P. Sidney--of sir H. Sidney.

--Return of Leicester.

--Approaching war with Spain.

--Babington's conspiracy.

--Trial and condemnation of the queen of Scots.

--Rejoicings of the people.

--Artful conduct of the queen.

--Reception of the Scotch embassy.

--Conduct of Davison.

--Death of Mary.

--Behaviour of Elizabeth.

--Davison's case.

--Conduct of Leicester.

--Reflections.